The Serpent and the Lioness

Chapter 45

The world turned slowly, everything upside down and grey. A soft shimmering silver light came from below, crystal tears falling from reddened cheeks into the gently swirling liquid beneath.

"Tell us where he is." An icy unforgiving voice turned the room even colder.

"I don't know..." Hiccups and swallowed fear made a trembling noise against such a powerful force.

"You will tell us, Ms. Granger, whether you want to or not." Frollo's voice rose with anger and his arm lowered sharply.

Hermione struggled against the chains that held her. Her body swinging from the effort. Her wrists connected with the chains around her ankles bowed her shoulders down. Her head shook vehemently as the chain that held her aloft gave a mighty jerk before lowering down.

The feeling of falling was quickly overtaken by a frigidly cold water that invaded her nose. A gasping breath, a human response to being deprived, filled with frigid water that moved like air, stole away all other senses. She struggled in vain against the ties that bound her.

The ethereal water that sought to steal her breath started to change its silver colors. Her eyes wide as she felt the very life being taken from her body. Just before she was sure she couldn't handle another second the chain that chaffed her skin jerked and she was pulled from beneath the water's surface.

Everything inside her trembled with pain. The lingering droplets that ran down her face burned as if electrified as they returned to their source.

"Tell me what I want to know!"

"I don't know! I d-on't know!" Her voice cracked as she tried to spit up the fire inside. Her body continued its slow turn and she couldn't help the rising bile in her throat. "Please, stop this! I don't know!"

When her body came round full circle again the man who controlled her descent into the torturous pool beneath had changed. Ron looked back at her now, shoulders slumped, his face and heart broken before her.

"Why... why did...you leave me behind...?"

The sorrow in his voice wrenched a sob from deep inside her soul. She could only shake her head to his simple question. She watched the boy she had loved turn into the man that had come to be. His dark eyes shadowed by an anger that boiled inside him.

"I could have been your everything...I love you...so much..."

"Ron please... don't do this..."

"Why wasn't it me!?" His face snarled and morphed into the monster that had torn everything they could never have had to shreds. Its large clawed hand rose up as its jowls opened wide the scream of an anguished man calling out from its void.

Hermione screamed with all the terror inside her soul as she felt herself falling head first into the swirling waters below. She twisted and turned in panic against the chains but found herself enveloped by a pain that she had never felt before.

It stole the very breath from her lungs. Her eyes stared up into the light that shone from somewhere unseen as she continued her descent. With one last ounce of air that remained, she called out against all that stood against her. A name, a single thought.