Manacled by Senlinyu

Chapter 45: Flashback 20

Draco gave a thin smile as his face drew even nearer. "The Dark Lord wants power. He isn't particular about who he crushes underfoot to obtain it. Muggles and Muggle-borns—" she could almost feel his lips against hers, "—you... were just easy."

Hermione could barely breathe. Her whole body was taut; at the precipice of something that felt like fear. Her heart was beating rapidly. Everything around her was blurring.

She wanted to bolt; she felt scared and vulnerable. She understood human anatomy and physiology, but her body was doing things she wasn't familiar with. Her physiology wasn't supposed to be confusing. She needed space to figure it out.

But—she didn't want to go; she had never felt anything like it before. Physical touch that was comforting, she understood. But this wasn't comforting. Draco's hand around her throat wasn't comforting. It was terrifying—and thrilling.

"A means to an end," she forced herself to say. "We're just a means to an end.

He pushed her back slightly. "Precisely."

She studied him. His eyes were black, and the hollows of his cheeks were faintly flushed. He slid his thumb slowly along the curve of her jaw. She licked her lips.

"Has killing us solved your problems then?" she asked.

His hand stilled. He stared at her for several seconds. Then his eyes glittered and he smiled.

"Well, you're certainly no threat to my job now, are you?" As he said it, his free hand slid firmly between her legs.

His eyes were cold and locked on hers. His fingers twisted and pressed knowingly at the apex of her thighs. It felt as though he'd electrocuted her. Sensation shot through her nerves.

She gasped.

As she did, everything crashed down on her with a sense of cold horror.

Hermione jerked away from him.

Draco's hands immediately withdrew from her, and he watched with an indifferent expression as she drew further away until she was on the far end of the bed.

She was shaking faintly. She could still feel him touching her; sliding his hand between her legs as he stared in her eyes and reminded her that he had turned her into his property. Not because he had wanted her. But simply because he could. Because it had amused him to do so when he made his offer. Because he had power, and she was a pawn.

Now he got to watch her try to whore herself to him, and anything else she could conceive of, in the hopes of becoming a possession he would at least be unwilling to part with. He didn't have to debase her further. He could sit back and watch her do it to herself.

Her cheekbones felt hollow. She felt like she might be sick.

Her hands kept trembling no matter how hard she tried to still them. She bit down on her lower lip and drew several long breaths.

When she stopped visibly shaking, she forced herself to speak. "Do you—have any information this week?"

It was almost funny to have to ask that question right then. Although—that had always been the meaning of the question. She'd just gotten used to it.

Suddenly it hurt again, and the timing was almost amusing in some sickening way. She wasn't sure if the humor would be categorised as irony or black humor. She just knew it was something bitter, something painful to think about. But somehow also cruelly funny.

Draco smirked and pulled out a scroll of parchment. He'd driven his point home; as though he'd knifed her and then broken off the hilt so it stayed. That he didn't reiterate the insult showed that he knew.