Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling sa-, I mean, respectively does!
So this is a new story idea that D-D Dreamer helped me come up with, thanks a bunch! Tell me what you think! And Draco may be a little out of character (ooc). Um, well, have fun reading! And feel free to leave me a review/favorite/follow but I ask no flames please. Happy reading!
*Note: This is not going to be a dark story*
Trapped
oOo
It was on the fifteenth night Hermione Granger heard the sharp cry of pain, instinct overtook her and she ventured from the place she'd taken to sulking to the dusty window. Wiping the filth from the window she looked into the darkness of the sky. Just fifteen days ago she'd barely escaped from the grasp of the Snatchers even though she, Harry and Ron had managed to outrun them for a year and a half. The memory of Ron's betrayal was ingrained in her mind, her worriedness was overshadowed with the bitterness she felt towards him.
She'd been badly bruised from the diversion she created to let Harry slip pass the clutches of the Snatchers. Harry, whose location was unknown as of now was continuing the hunt for horcruxes, or that's what Hermione forced herself to believe. The truth was, she was still in utter shock. The kind that made her sit in the corner and tell herself coerced lies that she would ultimately not believe. Ron who had been both her and Harry's friend for many years had betrayed their location to Lord Voldemort without any remorse. Even Draco Malfoy who had been tasked with the killing of Dumbledore had humanity in him to stop himself before the Unforgivable spell left his mouth.
Her eyes were red from the amount of crying she'd been doing. Obliviousness seemed like the best gift in the world right now, without knowing Harry's whereabouts or her near future she had no motivation to continue healing. She wished to be with Harry at the moment, Ron's betrayal might have been hard on her but on Harry it was simply worse. The amount of time they'd spent together for the last seven years was definitely taking its toll on him and unlike Hermione, he didn't have a grumpy old house elf for companionship.
So in the long run, there was someone out there with problems worse than hers.
"Don't be stupid, Mudblood." Kreacher's abrasive voice filled the deadly silent room, he slammed the soup he'd been holding on the nightstand, where Hermione had placed her wand. Kreacher, the house elf who seemed to hold a grudge to any living thing had helped her. Ironically, when Hermione had apparated and appeared bloody and battered from the charms that had managed to nick her, he involuntarily helped her. In hindsight, Hermione concluded that he didn't want to go through the trouble of cleaning her corpse.
The man's winces of anguish grew louder. Each sound got to her heart a little more and she felt herself shaking with fury. Not at Kreacher's derogatory warning but at the fact that no one was going to help him, "I can't just leave him there to die."
"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" His croaky voice reverberated throughout the room.
Hermione didn't expect a house elf who was use to brutal punishments to understand the gravity of the situation, for Merlin's sake he was tortured and okay with it. The idea would have pissed her off if she wasn't fighting the reckless act of going out there in the pouring rain to come to the aid of a stranger. Hell, she didn't even know who was torturing him. Maybe a Death Eater, or perhaps a deranged wizard. But she couldn't live with the idea of him dying, especially when she could've prevented it.
Hermione ignored the house elf's cries of dissatisfaction and hurried to the nightstand Kreacher had placed the soup. Much to her annoyance he had taken to pulling the hem of her shirt, with the little remaining strength she had she pulled him off and he fell to the floor but not hard enough to injure himself, maybe just his elf rear.
She had to save that man. She'd gone through the same thing with the Snatchers—except Harry had saved her using an Impedimenta jinx and then she'd tearfully told him to go away before they regained consciousness. The feeling of helplessness was worse than the jinxes the Snatchers tortured her with which left her with two broken ribs, a badly sprained ankle and various bruises. They were all healed now thanks to the assortment of salves, ointments Sirius had stored and Kreacher's knowledge of magic remedies. By her ninth day there, Hermione had been healed physically but not mentally.
Her wand was stained with the rancid smelling soup Kreacher had made. She wiped the remnants of the awful soup on her shirt and made her way out of the room. She scrambled down the two flights of stairs and past the screaming portrait. She bolted through the door with lightning speed.
Hermione was soaked within seconds but she didn't pay attention to it. She couldn't. The screams grew louder and Hermione felt her legs take her to the source of it. She was running down the streets, splashing puddles, soaking her socks. Well, shit, she'd forgotten to put on shoes. That was what she got for trying to save someone's life.
She found herself nearing a dark alleyway. The sight she saw astonished her. The dark skinned boy was laying on the water-soaked ground. Rain splashing down harder and harder. A man hovered over him wearing robes of liquid black. He murmured another curse that Hermione couldn't make out which made the boy yell out. More blood oozed out of him and onto the ground, mixing with the water.
Horrified, Hermione held out her wand and muttered a clear but shaky "Experlliarmus." The wand the man was holding soared in midair and into Hermione's hand. He turned around and the man was smirking, "Looks like the filthy Mudblood's decided to come out of its hiding place."
"Leave him alone!" she yelled and then muttered a jinx spell that rebounded and was aimed for Hermione. Shocked, she leaped out of the way before it could hit her.
"Hermione… T-trap," the boy sputtered, coughing up blood. The voice was familiar and the face clicked in place. The boy who was being tortured by the death eater was Dean Thomas, a friend of both Harry and Hermione. The horrid realization reached her and before she could react or say anything, she felt the cool wood being pressed to the back of her neck and her eyes vaguely lolling as she felt to the floor. It was a trap and she had fell right in the enemy's hands, it was better if she had listened to the stupid house elf after all.
oOo
Hermione heard the brief sound of chains rattling. She opened her eyes and her mouth opened agape at the sight in front of her. Many girls were chained to the wall next to her they were staring off into space, talking to themselves, rocking or crying. The only light source was through a buzzing lightbulb that barely lit the room.
She couldn't possibly be… No, she wasn't. Hermione pushed the thought away. There she went again with the lies. She hadn't seen Dean being tortured to death, and certainly the Death Eater hadn't knocked her out. But she realized she couldn't evade the truth for long, the sight that was in front of her proved that.
She could only guess why the Death Eater's had known she was at Grimmauld Place. Ron. He probably had no idea where Harry was, only that he was searching for horcruxes but Hermione he knew would end up going to somewhere where she could avoid the wizard world but still be in it. The injuries she received were too severe to be treated with the measly healing spells she read out of medicine books.
She blinked back the tears of betrayal and disappointment. She couldn't cry at this point no matter how she perceived the situation. The girls around her were her age or older but they were all young. And Hermione could only guess they were Muggle-borns like herself. Scum to any Pureblood or person who put his faith in Lord Voldemort. They were worse than insects to the death eaters.
So this is what he's been doing to them, she thought and she almost laughed out loud at the idea. She rather death than slavery. Especially being the sex slave to some Pureblood bastard. She didn't have any means to escape. Her wand was missing and even any means of getting her hands on a possible weapon was impossible because her legs and wrists were tightly bonded with metal cuffs that were digging into her tender skin.
The sound of footprints put her thoughts aside and she as well as the other scared-to-death girls looked to the door. It opened revealing a man with wild hair and yellow teeth. He was sneering and the room's lightbulb became intensely brighter as he made his way through the almost-narrow rectangular room. Men followed behind him and he pointed out to various girls. They were freed from their chains and hauled onto their feet by the men.
Hermione slightly flinched from disgust when his eyes moved to her. He looked up and down as if he were thoroughly checking her out. A man moved beside him and he cleared his throat and audibly said, "She would make a lovely amount of galleons."
The man beside the one with presumably horrible breath flicked his wand. The shackles were taken off of Hermione and she could see that her skin was badly bruised. Her damp clothes clung to her body like they were holding on for dear life. The man roughly hauled her and she was forced to face a girl with dirty blonde hair.
She barely was aware of where she was going other than the fact that it was up a passageway, down two or three corridors and into an open door. Bright light illuminated through it and she could automatically tell that she was going onto an auction stage. The other girls were going to be put to death, which was the assumption she made based on all the other girls' reactions.
Hermione peered around the audience who were seated in plush chairs at little round dining tables. There was mostly men, some women, which made Hermione even sicker. At the most there was twenty to twenty-five tables with at least more than one person seated.
"800 galleons, any takers?" the man said.
Hermione barely heard those words when she laid eyes on a pair of distinctly familiar gray eyes. Draco Malfoy, was seated in one of the couches in the back. A girl was seated on top of him peppering kisses on his exposed neck. A couple of buttons on his crisp white collared shirt were undone revealing milky white skin. He looked rather out of it until his glance fell upon Hermione. The slightest sign of shock appeared on his face but then it quickly disappeared as fast as it had appeared, and was instead replaced by a smirk.
The memories of their time at Hogwarts came rushing back at her, like the time he first called her a mudblood or taunted the trio until the point she punched him. There were also those times were he and his dimwitted friends jeered at her in the hallway or library when she was alone. But she learned to eventually not respond to them and ignore it, like how the word mudblood didn't affect her anymore. She had to thank Malfoy for that one.
"400 galleons?" the man called out, Hermione realized that he was talking about her.
"584 galleons," some plump man yelled out.
"792 galleons," another person said.
"792 galleons, any other bidders?" the auctioneer said.
"900 galleons," a cool voice said, all eyes in the room turned to Draco. His stoic expression shocked Hermione the most. She looked at him wide eyed. She was dreaming, she had to be dreaming. Draco Malfoy would never pay for her. Would he? She didn't even know anymore.
"Going once, going twice, sold!" Hermione felt strong arms haul her off of the stage. She was too shocked to speak and didn't pay attention to the room she was hauled into. Draco was already there sitting on a couch, his legs were casually crossed and he held a crystal glass with liquor in it. He was idly twirling it around, and looked up when Hermione was thrown onto the floor.
"Enjoy it," the man who had hauled her said to him.
He left them in silence. Hermione was still on the floor, her eyes looking at him with surprise. It was Draco who broke the silence, "Fancy seeing you here, Mudblood."
In a deft movement Hermione got up from the floor and lunged at him, her face almost connecting with his smoothly edged jawbone. He caught her bicep in time and held it tightly. Hermione noted that he didn't touch the part where the shackles had bruised her. But there was no time to wonder why, she picked up her left hand and aimed it on the other side of his face but then again, Draco was too fast for her. He caught it with such ease that Hermione stopped writhing.
"Let go of me, Malfoy," she spat.
"I believe it's Master for you, Granger," he responded. His apathetic nature made her want to slap him so hard that he fell off his seat. She wanted answers.
"When did you turn into such a manwhore?"
"I wouldn't exactly call myself that," he said, "I give pleasure and I get pleasure in return."
For a second Hermione didn't respond. The Draco she knew from a year and a half ago would never act like this. So maybe he would act like a hooker, but his stoic nature was the one thing she didn't expect. He was allegedly a hero amongst the death eaters for killing Dumbledore, something he hadn't actually done.
"Why did you buy me?" the pained words left her mouth.
"Because you deserve it." His ambiguous answer made the air between them tense. She realized that his face was about four inches away from her's and that their steady breaths were mingling. She stared at him, and examined every feature intently. Draco Malfoy looked like a lost soul without a place to call home. And it was then she knew something beyond horrible had happened to him.
