After Hermione's encounter with Nott she simply pondered away from where he sat, and looked through the shelves picking out books with words of any relevant use. She read up on old oculmency books and even ones correlating with the history of Horcruxes. It didn't really help her memory, but reading up on hundreds of pages text was the most useful thing she believed she could do.
She set her mind to open every book possible.
She even pulled out ones that read up on the history of horcuxes. They explained everything she already knew, and nothing that would really help in her favor. She wanted bits and pieces of her memory back, yet all she was ordered to do wasn't quite helping.
With the rusted book In hand, she thinks back to what Nott had said. He spoke with aggravation lining his voice, but in the circumstance they were in, his abrupt words weren't surprising. When he spoke of the war he looked dull, and almost spoke bitterly as he went on. It made her think of if she did actually win the war. If she did walk out with her friend still standing, as they finally would take a breath of air and wouldn't have to fight any longer. Then she thought of what would have happened to them. Theo had proposed a quite clear depiction of their state.
They would have been behind bars. They could had even been put on an immediate death sentence. Being an accomplice to the dark lord and aiding in his havoc, they would certainly not have left with an easy pass.
She wondered what would happen then, even if they somehow did get a ticket out of Azkaban, their names would have been shadowed upon for good. She never considered their view if the tables had turned, but it wasn't quite necessary since they weren't.
She doesn't want to give a single care. She doesn't--thats what she keeps telling herself, she wouldn't feel bad. How ridiculous. She deems herself a fool. She wouldn't praise the idea of them like that. She wanted to but she didn't. She thinks she's gone mad.
Her hate for Voldemort's line up was strong, but there was a distinguished difference between any other death eater and ones she went to school with.
In the library's shelf there were daily prophets stacked back to back in order of time. She pulled out the most recent and skimmed through the lines.
She reads through the usual info and checks over each and every word for anything useful of the outside talk. She checks front and back but most of it was all she's read before.
Death eaters spotted on the lookout for potential escapes...
That was the main headline as it inevitable for people to have escaped in the midst of war.
She knew Voldemort was to keep a heavy lookout for those who fought on the opposing side and survived.
She anticipated if she were to ever come face to face with him. Primarily those around her such as Malfoy, Andromeda and Anna practically reported back everything he needed from her. Voldemort knew almost everything and kept close track on her progress, as she assumed he used Malfoy as his most reliable source.
Eventually snapping out of thought she shuts the few heavy books and sets down the paper, as she makes her way back to her room. It wasn't long before she heard footsteps edge their way near and close to the entryway. Malfoy's face was more still than on the usual bases. She questioned why, but she also wished she didn't question too much. Yet her mind never let her pick and choose what she could and could not worry on about. She wishes she could control her own thought.
"I have been instructed to look into your mind, not by my word." Malfoy wearily spoke and felt the desired need to include the fact that he didn't choose to do as he says, and as she heavily feared.
He questioned as to why he felt the need to include that bit. He didn't have to explain anything to her.
Hermione almost instantly started to panic as her breaths were abrupt, with stutters after the other. She despised legilimens, it felt like a force pushing its way through her brain. He knew that, probably why he couldn't even look at her as he announced it.
"Of course you are." She spoke, jaw clenched, with trails of fear and hate lining her words.
She tried to subdue her panic, but it was apparent. Who knew what he would see. All the way from her tormenting dark thoughts, to the million spells she muttered on repeat as a time passing and stress reducing mechanism. The hundreds of urges to make a run for it and the numerous plots and schemes--all the way to her layers of distaste for Malfoy. He would see what she would call him and perhaps the grudges she carries along with.
Every word of bitter he would speak, she would have a lengthy reply ingrained within. She questioned if he would care if he saw them. If it would affect him in any way.
"Damn it Granger I just said it's not my say." He immediately answered, as her eyes burned into his.
Thats what he needed her to know. He didn't want to look into her mind but he wasn't the one who gave the instruction.
She notices as he speaks, he didn't look prideful, not one bit.
She realizes she's no longer burning her eyes into his, but she now moves it to his slightly parted lips and clean cut jaw, as he clenches his words. She snaps out and brings her eyes back to his gazes level.
"Doesn't matter--you are in fact still the one doing it." She rapidly spoke, breaking the silence.
"Granger for once why don't you use that brain for good?" He spoke tight and forward, as she took offense.
They are both practically shooting darts at this point. He switches his look from her and the ground as he can't seem to hold a long contact. He insults her at any given chance. He tries to hold his own tongue back, but at the same time enjoys letting his words run. He almost wants to kill her. No--maybe he simply wants to try. Perhaps he wants to silence her, to get that voice out of his head. Her's that is.
Grangers.
Fucking Grangers.
He spiraled at the name.
"Would you even say something like that if I was a pureblood?" That was all that escaped Hermione's tongue as his eyes jolt up almost immediately.
He had wished she didn't ask that. It made him go mad in his own mind.
Before a scowled remark can leave his lips, her question harshly spins in his head.
Would he say half the things he did is she was deemed pureblood?
Of course he would. She's Granger.
As long as its her, then yes.
If it was her, then those barring insults would in fact flow naturally, escaping his tongue as if it simply just felt right.
Was it right? No of course not, thats why he said them.
But it was natural. For the longest time it had been. His barring words were said without a thought after, it was easy as long as it was Granger he was speaking to.
"Malfoy one day you need to consider that muggle-borns are just the same as real people." She spoke almost muttered, but he in fact was able to make out each and every word. He's still, as his features are tense. He knows she's a person. Her bitterly spoken words, her aggravating tendencies, the way she simply bothered him with just a mere look. She made him question every minuscule thing he's ever known.
Yes, shes in fact a person. One he doesn't like. But one who's voice he couldn't get out of his head.
He practically cursed himself out for it.
Fucking merlin, he thinks he's gone mad.
Perhaps it's the fact that he doesn't see many others outside the manors walls, or perhaps it was a secluded space in his head where her voice lingered.
He wants to kill her, just as much as he wants to never see her face again.
He assumes the feelings mutual.
No doubt in that.
"Hell Granger, I don't need a pathetic lesson from you." Was all he was able to execute. She was trying to teach him something. He didn't need to learn a thing from her.
He looks at her stance, stabbing like daggers.
Her words dragged out in his brain.
Muggles are actual people.
"Yes, of course my bad for trying to reason with your arrogance." She snaps, as his eyes shot quick. Her cold demeanor almost matched his.
"Arrogant?" He hisses, with sarcasm filling up his tone.
"Yes, arrogant." She says firm and sure, as his eyes sweep over her.
For a slight moment both of their postures remain still as stone. At this point both of their bickering has brung them face to face, as their expressions are deadly.
They were in a proximity in which if one took a mere half stride forward they would touch.
He took the slightest step back. They couldn't touch.
Not even In the slightest.
He simply deemed it wrong.
The thoughts that swarmed through his head were too loud. Her voice was just too loud.
"You know what Granger I was in fact right about you." He slightly muttered with a quirk of his lip, as his gaze switches from one of her eyes to the other. She anticipates as he took a slight pause.
"That brain of yours is truly dense." He spoke with almost a grin. A slight smirk.
It's quiet. She looks just like she's about to throw a staggering sense of speech, but struggles to gather the words.
She wants to hex him. So does he.
She wants to punch him like she did way back when.
But he has a wand and she doesn't. She would be foolish to anger him with nothing to fight with.
"After all you've done, how dare you call me dense." She practically had to contain herself before she made a move she would regret.
Yet after everything he has no right.
"Fuck Granger, am I wrong?"
"Yes in fact you are." Silence. At this point they are both trying to refrain themselves from going ballistic on the other.
At this point if she had a wand she would use it.
"You call me foul things left and right--and you are the last person to be doing so." The tone she's at is unfamiliar till now. She never got as angry as she did in the face of him.
"Yeah, well I'm never wrong, thats for sure." He nears her. Hot breath right across, as not one of their stares budge. With any back pedal one does the other steps closer as it was inevitable.
They almost don't know what to say to the other. It's simply quiet.
She feels the eager need to break the silence. He won't have the last word.
"What are you proud of all of this?" She's referencing everything. The malicious words, the dark work--all of it.
She occasionally felt the eager need to bring up his position in all this. Even when Nott had tried to ease both their positions, she still saw Malfoy do what he did on that battlefield. His use of dark magic--and his assistance to Voldemort, she couldn't help but think if he was truly proud of his stance and the words he spoke.
"You proud of calling me a mudblood--or belittling me for your own enjoyment?" She asks, slightly cooled down, but cold in her word.
Malfoy's eyes for merely a second of time glistens with an ounce of emotion. Something more than bland. Yet it leaves ever so quick.
He's trying to speak, but it's apparent he doesn't wish to.
"No Granger." He fights with himself on his words. "No I am not, but I don't regret anything either."
Liar. She deems him nothing but a liar.
She thought she could read it in his look.
"Of course not, can't say I'm surprised." She spoke quick and simple. She would think he would regret at least something, perhaps own up to any of it all. Yet he was a Malfoy, she didn't quite expect much else.
He can't blame her. He wants to, but he can't.
He sees her as a threat. A horrendous one, he can't see it any other way.
A threat to what he speaks of, to how his mind works. To everything in him, he sees her as a problem to his own self. In the midst of this all she's the one in the manor who reminds him that he's foul. He's the one who has to look over her and gather the required information, as she clutches her fists at his mere entrance.
She called him arrogant, maybe he was but he would never admit it. Either way she had no place to say it.
The sense in the room is hatred. They both carried it high and heavy as it consumed all around.
It was two people who had gone thorough war. Two who carried this weight of traumatic events, in which the two who repulsed at the others name, were in fact the ones who had to stand in the very same room.
Of course it was to be tensed with distaste.
She could sense it vividly. As if one could practically read the others mind.
She called him arrogant and he called her dense. Did they regret the spew of hateful words they used? Even if they did, they wouldn't dare admit it.
They couldn't realize it, but in a certain sense they were more similar than what they believed.
They both are still in a dangerously close proximity. Either one could easily pull a few steps away.
They don't.
They know they should.
Yet their still.
She feels putrid at his words but also knows thats all he knew. Thats all he ever knew, his thought of her was quite stern and set. Yet she didn't want it to be. She was just as much of a person as he. She wondered the day he would realize.
"Hell Granger can we just get this over with?" He spoke as their both still in an unfathomable distance between each other.
He was going to look Into her mind. He showed looks of resistance and hesitance but she thought she saw it wrong. She knew he didn't mind doing the deeds he did as long as they were ordered. That still didn't make it any better.
She remained silent as Malfoy took a good minute before proceeding. He knew about half of what her head would swarm with. Hatred for him would take up quite a bit of room.
She shut her eyes as he dove into her mind. His appearance in her head felt like a meddling dagger etching its way. It hurt as it almost had a burning sense. She let out slight under toned groans, but tried to hold back any ounce of emotion. It was an agonizing force and what was worse was her anticipation to what he would find.
But while Hermione eyes are closed shut, his aren't. He sees what he's doing to her, and he can tell how bad it hurts. He wants to stop, he doesn't know why but he wants to look away and withdraw from her mind. Yet at the same time he can't.
He sees what she in fact does sees on a daily, and its rather dark especially the parts with his name.
Hermione has endured this before and knows the feeling, but perhaps it hurt worse coming from an old classmate. A so called peer. One who sat in the classroom she did.
She's almost shocked at where they are now.
She almost hadn't had a perception of time in the midst of it all. It felt almost damaging.
He rumbles through all her past and most recent memories. Their time back at Hogwarts, up till her arrival at the manor. He even made it to points in which he was in the picture. How much resent she had towards him. Her thought process after they had a heated conversation in which she repulsed him afterwards. How much she despised when he called her a mudblood, yet also when she wished he didn't see her as just that.
He no longer wanted to see anymore.
He saw instances in which she had intent to escape. He were to report such things to the dark lord. He wouldn't. He was not going to rat her out. He tormented himself for it, but at the same time wouldn't ever forgive himself if he did.
He saw her interactions with Anna and Nott, as well as the dark crevices that contained her most shadowed heavy thoughts. He couldn't help but compare.
He finally withdrew away, as Hermione sat flat back on the bed, heavy paced breathing.
He saw a lot. Perhaps even too much. How much she thought of escaping, how many times she blamed herself from what happened on war grounds. Especially how many times she practically cursed out the name Malfoy.
"You really hate me that much do you?"
He almost says good in the back of his head.
He didn't mind being hated by her.
He practically looks at her in amusement as she's still grasping out for air.
She doesn't say anything. What he saw In her thought said enough. At most times she saw him as a monster, as she did who he worked for. Yet in another deep dwindled thought, she held onto what Nott had told her. How different it would have been if the war had gone differently. Maybe she would go off and cheer on, but people like Malfoy and Nott wouldn't have.
In that stance, was the only brief second in which she put aside that heavy weighted repulse.
"You've tried to escape about a dozen fucking times." He finally spoke, knowing that would be information he would need to bring forward. He never let Voldemort down, in fact he was one of the most trusted. This would have to be an exception.
Its silence for a brief moment as she tried to gather the right formed words.
"I never actually tried to, I simply--just thought about it." She says quietly, as she tries to regain the strength to lift up from the bed.
"No--stay sitting or else you'll most likely black out, legilimens takes a lot of ones strength." He spoke as she sat back in place.
"Has that happened to you before?" She began to ask as she was able to now speak a smidge more fluently. His eyes narrowed as they looked at each other intently.
Malfoy gave her a slight side eye "Yes, only once." he spoke. "The dark lord used it on me once before."
She quickly realized why he looked refrained to proceed the action onto her. He knew the pain all too well.
Didn't quite stop him.
"What was he looking for?" She asked looking his way. The pain seemed to slowly fade as the seconds passed.
"Just to make sure my head was in the right place to take on his tasks." He spoke with slight disappointment. Clearly he was indeed fit for Voldemort's needs, yet by his look and what Andromeda had said, he wasn't entirely fit for the position within this head space.
He still was one of Voldemort's front up workers.
"After the war?" She casually asked.
"Yes." He spoke brief.
"Was it?" She wondered what he would respond.
"Damn it, Granger what's with the interrogating? Need I tell you every little damn thing about me?" He asked as he drew closer to where she sat.
"Talking isn't a crime Malfoy." She spoke muffled with sarcasm, as he stared at her with question.
She kept her stance as he neared, feeling as if the statement needed to rise from her lips.
"When it's you it almost feels like one." He said cold with a solid stare. Heavy tone.
He couldn't refrain his voice from speaking vile remarks.
He feels almost conflicted. She constantly says he's in the wrong, deep down something tells him that he's too harsh, even for him. His view on muggles, everything he's said about them in malice, everything he's said to her. Will his questioning stop him? Likely not.
But if it was Granger he was sure of his view. He always was, now he's here questioning everything he saw in her brain. She has as much distaste as he does.
No--perhaps his is stronger. Worse.
"Why did you have to use legilimens anyways, what did you need to know?" She asked wearily as she looked up at him.
"To see your overall progress of the Horcruxes and simply a general report of your thought." He spoke as she knew he had to report back what he saw to Voldemort.
This was why she tried to refrain, and filter things she would say. She wasn't sure of anything whilst in that manor.
She questioned if he would leave out the parts of her desire to escape. She has to hope, but was doubtful none the less.
"But besides your pure disgust for me I couldn't really find much." He spoke after a moment.
Liar again.
She knew he saw her and Nott's encounter, and that for even a split second Hermione saw everything from their perspective. How she put her own views aside and remanenced on the what if's.
Yet of course he didn't bring up that very bit.
"Its quite insufferable in there." He spoke referencing her mind, as she practically wanted to laugh at the nonsense. His mind would be far worse. She knew that for a fact.
Far more dark and on its lonesome, as it would be insufferable on an entirely different scale.
"As if yours wouldn't be worse, you went through war too Malfoy, you were on the havoc wrecking side, but if you were where we all stood, and woke up in a damn dungeon underground you would have a dark and hazy memory as well." She snapped as he went silent.
He listens as he practically wants to drown out the noise. Perhaps because he feared what she spoke was true.
He looked into her mind to see if she had any update on the Horcruxes, but even after reading up on every book she could find in the library, still nothing. Patches in her deception from before war were never clear, and it wasn't her choice on what she did and didn't remember.
"You wouldn't know anything Granger, don't try to act like a know it all, it's quite old at this point." She found it useless to argue about any matters with him, yet she still tried to make out some retaliating words.
She also hears Granger for the numerous time. She tries to remember the last time she was called Hermione. She sort of yearns for it, as it was familiar. It was at least far better than mudblood, at least there was that.
Still would be nice to hear her name.
"Yeah thats all you can say because you know I'm right." She said as his glance hardened.
The tense feel in the room was loathsome. Yet it was constantly present as they had any exchange of words.
"You don't know what my memories like, you have no clue what fighting on the dark lords side was like, don't forget you were the one who lost." He sneered as she wouldn't let herself forget.
It didn't seem as if he let go of war either. She could see it plastered well on his face when he spoke of it. She didn't know exactly what she saw, emotion? It was unusual of Malfoy, yet she caught slight glistens of it and it was hard to ignore.
"Yeah, well being here doesn't really give me the chance to forget." She spoke signaling to the surrounding of her enclosed imprisonment.
"I don't want you here any more than you do, but we don't really get to choose that, now do we?" He loosely questioned.
They both soon come to a stance, as their thoughts swarmed heavy. Both of them.
The silence is agony.
"Are you going to tell him--about what you found in my thought?" She lowly questioned cutting through the quiet.
"That is the whole fucking point now isn't it?" He rapidly responded, as she couldn't decipher for sure.
She couldn't read his head, yet it looked as if he were contemplating.
"I mean about the escaping." She firmly asked.
He looked restricted to speak.
"If I did then it wouldn't look good on my part, I'm supposed to be looking after you and making sure your not having any witty ideas." He spoke in response.
Granger you would never see the fucking light of day If I said something. Yes, you deem me a menace, perhaps I am.
She didn't think that was it. There was more to it, she could see it in his eyes, and hear it in his voice, and decipher it in his stance. Yet she thought better than to retaliate, he would deny away.
"Right." Was all she spoke back.
With that he swiftly moved away as she heard his footsteps echo through the corridor.
Would love to know your thoughts so far.
Also any theories on others who else might be held captive?