"No Questions, lets go"
Malfoy grimly handed her his birch wood wand. He winced a little as she snatched it from his hands triumphantly. Seeing him recoil Hermione softened slightly.
"Oh for Gods sake Malfoy, you lent me this two days ago and I didn't do anything. Don't start losing your nerve now."
"Just Bedazzle yourself, witch." he spat. He was still in such a passion that he could not quite believe what he was doing. As such, he just went with it. It did not strike him as odd that he was now about to free the woman he had tried to curse with an unforgivable not a moment before. Should it have, he might have realised he was in the grips of an epic nervous breakdown.
"Alright, alright." Hermione brandished the wand at the chair she was still fixed to. "Solvo." she muttered.
She looked up at Malfoy brightly and smiled. Malfoy watched with impatience as she stood up, only to fall straight into him in a crumpled heap as her weak legs gave out beneath her.
"Hermione!" he hissed. " Stop pissing about." And he hoisted her up into a standing position.
"I've not eaten in three days Malfoy, I think you could cut me some slack!" she groaned, her face nestled in his shoulder. After five days imprisonment, two of those practically in solitary confinement, human contact was remarkably pleasant. Even if it was Malfoy, she didn't feel much like moving away.
"Well that's your own fault. You should have asked the guards."
"Urgh, we've been through this Malfoy!" said Hermione, her voice muffled by his blue ministry robes. "The DOOR IS CHARMED."
"Oh for fucks sake. Is there anything you can think of that isn't my fault, Granger?" removing his arms from her waist, where they had landed in his attempt to catch her, he bent over a little and picked her up, hooking his arm under her knees. Then he added, "You aren't going to be able to walk are you?"
"Well there's no need to overreact Malfoy. I'm a little weak is all. There's no need to g-"
"I'm not giving up! I am trying to come up with a plan to get your sorry arse out of here! You're not the only one who can think Granger. Nor are you the only one who can do the 'right thing'. I am going to get you out if it kills me." interrupted Malfoy angrily, striding over to the table and putting her down on it.
"Erm... ok? I was going to say "Get dramatic"... but. Yes. Ok. That too." Hermione watched Malfoy pace around the room. Stopping every so often to run a hand through his pale hair and rub the back of his neck.
"How good is your transfiguring?" he asked suddenly.
"Well I can't turn myself into anything small enough to smuggle."
"For fucks sake! Ok... I could carry you? Invisibly." he was running out of ideas. It would have been difficult even if they had Potter's invisibility cloak and half of his Dumb Army.
"I think people might notice your carrying an invisible something. I do have this though."
Malfoy watched as Hermione removed her locket earrings and opened one of them.
"I hardly think a photograph of Potter and Weasel is going to...oh my fuck! How did you manage that?"
Hermione had removed her wand from the coin sized locket.
"Undetectable extension charm." she replied sweetly and removed Ron's Put-outer as well. She clicked it and the lights in the interrogation room went out.
"Impressive. But we're trying to escape Hermione, not play murder in the dark." sneered Malfoy. The room was pitch black but she knew he was sneering. Stupid ferrety idiot. How could anybody be so determinedly dim? Wasn't her plan obvious? Why was everyone always so slow? On a good day it was as if Harry and Ron were two beats behind her and even Snape, whom she generally respected for his intelligence, could be a touch near-sighted. Why would Malfoy be any dif-
"You dirty mudblood liar!" Malfoy yelled suddenly. Hermione jumped and looked about for his outline in the thick darkness.
"What?"she asked , her thoughts interrupted.
"You said you released yourself wandlessly on Wednesday. Said you wanted so desperately to comfort me. That was just a lie! Everything you've said is bullshit." Malfoy was losing his hold on himself again. Had he been able to see, had he not been wandless himself, he would have crucioed the life out of the mudblood and this time have meant it.
"No, Malfoy. Please listen to me-" for the first time in years, Hermione had been beaten to the punch. Last time had been Ron screaming at her that she was a witch; with no need of matches to light a fire. Now it was Draco Malfoy, in the dark and in a cell.
"Why? So you can tell me some more lies? So you can use me, just like everybody else?"
Hermione could feel his hot breath on her face. He had found her. Malfoys hand was scrabbling around on the table behind her for a wand, a put-outer, anything. Hermione beat him to it and swiped their wands to the floor, the put-outer still in her hand, and shifted back on the table, twisting round and hopping off the other side ,twisting her ankle in the dark.
"OW! Oh, I've not been using you Malfoy! I... I used my wand, yes, but , Merlin my ankle hurts, don't you think it was an incredibly risky for me to do so? What if you'd seen it or not believed my excuse? And doesn't my showing it to you now prove I trust you? And prove my loyalty as a result?"
Draco calmed down...a little. She had a point. But the whole affair had sobered him. What was he doing? Breaking a mudblood prisoner out of the ministry of magic? He'd be wearing glasses and dying his hair red next. This was insane. He had to leave, had to get back to his desk and calm down...
"Malfoy..." said a small voice, from under the table. "Please don't leave me down here again."
"Where are you?" He asked, bending down and groping blindly under the table. His hand made contact with her arm and his hand closed round it like a vice. Hermione struggled and yelped in fright as he dragged her towards him. His arms wrapped themselves around her small frame, of their own volition it seemed and even Malfoy was a little surprised that he was not trying to murder her. But, like Hermione, he found the warmth of another being to be of great succour.
"I wont." he found himself whispering horsely in to her hair which, oddly, smelt of dirigible plums juice. Bloody muggleborn, what was she doing with dirigible plums? "I can be just as good as anyone in that Dumb Army."
The two of them stayed still. Breathing gently in the dark under the table.
"What was your idea?"
"It's not a very elegant plan," began Hermione, pushing him away gently and clicking the put-outer again. A small ball of light flew out of it and back into the the lamp above them. "Just turn the lights out with this thing and then you can help me run for it."
He squinted at her, the light hurting his eyes after the blackness, even from under their table
"No. You're right. It's not very elegant at all. But I think it's our only option."
Hermione nodded.
"But I don't think I'll be very quick." she said. "I desperately need something to eat. And some more water. And a cigarette. and if you know any quick healing spells... my ankles ok by it still hurts a little-"
"Oh well that's ok then. I'll just magic a banquet out of thin air. Oh, and fuck the cigarette, how about a Cuban cigar? Why don't I call the guards in and get them to fetch Madame Pomfrey while I'm at it?"
"Malfoy you're not helping. Pull me up would you. Ooof thank you. Did you say Pomfrey is here too? Oh god Malfoy... Right, ... there's nothing for it... I'm going to have to improvise."
"Oh god, not this again. right then Jane, what would you have me transfigure this time? My leg?"
"Shuttit Malfoy, I need to think."
Malfoy threw himself down on his chair and made every attempt to do the exact opposite. He didn't want to think. He just wanted to prove to this deceitful muggleborn in front of him that he could do anything she could and that he just usually didn't want to. Then it wouldn't matter so much that his life belonged to the Dark Lord and his weekdays belonged to Alfred Grompton. What was he going to do when they found out she was gone? no, he wasn't going to think about that. She was clever and they knew it, nobody would ever suspect him. Not Draco Malfoy, who had become a Deatheater before he was seventeen and had been instrumental in the death of Dumbledore... even if it hadn't quite gone to plan. Even if he was a bit of a fuck up now.
Meanwhile. Hermione's mind whirred furiously. She had not meant she would have to improvise her own escape. She meant she would have to deviate from Snapes plan slightly and ad-lib her way through. Olivander and Madame Pomfrey had both been captured by the deatheaters! And the Order had known nothing about it... This was bad. Really bad. There was no way she and Malfoy would be able to break them out today. She needed to convince him to help her help others... And she was too weak to help herself in her half-starved state... They would have to make a run for it and come back before Sunday... they would be sure to manage it. And if they didn't... well, she'd just have to send word back to shell cottage that she was extending her mission. Though she did not like the idea of being holled up with Draco Malfoy for any longer than was necessary, especially not in his own flat, but she preferred that than leaving Pomfrey and Olivander and whoever else they didn't know about back at shell cottage, to rot in a ministry cell.
"Ok Malfoy. This is what we're going to do..."