Edited 10/13/15

1. Blood From A Stone

Cue to your heart that is racing

Stung by the look in your eye

Cue to your heart that is racing

What a surprise

Cue your face so forsaken

Crushed by the way that you cry

Cue your face so forsaken

Say goodbye

[Summer's Gone, Placebo]

In the end, Hermione simply ran out of tears. Her sinuses were stuffed, her eyes bloodshot, and she was still clinging to Draco - her arms wrapped around his waist, and her face pressed into his leathers, absorbing the scent of his sweat and blood. She tried to pretend that all that existed was him and her, and he surrounded her - his arms tight around her, his hand clutching the back of her head and his breath hot on her scalp, the scent of him enveloping her, the hard lines of his body pressing into her as she curled half on his lap.

He had been silent while she cried; just stroking her hair and back, and holding so tightly, as if he understood what she needed. To try to pretend. To try to shut out everything but him, just for a little while. Please god, just for a little while.

It was funny, Hermione thought, fingers digging into Draco's leathers, hooking on the rough patches and tears at his back where the glass had torn the leathers up, that after everything that had happened before the war, Draco Malfoy was her rock, now. He was the one constant in her life that was always there for her, that always put her first. Even when that had led to him being a stubborn idiot and trying to end things between them, it had still been because he had been putting her first, in his mind. And now, he was all that she had.

In this place, feeling like a trapped rabbit, her heart beating so fast she thought she might die of the fear, he was the only thing that she could cling to. And so she did, and he sat there like a statue and let her, the only warmth to him his breath puffing into her hair, and the only movement the repetitive slide of his fingers over her matted hair.

And then reality intruded again, when he cleared his throat - shockingly loud in the silence - and said awkwardly, nudging her with side of his elbow against her waist: "I need to piss, Hermione."

She choked out a startled, half-hysterical laugh as she remembered the bucket - the damned bucket - and her fingers released his leathers. She sat up stiffly, bum gone half-numb and ankle hot and heavy with the pain that bolted up her leg when she straightened it, and then waved a hand at the bucket.

"Well, there are the facilities." She sounded terribly bitter to her own ears, and Draco's gaze followed her gesture to the bucket, and a funny look came over his face. His jaw clenched, the muscles bunching up and flexing as she watched, and then his gaze shifted back to her, and she couldn't read what was in those quicksilver eyes.

"At least we have the bucket, Hermione," he said at last, half-angry and raw, as though he was exposing himself to her, and then he continued and she understood that he was laying himself bare, and utterly vulnerable in a way she knew he hated. "The last time I was locked up in a cell by Death Eaters, I didn't even warrant that generosity. So…it could be worse."

She didn't know what to say to that, blanching and then blushing hot with embarrassment for him, dropping her eyes, and stumbling out a stupid apology. "I - I'm sor -"

"Don't. Don't say anything. I don't want to talk about it - that's the last thing I want to fucking do. I just thought…knowing…might give you perspective." Draco looked immeasurably weary when his eyes skimmed over her face. "It could be worse, Hermione, considering who…"

She nodded silently, but it didn't really reassure her at all, or make her feel any better. She didn't think anything could, except for being rescued. Draco used the bucket without any obvious self-consciousness, but when he sat back down beside her he avoided her eyes, and his face was set in grim, expressionless lines.

She stared at her hands trying to build up her courage to speak. It took her five minutes to work up the courage to say, "I, uh, need to go too." Her face was burning with humiliation and she stared so hard at her hands that her eyes blurred and defocused. Merlin, this was awful.

"I'd say I'd stick my fingers in my ears, but obviously that's impossible," Draco said dryly after a moment, and got a tearful gasp of laughter out of Hermione. She forced herself to look up at him, and he jerked his head toward the bucket.

"Go on, Hermione. I won't peek, I swear." There was a curl to his mouth and a twist to his tone that would usually have made her stomach swirl and melt, but not now. She bit her lip, unsure, and he raised an eyebrow, and very deliberately shut his eyes and pressed his forearms against his ears.

"Hurry up," he said over-loudly. "This hurts my shoulder."

Hermione had never realised just how much there was to appreciate about Draco, until now, at rock bottom. She hobbled around the wall to the bucket, keeping her weight off her broken ankle, and with difficulty managed to shove her chausses and knickers down and squat over the horrible thing. There was no toilet paper, and she refused to cry over that fact. If Draco could keep it together - could even try to crack lame jokes and make her smile - then she could bloody well refrain from crying over slightly damp knickers.

She dragged her chausses up and hobbled back around the wall, tapped Draco on the shoulder and he smiled faintly up at her, eyes molten, and when she slid down the wall to sit beside him, he kissed her gently on the mouth.

And then it was that, just that; slow, languorous kissing, and her hands sliding up his neck, fingers lacing behind his head, and his mouth slanting hot over hers while his hand twisted up in her hair. There was an urgency and desperation running like a river beneath the gentle, measured way their mouths met and joined, but they both kept it held back - let it run beneath, adding a yearning intensity to the kisses that made them swallow Hermione up whole.

It dragged her under and made her unaware of anything but the movement of his fingers in her hair, and his tongue flicking soft and slick, and she grazed one hand down to his chest - splayed it there, and felt his heart thud steady and fast beneath her palm.

She whimpered at the loss of him when Draco released her mouth after a long, blissfully dreaming moment of absorption, and then he leant his forehead down against hers.

"We can get through this, Hermione," he said quietly, running the back of his index finger gently down the side of her face, tickling soft over the skin. She could feel his heart still beating steady, not wavering at all as his eyes pinned to hers unblinkingly, immovable, and demanding that she believe his words. "We have to get through this."

"We - we can," she whispered hesitantly in reply, an echo of him, and she almost believed it in that moment.

Footsteps echoed down the hallway and woke Hermione from a restless sleep curled shivering against Draco's side, the little spoon to his big one, and fear shot through her with a shocking intensity, making her eyes snap open and her whole body go rigid with tension.

"Draco," she whispered his name, and he squeezed her arm in acknowledgment that he was awake, and she shifted in his arms, rolling onto her back and staring up at his face.

His eyes were open and clear when he met her gaze, with no trace of lingering sleep-fogginess, and she wondered if he had slept at all, or just lain there, watching over her and waiting. The footsteps clumped closer, and she stuffed a fist in her mouth to stifle a whimper of terror and his hand came up to the back of her head, pulling it to his chest and kissing the top of it.

"Sit up," he said, a whispered order harsh in her ear, and together they helped each other struggle upright on the layer of rags, clumsy with exhaustion and aching muscles. She knew why without him having to tell her - it was important that the Death Eaters didn't catch them in a moment of vulnerability. They had to appear as together and strong as possible.

"You can do this. Just sit quietly. Let me do the talking," he murmured in her ear, and his hand squeezed hers briefly before pulling away - the Death Eaters still didn't know they were together, and it was best to keep it that way, and not give them any more ammunition. But still, Hermione's insides crumpled in on themselves when he pulled his fingers from hers.

And then the footsteps sloped to a halt in front of their cell, and a moment later, with a rusted creak, the door swung inwards, and Hermione met the eyes of a Death Eater that she didn't recognise, looming in the doorway, two hanging back in the hallway behind him.

"Traitor. Mudblood," the Death Eater in the doorway acknowledged them, his voice rough and contemptuous, his dark eyes as flat and unnerving as a dead fish's, and Hermione shuddered at what lay in them, beneath the curving, shiny surface. She didn't let her gaze drop though, just stared silently, refusing to let the big man make her cower.

"Rostan," Draco said coolly, inclining his head in a slight nod, a smirk shaping his mouth, the tension and controlled hatred radiating off him.

"The Dark Lord won't be back for a while yet, and we're bored," Rostan said, and his mouth formed a thin grin, his tongue darted out and slid over his lips obscenely. "We want to have a little fun with the two of you."

"And would the Dark Lord approve you playing with his prisoners?" Draco asked, his voice like steel and ice, his hand slapping the wall as he shoved himself unsteadily to his feet, shifting so that he stood like a shield between Rostan and Hermione. Her heart was lead in her chest now, and her blood was frozen in her veins as she played Rostan's words over and over. A little fun. A little fun. Alittlefun. Oh Merlin.

"He's not here right now, Malfoy," Rostan said, face still split by that vicious shark's grin. "And as long as we don't kill you -" His head tipped to one side and he glanced at Hermione behind Draco, and she looked quickly down at the ground, like a child, praying that he wouldn't see her if she couldn't see him. "I don't think the Dark Lord would begrudge us using you for a bit of light entertainment. Now, we're going to go for a walk, to somewhere more suited to our plans for you. Get the Mudblood up, and move your arses."

Hermione stared at Draco's back and watched as his hand slowly uncurled, fingers splaying out, and then clenched up into a fist, his shoulders stiffening.

"Go fuck yourself, Rostan," he said lightly, head canting to one side, staring the other wizard down as if Rostan was some kind of specimen he was examining. And then in a blur, Rostan had slammed a hand up against Draco's throat, driving him into the cell wall beside Hermione, and she bit back a scream and skittered back from the two men in a clumsy crab walk. Rostan's free hand formed a fist, and he thudded it home into Draco's abdomen. Draco grunted and wheezed and jerked in Rostan's grip, and his knee rammed up into the meat of Rostan's thigh, and the Death Eater growled and swore.

"You fucking arrogant little prick. Ooh, I'm going to enjoy breaking you all over again," Rostan said with his mouth to Draco's ear, the words rolling off his tongue and a cruel maliciousness lighting his face. Draco's face was reddening from the hand around his throat, but he spat in Rostan's face and Hermione flinched as that prompted Rostan to hit him again.

She swayed to her feet, getting dangerously close to the two struggling men - and then she palmed the biggest piece of glass she'd taken from Draco's back, staggered even closer, and raked it down Rostan's face. He howled as his flesh parted under the chunk of glass, and reared back, dropping Draco in a choking, gasping heap to the ground, and swinging his arm out. His forearm struck Hermione across the face and pain bloomed in her nose and cheek, and the glass cut into her hand as she involuntarily clutched it into a fist.

"You fucking Mudblood bitch," Rostan roared, and grabbed her by the hair, flinging her across the cell and the world whirled and blurred and then her bruised shoulder cracked into the stones of the wall, and a scream broke from her throat. She fell in a heap, legs going out from under her, dropping the piece of glass numbly from her bleeding hand and staring as Rostan kicked Draco in the stomach again and again, grunting with the effort.

Draco was so badly bruised already that it must be sheer agony, and the vein in his temple throbbed, and the cords in his neck stood out starkly, his fingers clutched at thin air and his mouth opened in a silent scream. But he all he did was gasp and let a stifled whining sound wrench from his throat at each blow, refusing the other man the satisfaction of his screams.

"Stop it! Stop -" she screamed without thinking, but then the two Death Eaters outside the cell came in and one grabbed her, hauling her to her feet by her arm - twisting it up behind her back and forcing her to put weight on her broken ankle. Through the pain that nearly whited out her vision, Hermione saw the other man go and help Rostan drag Draco up, grip his upper arms and making him stumble from the cell.

His eyes met hers, his gaze dragged across hers as he was shoved past her, and there was a horror in those stone-grey eyes - a knowing in them; and then the Death Eater holding Hermione forced her out after Draco, hobbling on her feet and sobbing through gritted teeth at the pain.

She didn't know how long the torture took - everything was a blur of pain, and they kept hurting them both, and they weren't even asking them any questions. It was just for fun - just for fun, and Hermione broke apart under the curses and hexes and blows from fists and feet, and vicious, despair-inducing mockery of what else she could look forward to, next time.

She tried to stay strong at first; dangling by her wrists from the chains in the centre of the large room with the bloodstained floors, and biting her tongue bloody to stay silent. The - the bastards had strung Draco up opposite Hermione so that they had to see each other every time they opened their eyes. It was knives and fists and jeering, and it was Draco who got her through. His eyes were unwavering on hers, and a constant stream of rambling support spilled form his bloodied lips, breaking off when they hurt him too badly, hissing the words between gasps.

"Look at me. Look at me, Hermione."

"Eyes on me, keep your damn eyes on -"

His eyes were framed by long dark lashes, his irises were charcoal rimmed, the grey growing lighter closer to his pupils, and they were flecked with silver, like shards of broken glass, his pupils contracted to pinpricks in the middle, and he kept his eyes steady on her the entire time.

"This isn't real. This isn't -"

"You can do it, don't give the fuckers the satisfaction of -"

"Look at me, Hermione, damnit look -"

"Eyes up, keep your fucking Merlin-damned eyes u -"

She swayed in the chains, barely able to reach the floor on tiptoes, her arms feeling like they were being ripped from their sockets and tried to lose herself in his eyes. Tried to ignore the agony tearing through her, and not see the blood that he was soaked in - stripped bare down to his chausses, as was she - and she tried not to see or feel what was happening, but to go somewhere else, somewhere behind his eyes. She tried so damn hard. She wouldn't give the monsters hurting them the satisfaction of hearing her shatter and scream for them.

"Eyes on me. Fuck, Hermione…keep it together - fucking keep it together."

The Death Eaters thought it was funny, the way Draco tried to help her, tried to stop her from breaking. They laughed and they taunted and tried to turn it into part of their game, and Hermione just tried to tune them all out and focus on the silver and grey, blocked now and then by the loom of a Death Eater's body as they hurt him, or her. She tried so, so hard, hanging there staring at him and trying to seek comfort in his glazing eyes. But he was losing it too, as the torture went on and on for what seemed like forever and ever, his head beginning to loll from the weakness of the blood loss.

They'd hurt him worse than her. She was a mass of cuts and other hurts from the waist up, but he looked literally flayed alive, and the blood dripped off his toes which barely brushed the ground, puddling on the floor as he hung there, still gasping in bare, rattling wheezes and spitting out the words.

"Look at me. It's going to be okay, Hermione, it's -"

But that was a lie, just like everything else he'd said since they were captured, and it wasn't okay - the pain just went on and on without end, and Draco's words became nothing more than meaningless sounds to her ears that she hated, and Hermione broke, and she screamed. She screamed and she begged and she wailed and pleaded just how they had wanted her to. And opposite her, Draco kept staring into her eyes and dragging those words from his throat like he couldn't stop, the blood dripping down his chin from where he'd bitten through his tongue to keep himself from screaming.

She did so well. So fucking well. He was amazed by how strong she was, how she had held out for so fucking long. Even he had screamed, in the end, sometime long after she'd passed out and they'd hauled her off like a piece of meat for perfunctory healing, so she didn't die. They just didn't stop until you screamed, and sometimes, not even then, so eventually, you always broke. In the end, everyone broke. But it was important to hold out as long as you could - not give in, because that was how they really broke you. When you stopped fighting, when you accepted it - that was when you were beaten, and became theirs, body and soul.

And Draco had been to that place, and he never wanted to go there again.

His toes dragged on the ground as they hustled him along back to the cell, only half-conscious and head hanging limply, the damage they had inflicted already nearly healed, but the weakness and the pain lingering, despite the blood-replenishing potion they'd forced down his throat. The ground beneath him stopped moving, and he heard the clank of the bolt as they drew it back, the creak of the door as they opened it, and then they threw him into the cell, dumping him in a heap on the floor like he was nothing, and then they slammed the door closed behind them. It was over again - for now.

The stones beneath him were freezing on Draco's naked upper body, and leached what little warmth he had left to him out of his body, leaving him trembling uncontrollably as shock and blood loss seized him. Soft cold skin touched him then, hands running over his shoulders and his arms and chest, and hot wetness splashed on his jaw, spattering down like warm rain.

"Her - Hermione?"

A choked sob answered him, and he made himself sit up with weak, wobbling muscles, her hands tugging at his upper arms and trying to help, and then he was staring at her blotchy, stricken face, only inches from his. He smiled at her faintly, a reassurance, the expression feeling wrong and foreign on his face. He had to keep it together, for her, had to be strong and undaunted, and face everything stoically. She'd never been through this before. She didn't know…she couldn't… Draco had to try to get her through this, because he didn't know if she could stay sane if he fell apart and she was alone.

"God, Draco, I thought you were never coming back," she gasped through a sea of tears, hands still clutching at his shoulders and cheeks and neck, like she was afraid he was going to vanish on her. "I was afraid…"

Draco held out his arms to her wordlessly, and she half fell onto him, both of them heedless of their only-just-sealed wounds and the pain that radiated like cold fire through their bodies. He wrapped his arms around her back, and her bare breasts pressed into his chest, and he remembered his initial fury when they stripped even her bra away. She had blazed red with shame and humiliation, and when they had taunted her with what they would do to her next time, and commented favourably on her breasts, and on what use they could put her mouth to, she had wept. She had wept, and they had taunted and jeered, and Draco had only been able to watch.

He held her tighter to him now, a fury so deep that he couldn't even begin to express it roiling in his chest like a physical thing, raging and seething and just waiting for the chance to get free.

"I - I -" she started after a few moments, and then nothing else, just silent tears. He knew how she felt. There wasn't anything much you could say, after what they had just been through. There wasn't any way to communicate the depths of fear and pain and violation that were birthed in you while you were being tortured. While you were being turned into a plaything for sadistic, evil, monsters, who fed on your screams, who drank up the sight of your agony with a smile. Talking about it…didn't always help. Sometimes it just rubbed on wounds that were already unbearably raw. Especially when you knew it was going to happen again, and again, and again.

Draco dragged in a rough breath.

"I know," he said, and buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in the smell of her beneath the medicinal scent of the potions they'd smeared her wounds with.

"But you - you never -"

"I did, actually." The muscles in his jaw were so tight with tension and fury he felt like they were going to cramp. "Everybody does, Hermione, in the end." He paused and debated whether to say it or not, but added with a watery wry smile into her neck, "You did well. So fucking well. Better than I thought you would. I suppose it's the noble, stubborn Gryffindor in you, hmm?"

She made a funny gurgling sound that resembled a laugh. "No. It's the noble, stubborn Slytherin with me."

He didn't know what to say to that, but the fact that she could joke, however weakly, warmed him a little. Reassured him.

"Glad I could be of service," he said after a brief pause, trying to say it with his old, arrogant aplomb, and Hermione snorted at him, just how she used to. One part amusement, one part derision, and all Hermione. She shivered against him, and it made him realise how fucking cold he was in the damp, chill stone cell - they hadn't gotten their leathers back, and the draught from the vent whisked over his skin, raising goosebumps in its path.

"We should wrap up," he said, jerking his head at the filthy rags and curling his lip, because they were disgusting, but better than nothing.

She looked at him with pure sharp misery in her eyes as he fussily tucked a dirt-encrusted, moth-eaten old wool blanket around her shoulders.

"They took my clothes. They - in front of everyone, they just stripped me, like - like I was nothing. Like…" There was anger and indignation in her voice, Draco was glad to note - she still had her spirit - but it was overshadowed by humiliation and shame. "Like I was just a - a…thing. I was just a thing."

"You're not. You know that. They want you to feel that way. Don't let them. It's just skin, Hermione. There's nothing shameful about it. They're just trying to make you feel vulnerable. It's -" He tried to explain it, to maybe make it easier for her to put it into the perspective of tactics, and fight against the feelings it evoked, but she caught his eyes with her own and he broke off, rubbing his eyes and feeling useless.

Hermione understood it was just standard tactics perfectly well; of course she did - she was far from bloody stupid, and everyone in the Order must have been briefed on what to expect if they were captured. But knowing why didn't make the things that the Death Eaters did that much easier to cope with. Hardly any easier at all, if Draco was honest with himself.

There was another long, miserable silence.

"They're going to rape me, aren't they," Hermione said flatly, eyes not leaving Draco's face, and the breath caved out of him like she'd punched him. He couldn't look at her. He buried his face into the palm of his hand, speaking into it.

"Yes."

The one flat word was like death and ashes on his lips, and he felt sick to his stomach for saying it, revolted and horrified with empathy for Hermione.

"God." Her voice cracked and broke, and her eyes finally slid from his, focusing on a hole in the blanket that she was absently picking at with ragged nails. "God."

"Hermione, I… Fuck, Hermione, I…" But there was nothing he could do, and nothing he could say, and saying how sorry he was, how much he wished he could protect her and keep it from happening - well, all that just sounded as fucking unhelpful as shit. Because she already knew those things. So instead they just sat side by side, blanket-wrapped backs against the wall, and upper arms brushing together, silent but for her angry tears.

"It's like a death sentence, Draco. Knowing that they're going to - I hate them, so much. I'm so angry, and I'm so scared, and I don't know what to…how to… How am I supposed to deal with this?" She jerked her head up, wrapping her arms around her middle and glaring at him, voice shrilling and breaking. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

Draco held her furious, desperate gaze with an effort - it was so hard not to flinch away from the raw pain in her eyes. He swallowed.

"I don't think anything can make the waiting better. But when - fuck, when they…do it, try to…be somewhere else." Now he couldn't hold her eyes, but it had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with him. Guilt and shame bubbled up in him, cloying and awful.

"What?" she asked sharply, and he shrugged, eyes on his lap.

"Try to be somewhere else. To not - not be present. Not let them touch your mind, just your body. Just flesh, not you. That's all. It's not much but I've… I've, ah, heard that helps a bit."

She shifted away from him and he could feel her gaze burning into him.

"What?" she asked, suddenly bitter and sharp, all her helpless rage and fury directed onto the nearest convenient target - him. "And where did you hear that? From prisoners, before you defected?"

There was accusation in her voice and it hurt. It hurt more than he could tell her, or ever show her, but he just ground his teeth together and jerked out a brief, furious nod. She was just lashing out, and Draco told himself to let her have this outlet. She needed it.

"Something like that," he said shortly, and looked away.

"I thought you said you never raped -" she began in a revolted tone, as if she was suddenly questioning everything, and the doubt and mistrust of Draco in her voice made his determination to let her lash out falter and fail.

"I didn't!" He was suddenly even angrier than she was, and he could feel himself go hot and red as he yelled the words, jerking back from her and glaring at her so that they faced each other furiously, all the strain and hurt and fear channelled into anger at each other.

"I fucking told you, Hermione. I. Never. Did. That." He bit each word out like it had personally offended him, cold and harsh, and she stared at him in wounded confusion, and he could see she believed him but she didn't fucking understand.

"I just…"

"They wouldn't have told me that if I was the one - the one raping them, now would they? Use your fucking head."

"I'm so sorry I hurt your precious feelings, Draco, but you're not the one who's going to be…" She blanched and didn't say the word, finishing in a small voice, "I am."

He couldn't say it. Couldn't. And she needed him to not be angry at her right now. He couldn't handle this. He couldn't fucking handle this. Tomorrow…

"Fuck. Fuck-fuck-fuck." He took a deep breath and tried very hard to be calm. Held out his hand to her and after a brief hesitation Hermione clutched onto it like it was a lifeline.

"I love you," he said - all he could say. "I love you and nothing will ever change that, Hermione. Nothing. You understand? Anything they do tomorrow - that's not on you, it says nothing about you and who you are and what you're worth, it's on them. All on them. Understood?"

Hermione stared into Draco's eyes, and he could see her searching for the lie, and finding none. And then she nodded, terrified but stoic, her jaw set and her eyes horribly fragile.

"I'm sorry I accused you of…"

"It's all right, it doesn't matter," he told her, and she deflated into his arms with a shudder, and they huddled together under their filthy blankets in a heartsick silence, the time ticking away, and it was anything but all right.

Their silent wait was broken when two glasses of water and one bowl of watery stew were pushed through the bottom of the cell door. They sipped at the water, trying to make it last, and shared the stew between them, and it barely made a dent in Hermione's ravenous hunger. She didn't understand how she could be hungry, at a time like this, but she was.

They both had to use the bucket again a while after they'd drunk the water, and Hermione felt hot shame blossom on her cheeks again. It was stupid to be embarrassed by that when she knew what was coming tomorrow, but she couldn't help it.

She still ached all over from the torture, despite the damage having been healed, but it was her mind that really felt flayed open. She felt like she'd been ripped open and torn apart, and it was going to happen all over again tomorrow, only worse, and she couldn't stand the thought. But there was nothing to distract her, nothing to counter the despair that oozed through her like poison.

Draco tried to talk and distract her, to act like everything was normal, but Hermione couldn't do it. She wanted to go home. She wanted Ron and Harry, and she wanted to be curled up in her cosy bed at Godric's Hollow with Draco. She wanted her mother and father to protect her from the monsters, like they had when she was only little.

She was cold, her ankle hurt and so did the rest of her, and the blanket itched, and the floor was hard despite the layer of rags, and she couldn't stop thinking with numbed horror about tomorrow. Even with Draco wrapped around her like a blanket himself, it took a very long time for exhaustion to drag her down, and even then, there were the nightmares.

She awoke in the protective curl of Draco's arms to the muffled sounds of people talking in the hallway outside their cell, her body stiff and aching, her head feeling like it was stuffed with cotton, and her tongue fuzzy and dry.

"Who's going to take the first turn at the mudblood?" one of the voices asked casually, as if they were discussing who got the last piece of cake, and Hermione's blood ran cold, and she tried not to vomit. She didn't have to look to see if Draco was awake, because his arms had jerked painfully tight around her when the Death Eater had spoken, and his low, furious hiss sounded on the air.

She was not a piece of meat, she was not an object, a thing to be passed around, she raged inwardly. Except she was completely helpless and there was no way to stop them, no way to prevent them from turning her into that, despite what Draco had said last night about not letting them, and about it not saying anything about her and her worth.

His arms were so tight around her now that she couldn't breathe properly, but right now she didn't want him to let her go. There was a false sense of safety in being curled up with him, and she rolled towards him and allowed herself the comfort of that faux-security, pressing her face into his chest and smelling the lingering traces of blood, and stronger scent of sweat, which didn't bother her - it just smelt like him, and that was welcome.

"She fucking cut me - I should get first go at the little dirty-blood slut," Rostan growled, and Hermione could hear her own breath loud and ragged in her ears as the Death Eaters argued over who would get the privilege of raping her first, and who would end up with sloppy seconds, or thirds, or fourths. Her chest was unbearably tight, and panic and fear made her break out in a sweat, her eyes squeezed shut until she saw dancing lights behind her eyelids. Draco's mouth pressed against the top of her head, and his fingers dug painfully into her back.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair with desperate, miserable realism. He had never been one to deny the reality of a situation, and now, at the crunch, he'd stopped trying to reassure her by lying to her like he had during the torture. She had hated him in the end, for all telling her it would be okay when it clearly wasn't. But Merlin, it hurt to hear him say I'm sorry like that, now, all clouded and dull with defeat and hopelessness.

For a moment Hermione wished Draco would lie to her again, and tell her it would be all right. That he would tell her he would protect her, murmuring the lie that he wouldn't let it happen into her ear. Let her pretend for a moment that he would be the prince in a fairytale and save her.

I won't let it happen. I won't let them touch you. I'll keep you safe, I promise.

The bolt on the cell door rammed back, and Draco bent his head so his lips brushed against the shell of her ear, and she held her breath, waiting for him to say it. The pretty, pretty lies.

"I love you," was all he said, rough and harsh and half-angry, the words hot on her skin. "Remember that, Hermione."

And then he rolled to his feet with a grunt of pain and stood between her and the door as it creaked open, his thin, broad shoulders back and the crisscross of the sealed cuts from yesterday's torture stark on the pale skin of his back.

"We're here for the mudblood, Malfoy. Move."

"No," he said calmly, and Hermione knew what was coming, and she suddenly wished he wouldn't. She didn't want Draco to be hurt just to delay the inevitable.

"I wasn't asking, Malfoy. I know how much you love it when we play with you, judging from the way you screamed, but today we just want the mudblood. So fucking move, or I'll move you."

Draco studied the nails on his hand with complete disregard for Rostan's looming, and said with casual contempt, "I would've have thought, that with all the time you and Goyle Senior always used to spend buggering each other in dark corners, you wouldn't have any energy left for the prisoners, Rostan."

The big Death Eater's hand came up as he snarled wordlessly, and Draco tried to duck but his reflexes were dulled by weakness and exhaustion, and he stumbled to the side as the back of Rostan's hand struck his face. He hissed and regained his footing, wobbling on his feet and spitting dark blood on the floor and dragging his wrist over his face and Hermione saw it come down smeared in blood.

"Always had the energy to deal with you, didn't I, Malfoy?" Rostan jeered, shoving Draco back a step with a thrust of his hand to Draco's chest, and Hermione's forehead furrowed as that niggled at her strangely and Draco's head jerked back as though Rostan had struck him. And then Draco sucked in a breath and from his stance Hermione knew that he'd jutted his chin up in the air and was sneering down his nose at Rostan.

"That the best you've got, Rostan? A few pathetic taunts and a slap, a push or two? What are we, children on the playground?"

"Oh no, I'd show you my best, Malfoy, but today we're here for the little mudblood bitch."

Hermione watched with the blanket tight around her shoulders protecting her modesty, heart in her throat as Draco flowed forward then, kneeing Rostan in the crotch before the big man could dodge it. Rostan crumpled bent double, swearing up a storm and Draco grabbed Rostan's straggling hair in his hand and smashed his face down to meet his knee and Hermione heard a crunch and Rostan howled.

And then the other Death Eaters - three of them - poured in the door, and two of them swarmed Draco, while the third grabbed Hermione and hauled her to her feet. She fought him, the blanket falling to the floor unheeded, the Death Eater's fingernails sharp on her arm, and she lashed out with the heel of her hand, caught him square in the nose and felt a crrrck, and he slapped her so hard she saw stars and staggered, putting her weight on her broken ankle and screaming.

Draco was down now, on the floor, and she saw blurred glimpses of him as the Death Eater wrenched her and dragged her to the door - his white-blond hair streaking with fresh blood, his knees drawing up to his chest as the Death Eaters kicked him, the dazed look to his grey eyes, as if he was somewhere very far inside himself, the spray of blood from his nose when one of the men struck him full in the face.

She screamed his name unashamedly, feet scrabbling at the floor as she tried to resist, tried to get back to him. She fought like Crookshanks would have - wild and snarling; biting the Death Eater holding her, clawing at his face and raking her nails down his arms, and when he grabbed her wrists and pinned them both, kicking out at his legs and stamping on his feet, ignoring the pain that thudded into her flesh with each retaliatory blow.

She fought; even if Hermione knew she was going to lose, she would fight, because she was damned if she was going to go quietly.

They got her out into the hallway, her thrashing madly still and screaming, and then a voice cut the air.

"What are you doing with the girl?" a familiar voice asked, in his usual bored, scathing tones. Hermione froze in the Death Eater's grip and her eyes travelled up, from the billowing black hem of the man's robes, up to the high collar, and then the contemptible, contemptuous face framed by the greasy black hair.

Professor - sorry, she corrected herself bitterly at the sight of the traitor, Headmaster Snape. She remembered suddenly that she was shirtless and exposed, and her cheeks heated fiercely with a stupid, ridiculous turn of modesty.

"Taking 'er out to play with," Rostan leered, and Snape's eyebrow slowly lifted, and Hermione wondered with a hint of hysteria, if Draco had copied Snape's eyebrow raise, because she suddenly realised it was disturbingly nearly exactly the same.

"No," Snape said, his dark eyes roaming blatantly over Hermione's body and her skin crawled, and she wanted nothing more to run and hide herself, or scrub herself raw, because his gaze made her feel dirty. She tried to wrench her arms free to cover her chest, but the Death Eater holding her kept them trapped behind her, and she wanted to cry.

"No? And why is that, Severus?" Rostan asked contemptuously, and Snape didn't even bothering looking at him when he answered, his eyes still on Hermione. A potions-stained finger - long and bony and cold - reached out and trailed over the side of Hermione's breast, and she bucked back and tried to wriggle away from it.

"Get your hands off me you sick bastard! Don't touch me! Don't touchme!"

Snape smiled coldly, and the cold, gentle slide of that finger dropped away after a few seconds longer.

"Because I want the girl, and the Dark Lord has promised me a reward for my loyal service in the past months - and I have decided Miss Granger here is the reward I would like."

Hermione stared at Snape in horror, cheeks still flaming with anger and humiliation, skin crawling with the sick memory of his chill touch. Oh god, oh Merlin, this couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening. She felt like being sick everywhere, and her stomach tried to crawl its way out her throat and her face crumpled up.

"Oh yeah? Is she now? Well until you ask the Dark Lord, she's still ours to do with what we like, Snivellus." Rostan snarled, and Snape's gaze slid to him - cold on the other Death Eater's face, utterly silent, just giving him that superior, disgusted look, and Rostan dropped his eyes first.

"You will leave the girl here, until I have made my request of the Dark Lord. I do not care what you do with her, except that she shall remain unscarred, and unviolated." Snape's voice was a bored drawl, but there was steel there, and Hermione moaned, ducking her head, her hair - now half fallen out of its braid - obscuring her face. "I will not have your seconds, Rostan. There are others you can satisfy your…needs with. But she will remain unviolated. Do you understand me?"

"Fine," Rostan growled, furiously, and then Hermione was being shoved roughly back into the cell, and in the whirl of movement she caught a flash of Snape's face and thought she saw the tiniest bit of regret on those thin, haughty features, and her brow furrowed. That seemed important, somehow.

But then she was sprawling on the cold floor, bumping her elbow and banging her hip, and when she looked up to the doorway, Snape was gone, and Rostan was marching in. He stood over Draco, who was panting and gasping from the brief, vicious beating he'd gotten, hair falling over his face as he glared up at Rostan from between the two Death Eaters looming over him.

"Looks like we'll have need of you today after all, traitor," Rostan sneered, and Hermione shuddered because she didn't want him to be tortured again, not after they'd already just hurt him, not after yesterday, not without her there because they were in this together. She opened her mouth to protest uselessly, but Draco's face snapped to hers, and he glared, pressing his lips together hard, his meaning clear - shut up, don't draw their attention again. She did as he asked although she didn't want to, huddling back against the back right corner of the cell in the shadows and watching as Rostan hauled Draco to a stagger on his feet.

"Just like old times, eh, Malfoy?" Rostan leered, his big hand loosely encircling Draco's throat for a moment, grinning that shark's grin, and Draco blanched utterly white and his head fell forward. She saw his expression though as his shoulders slumped and his head hung - he looked like defeat, like hopeless resignation, and Hermione stared at him, confusion seeded amongst her horror.

He was the one who had said they needed to fight and not give in, not concede defeat.

Rostan, and the Death Eater who had held Hermione, grabbed Draco by the arms and started to hustle him out of the room, and his name burst past her lips unbidden, muffled behind her hand. Draco heard her, and his head lifted and he looked back over his shoulder at her, grey eyes glazed and very, very far away.

"It'll be all right, Hermione," he grated, his face drawn in stark, hopeless, frightened lines - he wasn't even trying to make the lie believable anymore and Hermione choked on a sob. And then the door slammed shut, and she buried her face in her hands, the denial looping over and over in her head - it wasn't all right, it wasn't, it wasn't.

Hermione didn't know how much time passed between the cell door closing and then opening again, but she was sitting on the pile of rags, one knee drawn up to her chest, her leg with the broken ankle stretched out in front of her, a blanket around her shoulders and her arms wrapped around her knee, head buried in the dark hollow she'd created.

She was weary and numb beyond belief, a constant low-level horror consuming her, until she just felt emotionally drained. She had no more tears left, and a stoic resignation was starting to sheathe her bones like lead. They had no choice but to live through this, until they were rescued or escaped, and she just didn't have enough tears to sob over everything that horrified her, because there was so much. She looked up at the creak of the door, dully frightened.

And then Draco stumbled into the room like he'd been pushed, and his arms flailed out like he was going to fall before he regained his balance and just stood there for a minute, not looking at her, breathing hard through his nose in snorts of air. She stared at him, too afraid to speak first. The cell door boomed shut, and Draco shuddered then, and she could see his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard.

Hermione had expected him to be deposited in the room unconscious, or covered in blood again, or shivering in the aftermath of too many Crucios, but instead he was upright and…something didn't seem right. A creeping suspicion crawled its way up her spine with clawing, icy fingers.

Why didn't he seem hurt worse? Something was wrong - she didn't know what, but it was and Hermione's eyes swept over Draco urgently, her heart in her throat. His chausses, low on his hips and unlaced, flapped open as he staggered across the cell to the bucket, hand slapping up against the wall and holding himself upright as he vomited violently into the bucket, gasping and retching.

The rectangular striped light from the barred window in the door hit the right side of his neck and shoulder, and Hermione's eyes picked out the dark red blossom of a small bruise on the side of his neck, under the sharp edge of his jaw, and her stomach flipped and she wanted to vomit herself as knowledge took on a nebulous shape in her mind.

There was a deep ringed bite mark on the ball of his right shoulder, and strong tremors ran through him as he leant against the wall with his left hand, head hanging, and wrenching in whistling, ragged breaths as he finally stopped retching.

No. No.

"Draco?" her voice was a tiny thing that should have come from a mouse rather than a human, and she saw the muscles in his back and shoulders and arms tense and ripple under the skin at the sound of his name, his head jerked up.

"What?" he rasped as if it took a great effort, and he sounded just as strange as she did; low and ragged and hollow somehow.

"Are - are you…okay?" Stupid question, stupid bloody question, Hermione, she scolded herself silent and panicked as soon as she realised she had blurted it out, and Draco laughed breathlessly, a sound that held no humour or life whatsoever, and turned to face her, and the light fell over his chest and throat, highlighting a quilt of ragged, bleeding bite marks and small, red bruises on his flesh, and Hermione replayed Rostan's words to Draco in her head, and then she was scrambling desperately on her hands and knees for the bucket.

She reached it just in time, emptying her meagre stomach contents into it and then panting and choking down on the stomach convulsions, not wanting to spend the next ten minutes bringing up sour, acidic bile and nowt else. She was on all fours, and Draco's legs were right beside her, unmoving, and she followed them up, past his unlaced chausses, up his marred torso to his face, and saw an expression there that she had never thought to see on Draco's face.

She couldn't even describe it properly, but she thought she saw self-loathing and utter defeat in the mix, and then she was screaming at herself in her head for her reaction, because what would he think of the way she'd reacted? What would he think of that reaction? What would…

Stupid, Hermione, stupid, she cursed herself, and tipped back onto her bum, biting back a cry as her ankle twisted and then bumped on the floor.

"I didn't -" she began feebly, her eyes as wide as saucers on his face - that swollen, bloodied mouth and those shuttered grey eyes, and Draco cut her off sharply, his voice as flat and cold as his eyes.

"I'm fine, Hermione. I'm fine."

She pushed herself to her good foot, using the wall as a prop, and her eyes scraped over his face, searching, and he looked away from her.

"But…" she started, her heart squeezing so tight she thought it was going to pop, clammy all over in some sort of strange reaction to the horror, and Draco slashed his hand through the air, swaying on his feet.

"I'm fine," he growled, jaw clenched and teeth gritted, and then limped and staggered his way to the pile of rags that was their bed. She followed him, hop-hop-limping her way along the wall and reaching the rags at the same time as him.

"I -" She needed to say something. There had to be something she could say.

"Hermione." Her name was both a threat and a plea on his swollen lips, and she snapped her mouth shut with a whimper, leaning against the wall and staring at him uselessly as he eased himself painfully to his side and lay down, knees drawn up slightly, hand clenched into a tight fist under his chin and eyes screwed shut.

She slumped down next to him, and tentatively slid her hand over his shoulder, feeling like she was trying to gentle a frightened animal as he jolted under her touch and nearly pulled away, before settling back how he had been. Allowing her to touch him. She stared down at his taut features, her hand soothing down his shoulder and arm in feathery, uncertain strokes, and saw a tear leak from his lashes, trickling an unsteady path down across his face to his nose, dripping off the bridge of it onto the rags.

"Draco…" Hermione tried again, and he sighed and bit his lip hard before he spoke wearily, his chin trembling.

"Don't, Hermione. Just don't. Please."

Hermione wriggled down onto one elbow on her side, facing him - at a complete loss because he'd had the role of the strong one in this situation, he had been the cold, grim, determined one, who knew what to do and why, and now he…just wasn't, anymore.

Her lips pressed very lightly down against Draco's temple and he flinched again, and then pressed closer to her with a choked sound, lifting his head and pillowing it on her forearm by her elbow, his breath tickling against the side of her breast. Her arm curled around Draco's back, and his hand came up and fisted in Hermione's hair, pulling her head down to him, her mouth crushed to his cheek, and his sobbing breaths rough and hot, puffing out against her chest.

They clung to each other, silent but for his sobbing, choking rasps, and Hermione decided that if they got out of here alive, she wasn't going to feel the least bit bad about crucioing every one of these Death Eaters until they fucking died of it.