A/N: Bless all of you for being so patient in waiting for things to really heat up! Have an et I will say not everything is revealed and explained in this chapter - no doubt it will leave you with questions, but those questions will be answered! If it doesn't make sense, fear not, it soon will. There's more to come.
Consciousness returned to Marilyn before any true awareness or sensation did. Awake without being fully awake, she wondered vaguely to herself why her alarm had not yet gone off, whether she'd slept in or simply woken up early, and why exactly something just didn't seem right in the back of her mind. But she'd only just woken up - it wasn't like she could've forgotten something already. That hazy, blissful ignorance, however, could not remain for long.
It started with the pain - the sharp aches shooting up her back, the constant dull throb of her right hip and shoulder both, and the crick in her neck from the odd angle she was lying with her head in. Once she was aware of the pain, though, she couldn't shake it off. Grunting, she tried to roll over, only to note how hard and unforgiving her bed seemed to have become. Any angle her body possessed dug into it harshly, only emphasising her discomfort. Grasping around, her hands were met with cold stone rather than soft mattress. And that was when everything clicked into place.
The frigid, icy air ran the risk of tearing her lungs as she took a short, sharp breath in and shot up, whipping her head around. This...wasn't a hospital. Not one like she'd ever seen before, anyway. That's what she'd expected - for whatever latent health issue caused the last episode to have caused this one, regardless of the different symptoms. To be met with yet more tests, more blood taken from her, more snide and suspicious comments from the doctors and nurses. None of those prospects were something she relished or looked forward to, but it was strange, then, that to be met with none of them filled her with dread. Something wasn't right here. It didn't take a genius to figure that much out.
The room she was in had the look of a cellar, but if she was being honest the word 'dungeon' seemed more apt - as if they existed outside of ancient castles-turned-museums and fantasy movies. It was entirely empty except for, well, her, but it was rather big, probably bigger than the entirety of the downstairs of her home. Could it be that somebody had put her here while they phoned an ambulance? The thought had the taste of optimism-turned-delusion before it had even fully formed in her mind. Anybody with half a brain and good intentions knew not to move somebody in a prone state unless they had medical training, or knew exactly what they were doing. The most any good samaritan would do was sit with her where she'd fallen while they called the authorities.
Slowly rising to her feet with great caution - as though whoever put her here would rush in and strike her down again - she straightened only once she was certain that she could trust her legs to hold her weight. Her back cracked as she did, and she had to suppress a whimper as the aches and pains throughout her body increased tenfold. The action incurred no response, nor (thankfully) any retribution. She was almost tempted to laugh at herself. What was this strange paranoia? Was this whole thing a hallucination? Like that strange figure she saw before passing out? That's what that had to be, right? Or a ghost - they did say that York was the most haunted city in the UK.
What was the alternative explanation, that some stranger liked to wander the streets, cloaked and wielding sticks at any unfortunate soul who crossed their path? No, she'd smacked her head on her way down, this was some weird fever dream induced by both that and whatever medical anomaly had caused the fall, and soon she'd open her eyes in the hospital. But she'd never felt pain in any dream she'd had before. Not truly, not like this. Okay, but that didn't have to mean anything terrible. Perhaps her original theory (or hope, as it could more accurately be labelled) was correct - somebody had found her and put her here while they went for help.
Despite her determination to believe that, though, something in her gut had her stifling her voice every time she opened her mouth to call out. Stubbornness sinking in, she opened her mouth one last time to call out - taking a deep breath in and preparing to shout, but once again something seized control of her, keeping her silent. Gut instinct, a guardian angel, common sense. Whatever it was, this time she heeded it. Walking in a clumsy, stiff stagger, she moved towards the worn, uneven stone steps that led up towards a large, imposing wooden door that looked just as ancient as everything else here.
She had to cling to the handrail bolted into the wall (which was more rust than metal) as she took them one at a time, moving on the soles of her feet to keep quiet, and when she got to the top of them she couldn't help but let the hope outweigh the panic. Until her fingers closed around the brass doorknob and it failed to budge a millimetre in either direction.
And suddenly her commitment to the idea that her current circumstances weren't as sinister as they seemed began to seriously waver. It made sense, then, that that commitment would have to find something else to latch onto. Like panic.
Descending the stairs again as quickly and quietly as she could, she urged her brain to work - to make sense of this, to figure out what the best course of action would be, to wake up from this strange and terrible nightmare - at the same time that she tried to remember exactly how to breathe. It felt like she was going through the physical motions, sure, the mechanics of breathing, but for all that she inhaled and exhaled, she couldn't seem to actually get any air into her system.
Chest heaving, she tore at the top buttons of her coat to undo whatever kind of minor restriction they might've been placed on her, but doing that sparked an idea. Her coat. While her bag was nowhere to be seen, perhaps there was something in her coat pockets that might help. Sinking to her knees, and ignoring the further pain such a move caused, she spilled the contents of her pockets onto the stone before her. Some spare change, a strip of chewing gum, and a pencil. The coins and the gum were useless - unless she wanted to bribe whoever had put her here with a fifty pence coin and minty freshness - but the pencil gave her pause.
It was fiercely sharp, something she knew full well from the amount of times she'd jabbed herself while digging for change, and there from the days she'd had to deal with the creep that had sent her striding up to Draco in the first place. Carrying a weapon, even for the purpose of self-defence, was strictly illegal. Happily, carrying a pencil was not. It hadn't helped her in the end, but it had offered peace of mind that if it really came down to it, she had something. But maybe it could help now. She slipped the pencil up her sleeve, angling her hand into an awkward curl to keep it there.
After that there was little else to do. Resolved not to alert her captors (if they were her captors) to her newfound consciousness, and resigned to the unfortunate fact that there was no way out of the room but the very sturdy, and very locked, door, Marilyn waited. With her back pressed against one of the walls, the entrance to the room firmly in her line of sight, she clasped her hands together so that she might pretend they weren't trembling, and she blinked frighten tears away from her eyes if only because she couldn't afford to have her vision compromised. And while she waited, she hoped. For a reasonable, innocuous explanation. For a saviour. For a chance that this wouldn't end horribly.
Hermione was distinctly distracted as she got ready to head to her office. Usually she was distracted by pleasant things - her work, her to-do list, her research. Ron often teased her that it could be difficult to draw a proper conversation from her because her mind was often miles away...on the pile of parchment that was no doubt scattered across her desk. Or even just on the other pile in their home study, twenty feet away. Today, though, her mind was drawn to a far less pleasant distraction. Draco Malfoy. It seemed all of those years of telling Harry he was being paranoid and only upsetting himself over nothing by being so preoccupied were coming back to bite her on the backside.
Had he been right? Was there more they could do? Debating their next move was difficult when it felt very much like their hands were tied in the matter. All they could do was wait until the situation turned or changed in some way that provided a new course of action, but she couldn't fault Malfoy for being upset at the thought that such a "change" could very easily come in the form of another attack on Miss Baxter. It wasn't a prospect she enjoyed any more than he did, even if Hermione didn't know her quite as well. But what else could be done? That was the question, wasn't it? What could be done? So far it felt like they'd done everything short of moving her in with one of them and keeping her under lock and key to ensure her safety. It didn't take a genius to work out why that wasn't possible - although she was sure it would only take another near-miss to have Draco pushing for that.
But surely there was something. She felt it in her gut that there was. She just had to wait for something to click, and then she'd know. It was highly unfortunate that they may not have the time for that, if Draco was right when it came to just how much danger Marilyn may very well be in. All she could do for now was let the matter simmer in the back of her mind. It was her go-to tactic for exams - read the whole paper before she began answering the questions, so if there were any she wasn't sure on, her mind could work on them while she answered the others she did know the answers to. It hadn't failed her yet. Hopefully it would serve her well here, too.
And so, with a great deal of mental effort, she turned her focus back to what she could control.
"Ron?" She called as she made her way down the stairs once she'd finished dressing "Ron? Have you left yet?"
"I'm just about to - why? What's up?"
Following the sound of his voice, she padded into the living room where she found him sitting on the sofa, leaning forward to tie the laces of his boots.
"Did you pick up my post for me from the office while I was gone? Like I asked?"
"I meant to talk to you about that - I tried, but I couldn't find it."
"What do you mean you couldn't find it? Didn't you ask Serana?"
She had to fight to keep the impatience from her voice, mostly because it was entirely unfair. She was frustrated at the situation at hand, not at her husband.
"She wasn't there to ask. I did look, but there wasn't anything left out."
"She had to be there, she was set to work all weekend. Maybe you went during her lunch break," Hermione made a face.
"Well unless she has a habit of hiding whenever anybody comes calling, she wasn't. I went twice on the first day and three times across the next two days, all at different times. She wasn't there."
"And she didn't send an owl here to say why?"
"Don't think so - you've seen everything that turned up here while you were gone."
Hermione stood still in the doorway, brow furrowed.
"That's...No, that's strange. She can't have just disappeared."
Ron's demeanour turned from irked to thoughtful now - apparently having realised her questions were out of confusion rather than a desire to interrogate him concerning his efficiency when it came to running errands.
"You don't think she's been attacked, too?" Ron said "Surely the Aurors would've been told. Somebody would have alerted us."
"No, she can't have been attacked, they wouldn't target her. She's a pure..." Hermione shook her head and then stopped, paling before she finished the end of her sentence very quietly, meeting Ron's gaze with horror"...blood."
"...You said you tasked her with ordering the ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion," Ron met her eyes heavily, coming to the same tenuous conclusion that she had not half a second after "'Mione, do you think she…? And that's how they knew…?"
"I hope not," she replied grimly "How soon do you have to be at work?"
"It looks like this might very well count as work. Give me a second to get a message to Harry, and then we'll go to your office and see if we can find anything in her desk. We'll need to be careful - if we're right there could be a trap. She might've left something cursed in hopes of slowing us down should we suspect. If she's there, we'll question her. Casually. If she's not, we'll go through her desk and then...do you have an address for her?"
"It'll be on file, but if this is truly the worst case scenario it won't be the real one. I should get word to Malfoy, too-"
"No," Ron said quickly "Not yet. Not until we know more. For all we know now, this is just paranoia. It's probably paranoia, really. If we go to him with nothing - nothing concrete, and nothing to follow up on, and he…"
And he realised that it had been Hermione to lead this attacker - if it was her - to Marilyn, and not Draco himself (after they'd so often accused him of doing so, purposely or accidentally, both behind his back and to his face, subtly and not-so-subtly)...well, then there was no telling what he'd do. Especially if they had no more information than that.
This was bad. Very bad. In fact, bad was in the distance, way off in the horizon - they could barely see 'bad' from where they now dwelled in 'catastrophic'. Her nose and her lips were quickly going numb, a tell-tale sign that she was going pale.
"It might not be," Ron said.
"It could be," she argued numbly.
"How would she even know? Hundreds of people must brew Polyjuice Potion every day for all sorts of purposes - you being one of them wouldn't be enough to tip somebody off, even if she is that somebody. I'm a pureblood and I knew, that doesn't make me the one behind this."
Hermione's mind was already working overtime to answer that very question, and she didn't have to wait long to come to a realisation. The matter, represented in her mind by a pot left to simmer, was now boiling over.
"Before any of this happened...Draco, he sent me a letter. It didn't have the full details of his...his dalliance, but there was certainly enough to encourage somebody with enough motive to go digging. She could have easily seen the letter, sealed with the Malfoy crest, among my things after I'd read it," she despised how much it sounded like fact rather than theory even as she said it.
"Well then he's a stupid git for putting it in writing in the first place if it was so sensitive - never mind using the bloody family crest."
It was a gallant attempt at easing her guilt - she knew it. Of course, his dislike for the Malfoys in general would've helped that along. But it didn't ease her guilt, not at all. Especially not after the amount of suspicion they'd so constantly levelled towards Draco when the real cause may well have been much, much closer to home.
"Because he assumed I'd know better than to employ somebody like...like this!" It was becoming impossible for her to keep the emotion out of her voice.
If this was true, it was a glaring error on her part. An absolute fuck-up. And while a stubborn voice in the back of her head remained staunchly self-righteous (for what was she meant to do? Extensive background checks on any and every colleague she had? Hire people based on their blood status, sticking only to Muggleborns and half-bloods? Those were the exact sort of values they'd fought against in the war!), that self righteousness was drowned out by the very heavy fear that she could have done more.
But there was no place for fear here. Not now. So she did what she'd done so many times as a teenager - she shoved it aside, and forced herself into action.
"Who's watching Marilyn now?" Hermione asked, raising her voice as she moved into the hallway to slip her shoes on.
"Luna."
"Just Luna?"
"Just Luna. I'll get word out, have somebody else get to her for backup just in case. We need to do this quietly, if it is Serana and she suspects we're onto her, she might speed along whatever plan it is she has."
"If she's given up on a façade - if it is a façade..." it was almost funny how they kept adding the 'if's to their sentences, as if it was out of true and genuine benefit of the doubt rather than sheer dread and denial "...to the point of not turning up to work without even an excuse, that could very well mean that she doesn't need the façade anymore. That she's already…"
They should tell Draco. Ron did have a point - they didn't know anything for certain just yet. It was very possible that because this was the first real potential suspect they'd uncovered, that it felt like the right answer because it was the only answer so far. There could very well be a reasonable explanation. Telling Draco now could result in an innocent woman being hurt. But if they were right, not telling him could result in the same. He was the only one out of all of them who could be by Marilyn's side directly without causing too much of a scene among the Muggles.
They had no 'why' yet, no reason why Serana might do this other than her blood status and pure speculation, which were both frightfully poor things to base it on. Even so, if their journey to Hermione's office proved fruitful and they put off contacting Draco any longer...well, it sufficed to say he would not appreciate the delay because they were busy searching for the other half of the story. But just as Hermione was about to argue that case, she stopped dead. Luna's Patronus, in the form of a spectral hare, dashed into the hall with great haste.
"She's been taken," Luna's usually cheery, lilting voice was heavy and ragged as it came from the ghostly animal's mouth.
Marilyn sat on the unforgiving stone floor long enough for her ass to go numb, and any delusions that whoever put her here just might have good intentions to fade away into nothing. At first she occupied her time by counting. The only windows in the room were thinner than the width of her arm forearms at the very top of two of the tall walls of the room. All the meagre amount of light that they offered told her was that it was not yet dark (and therefore not yet evening), but gave no hints as to how much time had passed. It didn't help that the day outside was overcast - dull and grey, blocking out any signs there might have otherwise been of bright midday sun that gave way to a warm sunset. Sometimes she thought that the dullness outside may have been darkening, but then she'd hear rain lashing at the windows and it was impossible to tell whether the dimness was due to the storm or the time of day.
At first she counted. Mainly because it was something to do to keep herself from becoming completely hysterical, it was a fairly useless way of telling the time considering how many times her mind wandered away from her and she lost count. All that was important, though, was that it cleared her mind enough to think - and slowed her heart rate so that she could hear her damn thoughts rather than just a constant pounding in her head. One she could hear her thoughts, she was free to get lost in them.
Memories of the reason she'd spent so long carrying around a sharpened pencil in her pocket brought forth new theories - that the same creeper who'd tried to assault her that night was behind this, that her collapse hadn't been an unhappy coincidence that some opportunist had stumbled across and decided to take advantage of. In the end, she ruled out the first half of that theory. This was too big to be some random scumbag. Had this been him, he'd have dragged her off to some alleyway somewhere and...well, done things it would not be productive to dwell on in her current situation. This was something else. Something bigger. Just because the first part of her speculation wasn't right didn't mean that the rest was equally wrong - that this whole thing wasn't entirely purposeful.
After all, this fit hadn't been like the last. There'd been no pain - none that didn't come from her impacting the pavement, at least - just immobility. But why? That was a matter she'd turned over and over in her mind, and she could only come to one conclusion that felt incredibly weak at best. Ransom. Some crazy had gotten it in their heads to kidnap a ballerina (former or otherwise) and demand payment for her return. But if they'd wanted to do that, there were other much better options to choose from. Dancers that still had their damn careers, no less. Fuck, if somebody was this committed they could go after actual celebrities, politicians, royalty. No matter how she tried to connect the dots, it always seemed like there were a couple of outliers too far away from the rest to include in whatever pattern she created. The only conclusion she ever really seemed to come to was that she couldn't kid herself that this wasn't sinister. A conclusion a toddler could have easily reached in less time, really.
It seemed answers were just yet another thing she'd have to wait for. And not for long, either, judging by the footsteps and voices she began to hear out of nowhere - the first signs of life around her since she'd opened her eyes in this god forsaken dungeon. Reaching her free hand blindly for purchase in the rough stone wall behind her, she used it to help her pull herself up as quickly and quietly as possible.
There was a click of a lock and then the shrieking of the aged metal of the door hinges was more than enough to cover her light footsteps as she made her way swiftly towards the steps that led into the room and crouched in the shadows beside them.
"She'll be awake by now," a woman's voice was the first thing she was aware of, posh and cold "Lumos."
Lumos? Was that the name of whoever she was speaking to? It seemed strange, but then again so did fucking kidnap. Still, she made sure to remember it in hopes that this went the best way it could, and she managed to get to the authorities. As she said it, a cold light filled the doorway and Marilyn had to back up into the shadows cast by the steps.
"Did she struggle?" A second woman's voice answered.
Marilyn slid the pencil from her sleeve and held it in her hand like the finest of knife-wielding slashers from a horror film, the point angled down and away from her.
"Can a mouse fight a trap? The fish a hook?" The first answered softly, voice like silk "She's a Muggle, fool. She didn't even know what had hit her."
Another word she didn't know the meaning of. Either she'd hit her head a lot harder than she'd thought during her fall, or they were speaking in some sort of code. A foot came into sight, clad in a heeled boot that looked positively Victorian, and followed by a strange gleaming purple garment that was so long it brushed the steps as the wearer descended them.
The second woman descended after the first, garbed just as strangely but in robes of dark green. Both held sticks aloft, which emitted a blinding cold white light from the tips. She'd never seen torches like it. But she didn't have time to dwell on it. The most she could see of the first woman was the back of her head, her long hair a bright blonde barely a shade darker than Draco's as it whipped around while she looked for Marilyn upon not immediately spotting her. Marilyn's heart was lodged firmly in her throat, knowing she couldn't bide her time for much longer. If they found her here and now, hiding in the corner, she'd never forgive herself for not taking her chances when she could.
Still, the fact that there was no room for fear here did nothing to quell it. But it was partnered with adrenaline, and she had to hope that would be enough.
"Where is she?"
"What?" The second, a brunette, asked.
"Where is-"
The woman spun on her heel to face her partner-in-kidnap, her face illuminated in the strange torchlight. She was young, around her own age, and very pretty. And as she spun, Marilyn acted. Gripping the pencil tightly in her hand, she stabbed it into the closest body part of the closest captor - which wound up being the calf of the brunette. The reaction was instantaneous - the woman screaming bloody murder, and dropping the strange stick of hers.
Not waiting to see what other mayhem she might have caused, she drew the pencil back (now sadly splintered and not much of a weapon at all, despite how it dripped crimson blood all over the stone) and used her arms to pull herself up onto the highest step.
"You little bitch!" The brunette was shrieking, voice almost inhuman.
The blonde's voice joined her friend's screaming, though, shouting over her in a voice deeper and more terrible than one would've thought her capable of upon first sight.
"Idiot! Stop her!"
She'd managed to successfully scramble up onto the steps and was in the process of righting herself when the brunette, still the closest one to her, grabbed at her coat. Marilyn spun on her weak leg, that almost threatened to buckle beneath her, and kicked a foot in the general area she'd stabbed. It worked, and the brunette let go with a shriek.
"My leg, Serana-"
"Oh for - get out of the fucking way."
Marilyn could only hear the scuffle behind her, knowing it was the blonde - Serana - shoving the brunette out of the way. A chase would ensue, she knew that much. She just had to get enough of a head start, work out some way out of here, hope that there was an unlocked door or window - pray that her bad leg didn't give out. The door to the dungeon she'd been kept in opened up to a grand but dusty main hall, all grey and green marble and cobwebs. There were two fireplaces on either side of it, and in the middle of the wall between them — great, grand double doors. Marilyn took off at a sprint, her gait awkwardly and faulty, more of a speed-limp than anything. Her knee was throbbing at the exertion, but she refused to heed it. It wouldn't let her down now. It couldn't. Please don't let it. She didn't even know who she was begging as the thought crossed her mind, just that she dearly hoped they were listening.
While she ran she listened as best she could for signs of pursuit behind her. But there were none - no footsteps to match her own. All that came was a single shout.
"Stupefy!"
Crashing to the floor, her face taking the brunt of her fall, her limbs didn't seem to compute her desperate attempts to get them to move. All that really did register was the taste of blood. And then, a single word that only made everything worse.
"Crucio!"
Draco waited impatiently outside of the dance studio, lips set into a thin line. He could see the reception area of the dance studio, the receptionist typing furiously at her computer with a grim expression, but even from where he stood he could see that the classroom Marilyn used was dark and empty. That meant she must've been in the toilets, or elsewhere in the building talking to a colleague, but he'd already been waiting here for ten minutes and his patience was beginning to wane.
It was a horrible evening as it was - if it was any colder it'd be snowing, and the wind was grabbing at his coat and blowing the rain directly into his face. It was doing nothing for the dire mood he'd been in since his reunion with the youngest Weasley yesterday, and knowing he'd have to adjust his mood before he inadvertently took it out on Marilyn (who had already proven she wouldn't stand for such things) was doing nothing to help him actually fix his mood. Her apparently dilly-dallying now was doing nothing at all to help.
In the end his patience thoroughly ran out and he approached the entrance to the building. He recognised the particular Muggle at the desk - she'd been here a few other times when he'd waited for Marilyn, so hopefully she would recognise him on sight and not suspect him of being some sort of degenerate here to leer at the young dancers. He'd barely slipped through the glass doors, a scowl pulling on his lips of its own accord, when she looked up - but before he could think to piece together an explanation and ask where Marilyn was, the woman was speaking.
"She's not here."
"When did she leave?"
"She didn't turn up. When you see her, tell her we're as accommodating as possible given her situation, but if she's going to take a sick day she needs to actually let us know."
Draco could barely hear the woman's prattling beyond piecing together what he needed to know. Marilyn wasn't here - and Marilyn hadn't turned up at all. Nor had she let them know that that would be the case. Which, from everything he'd seen of the woman, was distinctly un-Marilyn.
"We had nobody to cover her classes, so now I have to spend my evening emailing angry parents. Her name will only get her so far, she should know tha-"
A high-pitched ringing had taken up residence in Draco's ears, growing only louder as he was presented with no evidence that he'd misunderstood - that he was wrong, or that he was hearing things. He turned away from the woman in the middle of her tirade and strode down the street.
There could be an explanation for all of this - would be an explanation. There had to be. Perhaps she'd taken ill and had been unable to get through to the studio. He knew little of those damned Muggle communication devices (beyond Marilyn's disbelief that he didn't possess one) - telephones, that was the word - but he did know that they could be unreliable. Messages could simply fail to reach the other end for some reason or another. That was it. It had to be. But he didn't believe himself enough to not break into a run.
He traced the route they usually took to Marilyn's house - the reverse of the route he knew she took to work. Apparating would have been faster, but part of him thought that perhaps she'd hurt herself on the way to work and he'd find her in some strange side-street. As though she could have stayed there for almost ten hours, undisturbed and unhelped. It was a sorry state of affairs when that was one of the less terrible possibilities.
His mind reeled at the implications of what he'd just heard, as he found fault in each and every one of the "best case" scenarios he did his best to conjure just to ease his own panic. If she hadn't shown up to work, that meant something must have happened before the beginning of her shift - and whatever that thing was, it had prevented both her and her housemates from contacting her work. Even if she'd ended up back in that strange Muggle hospital, she'd have badgered one of the staff into helping her get in touch with her boss. Whatever happened had to have been bad for her to fall silent thus.
A cold, terrified sweat was beginning to envelope him as he ran through the streets - one that had nothing to do with the icy weather, or the physical exertion. In fact, it seemed to bite at him more harshly than the wind ever could, almost as if...And then Draco stopped. Chest heaving as he fought to catch his breath, the wind blew about his face and whipped his hair into his eyes, he lifted his hand to check the phial around his neck. Then terror gripped his inside and he stopped, scared at what he already knew he'd discover. But then he swore at himself to get a grip, and quickly drew his hand up to the chain about his neck.
The broken glass cut into his hand as he gripped it, the contents of the phial already soaking through his shirt and into his chest, making it feel like a layer of ice had settled over it.
Draco swore, loudly enough to earn disapproving looks from the few members of the public who had chosen to brave the foul weather, and then he reached into his pocket and curled his fingers around his wand, teeth gritted with determination.