A Capacity for Love

CHAPTER 2

-Raped-

Voldemort chided the Death Eater who had abused her for 'wasting a golden opportunity' and 'going soft', but nevertheless he was allowed to remove her from the room where the other three girls were still being subjected to the most vile acts. He wordlessly thrust her pyjamas into her hand and escorted her a short way down a dingy corridor, to a tiny chamber that might well have been a broom closet at one point. There, he closed the door, leaving her in darkness. It didn't even occur to her to check whether the door was locked, whether she might be able to escape.

She had been raped. It seemed unreal. She had been a virgin. Now she was soiled. She was sore, and in addition the friction had irritated her urethra. Not knowing how long she would be left there, not even caring about making herself dirtier, she crouched in a corner and relieved herself. It stung. She crawled to another corner and curled herself up, shivering from cold and shock, clutching her pyjama bottoms to her chest like a security blanket, while the stinging and soreness receded to a dull throb.

After a while, Hermione didn't know how long, the door was opened and Sandy stumbled in, wearing a long blue t-shirt. She cried out at first upon seeing Hermione, and turned to flee, but someone shut the door and they were left in darkness once again.

"'S allright," Hermione whispered. "It's just me. Hermione Granger."

"Oh God," Sandy gasped, and Hermione heard her collapse onto the floor. She sobbed miserably. Hermione listened to her, counting the seconds between each great racking gasp. That way she didn't have to think of what had happened, didn't have to remember each jarring thrust, each animal grunt. Seven seconds. Six. Seven again. Five and a half-ish. If she kept track, she could calculate the average and the mean.

Sandy finally calmed down-- Hermione thought she might even be sleeping, although her breaths were still coming in stuttered jerks-- by the time Oonagh joined them. She was completely naked, and there were angry red marks on her chest, shoulders, and neck; one eye was red and puffy. She wasn't broken, though, and she wrenched her arm away from her captor-- Hermione saw that he was a good head shorter than her--and screeched, "Get me something decent to wear, you filthy Death Eater scum!" He gave her a push into the tiny room, and she whirled around and pushed him back, hard enough that he reeled back a couple of steps. She then walked regally into the room with Hermione and Sandy and remained standing when the door was closed firmly behind her.

"Is that you, Hermione?" she asked into the darkness.

"Yeah," Hermione answered quietly.

"Thought so."

Hermione heard her trying the door.

"Locked," Oonagh muttered, and kicked the offending metal slab. She was silent for a moment; then she muttered, "We need a plan."

"A... A plan?" Hermione queried, somewhat dazed. They'd all just been raped, for God's sake. Who could think of plans?

"Yes," Oonagh insisted, "for when they come back. Feel around, see if you can find something heavy. We could hit them over the head with it and run for it."

"But-- But they're armed with wands. And they're bigger and stronger than us, and there are more of them," Hermione protested.

"If it's the bugger who got me, and he comes on his own, I'd say the odds are more on our side than his. He was a right wanker. I nearly bit his thing off before he got me immobilized again." Oonagh sounded rather proud of herself.

"What about Lisa?" Hermione asked. "Is she still in there?"

Oonagh's voice became grim. "She got a bad one. I'm afraid he might just kill her. Blood everywhere. They'd already had to Ennervate her once by the time mine gave up on me."

"Oh God," Hermione whispered in horror.

"Oops, sorry," Oonagh said, apparently having stepped on someone, "who's this?"

There was no answer, so Hermione supplied, "That's Sandy. Sandy Ploppe."

"She bad off?"

"Obviously, aren't you?" Hermione retorted. "Didn't he-- I mean, was I the only one...?" Her voice trailed off. It suddenly occured to her that perhaps the other girls hadn't actually been raped. She hadn't exactly been in a position to monitor everything that had gone on. She'd seen and heard the others being hexed, beaten, cursed, and abused, but then the Death Eater assigned to her had...done That-- she felt revulsion and panic rising in her and thrust the thoughts away-- and then he'd been done and she'd been taken out, and she hadn't even looked to see how the others were; they could have all been dead at that point and she wouldn't even have noticed. Guilt mixed in with all the other bad feelings milling around in her gut, and she thrust that away from her, too.

But Oonagh wasn't really listening; she had moved on, feeling her way around the walls. "Shit, there's something wet on the floor here. It better just be water. Look, what's this." There was shifting sound, and a clank. "Feels like a bucket. And a box. Can't...get it open. Must be rusted shut or--"

But before she could investigate any further, the door was opened once again, and they saw two Death Eaters outside, supporting Lisa between them. She was wearing a nightdress with dark stains on it and looked unconscious. Her long, blond hair was also matted with blood.

"Lisa!" Hermione exclaimed, jumping up, in disregard of her own semi-naked state.

Oonagh, too, came quickly forward, and together, they gently took Lisa from the two men, all thoughts of a heroic escape forgotten.

"You can't leave her like this!" Hermione cried as the Death Eaters made to close the door.

"She needs a Healer!" Oonagh demanded.

"She'll live," one of the men informed them curtly before leaving them in darkness yet again.

"Lisa! Lisa!" Hermione and Oonagh tried to get some sort of response out of her, but she was either unable or unwilling. At least she was breathing, and they were unable to find any currently bleeding wounds

They settled for making their classmate as comfortable as they could on the floor, with her head cushioned by Hermione's rolled-up pyjama bottoms on Hermione's lap. Oonagh went back to the box she had found, trying to get it open, reasoning that it might contain supplies that they could use to help Lisa. They were all Muggle-born, so knew something about simple First Aid from a childhood of plasters, tincture of iodine, and aspirin.

After several minutes of silence, or perhaps it was an hour (it was impossible to keep track of time), Sandy asked in a raspy voice, "What do you think they're going to do with us?"

"Send us back to Hogwarts, didn't you hear? We're supposed to report back to Dumbledore and the rest, tell them how evil You-Know-Who is," Oonagh answered bitterly.

"Oh no, I can't," Sandy breathed. "I couldn't..."

"What do you mean?" Oonagh asked sharply. "Can't what?"

"I can't tell...about... that."

So she at least probably had a similar experience as me, Hermione thought. Somehow, that made her feel marginally better.

"But we can't let them get away with it!" Oonagh insisted. "We have to tell!"

"But then they'll all know!" Sandy sounded horrified.

Oh God. She was right, Hermione thought. They'd all know. Dumbledore, McGonagall, all the teachers. Harry. And Ron. Hermione's stomach turned anew at the thought. What would they think of her? Everything had been so innocent yesterday: the little flirty smiles and looks, the teasing and casual touches. And now... Now it was all ruined.

"Look," Oonagh said, slight exasperation evident in her tone, "if it'd been your house that was broken into, you'd report it to the authorities, wouldn't you?"

"That's different," Hermione pointed out, as reasonably as she could; she really wasn't in a frame of mind to form logical arguments. She was really just trying to defend Sandy at this point. "That's not so personal."

"Are you kidding me?" Oonagh said incredulously. "I'd have thought you'd be the first one to be demanding justice! You're always insisting that everyone follow the rules. We have to tell Dumbledore!"

"All right, wait a minute." Hermione closed her eyes. It was purely a reflexive gesture, as she couldn't see anything anyway. It was what she did when she wanted to calm down and think clearly. "Let's see," she began, thinking aloud. "Voldemort did this whole thing so that we'd go back and tell everyone. He wants this to become public knowledge. That right there should be a reason for us not to make it public."

Oonagh snorted. "That's probably exactly what he wants. He's just playing a mind game on us."

"No, I don't think so," Hermione said slowly. "I really believe he wants the wizarding world to know what he's done tonight. Look, all of his actions are directed either toward increasing his own power, or else scaring and cowing others. Which amounts to the same thing."

"Exactly!" Oonagh exclaimed. "That's why we can't let him scare us into submission. If we do, he wins. See, Sandy?"

Hermione didn't wait to hear if Sandy wanted to voice an opinion, for now she saw where her argument was going to lead. "Yes, that's true for us, personally," she admitted, setting aside for the moment her true personal feelings, which were very scared and submissive. "But we have to look at the larger picture here. What do you think would happen if it were to become common knowledge that Death Eaters had somehow gotten into Hogwarts unnoticed and kidnapped four students? Or more," she added with a shiver. "Maybe there are more." The thought was doubly chilling.

Oonagh accepted the premise. "All right, what if? They'd investigate how they got in, tighten security measures. That has to be good."

"Yes, but we can achieve that without publishing everything in the Daily Prophet," Hermione said pedantically. "There were already calls to shut down the school because of the Chamber of Secrets incident, or after Cedric was killed at the Triwizard Tournament. This would clinch it. I don't think even Dumbledore would be able to keep the school open if this gets out. And even if he did, how many parents would let their children stay on?"

Everyone was silent for a minute, considering these points.

"I don't want to go back anyway," Sandy said in a muffled voice.

"Well, what do you suggest?" Oonagh said, angrily. "Just skip back up to the school and say we were having a girls' night out and we just happened to lose half our clothes? And what about Lisa? She has to have medical attention! That's assuming they make good on their word and let us out of here, anyway," she muttered, as an afterthought.

Hermione was also starting to get uneasy about the long delay. Why weren't they being taken back yet? Her heart clenched at the thought that maybe they were going to be held for several days...with repeats of that night's 'performance'. She shoved that one away, too, as Too Scary To Deal With Right Now, and concentrated on answering Oonagh's question.

"I agree that we need to tell Dumbledore. Maybe the Aurors, too, if he thinks we should. Let's concentrate on remembering as many details as we can; things like voices, physical characteristics, anything that might help identify those men."

"Now that's more like it," Oonagh agreed. "Like I said, the one who got me was a wanker. Short and fat and had breath like the bottom of a compost heap." She made a disgusted noise.

"But I don't think we should tell any of the other students," Hermione cautioned. Not Lavender. Not Parvati. Not Harry. And not Ron. Especially not Ron.

"What, not even our dormmates?" Oonagh objected. "Won't they wonder where we got to?"

"Good point," Hermione admitted. She was trying to think of a plausible explanation when the door opened again. The only thing Hermione was able to take note of was the Death Eater aiming a wand at her before unconsciousness claimed her again.