A/N: another entry to TGS Sing-A-Song Along challenge for the wonderful Jenny! Happy birthday.
Away
Hermione surfaced from unconsciousness, each time unaware as to how long she had been "away". She no longer knew where she was any more. Her moments of oblivion were her only respite from the darkness; and the pain.
In the midst of all this, she discovered that she was not alone.
Certainly, she knew she was not the only captive. No, this was someone else. Someone who came and went as he pleased. He was not a prisoner, but, Hermione sensed, he wasn't exactly free, either.
She was absolutely confident he was a he. She could feel the stubble on his face when it brushed against the skin of her hand. He was tall and while not wide, per se, had girth in the way a man does; broader in the chest and shoulders than towards his waist. She knew all these things for certain as she woke often to find him lying next to her. With her.
Her cellar prison was damp and smelly. She never got a clear sense of his smell, but she was able to discern other things about him. His stubble, she thought, maybe indicated that he was growing a beard, but it also might have meant he was just lazy. His hair was long enough that if he was in near proximity, she could feel it brushing against her. She noticed that it was fine and soft, and very straight. Almost the exact opposite of her own. He also dressed well. Hermione frequently felt the whisper of velvet or the intricate stitching of brocade under her fingertips.
While he was a welcomed distraction, Hermione did not allow her fingers to wander far, even though, against her better judgement, she felt he would not hurt her. Not like the others did, anyway.
"Why?" she whispered one night (or day, who could tell), as he curled a familiar arm around her and pulled her close to his warm body.
"To keep you warm. Why else?" he answered. The voice stunned her. She'd had her suspicions of Draco, but she was unprepared for his father.
She lay silent and still. She was afraid to breathe.
"If you hadn't spoken to me in the first place," he drawled in her ear, "you would never have known. And that is what is killing you, isn't it?" He drew her closer still, placing his lips on her ear while he spoke. "If you'd let it be, you would never have been the wiser. But you just had to know!"
Hermione grimaced, as much with recognition of her insufferable curiosity and with her discomfort at his proximity. Every inch of her was pressed into a part of Lucius Malfoy, many parts of which she could not bare to think of. She began to wonder if blushing was visible in the pitch dark.
"I—I—I assumed i-i-it was D-D-Dr-Draco." He teeth were chattering, and yet her face burned. "He w-w-was alw-w-w-ays one for t-t-t-t-t-easing m-m-me."
"Ever hopeful, aren't you, little one," he purred. She could feel his hand retreat back over her midsection, instead taking up residence on her thigh where it caressed up and down the length of her leg.
She grabbed it, pressing it to a halt. "Please."
"Please what?" he teased. "Please don't notice I'm a woman now? Please don't remind me that I'm a prisoner?" She could feel rather than hear his laugh.
"We each have our part to play in this little dance between Dark and Light," he murmured. "Yours is to make sure Harry lives." His hand shot up towards her face, gripping her cheeks painfully tight, and turning her face towards his. "And so is mine." She caught the slightest hint of a smirk on his lips before his pressed them to her own. He was rough and forceful. There was no heat in his embrace.
And then the light poured in and she was grabbed up in other rough hands. She saw his eyes glitter and he winked.
"All primed and ready for us, Lucius?" a voice called into the dark.
"Most assuredly," he answered, brushing himself off. He stared at Hermione and raised his eyebrows as if to ask, 'Understand?' She scrambled to keep up with what he was playing at, but fear was taking her over again.
Briefly, he raised an elegant finger to his lips and fell in line with his fellow Death Eaters.
When this round of torture was over, he was quick to return to her; cradling her with a gentle embrace. She slept.
"Why?" she asked when she finally resurfaced.
"I must do what they will allow me to, to gain their trust back," he answered, simply. "Only then can I get you away."
"Away?" she shivered.
"You must live to fight another day, Hermione Granger," he said. "I plan to make sure you do."