Author's Note: This fic was written for the Nikita Gill challenge in the Dramione Fanfiction Writers group on Facebook.

Info: This fic is major canon divergence. The final battle did occur, and Voldemort did fall, but the Ministry is in tatters, and the war rages on. Remus lived, for no other reason than I like him. As did basically everyone else. So, when you see things that didn't go as they did in canon, I know.

Beta love to closer-to-monkey on tumblr.

Warnings: This story is far darker than anything I've ever written. Following a second round of torture with Bellatrix, Hermione's mind is broken. She is nothing like canon Hermione Granger. There is murder, and there is torture and if anything about a dark fic makes you bow out, I would suggest you do so now rather than at the end.

Prompt:

The Truth About Monsters

The truth is this,

every monster

you have met

or ever will meet,

was once a human being

with a soul

that was as soft

and light

as silk.

Someone stole

that silk from their soul

and turned them

into this.

So when you see

a monster next,

Always remember this.

Do not fear

the thing before you.

Fear the thing

that created it

instead.

-Nikita Gill.

There is a moment that passes as quickly as it arrives, just a fleeting echo in the screams as she stares at the ornate ceiling over her head. Her arm is burning, and she knows if she is too curious, if she flies to close to the sun, that she will be viciously burned.

Hermione has always been curious.

Her head falls to the side while her insides twist, and her blood catches on fire. "Get off," she hisses.

The mad witch hovering over her grins, her manic laugh tumbling from her lips as her hair crackles around her. Hermione thinks, just for a split second during the reprieve as the knife is brought away from her, that she has never seen hair spark.

The moment shrivels into nothing as the knife comes back down.

She thinks she screams, but she realizes all too quickly that the world ripping apart inside of her head is too painful to realize anything else.

And the world she had known shatters.

The bed is soft below her, but it could have been nails for all she would care. Her blood hasn't stopped burning yet; she's not so sure it ever will. Still not opening her eyes, she listens to the world around her.

She wasn't foolish or whimsical enough to so much as hope the world might pause for her. It was physics, she reassured herself. No matter how she defied the laws of physics herself by being a witch, Hermione knew the earth stopped for no man. It was always spinning, and in a poetic sense — which was complete and utter bullshite — it explained why it felt as if everything else was spinning.

Hermione can hear them, but it's all too clear they don't realize it.

Ron's voice is booming. She can imagine him waving his arms frantically, his face flushing red, and a harsh crimson akin to his hair colouring the tips of his ears. She can imagine the freckles that dust his face, and Hermione can remember everything about her life right at that moment. Her friends, her family, and it's why her heart should have surely stopped dead in her chest at his rant.

"We don't know that she's Hermione anymore," Ron shouts, and she wonders if he's stopped waving his hands, if they're clenched into fists at his sides instead. "Harry, don't look at me like that."

Harry, desperate to save the world and everyone in it, is furious. She's undecided if she's ever heard his voice morph into a roar, but she doesn't have time to ponder that. "Do you realize what you're saying? She hasn't woken up, Ron. It's barely been a week."

"Bellatrix might have tortured her into insanity. You've seen Frank and Alice Longbottom, haven't you?" Ron hisses, and there is a bang that follows it, the table to the right of her crashing into the floor.

Harry and Ron are standing on either side of her bed, and Harry's hand finds her own. She has to control herself to not slip her fingers through his, to say, 'I'm here. Please don't give up on me.' Brilliant as she is, she's no stranger to loneliness, or the crushing she'd felt in her chest as a child when the pair of them couldn't stand her. And just as Hermione thinks to open her eyes, she is startled to discover she can't.

She can't even open her mouth in a silent scream.

She's paralyzed in her own body, and there's nothing she can do. At least for the moment. She's too engrossed in the argument right over her head.

"And if she is?" Harry growls, sliding his fingers through hers.

She's so much angrier that she can't squeeze them. Previously she'd just told herself she wouldn't, but discovering she couldn't only fueled her anger.

"Or if she's been fucked up beyond repair? I don't want to lose her either, and you know that. She's everything." Ron replies, and she has to stop, a breath catching in her throat though they can't notice it.

It's not a genuine statement. Maybe Harry notices, or maybe he doesn't, but Hermione doesn't get to find out as the door opens. Silence settles over the room, broken by a long sigh that she would recognize anywhere.

"Ron," Molly begins, and it's clear she's heard everything. "I think you should help Charlie downstairs."

Beyond shuffling, and a muttered, "We could regret this." Ron offers nothing else. The lock clicks into place behind him.

She's screaming in her head. How could he say these things about her, much less think them? To believe that she would fail the Order.

But she knows this is war, and that you're only as strong as your weakest link.

In a moment that she later determines is the moment is a series of moments that lead to a cataclysmic event, Hermione Granger can only think one thing.

As soon as she woke up, anyone who thought she might be their weakest link would regret it.

And there was a crack beside her head.

"Oh," Molly gasps quietly, her hand smoothing Hermione's matted hair down. "Her hair...sparked. Did you see that, Harry?"

The-Boy-Who-Lived saw nothing.

The October night is carried by wind and rain that soaks her clothes, chilling her to the bone. It's no matter. She supposes she could have cast a warming charm beneath her clothes as she had during her winters in Hogwarts. However, the cold wouldn't kill her.

Hermione sits on the roof of the newest safe house, completely alone, and not likely to be bothered. A week ago she was tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange in Malfoy Manor for a second time. Over what would have been her Easter break, it had been terrible, but the second time?

There is a fissure in her mind, one the size of a canyon, and while she thinks there may be a way to repair it...Hermione is not certain she wants to. The second round of torture with a crazed Death Eater, following the fall of her most beloved master, had not been kind to her. Hermione grits her teeth, not bothering to pull her cloak tighter around her as the wind rips past her.

She stares at her hands, cut and mangled from the fight of her life. One could not say that Hermione Granger was just a schoolgirl who was playing a part in this war. As if she was ever less than a vital cog in the machinery that kept it running. If she believed in Divination, she might have thought the slice that went along her heart line meant something.

It means nothing.

She is not the one who is meant to die, not even close.

Hermione smiles to herself as she feels the full brunt of Remus' transformation from the basement. It shakes the very foundation, and there is something to be said of how she does not flinch. It's nothing to her, just like the howls that pierce the night.

She considers how there is nothing stopping her from dropping off the roof and disappearing into the world. There's the option of fleeing this war, and she truly has no qualms with leaving the Order anymore. Not when they've already turned against her. They're foolish enough to think that she sees nothing.

She almost pities them.

She twirls the wand between her fingertips. It's not hers. It's not vine, and familiar, and oh so light. It's darkness, and it's seeping into her blood it seems. She's heard the whispering behind closed doors, how Molly is beginning to share Ron's concerns, that there is something wrong with Hermione.

She's nothing like herself, you must admit that.

She's...darker. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it would seem that Bellatrix's torture has done more to her than knock her down.

She smiles, a subtle and haunting curve of her lips, as a laugh that certainly isn't hers bubbles up. She's heard it before, right over her head as a cursed knife was dipped into her flesh as if it were a quill and an inkwell. How funny to hear it from her own mouth.

Harry, I don't think it's safe to have her on missions.

A worthy thing to mention is that while Harry Potter is the Chosen One, he should not be guiding the rebellion if they want to win. He's brave, flinging himself headlong into whatever is inherently right, but her friend is no strategist.

She could have offered her help. It might have saved lives the night before in a skirmish that broke out in the middle of Diagon Alley. Tonks was dead, her life snuffed out like a candle by Antonin Dolohov.

Hermione has started to see the world differently as if it was dismantled and put back together two inches to the left. And inverted. One must not forget that.

As one formerly fighting for all that was right, she shouldn't just begin to see all of the ways someone could die. She knows that she's not meant to see the deaths of her friends. But are they truly friends now? Doubtful.

She's not a horrid person. Not really.

Maybe a bit.

But Hermione could rise from her spot, take the illegal portkey in her pocket that she's been saving, and send Harry to safety. He might not ever forgive her, nor Remus, but she knows full well that she botched the Wolfsbane potion this month.

In the morning, it will be considered a simple mistake. She can hear it in her head then, her voice lowered and timid, as if she's scared, "I'm so sorry." Hermione would sob. "I'm just out of sorts after…" she would hiccup, salty tears rolling down her face. Harry would rush to her. Remus would forgive her.

But tonight?

Hermione knows herself.

It's no mistake. She is not half-brained. Her eyes are not half closed, rather they are opened all the way, and it would be incredibly simple to meander down to the basement, and let a feral werewolf, agonized by the loss of his mate, rip the Order to shreds.

But she won't do that.

It would cause her problems.

It comes to her as an idea that sends her shooting up in her bed. She wakes from the dream, one that had previously been a nightmare of a black haired witch with crazed eyes hovering over her, liquid threats dripping from her lips. It's a better dream now, one that makes her smile upon waking. Imagining all of the ways she is going to break that bitch is enough to improve her mood.

Despite hearing Mundungus through the walls before sleeping. He was of the same brain as Molly Weasley. Hermione isn't Hermione anymore. Maybe she's broken, or maybe she's as dark as she lets on.

It would be easy to creep down the halls under a silencing charm, casting an imperious on someone in the house to carry out her plans. But, she sighs, that's half of the fun, and she's not going to ruin her own mood.

It's too dangerous to create a physical list. Those who are suspicious of her regularly dig through her beaded bag, and her room when they get the chance. They discuss digging through her mind, but Harry stops them as soon as he gets wind of it everytime.

Half of her wants it to happen.

She might snap.

It puts a grin on her face.

She finds her way into the sitting room, collapsing in the arm chair. She flicks her wand, watching it as she traces the charm, and the fireplace roars to life. Hermione enjoys the moments alone. Being with the others is so taxing anymore, and she's finding she's tired of pretending she can't slaughter them all.

Of course, she's always been capable. She just thinks of it now. She wonders if it was a strategy made by Death Eaters, carried out by the crazy bitch that continually creeps into her thoughts. It was an interesting thought. Hermione relishes the darkness as if it were an addiction.

If it was a scheme for her to tear the Order apart from the inside out, it might work, but of course, it would backfire just as well.

She has every intention of whittling Death Eater ranks.

A board creaks behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyebrows drawing together at the sight before her. "Malfoy?" Her tone is incredulous, but she offers little else.

Maybe he expects her to insult him as she always has. He waits for it, for something as he drags his fingers through his hair. "You look like shite."

She snorts, tapping her fingers against the arm rest. "Oh, so charming. What are you doing here?"

His eyes widen. "I defected. Potter brought me in a few days ago."

She thinks someone may have mentioned that to her a day prior. Or perhaps she heard it through the walls like everything else anymore. "Interesting." Hermione shrugs, turning away just as his mouth falls open.

"You didn't know that?"

"Slipped my mind."

There is the sound of the fridge opening not even fifteen feet from then. She doesn't know who's there, but they make no sound to give their identity away.

Malfoy doesn't let it go. "If you didn't know I would be here," he splutters, "why the fuck wouldn't you hex me?"

Hermione laughs, standing from her seat. She sees Ginny from her vantage point, her eyes wide with curiosity as she doesn't make eye contact. "Oh, I wouldn't hex you."

He hesitates, shooting a look back at Ginny. "I don't understand."

"Obviously, I would kill you." Hermione says flatly, not flinching at the sound of the glass that slips from Ginny's hands, shattering against the wooden floor. "What a shame that would be. I'm having such a quiet night."

Ginny squeaks, her footsteps heavy as she sprints up the stairs.

Hermione doesn't have much time left.

She doesn't spare Malfoy a second glance.

They only give her a chance at Harry's urging. Sweet, sweet, unassuming Harry, Hermione thinks to herself as she listens to the mission. It provides a perfect in for her first victim, but she's not made up her mind if she's ready to put her plans into motion yet.

Bill Weasley eyes her carefully, casting questioning looks her way as she taps her fingers against the table. He opens his mouth, and she thinks he's about to ask her if she'd bored. His tone would be laced with dry sarcasm, and he truly wouldn't like her answer.

Hermione waits, and he says nothing. She leans forward in her seat, bracing her elbows against the table. Malfoy sits across from her, a harsh scar still fresh on his cheek. It looks as if the corner of his mouth was ripped open, slicing a line all the way to his ear. Which is exactly what happened. She's familiar with Fenrir Greyback, and his preference for playing with his food before he feasts.

It's not a good fate, she admits. It's a wonder that Malfoy survived the encounter. She's naturally curious, but she asks nothing. She's not sure if she truly cares, or if she has just lost the filter from her brain to her mouth.

It's probably the latter.

"I'll go," Hermione volunteers, and the Weasley matriarch sighs in what can only be relief. No one else notices but Hermione. It's interesting that Molly is so pleased with the outcome. One could say that she was only happy her own children weren't going on what was nearly a suicide mission.

It's not why. Molly isn't hiding anything, nor is she concealing the fact that she's hopeful Hermione doesn't come back at all. Hermione doesn't mind; she doesn't mind much of anything anymore, but she realizes one thing.

If anyone does come back, it would be her.

Infiltrating Malfoy Manor is absolutely out of the fucking question. Hermione is sure to make that clear. While she's ready to get her hands dirty, she has no desire to die before she's even begun. In the middle of the night, she finds herself on the roof once more, her ankles crossed as she listens to the night. To her right, there is a bird that won't stop chirping.

She glares at it, and shoos it away.

She isn't alone for long before footsteps sound behind her, and it's obvious who it is.

"'Mione?" Harry's voice is riddled with exhaustion. His footsteps are light as he pads to her, carefully taking a seat beside her on the slanting roof. "You haven't been sleeping for a long time."

He's not wrong. It's been two months since it all began, since she woke to find herself paralyzed in her own body, and her mind seemingly broken. She sighs. "I'd hoped you wouldn't notice." It's the truth, a rare occurrence these days whereas she's concerned. "It's hard to sleep with the dreams."

Not a lie, but she's not going to tell him how visions of torture makes her antsy to break out of the cage she's in. She twirls the wand—her wand— between her fingers, a nervous tick.

"Ginny's noticed."

Oh, right. The little red headed Weasley that had never annoyed her before, but now Hermione imagines blasting her through a wall whenever she looks at Hermione with wide, fearful eyes. "Figures." She snorts. "It seems she's just as suspicious of me as the rest of the Order now. Are you sure she wasn't tasked with stalking me?"

Harry bristles at the comment, but she already knows that he's not angry with her. "I've told her there's nothing to worry about."

Her lips curve into a smile. On some level, she thinks it's a bit pitiful that Harry refuses to see what's right in front of him, but she's grateful. While he might be oblivious, and there's a good chance it was the reason he never suspected her before, she knows it's because he can't imagine a world where Hermione Granger is a monster.

It's an ill conceived notion that monsters are born rather than taught, but she's unable to linger on the thought before he catches her attention once more.

"It was going to be Malfoy that went with you." Harry says, his voice barely heard over the wind. "But I disagree with that."

She knew it was meant to be Malfoy; the poor bloke was just as expendable as her now. Who else would be better to send with her into a Death Eater hideout? "I don't like the look you have on your face."

She didn't. She knew it well, and she knew it signaled that Harry fucking Potter was going to do something tremendously stupid.

Harry smiles, and her stomach drops. "I'm going with you."

Her eyes shoot open. "Absolutely not." Hermione shakes her head. "Harry, no." She splutters at his cheshire grin, the way his eyes light up with all of the wrong types of mischief.

"Harry, yes," he sings, and bumps her shoulder with his own. "Malfoy has switched sides, I know that. But I don't trust him to watch your back and keep you alive."

She can't tell him how she pities the next Death Eater who mistakes her as a little girl who is only playing with a wand. She certainly can't say how she'll make them beg for death before they meet it. Hermione swallows, taking in the determined set of his jawline. "It would be a mistake. They need you here. You...you've already defeated You-Know-Who, Harry. You're the motivation that keeps your side going."

She doesn't say our side, but it goes unnoticed.

"Absolutely not."

In the end, the Order doesn't send her. They scrape together a lie; they claim it's not right to pit her against Bellatrix Lestrange. It's laughable.

Bellatrix would die screaming soon enough. Hermione isn't in a rush.

It's unfortunate when Mundungus Fletcher is found murdered, his throat brutally slashed, but diagnostic spells reveal that he hadn't bled to death. Hermione performs the diagnostic spells herself since their regular healer is flitting through safe houses throughout the English countryside.

It's not a coincidence.

If she thinks about it, Hermione knows that he didn't have to die. Though he'd been a regular pest, even more annoying after she'd woke, there was no excusing his hands on hers. The memory is still fresh; she's back in her body under a state of paralysis, and he visits her. He tells her how she's so bright, it would be a shame for the Order to lose her, for her to lose her life.

His hand settles on her lower belly, slowly moving down. And while he might not have done anything, there is no mistaking the intention, and she knows that not everyone on the Light side is well within their soul.

"Merlin," Ginny breathes over her shoulder, her eyes blown wide open like doors. "Who could have done this?"

No one answers, but Hermione can feel a glare burning into her back.

She glances down at his corpse once more, his face still frozen in terror. It's a pretty picture.

A month later, a raid decimates a safe house.

Only it's not any safe house. It's Shell Cottage, and she knows that even though they're already in a war, the Weasleys declare a personal war. Hermione hides her indifference. Beneath a thick layer, she does care that Fleur and Charlie were slaughtered. Bill had been suspicious of her from the start, and his death didn't affect her so. Could she be angry that he was right?

It doesn't matter considering he's dead, but Hermione puts a hand on Ron's shoulder. It's the first time in months that they've looked at the other for more than a moment. "We'll find them." she says quietly, a foreign feeling settling in her chest as Ginny's stoic facade splinters and she collapses to the floor across the room.

Ron's nod is shaky at best. "Malfoy's certain it was the Lestranges. Are you sure that you're...I don't doubt your ability. She tortured you."

It's a mix of trepidation and concern that she mildly appreciates. Hermione nods. "I pity the witch if she dares raise a wand to me again."

"I want to kill them." He means it in the moment, but Ron isn't so far jaded that the notion will stay for longer than it takes to snuff out the accused Death Eaters. "You'll help me?"

Hermione stares at the room before her, the brokenness as a family grieves not so silently. She gives a slight dip of her head, her fingers tightening around her wand. "I'll hold them in place for you. Bellatrix is mine, yeah?" She glances up.

There's a fractured look about him, but he agrees nonetheless. "What will you do?"

It's solidified in that moment that after this she won't be staying with the Order. She won't let the opportunity slip through her fingers. Hermione levels a stare at him, cold and unforgiving, and she ignores the shiver that rolls through him. Her voice is a low murmur, "I'll make her beg a Mudblood for her life."

Ron flinches. She's not sure if it's the way she referred to herself, or the bold claim.

She quietly excuses herself, and climbs the stairs. She needs to prepare, to shrink all of her belongings, and ready her beaded bag. Someone is staring at her, and she turns to see Malfoy leaned against the bottom of the stairs.

He says nothing, and neither does she.

In the midst the surprise infiltration of the hideout, Hermione confunds Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter before she hisses, "Incarcerous," and it's quickly followed by a silencing charm. "Don't look at them, Ron. I'm going to Obliviate them after."

The redhead gawks at her, and it's absurd considering three Death Eaters are standing in front of them. Hermione casts a shield charm over Harry and Ginny, but only because it would cripple Harry to lose her.

"Hermione, they'll just check my memories as well."

"What do you take me for? I plan to Obliviate you just as well." Hermione shifts her stance, eyeing Rabastan as he moves forward. "I wouldn't do that."

The fuss is all very dull, and while Bella croons, "Ickle Mudblood, whatever will you do?"

Hermione is sure that she still has a heart, but then she's not so certain as she rips her wand through the lightning shaped movement, and growls, "Avada Kedavra." The man crumples like a piece of parchment, his wand rolling across the grimy stone.

Bella shrieks.

"That." Hermione says simply. "Which one of you killed Bill and Charlie Weasley?" Unsurprisingly, there is no answer. She looks at Ron. "Are you going to kill him or what?"

The colour has drained from his face. Hermione doesn't have the heart to look for Harry's reaction. "'Mione, you killed him."

She blinks. "Obviously. We don't have time for this. Are you going to — nevermind," Hermione lunges forward. She casts, "Bombarda!"

Bellatrix is thrown into the wall with a crack that Hermione hopes isn't her neck as it would be a shame.

Hermione offers a saccharine smile that is reminiscent of the man's wife before she kills Rodolphus. The killing curse slides off her tongue so easily that she sees it's no wonder it's used so frequently. "Well," she murmurs, turning to Ron, "you understand why you can't remember this, don't you?"

"You're…" he stumbles over his own feet as he scrambles away from her. "What the fuck happened to you?"

Hermione doesn't offer a response as she sets to work. After Obliviating all three of them, she pauses over Ginny. In truth, the girl has been a pest for months now, but Hermione lets it go. She's kind enough to ward the hideout, and she knows within the hour the Order will storm in.

Two Death Eaters will be dead — it's a public service really — and one will be missing.

And Hermione Granger will be a fugitive whether they have proof or not.

Her childhood home is a beautiful brick two story with pretty wooden shutters that have been meticulously painted each summer. She'd checked to be sure it was still vacant after sending her parents to Australia.

It's warded, and while the Order may eventually think to look for her there, she would be in the wind once more by the time they did.

Hermione is sitting comfortably in an adjacent chair when the black haired witch stirs. She immediately strains against the magical bindings, her lip curling in disgust as her gaze lands on Hermione. "Give me my wand, and I'll let you live as a slave, Mudblood."

She laughs, and it's a clear sign of how far she's fallen. Hermione raises Bellatrix's replacement wand. "Oh, this?" she asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "I'm afraid I can't do that. Besides, you won't be needing it." Hermione takes both ends of the wand in either hand, and then snaps it.

Bellatrix wails. "You stupid, stupid bitch."

Hermione doesn't move from her spot as she lets the pieces fall to the floor. She twirls her own between her fingers. "I've found that I like your wand more than my old wand. It's so much easier to use with Dark Magic, wouldn't you say?"

"You don't deserve —" Bellatrix's shriek dies in her throat.

"Crucio," Hermione whispers lovingly.

Her body slips into the floor, writhing underneath the effects of the curse. Hermione is surprised, she has to admit. "I would have thought," she speaks as she stands, circling the witch, "that your master would have taught you how to withstand torture better."

"You'll regret this," Bella snarls.

"Oh, I don't think I will at all." Hermione wordlessly summons a knife from the kitchen. She kneels beside Bella, watching in delight as the witch's eyes widen. "Incarcerous. It just won't do if you try to escape. I'm sure you remember this? You were in my place last time. You know, I think I understand why you enjoy torture so much now. It's all rather thrilling to hold a life in your hands, isn't it?"

Before Bella can speak, another crucio is cast.

"I can keep you like this for days. I'll cut you open and let your blood coat the floor before I heal you and do it all over again."

Before the knife digs into Bellatrix's arm, Hermione thinks she sees fear enter the mad woman's eyes.