The Corruption of Hermione Granger

The Nightmare

Hermione shot straight up in her bed, panting heavily and covered in sweat. She had to look around the dark room she found herself in for a second before she could begin calming down. She was at the Burrow, the home of the Weasley's, sharing a room with Ginny. The cause of Hermione suddenly awaking in the middle of the night was the same as it had been all the other times.
More nightmares about HER.
Well, perhaps 'nightmares' wasn't exactly the correct word to describe what they were. Rolling out of bed, Hermione began to tip-toe out of the room, so as to not wake Ginny, and headed towards the bathroom, while she began to reflect on tonight's latest episode. She closed the bathroom door behind her and turned on the light. Looking into the mirror, she saw her own face staring back at her, still visibly sweaty. Her large, brown eyes showed a look that both conveyed tiredness and alertness all at once, and her bushy, brown hair was unkempt from sleeping on it. Averting her gaze from the mirror, Hermione looked down to her forearm. There, clear as day, was a constant reminder of that night at Malfoy Manor. The cursed scar that would never go away, due to the Dark Magic imbued in the knife used to create it. Carved into her arm was the all-too-familiar slur she'd heard all her life.
"Mudblood"
It began to sting and burn again, as it always did whenever Hermione woke up from one of her nightmares. Tonight's had been a particularly bad one. They started off relatively tame, as tame as a nightmare could be. At first, Hermione would simply relive the night at Malfoy Manor, exactly as it had happened. They would be brought into the large room with the fireplace, Harry and Ron would be sent down to the dungeon, Hermione would be kept behind for questioning about the sword of Godric Gryffindor. Then she would have to go through the worst part all over again: Her 'interrogation' about the sword, carried out by none other than the most evil Death Eater of them all, Bellatrix Lestrange. That wasn't even the correct word to describe what happened though. It wasn't an interrogation. It had been torture, plain and simple. Hermione had to suffer both the Cruciatus Curse and the feeling of Bellatrix's knife craving that cursed scar into her forearm. But then, just as had actually happened, Ron, Harry, and Dobby would burst into the room, having escaped from the dungeon, there would be a small fight before all of them would escape thanks to Dobby. That's how it happened and that's what Hermione had been seeing nearly every night.
That is to say, until recently.
As of late, things each night had started to play out . . . differently. The changes were only small, at first. Sometimes, there were no other Death Eaters present during Hermione's torture and it was just her and Bellatrix or maybe Harry, Ron, and Dobby would take just a BIT longer coming out of the dungeon, forcing Hermione to endure at the hands of Bellatrix for longer than she had when the torturing actually happened. Tonight was different, though. Tonight was awful. Tonight . . . Harry, Ron, and Dobby never came.
Within tonight's nightmare, after Hermione received her scar and had been suffering the Cruciatus Curse at the hands of Bellatrix for the usual amount of time, she turned her body, which was writhing in the most unimaginable pain on the ground, to face the door. Eagerly, she waited for it to burst open to show her two closest friends and house elf savior so that Bellatrix would be forced to stop cursing Hermione and she could escape with the others, as she always did.
The door never opened, though.
Hermione didn't know how much time had passed, as the pain caused by the curse made it nigh impossible to think clearly, but she did know that it was far too much time. Eventually, as the pain grew in its intensity and her own screams grew in volume, alongside Bellatrix's demented cackling, it became too much for the young witch and she passed out. The moment she did was the moment she had woken up drenched with sweat. When she finished recalling exactly what had happened to her, she began to think things through, attempting to do so in a logical way that only Hermione Granger was capable of. "Why hadn't they come? Things have been different than the way they really happened before, but never THAT different!" She thought to herself as she transitioned from looking down at her scar to back at her own face in the mirror. Suddenly, just as she was hypothesizing yet another reason for Harry, Ron, and Dobby's mysterious absence, her thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on the bathroom door and the soft voice of the youngest Weasley. "Hermione?" Ginny's voice came through the wood of the door "Are you okay in there?" Snapped out of her thinking, Hermione spoke. "Y-Yes, Ginny. Just uhh . . . " Hermione flushed the chamber pot in the room and then opened the door. "Just had to use the bathroom is all." Hermione attempted to speak with confidence, but despite her best efforts the shakiness in her voice betrayed her intentions. Even though Ginny was standing in the darkness of the hallway, Hermione could clearly tell there was a look of skepticism and suspicion on the young redhead's face. After a short pause, Ginny spoke softly. "No. I came here because I had to use the bathroom. It's obvious YOU came here to do something else." Her voice was not accusatory, but rather full of concern. Hermione had no doubt that if she herself was known as "The Brightest Witch of Her Age," then Ginny definitely had to be the holder of that same title for her own age. When Hermione didn't speak a reply, Ginny continued, pinpointing the exact reason for Hermione's late night trip to the bathroom on her first try. "It's your nightmares again, isn't it?" Being one of the only three girls at the Burrow, the others being herself Mrs. Weasley, and being the only girl around her age, Hermione had felt it safe to share with Ginny the two secrets that considered to be her most closely guarded, that she had been having the same reoccurring nightmare since they escaped Malfoy Manor and that the cursed scar Bellatrix carved into her had begun stinging lately. When Ginny swore to keep Hermione's secrets until the day she died, even offering to make an Unbreakable Vow not tell anyone unless, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and, after assuring Ginny that an Unbreakable Vow was not necessary, knew that her secrets were safe and that she now had someone she could talk too. As the two stood in the dark hallway, talking in hushed whispers, so as to not wake anyone else, Hermione finally spoke words of her own that were truthful. "Yes." She sighed. "They're getting worse, aren't they?" Ginny inquired, obviously concerned. "No. Just . . . more intense." Hermione lied and it seemed Ginny fortunately did not detect this one. "You're sure it's alright? I know I promised not to tell anyone, Hermione, but if it ever gets really bad, you know—" Hermione cut her off. "I know, Ginny. They're just nightmares though, nothing more. I'm fine, really." The young redhead was seemingly satisfied that her friend was okay and stepped into the bathroom herself. "Alright. Alright that's good to hear. I'll see you tomorrow morning. Goodnight." Hermione smiled slightly in the dark hallway and spoke back "Goodnight, Ginny. See you tomorrow." She turned and began walking back towards her room as she heard the bathroom door click shut behind her. Climbing into the bed and getting under the covers, Hermione was able to fall asleep more comfortably and quickly, secure in the knowledge that she had never experienced two nightmares in one night.
What Hermione didn't know, however, was that far from where she was, the very woman who was the subject of all her nightmares was smiling widely, her own wand lowering from touching her forehead, the telltale sign of using magic related to influencing the mind.