Chapter 2
Hermione ran as fast as she could, trying to get away from the Death Eaters before they were caught or hit with a spell. She wasn’t sure exactly which way the others had gone, but she knew splitting up was the best option as with all the spells being tossed at them, they had a better chance of getting hit if they were all together. What Hermione hadn’t expected was to end up running on her own without any of her friends with her. She didn’t see anyone chasing her; she only saw fly away spells from other chases of her friends that slipped into her path. She kept her eyes darting back and forth, making sure that no one would try to sneak up on her.
What she hadn’t expected, was for someone to just appear right in front of her, instead of running up on her from either side.
Hermione had been so focused on darting her eyes back and forth to watch her sides, she didn’t see what appeared in front of her. Hermione ran head on into a solid figure that made Hermione think that she was going to get bruised just from the impact alone, never mind the bruising grip on her arms that prevented her from falling.
“Hello muddy,” Bellatrix said with a grin as she looked at the busy haired girl, someone she and her sisters had been waiting for, “Why don’t we go have a chat and let the boys have their little fun?” She asked with a smirk.
“N-” Hermione wanted nothing to do with the Dark Lord’s right hand, with the woman that was known to love to torture her targets and wasn’t above murdering them afterwards. Before Hermione could get the words out of her mouth, she felt the pull of apparition quickly engulf her, cutting off her words.
As soon as she felt whole again, she pulled away from Bellatrix, thankful the woman actually let her go, bent over in half and tried her best to control her stomach to make sure she wouldn’t lose her dinner. Just from the floor alone, the place they were in seemed very expensive and Hermione didn’t want to ruin anything.
“What have you done Bella?” Asked a stern voice with the most elegant tone she had ever heard that sounded just as cold as elegant. Hermione could have sworn she had heard the voice before, but she couldn’t place it; she also couldn’t focus too much on it in favor of making sure she didn’t throw up all over the floor. “I thought I made it clear that don’t want any of that filth you hang around in my house.” Hermione could practically see the look of disgust on the unknown woman’s face. Great, she was stuck with two blood supremist. It would figure that since Hermione was against going on this rescue mission since the beginning, it would be her that gets captured.
“But this one is different Cissy.” Bellatrix said with a pout as she walked closer to her sister, but made sure to keep the girl in her eyesight. It wouldn’t do for her to lose the girl so soon after finding her; then her sister would really be pissed at her and that was never any fun. “Look at her, really look at her.” Bellatrix implored her sister.
Bellatrix had known the second she laid eyes on the little muddy, who exactly the bushy haired girl was to them. But Bellatrix would say that was because she was the oldest and had done more research and had more faith in their prophecy than the other two did. It would only make sense that she would be able to realize who the girl was and wouldn’t be surprised if Narcissa didn’t.
But she wanted Narcissa to realize who it was also; she wanted her youngest sister to realize without her having to say. They needed to come up with a plan to keep their girl safe until she was older and they were able to properly steal her away. In the meantime though, they were on opposite sides of the war, a war that Bellatrix was having a lot of fun participating in but she didn’t think her little muddy was. They had a lot of planning to do both before they let the girl go and after.
Hermione finally felt she had a strong enough grip on her stomach that she was no longer able to lose her dinner, so she straightened her stance and finally looked around the room she was in as she slowly took in the women she was with. The room, some kind of sitting room that seemed way too classy for her to be in, was decorated in black, green, silver and natural dark woods. In truth, not that she would admit it to the women in the room, the room looked very nice. But the two women, they made the room horrible.
Hermione instantly recognized Narcissa Malfoy. Who wouldn’t be able to recognize the woman was practically frontpage news at least once a month for something or another since Hermione started receiving magical news publications? What worried her though, was that neither woman was holding their wand to her at all; which reminded her that while they clearly weren’t concerned with her being there and attacking them, Hermione very much had that concern. Instantly, her wand was raised and pointed at the two women.
“Where am I?” She asked in as strong of voice as she could muster; which wasn’t very much since she was still struggling to get her stomach completely under control after the unexpected apparition.
Narcissa closed the book she had been reading while she waited for her sister to return home and arched an eyebrow at the audacity of the girl demanding anything of her in her home. If it wasn’t for the fact that Narcissa did in fact know who the girl was, both outside of her own prophecy and inside, she would have nonverbally taught the child a lesson about demanding anything of someone from the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. But she did know who Hermione was, both with the prophecy and the fact that she was technically a child, her own son’s age, that had just technically been kidnapped from what was likely a battle between adults and children. Therefore, even though the brash child was threatening her in her own home, she would let it pass. It wasn’t like Hermione would actually be able to hurt her after all; she was far too inexperienced to be able to do so.
“Where do you think you are?” Narcissa asked, doing her best to keep her well trained haughty tone out of her voice; she didn’t want the child to hate before they really got to know each other after all. She was known as the ice queen for a reason; but that wasn’t all she wanted Hermione to know her as.
Hermione didn’t dare take her eyes off of the two women. They were both master duelists, even if one of them didn’t really duel all too much anymore that she knew of. Growing up in a pure blood family meant that she was taught how to duel from a young age and was expected to be very good at it. That much she knew from their disastrous second year dueling club.
She knew exactly where she was. The Slytherin colors, the sheer amount of wealth on clear display and just the fact that Narcissa had been clearly casually sitting in the armchair and reading something, meant that Hermione had to be in Malfoy Manor. She had never seen pictures of the place, or even read descriptions outside of how large and opulent the place was and this room certainly fit the criteria.
“I’m in Malfoy Manor.” Hermione said in a sure voice, trying to think of ways she could safely get out of the situation. She knew how to send a patronus, but she wasn’t sure she could make one in this situation. At least, she didn’t think she could fast enough before the two older witches could stop her from sending for help. She was a very dangerous situation and it was very quickly getting out of her control. Actually, since she stepped foot into the Ministry, the whole situation had been out of her control and it was driving her insane. It was giving her major anxiety problems but she had to keep her cool. What little she knew about the Black sisters, she was in very real danger, and if she didn’t keep her cool, the danger would only increase.
The reactions from the older women were instant. Bellatrix threw her head back and cackled a laugh that Hermione thought didn’t sound nearly as mad as it did when they were at the ministry. In fact, if Hermione wasn’t as afraid as she was, she would have thought the dark witch actually sounded amused as she cackled. Even Narcissa, as restrained as she normally was in public, chuckled in the most lady like manor Hermione could think was possible when someone laughed.
“Oh muddy, that was great.” Bellatrix said once she stopped laughing, “I wouldn’t dare bring you there; not with all those filthy beasts roaming that disrespectful house. I only go there when I have to.”
Hermione was confused; she had been under the impression that was where all the Dark Lord’s worshippers went. Including the man himself. She had thought Bellatrix Lestrange was his number one soldier and yet she didn’t want to be around her fellow soldiers? She was very clearly missing something.
“Then where am I?” Hermione asked, slightly afraid of the answer since she had been comfortable with at least one thing: knowing where she was. But now that she didn’t, she was starting to feel even more lost than she was before; she was even starting to feel afraid and could feel her skin crawl as she battled to keep control of her fear and to try not to let it show. She was a Gryffindor and she shouldn’t feel this afraid. She was braver than this. Just because she didn’t have her boys with her didn’t mean she still couldn’t be brave, she just had to continue to think things through and not let her fear overwhelm her.
“You’re in the most beautiful and respected place there has ever been.” Bellatrix said as she flung her arms out as if to show off the place; Hermione nearly expected the dark witch to twirl in place with how she was moving. “There is no bigger or better house that holds nearly as much knowledge and history as this house.” She said with a near manic grin and look that reminded Hermione that she was indeed in dangerous company that may not be entirely mentally stable.
“Welcome Hermione, the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black’s home.” Narcissa said with a cold smile that the teenage couldn’t tell if the blonde woman mean to be as cold as it appeared or if she was trying to appear warm and just failing, “You are in the very first and most highly regarded and protected, Black Manor.”
Hermione felt her blood drain from her face as she finally realized how much trouble she was really in and how unlikely it was that she would be getting help anytime soon.