Vacivitas

Chapter One

Cover artwork was gifted to me by Sirenartificial. Graphic design was done by me.

Trigger warnings: they will be numerous and many, and listed at the top of each chapter. This chapter includes captivity and the selling of a human being for nefarious purposes.

Chapter One

"You accept darkness, yet choose to live in the light. So why is it that you loathe us who teeter on the edge of nothing; we, who were turned away by both light and darkness, never given a choice?" —Xemnas, Kingdom Hearts

It's not the scent of blood that wakes Hermione, but the feel of it beneath her, cold as it sticks to the side of her arm and leg. There's no pain across her body save that of the general ache that sleep upon stone grants, but she runs trembling fingers down her entire body in case she's too far removed from her senses to judge for herself.

Is it hers? Is it someone else's? She doesn't know. She can't know, when they've all been kept here in the darkness of this forsaken pit for days she long ago lost count of. There's girls and boys here, most of them favoring weeping over conversation. It's no one that she knew before her capture, yet she feels as though she knows them all the same. Like they've all been together in the two years since the war ended.

Since the war was lost.

But she knows better. The remnants of the group that had escaped the courtyard with her had long ago gone, all killed. The Order was decimated, eradicated from the face of the earth no later than a fortnight after. And Harry, poor Harry, dead after Voldemort's spell overpowered his.

She still dreams about the way his body crumpled to the ground.

The pungence of the blood she's woken in pulls her the last few steps to waking, and she reaches blind hands into the darkness to see if the one who lies beside her still remains. It's not outside the realm of possibility that she or someone else was taken. By the amount of tacky blood she feels through, if that's what happened, the individual must have put up a mighty fight.

A small voice comes from the right, a scant whisper so as to not alert the guards who stand at the top of the pit.

"I think they took her."

"I think so, too," Hermione replies. Her throat sticks together, sides rubbing against one another like sandpaper as she struggles to swallow past her intense thirst. "She's not here beside me. Did you see it happen, Faye?"

"No. I thought I heard something, but I was half-asleep and so I wasn't sure. Now I am."

"I wish she would have told us her name."

"Me, too."

Hermione falls back down into the cold blood, lying down with her back on the stone and her bloody hands resting upon the ragged tunic that stretches across her stomach. There was once a time where her only goal would be to think of a way to get them all out of this underground prison. Once a time where she would have raised morale with just her voice in an attempt to encourage them all to band together.

But what would be the point?

The war was lost. The wizarding communities of Britain, Scotland, and recently Ireland belonged to Voldemort. Who knew what he planned to do about the Muggles? He'd certainly found a way to make use of the Muggle-born witches and wizards he believed plagued civilization. He'd found a way to use Snatchers to locate anyone from the battle at Hogwarts who had survived. He was a puppeteer to those that were his puppets, forcing them to dance on poisoned strings.