He just stood, staring at her for several seconds, while she clutched the back of her chair and tried to keep from cowering.
Why was he there? What did he want? Was he going to rape her again?
Her fingers twitched and spasmed as she tried to steady herself.
His cold, pale eyes slid over her as though he were taking note of every detail about her. Something flickered in them when he noticed her hands spasming. It vanished quickly into unwavering, attentive coldness.
Like a viper, the instant before it struck.
“You haven't been following instructions,” he said after studying her for a minute.
Hermione stared at him, at a loss.
Was she not supposed to go into other rooms? No one had told her she couldn't. He'd said she was allowed to go out of her room. She realised as her stomach knotted itself — it had probably been a trick. To give him an opportunity to punish her.
She felt as though there was something lodged in her throat as she tried to swallow her terror and guess what he'd do.
“You're supposed to go outside for an hour everyday,” he said in clarification, his lips twisted faintly. “Seeing as you barely leave your room, that set of instructions has apparently been ignored by you. I will not have your mental instability interfere with my ability to obey my Master.”
He gestured sharply toward the door and then paused and looked her over again.
“Do you have a cloak?”
Hermione shook her head faintly. He grimaced and rolled his eyes.
“I imagine letting you develop frostbite would qualify as neglect and torture,” he said with a sigh. He withdrew his wand and, with a flick, conjured a heavy, deep red cloak which he flung at her.
“Come!” He stalked from her room and down the hallway.
She followed him automatically as he led her down the main stairs of the wing and out onto a large marble veranda.
Hermione gasped as she stepped outside and felt the icy breeze on her face. She bit her lip and tried to steady herself as she stood in the doorway.
He turned sharply.
“What?” he asked, his steely eyes narrowed.
“I — haven't been outside since the day Harry died,” she said in a voice that cracked faintly. “I forgot — what wind feels like.”
He stared at her for several seconds before he snorted and turned away.
“One hour. Go,” he said, conjuring a chair and pulling a newspaper out of thin air.
Hermione's eyes immediately locked onto the headlines she could make out. She was so starved for information it drew her attention more sharply than the abrupt sensation of being outdoors.
Repopulation Efforts Underway! Screamed the words at the top.
She felt something twist inside her, and she pressed her lips together and looked away. Malfoy noticed her glance.
“Care to see?” he asked in a slow drawl that made her skin prickle. She heard the snap of the paper unfolding and glanced over to find a picture of herself, unconscious in a hospital bed, on the cover of the The Daily Prophet.
She stared in horror.
“Potter's Mudblood is among the first surrogates chosen by the Dark Lord to increase the magical population,” was the summary included below the headline.
Malfoy glanced at it with a smirk.
“Look, I'm included too.” His mouth twisted into a thin, malicious smile and his eyes glittered as he pointed to a picture of himself further down in the column. “In case anyone in the whole world wants to know exactly who is fucking you and where you are.”
Hermione felt like she might vomit into the potted blue spruce by the door.
“I thought it was a rather obvious trap,” Malfoy added with a sigh, looking away from her and leaning back into his chair. He pulled the paper open with a bored expression. “Then again, your Resistance was never known for its intelligence. Something more subtle would probably elude them. The Dark Lord is quite hopeful that if there's still anyone left, they'll feel morally obligated to come haring in to save you the way Potter always liked to.”
Oh god...
The whole world knew that Voldemort had turned her into Malfoy's sex slave for the repopulation program. She was being used as bait.
Hermione staggered back, feeling faint. She needed to get away from Malfoy and his cruelty before her mind snapped. She clapped her hand over her mouth as she stumbled down the gravel path.
“If you get lost in the hedge maze, I will send my hounds to drag you out.” Malfoy's hard voice seemed to follow her.
She ran.
She hadn't run in ages, but she had stayed quite fit inside her cell. All the jumping and push-ups. Everything that she had done to turn her mind off.
She needed her mind off.
She couldn't think. She needed to move until she couldn't anymore.
She bolted down the path until it opened into a lane. She sped down it. The towering hedges around her felt suffocating.
Everything was suffocating her.
Her hands darted up, and she unclasped the cloak Malfoy had given her. She felt the wind wrench it away.
She'd rather freeze.
She ran and ran until the hedges ended and the lane carried on through large fields. She kept going. Because if she stopped, she'd think. If she thought, she'd cry. She couldn't cry. Not until she figured out a way to get away and keep any surviving members of the Resistance from trying to save her.
Oh god.
Oh god...
Finally, she stopped.
Her lungs felt as though they were on fire. The stabbing, burning need for oxygen was sharp as her chest heaved. Her whole body was slick with sweat that rapidly became bitingly cold on her skin. There was a stabbing pain in her side. Her shoes were almost in pieces. Her skirts caked in mud.
She stood panting and turned to survey where she was.
The Malfoy estate seemed endless. Grey hills of dead winter grass and dark clusters of leafless trees in the distance, all set against a grey sky.
It felt as though all the color had been leached out of the world. Except her. She stood in scarlet red. Stark against the monochrome.
She pressed her hands over her mouth as she kept gasping and panting.
When her chest finally ceased heaving, she became gradually aware of how cold she was becoming. There was a sharp wind that cut through the flimsy clothing she wore. Her hands were growing starkly white. She could feel her cheeks and the tip of her nose slowly begin to hurt. There was an icy sensation in her toes beginning to radiate up her legs as water soaked into her shoes and up her stockings.
She turned to look back in the direction she had come. The hedges were tiny in the distance.
She pressed her icy hands against her eyes for several minutes. Trying to think.
There was nothing.
Nothing new. Nothing more she could do.
Her plan remained the same. Nothing had changed.
Her situation was exactly the same as it had been the night before. The only difference was that her knowledge of it had broadened slightly. The options were still just as limited; the stakes had simply been raised further.
She slowly turned back.
She doubted Malfoy would really send hounds after her. Getting mauled by a pack of hunting dogs would potentially interfere with her reproductive abilities.
She wondered idly if the manacles would permit her to fight back against an attacking animal. If she were truly desperate to die, perhaps she could fling herself into the path of a deadly creature. Someone as vile as Malfoy might have something like a manticore stashed away on his estate. Or perhaps, if there were traps for would-be rescuers, she could fling herself into one of them.