He noticed her expression.
“You seem pleased,” he said in a bitter voice, his lip curling, “to have successfully whored yourself. Happy to know you've got your chess piece locked in place?”
She didn't flinch at the insult. She closed her hands slowly into fists and then forced herself to open them. “That was my job,” she said quietly. There was no point in trying to deny it. “You have to have known that was my mission.”
“Of course,” he said in an empty tone, looking away from her. His arms were hanging limp, and as though he suddenly didn't know what to do with himself. “I just — I never thought you'd actually succeed. I didn't want you — when I demanded you — I didn't actually want you.”
“I know.” She looked away. “I realised that everything at the beginning was an act.” Her skin was hurting from the cold. The shack had never been heated, but she hadn't realised how cold it was until then.
He gave a choked laugh under his breath as he looked back at her. “Of course.”
There was a pause. Hermione started pulling her clothes on. Draco looked away.
“I wasn't going to betray your Order,” he finally said in a dead voice. “I was never going to. You were already losing when I came, and you're probably still going to lose now. But — I never really cared. I didn't turn because of that. I wanted to avenge my mother. I was perfectly willing to die in the process.” He stared down at the floor. “Unfortunately, by the time I had an opportunity to offer my services, she had been dead too long. It wasn't a 'plausible' explanation.”
The bitterness on his face was unadulterated. He rolled his jaw and looked up at the ceiling, tilting his head back. “I wasn't aware there was a time limit on grief.”
He looked over at her, and his expression grew vicious and disdainful. His eyes were glittering. “Since that wasn't a plausible reason, I had to come up with something I'd ostensibly want from the Order. So — a pardon. But I knew that would hardly be believable either. I knew I'd need a contact; choosing a girl and acting like I had some sort of interest seemed like a pragmatic solution. A way to play into the Death Eater narrative.” He gave a thin smile. “But most witches in the Resistance were too much of a risk; hot-headed and out in the field so often there was a good chance they'd get picked up in a skirmish, and I'd either get my cover blown or I'd be cycling through contacts constantly.”
He swallowed and his mouth twisted. “Then I remembered you. I thought for years that you'd died, but Snape reported you were the Order's healer. When you occurred to me, I thought I'd found the perfect solution. You were kept in safe houses; there wouldn't be much risk of you being picked up or killed, and you were pragmatic enough that you'd go along if you thought you were saving your friends. It seemed like the perfect solution. When I said my terms were you and a pardon, they immediately bought it. Apparently the 'now and after war' line was absurd enough that you all found it believable.”
He sneered. “As if I would have betrayed the Dark Lord for a chance to own you,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I knew they'd send you with instruction to try to make me fall for you — to assure my services and ensure I wouldn't tire of you or change my mind. But — I figured, you'd been such a bitch back in school, and you'd hate me so much for killing Dumbledore, I was sure you wouldn't succeed. I honestly thought it would be funny to see you try.”
He stared down at the floor.
“But you did — you outmanoeuvered me,” he said. “Or maybe I was just too tired and grieving to keep pushing you away. It hardly matters. You won.”
He sank down against the wall and shut his eyes.
Hermione studied him skeptically as she pulled the rest of her clothes back on. She wasn't sure what angle he was trying to play with this — concession? Confession?
The part about her was believable enough. It fit with everything she'd noted about him. But she was doubtful of his claim that his mother was his true impetus. She'd considered the possibility countless times and dismissed it.
“Really? You switched sides because your mother died?” She snorted loudly with disbelief as she stood up. “Her death was hardly your master's fault. And what? Before that you just ascended his ranks by accident? Didn't really notice for five years and then oh — golly, what? The anniversary of her death passed, and you got so melancholy you couldn't help but reach out to us?”
She was baiting him. She was sure it would piss him off. Maybe — if she goaded him enough, he'd actually tell the truth for once.
His eyes snapped open, and he grew pale with rage. “Fuck you, Granger.”
Hermione flinched. The skin on her back and shoulders felt scratched raw in places, and her lower abdomen ached faintly. She could feel his semen pooling in the fabric of her knickers, and there was a stinging sensation between her legs. She swallowed and forced herself to ignore it.
“You are a Death Eater,” she said coolly, crossing her arms as she stared down at him. “Do you expect me to forget what you've done? To imagine you became so high ranking because of that delightful personality of yours? You killed Dumbledore. You've murdered my friends. You torture people to death. And what? You think invoking your mother changes that? It's not a matter of having an expiration date on grief. If you expect us to believe you blame it on your master, perhaps you shouldn't have spent an extra year supporting him before deciding to come around to our side. After you started this war. After you chose to become a Death Eater.”
He stared at her, his face twisted with fury as he reached down and ripped open the sleeve covering his left arm. Exposing the stark, black tattoo there.
“Do you even know why I have this?” he asked, his teeth flashing as he sneered at her. “Did you ever stop to think why?”
He stood up and stalked across the room toward her. “After you and your friends had my father thrown into Azkaban, the Dark Lord went to my house.” Hermione's eyes widened as he continued. “I wasn't even home from school yet. When I got there, he was waiting for me. He had my mother in a cage, in our drawing room. He'd been torturing her for nearly two weeks.”
His breathing was ragged and uneven. “Do you think it's a choice when the Dark Lord tells you to take his mark? You sold yourself to save the people you care about. Well, so did I. Did you expect me fail intentionally as a Death Eater when I wasn't even the one who would suffer for it? Killing Dumbledore and climbing the ranks was the only way to get her out.”
Hermione felt herself grow pale. “I didn't know.”
His jaw was trembling as he glared down at her. “After she died, I was being watched. The Dark Lord isn't a fool, he knew I'd waver after losing her. I had to re-earn his trust before I could risk doing anything. I'm not one of your friends. If I wanted my betrayal to matter, he couldn't anticipate it. If I'd reached out to the Order the next weekend, do you really think there would have been any question about who the spy was? It took time to get close enough to actually know anything important.”
He turned away and his voice grew thick and hoarse. “She — she never recovered. The tremors — they never stop, not after that much cruciatus. I don't even know what else he did to her — before I got there—,” his voice broke. He shoved his hair away from his face and seemed to be struggling to breathe. “The whole summer — I couldn't… I couldn't do anything but tell her I was sorry.”
Draco turned away and leaned against a wall as though he were about to fall. “He kept her in the cage for months; she was still in it when I returned to school. After I killed Dumbledore, he let her out. But then he stayed and lived in the manor with us. She could barely handle it. She'd fall apart at any sound and just cower on the floor panicking.”