Chapter 1: Alive


I had a one-way ticket to a place where all the demons go, where the wind doesn't change. And nothing in the ground can ever grow.

No hope, just lies. And you're taught to cry into your pillow.

But I survived.

- Sia (Alive)


The bed creaked from under him. Draco Malfoy lay on his grey silk sheets, contemplating how much he had thoroughly ruined his life. The blonde man stood abruptly, clutching his head from the temporary blurry vision.

He was a simple man who was minding his own bloody business. If it wasn't for her piercing scream and his bloody instincts, she would have died. And to think, Longbottom was with her! Talk about killing two birds with one stone! But no, he had to jump in and save them.

He wasn't the kind to rescue damsels in distress. Especially ones he had not an ounce of concern for.

Draco groaned when a dark man with sculpted cheekbones and sleek, dark eyes entered the room.

"What did you do now, Draco?" said the man, bleary-eyed, as he brushed fine floo powder from his jacket sleeves.

"I just screwed up my life, Blaise."

"What happened?" Blaise sank onto the plush lounge sofa opposite from where Draco sat at the foot of the bed.

Draco, the poor fellow, looked worse for wear. Worse than the spoiled, whining schoolboy from long ago. He grimaced before he answered. "Did you hear that?"

Blaise cocked his head to the side and strained his ears. "What am I supposed to hear? For Merlin's sake, I'm only mortal," he said with growing frustration.

"We- I have a problem." He looked ominously at the shadows in his bedroom. "A bushy-haired problem," he added ruefully.

—•—•—•—

A woman lay on the cold, hard dungeon floor.

She looked dirty and worn out, as if she'd just fought a multitude of wars and painstakingly survived. Her curly brown hair was matted and frizzy - much frizzier than normal, if that was humanly possible. It served as a pillow for her head in her unconscious state.

She was running towards a steep cliff. The wind carried bloodcurdling howls through the dead of night. Looking back and knowing they were near, she realized there was nowhere else to go but down.

She remembered attempting to jump. The fear of it was heart-pounding.

A flash of silver pinned her to the ground and roared. Its teeth were bared and gleamed in the moonlight...

Hermione Granger woke with a gasp. Her brown eyes opened wide in vivid awareness. Her head spun in different directions and her vision blurred around the edges.

"Ah!" She hissed in pain.

Her muscles strained as she sat upright. She might have outrun a centaur or insulted a hippogriff, but the damage she'd put her body through was now biting her in the arse. She could barely move anything at all. Her head was mush and her limbs were dead weights.

She tried standing, but ended up crawling weakly to the cast-iron door. Only when she raised her arms to pound on it did she see her torn coat sleeves. Her hands frantically roamed over her body for further inspection. There was a gash on the back of her head where dried blood caked her neck. Multiple bruises and minor cuts covered her body. She found more torn clothing, especially around the shoulders and hems of her coat.

On top of all that, the door was locked. It seemed to only open from the outside.

Panic rose in her throat. Unable to scream without her voice cracking, she huddled on the floor. Tears pooled in her eyes.

Hermione Granger felt hopeless.

Just then, a pop echoed inside the cell. A tiny elf appeared. "Oh! Miss is awake. Presto thought Master killed Miss." The elf sounded relieved. "Miss is guest of Master."

—•—•—•—

"WHERE THE HELL AM I?"

Once again, Draco buried his miserable face between his knotted fingers as if in prayer. His platinum blonde fringe fell to completely conceal his eyes. A grimace distorted his fine, handsome face.

He could hear, with vicious clarity and sharpness, his 'guest' shrieking. Her voice was already grating in its normal tone, but screeching? Really? His ears never felt more violated. It was irritating!

"What will you do with her?" Blaise asked warily. Draco had other, more demanding personal entanglements. Anyone with a brain in between their ears would understand how much a risk this little stunt cost him.

"I think I have a way to finally end things. Once and for all."

—•—•—•—

"No! Where are you taking me?" Hermione shook her hand away from the elf's grasp.

The elf's ears drooped and his eyes turned glassy. She was suddenly reminded of Dobby, the late house elf Harry freed from Lucius Malfoy. The first liberated house elf.

Presto, as this elf called himself, bawled. "Master told Presto to take Miss to her room!"

Hermione was taken aback. "'Her room'?" Why did the elf say she was a guest?

If she was a guest, this so-called 'host' was a terrible one. Who would leave their guest lying bloody and bruised in a dungeon?

The whole situation was absurd. Hermione didn't understand the joke.

And what did her yelling prove? The house elf belonged to his Master and was only compelled to do his bidding. She shouldn't take out her anger, panic, or frustration out on the little guy. She felt guilty for her rudeness towards the elf.

The elf took heaving breaths and wiped his tears with his rag-clothes. Almost all his words were incoherent, nasally sobs. The words 'Master', 'Miss', and 'Presto' were all she made out.

She bent down on her knees. "Alright, alright. Presto, is it?"

The house elf nodded still wiping his tears.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you—"

Without warning, Presto wailed and another batch of tears dripped relentlessly down his wrinkly face. "Presto is a naughty, naughty elf! Miss shouldn't say sorry to Presto. He is only a lowly house elf." He bowed to her so low his nose nearly touched the ground.

Great. An obsessively loyal house elf with a slavery complex. His Master would be a delightful person, surely. He must be another entitled and medieval Pureblood.

Maybe she should meet with this elf's Master. She would give him a piece of her mind, knock some sense into him. Maybe she could teach him a manner or two.

"You poor, poor elf!"

Presto cried aloud again. It was getting tiresome, placating a house elf like this. Sometimes she thought they were masochists.

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose to soothe the pain twitching in between her eyes. "Alright! Stop, already!" she sighed. "Take me to your Master."

The elf's face brightened instantly. "Miss will like her room. Presto laid out clothes for Miss!"

Hermione gravely nodded her head, partly relieved that the elf had returned to its cheerful state, the way it was when it first found her. He helped her stand up and led her away from her cold and dark dungeon.

It worried Hermione how easy it was to follow an elf to 'her room' when she had no clue where on earth she was and who owned this… whatever this place was.

There were more cells in the dungeon than she initially thought. There was a long, wide hall of them. It was deathly silent and surprisingly odorless. She read about dungeons in fantasy books always reeking of 'piss, rust, and torture'. She also read about how it sounded of 'screams of agony'. This dungeon featured none of those things. In fact, it seemed empty.

Frankly, the brunette was a tad disappointed. If there were more prisoners here, she wouldn't be alone. She could have organized a revolt against this 'Master,' or at least learn something useful about him.

Then she remembered.

"Presto, did you see a man here?" Hermione asked urgently. "A man who might have come here with me. His name is Neville Longbottom." She couldn't believe she forgot about him! Hope lifted her spirits a little; she might not be alone. Yet it sunk again at the thought of him suffering, or even lost.

The only things she knew, from what she hazily remembered, were flashes of greenery… running… moonlight… howls… and jumping. Other than that, it was a series of blank spaces in her memory.

The witch and the elf went up sets of twisting stairs until they reached a dimly-lit landing.

"Presto is not allowed to say, Miss."

"But-"

Presto opened the doors which led to a vastly different world than the dark dungeon cells. It was another floor, one far above the dungeons. Instead of darkness and Spartan stone walls, there were lamps lining the walls and velvet drapes on the opposite wall, possibly concealing windows. Hermione wanted to draw one to the side to get a glimpse outside her gilded cage.

The elf led her to multiple corridors, each more elegant than the last. There so many turns it was almost dizzying. At last, with one set of double doors finally opened, she entered a beautiful and opulent ballroom.

The floors were made out of pure marble. The random patterns swirled in different directions, making it aesthetically pleasing. There were rows of tall columns with detailed gold friezes. A large crystal chandelier hung down from the sophisticatedly moulded high ceiling. Sculpted cherubs and wolves were like sentries watching from above. A spot of platinum moonlight shone brightly through a gap in the French rose windows. At its farthest end were magnificent double doors, which looked like the main formal entrance.

"Where am I?" she asked in awe.

"Presto is to keep his mouth shut." He made the gesture of zipping his lips.

Hermione sighed. She would learn more eventually.

Her eyes roved around the ballroom, taking in the breathtaking details of the architecture. But the more she looked, the more she could sense the darkness that somehow seemed to lurk there. It wasn't anything supernatural of the sort. She didn't mean the drawn velvet drapes encasing the ballroom with darkness, either. Suddenly, the cherubs looked like demon babies, and the wolves like feral creatures. Awe was slowly morphing to horror.

She followed the elf out of the Ballroom and up the grand staircase. Hermione could barely catch up with the twists and turns as they passed through more serpentine corridors.

For such a short-legged creature, Presto walked fast and sure. She tried to recall the steps or any landmark she could remember. Anything - paintings, statues, furniture. There were so many it was quite impossible, unless she had a pensieve at her disposal.

After what seemed like hours, their excursion came to a stop. She was thrust into a massive, midnight-blue-themed bedroom. It was accented by white pieces that balanced the dark undertones. A four-poster bed with matching mesh curtains like the midnight sky spattered with faint silver glitters seemed inviting to be slept on. There was a lounge chair, an empty bookshelf, a matching white painted desk and armoire.

Presto snapped his fingers and the lamps on the bedside tables lit up. The fireplace sparked, followed by the appearance of a crackling fire.

Hermione looked out of the window for the first time. What met her eyes was an ethereal sight, almost surreal. The view from the window was a peaceful glen in a lush shade of green. The landscape was as magnificent and luxurious as the interior of the house. If this place even was a house. It could be a castle.

"Presto cure Miss now."

He grabbed her hand to sit her on the edge of the bed. With a snap of his finger, a tray of healing potions and salves materialized from thin air. He dabbed, rubbed, and numbed all her injuries. The bruises were left to heal on their own.

Presto went inside another door near one of the windows. Hermione heard water running, saw steam billowing out of the door. "Bath ready now, Miss."

"Presto, would you mind turning around?" Hermione would absolutely not put a toe in that divinely warm water with a wide-eyed elf staring at her. The elf looked hesitant to leave her alone. "Plea… I mean, go guard the door."

As much as she wanted to soak until her skin pruned up, she didn't. It felt wrong to relax in an unknown environment such as this. This wasn't home.

Her body felt raw and dirty when she stood up from her quick soak to dress hurriedly, putting on the fresh clothes Presto prepared.

The water was still hot when she exited the bathroom.

Would the elf notice if she jumped out the window?

But it was impossible. Not for the reconnaissance issue, but for the height of the window from solid ground. It was so high, she would have died before making it halfway down, never mind the certain death that would await her when her body smashed on the ground.

She rattled the doorknob; and what a surprise! It was locked. She rested her forehead to the door. "Please don't leave me here."

A pop of apparition from behind made her jump. "Master will see you now."


Revised:1-28-18. A big thanks to my alphas and betas(same people). Big shout out to Dorothy (dorothymalfoy) for the song rec! So what do you guys think? (I accept everything.)