Draco headed to his bedroom ready to dive into a bottle of fire whisky, like he had nearly every night since he was told Hermione was found.
He swung the door open and almost stoped dead in his tracks. Fuck. Hermione was sitting at his desk. In a past life his heart would skip, now, it sunk. She jumped up upon seeing him & stood frozen with wide eyes. What is she doing in here?! Fucking Astoria. She did this.
He hadn’t even had time to think about the inevitable. Between his death eater duties, immediately plotting how to get Hermione out, dodging Astoria in the house, and burying this horrid situation behind occlumency walls just so he could get through a day, he was not ready for seeing her for the second time. He’d been avoiding her and avoiding thinking about it. Since he found out she was being put into the breeding program. Since he found out it was he who was meant to “breed” her. The thought was abhorrent.
He’d done the mental acrobatics trying to figure out a way to avoid it. Get her out before he had do do it. But it just wasn't possible. Plans were in motion, but just not quick enough. He even contemplated just ending it both for them in a dramatic murder suicide. But he wanted her so desperately to live. She would never forgive him, but she’d be alive. He wanted her to be free, even if he never lived to see it.
There was no way out, only through. They were both trapped here. If Voldermort saw that he hadn’t tried to impregnate her as instructed, it would be over for both of them. Not just over, they’d both be tortured in unimaginable ways before dying. Draco suspected he might not even be killed. He’d be kept alive in agony long enough to serve as an example to any who dared defy the Dark Lord, and would probably be made to watch as Hermione was tortured in front of him. Like his mother all over again.
He hated this house. His room. This estate. One of the few untainted memories he had of the manor was Hermione unsuccessfully trying to hide her awe at seeing the library for the first time. Then later waking up in his bedroom coiled around her warm body. Those memories fractured when he saw her standing in the entrance hall dressed in scarlet.
The moment he found out she was arriving he buried everything good, everything loving, every happy moment with her, as deep as he could to protect her. Every moment busy, with duties, plotting her rescue, or firewisky, anything but her.
He hadn’t seen her for so long. All he wanted to do was hold her and feel that she was real. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even risk even a loving glance. All he could do was dive into her mind and rapidly verify that she genuinely didn’t remember him. It was the only thing keeping them both alive. Then step over her quivering pathetic body like she was nothing to him.
His occlumency walls held for as long as they needed to. As soon as he was out of sight and alone long enough he collapsed on his hands and knees exhausted from the effort. His chest heaving and dry sobbing as he tried to hold back the wave of relief that he’d seen with his own eyes that she was alive, and the tide of dread overcoming him.
Voldermort had caged another person he loved. He was torturing another person he loved. And Voldermort made him the torture instrument. It was tearing him apart. Undoubtedly Voldermort would delight in finding out the added layer of inadvertent torment. Draco swore to himself he'd never let him have that satisfaction.
For a split second a moment of casual familiarity flashed before him, of Hermione joyfully turning pages amongst a pile of books in the same spot at his desk. He had replayed that memory and many others a thousand times. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to fall into her skin and never leave. He swatted the memory away & collected himself quickly in the way only a skilled occlumens could.
He could file away his own feelings but couldn’t fully ignore the rising itch in the back of his mind. A split second glance at her hand as he entered the room and the ring shimmered into his perception. The pulse from the very ring that told him she had been alive all this time, the one thing that kept him searching, determined to find her, was now broadcasting her terror. Draco wanted to rip it from her finger and throw the fucking thing out the window.
He’d almost forgotten it was today. Or maybe he just was trying not to think about it in some futile attempt to wish it away.
I’ll fucking kill Astoria, he thought. He didn’t try to hide the rage in his face as he entered the room. Use it, he thought. Use every dark impulse, every moment of anger & hate, channel it into this room. She had to believe he was everything awful & terrifying she imagined Death Eater, High Reeve, Malfoy to be. I am the High Reeve, he told himself, Death Eater Draco Malfoy. Executioner to the Dark Lord. She doesn't need to imagine it & I don't need to pretend. You're afraid? Good. This is who I need to be to keep you alive. This is all I am now.
Feeling Hermoinie's eyes following his every move, he walked over to the tall wardrobe and opened it obscuring her from view. Selected a bottle of fire whisky, uncorked it with his teeth and took a long glug straight from the bottle hoping it would wash away the nausea in his throat. It didn't, but he took another swig anyway. Then poured some into a glass & conjured up some ice to keep up appearances.
Fucking Astoria. He wanted to down an entire bottle before tonight. Now he didn’t have time. He hadn’t even thought about how to do it. How do you plan to rape someone you love?
It's not really Hermoine, he reminded himself. Some version of her he didn't know, a version that didn't love him and never would. That much is guaranteed after tonight. She will never look at him the same way again. Good. He didn’t deserve the way she looked at him anyway. He didn’t deserve her, not before, not now, not after tonight. So it turns out it wasn't too hard to be pragmatic, clinical even, in this process. To focus on the bigger picture, which didn't include him anyway. I've already committed every other atrocity one can to another human, this would make a full set. A little more self loathing is barley a drop in the ocean now.
For a moment Draco felt some awareness of how, now it's come down to it, there was never any doubt that he would go through with this day, and the next, and the next. No matter how much he didn't want to, his wants don't matter. No matter how sick the thought of it felt, how shameful an act. He has one goal. Whatever is left of Hermoine will survive. Nothing else matters. Not my dignity, or hers.
Unhesitating. Cunning. Unfailing. Ruthless. Unyielding. Driven to succeed. Even in this.
Closing the wardrobe, whisky in hand, Draco looks her up and down like a stain on the carpet. Nothing but a task to complete. An inconvenience in his day. This is certainly an inconvenience in my plan for her escape. She will never know how much I don't want to fucking do this. I can't wait for her to be free and this to be over, he thought. She stood there silently, expectantly, as he looked a her. Draco allowed himself to momentarily indulge in the morbid promise of relief from this existence once his mission is fulfilled. Sometimes Draco would drink and imagine all the ways to kill Voldermort and the calmness of nothingness that his death will bring. Imagining the bitter sweet satisfaction of success before finally resting, truly resting, in a way his life has never allowed. It's not exactly an ideal coping mechanism, but it's the only thing that feels even slightly soothing in the absence of her touch.
The corner of Draco's mouth lifts into a hint of a smirk as the warmth from the fire whisky sinks in and mixes with the promise of death; His own, anyone who stands in his way. He knows to her this will give him the appearance of being a complete psychopath. Good, he thinks, I want you afraid, hopeless, helpless. I barely even need to try to make you hate me, and after tonight I will make sure there is nothing left of me for you to love. Time to put on a show for the Dark Lord.
“Today is the day then, Mudblood.”