Love And Revolution

I

You know, when you're in a dream, you have no idea how you got there, no idea what's going on- you're kinda in the middle of it and just go with it, trying to figure everything out, make sense of your surroundings and try to guess how you got into this situation? It felt like that to Hermione.

It was so much information at once that her brain went into overdrive, till she had to slow down and process each detail carefully. It was like she was waking out of a trance and found herself sitting on a chair. There was a table in front of her and a glaring light shone right at her face that made it even more hard to focus. She blinked to clear her vision, straightening up and realizing her hands were cuffed behind her back and her back- ugh...- it hurt when she tried to stretch. Apparently she had been here a while.

She had been put in a dark hole for what felt like eternity and she had lost her sense of time and place. That's why the sudden change of scene felt even more stark. After her eyes adjusted to the light, she scanned the room to determine exactly where she was. She didn't have to scrutinize for too long before guessing that it was one of the interrogation rooms of the Ministry of Magic.

Set deep under the ground, the "BIN" is a sterile ISO-FAC (Isolation Facility) where suspects are brought in for questioning before determining whether they would be put in the holding cells or marched straight off to Azkaban. The room had been magically altered to give the sensation of being an endless space so that the captives would feel they are lost in a dark void with seemingly no end, if they are allowed to roam about freely, but in reality, if one is guided properly, one would find the exit only a few paces away. Prisoners usually preferred to cling to the visible chair and table they were provided with, instead of wondering in the void and losing their minds. She knew about the existence of these rooms, just never had the misfortune of being in one before.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down before she got an anxiety attack that the room was supposed to evoke. Rather than letting the fear of getting irretrievably lost in the void, she concentrated on her actual surroundings that she knew was there when the spell was not activated. She knew that these rooms were usually  sparse with little to no furniture. All the walls were covered in acoustic sound tiles save for a two-way mirror on one wall. When she concentrated hard she could actually break through the spell and make out the glistening edges of the mirror where it stood covering almost all of one wall.

Hermione was staring at the mirror hard, trying to see whether she could make out anyone present on the other side but she was taken aback by her own reflection- she couldn't even recognize the woman staring back at her through puffy eyes underlined with dark circles, unwashed hair and just the overall look of someone who doesn't give a fuck anymore.

She turned her head to the sound of a door opening- someone must have stepped inside the room. At first she could only see a silhouette, but she got the impression that whoever it was, was looking her over, taking their time to decide how to go about this business. She squinted through the light but she was unable to see his face, but she realized that it was a man.

"Are you in good health? Do you have any emergency physical condition I should know about?"

She was hearing a calm tone of voice after so long that it took a while for it to reach her brain, surpassing the hollow ringing in her ears so that she just shook her head instead of replying. She was still trying to make out who he was, although the voice sounded oddly familiar.

"Sorry, are you scared? Just a minute, I'll get the lights." He took out his wand, pointing it to the ceiling and the light adjusted to a more even tone, bathing the whole room in a more soothing glow; it was bearable, instead of hurting her eyes. And he casually waved his wand again so that the incantation over the room was lifted and it came back to its original form. She could see all the walls now and the only door through which the man must have entered, in front of which he was standing right now. When he saw her watching he gave a little smile that was both shy, like he was embarrassed that they had to do this but also reassuring that he was there for her.