AN: Thanks for reading so far! I'm posting a bit early because I was so energized by the number of reviews / follows / favorites! I appreciate the feedback you've given; I will try to make dialogue formatting clearer.
JessicaImpossible & AmeliaBlackwell: sorry, no spoilers!
Draco gently settled Hermione onto the bed of the room next to his. The situation felt surreal-Mudblood Hermione, again unconscious-in a bed in his house. His fiancee Hermione. He cringed a little at his own theatrics. Then again, this set-up would provide a reason-to her-for him to spend so much time with him and would mark her-to his comrades in arms-as his own project, his territory. It was a good plan, he assured himself, if a little… intimate.
Hermione had started moaning again, her facial muscles twitching as she ground her teeth in a futile attempt to block the pain. Draco glanced at the fireplace, wondering where the Healer was. The man was paid enough to happily overlook the gaps in his memory that inevitably appeared whenever he visited the Manor, but that payment was contingent on the man appearing when called.
Fortunately for the Healer, Draco had only enough time to think of two or three dark hexes he would like to practice on the tardy man when he stumbled through the fireplace, hasty apologies on his lips. Draco didn't bother to hide his worry at Hermione's state; the man's memory was forfeit anyways, and even dear Auntie Bella would approve of his concern for a project for the Dark Lord. Hermione herself seemed vampirically pale, the blood and grime cake on her porcelain skin making her pallor more pronounced. The Mudblood coated in muddy blood, how apt.
The Healer danced his wand over Hermione, occasionally whispering diagnostic spells. The wand tip lit up at almost every incantation; wherever he looked for damage, he seemed to find it. Draco's head felt light, his body heavy. If she died… this risk would be for nothing. His classmate would be gone, forever just a memory of pompous academic and moral superiority. His own position among the Death Eaters would be more precarious; proposing a plan was good-risky, but showed initiative as dear Auntie Bella had said-but failing at a task, no matter how difficult or how self-imposed… well, he needed to stop thinking about that.
A crash from downstairs jarred him from his spiralling thoughts. Neither the Healer nor Hermione flinched. He idly wondered whether Bella had knocked out a wall, again, in a fit of pique or whether that was somehow part of her torture of Hermione's witless companions. Or something had gone wrong. That possibility-never far from his thoughts-set his heart racing and feet moving towards the exit. He had almost reached the door when he glanced back at Hermione. It was probably safe to leave her with the Healer, but there was also probably nothing wrong downstairs. More wrong than usual, at least. His eyes slid to Hermione again, before deciding that ignoring a possible calamity downstairs was the worse of his options and hurried out of this sickroom.
The source of the crash was immediately apparent when Draco arrived downstairs. The chandelier lay in a heap of mangled metal, wax, and crystal. Bellatrix crouched over a lumpy object next to it while his parents conversed in the corner. He strode over his parents, who quickly explained that the traitor house-elf had Apparated into the dungeons and whisked the remains of the Golden Trio away in a neat circumvention of the wards guarding the Manor's guests. The elf had come back for Hermione and was rewarded by Bellatrix dropping a chandelier on his head for his efforts; apparently the flair for dramatics was a family trait. Draco glanced over at his aunt; the lumpy object was, in fact, an elf's broken body. His aunt was busy carving off pieces and muttering how they'd make nice "presents" for Potter. The useless part of Draco's mind wondered who had thought of the brilliant idea to use a former Malfoy house-elf to get around the wards. He wondered if it had been Hermione; she'd always had a strange fondness for the creatures, and wouldn't have underestimated their magic like most wizards would, like the Malfoys had. Ironic then, that she'd been the one the elf hadn't saved. Then again, not that she'd know now if it had been her plan.
The reality of the situation slammed into Draco. Public enemies one through three had been present in their house, and two of them had escaped. Harry-freaking-Potter, Achilles-Heel-of-the-Dark-Lord had escaped. Draco felt his world spin as nausea gripped his stomach. His eyes rested on his Aunt, who looked like nothing more than a child playing in a sandbox, if the sand were blood, of course. His father's clipped, political voice was already running through the sanitized version of events that would-hopefully-shift the blame away from the Malfoy family. Had Greyback really secured the prisoners? He had probably delayed, wanting to taste them for himself, allowed them to escape… Lucius would look around the dungeon to corroborate his suspicions, or plant evidence, as the need arose. Draco nodded curtly, his father's plan sounding more like a paper shield against the Killing Curse than a viable plan. He turned on his heel and ran back to the guest room.
Later that evening, Hermione rested in a Healer induced coma, oblivious to the trial the Dark Lord was conducting downstairs. She was still too pale, but the Healer felt her likelihood of survival was high. Lucky her. Draco wished for such a bright future. He had lost his dinner earlier considering how unlikely his survival was. Now, he stood in the chilly ballroom, gaudy dancers and lavish spreads replaced by robed Death Eaters and a madman on an impromptu throne. Draco had thought he hated the parties-dancing very properly with his father's friends' wives and eligible daughters, making insipid conversation with those same guests. What he wouldn't give now to wake up from this nightmare and return to those times.
The ridiculous superposition of the current events with the Malfoy parties continued on in Draco's mind. He wondered if this is what his aunt's world was always like, a hallucinatory mix of reality and fantasy. Instead of a band, the Dark Lord-sprawled lazily across the carved bone chair he'd scrounged from the Nott Manor-was asking, in a calm voice that belied his fury for an explanation of the utter incompetence that had resulted in the prisoners' disappearance. Draco knew he should feel afraid, but his capacity for emotion seemed to have fled earlier with his stomach contents. His father and aunt answered the question, their opposing demeanors a perfect counterpoint to each other. Lucius plied his story of an operation filled with incompetence that he struggled to corral in a clinical, detached tone. He spun his words to implicate Greyback in the prisoner's escape, subtly enough that he could deny he'd made an accusation should the werewolf take umbrage. Bella, the fire to his father's ice, inadvertently bolstered Lucius' claims as she raged against the dubious loyalties of the mindless lackeys that polluted their presence. She had, like a house-elf Draco noted with a mix of scorn and amusement, punished herself by carving the word "failure" into her arm with a cursed blade and begged for a chance to redeem herself-preferably by purging the room of all those less devoted than she.
Lord Voldemort had looked on, stone-faced. After the pageantry of the Malfoy-Lestrange explanation, a charged silence blanketed the room. "I see," was the only presage to the punishments he meted out. He then magically bound Lucius, arms akimbo mid-air, and conjured fiery whips that flicked out at Lucius of their own volition. It was, he stated in the silences between the whip-cracks, an educational moment, an illustration of how to properly restrain prisoners. The cloying scent of charred flesh filled the air. He then sent Bella to the fetch the Snatchers, whom he allowed her to kill with the Sectumsepra curse Snape had taught her. The woman cried with joy at being allowed to perform such an act of contrition. Then the Dark Lord turned his own wand on Greyback, the Cruciatus firing out of it like a lightning bolt. The ballroom was now slick with blood and echoed with screams, yet Draco felt his heart lift a little at the fact that no one-he glanced as the flayed Snatchers' corpses-well no one important, was dead yet. The Dark Lord was in a good mood today.
The werewolf convulsed at the Dark Lord's feet, a broken supplicant as Voldemort turned his attention to Draco. "My child," the Dark Lord crooned, "I hear you have a gift for me."
Draco tried to channel the subservient competence his father seemed to have perfected, while his mind raced in worry. His plan seemed so feeble, so fragile as he walked towards the snake-man on his throne of bones and blood.
"My Lord, I have an initiative I hope you will grant me the boon of carrying out. The mudblood girl, Harry Potter's surrogate brain and dear companion, lost most of her memory during her," he paused, "interrogation." The words flowed easily, the veneer of respectful confidence easy to don after months of practice. "I checked her memory myself, Lord, it has been wiped almost totally clean. I thought, despite her base ancestry, that she is powerful and seems to learn quickly. With her mind empty, we can fill her mind with whatever you wish, convince her she's always been on our side, turn her into our weapon." He stopped, then amended, "And Potter will be devastated."
The madman laughed. "A gift indeed! The mudblood on a platter, ready as a weapon or as a lure to get Potter. It is a charming plan. It will serve to amuse me if nothing else, I suppose. Though, why Draco, should I not give this little project to another?" The Dark Lord's voice was light, teasing. Provisionally, a good sign.
Draco bowed low. "My Lord, you may of course give this project to anyone you wish. I had hoped you might grant me this task as a chance to redeem myself after my failure last year. I know now that I have much to learn before I can hope to be as effective as the others, but I hoped this task might be a good match for my developing skills." A touch of humility, a desire to improve-hopefully the man would interpret any desperateness that leaked through as stemming from his hope for redemption.
The silence seemed to stretch on for eons. Finally, Voldemort waved his hand in a lazy dismissal. "Go on, get back to your little pretend fiancee while the adults continue our chat." Draco bowed again and walked briskly out of the macabre ballroom, hoping he could leave before the screaming started again.