CH. 15 - A Mouse in the Manor
Every night for a week had seemed the same. Narcissa was persistent on bringing an heir onto the grounds of the mansion-but Pansy showed no signs of bringing the mistress's dreams to life. After a few days, not even the threat of Hermione's life seemed to make Draco able to be aroused enough to perform and began feeding him a potion that, though gave him the will to make love, drained him of his mind. By the end of the week, his words no longer made sense.
Hermione's hopes of holding on to her sanity were dwindling. She had looked into his eyes just this night and could see nothing there. He looked right through her and rolled over. Oh, despite her failures, had Narcissa ever laughed. Her laughter was not the only thing ringing in the walls. Pansy had also been being punished; her screams were like mega-phoned death rattles along the cold walls. Hermione had silently called out to Pansy for help with her eyes, now desperate to find some ally that could understand- but Pansy seemed to fear doing anything but the job at hand.
After the ritualistic ceremony Narcissa led her into the room which mazed around the entire mansion. "I grow so tired of leading you around like the dog you are," she would chant over and over, while leading her to her small quarters, "but who else can trust a Mudblood? You would certainly overpower one of the house elves, and Pansy is so weak, I'm sure you could at least talk her into letting you free. I'm sure she wants out of this as well. You all do but it will be over soon. Not as soon as you and I would like-but soon." She always seemed to want to say more but as soon as the thought would begin to roll off of her tongue she began to mutter, "Like some bloody dog that just comes around--like a bitch in heat-jarring plans-like having a mutt around."
As mistress of such a house, when she told the door that no one was allowed out, as Hermione found out, NO ONE got out which left her to explore the room in extreme detail, when she wasn't puking her crackers and soda water up every hour. She had found many useful things to keep up her time like wizard coloring books.
She had trouble with it at first but she began shouting colors at the pages full of animated dragons and wizards. It wasn't noticeable at first until she punched the book hard out of frustration. Her pointer finger had become red. She bellowed green and her index finger went the shade of summer trees. It was hard to get used to using her fingers for coloring crayons but as she figured out she could use her pinky for the trickier edges. If she closed the book her hand was back to normal.
Young Draco had covered half the pages already in bright green streaks. Hermione tried desperately to touch up the one of the little girl petting the head of an old but large dragon. She made the dragons hair a nice mix of gray and blonde and his scales were the different shades of the rainbow because Hermione was having fun mixing colors around. The girl had a dirty blonde haired mop of curls on her head and silver robes. The few flaws were Draco's green messy scrawls but Hermione insisted to herself they added flair.
A few other pictures hung on the wall, one of which was an obviously older Draco drawing it. It was a self portrait of him though his features were slightly disfigured, and he was obviously only like nine or ten. Yet, he looked so sad and Hermione knew that's all he had ever known in his life. Sorrow haunted every part of him.
She slowly peeled it off the wall and dropped it instantly. There was a small switch inside of a hole small enough for a finger to fit in. What's this? Why had Draco failed to tell her about this? Could it hurt her?
She nearly laughed. What did it matter if she was hurt or not? She wasn't in a situation she was getting out anytime soon. She slipped her finger inside the cubby and flicked the switch. A small portion of the wall somehow fizzled into tiny particles and dissolved into the air. Instead of hardened walls was a small crawl space amid the bricks that had taken the place of the wall paper. She kneeled down and put her arm in the room, feeling nothing in her way.
"This is just like some creepy haunted house. Wait, this IS some creepy haunted house," she groaned. It had surprised her to hear her own voice. Talking to herself wasn't something she had been doing as of late.
Though her hips had a little wiggling to do, she pulled herself into the small hallway that was only a shoulder length wide. Hope lifted her heavy heart. It was dark, damp and particularly spooky-but it was out of that room and one step closer to getting out. She just hoped Narcissa didn't come in to find her gone.
It was very scary to just feel cold stone walls on both sides of her shoulders but when she felt a sharp turn, she felt a little more secure that, if she'd made it this long, surely she'd been attacked by now. "Just feel around. Just feel around," she kept saying, skimming the stone with her fingertips. Her foot steps quickened and she began to pick up her pace. "Just feel around. Just fee-OUCH!" she yelped, smacking her nose into a wall with a deafening thud. It felt like Millicent Bulstrode's fist in her face. It felt like a dead end.
"No! No! No!" she cried, clawing at the wall but it was no use. The stone would not move. She would have been cheerful sooner if she would have come out of her tantrum. She finally felt the wooden door under her almost ten minutes after falling over foolishly right on top of it.
On a diet of crackers and soda water doesn't strengthen her and most of that food-she hoped-was going towards her child. This posed as a problem for her in lifting this gravity-heavy slab of old wood in the floor. It took nearly every ounce of strength and hope she had to lift it enough to prop it on her shoulder and push it forward.
The smell that filled the cold hallway was intoxicating. It made her stomach clench in pleasure. It was like strawberries, and something spicy mixed in that Hermione couldn't place. There was also shimmering candles lit nearly everywhere, but the orange light was filtered through by a thick red blanket that was hovering below her.
Smiling fearfully she sighed, "If this doesn't hold me-by Merlin, please let me land on something soft and safe." Hermione pinched her noise like she was jumping into a pool of water and did a frog-like leap into the hole in the floor.
Made to hold a ten year old child, the blanket wasn't even going to carry Hermione's weight for a second and it broke it's clutches on the ceiling. She stared wide eyed at the whole in the ceiling that closed somehow and was disappearing before her eyes.
She heard a soft laugh. It sounded like the voice was struggling to utter the smalls gasping laughs. She turned her head over and stared at the sick Draco Malfoy. His cheeks had become nothing but pale skin that clung to his once beautiful face. His arms and legs looked skinnier then before and his eyes.so dully gray.
"Only.only angels fall from the sky," he whispered to her. Her chokes were enough to make him cringe. He looked like he didn't recognize her. Tears welled up in the pits of her eyes.
She kissed him deeply with her tongue and held his frail body next to her. "You hair is so soft and your tongue is so smooth-like velvet," he cooed. "You must be an angel."
"I am no angel," she scowled. "And my hair isn't soft."
Soft hair was the last thing she thought of before she went to see what was in the secret corridor but now, looking at Draco whose hair was also unwashed and unkempt, felt embarrassed for the both of them.
"Can you get off the bed?" She crawled over him and had a blanket lain out on floor. She knew what the answer was before he said it.
"I haven't tried, milady," he said promptly.
"Well, I'll roll you onto this blanket-oh don't look at me like that, I can do it-and I'll drag the blanket into the bathroom. We'll get clean."
If she had been in that position two years ago she would have left Malfoy to lay on that bed while she flew away on his broomstick, as wobbly as she may be on one. Now, helping him seemed more important to her then her own life-and his child's. If Draco would have been fit and knew how foolishly romantic she was being at this moment, he would have screamed in face that she was a foolish Mudblood, and he hated her, just to get her to leave.
"How will you get me into the bathtub?" he asked when she huffed loudly, trying to ease him onto the hard floor. His body acted like it would break when she shifted him.
"Ugh, I haven't figured that out yet," she groaned, pulling the blanket inch by inch. "You sure you can't walk, Draco?"
"Draco? Madam, I am sure these old hands can't even hold the blanket."
She rolled her eyes at him. "You aren't old; you're only like eighteen and call me Hermione. When I get my hands on that bitch, I swear I'll have a row with her like you've never seen. If I could just get my wand, I-would-be--relentless!" She had to struggle the last sentence as she finally got him drug into the extremely large bathroom.
At the sight of the tall, deep bathtub that looked more like a hot tub without jets, they concluded that Draco could just sit up very uncomfortably in the stand-up shower that way she only had to get him over the little iron guard at the bottom. His skin was an olive color but she still found him so beautiful when he looked at her. He didn't know a Mudblood from a Pureblood, there was no discrimination in his eyes, only childish wonder.
Undressing him slowly, though as fragile as he was, was a very extraordinary time for her. Draco was so dominating when he made love to Hermione, and their clothes were discarded without one thought. She took all the time in the world at taking the long gown like pajamas over his head. He looked like the scrawny old Malfoy that she used to know in school. At Holly Horris's he had been made of muscle but it just all seemed to disappear into thin air. The potion she was feeding him was obviously feeding off his strength faster then at first.
After he had been stripped, and she pulled off her own robes (that were much too large), she picked up Draco just enough to sit him against the wall of the shower. She faced him and said, "Water," with her eyes closed tightly. The spray was intensely cold but Draco was shielded by his magnificent angel and felt just small sprits.
"Hermione," he said, looking at her thoughtfully.
"What?" Her eyes were bright and hopeful. 'He remembers me!'
"Where do you come from?"
She sighed and moved over to sit cramped beside him and began to wipe across his chest with a wash cloth that had a cute little D on the corner. "I hail from Hogwarts," she smiled. "You went there you know."
"Did I? Why can't I remember this?"
"Even if I told you, you wouldn't understand. I don't, that's for sure. Even with book smarts, who can really tell what a psycho is going to do?" She scrubbed under his arms and kept pushing her heavy wet hair from her eyes. "Well, I'll be damned if she takes me down-I'll have her head first!"
"Who?"
"Oh, I'm sure you remember that blonde woman-tall, skinny, and OLD. She always wears those really old dresses that look like she fed them to the moths first. She was here earlier this evening-if you don't remember. I don't see how you could forget! I mean-if someone made me screw Pansy, I wouldn't forget her loopy face."
"Pansy? I don't know her. I only know you. Hermione, isn't it?"
She scrubbed in between his toes fiercely and snapped, "YES! HER-MION- E! Damn it, I'm sorry," she sighed, washing his legs slowly now.
"I'm sorry-you must be very angry with me. I cannot remember anything, though-sometimes in small spurts, I see a few things-small things like a girl fell from my ceiling once. I don't know if it's something I made up, or it really happened."
Hermione dropped her hand in his lap and cried. "I thought-By Merlin, I don't know what I thought when I decided to love you. Maybe I just couldn't help it (sniff) I don't know. This is all like a bad nightmare. You won't even remember my name in a few minutes. Oh (sniff) I wish Ron and Harry were here. I should've (sniff) told them everything. You can't even remember how I got here. Why am I here?"
"You would leave me here?" the sorrowful Draco asked.
She looked him in the eyes. "I would."
His eyes sparkled. "No.Hermione...I." but before he could muster another word Narcissa stood over them with flame licking her iris's.
"YOU WOULD DARE TO DEFY ME IN YOUR CONDITION!" She screamed. Hermione looked at Draco but he looked even more vacant then before. "You would take advantage of my son when he doesn't even know your name. You are so disgusting!" Narcissa pulled her wand from the deep pockets of her purple robes and pointed it at Hermione's face. "Imperio!" she cried before Hermione could leap for her throat.
Hermione stopped in mid jump and fell over against Narcissa who quickly pushed her away. The left side of her face smacked the linoleum with a sickening thud. "Stand up, you foolish girl. Yes, that's it; let the blood run down the side of your face. Doesn't it feel refreshing? Now stay there." She looked at Draco, who had fell over and was watching the bathroom cabinets without any acute interest. "Just a little zombie, and in this state you are more useful to me then ever. I think I will leave you here to," she chuckled, "think about her precious Mudblood. March, little Hermione--march to your prison." Narcissa flicked her wand forward and Hermione lifted one leg after the other out the door.
The shower continued to pelt down onto Draco's fair skin. He blinked once---twice-thrice---.
"Ohh," he groaned, lifting his own hand to his head. He could hear Hermione talking to him but the imperio curse held fast to him, but Narcissa had forgotten him in the excitement of his love being in the shower with him. She left him there. But, oh, how his body ached when he moved. He couldn't push himself up.
"NO!" He began to cry in a killing desperation. He fell onto his stomach as slowly as possible and laid his head against the iron guard, pulling himself up though painfully, up and out of the shower. He cried out louder every time he clawed at the floor and pulled himself forward. His muscles had completely depleted and he was pulling on nothing at all. His arms were on fire with pain and his legs would soon join them.
He wiggled there only a few moments until he felt a warm blanket wrapped around him. "Drink this," a soft voice whispered.
"Why are you here?"
"Because I won't be here much longer so listen-you don't need but a sip of it and you'll be ok for awhile-but don't drink it all at once or you'll probably die in your condition."
"I don't need your help," he growled.
Pansy laughed. "You are so terrible at lying, Draco. You look like a fish, wriggling there on the floor with your pale, bony ass in the air. Really, I don't know what that weird Muggle thinks is so attractive about you now but it must be your sweet personality." She laid the vile on the floor. "I'll be seeing you."
She disappeared into the fireplace.
Draco propped his chin on the floor and stared at the pink vile of what looked like jelly from the outside. Green worms were tunneling through the marsh of light red. "Looks like poison to me," he scowled and tried to push himself up again but his arm began enflamed and he growled like a bear. "DAMN YOU!" He cursed at nothing.
The tiny cork came out easily and he put his tongue into the glass casing, lapping up a small amount as directed. He re-corked it and closed his eyes. Behind his lids, Hermione smiled at him in her cute little swimsuit, blowing him kisses. She tried to lay out her beach towel but it blew away with the wind and she stood there sadly looking at it catching the breeze.
"I'll catch it for you," Draco whispered against the color flooring, feeling his strength come back to him. He didn't exactly get back his muscles by any means because his bones still protruded through his skin but he could stand. He swayed from side to side and had to catch himself more then once on the countertops but he eventually got the hang of it and stood up. He looked up at the ceiling where the blanket hung by one last rung.
"There's a mouse in the manor," he whispered. Above his head the trapdoor not only appeared, but swung open. The doors always answer to the master of the house. He smiled.
**
I know I say this every time but I just wanted to say thanks to some of my reviewers.cause this would have NEVER gotten done if not for the daily emails I get ^-^ So thanks! porcelain-starfish you're email this afternoon helped a ton! A huge thanks to you! I didn't go any faster but I didn't eat until I was done hehe! Well I'm tired from lack of sleep and food.I hope you all enjoyed it and I'll start the new chap tonight hopefully! I hope it will be as long as this one!! XOXO, RattWitch
Every night for a week had seemed the same. Narcissa was persistent on bringing an heir onto the grounds of the mansion-but Pansy showed no signs of bringing the mistress's dreams to life. After a few days, not even the threat of Hermione's life seemed to make Draco able to be aroused enough to perform and began feeding him a potion that, though gave him the will to make love, drained him of his mind. By the end of the week, his words no longer made sense.
Hermione's hopes of holding on to her sanity were dwindling. She had looked into his eyes just this night and could see nothing there. He looked right through her and rolled over. Oh, despite her failures, had Narcissa ever laughed. Her laughter was not the only thing ringing in the walls. Pansy had also been being punished; her screams were like mega-phoned death rattles along the cold walls. Hermione had silently called out to Pansy for help with her eyes, now desperate to find some ally that could understand- but Pansy seemed to fear doing anything but the job at hand.
After the ritualistic ceremony Narcissa led her into the room which mazed around the entire mansion. "I grow so tired of leading you around like the dog you are," she would chant over and over, while leading her to her small quarters, "but who else can trust a Mudblood? You would certainly overpower one of the house elves, and Pansy is so weak, I'm sure you could at least talk her into letting you free. I'm sure she wants out of this as well. You all do but it will be over soon. Not as soon as you and I would like-but soon." She always seemed to want to say more but as soon as the thought would begin to roll off of her tongue she began to mutter, "Like some bloody dog that just comes around--like a bitch in heat-jarring plans-like having a mutt around."
As mistress of such a house, when she told the door that no one was allowed out, as Hermione found out, NO ONE got out which left her to explore the room in extreme detail, when she wasn't puking her crackers and soda water up every hour. She had found many useful things to keep up her time like wizard coloring books.
She had trouble with it at first but she began shouting colors at the pages full of animated dragons and wizards. It wasn't noticeable at first until she punched the book hard out of frustration. Her pointer finger had become red. She bellowed green and her index finger went the shade of summer trees. It was hard to get used to using her fingers for coloring crayons but as she figured out she could use her pinky for the trickier edges. If she closed the book her hand was back to normal.
Young Draco had covered half the pages already in bright green streaks. Hermione tried desperately to touch up the one of the little girl petting the head of an old but large dragon. She made the dragons hair a nice mix of gray and blonde and his scales were the different shades of the rainbow because Hermione was having fun mixing colors around. The girl had a dirty blonde haired mop of curls on her head and silver robes. The few flaws were Draco's green messy scrawls but Hermione insisted to herself they added flair.
A few other pictures hung on the wall, one of which was an obviously older Draco drawing it. It was a self portrait of him though his features were slightly disfigured, and he was obviously only like nine or ten. Yet, he looked so sad and Hermione knew that's all he had ever known in his life. Sorrow haunted every part of him.
She slowly peeled it off the wall and dropped it instantly. There was a small switch inside of a hole small enough for a finger to fit in. What's this? Why had Draco failed to tell her about this? Could it hurt her?
She nearly laughed. What did it matter if she was hurt or not? She wasn't in a situation she was getting out anytime soon. She slipped her finger inside the cubby and flicked the switch. A small portion of the wall somehow fizzled into tiny particles and dissolved into the air. Instead of hardened walls was a small crawl space amid the bricks that had taken the place of the wall paper. She kneeled down and put her arm in the room, feeling nothing in her way.
"This is just like some creepy haunted house. Wait, this IS some creepy haunted house," she groaned. It had surprised her to hear her own voice. Talking to herself wasn't something she had been doing as of late.
Though her hips had a little wiggling to do, she pulled herself into the small hallway that was only a shoulder length wide. Hope lifted her heavy heart. It was dark, damp and particularly spooky-but it was out of that room and one step closer to getting out. She just hoped Narcissa didn't come in to find her gone.
It was very scary to just feel cold stone walls on both sides of her shoulders but when she felt a sharp turn, she felt a little more secure that, if she'd made it this long, surely she'd been attacked by now. "Just feel around. Just feel around," she kept saying, skimming the stone with her fingertips. Her foot steps quickened and she began to pick up her pace. "Just feel around. Just fee-OUCH!" she yelped, smacking her nose into a wall with a deafening thud. It felt like Millicent Bulstrode's fist in her face. It felt like a dead end.
"No! No! No!" she cried, clawing at the wall but it was no use. The stone would not move. She would have been cheerful sooner if she would have come out of her tantrum. She finally felt the wooden door under her almost ten minutes after falling over foolishly right on top of it.
On a diet of crackers and soda water doesn't strengthen her and most of that food-she hoped-was going towards her child. This posed as a problem for her in lifting this gravity-heavy slab of old wood in the floor. It took nearly every ounce of strength and hope she had to lift it enough to prop it on her shoulder and push it forward.
The smell that filled the cold hallway was intoxicating. It made her stomach clench in pleasure. It was like strawberries, and something spicy mixed in that Hermione couldn't place. There was also shimmering candles lit nearly everywhere, but the orange light was filtered through by a thick red blanket that was hovering below her.
Smiling fearfully she sighed, "If this doesn't hold me-by Merlin, please let me land on something soft and safe." Hermione pinched her noise like she was jumping into a pool of water and did a frog-like leap into the hole in the floor.
Made to hold a ten year old child, the blanket wasn't even going to carry Hermione's weight for a second and it broke it's clutches on the ceiling. She stared wide eyed at the whole in the ceiling that closed somehow and was disappearing before her eyes.
She heard a soft laugh. It sounded like the voice was struggling to utter the smalls gasping laughs. She turned her head over and stared at the sick Draco Malfoy. His cheeks had become nothing but pale skin that clung to his once beautiful face. His arms and legs looked skinnier then before and his eyes.so dully gray.
"Only.only angels fall from the sky," he whispered to her. Her chokes were enough to make him cringe. He looked like he didn't recognize her. Tears welled up in the pits of her eyes.
She kissed him deeply with her tongue and held his frail body next to her. "You hair is so soft and your tongue is so smooth-like velvet," he cooed. "You must be an angel."
"I am no angel," she scowled. "And my hair isn't soft."
Soft hair was the last thing she thought of before she went to see what was in the secret corridor but now, looking at Draco whose hair was also unwashed and unkempt, felt embarrassed for the both of them.
"Can you get off the bed?" She crawled over him and had a blanket lain out on floor. She knew what the answer was before he said it.
"I haven't tried, milady," he said promptly.
"Well, I'll roll you onto this blanket-oh don't look at me like that, I can do it-and I'll drag the blanket into the bathroom. We'll get clean."
If she had been in that position two years ago she would have left Malfoy to lay on that bed while she flew away on his broomstick, as wobbly as she may be on one. Now, helping him seemed more important to her then her own life-and his child's. If Draco would have been fit and knew how foolishly romantic she was being at this moment, he would have screamed in face that she was a foolish Mudblood, and he hated her, just to get her to leave.
"How will you get me into the bathtub?" he asked when she huffed loudly, trying to ease him onto the hard floor. His body acted like it would break when she shifted him.
"Ugh, I haven't figured that out yet," she groaned, pulling the blanket inch by inch. "You sure you can't walk, Draco?"
"Draco? Madam, I am sure these old hands can't even hold the blanket."
She rolled her eyes at him. "You aren't old; you're only like eighteen and call me Hermione. When I get my hands on that bitch, I swear I'll have a row with her like you've never seen. If I could just get my wand, I-would-be--relentless!" She had to struggle the last sentence as she finally got him drug into the extremely large bathroom.
At the sight of the tall, deep bathtub that looked more like a hot tub without jets, they concluded that Draco could just sit up very uncomfortably in the stand-up shower that way she only had to get him over the little iron guard at the bottom. His skin was an olive color but she still found him so beautiful when he looked at her. He didn't know a Mudblood from a Pureblood, there was no discrimination in his eyes, only childish wonder.
Undressing him slowly, though as fragile as he was, was a very extraordinary time for her. Draco was so dominating when he made love to Hermione, and their clothes were discarded without one thought. She took all the time in the world at taking the long gown like pajamas over his head. He looked like the scrawny old Malfoy that she used to know in school. At Holly Horris's he had been made of muscle but it just all seemed to disappear into thin air. The potion she was feeding him was obviously feeding off his strength faster then at first.
After he had been stripped, and she pulled off her own robes (that were much too large), she picked up Draco just enough to sit him against the wall of the shower. She faced him and said, "Water," with her eyes closed tightly. The spray was intensely cold but Draco was shielded by his magnificent angel and felt just small sprits.
"Hermione," he said, looking at her thoughtfully.
"What?" Her eyes were bright and hopeful. 'He remembers me!'
"Where do you come from?"
She sighed and moved over to sit cramped beside him and began to wipe across his chest with a wash cloth that had a cute little D on the corner. "I hail from Hogwarts," she smiled. "You went there you know."
"Did I? Why can't I remember this?"
"Even if I told you, you wouldn't understand. I don't, that's for sure. Even with book smarts, who can really tell what a psycho is going to do?" She scrubbed under his arms and kept pushing her heavy wet hair from her eyes. "Well, I'll be damned if she takes me down-I'll have her head first!"
"Who?"
"Oh, I'm sure you remember that blonde woman-tall, skinny, and OLD. She always wears those really old dresses that look like she fed them to the moths first. She was here earlier this evening-if you don't remember. I don't see how you could forget! I mean-if someone made me screw Pansy, I wouldn't forget her loopy face."
"Pansy? I don't know her. I only know you. Hermione, isn't it?"
She scrubbed in between his toes fiercely and snapped, "YES! HER-MION- E! Damn it, I'm sorry," she sighed, washing his legs slowly now.
"I'm sorry-you must be very angry with me. I cannot remember anything, though-sometimes in small spurts, I see a few things-small things like a girl fell from my ceiling once. I don't know if it's something I made up, or it really happened."
Hermione dropped her hand in his lap and cried. "I thought-By Merlin, I don't know what I thought when I decided to love you. Maybe I just couldn't help it (sniff) I don't know. This is all like a bad nightmare. You won't even remember my name in a few minutes. Oh (sniff) I wish Ron and Harry were here. I should've (sniff) told them everything. You can't even remember how I got here. Why am I here?"
"You would leave me here?" the sorrowful Draco asked.
She looked him in the eyes. "I would."
His eyes sparkled. "No.Hermione...I." but before he could muster another word Narcissa stood over them with flame licking her iris's.
"YOU WOULD DARE TO DEFY ME IN YOUR CONDITION!" She screamed. Hermione looked at Draco but he looked even more vacant then before. "You would take advantage of my son when he doesn't even know your name. You are so disgusting!" Narcissa pulled her wand from the deep pockets of her purple robes and pointed it at Hermione's face. "Imperio!" she cried before Hermione could leap for her throat.
Hermione stopped in mid jump and fell over against Narcissa who quickly pushed her away. The left side of her face smacked the linoleum with a sickening thud. "Stand up, you foolish girl. Yes, that's it; let the blood run down the side of your face. Doesn't it feel refreshing? Now stay there." She looked at Draco, who had fell over and was watching the bathroom cabinets without any acute interest. "Just a little zombie, and in this state you are more useful to me then ever. I think I will leave you here to," she chuckled, "think about her precious Mudblood. March, little Hermione--march to your prison." Narcissa flicked her wand forward and Hermione lifted one leg after the other out the door.
The shower continued to pelt down onto Draco's fair skin. He blinked once---twice-thrice---.
"Ohh," he groaned, lifting his own hand to his head. He could hear Hermione talking to him but the imperio curse held fast to him, but Narcissa had forgotten him in the excitement of his love being in the shower with him. She left him there. But, oh, how his body ached when he moved. He couldn't push himself up.
"NO!" He began to cry in a killing desperation. He fell onto his stomach as slowly as possible and laid his head against the iron guard, pulling himself up though painfully, up and out of the shower. He cried out louder every time he clawed at the floor and pulled himself forward. His muscles had completely depleted and he was pulling on nothing at all. His arms were on fire with pain and his legs would soon join them.
He wiggled there only a few moments until he felt a warm blanket wrapped around him. "Drink this," a soft voice whispered.
"Why are you here?"
"Because I won't be here much longer so listen-you don't need but a sip of it and you'll be ok for awhile-but don't drink it all at once or you'll probably die in your condition."
"I don't need your help," he growled.
Pansy laughed. "You are so terrible at lying, Draco. You look like a fish, wriggling there on the floor with your pale, bony ass in the air. Really, I don't know what that weird Muggle thinks is so attractive about you now but it must be your sweet personality." She laid the vile on the floor. "I'll be seeing you."
She disappeared into the fireplace.
Draco propped his chin on the floor and stared at the pink vile of what looked like jelly from the outside. Green worms were tunneling through the marsh of light red. "Looks like poison to me," he scowled and tried to push himself up again but his arm began enflamed and he growled like a bear. "DAMN YOU!" He cursed at nothing.
The tiny cork came out easily and he put his tongue into the glass casing, lapping up a small amount as directed. He re-corked it and closed his eyes. Behind his lids, Hermione smiled at him in her cute little swimsuit, blowing him kisses. She tried to lay out her beach towel but it blew away with the wind and she stood there sadly looking at it catching the breeze.
"I'll catch it for you," Draco whispered against the color flooring, feeling his strength come back to him. He didn't exactly get back his muscles by any means because his bones still protruded through his skin but he could stand. He swayed from side to side and had to catch himself more then once on the countertops but he eventually got the hang of it and stood up. He looked up at the ceiling where the blanket hung by one last rung.
"There's a mouse in the manor," he whispered. Above his head the trapdoor not only appeared, but swung open. The doors always answer to the master of the house. He smiled.
**
I know I say this every time but I just wanted to say thanks to some of my reviewers.cause this would have NEVER gotten done if not for the daily emails I get ^-^ So thanks! porcelain-starfish you're email this afternoon helped a ton! A huge thanks to you! I didn't go any faster but I didn't eat until I was done hehe! Well I'm tired from lack of sleep and food.I hope you all enjoyed it and I'll start the new chap tonight hopefully! I hope it will be as long as this one!! XOXO, RattWitch
