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 Three
The floor under Hermione's knees is hard, and the air around her is hot, scented heavily, and stiflingly close; all wrong, wrong. She wants to go mad – to scream and sob and rip her own hair out. Only Malfoy's presence, standing beside her, is helping her stay in control of herself. And from the looks he keeps flashing her that she catches sight of out of the corner of her eye, he seems to feel much the same way about her. When his hand curls in her hair almost comfortingly – but clearly meant to show he still feels superior and is not a Muggle lover – it actually makes her feel safe. That is how terrified she is, right now. He is her only hope at protection, now that Voldemort has waved aside her usefulness as a hostage, or bait – quite cavalierly, she thinks, ridiculously almost insulted that she is not important enough to merit a special status as prisoner.
The huge room is filled with people; one of Voldemort's infamous revels is ongoing, and Hermione supposes she and Malfoy are supposed to be part of the entertainment. Dead, dying, and brutalised Muggles and Muggleborns are scattered throughout the room in a manner that Voldemort no doubt thinks is artistic. The knees of Hermione's jeans are sodden with congealing blood, from a body of a child that lies nearby, skinned and tossed to the floor like a naked doll. It is probably the worst one of them all.
Hermione has been trying very hard not to look at it – staring at Malfoy's boots on the bloodied floor instead, or sneaking the occasional glance up at his battered face. No hint of reassurance on it now, as he bows his head, meeting her eyes as he makes his obeisance to his lord. He is the very picture of a remorseful, loyal Death Eater - perfectly obedient and apologetic.
Voldemort has been lecturing him in that eerie, high voice for long enough now that Hermione's knees are a mass of soreness, and her still-wounded body aches all over. It seems he doesn't care so much that Malfoy might 'want Hermione for himself', as Malfoy has allowed Voldemort to believe – no, what bothers Voldemort is the deceit, apparently. The omitting of the truth. The dishonesty of it all. Hermione wants to strangle the Dark Lord, who lounges on his self-appointed throne and waxes poetic on and on about how disappointed he is in Malfoy, his wonderfully promising young protégée.
"I'm afraid, Draco, my dear boy, that for keeping the truth from me, there must be consequences." Malfoy's breath jerks in audibly, and he shuts his eyes, his bruised jaw clenching as he nods. The injuries Crabbe and Goyle Sr. inflicted on him are blossoming into bruises and lumps now, and he looks like he's been beaten half to death.
"Yes, my Lord. Of course," he says quietly, and Hermione's heart aches at the devastated terror in Malfoy's eyes, and she is so angry.
"Crucio!" Malfoy doesn't flinch, or cower like so many would. But when the spell hits, he doubles over and falls to his hands and knees, a scream torn out of his throat, and Hermione stuffs her hands against her mouth and bites down on her knuckles, horrified. "Crucio!"
Malfoy crumples on his face in the congealing blood that coats the floor as his limbs jerk and fail him, and his mouth is stretched wide in a silent scream, his eyes are screwed shut and helpless little 'ngh ngh ngh' sounds pant from his throat. Hermione kneels there beside him as still as a china doll, and she want to do something – to shelter him from the pain, to stop Voldemort, to make it stop. But if she says anything in Malfoy's defence it might only make his case worse; Voldemort has used Legilimency on Malfoy, who must know Occlumency to have hidden the truth from his master. Hermione does not know it, and if she draws attention to herself she could give them both away completely.
So she bows her head and shuts her eyes, holding her hands in fists at her sides as Malfoy screams and writhes and gasps beside her. She feels like the worst kind of person, letting it go on without speaking up, but there is nothing she can do. Tears paint her cheeks, and she bites her tongue so hard that it fills her mouth with coppery blood-tainted saliva. And Malfoy screams, crumpled on his face in the blood, his body wrenched in a rictus of agony that goes on and on. Hermione finds herself wishing Malfoy's parents were present – perhaps they would step forward and try to help their son – but they are not, and Malfoy is alone.
When it finally ends, Malfoy is still and silent, and Hermione cannot help but wonder if he is dead. Her palms have been bloodied by the gouges of her nails, and her body is knotted with tension. It runs out of her when Malfoy lets out a whimpering, hacking cough, and twitches on the floor; her shoulders slump and she exhales heavily. He is alive. Thank Merlin.
His fingers flex on the sticky floor and then push, shoving him up onto his hands and knees, and wherever the blood is not smeared dark crimson his skin is so ashen it is nearly grey, and his hands tremble as if palsied. His eyes meet hers for a moment, and his gaze is thunderstorms and silver, unfocused and half-wild.
He stands with an effort, swaying on his feet with his head down. "Thank you, my Lord. I - I shall not fail you again," he says weakly, and Hermione wants to scream that no, no, he shouldn't be thanking the monster, even though she knows that he has to.
And then Voldemort says it.
"Perhaps I should have the mudblood killed, as an added consequence. To ensure you learn your lesson."
Malfoy jerks his head up for the first time, and shakes it in a frantic, frightened 'no'. "My Lord – My Lord, please."
Hermione's heart thunders and she stares down at the blood pooled around her knees blankly, her vision blurring out. Death – death would not be the worst fate that could befall her, she supposes, and then wishes she hadn't thought that only a moment later.
"Should I have her be the star of our evening's entertainment, then? Let everybody have a turn?" Voldemort suggests airily, and Hermione can hear the strain trembling in Malfoy's voice.
"My Lord…I – I want her, my Lord. For – for myself. Please. She is…"
"Yes," Voldemort encourages with a disturbingly gossipy tone to him, as though he is a fascinated teenage girl talking about crushes. Hermione stifles a hysterical, whooping laugh. "Yes, she is what? What is she exactly, Draco? We are all ears."
"She is the only person who ever managed to best me consistently at Hogwarts, My Lord," Malfoy said as though the words were being torn out of him, and Hermione risked a glance up – he looked furious and sullen and terrified at once, but everything filtered through an overlay of abject respect for his master. "She was the mudblood bitch who made me look bad. And now – now I want her to be mine, so I can put her in her place." He grates it out full of hate and loathing, and his shaking hand clasps in her hair, he looks down at her with an odd, possessive little sneer, and Hermione has to suppress a trickle of fear.
Malfoy is a bloody excellent actor.
"Very well," Voldemort says, perking up, amusement cruel on his inhuman features as he stares at Malfoy and Hermione. "If you want the mudblood to be yours and no one else's, then claim her as that, in front of everyone here, so there can be no doubt. You can be the evening's entertainment. After all, this is a revel, is it not?" There is a brief, heavy silence. Hermione's head spins, and she feels her gorge rise along with her panic. Claim her as his? Evening's entertainment? She knows what that means without having to be told.
She stares up at Voldemort in stark, helpless fear, and sees him gesture with his wand for an answer from Malfoy. Her eyes flick to Malfoy - his eyes dull and his limbs shaky from the Cruciatus, the blood from the floor drying dark on his face and his clothes. His shoulders are sunk in defeat, and his lower lip trembles briefly before he flattens his mouth.
"Yes, my Lord," Malfoy says quietly at last, strain running raw through his voice. "It is."
"Well then, let us have some revelry!" Voldemort cries cheerfully, like some kind of terrible child, his high voice crawling with eerie satisfaction. He stands, gliding across the floor in bare feet, carefully avoiding the swathes of blood with delicate steps. "That settles it. My loyal followers, please, gather around! We have a rare entertainment this evening; our young Mister Malfoy shall have what I believe is his first proper participation at a revel." Voldemort glances over at Malfoy for confirmation as he waves his wand, summoning everyone to move closer, and Hermione realises that it is going to happen. Malfoy can do nothing to stop it.
Hermione's breath is stuttering and dying in her chest. She is panicking. No. No. Nononono. This cannot happen. She stares down at the blood of strangers beneath her knees with staring, blank eyes. No. No. She does not know if it is better or worse, that it is Malfoy. She wonders if he is just as afraid, just as sickened by the thought of being forced to...do it to her. Voldemort will be raping both of them, she realises, although it is hard to see things from Malfoy's perspective, tumbling headfirst into mad horror as she is. It is hard not to see him as the enemy.
"Yes, my Lord. It is the first time at a revel," Malfoy says in a hollow, lifeless voice that does not hide his feelings well, and his fingers jerk involuntarily in Hermione's hair. She is shaking – shivering all over as though she is having a fit, and the room is too small, everything is too close, and people push around with goblets full of drink, laughing with cruel faces, and Malfoy's fingers pull unintentionally at her hair.
"Well, what fun," Voldemort enthuses, clapping his hands together delightedly, and that is when Hermione snaps.
She rips her head from Malfoy's grasp, thin straggles of hair coming out and a stifled scream erupting from her lips. She scrambles away, stumbling to her feet and running. She doesn't think, isn't thinking, just wanting to get away. Get away. Get away.
She makes it exactly twelve steps before the first person grabs her. She thrashes and screams and bites and claws against multiple people, her fists and feet flying, writhing like an eel as people drag her back to Malfoy, who stands motionless, a statue. She stares up at his blood smeared face as hands hold her by her hair and shoulders on her knees before him, her expression horror-struck and raw, and his echoing that. Her eyes plead hopelessly with him.
"Malfoy…" Hermione whispers, as people jeer and cheer and roar around them, and Voldemort watches placidly from his resumed position on his throne. "Malfoy, please."
"Don't run," he tells her dull and tight, and she stares at him mutely, shaking. "If you run, they'll only bring you back to me. Because you are mine, you filthy little mudblood whore," he tells her, voice become a vicious snarl. The back of his hand snaps across her already swollen, hurting face and she yelps woundedly and struggles helplessly against him, sobbing. She fights him at first. She can't help it. Writhing under him. Grunting and making sobbing animal sounds as she tries to get away, clawing and thrashing until other, strange hands grab her wrists, and her ankles. They pin her spread-eagle to the floor and she fights and heaves against them, but only succeeds in exhausting herself, and gaining a hard slap across the face that makes her choke. Her already swollen face balloons further, the skin feeling so hot and so tight. When she screams in rage and tries to struggle some more, she is hit again, and again, and she opens her eyes to see Malfoy there, his face cold and his hand sweeping down. It connects with a crack and she flinches and weeps at the pain.
There is nothing she can do. It makes her want to die. To be anywhere but here. She doesn't want him to hit her again; she sobs, wet and heaving with defeat, and goes limp, eyes shut and limbs heavy. There is nothing she can do to stop it. Instead she shuts her eyes and tries to wish it all away. To wish she was not here. That she couldn't feel it. She wishes she'd taken the potion Malfoy had given to the other prisoners, so that she didn't care. The hands let go of her limbs, but she doesn't fight.
"You are mine," Malfoy tells her, and his hands tear her filthy, ragged shirt from her shoulders as the hands of the crowd let her go, and cuts away her ragged bra. Her breasts fall free, and his eyes are horrified and sickened. "You don't have a fucking choice." Hermione remains enough presence of mind to know that isn't just a show for the Death Eaters - he's telling her. Her gaze darts about desperately – pointlessly – but the Death Eaters and their hangers on are jammed around them, and Malfoy is right: they will only drag her back. They don't have a choice, either of them. It is this or their torture, and eventual, terrible death. This is better, this is preferable, this is hell. Hermione lets her head roll to one side, her arms go slack, and she doesn't fight him anymore. She lets him do it, and tries very, very hard to drift away, mentally – to be anywhere but there, lying stripped bare and pliable under Malfoy's hands. But she can't. He hurts her, and the pain keeps her there, present as he does things.
He is full of awful, terrible words, and his hands maul and hurt her perfunctorily – just enough to satisfy the watching crowd, and no more. It is still far, far too much – the revelers are bloodthirsty and cruel. Hermione just lies there and shuts her eyes, feeling waves of nausea swim over her, cutting though the pain of what she already feels from earlier injuries, and what he does to her now. She wonders if it is worse for him, to have to do it; to be forced to participate actively, to be the one inflicting it upon someone else instead of just enduring it. No,she thinks dizzily. It can't be worse than what she is feeling. His fingers pinch and twist at her nipples until she screams from it, her eyes screwed shut and her hands fists at her sides, and she doesn't care how he feels anymore. She hates him anyway.
She squeezes her eyes shut so hard she can see colours bursting behind them and clenches her teeth. She can feel him as he drags her trousers and knickers off. He is heavy and the scent of his sweat fills her nose, his skin slides over hers as he settles over her, his fingers intruding on her genitals, rough and slick, coated with his own saliva. The feel of that slick slide makes her want to be sick, and she tries to clamp her thighs shut but he is between them and she can't.
"No - please don't. Please don't. Please." The words come out of her unbidden, on huffs of air forced out of her by her sobbing breaths, and she wants to scream. Her palms sweat and her breath is choking and catching in her throat, and if she could crawl out of her own skin she would. He is inside her and around her, and she feels disgusting and disgusted. Get off me! She wants to flay herself alive, to tear her skin off, to not be here. Stop. Stop stop stop. Get off me. Don't touch me there don't touch me like that stop it oh my god please. Her breath comes in juddering gasps. "Stoppp. Please." Her nails claw into her palms; a sharp, welcome pain that she fixates on. "Please." It's a desperate whine low in her throat. "Pleeeease stop." But he keeps groping her and hurting her and violating her and he won't stop. He won't fucking stop and - and -
It takes Malfoy far too long to get an erection, and Hermione finds herself wishing at one point that he just would so they could get it over with, just get it over with, just get it done and gone and… But he is swearing under his breath ferociously as he tries and tries to get hard, sweating and panting on top of her, his frustration palpable and desperate. His forehead drops to pillow on one of her deeply bruised breasts, and he spits and gasps a slew of hateful curses, his body settling half naked on her completely nude one. Hermione flinches beneath the heavy heat of him at first, but when he doesn't hurt her this time, there is nothing terrible in his body on hers. It is a brief reprieve, in a way, covered from the sight of the revelers, a brief moment without pain and violation.
Hermione lies there, and all she can think now, with hatred boiling through her skin, is that Malfoy's performances issues could ruin everything. And how dare he. How dare he hurt her like this and then not be able to finish it.
"I can't..." he begs wrecked against the soft, bruised swell of one breast. There is a sob in his voice, and wetness on her breast that could be his sweat, or his tears, or both. Hermione hates him for making her say it, even if it isn't his fault any more than it is hers.
"Haff to," she murmurs slurred angry at him with ruined lips, barely understandable, urgent. "Jus' do i'." Everything in her shudders sickly at saying it, but she does because she doesn't want to die. She doesn't. It hurts when Malfoy pushes into her at last – she is dry, and tense with fear and pain, and he is awkward and rough as he forces his way into her. Her face scrunches with pain as she cries out, and her fingers scrape on the floor. He makes a sound somewhere between a sob and a sickened groan and thrusts quick and hard without finesse, and the breath huffs out of her, raggedly keeping time. Thank Merlin he does not try to make it pleasant for her.
She opens her eyes and blinks up at the high ceiling as he thrusts; staring at the torchlight burning in the chandelier above, at the glittering crystals it is adorned with that catch the light. Malfoy is totally silent except for his heavy drags for air, and Hermione looks up past his shoulder at the lights, flashes of prism colours and bright white filling her blurring vision as she weeps.
Malfoy cums in her, when he finishes – with a soft little grunt of pleasure that she can tell he tries very hard to stifle, that burns into her brain, that she will never forget. Hermione looks at him then, and his eyes are just inches from hers and so pale surrounded by the blood drying on his face, and when their stares meet he squeezes his eyes tightly closed and turns his face away slightly, gasping in a broken breath. Shame is written sharp on his face, shame and pain and a kind of self-hatred Hermione never wants to feel. It is hard to hate him, when he is hurting too. In the end, it is just so fucking sad, and perhaps the very worst thing about it is the people watching, the humiliation of having them jeer at her, cheer over her despoiling, over her punishment. It is awful. Hermione hates them all, so much.
Then Malfoy drags her to her knees, and his cum and traces of her own blood trickle slowly down the inside of her thighs. "She is mine," Malfoy says to the room at large, coated in dried blood like some barbarian, hooking his shorts up over his erection, gripping her hair like she is a trophy as she sways naked on her knees beside him, dazed and lost in the fog of shock. "She is mine." A growl edges his voice, and no one argues with him – some clap and cheer, but most just turn away, to lose themselves in whatever depravities and horrors they had been indulging in earlier. Voldemort smiles thinly and waves his hand – apparently indicating that they are free to go, because they do then.
Malfoy lets go of Hermione's hair and pulls her to her feet by her arm, leading her stumbling from the room in her nakedness, his pace too quick for her because everything hurts now, even her insides. Her feet trip numbly on the floor and her head hangs limply, hair falling in lank handfuls around her face. She doesn't know…what just happened? Oh god. Oh god. She can't process it. Can't… A sob escapes her. As soon as Malfoy shuts the door to the hall where the revelry is taking place he drops her arm and staggers a step back, clutching at the wall beside him and bending double, retching dryly, gasping and shuddering. Hermione just stands there numbly, hugging herself. She wants to crumble to the ground and shiver into a million screaming pieces, and she can't do that so instead she stands very, very still, the air wisping cold over every inch of her naked skin.
Malfoy looks like he wants to say something when he straightens, but his lips move stutteringly without anything coming out, and then he ducks his head and shoves his hand rough through his fringe, pushing it back. He makes a hesitant half-step toward her after another few heartbeats pass. Hermione flinches back on instinct, feeling so horrifically exposed and violated; naked and cold and trembling, with his cum sliding down her thighs, pinked with blood from the abrasions she can feel so acutely. She doesn't trust him now; her mind is fuzzed with concussion and shock, and her body remembers only the trauma he has just inflicted on it. She stares at him from behind strings of her lank hair with shoulders hunched and arms hugging herself – a beaten dog expecting a blow. Her breath sucks in and out, and the beginnings of wild, horrified sobs building in her chest.
Malfoy makes a small, harsh noise in his throat and drops his gaze to the floor, shame and self-loathing radiating off him like heat from flames. He swallows, throat bobbing, and then strips off his bloodied shirt, skin pale and stained faintly in smears and streaks with blood. Hermione makes herself stand still and doesn't cry out or cringe away as he very gently swings the shirt to settle around her shoulders. He tugs and pulls with painfully gentle, tender motions, fussing absurdly but getting her covered up – the hem of the shirt settles at mid-thigh. A sob rattles out of her at the gentleness of his hands, and she is ashamed that something so small could mean so much to her right now. Her shoulders heave and there is a cracking pain in her chest as the avalanche of sobs trapped inside her threatens to burst out. She chokes on one and whimpers, and her chest heaves and judders frantically as she tries to keep control.
"Not here," Malfoy says very, very tightly, shaking just as much as her, and his eyes are wet and stricken – he smudges the back of his hand over one, and presses his lips so hard together that they go white. He goes on a moment later, and his voice breaks a little in the middle; urgent and soft and broken. "My room is – is this way. You'll be…safe, there. Just…keep it together, Granger. Just until we get to my room. Okay?"
Malfoy edges carefully closer to her and reaches out as if she is a wild animal he is approaching. Hermione feels she should say something but doesn't know what as he gently snugs her fingers in his grip, to lead her with him. Her skin crawls all over at the touch, but she pads alongside him numbly and tells herself over and over that he is not the enemy. Malfoy is not the one to blame. Not really. The enemy is Voldemort, the one who forced them to…who made Malfoy do it…and Malfoy didn't want to either, and he was a victim too, wasn't he? - and… Hermione doesn't even know. How is she supposed to handle this? How is she supposed to…? A sob hitches out of her throat, and Malfoy's eyes turn down to her, worried.
"It's just a little further, Granger.
"And – and then what? Then what, Malfoy? Then everything will be magically better?" she asks in a thick, strained voice full of a wretched bitterness, and hugs her free arm around herself tightly below her bruised breasts; still feeling as though she might shatter apart at any moment, still incapable of wrapping her head around even the thought of processing what had just happened. She sways on her feet and another sob shakes out of her. She wants to curl into a tiny ball and cry until she is wrung out and empty; nothing left. Malfoy hisses through his teeth and then shakes his head, hollow-eyed and ashen beneath the blood smears.
"No. I wish it could be, but…no." Malfoy's eyes sweep her face anxiously as he reaches out and grips a bit of the shirt, tugging her gently around a corner, his eyes darting about - on the alert for others she supposes. He will try to protect her; Hermione knows that. She does. She believes him. He just can't protect her well enough. He keeps talking, perhaps trying to distract them both until they reach the relatively safety of his room. "There's - there's a bath, though. And it'll be safe, for now. You won't have to worry about being hur–"
"Don't, Malfoy," she interrupts him harshly, her voice clogged with tears. "Please don't."
"Then you have to move," he begs her, hand slide down to grip her finger tips and tug as she refuses to walk, her legs feeling stiff and numb, the insides of them traced disgusting with his cum. She can't seem to take another step; everything hurts and she is filthy and disgusting and violated and his hand is hot and sweaty around hers, and she wants to scream. She wants to just disappear. Cease to exist.
"I can't," she whispers to the floor, wiping blood-stained saliva from her lower lip. Malfoy makes a sound that is somehow frustrated, frightened, and urgent all at once, and pulls at her again, yanking Hermione a step or two down the hall. She feels stupidly like a horse, balking in sheer, stubborn terror and confusion.
"Please. Granger. You have to. Just keep it together. Just until we get to my room. But I can't…if we're seen and I'm being n-nice to you…I can't. They expect me to hurt you." Malfoy's voice wobbles and his fingers spasm around Hermione's; she looks up at him through her hair to see his features crumpling with revolted horror as he begs her to move. "I. I – I don't want to hurt you again," he begs her like a confession, and Hermione's stomach lurches at the pitiful desperation in his voice. She stares at him for a long, hard moment, her heart striking quick in her chest and his breath ragged little noises, his features written in desperation and blood. She takes a step, like a dam breaking, and Malfoy shudders out a sigh of relief, falling in beside her and just a little ahead, leading her as quickly as she will stumble.
"I'm sor–" he begins as they turn a corner, and he is shaking and shocky and his chin is trembling and his eyes are shining wet as he glances down at her – brimming with tears he blinks back and rimmed around red and swollen. She looks down at her bare feet padded limping on the cold stones.
"Malfoy." Hermione doesn't know if she can handle an apology, and she doesn't know if he can handle apologising. Besides, the small, small part of her brain that is still thinking clearly doesn't want him to apologise for doing what he had to do keep her alive. And that is a thought that threatens to rip her apart – she wants to be able to just hate him, the one who did this to her, and she can't because he was a victim too. It is all too much for her – for both of them.
"–ry…" Malfoy finishes anyway – as if he couldn't help himself, as if he had to say it for the sake of his sanity, and Hermione clenches her jaw, and bites back her hysteria and blind rage. It is not his fault, she tells herself, over and over. He is sorry because he didn't want to either, because he didn't want to hurt her; she understands that in her head, but it doesn't change how she feels. It didn't change how it felt. How…how everything is ruined and wrong and she feels filthy now, so filthy she'll never be clean again .How could she be? After that, after what he did. A woman swathed in an apron rounds a corner toward them, head down and scurrying, and Hermione shrinks back behind Malfoy in a pointless search for protection.
"It's just a servant," Malfoy mutters as the woman rushes past, but that doesn't ease Hermione's panicked breathing. She reaches out and clutches onto Malfoy's hand tightly, purposely digging her ragged nails into his palm hard enough to bruise, and he winces but doesn't say a word about it. "We're nearly there," is all he says, quiet and hoarse, as she follows close behind and beside him, her hand clinging in his. She doesn't answer, and they go the rest of the way through the corridors in a taut, strained silence, hands snugged hot and sweaty together, his shirt warm and wet with blood around her shoulders.
Hermione hits him, when the door to his bedroom swings shut behind them with a heavy click – Malfoy turns to face her with his mouth just opening to speak, and before he can say a word she slaps him in the face as hard as she can. She doesn't mean to, doesn't think about it…it just happens. Malfoy's head snaps to the side and he sucks in a sharp little breath and winces, but otherwise he is still. Her face crumples with rage – he raped her and she doesn't give a shit that he had no choice, he still did it, and – she…she is so angry and violated and ashamed. And if Hermione doesn't exorcise that pent up emotion she feels like she will tear her own skin off. So she slaps Malfoy again, harder, and he still does nothing in response and she screams wordlessly at him, fists bunched up in rage.
She slams both her fists into his chest, and Malfoy rocks on his feet, stumbling back into the door with a pained grunt – but still he does nothing to stop her, nothing to protect himself. Hermione stares up into his bloodied face, wanting to hiss expressions of hatred and loathing at him, wanting to so badly to blame him, to fling all her pain and hatred and rage at him. But the words die on her tongue, and her anger toward him withers to a hollow emptiness in a moment. Malfoy's eyes are bleak. She lets her fists fall limply to her sides and sucks in a breath, looking away from him because it hurts to see that he hurts too. She doesn't want to see that.
They stand there silently for a moment, awkward and hollow, and Hermione almost wants to apologise for hitting Malfoy but the words won't come. So she just stands – a clockwork toy that has wound down. She doesn't know what to do, so she does nothing at all. She is frozen by trauma and indecision, her brain numbed and lost, and heart hurting, and it is so, so awful.
"What do you need?" Malfoy breaks the silence at last, straightening and pushing away from the door. Her handprints still stand livid on his cheek. His eyes are dreadfully, horribly ashamed. "What do you want?" Hermione stares blindly at his bare, pale chest as she turns the questions around and around in her head. He gave her a choice. She has a choice. It feels nearly alien after having been given none this past week or more, but also so, so good. She loves him for giving it to her, instead of just assuming.
"A - a bath," she says in something that is nearly a whisper; cracked and unsure. "You said you...have a bath?"
"Yes. Yeah, I do. You...want one, then?" Malfoy asks stupid and just as uncertain as her, all wide, bleak grey eyes and face that is half masked by dried blood. She nods, her lips wobbling on an attempt to smile that fails miserably.
"Yes. Please."
"I should - a - a contraceptive charm, first," he gets out as though the words themselves are difficult to speak, and Hermione bites her tongue hard. She nods stiffly and lets him cast the charm, magic soaking into her skin as he flicks his wand and touches the tip to her abdomen. And then he moves - edging past her very cautiously as if to show he is not a threat - without a word, limping across the room. Hermione turns to watch him, tugging his shirt closed around her again and wincing at the pain as her bruised breasts jostle. He disappears through a door at the end of the room, and a moment later she hears the sound of water running. She hugs herself tightly and takes a faltering step forward, looking around Malfoy's room, trying to ignore the feel of the sticky residue between her thighs. Trying not to remember every detail of what the cum on her thighs is the result of, and partially succeeding. She focuses on her surroundings.
The room is large, but not exactly spacious considering what has been crowded into the suite. Curtained windows are set all down the wall to her right, the large four-poster bed against the left wall facing the windows. The floor is covered in large, antique carpets over the wood, the walls in silver and dark green striped wallpaper. There is a small breakfast table and two chairs down one end of the windows, and two small armchairs arranged to look out the windows over formal gardens, an end table between them. A desk stands against the wall directly at the right of the door into the room, and a large bookcase lies at the left of the door, with an armchair in the corner between the bookcase and the head of the bed. Directly opposite the door into the bedroom is the door into the bathroom, framed on either side by a chest of drawers. All the furniture is gleamingly polished dark wood, and the room itself has a sort of faded grandeur, like the rest of the house seems to.
If not for the lack of kitchenette it would be nearly like a Muggle studio apartment, Hermione thinks dully as she hobbles across it toward the bathroom.
Malfoy is bent over the basin as the bath runs beside him, scrubbing at his face and hands with a hand towel, distress crossing and twisting his features as the towel comes away dark brownish-red. He drops the hand towel and splashes water over his face, scraping at the dried blood of strangers' coating the left side of his face, using his nails to do it. Hermione stands in the doorway quietly and unnoticed as he does it, holding his shirt closed around her and leaning frail against the doorframe. He could use a scourgify to clean his face, she thinks, but instead he is scouring his skin until it is rubbed raw, bringing painful colour to his ashen complexion, a frantic urgency in his movements.
His face is mostly clean before the bath finishes filling, and he wrenches of the bath taps, and then the basin taps, swiping his face roughly one last time with a clean towel that he tosses to the floor. He sags forward and hangs his head, hands gripping the edge of the basin and breath coming in ragged gasps, naked shoulders heaving. He straightens to stare at himself in the mirror – miserable and hollow – the muscles in his back sliding beneath the skin as he moves, all shifting shadows and light-struck skin by the oil lamps burning smokeless at the walls. He stares at himself, and then his eyes catch on Hermione's figure reflected in the mirror, and he flinches with fright.
"Shit." He takes a shaky breath and turns to face her – but his eyes fix on the floor by her feet rather than her eyes. His hands flex and clench at his sides. "I didn't hear you come in," he stumbles out weakly.
"I-is the bath ready?" she asks, staring at the deep porcelain tub, filled near to the brim with clean water that the steam is coiling and wisping off like fog, or blurring ribbons of smoke. Her eyes are greedy on it, and it is all she can think of; to get this filth off her and try to feel clean again. Malfoy nods, awkward, and as if she is just a houseguest, shows her where all the necessities are, before awkwardly edging past her out the door. Hermione shuts it quietly behind him, leaning her forehead against the wood of the door for a moment and letting out a shudder of relief as the key turns in the lock with the sound of dull metal, the tumblers falling.
The water is scalding hot and that is what Hermione wants; even though it hurts in its own way, it feels cleansing. It reaches to her shoulders when she sits, cradling her as she sinks beneath it, drifting under with her hair trailing round her like seaweed. It is serene and peaceful under the heavy, comforting water, and she feels safe, warmth and calm suffusing her. It eases the pain, just a little. It is a reprieve, a soothing balm, a moment in a place of sanctuary, with her eyes shut and bubbles of air tickling out her nostrils, every inch of her surrounded by gentle, clean heat.
When she resurfaces for air, Hermione can hear a rough, faint sounds carrying in through the crack beneath the door on a cool draught from the bedroom. It takes a moment with her forehead furrowed to recognise the barely audible noise, and when she does her hands curl into fists and she feels cold for a moment despite the heat she soaks in. It is the sound of Malfoy crying, muffled and rough; hitching, dry, sobs. She listens for a moment, sitting motionless in the water, the tips of her bedraggled wet hair dragging in the water, an insistent stinging pain between her legs where the man who cries in the room outside hurt her, against both of their wills. She shuts her eyes.
She doesn't know what to feel.
Hermione runs the bath once again before she is done, because once she has cleaned herself – gingerly and with tears streaking her cheeks – and catalogued her many hurts, the water is tinted dirty reddish-grey. She rinses off in the shallower bath, relishing the fresh, hot water again, and wraps herself in a massive towel that hides the bruises quilted in patchwork over her torso and thighs, but the ones on her arms, face, tops of her breasts, and the rest of her legs are still painfully visible. She looks haggard, face swollen to the point where she is barely recognisable. She stares and stares, hair stringing around her face in dark tangles, and she can't find a connection to herself; she looks like a stranger in the mirror. A brutalised, hollowed out stranger. There is a bruise potion on the bathroom counter that she swallows, the taste bitter on her tongue.
There are no clothes to be found when Hermione automatically turns to put them on, and a little sob chokes out of her throat. Malfoy is sitting on the edge of his bed when she emerges, still in just his trousers – he needs to wash too, she supposes dully – his head sunk in his hands, fingers dragging at fistfuls of his own hair. He looks up when she clears her throat, and his hair is sticking up every which way, and there are tear tracks down his cheeks that he doesn't even try to hide. Her heart suddenly aches. He looks so young and so hurt, the stony mask he puts on in front of the other Death Eaters nowhere to be seen and self-loathing digging under his skin.
"Clothes," Malfoy says in a rasping, tear-stuffy voice before she can, as his eyes sweep over her and he realises. He gets up fast and starts digging through drawers, sniffing and wiping at his cheeks with the back of his wrist. He is raw and unhidden, completely without pretence, and it feels wrong to see him like this, but oddly comforting too. "Shit, I'm sorry."
She stares glazed and unfocused in his direction, numbness setting again as the heat of the bath evaporates off her. Her tone is dull and vague. "It's okay, Malfoy."
His fist slams against the front of the dresser with a bang that makes her gasp and flinch back. "No, no it's fucking not okay," he snarls and then catches himself when he sees her cringing out of the corner of his eye. His anger melts away. "It's not okay, Granger. Don't say it is. Please. That – that wasn't fucking okay."
He gives her a bundle of soft cotton that is a tee-shirt, and a pair of satin boxer shorts. "It's all I have that will fit you without needing to alter it." A pause, his eyes drawn to the bruised, rounded tops of her breasts above her towel. "Do you need me to heal anything? I – I'm not brilliant at healing magic, but I can try."
She nods; tossing the clothes he has given her on the bed beside them, and lets the towel drop. He wrenches in a breath and averts his eyes. "You've seen it before, Malfoy," she tells him, angry through split lips, and he hisses and shakes his head, still refusing to look. "You f-f-uck…ra-ra…hurt me, Malfoy. Now you're afraid to look at what you did? Everyone already saw me. Everyone, you included. There's no point in me trying to pretend any kind of modesty, or privacy, because I – I –"
"Don't," he tells her fiercely as he looks at her finally, but just her face, his gaze boring pale and sharp into hers. "Don't, Granger… I – don't do this…this…whatever the fuck it is. Please. It's not going to help anything. It's not…" He grabs the tee-shirt up off the bed, and very gently but firmly tugs it on over Hermione's head, nudging her shoulder with one hand and raising an eyebrow, encouraging her to put it the rest of the way on. She just stands there blinking, feeling so much that it overwhelms her; in shock and concussed and hurting, half catatonic. Malfoy helps her, like he is dressing a child, his jaw ratcheted tight and his eyes never lingering on anything but her face. And she lets him, his hands so gentle and his eyes so terribly sad, and she feels the tears rise and rise inside her chest.
She starts to cry halfway through his fumbling attempts at healing her hurts, as they sit on the edge of the bed and he traces his wand tip over the bite mark on her breast where he broke the skin trying to prove to the Death Eaters that he is still loyal. That he wants Hermione for reasons that they all approve of. He lets the tee-shirt fall back down to cover her, and turns away sharply as the tears leak from her in a rush. Her breath hitches in and out and her cheeks sheet with wetness, as she feels the utter, desperate misery of the moment. He plants his feet on the floor and leans forward, head burying in his hands, the lines of his body taut with a furious, shaking tension.
"I'm sorry." Malfoy's voice is muffled and wretched. Hermione stares down at her hands, knotting together in her lap, and swallows hard through her tears, which keep falling like rain. It is so stupid that the difference between his gentleness now and his cruelty then is the thing that makes her cry. It makes her angry, it makes her feel weak.
"I – good. You – you should be. But…" And it is hard to say but she wants to say it; it feels right. "But it isn't your fault."
"I'm still the one that did it," he says choked, and he is, and that does matter in its own way, but the r– what happened, wasn't his fault. Hermione tells him so again, in a small, cracked voice, and isn't sure that distinction means as much to him as it does to her.
It takes some time before she stops crying, and when she does Malfoy finishes healing her as best he can, his mouth a flat line and his eyes caught full with guilt. When he has finished he asks her if she wants anything else, and when she shakes her head mutely he tells her she can have the bed, if she wants to sleep. He will sleep in the armchair, or on the floor. She nods, pathetically grateful for somewhere comfortable and safe to sleep, and curls up under the covers of his huge bed, watching with slitted eyes as Malfoy disappears into the bathroom. The door swings shut, leaving the bedroom dimmed, the oil lamps burning low – a beam of brighter light sliding out from beneath the bathroom door.
There is silence for a long moment, and then Hermione stifles a squeak and jolts in fright as the sound of glass smashing echoes from the bathroom, followed by Malfoy swearing loudly. Another thud, the tinkling of shards of what she knows must be the mirror above the basin. More swearing, vicious and furious and impotent, and several more thuds. She makes herself smaller in the bed even though he knows that she is in no danger from him; instinctively cringing, making a ball, her eyes wide on his shadow blotting out part of the light streaming under the door, moving back and forth, pausing occasionally. He says something again, a slew of muffled words; she doesn't understand them, but she knows the tone, broken and angry.
Something thuds heavy back against the door, and then slides down – the light is blocked as it seems Malfoy sits slumped down against the door. She can picture him, whether she wants to or not. She hugs herself, smelling him on the soft tee-shirt, and it is not unpleasant as she had thought it might be, but makes her think of safety and an aching sadness at once. It is a long time before his shadow moves again, flickering out of sight before the long, stretched silence is broken by the rush of water into the porcelain bathtub.
Hermione lies there under the heavy blankets and listens to the sound of running water, her heart a crumpled little ball in her chest, her body aching like a pulse, throbbing and rushing.
"You are the one in control in here," Malfoy says calmly and slowly as he lays his wand down on the table, and takes a step back away from it. The morning sun is shining brightly through the net curtains, the drapes pulled wide open, and Hermione tries to enjoy the feel of it on her skin. The bruises and hurts from last night are already feeling better, but she is achy all over and the sun is nice. Soothing. She sits on the edge of the bed with her hands tangled in her lap and stares silently at Malfoy as he goes on. His eyes are ringed with dark circles, from bruising and sleeplessness both, and the shape of his jaw is distorted by swelling that hasn't dissipated entirely, his nose is bruised badly, the bruising sweeping down over each cheekbone.
"While we are alone, you have the power in the situation - do you understand? Not me. You. I will do anything you want. I will leave if you want, if you tell me to stay in the armchair or in the fucking corner or on my bed" - he waves at the makeshift bed he'd transfigured for himself - "all day, then I will. I will let you bind me if it helps you feel safer. You can do anything that won't compromise our safety." His eyes are clear and honest, as he backs away further from his wand, hands at his sides. There is a tender concern in his eyes that Hermione hates, because after last night - with her body sore and abraded from his violations - all she wants to do is hate him. Call him monster. Then, hesitantly and low, he adds: "And...and if you want to hurt me, then I won't hold it against you. You can - can do that too, if you want. You have every right to."
"Okay." Hermione takes up the wand feeling oddly calm and disconnected as she stares at him. She's allowed to hate him. She doesn't have to be thankful he saved her life. He raped her. She doesn't have to feeling fucking understanding toward him just because he regrets it, just because he didn't have a choice. He still fucking did it. "Would now be fine?" she asks, and her tone is acid and disbelieving. He can't mean for her to actually hurt him - it has to be a bluff, he must be merely pretending, to make her feel better, safer. But she's calling his bluff, because she doesn't care for lies, even well-intentioned ones. Only...instead of changing his mind and telling her no, Malfoy swallows hard but nods once, tight and scared. His voice is barely audible; a whisper of frightened sound:
"Y-yes."
Hermione stares at him in shock. Yes? She knows he's a good liar, but she's certain he's not lying now; he would gain nothing from it, and he hasn't lied to her yet, not really. He swallows again, throat clicking dryly, and she believes him. And...is it wrong that she enjoys the sight of fear in his eyes as he looks at her? She shifts her grip on his wand, getting a sense for it. It's warm and feels friendly - pliable and cooperative, and she thinks that it shouldn't work too terribly in her hands. She tries a lumos, and it sputters, and then flares, before collapsing entirely, but she thinks it will be serviceable for her purposes.
"Get on your knees then," she tells him, and again Malfoy nods once, and obeys. He sinks to his knees several feet away from her, eyes pale and soft on hers, features smooth and unreadable. He violated her. Used her and hurt her and tore her apart and nothing can ever be the same again. "Crucio!" she snarls, meaning it as much as she can, and Malfoy jerks with a sound of pain and doubles forward, crumpling like a broken toy. "Crucio!" He twists on the floor, hunched in a ball, fingers scrabbling at the wood as an animal whining emits from his throat. He tips to one side and his back arches as she spits the curse again, feeling oddly numb. As though she is watching someone else do this to him. Hermione Granger doesn't use Unforgivables, only - only she is.
Malfoy's face is red and contorted with the pain surging through him, jaw clenched tight, so that the sounds of pain grate between his teeth, and his tendons and veins are standing out in ropes on his throat and at his temples. He whines again, helpless and hurting on the floor, and oh. Oh. What is she doing? It's wrong, and horrible, and she is so much better than this. Hermione drops the wand to the carpet and backs away, hugging herself tightly and retreating until her legs hit the bed. She sits down abruptly, staring at him with big, frightened eyes as he struggles up onto all fours, and then his feet. Malfoy sways slightly, and balances himself with a hand on the table, making no move to pick up his wand.
"Granger." His voice is a rasp. "Granger? Are you - you okay?" Hermione just stares at him. How can he ask her that? Firstly, it's he who was just hurt by her, and secondly no, of course she's not fucking okay. She shakes her head, and he stumbles for a chair and all but falls into it, hands trembling from the Cruciatus. "I'm sorry," he tells her, heavy with emotion. "I'm so fucking sorry and it'll never be enough or mean anything or change anything, but I am. I wish…but - it was - it was the only way."
"I know that," she mumbles, pressing her thumbnail into the back of her other hand as hard as she can and watching it dent deep, pain radiating almost pleasantly. "But it doesn't change things. And hurting you won't make me feel better." And then she hobbles forward as fast as she can, snatching up his wand and retreating with it, to the overstuffed armchair that crouches in the dark corner by the bed. She curls up on it, knees to her chest and arms wrapped around her legs, face buried in the hollow between legs and body. His wand, she holds tight in her right hand. She waits, for him to say something else, but he doesn't. There's only silence beating against her ears, until her soft, muffled weeping chases it away.
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