Disclaimer: Yeah, you're right. I don't own Harry Potter. That sucks.

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Hermione's POV

I kept banging on the walls.

After a long while, a part of the white wall slid up, the metal gate still in place over the wall.

"What the fuck is it?" A grumpy guard snapped from outside. "I have no time for crazy psychopaths like you. It better not be nothing."

I pointed at Draco, my voice hoarse. "He's unconscious."

"You made me open the door to tell me he's sleeping? You little piece of shit, wasting my time... you psychopaths are a burden on wizarding society!"

The door started to slide back down.

I panicked. "No, wait, please! He's ill! I don't know what's wrong with him! He just fainted dead away! We're not crazy! We - "

His gaze hardened as he glared at me. "That's what they all say. Doesn't mean it's true."

I darted forward in desperation, my hands reaching through the bars. I grabbed his wand from his hand with a forceful jerk and spun it around in my hand. "Stupefy!" I whispered. "Petrificus Totalus! Incarcerous!" 

The guard fell face down on the ground, unconscious, bound and frozen. I grinned, my body singing in relief at feeling my magic flowing through my veins again. Granted, it was more like a small tingle of relief in my hand, which was still hanging outside the gates, and outside the room. My magic was free outside the room, and boy did it feel good.

I inspected my tiny wrist. It was slightly bruised from being forced rapidly through the gaps in the metal gate. I frowned at it. My wrist suddenly seemed very large to me. Why wasn't it small enough to fit comfortably through the gaps? There could only be one reason. I was still fat, still worthless. I choked back a sob. Why was it so hard to be just perfect? Why?

But I had a mission, I suddenly remembered. I needed to get Draco and myself out of here. I shoved the self-pity away and looked around at the rest of the corridor. There didn't seem to be any other guards right in front of our room in the same corridor. I wasn't fooled though. Someone was bound to come along sooner or later, the guard on the next shift, perhaps.

The psychopathic ward was also the most closely guarded one in St. Mungos, I knew, so this could not be the only guard we would meet if we needed to escape.

I looked back at Draco, my heart beating frantically in my chest. I was shaking, I realized. Both with terror and with anticipation. I still had it in me to run and hide and fight. At the moment I felt more in control than I had in the last year or so. I was in my element.

I turned my newly acquired wand on the gate. Within a few tries, I had broken the wards, and the gate was sliding up with a slight squeak. 

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Astoria's POV

I walked slowly down the dark alley, my pockets heavy with the Galleons Pansy had given me. I was slowing down the further I walked, I realised. 

I forced myself to walk faster.

I stopped in front of an old, abandoned telephone booth. 

"Theo." I whispered.

Nothing happened.

"Theo." I said, a little louder.

An odd, screeching sound emitted from the booth. And then he emerged from it, all 6 foot 2 of him, hunched over a little due to his height, his face gaunt and his hair matted. His blue eyes were as hard as granite, with a hint of madness inside. His mouth was twisted into a terrible, grotesque grin.

I shuddered in fear... in devotion.

"Where's the money?" He barked. His hand shot out to grip my wrist, so hard I had to bite back a scream.

I gave him everything in my pockets, down to every last knut.

"There, that's everything." I breathed. 

He grunted and stuffed the money into his grimy coat pocket.

"That's all?" 

"That's everything I have."

"You're such a fucking loser. Useless." He spat in my face. "Now get out!"

"I..." My voice shook. "I want to help... please, Theo, I want to help."

I clung to his grimy arm desperately. "Please, please, Theo, let me stay. I have nothing out there anymore, nothing. We can be together, I'll do anything, endure anything for you!"

"Fuck off!" He growled, throwing me off him with a hard jerk of his arm.

I looked at him, my eyes filling with tears. I could feel myself quivering, hear the soft whimpering that emitted from my own traitorous throat.

He snarled again and slapped me, so hard my head snapped to the side, and I landed half-sprawled on the gravel floor. Through the shock, I was beginning to feel the swollen pain in my cheek, and the stings of the gravel cutting through the skin on my hands and knees.

But it wasn't over. He slapped me, again and again, punctuating his every word with a new slap, his voice a growl in my ears. "Listen"- slap-"you"-slap-"worthless, "-slap-"despicable"-slap-"thing,"-slap-"when I tell you"-slap-"to"-slap-"fucking"-slap-"go"-slap-"you will"-slap-"fucking"-slap-"do it!"

And then he kicked me hard in the chest, sending me headfirst into the gravel. My head knocked with an audible bang against the ground, and dizziness set in. 

I curled myself up as much as possible, sobs ripping out of my throat in their intensity. "Stop, Theo. Please, stop." I begged. "I can't take it anymore."

He picked up a few of the gravel pieces on the ground and grinned manically. "This is better. I like you better like this, Astoria... pliant... begging... at my mercy."

"Remember, my dear," he purred. "remember how utterly pathetic and useless you are. You are nothing, understand? NOTHING."

And he threw the gravel my way, tears of mirth escaping from his empty blue eyes.

The pieces of gravel all hit their mark. I screamed with agony as he pelted me with them, and any stones or pebbles he found near him. Sand and mud slid into my wounds, and it burned. I screamed, yowled until I had lost my voice, unable to counter, too dizzy to even contemplate standing.

Finally he stood up, brushing his hands off. "This beats the Cruciatus any day, don't you think?" He said conversationally, his eyes glinting.

"Theo," I whispered. "please... I love you..."

He laughed, as though that was the funniest thing in the world. "And you started being a liability the moment you finished bringing in the money."

He stalked back into the telephone booth, and with a crack and a screech he had disappeared.

I cried for a long time on the ground, red welts and bruises all over my body, bleeding out into the cold gravel. But nothing else hurt more than his rejection of me.

Why wasn't I enough? Why?

A/N: Thank you for staying with this fic. I know I'm sorta sporadic with my updates on this one :P Sorry!
But I do hope you enjoyed this chappie, and stay tuned for the next one!