"Yeah, yeah," Yaxley griped.

He turned her away from the usual path back to the holding room, and brought her down a new hallway. One Death Eater stood guarding the door. A young one Hermione recognized from Hogwarts. Maybe he'd been Slytherin's Seeker before Draco.

He opened the door for Yaxley, and Hermione found three witches in bright blue robes hovering around three padded tables and three chairs. One of them with bright orange hair gasped when she saw Hermione, bringing her fingers to her lips. Hermione didn't recognize her.

"Is there a problem?" Yaxley hissed.

The girl responded in a French accent, "No, monsieur." The other two looked down, one of them wringing her hands.

"Do not communicate with her." He yanked a curtain around the table and chair, standing on the outside of it.

The girls started speaking lowly in French, eyes wide and jumping to her. Hermione just stared back.

"You better be discussing curling irons," Yaxley bellowed.

The girls quieted and indicated that Hermione should sit on the first table. The orange-haired girl touched Hermione's shoulder and gestured for her to remove the robe.

Hermione frowned and shrugged. Why the hell not. They peeled the robe from her, and immediately started pressing lotion into her skin. She tensed under their hands. One of them lifted her arm above her head and pressed their wand to her armpit. Hermione twitched as the skin went numb, looking down anxiously. The witch muttered another spell and Hermione watched the hair burn away, sizzling down to the roots under the skin.

Inventive. She'd heard Lavender talking about this process, but she herself had never needed it. She would have liked it on the road with Harry and Ron though.

The memory pulled at something in her, and she looked straight ahead at the closed curtain, watching as the colors blurred.

The repeated the process under her other arm. Then removed hair from the tops of her forearms. Hermione frowned, her remaining vanity spiking. She didn't consider herself hairy.

When one girl started on her legs, the door opened behind the curtain. Yaxley led in one of the captured girls, fresh from her shower. One of the Lots.

Hermione snorted soundlessly. The Lots. Well done, gentlemen.

The sensation of her entire leg being numbed for the hair removal had her feeling a bit weightless, like her limbs did belong to her. She swung her legs, not feeling the air swish by. The girl rubbed lotion onto her hairless skin, and Hermione couldn't help but feel like she was being prepared for slaughter.

The skin of her underarm started pricking back to life. One of the French girls started in on the new Lot while the other one cast a hair-drying charm on Hermione's wet hair. The girl's eyes bugged out of her head at the sheer volume of Hermione's dried, frizzy hair, and Hermione couldn't help but laugh.

The hair girl charmed her wand to blow hot air, trying to tame down Hermione's curls, fixing her mistake.