Trigger Warnings:
In this chapter, Malfoy has to place horrible false memories into Hermione's head of him raping her all over the house because Voldemort will be going through their heads soon. It's not very graphic, but it is descriptive, and there's more than several paragraphs dedicated to it. The word rape is freely mentioned–there is no censoring of it. Please skip this chapter if these things trigger you. It shouldn't affect your reading of the fic, however the emotional connection has some good development if that's important to you.
Chapter Seventeen
"The first thing you need to understand is that these memories are temporary."
Hermione sits in her favorite chair in the library while Malfoy, wearing a simple black tee shirt and dark grey trousers, paces back and forth in front of her. Hermione herself is wearing a knee-length dress made of chiffon today. She knows they'll both have to change before they go tonight, but it feels nice to be dressed so comfortably.
She's also enjoying the unobstructed view of the tattoos on his arms—arms that have just the right amount of definition and muscle. She wonders what they looked like when he picked her up.
"They're not real, okay? So, whatever I place there, don't get pulled under and drown in it. These things aren't for you or I–they're for the Dark Lord's sake, and anyone else who might search our minds tonight, or after."
She watches him walking, but her mind is preoccupied with the things he said last night. How he wanted to fuck her for so long. For how long has he wanted it? How often does he think about it?
Hermione runs her hand absentmindedly along her thigh, remembering how he held her open so he could grind against her core. She feels something flutter between her legs at the memory and guilt pulls the corners of her mouth down. He was forced to do everything he did last night. He'd pleaded with her to make him stop, to find some way to escape. And she'd given in.
"These are things that I created off the cuff without a chance to do so before he cast the spell. So, they may be...Rough. They've got to stay that way, because if they don't match perfectly, he will know the truth."
There's still fear. His strength is too great for her, and she knows now for certain: if he ever lost control while feeding, she wouldn't be able to withstand the tidal wave. She would give in. He'd be able to drain her until there was nothing left. He could kill her, and she'd cling to him while he did it.
Gods.
She's weak for him.
"Granger," he says. "Please stop thinking about it."
She flushes with heat. She's been caught. "I'm sorry."
Their eyes meet across the distance between them, tension in the air thick enough to make her shift in discomfort. Hermione's the first to look away, her mortification keeping her quiet. She doesn't want him to know the things she's been feeling. He'd said very clearly that when he fed, it didn't do anything for him–it was all for the person being bitten. But last night, and the night before...She knows now that he might be feeling the same feelings.
He could be as confused as her.
But she wonders: has Malfoy changed? The person who brought her to the Manor isn't the same as the one standing before her. He's Occluding, he's still got a short temper, but she thinks she can say with confidence that he doesn't hate her as much as she thought. If he did, he would have thrust her right into Carrow's arms. He wouldn't have begged her to stop him last night; he would have just taken it from her.
"Granger. Granger!" Hermione blinks her reverie out of existence, seeing that Malfoy's been snapping his fingers in front of her face. "That damn brain. Pay attention. We don't have all day."
He's right. It's just after lunch and they're meant to go to the Dark Lord's palace in the evening. They have maybe three or four hours to go.
She nods sheepishly, shifting to sit up straight in the chair.
He's still bent down close to her. His eyes search hers, flitting back and forth between each eye. "If you can't get it under control, I won't be able to do my work properly. If even one thing escapes me, he will find out."
"Let's hope your skills at Legilimency are as good as your skills at Occlumency," she says.
At that, the ghost of a smirk hovers around his mouth.
"Oh, don't worry. They are."
He takes his wand out and waves it. The other chair slides over to face Hermione's and he sits down in it, scooting forward until his legs touch hers. She doesn't know why she feels so nervous. If Malfoy's a skilled Legilimens, then he'll take care of everything.
"That I will," he says, and he lifts his wand. "We'll start with tucking memories away. Then we'll move on to the creation of the false ones."
"Okay."
"I'll be using my wand instead of my fingers. I want to make sure I don't mess anything up. Close your eyes."
Hermione closes her eyes. She feels the tip of his wand against her temple, feels the icy fingers of his magic sliding into her brain. It's not gentle like the last time he was in her head. This time, it hurts like she's been eating too much ice cream. She stands by, watching as he runs through every memory she has since the day she was caught by Snatchers and taken to the oubliette. He takes them and, one-by-one, places them into a box that no one will be able to get into. Hidden away, too, are her friends Tillian and Faye.
For most of the memories of him feeding off of her, he puts them into the box without a second glance. But when he gets to the memory of the night he came to her room drunk, he stops. Watches it. Hermione lets him do so without any contest.
She wants him to see the things he said so he can't forget them, either.
He seems reluctant when he puts that memory into the box, but he does it anyway. He takes the rest of them and puts them into the box. Then, he takes the box and places it somewhere inside the library of her mind.
When he slides out of her head, taking the cold with him, she opens her eyes with a small gasp. She feels a little tired.
"That was fast," she says.
"It took me an hour," he says with a grimace. "But I got them all. He won't find them."
"That was an hour?" Hermione says, incredulous. "It felt like one minute."
"I know. That's why I told you to pay attention, swot. If I'm going to get this done in time for you to get ready, I need to start now."
"Get ready?"
Malfoy raises one eyebrow. "You'll need to dress up for this. It's an unspoken rule in his presence–Death Eaters in full regalia, and non-Death Eaters in formal dress. Now, we need to begin. Ready?"
Hermione nods, closing her eyes and bracing for the cold.
He sinks in again, this time, flipping through the days. He arrives at the empty spaces where she was in the pit. He fills them in with false memories of her running around on her own in the Forest of Dean, and of him finding her. He creates a duel that he wins, and the memory is complete. It's simple enough, so he's done rather quickly.
"Twenty minutes," he says, sounding triumphant. "Next one."
Ice once again settles over her mind. She watches as Malfoy begins to weave the web, creating a memory that's built off of the night he first brought her to the Manor. But instead of her appearing in a tunic with a fractured knee, she appears in the false clothes he created for when he caught her in the forest. And instead of him cutting her leg open with his claw, he's shoving her into the room until she falls onto the couch there.
It's there that this false version of him tears her clothes off and rapes her right there in front of the Floo, heedless of her cries and struggles. The false version of him bites her with normal non-fanged teeth, hard enough to make her scream and thrash in desperation to get his teeth out of her flesh. The false Malfoy pins her facedown on the couch with her face in the cushion, forcing himself into her from behind while he holds her in place. She passes out from the lack of air, and that's when the false Malfoy gets off of her and drags her unconscious body into the drawing room, and down into the dungeon. It's there that he throws her inside without a blanket or pillow. All of this without saying a single word.
She's taken aback by how vivid it is. She can actually feel the suffocation and how terrified the false Hermione must be.
That's not the Malfoy she knows.
He severs the connection, pulling out of her head. He doesn't seem perturbed by what he's created, but he eyes her as though waiting for her response. She doesn't say anything, though. She knows the memories have to look real.
He enters her mind again.
This memory replaces the day he gave her the rules. Instead of rules, false Malfoy tells her all of the horrible things he's going to do to her and why. That it's because of Harry. That he's going to tie her down and make her bleed. That he's going to crucio her until she passes out from the pain. That he's going to do whatever he wants with her, whenever and however.
She doesn't like that he's adding that one to the memory. Especially because when he said it, it was after an argument where he admitted something important to her.
In the memory, the false Hermione's giving as good as she's getting. She spits on false Malfoy's face. She kicks him. Strikes him with flailing limbs. Bites him when she can. Calls him names like coward and monster. But he's stronger than her. He uses incarcerous to tie her onto the table where he rapes her, leaves her there, and rapes her several more times throughout the day.
It's awful, and it's not real.
But when the real Malfoy completes the memory and takes her back out to the real world, she finds herself a little uncomfortable. Like her head is already starting to make her feel like he's the false Malfoy. That bothers her. She doesn't want to forget the one she knows.
"You won't," he says, his eyes hard. "Again."
The third memory is the one that breaks her.
He makes the false version of Malfoy rape false Hermione on the dinner table, using the Cruciatus curse multiple times throughout. He then drags her out into the hall, where he uses his wand to levitate her and throw her against the walls until she breaks bones. He then throws her into the cell and doesn't give her any Skele-Gro until the next day.
When he severs the connection this time, Hermione not only feels how tired she's become from the Legilimency, but she's not comfortable in front of Malfoy at all. She flinches at the slightest movement from him. She can see the horrible things in her mind as clear as if the memories were real.
"These are too vivid," she says, hugging her arms around herself. She feels dirty. Sick to her stomach. "It's like...They're things you want to–"
"Do not finish that fucking sentence."
He sounds livid. But instead of squaring her shoulders and standing up to him, she finds herself curling inward. Away from him, in fear. Like the false Hermione is the real Hermione.
Like this Malfoy is the one who raped her.
"Well, excuse me if I can't trust you with your fabricated torture smut floating around in my head," she bites out, trying to maintain some fraction of herself.
When his eyes darken with growing anger and he reaches to comb his fingers through his hair, she flinches so violently that she almost comes out of her chair.
"Granger," he says, more gently this time, slowly lowering his hand. "They're not real. Remember that."
"I know that." Her voice is tremulous.
"This version of me–the real me–would never do these things to you," he says. He's nowhere near soothing, likely because of the seriousness of the situation and the ticking clock, but she can see he's trying to show her with his eyes that he's not the one in her head. "They're sick. But they're just what the Dark Lord likes to see–you and others like you being treated like animals. He doesn't care how it's done, as long as they're treated like sub-human beings. And in our situation, it wouldn't make sense for that version of me to not be fucking you all over the house against your will."
"Don't...Don't say that like that. Don't water it down. It's not sex. It's rape."
He presses his lips together. "Fine. Rape. It would not make sense for me to not be raping that version of you, with the way our situation is. Me keeping you hidden here, for weeks, just for torture? The Dark Lord would see right through it. These have to be brutal."
"I don't like this."
"Suck it up," he says harshly. "This is the Dark Lord–not a class at Hogwarts. Close your eyes."
She's extremely hesitant this time, finding that she's starting to feel a lump grow in her throat. The memories look so, so real. They're like living nightmares.
Malfoy slips in again, this time filling several memories at the same time: all the instances where he fed from her. He turns them into more assaults, this time in his bed. But they're perhaps worse. He makes them all look like the false Malfoy is forcing the false Hermione to feel pleasure, all while she tells him she doesn't want to feel like this. And every time she finishes in these false memories, he casts the Cruciatus on her before giving her some sort of potion and making her do it all over again.
"That's not how it happened," she whispers to herself when the real Malfoy slides out. She pulls her knees up into the chair and buried her face in them. Her tiredness has increased and she isn't sure she'll be able to stay awake for another round of Legilimency. She buries her face in her knees and repeats herself. "That's not how it happened. That's not how it happened."
Malfoy watches her rock back and forth. She can feel his eyes on her and then he puts his hand on the back of her neck. Her skin crawls. He leans in close, close enough for her to smell the spearmint toothpaste he wears. She's trying not to cry.
"It's not real, Granger," he says softly. "I would never do any of this to you. I'd kill any man who did. Okay?"
"I can't even look at you." She's seconds away from crying, holding herself even tighter to escape the press of his hand. "I can't."
His thumb moves, tapping against her neck as he seems to contemplate his response.
"I'll hold you." Her heart skips a beat. "When this is over, I'll hold you. And then you'll remember that the real one is me."
She lifts her head to look at him, her eyes shimmering with the tears she's been trying so hard to keep in. "You will?"
He nods. He's still Occluding, so there's nothing light in his eyes, but he's staring at her so intently that it's enough.
"Okay," she whispers.
"Yeah?"
"Yes."
"Ready to go again?"
She nods.
"Stay strong."
He sinks into her mind and enters the memory that she hates the most as it is.
The couch, on the day he threatened to show her what other Death Eaters were like.
In the false memory, he changes some of the things she says to be less specific and more pleading. He takes out the moment when she told him she wanted him and replaces it with more pleading. Only in the new memory, the false Malfoy doesn't stop. He continues, taking something real and turning it into something worse. And in this memory, he tears her and she bleeds. He throws her back in the cell, crumpled like trash.
The real Hermione is crying.
"Why did you do that one?" she sobs, covering her face with her hands. "Why that one?"
His hand tightens on the back of her neck. "I had to make it look real."
"But it was real!" she wails, lifting her head to beseech him. A tear slips down her cheek. "It was real. You just added a second half."
He closes his eyes for a second and when he opens them, he's opened a small hole in his Occlusion. She can see the same emotion there that she saw the night he was drunk.
"I will never forgive myself for that, Granger. But that is not me in that part. It's not me."
She's starting to lose it, just like yesterday. When she thought he wasn't coming back. Her panic squeezes her lungs like a vice and now, she can't breathe. She gasps again and again as it washes over her without offering a reprieve.
"Granger! Granger!" Keeping one hand on the back of her neck, he places his other hand on the side of her jaw, his fingers on her scalp and thumb on her cheek. He speaks over her panicked gasps. "Look at me. Look into my eyes."
She does, her stomach churning with the desire to vomit. She feels like she's dying.
"You are safe with me." His expression is serious. As serious as death. "I've got you."
Hermione closes her eyes. Cold tears cling to her lashes. She wants to believe him so badly.
"I need you to breathe for me, okay? Just breathe."
She squeezes her eyes shut even tighter, trying to focus on his voice. To breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth. To rid herself of how awful these attacks feel. They're full of fear, and she doesn't want to feel it anymore.
Why does this have to happen? Why couldn't the Dark Lord have lost? Why couldn't it be him that's dead, and Harry and Ron that are alive?
"Yes, that's it," he says. "Just breathe."
She does.
"You're doing so good." He breathes it out, and he strokes her cheek with his thumb one last time. "We've just got two more."
"Only those two," she says, unable to look at him for longer than a few seconds. "I can't take any more."
"Only those two."
He lets go of her and she feels the wand touching her temple. The ice creeps across her already-aching mind, seeking out the memory he wants to change.
Last night.
Hermione wants to die. She watches as Malfoy takes the memory and, just like the last one, adjusts the things they say. But he ruins it. He makes it worse.
In this false version, the wand is a trick. He takes it from her and attacks her, raping her on the floor. And instead of it being in the real Hermione's room, he makes it look like it's in the cell the false version of him keeps the false Hermione in. In the moments where the real her was giving in to the real him, he shifts those to be her begging and crying. He makes it last hours.
And when she looks at the face of the false version of herself, she looks broken.
When he's done with that memory and Hermione has gritted her teeth, he drops back into her mind and sprinkles random memories of droll days spent in the cell beneath the manor between the major ones he'd just created, bridging the gaps and weaving everything together until its airtight and solid.
He retreats from her consciousness and Hermione sags forward toward him. He catches her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into his lap on his chair. He does all of this without any sort of emotion in his eyes, hiding from everything like he always does.
She's exhausted.
Hermione curls up against him, into the tightest ball possible. Her forehead touches his neck. She takes deep breaths, not wanting to cry again. She feels so weak and so broken, just like the false Hermione.
"Good girl," the real Malfoy murmurs, his fingers grazing her scalp as he sinks his fingers into her braids. "You did it."
Hermione doesn't speak. If she does, she'll cry. She's tired of crying.
"If we survive this," Malfoy says into the quiet, "then I'll take the false memories and put them into a box, and switch them out with your real memories. That way, you can pull out whichever box you need when necessary."
"Thank you," she says breathlessly, her eyelids feeling as heavy as concrete.
"There's nothing to thank me for."
Hermione musters the energy to lift her hand and place it on his chest. She slides it up to his shoulder and leaves it there.
"Yes, there is."
"You can't sleep for long," he says as he smooths her braids out of her face. His fingers make her shiver in her drowsy state. "Maybe thirty minutes, and then I'm giving you a Pepper-Up potion."
"Mm-hm."
It's not the false Malfoy from the horrible memories that's holding her. It's not the Malfoy who brought her to the manor. It's not even the Malfoy she knew at school.
This is the Malfoy she feels safe with.
She's out like a light.