"We've got Potter!" Greyback's gravelly voice sounded past the gates of the Manor. "We've captured Harry Potter!" Hermione shivered, eyes flitting about to find Harry every time she was rocked and shaken in the efforts to drag her to the Malfoy home. She needed to protect him and Ron. Anything for Harry and Ron.
Their capturers discussed them as if they weren't even there, trying to convince each other of the identities of their abductees. Finally Narcissa Malfoy led the pitiful crew into her home and sitting room. The room was spectacular but none of the prisoners could bother to inspect the room properly, Harry, Ron, and Hermione kept their eyes on each other, desperately trying to communicate and decide on a functional escape plan.
"They say they've got Potter," said Narcissa, nodding at her husband and son. "Draco, come here."
"Well, Draco?" said Lucius. "Is it? Is it Harry Potter?"
"I can't – I can't be sure," Draco stared into Harry's eyes, not bothering to inspect his face properly because he already knew. Draco stepped back, eyes skirting the figures of Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. He seemed disturbed by the circumstances, his own schoolmates were being held captive in his home, sure they hadn't liked each other much, or at all really. Though he still knew they were people and Draco was admittedly too soft to wish harm on them. Not that he would widely broadcast it, but Draco was not his father. Lucius and Greyback bickered about who would get the glory of turning the group to the Dark Lord, Hermione kept her eyes locked on Harry's until she felt another pair of eyes staring at her. Draco Malfoy's silver eyes bore into her and Hermione couldn't help but scowl, nothing good could come of this unforeseen visit. He halfheartedly identified Hermione and Ron, though he seemed quite reluctant about it, and for that hesitation Hermione couldn't help but feel somewhat appreciative. Though hadn't done them a lick of good once his father decided it truly was them and Bellatrix appeared, only too happy to claim the glory of their capture for her family. But just to be sure, Bellatrix refused to summon her Lord until she knew, she had to be sure.
Narcissa made for them to be sent away. "Take these prisoners down to the cellar, Greyback."
"Wait," Bellatrix grinned ferally. "All except. . . . except for the Mudblood." Her eyes zeroed in on the only other curly-haired witch in the room. Hermione balked.
"No!" Ron bucked against his restraints. "You can have me, keep me!" Bellatrix spared no time in striking him across the face.
"If she dies under questioning, I'll take you next," Bellatrix sniffed snobbily. "Blood traitor is next to Mudblood in my book. Take them downstairs, Greyback, and make sure they are secure, but do nothing more to them – yet."
Harry and Ron stared at Hermione as they were pulled from the room, already the swelling in Harry's face was going down. Hermione was afraid to be left alone with her 'hosts' but she was grateful that Harry would be down in the dark dungeons when his identity would become blatantly obvious, he would be safe for just a while longer, buying them time to make an escape plan and they would come for her. She kept a strong face for them until they were gone, then she crumpled in on herself. She heard them calling for her and it made her feel so small.
"How did you get into my vault?" Bellatrix screamed at her. "Did that dirty little goblin in the cellar help you?"
"We only met him tonight!" Hermione sobbed, praying her mendacity would go undetected. "We've never been inside your vault. . . . It isn't the real sword! It's a copy, just a copy!"
"A copy?" Bellatrix screeched manically. "Oh, a likely story!"
"But we can find out easily!" Lucius called. "Draco, fetch the goblin, he can tell us whether the sword is real or not!" Hermione's torture continued and she couldn't keep herself from screaming, no matter how hard she tried to keep her teeth clenched. She could feel Bellatrix marking up her arm, horizontally on her forearm where Bellatrix's own dark mark lay. The pain was excruciating. Hermione prayed for death.
The goblin covered for them, lying about the quality of the sword in their possession. They were not yet caught in their lie. Unfortunately, this did not sate Bellatrix's bloodlust.
Harry and Ron, who had snuck out of the dungeons, peeked into the room to find Hermione lying still at Bellatrix's feet.
Bellatrix touched her wand to the Dark Mark, summoning her Lord now that she was convinced the sword was a fake and that Potter was truly in her basement. The pain of Harry's scar nearly debilitated him.
"And I think," Bellatrix giggled, "we can dispose of the Mudblood. Greyback,take her if you want her."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Ron's temper got the best of him, he stormed into the drawing room, wand drawn.
"STOP OR SHE DIES!" Bellatrix held a still inert Hermione upright, a short silver knife to her throat. "Drop your wands. Drop them, or we'll see exactly how filthy her blood is!"
When no one moved she pressed on, "I said, drop them!" Pressing the blade harder to Hermione's throat, blood appeared.
"All right!" Harry and Ron surrendered and held their hands up compliantly. In a rush of events, the chandelier fell, disrupting everything in the room, Dobby had returned to save them. Ron hurried over to Hermione but Harry stopped him with a firm grip to his forearm, both sets of eyes were locked on Hermione's still form, she still wasn't moving. "I don't know, Ron." Her body lay in front of the deranged witch, running up to Hermione was a risk, almost certainly a death wish.
Broken crystals lay on the floor, some were lodged in Hermione's body and some in Bellatrix who lay on the floor as well, the Malfoys had stood far enough to only have little bits around their feet.
"I think she's…" Harry muttered.
"No.. No no- no- no.." Ron mumbled, eyes on Hermione's body, just noticing all the blood on the floor around her and staining her clothing.
"We need to go." Harry reached out for Dobby, not letting go of Ron as they disapparated to Shell Cottage, staring in horror as they noticed Hermione's eyes open just as they popped out of the room. She had been alive after all.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The Malfoys looked at each other frightfully, Voldemort was on his way and they had lost their ticket back into his good graces. All they had to show for it was a quickly drying ruby pool of blood and the barely breathing body of a broken little witch. Draco fell to his knees to dry heave. Bellatrix threw herself to her feet furiously scanning the room.
"Get up, Draco." She hissed in a cold voice. "Up!" She screeched when he found himself unable to stop his stomach from revolting, there was no food to spit up though, he'd been too anxious to eat or sleep properly for months. "The Dark Lord will arrive any moment now, get up." She stared down at him almost pitifully, he was family after all, even if he was weak. Draco reined in his sense of control and stood up slowly, watching the frail and frightfully thin body of his schoolmate on the floor. Bellatrix scowled and kicked the body of Hermione Granger as if she was trying to punt her across the room. "Stupid muddy. Who let the prisoners free?" She looked up to her sister, who called for Greyback.
"Who let this happen, Fenrir?" She didn't even spare the man a glance. He huffed, unhappy to do as bid, but still following directions under the promise of them handing the girl over. He returned quickly, holding Wormtail by the scruff of his collar.
"Guess." He barked, dropping the pathetic man at their feet before turning to poke at Hermione who lay prone on the floor still. "I'll be off now." He grabbed her by her hair and began lifting her into his arms by it.
"No." Lucius stopped him. "You must be here when he comes, you were responsible for this as well. And she is our only true physical proof that he was here." He sneered at the girl, half suspended in the air, eyes cracked as she faintly cringed at the pain from the pull at her scalp.
"Sod off." The werewolf lifted her up, standing straight as he began his walk to the door before he felt the familiar sensation of an imperio telling him to stop and turn around. Put the girl down, stay until He arrives. The voice whispered from the back of his consciousness, and he was suddenly happy to do it.
A dramatic flash of light took over the room after Greyback had set Hermione down and went to stand by the Malfoys and Bellatrix. They all knelt before him.
"What was I summoned for, Lucius?" His red eyes struck a disconnected, vague sense of fear into Hermione as she watched this blurry figure slowly glide to her side of the room.
"Potter. He was here." The blond man's hair wasn't tied back and it fell into his face.
"You let him go?" The wizard's eyes narrowed as they landed on the Malfoy family.
"Pettigrew lost his wand to him and the Weasley boy." Lucius metaphorically pointed a finger before he would have to face the full brunt of his Lord's rage. His words had the desired effect, a crucio took immediate effect. Pettigrew's screams were music to the other deatheater's ears, including the unmarked Greyback. They were only grateful it was not their screams wrenching their Lord's attention from the others at fault. Hermione hated the screeches, but she, too, was grateful it wasn't her own wails filling the air.
"What's that?" The dark wizard toed Hermione's motionless form.
"Potter's muddy whore." Bellatrix simpered, trying her best to stay quiet enough to evade Voldemort's wrath.
"What of her?" He asked with a bored curiosity.
"Probably dead by now." Lucius eyed her. Draco blanched but stayed absolutely still.
"No, she's alive, for now. Keep her that way." He decided, poking her cheek delicately, she could feel his toe nail dig into her skin. "He'll return for her eventually, I'm sure." Kicking her lightly, knowing that too much would kill her.
"He thinks she's dead." Narcissa said reservedly.
"Fenrir," He said in a hushed tone, knowing that everyone could hear him. "Let it be spread that she survived." And with that he disapparated, leaving a still room and a panting Peter Pettigrew.
"Draco, take care of muddy." Bellatrix stormed from the room.
Lucius had Fenrir drag Pettigrew from the room roughly and Narcissa followed, leaving Hermione and Draco alone. He said nothing, but he knelt to grab her ankle, apparating her to a marble bathroom, so bright and pristine that Hermione couldn't see much, everything was an incredible blur.
"Stay still," Draco's voice shook as he turned to grab blood replenishing potions and other small vials. He treated her wounds after forcing the potion down her throat. He actually healed her quite well, putting all his energy and good intent into it, she was surprised. Going in and out of consciousness, Hermione shuddered when she woke up properly with Draco's hands shakily rubbing essence of murtlap into the cuts on her arm, followed by essence of dittany. "It'll scar." He refused to meet her eye.
"Just kill me." She rasped, throat raw from her shrieking. He ignored her, he incendio-ed her jeans and hoodie that he'd had to pull off her to clean her scratches and cuts, they were absolutely filthy and no doubt unsalvageable. He'd had to pull crystals from her flesh and feed her several blood replenishing potions. The bathroom tiles were stained and he wasn't sure if the grout would ever return to its original pale color. But he was no murderer, he wasn't going to apologize for saving her but he wanted to, her existence was to become even more of a nightmare. He had to take her back to the dungeons eventually, it would be cold and he couldn't be too sweet to her. He cast a subtle warming charm on her, it wouldn't last but it would have to do.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Merlin's lacy knickers!" Ron kicked at the dirt beneath his feet, They'd left her behind. They had left their living muggleborn friend alone in a house of blood supremacists who would hold her to little to no value. She wasn't dead when they left her, but they were sure they'd left her to her death now. "FOOOOOK!"
"Shit, shit, shit." Harry gripped his hair, pulling at it, panicked. "We fucking left her. I thought she was dead!"
"I told you! We should have gone to her, I knew it!" Ron froze and glared at his friend. "Shit!" He yelled. Bill and Fleur rushed from their cottage, Luna following with a knowing and disappointed look on her face when she noted Hermione's absence.
"Hermione's still there!" Ron waved his arms angrily in explanation.
"Oh no.." Luna looked distraught, her worries confirmed. "What have you done?" She didn't sound accusatory, which made the boys feel even worse for whatever reason.
"Oh dear," Fleur's accent was less thick than it had been the last time they'd seen her.
"Shite." Bill sighed.
"Not like we meant to! We thought she was dead!" Harry pulled at his locks harder.
"No, you thought she was dead!" Ron snipped.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Said witch lay still on a thin pallet in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor, dressed in only an old black pair of knickers, a thick camisole under an oversized t-shirt of Harry's that she'd been wearing when he left her. She woke with a start, looking around the frigid stone walls. Her cell was isolated and judging by the darkness that was only broken by a small candle outside her cell, she was deep in the basement of the Manor. She shivered, curling in on herself, her skin felt stretched too tight as she moved. A rattle and heavy weight on her ankle let her know she was securely chained like a proper inmate. Hermione wondered if this was what Sirius felt, she only wished there was a dementor to tempt into ending her suffering. Or perhaps this was closer to what Harry must have felt, living with the Dursleys. Judging by the size of the shirt she wore, Hermione would have hazarded a guess that the t-shirt had a past life as Dudley's undershirt for insulation under his school uniform.
Harry and Ron had left her. She hadn't quite been all there mentally when they were taken away by Dobby, but she watched them go without her and that was all she needed to know. Her heart broke at that moment, and it kept splintering exponentially every moment after that. Her skin had knit back together and the painful crystalline shards had been removed from her person, but she didn't feel any different. The bitter bite of betrayal was far cooler than the frost of the dank dungeon. Everything was cold and her thoughts were muddled. Her eyes began to water before a demented giggle bubbled up from her stomach, tickling her throat and crawling past her teeth. She would have her revenge.