Written for the QLFC, Round 2: Where are we going? / Appleby Arrows, Chaser 2: Setting: Durmstrang, using the prompts: (image) image . shutterstock z/stock-photo-376350100 . jpg (heart in a cage), (quote) Freedom is still the most radical idea of all. — Nathaniel Branden, (song) All We Know — The Chainsmokers.

My thanks to Jade, Lexi and Jill for betaing!

Word count: 3006

I said that faith is all I know (yes, I lied)

Freedom is still the most radical idea of all — Nathaniel Branden

Hermione remembers the way she had felt when Durmstrang officials had come to her parents' house. She remembers being eleven and terrified because she could do things nobody else could, remembers hearing "magic" and thinking everything will be alright.

She should have known that was a trap.

She wishes she could go back in time and warn her younger self, wishes she could tell that stupidly naïve girl not to go, that it was all a lie and that she would never, ever belong there the way she was promised.

But then she'd have lived a very different life, and as terrible as this one is, it's also hers. There's value in that.

.x.

At first, Durmstrang is everything she could have ever hoped for. Yes, it gets dreadfully cold, though Hermione figures that European winters are to blame, and yes, the school itself looks pretty much like she'd expect Dracula's castle to look, but her roommates are nice enough.

And the magic… God, the magic is something else. It flows in her veins like liquid fire, making her feel powerful. She could study it forever and never learn everything about it.

(As it turns out, there is a reason for that.)

She sends an owl back to her parents once a week, telling them about what she's learned in words she hopes they can understand, but between her lessons and her homework, she doesn't really have time to miss them much.

Seven years without seeing them will be a long time, she knows, but she's ready for that. It's the price she has to pay to enter this magical world, after all, and she rather thinks she'd do anything to learn magic.

She notices things out of place slowly. At first, it's really just small details, not even enough to put together a whole picture. But the older students in her dorm are younger than the oldest students in the school, and there is something wrong with them, with the way they look at the world.

They look frightened sometimes, trapped like that fox Hermione once saw in a documentary, whose leg got caught in a hunter's trap. It had known it would die, and eventually, had stopped fighting and just waited.

The older students look like that, sometimes, and when they think no one's watching, Hermione catches them staring at her and her year mates with something that's an awful lot like pity.

And then there's the way other students sneer at them in the corridors sometimes, their uniforms somehow richer and better than Hermione's. It takes her a while before she realizes she never sees those students in class, and even longer before she starts to question why.

"Don't concern yourself with those," her professors say when she finally asks them. "Focus on your studies." When she insists, she's told that these students follow a different cursus, one "more adapted to their skills".

For some reason, those words chill her to the bone, and she doesn't ask again.

But she notices more, after that. There are entire areas of the castle she doesn't have access to—worse, parts of the Library she isn't allowed to enter, and always, always, there are eyes following her like she's the butt of a joke she hasn't heard yet.

It isn't all bad, though. She makes friends. There's Erik, a surly Polish boy who is scarily perceptive and the best in their class at curses; Katarina, who loves books just as much as Hermione but is infinitely better with people; Rebecca, who only goes by Becky and wears a different color of nail polish every day; and Nickolai, who always thought he'd be a cook like his parents. There are others too, but these four are her closest friends.

Of them all, Hermione is the only one from Britain. It makes her somewhat special.

"The British usually go to Hogwarts," Katarina had said on their first night when everyone looked at Hermione in surprise. They all came from muggle families, of course, but Katarina, like Hermione, had done her research.

"Oh," Nickolai had replied, eyes wide. "Then why didn't you go there, too?"

"My mother's Bulgarian," Hermione had explained, because that was what she had been told when the officials from Durmstrang came to her house. "So Durmstrang was responsible for my education instead of Hogwarts."

(It takes them years to start wondering what it'd have been like, not going to Durmstrang.

It takes years, before Hermione allows herself to dream of another magical castle, this one filled with laughter and warmth instead of haughty sneers and bitter cold.

Would Hogwarts have been just as much of a trap as Durmstrang? She hopes not, but it probably is—this magical world is cruel under its golden sheen, after all, and it would fit the pattern.)

So all in all, life at Durmstrang could be better, but it also could be worse. She studies, learns about magic and this new world she's supposed to be part of, and tries not to feel too much like she's missing out on something.

It doesn't really work, but there isn't much else she can do. And in the meantime, she grows older, and hopefully, slightly wiser.

.x.

Hermione's given her own room when she's fifteen and starting her fourth year. It should be good news, should be a reason for her to rejoice, but well, she's learned that at Durmstrang, nothing ever comes free. She's not sure she really wants to know what this will cost her.

(Spoiler: she finds out, eventually, and Merlin, it's one of those things she wishes so desperately she could unlearn.)

Her parents had stopped replying to her letters last year. It had been a long time coming: their answers had been getting shorter and shorter, containing less and less information and taking longer to arrive even though Hermione still wrote to them faithfully every week. She didn't feel surprised by it, even though it still hurt, but sometimes she still rereads the old letters she kept, looking for a sign of where it started, of when they stopped caring.

Sometimes, she thinks her parents never even wrote her back in the first place. Did they ever get any of her letters?

Do they still remember ever having a daughter?

She never dares to voice those thoughts out loud, but sometimes, she feels like she should.

But Merlin, if she started going down that road, she doesn't think she could ever stop, and she doesn't like where those thoughts would lead her, doesn't like how dark and deep the chasm they're opening beneath her feet is.

Two days after she moves into her room, Headmaster Karkaroff knocks on her door. He's not alone—two of Hermione's teachers are there too, eyes as full of disdain as they ever were. He says something, barks out a word in the quick Russian Hermione's never mastered (and why would she have, when her Bulgarian was so much better?) and everything goes dark.

She doesn't know what happens next, and even if she did, Hermione doesn't think she'd tell—not that she has anyone she could tell.

(But she understands now, why some of the older students looked at her with so much pity.)

She is fifteen when she wakes up in her own bed with no memories of the last day, body weighted down by pain. She is fifteen when she looks into the mirror and sees the marks carved deep into her skin, sees the chains and bars burned into her soul and magic, the charred runes stretching from her back to her ribs in the mockery of an embrace.

She is fifteen when they bind her magic to someone else and tell her that this is all she'll ever be good for: being used as a powersource; forever meant to stick to the most basic spells and enchantments.

She is fifteen when she learns what hatred tastes like, and starts dreaming of revenge.

(In her dreams, revenge feels like flying, and tastes like freedom.)

.x.

Hermione doesn't meet Viktor until half of her fourth year has gone by. It takes her that long to adapt to the chains weighing her down—not accept, never that, but she learns to live with them because she has to (and tries to find ways to ensure that one day, she won't)—and find that while her magic has grown less usable, her mind is still as sharp.

She hates the way she knows for sure her education has been bridled, but at least she knows why now, even if it doesn't help her fix it.

Still, the Library she has access to is big enough that she hasn't even explored half of it yet. It makes her terribly envious of those who can study the rest of it. What it must be like there, she can't imagine, but the thought of that much knowledge just beyond her reach is almost enough to make her weep.

It's in the Library, too, that she meets Viktor.

She knows who he is, of course. Everyone knows who Viktor Krum, the Quidditch prodigy, is.

He's kind. She shouldn't be surprised by that, but somehow she is. He doesn't sneer, doesn't smirk at the long sleeves that cover her marked arms (the mark of her status, she knows) the way so many others do. Instead, he nods at her in greeting. It is such a normal gesture, barely anything worth notice, but for some reason it still sends her heart aflutter.

Their paths keep crossing after that, even if they don't talk. Somehow, Hermione figures that Viktor isn't one for much talking, though it could also be that the quiet atmosphere that reigns in the Library is one that is difficult to break.

On their fifth meeting, Viktor levitates her books for her when her spell fails. He smiles then, as he hands them to her, and she wants to hate him, hate the way it's so easy for him to do this when for her the simplest of spells can fail at anytime—to hate the way his prowess and kindness comes at the cost of someone else's (another muggleborn's) magic.

(That night, she screams into her pillow and cries herself to sleep, because this isn't fair.

In the morning, she puts on a smile and reminds herself that life was never fair.)

They start talking more after that. They still only meet in the Library, but now he sits next to her when she studies, and sometimes they talk about their assignments. It surprises her, how much she starts to crave those moments, those brief glimpses of the other side of this world.

Her friends are equally jealous and concerned.

"He's using you," Becky states when Hermione finally confesses. Becky's nails are duller these days, and Hermione had never thought she'd miss the bright shades so much—one more thing that's been taken from them, she thinks, and one more thing they'll have to take back.

"Using her for what, exactly?" Nickolai scoffs. "It's not like we can be of anymore use to them than we are now." He spits out the word 'them' like it's a curse. Of them all, Hermione thinks Nickolai took the revelation of their actual status the hardest—storms shimmer in his eyes constantly now, and Hermione has grown to fear the day they'll start to rage.

Katarina rolls her eyes, but it's Erik's sardonic voice that answers him. "Obviously, he wants to sleep with her."

"He doesn't," Hermione replies, even though that might explain a few things. Somehow, the thought that Viktor might be interested in her makes her heart beat faster. "And anyway, I'm using him."

She is, too. If she asks the right questions, he can tell her things she could never learn by herself, and hopefully, bring her one step closer to them breaking free. It hurts her a little, every time, but it's a pain she willingly bears.

"You're too nice to be using people," Becky says kindly, putting a hand on Hermione's arm, but she doesn't say 'don't do it', or 'this could break you' the way she clearly wants to, and for that Hermione is grateful.

"I know what I'm doing," Hermione retorts.

"You'd better," Katarina says. "Because we don't want to be the ones who'll have to deal with your broken heart."

"I'm not going to get my heart broken," Hermione replies, rolling her eyes, but even as she says it, her heart skips a beat and she realizes—she was lying.

.x.

"Why do you talk to me?" Hermione ends up asking Viktor during one of their study sessions. She doesn't exactly mean to—anything that has to do with the way they clearly belong to different castes of people has been an unspoken taboo since day one—but the words tumble out of her mouth anyway.

Viktor looks startled, then thoughtful. It's oddly fitting on him, softening his face into something less threatening. "I don't know," he finally says. "You were there, I guess, and I wanted to. Do I need any other reason?"

And if he were one of her friends—another muggleborn like her—Hermione would agree. But the truth is, he's not. He's everything she's not: born in the right place, in the right family, in a world that makes room for him instead of erasing him. Hermione laughs so she doesn't scream.

And for a moment, she sees something different. Another world, maybe—a kinder life, where there would be no cage imprisoning her heart and soul, keeping her magic captive. She's surprised by how much she wants it, and she even considers telling Viktor about it; the same way she shares her dreams and hopes of freedom with her muggleborn friends.

She knows better, though, and so she only says, "I guess you don't."

Viktor nods and turns back to his studies with a grunt, and Hermione thinks that's it. The thought is surprisingly disappointing.

Only that's not it. Instead, it's as if her question opened the barrage of Viktor's curiosity, and suddenly they're no longer talking about only the safe subjects that are their lessons, but they branch out to everything else.

It's odd, how quickly she gets used to Viktor being around, to the way her heart starts racing when he leans a little closer. He's around her so often she starts to wonder if her friends hadn't been right, if he doesn't want more from her—if maybe she wouldn't even like that.

(It's a cruel joke, really: here she is, with nothing but her body to call her own, and one of her jailors expects her to give that up too.)

(Only Viktor isn't one of her jailors, not really for all that he bears the rune on his wrist that marks him as a pureblood—as one of those who stole her kind's magic.)

(Still, she wishes she could know if she could trust him.)

Their bubble of peace lasts longer than Hermione'd have thought, but in the end, it still bursts.

They've never even kissed, but three and a half months after they first met, Hermione finally understands why no one ever bothered her for making Viktor's acquaintance.

Hermione's eating when it happens, and at first she doesn't understand—doesn't know what the echoing sound of heavy gold coins hitting the table right in front of her means.

"So, is that more than he's paying you to spread your legs for him?" an older student leers, and Merlin, but Hermione doesn't even know his name and she still knows way too much about the kind of self-entitled bastard he is. "It's pretty much all you're worth for, anyway," he continues, and now that the words are registering, Hermione's cheeks are starting to burn with shame and rage.

"Come on, Hermione, let's just leave," Katarina hisses in her ear, grabbing the fist Hermione hadn't even realized she'd made. It really hits her then, that this boy will get away with anything he does, and that no one will intervene in her favor—that the best thing she can do is to leave.

"This isn't right," she rages at her friends later. "They shouldn't be able to do this to us, we should be able to defend ourselves without fearing retribution!"

The words pour out of her mouth like poison until her anger burns out, and she collapses next to them. "I just—there should be more we could do."

"Maybe there is," Erik suddenly says, eyes alight with a madness Hermione can already feel spreading.

But maybe madness is what they need now.

.x.

Viktor finds her the next day, clearly torn between embarrassment and rage about what happened.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"Do you even know what you're apologizing for?" Hermione laughs, heart in her throat.

Viktor stares at her unflinchingly, nodding. "I do." He sighs. "You should come with me in June, when I graduate," he adds, like a peace offering.

She wants to say yes. It hurts, this way her own heart betrays her.

"Don't you think it's time we stopped this?" she asks instead. "That we stopped pretending we could ever belong together?"

"We could be, though."

"No, we couldn't," Hermione lies. She moves to leave the Library, but Viktor's hand on her arm stops her.

"What if I could help you?"

"Help me with what?"

Viktor sends her an unimpressed look. "With this little rebellion of yours. You aren't as subtle as you think, you know."

"And what would you want in return for your kindness?"

"Nothing you wouldn't willingly give," he replies, eyes heartbreakingly soft.

She doesn't know what makes her trust him—maybe she's just too tired to resist—but she sits back down.

"Alright," she says, and with a heavy heart, starts outlining their plan for a revolution.

Others will say she's dooming it before it starts, but Hermione rather thinks she's giving it the chance it needs to grow.

She hopes she is, anyway.