Disclaimer: Sadly not mine. A girl can dream, though...

Warning: This chapter is a prologue, a set-up for the rest of the story. It contains torture and death. *Possible trigger alert!*

I will post the last part of this chapter, which should be safe for everybody, at the beginning of the next part.

A/N: The second chapter is more lighthearted, but there will still be traces of angst throughout. If you read this chapter, you'll understand why.

Part One: Prologue

She hated not being able to fight back.

She curled up into a ball and wondered where the Aurors were, and when she would be rescued. She shivered and screamed when a harsh kick landed on her stomach.

The first day she kicked back. For her trouble, she received three long, curving scars on her back – and had her hands bound indefinitely, or at least until they wanted to break her fingers. She refused to stop kicking back, even when they branded her hand on the fourth day.

But by the sixth day she was too weak. She had not eaten, and had barely drunk anything. She was bruised and bloody and dizzy. She couldn't stop them from hurting her. She couldn't stop them from doing anything to her.

She hated not being able to fight back.

She hated not being able to see.

She couldn't anticipate the next blow with a blindfold on. She couldn't curl up in advance, couldn't arrange herself to soften the hits.

But she could smell. The scent of her own blood. The scent of the food that they carried past her cell to taunt her. The scent of the dank, mossy cell.

And she could hear. Their laughs echoing through her ears. Their taunts, their insults, their cackles. Every one of their voices was burned into her memory.

And she could feel. Oh, could she feel. She felt pain lance through every inch of her body. She felt the cool stone on her cheek when she lay down. She felt the soft moss against the wall.

She could even taste. After they burned her tongue, she forced her body to the wall. Tears poured down her face as she made her swollen jaw open wide. She poked out her tongue to touch the moss. It cooled her tongue slightly. It tasted strange, of dirt and water and maybe pine nuts. Combined with the salty taste of her tears, it was the best thing she'd had in a week.

She learned how to get around without her sight. She learned how to pick out noises from far away. She memorized which Death Eater went with each footstep. She wondered if in blindfolding her, they had given her an advantage in her other senses.

Then she remembered what things looked like. Outside these walls, outside wherever the hell she was, the world lay. She remembered the sun. She remembered trees, and flowers, and tall grass waving in the breeze. She remembered mountains, and lakes, and the river by her house.

When they took the blindfold off, she imagined, they might cut out her eyes. She knew they were capable of much worse. She wondered if she'd ever be able to see the orchard, the river, again. She wanted some reassurance that her sight was not completely gone. To see the walls of her prison, to see her captors...

She hated not being able to see.

On the eleventh day, they took off the blindfold.

They forced her to watch as they tortured the others. They made her stare at the blood and severed body parts. They forced her to see the look of horror on Marlene's face and the look of despair on Abby's face when they saw Julian's mangled corpse.

She hated being able to see.

She hated Lucius Malfoy.

Lucius Malfoy was ice. Lucius Malfoy was hate. Lucius Malfoy decided what to do with her. Lucius Malfoy made every moment of her remaining life a living hell. Lucius Malfoy was her keeper.

But when she ran out of tears, she stared at him unblinkingly. Somehow, her eyes had become her only remaining weapon. He always looked away first. Malfoy knew he had lost some power when she smiled at him, and had her beaten again harsher than ever before.

She would kill him one day.

She told him so with absolute certainty, and was rewarded with one second of complete, abject fear in his ice blue eyes.

She hated Lucius Malfoy.

She hated magic.

Ever since she was four and her mother confirmed that yes, she would be able to do magic one day, she had been happy. She loved the feeling of holding her wand for the first time, and making sparks dance around Ollivander's.

Now she knew that every wand was a weapon. Just a weapon. Anyone with a wand could use it on her at any time, any where. They didn't need a reason. The Death Eaters certainly didn't. They had grabbed her from Hogsmeade and she knew it was random, unplanned.

On the fifth day Lucius led a group of Death Eaters down to her cell. They took turns casting spells on her. Some were simple hexes that stung and left her looking uglier, but she didn't care. Then they started more advanced spells.

They brought her to the edge of death with the pain, then brought her back to life. She wished healing spells hadn't been invented - they only meant more torture.

She hated magic.

She hated people.

The people who had her, who hurt her. The Death Eaters.

The people who promised to protect everyone, including her - and didn't keep it. The Ministry.

The people who did nothing, who looked away while war waged. Every bloody wizard in the world.

They had all let Abby live long enough to cry as the Death Eaters amused themselves with her broken body.

They had all cut Marlene open and poked at her insides while she screamed.

They had all smashed Julian's head against the wall and swore one they realized they couldn't torture him anymore.

They had all left her. They had let this happen to her.

She hated people.

By the twentieth day she hated everything.

She wondered if she was dying. Perhaps they had kicked her hard enough to cause internal bleeding. Any second she could begin hemorrhaging and keel over in death.

Cool, sweet death.

She dreamed of it.

She wanted it.

Desperately.

"Zoe Llewelyn."

He whispered her name as he looked in.

"A personal visit?" She rasped. "What warrants this, oh mighty leader of torturers and murderers?"

Her own screams deafened her ears. When he put his wand down, she laughed at him. She had learned that the Dark Lord didn't like sarcasm.

Her laughter ushered in another round of Cruciatus. For the first time, she didn't cry or scream during the torture. She just laughed and laughed and laughed.

He cursed her one last time and walked away.

"You are not worth any more of my time."

She laughed at his retreating back.

Voldemort hadn't broken her.

Not yet.

It was enough.

"Our Lord says you are no more use to us." Lucius Malfoy smirked down at her.

She smiled at him. Her lips cracked with the effort, but she'd stopped caring about the taste of blood weeks ago.

"She survived twenty three days. Isn't that a record?" young Roderick Goyle whispered.

"Shut up," his friend Rupert Crabbe hissed.

"Actually, Goyle," Lucius looked at the slightly younger man coolly. "It is. In fact, she gets a prize for it."

Goyle straightened up and looked at his superior hopefully.

"Lord Malfoy? Could I..."

"Fine," Lucius said in a dismissive tone. "This is the curse. Prove yourself worthy of the Mark you bear, Goyle."

Zoe looked curiously at the slip of paper that passed from one hand to the other. Goyle glanced at it before grinning. He lifted his wand and began to speak the spell in his dull, monotonous voice.

She purposefully yawned, ignoring his words, and Lucius slapped her out of habit. Her cheekbone stung where his ring had struck it, but she just grinned impishly up at him.

"Bad boy, Lucius," she giggled. "Two by two, sparks of blue."

A blue spell shot from Goyle's wand towards her.

"What!" Lucius cried. "It was supposed to be red, dammit!"

"Uh..." Goyle looked confused. "Really?"

She laughed again, but they weren't paying her any attention.

"What did you do? It was supposed to fracture her soul," Lucius snapped. "I don't see - damn."

He looked down at her feet.

"I'm up here," she giggled. "What are you looking at?"

Then she too looked down. She saw her body.

"Curious," she said. "Am I dead at last?"

Nothing and nobody answered. Crabbe leant down to feel her pulse.

"She's dead," he reported.

Lucius glared at Goyle.

"You didn't do it properly, but you still killed her. Fine. Crabbe, tell our Lord he did it correctly. He doesn't need to be... any more upset than he already is."

She couldn't hear any more because she was rising higher. She passed through the ceiling, went into a room of Death Eaters chatting about different types of fire-whiskey, went up again into a hallway where the Lestrange brothers were having a burping contest, then finally went through the last roof of the house.

"I'm flying," she chirped to herself. "Wheee!"

Zoe rose a bit higher, then stopped as she was swept into a stream of golden dust. She wondered what it was. Then she wondered what she looked like, and realized she couldn't move her hands.

"Jeannie lost her hands at the lumber-mill," she sighed out loud.

"What?" A male voice asked curiously. "Is that how you died?"

"Where are you?" she demanded, looking all around. "Are you a Death Eater?"

"Huh?" he queried. She realized suddenly that he was simply a golden strand in the river. "What's a - " He began.

He was suddenly flung out of the channel and flew higher into the air, screaming as he went. He shook violently, and slowly the gold trickled from his thread and fell into the stream in little pieces. He was left completely silver, and slowly fell back into the channel.

She stared at him curiously.

"What the hell...?"

He didn't answer. She registered a slight gurgling sound coming from his strand. Her mind whirled, wondering what exactly had happened.

Then she felt it. Something was trying to force her out of the stream. She knew instantly that was had happened to the other person - strand - thingy - was about to happen to her.

She was scared.

But that wasn't anything new.

"Cut it out!" Zoe yelled at it - whatever it was.

She fought it with all her willpower, but it simply wasn't enough against the invisible pressure that worked against her. Frantically, she reached out and grabbed hold of another silver strand that floated by her. She managed to tie herself in a tight knot around it.

The silver strand let out a slight squeal of surprise, but said nothing.

She wasn't rising anymore, and sighed in relief. They passed along in peace for several minutes. Zoe looked below them at the tiny houses.

"Minnie didn't like her dollhouse," she said liltingly to the silver strand. "Tommy broke it for her. He was a nice boy, wasn't he?"

It didn't answer.

Suddenly they began sinking. As soon as they left the stream, they really began to plummet.

"Too low," Zoe whispered. She tried to untie herself from the silver strand, but couldn't. They went straight through a roof, an inside ceiling, and stopped in midair.

She could hear a woman in the room screaming.

"Why won't it bloody come out already!"

"Just breathe, honey. You can do it!"

"It's at the shoulders now. One last push -"

"Ahhhhh!"

Zoe saw the baby as it came out. It was purplish and wet and bloody.

"Gross," she giggled to herself. "Like a prune..."

Then she was being sucked downwards again, harshly. She saw the closed eyes of the baby before she hit its face and passed into it.

She was in a small space, and the silver strand detached from her. There was a small sea of red sparkles around her, and it was amazing. She knew suddenly, instinctively, that she wanted - no, she needed to touch that red. But the silver wanted it too.

Zoe fought for it. She really did. She tried her best. She ended up grabbing two tiny red sparkles and wrapping herself around it.

The silver strand got every other one. It had thousands of red sparkles.

"Come on," she pleaded with it. "Share with me!"

It seemed to consider it.

"She's so beautiful," the woman whispered.

"Welcome to the world, Hermione." The man was crying, very softly.

The silver strand unraveled, letting a few red sparkles through. Zoe leapt to catch them, and was suddenly caught as the other strand wrapped around her. She tried to move, and realized she was stuck. Well, it wasn't so bad. From her new position, she touched most of the red sparkles, and the silver strand was warm and comforting.

"Thanks," Zoe told the other strand.

Her world all flashed white for one moment. Then she realized she could see properly.

"She has brown eyes." The woman whispered.

"This is your mother," the man told her as he stroked her cheek. "I bet you'll be beautiful, just like her."

Hermione giggled.

"She's so happy," her mother said rapturously.

"You did so good, Helen." He kissed Helen gently on the cheek.

Hermione kicked her leg.

"We did so good," Helen corrected him. "Look at her, so feisty."

Zoe tried to kick a leg again. It didn't work.

"Come on!" she cried. They didn't hear her.

Hermione blinked her eyes a few times. Zoe tried to stop, but it didn't work. The truth slowly sank in.

She had a second life. Wonderful, maybe, but she had no control over this body. The silver entity, who spoke none and knew nothing, was in charge.

"Damn it," she said angrily.

Hermione just giggled at her. The new parents cooed.

Zoe sighed. She had a feeling this was going to be a long day.

Scratch that. A dreadfully long lifetime.

Oh joy.