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.
Chapter End Notes
The incomplete poem Hermione recites to herself is “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” (340) by Emily Dickinson.
That girl was gone by _knar.m_
Once upon a time... there had been a girl who fought by keerthi_draws.
Chapter 7
The following three days passed in much the same manner. The table appeared promptly at seven thirty each evening. Hermione went and leaned over it a few minutes before eight o'clock. Malfoy entered — performed — and then left without a word.
Hermione recited poetry to herself and tried to take her mind as far away as she possibly could. Anything to not think about what was happening to her body.
She wasn't there. She was lying across a table because she was tired. She traced her fingers across the subtle grain of the wood. Perhaps it was oak. Or walnut.
As soon as she was permitted to leave the table, she would climb into bed and pray for sleep to come. She wasn't allow to wash until the following morning, and she didn't want to feel the fluid between her legs.
She tried not to think about it. Not while it happened. Not afterward. Not the next morning. She just — tried not to even think about it.
There was nothing she could do.
She tried to shove it away into a corner of her mind. Take her mind as far from her body as she could and stay there.
When she woke the morning after the fifth day, she wanted to weep, she was so relieved it was — at least temporarily — over. The dead sensation of horror that resided in her stomach felt faintly eased.
She got up and bathed. Scrubbing every inch of herself ritualistically. Then she stood with resolution before the bedroom door.
She was going to go out. She was going to get out of her room and explore at least...four. Four of the other rooms along the hall.
She was determined. She was going to examine every inch, and see if she could find any potential weapon by which to kill Malfoy.
She had envisioned his death in a multitude of creative ways during the last several days. Carried herself through with the fervent desire to watch the light fade from his eyes. She would give anything to drive a blade into his cold heart.
She was willing to settle for strangling or poisoning him.
Aside from Voldemort and Antonin Dolohov, there was no one else's death which Hermione now wished for so fervently.
Dolohov had been the lead developer in the Voldemort's curse division. The most horrific curses that had emerged over the course of the war were attributable to him. Hermione wondered if he were alive, still inventing new methods with which to kill people with agonising slowness.
Now, Dolohov and Malfoy were nearly tied. Hermione wasn't sure which of them she wanted dead more. Probably still Dolohov, she supposed. Even if the body count were equal, at least Malfoy wasn't such a sadist.
She pulled the door open and stepped out. She didn't pause to close it behind her. She didn't give herself time to freeze. She rushed down the hall into the nearest room.
When the door was shut, she dropped her head against the frame and forced herself to breathe. Slow deep breaths. Air all the way down into the bottom of her lungs and then slowly out to a count of eight.
Her shoulders were shaking, and her fingers twitching. She turned resolutely to examine the room. It was almost identical to hers but with two chairs and a chaise.
She turned around, taking in all the general details. As she did, she nearly cursed when she caught sight of a painting on the wall. It was a Dutch still-life. A table of flowers and fruit. Beside the table was standing the witch from the portrait in Hermione's room. She was watching Hermione with a faintly challenging expression.
Hermione wanted to throw something at the painting, but she curled her fingers into fists and forced herself not to react. She walked slowly around the room. Peeking into the wardrobe. Under the bed. Into the bathroom.
She slipped behind the heavy winter drapes and looked out over another section of the hedge maze.
She checked every floorboard, but none of them so much as squeaked.
Of course it wouldn't be easy.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to walk slowly into the next room.
It was almost exactly the same. The portrait followed and kept watch by sitting down to an impressionist style picnic laid out beside a river. Daintily nibbling cheese while she studied Hermione.
The third room was the most heartening. Not that it actually contained anything even remotely useful, but the bathroom contained a shower. Hermione's heart leapt slightly. She was dying to shower.
Washing her hair in a bathtub was just one of the innumerable things she hated about her life. When she'd awoken in the Hogwarts infirmary after passing out, her hair and body had been scourgified to remove the months of grime. She couldn't remember when she'd last washed her hair properly.
She went on to the next room. She kept going. Her panic attacks seemed slightly under control when she focused on moving from room to room. Making herself count slowly to four with each inhaled and exhaled breath.
It was primarily the hallway that bothered her. The vast, open, unknown...
Individual rooms were contained. Manageable.
She made her way through all the unlocked rooms in the hallway. The closest thing to useful that she found in any of them was a fireplace poker — which she couldn't touch.
She made her way back to her room and curled up in the chair by the window.
She felt at a loss. What was she supposed to do?
She closed her eyes.
Her insides shriveled slightly. She needed to get close to Malfoy.
He was the closest thing to a key that she had. As long as he remained a mystery, she would have no way of predicting which ways he was and was not careful.
He appeared meticulous. Everything was unbreakable. A portrait in every room and bathroom. But no one was perfect. Everyone has some weakness, and she would find Malfoy's and use it to end him.
It would, of course, be a game of cat and mouse.
Any weaknesses she discovered, he would find quickly in her mind. If she didn't know anything about him and just tried to be unpredictable, he would still find it in her mind. The trick would be getting to know him well enough that she could move faster than he could stop her.
The thought of being anywhere near him was terrifying.
She hissed faintly through her teeth and curled into a tighter ball. Just the thought of being in sight of Malfoy made a needle-like sensation of terror slide down her spine and coil in her lower back.
She buried her face in the chair.
She would do it.
She would.
Just — not yet.
She needed a few more days to get her bearings. To separate from the last five days she'd just endured.
Maybe the day after tomorrow.
Malfoy did not give her time to separate or find her bearings. He walked into her room when she was finishing lunch the next day, and she was so horrified she nearly screamed.