"Please don't kill him!" Hermione begs. "Please!" Her voice scratches her throat and her speech is broken.
Bellatrix ignores her, floating Draco out and taking the light with them. The room falls into total pitch. The darkness is tangible and suffocating. It feels like it's pressing in on her eyes, coming closer and closer, ready to consume her. She leans her head against the wall and sobs uncontrollably. Her cries echo around the room and all throughout the dungeons. Strange noises seem to lurk in every corner. She pulls her knees to her chest, sucking on her jeans. She feels helpless, terrified, dead, and forgotten.
Chapter Five
Hermione doesn't know how long she'd been here in the dark. There are no windows, no clocks, no periodic happenings. For all she knows, days could have passed, hours, or just minutes. She can't even tell if she's slept. It is all the same whether or not her eyes are closed and she feels just as drained as she had earlier.
There is a loud noise that makes her jump and metal scraping on metal. A light is coming down the dark hallway to her barred door. She sits up straight in order to see better, but the glare from the light obstructs her view. Finally they come into view and her heart sinks. It's Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione shrinks back down as the door opens and Bellatrix clicks in, shutting it behind her. Hermione is completely alone with her. There is no one to save her and she is helplessly chained to the wall.
Bellatrix says nothing which frightens Hermione even more. She crouches down in front of her and takes out the same knife she had held against her throat earlier. She touches it to her cheek again and Hermione winces at the cool metal.
"Here's what's going to happen." Bellatrix's voice is so calm. "You're going to tell me where your little friends might have gone and I won't have to use this."
Hermione's lip starts to tremble and she shakes her head. "I don't know." Her voice is horse and scratchy.
For once, Bellatrix doesn't argue. She shrugs, adjusts her grip on the dagger and brings it to Hermione's chained arm. The blade cuts into her skin, leaving deep tracks of blood where the knife slides. Hermione cries out loud and flinches, pulling her arm against the metal cuff.
"Please!" Hermione screams, her back arching. "I don't know!"
Bellatrix doesn't seem to hear. The knife stings and burns and bruises her skin. Tears leak down her face and she shakes her head to distract herself from the pain. Bellatrix seems to be cutting some pattern into her, but the pain burns everywhere. It makes her toes curl and her teeth chatter.
Finally, she pulls the blade from her skin and Hermione slumps weakly against the wall.
"How long?" Bellatrix's nose is almost touching hers.
Hermione shakes her head. "W-what?"
"How long have you been with Draco?" she shrieks. Hermione winces.
"I-"
"HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN A BLOOD TRAITOR!?" she screams, cutting her off. "HOW MANY TIMES HAS HIS PURE BLOOD MIXED WITH YOUR FILTH!?" Hermione covers her face with her free hand and squeezes the tears through her lashes. "HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU FUCKED HIM!? ANSWER ME!"
"I don't- he didn't- we never-" Her sentences won't form. Her words won't string together to make sense. Her sobs break up her speech until she can't say anything at all.
Smack.
Bellatrix's hand cuts across her already bruised cheek. She stands up, towering over her, and spits on her face. Then she says not a word as she leaves the room. She doesn't even look back at the broken girl against the wall.
Before the light is completely gone from the room, Hermione dares a look at her arm. 'Mudblood' is cut deep and glistening in her skin. Blood is smeared angrily over the letters and dripping onto the stone floor. She lets out a sob and presses her lips together, wiping the wetness off her face. Goose pimples bubble on her arms in the cold, moist air making her shiver violently. She pulls her legs tight to her chest and tucks her free arm in her shirt where her belly is full of hot coals.
Long after the light is gone and she is again swallowed by blackness, her forearm continues to throb and pulse and swell, keeping her from sleep.
Still, she doesn't know how long it's been or what time of day it is. All she knows is he's not dead.
The door on the other side of her cell clinks open and Draco is being brought in by two House Elves. His feet are dragging and he doesn't put up any fight as they push him against the wall and fasten the cuff around his left arm. The orange light from the House Elves' torch illuminates his face which is pale and skeletal-like. There is a spot of crimson dribbling down his chin from his mouth. The arm that's being chained is also bloody, but Hermione can't get a good look before the light leaves with the Elves.
All is quiet. She can hear him breathing heavily from across the room, but it's uneven and sometimes shallow.
"Draco," she whispers to him, her voice cutting through the darkness like a knife.
It takes a minute for him to answer, and when he does, it's raspy and weak. "Hermione?"
She swallows thickly. "Are you okay?"
"No."
She bites her lip and tears well in her eyes.
"Are you?" he asks her.
"No," she sobs and then quickly grinds her teeth. "What happened to your arm?"
"My aunt. It says 'Blood Traitor'. Cut over my Dark Mark."
Silence.
"Draco?"
"Hmm?" He sounds tired.
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know," he sighs. "We'll think of something." And suddenly his voice has become shaky. "You and me. We're the best in our class, remember? We'll think of something."
She nods her head even though he can't see and whispers, "Okay."
"Don't let them break you, Hermione," he says. "Don't believe anything they tell you. You have to keep a clear head. They will lie and try to manipulate you, trust me, I know, but you can't let them do that. You're the most stubborn girl I know and I know you can keep them from ruining you."
She smiles, despite her situation. "I love you."
"I know. I love you."
"I know."
Hermione jerks awake. This time she can tell she's slept for awhile because of her sore neck and uncomfortable need to urinate. Her throat is also dry and her spit thick. She swallows with difficulty and adjusts herself to stand as much as the chain will allow. Her legs creak at her joints and the whole of her shivers as she stretches. The metal cuff around her wrist chafes angrily against her skin, making her take a sharp breath and hold her arm carefully. With her other hand, she feels her arm gingerly. It's swollen and crusted with blood. It throbs maddeningly still and she fears it will become infected.
She stands like this for what seems like hours. She can hear Draco's sleeping breath across the room and she doesn't wake him, knowing he needs what sleep he can get. Thinking of her soft bed at home, or even the cot in her tent makes her eyes burn and her body ache for it. She begins to wonder how long she's been imprisoned here. Days? Weeks? Only hours? Then she thinks of Harry and Ron and she becomes angry. They left her. Harry looked right in her face and left her there in Bellatrix's hands. Do they know what they've done to her? Are they ever coming back for her? She stifles a sob, reminding herself to keep a clear head. She'll drive herself mad being angry at them. They will come back, she decides. They won't leave her. Harry and Ron will come back for her and Draco both.
Draco. She thinks of him, how he must feel: imprisoned in his own home, by his own aunt. Where are his parents? Has Voldemort killed them like Draco so feared he would? She never meant for this to happen. If she'd have known falling in love with Draco would mean this is how they would end up, she wouldn't have let herself. She would have made him stop loving her if she'd known he'd torture himself in an attempt to save her.
She slumps back against the wall and begins counting the seconds. Determined to keep track of time, counting it herself is the only way she can think of. By the time she reaches 1659 seconds her head has lolled to the side and her eyes have again fallen shut against her will.
This repeats five more times. She wakes, stands, stretches, thinks, cries, counts, sleeps. Over and over until it all blends together and she can't remember if she's just woken or sat down to sleep again.
Her bladder grows more and more uncomfortable until she's debating whether or not to urinate here on the floor. She would except it would cling against the wall and quickly turn cold in the frigid air and she'd have to sit in it.
Finally, when her ears are ringing with the silence of the dungeon and her bladder full to bursting, a light comes down the down the tunnel accompanied by two House Elves.
"Draco," she says because she thinks he's still sleeping. "Someone's coming."
She hears him stir and the chain clank against the wall as he sits up straight.
The Elves open the barred doors and the light from their lantern spills into the cell.
"Moule!" Draco says to one of the Elves. "You're a good Elf. Let us go and you can come with us! No one will hurt you!"
The Elf with the bulbous and crooked nose covers his large ears. "Mistress says Moule is not allowed to talk to prisoners."
"Excuse me," Hermione says, smiling though it becomes more of a grimace. "May we at least use the restroom?"
Moule regards her sourly and then whispers with the other Elf for a moment. Snapping his fingers, he says, "Prisoners may use these." And two buckets appeared on either end of the room.
Draco looks at his in disgust. "A bucket!" he says, pushing it with his toe. "There are plenty of toilets in this house! Let us use the servants' one for Merlin's sake!"
Draco's yelling seems to do nothing to sway them.
"What about food?" Hermione asks. "And water? We need to eat!"
"Mistress says prisoners may get the eats when they earn it," says Moule.
"What does that mean?" Hermione asks.
"It means they're going to make us work for it," Draco tells her. His cheek is dirty from being pressed against the wall and she wonders if hers is too.
"But we're down here! How can we work for food if we're chained to a wall?"
"No more talking!" squeaks Moule who is covering his ears again. "Tinky and Moule must go!" He grabs the other Elf and the lantern and they scurry out of the room. "Must tell mistress!" Hermione can hear him muttering as they clank away with the light. "Must tell mistress they is talking!"
When they are gone and the sound of the door shutting rattles through the dungeon, Hermione squints through the darkness to where Draco is.
"I've got a plan," she says, the wheels in her head whirring away.
"What?" Draco asks somewhat urgently.
"Not now. Give me some time to think about it a little more. When you say they'll make us work, what does that mean?"
"I've seen it before," Draco says. "They bring in Muggle-Borns and Blood Traitors and sometimes, before they kill them, they make them work. Mostly House Elf stuff like scrubbing floors and cleaning walls."
"Does that mean free range of the house?"
"I don't know. But even if it did, they put chains around their ankles so they can't run, not that you'd want to because it would be worse then."
She cocks her brow and stares wildly around the room, thinking hard. A small fire lights inside her chest and she is careful to not let it ignite her whole.
"Okay," she says. "Okay, okay, okay."
Draco can hear the excitement in her voice. "Oh, Hermione, you're amazing!"
She smiles sheepishly. "Not yet I'm not. I'm not finished thinking and we're not out of here yet."
Draco goes quiet, letting her scheme. She squeezes her eyes shut and builds up charts in her mind. She wishes desperately for a scrap of parchment, but her mind will have to do. Diagrams and pictures are organized, scenes are played, and a plan starts to birth. She isn't going to have to wait for Harry and Ron to come save them. She's going to get them out herself.
TBC Next Sunday...
A/N: I know this one was kinda short, but I thought that would be a good place to end it.
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