Harry Potter TK: Bellatrix and Hermione

TK Commish: Bellatrix and Hermione - The (tickle) Interrogation of Hermione Granger

(This story takes place in Deathly Hallows, where Harry, Hermione and Ron have been captured by Snatchers and are taken to Malfoy Manor. Hermione is being interrogated by Bellatrix Lestrange while the boys have been locked in the cellar, where they see some familiar faces. I’ve tried to make things fit as seamlessly as this scene in the canon as possible.)

O-O-O

In the dank and musty cellar of Malfoy Manor, Harry and Ron could do nothing but fight against the ropes that bound them as they heard Hermione’s pained screams from overhead. Bellatrix was shouting something, but the words were incomprehensible. The room was awash with light, lit by Ron’s Deluminator while Luna was gritting her teeth, trying to hack at their ropes with a rusty nail. They heard the echo of maniacal laughter, and Ron stopped his squirming for a second to gasp.

“Wait, is that Hermione laughing?”

Luna looked down, averting his gaze as she continued struggling with the ropes.

“It’s Bellatrix’s doing,” Harry heard Dean croak, from the other end of the room. He was in the best shape of the other inhabitants of the room, though that wasn’t saying much, as Ollivander was curled up in the foetal position, unmoving, and the goblin, Griphook, whose face was flecked with deep cuts.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, as he shuddered as Hermione screamed again, though this was more high-pitched, and more like a startled squeal than a howl of anguish.
“Do you want to tell them, Luna? You’re the one who went through it, not me,” Dean said, lowering his head.

“Hermione’s not laughing because Bellatrix is telling her some funny joke, she’s tickling her, and not the gentle kind of tickling you do on a date,” Luna said softly.

“It’s the kind of tickling that’ll make you cry with laughter then cry with pain. You’ll roar with laughter till your throat hurts, and then you’ll roar with pain till you cry. She’s a monster,” Dean said disdainfully, shaking his head.

“When Dean told me about it, I laughed, it seemed so silly, but it’s no laughing matter...” Luna said, her voice trailing off.

“What are you two on about?” Ron said, impatiently, as he glanced up again. Bellatrix was talking now, and Harry was pretty sure he could hear the sound of Hermione sobbing.

“Tickle-torture,” Dean said, exasperated. “Didn’t you guys ever pay attention in History of Magic?”

“I didn’t really anyone did,” Harry said, cringing as he heard Hermione’s panicked laughter again. Now that he paid attention, there was no warmth or mirth in Hermione’s laughter, like the cackle of a madwoman. “Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

“Bellatrix likes to play games with you,” Luna explained matter-of-factly, as if she was talking about something that had happened to someone else, not what she herself had to go through. Harry had to admire her inner strength and what she must have had to endure, and he almost wanted Luna to stop talking because of how painful this must be for her. “She’ll use the Cruciatus on you first, and while you’re screaming in pain she’ll ask if you want it to stop. She’ll ask if you would rather laugh instead, and then suddenly the pain will be gone. She’ll tickle you, till you gasping for breath, and then ask if you’re laughing at her. She’ll then tickle you again if you deny it, and then it’s the Cruciatus again.”

Dean spat. “She’s a monster.”

“Why… Hermione…” Ron said, as he pounded on the walls of the Cellar. “HERMIONE!”

“Ron, you have to calm down and let Luna get you out,” Harry said, as she continued with the ropes. “We have to save her before it’s too late…”

“There,” Luna smiled, as the stubborn rope finally broke.

“Thanks, Luna. Now how do we get out of here?” Harry said frantically, as he pulled out the broken shard from Sirius’s mirror and clenched it tightly.

O-O-O

Hermione could feel Bellatrix’s thumbnail jab deeply into her scalp, as she was dragged into the sitting room of Malfoy Manor. It was lavishly decorated, with beautiful paintings and tasteful furniture, but Hermione was in no mood to appreciate it. Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw the Malfoys and Greyback retreat a respectful distance away, as if to get out of Bellatrix’s way. Just what was she going to do to her?
She felt Bellatrix grab her by the hair, wrenching her face around, so Bellatrix was facing her. “This is your last chance, you filthy mudblood,” Bellatrix said, her face twisted as if the touch of Hermione’s skin was revolting her. The feeling was mutual, Bellatrix smelled like scented candles and dried blood. “How did you get that sword? HOW?”

Hermione swore she could feel individual hairs being pulled free of the roots, by the way Bellatrix pulled at her hair. Her eyes flickered to Bellatrix’s wand, wondering if she could make a grab at it, but the dark-haired older witch caught Hermione glance.

“I should have known better than to even offer the chance to a dirty mudblood like you,” Bellatrix spat, waving her wand. Hermione found herself suspended upside down, with her arms pulled down as if they were an invisible weight at the ends of them. It was a strange thing to care about at a time like this, but for modesty’s sake, Hermione was at least grateful that she was wearing trousers.

All concerns about such things were promptly erased by Bellatrix’s next word, however.

“Crucio.”

Hermione felt every nerve explode in agony. Her whole body spasmed from the pain, and by the time Bellatrix relinquished, Hermione was seeing stars. Being upside down, all the blood had flowed to her head, and she knew that passing out or going insane were both becoming increasingly likely possibilities. Hermione was panting as if she had just run a marathon, and when she conjured the strength to open her eyes and glance at Bellatrix, the cruel witch looked like she had no plans on stopping soon.

“Is the poor dirty mudblood afraid of a little pain?” Bellatrix baby-talked mockingly. “Then maybe try this on for size.”

Upon saying that, Bellatrix suddenly reached out with her long varnished nails and dug her nails deep into Hermione’s ribcage. Hermione hadn’t been expecting this, and her nerves had been so on edge that for a second she didn’t know how to respond. A moment later, it hit her. She had been expecting more pain, but Bellatrix wasn’t pinching her so much with her nails as… tickling her? Hermione’s didn’t know what to think as fingers scoured all over her ribs, gliding up and down her quivering sides, and dipping under her loosely-hanging shirt to scratch her belly. All she could think to do with laugh, and surge maniacally against her bondage, but the spell Bellatrix had cast on her had her in quite a bind, her wrists and ankles couldn’t move, so all she could do was sway side to side helplessly.  

Hermione soon found herself laughing, a terrible, loud, raspy, wheezing laughter noise that she felt sounded nothing like her as Bellatrix’s ruthless fingers probed up and down her torso. The hands were quick and merciless, never even giving her a chance to breathe as they tickled her into silent laughter, and soon Hermione was fighting for every gasp of air as those relentless fingernails tickled up and down her helpless mid-section.

“What’s wrong, mudblood? You find this amusing, do you?” Bellatrix asked, looking straight in Hermione’s eyes. Hermione wanted so badly to look away. “You think your little deception is funny?”

“Nohohoho, please no,” Hermione heard herself whimpering.
“Are you laughing at me?” Bellatrix said softly, as she dipped her finger into Hermione’s bellybutton, and began slowly corkscrewing it around.

“No…” Hermione bit her lip, she didn’t want to laugh, but it was getting impossible to keep it in as Bellatrix’s long fingernails invaded the very ticklish little divot. She held on a few moments, but soon she couldn’t help but giggle with her bellybutton being tickled like this.

“I hate people who laugh at me,” Bellatrix said, as she waved her wand at Hermione. “Crucio.”

“NOOOO!” Hermione howled in pain, as she felt like every bone in her body had burst into flames, she hung there, writhing and upside down for a few moments until Bellatrix walked over to a black chest in the corner of the room, the clacking of her high-heeled shoes echoing across the room. Bellatrix nonchalantly waved her wand, and the pain dissipated, leaving Hermione gasping and coughing. She glanced around the room and saw almost-sympathetic looks on Draco Malfoy and his parents, but Fenrir Greyback watched the show with a hungry glint in his eyes.

Bellatrix pulled out a pair of scrub brushes from the ornate chest, the kind you might expect to see in a janitor’s closet.

“Now how did you steal my sword? How did you get into my Gringotts vault?” Bellatrix said, raising her wand threateningly, as the levitation scrub brushes loomed behind her.

“No, I swear, we dihinhihinihiht!’ Hermione hadn’t even finished her sentence when Bellatrix sent the scrub brushes after her with a negligible wave of her wand.

“If you won’t tell the truth, then scream for me.”

Hermione found herself straight back into spasmodic laughter, within mere seconds. Hermione wasn’t sure a few minutes ago while Bellatrix was tickling her with such ferocity that it was possible, but this time the tickling was even more intense that before.

This time, she had to contend with Bellatrix’s long savage fingernails descending on her underarms, her thin shirt providing little protection as they aggressively scrapped and grazed up and down the sensitive flesh.

Hermione again tried to struggle away from the fingers, but for all her vaunted intelligence she couldn’t figure out a way to endure the tickling when she couldn't move even a centimetre away from Bellatrix's fiendish fingernails as they scritched and scratched all over the hollows of her sensitive underarms, where she had always been so ticklish. Hermione felt so powerless, there was nothing she could do but shake her head from side to side to take her mind off the tickling, her fingers splayed and clenched in fists , and she quickly found herself begging between giggles and laughter for her to stop.

As if the underarms weren’t bad enough, the pair of scrub brushes were doling out some heavy damage too, as they snuck under her shirt to brush all over her stomach and ribs. The way they vibrated tickled terribly, and they appeared to have innate knowledge of which spots were best to incite laughter from the poor trapped brunette; it seemed almost like they had a psychic connection with their malicious owner, as every soft spot Bellatrix had discovered while she had been so happily and so thoroughly scratching her nails all over Hermione’s torso were often the scrub brush’s first focus. There were times when Hermione felt that she couldn't breathe at all, from laughing so hard, especially when the scrub brushes would circle around Hermione’s quivering bellybutton.

Hermione felt like she was immersed in horrific ticklish laughter, trapped in a prison of mirth, as Bellatrix and her evil scrub brushes tickled her upperbody for what felt like an hour, but when Hermione glanced at the clock in the room it turned out to only be ten minutes.  

“Crucio,” Bellatrix said, without warning, and Hermione felt her body wracked with pain again. IN her pain-addled state, she dimly noticed her body spinning back around, and the blood rush back to her head. She then found herself lifted a good six feet off the floor, arms outstretched above her head again and, legs bound together by an invisible force. Hermione screamed in agony as Bellatrix stood there, arms crossed. “Are you ready to talk now, Mudblood?”

Hermione found herself sobbing, her clothing damp with sweat, her hair is dishevelled, and her cheeks are streaked with tears, but she wouldn’t betray Harry, not when it the Wizarding world’s last hope.

“We didn’t steal your sword, please, we just found it!” Hermione said, lying desperately, but the way Bellatrix narrowed her eyes, Hermione knew she didn’t buy it.

“Hmm,” Bellatrix smiled, a smile without warmth whatsoever as she strode towards her. “I look forward to breaking you till you change your story,” Bellatrix said, as her long, black-nailed fingers unfastened Hermione’s shoes and slid them off, before doing the same with her socks, exposing her pale, bare feet. Hermione scrunched her toes nervously, realizing that was the extent of what she could do to defend her poor feet in this position. Hermione wiggled her unpainted toes nervously, adjusting to the cool air on her soles.

She barely got a second to brace herself before she felt the assault of dark nails on the bottoms of her feet, and she shrieked with sudden laughter. All the walking Hermione had done in the past few weeks had desensitized her feet somewhat, but she had always been very ticklish there, and she was grateful she wasn’t wearing her school nylons, because they always made it first. She remembered a few years back, in the Gryffindor girl’s dormitories where Lavender Brown and her best friend Parvati Patil had ganged up on her, asking for the answers to a Transfiguration assignment, with one sitting on her legs to pin her down while the other scratched their nails up and down her feet. They didn’t have long talons for fingernails like Bellatrix Lestrange however, and at least back then Hermione had been able to use her other foot to dissuade her tormenters, or at least hide one foot with the other. She had no such luxury now, and Bellatrix was free to use one hand to stretch her toes out, extending the tendon and accentuating Hermione’s high arches, and the other to use those cruel nails over her now-stretched sole. Bellatrix was fast and relentless, scratching all over across the taut surface with devastating results. Bellatrix was savagely effective, working in random patterns into the tickling so that there was no way to even try to endure it, it all caught her off guard. No matter how monotonous the tickling seemed to be sometimes, Hermione felt like she was just getting more and more ticklish.

Bellatrix’s faithful scrub brushes were assisting her as well, when Bellatrix had latched back Hermione’s toes to tease the very sensitive undersides or drag her nails up and down the arch, the scrub brushes were free to tickle Hermione’s other flailing foot with impunity. When Bellatrix’s was scratching at both of Hermione’s feet however, the scrub brushes seem to understand the hierarchy and retreated away from the soles, to lightly tantalize along Hermione’s ankles or the tops of the feet and the insteps.

Hermione found herself falling in and out of consciousness, and it felt like nothing existed but the cycles of pain and laughter, which right now felt like two sides of the same coin. She found fresh energy for squirming and laughter when Bellatrix commandeered one of her scrub brushes, grinning at Hermione as she did so, muttering something about the manual approach.

Hermione then received an in-depth lesson on how a scrub brush could be used to tickle in so many different ways, depending on how its owned wielded it, one of the few times in her life she had ever so badly wanted to miss a lesson. It could be used short and fast, to hit her with an intense attack, Bellatrix demonstrated as she proceeded to do repeatedly on Hermione’s high arches. It could be used long and slow, to tease her with slow and drawn out tickling, Bellatrix demonstrated as she slowly scrubbed all over the tips of Hermione’s toes and under them.

Hermione’s entire sole was explored with the brush, hitting all the sweet spots on her slender pale feet, the very centre of the sole, the base of the toes, and the base of her arch, till all Hermione could feel that nothing existed except the rampant unyielding sensations from her feet as they were mercilessly tickle-tortured.

Bellatrix stepped back, watching Hermione wiggle and laugh as the scrub brushes resumed their scrubbing independently of their master. She stood and watched, a smile on her face as tears clung to Hermione’s long eyelashes or streaked down Hermione’s face.
“You may be wondering why I use tickling, Mudblood, and seeing as how this may be the last thing you remember, I shall tell you. In Azkaban, where I rotted for fifteen years, there is nothing to do but think, and all I could do was dwell on my failures to the Dark Lord,” Bellatrix flicked her wand casually, and the scrub brushes moved away from Hermione’s poor feet, the pretty pink soles now reddened from all the scrubbing. The brown-haired girl got no respite, however, as the scrub brushes merely gravitated towards her torso. Bellatrix leaned over to roll up Hermione’s shirt, and stood back as they started to scrub her stomach. During the scrubbing, Hermione was struggling to think coherently, as one brush stuck around her tummy, circling the bellybutton, while the other was more explorative, dipping along her sides, or going up into her ribs.

Bellatrix began to talk again, though Hermione was finding it hard to listen as her upperbody was assaulted with ticklish sensations. “All, I could do was think, about how those weakling Longbottoms had been broken so easily,” Bellatrix said, admiring her long black fingernails, which looked rather like claws to Hermione. “What business did they even have being aurors if they could not take the Cruciatus for a few minutes?” Hermione shrieked as she felt those fingernails hit the bare soles of her feet, and was back into spasmodic laughter, within mere seconds. It was difficult to say which was worse, Hermione found as she fought for each breath, laughter being ripped away from her by each rake of Bellatrix’s evil fingers or each scrub of those remorseless scrub brushes. It was hard to say which was more intense, much like it was rapidly growing harder to say if the tickling or the Cruciatus had been worse.

Bellatrix smiled, showing her yellowed teeth. “So I decided to explore alternative methods of torture. My cellmate was a weak witch who was afraid of me, and she made the perfect subject for experimentation. In fact, when I close my eyes I can still remember her begging me to stop tickling her feet… and they weren’t nearly as ticklish as yours, Mudblood. So understand…  I don't tickle to make you laugh, I tickle to take your mind,” the dark-haired witch said softly, as her clawed hands flew over Hermione’s receptive feet. Bellatrix was ruthless as she made sure to target all the right areas to frazzle Hermione’s mind with overwhelming sensations and break her will. Bellatrix revisited all the old spots, and she was not disappointed. The bases of her victim’s nude, unpainted toes, the soft wrinkles in the middle of and under her arches, all of these sensitive spots were given extensive attention, and Hermione was whimpering by the end of it. She was laughing hysterically again, and her tortured, raspy laughter echoed across the room, the only time there was silence was when Hermione went into silent laughter.

“Plehehehease Stahahahap!” Hermione sobbed, her feet couldn’t move an inch, and her throat hurt from laughing so much.

“You want me to stop? THEN TELL ME! Tell me the truth, you filthy mudblood. How did you get that sword? Were you in my Gringotts Vault? ANSWER ME,” Bellatrix drew her knife, and then paused for a moment, considering. Hermione whimpered, the brushes were still sliding across her skin, but she was afraid to make a noise. She almost let out a sigh of relief when Bellatrix sheathed her blade, to smile widely at her.

“Or don’t. The Dark Lord can wait. The night is young, and I WILL break you,” Bellatrix threatened, as she rummaged through the chest of tools she had brought with her. Bellatrix waved her wand wordlessly, and Hermione felt her eyesight grow dark. She was blind, Hermione knew the spell she had cast, having read about it in one of her books, but without her wand, knowing the counter-curse was a moot point.

Hermione heard the chest slam shut, meaning Bellatrix had found what she wanted. The Dark Witch was humming, a foreboding sound that filled her with dread. What was she doing? Even the scrub brushes on her midsection had stopped, but Hermione was grateful for the chance to catch her breath.

“The blonde in the cellar. One of your friends, I believe. She couldn’t take it when I started to do this” Bellatrix whispered in Hermione’s ear, making the younger girl jump, scaring her half to death. “She put up such a brave front,” Bellatrix giggled, baby-talking. “She acted so tough but her little tootsies were far too ticklish to take it. I wonder if history will repeat itself.”

Hermione hoped she hadn’t been talking about Luna, who was the only blonde who had come to mind, but her train of thought was derailed when suddenly her right foot became aflame with ticklish sensations. This somehow even topped the torturous sensations of the previous method, and this was just her feet! Hermione wasn’t sure what it was, but she had a sickening sensation she was experiencing the sensation of a hairbrush on her sole, as it was definitely and lots of little bristles, each one contributing its own ticklish response to the war effort of eroding Hermione’s mind. It was similar to the scrub brush, Hermione dimly reflected but the bristles were far more pronounced on the hairbrush, and the hairbrush was almost much larger, covering more tickle surface area. Hermione could intimately feel every millimetre the brush scraped as it traversed across her foot, every tiny prickle making contact. It felt like another eternity to Hermione while Bellatrix Lestrange mercilessly scrubbed every inch of her feet with the brush, Hermione only finding fresh energy to scream and squirm when the smirking witch procured another brush, so she had one for each ticklish foot.

“Do you want me to stop?” Bellatrix crooned, stopping momentarily, before diving right back into the torment, this time making sure to scrub real good underneath’s Hermione’s flailing toes, and in-between them. “Talk, talk, talk! Crucio!” Hermione felt her body wracked with a new type of pain, one that made her scream as loud as the brushes had.

“Tell me! How did you get into my vault?" Bellatrix bellowed "Did that dirty little goblin in the cellar help you?"

"We only met him tonight! We've never been inside your vault..." Hermione sobbed, trying to think of a credible lie. She could only think of one in her frazzled state of mind, and she hoped it would be enough. "It isn't the real sword! It's a copy, just a copy!"

"A copy?" Bellatrix screeched, starting to scrub Hermione’s feet again, driving Hermione back to hysterical laughter. "Oh, a likely story!"

"Wait, but we can find out easily!" came Lucius's voice, Hermione had almost forgotten he and the other Malfoys were still in the room. "Draco, fetch the goblin, he can tell us whether the sword is real or not!"

Bellatrix released Hermione from her spell, and the girl immediately collapsed on the ground, lying at Bellatrix's feet. Hermione was relieved that she could start to see again, but it was too painful to stand.

"Well?" Bellatrix was saying to Griphook. "Is it the true sword?"

"No," the goblin said. "It is a fake."

"Are you sure?" panted Bellatrix. "Quite sure?"

"Yes," said the goblin.

Relief broke across her face, all tension drained from it.

"Good," she said, and with a casual flick of her wand she slashed another deep cut into the goblin's face, and he dropped with a yell at her feet. She kicked him aside. "And now," she said in a voice that burst with triumph, "we call the Dark Lord!"

And she pushed back her sleeve and touched her forefinger to the Dark Mark. "And I think," Bellatrix said, "we can dispose of the Mudblood. Greyback, take her if you want her."
Hermione tore open her eyes to look at the disgusting man leering over her, when she heard the most beautiful sound in her entire life.

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Ron roared, bursting into the drawing room. Bellatrix looked stunned, and she was too slow to react as Ron pointed a wand at her. "Expelliarmus!" he yelled, and Bellatrix’s wand flew into the air and was caught by Harry, who had sprinted behind Ron.

"Stupefy!" Harry shouted, aiming at the Malfoys. Hermione saw Lucius Malfoy collapse onto the hearth and jets of light fly from Draco's, Narcissa's, and Greyback's wands. She held her breath as Harry threw himself to the floor, rolling behind a sofa to avoid them. Hermione struggled to keep her eyes open, but the tickling and the Cruciatus had taken its toll. As she felt herself slip into unconsciousness, she had a smile on her lips, the first smile in a while that had not been forcibly induced on her. Harry and Ron were okay, and maybe they would all live to fight another day.

Just let her close her eyes for a second as she caught her breath…

O-O-O