Perfect

Author's Note:

This started out as a prompt for an original story when this little number popped into my head. This is the first bit of fan fiction I've ever written, but something tells me it won't be my last.

A big thank you to my beta, laurielove – thanks for all the help and encouragement.

Hope you like it – reviews would be greatly appreciated – first timer and all that.

Disclaimer: The characters and canon situations in the following story belong solely to JK Rowling, Scholastic and WB. I am not making any money from the publishing or writing of this story. I just play with them... and sometimes I'm not very nice.

_________________________________________________________________

Perfect

She sat upon the sheetless bed, recalling years of sleepless nights spent poring over texts, making revision notes – studying – determined to prove her place in the Wizarding world via her intellect.

Everyone certainly knew her place now, and her intellect played no part in it. All that studying, all that striving for acceptance, all that hope and effort... it had all been for nothing in the end.

With Voldemort victorious, and the Wizarding world firmly in his grip, her place had been decided for her.

She was the interloper who was to be made a constant example of.

No easy or even hard death, for that matter, as she had been expecting. Her death was to be of her very essence, in slow increments, while her body lived on – for a long, long time to come.

The enchanted collar and bracelets she wore glowed with a faint shimmer playing over the symbols and glyphs etched in the silver – they were quite beautiful, really, but manacles and symbols of her status nonetheless.

They were the only thing in her world now that was remotely visually interesting – and she hated them. They dampened her magic – and her ability to see colour.

The witches and wizards filing past her cage, on the mandatory, regular viewing of the prisoners kept as examples, a caution to any who may oppose the new regime, were no more than a background hum of shuffling noises, due to the muffling charms in her prison, and she’d ceased to really see them other than as vague, shifting forms that almost imperceptibly dappled the light in her cell, as they passed by the open wall warded to prevent intrusion or escape.

If she made eye contact, it was inadvertent and quickly severed.

There was no physical cruelty – she was fed, kept clean and warm, allowed sleep, and as healthy as one could be, given her hour of exercise that she was allowed per day in the small, high-walled, muffled courtyard, accompanied by a silent guard, who never spoke or made physical contact.

The cruelty came with the mind-numbing boredom, the repetitive sameness of each day, the lack of mental or physical stimulation – no conversation, no company, no books, no colour… and no hope.

She’d lost that once she realised that this was to be the rest of her long life – the whittling away and eventual death of her spirit; no hope of escape, no hope of freedom, no hope of an early death; a long, long life of monochrome monotony.

Voldemort’s talent for cruelty was boundless – he’d chosen the perfect fate for Hermione Granger.

----------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it – let me know what you think.