The world was beautiful today.

The sky was a cheerful azure, adorned with a few wispy clouds. The air was crisp, clean, refreshing. A light breeze fluttered every so often. The golden sun streamed down from the seraphic scene above. The place it touched on the Earth was not quite so heavenly.

Hundreds of people were gathered in a crumbling courtyard, split into two masses, standing on steps of shattered stone. They were a people at war. Or rather, they had been.

All was quiet now.

Leading the throng of menacing folk clad in black, a tall, thin, snakelike man stepped forward and began to speak.

Her head was spinning, the clever mind that had hardly ever failed her in the past working frantically to come up with a solution for this deplorable situation. She was racing through information, anything, anything at all, from potions textbooks, spellbooks, History of Magic classes…

But none of that would help now. Polyjuice potion would be of no use to her. They had taken her wand. And certainly nobody wanted to hear her regurgitate anything that Professor Binns had ever said.

She wondered where he was. She hadn't seen him among the ghosts during the battle. She hadn't heard anything about him at all, actually, while she'd been away for the past year. Had the Carrows done something to him? What could one possibly do to a ghost?

Nothing, she concluded, grateful for some semblance of closure to even the smallest of problems. Nothing could be done to harm a ghost. He had probably fallen asleep during the battle, and was now documenting the results in the most boring possible method in order to drone on about it for years to come.

The Battle of Hogwarts, it would read. May 1st, 1998: One of the most massive armies of Death Eaters in history attacked Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, under the direction of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…in search of Harry Potter…the Boy Who Lived…dead at the Dark Lord's hand…crushing defeat…school was left destroyed... students, teachers, families slaughtered…left at the mercy of—

"And what," rang a high, cold voice, reaching through her thoughts and chilling her through to her very core, "do we have here?"

She blinked, remembered where she was. Flanked by Parvati and Luna. Luna, the only reason she'd noticed how beautiful the sky was, when she'd seen her friend gazing up at it serenely, oblivious to the surrounding rubble and bloodshed. The girls and boys had been separated. Ginny, shrieking and wailing and fighting until she reached Harry's corpse, had been killed while sobbing over his body.

It was a pity, He had said, that magical blood should be wasted over one only half as pure.

The separation, now she remembered; she had been dragged away from him, screaming his name, their hands being wrenched apart as he was hauled off by several male Death Eaters, chuckling darkly and launching crude insults at them, his red hair the last thing she saw amid the sea of black…

Ron.

The name brought daggers to her heart; Harry, Remus, Tonks, Fred, Ginny, she had already thought her heart destroyed, but the agony of not knowing where Ron was or what was happening to him tore her apart more than anything else.

They had only just begun. It couldn't be over. It was never supposed to end like this.

She turned to face him, the man—if he could even be called that—who had spoken to her. That incorrigible being who had caused it all, all the suffering, the pain, the loss, the villain whom they had come so close, so very, very close to destroying.

But close was not enough.

"Hermione Granger," he hissed, and a mirthless smile spread across his hideous face. "You certainly have played your part in this…sequence of events."

She stood straight and still. She would not back down. She would not even blink.

"Your achievements have been…impressive. Remarkable, even, considering your…ancestry," he commented, scrutinizing her with his red slits that she supposed still functioned as eyes. She had never been this close to him before. How had Harry managed to do it so many times?

Harry. Another twisting stab to her heart. No. She would be brave, like her best friend had been.

"You're a clever girl. I suppose you have a rough idea of what will happen to thieves of magic such as yourself…"

She bristled at the insult, and nearly opened her mouth to retort when, as if it were a direct response to Voldemort's words, a bloodcurdling scream echoed through the courtyard. She jumped, turned, searching for the source—please, please, don't let it be—

"JUSTIN!" a girl shrieked, and began to sob, and Hermione recognized the voice of Hannah Abbott—Justin Finch-Fletchley, it appeared, was the first Muggle-born to go.

She felt horribly ill at the idea of his fate, a boy with whom she'd always been friendly, who had done nothing, nothing at all to deserve this…but her overwhelming feeling was of relief. It had not been Ron. His blood was pure. Surely, even as a traitor in their eyes, he would be spared…

"Ah," said Voldemort, noticing her reaction to the scream. "You see, it has begun."

Was this it? Was she to die? Without seeing him at least one more time? She began to brace herself….however, there was an underlying tone to Voldemort's voice that made her suspect his mind was not quite made up.

"However," he continued, confirming her suspicions, "you have proven yourself, Hermione—may I take the liberty?—you have certainly exceeded the stigma normally expected of Mudbloods such as yourself." He paused, considering her for a moment. "Perhaps you could be useful."

Ordinarily, she would have declined scathingly and instantaneously. Join him? Betray Harry? Harry, her best friend, for whom she had given everything?

But if she refused, she knew they would kill her.

And she had to see him. Ron. At least once more.

But she had not been asked to choose. Not yet. She would not speak.

Voldemort called for someone, a name that broke Hermione's rigid stance of defiance and made her shiver, her eyes widened, lips parted to inhale sharply at the sight of this figure approaching her.

And it all came back, in flashes: the endless chasm of pain, the long fingers twisted in her hair, the knife at her throat, the deadly whispers in her ear. That night was the one time she had been certain they were going to die.

"I believe you two are reasonably well acquainted with each other?" Voldemort sneered.

Instinctively, Hermione clutched her left forearm, where the word was still etched, barely faded from the night it had been so brutally carved. Bellatrix Lestrange cackled.

During the hour reprieve Voldemort had given during the battle, Minerva McGonagall, aware of her previous torture, had attempted to heal it for her.

Her beloved professor had turned to her with tears in her eyes and told her there was really nothing she could do.

It was permanent. Hermione thought she'd always known it would be.

"What say you, Bellatrix?" Voldemort asked. "What should be done with her?"

Hermione forced herself to look her in the eyes, to stare into the cavernous black depths, dancing madly with victory—her tainted, undeserved victory—and lust for power.

Bellatrix licked her lips. "I have an idea, my Lord…"