Disclaimer: Harry Potter is property of JK Rowling! I'm sure everybody is aware of this by now. : )
Spoilers: All FIVE books! I'm not sure if anything is given away in this chapter, but please do not read as a precaution!
The Secret Keeperby phantasm
My only love springs from my only hate…. – William Shakespeare
Chapter 1: The Overture
Spanning from approximately the time she turned two (when she graduated from diminutive chapter books to her first full-length novel), to present time, Hermione's iron-clad philosophy with books had not yet failed her.
By rereading books, whether a leisurely novel or a Hogwarts text book, there was more to gain each time. More insights to earn, new vocabulary to circle neatly with her quill and memorize- both worthwhile goals.
(The only exceptions to her philosophy were the Divination textbook and the sappy romance novels she saw while wandering through the aisles at the Muggle grocery store, but she had never bothered to read either of those in the first place.)
So, in all respects, her philosophy worked.
Until now, of course.
Propping a cheek heavily onto her palm to prevent herself from dozing off and smacking her face on the table, she reread another passage of 1001 Organic Magical Remedies by Phyllida Spore drearily, half-wishing to pick it up and throw it against a wall.
She shook her head immediately, as if the physical action could shake the rogue thought from her mind, ashamed at herself for even thinking of such a desecrating act.
Before her fourth year, Hermione had managed to read each text six times over before the start of fall term, her personal best until this point. Fifth year summer reading was somewhat stilted by Order of the Phoenix happenings, sixth was a measly four times (due to lengthy visits with Krum in Bulgaria), but this summer- she had redeemed herself for her two year shortcomings.
She had successfully read four of her texts from cover to cover (while memorizing three) a total of nine times each, had practiced every question in Numerology and Gramatica: For the Advanced Learner seven times over, and now, was well on her way to memorizing her Herbology book.
Unfortuneately, her success was somewhat incomparable, as the circumstances were different. For the first time since she was four, her family had not taken their annual summer vacation to the Virgin Islands, leaving her slightly paler than usual (she didn't tan well anyway), and with even more time to do either absolutely nothing or read (while her parents were busy cruising on the shores of Costa Rica for their 20th anniversary).
But the more important factor- Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, although it was already September 7th, had not reopened its doors for its students.
In fact, Hermione had no such received a single letter from the school (or from Harry and Ron, for that matter) and had completely stopped receiving her Daily Prophet and complimentary copies of The Quibbler from Luna's father. Not a single owl had flown through her window to deliver a message since a week after her sixth year ended.
Stuck in her Muggle home, she lost all contact with the Wizardring world, and now that her parents were off on vacation ('And since I have no Muggle friends,' she sniffed), she was utterly, absolutely alone. She suddenly felt very, very sorry she never forced her parents to allow her to visit Harry while he was stuck at the Dursley residence. Well, at least she didn't have a Dudley.
A single hoot rang through the otherwise silent night, and Hermione's eyes shot, by instinct, to the window. The sound diminished as quickly as it had appeared. Hermione cast her eyes back down to her Herbology textbook, berating herself for allowing herself high hopes once more.
Suddenly, a miniature ocher owl burst through her window, wings in tatters, broken feathers swirling into the room. In a desperate flight, it made its way towards her, with a piece of parchment dangling from its claws.
It was only feet away. Hermione quickly jumped to her feet and reached with her arms outstretched, leaning precariously over the mahogany desk to press her fingertips to the letter. She unfolded it quickly, eager to have finally received contact with the Wizardring world. Unfamiliar handwriting was scrawled hurriedly in blue ink over the white parchment.
They're coming. Leave NOW and be careful. We'll find you.
A gust of freezing wind brushed against the nape of her neck and she immediately, dreadingly knew it was too late. The owl was too late. They were already here.
A splatter of green light momentarily blinded her vision and in the succeeding millisecond, the owl suddenly veered away and fell hard head first to the floor in a reckless kamikaze dive. A gruesome crack accompanied the rush of feathers that flew into the air.
As if on cue, the lights flickered dangerously and soon after, completely blacked out, snuffed as easily as a candle's weak flame.
A frigid, impermeable silence reigned. A gnawing cold numbed all sense of feeling so that she could no longer feel the violent chattering of her teeth, but only hear it pulsating in her eardrums.
Trembling with fear and frost, Hermione extended her arm and grabbed wand that rested on her desk to face the intruder. She whirled around while opening her mouth to cry, "Lumos"! into the darkness-
And instantaneously found that it was unnecessary.
A Death Eater stood erect before her, emanating an unearthly green glow from its entire cloaked body. Under its dark shroud, all that could be seen was a pale arm bathed in green light, and with a wand held tight in hand, ready for use at any moment.
Raising her wand to utter a curse was futile. The enemy was not alone. Behind the first stood a group four more Death Eaters, all hidden by the same black cover, blinding her with the same sinister light.
And more dangerously, even more horrifying, were the Dementors that flanked restlessly behind, always eager to throw back their veils for a kiss. They writhed and danced repulsively beneath their shrouds, the every move of their skeletal figures outlined by the harsh dark satin. The sucking breath of the Dementors left clouds of frost suspended in the air, and Hermione shuddered uncontrollably.
The cold seeped through her skin, bit into bone, burrowed into her flesh. A horrible, sucking sensation tore her consciousness to pieces, plaguing her with a volatile mixture of ice and death, leaving her half-delirious.
Her knees collapsed from beneath her, and she fell hard to the floor, her body colliding bruisingly against the wood. The warm blood that trickled from her lips down her cheek immediately froze into a river of crimson ice.
Hermione extended her arm to grab her arm that had fallen away, but the Dementors drew dangerously close, sucking all the remaining warmth as they closed in, causing her to recoil her arm in freezing pain.
Frozen bones suddenly wrapped around her throat, dragging her frigid body closer to a veiled skull for the ceremonial kiss. Her arms and legs fought uselessly, feeling heavy as lead.
She closed her eyes, ready for multiple shouts of Aveda Kedavra to come and blend with a dozen chilly kisses, killing her instantly. She could already feel their rancid breath clouding against her face, a mist of rotting decay turning her face to ice.
The other Dementors swirled turbulently around her, celebrating her inifinite matrimony with death, the swish and rasp of black satin the only sound accompanying her to sleep.
Darkness closed in, interrupted only by the scent of death and the sound of agitated rustling. Lost in sight, scent, and sound, her mind was no longer swimming with fear- she was past that. She allowed herself to drown deeper… deeper into the sanctified nothingness free of cold and pain.
And then only the darkness remained.
***
"So what exactly was the point of keeping her alive?"
As per usual, Pansy's question went unanswered, and all activity continued despite her lingering speech. It was a habit to them, no- maybe more of a ritual at this point- to ignore her, to deny her existence. The purpose of her voice was to spiral away and evaporate into the night air.
For the rest of them, they managed to find their own purposes.
Crabbe and Goyle busied themselves by hovering over Hermione's sprawled form while exchanging unintelligible grunts and short nods, both failed attempts to appear useful. In the well-lit center of the room, Blaise straightened her cloak-flattened hair lovingly in front of her levitating mirror, patting thick ebony tresses back into their appropriate place.
And Draco stood dismissing the group of Dementors that hovered beside him. Instantly, they swirled around him, swishing their long robes, and with a loud snap, they Disapparated. The room became perceptibly warmer.
Having not done so already, Draco grabbed his dark hood and roughly tugged it away from his face, allowing the blond locks of hair that had been roughly shoved back to now fan across his forehead.
Watching him perform even this simple action caused a flush of heat to rise into Pansy's cheeks.
She followed suit, shifting the overcastting cloth away from her face, allowing her now reddened face to cool.
She bled with passion for him.
She was his victim and follower in every way, deceived and chained to him indefinitely by his paradoxical beauty. His gracefully curved nose and shock of white-blond hair gave a him the adorable qualities of a child. But his sculpted cheekbones and smooth jaw line, under the hardened glare all worked together to create the hardened image of what he truly was- a man. No, not only a man… he was better. A Death Eater.
And the reason she was a Death Eater.
Oblivious to her admiration, he crouched low over a fallen owl, found the dropped parchment, scanned the words scribbled across the surface, and wordlessly stuffed it into his sleeve.
A harsh whisper snapped Pansy out of her reverie.
"You could really make it less obvious, you know," sneered Blaise, arms crossed beneath her robes, now apparently satisfied with her perfectly placed dark tresses. "You gawking at Draco every spare moment is really quite revolting."
"Less disgusting than your narcissism, I assure you," retorted Pansy, just as maliciously, although she could not prevent the full-scale blush from returning to her cheeks.
"If you were me, you'd understand. Hell, if you were half as beautiful, half as smart, half as talented- you'd understand."
An shrill ring of laughter completed her statement. Having heard all of this before, Pansy merely turned away.
"You should really leave him for me," Blaise continued mercilessly, hissing to Pansy's turned back. "He's giving more attention to that Mudblood right now than he ever will to you."
She flounced off, sending perfectly curled black hair bouncing behind her, a satisfied smile showing rows of gleaming white teeth,. Pansy cast a dreadful glance over at Draco, a subconscious confirmation of Blaise's scalding remarks.
Blaise was right, to a small degree. He had joined Crabbe and Goyle in their crowd around the sleep-induced Hermione, who was sprawled against the wooden floor at all angles. Draco crouched above her, in a manner as with the owl, but at the same time, quite different. He examined her less calculatingly, at a distance much closer, and touched her less objectively. Pansy's heart gave a cruel jolt.
"We should leave before anyone comes to investigate," Pansy said as she rushed over to him, breathlessly eager to interrupt, face still glowing a violent shade of scarlet.
"With the condition the Ministry's in right now, they won't discover this for hours," replied Blaise, wallowing in Pansy's discomfort.
Pansy blanched.
"No, Pansy's right. We should take as many precautions as possible," Draco intermitted, rising from his hovering squat. Goyle, do take Hermione when you disapparate."
"She's coming with us?"
Draco cast Pansy a weary glance.
"You want to leave her so her parents can find her and the whole Muggle community knows about this by nightfall?"
Five cracks rang out in the still air, and soon thereafter, the silence reclaimed its reign over the Muggle neighborhood.
***
The most blissfully restful sleep that Hermione experienced since the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament would have gone uninterrupted for hours if an object had not suddenly latched on to her calf.
Opening her eyes groggily to meet this interruption, she gave a surprised yelp and quickly curled her legs back towards her chest when she saw exactly what had grabbed hold of her leg- a severed hand.
She shook it off frantically, beside herself in fear, until the graying fingers loosened their hold, and the bones ceased to tear into her flesh. It scuttled away, crablike, loose bags of skin sagging heavily over the thin, bony frame.
"You are to treat my ancestor with respect," called a far-away voice, reverberating against the dark walls of her confinement. Footsteps echoed, growing ever louder, approaching swiftly.
"Ancestor…?"
"Great Grandfather Carnificus Nigellus Malfoy, son of Phineas Nigellus, responsible for renovation of this most sacred Malfoy Manor by using the Imperius Curse on thousands of Muggles."
By this point, the source of the voice had entered the dim light before her, and Hermione (although still thoroughly disgusted from being groped by a decapitated centuries-old hand), froze. Draco Malfoy stood before her, leering down his nose at her cowering form, his amused look cleary visible even in the darkness.
"Now this is the way you should have been ever since we first met, Mudblood," he sneered, moving in closer to her curled position on the gray stone floor with his wand in hand. "On your knees."
Immediately, she firmly twisted her legs beneath her and stared up at her captor, obedient as a house elf.
Realization hit her as hard- Draco could use the Imperius curse. She was at his complete and utter mercy, to do as he pleased when he pleased.
"But that's not enough, is it? Not after all you've put me through," he continued, a brilliant smile gleaming on his face. "Bow to me."
A mere flick of his wand, and Hermione's arms rigidly shot in front of her, her back curved towards the floor, and her face was so close to the stone floor that she could taste the dirt upon its grimy surface.
Regaining control over her limbs, she rose and defiantly returned his frigid stare unflinchingly. Draco was now close enough to her that she could feel his warm breath against her frozen cheeks, count every speckle of blue in his eyes. His lips bent into a cruel smile as he reached out a hand to twist a russet tendril of hair around his finger. For a second, he allowed himself to admire the glow of her moon-white skin, her warm hazel eyes, and delicate pink lips that were quivering with fear. Her hair that had once reminded him of her bushy unkempt cat (Crookshanks, was it?) now tamed to frame her oval face with long waves flowing over her shoulder down her back.
"It's a shame that these looks were wasted on a Muggle-born," he whispered silkily into her ear, lost in his thoughts. Immediately, her face burned with indignation.
"No girl, Muggle-born or not, would ever waste their time on a git like you," she spat viciously.
"Plenty of your fellow Gryffindors would disagree."
"Only for your money."
"You should watch your mouth with me, Mudblood."
"What are you to do if I don't?"
A contemplative silence preceded, but their eye contact never once faltered.
"According to your beloved coward Dumbledore, there are things far, far worse than death, Granger."
"And being with you is one."
He abruptly raised his hand, and Hermione braced herself for a heavy blow to crush her jaw. It never came.
He held her jaw between his fingers, surprisingly delicate, at the same time causing the breath chill in her throat, a warm fluster to rise into her head. The overwhelming paradox of feeling left a vapid hole in all train of thought.
"Being with me is a pleasure," he said softly into her face, "compared to the misery you will come to know."
He released her, and immediately, her legs were rubber beneath her. She felt herself falling back down to the hard floor, mind spiraling back into oblivion.
Authors note: I knew a revision was necessary. GAH! Hopefully, this is a little less crappy than the original? : )