My Father's Daughter

CHAPTER ONE

Page count: 11

Malfoy Manor

She lay on the floor in a pool of her own sweat and tears. Her tongue and bottom lip throbbing from holding back the sounds that threatened to escape. Her throat burning from the screams that finally broke free. She looked up from the cold marble floor to the throne-like chair, raised several feet off the ground in front of her.

It was where Lord Voldemort was lounging, looking down at her with a smirk on his uncharacteristically pale and wax-like face. His red eyes glinted with promises of pain and death, his two slits for a nose, remarkably similar to that of a reptile's. His skeleton-like fingers held his ash wand in one hand and the other tapped against the armrest.

She was surrounded by Death Eaters. Bellatrix Lestrange gripping her wand and cackling after the last Cruciatus Curse Hermione had endured.

One thought entered her mind. How did I get here?

~000~000~000~

12 Grimmauld Place

A pounding headache. Aching muscles. Sore joints. Heavy limbs. She felt awful.

Her eyes slowly fluttered open, before shutting tightly against the harsh, blinding light in the room and she groaned in pain.

"SHE'S AWAKE!" she winced.

"Sorry, 'Mione," a voice muttered. Footsteps clambered against the wooden floorboards and suddenly came to a stop.

"HERMIONE!" several voices yelled. She winced again and groaned.

"Shut up, you idiots," the first voice hissed. Hermione recognised it to be Harry's.

She slowly opened her eyes and blinked a few times, getting used to the light in the room. She looked around to see the room filled with Harry and Weasleys, by her count, everyone except the three eldest sons.

A glass of water was lifted to her mouth and she drank it down greedily.

"What happened?" her voice came out hoarse; it was obvious that she had been out for a while.

"The best we can tell, you were attacked, multiple attackers," Harry spoke softly. She looked around the room to see everyone looking at her sadly. "Fred and George found you."

She looked up at them and they gave her small smiles, nothing like their usual contagious, joyous ones.

"Thank you," she said to them.

"Don't mention it, Granger, we just wish we could've gotten to you sooner," Fred spoke; she was still the only person that could tell them apart.

"This could've been prevented," George spoke quietly.

"Do you remember what happened?" Mrs. Weasley asked her worriedly.

Hermione frowned. "I was walking down Diagon Alley; I needed to get a book for a side project I'm working on. I was making my way towards The Leaky Cauldron and then...everything goes black."

"You can't remember anything after that?" Mr. Weasley spoke.

She shook her head. "No, nothing."

"We found you in an alleyway between two shops in Knockturn Alley," Fred piped up.

"Knockturn Alley?"

George nodded. "Yeah, some of the ingredients we need for our products aren't exactly legal," he said sheepishly as his mother glared at him.

"We heard a noise and followed it, we found you on the floor, you were barely breathing," Fred spoke. "We apparated you back to our shop and we floo'd you here. That was a week ago."