A/N: I am hoping to write a couple more chapters following Hermione before doing an aside chapter showing Harry and Ron. How do you think it's going so far? It's hard to write Draco because you don't see him a lot in the main Harry Potter books, and when you do, he's always a bit different (arrogant, cowardly, and immature in the first two books; pompous and foul in books three, four, and five; scared, alone, and vulnerable in books six and seven) so I tried to combine all of those traits along with a few that I assume he has. If you have any suggestions, let me know!
WARNING: Sensitive topic issue in this chapter.
Disclaimer: All characters, plots, ideas, events, etc. are not mine. They belong to the brilliant mind of JK Rowling.
….
Draco Malfoy woke up at six in the morning to screaming. Terrible, heart wrenching, horrifying screaming. He leapt up, grabbed his wand and ran across the hall to Hermione's room. Not wanting to pause to even open the door, he snapped his wand and the door busted open. Nobody was in the room except for Hermione. She was screaming and writhing on the bed, her hands clutching the sheet. "No!" she cried.
"Granger!" Malfoy called, but she didn't respond.
"Stop! Please! It's fake! The sword is a fake!" Draco's eyes widened. She was reliving the scene that had taken place in his home a few months earlier in her nightmares. No wonder she was screaming so terribly. In her unconscious state, Bellatrix Lestrange was torturing her mercilessly. She began flopping around violently on the bed, as if she had been hit by a Cruciatus Curse.
Afraid she might fling herself off of the bed, Draco lunged at her, pinning her body to the mattress with his own. She writhed beneath him, and slowly her screams turned into moans. There was a brief moment in which she let out a low moan, both of them breathing heavily, when Draco felt oddly turned on. Then he remembered who he was with and said clearly, "Wake up, Granger."
Hermione gasped suddenly and her eyes flew wide open, focused on something that Draco couldn't see. She closed her eyes tight, silently counted to ten, opened her eyes again and sagged against his hold with relief. "Just a nightmare," she said to herself.
"That was one hell of a nightmare, Granger. Merlin, I thought you were going to kill yourself the way you were flailing about! Do you do that every night?"
"N-no."
"Why the stutter? Are you lying? Tell me how often you have nightmares like that."
Scowling all the while, she replied, "It only happens when I don't feel safe or secure while I'm sleeping. For example, there was one night a couple of weeks ago when I got separated from Harry and Ron. It happened then. Also that one night when we were camping by this particularly dense area of forest, and I was worried about wild animals."
"I see," Draco frowned, "so you don't feel very safe here?"
She glared maliciously, "Of course I don't bloody feel safe here! You're a Death Eater, Malfoy, and I'm number two on You-Know-Who's 'most wanted' list. You could turn me into him in the blink of an eye. Speaking of which, why haven't you turned me in?"
Draco pushed himself off of her, as they were still in a rather awkward position and snapped angrily, "I don't need to explain myself to you, Mudblood." Without another word, he strode out of the room.
Hermione sat there, slightly stunned, and laid back down. What time was it anyway? There wasn't a clock in her room. Was that sunlight pouring in through the blinds of the window? Groaning, she pulled the blanket over her head. That was until music started blaring through the apartment.
"Jump on my broom, I'll take you for a flight, Baby we can get a room, things with you feel so right…" Hermione wanted to Avada Kedavra herself. Seriously? Draco Malfoy was listening to this rubbish this early in the morning? She heard noises coming from the kitchen; drawers slamming, metal clanging together, and she grudgingly got up to find out what was going on.
Still shirtless, Draco Malfoy stood in front of the stove, putting a tea kettle on. He had his back to Hermione as he pulled out a frying pan and cracked a couple of eggs into it. "Sunny side up, okay, Granger?"
She jumped; how had he known she was right behind him? "Sunny side up is fine."
"No, I meant that's how I like my eggs," he turned toward her, thrust a spatula into her hand and said, "I'm going to take a shower, I want those hot on my plate with a side of toast when I come out. Also, if my toast is burnt, I won't be happy."
Wanting to scream with frustration, she shook the spatula at his retreating figure and glared at the stove. It was a command, and even if it wasn't, she would've cooked them anyway. For some unfathomable reason, she felt that she owed Draco Malfoy, even though she didn't.
He was singing in the shower, the songs that were on the radio. She cooked breakfast to such perfection that not even Draco Malfoy could find anything to complain about; even the tea was perfect. "You had better start calling me by my name," she told him curtly as they sat across from each other at the small kitchen table.
"I suppose that means you had better start calling me 'Master.'" He smirked at her over his breakfast and said with relish, "Blimey am I going to love hearing that from your mouth."
"Shut up and eat your breakfast," Hermione didn't say what she was thinking; that those words would never come out of her mouth because she was going to find a way out of this blasted apartment and away from him if it was the last thing she did.
"Listen," he said after a few moments of silence, "if anyone knocks on the door, don't answer. Do not use my owl. I'm not going to force you to clean, after all, my apartment is exceptionally well kept as it is. I'll be home sometime this evening. Just so you know, my schedule is fairly simple to remember. Monday through Friday I will be gone from 8am until about 5pm. My weekends are free for me to do whatever I want. Oh, you should probably run up to the store because with two people living here now we'll be needing more food."
He pulled a money pouch from his pocket and tossed it onto the table. "Is that an order?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
Smirking, he said, "Yes, it is. Go to the market, buy us food, and come straight back. Don't talk to anyone unless you have to or just make polite conversation and if you see anyone you recognize, avoid them to best of your ability. Understood, Kitten?" he said her name mockingly.
"Yes," she said.
"When you reply to me, say 'Yes, Master' or 'No, Master.'"
"Yes, Master," her teeth ground together as the words slipped through her lips. "Where are you going anyway? Do you have a job?"
"School," he said, sipping his tea.
"School?" Hermione asked.
"Yes, Kitten, school. Surely you've heard of it? It's a place where people go to learn."
"I know what a school is! I just didn't see you as the type to get further education after Hogwarts."
"Funny, I didn't peg you as the type to end up as a house elf."
Hermione almost lunged across the table at him. It took every ounce of her self control to keep from acting out. She contented herself with remembering the time she had slapped him across the face in third year. She remembered the satisfying pop sound her hand had made against his cheek and she actually managed a small smirk.
He then reached over and said, "Give me your hand," she did. He put an emerald green ribbon on her wrist with the initials DLM. "Give me your other hand," he did the same thing to that one. "These are a sign of your…enslavement. All mudblood slaves have them. You are not allowed to remove them. They symbolize what you are and who you belong to."
Hermione rolled her eyes, "Lovely, now everyone will know that I'm Draco Malfoy's bitch."
He chuckled before saying, "Alright, I should be off. You remember my instructions?"
"Yes, Master," she hated saying those words, but they came out involuntarily.
He smirked at her, his eyes twinkling with amusement and she wanted to strangle him. "Good. Now stand still," he waved his wand at her, transfiguring her features just enough so that she would not be recognized as Hermione Granger. Her hair shortened to almost chin-length, became poker straight, and turned slightly lighter brown. Her nose changed shape slightly, as did her lips and eyes (which were also now a pleasant hazel color). Her figure stayed the same.
"I'll be home around 5 o'clock. Make whatever you want to eat. Also, you can use some of the money I left you to buy yourself some clothes seeing as how you'll be stuck here for….well, ever. See you tonight." He left the apartment.
Hermione waited a few moments to make sure he wasn't going to come back, and then jumped up and rushed to the fireplace. Her first thought of escape had been to floo out of the house. She stepped into the grate, grabbed a handful of floo powder, and said clearly, "The Burrow!" she dropped the dust in her hand, but nothing happened. Not even a flicker of green.
Groaning, she climbed out of the fireplace. She knew she couldn't apparate without a wand, but some wizards were capable of wand-less magic, weren't they? With more determination than ever, she closed her eyes, envisioned the Forest of Dean and spun. Nothing happened. In vain, she ran to the door, wrenched it open and propelled herself forward, but was thrown back into the apartment by an invisible barrier.
Not to be dismayed, she searched the house until finding Malfoy's Firebolt in a hall closet and pulled open a window, feeling the warm morning breeze greet her face. Even though she absolutely hated flying, she was willing to do just about anything to leave the apartment that had become her prison. She flung one leg over the broom, bent her knees, and sprung forward toward the open window. Again, she was thrown backward by an invisible force.
Almost crying with frustration, she reached the conclusion that she would not be escaping that day. Her initial list of possibilities was depleted, and she would simply have to put some more brain power and ingenuity into her escape.
The first thing she did was shower. It felt wonderful to take a nice hot shower after all she had been through. After drying her hair, she came to the conclusion that all she had to wear were her pajamas from the night before, as the dress she had been wearing when Lucius bought her was little more than a white sack.
She rolled up the hems of the pajama pants to at least make them look like capris shorts, and she was off. It seemed that the apartment knew her intentions; when she wanted to escape, she was unable to leave, but now that she intended to shop and return, no barrier blocked her path. Sighing with relief as she entered the hallway, she took the elevator to the ground floor and then went straight to Diagon Alley.
Knowing muggle stores much better than wizard ones, Hermione exchanged some of Draco's coins for muggle money and then went to London shopping. She bought a few foods that were only sold in muggle stores for herself to enjoy, knowing that Draco wouldn't touch them. Her clothing, however, had to be bought in Diagon Alley, because no pureblood wizard would let his slave wear muggle clothes.
Once she was inside Madam Malkins, she was glad to see a wide variety of clothing. The only reason she had ever frequented that shop before was for her school robes. Now she was shopping for witch's robes, pajamas, and maybe a nice cloak or two. After all, she had a significant amount of wizard gold left.
"What are you here for?" asked a shy girl with dirty blonde hair. Hermione knew that she was a customer trying to make small talk while they shopped.
"Well, I could use a few new outfits, maybe some underclothes, pajamas would be nice," Hermione gave the girl a timid smile.
"Your Master lets you buy your own clothes? Nice clothes?" The girl motioned towards Hermione's wrists. Hermione nodded vaguely and noted that the girl was likewise wearing black ribbons with the initials BAZ on them. "You're quite fortunate," said the girl quietly.
"Who…who is your…to whom do you…" she wasn't sure how to phrase her question.
The girl gave her a small sad smile, "Blaise Zabini. Let me tell you, he's a right foul git. When he came looking for a mud…someone like me, to buy, he was shown a variety of girls, several virgins, but declared that he wanted 'a slag who knew what she was doing' so he bought me. Not that I'm a slag, of course."
Hermione felt sick. Truly and utterly disgusted. "What's your name?"
"Lucy. Or, at least that was my name, until he renamed me 'Randi.'" Her cheeks turned faintly red as she admitted this.
Hermione didn't need to ask to know why Blaise had chosen that name. It was a slang term that meant sexually excited. It was demeaning to her, and complimentary toward Blaise. At least, that's how the wizard world would see it. "I'm sorry," said Hermione, "if it makes you feel any better, I was named 'Kitten.'"
"That's not so bad. I met one girl the other day who was called 'Cherry' because she had been a virgin before she was bought."
"That's terrible!"
"Here you are," Madam Malkins had come forward from the back of her shop and handed Randi an armful of clothes, "you can let Mr. Zabini know that they were all tailored to his requirements. Have a good day." Randi nodded to Madam Malkins, then to Hermione, and left the shop. "What can I do for you?"
An hour later, Hermione left the shop with her arms laden with packages of clothing and food. Magic made carrying things so much easier. She wished, not for the first time, that she had her wand. That was when she saw that Ollivander's wand shop was open and running. Looking around quickly, she ducked into the store.
It was not, however, Mr. Ollivander behind the counter. It was a different wizard. "May I help you, Miss?"
"Yes," she said, "I'm in need of a wand."
The man rolled his eyes, "I'm afraid I cannot help you."
"But this is a wand shop!"
"Yes, but you are a slave," he motioned to her wrists. Blushing furiously, Hermione pulled down the sleeves of her shirt, but the man shook his head, "You should leave."
"I have gold! Tell me your price, any price, and I'll pay it!"
"I will not do business with you. Leave now or I'll have to use force."
Deflating in defeat, Hermione bowed her head and left the shop. It was worth a try at least. With nothing else left to shop for, her feet began automatically taking her toward the Leaky Cauldron. She remembered Draco's command to buy provisions and then come straight back.
All things considered, it had been one hell of a day, and it was just after noon. Draco wouldn't be back for hours. What was he studying for anyway? Her curiosity peaked, she made it back to his apartment quickly, put all of her purchases away and went into his study.
One glance at the books told her what she wanted to know; Draco Malfoy was studying to be a Healer. She certainly had not seen that one coming. She skimmed through the books briefly, and then with real interest began pulling them onto her lap, collapsing into his chair and reading voraciously. Whenever she was upset, it always helped to read, and there was no such thing as a boring book.
She was so engrossed in Cures for Curses that she jumped when she heard the front door close with a snap. "Kitten? I'm home. Why isn't dinner cooking?" his tone was somewhat teasing and somewhat serious. He came around the corner and found her sitting on the floor of his study surrounded by open books. "I should have known," he said with a snort.
"What? You didn't say I wasn't allowed to read."
"Of course you're allowed to read, but those books are bloody boring."
"I think they're simply fascinating! Is this how you got rid of my scars?" she asked, motioning to a spell she had found.
Draco shook his head, "Those won't work on Sectumsempra. Besides, the curses used on you were Dark Magic. You won't find remedies for Dark Magic in Healer books."
"Well why not? Healers need to know how to cure things!"
"I agree, but they're simply not allowed."
"Why do you even want to be a Healer? Don't you revel in death and destruction?"
"Yet again, Granger, I don't have to explain my reasons to you."
"Yet again, Malfoy, call me 'Kitten.'"
"Fine then, Kitten, what did you buy at the store today?"
"Food and clothes."
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything else that you tried to buy?"
"No."
"Answer my question truthfully."
"Yes. Damn it, Malfoy! Stop forcing the truth out of me you evil prat!"
"I received an owl today from Mr. Burke, you know him, from Borgin and Burkes. He took over Ollivander's wand shop a few months ago. He said that a mudblood slave attempted to purchase a wand from him. A mudblood slave who just so happened to have my initials on her bonds."
"Bonds?" she scoffed, "they're ribbons."
"They're representative of bonds, plus that's what they're called; 'bonds.' That's not even the point!" he rubbed his forehead and looked as if he were having an intense mental dilemma, "The point is that if you actually manage to escape, the Dark Lord will find you and kill you. He can track you."
"I was thinking about that today actually," as she spoke she calmly closed the book in her lap and set it where she had found it on his desk, "you don't want me anymore than I want to be here. So why don't you go and buy yourself another girl? Your father won't know the difference. You could just say that you transfigured my looks to suit your tastes."
He sighed heavily, "You still don't get the seriousness of this situation. Or perhaps you just don't know, since you have been so out of touch with the wizard world for so long. The Traders and Sellers of mudbloods keep a very detailed and very intricate log of every mudblood they find, have, and sell. When my father bought you, he filled out papers, Granger. If I buy another one, I'll have to fill out papers. It will be in their records that I own two mudbloods. They might find that suspicious. They might ask my father about it. Worse, they might mention it to some other Death Eater. No matter how, it will get back around to the Dark Lord and then guess what? He Tracks you, kills me, and tortures you for information on Potter. Is that what you want?"
"I didn't…I didn't know that they kept a log of how many slaves you own."
"Now you know. For Merlin's sake, Kitten, if you escape, we both die."
"Draco," she had only used his name once before, in a moment of excitement and a slip of the tongue, but she used it very deliberately now and he looked at her curiously, "you have risked a lot to make sure that I didn't fall into the wrong hands, and I am thankful for that. As important as it is that I help Harry and Ron defeat You-Know-Who, I will not let you die in order to accomplish that. It wouldn't be right. I apologize for these dreadful circumstances. I'm so sorry that I was foolish enough to be lured away from the safe haven Harry, Ron, and I had created. I won't…I won't try to escape again," she said the last line in a whisper.
"Damn right you won't. I forbid you from trying to escape," at his words, she gasped, feeling a particularly powerful tingle singe up and down her spine. He didn't want to have to do it. That had been the mental dilemma he had been having a few moments before. At one time he had loved making people do what he said, but now that he had such absolute power over a person, he found that he despised it. He felt like a monster for abusing that power now, but he didn't really have a choice. He had decided to keep this girl from Voldemort's clutches, and he wasn't going to let her get either of them killed. "I'm sorry, but it had to be done. Now go and start dinner, it's getting late."
