Breaking Hermione

Dual Mentality

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.

Judith Lewis Herman

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.

Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game

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Hermione

It began again. The horror of everything blurred in my mind, incomprehensible and painstakingly traumatic. My breathing became shallow and strangled, my suppressed emotion bursting through just to be drowned out by the roaring howl of the wind. At least this time, no one could see me crying. This had been a set up - Xavier had spun an elaborate lie, in the end acting like my friend only just to stab me in the back. I didn't think that it was possible for the horror to mount but time and time again it did, in new and more tormenting ways. Each time someone else betrayed me I would get a sudden pain in my chest, the panic constricting my airways, the horror sparking undulating thrills of fear through me.

I wanted to run away. Make a break for it and escape into the freezing night and get to safety, but this was a scheme calculated by Tom Riddle himself. Despite everything Xavier Malfoy was really only just a puppet Tom was using to do his bidding. Nowhere was safe. The area had to have been magically fortified, an array of enchantments and curses must have been put in place to notify those bastards that I was there. How else could Tom possibly know I was here with them? Guesswork wasn't Tom's strength, knowledge was.

I wasn't stupid enough to risk throwing myself to the wolves of my own conscious volition, so I decided that I wasn't going to show myself. The initiation they all had planned was a one way trip to Hell, a trip that I could avoid if I was very careful.

Very close at hand, Xavier and Tom stood tall and pale like sentinels, but it was Tom whose presence commanded both power and attention and it was him that I was watching closely, those sharp eyes gleaming in the darkness, several times roving over the place I stood. I knew that if I so much as put a foot out of line it would be Tom Riddle who would know about it first.

"She's playing her cards well, I will give her that." He said thoughtfully, in a voice a little louder than the wind.

Hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak a short distance away, I hardly dared to breathe.

"Tom. We have waited out here in the School grounds for over half an hour." Xavier did not sound impressed. "How much longer are we going to stand around doing nothing while-"

"Duty often means that you are required to do what you do not want to do." Tom cut across him sharply. "Have you forgotten how I trained you? Is this-" Tom made a single, fluid gesture to the rain clouds above them - "Is this really the test that pushes your endurance beyond breaking point?"

A chill trickled down my spine. Tom's anger deeply disturbed me, however his anger toward Xavier was nothing compared to what I knew was in store for me. This was my initiation I was trying to escape from. If this night ended in Tom's favour, I would have lost everything.