Reign Of Terror

[oliviadevella]

Chapter One -- Reign Of Terror

The rain pounded the pavement creating it’s own melancholy song. Hermione was getting pelted with the droplets, flattening everything they came in contact with. Someone placed their hand over her mouth stifling the cry that wanted to spill from her lips. Her heart race quickened, her view was obstructed with the help of a black bandanna, and her captor pushed her erratically. She was captured.
“Have we heard anything from any of our Aurors?” Remus Lupin asked shuffling around the headquarters of the legendary Order of the Phoenix.
“Harry says that the Death Eaters are moving around Europe at a steady pace.” Stevie Black, Minister of Magic, said reading it off one of her many unorganized papers.
“I don’t know if we should trust her.” Chloe Austin, an Auror, said.
“Why not?” Sandy Hawkins, another Auror asked.
“A twenty-nine year old Minister of Magic? Do you trust her?”
“Well it’s easy to become the Minister of Magic when your favorite uncle nearly hands you the Ministry on a silver platter. Cornelius Fudge being your uncle has some major advantages.”
“The whole Ministry has gone to the gutters. Almost fifty percent is under thirty-five now.”
“Thanks to our wonderful Miss Black.”
“We have Aurors traveling through out Europe.” Lupin said sitting down at the table, a troubled expression on his already worn features. “Why are there still attacks on Muggle-borns then?” He ran his hand over his face.
“Remus, if I may.” Albus Dumbledore interrupted. “Perhaps we aren’t looking in the right places.”
“We have people from the Order and people from the Ministry all over the place. How could we miss?”
“Hermione Granger was kidnapped in London.”

[oliviadevella]

Chapter Two -- The Dark Lord

Her heartbeat had quickened beneath her clothes. She closed her eyes beneath the blindfold. ‘I will not cry.’ She told herself fighting off all urges to spill her river of tears. She let out a jagged breath. She couldn’t breathe. Air seemed like a distant thing. Air? Her breath was coming in at sharp intervals. ‘What are these people going to do to me? Why are they kidnapping me?’ Tears threatened to spill onto the blindfold. A loud pop was heard and a stomach-turning feeling caused her to feel nauseated. She was being shoved around and pushed into a chair. Ropes were tired around her wrists and ankles constricting her to her prison of a chair.
“Your watcher will be home in a few hours.” An icy voice told her chilling her to the bare bone of her existence. She opened her mouth to say something but her voice refused to cooperate. She just nodded. She heard a door slam. She began struggling in her chair. The ropes cut into her wrists, she winced in pain.
“What are you doing here?” Lucius Malfoy questioned his only son from behind his cell bars in Azkaban.
“Getting you out of here.” Draco said in a low voice as to not let anyone hear.
“Why? Not that I mind but you’re risking your own life here too.”
“No really? Thanks.”
“Don’t you dare get that lip with me. I am still older and wiser than you.”
“Then how come you’re the one behind bars and not me?”
“Why do you need to get me out of here? Did you slip up?”
“No, but the Dark Lord did. He’s dead. Potter killed him eight years ago, when I was seventeen. Of course you were being thrown in here. But now the Death Eaters have decided that they need someone to take his place. That person is you. We need to overthrow Potter from his moment of glory. Or in this case, eight years of glory.”
“Then stop wasting time. How do you plan on getting me out of here?”
“Very quickly.” Draco wasted no time in putting his plan into action. Within just moments Lucius was walking around the Azkaban yards as if he was never a prisoner. Evil had escaped the clutches of the Hero once again and little did the protagonist know; it might be his last moments in the limelight.
“Did you kidnap a mudblood like I told you?” Draco asked the captor.
“Of course. She’s in your room just where you told me.”
“And you’re sure she’s someone that’ll get Potter’s attention.”
“Positive.” The Death Eater smiled.
“My father is taking control now. I’ll make sure that the filthy little mudblood, doesn’t get away.” Draco climbed up the stairs of Malfoy Manor to his bedroom. The house was now his since his father had been sentenced to Azkaban and he had no intention of returning it to him at anytime. He walked into the dark room and sat on his bed watching the girl struggle around in her seat.
“You’re only going to hurt yourself that way.” She stopped wriggling.
“Why am I here?” Her voice quivered.
“Why do you think you’re here?”
“Are you just going to ask me every question I ask you in return?”
“You’re here, Mudblood, because you’re the key to something I want.”
“Which is?”
“Potter. He wants his role as the Hero to stay vibrant, this is his chance.”
“Do you actually think he’ll come for me? You are defiantly nuts. I haven’t seen him in eight years. I doubt he knows anything about me anymore.”
“But you two knew each other. Whatever bond you two held it’s going to bring him here.”
“Bonds fade quickly.” Her mind was trying to place his voice to a face. “Why am I still blindfolded? I’m still tied to a chair, I’m not going anywhere.” Her voice was strained and tired. Draco got up and untied the blindfold. Hermione blinked a few times adjusting to the light. She looked at the man sitting in front of her. His white-blond hair and crystalline blue eyes struck a familiarity in her.
“I know you.” She said. He smiled a little.
“Do you? Who am I?” He was thoroughly curious to find out who she was and how she knew him.
“Draco Malfoy, you’ve always hated me. But did you have to kidnap me?!” She yelled struggling with the ropes around her wrists. They sliced into her drawing a small amount of blood.
“I’ve hated many people. You don’t stand out to me.”
“You don’t recognize me do you?”
“No, can’t say that I have.”
“Hermione Granger ring a bell?”
“Granger? Perfect. Now I know Potter will come.”
“You are a fool. Harry won’t come.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were. Harry and I got into a rather large argument at Kings Cross in our seventh year. He hates me.”
“Awe too bad there’s so much history between you. He’ll come.” Hermione didn’t retaliate. She knew he was right.
“Could you please take these stupid ropes off of me?”
“Why? So you can get away.”
“Where would I go? I don’t even know where I am so how can I get anywhere.”
“You could figure something out. Now why did you two fight?”
“I’m not one for small talk, especially when it’s about my personal life.”
“You’re going to be here for awhile. I’m all you got until Potter comes.” She sighed disgustedly.
“If you must know I didn’t want him to start Auror training because of people like you lurking around. He could have gotten hurt and I told him to go back to his Uncle and Aunt’s house. Of course that was a ridiculous thought. Fortunately you people didn’t touch him. Left him alone a little too suspiciously if I might add.”
“We didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“I figured that. But why stay quiet for nearly ten years? Why not attack when he was the most vulnerable? Alone?”
“We needed time to come up with some plan.”
“And this is what’s taken all these years? How ingenious.”
“Don’t sass me. You’re forgetting I control whether you live or die.”
“You’re forgetting you’re only a bouncing ferret.” His pale cheeks turned a light shade of pink.
“I don’t have a problem torturing you.”
“You won’t.”
“Why won’t I?”
“Because you know how it feels to be tortured.” He looked at her confused. “We all knew that your father tortured you.”
“Don’t talk about my father.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What have you been doing all of these years?”
“I’m not one for small talk Malfoy.”
“Would you rather me just entertain myself by using the Crustacious Curse on you?”
“No, can’t we just… not talk at all. You don’t like me, and I don’t like you.”
“Well, Mudblood, You are in my room, in my house. I think I’m in control. I say what goes. We’re talking. What have you been up to Granger?”
“If you must know I’m teaching at Hogwarts now. Defense Against the Dark Arts.” He laughed slightly.
“Defense Against the Dark Arts? I see you’re not doing that well at the defense part, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“I can handle myself very well in these situations thank you very much.”
“Can you? Then why are you the one tied to the chair?”
“Shut up Malfoy. At least I’m not a Death Eater. I’m not a criminal, you are. Who has the better end of the deal?”
“Why Miss Granger, you underestimate my career. Being a Death Eater does not mean that you’re a criminal. It only means that you work for your boss no matter what the situations. Be it anything at all.”
“Is being an emotionless wreck part of the job criteria?”
“I am not emotionless.”
“Do you love anything? Do you feel anything but hate? Malfoy, you’re not living. You just, are. You’re never going to change, you don’t even love your own family.”
“I love plenty of things.”
“Love of causing pain isn’t one of them.”
“I’ve changed.”
“Nothing about you is different from Hogwarts is it?”
“Yes. Pansy, Goyle, and Crabbe are no longer apart of my life.”
“Harry and Ron are no longer apart of mine.”
“Two for two. You’re a lot like me.”
“I am nothing like you. You are the one thing I could live my life in a wedded bliss without.”
“And you mine.”
“I’m not like you.”
“Harry, a letter came for you from the Order.” Nympadora Tonks told Harry as she handed him a piece of parchment.
“More attacks on Muggle-borns I suppose.” Harry said sitting down in one of the chairs in the hotel room he was sharing with three other Aurors.

Harry,
Hermione was kidnapped. We need you and Ron to find her as soon as possible. You two are being sent because you know her the best. Please hurry, it’s only a matter of time before something happens to her. Please report to Headquarters as soon as you can.

Lupin

“What is it?” Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody asked sitting down across from Harry.
“Hermione was kidnapped. I have to go. Can you three cover it?”
“If I were to say no, you’d still go so what’s the point of asking.” Moody said.
“Right. Ron and I need to get to Headquarters. What’s the quickest way?”
“Probably Floo Powder.”
“Thanks Mad-Eye.” Harry walked over to the fireplace, took a handful of Floo Powder and threw it into the fireplace stating clearly “Number Twelve, Grimauld Place.” Harry popped into the dining room of the Order Headquarters. Ron and Lupin were already sitting down at the dining room table.
“All right. What’s going on?” Harry sat down next to Ron, across from Lupin.
“All we know is that today, in London, Hermione was kidnapped. We’re suspecting this to be the work of Death Eaters being that she is Muggle-born.”
“Where would she be?” Ron asked.
“That’s the problem, anywhere.”

[oliviadevella]

Chapter Three -- Draco's Wrath

“Do we have any leads?” Harry asked.
“One. Lucius Malfoy escaped from Azkaban on the same day, we think that the two are related.”
“Malfoy? You think that the Malfoys kidnapped her?” Ron stifled a laugh with one of his freckled hands.
“Actually we think that the Death Eaters kidnapped her because of her history with Draco Malfoy. Revenge.”
“Revenge? Would Malfoy actually sink that low?” Ron asked.
“Do you remember Malfoy?” Harry asked incredulously.
“That’s part of my childhood I’m trying very hard to forget. I remember his vicious ways but I really don’t think that he would do something like this.”
“You never know. People change, especially when you’re surrounded by that company.”
“You two have to find her, no matter who captured her, we need her back safely.” Lupin advised, tired of the ongoing argument of what and whatnot a Death Eater would do.
“Professor Lupin, to be honest I have no idea to even begin searching for Hermione.” Harry said frowning deeply.
“Where the Death Eaters are, Hermione will be there too. I just hope they haven’t hurt her.”
“You’re not going to kill me, are you?” Hermione asked Draco.
“No, not yet at least.” A smirk coated his pale lips.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Well, first we were going to lure Potter here, kill you in front of him, and then kill him.”
“Again, all that took eight years to come up with?”
“Since when have you been full of sarcasm?” He countered.
“Since I was tied to a chair in your room.”
“Feisty aren’t we? You better mind your manners Granger, you’re in a house filled with Death Eaters and you yourself are just a lowly mudblood.” Hermione kept her mouth shut and stared at the floor to the left of her. “Glad to see you can control yourself.”
“I can control myself fine thanks.”
“Watch it.” Draco drawled, “I may not be so nice next time.”
“You? Nice?”
“You aren’t dead are you?” Hermione had to clamp her mouth shut to avoid from having another outburst.
“How do you know Harry will find me?”
“We’ve left little clues.”
“How do you know he’ll come alone?”
“It doesn’t really matter, whoever comes with him will just end up being killed as well.”
“You don’t care who dies do you?”
“No.”
“What if it was your family? What if you had to sacrifice them?”
“Then I would do what I have to do.” She shook her head disgustedly. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “I have to do what I have to do. Why am I even explaining this to you? It’s not just a job, it’s a way of living.”
“It’s wrong, Malfoy, you have other options.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” He snapped at her causing her to jump at his tone.
“I’m sorry.” She apologized again.
“Stop apologizing! You’re not sorry, you aren’t anything but a filthy mudblood.” His blood boiled and he kept clenching his fists.
“Stop calling me that! I sure didn’t choose my parents! It’s not my fault that they’re not magical, don’t you dare call me that Draco Malfoy, don’t you dare.” His hand came into contact with her cheek quickly and her head snapped to the side.
“I told you to watch yourself.” He said in an eerily calm voice. She bit her lip and kept her gaze away from him. She wanted to apologize but she stopped before she got slapped again. “Stay here and don’t move, oh wait you can’t.” His voice was filled with sarcasm. He slammed the door shut and Hermione cringed again. Her cheek burned, she could feel the heat radiating from it.
“Any ideas?” Harry asked Ron as they stepped out of Grimmauld Place.
“Not one.” Ron sighed.

[oliviadevella]

Chapter Four -- Lost Relationships

“If you were a Death Eater where would you be?”
“How should I know?”
“I don’t know, I’ve been a good guy too long, I have no idea where to look.”
“Let’s try and find out what Hermione was doing that day, retrace her steps. Look for clues. See if that leads us anywhere.”
“We’re not detectives you know.”
“Do you have a better plan?”
“No,” Harry said looking at the tall redheaded man standing in front of him. He and Ron apparated to Hogwarts, a place that they hadn’t stepped foot in, in nearly ten years. Standing in the Great Hall they heard the faint murmurs of the children doing their last hours of studying and homework over the weekend.
“Hasn’t changed a bit has it?” Ron asked looking around the old castle.
“Doesn’t seem that way, come one let’s get to the Headmasters office and see what he knows.”
“I wonder who took Dumbledore’s place, shame he had to go.” They walked down the familiar halls, the faint echoes of the screams of Peeves the Poltergeist’s latest victims.
“We have a slight problem, do you know the password by chance?” Harry said looking at the stone statue of the phoenix.
“I thought you had it.”
“Obviously not.”
“Is there a problem gentlemen?” A young woman in her early twenties asked them.
“We were just looking for the Headmaster, do you know where we might find him?” Ron asked.
“I’m the Headmistress,” They gaped at her. She couldn’t be older than them and yet she was the Headmistress of Hogwarts? “Angela Warner.” She extended her hand toward Harry.
“Harry Potter, and this is my friend Ron Weasley. We’re here on official Ministry business. Could we talk to you about your Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher, Hermione Granger?”
“Of course, come right in.” She mumbled a password that the boys could not quiet make out. The room had not changed at all since Dumbledore’s time, the portraits, the sword that Harry had pulled out of the Sorting Hall all those years ago, and the same phoenix was sitting on the desk. “What kind of business is this boys?” She asked.
“Miss Granger was kidnapped in London earlier today. Do you have any idea what she was doing in London?” Harry asked looking interested at whatever might come out of Professor Warner’s mouth.”
“It could be many a thing, you two probably know her obsession with the written word. She could have been getting another book.”
“But why go all the way to London, for a book?” Ron countered.
“I’m not sure Mr. Weasley, it could be many things.”
“I don’t recall introducing myself.” His tone was annoyed and frustrated. Angela was getting rather upset with him.
“I was only two years behind you both.” She seemed a little hurt that they did not remember her.
“In your young age how did you come to be the Headmistress of Hogwarts?” Harry asked.
“I’m the granddaughter of Minerva McGonagall.”
“The whole of the Wizarding world is being taken over by the relatives of past employees.” Ron whispered disgusted to Harry.
“Yeah, no kidding.” Harry sighed.
“I don’t have any idea why Miss Granger was in London today, I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more service.” Angela apologized.
“Thank you anyway.” Ron said standing up from his seat.
“Would it be okay if we looked around in her office?” Harry asked.
“Go right ahead.” Angela said shrugging. Harry and Ron left her office.
“That was a little too easy.” Ron said.
“She’s either really stupid or something is really fishy here.” Harry said opening the door of the Defense room. The room was very similar to the way it was when Lupin was the occupant. Portraits of vampires, werewolves and even a portrait of Lord Voldemort resided on the wall.
“Mister Potter.” The portrait of Voldemort said as he stepped into the room.
“Hello.” Harry didn’t pay attention to the cold voice. He walked over to the desk and began opening the drawers. “I found out why she was in London.”
“Why?” Ron asked.
“She lives there.” Harry sat down in her chair. “How could we know someone for so long and not even know where she lives?”
“I don’t know. Harry, we haven’t exactly seen each other in a while either, with separate missions and all.”
“How did we all drift apart?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me go!” Hermione screamed.
“This is the Mudblood, Draco?” Lucius Malfoy drawled. “Excellent.” He gagged Hermione so her screams were muffled.
“She was best friends with Potter in Hogwarts.” Draco said pleased with himself.
“Perfect.” Hermione struggled in her chair and her yells were muffled. “Lock her up in the basement. Draco you keep watch of her.” Lucius ordered.
“Right away.” Draco grabbed Hermione and yanked her out of her chair. He dragged her to the basement. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Stop crying.” Draco said; ice hung on his every word. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks. “Hermione stop, please.” Her heart rate quickened. ‘Hermione? No, he didn’t.’ She shook the thought out of her head. He untied the gag from around her head. “Listen, I don’t hate you. However I don’t like you. I don’t want to be doing this.”
“Then why are you?” She asked wiping the tears away from her cheeks with her tied hands.
“My father is forcing me too. My mother couldn’t stop him, I couldn’t stop him, and I’m trapped.”

[oliviadevella]

Chapter Five -- The Hero Must Die

“You can stop him.”
“And get killed.” Draco began pacing in front of her.
“Are you still going to kill me?” Hermione asked; she was almost afraid to know the truth.
“I’m not, but my father will. He’s in control now, there is nothing I can do.” She choked back tears.
“Oh,” She sunk back onto the floor, it was cold and wet but she didn’t care.
“Hermione don’t.” He went and sat her up. Her cheeks were tear stained and wet. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Nobody was supposed to die.”
“What is so wrong with being Muggle-born?” She asked looking into his crystalline blue eyes.
“You lucked into being a witch, I was born into it. People who lucked into it weren’t supposed to be able to practice magic. It isn’t fair to people like my father…”
“Purebloods.” She finished for him. “Like you.”
“Like me.”
“And my fate is to just die, to die at the hands of Death Eaters?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Wonderful.” Sarcasm dripped from the word.
“Don’t worry.” Draco said trying to calm her down.
“Don’t worry?! Don’t worry?! Are you bloody mad?” Hermione yelled.
“Shut up, someone will hear you and then we’ll both be in trouble.”
“How can you just tell me not to worry when as soon as Harry shows up, I’m going to be killed?”
“It’ll take a while for him to get here.”
“You obviously don’t know him very well.” Draco didn’t say anything. He just sat there, staring off into space. “Why?” She asked her temper rising.
“Why what?” Draco snapped back into reality.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you keeping me tied up so inhumanly? Why is it on every Deatheater’s To-Do list to kill Harry? It isn’t like he wanted this to happen you know!” Hermione fought against the ropes that bound her.
“Will you stop?!” Draco yelled. The years of hatred bottled up inside him exploded. “Potter is the ultimate good guy, the hero. Not every thing is a happy ever after deal. The hero will die, evil will prosper and the damsel in distress,” He glared at Hermione. “Will die.”
“This is a lose-lose situation.”
“Not at all… it’s win-win for me. It all depends on what side of the spectrum you’re looking from.” Hermione sighed deeply and stared at the ground. “Not every thing ends happily ever after. The hero will fall.”
“Not this time.”
“There is no other time. There is only now.”
“You’re wrong. There is now, there is then and there is the moment that I watch you perish into nothing.”
“I’m afraid that you have your roles reversed.”
“We shall soon see.”
“That we will.” A smirk coated his pale lips.
“This is a wild goose chase.” Harry sighed collapsing down on a nearby bench in Muggle London.
“We need to find her soon. Or else it may be to late.” Ron agreed.
“She could be anywhere and it’s our job to find her? Wonderful.” Exhaustion swept over his body capping him in a wave of sleepiness.
“Come on we have to keep going.” Ron pushed on. They walked through the streets looking for anything suspicious in the last known whereabouts of a Deatheater.
“Come on,” Draco pushed Hermione out of her chair. “We have to leave.” Hermione still refused to talk to him. “You can’t just ignore me.”
“Why? Why can’t I? You’ve done it to me my whole life and I retaliate in the slightest way only to end up being told that I can’t do anything. You seem to forget who the intelligent one is in this predicament.”
“Who’s the one tied up? You seem to forget I have total control.”
“You have nothing over me.”
“Nothing?” He smirked.
“Stop doing that! Stop smirking like you know something that makes you right and everyone wrong.”
“Don’t you always believe that you’re right and I’m wrong.”
“I don’t believe things that aren’t true.”

[oliviadevella]

Chapter Six -- Torture

Hermione sighed deeply and stared at the cold, hard floor of her prison.
“You’re trapped in this reign of terror. It’s enveloping you, suffocating, and collapsing. Killing you.” Draco’s voice was soft and drifted through the room. “Fate is a twisted thing that cannot be toyed with. If you play with fire you will get burned, and Miss Granger this is no average flame.” His words jumbled together in his head.
“What are you saying? That I’m doomed?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Side?” He looked at her and for a second she didn’t see Draco Malfoy, Death Eater and murderer. She saw a vulnerable man staring back at her, his clear blue eyes opening doors to his locked soul. “Sides are a tricky thing, I am on no side. I’m fighting my own battle and fighting vigorously.”
“How can you not choose a side?” She said exasperated. “You’re good or evil Draco. Neutrality will only end up torturing you, killing you.”
“You no nothing about torture.” He said through clenched teeth.
“I know that it’s painful, isn’t that enough?”
“Painful? That’s all you think it is?” He was taking shallow, jagged breaths. Hermione feared he would collapse any second. He licked his lips before he began. “That’s not even the worst part of it. It’s emotionally draining; you’re dying mentally. The curses penetrate your skin piercing your very soul, stinging, and leaving emotional scars. Do you think that I can ever get that back, that I can ever be like I was before?” He fell to the cold ground feet away from her. “And then the pain. It…” He choked back sobs. “It’s indescribable.” He gulped before the tears could spill onto his pale cheeks. “There is nothing that can make those scars fade, with five years, ten years, all of eternity.” Defiant tears pelted his cheeks. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do to not have to face those years of torture, no one should ever have to feel that pain, the vulnerability.” Hermione’s own tears flowed down her cheeks. “Painful? It’s demeaning.”
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have…” Her words were interrupted.
“No you shouldn’t have.” Draco snapped standing up and wiping the tears from his cheeks. Hermione shrunk back against the wall.

[oliviadevella]

Chapter Seven -- Taunting

“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing!” He yelled.
“If you keep yelling at me what am I supposed to do? I can’t just keep these things inside. I’m not that type of person.”
“Well become that type.”
“I will not subject myself to the ridicule you’re putting me through.”
“You have no choice.”
“I have plenty of choices.”
“You have one choice. To sit there like a good little girl and shut your mouth.”
“No.” Hermione said and regretted it as soon as the vicious word left her trembling lips.
“No?” The smirk on his lips was driving her mad, his emotions could be so well hid with one little sly smirk. She didn’t dare to repeat the word. Her mouth opened daring her to say it, to taunt him, to knock him off his pedestal. “No.” Her voice seemed almost distant.
“That’s what I thought you said.”
‘No reaction?’ Hermione thought partially relieved, partially scared out of her wits. Draco stepped up to her and knelt down in front of her. “I can make you say things you would never say, make you do things you would never do, create such a hurt on your body that you’d be begging me to kill you.” His mouth was mere inches away from her ear now. “But I wouldn’t.” He whispered. “I would watch you scream and cry and beg for mercy. But nothing will stop me.” His voice became firm. “Nothing. Do you understand?” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. She nodded fighting off the ever-present tears that had become accustomed to her cheeks. “Good. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you… yet.” He whispered getting close to her ear again. Chills ran down her spine and she flinched. Draco smiled with delight. “Am I making you uncomfortable?” The question was rhetorical and she ignored it with the greatest of ease. “And what if I was to do this?” He kissed her ear lobe and she bit her lip.
“Stop.” She mumbled.
“What?” He asked shocked. “Are you telling me what to do?” She shook her head not wanting to trust her mouth with any more words. He pulled away from her and stood up. “Filthy little mudblood.” He spat climbing the stairs, leaving Hermione in the cold, wet basement.

“Why is it so hard to find her?” Ron said angrily. “She’s supposed to be our best friend and we can’t even find her, or retrace her steps without coming across some problem.” Ron sat down on the dewy grass. Harry stood on the sidewalk in the streets of London.
“We’re getting closer.” Harry said.
“How do you know? We’ve practically been going around in circles for the past three days.” Ron said exasperatedly. He rested his head against the tree behind him and closed his eyes.
“I can feel it. There’s something going on here and I want to find out what exactly it is.” Harry was looking around the streets for any signs of abnormal activity that could be magically related. “Who do you think would be put in control now that Voldemort.” Ron gasped and Harry just rolled his eyes. “Now that Voldemort is gone?”
“Malfoy?” Ron laughed at the thought. “Yeah right. They don’t just hand that job over to any bozo. Bellatrix? Umbridge?”
“Do you actually think Umbridge would join them?” Ron looked at Harry with a raised eyebrow. “Alright I know she was bad but she was a ministry employee.”
“As was Lucius Malfoy.” Ron pointed out.
“Something isn’t right with this picture, didn’t someone escape from Azkaban a few days ago?”
“I think so, why?”
“Well Hermione is kidnapped around the same time that someone gets out of Azkaban? Isn’t that a little fishy?”
“Maybe, but you do have a tendency to be a little paranoid.”
Harry cast one last fleeting glance at the street before helping Ron get up off the ground. “Come on let’s keep moving.” Unbeknownst to them they were closer than they thought.

[oliviadevella]

Chapter Eight -- Killing Yourself

Hermione woke up late the next afternoon; it had taken her a long time to fall asleep in the cold dark basement. Dark circles coated her eyes and she was shaking from the cold and her lips were a slight shade of blue.
“How are you this fine morning?” Draco asked walking down the stairs at a leisurely pace.
“Fine.” She shivered.
“You sure?” He smirked. She nodded, not having the strength or the will power to fight back. Draco sighed and climbed back up the stairs returning moments later. He threw a dark green blanket to Hermione.
“What was that for?” She asked confused.
“We can’t have you dying just now.” He pulled a chair over in front of her and spun it around backwards. He sat on it his arms resting on the back of it. “What happened to you and the other two Gryffindorks over the years?”
“Why are you asking?”
“I have nothing else to amuse me, so amuse away.”
“We drifted apart is all. Harry and Ron became Aurors and I wanted to teach. That’s all that’s happened. What about you? Any interesting… eh… deaths caused by you?”
“No.” He said swiftly but upon seeing the look she was giving him he continued. “It’s not a very sharing job. This is my first real job and I’m not going to screw it up.”
“So that’s all I am? A job assignment?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Is sarcasm a new thing you picked up?”
“Only when I’m around people I despise.”
“You despise me? I’m flattered.”
“There’s that traditional Malfoy cockiness.”
“Cockiness? I’m not the one that believes she’s a know it all, Miss Perfect, you can’t kill me Harry Potter is going to save me, heroine.”
“I am not a heroine. I am defiantly not the heroine.”
“You’re right, you’re the damsel in distress.”
“That’s right, and you’re the evil dragon keeping locked in here.”
He smiled at her. “You know me oh so well.” Hermione wanted to gag, one more sarcastic remark and she was going to attack him.
“You’re pitiful.”
He mock pouted. “And you’re the one locked in a basement. Poor pitiful me, huh?” They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. “I’m sick of people like you.”
“Mudbloods?” She snapped.
“No, people who can’t just sit with their mouths shut. People who can’t understand how much danger they’re putting themselves in…” He paused and licked his lips. “And yet I admire you all at the same time. I would never have you’re guts in your position. That’s either very brave… or very foolish.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I’m being brave or foolish, I’m doing what I need to do to stay alive.”
“Or you’re just killing yourself and don’t even know it.”

[oliviadevella]

Chapter Nine -- Deadly Games

“What am I supposed to do? Just hope and pray that Harry will come save me so I can be killed or pray that he doesn’t come so I can sit here in fear until that one fateful day comes when you put me out of my misery?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“I’m just another plaything in your reign of terror aren’t I? You’re dangling me in front of his face to try to lure him here. I’m bait.” She sighed and rested her head on the wall behind her. “I don’t want to play anymore Draco. I want to be free to do what I want. To live without fear.”
“You sure screwed that up then didn’t you?”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“Yes. You did. This is my game Granger, and you will be a part of this until your time comes. Think of this as a play and your characters role is to die.” Silent tears rolled down Hermione’s cheeks. Draco sighed deeply. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“So you planned on just being a horrible person forever and having the perfect life with that Pansy pig?”
“Don’t call her that.” He snapped. “And that’s exactly what I had planned.”
“Well what happened?”
“Pansy got mixed up in some bad stuff and, well… she was killed. So I got involved in this.”
“And now I’m supposed to feel bad for you?”
“I never said that.”
“But that’s what you want isn’t it? You want me to get all sappy so that I feel bad for you and will shut my mouth and be a good little toady and allow you to do what you have to isn’t it?”
“No.” He snapped. “I was trying to be civil to you. Anything I say to you, anything I do to you nobody will ever know about so here’s my one chance to be a normal civilized person with you. Damn Hermione you’re supposed to be the smart one.”
“Don’t tell me these things! I don’t want you to be yourself. I want you to be the Draco Malfoy that I met at school and hated. It’s so much harder to hate you when you’re yourself. And I’m trying so hard. I keep telling myself that you hate me, that you think I’m nothing but a worthless Mudblood, that you would never understand my feelings, my life. I can’t help but feel that at some points I have feelings for you that aren’t dripping with hate.”
“I can’t hide behind this rough exterior that I’ve created over the years. I need to be myself, just like you need to be free. We’re in the same situation, we playing a game that neither of us can win and the results of losing are deadly.”
“You think I don’t know that? I was happy with my life! I enjoy teaching, I love being at Hogwarts. I really don’t want my life to end on someone else’s account. I want to make my own decisions. I wanted to have a wonderful life with the perfect husband, children, job, house; I wanted everything. Is this a punishment for my greed? Have I done something so sinful that my punishment is death? Because if I have, I don’t regret it for one minute.”
“I don’t believe you did anything wrong…”
Hermione interrupted. “Except being born into a non-magical family. I can’t help who my parents are and I sure as hell can’t help that I was chosen out of hundreds of people to the one of the muggle-borns to be chosen to come to Hogwarts. Nor that fact that I was put into Gryffindor. I don’t make all of my decisions. It’s called fate and you can’t change that, but this isn’t my fate, I’m not going to rot in a cellar while you dine like a king because I’m dying.” She added through gritted teeth. “I pray to god that you get what’s coming to you.”
“What exactly is coming to me?”
“What you deserve. To die a horrible, painful death.”
“I do deserve that, but isn’t wishing those things on a person also worthy of a similar fate.”
“This isn’t fate Draco! This is someone making our choices for us! Can’t you get that through your oversized arrogant head?”
“Oh I understand it alright. But what I want to know is why you won’t just give into what you believe, what you think.”
“That is one of the more dangerous options.”
“How?”
“Because if I speak my mind all the time I could get fired from my job, looked down upon by my colleagues, and then maybe I could also get myself killed.”
“Then why have you been so open with me?”
“You’re not going to kill me. You want to wait until Harry gets here and then you’re going to kill me in such a cruel way that he’s going to be scarred for life.”
“Why would I want to give him another scar? So he can become more famous? So that once again Harry Potter stands alone as the hero? I don’t think so.”
“Emotional scars Draco, ones that don’t heal. Ones that don’t fade. You said yourself you had emotional scars from the torture your father subjected you to. Harry’s only the hero because of people like you. Stop trying to kill him, you can’t win.”
“I can win. And I will.”
“Stop torturing yourself! You’re setting unrealistic goals.”
“How is it that a baby can survive the most powerful wizard ever? That after years and years of attempts to kill him he’s still alive?”
“It’s called love. He’s got enough people around him that protects him from even the smallest paper cut because they care. If your group had that one little thing you might be a heck of a lot stronger.”
“That’s never going to happen.”
“Of course it’s not. There are too many leaders and not enough followers. I’m not trying to make you all stronger but I’m giving you, personally, advice. After all, what are you going to do once all the aurors get on your case? Hand yourself over to Azkaban?”