A/N: So, I don't know if you can tell from the frequency of the updates, but I'm having SUCH a good time writing this fic. I love you all for giving it so much love. I'm also laughing my ass off at some of your projections and theories, and I thoroughly look forward to what you'll make of this chapter.

xx-Kitten.

Darkness and Silence

By Kittenshift17

Chapter Eleven

Draco Malfoy almost stumbled in shock when Antonin Dolohov leapt out from behind a pillar like some comic villain from a children's tale. He snatched hold of Granger so quickly that had Draco not been focusing quite so hard on the back of the witch's curly-haired head, he'd have missed her abduction completely. Only months spent staring at his fellow Death Eaters and learning their faces, their names, and their shapes so intimately allowed him to even identify the man.

A pit opened in his stomach and he raced aboard the train, jumping from the platform to the train and colliding heavily with the railing. It dug into his stomach, but the wind had already been knocked out of him in his shock over Granger's kidnapping and Draco glanced back at the platform as the train pulled out.

This was bad.

He might not like the jumped up little mudblood, but he knew how it was going to look when people learned he'd been the last to board the train and the last to see her before she disappeared. He'd even been caught snogging her, for Merlin's sake. He'd be questioned at length and vilified by the likes of Potter and his lackeys. Shoving away from the railing, Draco felt his feet carry him the length of the train without really thinking about the consequences of his actions. He peered into each compartment, moving on until he reached the compartment where Potter and Weasley were worriedly beginning to search for their friend.

Hurrying inside, his wand drawn, Draco closed the compartment door quickly and lowered the blind to keep anyone from seeing him.

"Malfoy?" Potter asked warily, his eyes narrowed and his own wand in his hand.

"Granger's been kidnapped," Draco blurted without thinking. "Just now. On the platform. She was running for the train and Dolohov grabbed her."

"What?" Potter snarled, leaping to his feet and squaring off against him, his eyes narrowed hatefully.

"You heard me, Potter," Draco hissed. "She's been snatched. I don't know what you want to do to get your little Order minions on top of trying to save her, but I guarantee that if you wait the day-long trip it'll take to get back to London before trying to save her, she'll be dead before you can track her down."

"What did you do to her?" Potter snarled.

"Nothing," Draco said. "I was running for the train, too, and the minute she reached the platform Dolohov jumped out and grabbed her. I barely made it onto the train. Do what you want with the information, but she's gone."

He made to back out of the compartment, but Potter lunged for him before he could even open the door, his wand digging into Draco's throat.

"You lured her, didn't you?" he accused, his green eyes filled with hatred. "She's never been late enough to miss the train. You did something. Don't think for a second that we don't know you're a Death Eater. You probably helped your buddy Dolohov, trapping Hermione somewhere for him to find. You did something to make her late, just like you did something to Katie that day in Hogsmeade."

Draco narrowed his eyes in return, digging his wand into Potter's ribs aggressively and trying to force him back even though Weasley, Weasley, and Longbottom were all on their feet, too. They all looked ready to rip him apart with their bare hands if wands failed and Draco cursed silently to himself that this was what he got for trying to be a decent person, for a change.

"If I wanted to hurt your little mudblood, Potter," he drawled coldly. "I wouldn't let Dolohov do the dirty work. See, he's not really what anyone might call merciful. Believe me, wherever she is, she's not just in pain right now. She's in agony. You've felt the Cruciatus curse under the Dark Lord's wand, yeah? Amplify that pain by a hundred and you'll be close to the type of pain that Dolohov likes to inflict on people. I wouldn't wish that kind of fate on anyone, Potter. Not even a jumped-up know-it-all mudblood."

"If they hurt a single hair on her head, I'm going to take you apart, Malfoy," Potter snarled. "I don't care what you say; you had something to do with him taking her! You better tell us where he'd take her, or I'm going to find out just how much you have to mean the Killing curse when you utter it."

Draco paled, his heart racing with fear inside his chest when he saw the same gleam in Potter's eyes that he'd seen in the eyes of the Dark Lord before he'd killed Professor Burbage.

"The Manor," Draco whispered. "If he kidnapped her on the Dark Lord's orders, she'll have been taken to Malfoy Manor. If he acted independently… you'll never find her. The Russian has hidey-holes all over the world."

Draco bit his lip on a groan when the bastard sucker punched him, shoving him hard against the door before twisting away and casting his patronus. Weasley and his sister were already casting theirs, putting messages into the stupid glowing white shapes. Longbottom was trying to cast his, too, and Lovegood was attempting to untangle her wand from her hair. Shaking his head and wiping at the blood that trickled from his nose, Draco let himself out of the compartment and hurried off to find his friends, terrified by the thought that by the time he got home, the girl he'd just snogged might be dead on his dining room table.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

"PROFESSOR DUMBLEDORE! HERMIONE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED! DOLOHOV TOOK HER ON THE PLATFORM!"

Five swirling patronuses exploded into the staff room where Albus Dumbledore was conducting an intimate Order meeting, all carrying the same message. Harry's stag was the loudest and brightest, though a Jack Russell terrier, a jack-rabbit, a mare, and a bear all galloped about the stag bearing the same chilling news.

"Albus!" Minerva gasped, jumping to her feet in horror.

"No!" hissed Filius.

"It can't be true," said Horace.

Albus closed his eyes in horror. He'd felt something niggling at the wards that protected the grounds all morning, and had suspected that the Death Eaters might try to snatch Harry from the Platform. He'd even put Hagrid and some of the other teachers in charge of overseeing the train's departure. Nymphadora and Remus were both supposed to have been nearby, and Bill was stationed on the train to protect the children.

When he opened his eyes, he immediately sought out Severus – who had stalked into the staff room a scant fifteen minutes ago in the foulest mood Albus had seen him in for weeks. Severus's brow was furrowed as though he was surprised by the news and Albus Dumbledore knew that didn't bode well.

"We have to save her," Minerva insisted. "The last time Dolohov was anywhere near her, he almost killed the poor girl."

They were panicking and Albus help up his hand.

"Severus," he said quietly when they all fell silently.

"I was not made aware of any plans to kidnap Potter or his friends, Albus," Severus said quietly. "Dolohov may be acting alone. He has harboured a grudge for the girl since she survived his curse in June."

"He will torture her?" Albus asked softly, frowning.

"Unless he is acting on the orders of the Dark Lord and has been instructed not to, yes," Severus said, his lips pinching.

"Rescue her, Severus," Minerva pleaded. "For the love of Merlin, rescue her. The terrible things they will do to a muggle-born girl like Miss Granger are beyond imagining."

Severus looked over at Albus, raising one eyebrow and awaiting the order to be sent after her.

"Do not do anything to compromise your position in Tom's esteem, Severus," Albus said softly. "But if you are able to save her without giving yourself away as disloyal to Tom, please do so."

Severus nodded sharply, rising to his feet and sweeping from the staff room with a billow of dark robes.

"Minerva, please go to Headquarters. Alert the Weasley's and the other members of the Order. Filius, send word to Bill aboard the train. Have him portkey Harry and the others directly to Headquarters. We cannot risk Tom and his minions snatching them from the train or storming Kings Cross station when they reach London. Horace, please accompany me to Hogsmeade to locate Hagrid, Remus and Nymphadora. I am concerned by what might've become of them that this has happened."

He strode for the door, intent on getting to the bottom of all this, and trying to ignore the niggling thought in his mind that whatever Tom had planned for young Miss Granger, it was not what they were all fearing.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

"Severus?" Lucius asked, smiling in greeting when Severus apparated to Malfoy Manor.

"Is she here?" he asked of the blond wizard briskly.

"Who? Cissy?" Lucius frowned.

"Granger. Potter's mudblood. She was snatched from the station as the students were boarding the train," Severus said tightly.

Lucius raised his eyebrows.

"What would the Dark Lord want with a mudblood?" Lucius frowned. "Merlin, you don't think she was the guest the Dark Lord was referring to, do you?"

Severus stopped mid-stride, faltering as he turned his head sharply to look at Lucius.

"Fuck," he breathed.

Lucius eyed him.

"You think he wants her for whatever he has planned regarding the ritual to make you Lord of Selwyn Hall?" Lucius asked, frowning. "Why would he…"

Severus kept walking, stalking deeper into the Manor and making a beeline for Lucius's office and the cabinet where he kept his best whiskey.

"Oh, Severus. No," Lucius said, trailing after him and sounding positively disgusted. "She's a mudblood… but then, that never bothered you, did it? Salazar's rod, Severus! She's the same age as Draco!"

"Lucius, be quiet," Severus said, taking up the whiskey decanter and removing the stopper before lifting it to his lips and gulping down the contents.

"Is she even of age?" Lucius sneered, ignoring the directive.

"She turned seventeen at the beginning of the school year," Severus grunted when the decanter was empty, wiping at him mouth and frowning as he threw himself down in Lucius's office chair.

"How long have you been fucking her?" Lucius asked nosily. "And how did the Dark Lord find out?"

"Dolohov's trick, probably," Severus muttered. "He's the one who snatched her."

"How long, Severus?" Lucius asked.

"Only a few times," he sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose as his head began to throb with rage. "She surprised me when I returned after being punished at Greyback's claws a few weeks ago."

"And you just shagged her?" Lucius frowned. "I know you lose some of yourself to the Occumency, but she's still your student, Severus. And a mudblood. And Potter's closest female friend. And entirely too clever for her own good. As though she didn't already have a huge target painted on her back?"

Severus opened his eyes to glare at his closest friend.

"You're just sore because I fucked you last night even though I've been fucking her," he snarled.

Lucius curled his lip. "Remind me to bathe in bleach this evening," he sneered. "What could you possibly see in her, Severus? She's got that wretched hair and those terrible teeth."

"You imagine she means more that a warm, tight hole to fuck?" Severus sneered in return. "The Dark Lord has obviously seen the list of those I've shagged and spotted a perfect opportunity to torment Potter by tying his best female friend to the boy's least favourite teacher."

"You know what the ritual demands, don't you?" Lucius asked him quietly. "You understand what she will become?"

Severus gritted his teeth, looking away even as he nodded sharply.

"Perhaps he means to kill her off, afterward. Someone disposable to legitimatise your Lordship in the Old Magic, to then be cast aside once it is done?" Lucius suggested.

Severus's gut was churning with fear like he hadn't known in many long years. Everyone was going to know. Everyone. They would ask why the Dark Lord would choose her for such a task. They would want to know what had pushed him to agree, and what might make her comply. They would all find out that he'd fucked one of his students.

Worse, they were going to subject her to the Death Eater hospitality at Christmastime. They would all sneer over her blood status and the Dark Lord would raid her mind. If there was anyone he didn't want in the hands of the Dark Lord for the knowledge locked away inside her mind, it was Granger. The girl knew everything. She knew he was a traitor to the cause. She knew about the Horcruxes. She knew intimate secrets about Potter, his hopes and his fears, and his boring but potentially exploitable habits. She knew the location of Headquarters and any number of other things that could devastate the resistance the Order had been putting up in the face of the Dark Lord's rise.

They would torture her, he realised numbly. They would torture her and toy with her like cats with mice, batting and prodding and nipping just to watch her scurry about, trying to get free. Severus felt sick. This was all his fault. He never should have fucked her. If he'd kept his head and been sensible, he'd have sent her on her way that evening in his classroom rather than fucking her. She'd be a witness to the Dark Lord's punishment of him and nothing more. She wouldn't be being held hostage by the likes of Dolohov. She wouldn't be subjected to the foul men and women that made up the ranks of the Dark Lord's forces.

She wouldn't be being forced into anything with him. And Severus had a terrible, sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that the Dark Lord was going to make sure it was a very public ritual as he forced the witch to bind herself to him, making him Lord of Selwyn Hall. He'd had time to prepare for the horror that would ensue, and despite the frequent mistrust among the brethren, he would essentially be surrounded by friends. Men and women who'd seen him fuck, and heard him curse, and watched him murder. These were his people – many whom he'd grown through Hogwarts with. They were the people he'd associated with almost exclusively before he'd taken the position as a teacher at the school. They were the people who'd egged him on and encouraged him when he broke the rules, and later, the law. They were the ones beside him through thick and thin and the ones who knew where many of his bodies were buried.

Some of them, like Lucius, knew that he was a man who'd committed patricide at the age of fifteen. Some of them knew he'd raped. Some knew he'd butchered. Burned. Tortured. Ravaged. Reeved. They might all be cruel and wicked in Slytherin, Severus thought grimly, but there could be no denying the Sorting Hat's song about finding true friends in Slytherin. They had seen him naked. Seen him fuck. Seen him cry out in agony when he was tortured for his misdeeds when he displeased the Dark Lord.

Some, like Narcissa, had patched him up when he was too broken to drag himself home and do it himself. They'd seen him bleed. Lucius had seen him cry. They were his friends, and Severus couldn't bear the thought of so pure a witch as Hermione Granger – whose magic and mind he might've been plotting to corrupt – being subjected to the likes of such friends. Merlin, he'd thought about doing terrible things to her, but there would be no going back from this.

She would never forgive him. Her last hours might be spent in inscrutable agony, publicly humiliated and utterly alone. And she was alone. He couldn't help her. The Dark Lord would not permit him to interfere with his apparently carefully laid plans for the girl – not even for the sake of maintaining his place as an Order spy. He could already hear the argument in his head – the story he'd be told to tell. That there had been no way to save her. That he hadn't arrived in time to protect her from what she would endure. That he, himself, would've been killed if he didn't cooperate and revel in her humiliation, as the Dark Lord intended.

Severus suspected that once the ritual was complete and she was tied to him, the Dark Lord would let her go. It would wound Potter so much more to lose trust in his friend and to pit him against her when she was little more than a Death Eater's whore, than it would to outright kill her. She would be returned to the Order like a tarnished and broken toy whose usefulness has been spent in their eyes. She would be damaged, but alive. They would burn with the urge for revenge over whatever she endured, but not so much as they would, were they left to avenge her death. They would tiptoe around her and she would isolate herself further because she would feel tainted under their worried gazes.

He knew the little witch enough to know that for all her apparent intrigue with the Dark, she was a morally good person. She defended House Elf rights, and championed Hippogriffs, and coddled giants and werewolves. She was also a martyr, not afraid to sacrifice something valuable to her if it might protect those she cared about. She would be entirely too easy to manipulate, and she would play right into the Dark Lord's plans. After all, she'd already proven that she was a survivor and a strong witch. She'd shown her Gyrffindor colours a good many times. She wouldn't be meek in the face of their torment, and that would almost be worse than simply curling up until they all went away. She would fight back. And it would probably spell her doom.

Severus breathed out slowly, opening his eyes and meeting Lucius's gaze. The blond wizard was eyeing him curiously, obviously baffled by the idea that he'd willingly fucked another mudblood, and concerned about what it would all mean for Severus that she'd been kidnapped.

"He won't kill her," Severus said quietly. "So quick an end would be a waste of the potential to strike at Potter's weak underbelly. His love for the girl will ensure that the Dark Lord will send her home to him broken and fractured, a shell of the witch she has been until now."

Lucius nodded thoughtfully, fetching a second bottle of whiskey from the cupboard across the office and pouring them both a glass.

"Won't Dumbledore be put out with you for returning Potter's little bitch to him, tarnished?" Lucius asked, sipping his whiskey slowly while Severus struggled to bottle the rage fizzing inside his skull as it hadn't since Lily had fallen for James Potter's charms.

"When he knows that saving her and returning her unscathed would risk my position in the Dark Lord's ranks and lose him his little spy?" Severus sneered. "No. Albus Dumbledore would willingly sacrifice every one of Potter's friends to the Dark if it meant keeping him in the loop and keeping Potter alive long enough to do his duty. He will be displeased to learn I've been fucking her and corrupting her under his nose. But he will use it as a tool, attempting to turn her spy, as well. He will use her connection to me to drive a wedge between her and Potter, driving her toward the ranks for comfort, all while offering her titbits of forgiveness and praise and hope. He will attempt to wield her as he believes he can wield me."

"You believe he will fail? The girl will not cooperate?" Lucius asked, raising his eyebrows.

Severus smirked. He loathed that even there, with his closest friend, he had to play the double agent and hide his true intentions from the world.

"She only fucks me when I'm the Death Eater," he drawled smugly. "Miss Granger likes to play in the Dark. When I am who I pretend to be amid the Order and my colleagues at the school, she has nothing but fear and snide scorn where I am concerned. But when I'm myself, as I am whilst here with you? The witch positively creams for my cock."

Lucius laughed.

"It would not be so very hard to corrupt her to the Dark," Severus said, sipping his whiskey liberally. "She is curious by nature, and she is already being seduced by the Darkness. In the right hands, cut off from her do-good friends and left in the clutches of the Dark Lord's forces? Allowed and even encouraged to pursue a knowledge of the Dark? The girl will be more glorious than even Bella before I am through."

Lucius was smirking wickedly, looking positively alight with the idea as Severus hadn't seen him look in a long time. A thrill washed through him, the darkness within flickering to life in his blood and pulsing through his magic, making him burn with the urge to do those wicked things he so often resisted. As he tipped his glass up, downing the contents of his glass before smirking cruelly in return, Severus loathed himself just a little that he wasn't entirely sure if he was just playing his role, or if he really would corrupt her to the core.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Hermione blinked her eyes open groggily, trying to shake off the vestiges of sleep. She frowned at the sight of damp stone walls, wondering for a moment if she'd fallen asleep in Potions class. Her neck was twinging painfully, and she felt a little muzzy as she tried to make sense of her surroundings and attempted to slowly push herself into a sitting position.

She was cold, she realised, but when she looked down at herself she was dressed warmly in her cloak. Sitting up and rubbing her head – which was throbbing painfully at the back as though she'd hit with something – Hermione realised she was sitting in a dungeon. Worse, a jail cell. There were bars making up one entire wall of the confined space where she'd awoken and Hermione's eyes widened in horror. He hands dove for her pockets, searching in vain for the wand she'd apparently been relieved of and Hermione cursed.

The memory of slamming into someone as she been running for the train resurfaced and Hermione paled, realising that whoever she'd run into had kidnapped her. She'd been snatched right off the platform and now she was being held in some dank dungeon, Merlin only knew where, and she was without any weapons. Her heart began to race as the panic set in.

"Bugger," she cursed, scrambling to her feet and hurrying for the door. She could feel the hum of wards designed to keep her in and Hermione narrowed her eyes, flicking her wrist the way she always did when using her wand to disable Snape's wards.

She smirked when they dropped, wandless magic coming to her aid and undoing the wards with surprising ease. She twisted the handle, opening the door to her cell and peeking into the corridor beyond cautiously. No one stopped her as she made a break for it and Hermione ran down the length of the corridor, ignoring the dizziness threatening to consume her. She found a staircase at the end of the corridor and she took it to the next floor, hoping there would be some way to escape beyond it. All she had to do was find an unguarded fireplace that was connected to the Floor network and she'd be free. Her panic bag – stored and concealed in the pocket of her robes for just such emergencies as being without a wand and kidnapped - contained a small packet of Floo Powder and Hermione knew she could get free just as long as no one spotted her.

When she reached the top of the stairs she was met with what appeared to be some kind of drawing room or parlour and Hermione skidded to a halt as she spied what awaited her.

Glowing red eyes and terrible, translucent skin were unnerving enough without the serpentine slits in the place of a proper nose. The pleased and indulgent smile Lord Voldemort wore made her think the wards had been purposely weak in order for just such an escape attempt. He was alone, which surprised her, sitting in a wing-backed chair by the fireplace. He had his fingers interlocked before him, terrible bony white digits that made her think of skeletons rather than of flesh and blood. He regarded her quietly, the chair facing toward the top of the stairs.

He'd obviously been expecting her. Hermione eyed him in utter horror, having never been so repulsed by the sight of a person in all her life. Her mouth opened and closed in revulsion and Hermione blinked stupidly, trying to think of something – anything – to say that might be appropriate and more articulate than gagging. His smile grew as he slowly inclined his head in greeting and leaned forward just a little as he spoke.

"Good Evening, Hermione Granger."