Part Four

They apparate back to the safe house, landing in the garden shed and walking up to the house in silence, Harry leading them into the small back hall, Ron taking up the rear. When they get inside, the two of them just stand there for a moment, as if they're not sure what to do now. Hermione looks at them both and can practically see all the questions they want to spew at her hovering on their lips. And maybe it's best to just bite the bullet, as her father would've said, and get their horrified interrogation out of the way. Or at least answer a few of their more pressing questions. She can hardly feel any worse than she already does, Hermione thinks wryly.

She takes a deep breath. Malfoy would expect her to pull herself together, she tells herself firmly.

"I need a cup of tea," she says aloud.

"Tea," Harry echoes awkwardly, and then nods. "Yeah. Of course. The kitchen's just – this way." He leads her through the second door on the left, into a small kitchen that opens up into a slightly larger dining room. The room is empty. Hermione realises she was half expecting to see Mrs Weasley bustling about and filling the space with warmth and energy. Before Hermione had been captured, she'd been at the same safe house as Ron and Ginny, and Hermione thought she saw her last night.

Harry puts the kettle on the hob, lighting the flame with a wave of his wand.

"Is your mum here?" Hermione asks Ron as she stands in the corner of the kitchen, the question coming out stilted. He looks surprised that she's capable of coherent conversation, and she feels slightly offended. Is she really that bad?

"Um. Yes. Mum and Ginny. Fred was here for a while, but he and George are based elsewhere now. The same place as my dad. And people are always shifting around. You know how it is."

Hermione nods. She remembers. Hardly anyone is in one place for more than a couple of months. "Who's here at the moment?"

Ron frowns, thinking. "Well. There're nine bedrooms here. We've got the communal rooms down here – kitchen, dining room, sitting room, Lupin's office, which you saw earlier, and the utility room. Then three bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor, same on the second floor, and the loft conversion where you are has another three tiny bedrooms."

Harry's moving around the kitchen, occupied with making the tea – getting down the mugs and fetching out the milk – and Ron is marginally more relaxed as he ticks people off on his fingers. "First floor, there's me and Harry in one room. Mum in another. Tonks and Lupin in the last. Second is Kingsley, who shares if someone unexpected turns up temporarily, Dean and Justin, and Hannah and Angelina. Ginny's up top with you, and the last room is...empty right now." Ron's voice trails off at the end, and Hermione knows why the other room is empty. Someone else has been captured, or killed.

The people here are a mixed bunch; she likes all of them well enough, though she isn't particularly close to any of the younger ones except Ginny and Dean. But asking about them has eased the tense atmosphere of the room.

"You didn't sleep last night?" Ron asks then, as Harry waits for the kettle to boil, watching them both. Hermione shakes her head.

"No," she says quietly. "I have trouble sleeping. Usually Malfoy –" She cuts herself off abruptly, and Ron groans, dragging a hand over his face, rubbing at the ginger scruff he's cultivating. He looks tired and resigned, the shocked denial – so clear on his face in Malfoy's cell – absent now.

"Just say it, 'Mione," he tells her, then mutters, "Merlin's sake," shaking his head as if in disbelief. Hermione stares down at her hands, clutched together in front of her.

"Usually Malfoy woke up when I had a nightmare," she says, adjusting it from the 'usually Malfoy slept in bed with me' that she'd been about to say. "And then he'd sit up, watching over me. It made me feel safe. I don't know if I can sleep without him."

Harry makes a harsh sound in the back of his throat, and Ron shoots him a quelling glare. Hermione would've thought it'd be the other way around. She looks at Ron, her hands wringing together. "I know you think I'm crazy. Or damaged. Or he's – he's brainwashed me. Trust me, I know how messed up it seems. How messed up it is –"

"Yeah. It is, Hermione," Harry says, and Ron looks down at his feet, not disagreeing. "I'm not some evil ogre. I'm your friend, and I'm worried about you because you're – you're screwing the guy who – who did that to you?"

Hermione is unspeakably grateful Harry shied away from the 'r' word, and also bridling at his assumption. "We're not doing that. We've never done that. Not even close," she snaps, and this time, it's Ron who shoots her a weird, unhappy look.

"Except for when he claimed you?" he asks, disgust dripping off the word.

Hermione is already sick of people flinging that in her face. "Are you telling me that you wouldn't do that, if my life – both of our lives – were at stake? Either of you? Ronald? Harry?" She skewers each of them with a cold glare. "I didn't want it. And it was fucking terrible. I have nightmares about it. It makes me sick, literally. But I also knew it was the only way to stay alive. So I told him to do it. Are you saying you wouldn't? You wouldn't beat me and fuck me to save my life? You'd let me be given over to the Dark Lord's followers? As if that would be better? I guess at least then your hands would be clean."

She's crude and bitter, the rage at what happened boiling up under her skin again. She wonders if it will ever lessen. Both the men are silent, staring at their feet. The kettle begins to whistle. Hermione waits. The kettle shrills. Hermione stomps over past Harry and grabs it off the hob, wrenching the gas off and then staring at Harry, eye to eye.

"He beat you?" Harry asks very quietly, and there's nothing in his voice but an aching compassion. Hermione gulps. The anger leaves her in a rush.

"It had to be believable," she says, setting the kettle onto the scorch-marked wooden board next to the stove. Her gaze locks to Harry's bright green one. He looks ill. "I want an answer."

When he finally speaks, it comes croaking out of him reluctantly. "Yes, Hermione. Yes, I would." She looks to Ron. His freckles stand out starkly against his ashen, sickened face.

"Merlin, Hermione. That's fucked up. But...yeah. I guess I'd have to."

"And so did Malfoy," she says tightly. "It – it wasn't fun for him, you know. Think about how you felt just imagining it." She pauses a beat. Sighs, feeling very old and unbearably weary. "So yeah. I don't hate him for it anymore. I think he hates himself, though."

"How can you...?" Harry starts and trails off. Hermione can figure out the general direction of his question though.

"That's why it's messed up," she says. "Now pour the tea, Harry."

They sit around the end of the scarred dining room table, drinking their tea in silence for a while. The table seats ten and is crammed into a narrow room with a bay window and slightly garish wallpaper in purple and gold striping. An ornately framed magical painting of a kneazle is on the wall. The kneazle is currently sleeping on a large wheel of cheese, which itself is surrounded by various fruits. It's a very ugly painting, but the kneazle looks a bit like Crooks.

Harry has put a plate of biscuits together, but Hermione finds herself unable to bear the thought of food passing her lips. Ron eats them with gusto, and Harry nibbles. Despite being a fairly full household, no one appears, and Hermione suspects that everyone has been forewarned to make themselves scarce. She wonders if it would be better or worse to have other people around. As it is, she just has silence except for Ron's chewing.

"We really can't just let Malfoy out, Hermione," Harry says out of nowhere. "All judgement on your...thing aside, it's not up to me. And the process will take time."

"How long?" she asks shortly.

"Maybe a week? Two at most," Harry hazards, and Hermione whimpers and sinks her head into her hands.

"You really can't sleep without him?" Ron asks around a mouthful of biscuit, and it's so Ron that Hermione gives a tearful giggle. This is the sort of thing she'd missed so dearly, when she was gone. The kneazle on the wall stirs, rolling into an upside-down twist.

"I don't know." She shrugs, feeling miserably resigned. "I guess we'll find out."

"Maybe a potion will help," Harry offers, and Hermione nods, hating the idea.

Silence falls again, but they're both watching her surreptitiously, and she can still feel the unspoken questions, as if they're floating telepathically through the air and beating against her skull. "Just ask," she says sharply into the silence eventually. "I can tell you want to ask me things. So do." And then she glares at them both. There are crumbs on Ron's fairisle jersey. "But use your heads. Don't ask me anything – well. You know."

Ron speaks first, and it's not what Hermione expects. "Do you think you'll be okay?" he asks with a worried, unvarnished kind of earnestness, and Hermione starts crying.

It takes a while to explain that she isn't angry and that wasn't the wrong kind of question while both Ron and Harry sit there helplessly, clearly wanting to hug her, or pat her shoulder and shush her. She sniffles her way back to normality and wipes her face with a handkerchief Harry fumbles out of his pocket, which appears to be clean.

"I hope so," she says finally, with a bit of wry humour as she scrubs at her cheeks. "I don't feel much like it right now."

"You're tired," Ron says. "That doesn't help." Hermione agrees with a nod and offers Harry his handkerchief back. Unsurprisingly, he tells her to keep it.

"So you and Malfoy – when did it start?" he asks, and it could sound combative, but he softens his voice and it just sounds like a question.

"Feelings? I don't know." Hermione thinks about it. "I think the first time I really realised I – well, had feelings, was about a month in, when he took the flogging for me."

"Flogging? " Harry asks, sounding horrified, and Hermione nods, realising belatedly how bizarre and barbaric it must sound to someone who hasn't lived with Voldemort for three months.

"To save me from attendance at a revel as the – the entertainment. We'd already talked about the possibility, and I'd agreed that I would rather do that than what could happen if I refused. But when it came down to it – he couldn't bring himself to ask me to do it, so instead he lied to his master, and took forty lashes for me." Hermione remembers that night vividly. They'd both been very drunk by the end of it. "I nearly kissed him that night," she says simply, "and then had a freak out over it. Because I knew I shouldn't feel that way. But I did. I do."

Harry stares at her for a long moment. They both do, in fact. And then Harry nods. "Right. So when did you, erm, stop freaking out?"

Hermione laughs bitterly. "I haven't." And then she shakes her head. "No. I know what you mean. And you're pushing the questions, Harry. This is intrusive," she says neutrally, just stating a fact, but before Harry can apologise, she holds up a hand and goes on. "I'll answer, but only because I want my best friends to understand, and not think I'm some crazy victim with Stockholm Syndrome – Harry will explain that to you later, Ron," she adds as an aside when Ron frowns in puzzlement.

She takes a steadying breath and continues. "I could count the times that Malfoy and I have kissed properly on my fingers. Just before, in the cells? That was probably only the sixth time. And I've initiated pretty much all but one, I think." The one when he told her that he loved her, standing in the snowy woods. When he was about to send her off to safety, and then go to his death. "So – so whatever we have, it's not based on him turning me into some willing sex slave. Okay?"

Both men seem oddly chastised. "Okay," Harry says quietly.


Hermione excuses herself after the tea, and climbs the stairs winding up to her small attic room, where she bolts the door, drags the blanket off the bed, and tries to sleep in the corner. It eludes her, and instead she spends hours ruminating over every terrible thing that could happen. She ends up in a ball crying on and off, her lips dry and cracked and head aching in heartbeat throbs. She wants Malfoy.

She wants Malfoy.


She is still lying there in a stiff, aching ball when someone knocks on her door. Her limbs protest as she stands, and the clock on the bedside table tells her it's dinnertime; her stomach has become oddly silent on the matter. Hermione would've thought she'd drift off eventually over the past five hours, but she'd kept nodding off and then waking with a jerk, dread pooling in her stomach and a scream unvoiced on her lips. At least she didn't sleep long enough to dream.

"Who is it?" she asks dully, wondering why she cares.

"Hermione? It's Ginny," comes through the door, and Hermione unbolts it and creaks it open. Ginny stands there grinning at her, tall and slim with her red hair gleaming, a tray in her hands. "Hi."

"Ginny. It's...good to see you," Hermione says limply, knowing she doesn't sound it.

"Mum thought you might prefer to have dinner upstairs? Things get a little wild at dinnertime. Although you're welcome to join us. I'll just carry your tray down," Ginny says in a rush, and Hermione smiles faintly, taking the tray from her with the idea of using it to shield against a hug.

"Thanks. And say thank you to your mum, too. I think I will eat up here. I'm not really...fit for company," she tries, and that sounds right. It's true, and also not 'I'm a complete mess who can't sleep and has spent five hours crying for Draco Malfoy'.

Ginny's sweeping glance seems to take in everything from Hermione's frazzled, lank hair to her bitten nails, and a tight, sympathetic smile flashes across her face. "Well, I'm just in the next room along if you need anything later. I'm usually in my room after ten, and I don't mind being woken."

"Thanks, Ginny," Hermione says sincerely, and Ginny flashes that close-lipped sympathetic smile again.

"It's no problem. Once you're finished with dinner, just leave your tray outside the door if you don't want to be disturbed." Hermione nods, and Ginny takes a step back. "I'm glad you're back, Hermione." And then she turns and goes with an awkward little wave, and Hermione clicks the door shut behind her with a push of her foot. She wonders what Malfoy is having for dinner. She imagines the Order would feed him fairly well. The tray goes on the dresser by the door. She takes the glass of orange squash off, sets it aside, and then stares narrow-eyed at the rest.

A roast dinner. Thin slices of beef and golden, crispy roast potatoes are washed in gravy, and a pile of peas and carrots sits in a puddle of it. Hermione finds she can't stand the idea of consuming any of it. She recognises the feeling; control of what she can control, as some kind of unhealthy coping mechanism. Hello, old friend.

"Shit," she mumbles, but puts the tray untouched outside the door.

Hermione downs the squash and then slips down to the second floor with her empty glass. The hallway is empty, and drifting up the flights of stairs, she can just catch the waft of laughter and conversation. She finds the bathroom again and pees, and washes her face; she's haggard and her eyes are puffy around, her lips patchy and dry. A deep, grinding tiredness weighs down her bones; mental and physical. She's struggling to stay upright, her aching head a metronome that scatters her thoughts, her stomach churning with nausea that she thinks is as much from stress as it is from the squash.

She considers having a shower in the ancient-looking over-tub system because scalding hot water sounds amazing, but discards the idea – she doesn't have a change of clothes yet anyway. Or a wand, she recalls randomly. They hadn't taken her to get a wand. Maybe they don't trust her with one. She misses the feel of Malfoy's in her hand – almost as familiar to her now as her own broken one – not that it ever worked very well. With a sigh, Hermione fills her water glass and creeps back up the narrow, steep staircase, bolting the bedroom door behind her.


At nine o'clock, there is another knock on her door. Hermione struggles back up out of the nest of blankets and pillows she's made in the corner of the room between the dresser and the eaves, feeling dizzy and aching down every bone. She doesn't bother to ask who it is, just wrenches the door open. It's Harry. His lips part as he looks at her, and Hermione wonders miserably just how terrible she looks. She feels like a zombie. Glassy-eyed and stumbling, her skin like paper.

"What?" she asks, realising belatedly how terribly abrupt that sounds. Harry's eyes skitter past her, probably taking in the stripped bed. A wrinkle of confusion slashes between his brows, but he seems to think better of mentioning it.

Instead, he holds up a small vial filled with purple liquid. "Dreamless Sleep," he says by way of explanation, and Hermione sighs. She supposes it's her only option, although she hates it; it makes her wake with a feeling of ominous dread, as though she did dream, but she just can't remember it. It makes her feel helpless. Controlled. She takes the vial from Harry's hand.

"Thank you."

"You didn't touch your food," he says, and they both look down at the plate beside the door.

"I wasn't hungry," she lies and Harry's expression tightens. He frowns and adjusts his glasses, a crease between his brows and his mouth unhappy.

"Hermione." Her name is a reproof and a plea, and she bites her tongue, hand tight around the vial of Dreamless Sleep, fear crawling up her spine.

"Don't." Hermione snaps it, her heart thrumming in frantic panic.

"You need to eat, Hermione," Harry says, confusion muddling his unhappiness.

"Tomorrow," she deflects, her hand on the doorknob. "I feel too sick right now." Making up excuses, and unlike Malfoy, Harry buys it, nodding sympathetically.

"Fair enough. It's been a hard day for you." He fidgets. "I understand that all of this is a real shock to you. I know it's going to take time before you start to get back to normal, and we need to be patient," he says, and Hermione stands there tensely, wondering who he's been talking to. Is that what Lupin told him, or has he been discussing her with other people? "But I'm just glad to have you home, 'Mione. And you're so strong, I know you'll be okay," he adds, green eyes bright and earnest, filled with trust in Hermione's capabilities, and she has to suppress a burst of wild, bitter laughter. She doesn't think she'll ever be okay again. She's not sure that the Hermione that Harry thinks he's looking at even exists after everything she's been through. Everything she's done.

"I don't think so," she says numbly, tiredness making her honest. She doesn't care anymore.

Harry frowns, not understanding. "What?"

"I'm not going to be okay, Harry," she says, fingers white-knuckled on the doorknob, and then shuts the door on him. The Hermione Granger that Harry knew died with the slide of Malfoy's cum down her bloodied thighs. She presses her back to the door and her free hand to her mouth and makes a muffled, quiet scream into it, her muscles shaking with the force of the tension running through her. Hermione wishes now that someone else had done it. Had raped her. Crabbe or Goyle Senior, or even Voldemort himself. Anyone but Malfoy. She can't take this horrible, desperate need for Malfoy's comfort when the reason she needs it is because of what he did. It's going to drive her insane.

"Hermione..."

"Just go away!" she yells through tears, her breath starting to heave. She wants Malfoy. It's a litany in her head, pointless and fucked up, and wringing her out.

"I don't want to leave you like this," Harry says through the door, and Hermione chokes on a sob, wiping her face and yanking the door open. Face to face with Harry, she swipes her cheeks, sniffing sharply as her nose begins to run, and Harry's eyes look suspiciously watery, a tremble to his chin. He clears his throat, swallowing thickly. "Christ. 'Mione. I can't just leave you like this," he says helplessly, waving a hand at her. The state of her. Hermione inhales and then exhales shakily, trying to wrestle back some control over herself. She knows how she must look. Like a crazy person who belongs in a padded room, in a straitjacket, her hair a lank, stringy tangle and her face sticky with snot and tears.

"I'm fine, Harry."

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not," Hermione admits. "But I'll survive. I just – need sleep," she says, only half a lie. She holds up the vial. "And right now, I plan on taking this and going to sleep." That part is true. As much as Hermione hates the idea of potion-induced sleep, she knows that she needs it. She can't keep going forever without it. The human body doesn't work that way, and Hermione is already on a knife-edge of total collapse. And the Order won't let her see Malfoy if she's a complete wreck instead of only half of one, she thinks, panic frittering in her mind. If she wants to see Malfoy, she knows she has to keep it together. Or at least pretend to, while everyone watches her with prying eyes, asking probing questions that rip the scabs off her wounds and just make it harder to pretend.

Harry stares at her for a long moment. He looks stricken. "I didn't think it would be like this."

"Sorry to disappoint." It's mean, but it feels good to say.

"I didn't mean it like that! 'Mione!" His hand flies out to slap against the door before she can finish swinging it shut. His eyes are hollow and grieving, his lower lip trembling, and he runs his fingers through his hair in frustration, every millimetre of his body exuding an impotent frustration, and Hermione knows she's being unfair on him. It's Harry. He loves her, and he cares, and she's standing here a broken ruin who won't eat, and he can't stand it. Hating that he can't make it better for her. She'd be the same if their positions were reversed, Hermione knows it. He's searching for words when she speaks.

"I know you didn't. I'm sorry, Harry," she says with lips that feel numb and clumsy. "I – I am not doing well," she admits. Looks down at her feet. "I don't know how to exist without him, Harry," she whispers. "I'm so scared. I know I'm safe but –" She shakes herself, cutting off the flow of consciousness that had been about to spill from her mouth like vomit; visceral and messy. Bitter. Unhelpful. She forces a smile to her lips that feels wholly foreign, hugging herself with one arm, the other hand still on the doorknob. "I – I should sleep."

"It'll be okay, 'Mione," Harry says earnestly, and all Hermione can think is how stupidly naive he is. "You know that, right?" He reaches out and she flinches away on instinct, causing him to jerk his hand back as though she's scalded him, running his hand through his hair instead, tugging at clumps of it.

"Sorry," she whispers.

"No. No, that's my bad. I keep forgetting." Harry bends and picks up her dinner tray. "Um. I'll see you in the morning, then?"

Hermione nods and murmurs agreement, swinging the door shut and turning away from it without another thought. The vial of Dreamless Sleep is warm in her fingers now. If she doesn't drink it, Hermione knows she won't sleep, and if she doesn't sleep tonight, then tomorrow will be impossible. So she uncorks it and tips it down her throat before she can think too much about it, thinking instead about Malfoy in his stone cell, lying on the basic cot and staring at the ceiling, that livid bruise marring his pale face. The Dreamless Sleep is bitter, like so many potions are. The empty vial falls to the floor, unimportant, and Hermione makes it to her nest of blankets and pillows before the effects begin to creep up. Limbs growing clumsy and eyelids heavy, spidering fingers of sleep wrapping gossamer around her brain, dragging her down into heavy, black nothingness.

It feels like dying.