Current mood:	lethargic
Entry tags:	tender vengeance

Tender Vengeance Part VI
Tender Vengeance Part VI

Disclaimer: Harry Potter (the boy-wizard, as opposed to the Harry Potter, Sr. and Jr. of Troll infamy fame) and the other denizens/artifacts/spells/etc. of the Wizarding and Muggle worlds are the creations of J.K. Rowling. No profit is made from this work, which is intended as a commentary on the original, not as a derivative work. No infringement on the rights of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Publishing, et al is intended. To the extent permissible by law, I retain the rights to my language/text/story.

Pairing: HG/DM References to GW/V, GW/HP and HG/RW
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Non-con, violence, language
Genres: Angst, Romance, Drama, Smut
Spoilers: Through HBP

A.N. Draco’s opinions on certain topics are not the author’s. Then again, on certain topics, neither are Hermione’s.

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Far away from discussions of silver circles and deep magic, Draco Malfoy was working magic of a different sort, choosing to wake Hermione that morning by suckling on her breasts, his fingers busy between her thighs.

“Bastard,” she breathed, arching into his hand. Chuckling darkly against her bosom, he bit lightly at the nipple, making her groan. He soothed the little hurt, then kissed his way to her lips. Withdrawing his fingers from her core, he settled over her, as she unthinkingly parted her legs further, accommodating him.

Draco was inside her with one smooth stroke, because her body was traitor to her heart, was wet and ready, was needy for this. For him. Despite herself, Hermione gasped with the exquisite pleasure of being filled with him, and couldn’t stop herself from wrapping her arms around Draco’s back, holding him closer.

“That’s it, sweet girl,” he groaned against her lips, thrusting harder. Hermione whimpered, held him tighter, thrust her hips back against his, taking him deeper. Dragonfire, and she was burning once more. He had her screaming his name in minutes, made her scream it again before he went over the edge himself, pouring his seed into her slick depths. Afterward, they clung together in a breathless tangle of enervated limbs and perspiring skin. Eventually, breathing calmed and energy returning, Draco rolled away, sat up, ran his hands through his hair.

“Too bad we haven’t time for another bath,” he said. “But I’m required elsewhere.” She opened her mouth to ask him where, decided she really did not want to know. He drew on the Death Eater’s cloak, reached for the mask, paused. “You may have to wait for your visit with Ginny until after supper, today. I expect to be gone until this evening. Priddy will bring your meals.”

“All right,” she acknowledged. He surprised her, then, bending swiftly to kiss her lips in parting. She didn’t think, simply answered the pressure of his mouth with her own, opening for him when his tongue licked the seam of her lips. Their tongues entwined almost lazily, without the urgent heat that usually accompanied such exchanges between them. But then, this was not a kiss meant to arouse. She wasn’t thinking about that, now, wasn’t thinking about anything, lost in the kiss, itself. Only later would she wonder what, exactly, the kiss had been meant to do, what, exactly, the enigmatic smile Draco gave her when he drew away portended. But as the kiss ended, she could only look at him dazedly as he favored her with that smile before he left.

She stared after him, chagrined. The kiss had been almost affectionate. Surely it had no place in the bargain between them. Why, then had he pressed it upon her? More disturbing to contemplate: why had she returned it? Automatically. Unthinkingly. Enthusiastically.

Hermione stared at the door through which Draco had exited, not liking any of the answers that presented themselves. But being who she was, she was neither disposed to indolence nor to pointless brooding, and letting thoughts of Ron come into this, giving in to the grief that would swamp her if she contemplated her loss, was right out. After a few minutes, she told herself to stop being a complete ninny. Hiding in bed for the duration of her captivity, weeping over her lost love, even were Draco inclined to let her, would solve nothing. Briskly, she threw off the covers and got to her feet, beginning what was to become the routine of her life in Voldemort’s outlaw court.

She would rise, bathe or shower if she had not done so the night before, dress in one of the many luxurious robes supplied for her, have breakfast, work on translating the ancient text until lunch, eat whatever Priddy brought her, then resume her work on the translation until Draco came to fetch her for her visit with Ginny. They would return to his apartments to have supper together, during which he would ask after her work, or engage her in conversation on some other, neutral topic that would invariably be distracting or amusing or intellectually stimulating, while he drank an entire bottle of wine by himself, then indulged in something more potent.

After which he would ravish her, generally several times, and in a variety of inventive, utterly delectable ways, disporting himself with her for hours until they fell into exhausted slumber. In the mornings, she would wake to find herself being ravished again.

Sometimes the routine would vary, because Draco would stay out late doing whatever it was he did, and not return until she was asleep. On those occasions, she would indulge herself in a long, hot bath before bedtime. Draco might wake her when he returned for another bout of ravishment, he might not, preferring to simply extend the next morning’s session of ravishment. She adapted to the circumstances as they presented themselves.

Other times her routine was varied because he was free of other responsibilities, and had nothing to do but remain in his apartments. Ravishing her.

Ravishing Hermione Granger seemed to be the chief focus of Draco Malfoy’s existence, other than whatever it was he was doing, usually with Severus Snape, for Voldemort’s wretched cause. She supposed she oughtn’t be surprised. After all, young men his age were biologically hard-wired to be focused on sex almost every waking moment, so it was only natural that Draco would want to spend every waking moment having sex with the partner--no, not partner as such a word implied an equality that clearly did not exist between them. Sex, then, with the female--object, vessel, slave, toy, pet--the Dark Lord had so conveniently provided for him.

It could have been so very much worse, she knew, shuddering whenever she remembered the way Nott had looked at her in the great hall, when Voldemort offered her to his followers. She could have been beaten and brutalized. Shared. Tortured. Maimed. Degraded, humiliated, subject to so very much worse than she had been. Instead, although she had no choice about giving her body to the man who was essentially charged with being her jailer, she was treated with every consideration.

So much consideration--attentiveness, tenderness, devotion to her pleasure--she could almost pretend they were lovers, even newlyweds, safely ensconced in their private love nest. If she had any desire to pretend herself in love with a murdering, racist war criminal who was hypocrite enough to lust after the very flesh he insisted was inferior, unworthy of admittance to the Wizarding world.

No, she did not love Draco Malfoy, she assured herself, and if a fleeting concern about Stockholm Syndrome had ever crossed her mind, she soon became confident that she wouldn’t easily fall victim to that particular disorder. Yes, she was utterly dependent on the bastard, but there was enough leavening of autonomy with her dependence that she was in little danger of coming into sympathy with his views on anything at all...save for the very intellectual, academic subjects they frequently discussed, in connection with the work he’d given her, and what she might undertake when she finished with the book.

But as the days of her captivity stretched on into weeks, as the pattern of her life slipped into routine, as the world she’d known as a sheltered, bookish schoolgirl receded ever further into the past, and the world of private eroticism and intimate scholarship consumed her, she could not help but wonder, sometimes, what would happen if her worst fears were realized, if Harry lost the war to Voldemort, and if Hermione herself were lost to Draco Malfoy, forever.

She never let her thoughts wander in that direction for long. It was unbearable to contemplate that she might never be more than a very pampered slave, allowed certain privileges, so long as the master who owned her was inclined to be indulgent. Draco had mentioned that Voldemort might decide she should bear a child, as half-bloods were acceptable to him. The idea that a child of her body would be raised by Draco to share his racist ideals and beliefs, to take the Dark Mark, to serve Voldemort...that was a circle of hell Hermione wasn’t planning to visit, thanks ever so.

But there were changes in her, changes she could not deny, could not avoid. Thoughts of Ron came less and less, and most often in connection to Harry, to the Horcruxes, to the desperate hope that rescue could be effected before her potion wore off and there was any danger of Voldemort plucking the thought of them from her mind. She no longer thought of lost love, simply accepted that it was truly lost, at least for the moment.

It was Draco Malfoy who occupied most of her attention, now. And fight his as she might wish to do, that battle had been lost from the first. She was learning his body, she was learning his own, she was learning to enjoy, very, very much the things those bodies could do, together. And if the dearest wish of her heart came true, if she were freed tomorrow, restored to Ron, if the two of them could work through what had been done to her, build a life together...it would be not be precisely as it might have been had she never been in Draco Malfoy’s bed. She understood that the experiences she had here marked her, shaped her, imprinted her in subtle, indefinable ways.

There would never be any altering the fact that Draco Malfoy had been her first lover, and reasonably long-term, at that.

Hermione was too pragmatic to fret over things that could not be changed. Still, Draco gave her good cause to regret ever having allowed him to add that bit about the use of his hands, lips, fingers and tongue to their contract. For she had discovered, to her very great shock, that he could put any or all of them to use to persuade her to do an appalling number of things, the mere mention of which would have utterly scandalized her just a few weeks before.

Draco had indeed thought her nipples would look lovely in a pair of clamps, and had waxed eloquent on the subject. Hermione had replied quite stoutly that if he liked the idea so much, he could bloody well wear them himself. That was before he’d spent half an hour just lightly skimming his fingers, not over her entire body so much as a whisper above it, the almost-touch arousing the nerve endings in her skin to an almost excruciating level. By the time he was done, she was pleading with him for something, anything, to relieve the agony of anticipation. When he’d tightened the fist golden clamp--shaped like a lotus blossom, rather than the serpent he’d threatened her with--on her left breast, she’d almost exploded into orgasm, right then and there.

The explosion came several moments later, when he’d made her kneel on the bed, settled himself behind her, and tugged on the chain linking the clamps together as he slid his hot, hard length into the depths of her. The almost-painful pressure had sent fire racing from her nipples directly to her clit, and the feeling of him filling her so completely had been the final thing she needed to plunge immediately into ecstasy.

On another occasion, she had indignantly told him she had never masturbated for herself, so she certainly wouldn’t do it for him. He hadn’t argued the point, seeming to accept her reluctance, settling over her, kissing her to distraction, and rubbing the hard length of his cock against her slick folds. By the time he’d brought her to the brink of orgasm five times, only to deny her release, she was desperate. He soothed her, took her hand in his own, guided it to the places that would be most responsive, coaxed and encouraged her. Then he let go of her hand, and sat back to watch. She’d closed her eyes, mortified, and had almost stopped but he spoke up, voice rough with desire, telling her to look at him. And, then, eyes locked to hers, he continued to direct her actions, telling her what he wanted her to do. But more, telling her how beautiful she looked doing it, how desirable, how watching her made him feel. And she found she couldn’t look away from the molten silver of his eyes, couldn’t be indifferent to the sheer hunger of the look she found there, couldn’t help but take pleasure in his pleasure in her. She was writhing on the three fingers he’d gotten her to put inside herself, thumb pressing hard against her clit, body arching as her orgasm washed over her when he took her into his arms, kissing her passionately while she came apart in his embrace. Only after her climax ebbed had he removed her fingers from her core, and she watched, mesmerized, as he lifted her hand to his mouth and closed his eyes in pleasure to savor the sticky fluids he was lapping from her fingers, the sight shockingly erotic, arousing. Her fingers were still in his mouth when he slid into her and set off another wave of pleasure that proved even more intense than the first.

Draco Malfoy taught her a lot about herself that she would never have guessed, never even have contemplated, before.

It was in this way that Hermione Granger became conversant with such decadent items as jewelry for her nipples, in delicate gold foil that covered her aureole, but left the nipple itself free, and little gold clips, from which strands of tiny rubies--or sapphires, or diamonds, or emeralds--dangled, adorning her clit. She learned about fine, jeweled chains that were meant to circle her waist, then dip between her thighs and rise again up the crack of her arse, to rejoin the circle at her back. She acquired a new appreciation for feathers. And velvet. And silk. The various ornaments Draco seduced her into wearing did not constrict or bind. Rather, they made her extremely aware of herself in the most intimate of ways. After a day of wearing them, she would be in a swoon of desire. Draco would return to their apartments, give her a knowing smirk, pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. One hand would slide under her robes, his fingers would push aside her knickers to bury themselves inside her wet sheath and she would be writhing in ecstasy. On those nights, supper might have to wait until midnight while he satisfied other hungers with her. She learned also of other devices and desires. The way a tightly laced leather corset lifted her breasts and compressed her waist, intensifying sensations, making her feel decadent and wicked and unbearably aroused. The way an ostrich plume, properly wielded, could make every inch of her skin receptive to the lightest touch of his fingers. The way certain massage oils, which produced a tingling warmth, could leave her breasts so sensitive she would have an orgasm just from the way he suckled them.

Such lessons never failed to bring her to heights of rapture that left her breathless. And, they never failed to leave her in despair at how very lost she was.

But they weren’t the lessons that broke her.

The first happened one night when Draco had returned so late to their apartments, that Hermione was already in bed and asleep. She happened to be sleeping on her stomach, her hair still damp from the hot bath she’d taken after supper. Seeing her so wantonly sprawled across their bed, Draco had decided to kiss his way up her body. She woke while he was at the tops of her thighs, and as he moved his kisses to the globes of her arse, he’d begun to tell her what a fuckable arse it was, and to suggest that she ought to let him fuck it. She had flatly refused. He had chuckled and agreeably said that he wouldn’t press her to do anything she disliked. For the next half hour, he proceeded to do a number of things she found she liked very much, indeed. Her legs were over his shoulder, her hands fisted in his hair as his tongue worked her clit when he slid a finger into her core. She moaned, not quite at the point of orgasm but well on her way. And then, he shifted her hips higher while his tongue traveled lower. Hermione shrieked when it began to tease the forbidden area, and not because of outrage. Oh, no. It felt far too good for outrage to have any part in this, although perhaps it ought to have done. The feeling was indescribable, although use of the term heavenly might not come amiss. She did not object when the finger that had been teasing her feminine depths slid out of one entrance and probed at another. She should have, but it was done so adroitly, and felt so unexpectedly, so undeniably good, that protest was the farthest thing from her mind. She wasn’t sure how long it was after that before she found herself with her knees bent almost to her shoulders, Draco pressing against the tight little entrance, his fingers soothing on her clit. And she wasn’t refusing now, she was rubbing back against the swollen head of his prick, encouraging him to press forward. He went slowly, murmuring encouragement, soothing her into relaxing, seducing her into enjoying it. It burned and it hurt but in the most delicious of ways, and she was shocked at just how good it felt, how much more aware of her orgasmic contractions she was when he was buried in her arse rather than her cunt.

It was in that moment that Hermione Granger knew herself to be well and truly lost, and it was not surprising that, when the force of her climax was spent, and Draco himself had received pleasure, had emptied himself into her and withdrawn his spent flesh, that she gave a choked little cry of despair, turned away from him, curled in on herself and wept.

“What is wrong?” he asked, attempting to pull her into his arms to soothe her.

“Everything,” she said, nearly hysterical, fighting his attempt to hold her. He let her go, watching her warily. “How can you ask? Everything is wrong. Merlin, how do you do this to me? How can you know what to do? How does someone just a few weeks past seventeen, just barely a legal adult, know so much about a woman’s body that he can make her forget her principles and do whatever he wishes?”

There was a brief silence, and then a rueful laugh. Draco relaxed against the pillows, grinning down at her.

“I thought you said you knew the practices of upper-class wizards,” he said wryly. And she did, though it took her a moment to make the connection.

“Are you telling me that your father engaged a mistress for you?” she said sitting up, staring at him, incredulous. “But you’re birthday wasn’t three months ago! He engaged a mistress for you when you were still underage?”

“Of course he did,” Draco said, amused. “As tradition demands, once I’d turned fourteen

“Tradition demands?” she squeaked. “But you were just a child! That’s...that’s...”

“Indecent? Scandalous?” he supplied helpfully as she spluttered to a stop.

“At the very least,” she informed him primly. He laughed outright at that.

“I can’t understand how anyone would think so,” he told her. She sniffed, and reached for the sheet that had been pushed to the foot of the bed, as he continued his explanation. “The entire purpose was to provide me with a salutary education on the art of physical intimacy.” He smiled wickedly. “I’d thought you rather enjoyed benefitting from my tuition.”

“Benefitting?” she said, freezing in the act of tucking the sheet modestly around herself. “Benefitting? How is becoming your whore meant to be benefitting me?”

“My...sweet Merlin,” Draco said, the humor gone from his expression. “You’re not that, never that.”

She couldn’t help the hysterical laughter that burst forth.

“Only that,” she told him bitterly, pulling away and leaving the bed, the sheet clutched protectively to her chest as she turned to face him. “All through school you made it clear that I was your inferior, someone with no right to intrude in your world. Now, Voldemort’s given you a lovely little spell that steals my magic, and all you have to do to keep it for yourself is shag me every day. For letting you, I avoid a straw pallet in a rank dungeon and Merlin knows what kind of abuse, get decent food and clothes, translations to keep my mind occupied and the occasional visit with Ginny. A straight forward exchange of sex for services. What else am I if not your whore?”

“Everything! You’re everything else!” Draco exclaimed, standing to face her, not bothering to cover his own nudity. “You’re...” he paused, running both hands through his hair, struggling for words. “You’re my prize of war, Hermione, a prize others coveted but which I took for my own.”

“A prize?” she scoffed. “An object, you mean. I wasn’t coveted as you so elegantly phrased it,” she went on, shuddering at the memory. “God! Those Death Eating bastard friends of yours were salivating over me like starving wolves over raw meat.”

“Hermione--” he began, trying once more to draw her into his arms, but once more, she eluded him.

“Don’t,” she said thickly. “Don’t make excuses for them, or for yourself. Voldemort told everyone about his ugly little spell, and the lot of you couldn’t wait to...to use me, sex and power in one package. And, yes, you bloody well did take me for yourself. After you’d kissed Voldemort’s arse, long enough and hard enough for him to throw me to you.”

“As a reward, Hermione,” Draco interrupted her tirade, his own anger mounting. “And don’t even pretend you don’t know for what service. Doesn’t that alone tell you how valuable you are? For completing the one task even Voldemort had never managed, you were my prize.”

She couldn’t quite repress a small, choked cry of pain at the reminder of loss, but she didn’t dare dwell on that now. Weeks of fear and helplessness had taken their toll, and she needed an outlet for the anger and rage her fear and helplessness had engendered.

“Oh, you prize me right enough Draco Malfoy,” she jeered at him. “Even if stealing my magic for yourself weren’t making you more powerful than you’ve ever been before, I’m sure you’re delighted to have something a bit more interesting to shove your prick into than your own Rosy Palm. But you don’t value me. I’m not even a woman to you, just a female. I’m not an equal, not someone whose feelings matter, whose intellect, whose person merits respect. To you and the rest of Voldemort’s merry band of miscreants, I’m little better than an animal, a jumped up little mudblood, as you called me in school, something to shag and to use as long as there’s nothing better around. What can I possibly be but your dirty mudblood whore?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, his expression as glacial as she’d ever seen it, his eyes glittering with rage, the gray gone to silver, gone to ice. “Most whores have far less enthusiasm and far more expertise.”

Hermione gasped, feeling as shaken as if she’d suffered a physical assault. The double barbed insult was unanswerable, and unforgivable.

Hermione slapped him.

He did not react as he had in their third year, running away while hurling insults and threats. He hadn’t even turned his head, as if her blow were insignificant. He merely stood there, regarding her impassively, though something, something unnamable, stirred in the depths of his silver eyes. She didn’t wait to find out what it was, but turned and fled for the ensuite her only possible refuge, slammed the door shut, then sat on the ledge of the tub, weeping, hoping to heaven that he would just leave her be.

It didn’t serve, of course. There was no lock on the door, and without magic, she had no other way to bar his entrance. Her solitude lasted less than a minute before Draco, who had pulled on a robe, intruded upon it.

“Can’t you even give me a moment’s peace?” she asked wearily.

“Not when I’ve been the cause of you losing whatever peace you’ve been able to find, here,” he said with what she supposed was contrition. His next words bore out that supposition as, rather than sitting beside her, or forcing her to stand before him, he knelt at her feet. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I had no right to say what I did to you, no matter how angry you’d made me.”

If they had been lovers, quarreling, she would have fallen weeping into his arms, made up with damp kisses and scorching sex, and she would have forgiven him the unforgivable things he had said. But they were, she reminded herself, nothing so innocent. They were captor and captive at best, master and slave, if Voldemort won. His words were a lie. Or, a delusion in which he indulged himself. She would not permit herself to become similarly deluded, would not permit him to pretend things were not as ugly as she knew them to be. If nothing else, she would have honesty.

“But that’s the point, Draco. You have whatever rights you choose to take,” she said bitterly, angrily dashing away her tears. “Even our wretched bargain is something you chose to enter into, and dragged me into, as well. And don’t you dare say I had a choice about it. You bloody well left me none. You made it quite clear that if I didn’t do as you asked, you wouldImperio me to service your repulsive little friends. Just like the good little mudblood whore you’d made me.”

“What must I do to convince you that you are not my--not any man’s--whore?” he said, with such sincerity that wild, hysterical laughter once more bubbled up inside her.

“The one thing you won’t. Just bloody let me go. I might find being released from this prison convincing.”

“If I wanted you dead, Hermione, I’d have just let one of the others claim you in the first place,” he said dryly. “And if I wanted to commit suicide, I’d have flung myself off the tower after Dumbledore.”

“Bit of an impasse, then, isn’t it?” she said, but anger, rage and tears had exhausted her. When he reached up to pull her from her perch on the bathtub ledge and draw her into his lap, she didn’t struggle further. There was no point, really. He’d proved there was nowhere for her to go. So she made no move to free herself from his embrace, but waited passively as he settled with his back against the wall by the tub, holding her across his lap with her head pillowed on his chest, his chin resting on her crown.

“As long as there have been wars, there have been captives,” he told her. “Being forced into the bed of a victor as his spoils doesn’t make you a whore. A true whore chooses to offer herself for gain, be it monetary or gain of a less tangible sort. She doesn’t value herself very highly, but sees herself as an object to be sold. If someone can offer her enough coins, or promise her enough power, enough...of whatever she thinks she has to have, she’ll spread her thighs for whoever asks.

“That’s not you,” he went on. “That never would, or could, be you. It’s because you’re not a whore, not someone who could be had for a coin or a promise, not someone who values herself lightly, that you are a prize. Never think I don’t value you, Hermione. Too much so to leave you to the likes of Avery or Nott or the other bastards. And, no I won’t pretend there was nothing in it for me. That, you see, is the true measure of how much store I set on having you in my possession.” He fell silent then, as if he’d explained everything, rather than leaving her with another mystery.

“What measure?” she asked quietly. “Other than as a way of increasing your magic and of providing you physical release, I can’t imagine what value I have to you.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Because you’ve never felt the lack of...certain things. No, that I won’t explain. You’ll have to settle for this. You know the sorts of service Voldemort demands of me. What you cannot know is the cost of performing such service. We’re in the middle of a war, and whatever fellow said that war is hell was too right. In the hell of war, Hermione, in the wretched landscape of darkness that has become my life, you are the one consolation I cannot deny myself.”

There was something too dark, too intimate in the way he said those words. Hermione caught her breath as the Wizarding jigsaw puzzle that was Draco Malfoy took yet another turn, formed yet another picture. She couldn’t bear to think of it, just then, turned it off with a halfhearted attempt at a joke.

“Can’t be much of a consolation if I’ve got no expertise to back up my enthusiasm,” she said.

Draco groaned, smacking his head into the wall behind him.

“I’m an idiot and I apologize again.”

“Don’t try to tell me you didn’t mean it, though,” she warned him. “It was clear that you were absolutely serious and that you meant every word.”

“Sweet girl, you’ve been amongst Slytherins for weeks, now, and you still don’t understand us. Haven’t you yet learned that we excel at lying by telling the truth?”

She pulled herself out of his embrace and regarded him warily.

“How is that even possible?” she demanded. “You are either telling the truth or you are not. How can the truth be a lie?”

“When the words are literally true, but chosen to give the impression of something different from what they mean,” he informed her. “What I said earlier about enthusiasm and expertise--and I know that was unforgivable and I can only say again, I am sorry--but...oh, bloody hell. A whore doesn’t have enthusiasm for physical intimacy because there is nothing intimate or personal in what she does. It’s a service, a business transaction, it touches her flesh, but not her spirit, and while she may pretend pleasure, she rarely feels it. She brings expertise to the transaction, because that is her stock in trade. No matter what is asked of her, she must be able to perform it with a degree of skill that will make her customer feel his money has been well spent. Whatever sensuality, whatever eroticism she brings to the transaction is a matter of disinterested performance. Can’t you see how this is in every possible way inferior to what you are, what...well, to what we do together?”

“I...I’m not sure,” she confessed.

“It’s why I put it in the contract, the bit about you not resisting what I make you feel. I know you don’t want me. I know you hate me, possibly more now than before this started. And so when you are in my arms, trembling and eager and so decadently lush and wet and responsive, I know that it is an honest response to what I’ve done to you. Merlin. You’ve no idea what that does to me.”

“I’ve a fair guess, actually,” she informed him.

“No, you don’t. You only know what it does to my body,” he rejoined. “Let me finish my apology, if you please. We’ve dealt with enthusiasm. As to expertise...it’s a far different thing from either skill or talent. Skills can be quickly honed, while talent is inborn. However, you can’t have expertise without experience. As in every other arena of your life, your native talent is prodigious, and you hone your skills with absolutely frightening precociousness. The day you achieve expertise is likely the day you will shag me into my grave. Should I be so lucky as to retain possession of you long enough.”

She couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped.

“Perhaps you ought to have me translating a different set of parchments,” she told him. “Something to give me the knowledge and expertise I currently lack. Isn’t there a Wizarding version of the Kama Sutra I should be striving to master?”

“Merlin forbid,” Draco said. “But at least you’re laughing. Am I forgiven, then?”

“No,” she told him. But she smiled and kissed him, just the same.

Inevitably, he responded to her kiss, quickly disrobing and casting a Scourgify on his own body, then transfiguring the sheet in which she’d wrapped herself into a soft quilt for her comfort as he took her again, right there on the floor of the bathroom. It was perhaps one hour, and four or five orgasms latter, before he picked her up and brought her back to the bed, where they slept late into the following day.

That lesson taught her that she was not simply a convenience for Draco Malfoy, but an obsession. She had believed that when Voldemort had offered her up to his faithful, Draco had taken her simply because she was there, and that he would have done the same had any other witch been the object of the Dark Lord’s malicious spell. Now, she wasn’t so sure. There seemed something...she didn’t know how to put it into words. Personal? Intimate? But some quality of his voice and manner while he described her as his consolation made her think that Draco had been obsessed with her far longer than just the few weeks she’d been his captive. That was the new image to the Wizarding Jigsaw. The Hogwarts Bully acting not only out of meanness and malice, or even out of loathing for her impure blood, but out of something darker, obsessive, and obviously sexual. She wasn’t sure when or how or why the obsession had taken hold of him, but she resolved to be more careful, more aware, of the things he said to her, and the possible hidden meanings behind them.

And so her life continued, though there were more lessons to be learned.

Routine as her life had become, she could not but be aware of the changing of the seasons. She was walking with Ginny in the garden one day when a certain coolness in the air, a slight change in the green of the leaves struck her, bringing her to a sudden halt.

“What’s wrong?” Ginny said anxiously.

What was wrong was that it was September, and Hermione should have been at Hogwarts, taking up her long-coveted post as Head Girl. She fleetingly wondered who was serving in her stead, but such speculation proved painful, and she ruthlessly pushed it aside.

“I...just a chill,” she told Ginny, “but it’s passed, now.” They continued to walk in the garden until Draco came to take Hermione away.

Her life as a rather pampered prisoner in Voldemort’s deadly court was not particularly unpleasant. Certainly, not the hell it could so very easily have been made, had Draco not intervened. Translating the text kept her mind occupied, kept her from fretting over what Harry and Ron were doing. As time passed and they made no rescue attempt, she was at least reassured that for once they were being sensible, not rushing into a situation without proper planning.

Her visits with Ginny kept her sane, kept her anchored. The two girls drew strength from each other, and solace. Their companionship made a dire situation, if not quite tolerable, at least a bit less terrifying.

Because, as pampered as she was, as gilded as the cage into which she’d been shut, there were dangers.

The chief of these was, of course, Voldemort himself. Once, he returned to his quarters unexpectedly early, while she and Ginny were still enjoying their daily visit under Draco’s watchful eye. Almost before she was aware of his presence, Draco had used a nonverbal Imperio so that when Voldemort entered the room, Hermione went gracefully to her knees in a deep, respectful obeisance she would never have willingly rendered him, while Ginny looked on in white-faced horror. The Dark Lord was not deceived, but he chose to be amused, not only because Draco directed Hermione to kiss the hem of his master’s gown, but because Hermione fought the command...and lost.

“Her feelings toward you are currently of a particularly sanguinary nature” he advised Draco after the spell had been lifted. Draco had taken the precaution of ordering her back to his side, and wrapping a restraining arm around her before he’d released her from the Imperius curse. “There’s naught but red murder in her mind, just now,” Voldemort went on as he seated himself next to Ginny’s stiff form on the love seat where the two girls had been talking. “You might wish to keep her away from sharp objects, for the moment.”

“You needn’t be concerned for my welfare, my lord,” Draco assured him, with a bow. “Hermione would, of course, prefer I sleep in the vaults of my ancestors rather than on the bed beside her, but enlightened self-interest requires that she forbear sending me to the family mausoleum by her own hand. Risking your wrath while she is in your power would be an act of unparalleled stupidity. And whatever her faults, no one has ever accused her of being stupid.”

Voldemort had chuckled at Draco’s sally, and dismissed them. It was only when they’d reached the safety of their own apartments that Hermione realized just how dangerous that encounter had been. With his extraordinary Legilimency skills, which allowed him to pick thoughts from the minds of those around him even without the eye contact normally needed to invoke the spell, the Dark Lord would have learned that Harry knew about his Horcruxes, and was in the process of destroying them, had not Hermione’s memory charm still been protecting her mind. The charm had caused her to lose all conscious memory of Horcruxes the moment an outside force attempted to intrude upon her consciousness, just as it had when she’d first been forced into Voldemort’s presence, and again when Draco had used Legilimency on her the day after he capture. But the charm was waning. It should have kept her mind free of thoughts of Horcruxes for at least an hour after the danger had passed, instead of a matter of minutes. In the weeks since her capture, she had not crossed the Dark Lord’s path before this day. She must hope that she did not cross it again. Because she had been held captive near a month, now, and in a few more days, the charm would fade altogether. When that happened, the knowledge would be Voldemort’s for the taking, should she be so unfortunate as to encounter him another time.

That was her worst fear, that she would reveal the knowledge of the Horcruxes, giving Voldemort time to secure the ones that were left, or to make new ones. But Voldemort’s skill at Legilimency was far from the only danger she faced while a prisoner in his court.

Another had already been made clear to her.

She had wondered, at first, why Draco insisted upon Apparating directly too and from the Dark Lord’s apartments when he took her to visit Ginny. When she’d asked him about the matter--side-along Apparition not being the most comfortable manner of transport--he’d simply said he had no wish to deal with his fellows while in her company. She’d assumed this to be another aspersion on her heritage. He didn’t want to be seen with his Mudblood slave, even if he prized her as a gift from his Master.

In this, she wronged him.

Hermione was deep in her translation of a recipe for curing meoluc fefor when she heard the two sharp cracks of sound that indicated someone--two someones--had Apparated into the room behind her. She barely had time to be surprised that Draco would bring someone back to their apartments without forewarning her of his intention, when she suffered the greater shock of realizing that it wasn’t Draco, at all.

“Really, Cissy, I thought you’d raised the boy better,” came the unmistakable tones of Bellatrix Lestrange, dripping malevolence. With a gasp of surprise, Hermione pushed back her chair and rose to her feet to confront the distaff side of the Malfoy family even as Bellatrix continued her venomous tirade, gaze running over Hermione in hot-eyed loathing. “I thought if he must have her in his apartments, he’d at least keep her in her place, chained up like any proper slave. But he’s tricked out the Mudblood bitch in silks as if she were his pureblood bride rather than his filthy little trull.”

“For Merlin’s sake, Bella, you needn’t attack the girl straight off,” Narcissa Malfoy said, her own tones strained. Strain was also evident in lines marring Narcissa’s high, wide brow, the skin around her eyes and her full-lipped mouth as she moved forward into the room, addressing Hermione with icy condescension, “Miss Granger, can you tell me where--”

“For Merlin’s sake? Merlin's?,” Bellatrix sneered at her younger sister, circling round Hermione like a she-wolf stalking prey. Hermione drew herself up and faced the woman down, trying to keep her expression impassive and her trembling stilled. The quickest way to become prey was to act like it. But she wasn’t foolish enough to intervened in this quarrel between wolves. “Don’t dare invoke Merlin on her behalf,” Bellatrix went on, speaking of Hermione, rather than to her, “She isn’t worthy to speak his name, to hear it, let alone for you to call on him in her defense.”

“I wasn’t invoking him for the girl’s sake,” Narcissa returned evenly, but Bellatrix wasn’t listening.

“It’s a disgrace!” she snarled, rounding on her sister, who merely glared back at her. “He should have kept her in the dungeon, where offal belongs, when our lord offered.”

“The Dark Lord has said, publicly, that Draco’s choice was a wise one,” Narcissa said coolly, shocking Hermione much more effectively than all of Bellatrix’s invective had yet done. “If he is pleased, will you set yourself to gainsay him?”

“I gainsay him nothing!” Bellatrix insisted. “It is Draco who has abused our master’s generosity, and I see now that it is your fault he is so lax in what is owed! Never invoke Merlin for this filth again! The first of the great wizards, the greatest before our own exalted lord, would never sully himself with mere Muggles!”

That remark proved too much for Hermione, who could stifle neither her chortle of disbelieving laughter, nor the very unwise words that rose to her lips.

“Can you really be that ignorant?” she wondered. “Do you think King Arthur was just a pretty fable for children? Arthur was real, a war chief at least, possibly a king, but no wizard, and Merlin was his most devoted....servant.”

Shrieking in rage, Bellatrix whirled away from her sister, wand out and aimed for Hermione. “Cruci--. Another crack of Apparition sounded before the final syllable of the spell could be uttered and suddenly Draco was there, a nonverbal spell sending his aunt’s wand spinning out of her hand.

“Good afternoon mother, Aunt Bella,” he said politely, effortlessly calling Bellatrix’s wand back into his grasp and presenting it to her with a flourish. She snatched it from his fingers with a moue of disgust. “Was there a particular reason you called me away from the task I work on for our master by endangering his gift to me?” he enquired in the same courteous tones, even as he dropped a kiss of greeting on his mother’s cheek, settling for a simple nod to his glowering aunt, who looked as if she might bite him if he were unwise enough to get too close.

“A task for the Dark Lord?” Narcissa said, frowning. “Why didn’t you tell us? You’re father asked me to see what had happened to you. You were expected, you will recall.”

“My apologies, mother,” Draco said. “I was sent off with Severus, and simply forgot our engagement.”

“Well, it’s not so very late,” Narcissa allowed. “You can come along now, then. We’ll have lunch, and--”

“I’m sorry, no,” Draco shook his head regretfully. “My work with Severus is not complete. I’ll have to return to him at once.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Bellatrix inquired crossly. “And how dare you interfere with my disciplining that filth.”

“I dare when you interfere with what is mine,” he said softly, dangerously, eyes glittering with silver ice. “There is no question of disciplining her now, or ever, I give you fair warning, Aunt Bella. Family or no, if you ever attempt to assault Hermione again, I will not be so forbearing as I have been today. Do we understand each other?”

“Understand? I understand that you’re one step away from betraying your blood,” Bellatrix snarled. “Oh, I’ve done with the lot of you,” she said, Disapparating away once more.

“Was it necessary to be quite so rude?” Narcissa sighed. “It will likely be days before I can calm her down.”

“I might have been far more rude,” Draco shrugged, turning to Hermione, who still stood, shaking, by her chair, no longer able to repress the shudders of reaction. “Are you all right?” he inquired softly.

Hermione nodded. “I’m unharmed,” she told him, more or less truthfully. He frowned as if he didn’t quite believe her, looked as if he were about to say more, but turned back to his mother, who was looking at them uneasily, as if not entirely sure what to make of their exchange.

“You’ll give father my regrets, then? Perhaps tomorrow,” Draco said.

“Not tonight?” Narcissa pressed. “When you’ve returned?”

“I expect to be late,” Draco told her. “Tomorrow will be better. Provided I am not still required for other service.”

“Of course,” she sighed. “I’ll inform your father. Good-bye, then.” She flicked her eyes toward Hermione, and gave the slightest nod of acknowledgment before Disapparating back to her own apartments.

Hermione found her knees no longer equal to supporting her and sank back down into the chair.

“You’re not all right,” Draco said, kneeling at her side. “What did my bitch of an aunt do to you?”

Hermione laughed shakily. “Not nearly as much as she would have done if I’d pointed out that Morganna was Muggle-born,” she told him. “Telling her Merlin served a Muggle king made her angry enough.”

“Ah. Very foolish of you to try to illuminate Aunt Bella’s ignorance that way,” he said rising to his feet again, assured that she was, as she claimed, unharmed. “I find it best to just let her run on.”

“So, you know about Merlin, Arthur and Morganna?” she asked skeptically.

“Dux Bellorum? Vortigern? Uther and Ygraine? Yes, I’ve heard a tale or too. But, really, they were the start of it all, weren’t they? Or perhaps I mean the turning point. There were wizards and witches in the ancient world, but not in the numbers we are now, and Muggles left us alone. But those three were the first true flowering of what has become the Wizarding world. Those of us who call ourselves purebloods today do so because our blood is purely descended from theirs.”

“That’s what you believe?” she asked carefully. Her own not inconsiderable research into the topic suggested something other. Hermione believed that the ability to work magic had been present in the human population all along, and that the ancient world accepted the wizards and witches dwelling in their midst so easily because almost all were, in fact, Muggleborn. By the first century B.C. though, whatever genes enabled a person to do magic began to concentrate in the population, so that magic abilities were more likely to be found within certain families than not. The appearance of the three famous Wizarding figures, in about the fifth century A.D., marked the point in time when the ability to work magic became a dominant trait in a significant portion of the human population, while still remaining a recessive trait in the population at large, hence Hermione’s own ability to work magic. Not a view anyone in this castle, except perhaps Ginny, was apt to share, of course. Draco’s next words proved he certainly didn’t.

“That is what I know, Hermione,” he told her confidently. Someday, it might be entertaining to argue the matter with him. Not today.

“Well, at least you’ve acknowledged that those three were Muggleborn, which is something, I suppose.”

“I haven’t acknowledged any such thing,” he responded lightly, walking around to the side of her desk, and drawing up a chair. “Morganna, yes. We know her parentage. But she was called the fey, or fae, a fairy. Maybe the Duke of Cornwall had a drop of fairy blood to pass on to his daughter, gained before the old High Elves and Lords of Fae died out.”

Hermione nodded. An influx of Fae blood might well account for the flowering of magic in humans, and the creation of the Wizarding world. Having paid attention in her History of Magic lessons, and knowing enough of Muggle legends to draw certain inferences, she was well aware that the house elves and fairies of the modern world were no relation to the Sidhe, the Shining People, the ancient magical race that had once shared Britain and large portions of the continent with ordinary humans.

“Cornwall, but not Ygraine?” Hermione asked with a faint smile of amusement. “And aren’t you supposed to be missing a family lunch because of a pressing errand for your Dark Lord?”

“If it had been Ygraine, Arthur would not have needed Merlin,” Draco pointed out reasonably. “And my most pressing errand, at the moment, is avoiding an unpleasant interview with my father. Severus can do without me for a few minutes, especially if I bring him back a sandwich with my own.”

“Hungry work, then, what you’re doing?” she asked idly, as he called for Priddy.

“And thirsty,” added. He gave the elf instructions to pack a basket with a few sandwiches, flasks of pumpkin juice and cold water...and one of red wine. Hermione did not think the wine was for Snape.

“But we were speaking of the first of the great wizards, weren’t we?” Draco said, as Priddy Disapparated back to the kitchens. “So, Morganna is ostensibly Muggleborn, but she must have had blood of the High Elves to have been called the fae. Fair enough. The old legends are full of stories of wife-stealing, baby-snatching, and unwary swains being put in thrall to the Faery Queen, so we know the High Elves had a fondness for mortal flesh. For the other obviously Wizarding characters in Arthur’s drama, Nimue is likely to have been an actual faery. As to old Merlin himself--well, there were some who thought him closer to a demon, but I suppose we’ll have to posit fae blood there, as well.”

“Will we?” Hermione wondered. “It doesn’t matter, you know. They could all have been pure fae, and it would mean nothing. Morganna married a Muggle king, while Nimue rather famously put a stop to Merlin bothering her, so no offspring there. It is possible that Nimue married some Muggle knight, bearing children as Morganna did, though I don’t recall word of it in the legends, but by all accounts Merlin was a right old monk.”

“A right old monk who got himself sealed into a stone tomb by Nimue because he ever lay about the lady to have her maiden-head, isn’t that how Malory put it?”

“I’m surprised you know, but yes, that’s how it is stated in Le Morte D’Arthur,” Hermione allowed, just as Priddy reappeared with the requested basket of food. “Still, the Morte is a highly romanticized account, written some six or seven centuries after the fact. That line may say more about Malory than Merlin. Really, Morganna is the only one of the three to whom the older legends attribute offspring. Nimue might have simply gone back into Faery, and if she had descendants there, they likely disappeared to wherever the High Elves went.”

“Interesting theory,” Draco said, “but wrong. We know all three of them had children. We know how the descendants of Merlin, Nimue and Morganna created the race of purebloods, set us apart from those poor sods destined to remain Muggles.”

“Honestly, Draco. You believe every hedge wizard who styled himself a grandson of Merlin really was exactly what he claimed?” she drawled.

“Of course not,” he told her, then grinned. “Only the ones who really could work magic.” He stood, taking up the basket that Priddy has made up for him. “I ought to get back. Even a flask of iced pumpkin juice won’t sweeten Snape’s temper for taking off on him.”

“You don’t normally come back for lunch when you and he are out doing whatever it is you do,” she said. “Why did you, today?”

“Lunch was a happy afterthought, and had nothing to do with my return. I came back when the wards protecting you alerted me that you were in danger.”

“Wards?” she blinked in surprise. “Protecting me?”

“Of course. Since our agreement,” he said casually, stooping to kiss her fleetingly in parting. “I know how to keep my bargains, Hermione,” he said, and Disapparated back to Snape’s side.

Leaving Hermione with more uncomfortable answers to questions she had never wanted to ask. And the final lessons, those that would leave her broken, still waiting to be learned.

A.N. Meoluc fefor or milk fever is a catchall term applied to a variety of nursing complications in both humans and other mammals. Herein, I’m referring to a bacterial infection, mastitis, in nursing women. Easily treated today, milk fever could prove fatal in the times during which Gudren Carlsdotter/Judith du Malfoi would have lived.