Six
"Can I have a wand at least?" she asks, brittle, and looks at the faces around her in Lupin's office. Tonks leans against a filing cabinet, Lupin sits behind the table Hermione sat at for her debriefing, and Ron and Harry both stand in front of a wall of maps decorated with pins, strings, and little notes. Tonks and Lupin both look sympathetic but decided, Harry and Ron more distraught. They've just finished telling Hermione what she had known was coming; she can't have contact with Malfoy for twenty-eight days. Such a stupidly particular number.
Hermione hasn't argued, or shouted, or laid waste to Lupin's office like she wished to when the words hit her ears. She has taken it with the calm of a convicted prisoner on the morning of execution, or a person who has been sick for a long time; an awful, wrenching dread realised, but no sudden, shocking anger. It was expected, and she has tried to take it in stride. It's important to react well, she knows, and so she's done her best to present them with a mask that will make them happy. She's lying to them. It's so strange. There are no dangers here, but otherwise, this place, the Order – it feels very much like being Voldemort's prisoner.
She stands very quietly in front of the table, telling herself to keep it together, a new litany for her to repeat in her head. Keep it together, Hermione. She knows they won't be dissuaded, and so her only option is to get through it and convince them she's stable enough without Malfoy to be able to see him. It seems so cruel. So pointless. Because Hermione does need him, she does. And she knows it's not healthy, but god, what's so bad about one unhealthy thing after what she's been through? Can't she have this? Malfoy's not heroin – more like nicotine patches. Not great to be dependent on, sure, but hardly the end of the world if it keeps you together.
"Well?" She prompts as everyone remains silent, and Ron looks away, Harry shifting uncomfortably on his feet. The feeling of gut-punched disappointment is familiar now, but no less horrible. Hermione sighs. "Let me guess, I can't have a wand either?"
"The Healer had concerns you might use it to put yourself in danger. Or hurt yourself," Lupin says apologetically, and Hermione wants to slam his stupid, apologetic face into the table. Perhaps she's being unfair, but she despises the sight of him.
"I had more freedoms as a prisoner!" she says too loud but not quite a shout, flinging one arm out expressively. "At least then I could see Malfoy whenever I wanted, and I had a wand when he was in the room!" She glares at them, boiling over with an exhausted frustration. "This is fucking bullshit."
She slams the door behind her when she stalks out.
After that outburst, Hermione goes to her room and rips all the blankets off her bed, huddling back in the corner. She feels like a wounded animal waiting to die. She doesn't cry much, though. Just a little. And when Ron knocks on the door and says that it's dinnertime, she opens the door to him with a tray in hand and says she'll eat at the table. They walk down together, and she makes him carry the tray. They make small talk about his brothers, and Hermione smiles once at a comment he makes, even managing a chuckle, although she still flinches from his hand when he reaches out to steady her at the first-floor landing.
"Look who's joining us," he says, pleased as punch, and a hush settles over the room as he leads her in and finds a place at the table for her between him and Ginny. She can see the painting of the kneazle from this angle, and it's industriously cleaning its own bumhole; Hermione snorts inwardly – she hardly needed another reason to be put off her food. She sits and Ron places her dinner in front of her, and everyone greets her in considerate murmurs. She smiles and nods, feeling mechanical.
"It's good to see everyone," she says, and it's not really a lie. It is good, even if it makes panic flutter like bird wings in her chest and her blood run thin and dizzy. The older generation gives her muted, friendly greetings like they're afraid they'll frighten her off – which is a possibility – and Molly Weasley fetches her a butterbeer. Of the ones around her own age, Justin and Dean are smiling widely, Hannah's gaze is gentle but not pitying, and Angelina just nods at her firmly and flashes a fleeting grin. Ginny's expression is filled with tight-lipped sympathy; maybe being possessed by Riddle's diary years ago has given her a little understanding of what it's like to belong to the enemy.
The conversation swells again after a few minutes, and even though it's not as loud as it was before – out of concern for Hermione, it's still too loud for comfort. Her hands feel sweat-slippery on her knife and fork as she forces herself to eat at least a third of her dinner, and her muscles are so tense she knows she'll ache later. But she smiles at people, and listens to some short, funny little stories and nods away making the right sounds, and doesn't run off screaming. The long dining table filled with raucous people makes her think of other things, but she locks those thoughts down hard, as best she can. She refuses to think of them. But even so, she finds herself sitting tensely, thighs pressed together as hard as steel until her muscles tremble.
After dinner, she goes through to the sitting room with nearly everyone else, and while some read or play games, they all listen to the wireless. War news. Old stories. Messages of encouragement, grief, and hope from individuals trying to reach family or friends, or just throwing hope blindly into the abyss. And buried within the latter, encoded information that Lupin jots down, to untangle later using a mix of ciphers that hidden keywords earlier in the programme had pointed to, and common sense. Hermione used to help with codes before her capture.
Now she just sits on the end of a long couch and listens, knees up and a mug of hot cocoa in her hands. Hermione imagines she looks frail and tired but hopeful, and no one really bothers her. They all understand she needs time, and not to be crowded. It's 9 pm before she pleads off and says she's going to get an early night. Harry looks particularly happy as she clumps up the stairs, feeling exhausted beyond all reason, the faint smile dropping off her lips as though it's been erased. There one second, gone the next.
If they want her to play a game, then she will. It will be just like when she pretended to be Malfoy's broken, beaten slave, except that she'll have to do it far more often. That could prove difficult. But she'll try her best if it means she gets to see Malfoy.
The first thing he says as he's escorted roughly in is, "How's Granger?" before he even gets halfway across the large, sunny room that is situated two floors up from his cell. Lupin eyes him carefully from behind a large table as the wizard escorting Draco shoves him firmly down by his shoulders onto the chair opposite Lupin. It's not Creevy; Creevy is waiting outside, and thanks to him, Draco has a bruise on his right cheekbone and eyebrow just coming up; nothing too bad, but it feels hot and sore, and he thinks the skin under his eyebrow might be split. Another scar. The stocky wizard who escorted him in unchains his hands from where they're manacled behind his back.
"Hands on the table," the wizard says, and Draco bites the inside of his cheek and does what he's told. Lupin doesn't answer the question yet, as the wizard chains Draco's manacled wrists to the table. Draco takes in the space around him. The room seems incongruous for interrogation or even debriefing; probably once a bedroom, the large, sunny, paisley-wallpapered space is empty save for a large table bolted to the waxed wood floor, two chairs, and a clock on the wall.
"It's just procedure", Lupin says instead, almost apologetically, as he nods to Draco's wrists, sturdy manacles hooked to heavy iron chains now, which clink dully as he moves. He has about half a foot of chain to play with; not much.
"I don't care. How's Her– Granger." It feels safer to call her that, although more and more – even before they escaped – Draco has secretly thought of her as Hermione. It feels too vulnerable, too intimate, too exposing. Granger has a distance to it. When he says Hermione, he feels as though the name lays bare everything he feels. Lupin blinks at him. His mouth twitches.
"She's doing okay, considering. She saw a Healer, yesterday, and had dinner with us all last night," Lupin says at last, picking his words carefully, and Draco feels some of his worry drain from him like the tide going out. It's as though half his tension vanishes abruptly, and he wants to slump in the chair and just breathe. If Hermione's capable of facing dinner with multiple people, she must be coping. Thank Merlin. Of course, the relief comes with a stab of pain, too, because he's selfish. He pictures her sitting at the table, probably beside Weasley, talking and laughing, and maybe Weasley puts his hand on hers.
Fuck. Draco doesn't even want to think of that possibility. He wants her to be happy. He knows he's not what's best for her. But the thought of her with someone else makes him wish he'd sent Hermione away without him, and then died as he'd planned. By his own hand, not the Dark Lord's. He hopes he shows none of these thoughts on his face. "Good," he says simply, and nothing else. He wants to ask more – a dozen questions swimming in his mind – but he doesn't.
"Thank you, Adrian," Lupin says to the stocky wizard. "You can go now." And then, when he's left, the door closing behind him, Lupin sits forward, fussing with the parchments on the table, laying out a self-writing quill, and shuffling file folders. "Who gave you that?" He says unexpectedly and flicks his fingers in the direction of Draco's injury, his glance flashing up, their eyes connecting. Draco smiles faintly.
"I walked into a door," he says. It surprises a snort of laughter out of Lupin.
"Come on, Draco," he says dryly when he's straightened his face. "I know it has to be one of the wizards or witches you've interacted with since you've been here, which narrows it down to five. And I can't have Order members engaging in prisoner brutality." A hard edge creeps into his tone.
"Then give them all a scolding," Draco says flippantly. He doesn't feel like ratting on Creevy. It's not like the wizard has done anything particularly brutal or cruel; this literally did come from walking into a door. A door that Creevy had slammed him into as he was hustling Draco out of his cell, arms chained behind his back so he couldn't catch himself, yes, but Draco deserves worse. Lupin stares at him for a while, as if he's trying to see inside Draco's mind, clearly unable to figure out why Draco won't admit who did it. He stares back, expressionless. Even if Lupin knew legilimency, Draco's occlumency is impenetrable; it had to be to fool the Dark Lord. The older wizard sighs eventually and lets it go.
"Alright. Well, if you change your mind, let me know. Otherwise, let's get on with it. I know Shacklebolt was your handler, but he's unavailable." Lupin says, face tired and expression mild, and Draco jerks a nod, shifting in his chair. Being manacled to the central point of the table is limiting and his chair is some uncomfortable, some flimsy folding thing. It's hard to get settled. He ends up scooting close to the table, tucking his feet back under the chair and resting his forearms on the tabletop. His hair flops down over his forehead, nearly hanging in his eyes.
"I've read his files, and as colleagues, we have spoken about you before, so I think –"
"Just get on with it, Lupin," Draco says tiredly but not rudely exactly, cutting the rambling preamble short. Lupin firms his mouth and nods. He looks old. Older than Draco remembers. The past two years have been hard and long, and Lupin is greying, more wrinkles at his eyes and around his mouth. Draco knows the past two years haven't exactly been kind on him either; the last time he saw himself in a mirror, he looked hard and haggard, and of course, now he sports a scar down the side of his face, his back is a ragged mess of scar tissue, and his front not unscathed either. But Hermione looks at him as though he hung the moon. He doesn't know how she can, after everything he's done, but she does. Or did. Who knows, now.
And then the debrief begins; Draco steels himself and clears his mind, trying to shut down any emotion as Lupin passes him a vial of veritaserum to drink. He hates knowing that he can't lie, and silently trusts Lupin won't be enough of an arsehole to ask him about his face again now that he's predisposed to answering. Draco thinks he might be able to resist the compulsion, but it wouldn't be worth expending the effort to protect Creevy. The man doesn't ask him.
The questions start off perfunctory; running over the past roughly two years before Hermione was dragged unconscious into the dungeons. It takes what feels like hours, although the clock on the wall has only moved from 10.32 to 11.48, and as much as Draco tries to keep himself in check, he starts to unravel under the barrage of questions and photographs of missing individuals. His self-loathing snaps its leash, prowling free and wild through his head, which is aching, his gut churning as he starts to sweat, his leg jittering under the table.
It all runs together, a blur of terrible, unforgivable, monstrous acts. He recognises too many photographs.
The first one he recognises is the worst, as Lupin lays it in front of him. A five-year-old boy, smiling and laughing in a family portrait. "Yes, I killed him," he says numbly. "They were going to give him to Rodolphus. It was a mercy." If he'd been able to, he would've kept that last part to himself, but the veritaserum makes that nearly impossible. Lupin's expression shifts slightly, grim and disgusted – but it's the pity in the older man's eyes that Draco hates. He just nods.
"The mother was also taken," Lupin says. Draco swallows hard. "When was the last time you saw her? Did you kill her?"
The compulsion is like an itch under his skin, and if he doesn't try hard enough that it hurts in his head, a throb behind his eyes, then the words don't come out diplomatic and careful but rather, just blunt. "The last time I saw her, she was being raped by Rabastan Lestrange at a revel. There were more waiting to take their turn. I didn't stop and watch." Draco clenches his jaw and a trickle of sweat slides down his back. He feels like vomiting as he looks at the woman's reddish blonde hair and wide smile as she stands behind her son, remembering the blood and the dull glaze to her eyes, the tears streaking her cheeks as she lay limp and pliable. "I didn't kill her. I don't know who did."
Lupin's grim expression doesn't shift. The self-writing quill is copying down everything they say, but Lupin makes some extra notes with every answer Draco gives, his quill scratching on the parchment. They go through eighteen more photos before Lupin shifts back to queries about raids and bases of operation, perhaps because he senses Draco needs the break. He recognised eleven of the people, killed two himself and had seen six others die horribly, in agony.
Draco's head is pounding, his shirt is wet with sweat, and there's a persistent tic in his jaw. His hands are clammy, and he keeps catching himself unconsciously picking at his nails and the dry skin around the nail beds. His right thumb is bleeding now. Lupin offers Draco water, his throat sore from talking. And then the questions begin again, and it's not really any better just because there aren't photographs. The questions keep coming. The atrocities keep growing, more and more, a mountain of evil and horror, and Draco is crushed beneath the weight of it. He's losing it.
In answer to another question, along with a photo Lupin shuffles out of the pile – "Yes, I was there on that raid. We didn't kill Tomlin, we took him for interrogation. He lasted most of the night before he broke. I don't know when or how he died, but I assisted in disposing of his body."
Another – "They don't use that house anymore. Not since October." And then another, and another, and another. The clock on the wall reads 12.57 – it's been nearly two and a half hours.
"There was a raid in Portree in March," Lupin says, looking up from his notes. "They burned the Muggles. Did your side –"
"They're not my side," Draco bites out, and his voice shakes as he jerks forward, anger searing through him. His hands are shaking. Lupin apologises, that awful pity still in his eyes, and rephrases.
"Were you at the raid? Did anything of note happen? And why did Voldemort order the raid? We've never been able to figure that out."
"Yes, I was there when they made the mass pyre in Portree." He tries to run his hands through his hair, but the chain pulls up short. He can remember everything so fucking clearly. The smell. The heat. The screams. "I – I used somnium on six people before the fires reached them so that they wouldn't be conscious while they burned. I couldn't get them all. They screamed. They – the smoke got some of them first. They were the lucky ones. But I –" Draco knows he's going off on an incoherent ramble and he can't stop himself. He gasps for air and more words come out. "They raped them first. And tortured them, and – and the only thing I could do was try to avoid having to j-join in, and –"
"Stop." Lupin's voice cracks the air like a spell, and Draco's mouth snaps shut. He feels pathetically glad. "Have another sip of water and take a breath." Lupin spends five minutes focused on his papers before it begins again. Draco is starting to think a beating would be preferable to this.