Dramione Drabbles

Prisoner Hermione

The lock snicked open and the rusty metal door groaned as Draco entered the room flanked by two Azkaban guards. His eyes were cold and guarded, his posture tense. He sat across the table from Hermione, looking unsettled without his magic. When the guards were satisfied with the state of calm, they left them alone.

"It's nothing," she said as his gaze lingered on the left side of her face. An inmate had hit her simply because she could, leaving an ugly crescent-moon bruise around Hermione's eye. Part of her cheekbone was swollen. She twisted her hands together, handcuffs dragging loudly on the steel table bolted to the ground.

Draco stared at her weeping wrists in horror. "How did this happen?"

"I angered the wrong people," she said vaguely. Then in a no-nonsense tone asked, "Will you represent me?"

"Why me, Granger?" He was clean-cut in his suit and tie, his expression glacial. "There are more suitable barristers willing to take your case."

"I trust you," she reasoned. "You know the bastards who are after me better than anyone. I need a pure-blood on my side, and you're the most notorious one."

"Wouldn't hiring me go against everything you stand for?"

"Who cares what I stand for if I'm incarcerated and soulless?"

He scrutinized her, a grave expression on his face. Lowering his voice he said, "And if they find out about us?"

"They won't."

"It could negatively affect your trial."

"It was a stupid teenage fling. Nobody even knew about it."

The way he was looking at her confirmed that it was more than a 'stupid teenage fling' to him. If she hadn't been through hell and back in the last few days, she might have mirrored his sentiments. But she was tired and in pain and desperate.

"Draco, please," she whispered, her voice breaking. "Don't let me die in here."

Her plea seemed to spark something in him because he sat taller and gave her a nod, his cool grey eyes meeting hers with steely determination. He clicked his monogrammed briefcase open and withdrew a blank scroll and self-inking quill. She was relieved to find that familiar look of ambition on his face. If anyone could outsmart the corrupt pure-bloods who wanted her out of politics, it was Draco Malfoy.

It wasn't just that Draco was intelligent and crafty, but he would go to war for her. A stupid teenage fling was putting it lightly. If it weren't for Hermione's plans to move to Australia after graduation, and Draco's acceptance to the American Law Mastery he'd coveted, they might still be together. Sometimes she wished to go back to the start and tell her younger self not to let him go. That people like Draco didn't enter her life as often as she'd think. Never at all, really.

She stared at his naked ring finger. Seven years later, he still hadn't settled down. Neither had she. But Draco had familial obligations.

"I was waiting for you," he said in a low voice, noticing the direction of her gaze. He formed a fist with his left hand and released. "Came as a shock when I found out my future wife was in Azkaban."

Warmth bloomed beneath her skin for the first time since she'd arrived, fuelling her need for freedom. "If you get me out of here, I'll marry you."

For a second, he smiled, and his eyes turned into the same liquid heat she'd fallen for when she was eighteen. And then he schooled himself, pressing his quill on parchment and giving her a pensive look. "Tell me about the morning of your arrest, Miss Granger," he began in a level-headed, professional voice, and she knew he wouldn't let his emotions slip again. Not until she was free.

(630 words, first written Oct 2024)