Thank you all for your support. A quick aside... some of you were perhaps a little surprised to see Hermione with Harry (and Draco pining after him). As I said in the opening notes, the relationships are messy here. That said, the pairings listed (Tom/Hermione and Tom/Draco) are absolutely where we're going. It's just a winding road. Have no fear.

Also I realize some of these initial chapters are a bit shorter... the average is 5,000 words, so that means some nice long ones are ahead of us.

Chapter Warnings: References to torture.

4. Tired with My Woe

The cup of gruel clatters across the floor, echoing into the dark abyss beyond her cell. Her head lolls to one side and she cracks open a crusty eye. It takes longer than it ought to for her to comprehend food has arrived.

She crawls forward, heedless of the open sores on her knees and elbows, desperate to fill the eternal ache in her gut. She doesn't remember the last time they gave her food. Doesn't remember the last time they gave her anything but pain.

She clutches the cup like it is her salvation and tries to still the trembling in her atrophying limbs. The gruel tastes like the finest chocolate cake, feels like an oasis in her desert of despair.

"Slow down."

She twitches, but forces her gulps to slow, her tongue to savor. She squints toward the stairs, but she can't tell if she is alone or not. She is too hungry to care. She slurps again.

"It doesn't matter."

She pauses just a moment and angles her head toward Tom. He leans against the stone wall at the rear of her cell, more shadow than shape. She can only make out the brilliant glint of sapphire as he shifts, leaning toward her.

"They can't see me. Or hear me."

She's suspected as much during their time together. He is always with her now, except perhaps when she succumbs to the exhaustion and folds inward until there is truly nothing left of her. She is not sure he brings her any true comfort, but she does not mind another voice in her head. She is tired of her own company.

"You have to eat slowly, no matter how hungry you feel, Hermione," he gently reminds her, his voice a satin caress. She wishes he would leave the charm behind. She remembers that he is only here to save himself.

Tom sighs and she can almost picture his too-handsome features settling into defeat. Hermione has not spoken to him since their first encounter. He talks plenty for the both of them. He never stopped asking questions even when it became clear she would not answer him.

She has discerned he is intelligent, but also cunning. He often tries to manipulate her into responding to him. She may be a shell of herself these days, but she is not daft. She doesn't give him what he wants.

When her taper is lit, she will occasionally stare at him, memorizing the pleasing slant of his jaw and contours of his cheekbones. She enjoys that he is attractive; it gives her something to focus on beyond the scattered words in the books. She wishes his soul were more like his face.

She occasionally wonders what it would feel like if he could touch her. She knows it would be nothing like the excruciating violations she can almost remember. She also knows it would be nothing like before. She is not sure what happened before, how she felt or what she shared, but she knows it existed. She knows joy once bled through her veins as easily as despair does now. The knowledge does not give her hope. She has given up on hope. And the boy with sunlight in his hair. And most definitely Tom.

"You must remember something of who you used to be, of where we are," Tom prods as she finishes the gruel.

She rolls her eyes, unsure of whether he can see her in the dark. She thinks perhaps his senses are different from hers, that he can see more than she is comfortable exposing.

"I've wandered the hall above," he admits softly. She sags back against the bars, but keeps her eyes trained on him. "I know where we are. I know who you are and why you are here."

It is the most potent temptation yet. She nearly responds, but bites down hard on her tongue instead. He is only here to save himself.

He sighs. "Even I am not so cruel as to keep this from you."

Her breath hitches and she tilts forward. She can feel the cut of his smile in the space between them. But he doesn't hold the truth hostage. He speaks with a hint of an accent from a different place, or perhaps a different time, his cadence foreign and familiar.

"Your name is Hermione Granger. You are a very talented witch who attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry until the end of your 6th year. You are the best friend, possibly even the lover, of the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter. You are here because Harry is the enemy of a man—well, not really, but let's call him that—who was defeated by Harry and his parents many years ago. Sadly, the parents didn't survive. In my experience, they rarely do.

"This man calls himself Voldemort and he has vowed to defeat Death—quite the noble pursuit—and Harry stands in the way of this goal. Or so he seems to think. Thus he has had his followers, Death Eaters, capture and imprison you with the hope that Harry will come to your rescue. Which I suppose is a fairly good gambit considering he's supposed to be your lover. But you've been here over six months and your savior—The Wizarding World's Savior—hasn't come. But Voldemort continues to cling to the notion that he will ensnare his greatest foe. So they wait and he tries to keep his followers entertained. Hence the torture, etc."

Tom's voice has grown more biting as he speaks, his syllables harder and soaked with disdain. She breaks her silence. "I take it you don't approve."

"Not particularly," he hisses and she is reminded of snake. She shakes her head and the image dissolves. "He is blinded by his single-minded mission to end Potter. It has reduced his ability to achieve what matters."

Hermione does not know what he means by that, but she is reminded of something else entirely. Of a glowing ball, of intoned words and veils that swallow souls. She speaks before she can think better of it. "But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."

She feels the sharp heat of Tom's focus boring through her ragged bones. He is upon her before she knows what has happened. He can't touch her, but he is everywhere, his eyes flashing with a fury she cannot comprehend.

"What did you just say?" His tone is ice. It is not a question. It is a demand made of need that sends shivers down her spine.

But he cannot harm her. No matter how much she feels she is inhaling his fury, he cannot touch her. He is nothing but sound and air. "Just a fragment of my past. I can't tell you what it means. I don't even remember what I said."

She wishes her words were a lie, wishes she was hiding this tantalizing information from him. But she truly has no idea what words she spoke. She wraps her arms around her knees and rocks, heedless of Tom's ire hovering above her, a poisonous cloud just beyond her misery.

As suddenly as he came at her, he retreats. "Of course."

His tone is patient now, kind even. She wishes he would stop pretending. She has watched him, has observed his keen interest in her books and her choices. He is a viper lurking and she is too tired to spring his trap. She prefers monsters with slitted nostrils and serpent eyes to those with roguish grins and lies upon their forked tongues.

But she has nothing else to do. Death is coming and she has yet to find the will to welcome him. So she raises her chin and looks into the shadows where Tom's eyes should be.

"Stop pretending you're anything but a monster yourself."

She hears him inhale sharply and smiles.

"Do you…"

He pauses, but Hermione understands what he wants to know. "No. I don't know who you are, but I have taken the measure of you, Tom, and I know you are no different than the men who come down the stairs. Perhaps less vile, but no less selfish and cruel."

"I would never hurt you."

That startles her. She searches for the lie in his words—she has become adept at finding them—but it is absent. He truly wishes her no harm. She supposes she is too pathetic to warrant harm. "Perhaps not intentionally, but you would not mind if I were collateral damage."

He is silent. She is right.

Eventually he speaks, almost too softly to hear in the darkness of their cell. "And you are any better? Would you not do anything to escape?"

She swallows, dry and painful, and tears at her cuticles. The pain gives her relief. When did she start needing pain? Her teeth grind before she admits, "perhaps we are all monsters then."

"Perhaps," he agrees.

Hermione wants to argue, but the fight has drained from her. Instead she stares into the darkness and contemplates what he shared with her. Is she truly here because of Harry Potter? She closes her eyes and tries to imagine what he looks like. But all she can picture is Tom, his ethereal beauty illuminated by starlight. She snaps her eyes open. Doors slam shut in her mind and suddenly she is nothing but decaying flesh and ossifying bone. It is better this way.

The fireplace in the library crackles, muted snaps and hisses that calm Draco's frayed nerves. There was another battle the night before and this time, he couldn't hide.

He forces his eyes to trace the shapes of the letters in the book on his lap. He has tasted nothing but ash and shame on his tongue for hours, but the numb familiarity of language comforts him. Words don't judge him. Don't find him wanting. Don't ask why he hasn't been to see Hermione Granger in over a month. Don't remind him that Potter expects him to act. Don't prove to him that he will never, ever be good enough for the Malfoy name.

Draco inhales sharply and turns the page. He does not trust himself to be alone. But he trusts himself even less in the company of others. He knows he can't miss another meal with the cohort of fiends and villains that populate his home. He misses his childhood, the loneliness that came from being an only child, relegated to the shadows. He would take that bitter, forlorn existence of over this devil's circus.

A shoe scuffs and he looks up, blinks as he sees Astoria Greengrass framed by the library door.

"Astoria?"

She smiles. It is a sweet, perfect thing that reminds him of summer flowers. "I'm worried about you, Draco."

She's right to worry, but he won't tell her that. She isn't his confidant. He's not entirely sure what she is. Most days she feels like the sister he never wished for, but would gladly treasure. Clearly no one else in the equation sees it that way. He's overheard his mother speaking of marriage more than once. He tries to imagine his lips on her porcelain skin, but the image doesn't stick.

She sets a bottle of wine down on the end table beside his armchair and sighs. "If you won't talk with me, at least drink with me."

He laughs. It's a small laugh, but it's real and he is thankful for her all over again. He wishes he found her beautiful in a way that didn't feel like appreciating art.

They don't bother with goblets, drinking straight from the bottle. Her lips are quickly stained burgundy and he finds himself remembering the heat of Potter's breath against his cheek. He swallows more wine until the room takes on the hazy glow of firelight and Astoria seems more ethereal angel than girl.

Her laughter is tinkling bells as he draws her onto his lap, her thin thighs splaying across his dark wool trousers. She smells like sweet jasmine as he nuzzles his way up her delicate neck. The hitch in her breath is like a small bird taking flight. He chases it into the sky.

She tastes as good as she smells and he loses himself in the sensation. He forgets who he is, who she is. His feet trip and his legs wobble as they stumble through empty hallways, crashing into doors he no longer recognizes.

Draco takes time to appreciate the creamy expanse of her skin once they're alone. Are they in his room? He can't quite tell. He only knows she's no longer wearing her silky gown and her hair feels magical where it trails across his flushed skin. He doesn't touch her chest, doesn't nuzzle between the swell of her pert breasts. Indeed, he hardly notices them as he memorizes the contours of her ribcage. He imagines sketching her with charcoals, illuminating her pale skin with shadow. He thinks she would look perfect surrounded by an explosion of flowers, a new Birth of Venus for a more vibrant age.

Draco realizes he's stopped touching her, thoughts lost to the art of her instead of the allure of her naked flesh. He drops his head to the curve of her hip and trails a path of open-mouthed kisses across the bone there.

But she's looking at him now, the haze of alcohol ebbed enough for her to see him as he is and not how he needs to appear. She rolls away.

Draco reaches for her, but Astoria shakes her head.

"I won't make you do something you don't want to do."

She is perhaps the only person.

He groans and looks away, sure his face is flushed with shame and drink.

He hears her slip back into her silken dress. It is an instrument of seduction and it would have worked on anyone who found her alluring in the way that ignites a lusty fervor. But he doesn't. Not in the way she needs.

He finds her beautiful. A work of art he wants to study every detail of, but not an object of desire. He wishes…

Astoria kneels beside the bed, taking his jaw in her delicate fingers. "I will never betray your secret, Draco. I will let them think we have spent the hour here lost in lust. But I will not let them marry us either. We both deserve better than that."

Draco has no idea how to thank her. He turns his head and presses a gentle kiss to her petal soft palm. "I love you."

She lets her fingers trail over his lips. "I love you, too."

He knows she means the words differently than he does. He rolls away and buries his face in his pillows. It is, thankfully, his room.

"You can still talk to me."

Her voice is soft and full of the acceptance he craves. He flops onto his back and motions for her to join him. She crawls daintily up on the massive bed, her slim form eclipsed by his emerald coverlet. The same shade of green as—

He shakes his head. No.

Astoria stares at him from the adjacent pillow, her honey eyes soft and inviting. Draco swallows, too many truths clogging his throat.

"You can trust me."

He knows she isn't lying, but nor does she understand the terrible power wielded by others in this Manor. Her mind wasn't honed with the constant threat of legilimency for over a decade. Everything he might say to her could be public knowledge.

The thought of every one of those monsters behind silver masks knowing his particular preferences turns his stomach, but it is far preferable to them knowing about his visits to Hermione Granger. He is used to derision; he would not survive execution.

Forcing a smile into his brittle lips, he looks over at Astoria. "I'm just tired is all. I haven't been sleeping well lately."

She shifts closer to him. "Perhaps I could spend the night."

His first instinct is to refuse, but he finds no good reason to turn her away. It is better if the others think they are involved. If they're not looking too closely, perhaps they will not even bother to uncover the half-truths Astoria plans to spread.

He pulls his jumper and undershirt over his head and peels the covers back, motioning for Astoria to join him. She sheds her gown again, her movements perfunctory and simple. He finds he doesn't mind the slide of her bare flesh against his own. There are no sparks of desire, but there is the soft warmth of comfort. He waves his wand, plunging the room into darkness, and then sets it on his bedside table. Astoria shifts closer to him and he inhales the citrus and jasmine of her hair, lets the scent lull him into calm and then oblivion.