She'd known—
But walking into it still felt like being gutted.
She dropped her eyes, and forced her expression not to change.
“Right,” she said. She dropped her bag by the door and warded it.
His expression was cool and calculating as he stared at her from across the room.
“I want to see if your dodging and evading has improved, but I don't want to rennervate you every minute—”
Hermione flinched faintly.
“Just don't hit my hands,” she interrupted him, “I can't work — if you hit my hands again.”
His eyes narrowed with annoyance.
“Fuck off, Granger, I'm not intending to hex you,” he snapped. He flicked his wand sharply toward her and she felt — liquid.
She glanced down and found a large water droplet spattered across the back of her hand.
“I realize you consider me a total monster,” he said flatly, “but I do make a general habit of keeping my word. I presume water will not offend you.”
Hermione was still staring down at her hand in astonishment. Finally she looked up at him and blushed.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“Right.” His expression was stiff. “So — I'm primarily interested in seeing how you move. However, do try to land a hex on me, if you possibly can.”
He entered a very uncommitted dueling stance, and waited for her to do the same.
She did, and then bobbed her head slightly in a bow before she sent a jelly-leg jinx toward him. He blocked it with the faintest flick of his right hand.
He sent a dozen drops of water in her direction and she easily blocked them with a nonverbal shield.
She sent a series of stunners and he blocked them without moving.
“Why are you so concerned with how I move when you never do?” she inquired as she sent several leg lockers and jelly leg jinxes toward his feet.
“I'm not dueling,” he said, shooting her a thin smile as he blocked her spells and caught her feet with several drops of water. “Your shield isn't comprehensive. Stop maintaining it and dodge, or make sure it's full-body.”
She flushed and physically dodged the next twenty water droplets while shooting several mild hexes in his direction.
“You aren't even trying to hit me,” he said, frowning. “You do realise I basically duel for a living. I fight werewolves, your Order, Death Eaters… Especially lately, everyone in the Dark Lord's ranks thinks that my injury is an open invitation to try to steal my spot.”
Hermione nearly tripped and stared at him in horror.
“What?” she said with a horrified gasp. If he were Harry or Ron she'd be smacking him upside the head.
He shot her squarely between the eyes with a drop of water.
“Focus!” he barked, before laying his hand across his brow in apparent despair but still blocking the leg locking jinx she shot. “You're hopeless. Merlin. This is why you lot are losing.”
“I'm a healer,” she snapped defensively. “If you wanted me to try harder at hexing you, you should have talked about how you enjoy killing kneazles kittens.”
“Every night before I go to sleep,” he deadpanned as he filled the air with shooting drops of water. The floor was growing littered with puddles.
“Are you really saying that you've been dueling ?” Hermione demanded. She stopped trying to jinx him and was simply staring at him in outrage while she knocked aside all the water he was sending toward her.
Draco rolled his eyes.
“You may recall, I'm a Death Eater,” he said. “I am at a loss as to how this surprises you.”
“You are injured! I assumed there were some basic tenets of human decency even among Death Eaters.” She was seething.
“Well, you'd be wrong. Despite its Muggle origins, the Dark Lord is a firm believer in promoting the survival of the fittest. Hence his aspiration to subjugate all Muggles. If my — chastisement — leaves me vulnerable to overthrow then I ostensibly deserve it.”
“So — what? They just get to attack you whenever they want to?” she asked angrily, continuing to ward off the rainstorm he was directing at her. The entire floor was covered in water.
“Of course not,” he said, his lips curling condescendingly, “constant infighting weakens military cohesion. There's a designated time each week before the Dark Lord, at which point challenges are permitted. And there are generally restrictions on killing, or doing anything to permanently impair our — usefulness.”
“That is vile.”
“The civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage,” Draco said.
Hermione squinted at him in confusion.
“How is it that you know Darwin and Thoreau?”
“Oh, you know. 'Know thyself. Know thy enemy. And you shall win a hundred battles without loss,'” he said with faint smirk. “We savage Death Eaters do know how to read. The Dark Lord doesn't care what I do so long as I continue providing him victories.”
He sighed abruptly and stopped shooting water at her.
“You're really not even going to try to hex me, are you?” he asked in irritation, as he banished the pool of water they were both standing in.
Hermione flushed faintly.
“I've spent a lot of time trying to heal you. I don't want to make you fall,” she admitted begrudgingly.
“You fucking moron,” he said, glaring at her. “Do you expect Death Eaters to extend the same courtesy to you? If you're injured on the ground, cursing you additionally would be funny.”
“I think it's generally understood that I would be a pretty piss-poor Death Eater,” she snapped.
“Obviously. But I would hope you could be pragmatic enough to duel competently.”
“I can be pragmatic. When it comes down to the line, I don't baulk. But — I can't try to injure you right now.”
She bit her lip and looked away from him.
“You—“ she started, “you've saved several hundred people now. There's a chance no one will ever know. And you were punished for it. So — I'm not going to try to hurt you. Not when you're already injured.”
She stood there awkwardly. He sighed and stared at her. There was cold calculation to his expression as he stood considering her. Then a long silence.
“Did you know,” Draco said in an airy tone after a minute, “that I was there when the Creevey family was dragged out of hiding?”
Hermione couldn't have been more stunned if he'd just stepped up and backhanded her. She looked up at him sharply while he continued.
“Two Muggle-born wizards from the same family. Quite an anomaly. They were considered high priority. The Dark Lord wanted their deaths spectacular.”
“You—,“ Hermione choked. The words died in her throat, swallowed by her rising horror.
“You should have heard how the Muggles screamed. Dear Aunt Bella had such a fondness for the cruciatus. You recall how she drove the Longbottoms insane? She considered the Creeveys her encore performance. The boys tried to bolt. Good little runners. Smart enough to know they couldn't save their parents.”
Hermione felt as though she'd been punched. Repeatedly. She tried to breathe, but her lungs wouldn't function. Her throat felt as though something were closing around it.
Draco continued in a relentless voice, “Of course your Order came eventually, but they were rather late. The father bit through his tongue and drowned in the blood. Bella cut out the mother's womb, just in case the woman was still sane enough to understand what she was being punished for. While they were stringing her organs up around the parlor, I was set to track down the boys. It was easy, since they were blubbering and trying to stay together. Putting them in the countryside miles from another farm was quite an oversight for two wizards who couldn't apparate. Then the littler one stepped in a badger hole and broke his leg. He started crawling through the grass. An easy target for a killing curse. The second person I cursed in the back with it.”