Hermione swallows hard, throat raw and dry as she stares across the dark, torch-lit cell at the brutalised, skeletal prisoners who are seemingly catatonic, their clothing rags and their flesh sore-ridden. The cells are crowded, but only women occupy this section of the dungeons. Adrenaline sets a fire in her veins and her bruised fingertips flex, scraping on the dank dungeon stones, sharp pains running up her bones and flesh on the fingers that have bloodied wounds where her nails once sat. She had thought she was as good as dead when they took her, at least a day ago now. Stripped her of her wand and beat her, until blackness had reached up through the pain and swallowed her whole. She had woken here to the sounds of screams echoing from elsewhere in the dungeons.