Hermione's POV

Bellatrix sneers.

"Cissy!" she called and with a flick of her wrist, she beckoned to Harry and Ron who she had just pushed away from me towards Draco's mother. "Put the boys in the cellar!" she called gleefully as she took yet another step towards me. "I want to have a little conversation with this one...Girl to girl!" Bella was right in front of me, her face inches from my own. She titled her head, her wide eyes locked onto my own which were filling up with tears already while I tried to keep my breathing steady. The moment Narcissa Malfoy and Peter Pettigrew ushered Harry and my Ron towards down the staircase, complete panic set it. Ron looked my way once more with horror in his eyes. I went to whisper his name but then he was gone.

I knew whatever was coming was not going to be pleasant. I was right. Bella moved so quickly I didn't see her hand before it was too late. Her palm cracked against my cheek so sharply that my vision blurred for a moment with tears while my cheek stung and burnt. I gasped and held my cheek, turning away from Bella but suddenly her long, bony fingers were in my hair. Soft at first, like she wanted to brush through them but instead her fingers hardened and, using a handful of my already tangled hair, yank me back towards her.

I cried out at the pain as she tore out clumps of my hair and I hit the hard, polished wooden floor. My sore cheek slapping against it to add injury to further injury. I heard the sound of Bella's boots as she moved around me, walking slowly until her boots were before my face. "I've heard of you..." she whispered, using the tip of her boot to kick my shoulder until I lay on my back with her gawking down at me, a smile on those pale lips. "Hermione Granger. The brightest witch of her age. If you were bright even in the slightest you would have ran a long, long time ago. Now look where you are..."

She lowered herself down and lifted my chin slightly with the edge of a sharp, diamond shaped knife with a black, wooden knob-like handle. Her eyes were once again mere inches from my own. Wild. Unmoving. Insane. "You're with me."

I screamed again. Bellatrix straddled my waist, pinning me to the ground by pressing that sharp blade to my throat. Panicked sobs escaped my lips, terrified that taking in too big a breath would cause the blade to slip and kill me. I tried to breathe. Tried to remain calm but her barely audible whispering and laughter kept my skin-crawling. Kept a thought repeating in my mind, over and over again.

You're going to die.

She mumbled something I didn't hear and when I didn't answer her, she clenched her free hand into a fist and threw a punch so quick I didn't realize she had hit me until my eye begun stinging. Her hard calloused knuckles only adding to the blow. She lowered herself down until her eyes were the only thing I could see. Those huge, wild, crazed black eyes burrowing their way into my soul.

"That sword is meant to be in my vault at Gringotts! How did you get it?" She whispered. I sobbed, trying to wiggle myself free but she pinned me down, the blade at my throat once more. "What else did you and your friends..." she whispered, "Take from my vault!" She screeched so highly it hurt my ears.

I muffled a sob, "I didn't take anything.." I begged, "Please! I didn't take anything!" My voice broke. Bellatrix began shaking her head with an arrogant smirk on her lips.

"I don't believe it." She twisted and pinned my arm to the wooden floor and pressed the edge of that sharp, rusted blade to my skin. I began screaming. As the point of her knife carved deep into the soft flesh of my inner arm, I found myself involuntarily screaming in her ears but it had no affect on her. My hands begun shaking, banging on the wood, my nails making distinctive markings. I began to trash beneath her, causing my boots to kicking the wood. Anything. Anything to distract myself from the intense, searing pain.

"Enough! Want more?" She whispered,

"Please! No!" she didn't stop. "Ron!" I scream but it's lost in her laughter. After another few minutes my voice, burnt and broken and aching, stopped screaming and I found I couldn't scream any longer. I couldn't. My lungs burnt and my muscles ached and I couldn't fight anymore. A moment later she rolled away from me and got to her feet and then kicked me in the ribs, causing my bold to fold around her foot in agony,

"Wormtail?" She asked and he appeared. I couldn't see him. All I could see was her boots and his dirty shoes as he hurried over.

"Yes? Ma'am?"

"Fetch the goblin..." she whispered. He hurried down the stairs towards the dungeons. I must have passed out at some point, one moment his blurry outline was hurrying away and the next Griphook was stood beside me with Bellatrix circling him slowly. I head the echoing of her heels as she moved. Griphook's unsteady breathing. The sound of my heart drumming in my ears, slowing down as the pain lessened.

"I'm only going to ask you, once more, Goblin," she said, "Now think very, very carefully before you answer."

"I don't know." His reply was quick, low and definite.

"You don't know?" she asked in mock-horror, "Why weren't you doing your job?" her voice was low, barely a whisper, "Who-" her voice begun to rise, "Got in-" and louder, "To my VAULT!" Her scream echoed throughout the house and its many halls for almost a full minute. I couldn't see anything but the dark wooden panelling of the wall and I found myself, for some unknown reason, counting the number of swirls on the wallpaper. Suddenly something moved in the corner of my eye, I flinched, believing it to be Bellatrix but it wasn't. It wasn't human. It was a hair. It was a single strand of hair, billowing around the air like in a storm of invisible waves until it lowered and came to rest upon my sleeve. Just beside the word she had carved into my arm...

Mudblood

"Who stole it? Who stole it? Well?" She repeated.

"When I was last in your vault, the sword was there." Griphook replied.

The letters on my arm were jagged, ugly and permanent. Mudblood. Forever.

"Oh, well then, perhaps it just walked out on its own then?" she joked, coming to stop in front of the goblin. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, leaning towards him slowly.

"There is no place safer than Gringotts-"

Before he finished, her hand swiped and her blade slide across his high cheek, opening a line of blood. "LIAR!" she roared. Griphook just looked away. Bellatrix rose then and begun to move once more; panic set in as her heels informed me she was drawing close. "Consider yourself lucky, Goblin." She murmured, "The same won't be said for this one."

Death.

"Like Hell!" A voice, an all too familiar and beautiful voice called over the sound of her laughter and it filled me with something.

Love. Hope. Life. Ron.

"Expelliarmus!" Ron roared.

"Stupefy!" Harry called.

My boys. I couldn't see them. I knew if I really tried then I could have moved my head but I didn't try. I was weak and hurt and I couldn't do it. But I could see flashes of bright light: blue and red and gold. The sound of grunting and spells clashing, the hurry of multiple footsteps and yelling.

A hand closed around my own and a smile crossed my lips. Ron. No. Bellatrix leaned down low, a snarl smeared across her features as she tightened her grip and hauled me to my feet as if I weighed nothing. My feet planted on the wooden floor, shaky but still. I went to run, to fight but Bellatrix wrapped her arm around me and held her blade to my throat.

Before us, Ron, Harry, Narcissa and Draco were duelling. With a flick of a wrist, jets of multicoloured light issues from the tips of their wands. "Drop your wands!" Bella screamed, "I said drop em!" The duel ceased. Ron looked up and our eyes locked before Bella tugged on my tangled hair and forced my head up, revealing the blade and my throat to the boys and causing me to see nothing but the dull ceiling and the giant, glass chandelier, decorated with craved crystal and bending metal.

"Pick them up. Draco. Now!" she whispered, I presumed the rushing of footsteps was Draco. Bellatrix chuckled, her hot breath tickling my neck. "Well, well, well. Look what we have here," she beamed. "It's Harry Potter. He's all bright and shiny and new again, just in time for the Dark Lord." The sound of heavy breathing was all I could hear. "Call him." her voice called across the room. "Call him!" she echoed. Lucius Malfoy walked forward then, I could see the ends of his long, silvery hair. I tried to breath but she pressed the blade in deeper. I heard the ruffle of clothing and nothing.

I knew we would die. Soon Voldemort would arrive and spare none of us. Our mission would have been for nothing. This was the end. Our end. Then I saw something...

My brows furrowed as I stared at the chandelier, watching as something moved, clinging to the chain holding the chandelier to the ceiling. The sound of twisting metal screws caught everyone's attention. Then I saw him...

Dobby!

Bellatrix glanced upwards then at the sound of the noise but she was too late. Suddenly the chain-links tore with a metallic snap and the glass beast came hurtling towards me. Bellatrix screeched highly, releasing her grip on me and as she pushed herself away from me, she propelled me forward. I tried to walk but found my knees collapsing. Luckily, pair of arms was there to catch me. Just as I looked up to admire the face of an angel, my angel, the chandelier hit the ground and exploded. Glass and metal blew around the room, hitting me and getting stuck in my hair and on my clothes, the shards skittering across the wooden planks.

Harry shot past me towards Draco who was getting to his feet and wrestled three wands from his gasp. Lucius ran forward but Harry rose all three wands "Stupefy!" he yelled and I watched as the blast of magic took Lucius off his feet and sent him soaring over the furniture into the shadows of the corner of the room.

"Are you okay?" Ron whispered.

"I love you," Was all I sobbed into his clothes as he helped me to my feet and we made our way across the room to where Dobby had just appeared. Bellatrix walked forward.

"Stupid Elf! You could've killed me!"

"Dobby never meant to kill," Dobby replied humbly, "Dobby only meant to maim or seriously injure."

Narcissa rose her wand but with a snap of his fingers, the wand flew from her grasp into Dobby's.

"How dare you take a witches wand!" Bellatrix screeched once more, "How dare you defy your masters!"

"Dobby has no masters," Dobby stood a little taller with his chin raised high and a determined yet angry smile on his lips, "Dobby is a free Elf! And Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!" Harry and Griphook held a hold of one of Dobby's arms, Ron and I reached for the other, but kept onto one another. I never wanted to let go. The last thing I was of the Malfoy Manner was Bellatrix throwing her blade towards us, the glint of light reflecting of the end.

FanWriter's Note: Hey guys! New chapter is finally up, a short one but I hope its okay. Can't want to get writing the next! Let me know what you think

~FanWriter Asher~