Manacled by Senlinyu

chapter 31: flashback 6

He tilted her head back with his fingertips. When she looked deep into his eyes, she could see a bitterness that she didn't think had been there before.

He sank painlessly into her mind.

It was more of the same for the next two weeks. More occlumency and a reserved Malfoy. Conversation remained stilted, although the intelligence he provided continued to flow generously and remained sound.

Hermione berated herself internally each week as he apparated away after exchanging less than a dozen words with her.

Her psychological sketch of him had stalled. Each week, she added more questions with no answers. The list of potential motives ranged from the magnanimous to the monstrous.

She could tell that she was almost done with occlumency training. Malfoy's invasions of her mind were growing agonizingly painful and aggressive as he tested her technique and abilities.

She was tempted to ask if he still intended to train her in dueling, but she was afraid to bring up the subject.

She was beginning to feel desperate.

When she got to the shack she paced nervously, trying to come up with some way of breaking through the awkwardness. There had to be some way to get through to him. Some weakness she could find to get inside.

Malfoy appeared in front of her with an abrupt crack, and seemed to wince slightly as he straightened.

Hermione had seen that subtle expression often enough to identify it immediately, no matter how carefully concealed. Without even pausing to think, she whipped her wand out and cast a rapid diagnostic on him.

Before she could glance down for the results, Malfoy lunged forward, knocked her wand away, and had her pinned to the wall.

"What are you doing?" he snarled.

Right. He probably wasn't in the habit of letting people cast magic in his direction.

She met his eyes steadily. "You're hurt."

He snatched his hands away from her and stepped back.

"It's nothing," he said. "I'll have it taken care of later."

Hermione's eyes dropped down to the colours and details surrounding her wand, lying on the floor a few feet away, reading the most obvious parts.

"You've got several fractured ribs, a concussion, and internal bruising. It'll take me ten minutes to fix it. And—" she gave him a pointed look, "apparating will hurt even more the next time. If you leave the fractures and keep doing it, your ribs may fully break. You could puncture a lung. If there are shards, the ribs would have to be removed and regrown."

He stared at her for several moments before rolling his eyes. "Fine."

She knelt down and grabbed her wand. "Strip—from the waist up."

He went still for a moment.

"I thought that was my line," he finally said as he reached up stiffly and unfastened his cloak, letting it pool in a careless heap on the floor. "If you wanted me so badly, you only needed to ask."

He leered at her in an overtly fake way.

Everyone had methods for handling pain. Harry got very quiet, while Ron would become what Fred and George had termed "bitchy." Seamus and Charlie swore in such volume and length that they had to be silenced.

Pain clearly made Malfoy even more sarcastic than he already was.

At least that meant he was talking to her again.