Chapter 6 Blood on Her Hands
She gazed listlessly out the window, thinking about her last attempt at escape… She had only broken her arm that time, which was lucky since she had fallen three stories from the tower she was locked in, when her makeshift rope gave out. Her father insisted that none of his guards touch her, yet he had glared down at her in remorse as he bound her wrists tightly in duct tape.
"Why do you make me do this to you, Hermione? Do you enjoy causing me this agony? Did your mother and I raise you to be such an insolent young woman? You were supposed to carry on the family business some day, but look at you. Rebelling against your father's wishes. Disregarding my authority. You have broken your mother's heart. I give you one last chance. Apologize now, and be forgiven."
She turned her head shyly to the side, and then spit furiously in his face. "You took me away from the only place I've ever felt at home, the only place I didn't bear the onus of being your daughter. I would die rather than apologize to the likes of you."
Mr. Granger slapped his daughter sharply across her cheek.
"So be it. You are no child of mine."
He stalked from the room, slamming the heavy metal door behind him. Hermione heard the bolt close, and a key lock. The sound rang through the small attic space, resonating lost hope and abandoned dreams, with the finality of a coffin lid slamming shut.
"So be it", she whispered to the empty room.
She tried to ignore the sudden, dark fear in the back of her mind that she would be trapped forever in this empty place.
Neville Longbottom woke up in the hospital wing under Mme. Pomfrey's hard stare. He knew instinctively that something was very wrong.
"Hermione..?"
"She's gone", Madam Pomfrey replied coldly. "I suggest that you don't speak of her… you won't find many in this castle who like to hear that name right now."
"Why? What has happened?" Neville frenziedly demanded. His heart thudded against his ribcage.
"She is dead to us. She's back with those muggle criminal scum. She should never have come to Hogwarts… She should have stayed with her own kind."
Neville lurched forward violently and vomited over the side of his four post hospital bed.
"Not Hermione," he whispered, "she can't be gone."
He vowed silently to find her, wherever she was, whatever had happened to her. He would not rest till she was safe, and would do whatever it took to right this heinous wrong.
Draco Malfoy leaned nonchalantly against a wall, smoking a Dr. Filibuster cigarette. It emitted puffs of purple smoke, adding the melancholy air about him. Pansy Parkinson approached him coyly, with her pug face.
"What's wrong Drakey? Not thinking about that awful commotion that that mudblood started yesterday, are you? Good riddance, what a terror she was."
Draco fixed his forget-me-not eyes upon her with such utter disdain and contempt that she visibly trembled.
"Yes, quite a commotion", he merely said in reply. He flicked the sparking cigarette onto the dead grass at his feet, and ground in into the dirt with unnecessary force.
"Good riddance indeed", he said, yet his voice sounded strangely dull and lifeless.
"Draco," she whined plaintively.
But he did not so much as look at her. With a sweep of his black robes, he turned and stalked away. She watched his black robes until they vanished into the pinpricks of her horizon.
Well, I didn't get much reviews and the 1s I got were really really mean so I asked my mom to read the story and she said it got real bad and helped me write this next part. So I hope you like it better and don't hate me so much! XDXDXD so please please PLEASE REVIEW!