Covered in Crimson

Draco spent ten more agonized minutes shuddering in the freezing shower stall before regaining his composure enough to think about what he would have to do next to ensure his, or their, survival. He was still not convinced that Granger would make it through another night, her injuries and blood loss had been so severe.

The cold temperature had been enough to evaporate the remaining water from his skin, but Draco was chilled to the bone. He needed to find something to wear, and he didn’t want to deprive Granger of the warmth of his heavy cloak; he’d done enough damage already. But, he thought, if I don’t take care of myself, there’s no way I can also take care of her. Reluctantly, he removed the cloak from her body and gently turned her to her side to try to free the thin blanket and sheet. She whimpered softly at the movement, but still did not awaken. “I’m sorry, Granger, but I need to get you covered up,” he whispered. With a little more tugging and shifting, he finally loosened enough of the material to wrap her in the two layers of worn fabric. He was a bit encouraged that she’d still made noise and reacted, at least minimally, to his touch. That had to be a positive sign, he thought. The next flash across his brain was more sinister – just why should I care, and who says it’s a good thing to keep her alive? He shuddered against the thought, and deliberately pushed it away. “No! She doesn’t deserve that any more than I do,” Draco exclaimed aloud, trying to convince his inner demons of the truth in his statement. Wrapping his cloak around his shivering shoulders, Draco stepped out into the hallway. A deeper search of the cottage was in order.

He’d not carefully searched any of the rooms except the one in which he’d first awakened. The cursory review he’d made as he looked for his wand hadn’t exposed many of the structure’s secrets. First look would go to the other bedroom he’d seen at the end of the hallway. He opened the door to reveal a slightly larger room than the one where Granger now slept. It featured two windows, one each on perpendicular walls, and two additional doors which he assumed to be the closet and a small bath, similar to the original room. He’d explore those momentarily. The room contained a larger bed, probably queen size, a tall dresser, a lady’s writing desk with a matching chair, and an overstuffed arm chair in one corner. All of the furniture was made of dark wood, mahogany or cherry, he thought, reminiscent of pieces in his own room at Malfoy Manor.

“Lots of possibilities here,” he mumbled aloud. Draco decided to inspect the dresser first, and pulled open the top drawer. He found nothing, and his heart sank in disappointment. Draco chided himself mentally for not being more optimistic about the other seven drawers’ contents. The second drawer yielded a gray t-shirt, stained and threadbare. The third was as empty as the first, as were the fourth and fifth. His luck changed for the better when he opened the sixth drawer. There he found a few bath towels and a set of sheets, worn but clean. These he tossed on top of the bed for future use. The seventh drawer contained another t-shirt, this one in faded red cotton. The final drawer held the best of the haul – a pair of black sweatpants, three sets of once-white athletic socks, one pair of jeans, and a light blue woolen jumper.

Draco felt as though he’d just found a trunk full of galleons. With a broad smile, his first in what felt like a month, Draco reached for the jeans and pulled them over his slim legs and hips. They were a little short, but fit reasonably well otherwise. Without underclothes, they felt rough against his skin, but it was immensely better than the alternative. Shedding his cloak, he pulled the red t-shirt over his head, followed by the jumper, which was a bit snug but serviceable. Finally, he pulled on one of the pairs of socks, bringing immediate relief to his frigid feet. Once clad in his new treasures, he returned to Hermione’s side and placed the cloak back over her to give her some additional warmth. It just felt like the right thing to do. If, or when, she woke up, he’d help her get into the sweatpants and gray t-shirt.

Since he’d found some helpful items in his first foray, he decided to continue exploring for other things that might be useful. He was hopeful that he might also find a clue or two about where they were, if not how they came to be here. He returned to the larger bedroom and opened the door that he hoped would lead to the closet. Having made the correct choice, he was disappointed to find nothing on the horizontal wooden bars but three hangers. Pushing the door a little further, he spied a small cardboard box, about two feet square, tucked into the closet’s corner.

When he lifted it out of the closet, he noted its hefty weight. He guessed that it probably contained books or papers of some sort. He set it down on the writing desk, and lifted the flaps to find albums of photographs – Muggle photographs. Deciding it was not likely to be a help, he returned the album he’d removed to the box and placed it on the floor to keep it out of the way. Since he was standing at the desk, now seemed as good a time as any to see if it held any useful clues. The slim center drawer contained only a broken Muggle pencil; he’d seen Granger use one in Arithmancy class once. The drawer on the right had three small pieces of thin silvery metal; each twisted exactly the same way to resemble a double loop. He picked up one of them and examined it closely, having never seen anything quite like it. Draco couldn’t imagine what they were or how they’d be used, and dropped the item back into the drawer with a shrug. The drawer on the left was empty, except for a single small circle of some very stretchy material that felt a little like the thin leather thong his father used to tie up his hair.

On a whim, Draco dropped to his hands and knees and looked under the bed. In the very center of the bed, against the baseboard and well out of reach, he saw something that looked like bedroom slippers. The bed was far too massive to move alone. For all his magical skill, Draco had never been particularly adept at wandless magic. “An accio would be immensely helpful about now,” he mumbled. With a huffed breath, he figured it couldn’t hurt to try. He concentrated all his attention on the footwear, pointed a finger and spoke the spell aloud. “Accio slippers.” Nothing. “Shake it off, boy. Try again,” was his attempt at self-encouragement. The second try was no more successful. “Once more; you can do it.” A true believer in the tenet “the third time’s the charm", Draco gave a last effort. To his great delight, the slippers moved - only about two inches, but it was enough for his long arms to make contact and drag them out from their hiding place. Now that he had the slippers in hand, it was clear they’d do him no good; they were sized for a petite lady. “Maybe Granger can use them if they’re not too small,” he thought.

Rising from his prone position on the floor, Draco eyed the last area of the room he hadn’t yet searched – the bathroom. The mirror seemed to be hanging off the wall at an odd angle, and he couldn’t understand how it hadn’t fallen off ages ago. Five steps into the room solved the mystery when the hanging mirror was revealed to be a hinged door for some kind of cabinet built right into the wall. “Hmm. Clever,” Draco thought, giving the Muggles a little credit for some ingenuity. There was nothing resembling a potion, though he did find a roll of gauze quite similar to what he’d seen Madame Pomfrey use numerous times at Hogwarts and by mediwitches on the battlefield. Draco suddenly shivered. “Where did that come from? When have I been on a battlefield?” Draco’s breathing and heart rate sped together, and he had a bad feeling that his memory problems were more serious than the result of a night of drinking or a bump on the noggin. Something was seriously wrong; he was beginning to think his brain was like a wedge of Swiss cheese, soft and full of holes. “What in Merlin’s name is going on?” he queried, his internal voice sounding slightly panicked. He sat on the closed lid of the toilet when it seemed that his legs might no longer support his weight. Elbows on knees, Draco bent at the waist to rest his head in his hands. The headache he’d suffered earlier had diminished for a bit after his icy shower, but was now returning at full strength. The harder he tried to remember, the worse he felt. It was almost as if he’d been under a spell.

As that thought crossed his mind, Draco sat bolt upright. Could that be what was going on? Had he been hexed? It would certainly explain at least some of what had happened over the last several hours. If someone had Obliviated him, he’d likely have remembered even less, though. He had had odd little flashes that seemed like memories, but he just couldn’t be certain. He rejected Obliviation as the cause of his difficulties, but there were definitely other spells, hexes, curses and potions that affected memory. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? It would also explain why he and Granger were out here by themselves without wands, clothes or knowledge of what had happened. Maybe someone had dumped them here. Maybe he wasn’t really responsible for what had happened to her. He then wondered why it was so important to him that he not be the monster who had raped and nearly killed her. Did he have that much remorse over what he thought he’d done?

He shook his head once, sharply. “Just stop it, Draco. Thinking about this is getting you nowhere. Look for things that can help you now, and worry about the rest later.” Draco stood as his internal haranguing stopped. Moving back to the mirrored cabinet, he retrieved the roll of gauze along with a small cardboard box that was labeled “Band-Aids”, which appeared to be smaller wound coverings. These items would almost certainly be useful. The bathroom gave up no additional discoveries, so he left the room, closing the door behind him.

He tossed the gauze and Band-Aids on the bed with the linens he’d found earlier, and decided to go check on Hermione before checking the sitting room and kitchen for other supplies. He returned to the other bedroom and was stunned to find that Granger had shifted her placement in his absence. She was curled around herself in a tight ball, best described as a fetal position. He knew that to be a position of comfort when one was ill, but was flabbergasted that she’d had the physical ability to move at all. Maybe she was going to recover. She seemed to be sleeping very deeply for now, and he decided not to try to rouse her until he’d finished his reconnaissance of the house. There was no guarantee that she’d respond, in any case, so he left her to rest.

The sitting room was next on Draco’s agenda. He’d recalled seeing a table on either side of the sofa, and thought there’d been drawers in each. His memory proved correct as he rounded the corner into the sunlit room. In the table on his left he found a thick book with what appeared to be thousands of names each followed by series of numbers. While this meant nothing to him, there was the name of a town on the front cover. It said “Surrey” and the word “Telephone”. Realization dawned that this must be that communication thing he’d heard about in Muggle Studies class during fifth year. As he saw nothing that looked like a telephone, if he could even recall what one looked like, the book was basically useless once it had yielded the name of the town in which they were likely staying. He tossed it back into the drawer and slammed it shut, trying desperately to recall whatever he could about the town of Surrey and where it was in relation to Wiltshire. Nothing came to mind; if he could only find a map, he’d be in much better stead. Sliding to the opposite side of the sofa, he opened the drawer in the other table and found a chess board, Muggle-style, but no chess pieces. Deeming that useless too, he banished the game to its original hiding place. From his position on the sofa he noticed a small built-in cabinet on the wall next to the cold fireplace. At this moment, Draco began to regret not paying more attention in that Muggle Studies class. He could easily start a magical fire with his wand and warm this place up in no time. He had no clue where to start with this foreign object, other than knowing that he needed wood and flame. Somehow, he thought, that would only lead to disaster.

Deciding that the next search point had to be the cabinet, Draco pushed off the sofa and flipped the little wooden latch that kept the door closed. “Wood. It figures,” he snorted. If Granger woke up, maybe he could ask her if she knew how to start it up. For the first time, Draco realized how often he thought about things that needed Granger’s input, help or advice. Was he so pathetic that he had to rely on a Mudblood to get him out of a scrap? He was a wizard, for Merlin’s sake! And a pretty good one. “Until,” his inner voice screamed, “you lose your bloody wand, wanker!”

A search of the mantelpiece and hearth turned up nothing of interest, so Draco abandoned the sitting room in favor of the kitchen. He’d searched here earlier just enough to find the cloths and pot he’d used to wash Granger’s body, but hadn’t gone any further. He now went methodically from drawer to drawer, cabinet to cabinet, and laid out his finds on the kitchen table. He’d managed to locate one chipped stoneware mug, two small glass tumblers, two small plates, and an assortment of mismatched utensils. He still had the pot upstairs, but that had contained human blood, so it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to use that for cooking, if they could even manage to find some food. They had no cooking surface that he could determine; the still cold fireplace seemed the most likely candidate, and he was no closer to getting a fire started now than he had been an hour ago. Of course, he didn’t know anything about how a Muggle kitchen worked, so opportunity could be staring him in the face and he wouldn’t know it. But Granger would. “Fuck!” he swore, “I shouldn’t even think about relying on her. She might not be alive a few hours from now.”

Thinking he’d found everything he could in the rooms he’d searched, Draco decided to poke around outside the building for a few minutes. In his search for an exit, he found a door that led to a lower level. He thought that Muggles called them “basements” or “cellars.” In his house, it would have been a dungeon. As he gingerly descended the stairs, he wished again for his wand. “Needing a lumos here,” he grumbled. The lower level was musty and dark, but not pitch black as there were a couple of small windows near the ceiling, or just under the floor level of the main house, he surmised. He picked along carefully, not wanting to tumble down the stairs or over something that just might be in his path. At the foot of the stairs he nearly tripped on something, and reached down to steady himself and to move the offending object out of his way. As he made contact, he exclaimed, “Jackpot!” when his hands fell upon a pair of heavy work boots. Abandoning his search for the moment, Draco raced back up the stairs with boots in hand and moved into the light to inspect them. They were very dirty, caked with mud in fact, and the soles had seen better days, but they were certainly going to be warmer than a pair of cotton socks. Living in a dungeon had taught him a thing or two, so he tipped the boots upside down and shook them out to be sure no creatures had taken up residence. When they appeared to be uninhabited, he slipped his feet into them and laced them up. They were a little snug, but Draco had always had pretty big feet in comparison to his schoolmates, and nearly all of his footwear had been hand-made. Still, this felt like a luxury in comparison to what he’d suffered the past several hours. A frisson of guilt coursed through him once again as he thought about the suffering someone else in this house had experienced at his hand. He really had nothing to complain about, he reluctantly admitted.

He felt better about returning down to the lower level now that his feet had some protection against the unknown, and he moved back down the stairs to continue his exploration. It really was too dark to see much detail, but he found a couple of cardboard boxes that he figured warranted further scrutiny. Neither was terribly heavy, so he piled one atop the other and brought them up to the kitchen to sort through the contents in better light. He was hoping for more clothing, or even linens.

The first box was a disappointment. It contained clothing, but items that would only fit a large doll or a very small child. Useless to him and Granger. The second box held better fare. There were two pairs of trainers; though Draco had never owned any, many of his friends at Hogwarts had, even among the pureblood wizards. They were apparently quite useful for athletic activities, and a good deal lighter than the dragonhide boots they all wore for Quidditch. One pair looked like it might fit a woman’s foot, so that would be a help. Under the trainers was a heavy, brown, cable knit sweater, and beneath that was a patchwork quilt. Deciding that he’d scavenged as much as he could for now, Draco carried the items he’d deemed useful to the bedroom where Granger was sleeping. It was about time to check on her, anyway.

As he pushed open the door, he heard Granger moan in pain. He closed his eyes and winced at the pitiful sound. When he opened his eyes once more to look down at Granger, he was astonished to find her eyes wide open and looking right back at him.