GIFT FOR TOLKIENFANCAITI FROM FLIPFLOP_DIVA
To: Caiti | tolkienfancaiti
Title: Trapped By You
Summary: When Hermione is taken prisoner at Malfoy Manor, her only source of hope comes from the person she least expects. Set during Deathly Hallows.
Characters/Pairings: Hermione, Draco. Implied Harry/Hermione
Rating/Warnings: PG. No warnings.
Word Count: 2,043
Author’s Notes: Thank you to Megan|Mikkel for running this! And for the extra time! And to Caiti, thank you for your prompts! I was trying to find a way of incorporating some of them, and I ended up with this. I hope you enjoy!
It had been two weeks. At least it had been if her calculations were correct. Every time a bowl of some unidentifiable gray porridge was shoved through the bars of her tiny cell, three times a day, she had scratched another notch into the wooden frame of the uncomfortable bed, the only piece of furniture she had to sit on.
It was dark down in the dungeons where she was being kept, the only light ever coming from the rare occasions when the door at the top of the stairs opened, and even then, it was only a sliver that didn’t quite reach her bars.
She had grown accustomed to the lack of light now, though, could mostly make out the figures who came to pass her food. And she could make out the tiny marks she had carved into the bed frame that now totaled forty-three.
Forty-three meals. Fourteen days. No contact with anyone else, except her captor. Except Draco Malfoy.
She hadn’t known it was him, not for the first few days. She hadn’t paid any attention, too busy worrying about what was going on, too busy fretting over if Harry was still alive. The last thing she remembered before waking up on the cold, hard floor of her cell was being in the living room of Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix Lestrange grasping her arm, carving into her skin with a small silver knife. She remembered hearing Harry’s voice, him yelling at Bellatrix to let her go … and then nothing.
The Snatchers had come for them when they were out gathering food, away from the safety of their tent and their magical enhancements. It had been her idea to venture a little further out. She had thought they were safe out there in the woods.
They hadn’t known that Harry saying Voldemort’s name would alert the Snatchers. They hadn’t known anything until it was too late.
And then she was there, captured and trapped in the dungeons under Malfoy Manor, and she wasn’t even sure if Harry were alive, if she would ever see him again, if she would ever get to wrap her arms around him or kiss his lips.
She hadn’t realized how much he had meant to her until he was taken away, and then it had been too late. Maybe forever too late.
She had given in to her grief and her fear and her worry the third day she had been in the cell, the tears almost bursting out of her, even as she tried desperately to contain them. She had been shaking, gulping for air, her chest tight and aching. She hadn’t realized the figure with her meal had arrived until he’d made a noise, a grunt of some kind, as he shoved her food through the space in the bars.
He’d walked away after he did so, not looking back, but the noise he had made had broken through her crying. Something about it was so familiar. Like it was something she had heard before.
Hours later, when he appeared again with her next meal, she had examined him closer, as close as she could in the dark, watched the way he moved, the way he walked.
She had known then it was him. She had just known it.
The next time he appeared, food in hand, ready to slip it through the bars, she stood up from her bed, almost raced to the bars.
The figure stood back, startled. “You’re not supp-” he started.
“Draco!” Hermione breathed.
The figure - Draco - froze. The plate of food crashed to the ground. He hurried off back where he came from without another word.
She had waited, though, and as expected, he had returned later that day with her next meal.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he said, as he shoved her the food through the bars.
“But I can talk to you,” she said.
“You’ll get in trouble.”
“What more can they do?” she asked. “I’m locked in here. Harry’s dead.”
Draco’s eyes flickered up at that. She could tell, even through the dark. Her heart leapt into her throat.
“Is he alive?” she asked. “Draco, tell me if he’s alive!”
“I can’t,” he said. “Just eat and shut up.” And he had turned around and left.
He had come back again, though. He came back every time. And every time she tried to talk to him, every time she tried to ask about Harry. And every time Draco seemed on edge and nervous.
If Harry were alive, she knew he had to be in a place similar to her, but she had not heard any other noise down in the dungeon. She’d thought about screaming, but she really didn’t want to risk what the Death Eaters might do to her if she did. Plus she had no idea what was happening outside of her cell. Did Voldemort win? Had his supporters taken over everything? Was the life she had known and loved gone for good? Were her friends dead?
She tried different tactics. Sometimes she pleaded with Draco, begged him to tell her anything.
“Just tell me what they’re going to do to me,” she said. “Just tell me what’s happening outside!”
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he always said.
She tried appealing to what she hoped was some good left inside him.
“We went to school together,” she said. “You know me. Do you really want to do this?”
“I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“Draco, please! This isn’t who you are!”
“You have no idea who I am, Granger,” he snapped.
“You’re not a monster.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Draco, please!”
“Maybe you should be grateful you’re in there,” he said harshly, starting to back away.
“How can you say that?” She gaped at him, even though he probably couldn’t read her expression in the dark, not being as used to the lack of light as she.
He turned away, headed back down the hall, but she didn’t miss the words that seemed to float on the air. “It’s horrible out there.”
That had been earlier today. Now she was waiting for him to return, planning what she would say. She was getting to him, she could tell. But she still wasn’t sure how she could get him to tell her where Harry was.
She closed her eyes, wondering if it would be possible to sleep. She had barely slept at all in the fourteen days she had been here. She barely ate, too, the porridge the most hideous thing she had ever tasted. She wondered sometimes if maybe they just wanted to starve her to death.
The sound of footsteps broke through her thoughts. Hermione cracked open an eye. It wasn’t meal time. There were still hours to go for that.
But there were definitely footsteps coming down the hall. Slow and steady. Careful.
She sat up in her bed, swung her feet off the edge and stood. She couldn’t see anything yet, but she could still hear the sound, coming closer with every step.
She moved to the bars, reached through to wrap her hands around the cold iron.
It took awhile before she saw him, down at the end of the hall, moving toward her like he was scared. She could see him sticking close to the walls, could see him looking around, like someone might stop him.
She wanted to call out to him, but something stopped her. Instead, she just stood where she was, watching, as Draco came closer and closer.
He stopped in front of her.
She saw him reach for her. Instinctively, she let go of the bars, tried to take a step back, but he was quicker. His fingers caught her wrist, curled around it.
She tried to jerk her arm away, but his other hand was grabbing her palm, forcing her fingers flat. She felt something cool hit her skin.
She blinked at him.
“Tonight,” he whispered. “As close to midnight as you can get. Turn left. Go as far as you can. I’ll meet you.”
He let go of her hand, stepped back.
Hermione looked down. The thing in her hand glinted. A key.
She stared up at Draco, the question in her eye, but he was already turning around, hurrying back down the hall.
•••
A different person came to give her dinner. Fear nestled in the pit of her stomach at that realization. Did Draco get caught? Or was this whole thing a trap, a way to lure her out and then kill her?
She didn’t even attempt to eat a bite of the food, instead just lay on her bed, counting. She knew dinner must be around six o’clock in the evening. So she had to wait six more hours. Three hundred and sixty minutes. Twenty-one thousand, six hundred seconds. The longest seconds of her life, but she counted each and every one of them, the fear and the dread and the anticipation growing with each number she spoke out loud.
As close to midnight as she could figure, Hermione once again got up from her bed, bending down to retrieve the small key from where she had placed it under her mattress. It was easy to slip her hand out of the bars and angle her fingers to work the key. It didn’t take long before she heard a click and her door opened.
She stepped out into the hall, for the first time in more than two weeks. To the right was the hall that would take her to the stairs that led back into the manor, but Draco had said left. She debated with her decision, but she had no choice. She didn’t know what was up there in the Manor, and she couldn’t fight a pack of Death Eaters on her own. No, she had to trust Draco.
She turned left, started walking. She stayed close to the wall, going as slow as she could, as quietly as she could, afraid to even breathe. With each step, she wondered again what she was getting herself into.
The hall was long, a lot longer than she would have imagined, far longer than the Manor could have been. It must have kept going into the land that surrounded the place.
She passed a few doors as she walked, a couple other cells that looked much like her own, but the doors were locked, the cells empty.
She kept going. Even as the cement beneath her feet changed into dirt. Even as the hall grew narrower and narrower until she could practically touch both sides at once.
Her breath was coming in shorter spurts now, her heart once again tight in her chest. She didn’t want to go back, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to keep gong either. If this were a trap … If this were how it was all going to end …
“Hermione!”
She almost screamed as someone whispered her name, the soft sound so loud in the silence it might as well have been an explosion. She caught herself just in time, though, and then a second later felt a hand grab her arm.
She turned her head to see Draco standing there, three wands in his hand. He handed her one and she recognized it immediately. It was her own. She wondered if the third could possibly be for who she hoped it was for.
“Are you ready?” Draco said.
“Ready for what?” she asked back, fear and dread still mixed in her belly, although something akin to hope was beginning to stir there as well.
“You wanted to get back to Harry, right? And to get out of here?”
She frowned. “And you’re going to ….?”
He didn’t answer, but he tightened his fingers on her arm. She knew what that meant.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why are you helping me?”
He leaned forward, his eyes meeting hers. Even in the dark, she felt like she could almost see into his soul.
“Because,” he said, and somehow, she knew he was going to tell her the truth, “you’re the only ones who can end this,” and before she could ask more, they were Apparating away to go save Harry.
Kristine/Puff/68pts
Title: Trapped By You
Summary: When Hermione is taken prisoner at Malfoy Manor, her only source of hope comes from the person she least expects. Set during Deathly Hallows.
Characters/Pairings: Hermione, Draco. Implied Harry/Hermione
Rating/Warnings: PG. No warnings.
Word Count: 2,043
Author’s Notes: Thank you to Megan|Mikkel for running this! And for the extra time! And to Caiti, thank you for your prompts! I was trying to find a way of incorporating some of them, and I ended up with this. I hope you enjoy!
It had been two weeks. At least it had been if her calculations were correct. Every time a bowl of some unidentifiable gray porridge was shoved through the bars of her tiny cell, three times a day, she had scratched another notch into the wooden frame of the uncomfortable bed, the only piece of furniture she had to sit on.
It was dark down in the dungeons where she was being kept, the only light ever coming from the rare occasions when the door at the top of the stairs opened, and even then, it was only a sliver that didn’t quite reach her bars.
She had grown accustomed to the lack of light now, though, could mostly make out the figures who came to pass her food. And she could make out the tiny marks she had carved into the bed frame that now totaled forty-three.
Forty-three meals. Fourteen days. No contact with anyone else, except her captor. Except Draco Malfoy.
She hadn’t known it was him, not for the first few days. She hadn’t paid any attention, too busy worrying about what was going on, too busy fretting over if Harry was still alive. The last thing she remembered before waking up on the cold, hard floor of her cell was being in the living room of Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix Lestrange grasping her arm, carving into her skin with a small silver knife. She remembered hearing Harry’s voice, him yelling at Bellatrix to let her go … and then nothing.
The Snatchers had come for them when they were out gathering food, away from the safety of their tent and their magical enhancements. It had been her idea to venture a little further out. She had thought they were safe out there in the woods.
They hadn’t known that Harry saying Voldemort’s name would alert the Snatchers. They hadn’t known anything until it was too late.
And then she was there, captured and trapped in the dungeons under Malfoy Manor, and she wasn’t even sure if Harry were alive, if she would ever see him again, if she would ever get to wrap her arms around him or kiss his lips.
She hadn’t realized how much he had meant to her until he was taken away, and then it had been too late. Maybe forever too late.
She had given in to her grief and her fear and her worry the third day she had been in the cell, the tears almost bursting out of her, even as she tried desperately to contain them. She had been shaking, gulping for air, her chest tight and aching. She hadn’t realized the figure with her meal had arrived until he’d made a noise, a grunt of some kind, as he shoved her food through the space in the bars.
He’d walked away after he did so, not looking back, but the noise he had made had broken through her crying. Something about it was so familiar. Like it was something she had heard before.
Hours later, when he appeared again with her next meal, she had examined him closer, as close as she could in the dark, watched the way he moved, the way he walked.
She had known then it was him. She had just known it.
The next time he appeared, food in hand, ready to slip it through the bars, she stood up from her bed, almost raced to the bars.
The figure stood back, startled. “You’re not supp-” he started.
“Draco!” Hermione breathed.
The figure - Draco - froze. The plate of food crashed to the ground. He hurried off back where he came from without another word.
She had waited, though, and as expected, he had returned later that day with her next meal.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he said, as he shoved her the food through the bars.
“But I can talk to you,” she said.
“You’ll get in trouble.”
“What more can they do?” she asked. “I’m locked in here. Harry’s dead.”
Draco’s eyes flickered up at that. She could tell, even through the dark. Her heart leapt into her throat.
“Is he alive?” she asked. “Draco, tell me if he’s alive!”
“I can’t,” he said. “Just eat and shut up.” And he had turned around and left.
He had come back again, though. He came back every time. And every time she tried to talk to him, every time she tried to ask about Harry. And every time Draco seemed on edge and nervous.
If Harry were alive, she knew he had to be in a place similar to her, but she had not heard any other noise down in the dungeon. She’d thought about screaming, but she really didn’t want to risk what the Death Eaters might do to her if she did. Plus she had no idea what was happening outside of her cell. Did Voldemort win? Had his supporters taken over everything? Was the life she had known and loved gone for good? Were her friends dead?
She tried different tactics. Sometimes she pleaded with Draco, begged him to tell her anything.
“Just tell me what they’re going to do to me,” she said. “Just tell me what’s happening outside!”
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he always said.
She tried appealing to what she hoped was some good left inside him.
“We went to school together,” she said. “You know me. Do you really want to do this?”
“I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“Draco, please! This isn’t who you are!”
“You have no idea who I am, Granger,” he snapped.
“You’re not a monster.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Draco, please!”
“Maybe you should be grateful you’re in there,” he said harshly, starting to back away.
“How can you say that?” She gaped at him, even though he probably couldn’t read her expression in the dark, not being as used to the lack of light as she.
He turned away, headed back down the hall, but she didn’t miss the words that seemed to float on the air. “It’s horrible out there.”
That had been earlier today. Now she was waiting for him to return, planning what she would say. She was getting to him, she could tell. But she still wasn’t sure how she could get him to tell her where Harry was.
She closed her eyes, wondering if it would be possible to sleep. She had barely slept at all in the fourteen days she had been here. She barely ate, too, the porridge the most hideous thing she had ever tasted. She wondered sometimes if maybe they just wanted to starve her to death.
The sound of footsteps broke through her thoughts. Hermione cracked open an eye. It wasn’t meal time. There were still hours to go for that.
But there were definitely footsteps coming down the hall. Slow and steady. Careful.
She sat up in her bed, swung her feet off the edge and stood. She couldn’t see anything yet, but she could still hear the sound, coming closer with every step.
She moved to the bars, reached through to wrap her hands around the cold iron.
It took awhile before she saw him, down at the end of the hall, moving toward her like he was scared. She could see him sticking close to the walls, could see him looking around, like someone might stop him.
She wanted to call out to him, but something stopped her. Instead, she just stood where she was, watching, as Draco came closer and closer.
He stopped in front of her.
She saw him reach for her. Instinctively, she let go of the bars, tried to take a step back, but he was quicker. His fingers caught her wrist, curled around it.
She tried to jerk her arm away, but his other hand was grabbing her palm, forcing her fingers flat. She felt something cool hit her skin.
She blinked at him.
“Tonight,” he whispered. “As close to midnight as you can get. Turn left. Go as far as you can. I’ll meet you.”
He let go of her hand, stepped back.
Hermione looked down. The thing in her hand glinted. A key.
She stared up at Draco, the question in her eye, but he was already turning around, hurrying back down the hall.
•••
A different person came to give her dinner. Fear nestled in the pit of her stomach at that realization. Did Draco get caught? Or was this whole thing a trap, a way to lure her out and then kill her?
She didn’t even attempt to eat a bite of the food, instead just lay on her bed, counting. She knew dinner must be around six o’clock in the evening. So she had to wait six more hours. Three hundred and sixty minutes. Twenty-one thousand, six hundred seconds. The longest seconds of her life, but she counted each and every one of them, the fear and the dread and the anticipation growing with each number she spoke out loud.
As close to midnight as she could figure, Hermione once again got up from her bed, bending down to retrieve the small key from where she had placed it under her mattress. It was easy to slip her hand out of the bars and angle her fingers to work the key. It didn’t take long before she heard a click and her door opened.
She stepped out into the hall, for the first time in more than two weeks. To the right was the hall that would take her to the stairs that led back into the manor, but Draco had said left. She debated with her decision, but she had no choice. She didn’t know what was up there in the Manor, and she couldn’t fight a pack of Death Eaters on her own. No, she had to trust Draco.
She turned left, started walking. She stayed close to the wall, going as slow as she could, as quietly as she could, afraid to even breathe. With each step, she wondered again what she was getting herself into.
The hall was long, a lot longer than she would have imagined, far longer than the Manor could have been. It must have kept going into the land that surrounded the place.
She passed a few doors as she walked, a couple other cells that looked much like her own, but the doors were locked, the cells empty.
She kept going. Even as the cement beneath her feet changed into dirt. Even as the hall grew narrower and narrower until she could practically touch both sides at once.
Her breath was coming in shorter spurts now, her heart once again tight in her chest. She didn’t want to go back, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to keep gong either. If this were a trap … If this were how it was all going to end …
“Hermione!”
She almost screamed as someone whispered her name, the soft sound so loud in the silence it might as well have been an explosion. She caught herself just in time, though, and then a second later felt a hand grab her arm.
She turned her head to see Draco standing there, three wands in his hand. He handed her one and she recognized it immediately. It was her own. She wondered if the third could possibly be for who she hoped it was for.
“Are you ready?” Draco said.
“Ready for what?” she asked back, fear and dread still mixed in her belly, although something akin to hope was beginning to stir there as well.
“You wanted to get back to Harry, right? And to get out of here?”
She frowned. “And you’re going to ….?”
He didn’t answer, but he tightened his fingers on her arm. She knew what that meant.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why are you helping me?”
He leaned forward, his eyes meeting hers. Even in the dark, she felt like she could almost see into his soul.
“Because,” he said, and somehow, she knew he was going to tell her the truth, “you’re the only ones who can end this,” and before she could ask more, they were Apparating away to go save Harry.
Kristine/Puff/68pts