WARNING: THIS FIC IS CURRENTLY UNDERGOING EDITS/CLEAN UP. IT IS COMPLETE, THERE ARE 17 CHAPTERS IN TOTAL. CHAPTERS WILL BE EDITED & REPOSTED ONCE A DAY UNTIL ALL CHAPTERS ARE REPOSTED, AT WHICH TIME (COMPLETE) WILL BE RE-ADDED TO THE FIC TITLE.
Next on the docket to undergo this process once YP is fully edited is Murder Me Softly (20 chapters in total), followed by Bewitched by You (30 chapters total [29 plus an Epilogue]).
As it is my goal to weed out any typos/missed words, should you spot any I may have missed, please note the error in your review, and hashtag it #EditingAssist. ^_^
Original dates of publication (1st chapter to completion) Dec. 14th, 2016-Feb. 12th, 2019.
Chapter Two
Hermione found it odd indeed that she was disappointed when Thorfinn Rowle was the one tasked with escorting her back to the librarian's quarters that evening after dinner, rather than Orias Mulciber. Several of her friends among the student body had looked up at the end of the meal trying to catch her gaze, to see if snagging a moment of her time was possible.
She knew, in a passing and exhausted whisper crowding the back of her thoughts, that they had spent the last four months worrying for her. They'd spent the last four months fearing what had become of her, stranded in the castle with Voldemort and his followers.
And against her better judgment, she supposed because she wanted to protect them still—she wanted them to see there was nothing left in her worth rescuing—she cast a glance across the Great Hall. She'd met each of their gazes in turn with the same expression she reserved for Voldemort. Dull, lifeless ... devoid of anything but her abilities to think and to breathe.
If they thought she was lost to them, they'd keep their distance maybe. Really this passive display was the only avenue left to her in means of protecting them.
The glossy-eyed expression she turned on them all had deflated Dean, Neville, and Seamus on sight. Luna, always so bright and ethereal, already appeared less so than Hermione's dulled memories showed ... but even so, she dimmed a bit more as her once-dreamy blue eyes met Hermione's for that flickering second.
Pansy Parkinson, though they'd never remotely been what anyone would call friends, seemed quite confused by the Muggle-born witch's doll-like demeanor. Perhaps even a bit frightened. Huh, Hermione'd thought, her inner voice monotone, that's unexpected.
As happened at the end of every meal, Voldemort looked toward Hermione's wardens, nodded to one in particular, and then motioned to the witch seated beside him. Until tonight, the two not chosen would show relief—chuckling at their cohort, with the noticeable easing of tense shoulders—and the one selected to escort her would appear exasperated.
Yet tonight that did not happen. After the hushed discussion among the three, after her ridiculous, unwise decision to show some responsiveness to their curious gazes, Thorfinn's brows rose, a thoughtful expression skittering across his features. Antonin scowled, his dark eyes narrowed as though he suspected the younger wizard of having some hand in the Dark Lord's decision, and Orias ...
Orias was clearly displeased, but he only held her gaze for a steady moment before showing any reaction. He squared his jaw, arching a brow at her.
There had been the strangest drive to respond as she had earlier. But no, not with Voldemort seated beside her. Still, as she stared back at Orias, she could not help forcing a gulp down her throat and she was overcome by the most bizarre need to remind herself to breathe.
At her sudden intake of breath, he tilted his head to one side ever so slightly and crossed his arms over his chest. She could tell from the way he leaned back in his chair that he'd stretched out his long legs beneath the table.
As Thorfinn rose and moved behind the row of chairs to fetch her, the other Viking of a wizard still seated continued to watch her. Only when Thorfinn pulled out her chair, jostling her a bit, was she pulled from whatever silent communication had been passing between her and Orias Mulciber.
And she couldn't rightly recall what it had been about even a mere moment afterward.
Had Orias been her escort she could've asked him, but then, had he been her escort, chances were he'd not have bothered with strange and curious looks.
Hermione and Thorfinn walked along the corridors and up staircases in blessed silence, yet she did get the impression that his gaze was on her every now and again. But then, he did that more than the other two. Orias and Antonin had always acted quite put-upon by their task. Thorfinn, however, simply kept pace with her, occasionally glancing in her direction.
She wondered if the difference was in that they'd almost, sort-of, known each other as students when he'd been one of the visiting transfers from Durmstrang during the year of the Tri-wizard tournament.
When they reached the library, she expected him to walk away. Instead, as she opened the doors and walked inside, he stepped in behind her.
Her brow furrowed, so faint it was nearly imperceptible. "Rowle? What are you doing?"
He frowned, giving her a once-over before checking that the doors had closed behind them. "I've spent all summer trying to figure out what happened to you."
Hermione lifted a hand to cover a yawn, her dulled chestnut eyes holding his as she asked, "What a dreadfully mundane way to spend your time."
He squared his jaw, weighing what Mulciber had told him of his conversation with her—of his discovery of what the girl had been doing to herself behind closed doors. He weighed her reaction to their collective attention in the wake of said discovery, which he never would have believed had he not seen with with his own eyes.
Weighed all that, and pitted it against the subdued nature she'd displayed since her precious Potter's fall.
"You died out there, didn't you?"
There was a flicker in the depths of her eyes, some fleeting response to his question, but she recovered fast, asking in a quiet and detached voice, "What?"
His brows drew upward and he shook his head, leaning one elbow against the front desk's partition to affect a lazy posture. "I remember you. Feisty thing you were, not exactly a ray of sunshine, but always ready for an argument; always ready to bare your teeth and fight. Now look at you, like some goddamned doll. I've been trying to understand that change."
She sighed, a bored sound as her shoulders slumped. "I never pegged you for a big thinker, Rowle."
"Yes, well, you'd not be the first to judge me on my appearance, Sunshine. Everyone looks at men like Mulciber and me and thinks we can't possibly have working brains, but I wager you'd be surprised just how many discussions we get into that the old you—you know, the feisty one who gave a shit about, well, anything—would probably enjoy."
When she offered no response or change in demeanor, he went on.
"I didn't really get it until Mulciber told me what you've been up to when no one is looking and why. That's when I knew. That's what the Dark Lord's waiting for from you, isn't it? For you to come back to life?"
"Yes," she said with a nod, perfectly aware that really only she and Voldemort had been privy to that knowledge. Everyone else was so convinced he kept her as some sort of trophy. That she was broken, already.
But she wasn't his trophy, not yet. Not until he could break her in whatever fashion he saw fit. A challenge her lifelessness clearly did not play into.
Thorfinn nodded, thinking over the all the information he'd been handed tonight. "I see, well ... that little stunt you pulled at dinner tonight?"
Her eyes narrowed by a fraction as she tried to understand what he meant. "Little stunt?"
He moved faster than she thought a man his size should be able to—he and Mulciber had that in common, apparently—and latched a hand around her forearm, precisely where Mulciber had told him. The tips of his fingers pressed tight against the skin beneath her sleeve.
Hermione shuddered at the flash of pain that coursed through her. Giving her head a shake, she lifted brightened eyes to his.
Thorfinn smirked, his gaze raking her features. Yes, now she looked exactly like a matured version of the little spitfire he remembered as a fourth year student in mid-adolescent blossoming. "The little stunt where, for whatever stupid reason, you felt the need to do this—" He paused, giving her arm another squeeze which, to his shock, forced a quiet moan out of her—"to yourself when the Dark Lord might've seen you. Never again, Sunshine."
She swallowed hard, shaking her head in disbelief. "Are you ... actually worried for me?"
Again his attention roved over her as he tried to consider how to explain this notably strange occurrence. "As I said, I remember you. Even when you were a right pain in the arse you were a fighter. Kind of always liked that about you. Be a shame to see that fire snuffed out for good."
As he spoke, Hermione realized the grave misstep she'd made by answering when Orias had asked why she harmed herself, by admitting to Thorfinn what Voldemort wanted with her. But she scrambled at an odd notion, at something to do with the way these three—who now knew she'd been hiding in plain sight all this time—had looked at her tonight.
"You're not going to tell You Know Who my secret, are you?"
Thorfinn shrugged, but hadn't relinquished his hold on her just yet. "Don't see why we should. It's our job to play witch-sitter, not monitor your mental state. Besides, I'm too curious about all this to tattle on you for it."
The brightness in her gaze was dimming, her expression becoming bored and docile once more. "Yes, because I'm so very intriguing."
Mulciber's observation echoed through his head at that—and the little sound she'd made that wasn't quite one of discomfort. I got the impression she liked the pain. Definitely a theory that will need testing, when the opportunity arises. If she'd been dead inside all this time, that made sense.
Pain was a release—a relief from the numbness. And a rough touch awakening that without actually harming her, well, there was probably a different sort of release in that altogether that she could not have anticipated.
"Actually ..." Thorfinn pulled her close, his fingers squeezing against her broken skin beneath the fabric of her robes once more. She gasped, her head tipping back to maintain eye-contact with him as life flooded back into her face.
He couldn't help but smile a little savagely at the way she bit her lip to hold in any further sounds. The flush in her cheeks and the way her breath quickened was answer, enough.
Leaning close, he brought his mouth to her ear. The way she shivered as he exhaled against her skin sent a warm, delicious spike through him, and he knew if he didn't stop this soon, he was going to be in quite a bit of trouble with her other so-called witch-sitters.
"You are so very intriguing, Sunshine," he said, his lips brushing her ear as he whispered the words.
He leaned back, catching her gaze as she breathed. Merlin, it was torture to ignore the way her breasts pressed tight to his chest as she inhaled.
Thorfinn dropped his hand from her then and backpedaled a step. As he backed toward the doors she watched him, her eyes still bright, cheeks still flushed. Her breath thundered out from between her lips, and he was cataloging every second of the sight before him.
When he finally disappeared out into the corridor, Hermione let herself collapse backward against the front desk. "That was dangerous," she whispered, shaking her head at the empty library.
God, she knew perfectly well why she'd let that go on as long as it had. For the same reason she'd grabbed her own arm during dinner—the same reason she hadn't even tried to lie to Orias Mulciber earlier.
Because she'd liked it, and in four long months of not liking anything—of not feeling anything but the sweet sting of the blade cutting her skin—that had been more than she could say no to. Definitely a dangerous thing, given her circumstances.
Collecting herself, she moved to lock the library doors and scurried off to her quarters while she waited for the life to wash back out of her again.
In bed that night, she tossed and turned. Her thoughts, tangled and discordant, would not quiet. The conversations she'd had tonight, the looks and touches, rolled through her head over and over. Such an odd and sharp contrast that commotion was against the bland voice in which these jumbled thoughts played through her mind.
At last she couldn't help herself. She pressed against her wounds, biting her lip against the rush of sensation. But the pain hushed the restless flow of internal babble.
Yet, somehow, as the blissful stinging subsided, and she felt herself finally drifting to sleep, she could not shake the wonder of what being in the company of her wardens would be like after tonight's revelations.