Bleeding feet, ragged breaths, the tiny, barely-there seed of magic dwindling in her breast. Drumbeats on the winter earth, rolling through the dark trees like thunder. Closer, closer.
She's weak. He's going to catch her.
Brambles snatch at her hair and tear her dress to tatters. Without her magic to coax the roots, they reach for her. She hits the ground. It's hard and cold, frosty against her cheek.
The Horcrux.
It's still in her satchel; the sharp points of the diadem press through the fabric, pricking her fingers.
Get up. Keep running.
She can't. Sharp pain splinters through her sternum; every dribble of magic expended to keep herself conscious brings her closer to burnout. The cold should have killed her hours ago.
A boulder, rising from the mist. What better place to make her last stand?
Rough, cold stone on her palms. Dragging herself upright. Hot blood in rivulets on her cheek, rolling down her neck. Her head is bleeding.
He's here. She can feel it. His presence is electric, raising the hairs on her arms, dripping ice into her empty stomach. The stink of his horse precedes him then he's there, emerging from the murky dark. Moonlight ripples across the black metal of his helm.
Magic sears through her, white-hot and blinding, dragged from the near-empty pool deep inside. She doesn't see so much as feel him careen from his horse, tumbling into the brush, her bolt of magic turning him over and over, battering him, allowing her to flee.
There's nothing left. The place where her magic is supposed to be, nestled deep, thrumming with life, is bare. Stripped to the aching bone. Exposed nerves scream, begging, pleading, no more.
Yet, she runs.
I can't go back there. I won't.
Frigidness on her legs. Her dress, torn at the knees. Blood. Coarse wood scuffing her palms. She's leaning against a tree, her breath rattling in her throat.
He's still alive. The feel of him crackles across her bare skin, rousing gooseflesh on her arms, a sickness in her stomach.
Clanking metal. Far off, crying night birds. A wolf howls.
Stumbling steps, a little farther into the forest. Another tree to support her weight, rest her cheek against the bark, hold on to wakefulness with bleeding fists.
An icy band clamps around her throat. Scrabbling fingers—she knows this metal. Where there was an empty well, there is nothing. Iced over. No hole to fill.
Her magic, snuffed.
Turning, slowly, but her head keeps spinning. She sways.
"Draco?"
It's him. The black armour gleams.
"I'm sorry, Hermione."
Bright pain her temple, then the void.
Mother told her she was beautiful.
It's why he picked you, dear. All those pretty girls of much higher birth and he picked you. You've made us proud.
The carriage came the next morning, black, green, silver, and fearsome, drawn by Thestrals. Mother and father looked so, so small, ebbing into the horizon.
They disappear in her memory. It's dark. Nightjars churr in the undergrowth, the sound jittering along her bones, rattling in her skull.
Open your eyes.
Rising from the black is like treading mud, rotten and thick and clinging. Perilous work, picking through the recesses of her mind, worming towards the light.
Hooves thud, synchronous with the warm flesh shifting and swaying beneath her. Each pinch, each warble of hurt undulating between her frayed nerves, hitches her into alertness.
Coarse rope scratches the sensitive skin of her inner wrist, scraping over the veins. The metal collar at her throat is freezing cold.
An owl broods over its own sonorous voice, distantly, deep in the heart of the woods. The air is delicate with pine and decay. Branches flutter across her cheeks, chafing the wounds. She hisses sharp, cold air through her teeth.
"You're awake."
The horse plods on. Familiar trees and rocks slide by.
"Don't make me go back." She cranes to look at him but finds only dispassionate black metal where his face should be. "Please."
Severe ridges of armour dig into the tenderness that is her back. Dark spots coil in her vision, twisted around at such a sharp angle. She faces the front.
"The Dark Lord is eager to have you returned. If you come quietly, you won't be punished. He'll forgive everything."
Lies. He'll kill her, like he did the ones before.
Silver seeps through the foliage, hazy and indistinct, a half moon's light. It's as cold on her exposed skin as the horse beneath her is warm.
They ride for hours.
Draco lifts her down, the remains of her shredded dress susurrating against his armour, echoing in the branches like a hissed reproach from the wind and the leaves. It's dawn; the light is grey and watery.
The cold doesn't numb her, just makes the aching in her legs a keening wail. She staggers after him, drunk on exhaustion. His back is turned, head bowed.
"Look at me."
He doesn't turn. Her bones creak; she's an ancient ship, rocking on its moorings. Hands bound, she tugs his shoulder. Look at me. Immovable, a metal monolith. He turns of his own accord.
"Why you?" Her throat constricts, pulse beating furiously against the metal collar. "Why did he send you?"
"You know why."
"You should have run." Tears, hot on her cheeks. She imagines the steam rising from them. "The opportunity won't come again."
"I don't want it to."
Something tiny but intrinsic cracks. She beats his breastplate, fragile bones grinding, skin smarting. "You should have run!"
Pounding heartbeats, ringing metal. She doesn't make a dent. Skittering pain in her arms when he seizes her wrists and holds them still.
Ripped from her like that last drop of magic, a broken, ugly sob. "Don't make me go back." It hurts, it hurts, oh, Godric, it hurts. This pain is bone-deep, excruciating, her bodily wounds mere chafing in comparison. "Do I mean nothing to you?"
He squeezes her wrists; another painful jolt, she flinches. He releases her like stinging nettle. His voice, muffled and guttural behind the helm. "You betrayed me. You left. Don't you remember?"
She remembers.
He was her black shadow. What other colours a shadow might be, she didn't know. A wedding gift for my dear bride, Lord Voldemort said.
His midnight plate armour swallowed the sconce-light whole, like a snake. No—a dragon. The little ridges on the back of his helmet looked like dragonhide.
She asked him about it—custom-made armour was a rich man's gambit and she was curious—but he didn't respond.
He didn't say anything at all, this bodyguard of hers. Even in full armour, he barely made a sound. If he weren't so big, she might forget he was there.
She was trapped.
Glimpses of the outside shuttered past, framed by granite arches, each pillar a gilded cage bar, or stone shackle perhaps, although she was theoretically free to roam the castle as she pleased. A flock of Thestrals wheeled above the trees, skeletal bodies harsh against the pale grey sky.
She wondered if he could see Thestrals; the wickedly sharp sword at his side said yes, he had brought death many a time and watched it overcome his victims. Relished it, even. There was no sheath, just gleaming, marbled steel, hanging at his hip from leather loops. Dark magic rose from the metal in curling wafts of brimstone.
She asked him about that, too.
Strange, for a Muggle to wield a magical artefact. And he was a Muggle—magical folk had a certain feel to them, all frenetic energy and serrated edges, millipedes clicking between the gaps in the air. He felt smooth and calm, a mirrored sphere. She couldn't peer beneath the surface.
A set of huge, heavy oak doors. Handles wrought in the shape of snakes with bared fangs and lashing tails. The library.
She reached for the handle but her bodyguard barred the way.
"Let me pass." Lifting her chin did nothing to make her any taller or him any less gargantuan. A giant beetle, shining carapace, very sharp pincers. Too big to crush underfoot.
He didn't move. She knew he wouldn't—he was Lord Voldemort's creature, assigned to watch her as much as protect—but the knowledge didn't make it sting any less. She had no power here.
Heat gushed down her arms, seeping from her fingertips, burning her dress. She scrunched the fabric tight and slammed a stopper on the overflowing pool in her chest. Burning silk stung her nose.
He could smell it, too. Silver glowed in the recesses of his helm, glinting through the gap of the visor.
I could kill him. Desiccate his organs with a thought, will the blood to calcify, stone in his veins, toppling him, he falls and shatters, a million shards, she's free.
A reckless, dangerous fantasy. He was not the only Death Eater in this castle. Dozens—more—all with magic-imbued swords she didn't know the strength of. One cut, would it turn her to dust?
They wouldn't dare. She was too valuable to Lord Voldemort for them to harm her.
That was what she told herself.
Clicking footsteps in the corridor, loud and insistent and purposeful. She turned away from the library, heavy skirts dragging along the stone; it was winter, and her wardrobe was filled with wool, velvet, and brocade. Layers upon layers of petticoats. Her dress, a prison unto itself.
A woman rounded the corner. Hermione clasped her hands inside her wide sleeves, breathed in, pressed her loathing deep beneath the surface. Bellatrix Lestrange. The Dark Lord's mistress.
Her bodyguard angled himself between them.
A scream of laughter, raucous and raspy like a crow's call. "Sweet nephew! If I wanted her harmed, would she not be already?"
Bellatrix wanted her dead. Hermione had felt that black intent rolling off of her throughout the wedding ceremony, seeping into the very stone, staining the air, a sour miasma. But Bellatrix was barren, and Lord Voldemort wanted an heir.
Black armour blocked her view, but Hermione felt when Bellatrix opened the door to the library. Dark, pulsating, intoxicating, pulling a thread deep in her chest. Come to me come to me come to me. Bellatrix ducked down to stare at Hermione through the triangle of space between her bodyguard's arm and torso. She bared her teeth in a vicious smirk, fluttered her fingers, turned her back on the doors, still slightly ajar. A glimpse of towering bookshelves, that same power oscillating through the crack. The doors slammed shut and Hermione felt a keen emptiness where the magic had been.
Her shadow followed her everywhere. Through the castle, out into the gardens, down to the Black Lake when winter turned to spring; stood in the corner while she took her meals, waited outside her door, night after night, still there when the dawn came. Did he ever sleep?
Hermione wondered if he heard her softly crying on the nights when she had to lie with Lord Voldemort to beget him an heir.
She walked through the springtime gardens. It was warm, sunny; summer was on its way, even though the breeze was fresh and cool. In her wicker basket, there were flowers—sweet peas and tulips, perfect for the crystal vases in her room—and her discarded gloves. Gloves, in case she lost her temper and burned another dress. Her decision. She took them off to snap the flower stems with her thumbnail, sticky sap on her fingers.
Happiness was foreign to her. This lightness in her chest could not be considered joy or cheerfulness; she searched for a word and settled on contentment. Peaceful, wandering between the flowerbeds, pretending her bodyguard wasn't a few steps behind. It was easy to do—he was completely silent, and far enough away that his shadow didn't reach her.
Was this what her life had been reduced to? Picking flowers, eating alone, laying on her back and staring at the ceiling, drifting out of her own body, crushed from above, cold breaths on her neck? She wasn't even allowed to practice magic beyond the basic tasks of closing a door or heating her bathwater.
You have a duty, her mother would say. Do your family proud.
She was trying.
Try harder.
A rose bush, wilting petals peeling away from the core, stems drooping, cloying perfume tickling her nostrils. She crouched, skirts pooling in the grass. Petals, soft as velvet against her fingertips; so sad, to be reminded of one's infinite transience. A brush of her thumb and the rose bloomed with renewed vitality.
An ebon gauntlet fell atop her hands.
"She's watching."
Emotionless black metal, the barest sliver of eyes through the visor. Human—not a walking statue, after all. Young, she realised with a jolt. It was the first she had ever heard him speak.
She cast a wide net, arcane tendrils poking and prodding through the garden. It was like walking through a dark room; feeling the brush of objects and knowing their shape without truly seeing them. Broad hedges, fountains, the edges hard and granular, flowerbeds in a concentric pattern around a large pond lined with willow trees. There. On a balcony, a patch of insidious, poisonous darkness.
For a moment, she considered unspooling the magic in her chest, letting it tumble out and turn the gardens into a wilderness, just to see what Bellatrix would do. Do it. She didn't. The rose bush wasted away: dull, fetid, grey, tired, like the husk of a mutilated building. Coward.
She waited until the darkness receded, signalling Bellatrix had returned inside. Humming in the air, bees bumping into flowers, bird calls, and there, so soft she couldn't be sure it was real, breathing from deep within the black helm.
He had spoken to her. At last.
Kneeling, he towered above her. His armour shone, a splotch of ink against the verdant garden; this close, she saw it wasn't entirely black, but shot through with minuscule veins of silver. Beautiful. But how could he stand the heat? Dark green fabric draped over his shoulders, embroidered with a silver crest: a lavish M edged with serpents, dragons, and acanthus leaves.
Malfoy. Bad faith.
She looked away, down at his sabatons. "Thank you."
No response. Please, talk to me. Speaking used to be such a simple act, but now she felt her vocal cords shortening, going taut from lack of use.
That was how they wanted her: beautiful, gormless, mute.
She had her own bathroom, right beside the bedchamber. Three small windows peered out at the Black Lake, glassless, letting in the air and out the steam. A copper bathtub on lion's paws dominated the centre of the room. She revelled in letting magic course through her veins and heat the water to a near-boil.
Scalding, that was how she took her baths. Skin sloughing off, lustrous bones, soupy red bathwater, bobbing organs. She stepped in, feet tingling, pleasant tremors up her body as she sank down. A long, low sigh. Let her float like this forever, returned to the safety of the womb.
The knock came too soon. When she didn't answer, her handmaids entered anyway; three of them, girls her age, carrying combs and pitchers and long, slender bottles of oil.
This was the worst part, almost worse than what came after. Naked and vulnerable, they scrubbed her down, every inch of her, behind her ears and between her toes. Then they combed oil through her hair with their fingers, let it rest, unpicked the tangles with three different combs. Patted her dry, dripped perfume on her breasts, her stomach, between her legs.
She arrived at the jet-black doors of Lord Voldemort's chambers trussed in her finest silks, hair still slightly damp. Her bodyguard—Malfoy, she now considered him—walked with her so far as the entrance. She would go in alone, as she always did.
One day, she would withdraw so far within herself, sink so deep, not even a Legilimens spelunking in the hollows of her mind would be able to find her. She hoped for and feared it in equal measure.
Doors closing behind her, Malfoy's silhouette melting away. Before they swung closed and her nightly fate was sealed, she felt it. A ripple on the surface of the mirrored sphere. There and gone, a fleeting chink in the armour.
The bolt slid home, and he was gone.
