Part Three
Unsurprisingly, they descend a set of stone stairs to the cellars, which have been refashioned fit for purpose as a holding facility. A long corridor along the left leads past the cells on the right; each cell has stone walls and an unassuming wooden door, and lamps burn at intervals along the wall, giving the corridor a warm glow. Harry and Ron lead Hermione halfway down the corridor, and she notes that each occupied cell is labelled with a last name and first initial, magically inscribed on the wood.
When they reach 'Malfoy, D', Harry and Ron both turn to Hermione rather than opening the door. Shit, she thinks, stomach dropping. She folds her arms across her chest, defensive and bracing, giving them a sharply querying look, trying to emulate the no-nonsense Hermione Granger of old.
"Go on then," she says brusquely when they hesitate and look at each other nervously, as if each hoping the other will do the dirty work.
Harry is the one to speak. "We don't want to push you, Hermione. Remus made it clear that – well –" He stumbles over his words, fidgeting with his wand. Takes a deep breath and tries again. "We did say we needed to talk about what's going on with you and Malfoy. We're your friends, Hermione, and what we've seen since you got back has been..."
"Concerning," Ron says. Hermione rolls her eyes, trying to focus on irritation rather than the unbridled rage she feels because Malfoy is right through that door, and they're keeping him from her.
"You heard what I said to Remus."
Harry frowns. "I know, but–"
"We spent over a quarter of a year together," she says briskly, having practised this speech in her head over and over again while huddled sleepless in the corner of her room last night. "All we had was each other. We could only trust each other. For over three months, we lived in each other's pockets. Every single day." She pauses, letting that sink in.
"I understand that, Hermione," Harry says, but she sincerely doubts that he does. How could he? "But you seem kind of..."
"Fixated," Ron finishes Harry's sentence again.
Hermione has decided she doesn't want to tell her friends she loves Draco Malfoy just yet. That's not the kind of bombshell she thinks is wise to drop on them without warning. So she attempts to focus on the more basic human connection forged between her and Malfoy through the trauma they'd survived together.
"Honestly, you two," she starts, irritation sharp in her tone. "I just told you. Like I just told Remus. We spent three months with each other. Malfoy kept me alive. He protected me, as best he could. He took horrible punishments to try to save me from torture and abuse." She pauses, swallowing down tears. "You have no idea what it was like. He kept me sane. He took care of me." Hermione's aware she's starting to gabble faster, and tears are welling hot in her eyes, and it makes her angry that she can't stay fucking calm.
"I need him," she all but begs, vaguely aware that this doesn't make her sound any less fixated. She sounds crazy. Her hand presses against the wooden door just beside her, fingers splaying flat. He is right there, on the other side of the wood. "He – he makes me feel safe. Because he kept me safe. And now I don't know what to do without him," she admits honestly, silently begging Harry and Ron to understand.
They look at her uncomfortably.
"And he shouldn't be locked up anyway," she adds, indignation grounding her once more. "After everything he's done for the Order, to lock him up is just wrong."
"You do know what he's done, don't you?" Harry asks uncertainly, and Hermione's look is so scathing that she's surprised he doesn't burst into flame.
"I saw him every night when he came home – back," she corrects herself quickly, cheeks heating but forging on. "I saw the blood. I smelt the smoke. Sometimes he let things slip. So yes, I know what terrible things he had to do in the service of the Order, Harry. I'm not an idiot."
"Then –"
"Why?" she finishes. "Because he did it all for the fucking Order –" disgust creeps into her voice and Harry and Ron stare at her wide-eyed "– and to save me, and you have no idea what it's done to him. None. You just used him like a pawn, ordering him to do whatever it took to maintain his cover. He did terrible, awful things that have ruined him in ways you can't even imagine in order to get your precious information. And now that he's had the nerve to get out alive instead of dying at the Dark Lord's hands, you're just going to lock him away, like some dirty secret?"
She's panting by the time she's done with her impromptu rant, fists clenched at her sides as she stares Harry down, the unfairness of it all biting at her. Harry is silent and so is Ron, who looks distinctly awkward by Harry's side; Hermione gets the feeling that, like her, he doesn't know much about the double agents and informants that the Order makes use of. She also gets the impression that neither of them has truly thought about the reality of being a double agent before.
"It's only temporary, 'Mione," Harry says weakly. "It's just procedure. He's a Death Eater. He has the Mark. We can't just have him wandering around one of the safe houses." He rubs his forehead, shrugging helplessly. "At the very least we need to fully debrief him on every mission he carried out for You-Know-Who, and then put – I don't know, house arrest precautions in place? We've never had this situation happen before. It's messy."
He flings his hands in the air. "What about the families of the people he's killed? Do we just tell them that 'too bad, he gets off scot-free'?"
Hermione rears back, Harry's words like a slap in the face. The fact that he has a point only makes her angrier. "He only killed them because your precious Order told him to! It fucking destroyed him having to do that. You have no idea. I do. I saw what it did to him. How can you punish him for doing what you told him to do?" She is nearly screaming when she's done, her chest heaving as if she's run a marathon, and Harry and Ron just stare at her, twin expressions of shock on their faces.
"'Your Order'?" Ron quotes her, a betrayed kind of bewilderment in his tone, and Hermione is too angry to care that she shouldn't have said that. She went much too far in general; she may as well have openly declared that she's stupidly in love with Malfoy, because it was obvious in every word. Although, with the emotional density of the two men in front of her, it may have gone right over their heads.
But from the look Harry is giving her, he seems to suspect something is going on between her and Malfoy. Shit. Hermione clenches her jaw.
"If it were my Order, Ronald," she bites out, "it wouldn't insist on people committing terrible crimes for some 'greater good', and then abandon them to die because they aren't pure enough due to them doing what I ordered them to do! That makes no fucking sense."
"Well, yeah, I agree on that," Ron says, flustered, and Harry shoots him a look that says 'shut up'.
"It's not up to me anyway, Hermione. It's up to the senior Order members. So you'll have to talk to them."
"Then I will. Now can I finally see Malfoy?"
Harry frowns, but taps the door with the tip of his wand and mutters something under his breath, and the door swings open to Malfoy's cell. It is a very small stone room with one flickering torch on the far wall. To the direct left of the door is a toilet, and then further along the left wall, a sink. The only other furniture in the room is the rudimentary bed facing the door, the room small enough that there's only a narrow walkway between the bed and the bathroom fixtures. The cell is clean, but otherwise utterly bare.
Malfoy sits in shirtsleeves and trousers on the edge of the bed, feet bare, elbows resting on his thighs. He jerks his head up as the door opens, and Hermione sees startled steel grey eyes half hidden behind the pale wheat of his fringe, and a bruise that smears across the left side of his face, from the corner of his mouth along his cheek, all the way up to under his eye. It's the sort of bruise that one only gets from repeated blows to the face, and Hermione is simultaneously furious and frantic.
"Granger," he rasps, and the relief and longing in his voice make her knees literally weak. She clutches at the door frame, her heart a cascade of tumbling beats. He looks past her shoulder and sees Harry and Ron there; she can read him well enough to see the way he registers, catalogues, and dismisses them within a second. He stands slowly, and she reads the fresh pain in the way he holds himself. Someone in the Order has gotten their kicks in.
"Are you okay?" he asks her, and his fingers twitch at his side, as though he's stopping himself from reaching out as his eyes drag over her.
"Y-ye- no," she stumbles and her breath catches in a sob, and then – heedless of Harry and Ron – she crosses the room in two steps and flings herself against Malfoy. He is hard and warm, and his arms come around her instantly, his face dropping to bury against her hair which has fallen from its bun, his breath hot, his fingers pressing points into her back, his heart thudding quick against her ear.
It's like coming home.
"Granger," he says warningly, quiet in her ear. "Your friends are right there."
"I don't care," she tells him, leaning back in his arms so that she can examine his face, her hands cupping his sharp jaw as she eyes the bruising. It's slightly swollen and dark violets and blues, and she presses her lips together. "Who did that?"
He shrugs. "I don't know. Not someone I know. It doesn't matter anyway," he dismisses it, tone casual, but his hands are holding her very tightly and his eyes are devouring her. "Why aren't you okay, Granger?"
"Because," she mumbles, crushing her cheek against his chest again. "You're in here, and I'm not."
He huffs a laugh. "You want to join me?" His hand is stroking through her hair now as he holds her close, and Hermione thinks that something is different now they're out. He's not holding part of himself back anymore – it's as if a weight has fallen away from him. All his sharp, cold edges feel weirdly blunted. He's a prisoner, but Hermione realises he's probably more free than he's been in years. It makes her heart ache, her fingers tight on his shoulders, careful of his ruined back.
"Yes," she says, not even joking. If she thought the Order would let her, she would.
"But you're okay?"
"I mean, yes? But – but I'm really not, Malfoy," she admits as they draw apart a little. She chooses to ignore Harry and Ron, although she can almost feel their eyes boring into her back. "I didn't sleep last night. I sat in a fucking corner and tried not to panic. I was so scared and I just – just wanted you." Her breathing has suddenly gone to hell; ragged gasps juddering in and out like dry sobs, and Malfoy cups her face with one hand, his thumb rubbing over her cheekbone.
"Hey. Hey, it's okay, Granger. Deep breaths."
"I – I can't. They – they debriefed me just before, and I had to talk about – about what happened," she tumbles out, hitching and unsteady, "and they didn't ask me about – but I thought about it all anyway, and I can't st–stop thinking about it now, and – and – and I'm so tired."
"Fuck," Malfoy mutters. He tucks her against him again, rubbing her back firmly up and down as she sobs pathetically.
"I just want you." Her fingers dig into him as she remembers last night, and adds: "And you were going to leave me. You were going to go off and die , and leave me thinking Merlin knows what. You bastard."
"Fuck," Malfoy mutters again. "I'm sorry, Granger," he says helplessly.
"You were going to die," she repeats fiercely, and he shrugs, swallowing dryly.
"After everything I've done, what else could I do?"
"You idiot." She wants very badly to hit him. "You're as bad as them," she says, flailing behind her to indicate Harry and Ron.
"Speaking of them," Malfoy says dryly, "they both look like they want to murder me, Granger. I may end up dying anyway."
Hermione huffs a wet, snotty laugh, something wonderful twisting in her belly. Malfoy is here and safe, and not dead, and maybe things are going to be okay. But in the meantime, there's Harry and Ron to face down. She takes a deep breath and straightens, pulling away from Malfoy and wiping her tear-wet face with her shirt sleeve, and then her runny nose. The two of them are staring at her and Malfoy, varying degrees of disbelief and disgust printed on their faces.
"What," Ron says, enunciating very carefully, "the fuck is going on?"
Hermione cringes and tries to think of an explanation that won't lead to a confrontation she can't bear right now.
"Well, apparently Granger hasn't slept," Malfoy says neutrally, which makes Hermione blink in surprise. He lifts his chin as if presenting it to take a blow; only Malfoy would be stupidly stubborn enough to make himself an easier target. "That's probably the most pressing issue."
"No," Ron says, eyes narrowed. "No – no. The most pressing issue –" he spits the words out vehemently "– is why you're touching Hermione like you still think you own her."
Hermione can't stop the gasp that tumbles from her lips, her hand instinctively pressing against her mouth as if she can push it back in, nausea surging in her stomach. Her gaze flies to Malfoy, and from his clenched fist to the muscle ticking in his jaw, he is coiled and vibrating with a dangerous tension.
"I never did own her," Malfoy says tightly, "and she touched me."
The emotion in the room is overcharged. Hermione can almost feel the anger making the air crackle.
"What happened at the revel where you claimed her, then?" Ron asks, blindly going for the jugular, not thinking about the damage he'll leave in his wake as Hermione flinches back, feeling as though he'd just punched her in the stomach. "Wasn't that you staking your ownership?"
Malfoy goes ashen, and when he speaks, his voice is broken in a way that frightens Hermione, his breath shallow and his mouth twisted with a bitter self-loathing. It's as if a switch has been flipped, and his carefully constructed mask has been shattered. "I – I didn't want to." He's breathless, protesting, a kind of contained panic in his eyes. "I didn't want to do it."
He looks like a trapped animal as he takes a sharp step back. His eyes meet Hermione's, and oh, she hates the way she feels right now. Sick to her stomach with memory, and in a way, it makes no sense because she loves him. But she didn't then. And she didn't want it then. Neither of them did. And even if they had, they wouldn't have wanted it at a fucking revel. And he wouldn't have brutalised her, leaving her bleeding between her legs, her skin broken from his bites, and blooming all over in dark bruises that he'd beaten into her flesh.
She thinks she might throw up again, for the second time that day. As she stumbles for the toilet, Hermione dizzily thinks that it's not fair she's throwing up so much, considering she hasn't even eaten anything. But all that comes up is the water she drank during the debrief, and bile. She makes awful, retching sounds ripped straight from her gut, but only a trickle passes her lips.
"Hermione!" That's Harry's voice, full of worry, "Hermione –" His hand falls on her shoulder, and she jerks away and nearly falls over her own feet.
"Don't touch me!" She stumbles and puts her back to the wall. "Don't fucking touch me!" Harry backs off. It's him and Ron, standing at the end of the bed by the door, and Malfoy, standing against the far wall, staring at her with his face a tangle of self-hatred and worry for her. Is it ironic that the only man she can stand to have touching her, is the one who raped her? She doesn't know. Doesn't care.
"Malfoy," she says, an exhausted plea, and his shoulders slump. He knows what she needs. She sees him shove that self-hatred down, his eyes haunted, and then he opens his arms. Hermione is aware of Harry and Ron both staring horrified at the disturbing sight she no doubt makes as she sidles past the pair of them and all but glues herself to Malfoy.
"This isn't okay." Ron's voice. Talking to Harry as if Malfoy and Hermione aren't right there. She shuts her eyes, breathing in the scent of him. "Harry, this isn't fucking – we can't let her do this. This is wrong. Something isn't right if – he – he raped her, Harry. Right? That's the bloody implication here. And look at her!" Ron sounds like he's on the verge of being sick himself.
"This isn't how I wanted this to go," Hermione says to Malfoy, muffled against his shirt. He takes a shuddering breath, and she realises with a shock that he's on the verge of tears.
"How did you think it was going to go, Granger? The seal of approval from all your friends? A perfect happy ever after?" He is all bitterness and sarcasm, and it stings.
"I was going to ease them into it," she says miserably. "Nice and gentle. Like boiling a frog."
He barks a hoarse, genuine laugh into her hair, and she feels a spark of pleasure that she did that. Startled that laugh out of him. "Salazar, this is such a mess."
Harry and Ron are still talking. Arguing, actually. Hermione does her best to tune them out, because she knows what's going to happen, and she wants to focus on Malfoy. While she can.
"At least you're alive." It could have gone so much worse, she reminds herself, and him. This is not the worst-case scenario.
"Always the optimist, Granger," he says very gently, fingers combing through her hair and catching on tangles.
"They're going to take me away." The thought of it threatens to strip away her tenuous grip on sanity.
"Mm. I imagine so. I think they think you're...what's the Muggle term?"
"Brainwashed?" she offers, and he nods against her head. His heartbeat is a fast drum. Harry and Ron have fallen silent at some point. Hermione isn't sure when. "I'll convince them I'm not. I just have to talk to someone rational." Hermione racks her brain, trying to think of someone who might actually believe her. "Maybe Tonks will get it," she suggests weakly.
"You know how sorry I am, right, Granger?" There's a wobble in his voice.
"What?" Hermione is bewildered.
"About – about the revel. What I..." He can't bring himself to even allude to it. He clears his throat and goes on. "All the things I did. And what I – let happen. I'm so fucking sorry. You know that, right?"
" Yes," Hermione says emphatically. "Merlin's sake, of course I know that. Just – stop. I don't want to think about it." It makes her feel sick again. It makes her want to claw her skin off, whether he's sorry or not.
"Sorry." And then he hisses in a breath, his grip on her slackening and falling away. "I think you have to go now, Granger."
"No." She holds him tighter, feeling herself seesaw back toward that blind panic. "No. No, I can't. Shit, shit, Malfoy, please don't let them take me."
"Fuck, Hermione, I can't stop them," he says brokenly, as if it kills him to say it.
"Hermione?" Harry's voice, attempting softness.
"You have to go with them, Granger. Hermione," Malfoy says urgently, putting his finger and thumb under her chin and forcing her to meet his eyes. Wet and dark in the torchlight, like river stones pressed into his flesh. Dulled with hopelessness. "It'll just make it worse if you fight." She knows he's right, but the thought of letting go of him is anathema.
"Hermione, we need to go," Harry says. "You need rest."
"She will," Malfoy says sharply, his gaze flicking over her shoulder. "Just give her a second. Please ." He's actually pleading, raw and open. Harry doesn't say anything, but Hermione hears footsteps shuffle back a few paces.
"But I can't sleep without you," Hermione says in a very small voice, and tears are sliding fat down her cheeks. Malfoy's jaw ticks and he looks away for a second, taking a deep, slow breath and letting it out again. When he looks back to her, his eyes are red-rimmed.
"You'll be okay, Hermione. You're safe with them. It'll be okay. But you need to go, or they're going to drag you out of here."
"Hey –" Ron begins to protest, and Malfoy shoots him an icy glare. Ron doesn't finish.
"Go," he tells her, and Hermione takes a deep breath. She knows she has to, but it's so hard to make that first move when she feels frozen; as if she'll shatter with the smallest shift. But it has to be done. She pushes up on tiptoes and kisses Malfoy soft and light on the mouth. He makes the smallest sound, deep in his chest, and leans in. For a beautiful heartbeat, they are pressed together, and then Hermione steps back.
She doesn't tell him she loves him. It's too precious to say and have Harry and Ron scoff at. Instead she forces a smile to her lips. "I'll see you soon."
Malfoy nods, his expression grave and still as he watches her go. The door banging shut behind them feels like a death.
"Hermione..." Ron begins, and the fact that he is genuinely bewildered and distressed and overflowing with a helpless worry for her only makes it worse.
"Not right now, Ron," she says wearily, tears still rolling down her cheeks as if she's a leaky tap, trying her very best to pull herself together. She didn't survive months of captivity only to fall apart the minute she got out. Even if that does seem to be what she's doing right now. "Just...don't." They walk out to the apparition point in silence.