The Lost Horcrux

The Deathday Party

Credit to Sima on the Harmony FB group for the aesthetic on these chapters 

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Disclaimers: Dark themes, police state ideas, mention of spousal abuse, death of minor characters, graphic imagery. I'm exploring dark places, this story reflects that. Be warned.

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They held the party every year.

For the first one they actually broke into Hogwarts itself, found the very spot where it had happened and tried to perform the ritual there. But the Dark Wards imposed by the new regime alerted the authorities to intruders, and they were forced to take refuge in the Forbidden Forest for several days. By the time it was safe to come out again, the narrow window of opportunity had passed.

Since then they had learned to be more discreet. Public places were out of the question. The surveillance state that had developed since Lord Voldemort's accession was all-encompassing. There wasn't a Wizarding street anywhere that escaped round-the-clock monitoring. And with the Muggle world being stealthily subjugated, too, it was proving difficult to find anywhere safe.

But each year they had to. Just for hope's sake.

This year, on the fifth anniversary, Hermione's old flat had been chosen as the location. Only a couple of people knew about it, and she trusted them explicitly. If they turned on her, they might as well all give up now. So Hermione had spent the last few weeks preparing. It hadn't been easy. Ron was watching her more closely now, asking more questions. He knew what she was up to, not that he'd attended the party in the past three years. Not since his promotion.

Commandant of the Hengest Camp for Squib Rehabilitation. He was proud of his role. He'd risen quickly through the ranks, since accepting a job with the Muggleborn Registration Commission. Hermione was disgusted at it. He said he only did it to keep her safe, to keep her out of the hands of the Commission. But it didn't explain why he'd taken to the role with such zealous enthusiasm. He was just an inside man, he insisted, looking out for her from under the noses of their enemies. It was the only way to keep her alive.

But he said the same thing when she was forced to marry him.

Marriage into a Pureblood family. A free pass to escape the camps. Only she wasn't free. She felt as much of a prisoner as those poor souls behind the high barbed-wired fences. The ones she now had to endure the horror of seeing every day, since she and Ron had moved into the huge manor house for the Commandant right on the outskirts of the camp. It was a living nightmare.

At least when they'd lived in Glastonbury she could come and go relatively as she pleased. The security measures on every house, every building, every street she entered may have been smothering and cumbersome, but at least she could pass those checkpoints without submitting to a body pat down, surrendering her wand for inspection and enduring the violation of a Legilimency scan.

For that was her life now. At least in the new house she and Ron had separate bedrooms. Their monthly commune - as required by their marriage contract - was now a brief, regimented affair. They would talk about politics and foreign policy for the four or five minutes that Ron was thrusting into her. Then he would grunt, roll off and cast a Contraceptive Charm on her. It wouldn't do to get her pregnant. The shame might cost him his job. After all, he had a harem of Pureblood witches waiting to bear his children, just as soon as they came of age themselves.

Hermione had conditioned herself not to cry after these meetings. The pain had stopped long ago and Ron was so poorly endowed that she barely felt him inside her these days. And he was so clumsy with his spell work that Hermione was half-convinced he had made her barren anyway. She would retreat to the shower after every Bedding Rite and wash the soil of it from every part she could reach. The shower hid her tears in the early days, now it just helped cleanse her self-hatred.