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The Unbroken	By : Desert_Sea Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 22797 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any other characters/things/places created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money from my fan-fiction.

Chapter List
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A/N: Hey there, so pleased that so many lovely readers have been willing to give this one a go. Also delighted by the number who appreciated the Monty Python reference ;). Hope you are strapped in safely for the ride. DSxx
Peahen – Glad to have you intrigued. I hope you continue to enjoy :)
Chapter 2 – Unforgiven
Hermione followed him. Her steps were short, hampered by the chains. His were long. And yet he never seemed to draw away, a wall of black gliding just ahead of her. They traversed corridors. Familiar but not. In fact, it wasn’t long before she had completely lost her bearings.
Had the fundamental structure of the castle changed? Or had the inner illusions simply been manipulated?
Whatever the reason, Hermione soon felt incredibly lost, scuffing along the bitterly cold flags, feet bare like a neglected child—devoid of innocence, devoid of trust. Circumstances had forced her to follow this man but he was no longer known to her. His betrayal of all that was good and honourable was incomprehensible. He was a stranger.
All she knew of him was that he now owned her—she bore his mark, still burning like hot coals through the soft belly of her forearm—and he had been given permission to do with her as he wished—the worse, it seemed, the better.
The soundtrack to their journey was her dragging footsteps and the rhythmic chink of chains. He was silent, a hulking shadow devoid of warmth. A Dementor.
She stumbled and fell, her feet clumsy blocks of ice. The leg irons cut into her cuts. He paused without turning, allowing her to slowly, painfully right herself. Then started again.
Hermione shuffled on, zombie-like, head down, delirious with fatigue. She hadn’t slept in more than two days but she wasn’t naïve enough to hope that their destination would provide any relief. She suspected that restful sleep was a luxury that she would be unlikely to enjoy again, especially not here, not now. Indeed, she’d seen too much, experienced too much, to trust that safe refuge could constitute anything other than a fleeting delusion.
After what seemed like hours, but was obviously far less, they stopped. Lifting her head with some effort, she found that she could just make out a door in the poorly lit alcove. The shadowy form before her shifted, touching the handle. The tumbler rolled. They entered.
It took a few moments for Hermione to fully absorb her surroundings. They stood in an expansive room, fitted with several long benches harbouring glassware, cauldrons, scales and various other pieces of equipment. Further devices adorned shelves in the cluttered cabinets, while a multitude of packed book cases lined the walls. There was a large, heavily draped window opposite, and two secondary doors, one at either end of the room. It was clearly the potions laboratory, and yet they weren’t in the dungeons. She supposed it was because the dungeons were now a prison.
Suddenly he spoke, “Have you eaten?”
Hermione attempted to respond but found that she had no voice. It hadn’t been used in days. She hadn’t answered a single one of their questions. She’d not uttered a sound.
He turned to look at her, one dark eyebrow raised in question, the other sustaining his trademark frown.
She shook her head.
With a ruffle of robes and flick of his wand, he produced a large mug, contents steaming, and handed it to her.
She brought her shackled wrists together, cupping her hands in grateful acceptance. But instead of drinking it, Hermione found herself holding the mug like a sacred urn, staring at the thick, amber liquid, wondering at when she had last been offered anything resembling a hot meal.
People had been scared of her, of being found with her, one of Voldemort’s “most wanted”. A cold basement to sleep in was as much as she ever dared to request. She couldn’t bear to think of what had become of the old woman with the kind green eyes who had taken her in.
Closing her own eyes against the pain of that image, she took a tiny sip.
If it was poisoned or drugged, she couldn’t tell. But in that moment she didn’t care.
The soup provided relief, warm and rich. During her months in hiding, she had come to realise that even something as small as this could be enough to keep her believing that life held more than just suffering and sorrow.
And when she felt his hands upon her, gently removing the shackles from her wrists and then her ankles, she felt the relief sink like a stone, lodging in her throat so that she could no longer swallow. That was the problem with any sort of indulgence, with allowing even a hint of kindness to slip under her guard. She just couldn’t afford it. Swallowing everything down, she drew a deep, galvanising breath, and opened her eyes.
He was gone.
Looking around, she saw that he’d relocated to a cabinet across the room.
“Rub this balm into your wrists and ankles morning and night,” he instructed, holding up a small jar. “And apply this to the burn.” He lifted another small vial between thumb and index finger. “Once a day until it heals over.”
She nodded.
He gestured toward the far corner of the room. “You will sleep here.”
“Here?” she croaked.
He turned to stare at her. “Unless you would prefer to reside in the cells?”
She quickly shook her head.
He paused as his black eyes roved over her. “I have arranged this as a matter of convenience. This is not your space. You are entitled to nothing.”
She stood quietly, figuring that mute acquiescence was probably best.
“You will do exactly as I command. You will not deviate from my instruction for any reason. You will not attempt to leave. And you will not attempt to make contact with any other person. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
He continued to glare at her.
“And you will wear this.”
Lifting a hand, he summoned what looked like a balled-up white sheet.
When he tossed it to her, she caught it against her chest, careful not to spill a drop from her mug. Letting the material hang from her fingers, she saw that it was a cotton dress. Voluminous. Long sleeves. High neck. Somewhere between Victorian era and asylum-ware.
“Thankyou.”
“I beg your pardon?” His eyes instantly hardened, glittering with dark fire like two black opals.
“I just . . . I wanted to . . . thank . . . you.”
He was across the room in a flash. His hand shot out, clamping around her throat.
She dropped the soup. It splashed like vomit across the floor.
“Do. Not. Thank. Me,” he growled.
He squeezed her throat harder.
Her vision began to fade.
“Ever.”
With a final shove that sent her stumbling and choking until she slammed against the wall, he whirled around and stormed over to one of the side doors, disappearing inside with a resounding crash.
Gasping, tears streaming from her eyes, Hermione crawled over to her corner, dragging herself into the low-slung cot that rested against the wall, before wrapping herself in the only blanket. She buried her face in a cushion, determined not to allow herself to indulge in more tears, in more self-pity. It wouldn’t help. It never did.
She wasn’t the one who had died, after all. Her bones had not been stripped of her flesh, and been subjected to the final humiliation of having to support Voldemort’s arse.
She suddenly snorted, a strange snotty sound that was both macabre and ridiculous.
Was this it? Had she succumbed? Had she finally surrendered to the merciful respite of madness?
Before she managed to work it out—too mad, perhaps, to tell—she fell asleep.
***
Hermione awoke to find herself staring at a wall. Her eyes trailed back and forth along a crack, its jagged path traversing the length of one of the ancient bricks. Had that happened in the war? Or had it simply fractured under the stress of time? She touched it with her fingertip, sliding gently as if to soothe before slipping her fingernail inside. She harboured her own, of course. The question was whether she too, could hold together under the strain. Was she strong enough to withstand this—the bone-crushing intensity of it all?
Withdrawing her hand, she bunched the blanket in her fist and drew it up under her chin. At least she had a bed. And it happened to be surprisingly comfortable. She didn’t even mind the cushion instead of a pillow. She rubbed her head against it a little for confirmation. Then she tried to swallow but had to close her eyes against the pain. He was incredibly strong, as volatile as she remembered, and he still clearly loathed her.
Then she smelled it. Pumpkin.
With a frown, she rolled over to see another mug of pumpkin soup sitting on the table by her bed. Beside it was a small bread roll.
She glanced at the door he had raged through earlier. It was closed.
Sore throat be damned. She was having it.
Pushing herself up to a sitting position, she retrieved both items from the table and tore off a small piece of roll. Popping it into her mouth, she chewed slowly, the joints of her jaw feeling like they had rusted over, before taking a sip of soup to wash it down.
Good. Really good.
She continued to take mouthfuls, even indulging in a slurp or two as she proceeded to devour what remained.
And as she ate, she took in her surroundings. Apart from the table beside her, there was a modest chest of drawers with a bowl and pitcher on top. The towel folded neatly beside added to the likelihood that this was for washing herself. At the end of her bed, against the wall, was something that looked like a round bucket with a lid. A toilet? Magically plumbed?
The thought of doing her business out in the open was mortifying. She would just have to time it for the middle of the night when there was minimal risk of being disturbed. That’s if she could work out when the middle of the night was. The complete block-out of the heavy drapes made it difficult to know whether it was even night or day.
She reached down to fondle the dress that she’d managed to drag across the floor with her. It was incredibly soft. Almost impossibly so.
Where did he get it? Had he transfigured it from something else?
As she folded back the hem to study the tailoring, she was struck by an even more significant thought.
Why was it even here?
She looked around her corner of the laboratory.
Why was any of it here? Had he somehow known? Before the episode in the Great Hall, had he already been aware that she would be given to him? Or had he prepared everything just in case?
She popped the last piece of roll into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
It didn’t make sense. He had nearly strangled her. He could have. Easily. But then he’d allowed her to sleep. He’d replaced the food. Like an apology.
She swallowed, setting the empty mug aside before picking the crumbs off her blanket and eating those too. Who knew when her next meal would come?
With a heavy sigh, she drew her knees up, hugging them tightly to her chest. As her fingertips played across her throat, the bruising there, she wondered if she still had it in her—the fortitude to survive all this. Or if, after more than a year of clinging doggedly to existence, she would fall at the hands of the man who had originally been entrusted with her protection.
The sad irony of that thought sat like a leaden lump of defeat in her chest.
But then there was the soup. Magically heated. Placed with care.
It was thoughtful. Considerate.
It was . . . not him.
She sighed again. Whomever he was, whatever he was trying to do, she would definitely remember not to thank him for it.
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The Unbroken