Iniquitous

Chapter Seventeen

Hera spent the first two days after that night in a state of constant vigilance, shrinking every time Lord Voldemort came close, while regarding him with a slightly spooked expression. She couldn't decide what to expect: might he punish her for the bold infraction at Hogsmeade or might he repeat the shocking kiss?

It had been a shocking kiss; it had shaken her, and now she could not stop thinking about what had happened, could not stop picturing the kiss, could not stop re-creating the pressure of his mouth on hers, puzzling as to what it meant if anything.

She caught herself doing this multiple times a day, and it had reached the point where others had started catching her at it too. Narcissa Malfoy, who had become more civil to Hera had last week ordered tea brought to her because she thought she was looking peaky. Yesterday, Thicknesse, who when present at meetings always made it a point to ask Hera if she was all right, had asked her the same question five times in as many hours.

The only person who was apparently oblivious to Hera's new muddled, highly distracted state of mind was the one person now constantly on her mind.

At the beginning, she'd been agitated by the anticipation of punishment and too much on tenterhooks to even entertain the idea of confronting him about the kiss. By the time she had resolved to do so, over a week had passed, a week where not only had he of course not kissed her again, but as if wanting to compensate for the very public very intimate act by growing cold and distant, barely even looked her way anymore.

It didn't help that they were almost always surrounded by people. Every day saw new ambassadors from foreign governments. They communicated through translation charms, Lord Voldemort preferring for some reason to converse in their visitors' native tongues. Hera, who never got the privilege of a translation charm and was consequently unable to understand a word said, prodigiously read her assigned materials in the corner, ignoring and ignored. They even made use of mealtimes to hold more boring meetings.

And when he wasn't having diplomatic discussions, Death Eaters were stopping by to give their secretive reports. From them she could glean some news. For example, she knew that sections of the newly named Palace of Magic is Eternal were almost ready for use, that the Lestranges had been sent to France, and that the International Confederation of Wizards was refusing to recognise Lord Voldemort's government.

That morning, Nott and a very old witch everybody called Mrs. Lee were floating the idea of using part of the palace as a school while Hogwarts was out of commission, and she'd also gathered from their conversation that they had been tasked with revising the national education system.

She heard these things in dribs and drabs because she was not invited to attend their individual meetings with Lord Voldemort where he would personally interrogate them and give them new instructions. Sometimes he would leave her in the company of others, at other times he would himself send her to sleep. If he did the latter, then she would be treated to the irresistible sensation of sleep rushing from his fingers as they pressed against her skin.

But all the other things he used to do, all those overbearing acts of ownership like when he would summon her to sit next to him in public, or order her food, or quiz her in Parseltongue on the many books and topics he gave her to study, and all those possessive little touches like when he would skim his fingers over her hair in passing, or rub her wrist with those soothing circles of his thumb as he talked to her- all those had been abruptly discontinued.

So, Hera, who had previously been discomfited by Voldemort's overly physical attention now found herself bereft of it and very concerned about the changes. His withdrawal, she knew, only ever meant bad things ahead- after all they were historically followed by fury and swift punishment; but he had never withdrawn for this long, and if he were furious, she thought he would surely have punished her by now.