"The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain." - Karl Marx

Chapter Fifteen: The Downward Spiral

Hermione spent most of her day trying to avoid him, but it was impossible; she would think that she had escaped, and then... she would feel him. Feel him enter the room, feel him stop and realize that she was there as well, and then feel him try to act unaffected.

Why could she feel him? It was strange. She knew that her lack of sight probably had a hand in heightening her other senses, but blimey. Surely this had nothing to do with her lack of sight.

She almost constantly wanted to be mad at him and couldn't do it; she needed to remind herself of before, when things were simple. They hated each other and that was it. Simple.

Now things were not so clear.

Draco was so preoccupied with trying to appear like nothing was wrong that he didn't even seem to notice the change in her. The awkwardness was something he thought was created in his own mind, but the more he tried to make it go away, the more it seemed to bother him.

She depended on him to steer her in the correct direction even; he depended on her to be the part of the team that made sure their hosts were comfortable having them around, since he didn't say much. She depended on him to protect her from danger and know when the Death Eaters were coming; he needed her level head at times, her admittedly valuable contributions to their strategy. He had to force himself to talk to her openly, but they had to come up with a cohesive plan. He would not tell her the exact location of the Death Eater camp until they got close, just in case either of them got captured in the meantime, but they would have to work together to even dream of success.

"We need to talk," he said to her one morning.

Hermione nodded. Yes, they did need to talk about a lot of things; things that she would rather not. She wouldn't get burned though - if he wanted to tell her something - anything - about the strange things happening between them, she would listen, and then tell her side.

"The Death Eaters' weakness is that they require centralized leadership. The key to them is the woman who manages everything - we just call her Master. The Ministry knows her as Master No Name. If we can take her out, then we have them."

Hermione let out a small sigh. Of course he wanted to talk about the mission. Why not? "It's not going to be a cakewalk, for sure."

"She puts a mental block on everyone who is recruited so that if they see her outside of the Death Eaters, they won't recognize her. I'm still working on breaking mine, but it's like trying to remember something that was long forgotten - it's hard to conjure. She's good with memory spells and such, legilimency, that kind of thing."

Hermione processed this. The only reason why Master No Name would place a mental block on her own people is that she was either around normal citizens every day, or was afraid that someone would recognize her from her time as a regular Death Eater. She was certainly smart for that. The scary thing about this was that she could be anyone, possibly even in a ranking position in the Ministry - controlling both sides of an underground war with a flick of her hand.

"Her person could also be a front – she could really look like anyone."

"Correct. We can suspect no one except for someone with access to some of the things the Death Eaters had access to. She could be a security guard in the Ministry. She knows how to get around the magic surrounding their job."

"She must be very powerful then - it's almost impossible to fool the Ministry security system."

Draco shook his head. "This is the only thing I don't like about the whole 'muggles are dirt' theory. Their technology is impervious to magical probing - the Death Eaters are starting to use that to their advantage, and the Ministry doesn't know it yet."

"Kingsley always said that Death Eaters overlook things that muggles check first. Crime scene investigators use all kinds of methods to catch people... we wizards are a lazy bunch."

"Indeed. So we need to be more careful than usual." Draco chewed on the inside of his cheek as he fumbled with a way to say the next thing on his mind. "I was also thinking that we should forgo the trip to East Asia and head straight for them, because the longer we wait, the more chance they will have to capture us."

Unable to stop the disappointment from creeping into her voice, she mumbled, "Okay."

Taken aback by her lack of interest in the topic, and whatever he was about to say dissolved, he returned to biting the inside of his cheek.

Hermione shook her head. Things were getting complicated in every way now. Now that they didn't have time for her to reverse the Noctulus Blindness, they were going to have to do all of this with a serious handicap. Hermione was at peace with this however - she realized that she hadn't actually expected to ever get her eyesight back.

In the effort to avoid each other, Hermione was letting herself go. She needed a distraction - something to focus her brain on anything besides her captor. She found herself digging her fingers into her chest wound.

Hermione hated emotional pain.

She was no stranger to it, but she loathed it anyway.

Of course, she knew that pain was mental, but it didn't stop her from wanting to get rid of it. Ever since she had started her fight against dark magic and against evil doers she had endured a lot of pain. She was nearly killed in the Department of Mysteries. She was tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange not a few months ago. And every death she had healed from took a great toll.

And now this - she couldn't move without aggravating her wounds; the skin around each clay-colored patch was pink and angry, forming hills and valleys. She idly traced her finger along one of the scabs, feeling jitters of pain shoot through her in warning. Her body was hard at work to repair the damage, aided by the sap, and it clearly did not want her touching the mending flesh.

For the first time she wondered if her wounds would leave scars. She did not want to be reminded of that night; of having her mind probed by Draco Malfoy and biting the collar of her shirt in order to keep from screaming as they fled. Feeling dizzy when they'd finally stopped and delirious as he cleaned her chest.

She would be reminded especially of that - the invasion of personal space, the sensation of each individual indentation in his fingertips as he used his fingers to rub away the dried blood...

She wanted to scream.

Instead, she went to the garden. Being outside, surrounded by plants, still reminded her of him, but at least she had the trees to supply some noise for her.

Jesse was there, moving quickly, her sword slashing through the air. Hermione sat down outside of the door until she was done.

"It's okay, I'm not going to cut your head off," Jesse said breathily, coming over to her. "I've got more control than that."

Hermione smiled and allowed herself to be pulled up and lead to the grey stone square that Jesse used as a practice ground. They sat in silence for a few minutes, breathing in the air and listening to the wind rustle the trees.

"I didn't have to work today, so I thought I'd get in some practice hours."

Hermione nodded - she understood obsession like this. "Your heart cries when you aren't practicing... practice is like refueling."

Jesse quirked her head to the side, lifting her arms and stretching her muscles. "What is your thing?"

She smiled a bit. "Violin. I was an angry little violinist."

"It shouldn't make you angry."

"It wasn't the violin, or the practicing - I was always frustrated by my lack of perfection. I used to get sweaty after 15 minutes of practice... and everything would start to piss me off. I often had to practice in my underwear so I wouldn't get itched by my clothes or hair. I loved playing so much that it drove me crazy that I wasn't perfect at it and that I sometimes couldn't express myself with it."

"What happened?"

Hermione shrugged. "After a few years in school, I stopped playing. I just didn't have time anymore, and it wasn't important enough to sacrifice other priorities for."

Jesse shook her head and fingered the hilt of her sword. "I can understand that a little... but I make time for my sword. I have to. It gives me something to release my anger on."

"'For that is the path to the dark side...'" Hermione quoted quietly.

Jesse grinned from ear to ear. "A Star Wars nerd! I knew it!"

Hermione shook her head. "You quote Star Wars every five minutes! I was just trying to imitate you."

Jesse was still grinning. "I'm just excited for the new one coming out soon, that's all. There's nothing wrong with a twenty-four year old woman liking science fiction."

It hit her then - the world would keep turning whether she returned to her friends and family safely or not. In the end, only a few people cared about her safety.

"Hermione... are you okay?"

She nodded, trying to smile. "Yes, I'm fine. I agree with you."

Draco, unable to sleep, had been staring at the ceiling for over an hour, thinking of his past.

Every day of his previous life had been full of small power struggles, from something as simple as who passed the salt to heavier things like his schooling or Death Eater activities. He was constantly losing these, trying again and again to find the one thing that would make his parents tick and let him get away with something. They were constantly comparing him with people like Harry Potter and Granger.

Well, he wasn't like them. They had all been dealt bad hands in ways... but his hand couldn't be folded. He had to sit through the rest of the turn, betting out and out only to face up and know that he lost. And his stack was in the negative.

It was around the time that his situation started to really get to him that he started getting into piano. His music was his security blanket.

It was also probably the only thing that his family was remotely impressed with, whether they showed it or not. But no one knew how important it was to him, how much of his soul was held together by the glue of chords and lines of music.

He realized that he spent almost all of his time coping with stress and no time actually living life. His music, his tormenting, his studies, his projecting... all of it was a form of escaping from shadows, a form of coping with his demons. He'd spent all of his life in a swirling fog of trying to feel better, only to be sucked further down into it.

Life did nothing for him... he didn't want to die, because he feared it. He just wanted to spend the rest of his life in a pain-free coma.

Draco turned under the covers, facing Hermione. She had gone to sleep quite some time ago, judging by the lack of tenseness in her aura. The moonlight splashed across her face in strips, highlighting the pink circles framing her eyes and her shiny cheeks.

Unbelievable. I have to sit here thinking about my stupid life and she can cry herself to sleep?

Draco roughly shuffled back around, not caring if he woke her up or not. Why did he have to feel such human emotions all the time now?

So much for my training. I thought I was getting better at it.

She's been eating away at my emotional walls. I can't believe it. What is she doing to me?

He tried not to think the thought that wanted to bubble to the surface of his mind. NO, that was not it. That couldn't be it. He didn't trust her that way.

Did he?