ANGEL OF A DEVIL
Chapter 12: A Love Of The Rack And The Screw
DISCLAIMER: Ok, read the chapter and then tell me that I really need to write a disclaimer saying that I'm not JKR and I didn't write the Harry Potter books, and therefore don't own anything you recognise. It will be painfully obvious from the first sentence that I didn't write the books.
A/N – I had fun with an online thesaurus I found, so I can't take credit for about 50 of the words used hereafter. (Actually, I knew that one anyway :-))
Quick review thingy: Don't worry Lizard Demon From Pluto, I am CandyCane, unfortunately that name was taken on this site :( so I'm Madness Hamster instead. My muse has buggered off at the mo, leaving me in the midst of writers block but I'm trying!
No sooner had the words left his lips than Draco's body went limp, slumping forwards onto her, his eyes closing, blocking from her view the pain filled grey gaze.
"Malfoy?" Hermione shook his shoulder gently, "Malfoy, wake up!" Her voice was slowly rising in a panic.
She shook him slightly harder. When he didn't respond, she looked up, casting her eyes over the empty corridor, as though someone would miraculously appear and tell her what to do.
Ok, she thought when no one turned up, I have to get him to the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey will know what to do.
She shifted him slightly so that she could get to her feet but the instant she gently pushed on his chest to move him, his eyes flew open and he screamed so piercing and so long that it actually scared her.
"Malfoy!" Hermione shouted over his continuous unearthly wails, "Stop screaming!" He didn't register her words, and she had the feeling he wasn't aware of her presence.
Hesitantly she placed her hand back on his shoulder, grasping him gently once more. At her touch he quieted, his screams replaced by what she could only describe as soft whimpers.
Hearing Draco Malfoy whimpering was almost as disturbing as hearing him screaming.
"You have to tell me what happened, Malfoy," she touched his face, moving it up so she could search his eyes.
For the first time she got a clear look at the scratches and bruises that marred his usual pale perfection. The blood that had dried into flaky patches on his skin mingled with streaks of dirt.
She stared straight into his eyes but she knew he didn't see her. It was as though he was watching something else, something internal, and for a brief second she was glad she couldn't see what was haunting him so.
"I need you to help me, Malfoy." She had to strive to keep her voice as calm as possible, "I can't move you if you're going to scream every time I touch you. I can't stun you because you're to heavy to carry and I don't know if knocking you out would be the best thing to do anyway. So you have to stand up and lean on me. Can you do that? Please?"
His eyes focused on her briefly and she saw some hint of recognition flash within them.
The whimpering stopped. Draco opened his mouth as though to speak, never taking his eyes off hers.
She waited for him to say something but he just closed his mouth again and stared at her, pleading with empty eyes.
"Say something." Silence met her request. "Please say something, Malfoy."
"Don't call me that." His voice was low and even, but harsh nonetheless.
Hermione was taken aback by the vehemence in his tone, but at least he'd said something. It was a start.
"Ok, but you really need to tell me what happened? Who did this to you? What did they do?"
"I couldn't do it. He wanted me to. He wanted it so bad but I couldn't. I won't. Not for him, not for them. He can't have me. I'm a disgrace to the name but I won't let him take me."
Malfoy's eyes had closed when the first word escaped him, his voice so soft and weak, but determined and strangely proud. Hermione couldn't make much sense of what he had said, but she knew the likelihood of getting anything more from him while he was in this shocked state was slim to none. Nor would she be able to move him if the way he was clutching his ribs was any indication.
For a second all she could do was stare at him, his eyes still closed, face slack.
"I'm going to go get someone, someone to help you. I'll be really quick, I promise."
She made to stand up but his eyes flew open and he reached out to her, "Don't go! You can't leave me here, what if he comes back? It's not safe." The raw panic in his voice as he gripped her arm was impossible to ignore.
With a last fruitless glance around the deserted corridor she made up her mind to do something which she never would have even considered before the snake incident.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to him, not quite knowing what she was apologising for,
She raised his head until she could see his eyes clearly. Although Hermione wasn't sure how exactly it was supposed to work, she just trusted her instincts and stared into his eyes, but instead of just looking at his eyes, she attempted to look through them. For a couple of seconds nothing happened and she was on the verge of giving up, then:
Cold steel encircled her wrists. Dark figures stood motionless, black hoods hiding everything but the malevolent glint of their eyes. A dank room lit by one dim light, focused on her. And from the darkness came a cold voice. "Crucio."
Hermione jerked back, breaking her contact with Malfoy, her mind reeling from the fragmented images, chest rising and falling rapidly as she took harsh breaths, unnoticed tears slipping from her eyes at what she'd just witnessed, what she'd just experienced.
"Oh God," she breathed. Though every sane part of her mind screamed at her not to do it she leaned towards the silent, motionless boy once more, and peered into him.
This time she was prepared for the pictures that flooded her mind.
Echoing screams shattered the cold depths of the room and only when the pain stopped did she realise they were hers.
"Finally," came the cold voice once more, "at last you scream." She clenched her jaw so the moans rising within her couldn't escape. "Seven hours. It took you seven hours to break enough to scream. That alone would be worthy of the name Malfoy. However, you refused a direct order from your lord and master, and that is unforgivable. I am ashamed to call you my son." She raised her weary head, muscles aching and protesting with every inch until she stared into the cold, dead eyes of Lucius. Gathering what little strength she had left she spat out the words she'd dreamed of saying since she was little. "I am ashamed to call you my father." This time she screamed from the beginning, only one conscious thought in her head. 'Granger.'
Someone was calling a name. Hermione. Who was Hermione?
She felt a grip on her arm and her eyes flashed open to see Malfoy's bloodied face, so close it filled her vision.
"Oh God," she moaned, "oh God, oh God."
"Hermione." Malfoy was talking to her and she struggled to focus on his words rather than the images that were replaying in her mind.
"What did you do to me?" He asked, voice tight, expression closed and controlled.
It took a moment for his question to register, and another minute until she was able to respond.
"I read your mind, oh God, I'm sorry, I read your mind," she gasped out her words through racking sobs.
"Hermione, you were in my mind, I felt you in there."
"No, that's impossible," every breath was a harsh struggle.
"I know exactly what you've just seen in my head because I was in there with you. Everything you felt and saw was what I felt and saw when he was doing it to me." Malfoy looked away, almost seeming ashamed of what she'd seen.
"Why…" Hermione tried to speak, to ask the questions that were burning but she couldn't force speech past her agonizing breathing.
Her laboured breaths were loud in the silence of the corridor and Malfoy looked back to see her slumped on the floor, trying so hard just to breathe.
"Hermione, you're in shock, you need to calm down. Take deep breaths, just try to stay calm." He lifted her to a sitting position and looked into her eyes, willing her to slow her breathing.
"You stay calm!" She managed to choke out before succumbing to the threatening darkness, still feeling his arms around her.
The first thing Hermione became aware of was a soft crackling. For a second she wondered what it was, unwilling to open her eyes and wake up properly. A soft footstep pulled her from her drowsing state. That didn't fit. Who was in her room?
Her eyes slowly opened. Right in front of her was a large roaring fire. Gingerly she sat up, not recognising the sofa she'd been laid on.
"Good. You're awake," she whirled around at the silky voice.
"Where are we?" She asked Draco.
He placed the book he held back on the bookcase he stood beside and came towards her.
"Room of requirement. You passed out, I couldn't just leave you in the corridor, questions would be asked. I couldn't take you to my room because we'd have had to go through a common room full of Slytherins. And in the event that I actually managed to find the Gryffindor common room, I probably would have been lynched if I turned up in the middle of the night carrying their precious mudblood practically comatose."
Hermione didn't even comment on his use of the term 'mudblood', she was too busy sifting through her memories of the last few moments in the corridor.
She looked up at Draco as he stood in front of her, back to the fire. She couldn't help the horror that filled her eyes as she relived what this person had gone through. Less than half a day ago he'd been tied up and tortured. Now here he stood before her, the firelight framing him, face in shadow, blonde hair almost red from the fiery glow. Sometime while she'd been unconscious he'd cleaned himself up, washed off the blood, fixed his clothes as best he could and healed the scratches on his face.
He looked just like he did any other day, and it made her wonder how many times this had happened. How many times he'd disappeared then reappeared, acting as though nothing had happened.
He saw her watching him, noting the emotion in her eyes.
"Don't look at me like that." He sounded disgusted.
"How can I not? I'm sorry I looked at your memories, but Draco I didn't know what else to do. I was scared, you were lying in a heap on the floor, what was I supposed to do?"
You should have just left me there or dumped me outside the Slytherin dungeon or something. I would have been fine."
"You wouldn't let me leave you when I wanted to go get someone, and besides I couldn't just leave someone lying on a floor when they're obviously hurt."
He moved from his place in front of the fire and sat down on the couch beside her.
"Even someone who's trying like hell to find out all your dirty little secrets and use them for his own ends?"
She examined his face, unable to determine whether he was joking or deadly serious.
"Yes, because based on what I just saw I've got a pretty good idea of what those ends will be."
He frowned at her then stood and moved round the sofa, giving her his back. "What you saw has nothing to do with anything. It's been apparent for years to everyone that my Dad's not going to win any 'Father of the Year' contests. You don't need to worry about it. It's nothing."
She couldn't believe what she was hearing, "Your father tied you up and tortured you practically non-stop for three days! How can you tell me it's nothing? I thought my father was bad…"
He turned round, surprise and annoyance vying on his features, "your father? What can a muggle do to you that's as bad as the continuous excruciating pain of the Cruciatus curse? He's just a muggle, he can't be that bad."
Whoops, slip of the tongue, Hermione had spent so long thinking about the fact that Voldemort was her father that it now seemed almost natural to her.
Fighting down the nausea that swelled within her at this thought, she resolved to think about that later and focus on the immediate problem: Draco.
Shrugging noncommittally, she continued with her argument, "anyway, you asked me for my help."
"I was in shock! You can't seriously believe that I would ask for help from the Gryffindor Princess when I was in my right state of mind?" The tightness of his voice betrayed his calm demeanour.
"When you were being tortured, you thought of me. You wanted me to help you then too, Draco. Tell me how you wanted me to help."
"Stop calling me Draco."
"You told me not to call you Malfoy."
"So I've changed my mind. Call me Malfoy. Or better yet, don't speak to me at all." He strode towards the door.
"Nice change of subject, Draco, but I still want to know how you wanted me to help you."
He stopped with his hand on the doorknob but didn't turn around. "Granger, stop asking me these questions. My nerves are on edge tonight and if you keep asking me things, I'm going to crack and tell you the truth, things you don't want to hear. You think those memories you took from me are the worst you've ever seen? You don't know how bad it really is." His voice simmered with barely suppressed emotion.
"You know I'm going to keep asking so you might as well just give in and tell me." She stood, preparing herself to follow him if he actually left the room.
Instead he lowered his head until his forehead was resting on the dark wood of the door. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"I want to know why they were doing that to you…"
"Because of you!" She hadn't even managed to finish her sentence before he'd spun round to face her, eyes burning with the answers she wanted. Her questions died on her lips at the force in his voice.
"I told you that I've been ordered to watch you. What I didn't tell you was that I was ordered to turn you evil, by any means possible. I was told that the process had already begun and that all I had to do was speed it along. They had a plan all worked out, all I had to do was put it into action."
Her mouth was dry as she stared at him. "What were you supposed to do?" She whispered from cracked lips.
"Kill Potter or Weasley."
"What?" Of all the things he could have told her – that he was supposed to seduce her, or threaten her or any such thing – this was not something she would have imagined him saying.
"How was that supposed to turn me evil?" She was honestly confused.
"You've never felt the need for revenge before have you? Never felt the burning inside you, the hatred, not thinking of the consequences, just willing to do anything to stop the pain, destroy the cause of it. Just let loose all your power and feel some measure of peace at killing the thing that hurt you so bad."
The reverence in his face was scaring her and she couldn't speak, just watch him carefully.
A long minute passed before he moved. "I was supposed to make you want revenge because of the death of one of your best friends, but when I bottled out of killing Potter on the Quidditch pitch I was punished. The Dark Lord does not like to be disobeyed."
She put her head in her hands. So much was happening, so much was going wrong just because of her. She had been responsible, however indirectly, for what had happened to Draco, and as much as she'd hated him for the past seven years, the thought of someone enduring so much pain for her was overwhelming.
"I'm sorry," she managed thickly past the tears that threatened her.
"Don't cry Granger," she didn't need to look at him to feel his discomfort, "I didn't refuse to do it because of you. No matter what all you little Gryffindors seem to think, I don't particularly want to be a Death Eater."
She raised her head in surprise, wiping absently at the fresh tears on her cheeks. He still stood beside the door, not looking at her.
"All that bowing and worshiping to a creature who couldn't even wipe his own arse a couple of years ago. Maybe my father is content to sully himself with the half-blood but I don't debase myself for anyone." He spoke with such abhorrence that Hermione was taken aback.
"You know he's not a pureblood?" She couldn't keep the surprise out of her tone.
He finally turned to face her, the loathing in his voice reflected in his face, "it's not really that difficult to find out. Although, most of the Death Eaters are inferior to trolls when it comes to intelligence, my father being one of the few exceptions. But he would rather follow Voldemort and get to have his fun killing muggles and muggle-borns than listen to reason."
Hermione hesitated in asking her next question, but the uncertainty was killing her, she needed to know for sure what Draco knew about her.
"Do you know why he wanted you to turn me evil?"
Her heart stopped as he stared at her, hoping against hope that he wouldn't utter the words she was dreading. The thought that he'd found out her secret hung in the air, making it hard for her to breathe.
Eventually he answered her, his features betraying the fact that he knew there was more behind her question than simple curiosity.
"No."
She sighed in relief, her heart beating once more, breath coming in a rush, he wasn't finished though, "but I'm betting it's got something to do with that ring of yours."
"I'm not telling you anything about the ring," she covered it with her hand as his gaze slipped down to rest on the band.
"Merlins sake Granger! I've just spilled all my secrets to you and you can't even fill me in about that stupid bloody ring!" His agitation was obvious and Hermione took an unwilling step back as he moved towards her.
"What does it matter to you then if it's just a 'stupid bloody ring'?" She tried to stop the tremble in her words as he came ever closer.
"It matters because I know the power it holds and I'm counting on that power to keep me alive." He was so close she could see his eyes tighten as he spilled yet another of his secrets to her unwittingly.
"I don't understand?" That wasn't true, she had an idea of what he was saying, she just didn't want it to be true.
"The 'help' I wanted from you. I don't want to be a Death Eater, and that trinket of yours ensures I don't have to be."
He was too close to her, she could feel the heat from his body as she started backing up towards the bookcase he'd stood beside earlier.
"Trust me, if I could take it off I'd give it to you in a heartbeat but it's stuck, so just forget about it and leave me alone."
She tried to shove past him and leave but he grabbed her wrist. Remembering the night on the astronomy tower she just looked at his hand and then back up to his eyes, but he didn't let go.
"If it was just the ring I would have found a way to take it by now, believe me. But the ring alone isn't enough, it responds to something inside you, something inherent, it's bound to you for some impossible reason and you're the only one who can tap into its full power."
Hermione continued to stare him in the eyes, seeing that what he was saying went against everything that had been ingrained in him since he was born. Here he was, a Malfoy, asking for help from a Gryffindor. A Gryffindor whom he thought was a mudblood. It was almost poetic justice – even more so when she reflected on the fact that what he was asking her to protect him from was her own father.
Her eyes lowered, and he let her shake off his hand.
"I won't use the ring, I can't use the ring. If you want help go to Dumbledore. I'm sorry you were hurt because of me, but there's nothing I can do about it."
He reached for her again as she swept out of the room, her head down eyes on the floor, not glancing at him, but some force pushed away his hand when it got close to her and she reached the doorway without further incident. As soon as the door was closed behind her she raised her head and broke into a run. She needed to get as far away from Malfoy as possible before she cracked and promised him her help.
As she crawled into her bed, she shivered though the fire was still merrily burning.
The flicker of helplessness in his eyes as he asked her to help him played over and over behind her eyes and she felt heartless at the remembrance of her refusal.
But until she knew what the ring could do, the thought of using it again terrified her. She'd tried to save Harry's life and ended up almost killing him anyway. She couldn't take the chance that something would happen and the ring would lose control, that she would lose control.
It was with these uneasy thoughts that Hermione slipped into a troubled sleep, filled with images of silver shackles and cherry-red blood, overplayed by a cold laughter.
A/N – Sorry it's very dialogue heavy, and I had originally planned to have much more in this chapter but this seemed a logical place to split it, or the chapter would have been REALLY long.
Anyway, here comes the predictable part, all together now on the count of 3:
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2;
3;
"PLEASE REVIEW!" Thanks :-)
Jen xxx