Sometime during that first night, exhaustion began overtaking Hermione. She stared at Malfoy's exposed upper body and realized this was the first time she saw it naked. Upon closer inspection, she saw that the skin on his back was marred not only with runes but with various other scars – some deeper, some shallower, a lot of them caused by dark magic or venom. Hermione shivered, thinking of all the torment he'd been through during those five years. She thought of how the first time she saw him half-naked could've been that night they were about to cross all boundaries if only Voldemort hadn't called for him. She would've scrutinized his skin and muscles not with pity, not with guilt, but with passion, with want, with a deep thirst to know all of his physical features. She would've touched his back not as a Healer to treat his injuries but as a woman, caressing the skin of a man to fuel his want.
Now, all of that was lost. She will never have a chance to see him for the first time. She will always remember last night as the time she saw him that unclothed.
After making sure Malfoy was really sleeping and no longer tensed with pain, she closed her eyes for a moment, lying on the floor next to him so that she was able to hear and feel if he was to wake.
She woke up a few hours later. It was still dark outside, but the clock showed five in the morning, so she figured the best thing would be to take Malfoy to his bed – he couldn't possibly stay on the ground until he healed fully. She was still too scared to levitate him entirely, so she used Wingardium Leviosa only to hold him up, pulling most of his body weight on her. Mipsy rushed to help with her own levitation spell, and somehow, they managed to take Malfoy to his room. Hermione used Cushioning charm to lay him into his bed with more ease. He groaned when his front touched the bedding but didn't wake. Hermione tucked him up, careful not to touch his wrecked back, while Crookshanks curled up by his side, meowing softly, and Hermione didn't shush him away. Then she went to clean up the living room from all the blood and poison.
She took a few hours of sleep in her own bedroom before casting a Homenum Connectare spell on a mirror which she took with her and a hairbrush which she left in Malfoy's room to hear if he woke up or was in pain. Those few hours were uneventful, as Malfoy still slept seemingly peacefully when she awoke.
Thankfully, Malfoy woke up with Hermione by his side. His eyes opened and the first thing he did was try to sit up – Hermione wanted to stop him, but he was already sitting, looking around like an irritated animal.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," she spoke softly, touching his shoulder. She knew he must have remembered the horrible torture he endured right before blacking out. "It's okay, you're safe. You-Know-Who's not here."
Malfoy blinked, recognition crossing his features. He looked around the room, the irritation switched by that non-expression. He tried to sit more comfortably, but he couldn't lean his back on the headrest, so he had to turn to the side. Hermione inspected his face, trying to see if he could've been affected by the cruel Aversion spell.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
Malfoy gritted his teeth. "Fine."
Hermione frowned. "You say you're fine almost all the time I ask you, but it always turns out to be quite the contrary." She reached out her hand, putting it on his. Luckily, he didn't take it out. "Tell me how you actually feel. If you're in any pain, I can bring you a potion to help with that. If the wounds still sting, I can perform more healing charms—"
"I'm not in pain," Malfoy countered. "Not the first time this happens."
Hermione's stomach sank. "You-Know-Who had done it before?" she asked, horrified.
"Once, twice," he said nonchalantly.
"Who helped you then? When I wasn't here?"
"Mipsy. With all she could. Mostly, I just stayed here waiting for it to end." Hermione couldn't imagine what he had been through before. And he said it all so casually.
"Why did he do it?" Hermione asked quietly.
"He suspected that I knew something of the cup."
"That's now. What about the other times?"
Malfoy's lip corners formed an upside-down frown that made his whole face distorted. "In case you haven't gathered, Voldemort doesn't need a reason to hurt people. He especially doesn't need a reason to torture me. After the Cruciatus stopped working on me, he became convinced I could get through any torture he put on me until I eventually feel nothing at all no matter what anyone does to me."
Hermione's throat went dry. "Isn't he scared you might… I don't know, jump back on him?" she asked.
Malfoy shrugged and she was surprised that he didn't flinch from the pain because it must've hurt a lot. "He's certain there is no such thing as thoughts of revolt in my head. I won't jump back on him because I no longer understand the concept of it."
"But you do… you're helping the Order…"
"I don't give a fuck about the Order, Granger," he snarled. "And I'm not helping them, all I care about is my—"
"You probably don't remember, but you had regained consciousness while Cho and I were healing you, and you said… You said that Voldemort wanted to… Find out something about me. That he wanted to know about me. And you hid it from him. Is that why he tortured you? Because he knew you were hiding me?"
Malfoy's face immediately blanked as she said all of this, his eyes growing cold and distant, his whole body leaning back, feigning indifference. "That's an entirely different matter," he bit off venomously.
Hermione didn't say anything to that. He looked like the High Reeve – angry, merciless, and uncaring, but after almost two months together she knew his expressions well enough to notice he was hiding something – occluding even when she was with him. He'd occlude whenever she'd say or ask something that would make him visibly uncomfortable – this was one of those instances. You did this for me, she wanted to say. You were tortured because you tried to hide me from Voldemort. But she knew Malfoy would only deny it.
"Should've left me be," he continued, defiant. "One day, Voldemort will end me himself and your Order won't have to worry about redeeming me in the public's eye."
Hermione's eyes filled with hurt. "Don't say that…" she whispered.
He glared at her. "I'll say whatever the fuck I want," he hissed. Even though he was denying it, Hermione could tell he was in pain, although it seemed unclear to her whether that pain was mental or physical – perhaps both.
She stood up. "I'll bring you soup to eat," she said and left without looking back. She needed to put some distance between herself and his attitude.
Hermione wanted to make the soup her mum used to make for her when she was sick, but Mipsy demanded to help, so Hermione let her – two hands were better than one, and they finished making the soup rather quickly. Unfortunately, when she brought up a bowl for Malfoy to eat, he was still scowling at her.
"I'm not hungry," he deadpanned.
"You haven't eaten anything for days, and don't tell me You-Know-Who fed you while torturing you."
Malfoy gritted his teeth when Hermione took a spoonful of soup and held it out for him.
"I don't need you to feed me," he said disdainfully.
Hermione reached out the whole bowl for him. "Fine, eat it yourself then."
He glowered. "I'm not hungry."
She stared back. "Stop acting like a child and eat. You need to get stronger otherwise you won't heal."
"I'm healing just fine."
"Not without my help."
Long silence drew out between them as they peered down at one another.
Finally, Hermione sighed and put the bowl on his bedside table. "Fine, I don't have all day. I'll leave it here."
When she came back half hour later to put Cicatrix paste on his rune wounds to treat the scarring, she found the bowl empty. Hermione smiled to herself while he hissed when she put the paste on.
Now that he was conscious, it was so much more difficult to treat him, and Hermione long for those hours he was blacked out and she could do what she had to do. Now, Malfoy kept complaining that she hurt him more when healing him, he kept trying to push her away whenever she tried to give him strengthening potions, he kept groaning when she wanted to cast the healing charms Cho had taught her, and Hermione started losing her patience.
"I've had a lot of patients throughout these years, Malfoy, a lot, but I've never had a patient as ridiculously obnoxious as you," she said after two days of him being insistently annoying. Malfoy wanted to leave the bed the very next day, saying that he had things to do, but Hermione strictly forbade him, so now he was locked in his house, forced to stay in bed. She understood he was getting restless, but she wanted him to get better soon just as much as he wanted to run off freely.
"Maybe the next healing session will finally finish me off and you won't have to deal with me anymore, Granger," he bit out.
They were both in his bedroom, Malfoy sitting on his bed with his back turned to Hermione while she tried casting spells but mostly was just annoyed by him. He kept trying to pull her hands and wand away from him – not with his full strength though, because if he had been trying to push her with all his might, she would've never even gotten close to him – but Hermione kept persisting and he kept on glaring at her.
Hermione huffed. "You know, a simple thank you would do the thing."
"Thank you," he spat out, harsh as venom.
Hermione didn't even react. When she didn't answer for quite some time, focused on the task at hand – casting more healing spells for the runes on his back – Malfoy tried a different tactic. He turned his full body to her – they were so close to one another in his bed that Hermione's breath caught.
"Why did you do it," he demanded quietly.
"Do what?" she asked breathlessly.
"Saved me. Healed me. Why? You could've just left me to die and go back to your Order."
"I couldn't just leave you all alone," she said.
"Why?"
"Because—because—that would be inhumane—"
Malfoy snarled, his face getting closer to hers, his gray eyes flickering with a metallic sheen. "Inhumane. But you don't think of me as human, do you? No, I'm just a monster, only a genocidal maniac, that's what you think of me. I know it because I've seen your thoughts, because I've wandered to the deepest corners of your mind. You don't really think I deserve humane treatment," he hissed that last part.
Hermione flinched, an achingly vulnerable expression on her face. "That's not true. I don't think that of you," she bit back, honest for once. She tried to get off his bed and away from him, to leave him alone until he calmed down because she felt the heat of his magic emanating from his body, warning her of his temper rising. She wanted to leave before it was too late.
Before he took what he wanted.
He seized her arm viciously, forcing her back to him, face to face with him again.
"You're not going anywhere until you tell me why you saved me," he said coldly.
She stared at him defiantly. "You believe you know what I think about you, that you are aware of every single thought about you that ever crossed my mind because you entered my head. But has it ever occurred to you that I might also be hiding things from you, and doing so successfully without your knowledge?"
His grasp on her arm tightened. "Don't mess with me, Granger," he gritted out. "Tell me what you're playing at."
"If I told you, I wouldn't be hiding things anymore, would I?" she spoke quietly. Malfoy couldn't know that, but the walls she had built up around her were beginning to crumble.
She desperately wanted to show her hostility towards him so he wouldn't think for a moment of what she might be hiding but she knew that if he wanted to take her right then and there, she wouldn't fight back.
Malfoy inclined himself forward until his naked chest touched her clothed breasts and his body caged her underneath. "Why?" he hissed out sounding more like a snake than a man.
Hermione swallowed thickly. She knew what was about to happen. And she wanted him to do it. she wanted it for so long and it didn't matter who he had become.
"Because I care about you," she whispered.
He gawked at her for a flash too long, snarling as if he wanted to rip her throat out with his teeth, to rip her body apart with his bare hands.
Malfoy kissed her.