A/N: Hey guys, thanks for stopping by! Just wanted to remind you up here that this is the flashback chapter, this is not happening in the present time of the story. I also wanted to warn you that this is a giant one, so I hope you like it and that you can make it to the end.


Chapter 15 - Beginning

Two and a half months earlier…

It's dark as I make my way from my flat to the apparation point.

Should I have waited?

No.

I have to get to Harry.

This is big.

It's so much bigger than I thought.

We've been chasing them for years, and now, we know where they are.

Well, I do.

And that's why I have to get to the ministry.

So that others know too.

Because I received a package from an unknown sender and like an idiot, thought I could handle on my own what I found inside.

I opened it.

And inside was a code.

It took me a while and I wasn't even sure if it would turn out to be anything useful. Harry and Ron were busy; I didn't want to bother them with something that could have turned out to be nothing.

But it wasn't nothing.

And now, I have to reach the apparation point and get this location to Harry.

Someone else needs to know.

This is big.

As I near my destination…

I feel it.

I'm being watched.

I take a breath and move a bit faster.

Maybe I am simply being paranoid.

Who could possibly know that I figured out the code I was sent?

But one thing is for certain.

I am not supposed to know this.

As I pass by a streetlight, I see a shadow flash behind me.

My breath catches and in one fluid motion, I whip my wand from my pocket and face my potential attacker.

No one is there.

Puzzled and still tensed for action, I slowly turn back to my route.

There is a flash, and in an instant, my body is frozen.

Maybe I should have waited.

Three masks.

Three terrifying Death Eater masks mark the beginning what I know is coming.

I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to fight.

But I am frozen.

And I'm horrified of what I know I am about to experience.

As I am taken to my horrible fate, my only hope is that Harry and Ron can pull themselves together, and figure out where I am.


Darkness.

Fear.

I'm at their mercy.

And they don't have any.

The small fraction of light from underneath the door at the top of the stairs creates an eerie dimness.

As my eyes adjust to the strange dark, I realize that someone else is here.

A figure is hunched in the corner of the room.

I take a breath to steady my voice.

"Hello?" The breath didn't do much. From the thundering of my heart, to my shaking, adrenaline filled limbs, my quiet sound is trembling. I swallow. "Who's there?"

"Granger?" He looks up. "Damn it!"

Malfoy?

My mind is turning.

They're trying to trick me.

I know their games and won't fall for it.

I will not let him know how frightened I am.

He cannot have that satisfaction.

"I know why you're here." It's a bit shaky still, but better than before. "It won't work."

"And why might that be?" he asks.

There's something odd about the tone of his voice. It's cocky, but somewhat…defeated.

"Which part?"
"Why do you think I'm down here?"

I clear my throat. "You want to build my trust so you can make me slip information. And I won't do it."

"That would have been quite smart, wouldn't it?" he seems to be considering the thought. "But that's not what's happening."

"No?"

I can feel my fear beginning to fade, if only a bit.

It's Draco Malfoy.

I can handle him.

He's a bully, a snake, but not nearly as dangerous as some of the others.

"You have no idea what you've gotten into." And with the cryptic words, comes a flash of doubt.


It isn't just Malfoy.

I sit, resting my aching head against the cool wall.

A faceless Death Eater was down here.

And they brought with them the full force of the painful reality I'm facing.

Malfoy sat there.

He did nothing.

If he isn't here to pry information from me through trust, maybe, he is simply added torture.

Because he watched.

And he did nothing.

That cockroach.

That snake.

The courts were wrong about him.

Somehow he is in this.

And it will keep my mind off the pain if I focus on how.


It's happened many times now.

A Death Eater comes in, face covered with one of those masks.

They ask me questions of what I know, of how I know, of who I've told.

And Malfoy still does nothing.

I sit alone on the opposite side of the room, hugging myself in a vain attempt to stop the spasms and twitching of my muscles that have begun to occur after such frequent use of the cruciatus.

I feel a hot tear run down my face.

No.

He can't know how much I'm hurting.

He can't know that my dreams of Harry and Ron uncovering my clues have become nightmares that they just moved on.

But I can't seem to stop the tears.

And soon, I am trying to stifle my sobs.

"Granger."

I don't want to talk to him.

"Granger," he says again. "Say something."

I don't know what he's looking for.

But he doesn't sound like he wants to hurt me. He almost sounds concerned.

That's impossible.

I'm going insane.

Because all he could ever be is cruel.


Maybe I was wrong about Malfoy.

This time, it was him who was tortured.

And I watched.

I didn't stop it.

I was too afraid that they would turn it back onto me.

And I'm disgusted with myself.

The Death Eater seemed to enjoy it far too much for Malfoy to be a pawn of theirs.

So now, I'm confused.

I don't understand why he's here.

But he remains silent.

And so do I.


"I'm not so terrible you know," he suddenly tells me.

"What?"

"I know you think I'm evil, that I don't belong outside of Azkaban, that I deserve all this."

I don't know what I believe.

He's a bully.

I guess I haven't really spoken to him in a few years.

But he was a bully and he can't have changed that much.

"What makes you think that?" I counter.

"Because most times, people in these kinds of situations tend to come together, at least for something other than what's being done to them," he explains. "You've barely said a word."

I don't know what to say to that.

"You don't know me," he finishes.

"I know who you were," I tell him and cringe at the harshness.

Malfoy is silent for a moment.

"I'm not proud of that," he admits. "It's not who I am now. At least, I'm trying to be different."

Trying is different from succeeding.

I've always been one to support the ability for change.

But he's Malfoy.

And I don't know if he's capable of doing anything for the sake of others. He's always been one to look out primarily for himself.

I just don't know if I believe it.

"Why are you here then?" I ask.

"Do you not remember that I defected? I betrayed them. Why else would I be here?"

I shrug before realizing he may not be able to see such a small movement in the dark.

"Just thought you should know, you're not here alone," he tells me.

Though the tone of his voice says he's not expecting anything to really change.


I'm in agony.

My body is on fire and the curse is long gone.

Every muscle is contracting and releasing by its own volition.

And I have no hope that it will stop.

Not this time.

Not when it seems to get worse with every passing minute.

I'm hoarsely crying and writhing and without an end in sight.

There is no curse to be lifted.

I feel him come beside me.

I feel his arms come around my body, pulling me to him, and holding me tight.

Why would he do this? Why would he even touch me when I am dirty to him?

But for a moment, I don't care.

Because with his tight embrace, the pain begins to ease.

Gradually, my muscles relax and my cries become whimpers.

And I pull away from him before he can return to his usual self.

Shaking, I crawl to my side.

I'm embarrassed that he saw me that way, that he had to be the one to help me.

"Granger." His voice is soft. "Are you alright?"

"What do you think?" I snap. Closing my eyes, I take a breath. "I'm sorry. You helped me."

"It was a stupid question."

Yes, yes it was.

I'm so far from being alright.

But I am a lot better off than I was a few minutes ago.

"How did you know to do that?" I ask timidly.

"It gets like that - when it's a particularly strong curse."

I still don't understand.

"My mother did it for me when it happened. It always worked."

I turn to face him.

He's experienced this.

Many times.

I wonder how old he was when it first happened.

"Malfoy, I – "

"Can you not call me that?" he interrupts. "Malfoy." He says the name with disgust. "Having that name has made my life hell."

I never really thought about what he has been going through all this time.

"Draco then," I say.


We talk now.

And it helps somewhat.

It's distracting.

I know what he was saying about people coming together, if only for conversation.

I'm still not completely sure about him.

He may have been going through a lot, but he did some terrible things.

But it's distracting.

So we talk.

And our voices are becoming rather raspy from all its strained use.

But that's just because of our current situation.

"You still don't trust me," he points out after asking a question about my life over the past few years. "I understand."

I sigh. "You hurt me. A lot. Over and over. Even when I knew it was coming, it still hurt."

"I know." He pauses. "And I want to be better."

"Why did you? Did you really believe those things?" I ask. "Do you believe them now?"
"I didn't believe anything for myself. I was a kid. I wanted to make my father proud. It wasn't until I was already knee deep in it all, with the dark mark hanging over my head, that I realized what made my father proud made me ashamed."

His words hang in the air.

It's not an excuse for what he did.

But it does make some sense.

"I tried so hard. He just wasn't satisfied with anything I did. You were beating me in classes and he really didn't like that. And I know it doesn't change anything now, but I want to explain," he starts. "I was constantly being told that if someone so weak and inferior was beating me in classes, I was even lower. I was nothing. Putting you down made me feel that little bit better and it was the one thing my father was proud of me for, as sick as that is."

Silence.

"That probably just makes it worse, doesn't it," he adds.

I consider it.

"You didn't answer my last question," I point out.

He takes a deep breath.

"No. I don't think I could possibly still think that you're somehow worth less as a person," he says. "That's pretty much what they were saying. Look at where most of them are now." He pauses. "And who was the one to help put them there."

It is rather ironic.

Maybe poetic.

For some reason, I'm glad that he doesn't have those views.

I shouldn't care.

I could never be friends with someone who acted the way he did, made the choices he did, even under the circumstances he was facing.


She's dead-

She was killed-

She's supposed to be dead.

My mind is spinning, body aching.

Bellatrix Lestrange.

I'm going crazy.

I've replaced the mask with the face of that demon.

It's not real.

It can't be.

I'm seeing things that aren't true.

She isn't alive.

She can't be.

But if she is…

I'm in more trouble than I thought.

She's not.

Can't be.

"Granger." Draco calls to me.

But I saw her.

I saw her face.

"Granger." He is right in front of me, but I can't focus on his face.

I'm going insane.

This is it.

And he holds my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him.

"Tell me she didn't go too far," he says softly.

She.

He said she.

He saw her too.

"She's alive?" I ask in a small and choked voice.

"Yes," he tells me. "They must have figured it out somehow."

"But I don't understand…"

"Neither do I."

Terror.

Utter terror.

Bellatrix Lestrange is somehow alive.

And I have no escape.

There was no mask.

I saw her face.

We saw her face.

We know she's alive.

It hits me that we aren't going to make it out of here.

There is no escaping.

They're going to kill us.

It's just a matter of when.

My heart pounds, body trembles, and he pulls me against him once again, wrapping his arms around me and holding me tight.

I still don't understand why he would do something like that.

Why would he care that I'm afraid?

But I'm glad that I'm not alone.

And having him hold me, even if he is the same boy who made my life miserable, brings me that little bit of comfort.


I have no idea how long I've been here.

I tried to keep track of when that small bit of light under the door went out, but it's difficult to tell.

It feels like it's been forever.

And I wonder if Harry and Ron have found my clues.

Maybe they've given up.

Maybe they've stopped looking with the assumption that I've already been killed.

But I'm not dead.

Not yet.

I am losing hope.

I'm losing hope of ever seeing them again, losing hope of ever going home.

And I know that's dangerous.

But I can't help it.

They're going to kill us and I have no idea if my friends even found my clues.

It was when it happened to Draco.

After a particularly strong round of the curse, that enduring pain happened to him.

And I held him in my arms, as tightly as I could with my weakened limbs.

I realized that this is our reality.

This is the only future we can foresee.

And it's bleak.

Hope is lost luxury.

Survival is becoming tedious.

And for a moment, I wish I had some way of giving up.


I care about him.

It's a strange thought.

Strange and somewhat frightening.

When he is tortured, it hurts me.

I cry, I scream.

I don't know how to stop it.

I may have lost hope for myself.

I may have accepted the fact that what I'm facing is not likely to end anytime soon and when it does, it will be with my death.

But I want it to stop for him.

I know why I'm here.

He's just their plaything; someone to hurt when they feel like it.

I'm reserved for questioning.

He's tortured for fun, simply because he did the right thing for once.

And I care about him.


"They're going to find you, you know," he tells me.

He's holding me once again and I lay my cheek on his chest.

I remain silent.

"They're stubborn people. They'll keep looking for you until you're found," he says.

Unless they can't figure it out.

Unless my clues were too vague and well hidden.

"I know you've given up," Draco continues. "I've seen it many times. It's only one step before they either break or die. And you're too strong for that."

"What if I'm not," I whisper.

"You're Hermione Granger, of course you are."

He says nice words but they don't mean much.

Not when I'm trapped.

Not when I don't know if I'll ever see the light of day again.

I look up at him.

And suddenly, without warning, he kisses me.

It's fast and clearly impulsive.

"I'm sorry," he says, pushing me away, as if I were to be disgusted by his action.

And I should be.

But it was amazing.

For one fleeting moment, I felt something other than pain.

So I kiss him again.

And the pain of the world melts away.

I hold him close and a feeling I have not had in a long time floods through me.

His arms slowly come around me and there is a hope.

For a moment, surrounded by dark, fear, and pain, there is pleasure, peace.

And when I slowly pull away, I am smiling for the first time in a very long while.

Because there is hope.

"We won't break," I say quietly. "We won't let them win. We have something that they would never expect."


"Would you distract me?" I ask, eyes clenched against the pain pulsing through my limbs as I lay folded in his embrace. "Talk to me. Tell me about something. Anything."

"What do you want me to say?"
I don't know. And I can't think.

I need to hear something nice.

He's told me about his father, but the way I remember Narcissa, she seemed different. And the way he said she held him... she seemed like a good mother.

I could use a good mother story.

"Would you tell me about her?" I say absently.

"About who?"

I never said.

"Your mother?" I ask.

He's quiet for a moment.

"She always wanted the best for me, always wanted me to be happy," he starts. "It was what my father never really cared about, but she did. She was always so formal, so traditional when she went out. When she was really with anyone but alone with me. Then she would let that slip. She would show me all these special tricks with her magic and brought me toys to play with when my father said they were too childish."

I can see it.

Little Draco running around the room, running circles around his laughing mother.

Carefree.

Young, innocent.

"She's the one who kept me at Hogwarts. My father wanted to send me away to Durmstrang, but she wouldn't have any of it. It's the one time I really ever saw her stand up to the man. When he was trying to send me away. She sent me treats from home all the time when I was at Hogwarts."

Did I know that?

It was so long ago.

I can picture it though.

A package arrives, but he doesn't open it until he is alone, when he doesn't have to hide the delight that comes from seeing the sweets inside.

I find myself smiling.

It's working.

Then it strikes me that he is talking about how she was, not how she is.

"What happened?" I ask.

Once again, he pauses in thought.

It's a silence that cries solemnness.

"The war broke her. I broke her." The words are a stark contrast to the stories of his childhood. "You don't want to hear about that now."

And he kisses my cheek.

I do want to hear about it.

But maybe not now.

Now, I like the image of a glowing, happy Draco with his mother.

Now, that takes my mind off the pain.


"What about your family?"

They've left us alone today.

At least, I think it's been a day.

It's really quite hard to tell.

"My parents were wonderful. Always supportive, always loving and generous and kind." I don't want to say more for fear of breaking down. The thoughts of them crush my fragile heart.

"Tell me what you didn't tell me last time I asked. About your mother." I'm changing the topic and he knows it.

But he doesn't ask.

Does he know?

"I told you the war broke her," he reminds me.

"I want to know more." Am I pushing too far? Does he not want me to know more?

He clears his throat.

"She never wanted the life of a Death Eater for me. She hated the war and what it was doing to people on both sides. I think she began to resent my father for dragging me down that path. That night," he pauses. "That night when I got the mark. She cried for me, sobbed for my loss. Because she knew what was coming for me and how my life would be changed."

I can't imagine.

The child who she had raised and loved lead down that path by his own father.

"She doesn't say much anymore," he continues. "She's empty, staring out the window with her wand gripped in her hand, waiting for them to come for me."

"Waiting for who to come?"

"Everyone," he says. "I'll never be the 'good guy', but I betrayed the bad. She was right about how that one decision would change the course of my life." He pauses again. "I hate what I did to her. Maybe, once I'm gone, she at least won't have anything left to worry about."

I realize that he never changed.

Not really.

He's still the same bully he ever was.

But now, the one who is falling victim to his taunts is himself.

And I can tell the difference it has caused in him.

I hear the defeat in his voice, the guilt in his touch.

"What did you do right?" I suddenly ask.

"What?" he seems almost startled by the question.

"You keep telling me all about what you did wrong. But what's something you did right?"

He stays silent.

"You don't have to tell me now," I say. "Just think about it. And allow yourself to feel good about it for a moment."

It's quite obvious he has been tearing himself down for years.

And we haven't helped.

But now, I want to be the one to build him back up.


Pleasure.

It is such a strange thought when your every nerve is alight with pain.

But I focus on him.

I think about his arms coming around me.

I narrow my mind on the feeling of his lips on mine.

And when the shrieks leave my tattered throat, I think of only what's to come.

After she leaves.

I won't lose myself if I hold onto him.

I won't lose myself if I keep my mind set on his embrace.

I focus on the pleasure after the pain.

And I won't break.


Just as he promised when we heard her footsteps nearing the door, he holds me.

He's the only thing that keeps me going.

Because I don't know the answer to what she's asking.

But with him, I won't lose hope.

I won't break.

I won't drown in myself.

Because he kisses me, and for a moment, the pain fades.

It fades to a dull hum.

And I barely notice it's pull towards reality.

Because he kisses me.

Because he holds me.

Because he finds his own release with me.

And together, we can be strong.


Author's Note:

You made it to the end! Thanks for reading! It is such a crazy time right now with four final exams and a presentation next week. But since this was already written, I decided it wouldn't take long to post it. I considered breaking it up into two chapters, but I do want to get back to the plot quickly.

Thank-you so much to those who reviewed, I appreciate it so, so much. Let me know what you thought of the flashback chapter. It's quite dark, and bounces around a lot, but I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you have a great week.