Edited 10/13/15

4. She Walked Away

I knew a man who was afraid to love

To lay his heart on the bathroom rug

He drank his coffee in the same old mug

And sat in silence 'til the world fell numb

Until the day when a girl came by

She had eyes like the rising tide

He felt a sharpness deep inside

The kind of ache that can't be satisfied

[How We Love, Ingrid Michaelson]

"Draco." His father inclined his head, and Draco's eyes darted over the man, taking in the lankness and tangle of the white-blonde hair, the dirtiness of the expensive clothing, and the wildness in his eyes. A coil of hate licked up in Draco's chest, and his lip curled as he stared up at the monster who wore the skin of the man who had once tucked Draco into bed.

There was a tremble to his father's wand hand, and his eyes were bloodshot, several days' growth of stubble on his haggard face, and he kept licking chapped lips as he stared at Draco. Their expressions were near enough to be mirror images, Draco knew - the same contemptuous sneer curling Draco's lips as he saw on his father's face, the same narrowed grey eyes.

There was a silence as the two Malfoys stared each other down, and Draco could hear Hermione's heart go poundpoundpound so fast against him, and her breath was ragged on his skin as she clung to him. She hadn't moved an inch since Draco had greeted his father, and her fingers were digging bloody gouges into his back that made him stiffen his shoulders and lift his chin, flatten his mouth in an attempt not to show the pain. He waited for his father to speak; eying him coolly despite the quick flutter-thump of his blood, because his father had a wand and the man had cut off his hand and Hermione was trapped in the circle of Draco's arms and it must be obvious what she meant to Draco, and fuck fuck fuck, what would his father do to her?

As Draco suspected, that was the first thing his father mentioned. It was an insult, not yet revealing his purpose or making him vulnerable, but rather, an attempt to set Draco off-balance. Well it wouldn't fucking work, Draco thought almost viciously - he was already unbalanced.

It worked, though.

"Dipping your wick in a dirty little mudblood's cunt now, are you, Draco?" His fath - Lucius he couldn't call him his father he was Lucius - asked in a silky, amused voice, and Draco's blood boiled over as Hermione flinched and her nails dug deeper into Draco's flesh, her face pressed harder into him, like she was trying to hide inside his skin. And it wasn't like that. It wasn't like how his father saw it - it was…

"Like father like son, I suppose. Except I don't have to rape mine," he shot back, all ice and acid and his father chuckled, a manic edge to the sound, and Hermione flinched again and if Draco had that Muggle gun he could've bloody shot himself. He shouldn't show weakness in front of his father but he did anyway, because he'd hurt her and he couldn't fucking do that and just leave it.

"Sorry," he murmured awkwardly through barely moving lips, head bent down to Hermione's ear, but he knew his father heard because when he met Lucius' eyes again, the bastard was smiling faintly.

"Oh, it's like that, is it, Draco? Do you imagine yourself to love the filthy little animal?"

Hermione stiffened and Draco felt her cheek blaze hot against his skin - with anger, he imagined, and his hand stroked a soothing path down her back over the blanket.

"I don't see why that would concern you…Lucius. You disowned me. Remember? What I do or do not feel for mud -" Draco cut himself off cursing inwardly as he nearly echoed his father's term from old habit. "-my feelings and whom they are directed towards, are none of your affair."

"Mudblood," Lucius rolled the word off his tongue, stalking into the room, looking like a half-maddened predator, the whites of his eyes more red than white, an edgy air of desperation to him. "At least I taught you well enough that you still think of them the same way, even if you deign to love them. Is it like having a pet dog, Draco? Does she always curl up on your lap like this? Have you taught her to lick your boots?"

"Shut. Up." Hermione was sitting up and hissing at Lucius before Draco could stop her, her face red and furious, eyes blazing, blanket clutched to her chest. "Shut your -"

Lucius flicked his wand and Hermione's lips slammed together mid-sentence, and her hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide, snorting through her nose as she sucked for air.

"Release her," Draco snarled, but the words were impotent and Lucius knew that perfectly well, and pursed his lips, tsk-ed and shook his head.

"I will no more stand for mudbloods talking when I am speaking, than I would tolerate a dog's yapping. I haven't harmed her, just silenced her." A gentle smile, as if Lucius was patiently waiting for Draco to thank him for not actually hurting Hermione. His hand balled into a fist at Hermione's back, and he shifted, wrenching himself away from her. She made frightened, wide eyes at him, lips still mashed together, and he tucked the blanket around her.

"Stay down. I'll deal with him. It'll be okay," he muttered, waiting for her to nod once before he stood with a wince and a stagger, and stepped between Hermione and Lucius. It wasn't much protection, but it was all Draco could do.

"Stay?" His father's small smile spread into a malicious grin that split his face. "Does she also sit?" Lucius fingered his wand, stalking sideways to try to get a good look at Hermione, but Draco shifted with him, obscuring her from sight. "I wonder if she begs," Lucius crooned with a glint in his eye, and Draco felt sick. "I bet she does. Little mudblood Granger, begging for mercy - or, is it begging for more?"

"What do you want, father?" Draco asked flatly, refusing to let Lucius drag him into his petty, nasty mind games. But Lucius ignored him, stalking to the other side now, and making a little motion that Draco thought undid the silencing charm on Hermione.

"Have you trained her to cum when you call her, like a good little pet?" Lucius asked with a lazy grin instead of answering the question, and Draco bit back a snarl at that, his fist and jaw clenched. He swallowed hard and forced his features to reshape into bored contempt.

"Are you here for a reason, father? Or just to gloat?" He kept his tone as bored and contemptuous as his face, but Lucius just smiled at him knowingly; he was the one who had taught Draco to hide his feelings behind that mask, and he could see through the cracks in it perfectly well.

"Do you remember when you used to tell me about her when you came home in the school holidays, before -" Lucius waved his wand hand, "- before all of this?"

Draco stiffened further, chin jerking up, rocking back on his heels as if Lucius had struck him in the jaw, and he could hear his teeth grinding together as the fury poked and prodded at him, trying to get free.

"Yes, I do," Draco acknowledged flatly, a sick flipping going on in his stomach as he remembered, very, very clearly, picturing himself and his father in his mind's eye as he talked all that bigoted, puffed up, sadistic shit he used to about Hermione. He felt goosebumps shiver up on his arms and back. "Now what the fuck do you want?"

Lucius began to pace the room - three steps one way, three the other, prowling, twiddling his wand agitatedly between two fingers - but always keeping intensely alert eyes on Draco. "You made me proud, on occasion, back then. You hated the little bitch. You wanted to break her - make her grovel, make her beg; make her take her rightful place licking. your. boots. You had some damned pride. And now look at you - huddled in a stinking cell, clinging to some animal that not three years ago you would have killed."

Draco was only vaguely aware of Hermione's presence behind him as the anger roared up like the sea in his ears, deafening him and drowning out everything but the hard swoosh-thud of his pulse. This was about more than just defending her - this about was defending himself too. "I'm sorry to disappoint - yet again - but I never would have killed her, father. I couldn't even kill Dumbledore, even with everything that was at stake. I hated her, yes, because you raised me to it, but I don't believe I ever would have killed her."

"No," Lucius said eying Draco with more than a hint of madness on his face. "I don't suppose you would have. You always were too weak. I had such great hopes for you, such great ambitions, but in the end…in the end you came to nothing but disappointment and failure. You failed, you failed and instead of accepting your punishment from the Dark Lord you ran and you hid, you turned traitor and betrayed everything I'd ever instilled in you, and you took my wife with you!" Lucius' voice rose and wavered shrilly, and Draco flinched as he heard Hermione's voice.

"You're mad. You poor, pathetic, mad - ssss-" Hermione's scathing assessment of Lucius stuttered and broke off as he stabbed his wand toward her.

"Crucio!" he snapped and she dragged in a hissing breath.

Draco spun and saw Hermione's lips stretch back over her teeth, her mouth open wide and her body arch and flip back, the blanket falling from her shoulders as she twisted and screamed. He whirled back to Lucius.

"Stop it. Stop." Draco advanced across the small cell toward Lucius at a limp, murder on his mind, seething and seeing red, and he didn't give a damn what Lucius did to him because - because - Hermione's screams pierced through his ears and rang trapped in his skull and…

"Repulso," his father said with a bored, casual tone as Draco came within arm's reach, and in the same second, Hermione's screams abruptly cut off, and Draco slammed back through the air, slamming full against the stone wall of the cell. The breath drove out of him, his head cracked on the stones with a sharp sound, and pain erupted in his back. And then he fell forward, crumpling to the floor on his elbows and knees. But Hermione was mercifully silent, save for soft, whimpering sobs.

"You have never been able to best me, Draco," Lucius said cruelly. "What makes you think you can do so now, unarmed and wounded. I have all the power here."

Draco sucked in a breath, his head aching fiercely and his right shoulder feeling as though it had been broken - unable to put weight on that elbow thanks to the searing pain. He lifted his head and glared at his Lucius, his father's figure blurring and doubling in his vision as he heaved in air and spots danced in front of his eyes.

"And why are you here, then, father?" he asked again, and Lucius hummed softly to himself, flicking his wand and sending Draco tumbling arse over elbow back to the wall next to Hermione, the world blurring and fear constricting his chest and making his muscles tense uselessly. He hit the wall hard and gasped and glared fury at Lucius, aware of Hermione trembling and shaking beside him, trying to pull the blanket back up over her to cover herself with hands that wouldn't do her bidding.

"I want my wife back. I need Narcissa. You stole her away from me, you took her, and I need her back."

"I don't know where she is," Draco said, trying to sound neutral and not set his father off with a defiant tone; and it was true - he didn't know the location. He'd only ever been apparated there, and he wasn't one of the secret keepers, so he couldn't apparate anyone else there, he had to go side-along with one of the people cleared to access the place. Lucius' pale grey eyes narrowed, and that gleam of madness there frightened Draco, because sanity could be reasoned with, but this - this couldn't be. Lucius' hair swung around his face, dirty and straggling, and he scratched hard at one scruffily stubbled cheek with unkempt nails.

"You must. You must," Lucius growled and then snapped out his wand again and snarled the Unforgivable, and it was Draco's turn to feel his eyes roll back with the pain as every muscle in his body stretched to snapping point with the convulsions, and every nerve flamed like he was burning alive. Draco knew he was screaming - he could hear it vaguely, but the strongest sound was that of his blood, swooshing and racing and pulsing in his ears.

And then he couldn't think of anything as the pain took him and made him its creature, its toy, filling him up and tearing out of him. He went limp with a shudder when the pain ended, blissfully, tears streaking his cheeks and limbs twitching involuntarily, sucking in huge breaths and trying to think again.

It had been worse even than the Death Eaters' curses had been, and Draco wondered just how much his father meant it. It must be a lot, a fucking hell of a lot, because that pain had been worse - worse than anything, ever. He could hear Hermione screaming at Lucius, all hot, unafraid anger, calling him every name under the sun, and then breaking off and screaming again with agony herself as his father no doubt turned his wand on her, and Draco cursed her stupid Gryffindor bravery.

"I don't know where she is," he dragged out hoarsely, trying to make himself heard over Hermione's screams. "I don't know where she is!"

"You must know," his father snapped back, voice raised as Hermione just kept screaming and screaming, her voice rising and falling, and wailing raw and piercing.

"Stop hurting her! Stop fucking hurting her, you bastard!"

"Answer me, then, Draco! Tell me where Narcissa is!"

"I don't know! I don't fucking know! I can't take you there! I've only ever side-along apparated! And it's protected!" he yelled frantically as Hermione kept screaming and screaming, and he scrambled to bend over her, unable to do anything but watch as her hands flapped out like panicked birds and nearly hit him in the face, her heels dug into the ground and her back arched until he thought it was going to snap, blood starting to trickle from her nose.

"Stop hurting her! Please!"

"Tell me where my wife is then!"

Draco spared a glance for his father, and the man was red with rage, eyes opened so wide Draco could see the bloodshot whites all the way around, mouth twisted into a snarl. He looked utterly insane, nearly foaming at the mouth, and Draco knew he wasn't going to stop hurting Hermione until one of them told him where his mother was being kept. He sucked in a breath.

"I can tell you what the place looks like, but I don't know anything else! I swear to Merlin! Please, just stop!"

Hermione's hands beat against the stone, palms slapping the ground hard, raw, wrenching, shuddering gurgles spilling from her throat, and it sounded like she was trying to speak through the pain.

"Tell me then, Draco," his father ordered coldly.

"Stop hurting her first!"

"You aren't in a position to make any demands, Draco. Tell me, now!" His father smiled. "Or I won't stop."

Hermione gurgled again and Draco's hand clenched into a fist.

"It's -"

"Nnn - no. No, Drac…don'…" Hermione strangled out past all the pain, the blood from her nose tracking down across her cheek and jaw, losing itself in the dark matted tangle of her hair.

"What." Draco stared at her in horrified shock. No, no, Hermione couldn't do this. She couldn't do this to him. He couldn't just shut his mouth and let his father keep torturing her until she suffered the fatal fucking brain haemorrhage it looked like she was going to have.

"Never…forgi' you…nnnngh…'on't tell…"

"Fuck! Fuck!" Draco stared up at his father, his mind racing. If she said she was never going to forgive him, she meant it. Maybe - maybe he could use this. Bluff. Stall for time. Try to reason with his father, something.

"I can't. I can't. She doesn't - doesn't want me to. I can't." He felt like he was going to throw up everywhere, and he was hoping against bloody hope that his father believed Draco's bluff and lifted the Cruciatus, because if this went on a minute longer he was going to tell his father everything he knew even if Hermione hated him forever.

"How irritating that Gryffindor willingness to self-sacrifice is, hmm?" Lucius asked, trying to sound in control but just sounding totally psychotic as he - oh thank fucking Merlin - lifted the Cruciatus.

This gave them a reprieve, at least. Gave them a chance to…shit, Draco didn't know what. For the time to be right for them to need a wand, he supposed frantically, as he clumsily helped Hermione sit up, her muscles still jerking and shivering, tears and blood streaking her face. Maybe they could grab it off Lucius. Maybe…maybe this would work out in the end after all. All he could do was fucking hope.

"We'll try something else, then," Lucius said, eyes wild, scratching at his cheek again and not even noticing when he broke the skin and raised a faint scrape. "We have plenty of time. Rostan said I could play with you until midnight tonight, as long as I didn't kill you, or, apparently, fuck the mudblood."

Draco's heart thudded unevenly at Lucius' mention of Rostan and of fucking - raping - Hermione, and he could feel the fear-sweat trickling down his temples as adrenaline pumped through him.

"But then I don't particularly care if Snape's mudblood reward is damaged. I never like the pathetic, greasy, snivelling, arse-licker. And from the look of things, you're screwing her tight little mudblood cunt anyway, so it won't be as though Snape will be surprised to find her not a virgin."

Everything stopped. Everything just stopped and Draco stared wide-eyed at Lucius, at his father, trying to understand the words his father had just said. The rage was like a torrent, so big, so overwhelming he was trapped inside it, unable to move, unable to speak, just feeling the blood pounding at his temples and his heart lub-dubbing in his chest like fury and anger and no.

No.

Nonononono.

Not his father.

Not Hermione.

Draco's stomach lurched and he unfroze at last, his first move to fall forward onto his knees and one hand, and retch, bile stinging his throat but nothing coming up. He spat on the ground, blood and saliva, still lurching and gulping down more retches, and so, so fucking sick. Stared up at his father from his prone position, and shook his head.

"No." His voice sounded very dull and far away, lifeless. "No. No, you can't - can't do that…"

His father just stared at him. Smiled humourlessly.

"You…can't do that." Draco felt numb. Like everything was falling apart and crashing down, and it was all finally over. This was the end. His father and Hermione. His father and…Hermione.

"You can't," he said again flatly.

"I think you'll find that I can. Who is going to stop me, hmm? I have the wand, here, Draco. You and the mudblood are totally powerless." The bastard enjoyed rubbing that fact in Draco's face, and Draco wanted to kill him. A heavy, hopeless feeling suffused his body, and his mind swam.

"I'll tell you what I know then," he said, dropping his head in defeat.

"Good," his father began to say, and then Hermione's voice cut through his.

"No. No." She sounded terrified and sickened, but her voice was firm, and Draco turned his eyes on her to find her staring at him steadily, wiping at the blood on her cheek. "If you tell him what the place looks like, he will be able to find it, you know that. And we might not be able to warn -" She cut herself off, but Draco knew what she meant. If they didn't escape today, then they wouldn't be able to warn the safehouse to evacuate. Shit. She couldn't do this to him. The fucking bitch couldn't do this to him. Couldn't seriously want him to sit by and watch while…

"We can't risk that happening. There are children there, Draco, and no Aurors, no battle-trained wizards or witches - they'll be slaughtered. We can't -"

"No! Fucking no, Hermione!" he raged at her, slamming his fist into the ground, the cords in his neck standing out taut as he screamed the denial, and he could feel his father's amused eyes on them.

"A lover's spat. How unfortunate," his father commented and Draco snarled at him, shoved himself to his feet and flung himself towards the evil bastard, but he'd only taken one step when bindings slammed around him and he toppled to the ground with a thud that drove the air out of him. He rolled to a halt facing Hermione, several feet away, and desperately choking for air so he could speak.

"Hermione, I have to!" he yelled furiously at her, his eyes boring into hers, not giving a damn about slaughtered children, because Draco wasn't lying here and watching his father…shit. Fuck. No. "I can't ju-"

"No! I'm not living knowing that because of me they all died… I can't…can't take that chance…" Hermione sobbed, and Draco supposed dully that she couldn't. His heart sank. Tell his father and save Hermione, only to have her hate him, and be racked by guilt for the rest of her stupid, noble bloody life. Or lie here and keep his mouth shut and listen as his father raped her. Choices, choices, so many choices, he thought hysterically, feeling more utterly dead inside than he ever had before in his life.

"If you tell him I'll never forg -"

And then was she cut off as his father crossed the cell like liquid lightning and slammed his hand into Hermione's throat, bending over her with his wand to her temple, and all Draco could see of her past his father's body was her bloodied ear and a single red-rimmed eye, and the firewhiskey brown was filled with horror and desperation and damned determination.

"I'll tell -" Draco started limply, but Hermione managed to gurgle something coherent past his father's firm grip on her throat.

"You gave them to Greyback. You gave them - you said you were sorry but you're doing it again you bastard!"

Draco snapped his mouth shut, and vaguely noticed the tears seeping hot from beneath his squeezed shut eyelids, collecting on his eyelashes and dripping off.

"Don't ask me to…don't ask me…please, Hermione." But he was trapped, and he knew it. She'd trapped him, the bitch, and now… Draco heard the snick of metal, and knew it was his father's belt. Heard the rustlings of clothing, and Hermione grunting, and the thump of flesh on flesh, and his father wincing and swearing at her to be still, and her cursing his name and fighting because that was what she was, a fighter, and his father would have to restrain her or beat her into half-unconsciousness before he could do it, but he would, because he had the wand, and all of the power.

And the tears kept seeping from Draco's eyes as he listened to Hermione struggle, and his father laugh at her - taking his time, enjoying her fruitless attempts to escape and fight him off, because in the end Lucius knew that he would win, and so did Draco.

She wasn't going to let Lucius win. She didn't care what he did to her - yes she did yes she did yesshedid - but she wasn't going to let him bloody win. Hermione wasn't going to let him have even a chance of finding his wife, because she wasn't going to risk all those children being killed because of her. Apart from Narcissa, they only had four adult wizards and witches stationed at that safehouse full time, and two of them were elderly, and none of them were experienced fighters, and Hermione could see the blood and the carnage in her mind. And this was better. This was better. She wanted to die. She was terrified and she wanted to die rather than let Draco's father - while Draco was right there, not four feet away.

God.

Hermione slammed the heel of her hand into Lucius' nose, felt it crunch and he swore and backhanded her, grinning through the blood as he did. He was on her legs, pinning her to the floor, and she reared back beneath him, flipping and wriggling and clawing with all her strength, refusing to let herself imagine what it was going to be like but imagining it anyway. Wondering sickly if it would be like…Draco at all…and then wanting to vomit at the unbidden evil thought. He panted above her, rough and ragged, and his tongue licked sloppy over her jaw and revolted horror wrenched through her, she shoved at his shoulders, swearing at him and screaming.

"What would - your wife think of this," she choked out, spattering her dirty dirty blood on his face and neck as she tipped her head back and glared into his eyes. God they looked just like Draco's. She jerked her gaze away fast, heart thundering and sick sicksick, because oh god oh Merlin those were Draco's eyes staring down at her all bloodshot and mad and she couldn't see that. She couldn't let herself see Draco in his father when - when - when…

"Trying to stall, are we?" Lucius choked out unevenly as he tried to pin Hermione with his body weight and unbutton his trousers, and she gasped for air that wouldn't come because he was crushing her, and tried to flip him off but he was too heavy. She rammed her head forward, smacking her forehead into his already broken nose as hard as possible and he howled and yanked his hand up to smack her across the face. Her ears rang and she saw bright lights in front of her eyes, and her face felt like it was on fire, swinging sideways to jab further into the point of his wand, still held at her temple.

"You - pathetic - impotent - slug…" Hermione spat, her forehead feeling like it was going to bruise and her face already feeling like it was swelling up from his blow. Lucius laughed at that and fumbled about and then she felt his final button pop free.

"Impotent?" he asked her breathlessly, a sadistic enjoyment curling darkly through his tone, and then the horrible, hard heat of his erection was thrusting into the base of her belly. His - his oh god no - jabbing rough and uselessly against the naked skin of her abdomen as he grunted, and she made a weird, horrible sound and twisted under him, legs thrashing and hands balled into fists, striking out wildly at him and screaming. Not words, just anger, defiance.

She could hear Draco swearing and cursing in a voice so twisted with hate and tears it didn't even sound like him, and she hated that he had to see this. She hated that almost as much as she hated Lucius doing it to her. He had lived through Rostan, so she could live through Lucius, she had to…but Jesus how did you live through watching your father rape the woman you love? All this flashed through her mind in blurs and races as she caught Lucius' ear with her fist, and then oh thank Merlin managed to unseat him off her as she tried to jerk her knee up into his groin and he rolled away to protect himself.

She scrambled to her feet, swaying, feeling dizzy and trembly but with the strength of terror and adrenaline zipping through her hard and fled to another corner of the cell, but there was nowhere to run to. Nowhere to go. She was trapped and eventually… She waited for the spell to hit her and stupefy her or otherwise incapacitate her, but Lucius just growled and stalked towards her, his erection bobbing stiff and purple-red between his legs, and she wanted to sink into the stone behind her. She wanted her wand. She wanted to be able to defend herself.

Draco lay between them, bound from shoulder to feet in thick magical ropes, and there was no way he was getting free to help her, despite his desperate struggles.

"Oh, but you are fun. I can see why Draco enjoys you so much, mudblood," Lucius said, smirking, and again for a second he looked so much like Draco that Hermione's heart stuttered sickened in her chest. She darted along the wall to the other corner as he approached her, a desperate game of 'keep away', with herself as the object - fitting, because that was all she was to Lucius. Just an object. An animal to use. A…

"He'll never tell you."

"Oh, I think he will…"

"No. No, he won't. He knows me. He knows I really would rather die if need be than let you hurt anyone because of me. He won't tell you." She rushed it out in a panicked voice, and hoped she was right. Hoped that Draco would keep his mouth shut and not tell. That he wouldn't let Lucius use Hermione to break Draco, because that was what it was really about. It was about using her to break Draco, and she wouldn't be Lucius' tool. She wouldn't.

And then Lucius was on her, grabbing at her, flinging her hard to the ground and she went tumbling, bouncing off the stone - shoulder, hip, head, shoulder, elbow - and her body exploded with the pain. She landed not two feet from Draco, coughing and hacking for breath, and he opened his squeezed-shut eyes.

Grey met brown, and god those eyes - they looked just like his father's, only there was no madness there, just hate and horror and a wretched, wretched helplessness as he silently pleaded with her.

"Don't," she whispered and Draco just looked at her like she was tearing his heart out of his chest and shredding it to bits with her fingernails. She supposed she was, but how did he think she felt?

And then the breath rushed out of her as his father dropped to his knees, straddling her legs, his palm smacking down into her diaphragm with all his weight, and his wand clenched in his fist at her side. Hermione didn't even think about it - she jerked her leg up as hard as she could, and her kneecap smacked straight into his father's groin, and Lucius howled and sagged for a moment, and then lifted his horribly familiar grey eyes to hers and snarled, "Crucio," and Hermione lost herself to the pain.

She thought that maybe she blacked out for a moment, because the next thing she was aware of was a tugging at the laces of her chausses, and she dizzily wondered what was going on, and why she was shaking and hurting and who was trying to take her trousers off? And then her brain tuned into Draco shouting until his voice broke and cracked, a slew of furious curses and hate and pleas for his father to stop, and she remembered what was happening to her. She struck out at Lucius blindly, and he slammed his wand arm up to her throat, holding her still while he tried to drag her chausses down.

She twisted her head, tucking her chin in and biting his arm as hard as she could, and when he ripped his arm free she tasted blood and her teeth hurt and wobbled in her gums.

"Gerroffme," she was slurring over and over in a furious growl, snatching at her chausses and trying to pull them back up as he stabbed blindly with something warm and soft at her pubic bone, through her knickers. A quick rush of relief hit Hermione as she understood Lucius was limp; she must have hit him hard enough to quash his arousal, and that gave her some time, some time…

Draco was yelling and she was sobbing and growling like the animal Lucius had called her, thrashing beneath him and trembling with pain, the butt of his wand jabbing into the side of her breast as he pawed at it with that hand. He was wrestling with her chausses with the other hand, and despite all her struggles, managed to get them down her thighs a bit, thrusting uselessly at her crotch, her knickers still up.

And then her knickers were down and he was pressing against her, and she grunted as she tried to clamp her thighs shut, shoving at Lucius' face with her hands, all chaos and panic and sick sicksicksick. He was huffing and cursing and furious, red-faced above her, eyes glaring, because he wasn't getting hard and a corner of Hermione's frantic mind fervently thanked Merlin for small fucking favours.

Lucius struck her hard then, fist clipping up into her jaw and her head snapped back and pain erupted down her jaw and stabbed into the base of her neck at the awkward angle he'd snapped her neck into. She felt his weight lift off her and her shaking hands tried to rip her chausses back up, shoved herself back with scrabbles of her feet on the stone.

What the hell was he going to do now? What the hell what the hell oh god.

Draco's head had fallen back to the stone, and his eyes were shut, lips moving but Hermione couldn't hear what he was saying. It appeared to be thankful, relieved. That his father hadn't done it, she supposed, whooping in ragged breaths and trying not to faint. But then Lucius was looming over Draco, wand in hand, and Hermione choked in a breath of fear. What was Lucius going to do now? Try to use Draco against her?

"It won't work," she said, voice shaking and sounding ragged and deeply hoarse, and not at all like her. "It won't work. I'll never tell."

That was a lie, and she had always been awful at lying, and she begged and begged whatever might be listening to her that Lucius was less astute than his son, or too lost in his madness to notice the tremble to her voice and darting away of her eyes.

Lucius smiled, kneeling by Draco and tapping his wand on Draco's bonds, so that his left hand sprang free and slapped to the ground, stretched out full length. Hermione saw Draco furrow his brow, his face going red with effort as he tried and tired to rip his arm up, but it stayed there, essentially glued by his father's magic. Hermione had a horrible feeling she knew what Lucius was going to say next, and her heart dropped and sank into the pit of her stomach, and she felt clammy and shakier than ever.

No. No he couldn't.

No please dear god he couldn't do that.

Not that.

That was worse than rape, worse than anything.

"I don't think the Dark Lord will mind if you have a few pieces missing when he returns - do you?" Lucius asked his son - his son oh god his son not again not again not his other hand - with a terrible enjoyment on his features. Draco went stark white and his lips clamped together, his eyes rolling up to find Hermione, a dreadful plea in them and she didn't know what to do. Her breath was juddering through her - nearly hyperventilating, light-headed, trembling from the Cruciatus, and the only way she could stop Lucius was to get his wand off him, or tell him the truth, because her lies wouldn't hold water with him.

"Tell me where my wife is."

Draco stared at her with his eyes huge in his face and lips compressed to bloodlessness, and she could see the struggle it took him not to open his mouth and scream at her to tell his father the truth, to tell him everything she knew, or to tell his father the truth himself. She hated herself. He wouldn't tell his father unless she gave him leave to - she knew that suddenly, clear as crystal in her mind.

Two pairs of grey eyes were on Hermione as she sprawled there on her bum in the cell, her teeth chattering and head spinning - two pairs of grey eyes that were identical except one held terror and the other rage.

Hermione tensed, considering flinging herself at Lucius, and he grinned ferally at her as if he'd read her mind. "Uh, uh, uh, mudblood. I can sever his hand before you even move a muscle. I wouldn't risk it, if I were you."

"Please, Mal - Lucius, don't. Don't - he's your son. He's your son, you can't do this, please! What would Narcissa say? What would she say?" Hermione begged, stalling for time, just a little more time. She had to hope, had to think that there was a way out of this. There was always a solution, even if she couldn't see it at first. Lucius looked calmly at Hermione.

"I won't tell her, of course." He frowned down at his son's hand, and then made a small decisive sound. "I think I'll be kind. Give you both plenty of chances to tell me where my wife is."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest again, and then flinched as a sudden burning pain lanced into her hip, and she realised. Eyes wide and heart beating faster than ever, renewed strength flowing through her, Hermione realised that Snape had taken down the wards. Lucius' eyes were on Draco's hand, and this was the only chance she would get, so Hermione swallowed down the terror, bunched her muscles, and flung herself the several feet at him, tackling him hard.

But Lucius saw her leap and his wand slashed and Draco screamed and in a tangling tumble of arms and legs, Hermione saw a spurt of blood, a flash of Draco's mouth clamping shut around his screams, locking them inside him, his - his hand - his hand with his pinky missing and Hermione felt sick that she was grateful it had only been his little finger. But she was.

Hermione grunted as Lucius elbowed her in the stomach, and she smashed her forehead into the ruin of his bloodied, broken nose accidentally, and thank Merlin; it gave her the chance to grab his wand.

It was like an awful, nightmarish game of tug of war - both hanging onto one end of his wand; he distracted by the pain in his nose enough that he wasn't hitting out at her yet, and she on her arse, kicking out at his legs and crotch with her feet. If she didn't get it - get it soon, he'd be recovered enough that she'd never have the chance to get it off him again. The coin was burning in her pocket, burning, and she could smell the smoulder of leather and stench of roasting skin, sickening in the air.

She jerked and pulled at the wand, and then landed a lucky kick as he reared up onto his knees - her shin slamming up into his bollocks, and he let go of the wand and Hermione went tumbling over backwards, whirling into the corner of the cell and dazing herself as her head cracked on the stones. She was up, up before she could even think about it, staggering and swaying, hip burning and whole body in pain, and Lucius was…bending over Draco with his hands at each side of his son's head.

"Give me my wand, or I'll snap his neck."

She cast at him without thinking; a stunner - but his wand knew that she wasn't its master and the bolt of light that came out was weak, striking Lucius' shoulder but only making him shake his head to clear it, and glare at her, nearly foaming at the bloody mouth, looking like a madman all streaked with blood and his nose a ruin.

No. Oh no. She had an all but useless wand - it still recognised Lucius as its master and wouldn't cast against him, and she couldn't overpower him physically, and if she tried anything Lucius would snap Draco's neck - and she believed him when he said he would. Shit, shit shit, they were screwed.

"Think carefully, mudblood. It only takes a second…and crrrrack…" Lucius drawled, sneering.

Her wide eyes went to Draco's as her chest heaved for air, not knowing what to do, and he opened his mouth, eyes pinned on her and filled with something she couldn't identify.

"If you can, then… Fuck. Fuck. Do it. Do it, Hermione," Draco snarled, and for a second Hermione thought he meant for her to give the wand back to Lucius, and then his eyes flicked to her hip, where the coin smoked at her skin and chausses, and she realised what he meant. No. Oh no. She couldn't. She couldn't.

"No. Draco…" she moaned, her wandless hand coming up to clench into a fist at her chest, where a fierce ache was beginning.

"Do it or I'll never forgive you!" Draco screamed, echoing her words back at her, and oh god, they were so cruel to hear. She flinched back into the corner at the sound of them, and Lucius grinned as he watched the exchange, thinking they were talking about the wand - think he was going to win. Hermione limped forward one step, eyes locked to Draco's, and she heard Lucius chuckling with gleeful, vicious anticipation and tried to ignore him.

"Do it," Draco whispered, and she knew he meant it with every fibre of him - no doubt in his eyes. Just pain, and a grim, sure certainty. He wanted her to. He wanted it, his eyes like smoke and ice and river stones and storm clouds and everything beautiful and cold and distant and unreachable, and he didn't say another word. Not even an I love you. It took her a second, just a second to imprint every millimetre of Draco's face into her mind as clear as a Muggle photograph, and she felt like she was tearing apart from the inside out, a horrible pressure building and building inside her.

She couldn't she couldn't she couldn't shecouldn't!

She didn't tell him she loved him either, just shut her eyes against Draco's face, and could still see it on the inside of her eyelids. Grey eyes and too thin and sharp nose and bearded and blood and pain and everything that she loved…

Hermione chased away the image of him, pictured the Godric's Hollow house in her mind, and spun on the spot with a crack that felt like it was her heart snapping.