Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling. If I were a bajazillionaire who owned Harry Potter, would I really be on Fanfiction? I didn't think so.
A/N: Be nice. Please. I know this was a rushed beginning, but please be nice. Please. And review!
Chapter One: Prisoners Released
"So, Lucius," the tall, snake-like man said in a cold voice, "Take. Your. Pick." Lord Voldemort punctuated each word with a flick of his wand, causing black tarps to fly off of what seemed to be enlarged bird cages. In each cage was a filthy, tattered human being.
"M-my Lord?" Lucius Malfoy asked hesitantly, eying the cages warily.
"Your pick, Lucius. As a reward for your faithful service in the last year, I am permitting you to pick one of these things to take home with you."
Lucius nodded. He didn't quite understand what his master meant, but he didn't dare question him any further. Instead he moved his attention to the gaunt prisoners. They all seemed to have been silenced, a few stunned.
In the first cage was an eccentric looking girl with long, blond hair. Her eyes were like gigantic orbs lighting up the darkness. It was Luna Lovegood. She stared at him, as if pleading him to choose her. He could tell why- her face was scarred and bleeding from torture. So this is what became of the Order and its followers after we won the war, Lucius mused.
"Hurry Lucius, I don't have all day. Pick one already. As long as you know the right curse, they make particularly good slaves." Voldemort twirled his wand between long, pale fingers and let out an unnaturally high laugh.
"Yes, my Lord."
Next in line was Ginny Weasley. Her trademark red mane of hair had been chopped off and was blackish-brown due to dirt and a lack of a good wash. Lucius didn't want this one, no, she was too feisty. And Potter's girlfriend at that. Next was Ernie MacMillan, Seamus Finnigan, Neville Longbottom... no, no, and NO! Lucius didn't want another male in the house anyway.
Nearing the end of the cages, Lucius had to chuckle. Ronald Weasley. He was standing as rigid as a board, leaning against the cell wall. His eyes bulged as he tried to get a good look at Lucius, but couldn't because of the tilted position he was in. Immobilized. He must have fought hard, because his face bore more cuts and bruises than anyone else's in the room. He was pathetic. Lucius didn't want this one, but it was enjoyable to see him so weak and helpless without the famous Potter at his side.
Then, he came to the final cage. Lucius's face broke into a sinister grin. This one was the one he wanted. This one.
It was a thin, frail young woman, huddled into a corner of the cell. Her bushy brown hair was cut wildly and matted beyong belief. Her once bright and eager chocolate brown eyes were dull and lifeless, as though she had forgotten how to think, how to live. It was the grimy, pitiful shell of the once brilliant Hermione Granger.
"This one, my Lord," Lucius requested.
"Ah, the Mudblood. Feisty, that one, but a good personality-removal potion took care of that. You'll notice that she will be dull and mute."
Lucius nodded. "Poky! Come and take this girl upstairs, to the living room," Lucius called to his house elf as Voldemort unlocked Hermione's cage.
The trembling elf approached Hermione. Immediatley, her lifeless eyes softened ever so slightly and she allowed herself to be taken away.
After the two were gone, Voldemort turned to Lucius. "If it is the Mudblood you want, then I have a command for you."
"Anything, my Lord."
"First, I know that you do not want to care for the Mudblood. I am forcing her upon you and you do not want to have to care for her."
"No, my Lord, I-"
"Don't interrupt me Lucius! I am a skilled Legimens, I know you don't want to have to care for her. I want Draco, your son, to be her master, okay?"
"Okay, my Lord."
"Which brings me to my next point.I want her killed. As part of the plan we discusssed before, she is here as bait to Potter, otherwise she would have been killed by now. I know Potter, and if word gets out to him that his two best friends are residing here, he will come. In which case Draco is going to murder her when Potter arrives. It will make Potter even more furious before I finally kill the boy."
"But- why Draco, my Lord?"
"It is punishment for failing in his mission to kill Dumbledore. I want him to care for her here at your mansion until I can lure The-Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Die here. Then Draco will kill her. Are we understood?"
"Of course, my Lord."
"Then you are dismissed. Be gone." And with that, Lord Voldemort Apparated out of the Malfoy Manor's hidden dungeon.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
When Lucius arrived in his living room, he was surprised to see the Mudblood, in all her ragged pride, was sitting primly on her sofa and was sipping tea out of a china cup. Evidently, she was fighting the personality-removal potion that she had been given. When she saw him, she put the teacup down and stared at him.
Lucius's upper lip curled inward. "Don't sit there like you belong, you piece of mute filth, get up and lower yourself in the sight of your superiors!"
She merely looked at him with with same blank expression. Slowly, she stood and backed herself into the wall, where she stood, staring.
The insolent little... Lucius thought. "Poky! Go fetch Draco, tell him we have a... visitor." The elf bowed before exiting the room.
Hermione took this time to survey the spacious room, it was quite a sight. By her visual calculations, you could fit about 1 1/2 Hogwarts Great Halls into this living room. In the center of the towering ceiling was a magnificent chandelier that sparkled with what was probably a thousand real diamonds. Ironically, though, the color scheme of the room was a cherry mahoghany and gold. It was suprising that Gryffindor colors would reign in such a Slythering-based house.
Just as she was musing this thought, the intricatley carved double doors on one side of the room swung open, and the unmistakable figure of Draco Malfoy stepped into the room.
Hermione, for one moment only, was able to break the emotionless barrier that the personality-removal potion had placed over her as she lost herself in Malfoy.
He had changed. The way he walked was no longer that arrogant saunter that he had maintained at Hogwarts, but it was now more secluded and hesitant. The hair that was once slicked back was now longer and fell in his face, white-blonde tendrils scattered above his pale, furrowed brow. Her silver orb eyes had become clouded over with some hidden emotion that Hermione couldn't quite pinpoint. In a way, Malfoy had become more of a- well, a person.
Hermione shoved herself farther into the corner. For some odd reason, she didn't want to be seen by him. Then, as quickly as it had gone, the emotionless barrier set back in. Hermione's eyes glazed over and she no longer felt anything.
"Draco," Lucius drawled, "I would like to re-acquaint you with a certain someone." He gestured to the corner of the room where Hermione stood, frozen.
Draco followed his father's finger and his jaw dropped when he saw Hermione. "G-Granger?"
He couldn't believe it. She looked terrible. The once bright, eager, and annoyingly smart bookworm of a girl was now a thin, gaunt, and sickly young woman. And her eyes- he couldn't bear to look at them. They were once so lit up, so excited to take on whatever life wanted to throw at them. Now they were empty. Completely and utterly empty.
"Draco, the Dark Lord has issued me Granger as a servant. You will be in charge of her. I want you to clean her up, maybe get her to speak, and put her to bed. We will speak more of this tomorrow, but it is late now."
Draco, still in shock, only stuttered, "O-okay, Fa-father."
"Mudblood! Follow him!" Lucius barked at Hermione.
Unblinkingly, she locked eyes with Malfoy and walked slowly across the room to him.
Not wanting his father to see his reaction to Hermione's arrival, Draco quickly led the brunette out of the living room and up to his bedroom. Briskly, he shut the door and turned to face her. "What the bloody hell are you doing here?" he seethed.
She looked at him, her eyes wide but unfazed by his sudden outburst.
"Dammit Mudblood, answer me!" She only stared.
Draco flung his hands into the air. Why is she here? She's supposed to be dead, why haven't they killed her? I need bloody information, why won't she answer me!
"Umm... Harry Potter? Ron Weasley? Albus Dumbledore, McGonagall, house-elves, S.P.E.W?" Draco was now spurting out whatever key words he oculd think of to trigger Hermione's speech again. "You are a Mudblood, Voldemort is here, Harry died, Ron cheated on you!"
Nothing. Just that blank expression.
Malfoy frowned. He normally wouldn't care a thing for one of Potter's friends, especially the Mudblood, but he hadn't seen anyone from the light side in so long, he needed to get information. He racked his brains, what could have caused this? A silencing spell? No, she spoke. A faceless jinx? No, the Dark Lord wasn't so simple. Could it be... Voldemort was known for his emotion and personality removing potions. And the Mudblood's symptoms fit, too... That must be it, he decided.
"Granger- did he give you a potion? A purple one, with yellow bubbles?" The girl only stared at him, but he swore he saw just a flicker of recognition in her eyes when he asked.
"Poky! Jinxle! Come here!" he called. Two house elves appeared in the room. "Poky, go draw the Mudblood a bath and prepare her a room. Jinxle, go look up a cure for the personality and emotion removal potion. Understood?"
"Yes, Master Draco," the two chorused before disappearing with a crack.
Draco turned around and faced Hermione. She looked at him, eyes wide and innocent. He turned back around, sunk into an armchair, and buried his hands in his pale blonde hair. He didn't want to look at her, he didn't know how he was supposed to feel towards her now. He had hated her back at Hogwarts, but that was over a year ago. So much had changed since then. Of course, there was that prejudice that he had been brought up to believe in, but he was sick of that now. He was sick of everything he was brought up to believe in now. But he felt obligated to hate her, because the Dark side had won the war, and his father was a Death Eater, but Draco no longer supported them. He only pretended out of pure fear. Then, there was the fact that she was Potter's best friend. He didn't know whether to hate her or like her for this. He had always disliked Potter, but now Potter was the only hope Draco had to escape the life he so despised. And that was why he needed to get information from Granger. It was all so confusing to him.
Then, two consecutive cracks sounded. Poky and Jinxle were back, Jinxle bearing a large book that was towering on top of her leathery head. "Master, sir, Poky has a bath and robes ready, sir."
"Yes, take Granger there now."
"Yes sir." The elf grasped Hermione by the hand and led her out of the room.
"Master, Jinxle found a book in the library, sir, Jinxle found a cure that might be quite useful, sir." The elf placed the book on Draco's desk with a resounding thump! She took a long finger and flipped to a dusty page where a bookmark had been placed.
Draco read:
The Personality and Emotion Removal Potion is one of six different potions with properties that very on the intellectual level of the drinker, and is the only one that can fully... Draco sighed- this was going to take awhile.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Hermione had let herself be led away by the house elf, and she was now glad that she did. She was relaxing in a warm bubble bath, something she hadn't experienced in over a year.
She felt odd, but she couldn't quite pinpoint what it was that was wrong. It was like a thick layer of fog was separating her current mind from the rest of Hermione. There was a side of her that she couldn't quite remember, like it wasn't really there. She knew that she was smart, and very stubborn, but she couldn't really express those emotions.
Draco Malfoy had popped the tiniest hole in that fog, though. When she saw him, it was like a burning fire was lit in the pit of her tummy. She wanted to smack him, curse him, jinx him, hurt him. She knew he was annoying, maybe evil, but her mind couldn't react to those memories. She couldn't really feel anything. It was like the processing circuit connecting one part of her mind to another had been cut off. She was emotionless.
Nothing was bad, painful, cruel, happy, enjoyable, exciting. Nothing was even just okay, or mediocre. Everything was just there. Nothing more that just there.
Slowly, she exited the bath and slipped a towel around her. On the rack before her was a set of rose-colored night robes. It was the softest thing she had felt in so long. Softness was something she hadn't felt in what seemed like forever. Now she just had to find her way back to Malfoy's room in this accursedly large house of his.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
"Jinxle, take this book back to the library, okay?"
"Yes sir."
Draco fingered his wand and stared at the door where he was awaiting the Mudblood to come. A moment later, she stepped into the room.
The night robes hung loosely on her pencil-thing figure, but the bath had done a wonderful job of removing a year's worth of grime off of her skin. Her arms hung uselessly at her sides and waved back and forth. Her brown curls hung damply down her shoulders. She looked like an overgrown child at first glance. But, as he looked at her facial features, he noticed that they had sharpened slightly, making her look more serious and fierce. She was also taller than Draco remembered, but perhaps that was just a lack of attention on his part. All in all, she had become quite pretty.
He coughed. "Um, Granger. I found a cure for your lack of emotion. If you would just, erm, sit there, I could perform it now." She obliged.
He pointed his wand at her and uttered a long spell in Latin.
Hermione's eyes widened, her whole body was glowing. She began to shudder violently. Suddenly, what seemed to be a sheet of thick fog escaped out of her partially opened mouth. Then, she stopped shaking and her eyes returned to their normal size. Then they lit up like burning lightbulbs.
"Well, honestly, it's about time! That was not fun. What- what the hell am I wearing? Malfoy? What-huh-I-"
Draco smiled inwardly. She was back. Now he had to shut her up.
"Granger- GRANGER!"
"-and I- what?"
"Shut up. Now sit."
"Why should I listen to you?"
"Just SIT! And think. I'm sure everything will come back to you." Draco had read about this, and apparently she wouldn't remember anything until she calmed down and thought about it.
Hemione sat down on his desk chair and frowned. Malfoy, the Manor, her bony-thin hands, these hideous robes, Voldemort, torture, the war... Then it all came flooding back to her.
Flashback
Harry was facing Voldemort, they were circling around the room, wand pointed directly at each other. It was the climax of the whole war, it was the epicenter of all the chaos. A ring of people surrounded the pair, watching them in an eerie suspense. Nothing had happened in the last two minutes. They were all waiting, and then it happened: suddenly, Harry squeezed his eyes shut. A single tear slipped out of his left eye. Slowly, he turned his quivering wand away from Voldemort, and pointed it at his own chest. Gasps aroused from around the intent crowd of battlers. Harry snapped his eyes wide open and they seemed to glitter with a painful light. He uttered a single, incomprehensible word. A bright purplely-blue jet of light escaped the tip of the holly wand, and the so admired and esteemed Harry Potter spiraled out of sight.
"Harry!"
"Potter?"
"Where'd he go?"
Slowly, shrieks and cries began to mount and the whole room rang with confusion. Above all the noise was Voldemort's cold, and very amazed, drawl. "Apparently, he is gone. You have lost all hope now. Drop your wands- or die."
End Flashback
Hermione found herself on the floor, her body was shuddering. Harry. "Granger? Granger, are you okay?" It was Malfoy.
Flashback
"Don't argue with me, filth. This is your new home. Hope you find it... cozy." Bellatrix Lestrange sneered as she pushed Hermione into her cage.
"You sick bastards! The lot of you! You deserve to rot in hell you bloody-" Hermione's crazed ramble was cut off by a sharp shove into the wall.
"Shut up, Mudblood. If it were my choice, you'd be dead by now, so you're lucky it's not. Crucio!" She laughed mercilessly as Hermione's sickly body writhed in pain on the grimy floor. The crazed woman cackled like a maniac before slamming the cage door shut. Hermione panted as she tried to block out the shooting pain. Ron... Ginny... Neville... Luna... Where were they?
"RON? RON? GINNY! LUNA? RON!"
"Her-Hermione?" It was a voice she had come to recognize after six years of talking to it.
"Ron!"
"Stop Hermione- stop. They'll get you. The Headless Horsemen of No Tommorrow. They'll get you, 'Mione, they will! Run, 'Mione, run!"
Hermione sank to the bottom of her cell and sobbed. She was hungry and in immense pain. Harry was gone. Ron was delirious. Ginny and Luna... she didn't know if they were still alive. This was torture. Pure torture.
End Flashback
Hermione found herself clutching her hair and screaming. Beads of sweat trailed down her pale face.
"Granger- are you okay?" Malfoy was kneeling next to her, she was surprised to see actual worry etched into his normally sneering face.
"I'm-fine. Just-memories." she panted.
"That's good- memories."
"Good?" That was a word that Hermione didn't think she'd ever heard from Malfoy.
"Well- yes. And no. But yes." He looked confused, but his facial features quickly changed to those of an angry man. "Listen, filth, I don't know if you remember, but for some reason my father gave you to me. You are my servant, apparently." Draco paused and looked at her. Her face was stained with tears.
"I know," she spat. "Do you just want to gloat because your side won the war, I lost my whole personality for a year, and now I'm stuck here with no knowledge of where my friends are with you?"
"No." Draco frowned. "Listen, I don't want a servant. I don't need one, especially you. It's not like you'd listen to me anyway."
Hermione raised her eyebrows. She had wiped her tears and was now listening to the blonde boy. "True. So?"
"Okay, this is going to take a long time to explain. I sort of have a deal for-" He was interrupted by a loud crack as another house elf entered the room.
"Yes?" He didn't like being interrupted.
"Sir, Master Lucius has requested that Fallow tell you that Sir and Miss must come down for dinner. Master wants to talk to Miss."
Draco sighed. "Tell him we will be down in a moment."
"Yes sir."
Draco turned to Hermione. "Go change your robes, clean your face, and meet us in the dining room. Make yourself... presentable."
Hermione glared at his back as she followed him out of the room.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
"Sit." Lucius commanded. He was seated at one end of a long dining room table, and gestured to two seats next to him. His imperative request echoed in the massive room. Draco and Hermione sat.
"So," Lucius started as the house elves began to serve them salad. "I see you have gained back your emotion-" he shot Draco a look "-very well. I have brought you here to explain a bit."
"Go on." Hermione said with a tone of nasty mock obedience.
"You are a servant here. I am your master, Draco is your master, even the house elves hold a higher position than you. Do not expect to be treated with any respect at all. Understood? Good. As you know, the Dark Lord currently holds your friends in this house. Do not even think of attempting to rescue them in the way the insolent Potter boy always did."
At the mention of Harry's name, Hermione visibly stiffened.
"Moving on, Draco here will be in charge of you. I have other priorities that rank much higher on my to-do list than to care for scum like you."
Hermione looked as if she was biting her tongue back. At least she learned to restrain herself, Draco thought.
"So, yes, that will be your new life here. Don't expect to be treated this well again, Mudblood, or you may be going the same way as that pathetic Potter and his worshipping servant Weasley." Lucius sneered.
That was the last straw for Hermione. She stood up abruptly and pointed a slender finger at Lucius. "You," she seethed, "Are just a pitiful coward of a man who ruthlessly killed and tortured to save your sorry little arse. You don't even care about your own wife and son. Harry and Ron are worth a thousand to you, Malfoy." And with that, she ran out of the room with in a huff, soup and salad laying untouched.
Lucius looked livid. But before he could say anything, Draco stood and excused himself from the table. "I'll take care of her, Father." He ran out of the room and rushed up the stairs. The stupid Mudblood has to go and ruin everything again.
"Granger! Granger!" He ran from room to room, calling her name. Then, from one of the numerous bathrooms on the third floor, he heard sobbing.
"Granger?"
Sitting on the bathtub's edge was Hermione, crying into her hands. She looked up when he entered the room and glared. "Sod off, Malfoy." Her angry expression turned to one of despair. "You don't even remotely know how I'm feeling right now, ferret. You're rich and free. I'm shriveled and imprisoned. It's like life's pointless. Everything I lived for has been stripped away and now I'm living here with you. But I don't even know why I'm telling you this, though. It's not like you care. It's not like you give a-"
"I know I don't."
She looked up, surprised. The face of Draco Malfoy was full of anger and pain. He stuffed his pale hands into his pockets and began to pace back and forth in front of the bathtub.
"I know I don't care. About you, or much of anyone else. I've accepted that, and a lot more. I know I was an arsehole at school. I know my father's a Death Eater. I know I'm supposed to hold a terrible prejudice against you. I know I was a stupid coward during the War when the Dark side won. I know that." His pace quickened and his brow furrowed deeper.
"I was born into an evil family, I was raised an evil boy. I was a Slytherin, I was a bully. I watched as people I had looked up to as a child murdered helpless Muggles, I watched as they Crucio'd Mudbloods. I was branded by the mark of pure evil, I was forced to follow the orders of a wizard who wanted to destroy the world. I know that." Now his mouth was drawn into a tight line, like it pained him to admit this to her.
"I can't say I feel bad about what I did. But I do regret, even resent, the outcome of it all. I hate what I have become, what my family has become, what this whole bloody world has become. So, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm glad you're here, Granger. I need something that only you can give me, and for that sake, I'm going to do my best to be civil towards you." He looked up and her, silvery stone eyes glistening. "So, to conclude, Granger, I have a little deal for you." Hermione had stopped crying out of shock at Malfoy's little speech. He sounded genuine, but Malfoy had never spoken so seriously to her before, and he had never been fair. Hogwarts had always been a chance for him to act unfairly against her. So why would he want a deal?
She squinted at him. "A deal- concerning what?"
"Like I said earlier, I don't want a servant. So, I'm willing to fake this whole maid thing in front of my father- under one condition."
"That condition being...?"
"Information. No, not to give to my father," he said when he saw her face, "It's for... other reasons. But I need information, Granger, I need it. Can you just trust me?"
"Trust you? No," she said bluntly. "Not now- for two reasons. One: You're Draco Malfoy, you're not trustable. You made life hell for me for six years. Two, I just went through one of the most traumatic days of my life. I'm tired. I don't want to hear anything else that will cause me to cry, faint, lose my personality, or cause my eyes to widen so wide in disbelief that they nearly fall out. I'm not myself right now, I need sleep. I'm going to bed, so we can resume this... conversation in the morning. Goodnight Malfoy." And without waiting for a response, she walked out of the bathroom, leaving a bemused Draco Malfoy behind, a small grin of recognition playing on his lips.