Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize in the Harry Potter books.
Chapter II: Draco Malfoy
He was seated on his large bed watching her intently. Hermione could not be mistaken. It was the same pale face with the same annoying smirk pasted on it and the same cold, grey eyes now shining with amusement upon seeing her. Malfoy!
Well, he must say he was quite surprised with her entrance. After all, it wasn't everyday that someone came bursting into his room, all flustered as if running for her life. Yes, he was surprised, for a moment that is, before he realized that it was just his old mudblood friend. Although he knew she shouldn't be there—Imagine, a mudblood in Malfoy Manor!—that could wait. He had been bored to death. And having someone to rag was a wonderful reprieve. And that someone being his favorite mudblood was just a nice bonus.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Granger. I thought you'd never notice me," he said playfully as a cat would a mouse.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked getting more nervous by the minute.
"I do think I'm the one who's supposed to ask that question. This is our house, after all."
"Your house?" Hermione asked incredulously.
"Yeah. Large isn't it? Now, if you don't mind, would the kind little mudblood please tell me what she's doing here?" he said impishly, his smirk becoming wider.
Hermione couldn't answer. She didn't dare. Her mind was racing. What will she do? How could she have gotten into this mess?
"Since you don't seem to want to answer, maybe I should just ask my father to escort you out. He does know you're here, right? Oh no, don't tell me he doesn't know," he said in mock surprise.
What did he mean? Was he really going to tell Lucius? Who am I kidding? Of course he was going to tell. He's Draco Malfoy. Hermione thought fearfully. She tried to hide her worry by answering him back. "So what? He wouldn't dare touch me. When Harry and Ron find out I'm missing they'll go straight to Professor Dumbledore. And you know how strong he is. I wouldn't be surprised if your father's scared of him. Even Voldemort is," she said trying to convince herself as much as trying to convince Malfoy.
"Bravery," he answered with a sneer, "very becoming, Granger. No need to act, really. You don't know what Lucius will do if he finds out a mudblood in his house. He'll think of it as an insult, a disgrace to the family name. You'll be lucky if you ever see your friends again, then again I'd say it's better if you don't, because if you do, you'll find yourself to be the one hurting them. And we don't want that to happen, do we?"
He was surprised when Hermione suddenly opened the door and ran. He followed her as fast as he could. And being the Slytherin Seeker, he has great reflexes, agility and speed so it wasn't that hard to reach her just at the nick of time, before she ran into Lucius and the brown-haired man Hermione saw earlier. He pulled her through a secret doorway into what looked like a tunnel, but before she could take another step, she realized that what should have been a long walkway was a…
"Bottomless pit. Be careful," Draco announced. It was like a trap used to trick anyone who would unknowingly take another fatal step and fall, for eternity.
"But there isn't enough space for the two of us. We might fall," Hermione said anxiously.
"Quiet," Draco whispered, placing an arm around her shoulder and pulling her close to his chest to keep her from falling. "There is. Just keep close."
Hermione's heart was beating faster. She had never been this close to Malfoy before. She could even hear his heart beating. A relatively calm rhythm compared to her bounding one. And his scent! His subtle but overpowering scent. She couldn't help but think that she wanted to wallow in it forever. A couple of seconds later, the voices become clearer.
"Is everything ready as the Dark Lord ordered?"
"Almost, Lucius. Just give us a little more time. We have almost found the nests of…"
"I think they're leaving," Draco said as the voices began to fade. "Let's wait a while longer, just to make sure," he added.
Hermione was confused. The nests of what? Whatever it was she could be sure that they were up to no good, especially if Voldemort was involved. She needed to tell Dumbledore. But telling the headmaster about this is the least of her worries. She must first find a way out of the place.
Draco was just about to reach for the doorknob when the rocks beneath Hermione's feet crumbled. He reached out to grab her hand but missed by an inch. Instead, she managed to catch the edge of a protruded rock and was dangerously dangling over the endless darkness of the pit. She prayed strongly that her fate would not be the same as the ring Krum gave her, which was now falling as it would till she knows not.
"Hey, grab my hand," Draco yelled as he reached out.
"I can't," she managed, the familiar lump in her throat. So she was scared of heights. A lot of people are. But falling for eternity? The thought was a bit too much.
"Try! You can't dangle there forever."
Of course not. Dangling forever was as bad as falling forever. And so thought, she tried to reach for his hand. But the distance was too far. She couldn't even brush the tips of his fingers.
He leaned in closer. But instead of reaching for his hand, Hermione took out her wand and muttered a spell.
"Fool!" Draco hissed. "My family's not stupid enough to have a bottomless pit and let the person float his way out of it."
Of course there would be Nullification Charm on the place. Tears were running down her cheeks now, unnoticed. "My hand's numb. I don't want to fall," she pleaded.
"Reach with your wand then." And she did. It was a bit hard to keep a hold on the wand as she was hoisted up and surprisingly, it didn't seem such a hard feat for him to hoist her up. Her hand was moist and she feared it would slip. Thankfully, Draco gripped her wrist before it did.
Finally she was safe in Draco's arms. Her heart was still beating furiously.The feelings of warmth, comfort and security sliced through immense relief. And with these the fact that the one making her feel them was Draco, who had always been synonymous with 'enemy.' Upon realizing that she was clinging to him as if her sanity depended on it (which at the moment it was) she pulled away from him mentally. No use confusing things. Things were already confused as they were.
"My ring," she said as she remembered it, thankful of finding something to take her mind away from that strange feeling.
"Forget it. Let's just get out of here. They're gone, anyway," he declared, pulling her out into the corridor and letting go of her hand there.
"Thank You," she said weakly. He answered with a grunt, as if it was no big deal. He's Draco Malfoy. Of course it was a big deal! She was a muggle-born. And saving her was the last thing she thought he would do.
"Hey," Hermione called out as she started to go after Draco, who was already halfway towards his room. He didn't look at her. "Hey," she repeated.
"Don't speak too loud if you don't want your mudblood skin torn from you," Draco said in a cold voice once she finally caught up with him.
"Oh, sorry," she answered, stopping then studying her feet. Draco stopped too, and then looked at her. "Why did you save me?" she asked looking straight into his eyes. His blue-grey eyes that were so protected. People say that the eyes are the windows to our soul. But his were different. You wouldn't see anything no matter how close you were that you would think that he didn't have a soul at all. That wouldn't be surprising but somehow Hermione didn't believe it. She knew he had one, only he didn't want to show it to anyone. He had one. Why else did he save her? And she truly wanted to know why.
"I just… felt like it," he answered hesitantly. What was he supposed to say? Even he didn't know why he saved a mudblood. But one thing was sure: he didn't regret it.
"What do you mean?"
"My father would have seen you," he replied then pulled her into his room. "As he would now if you don't move you're mudblood feet." As Draco closed the door, Hermione decided not to ask any more questions even though a hundred were still buzzing in her head.
Draco sat on his bed and realized that Hermione was just standing in a corner. "Sit, Granger," he said with a gesture, more an order than an offer. When she hesitated he added, "Don't worry, I won't touch you," and placed a smirk on his lips, trying to break the awkwardness he felt.
"I didn't think that," she muttered irritably and walked toward the place he indicated.
"What are you doing here anyway?" he asked after lying face-up on his bed. There was no mockery in his voice, no smirk on his lips, just a plain, simple query. You could even find a hint of kindness in it, which is something, considering his supposedly lack of those kinds of emotions.
"Could you help me if I told you?" she finally replied.
"Maybe… if I could," he answered. Well, that's new, she thought.
She licked her lips and tried to think of what to say, so she told him the events in the library.
"That's what you get for spending so much time in the library," he said after she finished and laughed out loud. He knew it would have annoyed the hell out of her.
Hermione became irritated and retorted, "Well if you're not going to help me then fine. I'm going to find my way out of here even if I have to do it alone," then started to stand when Draco said in a still smiling but somewhat more serious tone, "Wait. Ok, so this book transported you here, maybe it could return you back to Hogwarts. Where is it?"
Hermione sat down again and said: "Well, one of your house-elves touched it and one moment it was there and in the next it was nowhere to be found."
"So you're stuck here, and one of our elves is probably somewhere else, presumably at Hogwarts" Draco concluded.
"Could you help me?" she pleaded.
"What will I have for it?" he said looking at her.
"What?" She asked, taken aback, though of course she knew she shouldn't have been.
"What will I have in exchange for my services?" he enunciated mockingly.
Self-centered git! "You'll have me on my way and out of your house. Not to mention out of your life until the start of next term."
"Nah, that's also what's bound to happen if my father found you here. How about…" Draco gave her an implying once-over
She turned red. "No," she said.
Draco laughed. That's when she realized he was only joking and turned even redder, if that was possible. "Slimy git," she muttered under her breath.
"What if you do my assignment for a year," he proposed.
"That's it?" she asked skeptically.
He raised one of his eyebrows. "Why? Do you want me to add something else? Well then, how about you be my servant girl for the rest of the school year."
Hermione's mouth dropped and she painfully regretted opening her big mouth.
"You better thank me, Granger," she heard Draco add. "I'm feeling generous today. In other cases I would've asked them to do those until they graduate."
"Lucky me," she murmured.
They heard footsteps passing the hallway and Hermione instinctively looked at the door fearful that someone might come in and discover her.
As if reading her mind, Draco calmly said: "Don't worry, Lucius never comes into my room, my mother only when there's something murderously important. The house-elves, they knock. And I could just tell them not to tell anyone. Not even Lucius could persuade them to tell him something I told them not to."
"You make it sound like they're more loyal to you than to your father," Hermione stated.
He spared her a glance. "Compared to my father, I'm a saint," he said with a hint of humor. "So, are you up with the deal? I could check out the passages that I know of now if it is."
"Couldn't you just sneak me out?"
"That wouldn't be possible."
"Ok then," Hermione replied, leaving the response as it was. "I'll do what you asked for," she said, not quite hiding her disgruntlement at the last part of their deal. Being a servant? That was definitely not something she was looking forward to, but what choice did she have? Malfoy was her only hope of finding a way out of this place.
"Ok, stay here," he said as he opened the door and left.
"They're all blocked," he announced.
"By what? Maybe we could get through," Hermione said not willing to give up.
"Two of them are totally caved in," Draco declared, "trust me. The ceiling was on the verge of collapsing. And the last one is full of dwarf miners. Lucius obviously found out about the loads of minerals there, you know gold and stuff, and just thought of adding something up in the family vault. Plus, there are a bunch of orcs under his control, which I presume he bought to keep people away. I really don't think he's only after the mineral deposits there. At the way he's protecting the place, I figure he's only using those reserves as a distraction. At any rate, you can't get through. Even the workers are terrified of the place. They wouldn't hurt me, of course. Malfoy blood, you see"
"So what do we do now?" she asked.
"Let's think about it later. It's dinnertime," he replied, pointing at his watch.