Hermione didn't say anything. She just looked at him.

She was relieved she wasn't trembling.

She forced herself to meet his gaze, reminding herself she just had to endure for a little while—just until she could formulate a plan.

She could endure it. She would.

She was uncertain of what she was supposed to do. Was he expecting her to go lie down on his bed?

He strode past her to the wardrobe and after laying his hand against the door for a moment, jerked it open.

Perhaps Malfoy was not entirely monk-like. The wardrobe had almost an entire room within it. The door held a full bar, and Malfoy snatched a bottle of firewhiskey off a shelf and pulled the cork out with his teeth. Spitting the cork onto the floor, he raised the bottle to his lips and stared at her.

Hermione just waited.

After a minute, he drew his wand and with a quick movement conjured a table in the middle of the floor. Hermione stared at it, completely at a loss. She looked over to Malfoy.

He sneered at her.

"Bend over," he said in a low, taunting voice, gesturing toward it.

Hermione hadn't thought she could feel any more revulsed by him, but apparently she could. She bit down on the inside of her lip until she felt the skin give away and blood flood over her tongue as she felt her feet begin to obey automatically.

She walked slowly over and after hesitating for a moment, leaned across the table.

The wood bit into her hip bones. She rested her hands against the edges and gripped them until her knuckles cracked from the force. She fought to keep from trembling. Her whole body felt on edge from the intensity of her vulnerability. Her ears were straining to detect any sound.

There was a pause. Then she heard Malfoy approach her slowly.

He stopped directly behind her and there was another silence. She could feel his eyes on her.

The air shifted.

"Are you still a virgin, Mudblood? Is that something you even remember?"

She flinched as she realised she didn't know.

He stepped closer. "I'm sure Weasley or Potter climbed up there at some point." She could hear the mockery in his tone.

His hand rested briefly on the small of her back as he pulled her skirts up to her waist. She felt the cold air of his room against her skin. She was shaking so hard the table was rattling.

"Well, I suppose we'll know soon enough," he said and then commanded, "Move your feet wider."

She forced herself to shift.

She felt his fingers on her and jerked away slightly.

He muttered under his breath and she felt something warm and liquid inside her. A lubrication charm. She started so abruptly the table legs shrieked as they dragged across the wood floor.

"We can't have any damage or infections impairing your—usefulness," he explained in a derisive tone.

She heard his belt click and then, without warning, he impaled her with himself.

She tried to bite back the sob that forced its way up her throat but the abrupt invasion caught her off guard. At her cry, he froze, just for a moment, before he started moving again. Aside from where they were joined, he didn't touch her. His right hand gripped the table near where her face was turned. She could see a black ring on his hand, glittering faintly.

When he came, his movement grew uneven and rougher, and then he stilled suddenly with a quiet hiss.

He stayed there for only a second before jerking away from her and striding back over to the bar.

"Get out." His tone was sharp.

Hermione shook.

"I can't." She tried not to sob as she said it, but her voice trembled. "I'm not allowed to move for ten minutes after."

He snarled with rage. Suddenly the table beneath her vanished, and she plummeted to the floor, hitting her forehead sharply on the ground.

"GET OUT!"

The room shook.

Pushing herself up, she fled. Stumbling dazedly through the hallway. Trying to remember the way back.

Her chest was stuttering as she tried not to hyperventilate. She couldn't see clearly. She reached up to find that her forehead had split where she'd hit it. Blood was streaming down into her eyes.

She stood at the top of the stairs. Trying to remember the way back. Blood was filling her eyes. She could feel fluid seeping out from between her legs and trickling down her thighs. She was shaking. Trying to remember where her room was.

If she stayed there—Astoria would find her and gouge her eyes out, or chop off her fingers, or pull her teeth out.

She stumbled and almost fell down the stairs.

She was drawing short, rapid breaths as she tried to keep from sobbing aloud.

She couldn't understand—she'd survived the war. She'd watched her friends die in front of her. She'd stayed sane, alone in a dark cell for over a year. But—being forced to be complicit in her own rape. She couldn't bear it. Not while knowing she'd be expected to do it again the next day. And the next. And the day after that.

She stared dizzily down at the foyer.

If she just threw herself over the balcony Malfoy couldn't stop her.

She'd be done.

She leaned over and looked down at the table in the foyer. Just a little further—

A vise-like grip closed itself around her arm and wrenched her away.

She turned and found Malfoy glaring at her, enraged.

"Don't—you—dare." He snarled the words. His face white with fury.

"Please, Malfoy—" She was sobbing. "Please—"

He dragged her down the stairs and through the house as she cried. He practically kicked the door of her room in as he dragged her into it and shoved her onto the bed.

"Evanesco!" he snapped, pointing his wand at her face, and suddenly the blood in her eyes vanished. He followed it with a healing charm and just stood there staring at her with unveiled fury.

"Do you really think I won't know when you try to kill yourself, Mudblood?" he finally asked after she stopped sobbing.

"Just let me," she said. Her voice was wooden, her chest kept stuttering, "I'm sure they'll give you a new Mudblood to breed. You hate me too, Malfoy. Do you really want me to be the mother of your children? To see my face in them? I'm sure you can come up with a compelling excuse for killing me."

Malfoy gave a barking laugh.

"If it were only so easy, I'd kill you now. For the first time in your life, you appear to have underestimated your value. The Dark Lord is quite anxious to see what kind of offspring we'll produce. Once you've birthed a few heirs for me, he intends to send you on and see what kind you'll make with some of the other old wizarding families. You little broodmares are quite the commodity. The Dark Lord has a whole breeding program planned—spanning several generations."

Hermione stared in horror.

He moved closer, his expression menacing. "Let's not forget about those memories of yours. The fact that there was something you considered worth hiding even after losing the war is a cause for concern. Until I know why, you will not die. However, how much freedom you have in this house—and how often I have to supervise you in order to assure it—your little suicide contemplations will decide that."

Hermione sat there frozen. Somehow she'd assumed that Malfoy would be the end for her. That he'd force a child from her, and then she'd be disposed of. It hadn't occurred to her that she was intended to go on from one wizarding family after another until her body gave out.

Malfoy glanced around her room and then back to her. His face was tense, and his eyes steely.

"Well," he said, sighing, "I hadn't intended to do this immediately after fucking you the first time—but I am already here and with no further plans for the evening. There really is no time like the present. Let's see exactly what is going on in that little Mudblood mind of yours. How many other ideas do you have?"

Before she could cringe away, he used his wand tip to force her chin up, and his cold, grey eyes sank into her consciousness.

He didn't bother with her locked memories. He went to directly after the war, to her imprisonment, and moved forward from there.

Hermione didn't struggle. If she tried to push him out, it would just hurt more, and he would still force his way through. She collapsed onto the bed as the weight of his mind bore into hers.

Her fingers twitched involuntary, but she was otherwise still.

He slipped quickly through all the long, silent, isolated months and then moved slowly once she was dragged out of the cell, tortured, petrified, and then re-tortured by not being stunned when mobilised again. He took note of her conversation with Hannah and the mind healer's description of Hermione's condition. He observed the techniques Voldemort and Snape had used to try to break into her locked memories. He was particularly interested in her scheming to kill herself or escape. She could feel his condescending amusement at who she had theorised the High Reeve could be; how she had wondered if she could take advantage of him and get him killed.

Hermione couldn't find a way to wrench the thoughts away from him or conceal them. Every time she was able to gather more than a shred of magic, she felt the copper of the manacles key in and snatch it away.

He paid careful attention to the manacles. The compulsions that had been laid. The screaming girl who snapped and nearly bludgeoned someone to death. To Hermione's arrival at the manor and reaction upon seeing him. To her theories regarding himself and Astoria. Then her careful exploration of her room and panic attacks when she tried to step into the hallway.

It took hours.

He pored over every detail. All the twists, doubts, questions and theories in her mind. Finally, when he reached her memory of Astoria sweeping into the bedroom to retrieve her that evening, he withdrew. He was apparently disinterested by the notion of witnessing her perspective of being raped by him.

Hermione felt as though her skull had been crushed. She barely even twitched as he stood staring down at her.

"So many schemes," he said as he straightened and tilted his head back, appraising her with cold, mocking eyes. "Then again, I'd feel disappointed if you weren't entertaining at least one plot to try to kill me and escape. I can't wait to see what you'll come up with next."

He leaned over the bed until his cruel face was only a breath away from hers. "Do you really think you can trick me into killing you?"

Hermione dragged her eyes away from his face and stared up at the canopy.

"Do feel free to try," he said with a smirk, "just as soon as you can bring yourself to walk through that door by yourself."

Then he straightened again, and all the humour vanished from his face.

"Stay out of my room. I don't want to find you in there again. I'll come do it here."

He sneered at her. "I'll have a table sent, so you'll know when to expect me."

He turned on his heel and strode out without another word.

Hermione didn't move.

Not when the door clicked shut.

Not as the hands on the clock ticked unrelentingly on and on, indicating that it was past three in the morning.

Not when she became conscious of the crusting sensation on her thighs, the faint rawness between her legs, and the unfamiliar ache in her lower abdomen.

She just lay there.

Once upon a time... there had been a girl who fought. Who believed that books and cleverness and friendship and bravery could overcome all things.

But now—

—that girl was gone.

She'd been all but killed during the war.

Now—Draco Malfoy had stomped that girl to dust over the course of an evening.

He'd physically and mentally raped every last shred of that girl to death.

Hermione lay and stared up at the canopy of the bed.

She hadn't laid much store in her plans. She'd known her odds were impossibly small. Now—Malfoy's mockery had sealed the sense of defeat that she felt.

She didn't move.

When morning came, she didn't wake. It was late in the afternoon before she finally dragged herself from the bed and into a bath.

Malfoy had barely touched her, but she scrubbed every inch of herself in an attempt to excise any trace of him.

In the process, she discovered a thin raised scar on her rib cage that she couldn't remember getting, as well as faint clusters of scars mottling her left wrist and upper chest.

She inspected them all carefully but drew a complete blank as to how or when she had received them. She didn't think she'd been injured much during the final battle. She hadn't been in any raids or skirmishes for several years prior to the war ending.

As she examined her wrist again, she reviewed in her mind all the curses she knew of that might cause such scarring. It was such a long list. Voldemort had created a division in his army specifically devoted to developing new curses. Hermione couldn't remember a battle that hadn't had multiple casualties simply because she couldn't identify all the new curses fast enough to counteract them.

The water grew cold around her, but she didn't leave until she started shivering. When she went back into the bedroom, she found that lunch had been left for her. She picked listlessly at it.

She went to the door and stood trembling in front of it for several minutes before turning away.

She stared at the cold, misty Wiltshire landscape outside her window. Pressing her forehead against the glass, she relished the sharp, icy pain that sank into her skin. She wished it would sink in far enough to numb her mentally.

She didn't know what to do but make more futile plans.

There was nothing else to do. No books to read. Nothing to occupy her mind but all those spells, and arithmancy problems, and potion recipes that she had already recited to herself a thousand times.

She hadn't realised the comforting oblivion that came from not seeing and barely hearing in a timeless nowhere. Standing out in the real world again was a keener sense of despair than even her eventual acceptance of her cell. Realising how reduced she'd become. How powerless she was to fight her circumstances. Finding that no book she'd studied nor spell she'd learned offered any solutions for her circumstances...

She didn't know how to rise above it.

She didn't even know how to get through it.

She just wanted to die.

Even that felt utterly unattainable.

The table appeared in her room at precisely 7:30 that evening.

She'd bathed only a few hours before, so she just stared at it. Bracing herself. Considering.

It was at least—impersonal.

As humiliating and horrifying as it was. At least she didn't have to look at Malfoy when he did it. Didn't have to touch him.

She didn't want to see him.

A minute before eight o'clock, she went over and leaned across the table. She set her feet wide and turned her face so she could watch the clock.

When the door clicked she didn't move.

Malfoy didn't say a word. He walked over and paused behind her.

Hermione's hands began trembling, but she refused to let herself move. She wouldn't look at him.

She squeezed her eyes shut and began to recite healing spells; the longest, most complex ones she knew. Rehearsing the wand movement in her mind.

Her skirts were pulled up, and she felt the trembling in her hands spread throughout the rest of her body.

She heard the muttered charm. Warmth and liquid.

She gritted her teeth as she felt prodding between her legs.

When he sank inside her, she shook but didn't cry.

When he started to move, she cast her mind for something—something new. Something she hadn't already thought to death.

The lines of a poem slowly came to her.

"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro"

The continuous sensation of movement inside her dragged her attention back into reality. She ground her teeth and fought for the next lines. She started over.

"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading - treading - till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through -"

The pace of movement shifted, and she desperately scrabbled to recall what words came next.

"....that Sense was breaking though -

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum -

Kept beating - beating - till I thought

My mind was going numb -"

Malfoy abruptly came as she tried to remember the following line. He pulled away sharply.

Hermione didn't move.

A moment later, she heard the door click once more.

Hermione tried to remember the third verse of the poem, but it floated beyond her memory's reach.

She thought—she remembered an armchair and a book of poetry. Comforting arms wrapped around a child Hermione, and a woman's hands flicking to a page. A voice she couldn't remember any longer...

Her mother—

She thought it might have been her mother who taught her the poem.

She opened her eyes and stared up at the clock.