AN: At long last… Wait, why should you have instant gratitude? I have some questions and you must answer them in your reviews or I'll sick rabid Kirby, rabid Heather, and rabid evil crazy stupid senile monkey (e.g. self) on you!
Should there be a sequel? Should it be a happy ending or sad ending? What loose ends need tying up (I've forgotten by now…)?Note: Your opinions are much desired, but may not be followed, since I'm headstrong anyway. Anyway, At long last…
Pain is Bitter
Chapter 16- [Trees On Fire]
Draco stood in the middle of the road, turning in bewildered circles as he took in his unfamiliar surroundings. The warm rain was still falling peacefully but he took no note of it. All he could think of was Hermione, that he had to get to her. Before that man hurt her. There were no buildings or houses near him; no orange haze indicated a nearby city, no sign of civilization. He sighed and took his wand out of his pocket. He pointed it to a nearby tree and set it on a fire, then doused it with water. He did this a few more times until h had vented a little frustration, and then he caused a mini-earthquake. He sighed again, and then sat down cross-legged in the middle of the road, his chin in his hands, to really think. He tapped his wand against the pavement idly. This was not going well. He thought of apparating, but it was too risky, he didn't know where he would go, he might get spliced and besides, it was illegal. He could contact someone, but who? Dumbledore and the rest of the Hogwarts staff could be anywhere, his father was probably planning to ground him for the rest of his life anyway, no need to make it worse. His mother would probably just tell him to shower before he 'attempted to engage her in conversation', the ministry was in post-Voldemort chaos had been pretty much destroyed, and Mr. Granger was a muggle… there wasn't anyone else. Draco set another tree on fire.
Hermione slowly came to, shivering violently as she forced her weighted eyes open. The small room was dark, and it took a minute for her to remember where she was. Sprawled unnaturally on the wooden table. She straightened herself out and began to sit up, but lay back down at the sharp pain in the back of her head. She moaned and massaged her head, then took away her fingers, looking with horror at them; they were covered in blood. She turned her face away from the light, blinking, and came face to face with the amused expression of her captor. He was watching her with a small grin on his face, his eyes studying her shocked face as she took in his proximity.
"Have a nice sleep, my dear?" He asked quietly, his grin widening.
"You bastard." Hermione spat.
"You look just like your mother you know…would you mind if I called you Titania?"
"Yes, I would mind if you called me Titania…I'm not my mother, and I won't let you pretend that I am."
"You can't stop me…Titania." He goaded her, waiting for her reaction. Hermione swallowed and looked away, refusing to take the bait. There was a long tense silence.
"I hate you." Hermione spoke first. He sighed and tutted.
"Don't say anything rash, Titania darling… it might not do you well in the end." He said before he disappeared into the darkness of the room, silent until the door clicked behind him. Hermione stared after him, knowing it was useless to try and escape. She looked down at her fingers, still bloodied from her earlier attempt, as well as her head. Her eyes fell upon words scratched into the wood of the table. 'Titania Richardson'. Hermione's bottom lip quivered.
"Don't call me Titania… My name isn't Titania!" She screamed at the door, tears streaming down her face.
In the tunnel outside, a man smiled in the shadows.
"It is now, my darling." He whispered before strolling off down the tunnel, with the musical accompaniment of Titania's sobbing…
Draco watched the fire in front of him for a moment, then put it out, looking around at the burnt tree stumps surrounding him. Maybe he'd gotten a little too angry. He turned to stare blankly at the road. Why wouldn't somebody come along? He stood there for what felt like hours but was probably minutes. He had to do something, anything… wait, maybe…do you think? Draco smiled excitedly and held out his wand.
Hermione was lying on the wooden table, the sole piece of furniture in the blank little room. She idly traced her Mother's name, wondering about the use of her maiden name. There was a creak at the door and she sat up quickly, wiping at her face to diminish any signs of tears, and straightening the little pink dress she was still wearing. He walked in, carrying a metal bowl filled with water, a white towel and a long white robe of silk. He smiled and nodded to her.
"Titania, wash yourself and dress in this robe please." He said, placing the things on the table. Hermione stared at them blankly. "Do you not comprehend?" He asked wearily.
"Of course I understand, you idiot, but I refuse to obey." Hermione said in a quiet, insolent tone. He glared at her and strode out the door, pausing only to say menacingly,
"You'll be sorry if you don't." The door slammed behind him and Hermione began cleaning herself up, because her Father always kept his word…
Draco stomped his foot in frustration. The Knight Bus, and the dirty buggers who ran it, weren't showing up.
"Cute, that's real cute." He said, stomping his foot again. "Just when you need the bloody poofs, they aren't to be found!" He sighed and contemplated setting another tree on fire, but decided against it, opting instead to walk aimlessly down the road in what he hoped was the right direction, thinking about Hermione and her current situation.
Hermione wiped the last of the blood off of her fingers and threw the washcloth in the metal bowl, causing a small splash that echoed slightly in the small room. The moonlight shone through the small iron-barred window, illuminating the wooden table and leaving the rest of the room in darkness. Hermione puled off her pink dress and deliberated for a second before signing and pulling on the silky white robe. Not a moment too soon, either. The door creaked open just as she tied the robe at the front. It fell loosely and flowed beautifully on her as she spun around to face her Father. He smiled.
"You were obedient, for once. You were always headstrong, Titania."
"Don't call me that!"
"Why shouldn't I call you by your name…Titania?"
"My name isn't Titania."
"Don't worry your pretty head, Titania, you just forgot."
"People don't forget their own names." Hermione said through gritted teeth. "Why are you even doing this? She's gone, you can't pretend I'm her…"
"It wasn't my fault she died, it wasn't. She was just being obstinate. If she had been obedient like I told her to, she wouldn't have died."
"She wasn't obedient, so you tortured her to death?" Robert's eyes darkened.
"I didn't torture her, I would never torture your mother, I loved her. Those fools don't know what they're talking about, torture. It was symbolic of our love for each other…"
"Pain and cruelty? Pain and cruelty were symbolic of your love for each other? Mum wasn't like that."
"Love is pain, and pain is bitter. It was all bitter, it made us so bitter toward each other, but we weren't like that in the beginning, in the beginning it was perfect."
"What are you talking about?"
"The rituals. In the beginning we were so happy, but they made it bitter in the end. Now you and I can carry on the rituals, and we will be happy, and we will not get bitter, will we/"
"You're sick, you know that?"
"We will not get bitter, will we?"
"Stop it! What's wrong, you aren't like this, you aren't…"
"We will not get bitter, will we?"
"We won't get fucking bitter! OK, are you happy now? We won't get bitter!"
"Yes, that is what I needed to hear. But I did not need to hear the F word, Titania. You should not use such words, especially not in such hallowed places." Robert said, gesturing grandly to the tiny hellhole of a room. "I believe the time is right to begin the ritual."
"What? Just leave me alone!"
"I believe the time is right to begin the ritual."
"You have major problems. I think you should just forget about the ritual, and we should go home and watch a movie or something…"
"And forget about all this?" He laughed jovially. "That's what your Mother said the first time. You're just like her. Perfect for the ritual…" He walked closer to her, out of the shadows, and for the first time Hermione noticed what he was wearing. A brown potato sack, it seemed at first. But upon closer examination, it was the sort of robe that Friar Tuck of the Robin Hood cartoons wore. "Please lie down n the sacrifice altar, Titania."
"What? You have to be kidding me! Do you honestly think I'm going to lie down on that table willingly?" He looked up at her from where he was leafing through the yellowed pages of the green and gold book.
"Yes." He said simply. Hermione turned and lay down on the wooden table, and only then did she notice that the carvings were identical to those on the wooden box she and Draco had found earlier that day…had it really been the same day? It seemed like a century ago. Hermione wondered where Draco was. 'He obviously doesn't care enough to come after me. Some boyfriend.' She thought before correcting herself. 'Probably he's been going frantic trying to find me, he's doing his best.' She let a little hope flare in her as she lay down on the table. Then she let her more cynical side kick in, 'His best isn't very good then, is it?' She felt a cool hand on her wrist and looked up at her Father. He was strapping down her arms as he had already strapped down her ankles, with wide leather straps that bit harshly into her skin when she pulled against them. He smiled angelically, the moonlight streaming through the sole window and falling directly on the 'sacrificial altar', causing his head to glow surreally. A tear trickled down Hermione's cheek, what had become of the man she knew? Her Daddy, the man she played with when he came home from work, the man she adored…had he ever been real? Or just the character of a naïve child's thin perception? He ran a hand fondly over her hair and then her cheek.
"Just like your mother…don't be scared, Titania." He said, then began rolling up the robe and exposing the bare skin of her legs to the col. He opened the green and gold book and began to chant in a different language, an eerie, long chant that seemed to go for ages. Hermione closed her eyes and blocked it all out. Only did she come back to reality when she heard a metallic click and cold metal pressed against her ankle. Her eyes snapped open and she instinctively stru7ggled against her restraints. Her Father 'shushed' to her soothingly, concern in his eyes.
"Maybe…yes!" He said and then ran out into the tunnel. He was back a moment later with a small white pill. "Aspirin", he said, putting it in her mouth. Hermione grimaced and swallowed. Robert watched, smiling, as she drifted off into a deep drug-induced sleep. Then he set to work.
Draco had been walking for an hour. He wasn't seeing anything familiar. He was tired and anxious about Hermione. There was a distant rumbling and Draco wondered vaguely what it was before he went back to picturing Hermione in thousands of horrible situations. She could have been captured by Death Eaters (there were still a few left), she could have been captured by a crazy rapist, a serial killer, a total psycho, a sick…Draco's chilling train of thoughts was interrupted when the rumbling got louder. He turned around to see a large whit truck with 'Williams' Warehouses' written in red on the side. He jumped up and down madly, flailing his arms about, as the truck slowed to a stop in front of him. The side door swung open and Draco hopped in, turning to see the driver. He was surprised to see the gawky teenage boy from the gas station. The one who had yelled when he kissed Hermione? The one who right about now was overshadowing Jesus on the Savior scale in Draco's mind.
Hermione slowly came to. She felt overly hot and her legs were aching. She tried to sit up but couldn't then remembered her restraints. She sighed wearily and relaxed, that was he best she could do for now.
"Father? Robert?" She called, for she was loathe to call him 'Dad' or 'Daddy' now. Her Father popped his head in, smiling.
"How do you feel, Titania?"
"Strange. And my legs are sore, and I can't fathom why. What did you do?"
"Only a simple ritual. Just to begin with. Look what beauty, what splendor, we have made from your sacrifice." He said, pointing to a corner of the room Hermione couldn't see from her vantagepoint of lying on the table. Robert understood her plight and undid the leather straps, letting her sit up. Hanging on a newly constructed clothesline was a white silk sheet with the same design on it as was on the table and chest. Hermione stared transfixed at it, horror etched across her features as she began to comprehend what her Father had done. She stared down at her legs, teas falling from her eyes. The pattern on the silk was done in a red liquid… her blood.
"Hey, it's puppy-boy!" Said the gawky teenage gas station attendant. Draco didn't have the energy left to protest his new nickname.
"Yes, and you are" He said a little curtly.
"Mario Williams." The boy answered, shaking Draco's hand.
" Listen, the girl you saw me with earlier…"
"The hottie?" Draco did not dignify this with an answer.
"The girl you saw me with earlier, she's in trouble. And we need to help her, Mario." Mario nodded.
"Alright, what kind of trouble?"
"Psycho-maniac-who-likes-torturing-people kind of trouble."
"Hmmm. So where are we off to?"
"I have no idea where I am, but I want to get to a deserted old house that's on the road that goes to Richardson Manor. Wherever that is."
"You don't know these parts well, do you?"
"Not really. I've never been here before, except to Richardson Manor, and then I didn't take a car. I flew."
"You flew? Like an airplane?"
"An air of plane …yes." Mario decided not to pursue this, shaking his head and muttering something about 'helping puppy dog weirdoes save other weirdoes'. After a few moments of silence.
"What's your name, by the say?" Mario asked.
"Uh, Draco Malfoy."
"Well. That's a strange name, isn't it?" Draco bristled.
"Maybe. But it's not like Mario Williams is commonplace. Why were you named that?"
My Mother adored Mario Lanza. The singer, you know?" Draco raised his eyebrows.
"OK." He said, non-committally.
"What about Draco Malfoy? Who came up with that?"
"Well, Malfoy has been the family name for ages, nobody knows where it came from. But my middle name is Ambrose, so it's Draco Ambrose, which is supposed to mean 'Dragon of Immortality'. I guess my Father wanted something that was scary, imposing, powerful, etc."
"Huh, What about your Mum?"
"Oh, she didn't have any say in it."
"Huh." Mario repeated. "So you must come from nobility, or some rich family?"
"Yeah, sort of. But why do you say that?"
"Well, first of all, most normal people don't name their kids 'Dragon of Immortality'. Only eccentric, power-oriented, rich people do that. Besides, the Richardsons don't really associate with the lower classes."
"You're right about my father, he's eccentric, power-oriented and very rich. I wouldn't have thought about the Richardsons though… do you know them?"
"I don't know the girl, but my little brother Frankie, as in Frankie Avalon, if you were wondering, is best friends with Stephen. His Mum…" Here he glanced at Draco uneasily. "Well his Mum was the new generation, so to speak. Very open-minded, married a man from the 'lower classes', Robert Granger. So I guess the kids are the same. Open-minded."
"Hermione's open-minded alright. But opinionated too." Draco said, thinking about how easily she had accepted their controversial relationship, and then how angry she always got when anyone mentioned house elves.
"Hermione. That's a pretty name. How do you know her?"
"From school. She's my girlfriend."
"School… but doesn't she go to a private girls' school?"
"Ah, no it's co-ed…"
"Really? I thought I remembered Mrs. Granger saying that her daughter went to a private girls' school…"
"I guess you heard wrong then." Draco said firmly. Mario looked doubtful, but nodded, then concentrated on doing an illegal U-turn. "What? Why are you turning around?"
"You were walking the wrong way."
"Oh."
Her Father had quietly left as Hermione stared at her new scars. 'The sick bastard' she thought. Both of her legs were totally covered in the design , which her Father called the 'Konra'. Carved into her legs with an expertise that terrified her, then pressed onto the white silk sheet so that her own blood became the ink. And he called it beautiful. She had to escape. And soon.
TBC
AN: Sorry this took even longer than I said it would, I've never taken that long to update before! But like I said, I was travelling, and my ancient laptop (A 3rd-me-down) has a virus which I didn't know about so I had to retype it all on my sister's boyfriend's laptop but I couldn't very well take that home with me, could I? So then he emailed it to me but my account was so full after the vacation that it didn't come through and I had to phone and get him to send it again. And I have an unreal amount of homework, honestly… I beg for your forgiveness, hope this chapter was up to your expectations…Thanks to:
Icy Stormz- We're both winners! That's right! YAY! Did you submit your fic in the end? Although I worked my arse off trying to, I just didn't have the time or the resources. Oh well. Another day, another fic challenge…
jen20069- Sorry again but my closed little mind is Harry/Hermione intolerant… otherwise, good first chapter of your story… and glad you like mine!
Cassondra- didn't I mention this? E = S. Evil = Stephanie. Evil = me.
lolo- Thank-youuuuuuu for the compliment.
G*Ness- Yes, evil I am. I sense that you don't like Mr. Milligan. But I love him! Remember my AN in the chapter where he originally was introduced to the story? He's modeled after 2 great men… well, 1 man and 1 puppet. I also sense that you want Robert Granger to be innocent, but he was planned evil from the beginning and evil he shall stay. I am trying to keep him a little more mislead and psychotic (so that's where Hermione gets it!) than evil though. I'm really sorry I disappointed you though, but it worked with the plot. Thanks for your support throughout the story, I hope you don't give up on me…
Kristatwen- heheh, sorry about the wait… are you reading this? Or are you in the psychiatric ward?
Give Me Stitchez- Thank you wery Mitch.
Moon-Walker- Aaaah! Rabid Kirby… save me! Wha…? Oh Kirb, you just wanted a kiss didn't you, Kirbykins? Ooogie boogie! What a tweet widdle puppy! Goochee goo! Goochee goo! Aaaah! Rabid Heather… save me!
Sucker For Romance- Thank a mill, darling…
allee kat- yes, a five year old girl… *laughs hysterically*
Gwenevire- good girl for loving the evilness! Evilness shall rule the world, and you will bow down to iot, monkey, you will… Mwahahahaha! Mwahahahaha!'
Book-Lover-210- WAAAAAH! Everybody knew it was her Daddy before I wrote it! *Stomps foot*
PoPs- Fantastic, evil little me… sigh.
Acerbus Lacer- Yay! A new reader! Welcome to the cult-I-mean-club, yes club for evil monkeys who like reading fan fiction by other evil monkeys…
firecat- Heehee! Order: Bow down before Draco Malfoy, monkey… BOW!
firecat (again)- TEE HEE GIGGLE GIGGLE! The best cliff hanger you've ever read?! Aw, shucks… I know! *Evil laughter*
Moon-Walker- Wait, why do I strive to be as evil as you, I should just hire an assasin… *yelling* oh Julia…? Mwahahahaha! Mwahahahaha! Mwahahahaha!
Evenstar Princess- I wuv you too! Was that a flame? I don't think it was… I hope not!
IlUvDrAcOmAlFoY- Tee hee!
ChibiFuu Malfoy- I love Road Trip too! The only thing about it is that there isn't enough fluff for an insatiable fluff-loving monkey (e.g. me). I love Malfoy too. If you like Draco/Hermione, go read 'We'll Always Have Paris'. Then I'll be your third favourite, but oh well, I'll live.
IlUvDrAcOmAlFoY- You added me to your favorites, yay!