Chapter 1: Held In This Empty Place

Hermione sighed at the sight she had hoped never to look upon again. The estate loomed so greatly before her it blocked out all view of anything that might lay beyond it. Dark green hedges lined a dark stone drive leading to a dark manor house.

A brown, woolen flat cap flitted and flutter through the air and down the path as she followed closely behind. It drifted through the bars of a tall pair of wrought-iron gates at the start of the long drive leading to the manor. As Hermione drew near to the gates, they began to contort until they had transformed into a large iron face.

"State your purpose!" the face clanged, the sound echoing across the drive.

Hermione froze and began to weigh her options. She could try to find another way onto the grounds, but that, she knew, would take a lot of time, time she did not have, and prove to be all but impossible. She could lie, but the gates would only respond to an answer full of conviction. Therefore, a lie would be but a waste of breath. Or, finally, she could tell the truth.

The truth, of course, would probably alert every wizard on the property to her presence. Hermione checked her watch and found the small 26 a few millimeters from the silver horizontal line that marked the third hour. The 26th of July. Saturday. The day the order planned to move Harry Potter from Privet Drive to the Burrow. Many Death Eaters would be watching the house waiting to catch Harry the moment he lost the protection of the place he called home, so there was a chance that few Death Eaters were actually behind the gates, though a slim chance. But at least if someone came to drag her through the gates, she would make it into the manor. Resolved, Hermione responded to the iron face with the truth. "I'm looking for my father."

She waited as the iron twisted back into straight rods, preparing for the worst, until, finally, the gates swung open. Wearily, she stepped through the gates of her own volition and quickly strode down the drive. Either no one is home, she thought, which is possible, but unlikely, or they don't care...which is more than unlikely.

The floating cap snaked down a thin pebbled path that branched off from the drive, led through the garden, and came to a stop before a gardener's door. With a quiet Alohomora Hermione opened the door and let the cap inside, following quickly after.

The cap floated down the corridor and took a left, a right, and a left, apparently leading toward the back of the mansion, then down a dark passageway before turning abruptly and flying down a steep flight of stairs.

"Lumos," Hermione whispered as she descended the steps to where the cap waited before a heavy cellar door. She quickly unlocked it and, with a great shove, the door swung wide. The light of her wand flickered off spots where water had gathered in the indents in the stone and the dips of the mortar. Hermione raised her wand over her head to reveal more of the room and that's when she saw them.

The cellar contained no more than two dozen people, men, women, boys, and girls, chained to the wall, their hands and feet bound. Muggles, from the looks of their clothing, all cowering at the sight of her wand.

"Hermione?" A soft, familiar voice called from the corner.

"Dad!" Hermione sprinted to one of the men in chains and pulled him into a quick embrace.

"How did you find me?"

"Your cap," Hermione explained. "You must have dropped it. I found it a few hundred meters from our campsite and charmed it to lead me to you. Nox." Hermione relinquished the light of her wand in an attempt to break the bonds restraining her father at his hands and feet.

"You shouldn't have come. You know how dangerous it is!"

Another quick Alohomora and the bond fell from his left hand. These were Muggles after all, intricate locking spells would be unnecessary and "above" them.

"I had to find you. How would Mum be able to deal in this world without you?" Hermione dropped the linked chain to the floor and ran her eyes over the room again, torn between running with her father now and freeing the rest of the helpless Muggles, knowing if she stayed her father wouldn't leave her side.

"Alohomora. Listen, Dad," Hermione disengaged the chain from his right hand. "You need to get back to Mum now. The two of you need to get out of the country as soon as possible. With or without me. Understand?"

"Wha- No. We're not going anywhere without you! I only just got you back!"

Hermione unlocked the metal surrounding her father's left foot and brought her eyes up to meet his, needing him to understand.

"I know, but if-"

"Well, well, well," said a drawling voice, filling the dank room. The hairs on the back of Hermione's neck raised as she bristled in recognition and all hope of an easy escape vanished. Granted, she could have done much worse by ways of getting caught, Lucius or Bellatrix, but a small part of her had believed there was an opportunity to get in and out of the manor unseen. "If it isn't the little Mudblood come to rescue Daddy."

"Malfoy," Hermione replied and she slowly and cautiously rose to meet his gaze. If it were not for his egocentric desire for his enemies to know he was the one throwing the curse, she was sure she would have been sprawling on the floor by now. Draco Malfoy stood in the doorway she had left wide open, flanked by the large shadows of Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. "Let my father go. You have no reason to keep him here."

"I have every reason to keep him, Granger," Malfoy laughed. "He's a Muggle. And I think you know as well as anyone how the Dark Lord feels about Muggles." He gestured toward the rest of his captives. The Muggles shrunk back against the wall, making themselves as small as possible, soft whimpers escaping a few. Not one stood their ground against their captors. Broken, Hermione thought, all of them. She wondered how long they had been here, what tortures they had endured. She had decided long ago that she would not let her father endure a moment of this life that brought such fear, that she would do whatever it took to ensure he didn't.

With this thought, Hermione turned back to Malfoy, and stood as straight and as tall as she could will herself. "Take me instead."

"Hermione, no!"

"What?" Malfoy asked, eyebrows raised in surprise.

"He's just another Muggle, but if you had a Mudblood like me..." A hint of a gleam threatened within Malfoy's eye. "I'm worth more to you than he is. Take me instead."

"This entire room is anti-Apparition. You think I don't have you already?"

"No," Hermione said with the air of someone who knew more than anyone else in the room, an air that surrounded her quite often, an air she decided she could use to her advantage. "It's clear that only the three of you here. If it weren't, you wouldn't be the ones dealing with this...situation. You know I am more than capable of thinking my way in and out of this situation. And you know, from experience I might add, of my incredible ability to outwit the three of you." Malfoy's smirk faltered ever so slightly that if she had not been hoping for it she might not have seen it. Or was it simply hope that made her see what she wanted to. He needed another push. "And I know that there is a chance that someone might be hurt by the choices we make today. So what I'm offering you is a sure thing." At that a blonde eyebrow cocked.

"Hermione, I won't let you do thi-"

"Silencio," Malfoy hissed, flicking his wand at her father, then pointed an amused gaze at Hermione. "If I agree to let him go, you'll surrender? Hand over your wand and stay here? As my prisoner?"

"As long as you vow to make sure he, and my mother," she added quickly, "are safe, then, yes."

Malfoy's grey eyes narrowed and dug into her own, calculating. Then, finally, they disengaged with a small nod, so small she almost missed it.

"Kneel," he said as he bent his own knees and raised his right arm to her. Metal rattle behind her, but she ignored her fathers protests as she grasped the forearm with her right hand as she knelt.

"Goyle," Malfoy snapped and the boy drew out his wand, placing the tip to their clasped hands.

Hermione took a deep breath, knowing she had to get the wording exactly right or all of this would have been for nothing.

"Do you, Draco Malfoy," she said, her voice ringing and her eyes locked with his in determination. "Vow to return my father to my mother and ensure their safe departure from the country?"

"I do."

A thin stream of flame left the tip of Goyle's wand and snaked its way around the joined hands.

"Will you ensure that no knowledge of their relation to me will leak that they might be hunted down and found and used against me and, therefore, against Harry Potter?"

"I will," Malfoy agreed and a second stream of red issued from the wand. As the fire's light began to fade, Hermione started to release Malfoy's arm, but he squeezed hers and her eyes darted to meet his again. "And do you, Hermione Granger, vow to remain at the manor until the day comes that I release you?"

Hermione took a deep breath as her eyes met stormy swirls and a dark smirk.

"I do." And a third flame licked and weaved around their hands.

When the light of the final flame died they released their grip on one another and returned to their feet.

"Hand over your wand."

"Wait."

"Granger-"

"I need to place a memory altering charm on him first."

"Memory altering?"

"I've already performed it on my mother. Please, it is the only way that they can really get away from all of this. They cannot remember me, otherwise, they would never leave without me."

"Fine," Malfoy growled, then turned to his minions. "If any other spell comes out of her mouth you Crucio the man, understand?"

Crabbe and Goyle cackled their response.

Hermione took a deep look at her father, memorizing his features, hoping that soon she would see him again with more than her mind's eye.

"Well, hurry up!" Malfoy snapped. "Do it now or I will. And I won't guarantee not to wipe his mind completely."

"Give me a moment, please!"

"You have till the count of three."

"Dad, I'm so sorry! I don't have time to-

"One."

"-you to know that I love you-

"Two."

"-will reverse it when I can-"

"Thr-"

Hermione yelled the incantation and a stream of light shot from the tip of her wand into her father's forehead. He would not remember the daughter his wife had given him. He would only remember his wife. He would not remember the last 24 hours since he'd wandered away from the campsite. He would only remember being lost in the woods. He would not feel the desire he'd always known for the lands and towns and lifestyles of Britain. He would only have an uncontrollable desire to pack up his life and leave.

"He should not remember the next hour, so you have that long to get him back into the Forest of Dean," Hermione told Malfoy as she took one last look at the man who raised her before forever letting him go. Again.

"Imperio," Draco whispered, pointing his wand first at Goyle, then Crabbe. "Return him to his wife. She should be near where you found him in Dean. Do it quickly and quietly and help them to their home. Ensure that no one sees you. Contact me when they are packed. Go. Now."

Crabbe released her father, now Wendell Wilkins, from the clasp still binding his right leg and pulled him through the cellar toward the stairs, shadowed closely by Goyle. Hermione watched as man and boys ascended the steps and were gone within seconds. She slunk to the floor, hugged her knees to her chest, and buried her head in her jeans.

"You didn't let me say goodbye," she murmured.

"What?"

"I'll never see him again and I didn't get to say goodbye."

"I gave you a moment," Malfoy said, dissatisfaction evident as if the time he had given to her was infinite. "Three actually."

"Oh, yes," Hermione spat back, her head shooting up and her burning eyes searing into his. She may belong to him now, but she refused to be broken by him. "A three second count down is what everyone dreams of for a final farewell. Thank you very much."

Their hot stare held for one long moment before Malfoy broke it and strode toward the door.

"I'll show you to your room."

"My room?" Hermione asked, taken aback. "But I thought-"

"You want to stay in the cellar?" Malfoy's voice rang with annoyance as he turned at the doorway to face her.

"No."

"Then follow me."