Edit: As of the 28th of April 2015, I have made major changes to this fic, thanks to constructive criticism by a reader. Scenes have been added, and the tone and content of many existing scenes have been altered or expanded upon. I hope that such alterations give a better picture of the dynamic between Draco and Hermione, which previously was not illustrated in a great deal of detail because I was trying to keep this fic short. However, the subject material does not lend itself to brevity, it seems - and in order to make a proper go of achieving what I set out to achieve, I have had to make some changes. I recommend skimming back through the fic from the beginning before reading on, but doing so is not necessary. I hope you find the changes I've made to be positive ones!
Liss xx
Part Two
There are footsteps, quiet and even down the hallway. It's - it's only one person, Hermione thinks, as she pushes further back into her corner, curling down as small as she can. There is a large chunk of broken stone just in front of her, which feels almost like a wall and gives her a stupid sense of safety, and she has gathered up some of the rags around the cell, hiding beneath them when the guards bring food and water. It has only been three meals since Malfoy came to - to see Hermione, but it feels as though it has been anywhere from five days to a week from how hungry and thirsty Hermione is.
She stopped urinating altogether some time ago, the tiny bit of water she gets to drink barely enough to keep her alive, let alone pee, and her tongue feels thick and useless in her dried out mouth, her head pounds from the headaches that constantly plague her, her stomach feels like a vacuum. She is dying, slowly and painfully. Just like the three women in her cell who remain alive, if insensible. If not for Hermione feeding them the food and water the guards leave, they would already be dead; they make no move to help themselves. Just as Malfoy has made no move to help her.
It has been a while now since Hermione has been able to believe that Malfoy will be back to help her. As her thirst has grown and cracked her lips and grated her throat raw, and as her stomach has churned and twisted and hunger has become a constant companion making her lightheaded and dizzy, she has given up on him. Maybe, she has thought to herself on the rare moments she's been conscious of much more than hunger, thirst, and strange delirium, he's decided she's too much of a risk. Or maybe he was too closely watched to be able to come back down. Or maybe he had been sent away on a mission and wasn't even in Britain anymore. Or maybe, it has all been a trick from the beginning, and this is just the method of torture and breaking that Voldemort has chosen for her.
Hermione doesn't know the exact reason why Malfoy has abandoned her, but she believes that he has. Until now; until she hears lone footsteps where the guards always, always come in pairs. She hides her face against the stinking rags that barely pad the stone floor beneath her, and begs for it to be him, striding down the hallway toward her, past the pile of smouldering bodies that fills the dungeons with a foul, sickening stench. She is so hungry that the smell of cooked flesh makes her stomach crave it, no matter how awful and depraved that makes her feel. The cell door screeches faintly as the unknown person pushes it open, and then there is a heavy, metallic thunk as it is pushed shut again, the locking mechanism falling into place. Hermione balls up even more, holding her breath until she feels like she's going to pass out as the footsteps draw nearer and nearer.
"It's me," a familiar voice says softly, then, so close to her, and a hand touches her shoulder gently. Hermione lets out the breath she's been holding with a tearful, plosive sound, and scrambles into a sitting position, staring disbelievingly at Malfoy as he crouches beside her. She is swaying and dazed, and the light from his lumos is too bright after days in the near-dark - she squints against it, her hand coming shakily up to shield her from the glare. She needs to see him - hungry for the sight of someone friendly after so long alone. "Merlin, Granger…" He puts out his lumos and she blinks against the afterimage the lumos left in her vision, bewildered and dazed, too dehydrated to even try to speak. "Granger, shit, are you - are you okay?"
"H-how long?" she croaks, her hand creeping out and latching onto his wrist. He is warm and real, not a product of her imagination but really, truly here, and she keeps a tight hold of him, fingers scrabbling for an even tighter grip, as though she's afraid he'll vanish if she lets go. His brows crease together with concern that is at odds with how her mind's eyes still thinks Malfoy should appear - he looks old and tired and filled with painful sympathy, and not at all like the boy she had known, once. He twists his wrist gently free of her death grip, and she makes an involuntary sound of loss before he sinks properly onto his knees and shuffles closer to her, grasping her hand in his so that their fingers interlink. It's heavenly, to feel someone else - someone safe - touch her, and she basks in the comfort of human touch.
"Six days," he murmurs, sending sick shock though her, even though she'd half-expected it to be that long. He holds up his wand with his free hand. "Water?"
"Oh god, please," she gasps, and is aware enough to see him flinch at the naked, desperate pleading in her voice. He sets his wand tip to her lip, whispering the charm.
"Aguamenti." Oh god, it's so good. Hermione is greedy and shaking, gulping it down without thought to how desperate and vulnerable she must seem, her fingers clutching hard at his warm, strong ones as she fills her mouth to overflowing with the liquid. It tastes faintly sweet compared to the stagnant, filthy fare she's gotten over the past six days. It spills down over her chin and wets her clothing, and she relishes that, feeling gloriously decadent. And then all too soon Malfoy ends the charm, and she moans in protest. "You can have some more soon," he says uncomfortably as she presses in closer to him, mumbling "more, more" and things that she isn't even cognizant of, slurring pleas incoherently. "You can, Granger. Just - just you should have some food, too."
"You have food?" Her belly growls loudly, and she doesn't care in the slightest. He nods, shrugging a bag off his shoulder and digging in it with his free hand. He tries to pull his hand from hers, to get at the food more easily, but Hermione refuses to let him go, clinging with all her strength. "Please don't. I - I… I thought you weren't coming back. I thought I was going to die down here." Malfoy makes a strangled sound at that, and then after a frozen, awkward moment, shifts position so that he is settled in the corner beside her, his legs stretched out in front of him and the bag on his lap. Hermione immediately presses up close to him, their hands still entwined - arms bumping together now too, their clasped hands settling to rest on his thigh, their legs bumped together.
It feels like all Malfoy's warmth is seeping into her, and the shivers she hadn't realised she'd been trembling from slowly start to dissipate as he flicks his wand and mutters something, and a cloak spirals out of the bag and slips around behind her shoulders. It's woollen and it smells of him, and as he passes her a container full of hot food - oh god, food - Hermione lets out a sigh and melts against him, her head falling to rest against his upper arm. He makes a startled, uncomfortable sound and stiffens, but doesn't draw away. "Thank you," she murmurs, and it's not just for the rich, meaty stew that he brought her, but for the comforting feel of his body, hot and reassuring against hers. She dives into the stew then, digging in with her filthy fingers, and shovelling the chunks of meltingly tender meat and delicious vegetables into her mouth.
"I…um…" Hermione looks up with her cheeks stuffed full of stew to see Malfoy holding out a fork to her.
"Fank 'oo," she mumbles and grabs it with her stew-coated fingers, spearing up more meat and chewing fast because what if someone comes while he's here, and he has to go before she'd finished? Her hunger combined with the threat of him leaving with the food uneaten spurs her on to eat like a starved animal. He talks a little, but she doesn't really hear him, and she thinks he realises that too, because what snatches of words she understands are irrelevancies, really. Apologies, mostly. The one that she pays proper attention to is his abject apologies for what he'd done to her last time, which she tells him to just shut up about, please. She doesn't want to think about it. "You had to do it. We both know that," she pauses in her eating long enough to say. "So I don't blame you for it. But that doesn't mean I want to think about it. I just want to…pretend it didn't happen. All right?"
He shuts up about it then thank Merlin, but he finds other things to apologise for - for taking so long to return, for not thinking of leaving her food and water, for not being able to get her out yet - and saying how glad he is that she's still alive. How worried he was when he couldn't come back down sooner. How scared he was that she'd be discovered. She looks up at Malfoy at one point as she chews, and sees him staring at her with something rather like horrified concern in his eyes at the state she's in, and buckets of guilt too, and she wonders how it is that he's changed so much.
When did he start caring about Mudbloods? The question intrigues her, but eating is more important, and the flavours of the meal bursting over her tongue make it hard to think clearly. Hermione gorges herself until every last bit is gone and her stomach feels swollen and bloated, and when she rubs her hand over her abdomen, it feels rounder than before. She's already lost enough weight that emaciated would describe her pretty well perfectly, and the large meal in her belly sticks out roundly. "Oh Merlin," she sighs contentedly, sinking her head back against Malfoy's arm and thinking how much more comfortable he is than the hard stones of the cell, still holding his fingers so tight she thinks their hands may have melded together by now.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner," he says in a variation of what he'd said while she was eating, but she's actually listening now. "I tried to get away, but the Dark Lord…well, he promoted me, I suppose you'd say. I'm his protégé, now. And unfortunately that seems to involve a lot of time spent by his side, or watched like a hawk by everyone else, who wants me to fuck up. I couldn't get down her, or away to the drop point." That hits her hard, like a punch to the stomach, and she stiffens, pulling away from him to meet his eyes. They're dark in the light, his pupils blown wide.
"The Order doesn't even know I'm here?"
"No, not yet, I'm afraid." Hermione's heart sinks like lead, and she stares around the dim, filthy cell, tears welling up in her eyes as she thinks of spending another moment longer trapped down here, in the rubble and with the company of women that were more dead than alive. "I swear to Merlin, I tried to get away to the drop point, but fucking Crabbe and Goyle Sr were up my arse all week. I couldn't go anywhere without one of them trailing me." He stares down at his hands, mouth twisting with a bitter sort of sadness. "They've hated me ever since I…since things went south between Greg and Vincent and me."
"What happened?" Hermione doesn't really care, but she needs something to distract her or she's going to burst into miserable, hopeless tears, and if she starts she doesn't know if she'll be able to stop. His thumb sweeps lightly back and forth over hers, and she doesn't think he even knows he's doing it. This is Malfoy, she thinks - and then, this is nice, she thinks, and the world itself seems to quiver and distort at that unnatural thought, before settling again.
"Well, first Vince, died during the Battle of Hogwarts. Do - do you remember?" She does, actually. She remembers that night very well. Too well, she thinks sometimes. The deaths, so many deaths, and in the end they had been all for nothing. Harry and Voldemort had faced off, and both ended up having to retreat after their duel, both of them barely alive. "Well, first there was that, and they blamed it on me." Malfoy looks sad. Hermione has no sympathy for Crabbe, but she doesn't say so. "And then shortly after I'd taken on the role of double agent, my master -"
"Can…can you not call him that?"
"Sorry," he says, chastised. "You-know-who…well, he ordered Greg and me to capture someone. Georges Dupree, a wizard who'd spent his life studying Dementors. But I had instructions from the Order to leave him alive for them to collect. So I set Greg up, so that it looked as though he'd fucked up the mission, not me, and you-know-who had him tortured." Hermione winces despite herself.
"Is he - ?"
"He's - he's still alive," Malfoy says, anticipating her question, his thumb still stroking back and forth over Hermione's skin. "But he's with his mother. Something - something went wrong during the torture. Or, maybe not wrong, it just…didn't have the effect you-know-who intended." Malfoy sounds guilty, and then in another layer atop that, he seems guilty for feeling guilty. "He's blind."
"Oh..."
"So you can see why the pair of them hate me."
"I suppose so," she murmurs, feeling more and more human as every moment passed. Drowsiness begins to overtake her as her starved body starts digesting the food she's stuffed it with, and she feels her eyelids get heavier and heavier. Malfoy elbows her lightly.
"Hey, wake up, Granger."
"Wha?"
"I need to get up - I..." He looks uncertain for a moment, before pulling out a large bottle of water and showing it to her. "I need to give this the other prisoners." Hermione sits bolt upright and drops Malfoy's hand, fighting back sleep, her eyes narrowing on him.
"Why?" she demands suspiciously. "What's in it?" She isn't stupid; she knows full well it contains more than just water, and the uncomfortable look in Malfoy's eyes only confirms that. He shifts, and looks away. "Tell me," she demanded, and he sighed.
"It has a sedative potion mixed into it, Granger. It's why they're so…out of it. It dulls the mind, and the body, so that sensation just…goes away, and you just stop caring, anymore. I can't save these prisoners, and I'm probably already damned for what I do as Death Eater, but just in case I'm not, I'd rather not kill anyone I don't have to." Malfoy looks so terribly tired and sad and filled with guilt that Hermione's heart pangs for him of its own accord. "But the potion means that they don't care what happens to them. I can't get it to them always, and I can't get it to all the prisoners, but I do what little I can without too great a risk of exposure." Hermione stares at him for a long moment, trying to see inside his head, and it's he who drops his eyes first. "I'm not a good person - I know that - but I try to do what I can."
"Go on then," she whispers, her throat thick and clogged with emotion she can't decipher, and watches him as he goes to each of the three women. Malfoy speaks to them softly, crouched at their sides, soothing their bewildered fear when they see him and expect pain. His hair falls over his face, shining pale by the dull torchlight that burns down the hallway, and his hand reaches out to them, offering small, brief comfort in touches and squeezes. Then he holds the bottle to their lips, and makes sure that they each drink deep, before helping them lie down again on the cold floor. He goes slowly to each woman, patiently repeating the process with each one, and Hermione watches, taking in every detail with tired but fascinated eyes. He squeezes one's hand, and presses his hand to another's cheek, and she can hear his whispers, soft and kind. And when he comes to sit back down by Hermione, his features are strained and engraved with a sickened sort of sadness.
"Who are you?" she asks him, as he perches on the broken stone she uses as a wall to huddle against, and he seems to understand. He hums a contemplative sound, before beginning to speak.
"Snape - before the Battle of Hogwarts, he told me of a location that he'd kept secret from everyone. No one but him and I knew about it, he said. And he told me that if he died, to go there." Malfoy pulls out a handkerchief and wets it, before muttering a warming charm. "And then he died, and I went there, and I found - fuck. I found a lifetime of memories, and a pensieve. Snape had been copying and storing his memories for decades, and I was the one he wanted to see them all."
"Oh…" Hermione thinks that maybe she understands, a little, from what Harry had said about Snape's memories. She starts in fright as Malfoy presses the handkerchief to her cheek, and he pulls away quickly and apologises.
"Sorry. You're…well, you're kind of filthy, Granger. Do…do you want to do it?" He holds out the handkerchief to her - a large white square of starched cotton striped with shiny silver - and she bites her lip, before slowly shaking her head in the negative.
"No," she whispers, hoarse and thready, twisting her fingers together in her lap. "I - I can't see where I'm dirty anyway, so - you may as well." He pauses a moment, hesitant and uncertain, before gently smudging the white cloth across her cheek, and picking up his story again.
"And I watched all the memories. It took some time, but I saw every single one. All the moments in his life that could have been even vaguely important - the good, the bad, the embarrassing - I saw them all." Malfoy sighs, re-wetting the now stained cloth and heating it again, sweeping it firmly over Hermione's forehead as she shuts her eyes. "How are you supposed to be the same person after seeing life through someone else's eyes? I tried, for a while, but I just couldn't. Too much had changed. I knew too much. I felt like such a fucking idiot." His touch is soothing, cleansing away the dirt and leaving clean, warmed skin behind, and his story, told in soft, gentle murmurs, explains a lot. "I found out that Dumbledore had let me disarm him, for instance. That all along, he and Snape had been trying to protect me. That Dumbledore had planned to die. That…that was a big one for me to accept. But when I had, finally, after months of going through the motions and trying to keep my head down and avoid you-know-who's attention, I broke, and I went to the Order, to try to defect."
He sighs heavily again, tone wry. "And instead they told me to keep doing what I was doing, only even better than before, and spy for them. I've spent the past, what, nearly two years now, passing out what information I could. And I suppose it's been useful." She opens her eyes as he sweeps the cloth over the tip of her nose and falters to a halt, and she waits patiently for him to find the words. His eyes are guilt-ridden as he finishes: "I really fucking hope it's been useful. The things I've done…" She looks away, eyes sliding from his down to stare at his pointed chin.
"Don't tell me, please."
"Don't worry, Granger. I wasn't planning on it. I try not to think about it at all, usually," he says, as he scrubs the last few bits of filth from her face and neck, and then cleans and re-wets the handkerchief once more so that it is sopping, dripping water. "Here. You probably have, um, other places you want to clean," he says, flushing red to the tips of his ears, and looking away, and Hermione finds herself stifling the sudden, weak chuckle his embarrassment startles out of her. "Later. Once I'm gone."
Malfoy stays as long as he can. Over an hour passes while they sit huddled together in the corner, talking between long, uncomfortable pauses. Mostly they talk about small things, to distract her, trying to find memories from school that they both find funny or at least harmless. But Hermione also asks him to pass along a message to members of the Order, when he gets to the drop point, and they talk more about Snape, and being a spy, and he apologises yet again for what he's done to her. The conversation is stilted and awkward, and utterly surreal. When Malfoy has to go Hermione just wants to cling to him and keep him from leaving, terrified of being alone again.
Hermione manages to stay unnoticed for two more meals, without any more visits from Malfoy - there is not enough water with the meals for her and the few other prisoners in her cell, though, and she finds herself very thankful that Malfoy had come down. If he hadn't given her that water, then either she would be near death now, or she would have had to withhold the water from the other women. She is so very glad that she didn't have to make that choice. They may be mercifully insensible to what goes on around them, but Hermione can't bring herself to withhold food and water from them.
She finds herself missing Malfoy too, craving the illusion of security his presence had given her on his last visit. She still feels sick to her stomach over what Malfoy had done to her - had been forced to do to her during the visit that Nott had been there for, when she lets herself dwell on it. But she also understands that right now some minor violations are better than what could be happening. Malfoy has saved her life, and while he has hurt her…well, she saw the sick, horrified shame in his eyes. She knows that he didn't want to do it. She believes that he wants to help her. She believes that the arrogant, cowardly boy from Hogwarts has become a man who regrets the evil he had been involved in. She has to believe him, because if she doesn't, she may as well kill herself now. But she does believe him.
She believes him because he is protecting her as much he can. Because he came down to help her. Because his story about Snape's memories has the ring of truth to it. Because the stark misery on his sharp features isn't something she thinks can be faked. So Hermione believes Malfoy, and tells herself that she is…lucky, relatively speaking. After all, it would be so, so much worse if Malfoy hadn't hidden her away from Voldemort's notice. She may have been humiliated, violated, and hurt, but all of those things would seem like comforts if she'd been tossed to Voldemort, she is sure. Hermione tries very hard to focus on the positive.
And then on the third meal - day? Hermione doesn't know for sure - after Malfoy's last visit, the guards do a thorough search of the cell and find her this time, huddled in her corner under the filthy, stinking rags and the cloak Malfoy left her, dehydrated again and half-conscious. Her luck - such as it is - has run out. They laugh, and drag her out into the middle of the cell by her upper arms and hair, and throw her hard onto the ground. They aren't Death Eaters, but merely Snatchers - minions, peons, not that it matters at all because they are no less likely to rape and kill her. The shock of hitting the stone judders up her arms from her palms as she catches herself, and her right knee hits an uneven up-jut of broken stone floor bruisingly hard. She yelps at the pain, voice raw and cracked with thirst.
"Please!" she gasps as she rolls onto her back and then does a clumsy sort of crab walk away from the three grinning guards. She stares up at them with genuine, sick terror and begs because she has heard the stories, and she knows that there is no virtue in being defiant and brave. Pleading doesn't usually do much good either, but maybe…. "Please! Don't!" One of them laughs at her terror, the sound sharp and jarring, and advances on her.
"We've got us quite a tidy little live one 'ere, boys. Wonder what she's doing in the used up section; scrub 'er up and she'd be a tasty morsel. Wouldn't she?"
"Aye," says another one, rubbing his hands together and leering. Hermione scrambles back, hand scrabbling for a loose bit of stone she can use as a weapon. Her breath wrenches frantically, edging towards hyperventilation, and with a jolt of realisation, she wonders if her panicked breathing will set off an alert on Malfoy's monitoring spell. Rather than trying to calm herself, she breathes faster and faster, sucking in breaths, trying to balance on the edge between dizzy and actually passing out. Maybe. Maybe if she can get herself close enough to hyperventilation it might work. She doesn't know if he is even around to help her if the monitoring spell alerts him, but she has to try. She's not going to just give up. "Please," she begs again. "Please don't hurt me."
'Oh, little girl, I'm afraid that we don't want to do anything but hurt you," the third man says with mock apology as he advances on her. "But keep begging, if you like. It suits you." Quick as lightning his foot lashes out, his boot toe slamming into the small of her back, and the blow drives her to the side, she tries to twist away from it and she screams at the pain. Her hands slap at the ground as she tries to scramble away, and her fingers flex and tighten around a piece of stone large enough to fit comfortably in her fist. Another kick – she screams and arches her back, falling back onto the ground, wrenching for air. Another, another – they have converged on her and they are kicking her as though she can somehow survive it. She makes a ball on the ground, drawing her knees up to her chest, tucking her chin, and covering her head, screaming for them to stop. But they don't.
Finally there is a pause, in which she lies dazed on the ground a mass of throbbing, wrecked pain, while they seem to admire their handiwork.
"D-d-don't," she moans incoherently, trying to flail away from the three men, her vision sparking out from the pain seizing through her. Her whole body feels like a raw, flayed nerve. Everything hurts – everything. Everything is agony. They're going to kill her if they keep doing this. She is going to die. And where Malfoy is, she has no idea, but she doesn't think he's coming to save her. It's down to her to try to keep herself alive. "Pl-plea-ease, stop. I'll do whatever you want! I'll do anything you want just stop hurting me please."
"That's right – you fucking well will do what we want, whore," says the biggest of the three, and grabs Hermione by her shirt, hauling her to her feet and backhanding her across the face. Her head snaps to the side and she makes a grunting moan, driven out of her by the blow. Pain sears down her spine - it feels as though it's been snapped. But her fingers are firm around the stone. She is going to die. She knows it. She is going to be beaten and raped to death in a cell in a dungeon somewhere. The man hits her again and her sounds of shock and pain are gasping and choked, wheezing exhalations. The whole left side of her face feels numbed and raw.
This is how it ends, she thinks, dizzy and sick.
"Merlin's balls, you're a pretty little thing," the man says to her, ironic considering her face is already so terribly swollen from his blows – she can feel it puffing up even more, the skin going painfully taut. He grasps her more securely by her shirt and slams her up against the cell bars, the cold iron sending agony shooting through her spine and throughout her limbs, her head knocking into a bar and making hurt ring in her skull like a bell. The man's mouth dips to her throat in a mockery of a lover, suckling hard and painful at the skin there, raising marks that she knows will bloom in vivid bruises in the hours to come, if she lives that long.
Now, she thinks dazed with pain and concussion.
Hermione raises her arm and swings down, driving the stone into the man's head as hard as she can, which isn't half as hard as she wished it could be, but is still better than nothing. Better than her fists alone. He drops her with a groan - staggering dazed and hopefully concussed - and she lands on her feet and by a miracle they don't go out from under her. But being on her feet hardly helps – the man is only badly dazed, fallen against the bars and groaning – and his two friends are just fine. And Hermione is racked with pain and trapped still, with nowhere to go, and now they're all even angrier. Oh god. Oh Merlin. Maybe she shouldn't have fought. She skitters away from the man she has just brained, her steps unsteady and the world tilting around her, her every muscle seizing with a bone-deep pain from the vicious beating they had given her, and then…
She crumples.
Pain ricochets through her.
The sound of laughing mixed with the angry swearing of the man Hermione had hit, and then there are hands on her, rolling her onto her back, tearing at her clothing – ripping her shirt open and trying to haul her jeans down her legs. She blinks her eyes open, and between the leaping torchlight and the swirling in her head she catches only shattered, nightmarish glimpses, greying out. She begs them in slurred, desperate pleas.
"Please don't." A mouth clamps over hers, tongue sweeping sick-making over her lips and teeth. A face leers down at her, and fingers pinch her nose shut, a tongue licking at her own tongue when her mouth opens to gasp for breath. She wrenches her head away, sobbing for air. "Please, stop." She blinks up around her blearily and cringes in sick terror at the sight of one of the men stroking his erection as he stands and watches, and squeezes her eyes shut. She can't see. She can't. "Stop." Hands paw at her breasts through her dirtied bra. Fingers prod at her vulva through her knickers. "Don't." A heavy weight settles over her legs. Nausea roiling through her, can't think, can't – can't… Please. Please don't. She struggles pitifully.
Please.
"She's mine." It's his voice, cutting the air filled with deadly intent. She hears it slice through the fog and pain of her half-conscious state, and her swollen eyes force open. Hope and painfully sharp relief overwhelm her, and her breath catches in a sob in her chest. Malfoy stands in the cell door, mostly visible past the man who has been trying to get her knickers off, who scrambles up off her, kneeling between her thighs. Malfoy's wand is in his hand, and he breathes hard and rasping as if he ran all the way down here, his shoulders heaving and fringe falling messy over his eyes. He looks like he wants to murder every single one of the men – he looks like he could, without a single bit of trouble. Her chest feels tight and taut, her heart leaping with hope hope hope.
"You wot?" one of the men asks, and Malfoy takes a step forward, icy fury bright in his eyes and written in every taut line of his face.
"The girl. is. mine."
"She hit me – hit with a fuckin' rock!"
"That doesn't make her any less mine, you idiotic piece of excrement," Malfoy snarls, stalking toward Hermione and shoving one of them back away from her side. She blinks up at him, trying to say his name with lips that are bloody and twice their usual side. Pain and horror flash wretched in his eyes, like an echo of hers. "Granger," he mutters, and his voice is as sickened and horrified as the look in his eyes. Malfoy, she tries to say, relief maddeningly intense, making her want to shake and cry, come to pieces there on the floor. He flattens his mouth and glares at the man who is still hunched over her between her legs, paused in the act of trying to take her knickers off. "Get the fuck off her."
"Why should I?" the man says, standing, tall enough that he is a good two inches taller than Malfoy, and twice the breadth. Hermione blinks muzzily up at them – they all look like giants to her from down here. She stifles the absurd urge to giggle. She thinks maybe she's in shock; her body is overflowing with pain but she feels oddly distant, now. Dazed. Floating away from it all.
"Because of this, perhaps, for starters?" Malfoy hisses, jerking his sleeve back in short tugs to show off his Dark Mark, and the man's eyes go round in shock and he takes a stumbling step back. Hermione nearly manages to curl the corners of her lips into something like a smile at the sudden fear on the man's face.
"I didn't – sorry. I didn't know you was a – a – one of them," the man apologises abjectly, shuffling backward, away from Malfoy and Hermione. "We just…we didn't think she was anyone's…"
"We had no idea. Most sorry, Mister…?" the best-spoken of the three ventures apologetically, but the expression on his face is sly and calculating and doesn't match his tone.
"Malfoy. Draco Malfoy," he bites out, looking more furious than Hermione has ever seen him, his nostrils flaring and his fists bunching at his sides, his posture braced for duelling. There is a vein throbbing at his temple, and his eyes keep flicking down to her every few heartbeats. "And yes, you had best be sorry."
"We'll just be, er, going then. And no need to mention this to anyone is there?" Malfoy's eyebrow twitches upward just the faintest bit.
"I – I suppose not," he agrees, sounding reluctant, and Hermione realises just how convenient that is. If the men don't tell anyone, then – then her presence will remain a secret just that much longer. Which is what they want. The men all make their apologies, the smartest one chivvying the other two along hurriedly, while Malfoy stands just in front of Hermione like a guard dog. It is only when they have been gone a full thirty seconds and their footsteps no longer echo off the walls that he sheathes his wand and drops to his knees at her side, sheer panic written all over his face.
"Granger. Granger, fucking shit, what – what the fuck. Are you – did they…tell me what I need to fix. Tell me." Malfoy is frantic with his worry for her, one hand finding and holding hers very gently, the other hand tapping his wand to her more obvious wounds, sending numbness seeping welcome through them. "Did - did they - is there anything - severe?" he asks, and when she shakes her head weakly - she doesn't think there is, save a concussion - Malfoy drops his wand to the floor with a clatter, and traces his fingers softly from her temple to her chin. "Fuck, what did they do to you?" The hand that is curled carefully around hers tightens a little, his thumb rubbing back and forth over her palm as he kneels beside her, fingers petting softly over her hair in soothing reassurance. "Merlin, Granger, I'm so sorry I didn't get here sooner. I'm so sorry."
It's not your fault, Hermione wants to say, but he won't shut up in his sickened, babbled apologies to let her get a word in edgewise, and her mouth doesn't seem to want to do what her brain tells it to. And then suddenly Malfoy falters to a stop and his face goes hard and cold, and then what little colour he has drains from his complexion completely. He stares down at her in abject horror.
"Oh shit. Oh Merlin, I said your name in front of them. Granger, I said your fucking name. That's why they were so fucking eager to leave." His fist slams into the stone beside her head, and his eyes are stricken on hers as she gazes blurrily up at him, processing what he's just said. It takes a moment before she realises what is so terrible about him saying her name. "I've fucked it. Merlin, I've…I've fucked it." His hand lifts again and his thumb drags down her right cheek, before falling to the ground beside her neck, forearm stiff against the side of her throat as he tenses in fury.
"I am so sorry." He bites his lower lip so hard that in fascinated horror she sees one of his teeth pop through the skin of his lip, and blood wells up. His hands shake as he begins to gather her into his arms, lifting her up, so that she rests against the wiry warmth of him. He smells good, like spices and pine sap instead of the excrement and burnt flesh she's smelt for days upon days, and she nestles closer to him automatically.
"It's all right, Malfoy. You – they would have killed me if you hadn't come," she whispers hoarsely, and he gives her a bitter little flash of a smile, and his voice when he speaks is hard and cold, his face very still, emotions swiftly masked.
"And now I could have killed us both. Or worse."
"…W-will he…?" she asks in a tiny little voice, thinking of what could be to come, and terrified despite her best attempts to be brave. Malfoy knows what she means. He carefully reaches down, clearly telegraphing his intentions, and tries to wriggle up her jeans with a shrug at her question. He seems brittle right now, as if he will snap if someone bends him too far. There is no give; he is a knife blade and she does not know if that is what they need right now. But as before, Malfoy is her only hope. And for the second time, he has risked his life to save her. She buttons her jeans with fumbling, clumsy fingers, and then turns her swollen face into his chest, clutching at his shirt and breathing into him. He smells like somewhere warm and good, somewhere not here.
"I don't know. I might – I might still…I might still be able to pull this off. I don't know." Malfoy stammers when he speaks, holding Hermione close to him, his heart thundering and the slightest tremble to his body. He shifts his grip on her, scrubbing his hand angrily through his fine, pale hair, his brow furrowed with crawling thoughts. "My master – he's going to be furious that I hid your presence from him, but…we might not be dead yet, Granger. We might have a chance." He nibbles at his lip, eyes far away and filled with desperate, chaotic grasping for a way out, before he focuses them sharp and nearly-manic on her, and begins casting healing charms again. "…Maybe."
They wake Hermione to fear and pain, when they drag her out of sleep and her cell, and she is aware of very little as they drag a bag over her head and take her…somewhere else. The floor cold under her stumbling, dragging feet as she is hauled along blindly, loud, cruel voices, rough hands on her arms and her hair, pain blooming sharp and bright as they manhandle her without a care. She can't make sense of anything. Dark beneath the bag and her breath makes the air too hot and she feels like she's going to suffocate, and cold floor under her bare feet, and bruising shoves into door frames and walls, and what is going on? They know, she thinks dully, stupidly. They know. Terror shoots through her muddled mind in sharp, cold spears. What are they going to do? She doesn't want to die. She doesn't want them to hurt her. Terror cuts at her. Her breath comes too-fast in sobs.
After a bewildering journey that drags and shoves her up stairs and along corridors, Hermione is flung blindly, dizzy and frightened, onto hard wooden floor. The breath woofs out of her, and then she rolls and scrambles onto her back, tugging frantically at the bag tied over her head as the sound of a door slamming shut thunks loud and flat. Then there are hands on her head, and the bag, and it's ripped away unceremoniously. She is left blinking up at Malfoy and gasping in breaths of cool, fresh air as he hovers over her, pale and worried as he helps her sit up, and without seeming to think about it, carefully pushes a fall of her lank, tangled hair off her face. He tucks it behind her ear with a tender little motion, before sitting back on his heels, shooting worried glances at the door.
"Are you all right? Did they hurt you?" She shakes her head no, squinting against the bright light as she stares at Malfoy. He is dishevelled, in shirt sleeves and trousers, his hair mussed, and the right side of his mouth is swollen fat and red raw. She looks around, trying to get her bearings; they are in a small bedroom that looks like servant quarters from the plain walls and lack of any furniture bar a narrow bed and a battered looking chest of drawers.
"They know," she says numbly, stupidly begging him to deny it. To tell her that they were going to be okay. Malfoy sighs wearily and rubs the side of his hand over his forehead, still crouching by her, steadying his balance with the fingertips of one hand, eyes clear and grim.
"Yeah. They know." He corrects himself. "Or rather, they know that I've been keeping your presence a secret. They don't know anything else." Hermione frowns at him. What difference does that make? She asks him that, and he worries at his sore lip - nibbling it and wincing, then probing over it carefully with his tongue - before he finally answers. "They don't know why I kept you to myself - except that Theo knows I went down to the dungeons to f-fuck you," he says with reluctance, his gaze sliding away from hers and a pink flush rising on his cheeks. Hermione stares at him, eyes going wide and round.
"You - you - you mean…?"
"I don't see that we have a choice but to play it that way with - me, um, wanting you, and hope that maybe…maybe he lets me have you?" Malfoy says awkwardly, pink flush darkening to red, and Hermione recoils from the thought of being perceived as some kind of - of Mudblood sex slave, but it seems like the only workable solution at this point. A small hope, where before there was none. It'll have to do, she supposes, stomach turning at the thought of what might happen if Malfoy couldn't convince Voldemort to let him have her. Then Malfoy tenses and snaps her out of horrible imaginings, grabbing her arm and hauling her to her feet. He propels her backwards, into the small space between the bed and the chest of drawers, and she is too startled to resist at first.
"What -?" she asks breathless as he tries to shove her down into a crouch, and his eyes are bright with fear as he looks toward the door again, the muscles in his jaw flexing and bunching and his expression turning determined and grim.
"Footsteps. People are coming. You - you need to stay down here, you understand me, Granger? Stay down. Don't draw any attention to yourself - it won't do any fucking good. Yeah? Stay fucking down." He fixes his gaze on her - burning bright and silver and Hermione almost forgets to agree, and then she nods swiftly and hurriedly as the lock in the door turns, and Malfoy moves quickly away from her, standing before the door his face and posture assuming arrogance and irritation. It's a transformation that makes him look entirely different, and Hermione blinks at it in startlement as she huddles down as he'd ordered her to. And then two large, solid men shuffle into the room, filling it up. They look enough like their sons that Hermione recognises them.
Crabbe and Goyle Sr. She remembers how Malfoy said they hated him, and winces, knowing in her bones what is coming. Malfoy lifts his chin, look every inch an arrogant, entitled tosser. "What the fuck do you two idiots want? Looking for a nice quite room in which to get off with each other? 'Fraid this one's taken." Hermione wants to cover her eyes at that, when she sees the rage transforming the two men's faces, contorting their expressions. One of them closes his hands meaningfully into fists, and his knuckles crack ominously. They haven't seen her yet; Malfoy commands all their attention, and Hermione stays very, very still and silent.
"Shuddup up, Malfoy," Crabbe snarls, but the other just laughs, angry and nasty, evidently not goaded into thoughtless reaction by Malfoy's taunt.
"We're here to have a bit of fun before you've got to go off and explain yourself to the Dark Lord. That's why we're here, you pathetic piece of shit." Goyle takes a step forward, and Malfoy's jaw clenches and relaxes. He nods then, and spread his hands out from his sides, palms facing the two Death Eaters. It is surrender, and acceptance, and Hermione feels suddenly very, very sick.
"Go on then. Get your kicking in," Malfoy says with a calm sort of resignation, and Crabbe growls under his breath and moves forward frighteningly fast for his size, driving one fist rib-crackingly hard into Malfoy's diaphragm. A groaning huff of air is driven out of Malfoy as he bends double and clutches his middle, wheezing helplessly for air that won't come, his face reddening and the cords in his neck standing out as his mouth moves like a fish out of water. Crabbe laughs, and grabs Malfoy by his fringe, hauling him mostly upright before punching him again, in the exact same spot. Malfoy doesn't even have enough breath to make a noise now, and Hermione holds back a whimper, her fingers pressing hard to her lips. She feels like a coward, crouching here unnoticed, but Malfoy had said, and it won't help them for her to be hurt too.
Goyle gets in on the act next, with rabbit quick punches to Malfoy's lower back as Crabbe holds him still - Goyle is aiming for his kidneys, Hermione supposes weakly, nauseated and horrified as Malfoy cries out soundlessly, still red-faced and unable to get a breath. Then Crabbe yanks Malfoy over double and slams his knee into Malfoy's abdomen, before dragging him upright again by his hair, and spitting in his face, before shoving him back into Goyle's grasp. Malfoy gets his breath back finally, as he falls to the ground after Goyle hits him in the face - enough breath to groan in pain at least, as he tries to get to his feet, barely making it to all fours, spitting blood and trembling.
"Whassa matter, Malfoy? Not having fun," Crabbe mocks, before putting the boot in - kicking Malfoy hard in the stomach so that he collapses back onto the floor with a cry. They both kick him then - heavy-toed boots slamming into his legs and body and head, and he curls into a ball with his arms around his head, trying to protect himself, and Hermione can't watch any longer.
"Stop!" She cries the words out filled with fury as she scrambles to her feet, and Crabbe and Goyle Sr. turn to face her with leers spreading over their features, and Malfoy lifts his head, face smeared with blood from his nose, and his features are cast in hopeless horror. No, he mouths desperately, but it's too late now. They've noticed her, at last.
"Well, hello there, Mudblood," Crabbe says, still grinning as he takes a step toward her, and Hermione's skin crawls. "I didn't notice you there, pretty little thing." Her stomach lurches and she takes a step back, shoulder blades pressing into the wall. Oh Merlin. Maybe she should have just stayed quiet, like Malfoy told her. But at least - at least they've stopped hurting him. She stares past Crabbe and Goyle, at Malfoy, who is struggling to get back up. She wants to shut her eyes against the sight of Malfoy bloodied and gasping and staggering to his feet, face shaped with pain, but she can't look away. "You want us to stop hurting him, do you? And why exactly would that be?"
Oh shit. Hermione hasn't thought this through at all, she realises belatedly. Malfoy is staring at her with that frozen horror, and she doesn't know what to say. "You…you shouldn't hurt anyone," she says in a small, breathy voice, pressing herself so hard back against the wall she's surprised she hasn't melded with it. "It's wrong. You - you shouldn't…"
"Well aren't you just adorable, with your funny little Mudblood morals," Goyle mocks, and then his hand shoots out and slams around her throat. She gags and struggles on instinct, hands coming up to claw at the Death Eater's meaty hand. It does nothing. Panic seizes her as she gasps for air and gets thread bits of it, but still keeps feeling dizzier and dizzier. Her head feels too small. Too tight. His grip is cutting off the supply of blood, Hermione realises as she claws at Crabbe's hand. Her head feels too full, and spots dance in front of her eyes, everything feels heavy and dark and…
"She's mine," Malfoy snarls, and she can hear laughter too-loud and yet far away at once. She blinks, her struggles weakening fast, seeing through darkening vision Malfoy limp and stagger toward Crabbe and Goyle Sr., his bloodied face haughty and possessive. Crabbe spins, dragging Hermione with him as he turns and throwing her to the ground, and she hits hard. Pain shoots through her neck and spine as she bounces and rolls to a halt at Malfoy's feet, hands going to her throat as sweet blessed air flows freely into her lungs, and the darkened vision and dizziness retreats, her blood rushing to where it should be. She clutches at Malfoy's ankle, and he kicks her off roughly and it feels like a punch in the gut, that rejection. That lack of protection. It takes her a minute to realise: he can't act like he cares. "She's mine, you stupid fucks, and I swear to Merlin I will kill you both before I let you touch what belongs to me."
Crabbe begins to say something as Hermione tries to struggle into a sitting position at Malfoy's feet, but a banging at the door drowns out his voice. "The Dark Lord's ready to see 'em now," a rough, dangerous looking woman says as she swings the door open, a scowl affixed to her face. "Hurry up, you two. Get 'em out there, 'afore the Lord gets impatient." Hermione can feel the tension drain out of Malfoy at that - it was only a temporary reprieve, but it was one they dearly needed. Crabbe and Goyle Sr. seem frustrated, but they nod to the woman and grunt agreement. "He says give Malfoy his wand back," the woman adds, and Crabbe and Goyle Sr. seem even less happy at that, but Crabbe slaps Malfoy's wand into the younger Death Eater's outstretched hand.
"You're fucking lucky, you blood-filth bitch," Goyle growls as he grabs Hermione by the hair and wrenches her to her feet. She shrieks and tears spring to her eyes, stumbling to get her feet under her to lessen the tearing on her scalp. Crabbe grabs Malfoy's arm and shoves him out the door first, and Goyle drags Hermione after them. She swallows hard as they're hurried roughly down long, rich carpeted corridors, her heart pounding faster and faster in her chest. She tells herself that whatever happens, she needs to be strong. She needs to be strong. She's a Gryffindor. She's Hermione Granger. She can do this. She has to get through it. She won't let them break her, no matter what - she refuses to give them the satisfaction.
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