Chapter Twenty-Four
Over the course of the next three days, Hermione doesn't see Malfoy anywhere.
Tillian and Faye had been brought to the manor sometime during the four days that Hermione was healing. They'd had plenty of time to explore and find things they liked to spend their time doing, but they often like to go into the drawing room. Hermione refuses to step foot in there, so she doesn't know why they like it so much, but she's happy they enjoy exploration more than her. She prefers her books and her armchair in the library.
The day she opened the door of Malfoy's room to find her friends standing there, Hermione hadn't thought she had any tears left in her body. But there they were, and all three of them were crying. They'd told her all about their individual rooms, how Tillian had befriended almost all of the House Elves that worked and lived in the manor, and how Faye had found the greenhouse to be her favorite place to sit and practice her knitting. As they spoke, the two of them chattering excitedly at her, Hermione could only think about Malfoy and how she wanted to kiss every part of his face.
He'd brought her friends here...Just like he promised.
When her friends insisted on bringing her down the hall to where their rooms were, Hermione told them she just needed a moment, and then she'd be right outside. She fully and completely intended to kiss Malfoy, without hesitation or preamble. But when she closed the door and turned, he was gone. The bed was still a rumpled mess, but nobody was in it. She had no idea where he could have gone, especially given she hadn't heard the Apparition. Had it been when her friends and her were exclaiming and talking over each other?
She figured he had to go to his horrible job for the equally horrible Voldemort, and then left the room. She was sure she'd see him later that night.
Hermione did not see him that night. She, Tillian, and Faye ate supper at the table, chatting the way students used to do at mealtimes at Hogwarts. Malfoy never came, and she assumed he would be there tomorrow.
He wasn't.
Hermione wakes on the third day, worried. What if he's in trouble? If he is, did her accident have anything to do with it?
Why does he keep leaving?
Hermione wishes she could talk freely about this with at least Faye. If only she had someone to talk to that understood this world that she's been living in for the last five weeks. But she hasn't even told her friends the truth about the purpose of the oubliette, who owns it, and why people are being sold. She hasn't told them that Malfoy agreed to pay for them so she could free them from it. How can she possibly talk to Faye about what's going on with her and Malfoy?
What is going on with them?
She can't deny it anymore—there's feelings there on his end. He's said things to her that show her as much. He does things to her that make her feel more than good. They make her feel wanted. He took care of her when she was wounded. Stayed up with her in his arms because he was afraid she'd stop breathing. Apparated across countries to save her from his father. Resolutely refused to allow Carrow to see her face until he was forced to in some way. Created an entire network of false memories that, while dangerous to her mental health, tricked the Dark Lord, all so he could keep Hermione from being taken.
The way he makes her feel is indescribable. They've been through something that no one else would understand. No one would ever be able to understand what happened at Charon Palace, and what will most likely happen again if the Dark Lord gets suspicious. There's a bond there that seems to have skipped several steps to a borderline relationship.
She has to wonder.
Did he have feelings for her at Hogwarts?
The thought makes her palms feel clammy. He'd told her the things he used to imagine about her in school, were they the truth? He could have been lying. He was drunk and in the process of feeding off of her. He'd told her before that the feed does nothing for him sexually—only for the victim.
But he'd also said she was different. Albeit in different context, but she thinks it still applies. Could this mean that there were always feelings there? Or is it just an attachment to the past that's mimicking feelings? Five weeks ago, before he started to feed on her blood, she would have been revolted if that were the case.
There's not a second in the day where she doesn't think about what they did together the day after she finally healed. The way he'd played every chord on her body like a piano. He'd worshiped her body in a way that she knows that nobody else would be able to do. He'd reduced her to a sobbing mess, and he'd done it without a single bite.
"The only way you'd let me fuck you is with my fangs in your throat and your blood in my mouth."
Oh, how things have changed.
They'd almost kissed. If it weren't for Tillian and Faye interrupting, what would have happened? She's had his lips on her neck, chest, stomach, thighs, and core, but the feeling of his lips upon her lips is personal. Personal and forbidden.
There would be no going back.
But now he's not home. He's gone somewhere without telling her, before she could even thank him for bringing her friends to the manor. She has much more to thank him for, given that he saved her life from the damage of that fall. And now she's worried that he's not going to talk to her when he comes home anyway.
Have they gone too far?
Hermione glances at the dining room door for the umpteenth time. Where is he? This is the third dinner he's missed, and she hasn't seen him in the manor at all. There's a pit in her stomach that she feels is familiar. Faintly so, but...It's like when she saw Ron and Lavender snog for the first time. The squeezing around her lungs. The way her heart sank down to the depths of that pit. The only way she can describe that emotional pain is with one word.
Rejection.
Is that what's happening? Is he rejecting her?
Could it really be that simple? Had he gotten what he wanted out of her, and now he wasn't coming around purely because he'd promised not to kill her? The thought makes her feel sick and naïve. Was Malfoy that good at tricking her? He'd told her several times he didn't care about her, but she had convinced herself it was just him trying to hide his emotions with Occlumency and cruelty. Was she really such a fool?
Maybe she was. After all, he wasn't Ron. He wasn't a man who she'd ever trusted.
Why would it be any different now?
"Hermione?"
She jolts from her dejected reverie, glancing across the table. Tillian is eyeing her with concern.
"Are you all right?"
"What? Me?" Hermione lets out a small laugh. "Oh, I'm fine. What were you saying?"
"We were just wondering if Malfoy ever lets you go outside? I saw a garden out back, beyond the greenhouse."
"We also wanted to see about the hedge mazes," Faye says from beside Hermione, sounding hopeful. "I really want to go check them out."
"Well. I can't. But you can."
"What?" Tillian gives her a bewildered grin. "Why not?"
Hermione opens her mouth, hesitating. She can't tell them it's because the Dark Lord believes she's a tortured slave who remains trapped in a cell. If anyone has their eye on the manor, then spotting Hermione outside would be a death sentence. Her friends, however, don't have anything to worry about. They're just former students who happen to live at the manor now, as far as anyone else is concerned.
She's going to have to lie.
"I'm just sensitive to sunlight. I know I wasn't in the pit very long, but for some reason, I haven't been able to be in the sun for much longer than a few minutes at a time."
"That's awful," Faye says with a pout.
"Well, when he gets home, we can ask him about it," Tillian says, taking a bite of his food. "If he ever does."
Faye laughs like it's an inside joke between them, but Hermione's stomach twists with the sadness she's been trying to stave off. She's starting to fear that Malfoy hasn't been around for a reason. That reason could be her.
"I'm really glad you got better, Hermione," Faye says, reaching over to squeeze Hermione's hand where it rests upon the table. "It was really touch and go there for a while."
"Really?" Hermione gives her a look of curiosity. "You know, what actually happened while I was getting better? Do you know?"
"Well, we got here two days after your accident," Tillian says, glancing up at the ceiling in thought. "And things were really tense because you had a pretty severe head wound. That wizard Blaise and his...Well, I think she was his girlfriend? I'm not sure. Her name was Tracey."
"Yeah, Tracey Davis," Faye agrees. She finishes chewing her food and says, "She was really great. We weren't there at the time, but from what Tracey said, Blaise gave her his wand to use. She did all these healing spells, every day until you woke up."
Hermione's eyebrows rise. In her delirious state, she'd thought she heard Blaise mentioning Tracey's name, but she wasn't certain. Tracey had seen Hermione and Malfoy holding hands that night at Charon Palace. Hermione had been worried that Tracey was looking on in disgust, but now it seems like it was the opposite. And given she was present at that dinner wearing what she was wearing, she's certain that Blaise is not her boyfriend. Yet he'd handed his wand over to her multiple times without question to heal Hermione?
"What else happened?" Hermione asks.
"A couple of days after we got here, something happened. We don't know what it was, but it had something to do with your head wound getting worse. Blaise had been telling Malfoy to call Healers, because Tracey didn't know the kind of healing spells that you'd need. Eventually, he caved." Tillian shrugs and pops his fork into his mouth. "About four of them came to work on you, and then he literally obliviate d them."
"Yeah," Faye says with a short laugh. "It was so weird, but we didn't say anything because, well, he was the one that came to bring us here."
"He did?" Hermione's eyebrows shoot up.
"Yes," Faye replies. "They brought us out of the pit and into some room, and he was there. He wasn't mean to us, but he wasn't exactly nice. He gave us each some clothes and cloak, and then took us outside, told us to change, and Apparated us here to the Malfoy estate."
"Okay, but he was kind-of creepy, if you ask me," Tillian says. "Don't tell him I said that. He likes to threaten everyone's innards. I think he really wants to dismember someone."
Hermione wants to laugh, because they're not wrong, but it's hard to laugh when she's so worried. She'd feel embarrassed if she shared fond jokes about him when he might be about to break her heart.
"I feel like it's in his eyes," Faye says. "They're like, super dead."
"Seriously," Tillian says, and the two of them laugh again. "It's like there's nothing behind them. Just like–" He waves a hand in front of his own face. "—woo-hoo, you in there? Nothing."
Faye falls into another fit of laughter. "Stop, Till, or you're gonna get like, disemboweled or something. He's unhinged."
"Completely unhinged."
"If there were hinges to be had upon him, there would be none."
Hermione laughs at that, but she just can't seem to let herself truly find humor. Her friends have no idea why he's the way he is. Hermione doesn't even know why he's the way he is. Him being a vampire has nothing to do with the fact that he uses Occlumency to function. He'd told her that he uses it because he doesn't like to feel things.
She thinks it might run deeper than that.
"So," she says, gathering their attention once more while she pushes her food around on her plate, "what happened after the Healers?"
"Well, usually he was in the room with you, leaning against the wall and watching you like the creep-o he is," Faye says with an exaggerated eye roll. "Blaise made him go down to tea with him and Tracey at one point, and so Till and I snuck in to see you. You were really out of it, but we were just happy to see you."
"Why did you have to sneak?" Hermione asks, confused.
Tillian barks out a laugh. "And get our heads ripped off? Absolutely not, Hermione. He was not letting anyone into that room unless they were actively helping you with something medically. We definitely tried, but it was just not going to happen unless we snuck in."
"And after?" Hermione gulps, trying to take in the information and lay it out on a table in her mind so she can analyze it.
"Well, we didn't see it ourselves, but we heard Blaise and Tracey talking, and Blaise said that he'd gotten into bed with you and wasn't sleeping. Then, a couple days after that, you woke up. We came up to see if he would let us see you, but you answered the door, and now here we are!" Faye grins. "And we love it here."
"Yeah, who would have thought we'd love living at the manor of Lucius Malfoy."
Hermione's gaze falls to the table. He really had been there the whole time, holding her and watching to make sure no one could hurt her. The threats of disembowelment were a bit iffy, but everything else he'd done had been for the good of her health.
He cares about her. She won't believe anything less. She can't.
Why isn't he here?
"I remember you said he didn't care about you, Hermione. Are you certain about that?" Tillian asks, tilting his head to the side with his brow furrowed.
She wants to tell them that yes, he does. That no, he doesn't. That he didn't care about her until after Charon Palace. That he cared about her before it.
But she doesn't have any of those answers.
"It's complicated," she says instead.
"From what we could tell," Faye says with a slow smile, "he cares about you a lot . When he first brought us to the manor, he said, 'You're here to make her happy. Do it.' And I don't know about you, but that seems like caring to me."
"A little romantic," Tillian teases.
"Yeah, but don't you think he's a little too possessive?" Faye asks, chewing her food slowly. "When we first walked in to try and visit, I swear to Merlin he was going to cut my bloody head off."
"He's unhinged, Faye," Tillian says. "We've discussed this."
Hermione does her best to tune in to the conversation and participate, but for the rest of dinner, she finds it to be nearly impossible. Her thoughts are whirling with the things her friends have told her, the things Malfoy has said to her lately, Charon Palace, Carrow, her jumping from the second floor, and so many other things that she's afraid she might implode. She continues to look at the doorway, hoping he'll walk through it.
He doesn't.
-
Hermione wakes up the fourth day of not seeing Malfoy after a small sleepover with Faye in her room. They'd spent the majority of the afternoon and night working together to take Hermione's braids out. It was something Pinky could have done with a snap of her fingers, but Hermione and Faye really wanted to have some girl time. It was the most normal Hermione had felt in months, and she was never really the "girl time" type of witch. Now, she's just happy she's got friends, even if the circumstances under which they met were less than stellar.
After a nice, long bath where she washes all of the build-up from her hair, she spends a good amount of time tending to her kinky curls with the hair creams Pinky had gotten her when she first arrived. Once she takes the comb to it, she uses her fingers to twist the curls and define them a bit more. When she's done, her hair is big and curly, feels soft, and it reaches to just below her back. She puts on a long-sleeved pink dress made of chiffon that floats about her knees, slips her feet into her slippers, and leaves her room for breakfast.
The moment she reaches the marble floor of the entryway, she stops.
Malfoy is coming down the corridor from the direction of the dining hall. He's wearing black trousers tucked into boots, a black shirt, and his black robes. His hair looks especially pale today, but that could also be because she feels like she hasn't seen him in ages.
Hermione's heart beats faster, so fast that she feels like she's floating above, watching from the outside.
"Hi," she says with a small, hesitant smile.
"Hey." He does not return the smile.
"I–I wanted to thank you."
"For what?"
"My friends," she says, surprised that he didn't know what she was grateful for. "You brought them here for me."
"Are you happy?"
"Yes. I'd say that I'm happy."
He doesn't reply. He just stares at her.
"You haven't been home," she says, clasping her hands behind her back. "Were you working?"
"No, I wasn't working."
Hermione studies his face, searching his eyes for even a fraction of what she'd seen in them the morning that bathed them in autumn sunlight.
All she sees is stone.
He's Occluding, and heavily so. It's like his walls are made of stone and fortified in iron. There's not an ounce of emotion that can be read in them.
Hermione's heart sinks.
"Oh," she says. "Where–"
"If you'll excuse me."
He walks past her, and she feels the rejection like a slap to the face. But instead of feeling sad, dejected, and worthless like she thought she'd feel, she's angry.
Whirling around, she shouts at his back, "'If you'll excuse me?!'"
He stops.
"Fuck you, Malfoy," she says, and she means it. "I don't know what the Hell your problem is, but you can't just do whatever you want with me, avoid me, and then act like nothing happened. You don't get to do that. Not after what we did."
Slowly, his head turns so he can look back at her with those ice, cold eyes.
"I can do whatever I want with you, Granger," he says.
"Clearly you seem to think so, since you had your head between my thighs three days ago!" She's never shouted so loud. Hermione is painfully aware that they are no longer alone in the manor, that either of her friends could appear at any time, but she's so enraged that she can't spare it a second thought. The last time she felt this angry at a man, it was when she was livid with Ron for being cruel to her at the Yule Ball. And he was a child. Malfoy is an adult. An adult who's playing with her like she really is his toy.
Malfoy turns fully, facing her and glaring down at her. He opens his mouth to speak, but Hermione beats him to it.
"You know what? I give up. I do. I really do. I'm sick of this game you're playing with me. I'm tired of feeling insecure and hopeful. Lonely and confused. Thinking you're this great guy, this hero who's saving me from a worse fate, when really, you're just like any other Death Eater. The only difference is you've tricked me into thinking I wanted it."
Malfoy's eyes flash. "I'd watch your mouth if I were you."
"I don't care. Honestly, Malfoy." She throws her arms out at her sides. "I'd rather you kill me or beat me or torture me than have to wake up each morning, wondering if I mean anything to you."
"What do I have to do to get you to hate me, huh?" He advances on her, but she doesn't move back. "What do I have to do to get you to understand that you will never mean more to me than your blood does?"
"Am I here to fuck you, too?" She crosses her arms over her chest and looks him up and down. Something in her glare makes him stop a few yards away from her. "Because you've made it extensively clear how badly you want to."
"Stop antagonizing me, Granger."
"Is that not the case?" She lifts one eyebrow. "I hope you've enjoyed my body the way your Death Eater friends want to. I'm sure you can pass me around once you've gotten your fill."
"Stop fucking antagonizing me!" he snarls, and for the span of a blink, she sees his eyes turn violet.
Something deliciously bitter flares to life inside of her. Something that tells her to keep antagonizing him. To push and push and push until he makes a damn decision. That's all she wants. An answer.
"I guess I really have underestimated you," she goes on, taking a sauntering step toward him with her arms still crossed. "You're a very good actor, Malfoy. You really fooled me. For a second, I actually believed you cared about me. No need to worry about hiding anything anymore, or running from any feelings you may or may not have." She gives him a small, knowing smile. "You can give me over to the Dark Lord. I'll forgive you."
He narrows his eyes, a muscle tightening in his jaw. "If you tell me to give you over to the Dark Lord one more fucking time, I'll–"
"You'll do nothing," she says, lifting her chin. "You'll do nothing because if you were going to do something, you wouldn't have tried so hard to keep me safe that night at the palace. You wouldn't have stopped that day on the couch. Unless things have changed. Should I take my dress off right here? Come here, and you can do whatever you want with me, just like you said."
He doesn't move.
"That's what I thought." She scowls. "You can trick me into giving pieces of myself to you freely, but when I'm aware and offering them to you anyway, you suddenly have no spine."
"Granger..."
"I'm willing to bet that the things you did to me at the palace weren't as repulsive to you as you pretended they were. I bet you enjoyed them. I bet you wish you could have raped me for real. But I guess it's not as fun when you haven't tricked me into begging for it."
At this, the shards of ice in his eyes melt and catch fire. His brows knit low and livid, his grey eyes cutting through the tense air toward her.
"Shut the fuck up. Before I make you."
"Go ahead."
His eyebrows rise. "Go ahead?"
"Make me."
Somehow, her back is against the wall. She doesn't know how she got here, and she doesn't know how it happened so quickly. But it is. She's on the tips of her toes. There's a hand around her throat. Clawed fingers dig deep into her curls at the back of her head, yanking down; she can feel the sharp tips just barely grazing her skin. Her gaze is on the ceiling and her air is constricted by the angle at which her head is tilted.
"You know, Granger, I'm asking myself why the fuck you would ever think you could disrespect me like that in my house? Maybe it's because I'm too kind. Maybe it's because you're too proud."
Malfoy slants his face over her own, his eyes blazing like Hellfire down into hers. His hand tightens on her throat, arresting her air flow.
"Or maybe it's because you forgot what the fuck I am."
Hermione reaches up to curl her fingers around his hands, trying to free both her hair and her throat. She's not scared–she won't give him the satisfaction–but she's hurt. Beyond measure, she is hurt.
"But you told me to make you shut up, so guess what? I will."
Grey irises melt into violet. Fangs are bared as black veins stretch from his lower lashline like spiders weaving webs. With a snarl, he sinks his fangs into the side of her throat, keeping his fingers anchored in her curls so she can't move. When she tries to scream on pure instinct, he slams his hand over her mouth.
And he feeds.
Like the vampire she expected him to be when she first came here, he feeds. Gone is the Malfoy who gave her choices and tried to make it good for her. The man with his fangs in her flesh isn't someone she knows. He's a monster.
She wishes there was pain.
Familiar flames race along the pathways of her veins and nerves, smoke filling the remaining available space in her body. Things twist and curl and pull tight in the lowest part of her stomach–desperate things with sinful needs. They tell her that there's no one else that can quench their thirst. No one else can satisfy their yearnings.
Only him.
Toes still hanging inches from the marble floor, she fights the urge to wrap her legs around his waist, knowing that it's exactly what he wants–to prove that he's got control of her, and that he really can do whatever he wants. That the nights he'd spent lying with her while she healed, scared that she might stop breathing mean nothing. The autumn morning during which she would have given him anything that he asked for–it means nothing. That she's a foolish little witch who doesn't understand anything about the world.
Because for him, the emptiness that Occlumency brings is more important to him than anything else.
She resists. She squeezes her eyes shut and resists with every fiber she has in her being, trying to ignore the heat of his breath. The softness of his lips. The scrape of his fangs. The flick of his tongue. He feeds voraciously, without regard to anything other than his own satiety. His body presses flush to hers, knee bent slightly to accommodate the height difference that exists even when she's held up higher from the floor. The hand of his that's covering her mouth curls, the points of his claws nearly piercing her cheeks. Everything makes her body crave him. When she whimpers from the sheer willpower it's taking to resist losing herself to the arousal, his hand twists in her kinky curls.
"Missed these," he says, breathing a laugh against her skin. She hates the way her heart flutters. "Forgot how sweet your blood is when you're afraid."
Her body shudders from the effort of keeping herself from reacting.
"Come on, Granger," he says into her ear, and she can hear the smirk in his voice. "Give in. You know you want to."
She makes a strangled sound of dissent, but it's barely audible. She wants to shake her head, but he's holding her curls too tightly.
"Give in to me." His tongue laps at the wounds, causing her tense hips to jerk with each movement. "Give in, and I'll make it good for you."
She makes another sound of dissent, this time edged with ire. She will not give in. Not unless he admits the truth. That he does care, and that this entire argument has been the result of him pushing her away again. That he's using Occlumency like a crutch.
But oh, how she aches.
"Give. In." He growls it. Her scalp is starting to hurt.
She uses her thoughts to speak to him.
No.
He lifts his face from her throat and smirks down at her through his lashes. Her blood, crimson and wet, drips from his chin and jaw. That, in addition to the black veins on his face and violet that has covered his grey irises lend to a terrifying appearance.
"I thought you wanted to be a good girl for me?"
Not like this.
"Are you sure?"
I won't give you what you want.
He places the tip of his tongue at the base of her throat and runs it up, up, up, to curve around the shell of her ear. The feeling nearly shatters her already-thin defenses against the arousal. She can't help it–she moans behind the press of his palm.
"Mm-hm," he hums, his lips soft against her bleeding wounds. "That's what I thought."
He does it again and again, scraping the flats of his teeth over her sensitive skin, leaving her melting inside.
"Wrap your legs around my waist, Granger. Give in. And maybe I'll make you come."
Hermione's resolve falters, her eyes rolling up into her head when he bites her again, his fangs piercing her ever-so-slowly. She pants for breath, forcing herself not to cry out against his hand.
She wants to wrap her legs around his waist. She wants him to grind against her, pressing his hard cock against her core. She wants his mouth on her breasts, lips soft against the peaks. She wants his fingers inside of her, turning her to ash as he burns her from within. She wants to feel his tongue between her legs, just like he had–
No, she thinks, angry and firm. I don't want this. If you do this, it will be against my will.
He doesn't say anything. For a moment, she thinks he might do it anyway–that he might disregard her consent and be the person he's trying to make her think he is. But he doesn't. Instead, he presses a gentle kiss to her neck.
"Bad girl. You disappoint me."
Malfoy bites her again, this time on the junction where her neck meets her shoulder. His tongue makes its way in a small circle around each bite wound. He covers them both with his lips and sucks as hard as he can and before she can steel herself against the feeling, he licks them. He doesn't give her time to get used to that, either. His lips mouthing at the wound next are like a heated kiss. He continues to cycle these movements, sucking and licking and mouthing, and she can barely keep her head above water.
He drinks and he drinks and he drinks.
It's torture, resisting the effects. Resisting her need and arousal. She knows how easy it would be to give in–to let him do what he wants with her body. To lift her legs and roll her hips against his.
But she can't. He hurt her. He rejected her.
Why should she have to give him any more access to those parts of her body?
Then, just when she thinks she might start crying from holding herself back, he raises his head up and rears to his full height. He lets go of her, stumbling backward and catching his breath as his head tips back. She collapses to the marble floor, one hand flat on the floor between her knees and the other holding a trembling hand to her bleeding neck. She glares up at him through enraged tears.
"You're despicable," she says through clenched teeth. "You would break your promise not to hurt me, just to keep yourself from feeling something?"
"I feel nothing, Granger." Malfoy runs his tongue over his bloody fangs, letting out a satisfied sigh. Looking into her eyes, he licks the side of his thumb to taste the remnants of his meal. "Nothing but hunger."
"You do feel things," she spits out, bitterness souring her expression. "But I'll make sure that the next time I try to end my life, it works. Anything to free you of my presence so you don't have to feel anything anymore."
"What's going on here?" At the sudden sound of Tillian's voice, Hermione and Malfoy's heads both snap in his direction. Tillian's already perturbed face turns horrified when he sees the blood. "What the Hell? What are you doing to her?!"
Crack. Malfoy's gone.
When Tillian reaches her side and places his hand on her shoulder, she breaks down into tears. The same tears she shed in Sixth Year, when she found out what it was like to have her heart broken by someone she hadn't gotten the chance to give it to yet.