Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. Even life.
A/N: First fanfiction. Do try to be gentle please, English is not my native language, you see.
Her nose is being pushed into the ground. She tries to breath through her mouth, but all she tastes is mud. She hears him, saying something. She tries to listen to his cruel voice.
"This is what you are. This is where you belong."
She wants to scream at him, dirty words, the ugly truth. Those empty threats she used at school and the childish insults she was used to.
But all she can do is – nothing – breath and live. For now.
...
She looks at her hands and brings them to her face. She is cleaning and she thinks, 'Why doesn't it go away?'
He is watching from behind her and when she looks up, meeting his eyes in the mirror, he says, "It's in your veins, not on the outside."
She hates those words, because they are true.
Back then, she would have put on a fight, scream at him and launch words that would hurt. But all she can do is nod in agreement. Because in some sick, twisted way he is right.
...
The nights are cold and she thinks of a time when things were less complicated. When Harry and Ron would be there so she could spend her time with them.
She closes her eyes and the memories are coming, coming, playing in her mind.
Parchment, quills, Snape taking points, Dumbledore with his silly speeches, running in the hall, insulting him in the corridor of Hogwarts. She opens her eyes.
His face burns in her mind and she shakes her head but it won't go away. She does not understand and she buries her face in her hands, like he buries her face in the mud.
...
Once, twice a day he is visiting her. When she hears the door opening, she squirms away, away from him and his evilness. She is being pulled, her hair hurts and he hisses words.
She does not listen. She just closes her eyes and pretends she is in the common room, knitting some shapeless scarf for Dobby while Ron is making fun of her and Harry is looking worried.
...
The second time she sees the garden, it is night. It's winter and the frigid ground makes her nose bleed. The mud is not wet anymore and she is thankful for that.
She is not scared anymore because she knows that he won't kill her. Suffering it was, much worse than the Crucio spell, so he could enjoy her tears and muffled sobs. She doesn't know why, because the wand is in his hand and the words are on his lips – yet, he makes her suffer like a Muggle.
Later that night when she is in the bathroom she tries to think how this started. When, was a simple question. A couple of month ago, it was summer and she had been eating some ice-cream. Vanilla, she remembers. But how? She does not know, does not understand.
The bathroom door opens and she does not move.
There is something different. The way he walks, the way he approaches her.
Her face is almost clean, she sees. He is stepping closer and closer, until she can't move nor escape. Or breath.
He brushes his hand, near her lips and when she opens her eyes, she sees that he is looking at the mud on his fingers. He is staring, thinking, and she does not understand.
...
She wants to hate him for what he is, for the things he is doing. But she can not and that makes her angry. She throws things on the wall and it takes one, two, three minutes before her door is being slammed open. He is fuming and the lion in her roars. For the first time she has been able to make him angry.
But suddenly, he is stomping towards her. She doesn't look up. She tries to show hatred on her face, but when he touches her left eye, all the (false) hate disappears.
"I hate you," she says.
He laughs, softly. It makes her feel cold.
"No, you don't. You hate yourself for not being able to hate me anymore."
He is moving away, but stops when she says that word he hates.
"Coward."
His hand is on the knob of the door and his head is tilted to one side, thinking, tasting the word.
"Liar," he says and when he closes the door behind him, she throws the candle at the door. She hears him laughing and she clenches her hands.
She doesn't know how long it will take before she can't pull this act on.
...
Is has happened and she is crying. Silly tears, really, but her mum always said that some tears were happy tears.
She is not happy.
She is not happy because she wants him to love her, not this thing she is. She wants to be a 'who', not a 'what'.
But every meeting he emphasises the Mudblood she is, some sort of animal that needs to be fed once in a while. And she does not understand – again – because he tells her things that doesn't seem to make sense.
...
It's not the same. The third time, it is. Birds are singing, aren't they? And the wind is whispering the echoes of his words.
This time she listens.
"I hate you for what you are."
As if he tries to make this clear, he pushes her more firmly in the ground, between the broken roses. She tries to count them. She thinks of the twelve uses of dragon's blood. Maybe it's irony, but at the same time she feels the warmth of her blood flooding through her nose.
When she is being pulled up, he wipes the blood away. Careful, gentle fingers reaching, caressing and the same questions are shown on her face.
...
One year later, she counts, she understands.
He does hate her, the Mudblood that is. But he loves her too, for the silly girl she has been. (She is and will be.)
And that's what makes the suffering bearable. Because in the end, she thinks, it's not the hate but the love that is keeping her alive. Even if it has to be for endless days.
She finally understands, but does not know why.
Does it matter?
Does it?
He says not. And maybe that is why she is allowing and enjoying it. She can't scream, breath, think – anything that the old Hermione would do. All she can do – this moment while it lasts – is not survive like a animal, creature, but live like a human.