Hold On - Dramione

Chapter 14

The floor was cold. Hermione didn't remember how she got on the floor, but it was cold as Bellatrix hovered over her.

The deranged witch had her whole body weight on top of Hermione who had broken out into tears. Maybe it was from when she fell on the floor, that initial thud of pain, but it didn't matter how the tears started. All that mattered was that they wouldn't stop.

Being pinned down and restrained, having Bellatrix's cold rank breath on her face, in her ear...she couldn't stop crying. Especially since there was the even more frigid feeling of the knife that was trailed down her jaw.

Her arms were splayed out to the side, the flesh of her arm bared as the sleeve of her coat and sweater were wrenched up.

"That sword is meant to be in my vault at Gringotts, how did you get it?" Bellatrix hissed, her jagged nails pressing into Hermione's skin as she sobbed unabashedly.

"Please," she whimpered, her eyes closed, squeezed so impossibly tight because she couldn't take the sight of Bellatrix over her anymore. She didn't know if she could take the sight of anyone over her anymore.

"What else did you and your friends take from my vault?!"

"I didn't take anything. Please. I didn't take anything."

"I don't believe it," she whispered before she moved to hover over Hermione's arm, and the girl screamed.

She screamed so hard it scratched at her vocal cords. But then again, what reaction could one have to having a word carved into her arm?

The pain was like nothing she'd ever felt. It was indescribably agonising. It was like being burned alive and having your skin cut off with a butterknife. It was....it was so painful that she couldn't even think of a metaphor to describe how painful it was.

She was grateful, perhaps, that she wasn't wearing her emerald ring. She suspected that Bellatrix would've recognised it instantly. Things might've been worse then if they weren't already worse now.

Her screams echoed off the walls of Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix's cackles accompanying the sound.

Hermione lost count of how long she'd been screaming for, of how long she'd been writhing on the floor beneath Bellatrix. And she didn't need to see the word to know what was being carved into her arm.

mudblood

That's what she was. A mudblood. A muggle who was lucky enough to be chosen, to be blessed by Merlin with magic in her veins. Now she had a permanent reminder of what she was.

"GET THE FUCK OFF HER!"

The voice that boomed those words was louder than Hermione's screams, which was impossible.

Draco was a storm as he stormed into the room, pure fury rolling off his body in waves as he drew his wand. He blasted his aunt back into the wall, underneath the window he shattered before the torture curse left his lips.

"I warned you!" he thundered as his aunt was now the one screaming. "She is mine. You touched what is mine!"

He shouldn't have left. How could he have been so stupid as to leave?! It would be forever ingrained in his mind now. The sound of her screams. It was an interesting kind of torture, specifically because he would be driven mad from it. The sound of Hermione screaming played over and over in his mind and while, to everyone else, it may have seemed like unintelligible sounds but to Draco...it sounded like she was screaming his name.

Hermione didn't even remember what she screamed over the agonising pain inflicted by the dark blade, but, it wouldn't have surprised her if it was his name. The name of the one person who could've saved her – who did save her from the prolonged torture of being carved like a turkey with that knife. The name of the one person that she knew had the ability to stop anything and everything from hurting her. Actually, she was almost certain that she screamed Draco's name.