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Author's Notes: Hey, Everbay, nice to see you still reading, thanks for the encouragement and I'll try to keep it up! That's so much for the compliments, ShylaMalfoy, and I'm not sure how long it'll be before they end up together, but I promise it's where I'm heading, eventually! I like to let things unfold. Thanks, gryffindor at heart, I'll do my best and thanks, teralynn, I know the feeling; there are a couple stories that I can't wait for them to be updated, too… I'm glad mine is one of those, for you!

Thank you, all, again, and on with chapter 4!

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"Whenever you hear women talk about this kind of thing… you know, in movies or books… they always start out saying something like 'Oh, he was so sweet the first few years of our marriage…' and I always think about how lucky they were that they had a few good years before it all started." Hermione sipped at the edge of the Styrofoam cup in her hands. She hadn't set the hot tea down since Draco had gotten it for her and he couldn't help wondering if she continued to hold it in an attempt to disguise the shaking of her hands.

"It wasn't like that for you, then?" he asked, the silver of his pen flashing as he wrote.

"No," she replied, glancing at him once before averting her eyes, again. She could talk about this easily enough as long as she wasn't required to look at him while she spoke. "The day we were married, I had to cover a bruise on my arm with a layer of make-up."

"May I ask why you married him, if he was already abusing you?" Normally, Hermione would have expected an annoyed or exasperated tone to accompany such a question, but Draco's was merely curious. She smiled, wryly.

"It didn't actually seem like abuse at the time, to be honest. Ron was… is… ah… 'sexually adventurous,' I guess I should say…" Hermione stopped long enough to clear her throat and hoped her cheeks weren't as pink as they FELT like they were; it was slightly hard to accept that she was discussing her sex life with Draco Malfoy, of all people, but he didn't seem to notice her discomfort. "He liked to bite and scratch in our early times together… and later he started asking if he could do things to me while I was tied up. I didn't mind at the time, it just seemed fairly normal in terms of exploration."

"Did he ever allow you to tie him up," he wanted to know, scribbling notes here and there on his clipboard.

"No, never. I never asked, but I know he'd have said no, if I did. He liked to be in control. I think that was part of the reason he wanted to do it. It gave him control over something, while we had so little control over the other things in our lives during the wars." It was on the tip of Draco's tongue to tell her to leave the psychoanalysis to him, thank you very much, but since she was probably right, he let it go in the interest of moving on.

"Did he ever try to play the disciplinarian with you?" he questioned, resting his elbow on the nightstand next to her bed. At Hermione's slightly blank look, he elaborated. "Did he ever ask or try to spank or whip you?" The light blush staining her cheeks became slightly darker and suddenly her blanket became the most interesting thing in the room to her.

"He asked me once… about spanking. I said o.k., but during it he… he got really rough and I asked him to stop." Her voice was little more than a murmur, but, luckily, Draco was less than 2 feet from her and could make out her words perfectly.

"Did he?"

"…No," she admitted, softly.

"And what happened?" he inquired, again the pen jotting on the lined yellow paper.

"I started to cry," she replied, pushing stray locks of hair behind her ear as she sighed, deeply. "And later he apologized. He said he thought I was playing along. I was pretty bruised from it… he put something on it and made me stay home that day. He didn't want me going to a mediwitch or to work, since I'd have to explain what happened." She glanced at him, quickly and noticed one of his light brows arched at that. "I know it should have been a warning signal, but at the time, it made sense to me… you think I wanted to explain to my co-workers that I couldn't sit down because my husband and I were playing sexual games that had gotten too forceful…?" Draco nodded, thoughtfully.

"Was that when it became rough all the time?" Hermione nodded, slowly.

"Around then, yeah. After that, he claimed that he couldn't… well… you know…" Draco waited while she found the right words; although it was normally his habit to fill in the blanks, his professional opinion was that it wasn't appropriate to place words in the mouths of his patients. "…perform, I guess… unless there was pain involved."

"Pain for you, though, not for him… correct?" he asked, lifting to his pale lips the plain black coffee mug which he'd brought to the office for his personal use. After she had nodded an affirmative answer, again, he posed another question, "When did the abuse become occurrences outside of sexual encounters?"

"About a year before we were married. We were already engaged, and I was mainly in charge of the wedding plans. Ron really hated the whole idea, but he knew it would make me happy, so he asked and I accepted. If I remember right, I had a few female friends over and we were talking about something… dresses or flowers or… whatever. When he came home, he'd brought his supervisor, assuming that I'd have dinner ready and waiting." Hermione bit the corner of her lip, worrying at the delicate skin there. "I thought everything was o.k. I sent the girls home and we went out for dinner, instead. But, after we got home, and his boss had gone, he started yelling at me; calling me a bad wife and all that. I yelled back at him, of course. Stuff about why he didn't think to call me and let me know he was bringing someone home with him, so I could have prepared better. And then he hit me. Not hard, not even hard enough to bruise, more like a tap to get my attention and get me to stop yelling… but he acted shocked that he'd done it and started apologizing, right away, begging me to forgive him." Hermione offered a weak laugh and Draco wondered if she was aware that she'd already reverted back to making excuses for Ron's actions. "I suppose I didn't tell you that I hit him, once, when I was angry. Back during our 6th year at Hogwarts… we'd stopped seeing each other for a few weeks and he accused me of sleeping with Harry." She shook her head in disbelief. "It was ridiculous it even suggest such a thing, of course. Harry was already seeing Ginny and besides that, he was more like a brother to me than anything else. Ron could never really understand that… he had blood siblings and all, but Harry and I were both only children, so it was more natural for the two of us to see each other as surrogate brother and sister. Anyway, Ron suggested that I was easy or something like that, and I slapped him. I slapped him, hard… He forgave me, and we got back together, but I always felt bad about it afterwards."

Draco sighed, inwardly, and recorded a few more things on his handy clipboard before clicking the pen closed and tucking it away in the pocket of his sterile white jacket.

"Mrs. Weasley, I know you to be an intelligent woman, so I'm not going to mince words. I believed you were well on the right track at the beginning of our discussion. You seemed to be willing to realize the danger you were in and the fact that your husband was at fault for that danger. However, as we continued, you lapsed into offering explanations for why he'd done the things he'd done, which is counterproductive. First, you gave him permission to hurt you, then it was your fault he hurt you, then you felt guilty for hurting him, first, and this is your atonement. These are all serious issues that cannot be dealt with in a single session held in your hospital recovery room." Draco held up one pale hand to cut off her sudden outburst of protestation, and continued. "We're done, for today, and if it were my decision, you would have two options at this point. I would either admit you, permanently, to a ward of the hospital specially designed for people who aren't capable of caring for themselves and you would continue to see a therapist of that department OR I would remand you to the custody of Harry and Genevra Potter, provided they agree to the terms of a loose type of probation, meaning that you would continue to see the resident psychiatrist of this hospital." The corner of his mouth tugged up into an almost apologetic smile, and Hermione had the fleeting thought that he might have been enjoying this power over her just a tad too much. "Unfortunately for you, it is my decision, so one of those two options will occur. Fortunately for you, I am offering you your choice. What'll it be, Mrs. Weasley?"

"….But you're the resident psychiatrist, aren't you…?" Hermione asked in a slightly desperate voice.

"That I am," he answered, that old familiar smirk of his still in place, "and you'd be required to meet with me… oh… I suppose every 3 or 4 days would be sufficient."

"Bloody hell," she half-whispered. She was quite properly stuck between a rock and hard place. Her choices were to give up her freedom, completely, and not have to see this git every few days, or regain her freedom and continue to answer truthfully all the embarrassing questions her former nemesis chose to ask! Draco could see she was visibly shaken at her prospects and leaned forward, the smirk disappearing in place of his more professional sincerity.

"It's not as bad as all that, really. Besides, at least if you agreed to your second option, you wouldn't need to retell everything you've already said. The worst is over, isn't it?" he asked. Although Hermione, herself, wasn't as sure as he seemed to be, she nodded, slowly.

"Alright, then. Since they've already offered, after all, I'll stay with Harry and Ginny," she acknowledged.

"And you'll be seeing me at least twice a week?" he pressed, insistently.

"And I'll come and see you once a week," she amended.

"Twice."

"Once."

"Twice," he insisted, as his lips tugged into that smirk, again, "Or I go ahead and reserve that room for you in the psycho ward."

"Oh, fine, twice a week!" Hermione glared at him, and Draco had to resist the urge to laugh out loud when presented with the same fierce look he'd been a party to so many times during his school years, though he couldn't hold back the smile. "You may have gotten older, but you're still a bastard, Malfoy." Draco stood, still grinning as he tucked his notepad under his arm. He could honestly say that his numerous years in both muggle and magical schools to get his doctorate in psychiatry would be well worth it, all due to this one patient.

"That's Doctor Malfoy to you, Mrs. Weasley."

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Author's Notes: If you enjoyed this and would like more, please let me know. More soon! I hope…

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