With a sigh, she stood up, and holding her wand lightly, she apparated back to Grimmauld Place.
“Hermione? What happened to you?” Angelina inquired wide eyed as she walked in the door.
“I tripped and fell into a nettle patch,” Hermione lied.
“Oh golly.” Angelina stared at Hermione's face until she began to blush faintly. “Anything you can do about it?”
“Unfortunately not. There aren't any spells for nettle stings. They should fade in a day. But I couldn't forage very well. So I'm going to have to go again tomorrow.”
“Too bad. Your poor face.”
Hermione shrugged mildly, “My hands are worse. I have to go tell Pomfrey. I'm not sure how much good I'm going to be in the hospital ward today.”
Because of Malfoy's hexes, Hermione found herself unexpectedly with a free day. Not that she was able to enjoy it much without being able to use her hands. She couldn't even bend her fingers enough to grasp and turn a page in a book.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd had time off. Any time she got time away from healing, she used it to brew some of the more complex potions, or restock her potion supplies.
She sat and stared out of the window in the attic, watching the passing muggles.
She wondered what it was that had provoked Malfoy.
She wondered if perhaps getting hexed by him might actually be a good sign. That it meant she was getting to him, and so he was lashing out defensively. Healing him the week before had been a shift in their interaction; he'd probably seen hexing her as a way to put her back in her place.
He was so vindictive.
Occlumency training had hurt far more, but it had been constructive. There had been a point to the pain. There had been potions to deal with the migraines.
Hexing her had just been his nastiness.
It was a rubbish way to appraise her fighting abilities, because once he'd hit her with the hexes, she wouldn't be able to start over for another week. If he'd wanted to test her aim or endurance, he could have just repeatedly immobilised or petrified or stunned her.
He hadn't used any serious or permanent hexes, presumably because it brushed against that moral code he was so conceited about. His 'ethical line'. He didn't like to think of himself as sadistic or vindictive. He probably told himself that he was giving her a sporting chance. That she deserved it each time she got hit because she should have dodged the spells.
He didn't want to think of himself as cruel.
He probably thought he was better than that.
Hermione stared down at her hands.
On the grand scale of pain and cruelty, stinging hexes barely registered. Yet emotionally, she found the experience had devastated her more than she was prepared to admit.
She pressed her eyes into the crook of her arm as she tried not to cry.
The tears slipped out anyway.
Flashback 7
The next week, Hermione got up even earlier to go foraging. She took vials and trays, and fully prepared the potion ingredients before packing them away in her satchel. She couldn't afford to waste a week's supply again.
When she apparated to the shack she took several deep breaths, trying to brace herself before opening the door. She had concluded that there was a fairly decent chance that Malfoy would repeat the same dueling method again.
The cruel, satisfied glint in his eyes the week before as he'd stashed his wand made her expect it.
The room was empty when she arrived.
She set her satchel in a corner and warded it. Then she stood waiting. Her fingers kept nervously tapping against her leg. She felt almost faint.
She hated waiting. She hated being left to dread things. Her mind always began running wild with scenarios of what would happen. Usually her imagination was worse than reality.
But Malfoy had an unusual talent for blindsiding her.
He was nearly five minutes late.
She wasn't sure if she was supposed to keep waiting. He'd said he would only wait five minutes for her, but he'd never said anything about how long he expected her to wait for him. She didn't think he was going to abandon the Order just because he'd finally gotten to hex her.
She was nearly ill with anxiety. She couldn't—
She wasn't going to just sit there waiting for him to lash out at her again.
She turned abruptly and took the wards off her satchel and slung it over her shoulder. She was stepping through the door when he appeared in the room with a crack.
She stopped and stared. The mere sight of him gave her a sinking sensation. She felt like something was lodged in her throat and she could barely swallow around it.
He stared at her. He didn't look irritated. He looked — awkward.
“I'm late,” he said.
She nodded and stepped back into the shack, closing the door. There was a pause.
“The same again this week?” she asked quietly, glancing away from him.
“No.” He said it so abruptly that she looked up sharply at him.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. It was the most overt gesture of discomfort she had ever seen from him.
“I — overstepped,” he said, which was not an apology. “I won't do that to you again.”
“Alright,” she agreed automatically, not trusting him at all. She was sure that if given enough time, he would find some new vindictive action that he could rationalise.
He stared at her for several seconds. Hermione suspected she still had a slightly wounded expression on her face. For some reason, no matter how much occlumency she used, she wasn't able to wipe it entirely away.
He opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something else, but then swallowed the words.
“What?” she asked bitterly. Bracing herself for whatever he was about to do next was the worst part.
“I — said I wasn't going to hurt you,” he said in a low voice. “And then I did. I'm sorry.”
She looked at him in confusion. He was such a pile of contradictions.
“I always expected you would.”
His eyes flashed with irritation. Ah, she'd clearly offended his moral code again.
“And yet here you are,” he said.
“Yes.” She shrugged and met his eyes. “Because if the Order loses this war, I'm going to die. And Harry, and Ron, and Ginny, and everyone else that I know. So — being hurt by you doesn't really matter.”
“No, I suppose not,” he agreed, his expression cold.
“If you're going to do it again, just do it. Don't make it a farce by having me try to fight it off,” she said woodenly. “Just own it.”
His mouth twisted slightly. His rage suddenly rose a little closer to the surface. Hermione braced herself.
He abruptly subsided.
“The first thing we need to work on is your aim,” he said, changing the subject.
“Alright.”
He drew his wand and conjured up a practice dummy. With the tip of his wand he carved an X in the center of it and then sent it across the room.
“Whatever spells you want, just do ten. I want to see your accuracy rate,” he instructed her.
She put her satchel down and got into position beside him, feeling keenly aware of his proximity.
The target was about fifteen feet away.
She aimed for the X and cast a stunner, a petrification hex, several stinging hexes, and a immobilising spell at it. She hit it eight out of ten times but only got four directly on the X.
She stopped and braced herself for Malfoy's scathing criticism. He was silent, which felt even worse.
“You do mostly close spellwork, don't you?” he inquired at length.
“Yes,” Hermione said stiffly.