"Bloody hell Granger; are you incapable or keeping anything down?" Hermione opened her eyes to find that Malfoy was talking to her, his eyebrow raised. She left awful; a curious combination of sweaty, shaky and incredibly weak.
"Leave me alone," she muttered, closing her eyes again.
"Apparently I can't, look at yourself! Sit up," he ordered. Hermione did as she was told. "Right, drink this." He held out a glass of liquid and flicked his wand at it, spelling it to make rehydrate her. He put one hand on the back of her head and held the glass to her lips with the other but she wrenched her head out his grasp and grabbed the glass.
"I can manage!" she retorted indignantly but her hand was shaking so much that she would have spilt it had he not helped her.
"Clearly," he replied, helping her drink. She glared at him. "You're welcome," he said.
"What?! You want me to thank you?? Let me see, you kept me in a freezing dungeon for days with no food and no light, only a glass of water. You are only keeping me here so that when my friends come you can kill them and then you are going to kill me. But thanks sooo much for helping me drink!" she responded sarcastically.
Malfoy was red in the face with anger. He paced his room. "You are up here now Granger. It is warm and clean, I am trying to give you food but you reject it! You have clean clothes and something soft to lie on!"
"Oh, well that is just great."
"Do you want me to put you back down there?"
"If it means being away from you, yes!"
"Well, that is just tough! You are just going to have to put up with me because this is where you are now and where you are going to stay!"
"For how long?!"
"For as long as it takes!"
"Takes for what? The week to finish?!"
"Not anymore Granger, for as long as it takes Potter and Weasley to find you. Apparently I was overestimating them when I said it should only be a week."
Hermione was temporarily struck speechless, so this wasn't all going to be over in a matter of a few days? She may be here for a lot longer than that.
"So you are going to have to eat something and keep it down sometime soon. You are skin and bones already."
Hermione did not say anything. He may have spared his life for now but he was still killing her and her friends at some point. And there he was, standing by his window, smiling at her!
"What did you kiss me for?" she asked, after a lengthy pause.
He did not answer but once again conjured some food for her. "Eat!"
Hermione had managed to keep her food down for hours and was now lying on the sofa, lost in her thoughts. She had managed to come up with no amazing escape plan as of yet but was still desperately working on it. Feeling much better than before, she stood up but had to clutch her head as the blood rushed it and she swayed slightly. Malfoy had been out when she had finished eating and was still too weak to explore but now he was back and was once again reading on his bed. She wondered over to the huge window from which she could see the grounds of Malfoy Manor. It was very large and very grand; the sun was setting in the distance, making the sky and fiery orange and casting a glow on the woods that made up the grounds in the further away. Closer to the house was a large and stately garden. Huge hedges marked the perimeter and a large fountain with a surrounding pond lay in the middle. The fountain was shaped like wizards and Hermione had a sneaking suspicion that they were Malfoys. There was no colour in the garden, despite the fact that it was spring; all the plants there were were a dark green. The lawn was perfectly manicured and a few benches were spread throughout it. Hermione sighed; it was a far cry from her familiar back garden and certainly from that of the Burrow – she doubted that they had a garden gnome problem.
She turned away from the window and found that she was facing the bookshelf, which she was drawn to; after all it had been rather a long time since she had perused unfamiliar books. She walked over to it and started examining book titles. Some books she recognised, either because she had read them or because she had heard about them. The books at the bottom were full of dark magic and she paid little head to them but many she did not know. These books were foreign to her and therefore exciting; she could feel her fingers tingling as she died to begin reading and absorbing new information. She reached out to one and then remembered that she had been forbidden to touch anything. She quickly turned around to see that Malfoy was watching her, very amused.
"I wondered how long it would take you to find the bookshelf, Granger."
"Can I look at a few," and after a small pause she added, "please."
"Well I don't know. Why should I let you?"
"Malfoy, I am going to go crazy if you keep me here with nothing to do."
"I can think of plenty to do."
"Like what?!"
Malfoy walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist he smirked.
But Hermione flung his arms away from her and backed away. "Don't touch me," she said softly.
He took another step towards her and, putting his hand under her chin, he stroked her face with his thumb. Hermione tried to push him away, her hands on his chest. "Or what?" he asked.
She shuddered at his answer and she came to the realisation that she really couldn't do anything if he decided to take advantage. For some reason this scared her even more than his death threats had. The colour drained from her face and she dropped her arms to her side limply.
Malfoy suddenly let go of her and took a couple of steps backwards. "Fine," he said, his face red with fury, "take your pick of the books. Read whatever you like." He spun around and retreated back to his bed.
Hermione took a couple of deep, calming breaths, and turned to face the bookcase. Selecting a book at random, she pulled it off the shelf and sat down on the floor. She opened the book and began to read the first page but was unable to take much in; her mind was spinning with the events of the past two minutes. She did not know whether he would have done anything to her, she knew he had kissed her but would he go further than that? He seemed to have no qualms about killing innocent people so why not this? But even as Hermione thought that, her reason kicked in; he had bragged about it and threatened it but, when push came to shove, would he actually be able to kill? She simply did not know.
She felt more desperate than ever to find a way out of there and tried to look around the room without actually appearing to look away from her book. She was quite certain that Malfoy had got his whole room spelled that if she tried to look for her wand he would be alerted immediately and she did not want to risk it. She decided that the best idea would be to steal his wand. She knew, of course, that the wand would not work as well as her original one but she was sure that she could manipulate it enough to get out of there. On the pretence of moving to the chair, she glanced around the luxurious room to see if she could spot his wand and was surprised to find that it was not on his person but resting on the table beside his bed. She wondered if she would be able to snatch it now, but immediately dismissed the idea; it was within an arms length of Malfoy and he would easily be able to grab it if she approached. The sun was setting; surely he would go to sleep soon and when that happened she could take the wand.
Hermione settled herself on the chez longue again, and wrapped the blanket around her comfortingly. Yes, she would wait until he was fast asleep and then would take his wand. That having been decided, she was free to look study the book she had; it was a detailed history of the oldest of the pureblood families. She examined the family trees in the front and was not surprised when she found the name Malfoy. However, she also saw Weasley and felt a pang.
By the time she was reaching the end of the book, there was so little light in the room that she was struggling to read it. Afraid to ask for light, she simply closed the book, a chapter from the end, and lay down.
"You're right, Granger, it definitely is time for bed." Malfoy began to take off his robes, illuminated by the solitary candle on the table by his wand, and if he could have seen Hermione in the darkness, he would have seen that she was scarlet. She quickly looked away, embarrassed and pulled the blanket over her head. She heard him get into the bed and blowing out the candle.
Hermione kept her eyes open, trying to stay awake and ascertain when his breathing had become deep and regular enough for her to know that he was asleep. However, he did not seem to be a very heavy sleep; every time she thought he was asleep he would make a small noise and turn over. She tried her best, but she was shattered and simply could not stay awake, hoping that she would wake up in the middle of the night, she gave over to sleep.
