Captured

Chapter Fourteen: Fear

It didn't take Hermione long to figure out where everything was meant to go, and before she knew it she was sliding the last book back home on its shelf.

She glanced around the library, letting loose a giddy and excited laugh as she did. After her initial awe, she had tried to control her reaction, fearing that if Malfoy realized just how much she appreciated being here he might use it against her somehow, potentially losing the one place in this entire manor that could likely bring her any sort of joy.

It was early evening and she wasn't sure when Malfoy was going to return, so she wanted to take in as much as possible before he came to drag her back to her room-slash-prison. She dragged her hands along the spines of the volumes on the shelves, savoring the different textures of all the various books. She had found a small section of trashy wizarding romance novels when she was putting things away and was currently making her way towards it. She hadn't been able to stop the dropping of her jaw when she had realized what the books in that section had entailed, expecting smutty fiction to be one of the last things she'd find in the private library of an aristocratic pureblood family. She was sure she would have only been more shocked to find muggle books in the collection. The novel she had flipped open had been written within the previous fifty years but some in the section looked newer. She wondered who had added them, or if Malfoy even knew they were here. With a snort, she imagined the look of disgust that would be on his face if he opened up any of these and realized what was inside. The snort turned into full blown laughter as she walked along the left hand side of the wraparound mezzanine, towards the corner furthest from the door, where the trashy novels had been tucked away. She couldn't help the image that popped into her mind of a furtive Narcissa placing these on the shelves, ensuring her husband and son didn't find them by putting them as far from the front of the library as possible.

She finally reached it, and began running her fingers over titles as she decided which to glance through first. This wasn't her go-to genre normally, but she wanted something that took her mind far, far away from the manor. She wanted to feel semi-normal.

And if she was being honest, she was dying to see how different they were from their muggle equivalents.

She picked one about a witch who fell for a roguish, vigilante auror and settled herself into the nearby plush reading chair tucked beneath a massive window. She read until the sun had set and the window behind her was nothing but inky blackness, reflecting the candlelight from the sconces inside. It had been so long since she had been able to tuck herself away, lost among worlds in the library, with nothing but her characters and candlelight to keep her company. And to be reading by actual light at night again, not straining her eyes in dim moonlight. It was like a small pocket of heaven had fallen into her lap within this place that was so overwhelmingly hellish.

She finished the first novel, which had only been a short two hundred and fifty pages, and had been surprised how similar it had been to its muggle likeness. So similar in fact, that had it not been for terms specific to the wizarding world, she might have thought she was actually reading a muggle one instead. She wondered if they had actually been inspired by the muggle romance books and smirked as she thought about a prejudiced pureblood finding guilty pleasure in these novels, no idea that they were reading something rooted in muggle literature.

The door to the library opened with a large groan and she shot up, stuffing the book back on the shelf as she began hurrying back towards the spiral staircase that would lead her to the main floor. She didn't think she could survive the embarrassment Malfoy would bestow upon her if he were to find her reading that.

"Hurry up, Granger. I don't have all night." His drawl floated up to her right before she reached the stairs and started back down.

She glared at him, intentionally walking slower as she responded.