When the wave of nausea finally passed she dragged herself into the bathroom and after drinking several glasses of water, dropped herself into a lukewarm bath.
It was like having a hangover while sick with the flu. Perhaps it was what withdrawal felt like. Hermione had never experienced a drug addiction as far as she could recall.
Of course Malfoy wouldn't warn her that she'd feel like death once the potion wore off. She cursed him strongly in her mind and hoped he'd feel it.
She wanted to drown herself.
When she went back into her room the floor had been cleaned.
She felt feverish still. She dragged the blankets off her bed and huddled under them, pressing her cheek to the window.
She was sick the whole day and apparently Malfoy had anticipated it because he didn't show up expecting her to go outside. The following afternoon he arrived without a word despite the daggers she'd glared at him and led her out to the veranda. She discovered that the potion had acclimatised her somewhat. She was able to manage walking off the veranda without having a total panic attack. She shook and had to fight against hyperventilating but her fear didn't swallow her. Getting across the gravel and into the hedge was the hardest. But once she was among the towering yew, brushing her fingers against the walls, and focusing on navigating the route, she was able to get herself to breathe somewhat evenly.
When she returned to the veranda Malfoy was gone. Apparently satisfied that he was no longer obliged to monitor or walk her.
The potion appeared again the next morning. Hermione spent several hours debating with herself over whether to take it again. The mere thought of spending another day going through withdrawal made her nauseated. In the end she gritted her teeth and downed it.
She crept through the manor like a shadow and explored the main wing. She was constantly on alert for the sharp tap of Astoria's shoes. She hadn't encountered the witch since the night she'd taken Hermione to Malfoy's room. But Hermione had occasionally caught glimpses of someone watching from the windows when Malfoy had taken her outside. She wasn't interested in testing whether Astoria's early threats had been sincere.
She explored most of the main wing that day. There were so many doors that were locked she realised that Malfoy had probably keyed the manor with her blood. Caged her within her own blood signature.
The next day her withdrawal was worse.
Then three days later the potion did not appear with breakfast. Hermione suspected she knew why and could barely eat. She paced madly in her room and then went and sat under the spray of the shower down the hall for an hour while she tried to stop shaking.
After dinner a house elf appeared to take the dishes away.
“You is to get ready for tonight,” it said before vanishing.
Hermione sat frozen in her chair. She'd assumed as much. Confirmation still felt worse. Having had an additional month to dread it made the horror feel colder. It felt as though something were twisting her organs into a tighter and tighter knot until she felt like something was about to tear. Her chest felt so tight she could barely manage to draw even shallow breaths.
She went into the bathroom and bathed. When she re-emerged she found herself glancing repeatedly toward the center of the room. She was terrified that Malfoy might choose to vary the experience. She found herself clinging to the hope that the table would appear and he wouldn't do anything novel.
She didn't want to be raped in a new way.
She nearly sobbed with relief when the table appeared at precisely 7:30.
She wanted to slap herself. In what world of horror was a woman happy that she was going to be raped in a familiar manner?
Malfoy came and went for five evenings without a word to her. In precisely the same manner as he had during the previous month.
Every evening Hermione gripped the table and imagined herself brewing the anxiety potion. She had so much free time to mull over things she had started trying to guess how to reverse engineer it.
She tried to make it as real to herself as possible. Trying to recreate the scents and sensations. She was exacting about the details. Obsessive.
Far far away from the rocking. From the bite of the wood into her hip bones. From the sliding sensation inside of her that she refused to allow her mind to attend to.
She was not there.
She was brewing a potion.
She removed a pewter cauldron from the shelf using a step-stool. With a practiced flick of her wand she conjured a flame. She waited until the metal reached a medium temperature before adding the billywig sting slime. She would hold the vial in her right hand, and tip it. The sharp scent would tickle her nose.
The pewter and heat would cause the levitating properties of the sting slime to evaporate after boiling for one minute. She would bottle the steam and use it as an anesthetic on localised injuries. She would remove a sloth brain from a jar and using a long knife slice it so thinly the pieces were transparent. The brain under her hand would be spongy and delicate. Her touch would be very light and the knife blade razor sharp. After one minute she would reduce the temperature of the slime to a low simmer and place the slices of sloth brain across the surface, allowing two minutes for the sting slime and sloth brain to amalgamate, slowly turning into a steel blue colour with a viscous consistency.
In the meanwhile she would prepare the sopophorous bean. She would use twenty. Crushing them under her silver dagger's blade before extracting the juice. Feeling the pressure in the knuckle of her thumb as she bore down. She imagined the sensation of the bean giving way under her blade. Once the juice was added she would stir the potion clockwise twelve times with a silver brewing rod and then eight times counterclockwise with an ash rod. Then the potion would be covered and left to brew on a low temperature for seventy-three hours. The slow brewing was necessary to nullify the somnolent properties of the sopophorous juice. The potion would turn pale green. In the seventy-fourth hour she would add minced murtlap tentacles, a crushed squill, valerian, and powdered ashwinder eggshells. She would bring it to a rapid boil for thirty seconds and then use a cooling charm to reduce the temperature to just above freezing. The potion would become midnight blue with an aqueous consistency. Then she would drip syrup of hellebore over the surface. One drop for ten slow clockwise and then counterclockwise stir rotations. Her arm would tire slightly. Thirty drops in all until the potion thickened and stuck to the ash stir rod. Stir it three times with a silver rod and bring it to simmer for five minutes before removing it from the heat and allowing it to drop to room temperature without magic. It would become dark grey and syrupy. It would yield twenty-five doses.
She brewed it in her mind every night. Adjusting quantities and techniques. Revising the order of added ingredients. By the fifth night she was almost positive that she had figured the entire recipe out.
On the sixth day she forced herself to go outside alone for fear that otherwise Malfoy would show up and order her to.
Conquering her agoraphobia, she had decided was her first priority. Any schemes involving Malfoy would wait until she could manage going outdoors consistently.
Deep down she suspected she was merely deluding herself and avoiding him. But she was at a loss as to how to trick him into killing her when she couldn't even talk to him without his permission. As for seducing him, per his suggestion, well, the idea was so absurd it was almost laughable.
The next day he showed up in her room, pinned her to the bed and tore through her memories. He barely spoke to her. When he was done he simply turned on his heel and walked out.