The Beauty of the Beast [Dramione]

Malfoy Manor

Wow, it's been a while since I last updated. A long loooooong time. Writer's block leaves no rest for the wicked. I totally just botched that quote, but screw it. Finally I wised up and got some caffeine into my system so I could sit down long enough to work on this.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer back in the states, and if you're elsewhere while you're reading this, I hope that your weather has been significantly better than ours. The mix between hurricane storms and stifling heat just isn't helping.

Anywaaaaaay, I figured this chapter we would check back in on Jacob and see how he's doing, the poor thing.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Harry Potter series!

*Previously on The Beauty of the Beast*

Jacob pressed his back against the cold wall and shut his eyes.

"Bellatrix Lestrange."

Thoughts about what she could do to him if he got caught raced through his head before he could block them out. Images of him and Hermione, lying side by side on the cold floor, bleeding through deadly twin wounds to their own demises flashed before him, and he struggled to stay focused and steady his ragged breathing.

Hermione lay limp as a rag doll in his arms, her pale face reflecting none of the fear and worry that Jacob's did.

As the footsteps neared, Jacob seemed to snap back to reality. He lay Hermione back down on the floor, and arranged her in a semi-concievable state of false sleep, with her arm under her head, and her legs tucked up close to her torso, in a somewhat awkward fetal position. Lifting up a lock of her hair, he neatly cut it with his wand, until he had a few brown curls. He then quickly conjured a straight-backed chair in the corner, and sat in it, arranging his robes so that they did not brush the ground.

Having done this, he materialized a small blue flame, not nearly as beautiful as the ones that Hermione was apt at making, but a more hurried and purposeful one.

The footsteps finally reached the door, and before either of the figures could vocalize their surprise at the unlocked cell door, Jacob spoke, with a slightly deeper voice and sneering tone, "Come in. Unless you're squeamish."

Bellatrix's astonished look was quickly masked with a face of derision. "Finally decided to be a man, hmm Draco? I must admit, it's not like you to be so faint and girlish after a quick torturing session. Realized that the mudblood had more balls than you? Come to change that with what, a fire and is that hair?" She mocked, glaring at the figure in the chair.

Jacob (A/N: Hell, for the sake of it, I'm calling him Jacob. Just remember everyone thinks he's Draco.) sat a little taller in the chair and straightened his robes, brushing some imaginary grime off of them. "I would be surprised to find someone not as equally repulsed by such a primitive method of torture as I had appeared to be. And such means of torture need not be necessary, dearest aunt, as you could have caused, and may very well have caused, serious injury, that could result in the mudblood's immediate death, in which case, she would be no use to us whatsoever."

He fixed them both with a glare that he had come to perfect in the past 15 minutes of being in the ministry.

"And as to my current position, I am deducing the exact amount of time it takes for this mudblood's precious hair to burn." As if to prove his point, he let the lock of hair fall onto the fire, where it promptly burst into flame.

Bellatrix, unfazed by the outburst of accusations against her, simply shrugged. "How else should I have dealt with it, dearest nephew? It is not becoming of you to show such pity. I assume it is because of your mother, the weakling that she was. She never had a backbone, my sister, and she deserved the death that she got. I must say, I did enjoy watching it. But it seems that she has passed that undesireable trait on to you."