Chapter 8
Upon opening her eyes slowly, Hermione saw that the moonlight was shining feebly into the room and onto the floor where she was sleeping. She lay there motionless, wanting to go back to sleep, but a stir in the air next to her prompted her to turn her head by a fraction. Draco was standing there, next to the bedside table, his white gold hair illuminated eerily by the moonlight. Hermione eyed his bare torso, and found many scars, similar to her own body. Then she saw that Draco was pouring blood from the bottle into the glass on the bedside table. Assuming it was for her, she made to get up, but stopped abruptly when she saw Draco take the glass to his lips and drain the blood.
She lied there shocked, confused, and wondering if she was still dreaming. She shut her eyes as she saw Draco licking his lips and putting the glass down. She felt him kneel on the floor next to her and felt him tap her on the shoulder.
"Get up. I have work to do," he said. Hermione slowly opened her eyes, not sure if she was supposed to have seen what just happened. Draco simply stood up, and walked towards the closet disregarding whether Hermione was following or not. Not wanting to be dragged across the floor, Hermione quickly crawled after him. She brushed down her own robes as Draco put on a set of black ones. Then after an awkward session of washing up, they left the room.
This mansion was very different from what Hermione was used to. There were torches lining the walls and the overall mood of the mansion was bright. She stared at her own clear shadow traveling across the wall. Draco picked up his pace, and Hermione was forced to follow. She eyed the torches nervously. Fire was a vampire's death sentence.
"Don't worry about the torches," said Draco, feeling Hermione's pace become irregular. "There is no reason to set you on fire yet."
Hermione frowned at Draco's back, and stayed as far away from the torches as she could anyway. She followed Draco through halls and corridors, and soon felt like she was in a small castle designed like a maze. She wondered if Draco was taking the long way to wherever they were going in order to confuse her.
Soon, they started descending into the dark. As they went down what felt like a million staircases, Hermione felt the air around her become humid and stuffy. She inhaled deeply trying to make use of the little oxygen in the air. She squinted ahead, as the torches were decreasing in number as they continued onward. When her eyes finally adjusted to the new darkness, she saw that they were approaching a old, battered door.
Draco simply pulled the door open, and it creaked with age. The room was dimly lit with a few torches, and Hermione observed that the place was a cross between a laboratory and a prison. Prison cells lined the walls in the far corner of the room, and tables were lined with beakers and vials holding different colored liquids and what Hermione assumed to be gases. There were cabinets stretching from the floor to the ceiling filled with different potion ingredients, and the high ceiling gave the illusion that they were above ground level, even though they were miles underground.
"Ah, you're here," said a voice. Hermione turned, and observed the back of a man with thick, oily black hair. He was hunched over what seemed to be a small cauldron that was puffing out small amounts of yellow smoke. A pungent smell filled the room and Hermione twitched her nose as the odor violently attacked her heightened sense of smell. She eyed the cauldron distastefully, but as soon as the man turned towards them the pungent odor was no longer the issue at hand.
"Severus Snape," Hermione said automatically. Snape glanced at her for a fraction of a second, then strolled over to a tall cabinet and pondered over the ingredients.
"How did the new confounding powder work, Draco?" Snape asked, picking up a jar of what seemed to be bat wings. Draco's eyebrows twitched for half a second. "I'm still alive," he muttered.
"Good, good," Snape said dismissively, setting the jar down and picking up some dried frog legs instead. Draco stared after him, and Hermione glanced from one man to the other.
"It's a bit late for you to ask," said Draco, breaking the awkward silence. Snape simply walked over to the table and started chopping up the frog legs. Draco took a step towards Snape, but before he could say anything Hermione cut in front of him.
"You're Severus Snape," she whispered. "You are in Tom's inner circle." The rhythmic chopping of the frog legs stopped. Snape looked up. Draco pulled Hermione back.
"Precisely," said Draco. "You should know very well whether the confounding powder worked or not. You were right there when Riddle asked you to develop something to counter it."
Snape smirked, and resumed cutting the frog legs. "Lucius obviously hasn't told you anything," he said. He scooped up the finely chopped legs and added it to a vial of green liquid. "If he did not trust you enough to confide in you, I have no duty to reveal my purposes. Now, like you said I must develop something to counter my own invention. Leave me be." He then waved his free hand towards the pair, and turned his back on them. For a split second Hermione thought Draco was going to attack Snape. However, all Draco did was turn and made to exit. Then suddenly Hermione felt a stabbing pain in her right arm. She made a small yelp, and turned to see Snape walking away with what seemed to be her blood in a vial.
"What? Why?" she exclaimed. Snape held the vial up level to his eyes. "Interesting… A mudblood who drinks the blood of a Pure," muttered Snape. "A rather disgusting mixture of bloods, don't you think?"
Waving the pungent smell away, Hermione advanced towards Snape to snatch her blood away. But before she could do anything, a familiar voice filled her ears.
"Hermione?"
Hermione turned, and eyed the dark corner of the prison cell. She made out a pair of gleaming green eyes. She gasped.
"Harry?"
(A/N: So very short. And so very late. What with the thesis writing, graduating, job hunting and general life stuff I had to unfortunately put this story on hold. Now that I got all those aspects sorted out, hopefully I will get back in the hang of things and update more often. :) Sorry again for the lateness and shortness D:!)
