The Past is Another Land

No, you know nothing about me and care even less

How could you understand our emptiness

You’ve plundered our wisdom, our knowledge, our wealth

In bleeding us dry

You long for our spirit

But that you will never posses

    Hermione Granger, and eighteen year old witch locked in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor as a hostage, made another tick mark on the wall where she kept track of the days. Counting up the months, she found she had been there for close to a year now. So, that would make it... September? She checked again. Yes, today was September first, if she had calculated correctly. This time last year new and old students alike were piling onto the train, getting ready for another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But Hermione knew that wouldn’t be happening this year. The castle’s walls no longer contained young witches and wizards in training, but Aurors. Along with members of the Order of the Phoenix and the Underground Resistance, they used Hogwarts as a place to confer and plan, as even the Ministry of Magic was unsafe now. Hermione knew this first hand from Draco Malfoy, a member of the Underground and a spy.

    She sat back against the wall, remembering. But every time she tried to remember her own school days, memories of the attack surfaced in her mind. The day the Death Eaters had come and killed so many of her friends. It had been such a beautiful day, and everyone had been outside waiting for a Quidditch game to start. When she was being dragged away, Hermione had seen broomsticks and wands - along side bodies - lying broken on the ground.

The past is now another land

Far beyond my reach

Invaded by insidious

Foreign bodies, foreign speech

Where the timeless joys of childhood

Lie broken on the beach

    Hermione shuddered at the memories, and - with and enormous effort - dragged herself back to the present. She wondered sometimes if she was losing her mind from seeing those images of her classmates lying there, eyes wide and staring. It was all needed to make Hermione lose what little hope she had of rescue. Because she knew it was unlikely they would ever be saved, and sometimes in her darkest thoughts, she thought it was pointless to hope.

    At one point in time she had been certain that Harry and Ron - both having escaped the massacre by an unexpected bit of luck - would come to her and free them all. She had been the one to convince all the younger girls. But now Hermione was the one who needed convincing. Because though it seemed to the other girls it had happened over a period of time, one single moment of remembering all the death had been enough for her to give up every certainty she had.

The present is an empty space

Between the good and the bad

A moment leading nowhere

To pointless to be sad

But time enough to lay to waste

Every certainty I had

    But what of the future? Would they be saved? Or would they stay here forever to rot and die - or until the Death Eaters decided to kill them? The thoughts struck Hermione one after another as they had been for a while now, since Draco had told her that the Underground was gaining members. She didn’t care much about that - what concern was it of hers how many members the secret order of spies amid the Death Eaters had? - but it had gotten her thinking. If the Underground had gained members, it only made sense that the Order of the Phoenix would too. With more fighting for the Light Side there was a chance - a small one, but a change none the less - that they could win this war.

    Hermione was shaken hard by Padma Patil, bringing her sharply away from her thoughts of rescue and back to Earth. "What is it, Padma?" she asked, looking up. Grimly, Padma looked back at Hermione.

    "Role Call," she replied sadly. Her once melodic voice was now void of expression of any kind, and her eyes no longer twinkled. No one’s did. Hermione stood up, and followed Padma out of the dungeon room they shared with the other girls - all thirty of them.

The future is a barren world

From which I can’t return

Both heartless and material

Its wretched spoils not my concern

Shining like an evil sun

As my childhood treasures burn

    Taking her place in line between Ginny Weasley and Hannah Abbott, she waited with bated breath like everyone else. The Death Eaters only called a role call when something had happened to catch their interest. Today, the interest was a second year Hufflepuff girl who was pulled roughly out of line. Lucius spit at her feet before reaching for her pocket. Few girls had managed to escape with their wands, and fewer had managed to hide them from the Death Eaters. This girl was obviously one of the few, as Lucius drew a long piece of wood from her robes. The girl began to tremble violently, as though she expected Lucius to point the wand at her and scream "Crucio!" as they had seen so many times before. He just laughed, a horrible, evil laugh that sent chills down everyone’s spine.

    "Silly girl, I won’t hurt you with this," he drawled. He pushed her back into the line and she relaxed slightly. "But you won’t be getting your wand back!" With that, he muttered a curse, and the wand burst into flame before their eyes. He threw it on the ground at Hermione’s feet, and he and the other Death Eaters left the dungeons.

    Hermione stared deep into the flame on the burning wand. All of them had seen the same thing many times, but it held a special meaning for Hermione. Her wand - which had been left in the castle and was no doubt now in the hands of either Harry or Ron - had been one of her most precious childhood treasures. To see a wand burn was like watching her childhood burn, and along with it, a child’s hope.

Shining like an evil sun

As my childhood treasures burn