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 Six

A vanishing charm makes short work of Hermione's vomit, but can't repair the shattered moment that had been building between them. Malfoy's mood turns to snorting laughter and concern for Hermione all muddled together, too drunk for awkwardness at what they had nearly done. Hermione doesn't feel as drunk now though, and with the sour taste of vomit sharp in her mouth she regains enough sense to be horrified by what they nearly did. Fear thrums in her like a pulse as she vanishes the vomit – she should not have…they should not have…Merlin, how could she have? How could she have felt like it was all right to do that? To touch Malfoy that way, after everything that had happened between them?

And worst of all, why had she wanted to?

Hermione's hands tremble as she slides off the freshly cleaned bed, careful not to jostle Malfoy, laying his wand on the bedside table with a clumsy clatter. She still feels drunk, and stupid with it, but so much clearer than she did a moment ago. Malfoy stares at her with unguarded curiosity, sinking to his side on the bed and wincing at the pain. "Granger?" She covers her mouth with her hand and breathes, feeling filthy and wrong and perverted. How is it that she could look at Malfoy and want him? How can she see him that way after…after…? He - he has been kind to her, yes, but to want him? Like that? What is wrong with her?

"Granger, you with me?" He sounds worried and his tone gets sharp, and Hermione pauses in her unconscious backward shuffle and shoots him a wide-eyed look. Panic scratches beneath the surface of her mind like claws. "Granger, are you okay?"

"Don't touch me," Hermione says on a gasp, shaking and breathless, and Malfoy's brow furrows in confusion. Her hand slips to the base of her throat, her short fingernails dig hard into the flesh over her collarbone, the sharp points of pain a relief. "Don't ever touch me like that," she tells him in a sharp quaver, her chest tight and heart pounding too fast against her ribs. "Never again, un-unless we have to because of – because of Him." Hurt blooms dark in Malfoy's eyes, and his mouth twitches, hardens, and then his features smooth to something as close to neutrality as he can probably manage, drunk and injured.

"Granger, Granger, I didn't…it was you," he says cautious and bewildered from the bed, nearly apologetic, and Hermione huffs a tearful breath because he's right damn him, and she feels like an idiot. "But I won't," he goes on, lying on his side in trousers and bandaging, pushing himself back up with an elbow and a stifled whimper, his eyes fixed to her as he speaks. The steady care in those grey eyes makes Hermione feel warm and safe despite herself, and that makes her feel sick to her stomach. He picks his words carefully, only sounding faintly drunk. "I won't ever touch you like that without your permission when we're alone. I swear, Granger. Do you understand? You're in control in here, when it's just us, not me, okay? You know that, don't you?"

Hermione stares at Malfoy mistrustfully for a long moment, searching his face for any hint of a lie, and finding none. Some of the sick tension in her stomach unknots as she nods slowly. "What about when it's not just us?" Her voice is little more than a whisper. Malfoy sinks slowly back to the bed, on his side so that his wounded back doesn't press to the blankets, his face stark and bleak.

"Then neither of us is in control."

All Hermione wants to do after that is curl up in her armchair and try to seek some dreamless peace for a few hours, but in the end she doesn't sleep at all, because Malfoy can't. As the hours stretch on and he begins to sober up more, the pain from the flogging settles in deep and the numbing charms are not enough to keep it at bay. His back is ribbons of flesh beneath the bandages after all. Of course it hurts. The agony must be all but unbearable, and yet Malfoy bears it nearly silently, with bitten lips and pillow-muffled whimpers. The alcohol haze wears off much too fast for both of them, and Hermione finds herself sober and exhausted as dawn creeps ever nearer, her head throbbing and groggy and swirling with thoughts she doesn't want to think.

The hours drag and Malfoy suffers, and Hermione tries to help, with numbing charms and cool cloths, and soothing words when he becomes nearly incoherent with the pain and his exhaustion. And it's awful to feel this way when it's at Malfoy's expense, but Hermione has to admit it feels good to be useful. It feels like taking back a part of herself to be able to do something, to have a purpose even if she can't actually help him that much. She feels more like herself than she has in weeks, despite her unease over what had nearly happened between her and Malfoy. Hermione tells herself that it's the fact that Malfoy is the only thing keeping her from a slow death by torture that makes her feel like this – just gratitude and proximity and fear. Nothing else.

The next day arrives as Hermione reassures a feverish, pained Malfoy that everything is going to be okay in tired murmurs, and sponges his face and torso and arms. And she tells herself that isn't needy gratitude and affection in his pain-dazed eyes, tells herself that the way he looks at her doesn't create an uncomfortable tingling sense of warmth in her stomach. She's imagining it. Food and drink are brought at intervals by a house elf who won't stay and speak to Hermione, as she tends Malfoy through the long hours of the day. There's no one else to do it, and she likes to be useful. She helps him sit up and firmly coaxes him into eating the soup, makes him drink plenty of hot tea, helps him hobble to the bathroom, and changes the bandages when they start weeping through to the sheets. Malfoy thanks her for these things in a croaking whisper, pain crinkling his face, and she does all she can for him; happily, losing her fear for herself somewhere inside her worry for him.

When the dawn of the third day of this constant care finally blushes through the cracks in the curtains, Hermione is sitting curled up in the armchair she's claimed for her own, eyes bleary and head muzzy. She's sticky with sweat, and her hair is limp and damp, half falling out of a messy plait secured by a cotton tie that she scavenged from a pair of Malfoy's pyjama trousers the other day. Malfoy has recently slipped into the restless doze he spends most of his time in, but Hermione is afraid to let herself sleep, needing to be as alert as possible. Too scared to let her heavy eyes close in case he needs her, or a Death Eater tries to get in. She falls asleep anyway, nodding off with the morning sun warm on her legs, to the rasping sound of Malfoy's breathing.

There is a rug heavy and warm over Hermione when she jerks out of a morass of uneasy dreams that border on nightmares, her heart pounding. She throws the rug back and looks around sharply for Malfoy – the bed is empty, blankets rumpled, and she scrambles up with a lance of fear. Where…? Was he taken? Has he–? Her mind races with half-formed thoughts of dread.

"Malfoy?"

"You're awake." Malfoy's voice is hoarse but welcome to Hermione's ears, and her eyes follow the sound of his voice and fall on him. He sits at his desk looking over his shoulder at her. Shirtless in the streaks of morning light coming through the gaps in the curtains, the bandages that wind around his torso blooming dark brownish-red and pale yellow in places where the blood and weeping fluids have seeped right through the layers of gauze. There are dark bruised hollows under Malfoy's eyes, and his complexion is ashen; he looks dreadful, his state highlighted by the beam of morning sun cutting over him.

"You should be in bed," Hermione says as she picks up the crocheted rug that Malfoy must have covered her with, and drapes it neatly over the back of the armchair. She pushes a messy fall of hair off her face, and knuckles at her eyes, speaking through a yawn. "You still need to rest."

"I know. Believe me, Granger, I know. But I didn't expect to get that luxury for long – and as expected, I haven't." Malfoy dips his quill into an inkpot and resumes his scratchings over the parchment. There is none of the vulnerability she had seen over the past few days visible in him now; he is cold and hard, all bleak determination. His wounded shoulders are hunched, like a barricade against the world, and she can see pain in the way he's keeping very still. Hermione twists her hands together uncertainly and shuffles nearer to him, dread growing inside her, dark and slimy.

"Why?" Hermione almost doesn't want to know. Malfoy's mouth thins as he looks up at her, standing at the corner of his desk nervously.

"He's – he's ordered me to bring you to dinner tonight," he says with his face forced into careful blankness, and slides a piece of parchment over the desk to her, his fingers shaking a little. Hermione is suddenly shaking too now, breaking out into a sweat, frozen and heavy with sick terror. She plucks up the parchment numbly, unfolding it as he goes on. "Not a revel – thank Merlin for small mercies. It's a formal dinner to show off to some Dark Wizards from the Americas, whom the Dark Lord is…wooing. He'll acquire either their loyalty, or their heads," Draco finishes, hissing through his teeth with discomfort as he shifts in his seat, meeting Hermione's horrified gaze briefly, before she lowers it to scan the creased parchment.

Malfoy,

You shall attend dinner tonight, at the Dark Lord's request. Bring the Mudblood slave in the garments you were sent for it; the Dark Lord's guests wish to see it displayed, and he wishes to see a demonstration of your renewed obedience. Dinner will be at 8pm.

R Lestrange

The parchment crumples in Hermione's hand as she gasps for breath that suddenly won't come. The crumpled paper falls from her hand, and she takes a staggering step back, choking on the words she'd read. It was to be expected – she couldn't have expected to stay safely hidden, especially after Voldemort had flogged Malfoy for keeping her away, but she had hoped. She had hoped despite all good sense that this wouldn't happen. She couldn't…she just couldn't…

"He wants you in attendance to –"

"I read it. I read… I – shit." Hermione backs further away, wrenching desperately for breath, chest caught in a vice and lungs screaming for air. Despite her whooping gasps she can't seem to breathe, and dizzy panic seizes her as she clutches at the corner of Malfoy's desk for balance. The room is spinning and swaying and spots dance in front of her eyes, and she knows without a doubt she's about to faint. It seems so stupid, she thinks dazedly; collapsing into graceless heap on the floor, how embarrassing. Her fingers dig into the desk and she makes an inarticulate sound, and there is movement and hands grab her upper arms, steadying and grounding her.

"Granger. Granger, breathe. Slow and steady. Okay?" She blinks up at Malfoy, hovering over her as he steadies her firmly, his expression concerned and pained. "In," – he breathes in very slowly – "And out," – he lets the breath out on a whoosh that gusts warm over Hermione's forehead and suffuses her with the scent of toothpaste and sweet tea. "In," – and this time she tries to breath with Malfoy – "And out," he says very softly, his thumb brushing a lock of hair back from her temple, his face gentle. Hermione shuts her eyes and her hands come up fast and shaky, curling her fingers tightly around his forearms by his elbows, and for long minutes they just hold onto each other and breathe.

Bring the Mudblood slave – Mudblood slave, Mudblood slave – in the garments you were sent for it. It. It. She is an 'it' now, Hermione thinks as the words thud in her head like a perverted pulse. Mudblood slave – it – displayed – she thinks over and over and over like a death sentence as she clings to Malfoy, his breath sweet on her face and his hands firm and careful on her upper arms, fingers brand-hot against her clammy skin.

It takes her only a few minutes to wrench herself out of her seething panic, and back from Malfoy's touch. She bites down on the instinctive urge to lash out and say, don't touch me! I told you not to touch me! Because it wasn't his fault. He was only stopping her from falling. It's not his fault she feels like this, she tells herself, and it helps just the smallest bit.

"You need your bandages changed," she says abruptly instead of lashing out in frightened panic, and he silently conveys confusion at the whiplash switch in topic. His tone when he finally speaks is just as bewildered as his expression.

"Granger, I think we need to talk about th–"

"It helps to focus on something else," she tells him sharp and embarrassed as she straightens her clothing and smoothes her hair, avoiding Malfoy's eyes. "I just…need a moment, all right? Just give me a goddamn moment." The last comes out in a snarl. He snaps his mouth shut on whatever protests he had been going to make, and reaches across to his desk, silently scooping up his wand and handing it to her without a word. No nagging or sympathy, just doing as she needs. It's strange, Hermione thinks still dizzy from her panic attack, how they are starting to fall into an awkward kind of harmony; of knowing just how far to push, and when to be there silently supportive, and when to retreat, and when to give and take, and…Merlin, it seems so unlikely but they actually get along well, considering the situation.

So Hermione takes the wand. Takes it and directs Malfoy silently to sit down on the bed, and with supplies in hand folds herself up behind him on her knees, fingers working at his bandage fastenings nimbly. She changes his bandages with sure, efficient movements that speak of too much practice. His skin is scabbing and wounded under her gentle fingers, little moans of pain bursting stifled from his lips as she carefully soaks and peels the bandages away. When she has finally finished unwinding his torso, she places her hand on the ball of his shoulder and squeezes softly, automatic and easy. "All done unwrapping," she says lightly, surveying the damage and internally flinching from the gruesome brutality of it. His back will never be the same again without extensive treatment from professional specialist Healers; the once smooth, pale expanse of skin is now terribly marred. A quilt of ugly scabbing is developing over the deep, vivid weals that had gone down to the spare fat and muscle beneath his flesh. She wonders whether Malfoy cares about the massive amount of scarring. She would care, but Malfoy hasn't mentioned the aesthetic damage, hasn't asked once how it looks.

"How's it healing? Any – any infection?" he asks her instead, rough and breathless as he deals with the pain, head dropping forward, and Hermione sees his hands clench hard at the sheets at the edge of the bed. The tension ripples up him; his bare arms flexing with wiry muscle beneath the surface, shoulders shifting and hunching, provoking a sharp, inarticulate sound of pain from him.

"Careful," she says, hand sliding off his tensed shoulder, a touch that is nearly a caress. She frowns at the scabbing wounds that lace down Malfoy's back, sinking gratefully into the cool sense of distance and disassociation that playing Healer grants her. Hermione sees no angry hints of red, inflamed skin, no discoloured pus, or swelling. She dances her fingers down Malfoy's sides as she examines him, leaving a trail of goosebumps in the wake of her touch. He shivers and seems to press needily back into the brush of her fingertips, seeking a firmer and less-ticklish touch, perhaps. She pulls her hands back from him, fingertips tingling pleasantly.

"Granger?"

"It's healing," Hermione tells him helplessly, shrugging and wishing that there was more she could do for him than keeping the wounds clean and covered. "No sign of infection, so far, and it's all scabbing over well. It'll take some time before they stop causing you pain though, I'm afraid. I'll have to keep using numbing charms, but the bandages likely will be able to come off soon. We need to let the wounds breathe eventually." Hermione skims a finger feather-light down a thick ridge of heavy scabbing, and Malfoy doesn't even seem to feel it. She can relate; she can't seem to feel anything either. She sits silent behind Malfoy, waiting uncertain and purposeless, her hands feeling empty, refusing to let herself dwell on the horror that looms ahead of her.

She stares down at her hands in her lap, folded limply together.

"Tomorrow," Malfoy says, and her eyes snap up to meet his with a feeling of relief. He's looking over his shoulder, expression unreadable. "We can think about that tomorrow." Gratitude swells warm inside her chest as Hermione slowly winds clean bandages back around Malfoy's torso. Her hands are extra-cautious and gentle, and his chest rises and falls evenly with his every slow breath.

The scarlet box sits on the table, elegant and evil, and Hermione can't tear her eyes from it. She feels sick. Malfoy sits across the table from her, swathed in his fresh bandaging, buttoning up a crisp, pale grey shirt. He's staring at the box too, face bleak and hard. It's seven pm and they can't leave this conversation any longer; dinner is ticking ever closer, and with each second that passes it feels like the invisible weight on Hermione's chest grows heavier. Her palms are clammy with nervous sweat, as are her underarms, and the back of her neck. She wants to drown under the cool cleanse of water, drifting into blackness and nothing more. But instead all she has is sick heat.

"Granger," Malfoy begins reluctantly, just as Hermione speaks.

"Idon'twantto," she blurts out in a whispered rush, wringing her hands together in her lap as her gaze stays glued to the box. "Malfoy. Malfoy, I can't," she begs miserably. Save a twitch at his lips, Malfoy appears unmoved by her refusal, merely accepting it with a calm nod. He does up the second to last button on his shirt, leaving the collar open, and then locks eyes with her.

"I won't force you to do anything, Granger. But you have to realise, the Dark Lord will. If we don't go down to dinner as ordered, we will be dragged down, and we will be punished." He is white as a sheet, but doesn't cringe from the words. He was flogged because of her, Hermione thinks as Malfoy fiddles with the cuffs of his shirt. He was flayed open to protect her, because she wouldn't do as Voldemort ordered. And if they disobey again, both of them will suffer. And it seems pointless and useless and masochistic (and terrifying,) and Hermione looks at Malfoy and knows he cannot cope with any more punishment. Merlin, she can't, she thinks as she struggles for air, feeling stifled and suffocated, pressed in upon.

"There's not really much choice is there?" she says aloud, in a very small voice, and Malfoy sighs and shakes his head, defeated.

"No."

They stare at each other grimly across the table, and then Hermione reaches out and takes the lid off the scarlet box.

It is dim in the cavernous dining hall, the long table lit by flickering candles set at intervals down the centre runner. The seats around the ornate table are nearly all filled by a variety of witches and wizards, the only commonality between them the aura of malice and cruelty that radiates from every single one. And at the very end of the table, a lipless smile twisting his inhuman face, sits Voldemort. Hermione shudders and flinches at the sight of him, terror wrenching through her like a physical force.

The Dark Lord inclines his head as Malfoy steps across the threshold, well-tailored black dress robes showing just the collar and cuffs of his pale grey silk shirt, and the bottom half-inch of his charcoal-grey trousers. Malfoy has looked cold and blank, since they left his suite; pale grey eyes flat and unreadable, mouth a neutral full-lipped line that contrasts with the sharp angles of his face and his high brow, platinum blond hair swept back with not a lock out of place. He is undeniably handsome, Hermione thinks, but now in front of Voldemort, his handsomeness is in the same manner that a statue is – the vivid sense of the artist's feeling istrapped forever inside cold, inert stone, only coming to life in the viewer's imagination. Hermione's imagination only leads her to dark places, now, as it tries to now, staring up at Malfoy's cold expression.

He looks like a stranger. Like a Death Eater.

But she knows what he is like, really. She knows and she clings to that truth as she tries not to drown in the lie he has smoothed over his face now. Hermione knows.

Earlier

She steps out of the bathroom feeling more naked than if she were naked, barely resisting the urge to cover herself with her hands. What is the point? Malfoy has seen all of her already, had all of her. He tore her open and although he refuses to admit it – to salve his conscience in denial – there is no way she can be put back together the same way again. He has tried to pretend that they can play at some kind of normality, but Hermione has always known better. There is no reason to hide herself. He has seen everything.

The bathroom door finally swings to a close behind her, and Malfoy's head snaps up at the click, and he sees her there. She is dressed in the slave's finery that Voldemort gifted Malfoy to dress her in, with her hair tamed to tumble in curls over her shoulders, and her face painted as she would never bother to do so herself, with reddened lips and dark-smudged eyes and eyelashes long and curling with mascara. Hermione feels like what Voldemort would have her be; a prettied up doll, to be used by those who own her.

"Well?" Hermione means to be sharp and harsh, defiant, but instead it comes out in a cracked whisper, and her cheeks blaze hot. Malfoy is staring at her. Staring with wide grey eyes as he stands jerkily at the table, his hands flexing at his sides, staring at her as though he cannot look away for all that he seems to want to hide his eyes, his cheeks staining just as red as hers feel.

"You lo–" he begins and then breaks off, slamming his lips tightly together and drawing in a long breath, nostrils flaring. Hermione thinks she knows what he was going to blurt out, and it makes her skin feel too tight and a strange muddle of fury and warmth churn in her stomach until she thinks she will vomit. She is glad he caught himself. Malfoy swallows hard, finally tearing his gaze from her and staring fixed at the floor, hands jittering to adjust the front of his robes. Hermione shivers in her skin. This is so wrong. It is defilement of both of them, and everything in her rages and protests at that, even as it works, making her feel dirtied and used.

She moves toward the bed with awkward, faltering steps, the peach-coloured g-string silk knickers she wears making walking feel uncomfortable and strange – she has always hated that style of underwear and longs to tear them off – and the unlaced under bust corset shifting and rubbing at her pelvic bones. She looks over to Malfoy and he is silent, eyes on the floor and fists clenched so hard that she can see his knuckles are white as she reaches out and takes hold of a bedpost.

"Malfoy?"

His head jerks up, and Hermione watches him over her shoulder as his lips fall apart and his breath sucks in at the sight of her there – gripping the bedpost with legs apart, only in a g-string and that unlaced corset, waiting for him. There is shame and want in Malfoy's eyes, and Hermione feels she should recoil from that want but there is something fizzing in her stomach in response to his reaction to her that she can't deny, stripped naked of dignity and pretence as she is. It makes her feel dirty, but she responds to his lust anyway, on an instinctual, needy level that makes her feel just as ashamed as he clearly does. They shouldn't be ashamed – Hermione knows this.

There is nothing wrong in wanting Malfoy, nothing wrong in him wanting her. That is biology, that is unavoidable, natural. There should be no shame in feelings, only actions. Wanting each other, Hermione thinks dazedly as her fingers tighten on the bedpost and their gazes brush together like a caress that sends electricity down her spine, is a result of their situation. The way it is tangling and binding them up emotionally, in a way that sometimes seems inextricable, that sometimes she thinks she should resist and spurn and sometimes just wants to embrace. She licks her lips, and looks away.

"Will you lace me?"

Malfoy's hands shake as he draws the laces of her corset tight with firm yanks that slam the air from her lungs. Hermione clings to the bedpost, a raw, abused nerve, that he is flaying open – unwilling, unintentional, but still.

"It's too tight, Granger," he protests shakily, worried, and she shakes her head, knowing it should be tighter, and wanting on a whim – perversely – to punish him. And if Hermione can use this to do so, then she will.

"Harder," she tells him in a whisper, and Malfoy complies with a wobbling huff of breath that whispers warm on her neck and shoulders, and he stands so close at times that she can feel the heat radiating off his body, his fingers fumbling against her skin and the corset. She shivers under his touch and he stills.

"Are you all right?"

"…no," she says, a breathless sound that is more whimper than answer. "No." And then Hermione turns, corset laces dangling, and presses her back to the bedpost. Malfoy's eyes are wide grey and brimming with so much feeling that she could cry, that it is impossible to hate him even if she wanted to, that it is too easy to want this despite how unwise her mind says it is. She reaches her hands up to cup Malfoy's face as he stands there still, eyes fixed unblinking to hers, the faint rasp of stubble tickling her palms and her fingers. And then Hermione draws Malfoy's face down to hers – he moves with her easily – and she presses her lips gently to his, her heart shaking and straining in her chest like it will burst. Malfoy's lips are warm and dry and soft as flower petals, and as she pushes against them with her own red-painted lips, they part on a needy groan as though something has broken utterly in him.

"Mmph," Malfoy says inarticulately as he bends into the kiss and deepens it, and his right hand comes up to grasp her waist hard, his left tangling in her hair as his lips catch her lower one between them, sucking, nibbling, tormenting. A dart of electric-hot arousal darts through Hermione's abdomen and sends hard pulses of need quaking through her, and she makes her own inarticulate, muffled sound into his mouth, her fingers sliding down from his face to curl desperately into the rough silk of his shirt at the shoulders. She is breathless and dizzy, head spinning, and she doesn't know if it is because of the corset, or because of his kiss. She moves her mouth searchingly against Malfoy's, experimenting hedonistically, insistently. Her lips push and press against his, and he makes needy little huffs of noise into her mouth, and their tongues graze and seek delicately and then sloppy-urgent and titillating, and it is so strange that something so odd can feel so desperately, urgently good.

"…oh," Hermione says with gasping wonder as they pull apart for a second, her bones melting under her skin and her clitoris aching and throbbing for the touch of his fingers, and then: "…oh…ngggh – mmph," when Malfoy claims her mouth again. He is vibrating with tension under her hands, pressing her into the bedpost and ravishing her, mouth plundering hers thoroughly as she moans and quakes and arches up against him, his arm hooked fully around her waist now, pinning her close but she wants to be closer. She wants to strip naked and crawl inside his skin. She feels him hard against her and it makes her want to push her hips out and grind herself against the length of him, to make him groan again like he had before, as though she had snapped all his strings, to turn his uneven drags for air even wilder, harsher, to make him kiss her all over and rut against her.

Hermione wants to make Malfoy lose all semblance of control, and lose her own along with him. She thinks she may have achieved the latter already.

Her breasts are crushed between them, pushed up by the corset but not contained, naked, bare, her nipples hard as they rub against the rough silk of his shirt. She thinks with a heady, thoughtless lust, that she needs his mouth over them. Hot, wet sucking and licking at her nipples as his hands cup around the weight of her breasts, his thumb teasing over whichever nipple he isn't laving with his tongue. Merlin, she wants that. Hermione hooks her leg around Malfoy's hips, and thrusts shamelessly out against the hard bulge of his dick through his trousers, her face turning up to his like a flower to the sun, her tongue sliding over his and thrills wracking and wrecking her completely as she clutches to him.

She embraces this madness for what it is, and wants everything.

And then three things happen at once; Hermione attempts to push Malfoy's head down to her breasts with urgent need and no finesse or grace, an insistent sound chimes repeatedly from Malfoy's wand, and Malfoy stumbles back from her with an odd look crumpling his face. His eyes are shining and his pupils are blown wide, his lips dampened and kiss-swollen, reddened by her lipstick and the rush of blood. He blinks dazedly, and horror takes his eyes as the lust begins to retreat from his mind.

"I shouldn't have – shit – that's…my alarm – we need to go. Granger, I…"

"Malfoy, I–"

"I shouldn't have done that," he says again, firmer this time. "And we need to go." His face loses its flush as he says this, and the dazed, heady lust leaches from his features, leaving him cold and hard and drained.

"But – but I wanted to," she protests, voice small as her own arousal is slapped down by the coldness on Malfoy's face and reality sets in, but she is still certain. Because it's the truth. "I wanted to. I w-want…""But she can't say it now, with the moment gone and Malfoy looking at her like that, and the things she wears and the ordeal that awaits her. She chokes back a sob, stuffing her fist against her mouth and biting at her knuckles for the distraction of pain.

"You can't know what you want. You can't – this – I'm all you have and I want y– I want…fuck." Malfoy's face clouds with anger, crumples and twists with a rage that Hermione can see as clear as day is directed at himself, and not her. She shrinks from it anyway. He takes a stumbling step back from her, fists clenching, and he looks like he wants to hit something. "Of course you – because I'm protecting you and – and we're stuck together – and... We are not in a situation where this is okay," he grates out at last, raking his fingers rough through his hair and turning to pacing shortly in front of her, back and forth with jerky, furious steps. "I own you, whether I like it or fucking not, and if we, if I…then I'm taking advantage of you, Granger. He forced me to…do that, and he might again, he might tonight for all we know, and – fuck. I'm not going to bloody well do it to you of my own accord too. Not even if you think you want it. Right now, you don't have the freedom to say no to me, so how the fuck can I trust that you really mean yes?"

Hermione stares at him, half-frightened, feeling like a child compared to him, feeling stupid and lost and like she wants to say 'no, that's not it at all!' but she doesn't know that does she? and when she opens her mouth, what comes out without thought – horrifyingly – is: "But, well, if we're already…you know, then it wouldn't…be…rape. Would it."

From the look of him – the way his already pale face blanches utterly ashen-grey, and he just stares at her – Hermione suspects she has babbled something terrible.

"That's why? That's…?" he stumbles out, devastated and horrified and hurt, looking at her as though he is begging her to take the words back even as he knows they can't be.

"No! No, I just…I don't know why I said that. I didn't mean it!" Hermione rushes out even though she does know why in retrospect – because she thought it would convince him it was okay, that they should, and god wasn't she incredibly, unbelievably wrong? "Malfoy, please?" It's like a knife twisting in her belly as the words come out and he stares at her with that horrified hurt, and she realises absently how sick this would look to an outsider. She is begging the man who was made to rape her to have sex with her, despite his own protests that it would be wrong, and she must look so utterly pathetic and fucked up. She can't even accept his rejection with dignity. What is wrong with her? What–?

Hermione snaps her mouth shut and curses her lack of poker face as Malfoy's eyes cast over her expression and dull with comprehension, seeing the shame in her eyes and not quite interpreting right. He sees regret and shame for what she did, but she doesn't regret kissing him, just everything that has come after.

"I'm sorry," Malfoy says before she can even think how to explain, lost and helpless as he looks for some kind of absolution in her face that he refuses to realise he doesn't need, that if this current awkward moment is anyone's fault it is hers, or Voldemort's, but in this case, not Malfoy's. "I'm so fucking sorry."

"I'm not." Hermione lifts her chin, forcing herself to stare him down unwaveringly. It's harder than she thought. "Nothing else about any of this horrible, messed up situation is okay – so why should this be?"

"...what?" He furrows his brow; confused, blank.

"Why would you expect this – this to work normally when everything else is mad and awful and hell?" she demands of Malfoy furiously, frustration thrumming in her chest and he gives her a sad smile that makes her want to kick and scream and claw at him until she collapses of exhaustion.

"You don't deserve any of this, Granger," he says to her very gently, and then crosses the distance between them with two quick steps to her, cupping her face in his large, thin, warm hands. His bones press to hers and her eyes flutter shut, and then a breath she didn't know she was holding gusts softly out of her as his lips press to her forehead. It is a benediction, an apology, a comfort – so much more than mere lust, and for just a moment Hermione relaxes and forgets, as Malfoy's words wash over her, soothing and calm. "You deserve so much better than this."

And then he shifts away, and there is only silence hanging still and heavy between them as they ready themselves for whatever awaits them downstairs.

And Hermione thinks that it doesn't matter what any of them might deserve. Because that isn't the way the world works.

"My Lord," Malfoy says humbly, with a deep and elegant bow that shows none of the pain and stiffness Hermione knows he feels in his wounded back. The Dark Lord doesn't reply immediately – first his eyes slide down to rest voracious on Hermione, his lipless smile blossoming to a grin that exposes more of his cavernous, ugly mouth. His tongue flickers mockingly out, as though he is titillated, as though he is tasting her fear, as though he is enjoying the sight of her like this. Hermione has no doubt he feels all three. She looks down at the floor, her cheeks blazing red with humiliation and her skin clammy with fear-sweat as she tries to shrink behind Malfoy, seeking a pathetic illusion of safety.

"My dear Draco," Voldemort croons with affection then, all false-faced and cruel. "We are glad to see you are feeling well enough to grace us with your presence, aren't we, Nagini?" The snake slithers up out of the shadows beside Voldemort's chair, coiling around it, its head resting on Voldemort's shoulder as it hisses. Hermione's knees hurt, grinding into the hard floor, abraded and bruising from the abuse they have suffered on the long crawl from Malfoy's suite. "I am relieved that you have seen the folly of your earlier…selfishness, and disobedience, and that another punishment shall not be necessary. I know you want to keep the whore to yourself, Draco, but it isn't polite not to share."

Hermione's blood runs cold as the words echo and rebound in her head. Share. Shareshareshare ohdearMerlinepleaseno. She shuts her eyes, unwilling – unable – to look at the people who it seems she may be shared with. She clings to the shred of stupid hope that when Voldemort speaks of sharing, he means at a revel and not tonight, but she knows full well it is a foolish hope. Malfoy swallows hard. "Of course, my Lord – what is mine is yours to do with as you wish, just as I am yours to command as you wish." His voice is perfectly even as he goes on, and the sincerity in his tone and manner would fool even Hermione: "Thank you for punishing me. Thank you for forgiving me." The gratitude in Malfoy's voice is sickening, horrifying, even despite that Hermione knows it is just an excellent sham. "I am not worthy to serve you, my Lord." He bows his head again, a study in humble devotion.

"Ah, but there is hope you may become worthy yet, Draco," Voldemort says, and Hermione cracks her eyes open just enough to see he is still smiling, but now Hermione thinks he means the expression to be gentle and reassuring. It isn't. "You have certainly been treating your slave as befits a Death Eater, if her obedience is any indication. It seems as though you have broken her quite well."

"She is proving to be most satisfactory, my Lord. And it has been a pleasure to teach her that she belongs to me, body and soul," Malfoy says with the terrifying sincerity he can affect, which tries to shake Hermione's belief in him and comes too close to succeeding. His voice drips with venom and cruelty and a sadistic enjoyment, and Hermione cringes and leans into his leg, ducking her head to press her cheek hard to the side of his knee, trying to appear cowed – and genuinely trying to ground herself in the midst of this horror that has only just begun. Malfoy reaches down in response and curls his fingers around the base of her neck, and soothes it down over her upper back as though she is a dog. "Good bitch," he murmurs distractedly as he pets her, and his touch is humiliatingly comforting, and – and he cannot be the man she kissed earlier. He can't but he is, and Hermione thinks she is beginning to understand what Malfoy had meant, when he'd said he couldn't trust that she could even say yes to him freely. She still disagrees, but she understands now. Because this is…madness.

"How sweet," Voldemort croons, and then looks around the table, grandiose as he gestures at Hermione. She must look a sight, she thinks sickly – on her hands and knees at Malfoy's side, her breasts hanging small but full, horribly exposed thanks to the design of the corset, the scraps of fabric that make up the knickers leaving the curves of her bum bare. The thick leather collar that is buckled around her throat rubs and cuts painfully into her flesh when she moves her head even the barest inch, and the silver chain attached to it – her leash – jangles faintly to remind her of its presence whenever Malfoy moves, or shifts his grip on it. She is a slave, pet, dog. Collared and leashed, and adorned at her masters' pleasure with expensive jewellery around her wrists and ankles, and a painted face and pretty hair. Ready to be used. To be shared.

"This slave, my dear…friends, is no mere Muggle filth or common Mudblood, but Hermione Jean Granger – Mudblood, Harry Potter's best friend, and formerly a fighter for the dwindling and ineffective rebels who resist the new era that I have ushered in. She was rather pathetically easy for my Snatchers to catch, for someone who was dubbed the brightest witch of her age. But then, blood will out, will it not?" He chuckles mockingly, the sound high and breathy and edged with madness. "Mudbloods are no real threat – they are nothing but an irritating pestilence."

"Too true, Lord Voldemort – too damned true," a wizard that Hermione doesn't recognise responds emphatically, American accent saturating his words. "We have a whole mess of trouble with mixed blood magic users back home. Diluting lineage, puttin' on airs, meddling where they don't belong. This revolution you're running here, well, that's something very interesting to us. The Muggles don't bother us much, speakin' honestly, as we have little to do with the dull masses of them, but Mudbloods? They need to be reminded of their place." The casual disgust and cruelty with which the wizard speaks chills Hermione to the core, and the slide of his eyes over her bared breasts makes her feel sick. She lowers her eyes back to the floor, feeling multiple pairs of lascivious eyes on her like red-hot brands now, wanting to run, because the thought of these monsters touching her and hurting her and tearing her into nothing is unbearable.

"Indeed, Thaddeus. Now, Draco, come, sit down. Bring your pet with you. She may tend to you while we feast, and then afterward…well, perhaps she may take the place of dessert. A sweet treat, for our guests." Hermione squeezes her eyes tight shut, trying to deny Voldemort's words, and then the collar she wears around her neck digs sharp into her flesh as Malfoy jerks lightly on her leash. She mustn't respond quickly enough for appearance's sake, because he jerks it again, and she gags and whimpers involuntarily. A smatter of laughs at her wretched state reach her ears, and Look at it…pretty thing…ripe little mouth…still a bit disobedient…be fun…good to see filth where it should be…its place…not too badly trained I suppose…needs a whipping in my opinion…

"Move, bitch," Malfoy snaps at her in a harsh undertone and shoves at her side with his shin as the others return to conversation about things more important than she. Hermione complies immediately now, scrambling fast on her sore, bruising knees as Malfoy tugs at the leash. She crawls after him like a dog, and there are several more jeers and laughs as she passes by those seated at the table as she crawls in Malfoy's wake. A hand slaps her bared buttocks and she flinches, but keeps her eyes on the floor. A shoe shoves at her side, another presses down on her back, a hand drags sharp nails down her flank, a foot prods at one exposed breast, and still Malfoy keeps dragging her along. Finally, he sits, and the leash goes slack. "Heel," he snaps, and Hermione shudders and settles beside his chair at his feet, on her knees with her head bowed, pressing up against his leg for comfort. She doesn't bother to hide that; she figures that if Malfoy had really broken her, she would be just as likely to seek some kind of comfort from him.

According to Malfoy, that's essentially what is happening.

They eat; Malfoy and the others with plates and cutlery at the table, and Hermione the occasional scrap from Malfoy's fingers as she kneels on the hard floor. She licks his fingers clean with small, subdued swipes of her tongue, as a slave would, stomach twisting with something pervertedly good when he praises her softly and pets a hand through her hair. One of the American wizards is seated beside Malfoy, and leers down at Hermione as they eat. He reaches out with a small piece of meat, offering it down to her, and unsure of what to do she turns her head away, shrinking against Malfoy. "Be polite, Draco. Share the Mudblood whore with our guests," Voldemort ordered in a falsely light tone, curving a vicious smile at Hermione. Malfoy pauses for the barest fraction of a second, and then inclines his head in assent.

"Be a good little bitch and let him feed you, " Malfoy tells her, gripping her chin with his finger and thumb as he grates out the words in a warning tone. "Or I will need to discipline you, and you don't want that, do you? Do you understand me?"

She nods, adrift and uncertain of the rules she should follow, how she should act, or respond, and settles for a meek: "No, master. Yes, master."

The American wizard chuckles, and tugs at her hair painfully, turning her head toward him, and pushing the small titbit of meat into her mouth roughly. "Suck it clean, Mudblood," he says, his finger and thumb jammed inside her mouth, nails purposely cutting and jabbing at her gums and palate. She does as he says the best that she can without complaint or hesitation, although she winces and whimpers involuntarily when his sharp nails scrape and probe at especially tender spots. The American wizard grins, and withdraws his hand, patting her cheek with approval, before giving her left breast a casual squeeze, thumb bumping over her nipple, before he takes another piece of meat from his plate and holds Hermione's chin in his left hand, invading her mouth with his right thumb and finger again, rough and violating. She sucks and laps at his intruding digits as though she is eager and needy for them, choking and drooling on the meat and the wizard's fingers as he keeps her pinned there at his leisure.

She can't look at Malfoy, but from what she can tell he is eating his meal with great relish, outwardly unconcerned by what is happening to her.

He is unconcerned when they beat her.

He is unconcerned when her ribs crack.

He is unconcerned when they play at violating her with their fingers, when they magically pin her to the table and cut at her, when they mock her and spit on her.

He is unconcerned when they take turns using crucios and imperios on her, using her and hurting her like sadistic children with a toy, making her crawl and grovel and lap at their feet, making her beg for their abuse, making her thank them for it.

He is unconcerned, sitting back with a glass of wine that he sips at from time to time, watching it all unfold with flat grey eyes.

Later – much later – Malfoy heals Hermione's physical wounds as best he can as she sits silent and trembling on the edge of the bed, nearly catatonic, retreated within her own mind, blissfully disconnected from reality. Aware of everything going on as if through a fog, half-lost in her head. He scourgifies her when she shows no sign of being able to wash herself, and then strips the bloodied remnants of her whore's garb away, dressing her in soft pyjamas with shaking hands. "This will help," he tells her in a voice thick with tears as he slowly tips a dose of Dreamless Sleep potion between her swollen lips, one hand cupping her cheek very carefully, and she blinks slowly up at his wet grey eyes without comprehension. Hermione swallows the potion obediently, and lies down when Malfoy directs her to, curling up on her side with her knees drawn up and her hands tucked beneath her chin, feeling him tuck the bedclothes around her with firm, gentle motions. It makes her feel safe.

She falls asleep to his kiss on her forehead, to his tears falling splat-splat on her temple as his lips leave her skin, his thumb brushing them away with one warm swipe.

She falls asleep to his cracked, horrified words whispered unsteadily in her ear: "I am – I am so sorry. Granger. I am so fucking sorry."

She falls asleep to the sound of broken, wretched sobbing in the bathroom, and the trickle feel of her own tears, leaking down her cheeks.

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