Interrogator

    Hermione sat up on the cold floor she felt so close to after all this time. She squinted in pain, someone had opened the large, heavy door to the pitch black room and let in a flood of light. It hurt Hermione’s eyes. She closed them. She sat there in a frozen, huddled lump, listening. There were noises outside. Someone was talking. She couldn’t understand what they were saying. They were talking too fast. She hadn’t heard anyone talk for seven years… with the exception of herself. She heard something being placed on the floor with a loud clatter. Then the door was shut. The room went dark again and Hermione opened her eyes. She felt the presence of another person in the room with her. "Wh-who?" Hermione stuttered. Almost seven years without talking didn’t do well with her voice.

    "You don’t want to know who I am," came a familiar, deep, male voice from the other side of the room near the steel door, "I’m just here to ask you a few questions about The Order of the Phoenix. I hope you will be helpful in answering them truthfully. I’m sure this won’t take long. Let’s start with…ah…how about: Where are they? After we stormed number twelve, Grimmauld Place you all seemed to move on somewhere else. You lot are a hard to find people."

    "Wh-who y-you?" she persisted.

    "Please, just answer the question," was the response.

    "Don’t kn-know."

    "How could you not know?"

    "M-move a lot"

    "Very well," there was a pause and a shuffling of papers, "After Dumbledore was tragically killed, who took over?" he asked in a mocking sort of tone.

    Hermione didn’t give an answer; just because she was caught, didn’t mean the rest of the vastly few people left in the shadows of good should be as well.

    "Please…" he begged, "Voldemort would be very delighted if you would willingly help us out… just this once."

    Hermione hadn’t known any Death Eater who call You-Know-Who Voldemort before. "M-me," she answered.

    "And I don’t suppose you know who succeeded you after your primitively stubborn capture?" the man questioned.

    Hermione shook her head, then realize he could not see her and answered, "No."

    He sighed. "Could you please give me some names of the people involved in it? I‘m afraid we don’t have most of your crew in record."

    "No, th-thank you."

    "Are you sure? We might just give you better tasting food tomorrow."

    "Only tomor-r-row?"

    "Well, we have to extend our resources to more than just food."

    "Even if you r-released me, I s-still wouldn’t give out any of my f-friends' names."

    Again he sighed. "Do you know of any plans the Order is arranging?" he asked, "Though I suppose after seven years they would have given up long ago on anything that you would have been developing," he muttered under his breath a little too loudly.

    "Y-yes."

    "Yes what?…Oh, you know something?"

    "Yes."

    "And what exactly would that be?"

    "D-do really you think I’m going to t-tell you?"

    She heard the man stand and the chair was pushed back. It made a loud screech on the stone floor. "Tell me!"

    "No," Hermione said calmly. He slapped her then, hard, with the back of his hand. She screamed. It echoed off the walls for what seemed like hours. The two were quiet while her shriek rang inside the small, confined room.

    "Please, tell me. It would be very helpful," the man pleaded, he sounded oddly tranquil for a man who was putting someone through such a great pain.

    "Never." Hermione’s voice was still harsh and raspy, like a dying woman.

    "You sound horrible, I’ll make sure next meal you get a healthy dose of water."

    "I don’t want your sympathy, coward." She had stopped stammering now, and a good thing because she would not have made as much of an impact if she hadn‘t.

    "May I ask what makes me the coward, here?"

    Hermione didn’t respond to the last question she would be asked for another seven years, but she knew her answer: Voldemort was a coward, and that made any who followed him one, too.

    The man gave up and knocked on the door with a specific pattern, and it opened. This time the light wasn’t as harsh on Hermione as it was before. Her eyes adjusted to it fast enough for her to see who her interrogator was.

    "Harry?" He turned around, his emerald eyes making contact with her chocolate ones. His mouth was slightly open; he looked old and dismal. He blinked after a few seconds, turned, and walked away. The door shut once more.