So first of all: thank you for your reviews :) I really do appreciate reading your opinions. Also, for being patient with me for an update...exams are finally over, so I can write again guilt free...even if I'm completely fried after the semester.

Second: I have so many reservations about this chapter. Amongst them is that I don't watch horror movies and barely managed not to faint in first aid class...needless to say anything even mildly graphic in that sense is a challenge to write. How it turned out, I have no idea.

To the guest reviewer who pointed out the patronus thing: I actually assumed the trio weren't able to cast the talking patronus spell, stemming mainly from the fact that Ron had to use the deluminator to find them after he left. I went back and looked through the book, and Hermione does claim that she thinks she can cast it, but its never made explicit that she does...so for the sake of closing off a gaping hole in my story I'll assume she can't and is overestimating her skills with that comment (even if, now that I think about it, it's almost absurd to think she can't...)

To the guest reviewer who asked about how they'd avoided detection for so long: I actually need to edit the first chapter, because I have Draco apparate to the Manor alone at the beginning...and I'm not entirely sure why I did that. Snape side-along apparates him. Otherwise, I'll fill in more about how they managed to hide, and revisit why he couldn't escape with Narcissa and Draco as the story progresses.

I hope that, despite the many issues with this story, it's a somewhat enjoyable read. Please continue to give me feedback!

October 20th, 1998

"Eric Vargas, Evelyn Vargas, Tammy Edwards, Sean Bishop, Terry Baldwin, Kristi Soto, Miranda Brown, Charles Brown, Lavender Brown, Chelsea Brown,"

Her breath hitched at the last name read. Snapping out of her daze, she slammed the power button on the radio, cutting the list short. That damn list seemed to get longer every day. She might never have liked Lavender Brown, the girl had been a vapid gossip, but it didn't prevent the tears from slipping down her face for her former roommate. She might not have liked the girl, but Lavender was brave, noble, loyal. She was a true Gryffindor in every sense of the word. She should have lived. Her little sister wasn't even Hogwarts aged and they'd killed her along with the rest. They'd murdered the little girl.

There was no mercy, no end to the horror she listened to. She knew why she tortured herself with the radio. She knew she would continue listening to PotterWatch day after day, hearing more bad news with slowly dying hope, but she wanted nothing more, in that minute, than to incinerate the messenger.

It was dark outside, and wiping away at a few more angry tears, she walked back into the cottage. She didn't think she could sleep alone that night, so made her way to Lucius's room and knocked, pushing the door back without waiting for an answer - too tired to care if she was intruding on his privacy, and too upset to think twice about her actions. His wand was in his hand in an instant, lighting the room with a lumos. Seeing the tear tracks staining her cheeks, he moved over and pulled the covers open for her to slip under.

"Who was it?" he asked, softly, his voice carrying a certain compassionate, human quality that one could safely bet few people had ever heard from him.

"Lavender Brown and her family." she answered, hearing her voice crack again, "her parents, and even her little sister." Hermione choked on another sob.

Lucius shifted slightly, uncomfortably, pulling the blanket up and tucking it in around her neck, making an effort to keep the cabin's chilly autumn air away from her. He never knew why she came to him, but every time she did, he provided what pitiful comfort he could. At the very least making certain she was warm while she cried herself to sleep.

In fact, he waited night after night for her to recollect that he was one of those monsters she feared, too. The ones who'd killed families in the name of a peaceful pureblood society. Sometimes, he wondered if she was deluding herself into thinking he hadn't been; that defying all logic, she thought that he'd risen into the position of the Dark Lord's right hand man during the first war without getting his hands dirty. If that was the case, a large part of him didn't want her to ever find out the truth.


Hermione rubbed her eyes the next morning. She'd had an awful night, waking up four or five times throughout the course of it. Now, as a result, her head hurt and her eyes were practically cemented shut with dried tears. Lucius was still asleep, an arm slung across her waist. It felt nice to wake up with him, she felt safe. She also felt loved, regardless of whether or not she actually was. She took his hand in hers, turning it over and examining it for a moment before pulling his arm tighter around her. It was the first time she'd woken up with him still in the bed. Usually, he was long gone by the time her eyes opened, his side of the bed completely cold.

She nestled closer to him, his warmth contrasting in the best way with the cold air filtering into the room from a partially opened window. Fall was really settling in, the northern wind whistling past their cabin, shaking the trees. She turned herself around, a feat surprisingly difficult while caught in the tangle of blankets and underneath Lucius's arm.

His hair was splayed out on the pillow, and his features were relaxed. He still looked like he'd been to hell and back. His time in Azkaban, maybe, or when he was reduced to a prisoner in his own home. Whatever had happened to him then had changed him, and it went beyond carving lines into his face and poorly healed physical injuries. She traced the outline of his jaw with her hand, stubble scratching at her palm. He was still an attractive man, despite it all; maybe, in the non-physical sense, because of it all. She sighed, unsure where she was taking that thought, and pressed her face into his chest.

It was easier to shove her feelings to the back of her mind in a cold bed, she was now beginning to realize. Her hand, seemingly of its own accord, traced patterns on his chest. The thought that she should stop and crawl out of bed before he woke crossed her mind, but she was far too comfortable to act on it. She closed her eyes and tried to quell her overactive imagination so that she could enjoy a few more hours of sleep. It was too grey outside to know how far up the sun was, but she could make a pretty good guess that it wasn't much past four or five in the morning.

After what felt like an eternity of shuffling around and her brain failing to convince her body to go back to sleep, she opened her eyes again and gave up. This time, she picked up Lucius's hand, tracing the lines of his palm and the length of his fingers, pressing them against her own. It was all too easy to conjure up memories of what his hands felt like, stroking her face, her arms, the curve of her back. Soft and warm, although never anything but innocuous touches.

She could vividly imagine more. They could start by dropping from her cheekbones to her neck, then twining into her hair. Of course, he would kiss her then, and she would feel his hot breath as he followed them down. Maybe he'd let go, tracing the length of her arms, once, while he looked at her, his piercing grey eyes raking over her body. His hands would move in from there, ghosting across her stomach. They'd slide up, cupping her breasts, squeezing.

The daydream ended abruptly when he shifted in his sleep, exposing the brand on his arm. She stilled, sucking in breath. Suddenly, the cold didn't seem all that forbidding.

Fear of Lucius and fear of herself were both strong motivators, so moments later she was trudging back to her room to grab a sweater and then stepping outside. Hermione pulled her hands into the sleeves, wrapping her arms around herself, trying to take a calming breath. When that failed, she walked down to the riverbank and sat.

She was, once again, painfully aware of all the reasons reason objected to her emotions.

"And you must be… Miss Granger. Yes, Draco's told me all about you… and your parents. Muggles, aren't they?"

Enemies of the heir beware. The confrontation in the book shop was absolutely nothing to the terror she'd felt that year. She'd tried to put on a brave front for Harry and Ron, not to mention she hardly wanted the Slytherins to harass her anymore than they already were. Whether or not she succeeded was completely besides the point; the sleepless nights wondering if there would be a death, terrified that she would be the death, culminating in wandering the hallways with only a mirror to defend herself from a basilisk. To say she'd felt unequipped to deal with the danger was vastly underestimating her emotions.

It wasn't something she talked about. Ever. Ginny had enough guilt piled onto her from the incident without her making it worse, but she could still picture every detail of the piercing yellow eyes that sent her to the hospital wing, petrified. She would have died that night, if she didn't have the mirror with her. What kind of man was capable of setting that monster loose on a group of children. He'd changed, part of her argued. Did people really change though? Perhaps he no longer wanted to set a Basilisk loose in a school, but he'd certainly proved that he was capable of doing so.

"It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter. Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."

She could still hear Lucius's threatening voice in the department of mysteries. She remembered running for her life from the group of them, remembered Dolohov slashing his wand and watching purple light coming at her too quickly to do anything except think that that was how she was going to die.

She hadn't, but the pain when she woke and the wide assortment of potions she'd taken for months were more reminders of that night. The department of mysteries began to mingle with the basilisk in her nightmares, and never had she seen Lucius as anything but the villain. She closed her eyes again, trying to free herself of the memories.

"Hermione?" a voice called out from behind, and she heard Lucius's footsteps approaching. She didn't respond, just kept sitting, staring out into the distance. Her stomach clenched uncomfortably, turning over at the sound of his voice. When had she forgotten who he was, what he'd done? He was a Death Eater, forced to leave by circumstances, but a Death Eater nonetheless. That mark was a part of him whether he'd changed or not. How had she forgotten that?

He sat down, next to her under the tree, casting a spell to keep the rain off of them. She looked up, startled. When had it started to rain? She felt like she was losing her mind, completely losing her grasp on reality.

For a long time, he didn't say anything. Well aware he was waiting for her to open, Hermione still opted to keep silent. She didn't trust herself to say anything she wouldn't regret.

It was her that broke the silence, although not in any deliberate way. Her stomach had been protesting her decision to pass up on her usual scraps of squirrel meat that morning, and finally, it was loud enough to reach Lucius's hearing. He offered a small smile, and struggled to his feet.

"You need to eat." he said, a hint of concern on his face. She looked up at him from where she still sat, about to tell him she was fine. Her eyes dropped to his hand, held out to help her up. This was why she forgot, a voice chimed. Sighing, she took it, and started the short walk back at his side.

Their silence was, again, unexpectedly interrupted. It was a far less benign interruption than the last, and far less predictable. After months of hiding in complete isolation, they were no longer isolated. The pair stopped walking, staring out past their wards, their hearts pounding.

Lucius's arm went around her shoulder as he tried to direct her back into the cabin. There was no use watching the distasteful scene, and it was too dangerous for either of them to risk being seen. They were too recognizable, too distinct. As it was, they should still be apparating to a new location, although he was at a loss as to where that could be. If the snatchers had made it here...there was absolutely nowhere safe.

When Hermione looked up at Lucius, she knew there would be no reasoning with him. He wouldn't budge on the subject. He was distracted though, and this could be her only chance. She felt herself tear up as she pronounced the words, but she would not leave her classmates to their fate, not when she'd seen the way he got when asked what happened to the muggle-borns at the ministry.

She looked at Lucius, where he stood, frozen by her petrificus totalus, his eyes giving away his feelings of betrayal. "I'm sorry," she said, turning on her heels and rushing out to help the Creevey brothers.


Collin had never once in his short life been more relieved than when he saw Hermione Granger stepping out of nowhere, suddenly shooting off curses towards the snatchers. She was alive! They would live, too. His relief, however, was short lived. Moments after she evened out their odds, Dennis went down. Distracted, and forgetting all about Moody's slogan 'constant vigilance', another snatcher hit him with an incarcerous. Hermione was now defending, three against one while he could only watch.

She shot stunning curse after stunning curse, clearly out of breath and out of ideas. With a cry of desperation, she cast something he didn't recognize, before diving into the mud behind a fallen tree. The snatcher who was hit fell back, he screamed in pain, as her curse cut straight through his shield, slashing him across the chest. Collin felt queasy as the man's shirt turned red, but Hermione didn't spare him another glance, too busy dodging curses from the remaining two. Her eyes were wide and wild, and more than anything else, they were terrified. He wasn't sure if it was a result of her actions, or the realization that she was going to lose.

Only moments after she'd landed the curse, she was hit with a spell he didn't recognized. It seemed to slow her down, but she didn't stop fighting, instead renewing her onslaught with still more desperation. Panic, and possibly pain, slowed her down. A stunning hex just missed her adversary, and, moments later, she was hit again, this time with an incarcerous.

Collin's stomach dropped. It was over, the three of them would be turned over to the ministry, and he didn't even want to think what would happen to Hermione, still undesirable number two, thought to be in hiding with Harry Potter himself. He looked towards his brother, who hadn't moved from the spot he collapsed moments before. The snatchers were making no efforts to bind him, and he felt another cold wave of fear wash over him. The possibility that Dennis hadn't been stunned suddenly seemed too real.

"You fucking bitch!" the one women shrieked running to her with her wand pointed out. The second woman ran over to the body of their deceased companion, crying. Hermione looked pained at the scene, but then turned her gaze back to the woman currently threatening her, a mixture of emotions splayed across her face, still not saying a word.

"You killed him! You killed my brother." the snatcher cried again, kicking her stomach, "filthy, savage, mudblood." the woman hissed.

"Crucio" the woman enunciated the curse quite clearly, and in the off chance one hadn't heard the spell, the red light shooting out of her wand and Hermione's subsequent scream left an observer in no doubt. A second round of the curse hit her after the first subsided, and the pure, wholehearted rage felt by the woman went into the spell, fueling it even more than in the first.

"Stop!" Collin couldn't even recognize his voice as it was ripped out of him, "Please, God, please stop…" he begged. No one seemed to pay him any mind to him.

There was a lull and Hermione, who laid still, trussed up, in the mud, was silent. Collin prayed to any merciful deity watching that she'd fallen unconscious. A quiet whimper cutting through the forest disabused him of that hope. He watched as the woman straddled her, unsheathing a dagger, and shoving up Hermione's sleeve.

"This way," she said, biting her tongue for a moment as she carved the first three letters into Hermione's arm, "everyone will know just what kind of trash you are."

Collin couldn't see what was happening, the snatcher's back blocking his view, but he could come up with a thorough enough picture. He looked over to his brother's motionless form, selfishly wishing he would wake up, and trying to convince himself it was for the best that he didn't have to witness this. He could still hear himself crying, yelling.

When he thought things couldn't get worse, he saw Lucius Malfoy step out of the emptiness, raising his wand and throwing the killing curse at the woman mourning the other snatcher's loss. It didn't even occur to him to wonder what the man was doing here, considering he'd apparently been murdered by muggle-borns many months earlier. His footsteps, as he trudged across the mucky forest floor, were far from quiet, and if the one carving up Hermione had been paying any attention to her surroundings, to anything but her own grief and the girl she was taking it out on, she would have heard him coming.

Malfoy grabbed her hair, yanking it back and ripping her off of Hermione. Before she could react appropriately, he held both her wand and dagger. He dropped the wand, stepping on it. With a horrible crunching noise, it snapped in two.

"Please," she begged, her voice suddenly desperate, terrified, and sad as the situation fully dawned on her. Whatever murderous rage fuelled her moments before was gone, and in place of the crazed woman extracting her revenge was the terrified shell of a girl, "please…don't kill me." she begged. "Please...I have a son. I can't leave him alone…"

"Please…" she continued to plead, silent tears beginning to fall down her cheeks, "I can't leave him…" She was looking at Lucius, she was so sincere. For a second, Collin saw Malfoy falter. His hand lowered the knife just a little. "She's just a mudblood…" the woman continued, seeing the same thing as Collin and desperately trying to pounce on the opportunity.

If Collin had blinked just then, he would have missed Lucius's next action. Swiftly, the man pulled her head back, and in one fluid motion, slit her throat. When he let go of her hair, the body lulled over, splashing mud, water, and blood onto Collin. The boy barely kept the bile rising in his throat down as he remained transfixed by the form of the woman lying on the ground, only a few feet from where he was tied up.

He couldn't look away, even with his head spinning at the sight. She was still alive, rapidly finding herself in a pool of blood pumped out from her by her own heart. It pulsed from her neck in the same gory, rhythmic motion he'd seen arterial wounds do in First Aid class. It was an arm in that video, and he remembered laughing at the poor effects and terrible acting. How he would give anything for that to be the closest he ever got to the real thing. He felt another wave of nausea as a few last, ragged breaths were pulled from her. Very deliberately, Collin finally looked away. What he saw hardly left him with any more comfort.

Lucius was leaned over, his back to Collin, casting something on Hermione. He spoke quietly, removing the bindings, and Collin watched her nod emphatically through tears. For a moment, by the way his hand caressed her face, and the care he was showing her, it almost seemed to him as though the man could be an ally.

The look that was turned towards him moments after that thought crossed his mind promised a similar end to the one met by the woman. Collin felt any remaining blood drain from his face. They'd escaped the snatchers, but were now, instead, facing a potentially worse evil in the hands one of Voldemort's Death Eaters.

Malfoy turned back towards Hermione, picking her up with much more care than Collin thought was possible. The sleeve fell back to cover her arm, but she didn't even wince. This was Malfoy though, not even the harmless, cowardly Malfoy they'd gone to school with, it was Malfoy Sr, the one who'd taught him to spout the pureblood nonsense to begin with. When the man glanced in his direction and pointed his wand, Collin closed his eyes, waiting to be hit with the killing curse. Instead, he felt the magical binds keeping him in place drop.

Malfoy didn't look back, and he stepped through some sort of magical barrier, disappearing with Hermione.


Lucius barely spared the boy another thought, though he did ensure to drop the wards sufficiently that should they choose to follow them, the pair, and them alone, would get through free of injury.

He was focused on Hermione, who was drifting in and out of consciousness. With no idea what spell she was hit with before the cruciatus, he could only relive the memory of watching, frozen and helpless, from inside the wards, while she was taken down. Incompetents, he couldn't help but sneer, recollecting the ease with which the boys went down. She could have won the duel in a heartbeat if they'd even managed to slow one of them down.

He searched for a visible mark on her, a wound he could heal, hoping that is was as simple as external damage. "Hermione," he whispered, his voice hoarse with desperation, "Hermione, you need to tell me where it hurts. Do you know what you were hit with?"

"Stomach," she hissed, finally allowing herself to let out an agonized cry. She flinched when he touched her, pulling up her shirt. There was nothing visible. His breath hitched, as he desperately tried to recall what he could of healing spells. He'd never been known for his competence with them, despite the value they could obviously have to someone in his position.

She let out another cry, and he cursed under his breath. "I'm sorry," he said, digging through her potions stock for something that might counter the effects of an unknown curse. He didn't dare give her pain potion yet, he needed to know if she took a turn for the worse, and negating it wouldn't actually reverse the injury. "I'm so sorry," he said, again, as she cried out a third time, curling in on herself.

His eyes fell back to one particular potion. His gut feeling told him there was a chance it would work, and at this point, he couldn't afford not to take it. Tipping back her head, he made her swallow it in its entirety. His concern escalated when nothing seemed to happen, he held her hand, wincing when she clamped down on it, channeling her pain into her grip.

"Never do that to me again," he said, his voice raw with something. Hermione didn't answer, closing her eyes as another wave of pain hit her. "I thought..." he swallowed hard, "I was so afraid."

"Lucius…" Hermione looked at him, fully aware how rare it was for him to let emotion colour his words.

Whatever she might have followed with was lost. Footsteps from the the two boys whom he'd momentarily forgotten could be heard as they clamoured through the cabin. Lucius looked towards them, and was unsure what reaction to put forward. Both of them were haphazardly holding their wands out, apparently torn between defending from him, and defending from something unknown behind them.

"What?" he hissed at them.

Lucius considered, yet again, finishing the snatcher's job himself. He cursed himself for allowing them through the wards, and could only blame temporary insanity brought on by fear. He raised his wand towards them, pressing his lips together to keep himself from uttering the first and only curse currently coming to mind.

"Collin, Dennis…" Hermione said, shifting slightly towards them. Lucius noted that she at least she seemed lucid. "...tell us…"

Still mistrustful, though, frankly, with good reason, Dennis and Collin caught each other's eye, glancing towards Lucius, then back towards the door. Before they made up their mind to spit out whatever it was that had them running inside, a blast shook the cabin.

"Tell me what that was." Lucius commanded. Collin looked at the man, his chin raised defiantly.

"We don't have time for this." Dennis muttered, looking between Hermione and Lucius one more time, apparently making his mind up about something. "There's snatchers outside. And Death Eaters...they're trying to take down the wards."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at the boys for a moment. They'd spent months strengthening those wards, and, to her knowledge, the three snatchers that saw her step out were no longer in a position to give away their cabin's location. Unless someone were to literally walk into the walls, they should be next to impossible to detect. In addition, should someone be fortunate enough to find them, they would not be in any health to try and take them down. In fact, it was only after several muggle repelling charms, which Lucius cryptically claimed were unnecessary, that she even allowed him to place that particular spell on their surroundings.

It hit her in one horrifying realization how they were found. Dennis was underage. Dennis had the bloody trace on him, and the ministry knew where he was. It was a cold day in hell, because she thought, even if only for an instant, that maybe she should have let Lucius direct her back into the cabin rather than try and provide assistance.

"Dennis is underage." she said, for Lucius's benefit. If the Creevey brothers had survived this long, doubtless they were well aware of the dangers of performing magic around him. Her arm was throbbing, she felt like someone had gutted her and tried to shove her entrails back in, but in that moment it paled to her anger. It wasn't entirely fair to blame the brothers, but she did. How dare they endanger them by coming into the wards, knowing that the ministry would identify his, and by extension, their location.

Lucius took hold of her arm, grabbing the pouch he'd been digging through moments before. He was about to apparate them away. Hermione didn't entirely disagree with his train of thought, until she cast what had meant to be a final look at the Creevey brothers. Right then, something in her shattered.