A/N Chapta Two = Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own the plot, and maybe some future characters, but nothing else.
Hermione was thrown down onto the cold, hard, floor. She whimpered in pain, but didn't say a word, in attempt to not let the death eaters see her show pain. It obviously didn't work because the one, who threw her down, was laughing at her.
She just lay down and took it, knowing that this was not where the pain truck stopped.
Soon the hood was taken off, and there standing next to her was Lucius Malfoy. She had not bothered to look and see who it was.
"Ah, so nice to see you child, it's been all too long..." he said to her
"Not long enough." Hermione whispered
He'd heard her much to her displeasure, and then he started circling around her observing her body.
"My, what a feisty little girl we have here, now I understand that you were raised by mudbloods no? Well I do hate mudbloods, almost as much as I hate Albus Dumbledore, and Harry Potter combined. But as hideous, and stupid as they are, they have invented a few useful tools, now given that we modify it using magic, this whip here becomes the most wonderful source of ultimate pain, even more so than the unforgivable curses. Now, I personally have never had used one of these things, but one of my good friends so let's just try this thing out shall we?"
He hit her once; her face became bloody, and began squirting hideous amounts of blood everywhere. Lucius cackled maliciously, Hermione cried out in pain.
There is so much blood, I have to die soon. It'll all be over soon, and then I can see mine and Harry's parents, and Dumbledore…
Twice, across the torso, Hermione cried out, it was a sound that awoke even the oldest souls in hell. The blood was pouring out of her faster than Hermione had even thought possible. Lucius chuckled in amusement. She closed her eyes, though it hurt she knew there was no fighting this and this was not something she'd want to witness on anyone much less herself.
I won't feel any more pain. I will be able to have a library the size of the Ministry in heaven. I can read all day and night. Maybe I can do charity work from up there too.
The sensation as her blood left her body was nauseating; because of the large sums it felt like someone had just sprung oil from her hips and chest.
Three times, she was hit so hard on the legs she heard the tibia and fibula bones snap like twigs. Lucius continued to laugh at her as she was breaking.
Something about this whip is making me stay conscious I should have gone into shock, or died by now from this much blood loss. Why is he such a sick man? How can he do this, this is a million times worse than any unforgivable, or killing curse.
Draco heard his father from down the hallway, and came to see what the bloody hell was so funny.
He barged in the prison cell, to see Hermione all twisted, and deeply hurt, she looked dead. If she weren't blinking and breathing he would have thought she was. Lucius was tearing up from enjoyment.
He looked up and saw Draco there, stopped and smiled. He walked over to his son, while wiping tears from his eyes. Saying,
"My son, you have got to try this thing it is the most wonderful thing ever made…"
Draco ignored that comment, saying "Father, she is supposed to be a guest in this household, what the bloody hell do you think you are doing to her?"
"Strengthening her, she looked all wimpy, and the dark lord said no wimps. Besides she deserved it, think of all the damage she has done to our people. She needed to learn the error in her ways."
Dark lord? I thought he was dead. My God this is bad. I have to find a way to tell the others!
"Well, you could have left that up to me, she is mine, not yours, go off and beat Bellatrix, and god knows she's been getting a little flabby these days…"
"Yeah, you're right…" and he went off in search of Bellatrix
As soon as he knew the door was closed and locked, he walked over to Hermione, cleaned her wounds, and carried her to his bedroom.
Okay so Draco is human? He's not murdering me, he's taking care of me. This is strange, what is going on?
He opened the door to his bedroom, and set Hermione down on his bed. She was pretty out of it, but she was sobbing. The pain was so very immense.
"Nancy, can you please come in here?"
Draco pleaded, and soon enough a little old witch came hobbling in, carrying in a large bag, and then she set to work on Hermione.
Nancy fixed large wounds, all over Hermione's body. Bones were healed Draco waited patiently, watching every move she made. Soon the wounds became healed. The old healer left the room.
But not before giving Draco a bottle, saying
"Here, give this to her every two hours it'll restore her blood. The major things have been fixed but she needs to rest no monkey business, I will be back tomorrow but your father and his ding bat friends did a lot of danger to Ms. Granger's health. I did what I could, and now she needs to stay in bed."
Draco nodded, and mumbled his thank you to her. As the door shut, Draco scrambled to get the bottle open.
It didn't take very long, but as soon as he did he pried Hermione's mouth open and poured the dosage of the thick, rancid smelling liquid down her throat. He massaged her larynx so she would swallow the liquid.
Draco waited for the medicine to react; the bottle said it should start working immediately.
He studied her hair, it was long and wavy. Draco was glad she had tamed down the frizzy mess that he had witnessed when they first met. It didn't suit her.
Her bone structure was fairly small. Then again, he didn't know how long she'd been held captive. He wouldn't have found her for God knows how long if he hadn't on the off chance decided to visit the dungeons and heard his father laughing so.
Draco also noticed freckles on her nose and cheeks. Years in the sun playing naturally…He envied her, his mother would never let him outside very much as a child she said his skin would burn being so pale.
His thoughts were disrupted as the color returned to her cheeks, and she opened her eyes coughing; she looked more like 'Mione and less like a ghost.
"Thank god!" Draco exclaimed as she sat up.
Hermione looked around, obviously very confused about where she was. Draco, looked at her tenderly, he reached over and stroked her cheek.
She jumped back, and stared confounded at his pointer finger. He gave her one of his smirks, just because he couldn't think of anything else to do.
Hermione coughed and cleared her throat.
Where to begin? Let's start with the basics.
"Draco, why did your father bring me here?"
-Flash back-
Hermione was massaging Harry's shoulders as she begged him to come home with her. She never got to spend time with him anymore. It was always work, work, work, Ron Weasley, work, work, work.
"Hermione, you know the importance of my job here at the ministry. I am the head of the aurors. If I don't finish these reports I'll be fired."
"Harry, I'm the secretary to the minister I help him run the country, but I don't send messages back and forth to Ron all day and I get my work done from nine to five. It's eleven now, I can't believe you're still not finished."
"I don't need someone to nag me Hermione. It's not just memos to Ron, there has been a lot more crime with Christmas coming. People getting desperate with the economy in a muck I suppose. There have been more armed robberies specifically but theft is usually the common denominator."
After a couple of minutes of silence Hermione began again.
"Harry, I know you can't leave but will you at least come and take a walk with me. It's so beautiful with the snow falling, and you'll feel more refreshed to come back to work afterwards. You'll be surprised how much the fresh air will help your work." Hermione said as she brushed the hair out of his eyes playing with the strands amorously.
Harry got up out of his chair and to the other side of this office far from her. "Hermione, do you see these stacks? I can't afford to take any breaks, I need to work on finishing them now, I only have six more hours until people start coming in for the day and it must be done by then."
Hermione click clacked across over to him offered to help "You know how fast I can pick up on paper work, its as though paper work were my calling and not government. If I help we can breeze through this and still have time to go home and go to bed." She said hugging his shoulders from behind as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
"HERMIONE! I have to finish this on my own, it is my job not yours! I am a head of the aurors not a blasted secretary, my work is very important. Now go home and I'll see you when I see you."
"Harry Potter, always so valiant! That's fine though, I don't need to help you but I don't need to be demeaned either. You know that I am not just a secretary you dolt." She threw up her arms and yelled in exasperation as she went to grab her coat, she came back with Harry's as well.
"Why do you have my coat?"
"You're walking me to the apparation point." Hermione stated as though it was obvious
"Oh come on! Can't you take a hint? I AM BUSY" Harry moaned and threw down a file
Hermione looked at him incredulously "Harry it's eleven forty-eight, I am not walking in the alleys at this hour alone."
"Hermione, you helped defeat the dark lord, do not tell me you're afraid of a little dark."
"Oh, it's not the dark I'm afraid of you dolt. It's the muggers and rapers."
"And you can't defend yourself? Besides you're being crazy we're by the ministry this is the safest area around"
"Look at your blasted desk, and floor, and file cabinets, and chairs they're filled with files of crimes in the last twenty-four hours! This isn't a joke the world is not a safe place right now, and I don't want to be alone. But not with you, at this point I would rather be with Draco Malfoy than with you!"
Hermione stomped off tripping a little on her ridiculous heels that she specifically wore for Harry to inspire the romance that hadn't existed in two months three days and twenty four minutes since the last time they had sex, lest cuddled. He was being rude, but he was stressed. She usually understood, but she missed her old Harry and loathed this new one.
Harry began to walk towards the stairs as she left and said "Wait!"
Hermione turned around smiled sweetly and said as tears went down her cheeks in frustration "No Harry, go back to your wife. She's waiting for you naked in your office clad only in paperwork."
She stomped out of the ministry sobbing, with a silencing spell around her not wanting to hear his rants as the swears started to pour. She didn't need this.
Mascara blurred vision, lungs aching from the cold after running for a mile and was now out of the way. She couldn't stop running, she was just so wound up and hurt from Harry.
Something on the ground tripped her and she fell onto the icy cobblestone. She took off the silencing spell to apologize it felt like she had tripped on someone. Hermione felt her self grabbed as an arm covered her lips to stop her from screaming.
"Please don't hurt me, I've got a couple of notes here just don't hurt me." She was trying to get away and felt as three sets of arms pushed her back into the cobblestone, hard.
Hermione cried out, struggling wouldn't help, and they clearly didn't want her money. They just wanted to hurt her.
"Ah funny to find you here Ms. Granger. We'd been waiting for you closer to the ministry, and then we had to come all the way over here to get you. Here's for the extra distance. Crucio." Hermione's whole body burned as she felt herself consumed by fire and as though a million nails were piercing her at once.
They ended the curse after only a few moments, Hermione whimpered.
"Here's what you need to know Granger. You're not a Granger, in fact you're really a Zambini. Blaise is your brother, he is nine months older than you. When the dark lord met you for the first time as an infant he predicted that you'd be the smartest and most gorgeous witch of the times. You were set to be his mistress, and have his child. After such you were to officially marry Draco Malfoy and have his heirs." The hooded man banged her head against the pavement again as he looked and heard a noise "We only have a few more minutes until we're found." He began to touch her upper legs and breasts "God, I've wanted you for so long. The dark lord was right about you, you lovely witch!" he said exploiting her
"What else?" She choked out sobbing
The hooded man pulled out a knife and slit her cheek from the corner of her lip to her jaw bone. Hermione cried out harder as the blood poured out.
"Did I ask you to speak witch? I said did I ask you to speak witch?" She shook her head
He got off of her kicking snow into her face; the slush absorbed the large amounts of blood that poured from her cheek wound.
"You are to marry Draco, and when the dark lord was to perish; you were said to take over his position to continue his calling and wipe out all muggle borns, and any other blood betrayers unfit to live. Thanks to your fiancé, you are the remaining heir to the dark lord's plan. If you don't report to the Zambini mansion in three months." He shoved a piece of parchment with an address on it "Then we will find you to complete the bearings. We'll see you then, remember sooner is better than later."
Hermione looked around for her wand and found it broken into pieces on the ground. She found her legs and used the brick wall to stand up again, falling to the ground she found her heel had broken and now she had twisted an ankle.
She sobbed and cried out "Someone help me! Please help me!" She fell for the final time having made it to the long steps of the ministry her blood pouring out still as she was found unconscious by Rita Skeeter a half an hour later.
Her images an embarrassment to the ministry's lack of security, and Harry wouldn't talk to her for nearly a month from the shame she brought to his department, not even while she was at St. Mungo's.
It didn't even matter though, after all the blood loss and head wounds she didn't remember the fight, until now that is.
-End Flash Back-
"We're supposed to be wed. We'll leave it at that for now." Hermione stared off into space for a few moments. She appeared to be remembering. She looked at him, and her eyes welled into tears, she bit her lip and touched her right cheek and although there was a concealing charm on the scar she could feel the cut. It wasn't a nightmare that she'd had, it was true.
"No, this can't be. I love Harry we were supposed to be wed tonight, the hall was reserved and everything. He probably thinks that I'm dead, oh no! What about my mum and dad? They'll set up a funeral and everything."
"You do not love Harry, at least Harry doesn't really love you. You don't deserve the life you'd have to live. And your parents are very aware of the situation…"
And in walked in Mr. and Mrs. Zambini, they looked surprisingly nice and cheery.
"Not them! I meant my muggle parents that I lived with my whole life…"
"No worries, as a little favor to you Blaise re-worked their memories to a miscarriage of Hermione. They're still sad, and never had anymore children but it's been over twenty years, they're moving on."
"You guys are sick!"
"No dear, you are. Now we'll let you rest a little, but I expect you to be down for dinner you know what to wear!"
"But!"
Hermione felt herself punished with a small electric shock enough to cause pain without further damage, but only just so.
"We will discuss this later. It is…eleven twenty-eight now. You have a meeting with your father at three-thirty to discuss your duties. You will learn your place. And you will do as you're told. Dinner will be at six-fifteen, you will not be late." Mrs. Zambini strode across the marble floors, her heels clicking as a dutiful wife's should.
Hermione grabbed one of the fluffiest pillows in Malfoy's bed, covered her face in it. Draco hopped up from his spot, thinking one thing and then being proved as she did exactly the opposite.
She wasn't killing herself, she was screaming; and very loudly so.
Hermione uncovered her face finally. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She noticed Draco by her bed, and pulled the covers over her face and judging from on top of the divot she curled into a ball, wailing.
"Are you in pain? Is there something I could do? Do you want me to get Nancy?"
"Its mental not physical dim-whit. There is nothing you can do, repressed memories are a bitch."
"What are you talking about?" Draco asked sitting down on the edge of the bed.
"I didn't remember what all of this was about. A couple of months ago after I found out, the idea literally made me sick. The stress of it all made my body hide the memory, I only just remembered. How could I be so stupid? Why did I hold it in? I could have said good bye. I could have stopped a wedding so Harry wouldn't be as hurt, I could have gone into hiding. I could have died, anything would be better than the amount of damage they expect me to perform."
"You were just talking about it as a repressed memory, you wouldn't remember it. Don't beat yourself up." She continued to sob,
Draco got up from his chair, and did something his mother only did once to him when he was nearly on his death bed. He took off his shoes and socks and climbed into bed he sat against the pillows and pulled Hermione between his legs so she could lean against him as he held her. She allowed it as she hugged a lump of covers and cried.
"Come on, we'll get through this. Tell me what's wrong." She kept her self curled now in the fetal position, and sobbed.
"Is it Harry? Are you upset you left Harry?" Draco quipped
Hermione nodded, and sobbed. She appeared to be having a mental breakdown. This was a lot deal with in such a short time.
"Breezy!" A little house elf appeared
"We'll need chamomile tea and honey. Please also bring some bread and soup she seems malnourished. I don't know how long my father has kept her locked downstairs."
"She's been in possession of the Malfoys for four days now; she was hassled by Master's friends March 28th in the morning."
Draco nodded, and Hermione took deep breaths trying to calm herself. Her head was beginning to hurt as she slowed down to a light cry.
She needed to be comforted. She leaned back into the crook of Draco's chest and arm and stared off.
Hermione in her anguish wiped her eyes on Draco's sleeve.
She gasped "I'm so sorry! I didn't realize this was real silk, this is going to stain!"
Draco shushed Hermione and said "This old thing? It is gross anyways I've been meaning to get rid of it for ages." Hermione smiled a little as she knew from the fibers of the shirt that it was actually quite new, and knew the worth and quality of it.
"I know we can't control these things and all, but I have a proposition. We have to get married, and we have to get married within the next week or so as the plans state. That I have no control over, it's been prophesized over, and I can't really change that. But we'll have a charades of sorts, and pretend to go along with everything. We'll fit the image of happy couple, when you are finally ready if ever at all, we will arrange a vacation and have our own ceremony and celebrate through our own means, not by those of the first.
"I know how hard this is for you. You were supposed to marry Potter, and although he was actually quite mean to you, you loved him. On top of that, you've seen some pretty horrid things these last three months as I understand, much less these last four days. We'll take our time, OK? All you need to do is be a good actress, and I know you can." He smirked
Hermione drank the tea the house elf got for her, and ate the soup as Draco held her. Draco called for Nancy to bring her a pain potion even though his family didn't usually believe in them
"You need to be strong, even in hardship!" Lucius would say to him even as a boy.
"Are you sure young Malfoy? I mean if Lucius found out…"
"This, is Lucius' fault. She is in so much pain, and she needs to rest. She won't be able to get her strength back if she can't even rest." Nancy agreed and didn't say anything else, it could be seen she was worried for them.
It was three-forty five when Rob (long for Roberto) Zambini stormed in, whip in tow and began screaming at a passed out Hermione.
"We told you three-thirty wench! You're late, you will pay." He marched over to the other side of the long room and stopped when he noticed that not only was she sleeping, but that she was sleeping in Draco's arms.
"Oh, um, hello Draco." He stammered and tucked the whip in his back pocket to try and conceal it.
"Hello Rob, do you mind not screaming at my fiancé? She's been beaten nearly to death for the last four days and needs to recover before the wedding." Draco snarled
"But- Her duties. She must know her place, and realize what she must do." Rob shifted nervously it terms of hierarchy of pureblood families the Malfoys were ranked number one, and currently the Zambinis were are at about an eight. The wedding, and Hermione's new stature in dark society would boost their class, but Draco could still boss him around.
"She's remembered her duties, and no thanks to your men she's scarred. How would you ever expect someone to want to give up their life for yours, especially after knifing her jaw, and nearly raping her?"
"How do you know about that?" Rob turned white as the suntan ran from his face.
"She's going to be my wife, I know everything. I will get even, I would now if she wasn't in my arms. But I will tell, you and you better listen good. If this abuse doesn't end right now for my wife, I think you'll find yourself foreclosed I own a good share of Gringotts and you wouldn't want to find yourself socially ostracized now would you? I didn't think so, Crucio. Silencio. Expellaramous." Someone would eventually find the silenced tortured man; he set a timer on his wand for three minutes that should do it.
No one would treat his wife like a common slave, no one.
A/N Thanks to all who reviewed chapter one over the years:
Sarah-Anna, Heather, cait, yappycat, LondonLover34, Juicy-Fuit for Drako, kriCket x0, LadyMalfoy730, Chikara, ray, Reverand Pasha, A.L. Cullen, Hermione Kat, xVibrating Spazoid, HarryPotterFreakEver, Sapphos-Daughter, Magicke Moste Evile, summer, Inherent, Emma Barrows, MRS SASSER, Kikisstuff, and ForeverInUrArms
You guys are all so awesome! I love re-writing this it is so fun and yay I finally have time to give it the attention it needs. Sorry if the changes irritate you (a lot of you really liked the original) however its all good. And if you have something you want to add, or make sure it stays in the story either review or message me.
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