Disclaimer: Still not mine ::sigh::

A/N: Again, nothing new. Well there is new stuffs, but nothing significant.

-

She knew she had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Her settings were completely unfamiliar and there was something disconcerting about the lack of paintings around.

The hairs on the back of her neck pricked up. She reached for her wand, for a sense of security, to realize that it was gone.

She turned around, and yelped slightly when she saw the figure who was lazily twirling her wand around his fingers.

He smirked at her as a look of comprehension grew on her face. Instictively she backed away, bumping into a wall.

"One would think that you were afraid of me, Madam Snape." Lucius Malfoy said, taking a few steps twords her. He stopped directly in front of her to whisper in her ear "As you should be." Hermione shivered. She was beginning to panic. She was in a dark, mostly unused corridor, with no paintings in it, and without her wand, in the company of a Death Eater. Not a good situation.

"Excuse me sir, but I do have to be getting to class..." she stumbled out, trying to leave.

Lucius chuckled and said "Of course my dear, I just thought we could have a little chat, seeing as I was already here on business." Funny how he made "my dear" sound just as bad as 'mudblood'.

She looked at him nervously, wondering what the point of this 'chat' was.

Snape frowned as he started down yet another corridor. He had much better things to spend his time on than running after some girl. It was bad enough that Weasely and Potter had cornered him, insisting on knowing what he had done to their precious friend. Snape snorted at the thought. Honestly, if he could get rid of them, he would have done it already.

He stopped suddenly at the incessant sniffling he heard nearby. He kept going down the corridor a bit, and then he spotted an unused corridor to his left. He glanced down it, and sure enough, Miss Granger was there. Though not how he expected her to be.

She was in a rumpled heap by the wall, clutching her knees to her chest and crying. He resisted the sudden urge to run down there and demand what happened, and settled on walking hastily to the girl.

"Miss Granger?" he asked tentatively. He had exactly no experience in dealing with crying women and had no idea how to approach this.

She shook her head, not looking at him. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her face was flushed a fleshy-magenta color.

Snape sighed and crouched down beside her, digging a handkerchief out of his pocket and thrusting it at Hermione. "I can't very well do anything if you don't tell me what the matter is." he said tiredly. No doubt this outburst was about their marriage, most likely nothing new.

Hermione accepted the handkerchief and wiped the tears from her face. She took a deep breath and managed to whisper hoarsly "Lucius Malfoy." before another tear fell.

Snape's breath caught in his chest. This wasn't her simply overreacting to something they couldn't control, something had happened here. Something involving Lucius Malfoy. Which couldn't possibly be good.

"Miss Granger," he started, trying to get a response out of her. When she didn't move he tried "Hermione, please." softly, but not without an air of impatience.

"He..he-" she choked. Hermione stopped for a minute and seemed to regain most of her wits, and sanity for that matter, and continued. "I got lost, I ended up taking a wrong turn or something. I walked down this corridor and the next thing I knew Malfoy was behind me and he had my wand."

"He said alot of things. Ter-" she stumbled slightly on her words. "Terrible things. About what would happen if the contract wasn't fufilled. And what would happen if it was."

Once she started talking, it didn't seem like she would be able to stop. She seemed to forget that anyone else was there, as if she was just rationalizing with herself. "I've never been this scared. I've been in dangerous situations before, but there was always something I could do. I hate feeling so goddamn helpless. Pulled this way and that way, just filling someone else's need. Being used. I hate it." Her voice shook as she muttered the last words.

Snape was taken aback. He'd known her to be angry, after all, he had experienced it first hand. But frightened? Not one of the three Griffindors who was constantly making his job harder. Hadn't she battled a troll her first year? Run into the Ministry bent on saving the world? Scared and Granger were not two words he'd put in a sentence together.

'Hermione.." he said slowly, hoping it was somewhat comforting.

She finally looked up at him. She had a hard look in her eyes. "Do you want to know what he said? Do you?" she said irritably.

Her voice grew shaky as she continued without letting him respond "Once the two months are up, I'll be his. And yes, I do know what he'll do with me." she shuddered. "I had the pleasure of hearing it in full detail from the bastard."

How many times was he going to be surprised by this girl? Who would have thought that she would be capable of sarcasm, expecially in this state?

"Though that's nothing, nothing compared to he plans to do to the baby." she said, her voice shaking dangerously. Snape's eyes flashed and she made a noise of disbelief, obviously interpeting the look as anger. "Oh no, he won't touch a hair on it's head. He wouldn't dare. Something about a prophecy, and you-know-who's heir."

"They're going to take him away. Take him away and use him, like they're using us. They'll turn him into a monster, like them. Gods, I can't let that happen. I can't let them get my baby." she said, unexpected tears welling up in her eyes.

Snape blinked a few times, unsure of what to do. Hesitantly, he slipped an arm around Hermione, and she immediately responded by burying her head in his chest and crying.

"I won't let them either." he whispered into her ear, meaning it with evey fibre of his being.

A/N: Short, sweet, and it cut the tension between them.