Hermione stared at him, watching the way his mouth twisted in derision and the fury in his eyes as he spoke.
"Who do you hate so much?" she asked. She still couldn't understand it. It seemed to defy the bounds of magic.
"Many, many people," he said with an insolent shrug. Then he smiled. "Most of whom are dead now."
He walked away before she could ask him anything else.
After nearly a month, Montague started visiting the manor once more. Hermione didn't bother spying on him. She had concluded that he probably wasn't a member of the Resistance or the Order. If there were any chance of it Voldemort surely would have sent Malfoy after him.
When she came back from her walk one day she found a half dozen House-elves on the veranda of the North Wing setting out a large table and arranging vast quantities of flowers everywhere. One of them immediately vanished with a sharp pop and a moment later Topsy appeared and approached Hermione.
"'Mistress is having an Ostara party this night. The Mudblood is to stay out of sight," Topsy said.
Hermione blinked and glanced around the veranda which appeared more like it was being prepared for a wedding banquet than an celebration of the vernal equinox.
"Alright," Hermione said and went and found a different entrance to the manor. She watched the preparations from the upstairs windows and concluded that the equinox was merely an excuse for Astoria to throw a party. There was nothing of the rituals or traditions apparent other than the abundance of flowers.
When evening fell the veranda was lovely, aglow with fairy lights tucked into the enormous bouquets of daffodils and tulips. Astoria must have had shipped from somewhere else, Hermione theorized, the Malfoy estate was still cold and barely hinting at spring.
Hermione watched the guests arrive, Death Eaters, every one of them. They were stiff and formal with each other until the drinks started flowing generously.
When everyone was seated and the meal well underway Hermione stepped back from the window she had been watching from and grabbed her cloak. She slipped down a quiet hallway and out into the gardens. She could hear the voices from the party over the hedges. If she could find a good position she might be able to eavesdrop. Perhaps someone would drop useful information about the Order or the Resistance. Or the other surrogates.
The Daily Prophet was always crammed with speculation but it was hard to ever know what might be true.
She followed the winding paths of the hedge maze. Her footsteps were silent. She hadn't been told not to come outside.
Trying to eavesdrop on what was clearly becoming a drunken dinner party was a relief. Hermione felt — alive. Rather than feeling like a mechanical dead creature who passed day after day, folding origami, exercising, and waiting for a table to appear in the middle of the room for her to be clinically fucked on and then left once more for another cycle.
The veranda was just on the other side of the hedge from her. She could hear the voices clearly.
"She's got barely any fingers on her," came a voice. "Can't show off something like that. Creeps the fuck out of me. At first, I could barely get it up to take her, but now that she's up in the duff she's got the most incredible pair on knockers on her. Definitely makes up for the lack of fingers."
Hermione froze. They were talking about the other girls. Possibly Parvati or Angelina. They'd both lost most their fingers.
Some of the girls were pregnant.
"At least yours has both her eyes," came another voice. "Mine's a bloody horror to look at. I take her from behind or drop something over her face so I don't have to stare into that fucking hole in her head. Got a patch that covers it now, but still..."
Hannah Abbott.
"They're not meant for looking at," Astoria's sharp voice interjected.
There was drunken, braying laughter at that.
"You should see how I've got mine trained," another voice chimed in. "All I have to do is snap my fingers and she bends over. Her quim's so loose I prefer taking her in the arse unless it's one of the mandatory days. Must have been a slut back in Hogwarts, but she knows how to suck a cock. I have her under the table every morning while I eat breakfast."
Hermione felt as though someone had stabbed her. The horror she felt was physically painful.
There were many exclamations of admiration.
"You've got the Mudblood, haven't you Malfoy? Saw that nice big Prophet article about it. "
"I do," said Malfoy in a cold voice.
"The Warden hated her back in school. Probably came in pieces I'll bet."
"No," Malfoy said, his voice was clipped. "The Dark Lord wanted her kept intact."
"Lucky bugger," someone muttered.
"Must be fun, staring into her little know-it-all face as you shove in. Does she cry? I always imagined she'd be a crier. I had so many fantasies back in school of pinning her down on a desk and reaming into her while she sobbed."
Hermione's skin crawled and she pulled her cloak around her more tightly.
"I've never paid attention," Malfoy answered in a bored tone. "What the Dark Lord commands I will perform, but there's not much to her to hold my interest."
Several voiced grumbled something about Malfoy but the conversation moved on.
Hermione's ears perked up. They were discussing the death of Umbridge. Complaining about patrols in the Forbidden Forest and what a bother the centaurs were. It seemed none of them knew anything about the horcruxes. It was disappointing if not surprising.
She kept listening.
Malfoy was getting sent to Romania. That was news. There were executions scheduled there and Voldemort wanted them done with ceremony. A demonstration of strength in case any of the other European countries interpreted the attempted assassination of Thicknesse as a sign of weakness. The High Reeve would do them himself.
Hermione wondered if that was the reason Voldemort had stopped torturing Malfoy. He would need to be in peak condition to show off his talent for murder in Romania.
There was mumbled jealousy about Malfoy's assignment. Hermione's lip curled. What kind of loathsome creatures got jealous that someone else got to go kill people?
"Are you going to Avada them all?" someone was asking in an awestruck tone.
"That would be the tradition," Malfoy said, drawling so overtly Hermione could practically see the eye-roll that was surely accompanying it.
She wasn't sure what was more unnerving, Malfoy's casualness or the other Death Eaters' enthusiasm.
The conversation wore on, offering nothing useful. Then there was the sound of chairs moving and people standing and Astoria was driveling on about the flowers in the hot house.
Hermione faded through the hedges back toward the other entrance of the manor. She didn't want to be stumbled upon if one of the Death Eaters decided to go explore the hedges.
She was nearly back to the house when suddenly,
Immobulus.
The hex caught her in the side of the head. She froze in place as a Graham Montague stepped through the French doors of the manor.
"Who knew slipping off to take a piss would make me so lucky?" He seemed to be marveling as he approached her. "With all the wards Malfoy added to your wing in the manor I was afraid I'd never reach you again. Has he knocked you up yet?"
He cast a pregnancy detection spell on her and grinned when it came up negative.
"I never thought that getting Astoria host an equinox party would be the thing that finally worked," he said with a chuckle. He was studying her face, his expression was triumphant the way it had been on New Year's Eve. He unclasped her cloak and pushed it off her shoulders. "Fuck. You didn't have these last time."