She screamed, the sound almost drowning out Bellatrix maniacal laughter.

She had finished, the word marrying her skin, the torture curse making her twitch every now and then. The pain and humiliation had her head swimming, despair the most prominent emotion, though. How was she supposed to escape this?

She missed whatever Bellatrix spouted off, a single tear running down her cheek.

Harry and Ron shouting her name had her turn towards them. She tried to get away from Bellatrix, but the mad woman dragged her to her feet, the cursed knife digging into the skin of her neck. She struggled against her, but her grip tightened.

Pushing against her she could feel two wands against her right hand, her own and Bellatrix kept in a pocket so close.

She managed to sneak her fingers into the pocket and retrieve both wands.

The wand against her throat made it hard to speak, along with the other tight over her ribcage. She bent her hand so the wands were pointed at Bellatrix, awkward angle and arm tight against her side making it impossible to perform wand movements correctly.

She yelled out a spell, and Bellatrix knife dug into her throat making blood trickle down onto her hand mingling with what trickled down from her new carved scar. The blood flowing freely down to the two wands and then down on the floor.

The last thing she heard as the world went blindingly white and then black, was Harry yelling out "Mione!"

She hit the floor hard and groaned in pain. There was still blood flowing from the slight cut on her neck, and the carving on her arm. She looked around and noticed she was in exactly the same spot as before, but alone. The foyer was dark, and eerily quiet, a distant sound of footsteps alerted her that she was not alone, but they were walking away from her and seemed too distant to be of significance yet.

To her surprise, there were decorations adorning the room, a Christmas tree in one corner even. She clutched the wands tighter and saw how her blood covered them. Her first thought was to heal the cuts, but she realized it would be for naught as the blade was cursed. Instead, she pocketed one wand and muttered a scourgify to hide the evidence of her blood on the floor.

She never looked down to check it had worked confident in her ability to perform spells like that one. If she had, she would have seen a scorch mark instead of a clean carpet, the Malfoys would never be able to get rid of the mysterious spot that had suddenly appeared over Christmas.

She cautiously walked out into the hallway, trying to remember the layout of this place. First, she had to get to the cellar to get Ron and Harry out. She didn't want to consider the possibility of them being captured by Voldemort. They had to be safe, that was all that mattered.

The nagging sense of wrongness didn't go away, there were, even more, decorations up in the hallways, and when she managed to sneak into the cellar, she found it dusty, like it hadn't been used for years.

She tried to remember spells that could help her figure out what had happened. Why did it seem like Christmas? Where had all the death eaters gone?

She sat down in the dank cellar, head in her hands, sobs wracking her body as despair finally took over.

It seemed like hours had gone by when she finally got herself together. No matter what, she needed to get out of Malfoy manor, she would find her friends later.

Clutching her wand tighter she walked up into the hallways again and saw a lone figure. She hugged to the shadows, trying to stay out of sight when she recognized it.

"Dobby!" she exclaimed, and the house elf turned to look at her. But instead of recognition, she saw confusion.

"Mistress knows Dobby?"

She furrowed her brows "of course I do Dobby, we're friends." the house elfs eyes went wide "Mistress considers Dobby a friend?" his eyes started tearing up, and instead of being alerted that another thing was so horribly wrong Hermione was worried the choked sobs of the house elf would alert someone to their unwanted presence.

"shh, Dobby it's okay. Calm down." she patted him awkwardly on the back, fearfully looking around to see if anyone had come running. But of course, a distressed house elf rarely warranted wizards attention.

"Dobby we need to get out of her before anyone notices us."

"Dobby can't, Dobby needs to serve his Masters."

"what?" she blurted out, confused "but you're a free elf."

"Dobby wishes." his eyes went wide, and he started banging his head on the nearest wall.

"shshh, Dobby, please be quiet, stop hurting yourself."

"Dobby must be punished!" he said in between bbanging his head on the wall.

Hermione tried to hold him back and stop him from punishing himself anymore. Once again reminded why she had started spew, and vowing to co continue her work with it as soon as the war was over.

"what are you doing?" the unfamiliar voice behind her made chills go down her spine. She turned to find a boy her age looking at her who curiosity. His face was unfamiliar but the way he held himself hinted of his aristocratic origins. Maybe a durmstrang student?

Instead of answering, Hermione just stared open mouthed at him, her concentration broken Dobby started running into the wall again. Her eyes snapped towards the elf, but She was stopped from doing anything else as the unknown boy stepped closer.

She stepped between the house elf and the boy, raising her wand to point between his eyebrows that raised at her sudden movement and stance.

"So defensive," he muttered, curiously looking her over. His green eyes lingered on her throat that had been cut, and went down where her blood was running, looking at her arm which was still exposed as Bellatrix had torn the sleeve off earlier.

"Mudblood" he said, his eyes flicking up to meet hers as she clutched her wand tighter. "in the Malfoy home, how curious." he stepped closer, but going into full on panic, Hermione yelled out "Expelliarmus!" and with a resounding crack, that must have alerted the whole house she was flung backwards. She hit the wall with a thud, knocking the breath out of her. Absentmindedly she noted her failure had stopped Dobby from continuing to punish himself.

The boy chuckled "Maybe it is true what they say about Mudblood stealing wizards wands."

As he moved closer, Hermione clutched at her sides and throat, desperate to breathe again.

The world slowed down, as her head became light from lack of air and blood. She noticed the boy putting his hand into his pocket, and retrieving a wand from it, his movements elegant and rehearsed.

She heard the rush of blood in her veins, and the steady beat of her heart that seemed to slow down.

Somewhere people had woken up or started moving to find out what the ruckus was about. She could hear the sounds of voices getting louder, and steps coming closer.

Thud. Thud. Went her heart.

Dobby snapped his fingers and repaired the damage he had done, he snapped them again and repaired the wall behind Hermione.

Thud...

Thud…

Steps, voices, slowly blinking her eyes, making the world turn black for too long.

With a gasp her lungs filled with air again, and the world righted itself.

Everything faster now. She looked at the wand in her arm and noticed it was not her own. Quickly she grabbed hers, the one still left in her pocket and flung it in a well-rehearsed movement that petrified the boy in front of her. He dropped his wand as his body stiffened and he fell face first onto the floor.

Dobby stared at her in shock and disappeared before she could do anything else.

Hermione kicked the wand away from the unknown enemy at her feet, maybe it was watching all those cop movies that made her do it, she didn't really have time to think about it as the voices seemed to be around the corner.

She ran, seeing a blur of black and blonde hair behind a door that was opening to her left. Throwing a reducto at the door had them cursing as she ran even faster, adrenaline pumping and keeping her going.

It didn't take long before they started following her, but she was out the front door, pushing herself even more as she ran down towards the gate and where she knew the wards stopped.

Or where she hoped at least.

Knowing how stupid it probably was, she threw a look over her shoulder to find a dozen people following her, some not too far behind.

The gates were locked. She knew the doors had been pure luck, but this was bad.

Desperately she tried to apparate, only to feel the pressure of the wards bearing down on her.

They were only a few steps behind her when she decided to just climb the Damn thing, magic be damned.

A hand grasped her foot, and she was almost pulled down from the gate, but a well aimed (and very lucky as she had terrible aim) kick to the presumed death eaters face made him let go.

Two others had also gotten close now, but she was too far up the gate to be reached. Spells were fired, but she somehow managed to duck them. Now at the top one of them had the great idea to open the gates so she would still be within the wards.

Desperate to get away Hermione jumped off and away from the property. Seeing one of them triumphantly standing below her ready to catch the falling witch, she tried to apparate away.

Somehow she managed, but not before the wizard below managed to get a hold of her hand.

The sadistic and familiar face smiling at her, crushing her hopes of escaping safely.

Authors Note: I know I'm horrible for starting this when I have two others going. But the idea was there and I couldn't help myself. This is probably going to be a lot shorter than "My Father the Dark Lord" is turning out to be.

thoughts? Who was the boy, and who was the familiar face Hermione was not happy to have tag along? And when will she figure out what happened? Anyone notice how it happened?