/I don't own anything you recognize in this story. /

Chapter Ten

Lucius walked toward Hermione with a malicious look upon his face. Hermione decided that it was best that she stood still, if she did, Lucius wouldn't know that she was scared to death. As he got closer, Hermione could feel the malicious contempt coursing through his body and his cold, pale eyes staring at her intently. If this is how Lord Voldemort casted onto his victims, Hermione could definitely feel how they felt. But this was Lucius and not Voldemort, and he wasn't as invincible as Voldemort appeared to seem to others.

Lucius stopped within an inch of Hermione's face, his pale face studying hers. Hermione could definitely see the father-son relationship between himself and his son, but she quickly snapped herself out of it. She had to keep her cool if she wanted to survive.

"Where is he?" Lucius asked softly to Hermione, not wanting Draco to hear what he was saying, who was standing several feet away near the door.

"Where is who?" Hermione asked innocently, her heart pounding in her chest.

"You know who I'm talking about—Potter," Lucius growled.

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir," Hermione said, "Harry's been dead for several years now. You won't find him alive."

"Have you ever been told that you're a good liar?" Lucius asked.

"Don't flatter me for something I am not doing," Hermione exclaimed, hoping that her lies would buy her time.

"I would hope that you would come to your senses and tell me where Potter is," Malfoy, "you will be rewarded greatly if you tell me."

"Now look who is being the liar," Hermione pointed out.

Lucius glared at Hermione maliciously. Inwardly, Hermione felt a piece of grim satisfaction at her bluntness. Hopefully that would keep Lucius in check, though she wasn't being hopeful. The Malfoy family didn't have a reputation of being kind, or seeing a joke, or not afraid to torture someone.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione noticed a movement to her left. Turning her head, she looked closely at what it was. To her horror, it was Ron, tied up on the ground, apparently unconscious. Turning back towards Lucius, Hermione pulled out her wand and pointed it at Lucius.

Lucius, having noticed that Ron had moved also, strode over to where Ron was lay and roughly sat him up. Ron, finally awaking, groaned and opened his eyes. When he saw Lucius, his eyes widened in horror and began struggling against his restraints.

"Ron!" Hermione cried out. She had to save him, somehow. It wouldn't be right to leave him here to the tortures of Lucius Malfoy.

Lucius grinned. "Look what I've got here, Ron, your girlfriend. And if you or her tells me the whereabouts of Harry Potter, I'm afraid I'm going to have to torture her on the machine with you watching. Now, do either of you want to tell me about Potter?"

Tugging the gag out of Ron's mouth, Lucius stepped back to look at Ron full scale, impatiently tapping his foot, waiting for either one of them to answer. Looking up at Hermione, Ron quietly shook his head.

"Don't tell him anything, Hermione. He only wants to take Harry to You-Know-Who to have him killed," Ron gasped.

"Ah," Lucius whispered, "so you two do know where Potter is?"

"We're not going to you anything," Hermione said steadily. "Nothing whatsoever, unless you untie Ron completely."

Lucius' cold, high laugh echoed through the chamber and Hermione closed her eyes, hearing the echoes reverberating against the walls. It was a rather painful high-pitched laugh, indeed.

"Untie Weasely here? No, I don't think so, that would give you too much of an advantage, Miss Granger," Lucius exclaimed. "Nothing of that sort is going to happen. Now tell me, where is Potter?"

"I know where Potter is, Father," Draco spoke up suddenly from the door.

Everybody turned towards Draco in shock. Hermione stared at Draco with disbelief. He couldn't let his own father know where Harry was, could he? After all, he promised her, Hermione, he wouldn't tell anybody about Harry's whereabouts. But of course, she shouldn't have trusted him; he could've been lying to her for all she knew. Well, so much for having a Malfoy son help her out in escaping from this dismal place.

"Well, where is he, Draco?" Lucius demanded.

"It's kind of difficult to explain, Father," Draco said, walking over to Ron and pulling him to his feet roughly.

"Take as long as you need to, Draco, but I need to know where Potter is," Lucius growled.

"Well, I don't know if I should tell you," Draco said, forcing Ron along towards Hermione and forcing Ron to turn his back to her.

"And why ever not?" Lucius demanded, feeling his patience beginning to run out, "you're trying my patience, Son."

"Untie his bindings while I distract my father," Draco muttered out of the corner of his mouth so his father wouldn't notice, "and when I give you a signal—you'll know when—run out of this room and down the corridor until you see a flight of stairs. Go down them and turn left and keep going until you've reached the entrance hall and go out the door and run as fast as you can away from here."

Shocked at Draco's sudden helpful hints, Hermione nodded in silent relief. That was one load off her back, as long as this thing worked. She really didn't want to be killed.

"What are you trying to tell them?" Lucius shouted.

"I was telling them if they do anything stupid they'll find themselves tortured and killed, if that's what you want to know," Draco said, putting on his usual pompous voice as if he was on top of the world.

Draco walked to the other side of the machine, looking at all the intricately machine gears that were built for the sheer torture of the victims. He shuddered to think what they all went through and was glad that his father never forced him to use it to show that he was a man. Draco felt his father run up beside him, but didn't move or shudder like he usually did.

"Someday, Draco, you will have the pleasure of using this machine on someone who wants to stand in our way," Lucius said finally.

"Surely I cannot use this thing. You've never let me in on how this thing works," Draco said simply.

"How about you learn right now? We've got two enemies right in front of us. Why now show them our power?" Lucius' eyes gleamed, obviously itching to use the machine on Ron and Hermione.

Draco felt a moment of panic. He had to give them the signal now, as much as he hated them, they never really did anything wrong, and they didn't deserve to die in this way—after all they had their whole lives in front of them, as he did.

"I really don't think I should, Father," Draco said loudly, "I don't think I could torture them and anyways, they might be smart enough to RUN!"

Hearing Draco yell, "run!" Hermione grabbed Ron by the wrist and dragged him to the door and started running as fast as she could down the hall. Seeing what she was doing, Ron staggered a run after her as fast as he could.

"NOOO, DRACO! WHAT HAVE YOU DON'T!" Lucius suddenly yelled and began running after them.

"FATHER, NO!" Draco yelled, taking a running leap and tackling his father from behind, knocking Lucius to the ground, knowing he only had a few minutes before his father would overcome him.

Draco was right. After recovering from the shock of the hit, Lucius twisted around and grabbing his son's throat, threw Draco onto his back and put his weight into the effort. Draco choked and grabbed at his father's hands, trying to loosen the grip that his father had on him. Somehow he knew his father wanted to kill him.

"You…are a good-for-nothing son that I've raised since he was born and now he has disappointed me in doing something that I've taught him never to do and yet he did it anyway for pure spite!" Lucius roared.

Draco didn't answer. He couldn't, even if he wanted to. The grip his father had on his throat was getting tighter and tighter and Draco's normally pale face was turning blue.

"Where's Potter, Draco? Tell me now, or you won't live to see another day," Lucius growled in an abnormally soft voice.

Draco tried to speak, but all he could do was make rasping, choking noises. Lucius bent his ear closer to his son's face.

"What was that? I can't hear you, son," Lucius said.

Draco said something in Lucius' ear and Lucius, grinning, let go of Draco's throat and quickly strode out of the room. Draco, falling back onto the ground, took one last look up at the ceiling.

Well, they're safe, Draco thought and quickly fell into unconsciousness.

Speeding down the hallway, Hermione and Ron came to the staircase. Tugging on Ron's sleeve, the two of them headed down the winding staircase. Hermione could hear Ron panting heavily and painfully behind her, but she didn't dare slow down in case Lucius was following them.

At the bottom of the staircase, Hermione paused and looked around to see if anybody was following them before turning left and racing down the hallway. She couldn't risk the Malfoys following them.

"Hermione, please can we slow down? I'm in so much pain…" Ron complained.

"Do you want Lucius to catch us and take us back up to that torture chamber? I can't believe Lucius has been getting away with that room," Hermione raged.

"Well, that room's probably been built in the Dark Ages by one of their ancestors and he's plead that to everybody," Ron stated.

"Yeah, something like that," Hermione said distractedly.

Finally the two of them panted up into the entrance hall. Spotting the front door, Hermione trotted up to it with Ron limping behind her. Turning the knob, Hermione found that the door was locked. Ron, seeing that Hermione not being able to open the door, began to panic.

"That's it, we're done for. They're going to find us and torture us and then kill us," Ron panicked.

"Oh, stop being a scaredy cat. You're forgetting who you're talking to," Hermione said, then pointed at the lock with her wand, "Alohomora."

Opening the door the two of them rushed out of the mansion and started to run as fast as they could.

"I'm never going out again," Ron complained.

"Don't worry, you will," Hermione exclaimed.

"How do you know?"

"Because Mother Nature will incite you to go out and you won't be able to help yourself," Hermione explained.

"Whatever."

The two of them continued on and soon the dreaded mansion disappeared behind the trees. Hermione sighed with relief, but continued on. She didn't want to take any chances.

Author's Note: Sorry about not updating for a while, I've been rather busy. I'll try to update and I hope you will all continue reading and enjoy the story. Thanks to those who've been reviewing, I really appreciate it.