"-forward," Voldemort was saying when Hermione regained consciousness. Her body was sprawled on the floor and she could vaguely, kilometers below the residual pain from the unforgivable, feel the stiffness in her joints caused by their unnatural contortion.
When Hermione's eyes cracked open, she saw Malfoy being beckoned forward, his black robes billowing behind him. While he strutted forward, Voldemort silenced the crowd once again and began to speak.
"Dolohov," he hissed out.
"M'lord," the man stepped towards him.
"No harm is to come to your Enslaved,"
"Sir?"
"I want her child alive," the Dark Lord's snake eyes flashed angrily as Dolohov opened his mouth to protest. "Must I take her away from you?"
"No, My Lord."
"We will not waste a Pureblood Life, will we?"
"No, My Lord."
"Very good," he purred. "Return to your Master," he snapped at Ginny. Harry clutched at her desperately, rewarded with a sharp tug on his collar for his attempts. They kissed each other goodbye and Ginny lifted her chin, marching back to Dolohov's side.
Malfoy was at Voldemort's side by then; even if Hermione could only see shadows and outlines with her swimming vision, she knew his silhouette.
His upper body was very triangle shaped. The awareness that pricked her skin as people's eyes landed on her told her that she giggled aloud.
'Hush,' came Malfoy's voice in her head. 'Do not draw attention to yourself," the icy order curled around her mind and silenced it, numbing it somehow.
"Draco Lucius Malfoy," Voldemort was purring. Hermione's eyes were fluttering open and shut as she fought the pull of unconsciousness. She caught bits and pieces of the conversation as the ceremony continued on and that was frustrating enough. "-o you accept the roles and responsibilities - my right - carry out the dut- command you?" she shook her head back and forth to try and clear some of the fog.
"I do, My Lord."
"-is day forward, Commander Malfoy,"
That was the last thing she heard before a tidal wave of black pulled her under.
She was spinning rather violently when she was able to take note of her surroundings again. The feeling of apparition was made decidedly more unpleasant by the aftershocks and after effects of the torture she had endured rather recently. Instead of looking around like her instincts begged her to, she turned her face into the cold surface to her right in some pathetic attempt to ward off the nausea. When she inhaled, her lungs filled with spearmint and parchment and apples and dark magic and blood.
Ginny.
All of her rambling thoughts came to a screeching halt and the bile pooled in her throat, forcing out the harsh sob that had been caught there.
'Pull yourself together.' his voice snapped. 'One moment more,'
"No, no, no, no," she was mumbling into her ex-classmate's chest. When he finally set her down on her bathroom floor, his hand fisted in her hair as she retched violently, over and over. Before she could slip to the floor, he was cleaning her off with various spells and charms, picking her up rather effortlessly and depositing her on the four poster bed, looking utterly disgusted. "Please, Malfoy, please, please." she mumbled, reaching and clutching uselessly at his robes. "I'll obey - I'll submit, I'll do whatever you ask. Please help her. It's a baby. It's just a baby."
"Quiet," he snapped. She sobbed something incoherent and let her fingers fall from his sleeves. "I'll be sending Pipsey up with some potions. Do as she says." Hermione's vision cleared enough, still blurred, but swimming and swirling a bit less.
Malfoy looked ill. His eyes were haunted, pupils blown wide. His skin was translucent. He was swaying a bit on his feet and Hermione forced her eyebrows higher as though that could force her vision to steady because she couldn't tell if his hands were shaking or she was. Both, maybe. An aftershock of pain shuddered through her then and she caught the whimper behind her teeth.
"Did you enjoy it?" her voice barely had any volume left, but he heard her, even if the only tell was that his eyes flared briefly with quicksilver fire before they shuttered.
"Is that what you think?" he scoffed derisively after minutes of silence that seemed to drag on for ages. She didn't reply. "Of course I did, Mudblood." he drawled before abruptly striding from the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
When she tried to figure out what he meant by that, it made her brain spin and her head ache so she stopped, curling on her side into a tight little ball.
Pipsey came and went and Hermione had barely registered it. Instead, she was focusing on the bits and pieces of conversation she had missed, during the Death Eaters' meeting with Voldemort, that were slowly coming back to her.
Things like a list of Malfoy's impending duties as Murderer-in-Chief. Outrage amongst a handful of other Death Eaters. An execution or two.
By far, the most disturbing was the memory that had resurfaced of a conversation regarding Mudblood virginity. Her screams were laced throughout Voldemort's speech though and she couldn't hear it all, even in her own head. She lay there and worked at it in her mind, trying to extract other details but all she had to show for staying awake through the night was something about purity and a cleanse.
Malfoy retrieved her in the morning, reeking of Ogden's and Knotgrass. He scoffed when her nose wrinkled in disgust.
"Does the Golden Girl frown upon alcohol consumption as well?" his snide remark was met with silence and it was then that he realized Hermione was making no move to get out of bed. Her tray of food sat atop her covers, bits of it nibbled here and there. His eyes darkened as they narrowed down at her.
She was watching him carefully, but still she remained curled into a ball in the center of the bed.
"What does Voldemort want with the virgins?"
Malfoy froze abruptly, hand halfway to his hair when it paused jerkily and resumed a moment later.
When he spoke, he sounded exhausted.
"Other than the obvious lack of possibility for any Mudblood offspring?" he drawled, voice so utterly bored as he leant back against the wall, hands shoved deep in his pockets.
She nodded. "A spell." Hermione's eyebrow arched. "He wants to perform a purification spell, the purpose of which is to purify the world of dirty blood. To do that, he needs virgin blood."
Horror spread across Hermione's face rather quickly at that. She wished she knew him better. She wished she could decipher the looks on his face that were only ever there for a heartbeat before his eyes shuttered and the emotions disappeared.
"You have orders then, I'd assume?"
"To?"
"Keep the girls- in tact." she tripped over the words a bit and felt her face grow warm.
"Yes."
"And the others?"
"What about them?"
"What happens to them?"
"Whatever their Masters wish." he smirked humorlessly and Hermione was certain she would vomit again.
"So they are-"
"Essentially sex slaves, yes."
She thought of her friends. She thought of the girls' dormitory and how they would stay up late into the night, prattling on about the size of various boys, the 'talent' or lack thereof. It had seemed so childish then. Now, it was what? A permission slip? Those childish little talks played on repeat in her mind and she heard her classmate's voices in her head: Alicia Spinnet, Dean Thomas, Alyson Denshaw, Katie Bell, Cormac McLaggen, Luna. The list went on and on and suddenly she felt ill remembering her disgust at their bragging, now thinking of the torture they were enduring.
"You cannot be used for the spell if you aren't a virgin," he elaborated with an odd look on his pale face, his eyes boring holes into hers.
"Oh, well thank Merlin." she bit out sarcastically. "I'm sure my friends are so very thankful for that in the midst of being raped." she snapped, angry tears welling in her eyes.
"Yes, well, rape doesn't quite do it for me." Again, with that ridiculous bored drawl and that odd look in his eyes. She didn't know the meaning of it and that infuriated her even further.
"Just sod off, Malfoy. For fuck's sake, just leave me alone." she snapped, curling onto her other side.
"You need to train," his voice was as cold as ice and Hermione knew what was coming before she even decided not to respond. "Get up, Mudblood." She hated him and her hatred rose like smoke inside of her as she stood up from the bed.
"Yes, Master." she purred belligerently. His nostrils flared briefly before he spun on the heel of one polished boot and marched from her extravagant prison cell.
"Come. Now!" he bellowed from the hallway when he noted she hadn't followed him out.
"Yes, Master," the sickly sweetness with which she crooned her response made his eye twitch and she reveled in it. In the time that it took Hermione to blink, Draco Malfoy was in her face, and a massive hand encircling the entirety of her neck was pinning her up against the wall. He was breathing hard, the smell of whiskey on his breath panting across her face. His eyes were wild quicksilver flame darting back and forth and up and down. She held his burning gaze, unflinching. Meeting him breath for breath and glare for glare. When his eyes fell to her lips, his panting paused and picked up double time before he shoved away from her, lips curled in disgust as he practically flew down the hallway.
Hermione's smirk died as she realized she had probably pushed him far enough for one morning and she promptly followed him out of the house and into the courtyard.