Blade Of War (Dramione)

Chapter 4

They had apparated to the foot of Malfoy Manor. It was far more gloomy and dull than one would think. It stood large, and powering, it with no doubt fit the Malfoy name.

With Dolohov's grip on her arm still steady, he jolted her step forward. They both stride right in, as she kept her gaze straight ahead. Dolohov led the way up the long winded stairway. The hallways lied cold and dark, as one took every step forward. The manor was enormous, yet the staircase took practically half the space.

"Go right in there." Dolohov spoke as he opened the door to one of the several rooms the place occupied. Hermione wearily took a step in as she slowly grew aware of her surroundings.

"Here comes the Mudblood." 

A staggered, yet low voice was heard, as she stopped in her tracks.

Steadily making her gaze up and forward, It was Draco Malfoy.

He looked different. Not as she had seen him before.

He was recognizable, yet was not the same.

Hermione's memory of him at Hogwarts were present yet brief. She remembers his rigid remarks, and his prideful walk, yet his expression stood almost horrid. Far more dark and bitter, as he now carries his being in an even more entitled manner. 

His dead, piercing stare at her was almost unbearable. His eyes remained still and steady as they lost any bit of luminescence.

His presence was unsettling. He towered over her with no care in the world as he withheld the look of pride within himself. He did indeed look different, yet she knew taking lives would do that to one. 

He indeed had done that. More than once, him along with the others who obtained the Malfoy name. He were practically a duplicate of Voldemort himself. At that point she truly couldn't see a difference in the two. It was rather alarming.

The number of souls he took and tortured to shambles was purely unfathomable. Every single life he stood over on that battlefield, it truly did reflect on his physical outlook. She wondered who besides the ones she seen with her very eyes he had killed. At the same time she didn't think she could picture that in the present moment. It was bothering.

From what Pomfrey had told her, it seemed as if the Malfoy's had been up to nothing but horrid acts as she lied beneath, in the cellars of Hogwarts. Yet she never knew she would hear those remarks of someone she sat in the very same class with.

Someone who were practically her age.

Fear was all that consumed her as a whole. She had no clue of how to stagger through the circumstance she was put in.

He watched her firm and harsh, as she tried to look anywhere but his way.

It were as if he was reading a book, yet all he were doing was studying her expression. She didn't know what he was looking for, yet based off his very look, she had assumed he was trying to navigate through her mind, merely with a glance.

The determination to keep her look bland and unapproachable was stronger than ever.

She of course did not have stable nor reliable memory, yet she didn't want him to know that. She was far too mentally and physically exhausted to have another travel their way through her mind.

Yet she didn't think he would try. After all anyone who did had failed, something projected from his being that he indeed knew that. He didn't need to. His dark stare did that on its own. It was a resenting force that was being projected on from her, simply being right in front of him. He was no longer someone she attended classes with. He was a dark worker.