Voldemort gave an assenting hiss.
"Watch her carefully. Now that the Order is moving again they are certain to come for her," Voldemort said.
"You know I will die before I lose my hold on her," Malfoy said in a low voice and Hermione felt his grip on her arm tighten.
"I want their corpse, High Reeve. Whoever did it. This last Order member. I want their skull added to my collection."
"You shall have it, as I have given you all the rest," Malfoy said.
Hermione flinched and tried to wrench her arm free. Voldemort watched and she could feel the cruelty and malice in his gaze as his eyes slid across her. He opened his mouth and slid his tongue out as though tasting the air. His gums were white and toothless like a snake's and his tongue shimmered in the dim light. When he closed his mouth he leaned forward and gave a low hiss.
His face was centimeters from Hermione's. She could feel the whisper of air ghost across her face. She wasn't sure if he were about to lick her or perform legilimency on her again. His blood red eyes studied her for a moment before he sank back into the nest of pythons.
"Once the Mudblood has given up all her secrets, I want her killed too. She knows too much to be kept in Stroud's program. Although... if she is pregnant, I will permit you to wait until you have your heir."
"As you command, My Lord," Malfoy said without hesitation. Then he dragged Hermione out of the Hall.
Once they were in the winding passages, Malfoy dosed her with pain relief potion. Hermione scoffed quietly to herself before she swallowed it.
She tried to clear her head, struggling to see. She felt as though the air in the Hall had poisoned her. She slid weakly down onto to the floor. Her brain was still in agony even with the pain relief. Yet she found herself teeming with questions.
"I attacked a prison?" she forced out.
"After Potter died." Malfoy's voice emerged from the darkness. "A few hours after the final battle. You were captured after leveling nearly half of it in order to break in. It was an unexpected counter-attack. I only read the reports on the damage after you were assigned to me. It's a pity no one bothered to interrogate you sooner. The overconfidence of victory, I suppose."
Hermione looked up in the direction of his voice. She could only dimly make out his light-coloured hair before her vision slipped away again. She leaned her head back against the wall to steady herself.
"I was a healer..." she said. "I wasn't — they didn't let me — fight."
She furrowed her brow, trying to understand. "But Ginny got out? I got her out?"
"You did."
"But she was dying — when you — when you killed her. Why?" she asked, her voice small and pained.
There was a silence before Malfoy spoke.
"She was in Sussex for experimental research."
A low sound of horror tore itself from somewhere deep inside Hermione.
"The Dolohov's curse development division..." her voice shook and trailed off. She made out Malfoy nodding in the shadows.
She doubled over and threw up. Oh god, Ginny... Malfoy waited for her to stop gagging before he dragged her up off the floor and apparated back into her room in his manor.
The noise she made from the pain of the apparition was animal. She collapsed against Malfoy and discovered she was soaked in what appeared to be shiny, putrefied remains. She could only see it for a moment before her vision wobbled away again. She choked back a sob and tried blindly to wipe her hands off on her equally soiled robes.
Malfoy muttered several cleaning charms and the smell around her faded. He shoved her back onto her bed.
"Three days," he said and she vaguely heard him leave.
Hermione wanted to stay conscious. So she could grieve and try to process what she had learned, but her mind felt faded. Like she couldn't quite reach...
She pulled on her clothes until the buttons tore off and then shoved them onto the floor. She peeled the stockings off with her toes and tried to rub away the sensation of snake coils from her skin.
It was two days before she could see reliably. The pain in her head prevented her from keeping any food down. The room swam when she tried to sit up or stand.
She had nothing to do but think.
When Malfoy walked in on the third day she forced herself to sit up and look at him steadily.
"More questions?" he said coolly as he surveyed her.
Hermione shook her head. He looked faintly surprised.
"Well, one, I suppose," she said after a minute.
Malfoy waited. She gathered up the threads of information; all the inconsistencies she had collected in her mind over the months. She had finally drawn them up into something cohesive.
Hermione took a slow breath before she spoke. Then she met his eyes.
The fanfare is in the light but the execution is in the dark.
"The war has stalled," she said. "Even though it's still officially ongoing in parts of wizarding Europe. It's not being treated as significant or consequential anymore. In fact, based on the coverage, I suspect that there is likely to be an armistice announced soon. In the past two years, aside from conquering Britain, there has been almost no progress since Harry died."
Malfoy was silent; his expression carefully closed.
"In fact, almost nothing has happened since Harry died. Voldemort's entire campaign stalled once he defeated Harry. Because..." she hesitated only slightly, "there was something connecting them. They were tethered somehow, probably from when he tried to kill Harry as a baby. That was why he and Harry would end up in each other's dreams sometimes and, I'm sure you remember how Harry could speak parseltongue. That's why when Voldemort used the Killing Curse — to kill Harry at Hogwarts — it didn't work at first—"
Hermione's voice cracked and she swallowed hard and forced herself to continue. There was a new pain slowly starting to bloom through the back of her mind. She ignored it.
"That's why he had to recast the curse on Harry. Because of the tether. But — it wasn't just Harry. The way he's immortal...Professor Quirrell, the diary your father had...somehow your master figured out how to bind his lifesource to animate and inanimate objects. And the Order knew about it. That's why he knows the attack this month was the Order and not some new Resistance group. Because the assassination attempt wasn't an attempt. Thicknesse wasn't the target. Umbridge wasn't either. The pendant she sometimes wore. The locket. I saw it when she was training us. It was his. One of his tethers. Whoever it is, the last Order member, they figured out what it was and killed her to destroy it."
There was the faintest narrowing of Malfoy's eyes. Hermione cocked her head to the side as they studied each other.
"I believe I missed the question," Malfoy said after a moment.
"I haven't asked it yet," Hermione said calmly, trying to ignore the throbbing in the back of her head that was steadily growing as though there were a scalpel being driven into the base of her skull.
"The repopulation effort," she said, trying to breathe through the pain, "is a cover. It's a ruse. Voldemort doesn't care about the magical population. It's a piece of misdirection to keep the public preoccupied. He isn't waiting to enslave the muggles because he's concerned over wizarding demographics. He's doing it to buy himself time; he's entertaining the masses by making public spectacles of the pureblood families. First with the marriages and the miscarriages, and now, with surrogates. He didn't halt the war because he wants to, he did it because he has to."
Pain shot through Hermione's head and the room before her turned a horrifying shade of red as though there was blood streaming down and filling her vision. She gave an agonized cry started to fall forward. She forced herself to look up at Malfoy. He was moving toward her.