As if stung by a tarantula, Lucius Malfoy flinched and released Hermione from the unpleasant prison between his arms and the table.
"Severus, I didn't hear you come in," Malfoy said, obviously struggling to strike a normal tone.
Snape's eyes rested for a moment on Hermione, who stood beside the table with lowered eyes and trembling hands, then he turned his attention to his Death Eater colleague.
"Twinkle let me in, and when no one showed up to receive me, I took the liberty to join you unasked," he explained, but then frowned and added, "Have you been having breakfast alone with your slave girl lately?
"No," Malfoy replied, and while he offered his guest a seat at the table with a gesture of his hand, began his explanation, "There was a little argument this morning... you know how I am. Unnecessary stress in the morning is an abhorrent to me, so I sent Narcissa and Draco away."
With a grateful nod, Severus Snape lowered himself onto one of the dark chairs. Immediately, Hermione rushed to him to provide another set of cutlery and plate and cup. While she prepared knife, fork and various spoons in the correct order with practiced movements, she could once again feel Snape's searching gaze on her. She felt her face turn red as she felt naked under his stare, but she didn't let herself be disturbed and returned to her usual place next to her master as quickly as possible.
"Well, what has she done?" Snape asked, while he grabbed a bun from the middle of the richly laid table.
"Padron me?"
"When I came in, it seemed to me that you were giving Granger a stern rebuke. Have I misinterpreted what transpired?" he elaborated on his question, ending the second part by raising his eyebrow in an open and suggestive manner.
That elicited a laugh from Malfoy, that Hermione immediately recognised as nervous, but his answer was calm, "My goodness, no. Your mind seems to be on only one track recently. She provoked me with her insolent words - and a slave should not be insolent to her master."
"Insolent, eh?" Snape mused.
Once again, his eyes rested thoughtfully on Hermione. As if he had suddenly become aware of it, he turned away a moment later and inspected the interior of the great dining room. The dark wooden table stretched out across the entire room and he knew from his own experience that thirty people could comfortably sit at it.
Now only the place at the head of the table and that to the left of the master of the house were occupied, and to his right there were two places where breakfast dishes were also placed. Contrary to many of his colleagues, Lucius Malfoy always had the table completely set in the morning with everything that belonged to a generous breakfast. Other wizards simply expressed their wishes to the house elves and they hurriedly conjured them up from the kitchen. Not so Malfoy: Snape knew that his old colleague found the presence of house elves during the meal disturbing and his appetite was heightened by the sight of all the beautifully prepared food. And so, the large table was loaded with all sorts of delicacies, always within easy reach for those present.
All the more astonishing that now the human slave was allowed to be present. Apparently, she had no other task than to refill the coffee or various juices whenever one of the gentlemen demanded it - a task that Narcissa Malfoy used to do much to her own displeasure. She had always struggled to be a servant to her husband on this point, he knew that all too well.
The room itself was cut in a perfect rectangle and panelled with dark wood up to about half the height of the wall. Above it, another white wall stretched for another two meters or so, which finally ended in several equally perfect cross vaults. From each of the three cross vaults hung a large, silver chandelier, each of them equipped with exactly twenty magic candles, which always began to burn as soon as a member of the house or a guest entered the room.
The high windows, which stretched along the entire side, were covered with white, heavy curtains in the colour of the ceiling. The room was facing east, so that the rising sun bathed it in a warm light in the morning, but could not heat it up too much during the day.
In all this restrained splendour and elegance, the idea that Lucius Malfoy could tolerate a cheeky slave at the breakfast table seemed bizarre to Snape. He knew the Lord of the house only too well and knew that it would be easy for him to train a slave to obey him like a house elf. Even a stubborn creature like Hermione Granger.
His gaze returned back to the starting point: to the young woman standing next to her master's chair with her eyes lowered.
"How is it that she still dares to be impertinent," Snape formulated the question that came to his mind during his observations of the room, "I would have assumed that under your rule this particular trait would quickly be smothered."
Malfoy, who had returned to the Daily Prophet because of his silent guest, now let the paper sink once more and turned to him. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? I fear it was her Gryffindor pride. Most of the time she is as well-behaved as a house elf, but every now and then her old character flashes through. I have chosen an exhausting slave, but at least she's valuable."
Snape realised immediately that his question had not been answered, and that only made him more suspicious. Something didn't fit into the picture, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. With a shrug he turned his attention back to his second breakfast and only squinted over to Hermione every now and again.
oOoOoOo
"You clean the kitchen?"
Scared, Hermione spun around. She was just cleaning the floor beneath a huge, magical oven when a voice sounded behind her. Uncertain, still sitting on her knees, she looked up at the unexpected intruder. He looked down on the her just as wordlessly, before he stepped a few steps further into the kitchen and dropped onto a stool at the big preparation table.
What was Snape doing here? Why was she alone with him again? And why was he staring at her silently again?
"Can-" Hermione started, but her voice broke and she had to clear her throat before she could ask her question, "Can I ... help you, Sir?"
Still the unwelcome guest remained silent and only looked down from his seat over the table to Hermione sitting on the floor. The kitchen was large, the table alone was certainly five metres long and two metres wide. And yet it suddenly seemed to her that the room got too crowded, as if she was being suffocated by the presence of her former Potions professor. Nervously, she cleared her throat again.
"I... I have to clean up here, so if you don't need anything..."
"Go ahead, I don't need anything. Continue where you left off."
Hermione couldn't think of any other answer from Snape that would have unsettled her more than that calm, indifferent tone. She glanced at him for a moment, then turned back, grabbed the rag and stretched to find the spot deep under the stove where she had last cleaned.
She didn't like the fact that Snape was sitting behind her, that she had to turn her back on him while she was almost lying under the stove. She could feel his eyes on her back, but the man himself made no sound. Annoyed, Hermione called herself to order. He could stare all he wanted. Her skirt was short, he could probably admire her bare thighs, but nothing more. He wouldn't dare break her master's rules and touch her. Whatever was going on in his sick mind, she would not give him the joy and show him fear.
"Why are you cleaning here and not the house elves with their magic?" the deep voice suddenly sounded close behind her.
Horrified, Hermione let go of the cloth and straightened up. Snape squatted next to her and looked at her with his vacuous look.
"What... I don't know," she said, "I guess the Malfoys haven't thought of a better way to humiliate me. They're not all that bright, it seems."
After a brief moment of silence, Hermione could not help but add, "Just as all Death Eaters are not very bright."
Provocatively, she sat up and looked him in the eye. But instead of anger or contempt, she discovered - nothing. Expressionless stares, directed at her with great intensity, but impossible to interpret. She stared back, but she sensed that she would be the first to break eye contact. Heat crept across her neck into her face and again she was annoyed that she was even involved in conversations or eye duels with this man, with this murderer.
As if the staring competition had never taken place, she finally stood up and strolled to the wall with the copper and cast-iron pots. The water in the large wooden kettle was still hot, foam was floating on the surface, just waiting to devour dirty dishes, pots, pans and cutlery. Leisurely, anxious to appear a calm on the outside, Hermione let the breakfast dishes and the preparation pots sink slowly into the hot water. Emphasising indifference, she reached for the sponge - and found that it was not where it was supposed to be.
"You actually wash the dishes by hand," Snape asked drily as he examined the sponge in his hand.
"Yes," Hermione hissed, "if I'm allowed! Give me back the sponge... sir!"
She noticed Snape looking to the side for a split second before he took a big step towards her. Before she could react, Snape dipped the sponge deep into the dishwater, let it soak in - and then squeezed it out over her. The water immediately became cold and ran down her hair, her face, right down to her dress. Hermione felt her nipples stand up under the cold and wanted to cross her arms in front of her chest. But Snape stopped her. He grabbed both wrists and held them together behind her pelvis.
"You should be careful, Granger," he whispered to her, "Insolence is not good for a slave. And who knows which of these not-so-bright Death Eaters will not one day get the idea to pay Lucius the money so he can do what he wants with you? Do you think it's good to have been so bold to everyone before?"
The whispering was as unemotional as his staring, but Hermione felt a shiver run down her spine. His face approached her neck until she felt first his hot breath, then his teeth against her pulse. Hermione's eyes opened in horror. Snape didn't stink like Fenrir Greyback, he was washed and groomed - and yet this physical closeness caused more nausea than the werewolf had been able to.
She could feel the older man sink his teeth slightly into her delicate flesh, could feel him pull her closer. But her mind could not comprehend it. She felt as if she was standing beside her, as if what was happening to her body was not connected to her. It seemed as if she was staring down from the outside at the black-clad man, the murderer of Dumbledore, the traitor who had enslaved Ginny - and who now enjoyed her body as if it belonged to him, as if she was in fact nothing more than that body, at the free disposal of anyone who wanted to use it.
A sudden pain ripped Hermione from her trance-like state - Snape actually bit her. Disgusted, she writhed under his firm grip, but the wizard made no attempt to hold her any longer. He stood up, licked his lips and left with one last, impenetrable look.
And it was only now, when Hermione looked at him, frightened and angry, that she noticed another figure standing at the entrance to the kitchen.
Draco Malfoy.