Captured

Chapter Fourteen: Fear

"Oh I'm sorry, am I keeping you from contributing to the torture of innocent muggles?"

He didn't even raise his eyes from the nailbeds he was currently inspecting, sighing as if she was no more than a petulant child.

"No, I just have better things to do than leading you all over the bloody house."

He pushed off of the door he had been leaning against and left, extinguishing the lights as he did and leaving her to scramble after him yet again.

She was breathing slightly heavier when she finally caught up to him, crossing back through the entrance way. Annoyed, she snapped at his back, "Sure. Wouldn't want to keep you from hanging out with all of your friends."

She turned in a circle as she walked, spreading her arms wide to indicate the large, dark, empty manor.

She seemed to have hit a nerve then because the next thing she knew, she was stumbling backwards to prevent herself from running into his back where he had halted. He whipped around to glare at her before hissing in response, "And where are all of your friends? Where are Golden Boy and the Weasel? Such good friends that they seem content to let you rot here."

He stared at her, watching her open her mouth and snap it back shut because she couldn't tell him that she had left them a message, that she had told them not to come. Still though, a small part of her felt the blow that he had landed.

She hadn't wanted them to come after her. She meant every word she had told them. But after this long she had hoped they would have found a way to get word to someone else in the Order who would come for her. It was selfish, she knew, to have even a tiny part of her wish that she had been deemed a higher priority than whatever else the order was working on and that if Harry and Ron did get a letter to them, that they'd risk coming for her. But selfish or not she couldn't help that that part of her existed, and that it had felt the pain intended by Malfoy with his jab.

Whatever her expression betrayed, he seemed to know that he had gotten to her because he gave a satisfied sneer before turning around and stalking back towards her room even more quickly than before. She was silent the rest of the way to her room. He opened the door when they got there and turned back down the hallway without even glancing at her. She paused in the door way, watching his retreating figure down the hallway before deciding to speak.

"You know, Malfoy," she called softly after him. "It's possible to have a conversation without being a complete prick."

He froze, as though he had heard her and was thinking of responding, but after a moment he seemed to shake his head and continue walking. She glared down the hall in frustration after him before the realization seemed to dawn on her that she was left in the hallway alone, in a Manor with only him.

She could run. She could leave.

No. He was too smart to leave her like this, especially if he thought there was a way for her to escape.

Even still... She had to try, right? She couldn't just willingly lock herself back in this prison without knowing for certain that she had no way out.

Heart pounding, she began to creep back down the hallway she had come from. She listened hard for any possible noise indicating that Malfoy was nearby. Her soft steps made it to the end of the first hallway and she paused against the wall, leaning just around the corner enough to peek if it was clear.

She was sure she'd find him waiting there for her, a look of annoyance on his face because she had done the stupid thing and attempted an escape.

She breathed a small sigh of relief as her eyes fell on another dark but empty hallway.