A Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure

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Hermione awoke to someone rubbing their hand in a circular motion across her back. Her breathing hitched in her chest as she remembered the events of the past couple of days. The circular motion stopped abruptly and Hermione was left feeling very alone. She opened her eyes and saw the now familiar figure of Draco Malfoy standing over her bedside.

"It's time to get up," he murmured softly. To Hermione's befuddlement, he pressed his hand against her forehead, frowning slightly.

"Can I help you, Malfoy?" Hermione asked, opting to steer away from the use of 'ferret boy' for awhile since his last episode.

Draco quickly withdrew his hand and pointed at the sink in the corner of her room. "Wash your face. You will find a lavatory inside the door to the right of the sink. I'll be back for you in fifteen minutes. Voldemort has requested your presence."

Any relief Hermione was feeling after her rest quickly evaporated. 'I can't face him again,' she thought becoming alarmed. 'He'll kill me.' The logical part of her mind butted into her alarmist thoughts. 'Of course he won't kill you. He needs you to get to Harry.' Hermione tried to keep her emotions off her face, not wanting to look weak in front of Malfoy, but she was failing.

"Granger, look at me." Malfoy's voice was calm and soothing.

Hermione grudgingly looked up at the confusing man before her. "Malfoy, I can't face him again."

Cupping her face gently in his hand, Malfoy took a deep breath. "You can and you must. Stay strong and don't give up any information to him. I will be waiting for you afterwards. Hold onto that thought if you must." He smiled crookedly and brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Just remember you have a job to do when he's through with you. I expect you to come up with some good insults for me while you are in there. No more of this feeble ferret boy."

Hermione managed a smile, albeit a shaky one. 'Why is he being nice, almost caring?' she wondered.

"Do you need help getting ready?" Malfoy inquired, looking nonchalant.

Hermione shook her head and made to rise. Her knees collapsed under her and she clumsily fell back to her bed. Malfoy's steady arm slipped under her shoulder.

"I think you do. Lean on me," he told her. When Hermione hesitated he repositioned his hands and told her, "I won't bite... this time. I promise."

Hermione rested some of her weight on the blonde man and let him help her hobble to the sink. Her body was so stiff and each of her movements sent a fresh wave of pain through her frame. It was slow work.

While they were near the sink, Hermione voiced something she'd wondered about since the previous day. "Malfoy, you told me that Voldemort can detect any spell that you do here. Well yesterday you cleaned up my ...er... mess using a spell. Will he care?"

Draco tensed and looked at her. "Granger, Voldemort will most likely be pleased." Seeing her confusion he pressed on. "It was a banishing spell... to clean a mess. Voldemort will probably assume that I came in here to do something sick, like he would, such as torturing you a bit for my own amusement and then needed someplace to dispose of the mess, of which he'll assume is blood or vomit."

Hermione's mouth, which had been hanging open while he explained, snapped shut. After a moment spent regaining her composure she looked at him with a wry smile. "You certainly don't sugarcoat things, do you?"

"Never, Granger. Never," Draco replied, his own small smile matching her own.

After she'd been moving around for a bit, Hermione felt some of her stiffness leave her. Chalking it up to her moving about she dismissed Malfoy gently and said she'd be ready in five minutes.

Hermione used the lavatory and straightened her clothes, determined to face Voldemort with as much dignity as she could muster.

All too soon, Hermione heard a knock at the door. "You may enter," she called confidently.

Her door opened quickly but it was not Draco Malfoy standing before her. "You will not be seeing the Dark Lord today, mudblood. It's my turn. You're getting complacent, just calling me in here like that. I could have been the Dark Lord himself. Who were you expecting?" Lucius Malfoy sneered at her with every word.

"No one," Hermione said quietly. "I just assumed that whoever it was, I was not going to have much of a choice whether they came in or not, so I might as well not fuss about it. Does that make any sense?" she asked, hoping to distract Lucius from her amiable statement of before.

Lucius's eyes hardened and he descended upon her. "Do not speak to me as if you were my equal, mudblood." Smacking her across the face, Hermione's already unsteady legs gave way and she crumpled to the floor. "Sectumsempra!"

Hermione screamed in agony. Blood, her blood, was streaming everywhere, gushing freely from a long gash across her chest. "Stop," she tried to yell, but her voice emerged as no more than a whisper.

Lucius chuckled and walked towards her. He smacked her across the face again and her head banged back against the stone floor. Hermione writhed in agony as her sore head made contact with the hard surface. However, she was more concerned with her open wound, from which blood was still flowing.

She was faintly aware that her door had opened and someone had come through it, although her vision was so blurred from pain and blood loss she could not decipher who it was. She could only register pain, intense pain radiating through her.

Hermione felt her wound slowly and painfully begin to stitch together. Blood was still straining to escape, but the stitches were preventing heavy flow. She felt herself being lifted and was relived when she found herself on her bed. Blinking rapidly, she managed to clear her vision.

"Draco!" she called, gasping for air. "What happened?"

"Hush, don't talk," he commanded gently. "My father came here with Voldemort's permission to teach you a little lesson, as he would so kindly put it," Draco's voice was heavily leaden with sarcasm. "I got here in time to keep him from killing you," Draco told her, his voice barely audible. Hermione saw him swallow several times.

She knew Draco had told her not to talk, but she was worried for him. "Are you okay?"

Draco looked at her and took one of her hands in his. "I am now, Hermione. I would never forgive myself if you got killed." He brought her hand close to his mouth and brushed his lips against it. "We must tend to your injuries. May I remove your shirt?"

Hermione nodded meekly and waited for the wave of pain that would come from the disturbance of removing her shirt. Eyes closed she anticipated how it would feel and braced herself. The pain never came. Opening her eyes she looked at Draco who was in thought.

"Hermione," he began slowly. "I have a plan to care for your injuries using magic without Voldemort being any the wiser. If I removed your clothes using a spell, Voldemort would assume that I came in here to rape you. He would not care or be bothered. Then I can tend your injuries using the herbs and maybe use a bit of magic to fix the worst of it; Voldemort knows you have a strong spirit and would assume some violence would be necessary to get you to succumb to me. I can just tell him that I healed the injuries I gave you so that he would not be inconvenienced. Is this okay with you?"

Hermione thought it over. "You're intentions are noble, correct?" she asked him, partly in jest, but also in concern.

Draco peered at her with his pale eyes. "Always."

"Then proceed," she whispered, her chest too tight to speak louder. Immediately she felt the sharp pains in her side subside and sighed deeply as the majority of her aches ebbed away, leaving only a slight soreness. "Thanks, Malfoy," she said.

"I have some dittany," Draco told her. "It will prevent some scarring. I will have to rub it on your wound. Is this okay?"

Hermione was shocked that he kept asking her if his presence was okay to her. She was quite pleased with this. "Yes," she told him, too tired to voice much else.

Gently he rubbed a mixture over her stitched up wound. Hermione could not completely quiet her whimpers as his hand brushed across her sore skin. Draco said nothing; his face expressionless and his eyes distant.

He pulled away when he was finished and retrieved some white bandaging from a table in the corner. "This is going to bite a bit," was all the warning he gave her before beginning his work.

Bite was a mild word for what Hermione next experienced. It felt as if her entire top half was on fire. She gasped in pain and tried to shove Draco away. Failing miserably, she surrendered to the medical attention and tried to reign in her pain.

Draco stood after he had finished and let Hermione readjust herself in her bed. He walked towards a small window in the corner of her room and looked out across the barren land. The sun was setting and the sky was littered with clouds. Suddenly he spoke. "Granger, I know where one of the Horcruxes is. If you get out of here, you must get this information to Potter."

Hermione was taken aback. Quickly regaining her composure she reeled on Malfoy. "Why do you care?" she asked viciously. "How do I know what you say is true? I'm not stupid, Malfoy."

Draco turned to her with icy eyes. "No one said you were stupid, Granger, although you are acting a bit daft at the moment."

Glaring over at the blonde Slytherin, Hermione silently fumed.

"What else do you need from me Granger? Blaise wrote you a note, did he not?" When Hermione failed to respond, Draco pushed on. "I have helped you while you've been here. Hell, I even convinced my father to leave the room. What the fuck are you looking for?"

Hermione continued to lay in silence. She didn't know what she was looking for. Less than a week ago, she had believed Malfoy to be an arrogant prig who thought of nothing but himself and Voldemort. What did he expect?

"Granger, I'm not who you believe I am. I know I've been a right bastard. I know that I've done some damn mean things, but you have to believe that I want to be rid of Voldemort as much as you do. Look at this blasted thing..." he yanked up his sleeve and turned towards Hermione, showing her the dark mark burned onto his skin. "Do you think I want this here? Do you think I had a choice in accepting it?"

This was too much for Hermione. Grimacing noticeably she pushed herself up into a sitting position. "Yes, Malfoy, you did have a choice and you chose wrong. And now you have to pay for your actions. You chose Voldemort because you are an arrogant prat that only wants power. Look at Harry's parents. They had a choice. They chose not to betray their beliefs and did not join Voldemort. You want me to feel sorry for you, when you have joined ranks with the most vile and evil being in our world?"

Draco's face hardened. "You know nothing, bitch. You know absolutely nothing. I did not have one damned say in this. Between Snape and Dumbledore and having to decide where my loyalties were... well this is one choice I could not make for myself after all that happened. I made a choice and this is where it landed me. So don't talk about things you know nothing about."

Making a rude gesture, Draco stormed towards the door. He turned back towards Hermione who lay on the bed silently, too confused to retort to Malfoy's outburst. "Speak like that to me again and you will not like the consequences." With an impassive face he stormed out of the room.

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