Bad Hair Day

Hermione Granger looked at her hair with discontent; it was no longer frizzing every which way as it had done back in first year at Hogwarts (or third year, for that matter), but the results of being mean with hair-sleeking potion were starting to show. She sighed. She had made that promise to herself, during the summer before this final year started, that she would use the potion every day, not just when she wanted to look good, and it was time to start working on that habit. Have to start getting up earlier; not possible to study for ten minutes less....

When she finished, and combed out her hair, she was better pleased, but perhaps too it was time she started putting it up instead of letting it hang loose round her shoulders like a schoolgirl. Back home this summer she had found the Muggle girls her age styled their hair in all sort of outrageous ways, but some of those styles might be worth practising. That was what had led her to make that vow about regular potion use (or one of the things; seeing startled admiration in the eyes of Draco Malfoy, of all people, at the New Year dance had been a heady experience, quickly though she dismissed it: probably just hormones).

Hermione took up a hank of hair and twisted, thoughtfully, and the mirror hanging in the air behind her head moved about helpfully. Ah yes, like that. She pinned the loose ends with her fingers under the softly twining mass, and reached for her wand: there, set. Much less work than Muggle girls had to do, thank goodness; they certainly seemed to study less.

There was a Quidditch game later that morning, the first of the year, Gryffindor versus Slytherin. She would watch it to make sure Harry and Ron came to no harm, dull though she generally found it (and it was exciting watching Harry fly, and the wretched Draco Malfoy too, though he was never quite as good). Her friends liked her to be there, but Hermione doubted if it was a good idea to allow them to believe that women had nothing better to do than oblige men by watching them perform. Until then, after breakfast she would take a walk by the lake and around to the Forbidden Forest.

Lately one of the younger centaurs had been coming out to make shy but interesting remarks about divining by reading the stars, which was far more useful than Professor Trelawny could ever have been. It would have been great to have had a good Divination teacher, it would have made such a difference.... Now that she had dropped the subject, and it was too late, they had Firenze -- life was like that.

Arithmancy classes were good, and so was she, but it was a notoriously difficult method of divining anything useful beyond the obvious: Your number is One, so you are a determined person capable of accomplishing much -- she didn't need to fiddle with figures for an hour or a week to find that out, but finding out anything more.... Professor Vector said there were very advanced methods that used much more elaborate schemes of equivalents, but they might never be ready to learn those; Hermione suspected their teacher doubted her own ability.

She glanced out the window, though because of the game she had checked first thing that the weather was fine. The wind was briskly herding the clouds along, like an over-zealous sheepdog after a flock of lambs, but it would not bother the players much, and it was certainly not going to bother her hair.

Hermione went down to breakfast and as usual had to dissuade Seamus and Dean from encouraging Harry to eat; before a game he could not, but the nervous anticipation that twisted him tight now would relax into confident skill as soon as he was on the pitch. Were all men so slow to learn? Even Ron occasionally reverted to anxious nannying. He did it more often now that he was on the Quidditch team himself and anxious to match his older brothers' successes.

* * * *

Draco Malfoy finished gelling his hair into place and regarded it with satisfaction. No wind above the Quidditch pitch was going to disturb that. He wondered if he wanted to grow it long, like his father's, when he left school. Lucius had beautiful hair, his son admitted, but it took a lot of care, even with that spell on it to make it lie properly at all times. Did Draco want to go to so much bother?

Women looked after his father (though cautiously, sidelong, if they knew much about him), but he had noticed, this past summer, that more than schoolgirls were starting to look after him, now that he was at last growing into his father's height and his chest and shoulders were filling out. Long hair would be a serious handicap in a knock-down-and-drag-out fight, such as he still occasionally got into with one or more of the stupid Gryffindors, who kept getting above themselves. Besides, did he want to look more of an image of Lucius Malfoy than he did now? That was a scary thought, and he dismissed it; he needed to be like his father, to survive in Voldemort's world.

Draco refused to think that he wanted to be a part of Voldemort's world even less than he wanted to be like his father. Some things were meant to be, and even a Malfoy could not change them.

Draco sighed. Hair wasn't the problem. The problem, or the potentially manageable problem, out of all those he had, was that he was bored in Slytherin, though he could never say so to Lucius. That would only get him a lecture on Malfoy tradition, and on the pride he should have in being a Slytherin. The rest of his year simply weren't up to his weight, except Blaise, with Rebecca trailing, and Blaise was not competitive enough to suit him.

It was a terrible thought that he was beginning to appreciate Granger, just for the intellectual stimulus she afforded him. Potter was fun, of course; much harder to provoke than when they had been children, though trying was a pleasant habit, even if he was only a moderate challenge in class. Too busy saving the world from Voldemort, that was his trouble; otherwise, though he would never have Granger's sheer determination and organisation in study, he would have done a lot better.

Potter spent too much time being a hero to provide Draco with real long-term competition, though on a short-term basis it was sometimes stimulating trying to best him. Draco carefully did not consider how glad he was that he could rely on himself to beat Potter in class. His father made enough fuss about Granger's superior examination results, and no amount of saying that she was just a grind, and had no real feeling for the subjects, helped. In some subjects, Draco was almost ready to admit, to himself at least, Hermione Granger did seem to have a real understanding; bad luck one of them was Potions.

Even the pitiful Ron Weasley was starting to learn to make snappy comebacks, though Draco would never have to worry about his intellectual ability. He was almost as easy to rouse as he had been when they started school and Weasley was so prickly about his natural inferiority to almost everyone, including all those older brothers. People should not be allowed to breed like that. What good had Arthur and Molly Weasley done by keeping going after they produced, say, Charlie, who certainly had his uses?

There was Ginny, of course. It would have been a pity to miss Ginny, with that gorgeous red hair and the delicious fine skin faintly flushed with peach, that Draco frankly admitted he would like to get his teeth into. To get Ginny, though, did the world have to put up with Ron, and Fred and George, and that mechanised stick Percy? You'd think Percy would have been a warning to them. Well, if he ever did manage to corner Ginny he would acknowledge that perhaps the Weasleys had not been totally mistaken in keeping on trying.

He should stop thinking about Weasleys and concentrate on the game, but Matthew had what seemed a good game plan, and for the rest he would have to hope that his broom, still inferior to Potter's, would not be too much of a handicap in going after the Snitch. Maybe this time he would be able to abandon his fear of breaking his neck and make a serious attempt to outfly Potter. If he did, and if Slytherin won, his father would certainly be pleased, whether he attended the game or not. And if they did win, perhaps he would reward himself by having another try at Ginny, while he was still flushed with one success.

And if they didn't win, he acknowledged, suddenly dropping into gloom, he would have to hope very hard his father stayed away. Getting his angry reproof some time after the match was over, when Draco had recovered from the nervous shakes and the deep depression, was much easier than hearing it a few moments after Madam Hooch awarded the win to Gryffindor. Lucius would not shame him by shouting at him in front of the rest of the Slytherin team, let alone the disgusting Gryffindors, but that was never much of a consolation at the time.

If the worst happened he would try to console himself with Pansy, who was not only willing, and quite skilful by now, but also a great deal prettier than she had been a couple of years ago. She was quite delectable, in fact, with her robes off, and with her face now what the French called jolie laide instead of a good likeness of a pug dog.

A good thing: the other Slytherin girls were appalling, including those in sixth year. Pity his father would hit the roof if he ever heard of Draco's trying his luck outside his own house. Ginny should be worth it, but if Lucius had been less insistent on loyalty to Slytherin Draco would have seriously considered Stacia Verdon.

Stacia was the disgrace of her family, doubly so after she had been sorted into Hufflepuff instead of Slytherin. She was 'a nice girl', which was quite unnatural; but worst of all she had so little magic that it was all she could do to scrape enough OWLs to keep her place in Hogwarts. She was very pretty, however, with her soft dark red lips, clean profile set off by fine arched eyebrows, those long black curls and the dusky skin that should feel like velvet.

It might be fun to see those violet eyes widen in fright when he put his hands on her, and turn even darker; it would be even more fun if he could make her beg him to do it again, more, harder, and longer. Pansy certainly did that, and not just to please him. One of these days, if nature was merciful, he would get one of them into bed.

Draco delayed going down to breakfast, and on the way there carefully thought about out-performing Granger in the surprise test he suspected Severus Snape would soon hold in Potions.

* * * *

Lucius Malfoy got out of bed and in the bathroom looked at his long ice-blond hair with discontent. It hung in tangles round his naked shoulders, and he could see that the ends, trailing down his back, almost had a tendency to curl. Disgraceful. Malfoys had straight hair, and kept it neat at all times. He thought that surely he was old enough now that a long night with Narcissa in the sheets should not disturb his unconscious grip on the Elegans spell he had created years ago to maintain his hair as he liked it.

Then he smiled, though very faintly, reflecting with satisfaction that Narcissa had been very obliging, and not too submissive. If he took the trouble to get her excited too she was inclined to use a hold on his hair to insist that he kiss her, very thoroughly, her mouth, her breasts.... Lucius smiled again; he found a perverse pleasure in letting her do so. Perhaps his father Valery would have insisted that it was beneath the dignity of a Malfoy to allow a woman, even his wife, to tell him what to do, but Lucius had always suspected that the old man had not been very interested in sex, even as an expression of power.

Lucius would not have allowed a casual lover such liberties, but Narcissa knew him very well, and knew her place. She would not presume on her successes outside of bed, and letting her have her way occasionally in little things did have benefits. There were times when even a Malfoy did not want to have to be responsible for everything, and being pleasantly surprised was impossible to organise for oneself.

After his bath he enjoyed the luxury of having the house elf wash and dry his hair; he liked to do so every morning unless he was very pressed for time, though it was not necessary. He wondered idly, as he lay face down, feeling the brush glide soothingly through the long pale mass of his hair, flicking away the water droplets, if it might be worth making Narcissa do this for him. She would probably object. She had always insisted on being treated as his wife, not his slave, despite what he considered her actual status as his possession. However, while he was ready to indulge her in public and before their son, to support the Malfoy dignity, there was no reason to indulge her wishes in the bedroom.

At that thought Lucius paused: if he was too insistent with Narcissa, or ignored what she wanted for too long, she had an unpleasant habit of going limp on him which made him furious. Experience had taught him, however, that even beating her would not get him what he wanted. If he beat her severely enough to break her spirit for the moment she was quite useless in bed. And she was remarkably resistant to the Imperius curse these days; he carefully reserved that for real need, where once he had been able to control her with it quite easily.

Ah well. Perhaps he would ask her, not tell her, some morning; wake her up and have her, let her get some pleasure out of it too, then see if she would regard washing and brushing out his hair as an extension of that. An interesting idea. Pity she had that early appointment with the landscaper today. Lucius was not consciously aware of how many early appointments his wife had; she just seemed to be an early bird, and he had few complaints about how she managed Malfoy Manor.

He had no commitments today, and his son had a Quidditch match. Perhaps it might be worth attending, to see if Slytherin managed to beat Gryffindor, though he had no great hope of it. Draco was good, but it seemed the Potter boy was better; most unsuitable, but the world did not always acknowledge a Malfoy's right to order it as he would. If Slytherin lost perhaps he should not berate Draco for it this time; the responsibility would after all have been shared with his team mates. It might be more useful to encourage Draco to work at managing them better, even though he was not the captain.

Draco would be a man soon, and have a man's responsibilities. Lucius certainly intended to guide his son, but Draco did need to learn to manage for himself. When he gave his allegiance to the Dark Lord there would certainly be no opportunity for him to seek aid from Lucius, if he could not do what was required of him. Lucius shivered involuntarily, then dismissed the feeling. Draco would have to learn, just as he had done, and he should try to be a better guide to his son than Valery had been to him. Malfoys needed to be the best, and letting Draco remain a child would do nothing for Malfoy honour in his eyes, and do neither of them any good in Voldemort's.

So yes, perhaps he would go to the game, and acknowledge the boy's achievements (if any). He would however concentrate on Draco's need to seize leadership and use it to best effect, if the Slytherin captain could not lead his team to victory over Gryffindor.

After breakfast he decided he would go early to Hogwarts and take a stroll, well away from the school itself, of course, so the watch spells were not alerted, and use the time to think about Errol Verdon's proposal. Muggle-baiting, while enjoyable, did not truly advance the Dark Lord's rule. Lucius had painfully learned better than to allow himself to indulge in mere hooliganism, as he had done at the World Quidditch Cup, three years ago now, before Voldemort's resurrection.

There had been more fun in life before the Dark Lord returned, perhaps, but fun was not necessary. Power was the thing, and he needed to consider carefully whether Verdon's idea would advance that, or was only a skilfully disguised attempt to have fun. Fun was for children, like his son, and helped to encourage them to study seriously how to serve the Dark Lord, who had real power in his gift. Draco would have to learn to put away childish things, and concentrate on what was important, as his father did.

Lucius slipped Verdon's tiny mirror into the breast pocket of his robes.

* * * *

A long way from the school buildings, past where the Forbidden Forest met the lake, Hermione met Arion, but was disconcerted when the centaur looked at her sadly. "Ah, Hermione, so it hasn't happened yet. I read the stars last night, and thought of you. But you will be stronger for it, you will learn from it."

She knew there was no point in being impatient with centaurs. Despite what should have been long experience, they accepted whatever the stars told them and made no attempt to avert or remedy it. Sometimes, however, they could be got to do more than drop dark hints, and Arion was after all very young. Perhaps she could get something out of him. Whatever he had seen, it did not sound good.

"Arion, what will I learn?" She was confident of her strength, and while learning was generally an excellent thing there might be things one did not wish to learn -- Dark Arts, for example.

"You are still a girl, you would not understand. When you are a woman, Hermione, you will know yourself, and begin learning your true strengths. Life is not study, Hermione, it is lived, and it is how we learn."

Hermione considered this collection of useless platitudes and sighed. She had not the stomach for more of them. Arion, like the older centaurs, had no gift for originally expressed insights that might be of some help.

She said goodbye and started back to school. Later she would remember that exchange and decide that she would find some way to kick Arion hard, to teach him that friends helped each other. Arion needed to learn that as a friend she was very willing to help him to learn to speak clearly.

* * * *

Hermione and Lucius met soon after she left Arion. She stopped abruptly. Nothing in her acquaintance with Lucius Malfoy led her to be confident that his presence was not a preliminary to something unpleasant, possibly earth-shakingly so. This was very early in the school year for Harry to have to take up heroing seriously, but Mr Malfoy had been getting better at kick-starting trouble since his release from Azkaban.

Lucius looked at her speculatively. If one disregarded her being a Mudblood, she was surprisingly pretty these days, though of course one could never tell what was under the robes. This might be a good occasion to test Verdon's theory, or rather an extension of it. Verdon had only been thinking about Muggles. Much more useful to think about those whose very existence was an affront to the pure-blooded, those disgraceful crossbreeds who should never have been allowed to exist. Miss Granger was a prime example, a thorn in his son's side and a permanent reproach to Malfoy excellence.

Perhaps Verdon was blinded by awareness of his own disgraceful daughter, who should probably have been exposed at birth. The second daughter, by Verdon's report, was precociously promising, and what was she, five or six or something? Verdon would not dare lie about the potential he perceived in her, not with the older girl a permanent reminder that he had failed to produce a child worthy to serve Voldemort. In allowing her to live Verdon had handicapped himself quite unnecessarily, but perhaps he had had to placate his wife.

Anna was Verdon's cousin, a stronger witch than he, and perhaps more cunning. She had refused to offer her allegiance to the Dark Lord, saying it was her business to raise up children to serve him, rather than to work with her husband directly in his service. Verdon had married her, Lucius now recalled, in the hope of breeding back into the Verdon line the Dark strength that his father had dissipated by marrying a Muggle-born witch (however strong). It had been a scandal at the time, Lucius had been told. Errol Verdon must have been very thankful, when he arrived at Hogwarts, that his mother was safely dead.

Hermione had walked wide of Lucius after that initial pause to stare at him distrustfully, but his brief reflections on Verdon's faults had not allowed her to get far. His mind made itself up. This would be a useful test of the mirror, and at the worst Miss Granger should for a while have something to think about other than showing up his son.

Lucius took out his wand, aimed it at Hermione Granger's back, and said softly, "Immobilise." She was immediately transfixed, but he could take the spell off her with ease when it suited him, and by stages, which suited the test even better. Stupid girl, not to watch behind her. Never turn your back on an enemy was a Malfoy precept she should take to her heart.

He walked easily up to her and removed her wand from her robes pocket, setting it in the fork of a tree out of her reach and pinning it there with a spell. All she could do was breathe and move her eyes, and they followed what he did; he allowed her to watch. He strung the mirror on a short thong and hung it around her neck; he did not allow her to see that, though she could feel his hands, and something cool lying just below her throat. Then he put his hand on her shoulder and relaxed the hold of the spell sufficiently to allow her to walk under his direction. He was not rough with her; time enough for that later.

He took her a short way into the Forest, where the sun still penetrated the trees, then pushed her, quite gently still, down on to a ferny bank. Let her go on wondering, for a little while, what exactly he wanted, what exactly he would do to her. Perhaps she would be surprised; that would be delightful.

He stroked his wand over her throat, then her mouth, to activate a further measure of release from the spell, though if she tried to scream she would find her throat closing fast; then thoughtfully loosed a few more bonds. He wanted, after all, to be able to see her change expression, though he fully expected to be able to remove the spell completely later. "Miss Granger."

"Mr Malfoy," she returned through gritted teeth.

Oh, not polite at all; good. He had thought she would have spirit; she was determined enough in most things. She had more sense than to beg for release, too, and perhaps meant even not to lower herself to ask him his intentions: a prideful girl. She would speak readily enough later.

Well, to the point. "Miss Granger, you are, I assume, a virgin?" She stared at him.

"What's it to you?" Hermione was certainly not prepared to allude to virgin sacrifice, if that was not already in his head.

"I don't need to know," he said coolly, "but it might lead me to be a bit easier with you if you were, if you asked me politely enough. I shall certainly find out."

Hermione's heartbeat speeded up unpleasantly. What she could do about this, beyond clenching her teeth (in his throat if she had a chance) she could not imagine. Carefully she said, "I am a virgin."

He inclined his head. "Thank you, Miss Granger." This politeness was sickening. He shifted a little closer to her and started to unfasten her robes. Once he had them off her he tossed them to the ground, and began on the white summer blouse that was all she wore under them besides her pleated skirt. Quite deliberately he tore the blouse, then tugged it completely free of her body. He stopped to look her up and down. "Very pretty," he said emotionlessly. "Perhaps you need to grow a little more, but you seem to be sufficiently womanly."

Hermione had for some years been conscious of her small breasts, though they were fuller this year. No Muggle girl at the same stage of development would have bothered to wear a brassiere however, unless she wished to boast, which would have been a mistake. Of course one could stuff handkerchiefs down a brassiere. She felt mildly insulted. Why was he bothering to take off her clothes if he did not enjoy looking?

She reined in her distracted thoughts; panicking was not going to help. Would anything, except fortitude? Lucius Malfoy might merely be teasing her cruelly before he got around to what he actually intended -- and if she was lucky that would be no worse than what it currently looked like he intended. What about all those famous protections laid on Hogwarts school? Surely, as well as saving Harry from infamous plots, they protected schoolgirls from simple rape? Why had she been so stupid as to go so far away from the school grounds, where she would have been safe?

Lucius proceeded to strip her completely, pausing every so often to admire, though not with great conviction; then he began to touch her. Even Immobilise could not prevent Hermione from shuddering, though it expressed itself only in a sense of the hair on her head lifting, and the nape of her neck prickling hot and cold. His hands were quite gentle still, stroking over her flesh. He laid her down on her back and moved her hands above her head, out of his way, so that he could kneel close beside her. He was still wearing all his clothes, the usual formal black, except that in this weather he did not need the silver-clasped cloak over his robes.

Lucius Malfoy spent what felt like a very long time touching her, patiently exploring all of her body, sometimes turning her to lie face down, putting his hands not just on her breasts, but between her legs. He even ran an inquisitive finger between the cheeks of her behind, before grasping them and parting them firmly and doing it again. Hermione could not repel him, could not even clench her muscles against him. The spell prevented her from reacting, but not from feeling every touch.

She could however cry out, she discovered, when he pinched her brutally on one buttock and then the other, before she was turned face up again. He pinched her breasts a few times, and the tender flesh of the inside of her thighs, before he began squeezing and twisting her nipples painfully in his fingers. She was crying before he stopped, despite her determination to control her reactions, to give him as little to please him as she could.

He sat back on his heels. "Now, Miss Granger," he said coolly, "you have a choice before you. You can have me like this," he pinched one nipple again, again bringing tears to her eyes, "or you can have this," and his fingers stroked with idle calculation, and though she had been hurting a moment ago his touch was suddenly pleasing.

Hermione bit her lip hard. Which would be worse? Both were bad.

Lucius Malfoy had not finished twisting the knife. He went on, "If you prefer this," that skilful stroking, again, for longer this time, "you will need to ask. Very politely. And of course to cooperate enthusiastically, to the best of your so far untutored ability. You needn't be concerned; I will teach you what to do. We have a long time. They don't need either of us at the Quidditch match."

Knowing how long the match might take nearly broke Hermione's resolution. No one would be looking for her until it was over, and even her friends might assume she had gone to the library and forgotten, though they would seek her there later. Unsteadily she said, "No. Just get it over with."

Lucius Malfoy laughed with what seemed to be alarmingly genuine amusement. "Poor innocent virgin, so ignorant. You'll learn."

He took off his own clothes then, setting them to one side with what seemed instinctive neatness, before he parted her legs, bending her knees and pushing them outward, and moving between. As he did so she caught a glimpse of him, fully erect, and was terrified to think that he was going to put that into her; surely it wasn't possible. Unfortunately she knew it was; this was going to hurt so much....

He leaned close over her and his loose hair fell forward into a cloud around her head, hiding everything from her but his face, and those silver eyes burning hers. He smiled, and said softly, "Now, Miss Granger...."

It did hurt, and he gave her no mercy. Hermione screamed, and as he thrust himself fully home screamed again, but she could hardly hear her cries. Her body hurt, unbearably, but it could not resist him, did not even move to flinch from the pain. The spell forced her to bear all of it, until he abruptly stopped moving, stiffened, thrust one last time and collapsed on her. He took his time about relieving her of his weight, and she wept soundlessly. At least it was over.

When he sat up he looked down at her, then at himself, and said mildly, "You're bleeding, Miss Granger. Messy." He took her ripped blouse and wiped her blood off himself.

Lucius Malfoy moved her legs to lie close together again, and shifted her hands so that they lay only at shoulder height. She became aware her shoulders were aching from having her arms above her head for so long. Then he straddled her hips and knelt back with his weight on her thighs before he said calmly, "In a little while, Miss Granger, we can do that again."

Hermione was appalled, but letting him see would only give him more pleasure. At least her body could not cringe, as her mind did. Instead she said as sharply as she could, "Been doing without, have you? Can't manage it with a woman who might know enough to criticise your performance? E for effort and D for dismal failure?"

Unfortunately her shaft had no effect at all; his brief laugh sounded amused rather than resentful. He said unkindly, "You don't even get E for effort."

"Why should I want to?"

He smiled at her. "The other option is still open to you; I can be kinder, Miss Granger. We have all morning. I think," he went on reflectively, "I'll take Immobilise off you, and put the Imperius curse on you instead. That way you can move, and of course you'll do exactly what I tell you. I shall hurt you just as much," he added.

"I'm not a virgin now." It was the only defiance she could offer.

That nasty smile again. "No, you're a very sore and tender former virgin. It may well hurt worse next time."

Hermione closed her eyes, trying to shut him out, but he would not allow it. He slapped her hard, and she cried out, softly as ever. Her eyes had opened at the blow, her cheek hurt, and her neck hurt because he had slammed her head sideways.

"Still not interested in placating me?"

"You'd only find another way to torture me," she said bitterly.

He smiled. "You still have choices. There's bad, and then there's worse. What will you have?"

Hermione was silent. He would do whatever he wanted any way; she was not going to cooperate in her own degradation.

She felt his wand tap her briefly as he said, "Finite Incantatem," then, with hardly a pause, "Imperio."

A sense of ease flowed over her, and though it did nothing for her discomfort, it distanced it a very little. She felt dreamy, and thought of nothing. Very far back in her mind she was aware that once she had been taught to resist the Imperius curse, or to try, at least, and had had a degree of success. Lucius Malfoy seemed to have shocked out of her the ability to do so. Somewhere something was struggling desperately, but it was too far away to matter, like the panicky screaming. She waited peacefully to find out what he wanted.

He had her sit up and sit on his lap. He was kneeling again, sitting back on his heels, and she straddled his thighs. Hers were rather uncomfortable, but of course that did not matter. Then he wanted her to touch him, and demonstrated, quite patiently, how. After some time he started to touch her again, and his hands were harder now, but she scarcely flinched as she went on doing what he required.

Then he shifted her and told her to take him in her hands, put him just inside her, and then impale herself on him, taking him completely in one quick stroke. She did that, and screamed as she did it, but he told her to move, and how, so she did that. At last he told her she could stop, and pushed her to the ground without sliding out of her. Hermione lay in the ferns, her hands at her sides, as his hair blinded her again and his weight held her down and he shoved hard into her and made her scream each time. Eventually that stopped, and she could be dreamily still again, waiting for what he should next want of her.

Lucius Malfoy touched her with his wand and said, "Finite Incantatem." Understanding crashed over her in a wave that tumbled her till she was choked with humiliation and bruised against the pain and terror and wanted nothing more than to drown in the hatred and for it to be over. And he laughed, and got off her. Hermione rolled to her side and curled up, her back to him, wrapped round the pain, the humiliation, the black hatred, and the terror, and tried to contain them.

He let her alone for a while, then shook her shoulder lightly. "Is cooperation more appealing now, Miss Granger?"

She shivered. How many more times could he do this to her? She cursed herself for being too ignorant, and him, because he was probably amusing himself with her until he was ready to rape her again. She was going to have to give him what he demanded. What could he do to her that was worse? Hastily she pushed that thought aside. Cruciatus might be next if she refused him again. He had said earlier that if she did what he wanted he would be kinder. Would that still be true?

Voice quivering more than she liked, she asked him, hating him for making her need to. He heard that in her voice too, and contentedly answered, "I should be quite kind, Miss Granger, provided you assiduously applied the lesson you just had under Imperius. You should remember all that."

After a while he said blandly, "You may call me Lucius." He added, "Talk to me. I want to know what you feel like."

Hermione bit down on her hatred and used it to create a barrier from behind which it did not matter quite so much that she was working hard to please him. He had become very exacting, and she learned a great deal about his preferences. This seemed to be lasting a lot longer than the other times; was he tiring, perhaps, or was he just enjoying it more? Might she get a respite soon? Might he even go away, leave her in peace to curl up and hope not to die? And if not, could she still keep herself remote from him? Hermione feared her own terror even more than she feared the pain, because it made it harder for her to resist.

* * * *

Draco waited with the rest of the Slytherin team in their changing room until the Gryffindor celebrations outside seemed to be winding down, or moving off (and the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw celebrations too; hardly fair, that). They exchanged brief glum comments as they got out of their Quidditch gear and showered, but Draco paid little attention to Matthew's review of their performance. Matthew did not expect him to, by now. He was accustomed to the way Draco sank deep into depression and his body seemed to be fighting off shock every time they lost a game. Draco knew he would get a repeat later.

The team were not surprised when Draco did not accompany them back to the Slytherin common room, though this particular time Mr Malfoy did not seem to be about to have a private word with Draco, who was doubtless grateful for that. He never complained about his father; but you just had to see their faces, Malfoy cool or not, to know Draco was getting the rounds of the kitchen.

Draco finally left. The pitch was free of observers as he took himself off in the direction of the lake, heading for the Forbidden Forest. He had stopped shaking now, at least, though he still felt cold and small and tired, and indeed very grateful his father was absent. He had put a pullover on under his robes to help with the cold; even so, the wind was chilling him further.

He was thinking of turning back and testing his ability to eat a late lunch when movements inside the Forest caught his peripheral vision. Another student would be irritating enough, but it might be something a lot more dangerous than a student. He stopped, melting against a tree, to listen, and to observe, if he could.

Ah. Right. Dangerous indeed: his father's voice. He didn't need that. He was about to turn, with enormous caution, and sneak away, when he heard the reply. The words were still inaudible, but the voice was clear: Granger. Hermione Granger. What was she, of all people, doing talking to his father inside the Forbidden Forest? He had never thought her suicidal, not unless Potter was at risk. Then he heard what she said next.

"Is that what you want, Lucius?"

She was calling him by his first name? Weird as well as suicidal. Draco's sense of self-preservation pulled him two ways, but only for a second; it was always safer to know what his father was up to. Perhaps he was recruiting, though to approach Granger was a falling away from his lifelong insistence on the superiority of pure-bloods. Carefully he moved closer.

His father said with mild approval as Draco halted behind a suitable oak, "Excellent, Miss Granger. Now just open your legs a bit further, yes, that's right...."

Draco was astonished as well as slightly sickened; that, he would never have expected of Granger. He had come upon his father having sex with women other than his mother before (and always escaped unnoticed), but Granger? That wasn't just astonishing; that was unbelievable.

He heard a faint cry, which sounded like pain, not pleasure, then his father said, laughing, "If you didn't want it to hurt this time, Miss Granger, you should have decided to cooperate long ago. Too late now, I'm afraid. Move, you stupid girl. That's better...."

Draco shuddered deeply and buried his face in his hands, then moved them over his ears to try to shut out the quiet sobbing, and the other, worse, noises. How long had they been there? Neither of them had been at the game, and Granger always came, though it bored her to sleep. Whatever his father would call it, to him it was plain that Hermione Granger was being raped, and not for the first time, by the sound of it. By his father. That was disgusting. What did he think he was doing, attacking a girl the same age as his son? What good could that do Voldemort, to look at it in the best possible light (if there could be one)?

His father sounded irritated as he gasped, "Stop crying, Miss Granger, or if you must do it, don't make a noise. Cooperation, remember?"

Draco waited, shaking, deeply ashamed of himself as he had never been, knowing that he was far too afraid of his father to try to interrupt, and knowing that he very much wished something would stop this totally unnecessary ugliness. Granger wasn't crying any more, or not aloud, but that wasn't much of a relief, considering what his father had said. Presumably there had been a serious threat hidden in his words.

Various sounds of movement continued, but Draco was not tempted to try to see anything. A memory of his own fantasies about Stacia Verdon this morning came to him, and he cringed from his own thoughtless ignorance. He could not possibly do that. Please, please, let his father never demand that of him with some helpless woman.

At last he heard his father say, his voice easy now, smooth with satisfaction, "That was quite good, you learn fast, I'll say that for you. Turn around and bend your head forward." There was a pause during which Draco heard the rustle of clothing. "I must go. Presumably they're still playing Quidditch. Thank you, Miss Granger. That record will be most useful. I might even play it for my own amusement, some day, but it will certainly save a lot of time. So much easier to run it over some Mudblood girl, or even a Muggle, if it's important, and have her feel what you felt, than to go to the trouble of spending hours working on her. Run it a few times and she'll do or say whatever we want."

Granger said, "You did that so you could record it? You are a truly rotten son of a bitch, Lucius Malfoy. Can't even have your own fun, all for Voldemort. What do you do for pleasure? Anything? Or are you just his fucking machine because he can't do it any more?"

Draco thought sickly, 'No, Granger, no; just stop. Shut up and let him go away before he does something else dreadful....'

Lucius did not seem to be offended. He said blandly, "I get a great deal of pleasure out of working for my lord's triumph, Miss Granger. And you weren't bad at all, for someone with no experience. Work on it, and you could be quite good."

Granger made a noise that sounded as if she was close to throwing up, with which Draco empathised. His father said severely, "I still have time to teach you not to be insolent, Miss Granger."

There was silence. "Thought better of it? Good. Now if you were to be here next Saturday, I could teach you some more. You could do with tutoring, for all you seem to have some native talent." His father paused, then said, so softly Draco could barely hear him, "Think carefully about what I can do, Miss Granger, if you get in my son's way too often, now you know Hogwarts doesn't protect you."

Granger said as softly, "I don't need your teaching, Mr Malfoy. Why don't you think what might happen, if you came here next week. I made a mistake going so far, so you took me by surprise; but you'll never catch anyone again. You think very, very carefully, Mr Malfoy, about what Hogwarts can do to someone who has outraged a Hogwarts student."

Lucius said coldly, "Nothing."

"Oh no. There are real protections on us, and you won't get another chance. If you venture here again, Hogwarts will punish you. Go, and think yourself lucky we were in the Forest, and nothing and no one noticed. And think, Mr Malfoy," Granger sounded close to purring, and Draco intensely admired her ability to do so after what his father must have done.

"Think. You have given me a great deal of information. Yes, I paid for it. But I have it. What can I do with it, hmmm? I can handle your son, if he gives me any grief. I've coped with Draco Malfoy for over six years; do you think he can come up with anything new now? He'll never match you for nastiness. And believe that I will deal with you, in my own way. I don't deal in crude, Lucius Malfoy. I deal in final."

Lucius snorted, and turned away. Either he didn't feel like exchanging insults further, or Granger made him feel uneasy. Draco hoped it was the latter; if his father felt cautious about her he might let her alone. The silence was broken only by his father's light footfalls through the undergrowth.

Once Draco was sure his father was out of hearing he moved cautiously towards Granger. She might not have been able to use her wand on his father, but still be able to do real damage to another, and probably felt like killing anything that moved. When he found her, however, she was lying among the ferns, curled in a tight ball, shaking and whimpering almost noiselessly. He moved forward quickly, seeing her robes, picking them up and kneeling beside her to lay them over her.

Her head turned quickly, her breath catching, and he said, "I'm not going to touch you, Granger, all right? Just wrap your robes round you, get you a bit warmer." She stared up at him, looking blind, and Draco whispered, "Please, Granger, be all right." He tucked the robes close around her naked body as best he could. "I think maybe you scared him a bit. You did better than I could have done. Don't let him win now."

She whispered, "Is that you, Malfoy?"

"Yes, it's me. I won't do anything. I just want to help you. I know you'd rather it was anyone but me, I can fetch someone else if you want, but you need to get warm, you need help now, not later."

"Don't go away."

"No, I won't."

She shivered. "Can you hold me, Malfoy? I'm very cold, and I need someone to touch me that isn't your father."

Draco slid his hands under her and lifted her up against him, wrapping her robes closer as he did. She felt very small, much slighter and weaker than he would have thought her. "Right. Got you. Do you want to hold on?"

Granger shivered hard, then pressed against him. One hand came out from under the robes and hooked round his neck, and she tucked her head into the front of his robes. A good thing they were clean this morning and hardly worn, and that he was freshly showered; just now he didn't want anything to smell of man to her. For a long while he held her hard against the shivers that shook her like a rat in a terrier's teeth.

At last the shaking eased and her death grip on his neck loosened. "Thanks, Malfoy."

"That's all right, Granger."

"Sorry you had to know about this."

She was apologising to him? "Hey, Granger, forget it, I've known my father a long time. He does really not nice things. All the time. I'm used to it. Not this, though. Maybe I haven't seen him do everything after all. This wasn't the first time he did something like this, would you think?"

"A real expert," she agreed drearily.

"How badly did he hurt you?" Draco felt queasy asking, but how much help was she going to need? What if she couldn't walk? What if she was bleeding badly?

"Just your ordinary one man gang-rape, I'd say."

"Granger, that doesn't tell me whether I need to carry you up to the infirmary."

"I'll be able to walk, I think. And I stopped bleeding a while back. Just now I hurt, and I'm cold, and I don't want to have to explain anything to anyone, or say what he did, or what it felt like."

"That's all right. Just cuddle up, get warmer. You want the rest of your clothes? It looks as if they're over there."

She shivered again. "Need to burn my blouse. He got my blood on him, had to wipe it off."

It was Draco's turn to shudder. "Incendio will fix that, Granger. All right if I let go for a minute, get your stuff, wrap you up some more?"

Her hold on him tightened convulsively, then she let go. Draco found her skirt, her panties, stockings and shoes, and carefully helped her into them, trying not to see the dried bloodstains on her thighs. Then he fastened her robes, hiding the pretty little breasts already marked with bruises, wrapped her in his robes as well, and put his arms round her again.

"You'll be all right, Granger, you're tough. You want my pullover too?" She shook her head. "If you can handle me you can handle whatever my father dished out. He ran away, did you notice?"

"He seemed to think he had an appointment with you after the game."

"He'll be lucky," Draco said darkly. "Not if I see him coming."

"He didn't really run away. He'd finished with me, that's all. And," her voice was intensely bitter, "all that just to make a recording to terrify other people with."

"I heard," Draco said carefully. She needed to know that he could have interfered, and had not.

"Lose the game, did you, and go for a walk, looking for a werewolf to eat you and end your misery?"

She was amazing. "Pretty much. I'm sorry, Granger; I was close by, but I was just too scared to try to do anything. I didn't realise what he was doing, then. And when I did -- I didn't do anything to stop him."

"Malfoy, he would just have knocked you into the middle of next week, wouldn't he?"

"That's one way of putting it," he agreed, "though I haven't heard that expression before."

"Comes of being a Mudblood," she said, her voice uninflected. "I talk funny."

Draco hugged her hard. "Sure, Granger. I've heard worse. Like my father telling you that you could be good, if you tried. And hey, if I hadn't been so scared he would kill you, I would have loved it when you called him Voldemort's fucking machine."

"Was this special for me? Or is he like it all the time?"

"Probably all the time," Draco said reluctantly.

"Your poor mother."

Draco said carefully, "My mother can't do anything, you know. She can't help herself, though sometimes she helps me. When she can. She's smart. He doesn't always notice."

"And if he does?"

"I don't want to think about it. She never says anything. I never see any bruises. Or tears. But sometimes I don't see her for a while, either."

"And when he doesn't like what you do?"

No point in concealing anything from her now. She knew what Lucius Malfoy was like, she could guess how he would treat his son, and he had already told her he was too scared to fight. He shrugged. "Sometimes he just shouts. Sometimes he beats me, but I'm used to that. When I was little he used to lock me in a box, so I'm not very fond of small dark spaces, but I can take it all right. Nowadays he's more inclined to use Cruciatus, if he's really annoyed."

"Oh Malfoy, I'm so sorry," she said softly.

"You're sorry for me?"

"I had a few hours. You've had all your life. I know that most people don't do things like that; do you know that, Draco?"

Into her soft brown hair he muttered, "Not to be really sure, no. But I suspected it, once I'd been at school a while. Look, let's not talk about my father. You don't need it and neither do I. Where's your wand? Did he take it?"

"Yes, but he put it up a tree over there." She pointed it out to him and Draco retrieved it and returned it. She sat up and pointed it at the crumpled heap of stained white cotton. "Incendio!" Her blouse burst into white flame and vanished almost instantly.

"Hey, Granger, don't ever get mad with me."

"I'll just slap you round the chops again," she told him.

He laughed softly, remembering. "It was days before I could eat on that side of my mouth. Someone should teach you to punch; with a good right hook you'd be invincible."

"Will you?"

"Nothing doing. As far as I know I'm the last person you hit. If I'm going to be the next as well I'm not going to teach you to do it properly."

She was feeling better. That was wonderful. He hoped when he got her back to school no one would jump to an obvious conclusion and incinerate him before she could explain. Of course, letting it happen might be a good revenge on his father. But it did seem she didn't blame him for Lucius. That was wonderful too.

"Malfoy, can you see your father?"

"He must be nearly to the pitch by now."

"My omnioculars are in one of my robes' pockets."

He fished around and found them, then suggested they move to the edge of the Forest, where the sun was a lot stronger and better able to warm her up. And, he thought without saying so, away from that pretty ferny bank where the ferns probably had blood at their roots.

In the sun she blinked, and he could see fresh tear tracks on her cheeks, but she sat up nearly straight, and gave him back his robes. Thinking about his father again, maybe.

"Hey, Granger, my name's Draco."

"Then you'll have to learn to say 'Hermione'."

"I'm not some aurally challenged Balkan git," he declared. "Hermione. Hermione. See, I can say it. Hey, cuddle up again, all right? I'm cold too. Want me to comb your hair?"

* * * *

Lucius combed his hands through his hair to make sure it was lying neatly round his shoulders as it should, and thought discontentedly that sex was all very well, but otherwise that Mudblood girl had been hard work, and not nearly as satisfying as he had hoped. Breaking someone's spirit without using serious magic was more difficult than some people thought; he would have to remind Verdon of that. Cruciatus was a lot simpler. She had never really surrendered, just waited for him to stop. Maybe she was exceptional. He could hope.

They would need to check out the mirror recording. If Verdon had created the mirror correctly, it should have only her feelings on it, and at that only what her body felt, and the effects on her body of terror; that had been real enough. If it also carried her withdrawal into whatever fastness had protected her, kept her whole, it would be worse than useless. If it had his feelings, other than simple pleasure in sex and tormenting her, he was going to burn it, and threaten Errol Verdon with everlasting fire as well, if he ever said a word.

But if it worked as Verdon said it would -- well, that could be very useful. And he might, if he was bored one evening, play it over again, as he had told her. Once the memory of her purring threats faded, and the look in her eye when she said 'final'.

Lucius decided that even if Slytherin had lost, again, he would not upbraid his son; encouragement might be more productive. He could tell Narcissa he had done that, and she would be very happy. When Narcissa was happy she could be quite demonstrative, and Lucius rather thought that memories of Miss Granger might well lead him, tonight, to wish for some whole-hearted cooperation, or even just real submission, for a change.

* * * *

Draco sat with his arm round Hermione's shoulder, holding her close, watching through her omnioculars his father's steady stroll towards the Quidditch pitch, where he would not find his son. He offered, as he put the omnioculars down, "I could teach you a spell, you know, that would make him quite sorry."

"Avada Kedavra, for example?"

Draco hung his head and admitted, "I don't think I could do that myself. I'm sure you wouldn't be able to, Hermione. I've thought about it before, of course, but he's too strong, and what he'd do to me -- or you, if you tried it -- doesn't bear thinking about." At her soft snort he looked up.

She was still crying a little, though she probably did not realise it, but she said quite strongly, "I'm not going to encourage you to kill your father, Draco, or try to do it myself. It would do too much harm -- to us. No. Though I probably wouldn't object to learning to use Cruciatus, Unforgivable Curse or not, if you think I could learn that."

"You'd have a much better chance with that," he agreed seriously, "but you'd have to make quite sure he didn't know who placed it on him. He'd never rest until he'd killed you, and he would kill you, Hermione."

Hermione sighed a little sadly. "I was joking, Draco. Sort of, any way."

"I'm glad you can joke, but don't you want to punish him?"

Hermione's smile startled him, it was so like the feral expression he sometimes saw on his father's face, and even on his own, if he glimpsed himself in the mirror. "I'm going to punish him, Draco, and he's going to be sorry. Long time sorry, big deal sorry. Do you want to help me, still, even if it doesn't mean using a curse on him?"

"Yes. He shouldn't have done that." Draco was not going to tell her that some part of his anger was because his father had tried to break his toy. Granger was his, his competition, his encouragement, and now his fellow victim, though his father had never done that particular thing to him. Too proud of his Malfoy blood, perhaps, to defile it in his son.

Hermione's smile changed, and she looked at him a little oddly. "You're very angry, Draco," she observed.

He said simply, "Yes." She had stopped crying, now, so he put up a hand and carefully thumbed away the tears on her cheeks and her eyelashes.

"Angry enough to be polite to Harry, and not tease Ron so much?"

He just looked at her, so she went on, "Would you like to be friends, Draco? Friends are good; they help you in bad times, and keep you company when everything's going well. You sometimes even have fun together."

"You couldn't tell it by me and my friends," he admitted, "except sometimes the fun. It would be better if someone besides me could think of things to say and do that would get Potter stirred up. Would I have to give up poking Potter with a stick, Hermione? That would be hard."

The feral smile reappeared briefly. "It doesn't seem to have done him any harm. I would like it, though, if you laid off Ron; he's almost too easy."

"That's true," he agreed. "If I can still have a go at Potter it would help. I think you're going to have to show me about being friends, Hermione. I'm not so struck on being friends with them too, but I know well enough that I can't have you without them. All right." He did not realise that same feral smile touched his lips, as he said, "You're right, Hermione, that will seriously annoy my father. I'd love to be friends!"

Hermione observed it with satisfaction, and returned his hug. Then she put both arms around him, and kissed him lightly, though not briefly, and he was astonished at how stirring it was.

He said warningly, "Unless you want to be raped again, Granger, you'd better be careful about doing that."

"I shouldn't need an Unforgivable Curse to deal with you, Draco Malfoy," she responded, but she leaned her head against his shoulder and said thoughtfully, "Friends help each other to the infirmary."

"Right. But the long way round, unless we want to meet my father."

"Not just him. It might be better if we didn't go too public about being friends, for a while. The Slytherins won't like it, and neither will the Gryffindors, and I don't want all of them making it harder for all of us when we'll probably be working very hard at it already."

"And my father won't find out nearly so soon." Draco observed contentedly, "You're a much better long-term strategist than my father. With you on Potter's side, and me, he might even be able to do something serious about Voldemort, some day soon."

"And make a world fit for heroes to live in," Hermione said dryly, but he just stared at that, so she patted his rumpled hair, then smoothed it down. That felt good. "Just a Muggle thing, don't worry about it, you'll get used to me. Ron never understands those things either."

"And Potter does?"

"A lot of the time."

"What have I let myself in for? Not just being friends with you and the Boy Who Lived, and his weasel sidekick, I'm going to have to study up on Muggles too? "

They began walking slowly back to school, Draco patiently keeping step with Hermione, even when she stopped sometimes to steady her breathing. He kept his arm around his friend, feeling a wonderful sense of freedom and an easy curiosity about whatever came next. He couldn't be bothered to comb his hair.

~~ The End ~~