The Inevitable

Chapter 28 - Eleven Days

Draco's POV

Hermione sat in her chair leaning forward slightly. After the first day, the torture rotated. When she didn't give Lucious the answers he wanted, he moved to me. When he couldn't get a reaction out of me, he moved back to her. My heart broke more and more each time she cried for me while the man who was supposed to be my father tortured me. Her sobs weren't quiet. She had run out of defiance and I was close behind. Each time she fell to the cruciatus curse, I felt it same as before. We had barely eaten anything. The only time we were able to relieve ourselves was in a bucket in the corner. That only got used when we weren't tied up. Lucious made sure someone came in here three times a day to untie us and feed us. He treated us as if we were his pets.

Eleven days is how long we'd been here. I kept track by the sun as it rose and set. I didn't know what time it was, but I knew when a day ended and a new one began. On the fifth day I had tried to break us out of here, but it didn't end well. The man who comes in like clockwork left an opening and I tried to take it. I had knocked him down trying to find his wand. Of course with my luck Lucious walked in and caught me. To punish me, he tortured Hermione for the second day in a row. There was no switching that day. On the ninth day, I was knocked unconscious. Hermione said it must've been a few hours I was out. Apparently Lucious had slammed my head into the stone.

"Hermione, I have a question." She lifted her head to look at me. "When I'm hit with the cruciatus curse, do you feel it?" She nodded slightly. "Why can we feel when the other is in pain?"

"It has to do with that spell," she whispered. She was exhausted. "One of the books mentioned it, but not much about it. When two people are in love, their magical bond grows stronger each day. They feel each other's pain, joy, and other things like that."

"I've never heard of that before," I said thinking of anyone who might've mentioned a bond that strong.

"It's rare. The only people who can achieve a bond so strong are truly in love. Love is the greatest magic of all...but true undying love, that's the strongest there is."

"So...do you love me?" I asked eyeing her after what she had said. If she could feel it, and I could too, surely she had to be. She sniffed beginning to tear up.

"I do. I really do love you. I never thought I could fall in love with someone as hard and as fast as I did with you." Her voice cracked and I felt myself tearing up a bit.

"I love you Hermione," I whispered. She let out a laugh and gave her best smile. "I love you." Her smile faded slowly as more sniffles came from her.

"Draco," she said quietly lifting her head. "I'm scared we won't get out of this." My heart ached wanting to comfort her. My wrists had begun to grow raw from my repeated attempts to break free of the ropes. I'm sure my ankles were about the same.

"We will. You know we will. We saw it first hand." I had turned awfully optimistic during these eleven days. The only thing I could cling to was what we saw and heard in that memory. I knew that Potter would find us so I clung to that.

"But what if it changes? We changed a few things we saw...what if we inadvertently changed this?" Her face was covered in bruises and dried blood. Her left eye had been swollen shut. She had taken more of a beating than I had because of her blood and because he knew it would hurt me more than physical pain.

"We have to believe it won't change." She sniffled at my words. "Hermione-" the door opened sharply stopping my sentence short.

"Come now mudblood, time for questioning," my father sneered walking into the room. He looked as if he were drunk.

"No," I said eyeing my father. "It's me. Today is me." Hermione had been thrown around yesterday, it's suppose to be me now. Lucious just smirked moving to Hermione's chair.