Thank you very much, all those who read the previous part. I hope you enjoyed it. Onwards to Chapter One! Again, I claim nothing that is recognisable.
Chapter One
May 2nd, 1998
Malfoy Manor
Hermione looked around the room she'd been pushed inside in confusion. It was a small, but perfectly functional bedroom containing a bed, desk, bookshelf and a chest of drawers. A door standing ajar against the side wall appeared to lead to a small bathroom. The décor was classy, in fashionable neutral colours, the bookshelf on inspection proved to contain a tempting mix of muggle and wizarding classics, and the small window looked out over perfectly manicured parkland. Hermione blinked several times, utterly confused, and then jumped violently and pulled out her wand as a loud crack sounded behind her.
"Please, Madam Visitor, do not kill Miffie!" squeaked a house elf urgently, throwing itself face down on the floor as it spoke. Hermione lowered her wand.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"You is in Master Draco's secret room," the little elf explained, seeming calmer now she was no longer under threat. "Master Draco prepared it and told Miffie that if he ever brought someone here and left them, Miffie was to come and help them. And, Madam Visitor, if you do not mind Miffie saying so, you is looking like you needs help."
"I am not a visitor!" Hermione argued. "Your precious Master Draco captured me! I'm his prisoner, not his visitor!" The elf shook her head firmly, while inspecting Hermione closely.
"If you is a prisoner, you is in the dungeons," she said, in the manner of someone explaining something to someone very young. "This is not the dungeons; this is Master Draco's secret room. Anyone is here is visitor!"
"And how many 'visitors' have you entertained here?" Hermione asked, sarcastically. It appeared to be wasted on the elf.
"You is first," she replied simply. "Master Draco is not having many visitors at all now. Miss Pansy and Master Theo and Master Blaise once, but now Miss Pansy stays away and Master Blaise is gone and Master Theo is sad… so sad. Miffie does not like to see Master Theo so sad."
"I thought he was going to kill me," Hermione said wonderingly. This seemed to be becoming increasingly unlikely. The elf snorted.
"Master Draco? Master Draco is not killing people. Master Draco is probably plotting again. Miffie worries when Master Draco plots. Come, Madam Visitor, Miffie will prepare a bath. And food. And find some new clothes," she added, wrinkling her nose at Hermione's tattered and dirty jeans and jumper as she shooed her into the bathroom. "Master Draco will be back soon, he will," Miffie said with certainty. Hermione wished with all her heart that she found this as reassuring an idea as the house elf clearly did.
She showered at length, scrubbing the mud, blood and dust out of her hair and watching the dirty water wash away. Her brain was filled with images of Harry and Ron, and at one point she found herself crying in despair. She was sure, as Draco had said, that both would be dead by the end of the night. Finally, after staying under the hot water for so long that she'd lost track of time, she switched off the water and emerged to find a neat pile of plain but functional clothes lying on the bed. After Miffie's close inspection, she was unsurprised to find they were a perfect fit. Dressing quickly to combat the chill, she was just ready when she heard the crack of apparition from outside her little room and froze, suddenly terrified.
"Granger, get out here!" Draco called lazily. Clutching her wand firmly, Hermione emerged slowly and then threw herself on the floor beside the sobbing Katie.
"Katie? Oh my God, what are you doing here?" The two girls clung to each other, and Draco gave an exasperated sigh. They ignored him.
"Harry? Ron?" Hermione gasped. Katie burst into fresh tears, and Hermione joined her, drawing her own conclusions.
"Potter's dead," Draco said bluntly, while casting silencing spells on the room. "Weasley… well, I never thought I'd say it, but poor bastard. The Dark Lord is keeping him as a pet, essentially, to await his pleasure. You'd be as well considering him dead too." There was a fresh outburst of sobbing as the two women clung to each other. "Fucking hell... OK, enough of the cuddly stuff, you're Gryffindors, not Hufflepuffs. Get it together, we don't have much time. Now, should I take it as read that neither of you are overly happy with the way things have played out today?" Both girls gave him incredulous looks, Katie's slightly spoiled by the fact that she was still crying. Hermione was fairly sure that after the last few days and the outburst she'd just had, she had no tears left.
"Oh no, Malfoy, we're just delighted," Hermione finally snapped, when he continued waiting. "We really wanted to end up as your prisoners, and you know how much I loved my last visit to your home!"
"Can you stop that?" he demanded. "I'm on your side, for fuck's sake!"
"Forgive me for being sceptical," Katie put in bitterly. "You tried to kill me, you bastard!"
"No, I tried to kill Dumbledore," Draco said impatiently. "Not very well, I admit, but I did not try to kill you. Look, to put this bluntly since you're a pair of idiot Gryffindors, I want to re-form the resistance, just this time with a bit of Slytherin cunning and intelligence in it."
"We had intelligence!" Hermione snapped angrily.
"And we don't need fucking Slytherins!" Katie agreed.
"Forgive me for mentioning it, ladies, but I would say that you most definitely do need Slytherins," Draco said calmly. "Yes, Granger, you're smart. But you're more or less it, among the remaining leaders of the Order. I'm as smart as you are,"
"Almost," Hermione corrected.
"And so is Theo Nott, who I am almost positive has Ginny Weasley stashed away somewhere," Draco concluded, ignoring this.
"He said Ginny was dead!" Katie argued. Draco rolled his eyes.
"What did I say about needing intelligence? I said Granger was dead, and here she is. We lied. At least, I lied, and I'm fairly sure Theo did. As sure as anyone can be able anything with Theo. He's always been a dark horse and he's not getting any better with age and circumstance."
"I don't know much about Theo," Hermione admitted. "I remember he was in most of my classes with me. Small, dark, quiet, sat at the back. Why do you think he's defected other than the fact that he reported Ginny dead? She might actually just be dead. She'd be far from the only one." She swallowed hard to stop herself crying.
"For that matter, how do we know you have?" Katie demanded.
"You don't," he replied simply. "With Theo… well, I'm not telling you anything, it's his business. But trust me when I say that he's by far the most likely of us to defect. Pansy's a possibility too, and I'm not completely convinced of Goyle's loyalty either."
"Pansy Parkinson was trying to sell Harry out to You-Know-Who just hours ago!" Katie protested. Draco waved this away.
"Pansy's a coward, always has been. But essentially – and I know you don't believe this Granger – she's a good person. She shouldn't be a Death Eater."
"Bollocks," Hermione replied, deciding that some rudeness was excusable, given the circumstances. Draco sighed.
"She's a bully and a snob and she was nasty to you, yes, I know. But she's not bad. Anyway, she's also not involved at the moment."
"So your plan is that the three of us can take down You-Know-Who?" Katie looked almost amused. "Where do we start? Charge downstairs, wands out, and start cursing?"
"Don't be silly," Hermione said thoughtfully. "We'd have plenty of intelligence, I'm beginning to suspect Malfoy is as good a strategist as Ron, but we don't have anything like enough fighters. We'd have to do some sort of recruitment, which would be a challenge given that I'm dead and you're technically a slave, so we'd be relying on Malfoy... am I on the right lines?" she asked the blond. He raised an eyebrow.
"So you're in?"
"Hermione, you can't be! This is Draco Malfoy, for Merlin's sake!"
"Katie, we haven't got any choice. He's got us backed into a corner! If we say no, he either hands me over to Riddle and… well…"
"She means that if you say no, I'll have her killed and rape you until you beg for mercy. She's not exactly employing that famous intelligence – I told the Dark Lord you were dead, Granger, and that your body had been eaten by an acromantula. I'd be dead in seconds if I turned up alive with you now. As to raping Bell… I don't want to be offensive, but you're not exactly my type and frankly, even if you were, Weasley twin leftovers do not appeal."
"Likewise," Katie murmured. "Hermione, are you joining him?" There was a long pause.
"I am," Hermione said eventually. "I owe it to Harry and Ron to keep the fight going. Harry didn't die for nothing!"
"Very inspiring, Granger…"
"Hermione," she said firmly. "If we're working together, I need to distance you from the bullying arsehole I went to school with. You calling me Hermione will help that."
"If you say so. Bell?"
"Then I am too," Katie said, sounding resigned and ignoring the end of the previous conversation. "Where do we start?"
"We start with going to bed. Theo will be here in the morning and I'll sound him out then. Granger, you're supposed to be dead, you have your room. Don't come out it unless you're sure there's no one here but me and Bell. Bell, you're supposed to be my sex slave, you'll have to sleep with me."
"I can't wait," Katie sighed, as Draco stood back and ushered her before him into the bedroom.
Hogwarts
As the last of the Death Eaters disapparated from the Great Hall, taking the prisoners with them, the Hogwarts staff stared at each other in shocked silence.
"As long as you are employed to pass magical knowledge onto our deserving young people, your lives will be spared," Voldemort said. "I suggest that you begin work on clearing the castle. Students will be returning to you in due course, and you must be ready for them. It would be terrible if our beautiful school was portrayed as anything other than its' usual immaculate self. Let me see… it would be rude of me to disturb any of the gentlemen who have new… brides… with them. Miss Parkinson, I think," he said. There were a few seconds pause and then, with a crack, Pansy appeared in the middle of the hall and knelt.
"My Lord?" she asked nervously.
"Oversee the clear up for this evening please, Miss Parkinson. I expect at least this hall to be cleared by tomorrow morning."
"Yes, My Lord," Pansy replied. He smiled at her, and then disappeared silently. Pansy rose to her feet and surveyed the group who had, until earlier that day, been responsible for teaching her magic.
"We'd best get moving," she said, attempting to sound cold. "It won't go well for any of us if this is not cleared up by tomorrow." She strongly suspected from the sympathetic glance that McGonagall gave her that her attempt had failed. "Wait!" Pansy snapped. "Where's Potter's body? Did someone move it already?" There was a general murmur of dissent. "Then where is it?" she demanded, sounding frantic.
"Maybe someone took it back to your headquarters for the… celebration?" Professor Sinestra asked, her face twisting with distaste. Pansy paused.
"Maybe…?" she said hesitantly. "Clean up the rest anyway. I'll find out about Potter."
She seated herself on a bench that had previously graced the Slytherin table and stared uncomfortably at the patch of floor where Harry Potter had lay, dead, a short time before. She shivered as a breeze brushed past her and pulled her cloak more securely around her shoulders, watching as Hagrid, crying bitterly, picked up the body of Neville Longbottom and carried him outside.
"Regretting your side, Miss Parkinson?" a dry voice behind her asked. She turned, to find Professor McGonagall directing stones back into the castle wall with her wand.
"No," Pansy said sharply. The elderly professor raised her eyebrows. "The Dark Lord will restore the wizarding world to greatness," Pansy parroted.
"I see. I'll just carry on then," her former teacher said, sounding bored. "It's a shame, really. You had much more potential than you are showing now, Miss Parkinson. I wish you luck should you decide to show it in the future, as I am sure the rest of the faculty would too."
Nott Hall
Theo opened the door and ushered the trembling Hannah inside.
"I live alone. You're safe," he said simply, leading her up the stairs. Ginny Weasley was standing in the centre of the room that he'd put her in earlier, eyes flashing and wand out. She spun as the door opened.
"I don't know what… Merlin, Hannah!" she hurried to her friend, throwing her arms around the shaking girl. "What happened?" she demanded, her eyes on Theo. He swallowed uncomfortably, suddenly aware that he'd managed to end up saving the girlfriends of the two men he'd just watched die. Ginny twisted until her wand was pointed at him. "I swear, Nott, you'd better start talking!"
"Potter is… dead," Theo admitted reluctantly. Ginny paled, but remained firm, her wand steady.
"And?" she said.
"Longbottom…" Theo said, pointing awkwardly towards Hannah who was sobbing outright. Ginny tightened her grip.
"I don't know what your fucking plan is here, Nott, but I still have my wand and I'll hex your fucking balls off before you lay a finger on either of us, am I clear? You leave us the fuck alone!" she almost screamed.
"I don't want to…" Theo began, and then dodged as she sent a stunner directly at his head. "I'm not trying to…" he began again, before having to dive out the door to dodge the next spell.
"Just leave us the fuck alone!" Ginny screamed again, sounding like she was verging on hysterical. Theo accepted defeat and sat down outside the door as the sounds of devastated sobbing broke out inside, wondering for the first time if the instinctive plan he'd half formed as he cornered Ginny Weasley was anything other than utterly suicidal. Worse, somehow he had to face Draco tomorrow and pretend that he was fully in favour of hunting down the rest of the people who, he now realised, he'd much rather had won. He sat silently in the hallway for what seemed like hours until the sobbing finally stopped and the house descended into silence. Not wanting to leave his post – not wanting them to wake up and think they were alone – and wondering if he would do any good anyway when they did wake, Theo leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
I do love Miffie.