"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself,
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself." - D.H. Lawrence

Chapter Four: Hiding in Plain Sight

Hermione was silent for most of the next day, not feeling the need to speak to him. The trees were thinning out and there were open fields somewhere off to their right, the dull roar of farming equipment leading them presumably closer to a town.

"Stay right here," Draco muttered, setting Hermione down, "I'll be back in a second." He was carrying that tone again, that defeated, depressed and quiet tone.

As she heard him move away, Hermione felt the ground underneath her. It was grassy, not like the crunching and squishing of the woods behind them. Could she escape now? It depended on how long he was going to take. If she screamed for help, would anyone hear her? And if someone did hear her, were they going to be the right people?

She stood hastily and took off as fast as she could, trusting her remaining senses to help her avoid trees. After only half a minute, she crashed to the ground, having tripped over a fallen tree trunk. She cried silently.

I'm never getting away from him.

"I told you to stay, stupid!" Draco fumed when he found her, tossing something heavy on the ground next to her. "I had to get something." He rummaged through the duffel bag, pulling out a small jar and a pair of sunglasses. "Put these on." He handed them to her.

"What do I need this for?" she asked, turning the new item over in her hands.

"We're staying the night in this village. I can't have you looking like an insect - it attracts attention." He unscrewed the jar and fished in his pocket for the panacea sap, putting it, leaf and all, into the jar and screwing on the lid.

Hermione snorted at his blind declaration of ownership over her appearance, but wiped her face nonetheless, trying to remove any dirt that was there. "What do you care if I look like a ghoul?"

"Well, I can't help your ugliness, can I, Granger? You'll get a proper shower soon." Hermione ignored his putdown, as she was getting used to doing already.

Walking to the village was not as conspicuous an affair as Draco had originally thought it would be. The sun was shining, which made Hermione's sunglasses not so out of place, and his tight grip on her arm kept her walking in the correct direction. He couldn't help that she had a way of looking a little bit too high up than was necessary, so some people could suspect that she was either extremely pompous or extremely blind. If those people suspected the latter, they did not comment.

Hopefully, the Death Eaters had no spies in the village on the lookout for them, because that would be bad news for both of them.

It was a little too early to check into an inn, but he did so anyway.

"Where are we?" she asked after he had opened the door to a room.

"We're in a town called Shandwick. I stayed here for a while before going to Edinburgh."

Hermione nodded, grateful that he had divulged this information.

"I call shower first. Don't even think about leaving."

He pushed her lightly into a chair, and she immediately snuggled into the cushions, ignoring the stiff fabric and the chair's groan of protest. Was he insane for actually putting them in a village, where anyone could see them or the Death Eaters could find them? He had stayed off the road before, but now he was putting them potentially in the view of their enemies.

"What are we doing here?" she asked, not trying particularly hard to make him hear her.

"Stop it with the questions," he called over the running water.

"Do you have money?"

"I said shut it."

He was known for his wealth, but she had no idea how much he had. He'd managed to put them in an inn, so he must have enough to throw away at something like that. She sincerely hoped that he was stupid enough to charge it directly to his account at Gringotts - the Ministry could know his location instantly, and he'd be caught in the blink of an eye.

Her blindness was an issue as well, and if there was a way to cure it, they needed to know that cure so she wasn't such a burden. Whether or not he would do that for her remained to be seen; there was still the possibility that he was one of the Death Eaters still and would have rather her be blind and wandless to make it easier for his bunch to detain her later.

She got up, letting her hands do the seeing for her. She was beginning to overcome the fear of the constant darkness she saw; she was now more frightened of her own movements, as she had not realized before how quick they were. She sometimes had to remind herself that she was still alive and that there was still a world going on around her; often times, everything felt like a movie with nothing but audio. It took all of her energy to piece together sounds and single out certain things.

"Your turn," he said flatly, tugging on her arm.

When he released her, she hugged her arms to her body, shrinking away from his presence as the water started up again. His eyes assessed her afterwards, and she could almost hear him bristle with anger at her sudden nervousness.

"Don't flatter yourself, Granger. That is the farthest thing from my mind right now," he said lowly.

Hermione ducked away and felt along the edge of the bathroom - cool, wet tiles lined the walls.

She rested her hands on them as the sound of the running shower became deafening, and she was pushed forward.

"I'll be around," he said shortly, recovering enough to shove a towel into her arms. "Take your time - you smell."

Hermione narrowed her eyes in his general direction and started to remove her shirt.

"We've got them."

His master did not move, nor did she give any inclination that she heard him. He continued uncertainly.

"They're staying in Shandwick at the town inn. Both of them."

"Arrange some forces then. I want them brought here within the hour."

He stared at her blankly, wondering at the brutality of this task. A ripple of pain shot through him.

"Now, if you please."

On the other side, Ronald Weasley sat thinking, something that he had not wanted to do ever since he received the news. Her attempted kidnapping and now disappearance was devastating timing, considering that they had barely gotten into their relationship. They had just gotten their lives back on track. Now they had more trouble to deal with, more stress and pain to work through...

... and a very valuable member of their team was missing, someone the two of them could not live without.

"Where's Harry?" he asked his sister quietly. He needed to talk to his best friend more than ever.

Ginny shook her head, wiping drying tears from her face.

"He's gone village hopping."

Ron looked over at Kingsley, who had answered for his bawling sister. It was typical of them - Harry was always the first one to spring into action, while Ron sat dealing with his emotions. He nodded, hoping that Harry was finding something out. He could feel the itch that he got when the three of them went on some sort of adventure; it had been so long since they had gone sneaking around, puzzling things out, breaking the rules.

It was time.

Hermione felt her way over to the shower, her hands outstretched to feel the consistency of the air get thicker as she neared the hot water. She had discarded her jeans, shirt, and sandals on the floor, not caring enough to find a suitable surface to drape them over. She was too eager for her shower.

She got in, still wearing her underwear, and let the hot water burn through the grime and the dead skin. She relaxed her shoulders and turned around, feeling the water change directions and spray against her back.

The darkness that she saw constantly made everything around her exactly the same, and yet so completely different. She wondered at this, contemplating how everything around her was a large black hole, and yet was composed of all kinds of different textures, consistencies, and viscosities. She could feel changes in the very air that she would not have been able to feel otherwise; sensations like the inkling of clandestine eyes watching her became more acute and more recognizable. She could feel the air shift around her more, feel the magic in her skin reach out to test everything.

She felt around the shower now, looking for something to wash herself with. Her hands grazed something wrapped in paper, and she took up the bar of soap gleefully, ripping off the wrapper with shaking fingers. Oh, glorious cleanliness! She lathered her arms.

Draco thanked the storekeeper and left the shop, looking at his new wand. He gave a little flick and levitated a nearby rock.

They now had magic on their side. He put it in his pocket, walking back to the inn with his new items.

Once inside their room, he pulled out a pair of jeans, a casual green shirt, and a beige jacket, hoping all of these things fit Hermione - he had gotten them for her, as they didn't have time for cleaning and drying her old clothes. The bathroom door was open - he went inside without hesitation.

"Hey!" Hermione said, hearing him coming.

"I can't even see you. I'm just putting some clean clothes out."

Hermione stopped cowering in the corner of the shower. "You... what?"

"You're not deaf too, I hope. There are clean clothes right here. Just get dressed." He left with that.

Hermione took off her underwear and wrung it out, thinking about this. He'd actually gotten her clean clothes? What was he on about? Surely he did not want to waste his money - however abundant it was - on someone like her. He must have been doing it for appearances.

She stepped away from the water, not bothering to figure out how to turn it off, and felt around for the towel she had dumped on the floor. She dried herself, wondering what clothes he had gotten for her. Hopefully they were something practical.

Draco stopped organizing the bag as something entered his consciousness.

Oh no. Someone was trying to rummage around in his brain.

They were coming.

Draco threw everything on the bed into his bag and stormed into the bathroom, catching Hermione just as she buttoned up the pair of jeans he'd layed out for her.

"We have to leave, now," he said, ignoring her shriek and gathering up her clothes; her hands flew out to cover her bare chest, but he wasn't looking. He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her through the door, and then ran to grab some of the toiletries from the bathroom, leaving Hermione shivering and shirtless in the room.

"What - "

She was interrupted by an explosion behind her, and was promptly hit in the back of the head with a piece of wood, followed by a blast of air and a thousand tiny shards against her bare back. She whipped around to face the source, only to remember that her eyes were not shut.

"Petrif - "

Draco burst back into the room, wrapped his arms around Hermione's waist, and disapparated.