Chapter 2: In Which They Realize that Hermione is Gone…
Several hours later…
The slanting rays of the glowing, rosy light of dawn fell across the woven rug on the girls' dormitory floor. The fire in the hearth had smouldered down to glowing cinders long before then.
Most girls in the Gryffindor girls' dormitory were just beginning to awaken and get ready for breakfast in the Great Hall, one by one. Like Hermione Granger, most of them quietly got dressed behind the curtains of their canopy beds, and then left their beds so that they could take care of their vanity issues in front of the mirrors, talking with other girls.
Hermione Granger was usually seen up and about long before the other girls. She was always fixing her bed neatly so that the House Elves wouldn't have to do that. She was always preaching to them about the evils of keeping House Elves, and trying to make them feel guilty by not making their beds or cleaning up after themselves. Of course, it never worked. Hermione and her SPEW organization were (for the most part) ignored and seen as a nuisance.
Strangely enough, no one noticed the absence of the 'Lone Crusader for House Elf Rights' as she had been dubbed. No, the girls in the Gryffindor girls' dormitory were far too busy chatting and fixing their hair and makeup to notice that one of their numbers was missing. They were too busy talking about what Whats-her-face was wearing yesterday, and what Whats-her-face was doing at lunch. No one bothered to ask about Hermione. No one ever did.
There was only one person who mentioned something about Hermione.
"Oh, this is the book I borrowed from whats-her-face," one of the girls, Maria, remarked as she rummaged through her book bag, cramming it with whatever she could fit in it. When her friend, Parvati, gave her a strange look, she said, "You know, whats-her-face with the bushy hair, the brainy girl. This is her book. Here," she shoved the book (which happened to be Hogwarts: A History) at Sara, "go give it back to her."
Parvati shrugged and took the book. She walked across the room to Hermione's bed, which still had the curtains drawn around it. With a brisk flick of her wrist, she whisked the curtain aside.
Hermione still appeared to be sleeping with the red blankets, which were embroidered with gold thread, pulled over her head.
"Hermione, Maria's returning your book," Parvati said to the sleeping form hidden underneath the blankets.
She waited, expecting Hermione to groggily stir, push the heavy blankets off of her head, then turn to look at her, squinting, like she always did on the rare occasions that someone had to wake her up. But the prone form beneath the blankets didn't even move.
"Hey, Hermione!" Parvati repeated louder. "I've got your book that Maria borrowed from you."
When she still didn't wake up, she leaned forward and shook her, saying her name again and again.
"Hermione! Hermione, wake up!" Parvati said, shaking her. Finally, she just threw off the blankets covering her and gasped.
Hermione was gone. A pillow was what she thought was Hermione beneath the covers. (A/N: Which was a big surprise for her, but not so much for my readers.)
*~*~*~*
Meanwhile…
Hermione was coming around. She was aware that her head throbbed painfully; she could feel a lump the size of a golf ball on the side of her head and felt the warm, sticky blood trickling down her face.
Slowly, she forced herself to open her heavy eyelids. When she opened her eyes, what she saw was not much better than not seeing at it at all. At first she thought that she had been blinded, for a sea of darkness surrounded her, and cold, growing panic began to build in her chest.
The first thought that ran through her mind when she opened her eyes was, "Oh no! I've been kidnapped, and I'm blind! I'll never be able to escape!"
But then she realized that her surroundings were only appeared dark because there was no light source anywhere in her- in her confinement. There were no windows either.
When her eyes adjusted to the extremely dim room, she saw that it was a small, bare room. The walls were made of blocks of stone. Water trickled down them in small rivulets. The only noise in the confinement other than her wheezing, panicked breath was the drip drip dripping of water.
After she observed her surroundings, she realized that she was chained down to a chair. Ropes and chains bound her securely down to the chair. The knots in the ropes appeared to be tight. They hardly gave her room enough to take a deep breath without cutting into her. All of the chains were padlocked. Well, whoever had imprisoned her was taking every precaution to make sure that she didn't get away.
Well, no duh. Hermione thought. You only kidnap someone if you don't want them getting away from you. They wouldn't just let me walk around free. But in this cell, I could never get away, even if I wasn't chained down. Surely they must have realized that. Whoever is imprisoning me went through way too much trouble. But why was I kidnapped anyway?
And who was the one who kidnapped her?
It came to her instantly. Who else could it be but Volde- You-Know-Who? Of course. It was a simple plot. Capture Hermione and let the great Harry Potter try to rescue her so that Volde- You-Know-Who could destroy him.
Unfortuantely, it wasn't as simple as that.
Minutes slipped away, and Hermione's head became clearer. She thought that her head wounds had stopped bleeding. The pain had abated somewhat, so she was able to concentrate better on other matters, like how to escape…or perish trying. Before she could ponder the subject of escaping too much, however, she suddenly jumped (or jumped as much as the heavy ropes and chains tying her down would allow) as she heard a loud clink, like the sound of metal on metal, or perhaps-
A key! Someone is unlocking the door! Hermione thought, her heart hammering with excitement, fear, and anticipation. She noticed for the first time that there actually was a door in the small cell. The door was made of a solid slab of stone, made so well, and concealed so cleverly that it seemed to blend into the wall. Now I'll finally know for certain who kidnapped me!
She heard the groaning, creaky squeal from outside, like that of rusty hinges, and seconds later, the door swung open slowly, very slowly, as if it took the person outside a lot of effort to open it.
Well, it should, Hermione thought. It is made out of stone, after all.
As the stone door swung laboriously open, she saw two things. One: She saw a black, wrough-iron gate that had been swung open outside of her door, which she guessed was an extra precaution in case she miraculously managed to get the inner stone door open. Whoever owned this institution must have been a completely paranoid security freak.
Two: She saw her captor standing in the doorway, the dark figure stepping out of the dim, flickering, inconsistant fire light of the corridor into the shadows of the cell.
It was the last person she would have expected to be her captor.
When she found her voice, Hermione cried out in shock. "It's you!"