DRAGON'S HEARTSTRINGS || dramione | harry potter

Chapter Nine

"Would you like to eat something?"

"No, Mipsy, thank you, I'm not hungry."

"Maybe you'd like to get out of bed and take a bath?"

"No, Mipsy, I'm doing well as I am."

A moment of silence. "Master left together with Mister Zabini, so the Manor is all for you, Missis."

"That's great, Mipsy, but I'm in no mood."

The elf stood by Hermione's bed for a few minutes, thinking of what else to say to Hermione who was laying in her bed for a whole night and a whole day, refusing to get up. All Hermione remembered from the night of the torture after it was over was how someone grabbed her immobilized body, and threw it over their shoulder. She couldn't move, she couldn't scream but she knew that the one carrying her was not the High Reeve – this man's body felt different. Only when he lay her in her bed did she see his face, half of it sheathed in shadows – a face of Blaise Zabini, frowning and serious. He made her drink a vial of sleepless draught that Mipsy had brought, and she saw his lips move but didn't hear a single word he told her.

The last thing Hermione thought before drowning asleep was of Zabini. He used to be Pansy's friend, too, she saw them together more than once, then how could he just stand by side and do nothing while she was being tortured and eventually killed?

She couldn't understand it. But she fell asleep.

When she woke up, Zabini was gone.

Since then, Hermione did nothing, only stared before her at the wall, or to the window, or at the ceiling when she turned around. For the first ten hours, Mipsy didn't leave her side, but Hermione refused everything she offered her, so, after a lot of sighing, the elf finally left her alone.

If Mipsy was telling the truth and the High Reeve was really out, Hermione didn't have a lot of time on her hands, she had to hurry. She quickly jumped out of her bed and put on the first thing she managed to grab. She spent another ten minutes looking for Crookshanks, cooing his name softly even when all she wanted to do was scream in terror. She found the cat, took it into her arms, and went straight out of the Manor without taking anything else with her, without turning back once.

She rushed through the door, stepped down the road, and tried to Apparate for the first time the way the High Reeve had Apparated her here when he brought her here more than a month ago. Hermione was thinking about Hogwarts, and she felt a familiar tug in her lower body, but not a moment later, a horrible blood-wrenching pain soared through her left hand. She cried out, falling to the ground, trying not to hurt Crookshanks on her way down. She looked around, moaning in pain, and dreadfully realized she had gotten only a few steps further. She was still just by the gates of the Malfoy Manor.

Hermione groaned, got up to her feet, and tried Apparating again. This time, the pain eloped not only her hand, but the whole left side of her body, forcing her to shriek in agony. Terrified Crookshanks howled in her arms when she fell to the ground again, hitting her head. Hermione opened her eyes – she didn't get much farther than when she started.

First, she looked down at the left hand where the ring was. Her whole arm was now heavily bruised, reminding her of a blackened apple. She barely had any sensation in it.

Hermione stood up and looked at the gates, ignoring the ache.

"Mipsy," she said.

Pop. "Yes, Missis?"

"Open the gates for me," Hermione demanded calmly.

She saw Mipsy's big eyes widen. "But—I cannot do that, Missis... I'm not allowed to—"