The Sweetest Sin

Chapter 9: No Idea

In the next three months, Hermione found that it wasn't as difficult as she originally thought it would be to slip into a regular pattern at Malfoy Manor. Mainly, it was the fact that magic was barely used in their house that made getting used to living as a servant there easier for Hermione. At first, she had been surprised to find out that Draco and Pansy, the two people she would have least expected to not rely heavily on magic, actually took the energy to raise forks to their mouths. After all, many of her previous employers had even gone as far as to enchant cushions to float along behind them and occasionally carry them from room to room.

The even better part of the lack of magical activity in the mansion was that Hermione didn't have to make up for it. In previous jobs, her employers would have made her do something disgusting like wipe bits of food off their greasy chins. Here, however, Hermione would have almost been treated like an equal if not for the fact that she still received orders from the both Draco and Pansy. Thankfully, Draco seemed to have forgotten about the threats he'd made on the day of her arrival. Hermione still didn't fully understand why the Malfoys were being so generous to her or why they lived so much like Muggles, but she certainly wasn't going to argue against it.

Every morning, Hermione woke up before the sun rose. She would slip on her clothes, occasionally taking the time to engage in a bit of small talk about the weather or the past day's events with the mirror, then quietly creep up the stairs and out the back doors to the garden. There, she would sit by the lake and watch the sun rise, no matter how cold or dreary the morning was.

Once 8 o' clock struck, Hermione would return to the mansion to wake the children up and dress them for breakfast. Tommy's feelings towards her seemed to have, if it was even possible, grown more hostile. On the other hand, Kathryn had become very fond of Hermione and seemed to have adopted her as something a second mother. It was because of this growing connection with the youngest Malfoy that Hermione started looking forward to, rather than dreading, the mornings.

After breakfast, Draco and Pansy would both apparate away to work or social affairs. Sometimes, Tommy and Kathryn went with their parents while on other days, they stayed at home. Whenever they stayed, Hermione would usually find herself being dragged outside by Kathryn to watch the little girl and her brother play quidditch. As Hermione obediently sat off to the side, the same thought always came to her mind - it was almost as if being a servant at Draco's estate diminished the cruelty of the outside world and rewound everything back 15 years, back to the days before the war when childhood glee and innocence still existed in her life.

One evening in late June, Hermione was wandering around the second floor of the house. The entire family was home, but she had no idea where they were at the moment, and since she had free time, she figured she might as well look around. The manor was so large that even though Hermione had been there for so long, she still hadn't discovered what lay in each room on the second floor.

As Hermione walked by a normal-looking wooden door, she heard a gasp from the other side. Surprised, she stopped and spun around to look at the door with wide eyes. Again, she heard a sound from behind it. This time, it sounded more like someone whispering.

I shouldn't, Hermione told herself firmly as she tried to turn around and walk away. Unfortunately, her body wouldn't listen and her feet remained stubbornly rooted to the floor. Sighing inwardly, Hermione gave into her curiosity and silently crept closer to the door.

It took Hermione a few seconds to find the keyhole, but when she did, she felt a wave of uncertainty wash over her. Regardless, she crouched down so that her eye was level to the keyhole and, with a feeling of dread and excitement growing in the pit of her stomach, looked into the room.

It was all Hermione could do to not shriek out loud. What she saw was so far from anything she had expected that every thought left her mind for a moment.

The room was a small, old-fashioned bedroom. Nothing sat in it but a low bed and at the moment, Draco and a young witch were both on the bed, lip-locked and fully clothed but looking as if the latter was about to change any second. The other woman, whose short, black hair proved she was definitely not Pansy, was giggling quietly and murmuring something. Draco's back was turned to Hermione but he appeared to be listening while kneeling over his companion and unfastening the top button of his shirt.

Shaking her head numbly, Hermione edged backwards and stumbled as far away from the door as she could. When her feet had carried her a few metres away, she fell down with a soft thump on the carpeted floor, stunned. As a result of the scene she had just been witness to, a mixture of guilt, disbelief, and disgust was now formulating in the form of a lump in her throat.

"Oh Merlin, no," she muttered under her breath, still shaking her head as if trying to clear the disturbing images from her mind. "I didn't just see that."

Hermione buried her face in her hands and groaned in dismay. She knew she shouldn't have looked to see what was going on. She had told herself not to. Why am I so stubborn, she thought furiously. I can't believe I saw that. That was definitely something I shouldn't have seen.

Then another thought occurred to her. What if Draco had heard her move away? Frozen with fear now, Hermione sat tensely, waiting for the door she had just been crouching by to swing open and for Draco's enraged face to appear.

After a few seconds' wait, Hermione realised with a huge burst of relief that Draco hadn't heard her. However, the moaning and whispering coming from the room was getting louder, and Hermione decided it would be better if she didn't stick around any longer. Leaping to her feet, she half-sprinted down the hallway and veered into a random room.

"Oh!" came a small cry as Hermione shut the door behind her.

For the second time in ten minutes, Hermione was once again shocked by what she saw.

The room she had entered was much larger than the other one - the high shelves that had been pushed up against the walls held thick, dusty spell books, suggesting that this was a library - and on a squat armchair in the center of the room sat Pansy. This, however, was not the cold, snobby woman Hermione was accustomed to seeing daily. This Pansy was curled up in a miserable ball, sniffling and wiping her tearstained eyes as she looked up her sudden visitor.

"What are you doing here?" both women asked simultaneously.

"I...I just wandered in here," Hermione answered uncomfortably. She wasn't sure how to handle the situation; on one hand, she was still highly disturbed after seeing Draco with the other woman and on the other, she was just as distressed by the fact that Pansy was showing some emotion.

"Well, wander back out," Pansy halfheartedly snapped.

Hermione decided to ignore the command (at the moment, Pansy didn't look quite as threatening as she usually did) and instead, settled herself on an armchair across from Pansy. "What's wrong?" she asked, surprised to find that she was truly concerned.

"Nothing," was the mumbled reply.

"That's not true," Hermione scolded. "Just tell me what's wrong."

The only answer was a muffled sob, and realisation suddenly dawned upon Hermione. "It's about Draco, isn't it?" she asked knowingly.

"No," Pansy replied sharply. She looked up and glared at Hermione, her eyes brimming with tears. "It's not. Leave me alone, Granger."

Hermione shook her head. For the moment, her mind was clear of the memory of Draco and the black-haired woman. She was too focused on Pansy's grief. Right now, it didn't even matter that the two of them hated each other. "I'm not going to leave you alone until you tell me what he did."

"Why do you even care?"

"I don't. But I'm not going to just leave you here looking as pathetic as you do right now," Hermione replied truthfully. Pansy seemed to be too upset to even throw a fit over what Hermione had said, so she took it as her cue to continue on. "Plus, it's always nice to hear dirt on him."

Pansy sniffled again and whimpered, "Don't talk about him like that."

Hermione rolled her eyes but obeyed Pansy nonetheless. "So, can you tell me?"

"No," Pansy replied again, although she was now acting as if she did in fact want to tell Hermione. Hermione noticed this, so she simply kept quiet and waited for Pansy to spill on her own. As predicted, not even a minute passed by before Pansy's reserve collapsed.

"It's our anniversary tomorrow and he told me he doesn't even want to see me at all. He said he has to meet with one of the Dark Lord's advisors, but I overheard him sending a voice message via owl saying something about how he would 'be at the pub tomorrow afternoon.'" Pansy's bottom lip trembled violently and a fresh round of sobs overtook her.

"Oh," Hermione responded. She couldn't think of anything else to say. The image of Draco and the woman entwined in each other's arms once again flashed into her mind and she cringed. No doubt he's running off to have sex with someone else, she realised angrily.

"We've been married for three years and not once has he shown me a shred of affection. He doesn't give a rat's arse about me, Kathryn, or Tommy. I try everything to please him, but I don't know how much longer I can keep trying."

For the first time in her life, Hermione felt genuine sympathy for Pansy arise in her. She had never seen her old enemy break down like this. Just knowing that Pansy could cry real tears forced Hermione to momentarily break down the wall that had been built up between them so many years ago.

"I'm so sorry," Hermione said softly.

"You wouldn't understand," Pansy mumbled. "You've never even been married."

"But I know how cruel men can be."

By now, Pansy had stopped crying. Now she was looking at Hermione with a mix of anger and incredulity. "So what? You've been slapped around a few times, you've been cursed for fun, but that's nothing compared to emotional pain. Especially not when that emotional pain comes from your heart. You've never felt that."

"You can't say that," Hermione replied. A shiver travelled through her body when she remembered him and what he had done. "You have no idea what I've been through."

"What, have you been raped or something?" sneered Pansy, obviously believing that Hermione's answer would be no.

Hermione froze. Her muscles stiffened and she tried desperately to open her mouth and say no. But all she could do was stare helplessly at Pansy.

Pansy was still talking about how Mudbloods, especially Hermione, could not be bruised emotionally by men. She stopped abruptly, however, when she saw that Hermione was not responding to what she was saying.

"What?" asked Pansy, frowning.

Hermione closed her eyes. She took a deep, quavering breath...

...he wrapped his right arm around her back and crushed her to him in a grip stronger than anything she had ever felt before...

...slowly lifted her eyes to Pansy's, only faintly...

..."You're going to feel real pain tonight, Mudblood," he growled viciously into her ear as he pushed the hair that had fallen over her face back and grinned madly down at her, "real pain I'm sure you'll enjoy"...

...aware of the fact that she was about to tell someone she barely knew one of her...

...he captured her lips in a kiss so brutal that she suddenly tasted the coppery taste of her own blood on her tongue; her screams were muffled by the rough hand he clamped over her mouth as he pulled away...

...darkest secrets, something she never thought she would ever mention to anyone...

...and then he brought her hips to him and she felt pain and humiliation like she'd never felt before...

...again.

"What is it?" Pansy repeated, her voice penetrating through the memories that were clouding Hermione's mind.

"I...have."

"You have what?"

Hermione was unable to bring herself to say the words out loud, so she simply shook her head and cast her eyes back down towards the floor.

Pansy suddenly gasped loudly, signaling that she finally understood what Hermione was trying to say. "Who?" she asked in a horrified whisper.

Hermione felt her lips move; they robotically formed his name but no sound escaped. She swallowed, and tried again. This time, she was successful.

"Blaise Zabini."