Thanks for your patience, please enjoy!

Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy sat across from one another, at a table deep in the Hogwarts library. They were locked in a silent battle; Draco's lip pulled up in a slight smirk, Hermione's face frozen in a scowl. His icy stare was warmed by the fire of hers, and honestly, he could've stayed like that forever. He didn't know what McGonagall was up to, forcing Hermione to take on Draco as a student. He wasn't necessarily bad at Occlumency, he'd been trained in the subject before. Granted, his aunt was his tutor then and she was evil to the point of psychopathy. And sure, he was taught in the interest of successfully murdering the greatest wizard who ever lived. Dumbledore knew of course…Draco supposed he could use some teaching.

He just wasn't aware who, exactly, was meant to be violating his mind.

If anyone was doing it at the moment, it was her. She was trying not to break first, but she wriggled uncomfortably in her seat. It was driving him mad. Her Gryffindor tie was loosened, the top few buttons of her shirt undone, revealing a devilish expanse of the skin above her breasts…

"Would you please put your shirt back on." Hermione snapped him out of his reverie.

"I just thought it would be motivating." Draco's smirk turned into a full grin when she rolled her eyes at him.

He rose out of his relaxed position in the chair and slowly began to pull his shirt closed. Hermione had been reading from a massive, dusty tome for what felt like hours, and he was bored. He never thought he would miss hauling stone and mending walls; but his body itched with the need to do something. To move. To feel the exquisite pain that came from a long day of intense labor. But torturing Hermione Granger over a stack of books in a long-forgotten section of the library would have to suffice. She didn't even realize he'd completely unbuttoned his well-fitted, inky black Oxford until the legs of his chair scraped across the stone floor. He'd leaned back then, in statuesque repose, placing his hands on the back of his head. His dedication to removing any obstructions from her view was nothing short of obscene. At the noise, her eyes snapped from the pages and caught on his uncovered stomach. They'd traveled slowly up his reclining body. He'd simply been dying to see her flustered again; the pink in her cheeks, her tongue wetting her lips.

"You think entirely too much of yourself." her voice was level when she spoke, but she couldn't stop the color from rising in her face. Draco's smirk grew into a grin.

"Don't take any bets out on that one." Hermione's eyes had been locked on his fingers since they began their task. They traced the small, plastic circles too meticulously...deftly sliding them into their corresponding button holes. Draco never took his eyes off her, she'd felt it...something about him maneuvering in that way, sight unseen...

"I can, and have, put my life on it." she cracked, trying to get a grip on her thoughts. "It's one of the few things in this world I am absolutely certain of."

The teasing energy of their exchange dissipated almost instantly. The distant sound of her pained screams broke through Draco's memory, the image of her broken body lying at the feet of Bellatrix Lestrange threatened to take up residence in consciousness. He turned away from her, trying to conceal his shame in his face.

Hermione noticed, of course. Good.

"You're bored? Fine." she yanked her wand out of her robes. "Muffliato. Tutum spatium. Protego totalum."

"What are you-" Draco began.

"Stand up." she cut him off as her charms silenced the space around them. Draco chuckled, readying his witty retort, but bit it short when he saw her eyes blaze hotter. He stood obediently, sliding his hands into his pockets.

"Put your hands where I can see them. By your side." she ordered.

Draco did as he was told. Though he towered over her, her presence made him feel miniscule. Weak. And profoundly aroused. She walked several paces away, widening the space between them, and turned.

"I'd ask you to clear your mind, but that seems to be your perpetual state." her words were coated with venom.

"A...another thing you'd bet on?" he croaked, resisting the urge to return his hand to his pocket, for nothing other than to conceal his growing erection.

"Absolutely." she hissed, and inhaled deeply. "Legilimens!"

The power of the spell hit him before she'd even finished the incantation. It was in that moment that Draco knew he had been a touch too cocksure when he agreed to participate in these tutoring sessions. Certainly, his deepest, darkest memory had been relinquished to the Pensieve…but he was dealing with the brightest witch of their age. Who knew what she could rip from the corners of his mind? Or how she would use it against him?

Well. It was too late now.

Blood spilled from neat wounds in a young Draco's palms. Lucius Malfoy ran his walking stick through a clean white cloth, smearing it with crimson. He tossed it at a waiting house elf, whose eyes were wide and brimmed with tears. The creature caught the cloth scuttled away without speaking.

"From this pain will come resilience." Lucius was putting on a little show for his son; a masterclass in how to act powerful without actually being powerful. "The next time I tell you to cast cruciatus on a lower life form, especially those within our employ, you do it. And you do it without hesitation." He stopped behind his son, his ice-cold breath causing a chill to run down Draco's spine. "Or I will show you first-hand how it's done next time. Am I understood?"

Draco nodded.

"SPEAK!" Lucius screeched.

"Yes, father." Draco's voice was hollow. He didn't cry; he knew crying would only lead to another beating.

"Good." Lucius spun on his heel and left his son in the middle of a grand sitting room, blood dripping from his hands. Draco didn't move until the "click" of his father's cane against the marble tile had faded into the distance. He didn't move when the sun fell behind the woods to the west, or when the fire in the hearth burned out. Pain rippled through his hands and up his arms, and still, he stood. After a long while, a door creaked open from the other side of the room. A small bit of candlelight popped out, low to the ground. Tiny footfalls made their way across the floor.

"Master Draco. We must mend your hands, sir." the house elf whispered up into the darkness. "And I've set out supper, sir, in your chambers. All will be well- it's stew, the country stew you like, when you're sick, sir." Draco turned his head in the direction of the voice. The house elf's face was concerned, lit dimly by the candle in his hand. Looking at the creature, tears began to fall from Draco's eyes. He cried until he sobbed, until he coughed up bile, until his nose was as red as his hands.

"Sir?" the house elf said. In the darkness, Draco had pulled out his wand. His bloodied hands shook.

"...Crucio."

Hermione abruptly released Draco from the spell, keeping her wand trained on him. Across from her, he still stood, though not at his full height. His head hung and his arms fell limp at his sides. She studied her aggressor for indications that he was about to attack, but he showed no signs of rage. No anger at the violation of his mind, no desire for revenge against her. He simply looked…tired. Heavy.

"Did you kill him?" she didn't mean it to, but it came out as a whisper. Draco lifted his head, and to her surprise, looked her directly in the eye. She had never experienced him like this; reverent, almost…prostrating. Even his response was quiet in a way she never thought him capable of.

"No. But he did spend two more decades at Malfoy manor. Death may have been kinder."

Hermione never understood how easy an option murder was to Death Eaters. As if no life, including those of their beloved purebloods, was sacred. She fumed. "And did you show your daddy what you'd done? That you did as you were told and used an unforgivable curse on an unarmed subordinate?"

He flinched at the change of her tone.

"I did. And you know what he gave me as a reward?" He challenged. "He performed the same unforgivable curse on me. For being too much of a coward to do it the first time he asked." It did not surprise Hermione that Lucius would be so cruel to his own child. Although she did find it hypocritical that he used it for the sin of cowardice, when that was Lucius' most notorious quality.

"What came of the elf?" Hermione asked, her voice softer, but her wand still at the ready.

"Just before the war broke out, I gave him a suitcase full of clothes and ten thousand galleons. And told him to run."

"I could tell if you were lying. I could make you tell me." She threatened, advancing on him.

"Then do it." His tone was almost begging. He took a step forward. "I said do it." She held her ground, trying to figure out what exactly he was asking of her.

"Do it!" he screamed. He was closing the gap between them, and though he was wandless, he was still much larger than she. And physically, much, much stronger.

Hermione lunged forward, the twisted idea of casting Cruciatus then and there tested her self-control. Before she could comprehend what was happening, her wand was pressed to his chest, and her hand was around his throat.

"Please." he whispered. Their eyes locked. She could see his pain so clearly, and she could see that he had stopped fighting it some time ago. He wanted to die. Was he asking her to be the one to kill him?

"Hermione. Please."

She felt a cool finger on her cheek then, pushing an errant curl out of her face. A trail of ice followed his touch, and it was the briefest of contact, she felt…branded. Her whole body shuddered. She felt the guilt in his memory, the sorrow when the incantation fell from his lips. She hadn't stayed in his mind long enough to see the damage Draco inflicted on the elf, but it was clear he found no pleasure in it.

But he'd had a choice. She thought. And he chose violence. He chose hatred.

Draco pressed himself infinitesimally closer to her, the gap between their bodies all but gone. A new heat rose inside of her, as she became acutely aware of his size. She had to crane her neck and tilt her head upward in order to see the full length of him. Being this close, she could see the dark circles under his eyes. The faded scarring on his arms. On his hands.

She wanted to touch him, but did not want to be touched by him. She pitied and feared him. He could fold her like a towel fresh out of the dryer, and take her right on this table. His strong, marred hands could do whatever they wanted to her, those fingers could work her as deftly as the buttons on his shirt.

She could end his life with a flick of her wrist. She hated him. He hated her.

Didn't he?

The gaze they shared could've set the whole library on fire. In point of fact, the energy from the moment, the sheer ferocity of their "lesson," had fried the protective spells encircling them.

And they'd drawn a crowd.

"MISS. GRANGER." Madame Pince's voice ripped Hermione out of the little world she'd been sharing with Draco. "Remove your wand from Mr. Malfoy immediately."

Hermione drew her arm away from him, noting only then that crimson tipped her wand, and crept slowly toward her fingers.

She didn't realize she'd drawn blood.