Secrets and Masks

07. Time is a cruel mistress

Hermione had organised her mind thoroughly during her training in memory blocking. She'd spent her isolated evenings honing her craft, filing each memory away behind walls and doors and locking the most important memories away, as far from his reach as she could manage. She intended to make this as difficult for him as possible. If he thought she would give up her secrets easily, he was very fucking mistaken.

Her maddeningly thought-out filling system, coupled with the will of her psyche and years of training had the desired effect. When he'd failed to force that door to her first real, tangible memory open by the end of the sixth day, Malfoy started to become volatile.

He was growing more frustrated by the day. His failed attempts to uncover even the smallest of her memories scratched at his confidence, and the more she wounded his pride, the more unhinged he became. And the more dangerous. He'd started searching her mind more sporadically after the first week. At random intervals, multiple times a day. Each session was more painful than the last, but Hermione held strong. She could do this. He'd crack before she did, she'd make sure of it.

After Malfoy pulled out of her mind, Hermione woke on the floor screaming, gasping and panting for breath. In many ways, the aftermath hurt more than the initial intrusion.

Legilimency was an exceptionally invasive type of magic. Intimate but unwelcome. It was punishing, overly taxing on the subject's body, and certainly not meant for continuous, everyday exposure. Malfoy's relentless use of the spell would have certainly caused concerns if the Ministry of Magic was still around. Probably would have earned him a good decade in Azkaban, but the Ministry wasn't there anymore. He wouldn't be carted away to rot in a cell for his inhumane actions. He wouldn't sit in the corner of a mouldy cage, paranoid, mind melting away as he waited for the kiss from a dementor.

No one was going to stop him. No one was coming to help her, so the torture continued. It gave Hermione something to fantasize about though. Gave her something pleasant to focus on while she lay bored in her pretty little cell.

By the fourth day of her imprisonment, Hermione had begun bleeding out of her eyes after their sessions. The first time she'd barely noticed it, too busy writhing on the floor, her vision blurred and temples throbbing. She'd been in too much pain to register the wetness streaking from her eyes -

Until it had started to pool on the floor beneath her.

On the fifth day, she'd started to bleed from the corners of her mouth after their sessions and by the seventh day, it started to streak from her ears too. The harder she fought against the spell, the more she bled, and the more the pressure in her temples deepened to the point she wondered if her skull might fracture from it.

Malfoy didn't care. Didn't so much as batter an eyelid when she was on the floor, rasping, choking for breath. His eyes were always unfeeling, like he wasn't actually seeing her.

Hermione spent most of her day alone. Romy or another house-elf, Quinzel, brought her meals on a silver tray. At first, Hermione was uncooperative and refused to speak to the elves at all, never mind letting them know what her food preferences were. They would dawdle for a while, asking question after question while Hermione stared out the window and onto the lavish gardens, refusing to respond.

Her rudeness did nothing to deter the elves spirits. It was sweet, really, how determined they were to get to her to eat, particularly at breakfast. If she wasn't so scared or so utterly consumed with the need to escape, she would've gladly eaten anything they put in front of her.

It wasn't that the food they brought wasn't appealing. Quite the opposite; it was all absolutely mouth-watering, but Hermione had no appetite. They brought every breakfast food imaginable to entice her; scrambled eggs on toast, waffles, yogurt and berries. The trays were always lovingly prepared. The silver was always perfectly polished, and a freshly cut white tulip was always laid next to the blunt cutlery. Every time, the elves were absolutely downtrodden to find the food untouched.