Chapter 20
She'd not been able to see the mess before, only the shapes. She understood vaguely that while she saw perfectly in low light now, in the pitch-darkness just moments ago her vision had been . . . different. A sight devoid of color or subtlety of shades. Flat black defined by gleaming lines that gave everything form.
Now that she could see normally, she pivoted away from Mr. Malfoy to face into the room, to see just how many of her kind were down here. How many were chained to the walls in a picture of eternal agony.
Hermione wasn't sure if the panic swelling, visceral and icy-sharp in her gut as she counted eight in all, was a fear for herself or some strange, instinctive and utterly inexplicable loyalty toward what she was now. Toward what they had been when they'd still had thought . . . and flesh and hearts.
Her throat closed and she felt tears spring to her eyes, but fought to keep them where they were given what had happened the last time she'd cried.
She was entirely oblivious to her host's own horror. Lucius was barely keeping his stomach from going into revolt at the scene in which they'd found themselves. His movements stiff, limbs numb, he crossed the floor to the skeleton chained before Miss Granger.
"I don't understand," he murmured against the quiet, the sound of his voice slipping through the chamber like water escaping cracked glass as he knelt to peer more closely at the poor victim of whatever terrible fate had taken place here. What truly unnerved him was how this fit in with his observations in the upper levels of the house just that very morning.
About the darkness of the passages. About the shadowed nooks. About how one could traverse the corridors of Malfoy Manor without once having to glimpse the sun.
But who were these people? How long had they been down here? Had they—lulled into security by how . . . 'vampire friendly' the manor seemed—walked down here to their own deaths and not even known?
"Is this what's to become of me?"
Her hollow, troubled voice broke into his equally troubled reverie. Lucius turned his head to look up at her. "What?"
"This." She'd only just barely heard him over the odd, dense pressure in her ears as she tried to tell herself the horrid scene was nothing to do with her. "Is this what happens to . . . ." Hermione had to force a gulp down her throat before she could continue. "To someone like me? Is this why there seem to be so few?" She shook her head, her features twisting in a pained grimace. "Why there's so little known about them—about us?"
Lucius drew a breath, letting it out slow as he returned his attention to the skeleton. "I'm sorry, Miss Granger. I've no idea."
She backpedaled a few steps, her footfalls silent. Why it mattered to her, she wasn't sure, she shouldn't care beyond reasons of her own safety, but somehow it hurt to wonder if this was an act. If he could've brought her here knowing at least something of this.
"Is that the truth of it?"
Once more he looked up at her; once more the question escaped, small and nearly breathless, "What?"
Swallowing hard, she met his gaze. "I think you're indeed shocked to be standing here, in this dreadful place, whatever it actually was, but . . . are you going to honestly tell me you had no idea one of your ancestors might've, I dunno, slaughtered over a half-dozen vampires in your basement?"
Lucius shot to his feet, thoroughly annoyed at the accusation. "Are you seriously suggesting that my family—?"
"That your family what, Mr. Malfoy?" She thundered on, dangerously close to letting that vicious, hungry crimson flood her gaze. "Murdered people like me? Because I think the evidence of that is fairly obvious!"
At her raise in decibel, sparks flew from somewhere behind them.
