:: Chapter Four: Torture ::

"This is a wild goose chase." Harry sighed collapsing down on a nearby bench in Muggle London.

"We need to find her soon. Or else it may be to late." Ron agreed.

"She could be anywhere and it's our job to find her? Wonderful." Exhaustion swept over his body capping him in a wave of sleepiness.

"Come on we have to keep going." Ron pushed on. They walked through the streets looking for anything suspicious in the last known whereabouts of a Deatheater.

"Come on," Draco pushed Hermione out of her chair. "We have to leave." Hermione still refused to talk to him. "You can't just ignore me."

"Why? Why can't I? You've done it to me my whole life and I retaliate in the slightest way only to end up being told that I can't do anything. You seem to forget who the intelligent one is in this predicament."

"Who's the one tied up? You seem to forget I have total control."

"You have nothing over me."

"Nothing?" He smirked.

"Stop doing that! Stop smirking like you know something that makes you right and everyone wrong."

"Don't you always believe that you're right and I'm wrong?"

"I don't believe things that aren't true."

Hermione sighed deeply and stared at the cold, hard floor of her prison.

"You're trapped in this reign of terror. It's enveloping you, suffocating, and collapsing. Killing you." Draco's voice was soft and drifted through the room. "Fate is a twisted thing that cannot be toyed with. If you play with fire you will get burned, and Miss Granger this is no average flame." His words jumbled together in his head.

"What are you saying? That I'm doomed?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Whose side are you on?"

"Side?" He looked at her and for a second she didn't see Draco Malfoy, Death Eater and murderer. She saw a vulnerable man staring back at her, his clear blue eyes opening doors to his locked soul. "Sides are a tricky thing, I am on no side. I'm fighting my own battle and fighting vigorously."

"How can you not choose a side?" She said exasperated. "You're good or evil Draco. Neutrality will only end up torturing you, killing you."

"You no nothing about torture." He said through clenched teeth.

"I know that it's painful, isn't that enough?"

"Painful? That's all you think it is?" He was taking shallow, jagged breaths. Hermione feared he would collapse any second. He licked his lips before he began. "That's not even the worst part of it. It's emotionally draining; you're dying mentally. The curses penetrate your skin piercing your very soul, stinging, and leaving emotional scars. Do you think that I can ever get that back, that I can ever be like I was before?" He fell to the cold ground feet away from her. "And then the pain. It." He choked back sobs. "It's indescribable." He gulped before the tears could spill onto his pale cheeks. "There is nothing that can make those scars fade, with five years, ten years, all of eternity." Defiant tears pelted his cheeks. "There is nothing I wouldn't do to not have to face those years of torture, no one should ever have to feel that pain, the vulnerability." Hermione's own tears flowed down her cheeks. "Painful? It's demeaning."

"I'm sorry I shouldn't have." Her words were interrupted.

"No you shouldn't have." Draco snapped standing up and wiping the tears from his cheeks. Hermione shrunk back against the wall.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing!" He yelled.

"If you keep yelling at me what am I supposed to do? I can't just keep these things inside. I'm not that type of person."

"Well become that type."

"I will not subject myself to the ridicule you're putting me through."

"You have no choice."

"I have plenty of choices."

"You have one choice. To sit there like a good little girl and shut your mouth."

"No." Hermione said and regretted it as soon as the vicious word left her trembling lips.

"No?" The smirk on his lips was driving her mad, his emotions could be so well hid with one little sly smirk. She didn't dare to repeat the word. Her mouth opened daring her to say it, to taunt him, to knock him off his pedestal. "No." Her voice seemed almost distant.

"That's what I thought you said."

'No reaction?' Hermione thought partially relieved, partially scared out of her wits. Draco stepped up to her and knelt down in front of her. "I can make you say things you would never say, make you do things you would never do, create such a hurt on your body that you'd be begging me to kill you." His mouth was mere inches away from her ear now. "But I wouldn't." He whispered. "I would watch you scream and cry and beg for mercy. But nothing will stop me." His voice became firm. "Nothing. Do you understand?" He stroked her cheek with his thumb. She nodded fighting off the ever-present tears that had become accustomed to her cheeks. "Good. We wouldn't want anything to happen to you. yet." He whispered getting close to her ear again. Chills ran down her spine and she flinched. Draco smiled with delight. "Am I making you uncomfortable?" The question was rhetorical and she ignored it with the greatest of ease. "And what if I was to do this?" He kissed her ear lobe and she bit her lip.

"Stop." She mumbled.

"What?" He asked shocked. "Are you telling me what to do?" She shook her head not wanting to trust her mouth with any more words. He pulled away from her and stood up. "Filthy little mudblood." He spat climbing the stairs, leaving Hermione in the cold, wet basement.