Malfoy stood swiftly, his face a mask of irritation. He went to a little table in front of the couch and grabbed a glass bottle, then disappeared briefly into the bathing chamber. He returned with water. Hermione was struggling to sit.
"Lean forward," he ordered icily, and propped the pillow up so that it would support her. She collapsed into it gratefully. He offered her the bottle, but she just looked at it. So he held it for her - pressed it to her lips, and watched as she drank deeply. "Finally," he said, when she moved her head, finished. "I'd started to worry that it would fall to me to tell Potter you'd perished due to dehydration." He stepped away and set the water down.
Hermione nodded. "Me too." Her voice was thin from disuse. Malfoy frowned.
She settled her head deeper into the pillow and watched him while he paced. He was dressed for - well, whatever Malfoys wore for a casual cave day, she supposed. Black, head to toe. Well-tailored slacks, a cashmere jumper. Loafers. No socks. No robes.
"How long?" she asked.
"Five full days. Do you remember what happened?" He had his hands on his hips. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Turn. One, two, three . . . .
She shook her head. Slowly. He glanced at her every few steps. Her mind was threatening to think about what had just happened, about their predicament - about the fact that she was trapped with, of all people, Draco Malfoy. She remembered the boy who had looked on as his aunt carved a slur into her arm. How much of that boy remained in this man? He looked different, to be sure. But -
He interrupted her thoughts. "Are you better now?"
It took a long time for her to answer his actual question - Are you healed? - but she met his eyes when she did so. He had stopped his pacing, and was standing between the couch and the little tea table.
"If I may be honest . . . no." The horror was still there, only temporarily subdued, ready to rise up at any moment. She could feel it, beneath her skin, and unfurling at the edges of her mind.
Malfoy's eyes flashed disapprovingly.
She licked her dry lips. "I think something has changed. In me." She was whispering again and he stepped forward to hear.
A flex in his jaw. "Because of the monster?"
She nodded, shivering involuntarily.
Malfoy was as furious as she'd ever seen him. Furious that you went and got yourself attacked - furious that he has to touch you, to get you off, or face Harry Potter's wrath for letting you die. He sat down on the edge of the couch, facing her, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped between his spread legs. He was too large for the tiny space - and he looked like a model, ordered to take high fashion photos in a setting that didn't match the clothes. Hermione, on the other hand - she was a perfectly suited cave troll, with her unkempt hair and dirty fingernails, in week old clothes, torn and rumpled. You belong here.
"Well," he finally said. Ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back, twisting his face into an indifferently neutral expression. "Give it a little time. Ginger Weasley purports to be better. She was, obviously, a victim of the same thing. Potter is - handling her," he finished.
"I'm glad." But her voice did not sound glad. It sounded like she did not care about Ginny, or her health, or the attack.
Malfoy stood and approached her in two paces with the water glass. "Drink more."
She did, and this time was able to hold it herself for several swallows. "I'd like to sleep now."
"Will you eat when you wake?" He looked down at her, his face inscrutable. "Or have a bath?"
"I know I'm dirty," she whispered listlessly. "I probably should at least try but I . . ." she trailed off. Malfoy waited, watching her carefully. She became distracted by a point behind his shoulder, her eyes unfocused. "I don't care."
"Bath can wait," he said briskly, as if they were discussing a business transaction. "I can Scourgify you again - for your comfort." And his, no doubt. She surely smelled terrible and the ventilation in here was nonexistent. "I imagine you have questions."
She shrugged. "Not really. I assume we're properly stuck."
Even an indifferent Draco Malfoy couldn't hide his shock at that. "Don't you want to quiz me, Granger? Ridicule me for the five spells I've forgotten to try?"
"No."
He wrinkled his nose, thoroughly disgusted. "Potter said you'd have us out of here the minute you woke up. He'll be disappointed."
"Okay."
"What good is getting you better, if you're just going to lay down and accept being stuck in this fucking awful hole in the ground?" He spat the words, frustrated.
A faint buzzing at the base of her head indicated the time they'd earned thanks to her . . . what had he called it? Her 'treatment'? . . . was just about up. "I need to lie down."
"What about eating? Nott's been bringing a delivery each day with meals from my house elves and whatever else we need. They made a meat pie for dinner, I think." He gestured toward a basket, presumably of provisions.
"Just water."
"That's not going to do it, Granger."
"Later, maybe."
He cocked his head at her. "Do you feel hungry?" A better question.
"I can't say." Her stomach felt like there was a lead weight in it. Food was not happening any time soon. "I think - I suppose my body must be hungry. But no - I don't want to eat."
His voice was harsh, reprimanding a misbehaving pupil. A stupid student. "You need to try. I can't have you starving to death on Malfoy property."
He would not take the hint. Hermione closed her eyes and sank down, onto her side. She curled up into herself, arms around her stomach. Her brief reprieve, that short and pathetic burst of energy, was up.
"Granger?"
She did not look at him. "I'm tired."
"Wait - before you fall asleep." He was talking fast, frustrated, like he had some kind of checklist to get through before she was out again. "Do you think you - can now? Help yourself? I could . . . wait in the bathing room. When you need privacy."
Help herself? With what? Hermione had a flash of recent memory: of one of Draco Malfoy's hands in hers, waiting for her squeezes; the other between her legs. The unspeakable awkwardness of it was a bridge she could cross another time. Later - if she made it that long. The existential exhaustion loomed. And then she understood - it had not been a one time thing.
Their eyes met as they came to the same realization. That this would not be over tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day - not unless something changed and they escaped. She would need him again. She would need his hands on her. Over her body. Between her legs. She shuddered and Malfoy scowled. He resumed his pacing, avoiding it. Avoiding her.
A long time passed before she broke the silence. "I'm sorry. But if you want me to get up and walk out of here on my own? I will need more help. Candidly, I couldn't cast a spell right now even if I wanted to. I think my magic's gone." It was too shocking and terrible to dwell on, so she didn't. "I can't imagine I'll be helpful to you, or Harry, or Ginny, for at least a few more days. And I don't care what you do to me," she said in a rush. "I know that just now it took me a long time to - to finish. But next time you can touch me however you need to. Whatever you think is best."
Malfoy was still, contemplating it all. "Rest then," he said curtly. "I'll wake you in the morning. We'll try again. And - plan."
Hermione did not respond, but watched while he went to sit back on the couch. Done with her for the time being, he resignedly tugged the basket of provisions closer and pulled out a plate, cold chicken pie, a bottle of wine, and apples. Enough for two. His slender fingers opened the wine, slowly and surely, and he lifted it to his lips. Drank from the bottle before he found a glass somewhere in the basket and filled that instead. The bright locks of his hair fell across his forehead, and he pushed them away, his jaw flexing with suppressed rage. He moved to the apples next, using his wand to dice them magically. They fell in perfect slices and he popped one in his mouth while he cut into the pie. His plate arranged to his satisfaction, he rummaged through the basket again before he found what he wanted - a book. He cracked it open beside his meal and spelled the pages to flip slowly while he ate.
She remembered - her mother had had a tradition they called "reading supper." Every once in a while, when her father was out, both of them would bring a book to the table and they would eat in silence, reading between bites and simply enjoying each other's company. As a little girl she had loved that.
Malfoy glanced up at her occasionally but did not bother her again. He drank deeply of the wine. She couldn't blame him. It must be dull, sitting in the dark watching Hermione Granger fall apart. His fingers grasped the stem of his glass gracefully. Those same fingers had been touching her just minutes ago. Something about it made her feel worse, and she turned on the pallet, her back to him.
She listened to his sounds - the turning of pages and clinking of glass - until the dreams came.
The dreams were as terrible as she'd had at the moment of the attack. Her mind was flooded with fresh horrors of mankind.
Visions - or were they memories? - of pain, restriction, terror.
Of bodies, strewn and torn. Of children, wailing in the dark. Of wizards, eyes blown wide with bloodlust.
Broken bones and broken hearts.
Someone was shaking her awake, a strong hand on her arm. His voice was rough. "You're having a nightmare." Nightmares.
Hermione slowly came to, but did not have the energy to look at him. The room was pitch black until he muttered a spell to light the torches. She hung suspended between sleep and wakefulness, adjusting. It took several minutes to remember where she was and what was wrong.
You're in a cave. You were attacked by some kind of monster. You're sick in your head. Malfoy is here. Yes, Draco Malfoy. He hasn't hurt you yet. He's trapped with you, in a tiny room. Harry is close, though. And Ginny. You're - despite it all - you're safe. You need to get better. The way to do that - you have to let him touch you. Bring you pleasure. Connect the broken flow between your soul and your body.
Stay calm. Get stronger.
Break out of here and make sure this never happens to another human being. Because this - you wouldn't allow this for your worst enemy.
Heartbeats passed, and her head stopped spinning.
Belatedly, she realized Malfoy was there. He was standing over her, hovering. "I'm still tired," she said.
"Granger -" She had definitely woken him. He sounded like an old man who smoked a pipe all his life.
"Not now."
"Will you eat?" That question was quickly becoming the most obnoxious thing he'd ever said to her.
"It's the middle of the night." Her voice would brook no argument. A step too far. You are here, you are awake. Earlier, you drank some water. That is enough. Images of atrocities were flitting, unbidden, across the backs of her eyelids.
Too tired to argue with her, he moved away and collapsed on the couch. It squeaked beneath his weight.
Silence fell, heavy between them. Just when she thought she might fall asleep again, she heard - murmurings. From out of the room. Was that - a cry? It was soft but still loud enough to make its way through two magical barriers. Ginny. Then - Harry, talking to her. Coaching her through it. Soft and deep, talking to her. Could Malfoy hear?
She turned toward him, slowly, pushing her body to move. She sighed at the soreness - in her bones, her muscles. Her joints, especially.
He was laying on the couch, parallel to her, on his back. She could see his profile, prominent and pale against the dark fabric of the cushions. His gaze, pointedly, directed up at the ceiling. Ignoring her.
But then - another sound. Laughter. Not a loud one or a long one, but definitely a laugh. Ginny's laugh. Hermione did not know what to make of it. The idea of laughing - no. Incomprehensible. Hermione was sure she would not make such a sound again, as long as she lived.
After a few minutes of listening to Harry and Ginny conversing softly, Malfoy called out suddenly, startling her. "Glad to know things are improving, Potter." We can hear you without saying so. He did not look over.
A pause. "How is Hermione?" called Harry. She was vaguely aware that there was a time she would have felt something at the sound of his voice. That he loved her. That they had been close.
Malfoy gave her a chance to respond. When she met his wordless invitation with silence, he spoke for her. "She's awake. She can hear you." His tone indicated this was cause for contempt.
"Hermione!" Harry sounded plaintive. "Are you alright? We're worried sick - both of us."
Then, Ginny's quavering voice. "I'm here too. We love you. Are you feeling any better?"
Across the room, Malfoy turned his head to see if she was listening, and rolled his eyes. She did not answer.
"She's had some water," he gritted out.
Harry was yelling. "Is that all?"
"That's improvement," said Malfoy flatly, rubbing a hand harshly over his face.
There was a long pause in which she could hear the sounds of Harry and Ginny conferring. Their room must be very close. "Hermione?" Ginny's voice. "Draco, are you sure she can hear?" She sounded like she might be crying.
Malfoy answered for her. "Yes."
"Tell her I know." Ginny was definitely crying. "Tell her I understand. It's like nothing that either of you has ever experienced. No one could comprehend how horrible it is, unless they've lived through it. I didn't want to eat, to breathe, to see the sun again . . . to live."
The pain in her voice was plain. Hermione was still laying on her side, looking at Malfoy laying on the couch. She saw his jaw flexing.
Harry spoke, prompting Ginny. "And do you, now? Want to live? What helped you?"
There was a long pause. "She won't be able to do it herself. Draco, please, you have to help her. But tell her, promise her . . . that it gets better. That I'm healing. You cannot imagine - any effort, any energy - it's gone. It's impossible. But if she - finds moments of pleasure. She'll feel better. I swear it -" Harry was shushing her, trying to calm her, but Ginny kept on, "I swear, Draco, I'll do anything if you help her."
Hermione listened dispassionately. Quite the speech. "Whatever will get us out of here," Malfoy muttered.
"Will you?" asked Harry.
"I'm not the hold up over here," Malfoy sneered. "But she's heard you, and now it's up to her. We're going back to bed. Goodnight." He cast a Silencing Charm. And Muffliato for good measure, before tucking his wand under his own pillow.
"Well, Granger?" He was looking at her expectantly, as if she was going to speak. Joke's on him. "Did you hear Weasley?"
Hermione nodded.
"I'll wait for you to tell me your thoughts," he said smugly, an aristocratic eyebrow arched. In that moment, if she'd had the strength, she would have stood up, crossed the room in four strides, and happily strangled him. Taken his throat with her bare hands as tightly as she could, shoved him down and punished him.
The desire to hurt him must have been motivating because she did speak, her voice cracking. "We have to do it again."
He squinted. "You seem improved. Do it yourself."
But the momentary flash of anger - at his proximity, at her vulnerability before him, at his snide tones and superior jawline - had completely drained her. Hermione shuddered more into herself, overtaken with exhaustion.
He must have seen the change because he reacted swiftly, getting off the couch and coming to stand beside her. "Nevermind - we can try." He grabbed the fingers of her left hand in his, his tone grave.
At least his smugness was gone. Now he sounded - she couldn't place it. But she was done arguing, talking, listening. She lay still, waiting for him to leave her alone.
"Do you want my help?"
Unbidden, she pulsed his hand twice. Where did that come from?
"Got it. But - I need you to say 'yes' this time. If this sordid, unbelievable story ever gets out, I want them to have to acknowledge that you said yes."
She watched her fingers, limp in his. She thought of Ginny and Harry holed up together, of the sound of Ginny's laugh. She did not particularly desire to laugh ever again. But Malfoy was keen on her not starving to death, at least in her current location. And, some small part of her did not want to give him the satisfaction of killing her off. So, finally, she whispered. "Yes."
"Are you ready now?"
No time like the present. "Sure."
Malfoy's tone was carefully regulated. "I think it might be easier if I move you around." Hermione nodded. He moved to lay down beside her and her eyes widened, but she rolled herself, one appendage at a time, to give him room. Graceful.
He manipulated her, gently, until they were both on their sides. It was the oddest thing, his hands on her body, moving her around. It felt surreal, this whole thing. Don't think about it. She was facing away from him, toward the back wall of the alcove. He propped himself up briefly, looking down at her face. "This should speed things up. You won't have to see me. Try pretending, if you can. In your head. Think of a fantasy." She said nothing. A sexual fantasy was as foreign as a laugh.
He slid his right arm beneath her neck so that her head rested on his bicep. Then took one of her hands, resting up by her face, in his. She distracted herself from the agonizing awkwardness of the moment by focusing on his fingers. They were cool, she noticed. Had they been that way before? "Until you can tell me what's working," he explained. She squeezed twice.
"What do you think about me . . . touching you this time? On your skin." It took her a moment, sluggish as her mind was, to get it. He means under your pants.
"That's fine."
"Think of it like any medicine - the healers have to touch you. To fix it. There's no difference with this." Who was he trying to convince?
"Do what you have to do." But she cast up a silent hope to Merlin. Let me be wrong. Let this be the last time. Let this be a cure.
At that he slowly placed his other hand on her hip. Her shirt had ridden up while he arranged her. He brushed his hand from her side, over her stomach, and to the waistband of her pants.
She felt a flutter of relief that she hadn't eaten in awhile - she could just imagine him around a table with all his Slytherin friends, yukking about how flabby she was. Detailing the lines of the stretch marks on her hips to Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini and the rest of them. They would surely laugh - Pansy Parkinson especially, slender as she was - and pound their fists on the tables, drinking and mocking. Mocking her.
Which reminded Hermione of the terrible things she'd seen from many women of the world, who had contorted, starved, and deprived their bodies to become smaller. Punishing themselves. Wasting away. Often for men.
Before she could slide backwards into the pain of it - the rage - Malfoy provided an unwitting distraction. He was stroking the skin just above her pants with the pad of his thumb. She had only a second to wonder - what was he thinking about all this? - and he slipped his fingers beneath the waistband. Once he took the first step, he moved quickly. Over the soft mound between her legs, barely touching. Then his hand was between her thighs, and he softly ran one finger over the seam of her.
He stopped there. For several heartbeats he just - waited, his fingers against her skin. Mercifully, she did not feel . . . well, anything. She knew that in a prior life she would have died at the idea of Draco Malfoy doing this. Would have done literally anything to stop him, to prevent his touch and this moment. But now, she did not have the strength to be embarrassed, or shy, or afraid. It's a healing treatment, she reminded herself. There's no difference between this and Madam Pomfrey mending a scrape. It's only Malfoy because we're trapped together. He's forced to do this so I don't starve to death.
Just when she thought he must have changed his mind he began to move. Touching her delicately, his fingers grazed where her legs came together. It was - odd.
When she'd had someone else's fingers in the same place before - on a few prior occasions - they just went for it. Rough. She recalled the first time Ron had reached down there. She had had to place a hand on his wrist. Asking him silently to please go easy. And with the few wizards who had been given the privilege after Ron - they hadn't been around long enough for her to care about educating them in what she liked. They were usually just down there out of obligation - because it was the polite thing to do. Merlin, when she touched herself she wasn't this gentle. She had always been more of a saddle-up-and-get-on-with-it masturbater.
But Malfoy, in a wholly unexpected twist, wasn't like that at all. He was exploratory, feather light. So careful that her hips eventually took it upon themselves to move toward him, offering more of herself. At this invitation he pressed, ever so gradually, past that seam of skin that protected . . . they both froze.
She was wet. They felt it, the glide on his fingers. It was a response, a reduction in friction, a transition away from mere toleration of his touch.
"It doesn't mean anything," he said at her back. "It's just - your body. Reacting. Physically. It's good, it makes things easier."
She stared straight ahead, at the rough stone of the alcove. There was something in his tone. Bitterness? Or resentment. Disgust, that he was having to do this at all? She hadn't bathed in days. Remembering it, horrified, she nearly told him to stop. But Malfoy moved his fingers again, testing.
He used the slickness to ease his way. Don't think about it. Let your body take over. She arched her back, pressing the side of her face into his bicep as he stroked her with just a fingertip. It slipped over her intimate skin, feeling where it folded and led. He was not pushing her pleasure, just . . . touching. He kept at it, firm but slow. She felt herself reacting, wanting.
Finally he brushed over her clit. . . and she came. Hard. It was completely different from earlier. From the first time. Had it been just yesterday?
There was little build, no tension, no slow climb. By the time Hermione became aware of her orgasm, she was halfway through it. Her entire body spasmed in reaction. She closed her eyes and surrendered. Malfoy somehow managed to wring a few more tremors out of her. Her head was thrown back against his shoulder, mouth slightly open. Had she made some kind of noise? She should be embarrassed. No. It didn't matter. She didn't care.
When the last of it was over, she lay still, relishing the moment of complete quiet in her brain.
He waited for a minute - a long minute, of stillness in her mind and a few final shivers in her legs - before pulling his hands roughly out of hers and out of her pants. He stood in one smooth roll away from the alcove. She turned over to watch him, curious. Where was he going?
Halfway across the room already, heading for the bathing chamber, he turned and looked back over his shoulder, his profile sharp. His cheekbones tinged with pink. "How do you feel, Granger?"
She stretched her arms and legs for the first time since the attack, curling her fingers and toes like a satisfied cat. Muscles she hadn't used in nearly a week protested pleasantly. "I'm ready for a bath."