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Hermione was aware of the lights before she saw them, the constant thrum of electricity buzzing in her ears as if she’d shoved her head inside a beehive. Her eyes were slow to open; even the simple movement made her feel heavy, sluggish. But she blinked, eventually, squinting when she was met only with white walls.
White walls, and white lights, and white sheets. She frowned. She didn’t own white sheets. The ones on her bed were blue. Her whole bedroom, in fact, was blue and lined with so many bookshelves that she could barely see the wall anymore. This room was empty, plain, void of anything remotely personal.
The buzzing in her head grew louder and she shut her eyes once more, leaning back against the too-full pillow. There was a beeping sound now, too, just a soft blip. Blip. Blip. She counted them for a moment and then forced her eyes open again.
She still couldn’t figure out where she was. Why couldn’t she remember? She’d been out with her parents, hadn’t she? At lunch. Or no…maybe there’d been something after that? Someone…she’d seen someone. But she couldn’t remember.
“Well, well, Miss Granger.”
Her head felt far too heavy to move, but her eyes darted over to the left, towards the sound of her name. The man was tall even sitting down, dark-haired and well-dressed. And handsome. And…wrong. Something was very wrong.
She tried to open her mouth, to say something, but her own body seemed to ignore her commands. She blinked in an attempt to remove the sluggish haze from her brain, to get some clarity of her situation. A monitor to her left blipped again, and Hermione hazily recognized it as an IV.
Morphine, she realized. She was in a hospital. Why? And where were her parents?
She reached for the IV attached to her right arm. She had to stop the morphine. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t figure out why her brain screamed at her, warning her of danger. Warning her that something was definitely not right. The man at her side stopped her with the flick of his wand, pinning her hands to her sides.
Hermione’s frown deepened. A wizard? In a muggle hospital?
He smiled, but it only served to unnerve her further. “Ah, ah, ah. Best leave that where it is for now. I rather like you this docile, Miss Granger. It makes things much easier.”
There was a threat in those words, she was sure of it. And yet she could do nothing. Panic was but a tingle in the back of her drugged mind. All she wanted was to go back to sleep. But this was important. She knew it was important for her to stay awake. To stay conscious.
“I was curious when I heard someone had managed to survive the attack on Millennium Bridge,” the man continued, clearly unbothered by her inner turmoil.
Attack? Hermione racked her brain. Yes, she had been out to lunch with her parents in London. That was right. And they’d been walking—it had been a warm day, her father had wanted the fresh air—and then…
Death Eaters.
Hermione tried to move, but it was futile. The morphine was still weighing her down, and the man at her side had effectively spelled her immobile. Bile rose in her throat, the panic finally becoming more pronounced, and Hermione breathed raggedly through her nose in an attempt to control her fear.
“One girl who didn’t drown, by some miracle.” He spat the last word with a dry laugh. “I knew you had to be a witch, but imagine my surprise when Dolohov informed me you were Potter’s mudblood.”
Hermione jerked at that. Dolohov…she still remembered fighting him at the Ministry. And if Dolohov was reporting to this man…that could only mean…
Voldemort.
“What luck,” he said, a cruel smile twisting on his face. His eyes flashed red for just a moment, and Hermione sucked in a shuddering breath.
Before the man could say another word, a doctor bustled into the room, chart in hand.
“Ah, good, you’re awake.”
Hermione half wanted to scream at him to turn around, to run, to get out before the man beside her killed him. The other half had never before been so relieved to see another human being in her entire life.
“It is miraculous that you didn’t suffer more damage,” the doctor said, glancing over her vitals. “How you managed to survive…” He shook his head. “If you’re lucky, we might even get you out of here by the end of the day. Your leg is broken, but nothing a few weeks of rest won’t fix.”
“My parents?” Hermione asked, voice croaking. She was nearly positive she already knew the answer, but she had to hear the doctor say it.
The man hesitated. “They were on the bridge when it collapsed. I’m sorry, Miss Granger, but they didn’t make it.”
So they were dead. She’d been planning on wiping their memories of her this very afternoon, after they’d gotten home. This was going to be their farewell before she sent them off to Australia. She’d been one day too late.
“Your cousin, Mr. Gaunt, here, has offered to take you into his care while you recover,” the doctor said, nodding to where Voldemort sat. Hermione’s eyes snapped to the man at her side again, taking in his dutifully sad expression. It made her sick. “I’ll send a nurse in in a few minutes to help you off the morphine. Then we’ll see about getting you out of here. How’s that?”
She didn’t respond, although the doctor hardly seemed like he expected her to.
“It’s the shock of losing her parents, I’m sure,” Voldemort said with a sigh, almost sounding genuine. He turned to face her more directly, so that the doctor couldn’t see the sharp edges of his smile. “Don’t worry, Hermione dear. I’ll handle everything.”