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