Twenty-Four Hours

Twenty-Four Hours Chapter Six

"Um, Hermione?" Ron asked, backing up against the wall. "I don't think you kept the jar closed tightly enough. Either that, or she's not really a beetle."

Hermione glared at him, then turned quickly back to Rita. "What do you want?" she demanded roughly. "And how'd you escape my jar?"

"There were a few air holes," Rita explained simply. "And as for what I want... hmm. That's an excellent question, but remember that I am the unchained, totally mobile person in this room, and you are chained prisoners. So be careful what you say. You have been warned." Hermione looked completely and utterly disgusted.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Hmm, another excellent question. Let's just say that I was buzzing around, saw an open window, and came in. That window happened to be your friend Harry's cell."

"No, I mean here. Wait - you saw Harry? Where is he? How is he? Is he all right? Is he alive?"

"No, Granger, he's dead," Rita snapped, twirling a chestnut tress around her finger carelessly. "Of course he's alive, you think I killed him?"

"In case you didn't notice, Miss Skeeter," Hermione spat, "We're in Voldemort's Castle. This is swarming with Death Eaters, and they are planning to kill Harry, as I am sure you know. So forgive me," she hissed, "if it seems like I am accusing you of killing him, but you should just be aware that there's a VERY high chance of he being dead already! So what did you do there?"

"Oh, nothing," Rita replied mockingly. She casually pulled up her turquoise sleeve, and there it was, bold and engraved on her light skin. The Dark Mark.

"But- you can't be a Death Eater," Hermione sputtered.

"And why not?"

"You're - "

"Shut up, Granger. I'm not in the mood. Now, let me tell you a bit of what's going on with your friend Harry. But first - " she snapped her fingers and an image of Harry appeared on the pocket mirror she was carrying. He sat, tied up, on a platform hovering at least forty feet off the ground. Each corner of the platform was held by a chain connected to the extremely high ceiling.

"What - what are they doing with him? What are you doing with him?" Hermione asked, trembling. Ron gently edged closer to her and relaxed her head in his grasp, stroking her hair gently.

"Surely you know that he has been placed under the most sacred Dark Magic; he is now completely and entirely under Master Malfoy's control. We are testing this and then, of course, killing him."

"So then," Hermione said, sitting up and catching on. "What do you want? What do you want in order for you to set Harry free?"

"Ah. An interesting question," Rita sighed, snapping into reporter-mode. "Let's see. I want the most desperate secret you possess, the most honest and hidden secret, and then I will see what I can do."

Hermione and Ron glanced at each other. She was obviously going to publicize whatever she found out. "Desperate secret?" Hermione finally asked. "Let's see." She gave Ron a just-play-along-I-know-what-I'm-doing look. "Hmm."

"Come on, don't take all day," Rita snapped.

"Hmm," Hermione repeated, going deliberately slowly. "Hmm. Oh," she cried, putting on a great show of remembering something. "There was that time in the Common Room, where Ron was asleep on the couch - " Ron glared at her.

"Oh, that's quite enough, Miss Granger," Rita declared quickly, cutting off the girl. "But... as the six-time defeaters of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, surely you can think of something-"

"Um... how about, Sirius Black was innocent?" Hermione tried. Rita shook her head.

"Something bad."

"Why does it matter?" Hermione demanded. "Why can't you twist something I say into something... awful?"

"Because," Rita explained patiently, "if I do that, I won't be able to transform anymore without having to make sure that you're not watching me, preparing to trap me in a jar."

"Oh," Hermione sighed. "Well, um, Neville Longbottom is a Death Eater?"

Rita choked on her own spit. "I said something true," she insisted between laughs.

"No, he really is," Ron protested. "Honest!"

"Yeah," Rita snapped, "and I'm the president of the States."

Hermione looked at her strangely, and after a while, she muttered, "Hey, you never know."

***

Meanwhile, if it were possible, Harry was achieving even less progress. He was, in fact, sitting on that hovering platform, and he was completely trapped.

Death Eaters kept patrolling the room, as if there were some chance that he might escape, but it was completely obvious that Harry would only be able to escape that fix if Voldemort suddenly decided that he wanted his prisoner back in the dungeon, which, to be honest, would not be much of a help. As Lucius had mentioned while chaining him to this platform (during which, Lucius had used the Blindius Charm on him, so he had no idea how it had been done), his only real chance of escape, to find some way to drop from the platform, would result in his death anyway.

However, Harry thought with a wry grin, at least the Death Eaters would have to mop up the blood.

"Hey, Potter," came a familiar, amused drawl. "Enjoying yourself up there?" Harry strained his neck to see the speaker, and he was not at all surprised to see the one and only Mini-Malfoy, dressed in indigo robes, sitting in a leather armchair that had obviously been conjured by magic. [A/N: I'm not sure if he'd be able to see her from forty feet up, but I'm assuming that he could. Then again, aside from being on a plane, I don't think I've ever been forty feet in the air, so what would I know?]

"Not really, if you'd believe it," Harry replied bitterly. Michelle may have smiled, but Harry would never know from this distance. [A/N: I know that he'd never, not in a million years, be able to see her facial expression from a forty-foot distance. Especially with that cruddy eyesight.]

"Hmm, that's a shame," Michelle smirked. He could hear the smirk in her voice, if not see it. "'Cause you're going to be up there for a while."

"I thought you were helping me," Harry snapped. "What happened to that phase of your dumb plan?"

"Good work there, Potter. And you thought of that all by yourself?" she wondered in mock astonishment. "Well, that's an improvement, at least." Harry spat at her, but from his position, the spit landed back on his own robes. The torn, scarlet robes that Michelle had given him the previous night.

"Look, Mini, I don't know what your problem is, but could you just go away and leave me alone? I really don't feel like talking to you right now. Not after your bloody Father cast the Cruciatus Curse on me a million times in a row."

An odd, unrecognizable feeling seemed to hit Michelle. "He - he did that? B-b-but that - that wasn't in the Plan. He wasn't supposed to use the Cruciatus on you unless you directly defied him..." She, by some way that Harry would probably never know, suddenly disappared and reappeared on the platform, leaning against one of the poles.

"Well, I can assure you that he did. And you know what? I would defy him. What, you expected me to bow down to him and his stupid Master just because they threatened me with a bunch of Unforgivable Curses? Think again."

"Aren't you scared?" Michelle wondered, awed.

"Sure, I'm scared," Harry snapped. "Wouldn't you be scared; chained by homicidal freaks you know have wanted to kill you since you were a year old? Wouldn't you be afraid of being chained up on a platform fifty feet off the ground?"

'Yes,' Michelle thought with a passion. But what she said was, "I would never be in that position. I wouldn't get myself into it. Why don't you just go along with them? If you don't, you'll die. But... if you do... well, it can't hurt, really. Power... knowledge... fame..."

Harry stared at her. "Do you know who you're talking to?" he demanded. "I mean, you can say that to anyone you like, but me? Is it at all likely that I would join your damn father's Master? I'd rather die."

"And you know that they'll kill you," Michelle whispered.

"So? Don't you have a conscience? Don't you have a soul? Don't you care what's the right thing to do over evil?" He looked at her with that Look in his eyes. The look that five-year-old children have mastered; the look of trust and assurance that while in your parents' protection, no harm can come to you. That Look.

"Sure I have a soul," Michelle snapped. "Everyone has a soul."

"Not your father," Harry insisted. "Not Voldemort."

"Not the Da-- not Voldemort," Michelle echoed. "He had a soul, once," she said suddenly. "Now, though..."

"And your brother," Harry put in helpfully.

"Draco has a soul!" Michelle exclaimed.

"Maybe he does today, but the way he's going, is it likely that he will tomorrow?" Harry demanded bitterly, thinking of Malfoy's control over him and knowing that Malfoy would probably get him to walk off the platform, or something. Maybe he'd just do Avada Kedavra.

"He's seventeen," Michelle stated. "He doesn't understand. And you don't understand how he feels."

"Oh, and you do?" Harry sneered. "You're only ten."

"Father never cast the Unforgivable Curses on me. Draco knows how they feel, how they tear you up inside of you..."

"He cast the Unforgivable Curses on Mal-- on Draco?" Harry demanded incredulously. It struck him as impossible that a father would do something like that to his son. It would take all the evil in the world for someone to do that to their own child.

"Yes," Michelle sighed. "So often that I heard Draco screaming in the middle of the night. He was having nightmares, nightmares about the Cruciatus Curse."

"It really hurts," Harry told her unnecessarily. "It feels like you're going to rip open from the pain; it's like having a knife twisted into your skin, turning slowly so as to maximize the pain. And then, when it stops, it's like being born again. You need to remind yourself how to use your limbs, because they were hurting so much from the Curse that you can't feel them anymore."

Michelle reached out a hand to stroke him, then thought better of it. She was a Malfoy! A Slytherin! Slytherins don't feel empathy! But then she remembered the look she saw in his eyes when the Cruciatus Curse had been cast on him. He looked... like he was being torn apart. And so she just sat there, right next to him, and didn't say anything.

"Feeling empathy now, are you?" Harry sneered.

"Where is it written that I can't feel how I want to feel?" Michelle snapped. Of course, this was the exact opposite of what she was thinking, but Potter didn't know that.

"You're a Malfoy, a Slytherin, a Death-Eater-In-Training - "

Michelle laughed. "Death Eater in Training? Yeah, right, Potter."

"B-b-but you said - Knowledge... power... fame - "

"Ha! You think I meant any of that?" She whipped out a crumpled-up piece of parchment from the pocket of her bluish-purple robes and indicated an underlined piece telling her to say that. "No, it's in the script... in my Plan."

"I see," Harry said coldly.

"I would never want to be a Death Eater."

"And why not?"

"Their leader, for one thing, is a hypocrite. He's basically saying 'Kill all the people with muggle blood, never mind that I'm a halfblood! And if you defy me, you get a taste of my power!' And then there's the fact that all his followers have to bow down to him. I mean, honestly. And then, there are his... concequences for when his followers do something wrong. No, I would never want to be a Death Eater. Way too much trouble. But then again," she added with a twisted grimace, "it's not like I have much of a choice. Father's completely set on it. Thinks I want to be in the damned group."

Harry stared at her. "Really?" he asked. "You really feel that way?" Michelle nodded. "Well then, Miss Malfoy, it seems we have something in common."

Michelle smiled. "Who would've thought?"