"No, no, stop! Please stop! I
didn't mean to! It wasn't my fault! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"
Those were the first words Hermione heard upon waking. She
kept her eyes closed and listened intently to the pitiful voice going
from screaming, to
pleading, and back to a bellowing roar. Before
she opened her eyes Hermione
wanted to know where she was and what
was going on. Over the past six months she had found herself waking
up in so many different places and situation. She had learned from
experience that opening her eyes as she woke was not always the
safest thing to do.
"Please, please! Father! Master!
Professor! Oh, please, Professor, help me! I'm sorry! Please help
me…" the voice trailed off into a mumbling whisper.
Hermione did open her eyes, then. Who ever was lying next to her was
either being tortured or delirious and she needed to help them. She
found herself
staring up at gray stones that she was not at all
familiar with. The screaming and moaning was coming from directly
below her left ear. She could feel someone's hot panting breath on
her neck. A breath filled with misery and despair and something else
Hermione couldn't name. In order to establish whom the person was.
Hermione sat up and looked over her shoulder. First all she could see
was pale blond hair; so pale it was almost white. The head turned and
Hermione was exposed to a face even paler than the hair. Malfoy's
eyes were closed and there was dried blood all over his nose. The
corner of his lower lip was swollen and scabbed over.
Hermione scooted herself over to the other side of the small room and
shivered with disgust. She was in a room with no door and her only
company was a young beaten up death eater that had gone mad in the
process. His arms and legs were flailing as if he were trying to
escape some past horrors that he was reliving in his present state.
The evening before reentered Hermione's thoughts and she remembered where she was and what had happened. She remembered the bleeding and the translucency of his arm and the helplessness in his voice. She remembered the dying and the end of the war. The bleeding…with a start, Hermione stood up and cast about her for her wand. The Death Eaters had been messy and had forgotten to separate Hermione from it. She eventually spotted it in the corner near Malfoy's head.
"Malfoy, Malfoy, lie still for a moment, will you!" Hermione shouted, a bit afraid of going so near him while he was having that… tantrum, for lack of a better word. She was trying to if not wake him, at least to quell his rage.
"Put me down! This instant!" he shouted to the air imperiously, "Please, Master, I meant no harm! I'll be good! I'll come back! I didn't…" He begged. This was Malfoy's only response to Hermione's request.
Taking desperate measures to get to her wand, Hermione sat on top of her archenemy and attempted to pin down his hands with one of hers while reaching over him for her wand. After about fifteen unsuccessful minutes, she managed to grab her wand. First, she pointed it at the huge gash in his stomach and muttered "SANAREMAGNO!" The wound began to scab over a bit and transformed into a much less cavernous injury. Now it was simply a wide, but not dangerous. Hermione exhaled in relief as she stood up. Shallow cuts, she could deal with. Shallow cuts were not life threatening, well, most of the time. Hermione herself had a multitude of wide shallow cuts herself. Try as she might, there was no way Hermione could position herself so she could heal his right arm; he was thrashing so much in his sleep, she only caught glances of it. it looked as if his Dark Mark had opened up and was trying to kill him via blood loss.
Now, the question rose in her mind, how does one exit a room with no door? ' Make a door' she thought to herself, in answer to her question. "DEMOLIRI WALL!" She shouted, directing her wand to the gray stone and using all her willpower to force the blocks apart. Nothing happened. Perhaps, a bit of dust fell out of one of the miniscule cracks, but that was all.
"No! Stop! I don't want this anymore! Stop! It hurts!" Malfoy shouted, his arms flailing madly. Before Hermione could do anything to stop it, she heard the crack of bone hitting stone as Malfoy's wrist hit the wall with inconceivable force. He howled in pain and his eyelids fluttered for a few moments then all was silent except for a few quick and shallow breaths.
"Great," Hermione thought outloud, "There's no way for us to get out of here. I am going to die with my archrival as my last sole companion. Even though I survived the war, I am going to die anyway."
As she said this, Hermione heard a loud creaking as the huge rocks that composed a wall began to shift apart. Malfoy had been much more useful than Hermione had ever fathomed.