Sticks and Stones

'Sticks and stones may break my bone...'

She couldn't remember much nowadays. The sticks and stones and everything else they hurt her and broke her bones with she remembered. She couldn't forget them. They made sure of that. Day in, day out they would come to her cell; beat her, break her and then put her back together again with their magical words as if nothing had happened. But it did and she remembered.

She didn't remember much of her life before the sticks and stones. There were images and glimpses of things that had been and now no longer were, but they weren't much. She tried to remember the words they spoke when they would fix her, words that spoke of magic and enchanting things. But then she had learnt the hard way when she had made the mistake of saying the very same words they spoke, words that weren't for her to utter ever because when she did, she made them filthy and dirty. Like she was. So she stopped remembering them because they brought the sticks and stones and she didn't care for them. Every now and then though, a word would lodge inside her mind and she would remember. She would remember the time when she was happy, when she was clever and when she was loved. Her friends, her family, her life. And it would hurt like fucking hell.

'But names will never hurt me...'

She couldn't remember much nowadays. Oh, she remembered her name. The one they had given her. Not the one she had been given at birth. No. They said she should never have had a pretty name in the first place. The one they gave her should have been hers all along. It described her perfectly. Because it was what she was, what she always would be and there was nothing she could do about it. Frankly, she wasn't worthy of any other name. If they gave another name, she would defile it, tarnish it, and sully it. No. She deserved no other name but the one they had given her. Mudblood.

There were days though, when she thought she could remember her name, her real name, but she wasn't sure. When she would be coming in and out of consciousness after the sticks and stones had reduced her back into a bloody mess. When she would be lying passively on the bed, her mind shattered into colourful yet sharp fragments she couldn't piece together, and they would be lying on top of her; pushing, pounding, crushing into her and then shouting the name they had given her. Had beaten into her. Had fucked into her. Then she would remember. Smile at them blankly and say, "My name is Hermione." And it would hurt like fucking hell.

'Sticks and stones may break my bone...but names will never hurt me...'

She couldn't remember much nowadays. She remembered a children's nursery rhyme though. It ran through her head all the time. And it would hurt like fucking hell.