"I'm going to kill her."
It was the first thing she said to Malfoy when he opened his eyes. He closed them again. It took more than a single night to recover from crucio but he was alive and breathing so no long-term harm done. Well, no fatal long-term harm done. People said you didn't remember pain, and Hermione supposed that was true. Being hurt like that still left scars all down your soul.
Six times he'd gotten up from that. Seven, now. No wonder he'd decided to make sure Harry escaped. No wonder he'd slipped freedom to the Order.
"Alecto," Hermione said as he lay there. "I'm going to kill her."
"Can I watch?" Malfoy asked. She could see when he figured out where he was and how he'd gotten there by the expressions on his face. He was less guarded when he was half awake, but as consciousness pushed him back to the world his mask returned as well. "And good morning to you, too."
She took that as permission to check his forehead and reassure herself he wasn't burning up. No fever. No obvious shakes. He did reek of stale sweat, but, all things considered, he was doing well. "Shower?" she asked. "Breakfast?"
He struggled to prop himself up on one elbow and she winced in sympathy. Maybe you didn't forget all the pain. "Wand?" he asked her, but he was already reaching down and grabbing for it. She hadn't pulled it from him and neither had his torturers. They'd made him submit to their punishment without fighting back despite the weapon at his side. She didn't think she'd have been able to do that.
He pulled his wand and mumbled some charm, flicked it down and up, then smiled at her through the fringe of dirty hair. "Breakfast," he said. "In a bit, at least. Usually takes a while to get it made and apparated up."
"Elves?" she asked.
He snorted. "Potter took care of that," he said. "Mother hires day help from an agency. Fully human. Fully paid, in case you're planning to get riled."
"Good to know," she said.
He swung his feet out and looked at the shoes. "You didn't even take those off?" he asked.
She quirked her brows up and crossed her arms. "You don't like how I took care of you?" she asked. "Maybe you should give me a run down on how you prefer it for next time." She was mostly kidding though she could hear the sharp edge under the words. He heard them too, but decided to stick with the teasing.
"Next time I want a naughty nurse outfit," he said. "And heels. But I can't fault this."
"I'll try to put heels on you," she said. "But if this happens again you'll have to change into the nurse outfit without my help."
Unbelievably, he laughed. He winced at the way the laughter rolled through his body, but he didn't stop. She shook her head and waved him toward the shower.
By the time he'd emerged, two trays had appeared laden with breakfast foods. He'd somehow charmed his clothes clean and he looked pressed, shaven, and altogether like a man who had never known a moment's anxiety or strain. Only when she looked closely at his eyes could she see the way he pulled skin tight across his face whenever he wasn't consciously forcing himself to relax. She touched his hand. "Sugar in your tea?" she asked.
"Yes, thank you," he said.
She poured, and he drank, and they tore croissants into neat halves and ate them all without saying more. He'd finished his second cup of heavily sweetened black tea when she asked, "Now what?"
He looked down at his fingers. He'd neglected to trim his nails and she could see jagged tears on some fingers. He'd probably clawed his hands into the floor as he screamed the night before. "You pretend to fall for me?" he suggested.
"We keep sending things off?" she asked. She wouldn't blame him if he wanted to stop. If he were too afraid to go on. She'd still slip into the passage next to Lollia. She'd still steal documents. He'd shown her where they were. He didn't need to risk himself. If she were caught alone they'd kill her, but she'd expected so much worse when she'd arrived.
"We do," he said. He smiled a little grimly. "I can listen at the doors while you find what might help."
She nodded, a little too jerkily, and felt the sting of something burning at the corner of her eyes. He stretched a foot – still shoeless – out under the table and nudged her. "It will be okay," he said.
"Eventually, yes," she said. She was going to tear these people down one memo at a time. She was going to find the proverbial rope they'd left out and send it, loop by loop, to Molly until they had so much they could use it to hang every last one of these monsters. But she'd only been here two days and it already seemed unbearable. "How do you stand it?" she asked.
"I just think how lucky I am to have found you," he said.
"Right," she said. Sharing time seemed to be over. She pushed her chair back from the small table and said, "Shall we take a walk and drip our growing love all over the gardens for these people to see?"
"I would be delighted," he said. He hesitated for a moment as though he wanted to add something else, but in the end just put his shoes back on and held the door open for her in silence.
The house felt still as they walked through it. Portraits watched them with hooded eyes but even the shadows seemed frozen. We are all waiting, Hermione thought to herself. What are we waiting for?
The gardens were better. The sun shone with aggressive light and the flowers shoved their heads toward the sky. It was bright and harsh and beautiful and Malfoy positioned them both on a stone terrace bordered by spiky herbs and flicked a glance up toward the dark windows that peered out. "Showtime?" he asked.
She scuffed a toe along the edge of one stone and looked down, trying to summon as much bashful virtue as she could. "We have an audience?" she asked.
"Unless the curtains just twitched on their own," he said. "I'd say we do."
He took one of her hands in his and twined his fingers through hers. She remembered the first time she'd held Ron's hand that way. It had felt like coming home. Now she heard his voice in her head. You're asking her to whore for us. She looked up into Malfoy's grey eyes and said, "Well, kissing, then?"
He nodded and wrapped one arm around her lower back so he could pull her closer to him, then lowered his head and pressed his mouth to hers. He'd been spitting blood out of that mouth the night before. That had been easier to cope with. She could feel his heart pounding, and the tremors that were surely endless small aftershocks running through his body. His mouth was soft and he was so wiry and she tried to think of anything but the way they were putting on a show for their unknown watchers.
He moved his mouth to her neck and as he trailed a line of kisses along her skin he whispered, "I am sorry about this."
She turned to capture his mouth again. "It's fine," she said. She opened her mouth under the tentative pressure of his tongue and lifted a hand to twine in his hair. It was still damp from his shower, and so very fine. It was so unlike the hair of anyone she'd ever known this well.
He pulled away a bit and looked at her. "At least I'm pretty," he said.
Her eyes widened and the laugh he tricked out of her rang across the yard. "Yeah," she said. "You are."
He hesitated for a moment, then traced one thumb along her jaw line. "You are too," he said. "Kissing you isn't quite the hardship I'd feared."
She wasn't sure whether she wanted to kiss him again at that to show him how very much not a hardship snogging her could be or just haul off and slap him. She did neither. Whoever was watching them didn't need to see them go at it with that much enthusiasm, and she doubted it was quite in character for Draco Malfoy, of the arrogant and wealthy 'some-wizarding-families-are-better-than-others' Malfoys to pant in lust on his back patio.
Which she could absolutely make him do.
All she did was say, "Well, that's good, I guess."
"We've probably done enough," he said. "Tonight will be exhausting enough without – "
"Tonight?" she interrupted him. What was tonight?
He looked guilty, which made her immediately annoyed and nervous. "I meant to tell you," he said, "But – "
"Torture," she said.
"It is an excellent excuse," he said.
"Just don't use it again," she said.
"I don't intend to."
She took his hand. "I meant it, you know," she said. "I'll kill her."
"Well," he said, "don't do it tonight."
"Which brings us back too…"
"There's a party," he said. "A cocktail thing. Mother was pressured into hosting it months ago. Food, a talk about the new direction of the Ministry. No Yaxley. Just sycophants, but – "
"Sounds delightful," she muttered.
He squeezed his fingers around hers. "I think you can hold your own," he said. "Just remember that I'm in love to the point of obsession, you were happy to use that to get a ticket to the winning side, and that you're perhaps succumbing to my charms."
"You have charms?" she asked.
"I have a big house," he said. "People have fallen in love for less."
She had no reply for that cynical observation so she let him lead her back to the rose garden where they passed a pleasant hour praising the flowers and pretending this was normal.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione felt ridiculous. She felt like she was fourteen again. Checking to see if Molly had sent her anything didn't make a note arrive, but she checked when she got in from the rose garden, she checked before she went out to snitch more old memos from their storage boxes, she checked when she got back before she began the laborious project of copying out information on Yaxley's friends in continental Ministries.
He had more than she would have expected.
When she finished and sent the words on their way, she waited for something. For anything. We're good. Everyone misses you. At last words appeared.
Good work. Got it.
She looked at the impersonal acknowledgement and wanted to cry. That wasn't reasonable. She was a spy. They had no idea whether she was already compromised. They had no certainty she wouldn't have a Death Eater push the door to her room open right now and grab her betrayal of them out of her fingers. This was vague enough to be explained away. This was safe.
"I miss you," she whispered, then set about burning the evidence. The whole copying job had taken so long she'd have to rush to make herself look presentable for the next chore: fooling bigots at their own party.
She didn't think that played to her strengths.
Ginny would have made a better spy. Malfoy's first instinct on how to choose had been right. Ginny was clever, and had survived that whole year at Hogwarts while she'd been out camping. Her fears that she'd fail, that no one would believe Malfoy had fallen for her, the mudblood, that she couldn't pull it off, all licked at her brain as she twisted her hair back and pulled on a party dress that, for no reason she could fathom, was made from black satin printed with swans.
She'd been attacked by a rather dim swan once. She thought of them as nasty, vicious birds. Pretty enough, but best observed from a distance.
She strapped sandals on and watched them neatly resize themselves to her feet. Malfoy – or his mother – had gone all out on the wardrobe. She wasn't sure what shoes like this cost, but she suspected they fell into that vast category of 'if you have to ask, you can't afford it.'
A few quick cosmetic charms, learned courtesy of Ginny who'd despaired of ever teaching her to value girly things, and she was ready to go.
Ginny would have been better at this.
She checked one more time to see if Molly had added anything else, any encoded personal message, but the paper remained resolutely blank.
Malfoy knocked at her door, the ever-attentive date with the big house, and she shoved feelings down, checked her appearance in the mirror one last time, then went to do what she had to do.
. . . . . . . . . .
A/N – Thank you to Salazars for beta reading!