crumple - dramione

eight

"My Lord..." Malfoy says in careful tones of polite surprise. "My Lord, I am not...confused."

"Will you pay the price, or not?" the Dark Lord snaps, features twisted with a rage that terrifies Hermione, and then wrests control of his anger, smiling thinly again. He lazes back upon the bodies, his sharp nails tracing a bloodless cut on the dead flesh beneath his hand. "I have little patience, my boy. I am bored and I am beset by the idiocy of those around me, and I would have you either amuse me, or be gone from my presence and leave the Mudblood here, to be placed with the other slaves for communal entertainment." Hermione can hear Malfoy's throat click as he swallows dryly, and she sneaks a glance upward. He is ashen, chin up and shoulders back, jaw set firmly; she wonders for a moment if the Sorting Hat would still place him in Slytherin, because the courage on his face is pure Gryffindor.

"I will pay the price, My Lord."

"Very well. Unleash the Mudblood, Draco, and make it to stand." His fingers tremble as he unhooks the chain leash from Hermione's collar. She can feel them, shaking against her skin.

"Up," he tells her, eyes flat and cold and burning with hatred, wrenching at the collar so that she cries out in pain and scrambles up obediently. "Up, you bitch." Hermione sways on her feet, eyes on the ground and fingers at her throat, gagging a little, pain flaring in the flesh she touches beneath the collar.

"Mudblood," the Dark Lord says, all dark, sadistic amusement, and Hermione wants nothing more than to turn and run. She keeps her head down, bowing it in deference, afraid to meet his eyes because unlike Malfoy her Occlumency skills are pitiful. "You will hurt him until I order you to halt. And do not be afraid, Mudblood; your Master understands that this is the price to pay for his ownership of you, and he will not punish you for what you do to him here today, understood?" She nods quickly, watching from behind her ragged hair as Voldemort's gaze turns to Malfoy. "It wouldn't be any fun if she was too afraid to harm you, now would it, my boy?"

"No, my Lord," Malfoy whispers, standing straight and stoic beside her, trembling ever-so-slightly. "It would not."

"Wormtail – bring the tools forward," Voldemort orders with a lazy wave of his hand, and the servant hurries to do so, rushing to the table of torture instruments that sit at the right of Voldemort's throne and carefully hovering it forward, to settle in front of Hermione. She stares at it, unable to breathe as surely as if the collar is choking her again. Whips. Chains. Shining instruments that looked like pliers, and short-bladed shears, and thin, wickedly sharp probes. Knives. A heavy silver rod the size and shape of a truncheon. Pincers. Things that look remarkably sexual in nature. What she thinks is a Muggle cattle prod. A blowtorch-type lighter.

They haven't given her anything magical to use. She isn't surprised. She's a mudblood to them, not a witch, or a person. She is sickly glad, because magic can be so much crueller than Muggle means of inflicting pain, and she couldn't handle that. But despite that gladness... No. No, she can't fucking do this. Hermione backs away a step, and then Malfoy's gaze pins her to the spot. She can read the plea in his eyes as surely as if he were speaking the words to her: do it. Do it.

"Well, this should be just fascinating," Voldemort says with a ghoulish cheerfulness, and sits forward with the air of someone on the edge of his seat with anticipation. "Be a good slave, Draco, my boy."

His eyes still on hers – do it, Granger – as he slowly sinks to his knees in front of her, at her feet, at her mercy. Helpless and vulnerable and exposed, waiting for her to hurt him as he slowly strips off his shirt, and then bows his head until his forehead touches her bare foot. Grovelling in front of her. Hermione stares at Malfoy's lean, mutilated back and thinks about what she is going to have to do if she wants them to live through this, and she has to fight back a surge of nausea, bile caustic in the back of her throat. Her hands tremble and her stomach churns as she stares down at Malfoy, aware of all the eyes upon them, watching.