Manacled

The darkness was absolute, a suffocating blanket Hermione had long stopped fighting. Sixteen months had passed since the last faint glimmer, since the last sound beyond the rhythmic thud of her own heart. Her cell, a forgotten corner of Hogwarts' dungeons, was a tomb of silence, a canvas for the replaying horrors of a war she had lost.

She’d mapped every inch with her fingertips, felt the cold, unyielding stone, the smooth, magically sealed door. No loose slab, no hidden nail—just endless, damp walls. Meals appeared at random intervals, mocking any attempt to track time. So, she counted primes, recited potions, mimicked wand movements with a silent, desperate mouth.

Her body became her only escape. Push-ups, burpees, crunches hanging upside down from the cell door—anything to exhaust her, to invite a dreamless sleep that banished the endless loop of Harry's final moments, of Ron's agonizing screams. Sometimes, she wondered if she was already dead, trapped in a personal hell of darkness and memories.

Then, a sound. A distant, grating screech, followed by light. A blinding, searing white that felt like knives to her eyes. Rough hands dragged her from her corner, and a saccharine voice cut through the agony: Umbridge. "She's still alive. Let's see if she's still lucid."

Petrified and Crucio'd, Hermione's world exploded into pain and noise. She was levitated, the vibrations grating her skin, until she was dropped onto an examination table. A healer's voice, irritated, unfamiliar. "Is Umbridge trying to ruin them? Strap her down. She'll injure herself otherwise when I take the spells off." The world dissolved into chaos as her body recoiled, screaming, thrashing, as the curses lifted, leaving her raw, flayed, and irrevocably changed.