I tried to post this about a week ago, but apparently it didn't show up on
fanfiction.net. (Thanks to glitterduck for telling me). Hopefully it will
work this time.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. Savvy?
Chapter 7
Hermione slowly opened her eyes. She didn't know where she was- didn't recognize her surroundings. Blinking a few times, she tried to stand up. As she did, a door opened behind her.
Instinctively, she reached for her wand. It wasn't there. Now more terrified than ever before, Hermione looked up to see who the intruder was.
"I'm glad to see you're up. I was afraid that stupid boy hit you too hard."
"Well, obviously he didn't. Now, what the hell am I doing here?" She was stalling for time, as she frantically searched her memory for any sign of what might have happened.
"To hear such language from an ex prefect! You do remember how you got here, don't you, Granger?" The man sniggered.
"Of course I do, I'm not an imbecile. I'm asking why I am here." She was grasping- she almost had it.
"Well, Granger, don't flatter yourself. You weren't exactly wanted. However, your boyfriend was. Still is, actually."
"It's a good thing you want him so badly, because he should be here any moment to kick your pathetic arse." She was speaking calmly, not truly into the conversation. The memory of what had happened was still just out of reach.
"One can only hope." There was a tone in his voice that scared her. She hadn't heard anything like it in years. "You see, you pathetic little creature, I know about the undercover aurors. I always have. They never caused me any trouble, so I tended to ignore them. Until your boyfriend joined their league. He alone has caught and killed more of my men than every other auror put together. The worst part was, he never had any weaknesses. If I attacked a member of his family, there would be dozens of other Weasleys to hex me back, so they were out of reach. He cares about a lot, but nothing was ever good enough. Until you."
"If he has an inkling of a suspicion that I have you, he'll come running as fast as his feet can carry him. He'll easily be killed, and for once my operations will go unhitched." Hermione was terrified. Ron was going to die, and it was her fault.
The door opened again, but the man who entered slipped into the shadows. Hermione couldn't see who it was. And then it came to her. Shadows! That was the key. She braced herself as she tried to recall what had happened. . . She was waiting for Ron, who was taking an awfully long time at the store. She was pacing. . . he needed to come home. His key had gone off, and he didn't know.
She was debating what to do. She couldn't apparate to him because she wasn't sure where exactly he was. But if the situation was urgent, they might need him. She could always go for him, but then he'd be worried when he got home. She stopped pacing when the lights in her flat went out. She muttered a simple spell with her wand, creating a small light, and lay the wand on the table.
As she moved across the living room, she heard a noise behind her. She spun around, but there was nothing except darkness. Suddenly, she was being hit with a stunning spell. She tried to resist, but was only hit with another, and another. Hermione couldn't move. . . and then her world went black.
Hermione brought herself back to reality, and glared at her captor. "What makes you think Ron wants you anyway? Why are you so high and mighty that you care about the other death eaters?"
Draco sniggered. "Why, it's all in my name, Granger. Or didn't you know? It's been changed. From now on I expect you to call me Lord Malfoy."
Hermione collapsed back onto the bed. This couldn't be happening. It wasn't possible- wasn't fathomable. "Oh. And one more thing, mudblood. I'd like you to meet my partner." The man stepped out of the shadows, a small grin on his face.
Without another word, Hermione fainted.
~~~
Ron was on his 37th cup of coffee, and was eating sugar quills like they were as necessary as breathing. He had spent the last twelve hours searching for anything and everything he could find on Avery Doyle. Finally, he had an address.
Ron apparated to the man's home, wand out, entire body shaking with a mixture of frustration and rage. Slamming the door open, he prepared to fight the death eater. But no one was there. Ron searched the entire house, but it was empty. Screaming with rage, he sat down on the front porch, letting all his emotions take him over.
He needed to cry, run, and yell all at the same time. He needed to sleep as much as he needed to stay awake. He needed a break, and he needed a clue. But most of all, he needed Hermione.
~~*~~**~~*~~
Ron returned to the Undercover Auror base. He needed help. Inside he found the usual chaotic madness he'd gotten used to. Wizards running everywhere, papers flying themselves to their owners, and desks situated in such a way that they would have given the head of the fire department a heart attack. Ignoring it all, he made his way to the research department, and settled himself at an empty computer. Wizards had discovered how useful these muggle inventions really were. Especially when they'd been bewitched a little, to make them a bit more convenient.
Ron opened a file labeled 'names and living spaces' and began to jot down the names of all death eaters that had not been captured or killed. He had his base. Now, all he needed was to search every one of these homes. Surely Hermione had to be in one of them.
The first name on his list, James Achee, seemed a good place to start. Glancing at the address next to his name, Ron apparated to his house. Using James Bond worthy, yet totally unnecessary moves, he crawled up to the house. He glanced inside the window, to measure the difficulty of his task, and was shocked by what he saw. Inside was an elderly man, playing wizarding chess with two little boys who couldn't have been ten.
Ron couldn't attack that. Not even to save his own life. Instead, he stuck around to the back of the house, where he crawled through an open window. Without disturbing the man and boys downstairs, he searched the entire house. There was no sign of Hermione.
Sighing, he apparated out of the house, and headed down the street. This would never work. He couldn't search every death eater's house in the wizarding world; it would take him years. And whoever had Hermione could easily be hiding somewhere Ron would never suspect. He needed a better searching method.
He thought about what a dark lord would need, trying to find something he could trace. He would need followers, which he already had, and there was no real way of tracing them. He would need a place to stay, but there were millions of those, and Ron had already discovered that they were impossible to search. He'd need to contact his followers, and visit them, trying to recruit more. . .
Ron stopped moving. He had it! The dark lord had followers all over the world. They were everywhere! And he'd need a way to get to them. So naturally, he would apparate. If the person had apparated overseas there would be a record, in the overseas apparating office!
Ron was inside the office within five minutes. He made his way to the back room, where the records were kept. Inside there was a woman, a U.A. employee, who granted Ron clearance to the files once he had flashed his key.
He went through the lists of names, highlighting any he recognized and trying to determine who had done unreasonable amounts of apparating. One name continued to flash out at him. He ignored it at first, it was unbelievable, really. The idea of that. . . that person becoming the second dark lord was impossible. But when he found traces of the person apparating the day before Hermione's disappearance, all of his doubts vanished. It was time to pay a visit to the Malfoy residence.
From the outside, the house looked deserted. There were no lights, no noise, and no visible signs of life. Not that any were to be expected in that household. He inched towards the house, but as he neared it, he heard a noise behind him.
Ron whirled around just in time to block a hex thrown by the Malfoy's wizguard. "Impedimenta!" The man screamed. Ron dodged the red flames.
"Scorcio!" Flames sprung up around the man's feet. "Accio wand!" Ron grabbed the man's wand as it flew through the air towards him.
"No!" The man yelled. "Petrificus Totalus!" Ron sniggered. Didn't the idiot realize that he had no wand? He continued to walk, until he felt his entire body go rigid. 'Bloody hell!' he thought, 'The guy can do wandless magic!' Fighting off the curse, he felt the man's wand leave his hand and return to it's owner. Ron fought off the curse and rolled over just in time to miss the man's next blast of flame.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron lifted the man into the air, and when he dropped him, the man hit the ground with a loud crack. Ron winced. Walking over, he put the man into a body bind, just to make sure he didn't wake up any time soon.
Glancing up at the house, he realized he was going to need reinforcements. He apparated back to the U.A. offices, this time in search of Tonks. He found her consulting with a few members of the team. When he explained what was going on, they were more than happy to help him out.
The group apparated en mass to the Malfoy mansion. They positioned themselves outside every door and window on the first floor, and when Ron screamed, 'Now!' they burst into the house. Ron, who had come in through the front door, got a glimpse of a blonde head disappearing into one of the rooms upstairs.
Disregarding the people around him, who were fighting with none other than the house elves, he followed the man upstairs and into the room. When he got inside, it was empty. Warily, Ron searched the other rooms upstairs. They were all empty. Not a single person in any of them.
Downstairs, he was met with a bunch of sheepish aurors and 30 petrified house elves. "Tonks," Ron asked, his voice rising slightly, "what the hell happened?"
~~~
Once Tonks had explained that they'd had to petrify the house elves to even get into the house, Ron told her that the second floor was empty, and whoever had been there had escaped. The group began to search the house for any clues.
Ron and Tonks searched the second floor of the mansion, while the rest of the group did the rest. They began in Draco's bedroom. The master bedroom, which he'd taken over years ago. "It's so cold, so empty." Tonks whispered. There was not a single personal item in the entire room.
"It matches Draco perfectly. There's a guest bedroom over there- we should check it." The two moved into the guest bedroom, only to find that it was empty as well. They turned to leave, when Ron saw something sticking out from under the bed. It was a small box, tied with a faded ribbon.
"What do you think is inside it?" Tonks asked, hesitantly. Without replying, Ron opened it. Inside, he found hundreds and hundreds of pictures of Hermione. They were wizard pictures- but they weren't the normal kind. Generally, the people in the pictures smiled, waved at you, and did things to amuse you. But the girl in these pictures obviously didn't know she'd gotten her picture taken.
The pictures were all different. Hermione shopping, Hermione with Ron, Hermione sleeping, Hermione taking a shower, Hermione eating dinner, etc. Reluctantly, Ron realized that he was in most of the pictures- none of them were very old.
He turned to Tonks, who was speechless. Without another word, the two turned and left the house, taking the box with them.
~~~
Back in his office, Ron was trying to put the pieces of his case together. He and Tonks had discovered a lot about Hermione's disappearance, but everything had led them to a dead end. It was obvious by now that Draco had become the new Dark Lord. And from the pictures in the guestroom they'd deduced that he had a partner. They still had no idea who it might be.
Inside the Malfoy mansion it was apparent that the place had been abandoned in a hurry. Ron just had no clue where Malfoy and his cronies could have gone. It had been two days since he'd raided Draco's house and found the pictures, and during those two days aurors had conducted hundreds of raids on the homes of any and all death eaters associated with the Malfoy family. Nothing had been found.
Ron looked up when Tonks entered his office. "I think I may have something." She sounded excited for the first time in days. "Ron- if you were in trouble, where would you run?"
He thought about the question for a total of two seconds. "The Burrow. Why?" And then it dawned on him. Draco wouldn't just hide with anybody- and he would probably trust very few people to keep his arrival a secret. But he could always trust his pure blooded family.
Turning to his computer, he looked up the Malfoy family and it's relations. A huge list came up, and Ron groaned. This would never work. Nearly half the wizards and witches in the wizarding world were on the screen in front of him. There was so much inbreeding between the old wizard families that the Malfoys were related to nearly everybody. Ron himself was on the list!
There had to be another way. Another Malfoy family tree. He thought about his own family. The Weasleys had an old tapestry, stored up in the attic, just like Sirius's mother had. Now that he thought of it, they were fairly common in all of the old families. The Malfoys probably had one as well.
Once he had explained his theory to Tonks, the two apparated back to the Malfoy mansion. They searched the entire house only to come up empty handed. Ron turned to leave, when he heard Tonks call out from behind him. "Ron, I'm stuck. Can you help me?" Her bracelet was stuck on a string from the couch.
"Bloody hell," he said irritably. "Can't you just pull it?" She did so, and they were both shocked by the results. Her bracelet had been caught on a piece of cloth shoved between the couch cushions, and when she pulled the cloth out, they were looking at a piece of silk that mirrored the tapestry in the Black home.
There were hundreds of names, although most had been crossed out. Sirius wasn't there, although his mother was. None of the Weasleys were there, but the Crabbes and Goyles were. There was one name that caught Ron's eye. It was almost glowing purple, and seemed to leap off of the cloth.
Bellatrix Lestrange. "Ron," Tonks said, quietly. "Bellatrix has a castle not far from here. It's not overseas, and it's big enough to hold Malfoy and as many of his followers as he wants."
"So I have to invade a castle?"
"It looks like it."
"Good. I always wanted to be a knight."
~~*~~**~~*~~
Hermione was waking up again. She groaned. Ron- where was Ron? She smiled, unexpectedly. He would probably never find them now, which meant he would be safe. She thought back, a few days before, when Ron had almost rescued her- almost saved her. He'd found Draco's mansion, and she'd heard him enter, with a bunch of aurors.
She had been terrified. She thought Malfoy was going to kill him. Luckily, Malfoy was too afraid to do anything. He'd sent all of his men away, to wreak havoc on a muggle born, and had been alone when Ron came. So instead of fighting, he'd fled. Truthfully, Hermione was happy. She didn't want to see Ron get hurt, and now he wouldn't.
She looked up as someone entered the room. Malfoy's partner. "I thought I'd tell you something to cheer you up, Hermione." She didn't move. "Soon, Draco is going to find and kill your little boyfriend. Frankly, I don't care. I know you must be afraid, but don't worry. He's not going to kill you when it's over. He won't harm a single hair on your head. You get to come with me."
She shuddered, but didn't respond. "Don't you see?" He asked her. "We'll all be happy. Draco will kill Ron, and be able to do as he pleases, and I- I get you."
~~*~~**~~*~~
Please- don't curse the horrible author just yet. I'm updating as fast as possible. Review (because you are all cool like that) and make me happy!
~ Sugar High
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. Savvy?
Chapter 7
Hermione slowly opened her eyes. She didn't know where she was- didn't recognize her surroundings. Blinking a few times, she tried to stand up. As she did, a door opened behind her.
Instinctively, she reached for her wand. It wasn't there. Now more terrified than ever before, Hermione looked up to see who the intruder was.
"I'm glad to see you're up. I was afraid that stupid boy hit you too hard."
"Well, obviously he didn't. Now, what the hell am I doing here?" She was stalling for time, as she frantically searched her memory for any sign of what might have happened.
"To hear such language from an ex prefect! You do remember how you got here, don't you, Granger?" The man sniggered.
"Of course I do, I'm not an imbecile. I'm asking why I am here." She was grasping- she almost had it.
"Well, Granger, don't flatter yourself. You weren't exactly wanted. However, your boyfriend was. Still is, actually."
"It's a good thing you want him so badly, because he should be here any moment to kick your pathetic arse." She was speaking calmly, not truly into the conversation. The memory of what had happened was still just out of reach.
"One can only hope." There was a tone in his voice that scared her. She hadn't heard anything like it in years. "You see, you pathetic little creature, I know about the undercover aurors. I always have. They never caused me any trouble, so I tended to ignore them. Until your boyfriend joined their league. He alone has caught and killed more of my men than every other auror put together. The worst part was, he never had any weaknesses. If I attacked a member of his family, there would be dozens of other Weasleys to hex me back, so they were out of reach. He cares about a lot, but nothing was ever good enough. Until you."
"If he has an inkling of a suspicion that I have you, he'll come running as fast as his feet can carry him. He'll easily be killed, and for once my operations will go unhitched." Hermione was terrified. Ron was going to die, and it was her fault.
The door opened again, but the man who entered slipped into the shadows. Hermione couldn't see who it was. And then it came to her. Shadows! That was the key. She braced herself as she tried to recall what had happened. . . She was waiting for Ron, who was taking an awfully long time at the store. She was pacing. . . he needed to come home. His key had gone off, and he didn't know.
She was debating what to do. She couldn't apparate to him because she wasn't sure where exactly he was. But if the situation was urgent, they might need him. She could always go for him, but then he'd be worried when he got home. She stopped pacing when the lights in her flat went out. She muttered a simple spell with her wand, creating a small light, and lay the wand on the table.
As she moved across the living room, she heard a noise behind her. She spun around, but there was nothing except darkness. Suddenly, she was being hit with a stunning spell. She tried to resist, but was only hit with another, and another. Hermione couldn't move. . . and then her world went black.
Hermione brought herself back to reality, and glared at her captor. "What makes you think Ron wants you anyway? Why are you so high and mighty that you care about the other death eaters?"
Draco sniggered. "Why, it's all in my name, Granger. Or didn't you know? It's been changed. From now on I expect you to call me Lord Malfoy."
Hermione collapsed back onto the bed. This couldn't be happening. It wasn't possible- wasn't fathomable. "Oh. And one more thing, mudblood. I'd like you to meet my partner." The man stepped out of the shadows, a small grin on his face.
Without another word, Hermione fainted.
~~~
Ron was on his 37th cup of coffee, and was eating sugar quills like they were as necessary as breathing. He had spent the last twelve hours searching for anything and everything he could find on Avery Doyle. Finally, he had an address.
Ron apparated to the man's home, wand out, entire body shaking with a mixture of frustration and rage. Slamming the door open, he prepared to fight the death eater. But no one was there. Ron searched the entire house, but it was empty. Screaming with rage, he sat down on the front porch, letting all his emotions take him over.
He needed to cry, run, and yell all at the same time. He needed to sleep as much as he needed to stay awake. He needed a break, and he needed a clue. But most of all, he needed Hermione.
~~*~~**~~*~~
Ron returned to the Undercover Auror base. He needed help. Inside he found the usual chaotic madness he'd gotten used to. Wizards running everywhere, papers flying themselves to their owners, and desks situated in such a way that they would have given the head of the fire department a heart attack. Ignoring it all, he made his way to the research department, and settled himself at an empty computer. Wizards had discovered how useful these muggle inventions really were. Especially when they'd been bewitched a little, to make them a bit more convenient.
Ron opened a file labeled 'names and living spaces' and began to jot down the names of all death eaters that had not been captured or killed. He had his base. Now, all he needed was to search every one of these homes. Surely Hermione had to be in one of them.
The first name on his list, James Achee, seemed a good place to start. Glancing at the address next to his name, Ron apparated to his house. Using James Bond worthy, yet totally unnecessary moves, he crawled up to the house. He glanced inside the window, to measure the difficulty of his task, and was shocked by what he saw. Inside was an elderly man, playing wizarding chess with two little boys who couldn't have been ten.
Ron couldn't attack that. Not even to save his own life. Instead, he stuck around to the back of the house, where he crawled through an open window. Without disturbing the man and boys downstairs, he searched the entire house. There was no sign of Hermione.
Sighing, he apparated out of the house, and headed down the street. This would never work. He couldn't search every death eater's house in the wizarding world; it would take him years. And whoever had Hermione could easily be hiding somewhere Ron would never suspect. He needed a better searching method.
He thought about what a dark lord would need, trying to find something he could trace. He would need followers, which he already had, and there was no real way of tracing them. He would need a place to stay, but there were millions of those, and Ron had already discovered that they were impossible to search. He'd need to contact his followers, and visit them, trying to recruit more. . .
Ron stopped moving. He had it! The dark lord had followers all over the world. They were everywhere! And he'd need a way to get to them. So naturally, he would apparate. If the person had apparated overseas there would be a record, in the overseas apparating office!
Ron was inside the office within five minutes. He made his way to the back room, where the records were kept. Inside there was a woman, a U.A. employee, who granted Ron clearance to the files once he had flashed his key.
He went through the lists of names, highlighting any he recognized and trying to determine who had done unreasonable amounts of apparating. One name continued to flash out at him. He ignored it at first, it was unbelievable, really. The idea of that. . . that person becoming the second dark lord was impossible. But when he found traces of the person apparating the day before Hermione's disappearance, all of his doubts vanished. It was time to pay a visit to the Malfoy residence.
From the outside, the house looked deserted. There were no lights, no noise, and no visible signs of life. Not that any were to be expected in that household. He inched towards the house, but as he neared it, he heard a noise behind him.
Ron whirled around just in time to block a hex thrown by the Malfoy's wizguard. "Impedimenta!" The man screamed. Ron dodged the red flames.
"Scorcio!" Flames sprung up around the man's feet. "Accio wand!" Ron grabbed the man's wand as it flew through the air towards him.
"No!" The man yelled. "Petrificus Totalus!" Ron sniggered. Didn't the idiot realize that he had no wand? He continued to walk, until he felt his entire body go rigid. 'Bloody hell!' he thought, 'The guy can do wandless magic!' Fighting off the curse, he felt the man's wand leave his hand and return to it's owner. Ron fought off the curse and rolled over just in time to miss the man's next blast of flame.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron lifted the man into the air, and when he dropped him, the man hit the ground with a loud crack. Ron winced. Walking over, he put the man into a body bind, just to make sure he didn't wake up any time soon.
Glancing up at the house, he realized he was going to need reinforcements. He apparated back to the U.A. offices, this time in search of Tonks. He found her consulting with a few members of the team. When he explained what was going on, they were more than happy to help him out.
The group apparated en mass to the Malfoy mansion. They positioned themselves outside every door and window on the first floor, and when Ron screamed, 'Now!' they burst into the house. Ron, who had come in through the front door, got a glimpse of a blonde head disappearing into one of the rooms upstairs.
Disregarding the people around him, who were fighting with none other than the house elves, he followed the man upstairs and into the room. When he got inside, it was empty. Warily, Ron searched the other rooms upstairs. They were all empty. Not a single person in any of them.
Downstairs, he was met with a bunch of sheepish aurors and 30 petrified house elves. "Tonks," Ron asked, his voice rising slightly, "what the hell happened?"
~~~
Once Tonks had explained that they'd had to petrify the house elves to even get into the house, Ron told her that the second floor was empty, and whoever had been there had escaped. The group began to search the house for any clues.
Ron and Tonks searched the second floor of the mansion, while the rest of the group did the rest. They began in Draco's bedroom. The master bedroom, which he'd taken over years ago. "It's so cold, so empty." Tonks whispered. There was not a single personal item in the entire room.
"It matches Draco perfectly. There's a guest bedroom over there- we should check it." The two moved into the guest bedroom, only to find that it was empty as well. They turned to leave, when Ron saw something sticking out from under the bed. It was a small box, tied with a faded ribbon.
"What do you think is inside it?" Tonks asked, hesitantly. Without replying, Ron opened it. Inside, he found hundreds and hundreds of pictures of Hermione. They were wizard pictures- but they weren't the normal kind. Generally, the people in the pictures smiled, waved at you, and did things to amuse you. But the girl in these pictures obviously didn't know she'd gotten her picture taken.
The pictures were all different. Hermione shopping, Hermione with Ron, Hermione sleeping, Hermione taking a shower, Hermione eating dinner, etc. Reluctantly, Ron realized that he was in most of the pictures- none of them were very old.
He turned to Tonks, who was speechless. Without another word, the two turned and left the house, taking the box with them.
~~~
Back in his office, Ron was trying to put the pieces of his case together. He and Tonks had discovered a lot about Hermione's disappearance, but everything had led them to a dead end. It was obvious by now that Draco had become the new Dark Lord. And from the pictures in the guestroom they'd deduced that he had a partner. They still had no idea who it might be.
Inside the Malfoy mansion it was apparent that the place had been abandoned in a hurry. Ron just had no clue where Malfoy and his cronies could have gone. It had been two days since he'd raided Draco's house and found the pictures, and during those two days aurors had conducted hundreds of raids on the homes of any and all death eaters associated with the Malfoy family. Nothing had been found.
Ron looked up when Tonks entered his office. "I think I may have something." She sounded excited for the first time in days. "Ron- if you were in trouble, where would you run?"
He thought about the question for a total of two seconds. "The Burrow. Why?" And then it dawned on him. Draco wouldn't just hide with anybody- and he would probably trust very few people to keep his arrival a secret. But he could always trust his pure blooded family.
Turning to his computer, he looked up the Malfoy family and it's relations. A huge list came up, and Ron groaned. This would never work. Nearly half the wizards and witches in the wizarding world were on the screen in front of him. There was so much inbreeding between the old wizard families that the Malfoys were related to nearly everybody. Ron himself was on the list!
There had to be another way. Another Malfoy family tree. He thought about his own family. The Weasleys had an old tapestry, stored up in the attic, just like Sirius's mother had. Now that he thought of it, they were fairly common in all of the old families. The Malfoys probably had one as well.
Once he had explained his theory to Tonks, the two apparated back to the Malfoy mansion. They searched the entire house only to come up empty handed. Ron turned to leave, when he heard Tonks call out from behind him. "Ron, I'm stuck. Can you help me?" Her bracelet was stuck on a string from the couch.
"Bloody hell," he said irritably. "Can't you just pull it?" She did so, and they were both shocked by the results. Her bracelet had been caught on a piece of cloth shoved between the couch cushions, and when she pulled the cloth out, they were looking at a piece of silk that mirrored the tapestry in the Black home.
There were hundreds of names, although most had been crossed out. Sirius wasn't there, although his mother was. None of the Weasleys were there, but the Crabbes and Goyles were. There was one name that caught Ron's eye. It was almost glowing purple, and seemed to leap off of the cloth.
Bellatrix Lestrange. "Ron," Tonks said, quietly. "Bellatrix has a castle not far from here. It's not overseas, and it's big enough to hold Malfoy and as many of his followers as he wants."
"So I have to invade a castle?"
"It looks like it."
"Good. I always wanted to be a knight."
~~*~~**~~*~~
Hermione was waking up again. She groaned. Ron- where was Ron? She smiled, unexpectedly. He would probably never find them now, which meant he would be safe. She thought back, a few days before, when Ron had almost rescued her- almost saved her. He'd found Draco's mansion, and she'd heard him enter, with a bunch of aurors.
She had been terrified. She thought Malfoy was going to kill him. Luckily, Malfoy was too afraid to do anything. He'd sent all of his men away, to wreak havoc on a muggle born, and had been alone when Ron came. So instead of fighting, he'd fled. Truthfully, Hermione was happy. She didn't want to see Ron get hurt, and now he wouldn't.
She looked up as someone entered the room. Malfoy's partner. "I thought I'd tell you something to cheer you up, Hermione." She didn't move. "Soon, Draco is going to find and kill your little boyfriend. Frankly, I don't care. I know you must be afraid, but don't worry. He's not going to kill you when it's over. He won't harm a single hair on your head. You get to come with me."
She shuddered, but didn't respond. "Don't you see?" He asked her. "We'll all be happy. Draco will kill Ron, and be able to do as he pleases, and I- I get you."
~~*~~**~~*~~
Please- don't curse the horrible author just yet. I'm updating as fast as possible. Review (because you are all cool like that) and make me happy!
~ Sugar High