Chapter 6: The Capture
Hermione studied the glass bottle. It felt smooth and soft in her hand. She was sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room. No one else was around, being nearly midnight. The bottle reminded her of one of the popular muggle drinks; a soda. It was a long necked bottle, containing about one half of a litre of the almost-invisible liquid. Careful as to not spill a drop (invisible ink stains on clothes, and can look rather odd), she screwed open the cap and dipped a quill in it. Then, using the parchment on her lap, she wrote.
"Herm?" Harry yawned, coming down the stairs. "Our door was open, and I was wondering if it was you who-" he trailed off, seeing that there was no one else in the room. Noticing a sheet of paper on one of the chairs, he walked over towards the fireplace. He picked it up and turned it over, but there was nothing on it. He plodded back up to his room and found his wand on the bedstand.
"Aparecium!" he whispered. Slowly, as if an invisible hand were writing the words on the paper appeared:
I'm in the Library. We need to talk.
~ Hermione
Hermione padded softly down the stone steps leading to the dungeon. She nearly ran into professor McGonagall as she crept down the silent halls. Soon, she came to a place that she knew only from her favorite book: Hogwarts: A History. Slowly, she focused all her energy on all of the nasty words that the password could be.
"Mudblood." She whispered. The concealed door didn't move. Hermione knew that no one could see her. She had Harry's invisibility cloak. But, she didn't want to be caught out in the open, just in case. "Pureblood." Again, nothing. "Slytherin, Salazar, Basilisk, Terror, Snake, Muggle, Deatheater!" the last one she nearly yelled. Suddenly, the door swung silently open, and Hermione's heart leapt to her throat. Standing in the doorway was Draco Malfoy.
"What is it, Drake?" a boy behind him asked. He closely resembled a rat, and had a snobbish look on his face. Hermione backed up against the wall, her blood rushing through her ear.
"I'm not sure, Zabini, and stop calling me that." As Draco turned to walk back into the Slytherin Common Room, Hermione slipped in behind him. She stood right be the entrance.
"What did you hear?" Zabini asked.
"I don't know...something." Draco stared into the fire that seemed to give no warmth to the stone room.
"Well?"
"What?"
"You were saying..."
"Right. Look, Zabini, you have to promise me that you will not tell another soul what I am about to tell you."
"Oh my god! You're not gay, are you?" Zabini looked at Draco as if he turned into a Hungarian Horntail.
"No!" Draco spat. "Look. My father is planning something. He has been adding to the cells below our estate. He's been talking about 'weeding the weak out.' I think he's going to...to take all of the mudbloods out of Hogwarts. Even the halflings."
"Really?" Zabini asked with mock interest.
"No, really! He's going to torture and kill all of them, including Hermione!"
Hermione's hand flew to her throat, but she made no noise.
"Man! And just when you were starting to like her, and she like you." Zabini bit his lip, and Hermione paled under the cloak. The two Slytherins sat in silence, then, after what seemed like hours, Zabini left to the dorms, leaving Draco to sit at the fire. Hermione started forwards. She felt a pull at the cloak, and it slipped off of her shoulders. It was caught in the door. Draco heard her gasp of surprise and stared at her for a second.
"Hermione!" he half-yelled.
"Hi, Draco." She gave a slight smile. She started to take a step towards him, but he ran quickly towards her, and scooped her into his arms. He held her arms firmly down on her sides.
"What exactly did you hear?" Draco's voice held a slight panicked note to it.
"Draco, please." Hermione tried to back out of his uncomfortable grip, but his eyes held her in thrall. His eyes were wide in horror, and his cold gray eyes were alert and bloodshot. He looked like an insane patient.
He managed to calm himself down a bit by breathing deeply. His breath smelled like tea, and...something else she couldn't put her finger on. "You probably heard everything, didn't you?" he said, his head drooping Hermione nodded, and Draco released her from his grip. He slowly walked back to the chair and covered his face with his hands.
"Oh, God." He muttered, his words muffled by his hands. Hermione sat down next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Draco, don't worry. I can look after myself. I can...stay away from your...father." She sighed. Staying away from Lucius Malfoy meant staying away from Draco, who was just starting to intrigue her. He shrugged her hand off.
"It's...not that..." Draco muttered.
"What? You have feelings for me?" Hermione laughed a bit. "I have feelings for you, too, Draco." She admitted. She drew a sharp breath, realizing what she had just said. Draco heard her sharp intake of breath, and turned to her. He held her face in his hands, and pulled her closer. "Draco?" she whispered. "What...what are you doing?" "Shh..." Draco shushed her. Their lips were just about to meet, when a voice, cold as the frozen sky, ripped through the air.
"Well. This is how my son treats me." It hissed. Draco dropped Hermione's face, and turned about wildly. She stared far behind Draco, towards the dorm end of the room. There, standing in flowing, black robes, was Lucius Malfoy. Draco charged at his father.
Lucius hissed something inaudible to Hermione's ears. Draco hung, suspended in the air. His arms were snapped by his sides, and his legs jack-knifed under him. It looked as if he were kneeling towards Lucius. "This is what I get for keeping you alive, you worthless, sniveling, toad!" he hissed. A jet of red light swirled out of Lucius' wand and formed a sphere around Draco, stunning the petrified Hermione. She moved to run, but she stumbled against a nearby table.
"Ah." Lucius hissed, as if seeing her for the first time. "Milicent Bulstrode. Or," he added with a glance at his son, "Hermione Granger, hmm?" he smirked slightly. It was more than Hermione could bear. The hatred in his eyes...
"Which one is it, girl?" he glared at her with pure malevolence and spite.
"Hermione." She gasped. She reached for her wand in her back pocket, but she wasn't quick enough. He pointed his wand at her and hissed with lightning speed.
Hermione felt as if she were falling through the darkest of black. The tunnel got longer and longer. She looked back up at the entrance, and she saw Draco, reaching for her.
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