The Wait

Prologue: In the Trunk

I am not JKR, nor do I hold any rights to her collective work of Harry Potter. I am merely using her characters to twist and play with.

Hermione was panicking. Her heart was skipping beats, and her tears were falling silently down her face as she cowered into a tight ball. Her head curled to her chest, and with her hands tucked tightly around her neck, she could hear the blood flowing through her arms. It drowned out the sound of Lucius' movements in the room.

She wanted him gone. She wanted him away.

She hated to be this afraid. She hated this feeling of helplessness.

Just before she saw Lucius arrive at Spinner's End, she had sent her Patronus to Harry. How long it would take him to arrive, she did not know.

She could only hear the sounds that her body produced, the thumping of a rapid heartbeat that drummed wildly in her ear, and the loud muffled air that was passing in and out of her nostrils. She felt like her body was making too much noise even thought she remained so still.

Outside the trunk she couldn't hear him, but she knew that he was there. Somewhere out there Lucius paced around the room and she wondered if he knew where she was.

The floor creaked beside the trunk and her breath hitched.

She heard his footsteps outside the trunk. No amount of pressure on her ears could drown out that noise. His pace was slow as she heard him walking around the trunk, and then she heard him make a small chuckle as he made one more turn around the trunk. It was then that she knew that Lucius knew where she was, and he was in a mood to taunt her.

"Have we come to this? Hermione hiding from me like a frightened child that crawls under her bed in a false sense of security. It will do you no good." He loudly laughed. "Come out and I may reconsider my actions, I could be persuaded to be merciful."

Hermione remained where she was.

Her hands had now come down from her head and rested upon the bottom of the trunk. It was damp, and the wood had rotted so much that her nails easily dug into it.

Lucius made no more attempts to persuade her out, instead he spoke to her again, saying, "Do you recall that bird that flew into the greenhouse window in your first year?"

Yes, she remembered, but how did he know about it?

As if he was able to read her thoughts he continued, "Draco fondly told me of the incident. Professor Sprout thought it broke its neck and didn't bother with it. You sat crying beside its tiny body when Draco approached you. You wanted to bury it, give it a proper burial, because you couldn't abide any creature to feast upon its carcass."

Hermione was not sure where he was going with this story and so she listened carefully. Drawing in every word like it would be a hint to her fate that awaited her.

"My boy told you that he could use his magic and bring it back to life. He placed it in a wooden box, and told you to open it up within a couple of hours. Draco never forgot the delightful amazement that crossed your face when you saw it fly off into the sky. He only did this to impress you, to turn you away from your friends . . . of course that was before he found out about the circumstances of your birth. "

She then heard him sliding his hand along the top of the trunk, his fingers slightly tapping the wood above her head.

"You thought that he had the power to bring back life, but of course he did not. The bird was merely unconscious from the impact. Had he let you bury that bird Hermione, you would have destined it to awaken in a grave that you made for it."

Suddenly Hermione felt sick, her stomach lurked as she gasped for breath. She had never thought of it that way. She had always been grateful that it was alive, despite learning of Draco's cunningness later that day,

"Come out Hermione and face me." He said in a soft voice that held a bitter tone. "Stop acting like a child and face me."

He was right; it was foolish of her to keep hiding here, so she took a deep breath as she plucked up the courage that she needed to face him. She really did not have a choice and she didn't want Lucius resorting to forcing her out of the trunk like a coward.

She pushed the top of the trunk open, and slid out carefully.

She made a great deal of effort to avoid touching him as he made no effort to move out of her way. She stood over him, as he was still kneeling upon the ground, and she stared down at him in what she hoped came across as indifference -perhaps even fearless.

"There you are," he laughed lightly.

When she didn't react, Lucius looked at her with narrowed eyes, and then slowly he raised himself from the ground so that he was looking down upon her.

He said nothing to her as she tried to keep her body still, but because he was doing nothing, she nervously twitched her hand that held her wand. It gave her the confidence that she needed to steady herself as she eventually spoke, "What are you doing in Spinner's End Lucius?"

"What are you doing hiding in Severus' trunk?" Lucius cocked his head to the side, while he smiled down at her.

The grip on her wand tightened. She wanted to use it, stun him, castrate him, anything to cause him harm, but she had to wait. Harry would arrive. She had to wait for Harry to arrive. "Why have you been following me?"

She watched as his eyes followed a trail from her head, to her feet, then back up again to her face. Lucius took a step closer to her; he was so close to her now that she could feel his breath upon her forehead.

"I'm going to do something to you, much like what Draco did to that bird." Lucius brought his hand up to stroke her arm and she flinched from his touch.

"The bird just needed some time to itself, away from all stimuli to recollect itself. That is what I'm going to do to you." As he stepped even closer to her, her wandless hand pushed at his chest to stop him from coming any closer. Lucius brought his hand up and quickly curled it upon the nape of her neck, so that he could urge her body even closer to him.

It was then that she began to struggle in his grip.

"Be still." He warned her as his other hand came to rest upon her raised wrist, the one that held a wand pointed squarely at his chest. "Why haven't you used it yet?"

When she didn't answer, his hands tighten on her wrist, but the grip caused her no real pain. He leaned in closer so that he could repeat the question again in her ear.

Hermione didn't like having him this close, but she did not utter a sound, instead she kept her lips tightly together because she could not answer him. Harry would be here at any moment. There was no need to answer him.

AN: My thanks go out to Ladyinthecloak and Rdholmantx for the beta. This prompt was given to me by LITC who asked me to write a drabble with Lucius, Spinner's End and Patronus. It started out as a tiny drabble but as I played around with it, a whole story line popped into my head. So thanks go out to her for the creativity push. This story is a WIP and updates may be slow until I finish my other story.