Disclaimer: Some of the following themes in this chapter have been borrowed from her majesty JK Rowling and his royal highness David Yates.


Chapter Twenty-Two: A Crack in the Wall


4 Jan. (morning)

Bellatrix slammed open the interrogation room door, startling Hermione awake. “Good morning, Mudblood!” sang Bellatrix, “time to wake up! I have a full day planned! Let’s get started, shall we?” Hermione’s blood froze. “Please, please,” she begged, “I can’t do this. Please let me go.” She began to weep with the heartbreaking cry of a frightened little girl.

The crying grabbed Draco’s attention and darkened his otherwise sunny mood. Bellatrix had been standing between him and Hermione but now she moved, offering him his first glance at her. Her appearance stunned him: large purple bruises covered her cheeks and her lip was split in two places. The back of her hair was matted with dried blood, and blood had stained her neck. Her arms were twisted unnaturally and her face was a terrible mixture of fear and pain. He hardly recognized her. Merlin-did I do that? Her gaze met his and he felt his heart leap into his throat. The look in her eyes triggered a small tremor around his heart, loosening the stones in the wall that surrounded it. He tore his eyes away and looked around the room at anything except her.

Bellatrix pointed her wand at Hermione’s shackles and they sprang open, dropping her unexpectedly. Hermione cried out in pain as the muscles in her arms cramped sharply. “Get up, mudblood,” Bellatrix snarled. When Hermione was too weak to comply, she cast a spell that forced her into a standing position. “Our first game today is called: how many times can a Mudblood scream before she passes out?” She laughed wickedly as Hermione’s cries became ones of terror.

Bellatrix walked over and stood in front of her. Using her wand, she cut through Hermione’s sweater from neck to hem, splitting it open. She cut open the shoulders and sleeves as well and let the sweater fall to the floor. Hermione gasped in horror as she was exposed down to her bra. Bellatrix gave her an icy smile as she waved the wand again, pulling off her boots, socks, and jeans. Hermione stood there shaking, mortified, in only her underwear. She panicked, certain that Bellatrix meant to strip her completely. “No, no, PLEASE NO!!” she pleaded, the beginnings of hysteria seizing her. Bellatrix, however, left her in her underwear and levitated her over to the table in the middle of the room. She fastened her wrists and ankles to the corners of the table, and looked her over. “Sorry dear, but I need a little more flesh to work with,” she replied nonchalantly.

Bellatrix looked over at her nephew. Gesturing to Hermione, she said, “Before I begin, do you want a little piece of this? I’ll give you some privacy if you’d like.” She grinned wickedly. Hermione choked on her sobs- “Oh God, no…” Draco couldn’t help looking at her for the briefest of moments. He’d have been brain dead not to notice how lovely her body was.

But here, now, he was repulsed by the idea and was shocked that it wasn’t for any reason he’d have expected. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was a Mudblood, or even that she was Granger for God’s sake. It was because he could only imagine how humiliated she must feel. It was because she was so scared and he didn’t want to hurt her again. He shook his head, barely managing to blurt out a “no”. “Just as well,” replied his aunt, “I wouldn’t want to touch a mudblood either.”

He winced as a stronger tremor rocked the wall around his heart. The high he felt earlier was gone. The rose-colored fantasy he had enjoyed in the morning was shattered. He wanted to run back upstairs, back to the fantasy, away from the reality. But he knew he was as trapped there as the girl on the table.

Bellatrix unfastened the binding of Hermione’s left hand, holding her wrist tightly. “Come here, Draco- I need you to hold her arm still.” He stood, frozen to the floor. “Now, Draco!” Somehow he obeyed her; he was too afraid of what she’d do to him if he didn’t. His hands trembled as he took Hermione’s wrist and held it down on the surface of the table.

Hermione’s eyes had gone wild with fear- she was grunting hysterically as she tried to pull away from him. “Tightly, Draco!” commanded Bellatrix. He complied, pinning her arm firmly to the table and completely immobilizing it. He squeezed his eyes shut to hold back his own tears. He couldn’t watch.

Bellatrix held up a small, black and silver-handled dagger with a wickedly sharp blade. “You can tell a servant of the Dark Lord by the mark on his arm,” she said maliciously. “You’re going to have a mark to show the world just what you are.” She touched the tip of the blade to the inside of Hermione’s forearm, just below the crook of her elbow. Eyes gleaming with hate, she pushed the blade through Hermione’s skin. Blood immediately welled around the point of the knife, and Hermione screamed. Slowly Bellatrix began her work. Over and over she drew the knife through Hermione’s arm- a short cut here, a twist of the blade there, magically wiping the blood away when it obscured her view.

Hermione’s screams bounced off the walls; the knife burned like fire as it sliced through her skin and the relentless cutting tore at her sanity. But that wasn’t the worst part of the torture. No, the worst part was her utter helplessness. There was nothing she could do to stop it; she saw the knife coming at her and couldn’t move, couldn’t get away, couldn’t fight back. All she could do was lie there and take it.

While he restrained her, Draco tried desperately to block it all out, to pretend it wasn’t real. A warm, wet feeling against his hand wrenched him from his disbelief. Hermione’s blood had reached the side of his hand and was now dripping down his fingers. The feeling was a hard pinch back into reality, and Draco recoiled in horror. He stared at his hand and felt a pain in his chest as a hairline fracture appeared in the wall of his heart. Bellatrix finally lifted her knife and used her wand to siphon away the excess blood on Hermione’s arm. She grabbed the girl’s wrist and yanked up her arm, twisting it so that Hermione could see her forearm. “There, you filthy little tramp,” she spat, “now you’re properly branded!” Both Hermione and Draco gasped as they read the word carved into her flesh: Mudblood.

As Hermione wept bitterly, Draco backed away from the table. He knew his aunt was insane, criminally insane at that, but he’d never witnessed her torture a person, let alone participated in it. This is sick! he thought, She’s not even interrogating her! She’s just…torturing her.

His stomach turned over at the realization, and he suddenly imagined stupefying his aunt and shielding Hermione from any more attacks. The image stopped him in his tracks. What the hell?! He wasn’t making any sense: wasn’t he going to be an “extraordinary” dark wizard? Wasn’t he a hair’s breadth away from becoming a Death Eater? He couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t be this weak.

But as his gaze fell on Hermione, his humanity fought for control over his heart. She looks so vulnerable, so fragile. Why is she here? What did she do to deserve this? This is wrong, this is so wrong. I need to stop it! I need to…help her. A new feeling, one he’d never experienced before, hurtled at his wall like a bludger and left a sizeable crack. Empathy.