Hermione gathered herself as she let go of the windowsill and stood up on shaky limbs, squaring her body to face Draco Malfoy. Their eyes locked onto each other as he shut the heavy door behind him with a furtive clunk and they were alone together in the holding room.

"I believe you have the wrong room, Malfoy. Kindly exit so things won't get misconstrued when my fiance enters and sees us here together," Hermione said, completely in denial that he was there to collect her after the bidding. She wanted to turn away from him, for him to realize his mistake and leave her behind in a wake of dust to go find his actual match, but she could not. She was paralyzed, trapped in his stony gaze like a fly on sticky paper, her body begging for this unknown entity to release her as she writhed internally. Draco shook his head. If he wasn't trying so hard to look emotionless, Hermione would wager that he almost looked nervous.

"Make no mistake, Granger," Draco began, his bottom lip struggling to keep from quivering. "I'm no more cheerful about this than you are. But no matter your absolute filth and my disgust for you, your dowry was far too high to ignore." Hermione felt her face become hot and the skin on her neck began to tingle.

"My dowry," she scoffed and shook her head as she was finally able to turn away from him. "I'm so much more than my dowry," she whispered to herself, to which she imagined his reply 'not to me.' "Must have been extraordinary to get you to slither out of your dark hole and make a bid on me." She looked out the window into the night once more, now wishing she had made the jump. Oh, to be blissfully unencumbered and unengaged to the blonde slime standing behind her. "This is really what you're willing to do, Malfoy? For money?" The steam coming from her skin fogged the window in front of her as she stood with her back to him.

"For this price, no question." Hermione turned her head slightly. "My family will be back on top of the ranks in an instant once the payment is received, and all will be forgiven." Hermione shuttered at the thought of having to host dinner for Death Eaters in Malfoy Manor. She imagined the mahogany floor in the living room was still stained from the blood trickling from her arm. A small memento in her new marital home that reminded her that they had lost, and what they were capable of if she stepped so much as a toe out of line.

"And what was the price?" She questioned rather meekly, preparing to wince like a dog who expected a beating.

"Nine-hundred, seventy-eight thousand," Draco stated matter-of-factly. The lump swelling in Hermione's airway jumped up and nearly gagged her. She knew her dowry was one of the highest, but to offer a total of over one million galleons to wed her off seemed ludicrous. But was it really? As she thought about it, those weren't the winnings of claiming her hand. That was the price that the Ministry was willing to pay to subdue her, to make her less of a threat to their new dynasty. If she was tethered to a husband, to a family, she was far less likely to act recklessly, to attempt to join a coup against them. Especially once children were involved, she'd be less dangerous than a puffskein. Unmarried, she was a force that had the potential to lead a rebellion, but otherwise, she was a dog chained to a tree. It was now clear to Hermione that this was strictly a transaction, nothing more. She was simply an item to be bartered for. She wasn't guaranteed a happy marriage, or even a tolerable life. She imagined the most that the Malfoy's would be willing to spare for their new cash cow would be nothing more than an outhouse on the edge of the property. Although, a secluded outhouse sounded much dreamier to her than ever having to share a bed with the slimy Draco Malfoy. She shuddered at the thought of it and felt tears begin to rise as she turned to the window once more.

"I believe you have my wand," she said, trying to suppress the frog rising in her throat that threatened to choke her.

"I will consider returning it to you once we are back at the Manor," he said sourly.

Hermione turned on a dime. "Oh, you'll consider it, will you? How blessed I am to have such a considerate fiance!"

"Mind your tongue, Granger," Draco hissed through gritted teeth.

"Or what? You'll hex me? On our engagement day? Please do, so maybe I'll forget any of this is happening." Her fists were clenched and her knuckles went white as she stomped toward him, her kitten heel snagging on the bottom of her dress, tearing the hem from beneath her with a shrill rip..

"You will get more than just hexed, Granger. Mark my words. You're not the teacher's little pet anymore, and they can't protect you from me now," Draco growled as his stormy eyes began to glow red.

"Is that a threat, Malfoy?"

"Oh, no, Granger. That's a promise. This isn't Hogwarts anymore. You're out in the real world now and your stupid little friends can't protect you when you're under my care. You'd do well to remember that." Their faces were inches from each other now. Hermione could smell his aftershave and his natural smell that was in no way appealing to her. She could see the fine wrinkles under his eyelids and the tiny vessels now bursting in the whites of his eyes. A vein pulsed in his forehead as he grinded his teeth under a tightly clenched jaw. She reared back her right fist, ready to strike him in the face when the door flew open behind them.

"Getting acquainted and cozy already?" Lucius Malfoy said dryly, unimpressed as he stood in the doorway, his blonde hair now streaked silver with age still floating from the breeze of the opening door. "How touching." Hermione lowered her fist and felt her flushed face begin to fade to palid. "Draco, a moment without Miss Granger, if you please."

"Father, what's going on?" Draco questioned as he attempted to compose himself in front of his father.

"Come, Draco," he said, and they both swept out of the room wordlessly, slamming the door behind them. Hermione was left standing there in the middle of the holding room completely awestruck, trying to process what had just happened. She slunk into the cushioned sofa and allowed herself to cry. Her life was over. She was to amount to nothing more than a subpar breeding ground for the Malfoy household, and she knew that whatever children were to be born from this sham of a marriage would not be treated like they deserved. They would be seen as sullied, impure, having sprung from the loins of a mudblood by force of the Ministry. She buried her face in her hands and she felt her mascara and eyeliner bleeding all over her dewy skin, utterly ruining her pristine face that Tonks had worked so tediously to make perfect as she heaved and weeped. Her dress, once fitting like a glove, now squeezed her ribs so tightly she could barely breathe as she gasped between sobs. She kicked her heels off of her feet, hurling them into the wall on the other side of the room, and curled her legs beneath her, making herself as small as possible, wishing she could disappear into the swirling fabric of the sofa and never come out on the other side. She considered walking back to the window when the doorknob turned a third time. Her abusive fiance was back to collect her. She shoved her face into the arm of the sofa, unwilling to look Draco in the eyes, when she felt a gentle touch on her bare shoulder.

"Get up, Hermione," a merciful voice cooed to her. "We need to leave." She looked up, her eyes bloodshot and her vision blurry, and saw a very distressed looking Sirius. He was wearing a dark purple overcoat emblazoned with silver spirals, black leather boots, and a small golden earring that glittered on his left earlobe. His hair was brushed into tamed cocoa waves.

"Sirius? Where is Malfoy?" She said as she swiped her forearm across her face, surely making the blacks streaks on her cheeks worse. Sirius held out a hand for her to take, and she stood. He did not let go of it, but ran a thumb under both of her eyes, wiping the black tears away.

"Don't worry about Draco Malfoy. We need to leave." He held firmly to her hand as he snagged her heels off the floor and they exited the holding room in haste. Hermione hopped along behind Sirius as they weaved through the tiled halls, attempting to slide her shoes on her feet as they hurried out of the Ministry of Magic and poured themselves into the lamp-lit streets of London.

"Sirius, what is going on?" She called to him as he walked ahead of her, his head held down.

"I need a drink. Would you like a drink, Hermione? Let's get a drink." He ignored her questioning and they ducked into a bar, nestled on a busy corner, The Leaky Cauldron. Sirius hustled to a tiny table, shoved in the back corner of the pub, nuzzled furthest away from anybody else enjoying an evening beverage.

"Sirius, what-" Hermione was cut off when Tom, the bartender, approached them for their orders once they were seated.

"Something strong for me, I don't care what." Sirius looked at Hermione's confused and tear-stricken face. "Make that two," he corrected as he held up two fingers.

"Oh, no thank you, I don't want-"

"Not for you, love. Both for me." Hermione scrunched her face as Tom nodded and walked back behind the bar to fill Sirius's drink order.

"Sirius, will you please tell me what is going on?" Hermione pleaded with him. He held up a hand to his forehead.

"Wait til I get my drink. Then I will explain." Hermione bit the inside of her cheek as she watched him, completely distressed and shaken, his knee bouncing under the table a mile a minute. As she waited for Tom to bring the drinks, she examined the rip in her dress, now having traveled a quarter the way up the skirt. She gave a small sigh as she ran her finger along the frayed edge of the fabric. "You can fix that," he said quietly. "Just a simple charm."

"Perhaps if I had my wand I could. But I don't." Tom placed two highball glasses, both filled to the brim with a smoking, tan liquid, in front of Sirius. Sirius took one of them, and threw the glass back, allowing the entire contents of the glass to slip down his throat with ease. He slammed his eyes shut and made a face of discomfort as the alcohol burned down all the way down to his stomach, and yellow smoke erupted out of his ears. He then reached into the inside pocket of his overcoat and slipped out Hermione's wand. He placed it on the table in front of her and then downed the second glass in front of him with ease.

"Why do you have my wand, Sirius?" She asked dumbfounded as she took it from the table and began to mend the ripped seam on her dress. Sirius was now objectively looser, and the tension in his face and body had diminished significantly. "Malfoy was supposed to have it until he came and collected me. But he never got to collect me."

"That's right, Hermione. Because I was the one to collect you," Sirius said, pushing down a hiccup.

"What does this mean, Sirius?"

"It means, quite plainly, that I saved your life. And we are to be married by September the twentieth."