Chapter Three
After waking, bathing, and brushing her teeth, Hermione begins to pick through the drawers and wardrobe. It's all more expensive than she can fathom, and she doesn't need to see price tags to know that. She puts on a pair of blue knickers and a bra, finding herself surprised that Pinky was savvy enough to guess her size. The wardrobe contains dresses of assorted colors and lengths, as well as a few sets of robes–glittering black, silver, and forest green.
She pulls on a white dress with short sleeves and a knee-length hem, and slides on a pair of soft slippers that seem to have appeared by the door overnight. She hasn't bothered to try and do anything with her hair beyond shampooing it. With not even a comb or conditioner, it's futile.
Pop.
"Pinky is to take you to Master in the upper west wing."
Hermione leaps out of her skin, nearly toppling over as her sore knee threatens to give out. Holding a hand across her beating heart, she regards Pinky with surprise.
"Pinky," she says. "You gave me a fright."
The elf doesn't offer a smile, nor any sort of apology for her sudden appearance. Her tiny fingers wrap around Hermione's pinky finger, and they apparate to the upper level. There's an open set of double doors directly in front of her, inside which there is a solarium. Autumn morning sunlight filters down into the room in beams, casting light across the chairs and table within.
"Another unnecessarily ornate room," she says in an airy tone as she enters the room.
It's at this moment that she sees his tattoos.
"Good morning to you, too," Malfoy says. He's in the process of pulling a jumper over his bare chest when she catches a glimpse of tattoos. They're splattered across his left arm as if to hide the Dark Mark that glares out at the world like a warning. Each one is black and grey, shadowed and heavy. Magical creatures of all kinds adorn his skin, from a hinkypunk to a unicorn to a thestral to a phoenix, leading up to a large dragon on his upper arm. The tail wraps around his bicep, the body and claws sinking into his skin as its neck and head stretch halfway across the skin above his collarbone.
She doesn't know which stuns her more: his bare chest or the fact that he's gotten so many tattoos between the end of the war and now.
"Do you spend every morning shirtless in random rooms?" she asks, unsure where this level of sarcasm is coming from. She should be afraid of him.
His hair is ruffled and unruly from the pull of the jumper, and he makes no move to rearrange it. "I don't always like to wear a shirt. Sue me."
"For what? Sexual harassment? Your appearance assails me."
"You wound me, Granger."
Malfoy drops into one of the chairs by the table, gesturing to another one. Hermione doesn't take it, choosing instead to remain near the wall. He narrows his eyes in her direction before giving up and moving on.
"I might as well let you know that my hearing is such that I can hear a pin drop on the carpet upstairs. You cannot sneak through the Manor, nor will you be able to leave this house without my accompaniment. Do you understand?"
She nods.
He runs his fingers through his hair and bites his lower lip as he visibly weighs his words. The tips of his fangs peek out before he speaks, reminding her what he is. Of what he can do to her. "It's worth it to know that if anyone knows you're here, you'll be taken to the Dark Lord immediately. He will make an example out of you. He's been looking for you for a long time."
Of course he has. Harry's gone. Ron's somewhere unknown. Hermione's the last piece of the puzzle. She's likely the most wanted witch in the entire United Kingdom. That fills her with a fear so cold it turns her blood to ice. The thought of standing before the Dark Lord, at his mercy while he decides how he wants to kill her...
What if Malfoy brings her to him?
"I won't," he says.
The train that carries her thoughts comes to a screeching halt, nearly derailing. At first, she wants to be alarmed but then her innate desire for knowledge kicks in. Her curiosity. He's a vampire. A magical creature. A species she has yet to study.
"You can hear my thoughts, can't you?"
He watches her from where he sits, his arm bent at the elbow so he can rest his jaw against his palm. She now knows his sleeve hides his tattoos. "I can."
Hermione chews the inside of her cheek, willing her heart to still. It's difficult to reconcile the bullying, full-of-himself prat that was the Malfoy she once knew, with the calculating, enigmatic predator that now sits watching her. What is she to him? Filthy Mudblood, or unwilling prey? Is he going to mock her derisively, or is he going to tell her to run and chase her through the manor?
"Then you know what I'm concerned about," she says.
"I do."
She places her hands behind her back, leaning against the wall with her palms flat. The marble cools her skin, enabling her to maintain a calm demeanor in the face of her trepidation. She doesn't like this–doesn't like feeling afraid of someone she'd never been afraid of before. She doesn't like feeling afraid of anything. But she knows it doesn't matter. Who she used to be, who he used to be...None of it matters.
This is a different time.
"I bought you for a reason," he says coolly, almost as though bored. "But I have no intention of killing you."
"Intention?"
"I can't promise anything." She gulps at that. "What I can promise is that if you follow the rules, this will be as painless as possible."
"Am I meant to—to do this, er...To be this for you forever?"
The corner of his mouth twitches.
"Tomorrow isn't promised, Granger, and I like to live my life day-by-day. Follow the rules, and you'll wake up each morning. I don't think that will be a problem for you, following the rules. Will it?"
She shakes her head from left to right, averting her gaze. "What are the rules?"
"You're free to roam the manor, provided you stay out of my room. You have no curfew, no restrictions, and no punishments. I take breakfast before I leave in the morning, and dinner when I return, however you do not need to adhere to a schedule. You may eat whenever you wish, as long as it's at the table in the dining hall. The Floo is not always closed, but you will never be allowed to use it. Do not try unless you want to be Splinched. If you need something, ask Pinky. If it's something outside of the house, ask me and I'll think about it. When I'm hungry..." He trails off, appearing thoughtful, like he's trying to search for the right words. "You'll know. So when that happens, walk slowly to your room, even if I'm behind you."
These rules are so formal. So specific. So airtight.
She can't possibly be his first.
A chill runs down her spine at the thought of walking slowly to her bedroom while a starving vampire walks behind her. She can almost feel the heat of his breath against her neck now.
Can he hear her blood running through her veins?
"If I'm supposed to go to my room whenever you're hungry, then why did you bring me here?"
He doesn't answer, and judging by the look on his face, she's not going to find out. Perhaps she doesn't want to. Perhaps he only brought her here out of some sick desire to harm her, one he may have been carrying since Hogwarts. Perhaps he hates her so much that he wants to be the one to end her life.
She can't let that happen. She made a promise to Tillian and to Faye. The goal is to find a way to survive Malfoy and get back to the castle, to rescue them.
Unless they're not in the pit any longer. Unless they've already been taken to be fodder for some other vampire. One that isn't so lenient.
As she looks upon Malfoy, a glacier floating through icy seas, she doesn't know if surviving him is going to be a possibility. She wishes that a sliver of who he used to be remained. At least that version of him had a heart. Maybe he could have been convinced to help.
Why else had he lowered his wand in the Astronomy Tower?
The grandfather clock in the corner ticks away, golden sparrows floating around it as though they aren't made of magic. It seems out of place in such a bright room. Her grandfather had a collection of grandfather clocks, tucked away in the dark at the back of her grandparents' house.
"I'm glad to see you haven't lost that brain of yours to malnutrition."
His voice tugs her out of her thoughts, and she doesn't know if it was an insult or not. He says everything so casually that she can hardly recognize him.
And she supposes she's different, too. She doesn't have the fire for revolution that burned as bright as the sun during the war. But as each of her friends died, one after the other, that fire shrunk smaller. Smaller. Smaller, still. Now, the only flame she possesses is the one that fuels her promise.
Somehow, she'll get her friends out of that pit.
"Don't worry," she replies. "There's some things missing up there."
"Ah."
"So, if you're not going to tell me why you bought me, and you don't want to eat me, what am I supposed to do? Live out my days here on house arrest, eating three times a day and looking out the windows?"
"I never said I wasn't going to do that."
"Do what?"
"Devour you."
If not for the wall at her back, she would have physically recoiled. The nonchalance with which he said the words, the relaxed way he regards her, the lack of concern over whether or not she's going to allow it...He's a closed book. Unpredictable.
She should be very, very afraid.
"I'll give you two choices, Granger," he says upon the back of a sigh. "Either you give me your blood, or I take it. Either way, I won't starve with you in this house."
"You mean with me belonging to you."
"That's exactly what I said."
For the first time, she feels a spark of indignance. Her own anger.
"I suspect you want it in a silver goblet if I give it to you myself."
"As long as it's sterling."
Hermione wonders what's going on here. This is Draco Malfoy. He sits here in a chair, looking at her like she's boring, and speaking to her like an employee. Delivering sarcasm with apathy. She almost wishes he would make a remark about her hair, so she can see some sliver of a personality.
"Fine," she replies, pushing away from the wall. "I'll start contemplating my own demise right away."
"There's something you should know before you make your choice," he says, his words bringing her to an abrupt stop in the open doorway.
She turns back to see him rubbing his fingers along the stubble that crowds his jawline. His brow is furrowed, like he's contemplating a tough arithmancy problem. All at once, there's a tension in the air that she can't place. Something that's heavy between them before it's been said.
"What is it?" she asks.
"If you choose for me to take your blood, you will be otherwise indisposed for the duration. It will be in such a way that your ability to consent to certain activities will be nonexistent. As a vampire, this is something that can cause problems. And given that I don't fancy you pawing at me, I figured you should know so you can make an informed decision."
Ability to consent?
Pawing at him?
Informed decision?
The pieces take their sweet time clicking into place in her mind.
"You mean, indisposed..." She swallows. Hard. "Sexually."
"...Yes."
Her heartbeat remains steady as she searches the floor for answers with her gaze. If she tells herself to look at it like a Defense Against the Dark Arts research project, then she can separate the human part of her from the student who used to crave knowing. The human part is the one with the emotions, mortification being one of them, and the clinical part is safe. If she lets humanity take over, she's afraid that she'll be too nervous to stop him from making the choice for her. If this is all some trick to lower her guard, to make her think she's got one when in reality, he plans to attack her at any moment?
She wouldn't put it past him.
"It's like spider venom," she muses. "It paralyzes your prey to make feeding easier. Except instead of paralyzing my body, it would create a biological response in me that makes me amenable to...Well, you. And the biological response is pleasurable, which makes the prey want to either let it go on until they're drained, or come back multiple times for more. I think it sounds fascinating."
Not totally a lie.
He rubs his hand along his jaw and over his mouth. It almost seems like he's trying to hide a smile, or holding laughter back.
"All right, Granger. Whatever you say."
"In any case, you should know that if I let you feed from my veins, I wouldn't be willingly acquiescing to your desires, as I have no interest in you. But I will say that if I did make that choice, I'd be perfectly capable of not only keeping myself in check, but making sure you understood that without my consent, you would starve."
Malfoy tilts his head to the side. "Quite the assumption."
"Erm...What?"
"My venom affects the person I bite. It's not a two-way connection."
She blinks in a way that shows she's processing. He doesn't smirk, doesn't let his lips twitch. He simply stares at her. It's like his eyes have the power to pin her in place.
"What does that mean?" she asks.
"A far cry from the brightest witch of our age, you are. Do I need to spell it out for you?"
"What does it mean?"
"It means that just because you'll want to fuck me doesn't mean I'll want to fuck you."
She opens her mouth to retort when the depth of his crass words hits her like a bludger to the gut. Humiliation turns to mortification, deepening into shame. If Thor could send a thunderbolt to strike her down now, that would be preferable to this situation. Is she so far removed from society that she no longer understands context or lack thereof?
"Would you like a haircut?" he asks, dropping his hands to his knees as he stands up.
The whip-crack shift in conversation leaves her spluttering and bewildered. "Would I like what?"
"Would you like a haircut? Pinky can handle that for you."
"What makes you think I want a haircut?"
He merely taps the side of his head, reminding her that he can hear everything that passes through her head. Today and last night. So the hope that he'd at least mock her hair to show some sliver of personality? Fulfilled.
"I would, then," she replies. "Just the ends. And I need some products. Hair creams. And a comb with wide teeth."
"Let her deal with that. Pinky!"
Pop. She's wearing a pink dress today, a marvel on its own. How does his House Elf have clothes, but still live and work in the manor?
"Yes, Master? Pinky is available for you."
"Give Miss Granger whatever she asks for for her hair."
"Pink will do it gladly."
When he heads for the doorway, Hermione turns in his direction. "Where are you going?"
"To work."
He's gone before she can ask him how long she has to make her choice.