It was as though the outside world had transformed itself while Hermione had been lying in her darkened room. Nature had dropped its shroud, and stopped mirroring the coldness and gloom of Hermione's life. The world had left her behind. It had sprung to life again, but Hermione was still trapped in a cage, cold and deathly.
She turned and walked back inside.
She didn't want to feel the stirring of spring; not on her skin or in her blood. She didn't want to think about life stirring. Not around her. Not inside her.
Topsy appeared before dinner.
"You is to get ready now," the House-elf squeaked.
It was hours earlier than Malfoy had ever come before. Hermione had no idea what that could possibly be the reason for the change. Every bit of added unpredictability only made it worse. She went cold with dread.
She went in the bathroom and bathed. As she toweled off with shaking hands, she remembered the potions Healer Stroud had sent. She'd been so nervous the night before, she'd forgotten them.
After dressing, she went and pulled one of the vials out of the bathroom cabinet. It wasn't a Draught of Peace; the color and consistency were unfamiliar. She sniffed it. The scent was tangy in her nostrils, slightly citrus and peppery. She put a drop on her fingertip and tasted it. It was warm and mildly sweet on the tongue.
She waited a minute. She felt less cold with anxiety.
She swallowed it, and it was hot sliding down her throat. As it reached her stomach, the heat seemed to bloom outward through her whole body.
Her skin tingled and grew almost achingly sensitive. Hermione froze, gasped with horror and lurched forwards, staring wide-eyed in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were dilating as she studied her reflection. She pressed her hands over her mouth and stumbled back.
Stroud had given her a lust potion.
Hermione wanted to burst into tears as she tried to steady herself and will away the effects of the potion currently burning through her.
This couldn't be happening.
It was just boundlessly cruel.
Hermione's hands were shaking as she tried to think of some solution. Some way to neutralise it. She snatched up the cup from beside the sink and gulped glass after glass of water in the hope of flushing it from her system. It didn't work. The heat through her body seemed be dropping lower, beginning to radiate from her lower abdomen.
She walked into her room. She couldn't understand why Stroud would do this.
Punishing Malfoy for whatever interference he had made in the breeding program was one thing, but tricking Hermione into dosing herself with a lust potion was a whole new level of callousness.
Hermione climbed unsteadily onto her bed, laid back and closed her eyes. If she just held still and focused it might be alright.
The click of the door made her flinch.
She opened her eyes and found Malfoy standing there, cold and tense as he unclasped his outer robes and shrugged them off his shoulders. He was studying her as he crossed the room, draped the clothing over the edge of the bed and stared down at her.
"Do you want another Calming Draught?" he said.
It was possible a Calming Draught could help. Hermione calculated, it might ease the physical reaction her body was burning with. She gave a sharp nod and sat up.
As she took the vial from his hand, their fingers brushed and she bit her tongue to keep from gasping.
She unstoppered it and gulped it down while Malfoy knocked back his own potion.
The Draught of Peace had a worsening effect. Rather than ease the symptoms it made her body relax further into them. She dropped the vial onto the bed as she tried to hand it back.
She covered her mouth with her hands and burst into tears. Malfoy stared at her for a moment.
"What's wrong?" he demanded.
"Healer Stroud sent a set of potions that she said would make things easier," she said, smearing away the tears and staring determinedly down at the covers on the bed. "I forgot about it yesterday, but I took it tonight, just before you arrived. I thought it would be for anxiety. That's what it seemed like when I tested a drop. It's not like I can do spell analysis. So I took it, but—" she choked slightly. "It was an aphrodisiac."
There was a stunned silence.
"You are an idiot," Malfoy finally said. "Do you just swallow anything without asking questions?"
Hermione flinched.
"Last time I asked you to identify a potion sent to me, you forced it down my throat out of sheer spite. Was I supposed to assume it would be different with you this time?"
Malfoy was silent. The rage emanating from him was palpable. Like heat waves around a flame, the air almost seemed to distort around the edges of his body as he stood there, glaring down at her.
"You are an idiot," he said again.
Hermione wanted to curl in on herself like a ball.
The heat in her core was distractingly steady, and her whole body felt too warm and sensitive. She felt hollow inside. She wanted to be touched. No one had touched her in so long...
No. No. No.
She took a deep shuddering breath. "Can't you wait and do it later tonight? I'm sure it will wear off after a few hours."
"I can't. I've suddenly been required in France tonight. That's why I came here early, I won't be back to the manor until late tomorrow," Malfoy said.
Hermione gave a small sob.
"Fine." She choked, and forced herself to lay back down onto the bed. "Just — do it."
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus on counting backward from a thousand by doubling the subtracted number each time.
Minus one.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine.
Minus two.
Nine hundred and ninety-seven.
Minus four.
Nine hundred and ninety-three.
Minus eight.
Nine hundred and eighty-five.
She felt Malfoy pushing her robes aside and shivered.
Minus sixteen.
Nine hundred seventy-nine.
Minus thirty-two.
Malfoy's fingers near her core abruptly shredded her concentration, and she let out a smothered moan as her eyes snapped open.
Malfoy was looking down at her with wide, horrified eyes.
She stared at him. She had never really seen him as someone sexual before. Despite five months of having him bend her over a table, the sexual aspect of him had never really registered. He was cold and dangerous. Beautiful, but only in the aesthetic, like a marble statue. Not something hot-blooded. Not something she wanted any kind of physical contact from.
She had never, ever wanted to be touched by him in any sort of way.
Now she wanted to feel his lips against hers. To feel his hands on her. The weight of him that she'd been so desperate to escape from the night before — she wanted to feel it; to have him bearing down on her. Pressing into her.
The burn of arousal in her core was mind-numbing. She had never felt the need to have something inside her before, but as she lay there she felt ready to scream if he didn't touch her.
She hadn't thought the second night could possibly be worse than the first, but it was a thousand times worse.
She forced her eyes shut again so that she'd stop studying his face; stop taking in all the details of him that she'd never cared to take note of before. His hair and sharp cheekbones, the intensity of his eyes, his thin lips and straight white teeth, the precise lines of his jaw, and his pale throat disappearing in the black collar of his shirt.
"Just move," she said, and nearly sobbed with the effort it took not just move herself.