Type: story
Rating: M
Summary: Hermione has been captured. Draco thinks she's been killed by his father and the Death Eaters. But what happens when he finds her, skinny, freezing, and beaten, in the dungeons under his house?
A/N: Yay, something other than a one-shot! I've attempted to write other stories before (fanfic stories, I mean), but they never turned out to my liking and I always quit about half way through. I have a feeling that that won't happen with this one, though. Before I was dealing with an OC and now it's canon characters. Please review with criticisms, comments, suggestions, etc. I'd really appreciate it. This fic is going to a bit dark. For now the rating is M because I'm not quite sure how far I'll go, but I might change it to T later. Thanks! -Hannah
Sandpaper and Silk
Chapter one
The dark mark hung over the house of Hermione Jane Granger.
It was the summer after her sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Cedric had died, Sirius had died, even Dumbledore had died, and now everyone in the wizarding world believed that Hermione was dead as well.
The police had discovered the bodies of her parents lying next to another body—one so charred and ruined that it could not be identified, save for the lock of curly brown hair that lay singed beside it….A lock of curly brown hair that everyone believed belonged to seventeen year old Hermione Granger.
But Hermione Granger was not dead. She was locked in a dungeon quite far from her house. However, the bruises from the shackles and beatings had made her highly unrecognizable, not to mention the large amount of weight she had lost. But despite the bony arms, the straggly hair, and the haggard appearance, she was the same fiery strong-willed Hermione.
And according to her, nothing could change that. Not even the ice-eyed man that walked down the stone steps, unlocked the steel door, and stepped inside her freezing cell—Lucius Malfoy.
--
"So, Miss Granger," he drawled, spitting out her name as if it was a disgusting piece of rotten meat. "Have you decided to disclose any information to me today?"
She sat huddled in the corner, shivering and clutching her knees to her chest with skeleton arms. Her eyes were shut, her bottom lip captured between chattering teeth. Goosebumps decorated her skin and her matted curls stuck to her neck.
Without another words, he strode forward and seized a handful of her wild hair, grasping it between long thin fingers. She grimaced as he wrenched her face upwards.
"Do I have to ask you again?" he growled, a warning looming in his sneer. Hermione remained silent, stared straight into the piercing gray eyes of Lucius Malfoy, challenging him, daring him to do something, anything, to hurt her again.
He snarled deep in his throat, an angry dog, his hot breath reaching her cheek. An involuntary shudder rushed down her spine. "Scared, mudblood?" His voice grumbled almost lazily.
Hermione set her teeth and balled her hands into fists at her side, jagged fingernails scrapping the skin of her palm. He gave a sarcastic bark of a laugh at her determined expression.
"I can take it, you know," she said through her clenched jaw, her voice barely above a whisper.
A mad grin overtook his mouth, a quiet chuckle escaping his lips. Within a second, she was on the floor again, holding a hand to her stinging cheek, eyes shut tight against the pain. He had hit her again, hard, so that she could taste the metallic blood and salty tears on her tongue.
He crouched over her limp form and tangled pale fingers in her curls once more. She could barely make out his features in the darkness, only his milk-blonde hair shining in the torchlight. He guided her face up to his, lips just millimeters from touching the skin of her handprinted cheek.
"Maybe for now, my little mudblood," he whispered into her ear, the hot breath singing her skin. He threw her aside into the corner and watched her slip down the wall before stalking out of the cell. Hermione heard the clapping of his shoes against the cement and the clang of the door closing before opening her eyes again. She could cry freely now, alone in the darkness, nothing but the cold air on her skin and the dim glow of the torch outside her cell.
She drew a shaking hand to her cheek, washing away the warm blood and sticky tears with freezing fingertips. Her eyes squeezed shut as a fresh wave of hot tears threatened to spill over.
"I can't, I can't. I mustn't," she muttered, desperately wiping the wetness from her eyes. She wrapped thin arms around her knees and furiously rubbed up and down them with her palms, trying without success to clear away the cold. She dipped her head low, the mass of brown tangled ringlets masking her features, falling in a curtain across her face.
Her entire body shook in small spasms with the cold and helplessness. "Harry," she whispered, barely able to hear herself in the silence. "Ron…Please…."
--
Draco sat on the stone fence that weaved through the Malfoy gardens. He wore his quidditch gear, a few drops of sweat resting on his brow. But his thoughts were not of quidditch. No, instead his mind was on Hermione Granger.
He'd heard the news of her death about a month ago, when the article plagued the front page of the Daily Prophet. There had been a picture of the dark mark hovering above her house, a picture of the girl's smiling face beside it. He had recognized the picture from their sixth year of Hogwarts.
As much as he hated to admit, Draco was upset at the thought of Hermione dead. It bothered him for some reason.
"I hate her," he reminded himself, swinging his legs up onto the stones. It seemed nowadays that he had to repeat this to himself at least every morning when he woke up. "I hate her." Recently he had taken to saying it at least three times a day—morning, afternoon, and before he shut of the light at night. "I hate her."
And he did. It's just that he was curious. There had to be a reason for her death, and Draco was doubtful that it was only because of her friendship with Harry Potter. If they were trying to get at Potter, they would have had a more complex plan, he thought. They would have wanted to lure and kill him. It would be pointless to randomly murder the girl—it would only serve to make Potter and Weasley angry.
Draco sighed. He knew he should just give up and banish her from his mind. He knew nothing good could come of picturing her face in his head—her wild honey curls, her chocolate eyes, her dancing grin, even the hateful fire in her eyes when she was angry.
"I hate her!" he told himself again, and jumped off the fence. He grabbed his broom from the damp grass and stalked off towards the pitch. "The dirty mudblood."