Seven Devils
Hermione had been at the Manor for a week before she met Narcissa Malfoy.
She’d seen her before; Hermione shifts uncomfortably as she looks at her, remembering the very first trip to Malfoy Manor that Hermione took. The memory—and all of the pain and fear that accompanies it— thrash at the Occlumency walls that she keeps it sequestered behind. What she does remember of Narcissa is a pale face stricken with fear. Why Narcissa was so afraid the night her family stood on a precipice of utter victory, Hermione has no idea.
But there she stands again, wringing her hands together, in the doorway of Hermione’s bedroom. It’s late; dinner was hours ago. Hermione had been awake reading a book about the medicinal properties of mermaid scales when her bedroom door swung open slowly to reveal Narcissa. She draws herself up in bed, pulling her knees to her chest. The two women simply stare at each other, and the silence is thick.
“Draco told me you’re here,” Narcissa mutters, gesturing just slightly towards Hermione. Her hands resume their wringing immediately. Hermione just nods slowly, not sure what else to say. She certainly didn’t book her stay here. “May I come in?”
“It’s your house,” Hermione replies dryly, closing her book and setting it to the side. Narcissa offers a quiet nod and steps over the threshold into the bedroom, pushing the door behind her. She stands facing the bedroom door for a moment, her head bowed. Her body language is of a woman who is regretful—or fearful—of actions taken so far. But all she’s done is walk into the room.
Hermione’s confused, to say the least. Narcissa turns to face her again finally.
“Draco,” she starts, her voice shaking. Hermione’s eyes widen slightly. Has something happened to him? Has he been killed? As much as she’d wished for his death just the day before, Malfoy dying poses a decided problem for her. Many decided problems. “Draco has always carried burdens that are not his own,” she finishes.
Alright. So he’s not dead. Hermione says nothing.
“Please help him,” Narcissa whispers. A crease forms between her eyebrows. She crosses the room towards Hermione, seating herself on the edge of the bed and seizing both of Hermione’s hands in her own. Her injured hand throbs painfully, and Hermione lets out a soft gasp. Her instinct is to draw her hands away, but Narcissa seems to sense this and tightens her grip. “He’s told me about you. You’re the brightest witch of your age. You did well in school, even better than my boy. You must help him, Miss Granger. Please.”
Hermione struggles to find her words and her mouth hangs open in the process. Malfoy’s direct cruelty and demands are one monster, but his mother pleading with her to help him find and kill her best friend… that’s something else entirely.
Still, Narcissa seems frantic. Desperate. Hermione can’t resist the urge to comfort her, so she squeezes Narcissa’s frail hands.
“I’m helping him,” Hermione assures her with a nod and wide eyes. “That’s where he is now. I gave him leads—”
“Not with the Potter boy,” Narcissa says in a hushed voice, leaning in close to Hermione. “With his soul, Miss Granger. You have to save his soul.”
“I… don’t follow, Mrs. Malfoy.”
“The Dark Lord,” Narcissa ‘explains’ in a hushed voice as though this was the obvious conclusion. “He’s going to steal it from him. He’s taking it from him every day, piece by piece. Soon, there will be no Draco left. He’ll just be…” Narcissa trails off, her eyes distant. “Lucius. He’ll just be Lucius.”
Hermione can see now through the veil of terror and rambling what Narcissa means. The moment in the library comes to mind where Hermione could see the remnants of boyishness on Malfoy’s face again, and how quickly it morphed into threatening to kill her parents. Hermione sighs heavily.
Before she can respond, her bedroom door is swinging open again. Malfoy strides through it. He’s dressed in Death Eater regalia. Hermione can taste the acid that rises in her throat.
“Mother,” Malfoy says, his voice exhausted and somewhat reprimanding. As though they’ve been through this song and dance before. Narcissa looks up at her son and stands, wringing her hands together again. Draco sighs and puts his hands on her shoulders. He draws Narcissa close and leads her out of Hermione’s bedroom.
The welcomed absence is hardly longstanding, as Malfoy returns to her room shortly. He’s taken off his cloak and is dressed now in just a black long-sleeved button up shirt and black trousers. Hermione averts her eyes; frankly, the last thing she wants to do ever again is look at him after that cursed dream.
He stands silently in front of her door and she can feel his eyes boring holes into her head.
“You’re a quick learner,” he says finally.
Her eyes flash to him, tilting her head quizzically.
Mistake.
He dives into her mind. She has no time to prepare a defense or hold him off. He works through her memories quickly; he’s searching for something again. Her heart sinks. He must’ve realized her leads were fake. She manages to bolster her Occlumency, drawing up a flurry of random memories to keep him distracted as she locks the box on her thoughts and memories of her research. Again, Malfoy simply waves the memories away. He’s slamming against the box she just locked, sensing what’s behind it, his attack only growing more brutal the more she resists.
Hermione grits her teeth. She has to distract him. She releases the memory of her dream.
Malfoy’s relentless assault abates as he walks through the memory in her mind. Through the connection, she can feel intrigue. Humor. And something else, something darker that she can’t place. He yanks himself from her head and she doubles over, gasping.
After a moment, Hermione’s finally able to lift her eyes to look at him. He’s standing stock-still, his hands clenched at his sides. He takes a breath and rubs his jaw. She feels a rush of anxiety. It got him out of her head, but he looks angry, and she has no idea how he’s going to react.
As his fists release, she sees a tremor run through his hands. She realizes how pale he is. He looks angry, but he also looks… ill, and exhausted.
Don’t make me tear your mind apart to find the answer.
Hermione wondered from their first meeting at Malfoy Manor why he didn’t use Legilimency to get whatever information he wanted. He seemed resistant to it, asked her not to force his hand. What changed? Was he that angry about the false leads?
“I knew you were going to lie,” he says finally, his entire body tense. “I figured the information you gave me was false. The notes you wrote about the conclusions you drew, they didn’t make sense, and you’re too logical for that. I had to chase the leads anyway, because that’s what is expected.”
His breaths are coming quickly. Hermione draws her knees up to her chest.
“But if it wasn’t enough to spend the better part of a week chasing down information that doesn’t exist—the issue wasn’t that you lied. I knew you lied, and I did nothing about it.”
She stares at him, her eyes wide. Something between them has changed. He’s not haughty, amused, twisting her head with subversive conversation. He’s upset. Being upset with her would be unsurprising, but he’s saying what she always expected—that he knew she wasn’t going to cooperate so easily.
And conspicuously, he hasn’t ridiculed her about her dream.
“I don’t understand,” she says carefully. Her fingers are pulling anxiously at the hem of her pants. Malfoy offers a barking, mirthless laugh.
“Of course you don’t,” he mutters, raking his fingers through his hair. He’s starting to pace the length of the room. “No, it’s about your own interests, isn’t it? It never changes. Potter’s God and Granger couldn’t give less of a fuck about what happens to anyone else!” He’s shouting now, one of his hands swiping across the top of the dresser. It connects with a collection of small, ceramic trinkets. They fly off the dresser and shatter on the floor. Hermione gasps and draws closer to her headboard, clinging to the feet of space between them. Malfoy turns away from her and he’s almost vibrating with whatever slew of emotions he’s feeling.
Very slowly, Hermione gets out of the bed. Her hands are shaking. She could be wrong. She could be very wrong, and the consequence of that could be dire. But this doesn’t look like anger—it looks like fear. Underlying the fear could be the sliver of humanity that Hermione theorizes is clinging to him for dear life. If she can exploit that, she can deescalate the situation. Gain some traction—maybe even an upper hand. He turns to face her when he hears the bedding rustle and she nearly freezes but forces herself to press on.
“Draco,” she says quietly, “what happened?”
Malfoy shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Don’t pretend to care. I really can’t take it right now. I told you that if you’re going to lie to try to sound more convincing.”
So something did happen. He’s deflecting, but not denying. Hermione realizes with a confounding pang of guilt that the tremors she saw are Cruciatus tremors. Voldemort tortured him. She’s close to him now, so close she can smell his soap and cologne. The same smell from when he pushed her into the wall that night in his room. Pleasant and overwhelming.
Hermione carefully reaches towards him. He stares at her as her hand broaches the space between them, his face like stone. Her palm rests against his chest. She can feel the faint thud of his heart.
“I do,” she says, her eyes fixed on his. “We’re both in such difficult situations. I know you have expectations to meet, and that the consequence of failure is…severe.”
Her other hand runs down the length of his arm and her fingers twine in his. Her thumb brushes across his knuckles. He doesn’t move or speak. The hand on his chest pushes up and her fingers rest on the exposed skin of his throat. She expects him to pull away at this point, but he’s still. The muscle jumping in his jaw is the only indication that he’s aware of her movements at all.
“You don’t understand.” There’s a shudder in his words. His eyes are flinty and dark. “Granger, you don’t have any idea—”
Enough of that. He’s just going to lie to her, anyway.
Hermione stretches forward and pulls Malfoy by his collar, pressing her mouth into his. He’s stiff at first, his hands raising as though he’s not sure if he’s going to push her away or pull her closer. He seems to make up his mind quickly because his arms wrap around her and the way he kisses her reminds her of a levy breaking. He pulls her body roughly against his. Their mouths move against each other’s easily, his teeth clipping at her bottom lip and his tongue laving over the sting. She expects to be pressed into the wall again, but he walks her backwards until her legs hit the edge of the bed. He grips her hips and lifts her onto the bed easily, using his body to lay her on her back. He never breaks the kiss.
Hermione’s legs wrap around his waist. Though her brain understands her intentions, her body does not, and she finds herself pushing her hips against his. His fingers dig into the flesh of her thigh as he grinds himself against her and the friction makes them both gasp. Despite Hermione’s intentions, it felt incredible. And despite his initial hesitance, Malfoy’s all heat. All intensity.
Next time you lie to me, try to sound more convincing.
Her hands twine into his hair. He groans against her mouth. She’s dizzy with the chemicals pounding through her veins, the feeling of so much warmth against her skin, the physical urges of her body that she can’t control or resist. Her hands pull at the fabric of his shirt to untuck it from his pants and once it’s freed, her fingers slide up the skin of his back. She can feel his muscles contract and release with his movements. Malfoy makes short work of the buttons of her pajama top, parting the fabric and pressing his palm into the center of her chest. She shudders with the feeling of being suddenly exposed, the feeling of his hand there, the anxiety that comes with being seen.
Make it convincing.
She pulls his hips towards her with a grip on his belt, fumbling with the buckle to remove it. Malfoy grabs her hand and leads it between his legs. Hermione nearly flinches; this is the reasonable conclusion to the situation and if she can’t even touch him, there’s no way she’ll be able to have sex with him. The lie will not be convincing. She presses her hand against him; her body responds in kind as she slowly runs her hand along the length of him through his trousers. She feels him grow harder under her hand and he makes a noise from deep in his throat that she can only describe as a growl. His hands are exploring her exposed torso; when his thumb brushes over her nipple, her breath hitches and she moans. Having his hands on her is nerve-wracking but god, that felt good. Her back arches to press her chest into his hand again, her kisses becoming more heated, trying to bid him to do it again. Her mind is fuzzy; she can’t think about anything else.
Until he pulls away from her. Hermione sucks in a sharp gasp of air. It feels like there was a cold bucket of water dumped over her head. He’s standing and looking down at her with a faint smirk and glittering gray eyes, eyes that linger on her exposed skin. She quickly pulls her shirt closed.
“Much more convincing this time, Granger.”
He breaks his visual cataloging of her to fix his belt. Hermione sits up, tucking her hair behind her ears. Her cheeks are burning, and she feels hopeless. He leans in slightly, and it looks like his eyes are searching her own. She braces for another onslaught of Occlumency.
“Kicking me when I’m down must feel good, hm? I hope you enjoyed it. It looks like I’m not the only one that’s truly vile.”
Malfoy rips himself away from her and storms out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him so hard that it rattles in the frame. Hermione can’t explain it, but tears well in her eyes, and her hands are freezing. She takes a shaking breath and buttons her shirt.