Author's Notes:

This chapter revised 8 May, 2015 for SPaG and additional content added.

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Hermione woke up alone after what felt like only a few hours. She called out for Malfoy, but received no response. She tried to project her thoughts instead, and was told by him, in a very irritated growl, that he was out hunting again, and to not disturb his concentration unless it was an emergency.

Grumbling to herself about his crankiness, she searched the cave for something that might be used to comb through the snarls in her hair. A stick with two branches was a good tool, but she had to be careful not to snap the ends. Several times, she used her fingers to untangle the mess.

After an hour of grooming, she decided it would be easier to simply cut the hair off. If only she had a means to do so. Sadly, she'd lost the knife somewhere in the woods during her flight from the Bugbear that first night.

Feeling a bit more energetic, she next decided to tackle the issue of producing fire. Fortunately, her ability with non-verbal magic was no longer hampered by bespelled wrist bracelets, as it had been in prison. Unfortunately, she was terrible at controlling magic without a wand in hand to direct the energy currents as she wished, and it took a tremendous amount of mental 'oomph' to get even the simplest spell off. She had to concentrate hard on moving the magic of her aura in such a way that it dictated the laws of Nature to her will – a feat not easy, except in moments of extreme emotion and usually only when a very young child, as the experience of growing up put mental blocks in a witch or wizard's way.

She spent another hour, at least, focusing on a pile of dried leaves and sticks that she'd gathered onto the stone part of the cave floor, away from the moss, but so far had only succeeded in giving herself a mild headache from her efforts – and a huge case of disappointment mingled with despair. It was as she'd suspected: her magical energies had been weakened by the years she'd been cut off from using them. She feared the damage might be slow to repair, if not permanent.

Cursing, she gripped her temples and rubbed, closing her eyes.

This was one of the reasons she hadn't tried to reach for her own magic before now; the failure to make anything happen was a downward spiralling curse, as it played havoc with one's self-esteem, which was vital to assuring one's magical accuracy and strength. Now that she knew it was tremendously difficult to cast magic without a wand, she most likely wouldn't be able to cast anythinguntil she held a real wand in hand.

Harry had always been genius at accidental wand-less magic as a child, she'd been told. If only she had a fourth of such talent! She suspected, however, that his aptitude had been made possible thanks to the piece of Voldemort's soul within her best friend giving him strength to perform magic where normal feats of such power would be near impossible for most witches and wizards. Such had been the case with his speaking Parseltongue, too, she guessed. Still, despite that handicap, how wonderful it must have been to be able to use magic to undo tragic things, like the dreadful haircut Harry's aunt had given him when he'd been a child!

She'd give her big toe just then to light a simple fire. With a firebrand in hand, she'd be able to explore the cave, to find the way out, and to use it as a weapon against any enemies she might encounter in the forest during her escape.

After a bit of a break, she tried again, and then again. She kept trying, until she scented Malfoy's approach through the wafting air currents through the cave, her sense of smell heightened by her transformation. He was carrying something in with him, something that was dead. The hot tang of blood stuck to the roof of her mouth and made her hungry once more, distracting her from her intent.

Ravenously hungry once again, she set aside her experiment, and rose to meet him coming in.

*.*.*.*.*

She was back working on conjuring fire the minute Malfoy let her up from their puppy pile so he could take a dip in the hot spring. They'd had sex right after eating, with him still dirty and bloody, and smelling like fresh kill. The scent had excited her at the time, but hours later, it had lost its appeal.

Her wrinkling her nose was all the signal he'd needed to get the hint, and with a sigh, he'd released her from the embrace of his long, shaggy arms, and crawled his way over to the small pool, falling in face-first.

The minute his back was turned, she'd hurried over to her pile of dead leaves and twigs and sat down cross-legged in front of it, trying to calm her mind enough to concentrate on starting a fire.

"You should join me, while there's still time to enjoy this sort of thing."

That struck her as an odd thing to say, so she glanced up at him, her intentions on hold for the moment. "What do you mean, 'while there's still time'?"

He didn't reply, merely stared at her with those pale grey eyes of his, and kept his private thoughts locked down and away from her.

Warning alarms went off in her head. "Malfoy, please explain that comment."

He ripped up a handful of moss and began scrubbing his fur with it, ignoring her.

A terrible dread crept through her, making her shiver like a grave-stepper. "Will you at least tell me what happened to the other prisoners who were dropped into the forest before me?" She figured that would get a reaction from him.

It did. He stopped and stared at her again, eerily silent.

"Did... did you kill and eat them?" she hesitantly asked, her heart giving a hard thump in anticipation of his answer.

Malfoy snorted in disgust.

"Jesus, Granger, I'm no cannibal!"

"Then what happened to them?"

He didn't answer her for the longest time. She felt positively ill waiting for his response.

"They were killed by other predators in here," he finally settled on.

"Well, why didn't you help them try to escape?"

He sighed, tossing down the moss and getting out of the water.

"Because everyone is trapped inside once they're in here, unless someone from the outside reaches in and physically pulls them through the barrier before the setting of the sun on the eighth day after their initial entry. After that, they're not getting out – at least, there's no known way, yet."

He shook, spraying water everywhere, drenching her.

"Why do you think Theo arranged for you to meet up with what's left of your precious Order at Hagrid's old hut on the eighth morning? They're going to pull you through the barrier to get you free."

She went stone-still at that, even excited as she was to hear the Order was still around. "I don't remember telling you that Nott arranged such a thing for me."

He snorted, and ruffled his hands over his fur to take off the excess moisture.

Hermione considered him for a while in silence, thinking back on everything she knew, starting the morning she'd been torn from her cell by Theodore Nott. Pieces of the bizarre puzzle began fitting into place. "He warned me not to run from you. He was clear that he didn't want me provoking your instincts to chase me." She bit her bottom lip, trying to recall Nott's exact words. "I don't think that had anything to do with you eating me, though. I think his worry stemmed from the fact that you'd mate me. But why would he believe you would attempt such a thing, rather than kill me outright?"

Draco glanced at her with something akin to snarky amusement – at least, she would have called it that, had he been human.

"Do you really think it was Potter I was staring at all those times I looked over at Gryffindor's table?"

That confession packed a punch and sent her for a loop. "You were watching me?" He shrugged, acting non-committal. "Did Theodore know you used to stare at me?"

Malfoy gave her his back, but he did nod his big, wolfish head once.

"So, he knew you were interested in me, and for some unknown reason, he assumed that interest would still exist today. Which meant it was more than just a passing fancy that you must have felt for me." The idea made her heart quiver. "Is... is that why you didn't identify me to Bellatrix that day in your house?"

He snuffed, and Hermione knew that served as a grudging admission.

"Then he was right in guessing that if you caught me in the forest-"

"I'd mate you, yes."

"Where would he even get such an idea from, unless" –a terrible suspicion crept up on her– "you'd discussed the possibility in advance? Are you somehow in communication with each other?"

He kept his mind closed and did not turn and look at her, and Hermione suddenly knew the truth. Her blood pounded hard in her ears.

"Nott's a Werewolf, too, isn't he."

Malfoy let out an irritated growl.

"Of course he is! I'm surprised someone with your huge brain capacity missed it. All the clues were right there for you. Do you remember the pack of giant wolves that once roamed this forest?"

"Roamed - past tense. Are they all dead now, then?"

"Yes. The spiders got them."

Hermione remembered the lecture from her class that covered the topic. "I recall reading about them. They were conceived from two Werewolves who met and mated under the full moon. The female intentionally stayed in Werewolf form during the whole of her pregnancy for an unknown reason. When she gave birth some months later, the pups came out as wolves, bigger than average and with human-like intelligence. Dumbledore gave them sanctuary in the forest. Wait, are you saying that Theodore Nott–"

"Is one of them, yes. He's the only one of the litter who came out looking human."

Hermione remembered her gaoler's alien, golden-brown eyes – a canine's eyes, she now thought, and his unnatural strength when he went up against Zabini – a beast's strength.

Mother of Merlin, it was true, wasn't it? Theodore Nott was really a wolf walking around on two legs.

"His mother changed back into her human form after the birth and took Theo with her, leaving the wolf pups to Dumbledore to wean. The old man passed them off to that oaf, Hagrid... who didn't do too bad a job raising them, I suppose."

He mumbled that last with a sort of grudging respect Hermione hadn't expected him to show towards the former groundskeeper.

"Why stay in Werewolf form during the pregnancy, though?" she wondered aloud.

"To lift the Werewolf's curse," he answered. "Birthing the next generation is the only known cure for Lycanthropy. Something to do with the curse magic passing on to the pups, freeing the mother."

He shrugged those massive shoulders of his again.

"All I know is she never turned into a Werewolf again, and she lived as a normal witch. She changed her name and started over. No one really knew her here in England anyway, as she'd been from Germany originally. Then, when Theo was two, she met Thaddeus Nott and they married. Theo's mother hid her and her son's pasts from everyone, including her husband. When Theo started acting wolfish when he was around ten, his adoptive father caught on and needless to say, he was furious at being duped. He wanted to get rid of Theo - as in, permanently. His mother defended him, and she was killed for it. Theo saw the whole thing. After that, his father was tossed into Azkaban for murder, and Theo was sent to live with his aunt. A year after that, he was at Hogwarts, sharing a dorm room with me. We became best friends. I was the only one Theo told about his wolf side, and that was only because he bit me in fifth year."

That last part in particular captured Hermione's attention. "Why would he bite you?"

Even as the words left her mouth, though, she knew. She reached up and stroked over the mark Draco had given her. "You were both only children. You were lonely, so you formed a pack of each other." She pointed at him, emphatic. "He's the reason you're different from other Werewolves, isn't he?"

Malfoy gave her a side-long glance.

"His bite carried the taint of Lycanthropy, but it was a recessed form. The most it allowed me to do was talk to him with my mind. We used to cheat in classes that way."

"Recessed, you say? That's... interesting."

Hermione considered that.

When she'd been incarcerated in Azkaban, Nott had come into her cell practically every month, always on the night of the full moon; she knew because she could always see him so clearly through the light of that tiny window in her cell. After casting a Scourgify spell on her, he'd command her to lie face down on the slab she used as a cot, and mounting her from behind, would nuzzle and bite down on the side of her neck, always in the same spot. His teeth would puncture through her skin and clamp down hard, never sucking her blood like a Vampire would, but assuring with his mouth's lock on her throat that she was good and dominated by him... and unable to fight back.

The pain from his bite would inevitably make her cry out or whimper from it, and something about that moment would never fail to drive the man into a frenzy of lustful need. He'd end up tearing at his clothing under his member was freed, and then he'd push himself deep inside her and fuck her until they were both exhausted.

Month after month, she would endure his obsession to have at her like an animal. At the time, she'd thought Nott just as twisted as the other Death Eaters in his sexual perversions, but now that she knew what he was, she had to wonder if, all along, he'd really been trying to mark her as his mate.

Yet, the question remained: why would he? She'd been nothing special to Theodore Nott throughout their school years...

She glanced over at Draco, feeling the bizarre pieces of this puzzle slip into place in her head.

No, she hadn't meant anything to Theo, as far as she knew, but she had meant something to Malfoy, Theodore's pack mate: she'd been Draco's secret obsession. Had Nott been trying to make her into a Werewolf, too, all so that he could bring her into their pack and gift her to his best friend and Alpha? If so, his numerous attempts to turn her had not taken root, not even to the small extent that they had for Draco back when he'd first been bitten. She and Theo had never developed any kind of mental telepathy, and she'd never experienced any wolfish tendencies while in Azkaban.

Why had she been different in that regard?

She turned over her wrist and stared at the webbed network of blue veins just under the surface of her skin. Her blood... it had been tainted by HIV. Perhaps something about the disease itself had countered Nott's attempt to change her. Although Lycanthropy could cure human illnesses in its host, Theo's version of it was recessed. Perhaps he hadn't the strength to taint her with his magical disease, but the non-magical disease within her hadn't been strong enough to overcome the Lycanthropy within Theo, either.

A viral stalemate.

There were so many questions that still needed answers, yet the one she finally decided upon asking her companion had nothing to do with her own situation. "So, how did you finally end up like"—she waved at him—"this. A hybrid Lycan, rather than a full-fledged one?"

Malfoy stared at his bestial hands with their long, sharp claws and a twisted, wolfish version of human disgust marred his features.

"Greyback was a true Alpha. When he bit me, his Lycanthropic corruption was stronger than Theo's — purer. It activated the true curse of the Werewolf in me, but by then, my body had adapted to Theo's infection. I shifted into a bastardized mongrel instead. I lost my magical abilities and couldn't shift back at the same time, but I wasn't a mindless beast, easily controlled, so the Dark Lord threw me in here when he realised I wasn't what he expected. He thought the spiders would kill me right off. "

"Why didn't they?" she asked, curious about that little niggling fact.

Malfoy clamped his mouth shut again.

She didn't like his sudden silence. "I'll ask you again, Draco: what happened to the other prisoners who were dropped into the forest before me?"

In an unexpectedly move that had her jumping back, Malfoy slammed his fist into the cave wall, jarring some rock loose.

"As soon as the Centaurs were killed off and I saw the spiders multiplying, it didn't take a fucking genius to figure out what would happen. They're greedy and consume too much, and they breed like flies."

He put his hands over his eyes, hiding his agony from her, even though she could keenly feel it through their bond.

"They took Pansy. She was the first participant of the games. The Dark Lord threw her in here to punish her father for his refusal to outright support the cause, but not even my mating her and changing her could save her from Acromantula venom. I had no medicines, no magic. She begged me to kill her, and when she died in my arms, I felt her soul burn out. It was—"

He stopped, whimpering like a wounded dog.

Hermione ached to go to him and put her arms around him, but she was unsure whether he would welcome her comfort or not. He seemed so angry just then.

"It was the same with Astoria Greengrass, when she refused to marry Jugson. She wasn't here for more than a month before the spiders dragged her back to their lair. I couldn't get to her. I couldn't... fucking... save her!"

Tossing his muzzle to the sky, he howled, and it was a mournful sound that broke Hermione's heart.

To hell with her fear of being rejected; her mate needed her! She went to him, held him, and gave him a safe place to release his long suffering. This poison in his soul had festered for years, and he needed to get it out.

They collapsed to their knees, and then his head was in her lap and she was stroking his long, silky ears and shushing his sobs. Later, she would hear the rest of his explanations, she decided. For now, she'd let him mourn.

Not too much later, however, as there was still entirely too much between them for her to let this situation lie... and there wasn't enough time for her to molly coddle. Before the eighth day's sunset, she had to figure out a way to get them both through that blasted barrier and to freedom, or they would both be trapped here forever.

*.*.*.*.*

True to her conviction, Hermione waited until Malfoy was ready to continue their discussion before bringing up the situation of their incarceration and learning the fate of those who came before her.

Of course, that talk delayed until after her mate had worked off his frustration with some angsty, wild sex.

In the afters, she crossed to her dwindling supply of drinking water and took a long draw off the bottle, trying to wet her dry, hot mouth. Between her legs, she throbbed, sore from the pounding she'd taken, and was forced to sit back on her heels to ease the ache.

"You're going to leave me bow-legged if we keep this up," she pointed out.

He stretched and yawned, seeming to relish in knowing he'd well-sated them both.

I seem to recall it was you who straddled me that time.

"But I was on my back soon enough, wasn't I?" She sighed and wiggled, feeling his semen even then dripping out of her. The knowledge made her horny again. "God, when does this heat thing end?"

He rolled over and crawled the distance to her.

Never. It tapers off, gets easier, but you'll never stop wanting me.

As he pried her thighs apart and thrust his muzzle between her legs, licking her, she shivered. "And will you ever stop wanting me?"

He tipped her back onto her arse, spread her knees wide and tongue fucked her into another orgasm.

"That's cheating," she pointed out around panting breaths in the aftermath, closing her eyes as the room spun around and around. "You're trying to distract me, so I won't ask you anymore questions."

It's working, isn't it?

"Yes, but we can't let it," she told him, smacking his snoot and pushing him away from her nipples, when he's attempted to bathe them, too. "I need to know what happened to all the rest of the people who were dumped here in the forest." She rolled away from him and sat up. "Why didn't you help them, Malfoy?"

Draco looked away, and a heavy wave of shame slammed into her through their bond. "

I knew it was only a matter of time before the spiders would kill everything in these godforsaken woods. I didn't want to die like that - like how Pansy and Astoria had died. So, I... I made a... a hard decision about my part in the games."

A sense of foreboding crept along Hermione's spine like any icy winter slowly overtaking the surface of a lake.

"You abandoned them to their fate, didn't you?"

His nod was curt, his jaw tight.

"I decided I wouldn't care what happened to the prisoners thrown in here. If the spiders got them, that was one more day I'd live to see the sun rise."

He sounded suddenly very weary, as if this confession were taking everything out of him.

"Time's running out though. The business of surviving the Forbidden Forest is losing its appeal to Voldemort's regime. According to Theo, Azkaban is almost out of prisoners and the Death Eaters have moved on to other interests, inventing new gladitorial combat sports where they mainly use Muggles as the contestants. With less options for prey, the spiders are hungrier than ever, and there aren't that many things left in here to keep their attention."

Dizzy from his implication, Hermione fell back onto their pile of rags... only then realising where they'd come from: these were the things collected that had been dropped or left behind by the poor, unsuspecting prisoners who had come before her.

"You mean to tell me that you and Nott schemed together using your wolf telepathy to pick victims from the prisoners, all so the spiders would feast on them rather than on you?"

Her anger became a living, breathing fire under her skin at the very thought.

"How could you do something that despicable, Draco? How?"

He glared at her, but it was a halfhearted emotion. Through their bond, she could feel his resignation and the years of regret weighing him down.

"Look, Theo and I didn't invent these sick games –Voldemort did. The Dark Lord decided on the rules, and he decided when he wanted to play. People were getting tossed in here left and right in the beginning - Muggle-borns, rebels, even those believed to be blood-traitors. As Head Gaoler of Azkaban–a title he never wanted, by the way–Theodid his best to hold back those prisoners he didn't want to see die – people like you, and Lovegood, and other Order members. As for the prisoners who were sent in, I didn't hand them over to the spiders. I didn't even see most of them."

He paused looking down at his clenched hands.

"In the beginning, like I said, I tried to save a few. Like Pansy and Astoria and... others. But when the spiders got them..."

He shuddered.

"You can't imagine what it's like to feel someone you're mated to die in such a way, Granger."

He squeezed his eyes shut and bared his teeth, his pain a heavy and sharp sensation through their bond.

"I felt Pansy. I felt Astoria. Cho Chang didn't even make it through her Werewolf transition. I tried to save her after she'd been bitten by a dozen of the smaller spiders, but all I did was make her agony worse. She died screaming in agony."

"Because Acromantula venom is the only substance in the world that the taint of Lycanthropy can't breakdown," Hermione stated, remembering that fact from her sixth year Potions class.

God, how absolutely horrible the entire situation really was.

Draco gave a great sigh.

"After a while, I just... stopped caring. I didn't want to know any of them. Theo never lost hope, though. He was forced to participate in these sick games by the virtue of his unwanted position, but he used it to our advantage - to save me from the spiders. He sold his soul to buy me time until he could figure out a way to get me out of here."

"There's truly no way past the barrier then?" she asked, astounded that after so long no one had been able to come up with a solution.

Her mate's great canine head shook back and forth.

"Voldemort designed it with the games in mind from the very beginning. The roof of the spell begins five-hundred feet above the canopy. If you can get that high, you can be thrown in or fly out. As there are no dragons, no phoenixes, no sphinxes, no rocs, no hippogriffs, and no other types of bird big enough to carry a human, as well as no way to make a broom when you don't have magic of your own to enchant one, that clearly cuts off that avenue of escape. There are no other exits from this side. The only way out is if someone reaches through from the other side and pulls you past the barrier physically. And that has to be done by the eighth day by sunset, or your magical aura becomes so attuned to the magical resonation of this place that there is no getting out."

Hermione shook her head. "I simply can't believe Nott hasn't come up with some way after all these years. Why didn't he just give someone a wand before dropping them in here, at least?"

Draco stared at her as if she'd said something extremely stupid.

"Every wand in the new regime is accounted for and they serve as a sort of passport for moving around from place to place. Kind of like the Kennkarte during Nazi Germany - yes, I know all about that. I wasn't that ignorant of Muggle history, Granger. The point is, only certain people are permitted wands and if you lose yours under Voldemort's New World Order, you lose your life. It's one of their key laws. And it's not like wand-making is an art they taught in school. Besides, they just burn every book they can find that contains information on the trade. They're as fascist and paranoid as the Nazis had been about the 'wrong kind' of knowledge being out there in the general population."

Hermione sighed deeply. Burning books was the mark of a civilization's decline, she knew.

The world really had gone to hell in a handbasket, hadn't it?

"So, you're out of ideas, is that it?" she asked, embittered. "Nott's best shot after fifteen years is to toss me in here to help you brainstorm?"

"Basically, yes. After not being able to do anything to save his mother, Theo has made it a personal pledge in life never to give up on those he loves. Hell, he'd even tried to save as many of the prisoners as he could, and he had no personal loyalty to any of them, really. He offered them a fighting chance, though, just as he offered you: survive eight days, and when the games ended and the bets were paid off, and the Dark Lord had turned his attention elsewhere, members of the resistance would move in and be waiting on the other side to get them out."

"And how many, exactly, made it that long without your aid?" she demanded, feeling indignant for all those who'd been unlucky enough to become sacrificial lambs in the effort to keep Draco Malfoy alive longer.

He snarled.

"None, okay. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Hermione felt vaguely ill at that revelation. She'd hoped that at least one might have...

"Do you know what an Acromantula does to their victims?"

She remembered reading about it in Care of Magical Creatures class, second year, and it had given her nightmares for days after.

"They cocoon them to prevent their escape, and then liquefy their insides with venom that breaks down flesh. They eat them alive, slowly over a matter of days, and the person is fully cognizant the entire time. It's... my God, it's utterly horrific!"

He turned on her, defensive and a touch menacing for it.

"Do you think I don't know that? What the hell do you think happened to Astoria and Pansy?"

He crawled over to her, anger bristling his fur and darkening his features.

"Do you think I enjoy any of this? I've been trapped in here behind a magical barrier I can't break through for the last fifteen years, Granger! It's been kill-or-be-killed around here - and in case you failed to notice, there really aren't that many bodies left running around to hunt now. If the spiders don't get something to eat, I'm next on the dinner menu. Theo and I didn't invent this sick game. We just play the roles Fate has assigned for us, and pray to still be breathing and upright at the end of every day!"

He pointed one large, clawed finger in her face.

"And for the record, the spiders got that Bugbear the other day – the one that attacked you. I found the trail where they overpowered it and dragged it away. I think he may have been one of the last big predators around, aside from myself. That doesn't bode well for either of us, who are unarmed and have no magic."

He leaned his snout down until his nose bumped hers.

"So when they come for you, and you remember exactly how it is they kill and eat their victims, you tell me then you won't do whatever it takes to escape them."

"Buying time by throwing innocent and defenceless people to the spiders is evil, Draco! You're sacrificing others to save your own skin. How very... Slytherin of you," she said, thoroughly disgusted. "Can I expect to be next, then, once you've no more use for me?"

Frustrated, he shook his head.

"Overlooking your Gryffindor self-righteousness is very trying at times, Granger, but in this case... No, you're not going to be handed over to the spiders on a silver platter. Why do you think I begged Theo to choose you for the games this time?"

"So I'd end up exactly where we are now, and I'd have no choice but to help you!"

"Exactly! The fact that I had to turn you to save your life from the wounds you'd sustained wasn't part of the plan, I admit - that was just a perk. But yes, I asked him to send you to me because you have a unique way of looking at the world. You're a problem-solver with half the Hogwarts library stored in that amazing brain of yours. And you're a bleeding heart for lost causes, which I'm male enough to admit is the case here. I knew if anyone could find a way to get me out of here, it would be you!"

He ran one large paw over his head, pushing his long, wolf ears flat. They stood back up almost immediately.

"I've been here fifteen years, Granger. I'm tired of hiding and being hunted, of scrounging for food, and praying for a way out! I don't want to die, especially not if it means becoming spider food, but I'm at the end of the rope and dangling over the abyss. You, of all people, should understand and appreciate how desperate that makes a person."

She did. Having spent years on the run after Harry's death, living in ruins and abandoned houses, and then captured and thrown into prison, she absolutely did understand what he was getting at. Yet, it was difficult for her to find much sympathy for him now that she knew how he'd managed to make it this long in such a merciless place.

How could one forgive a monster for behaving... monstrous?

TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's Notes:

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