Vacivitas

Chapter Thirty

I imagine Draco's battle clothes look like the clothes Vessel from Sleep Token wears lol.
Trigger Warnings: some would consider it abuse/abusive behavior.

Chapter Thirty

Hermione steps out of the Floo first, standing there in a stupor as her mind struggles to catch up on the night's events. She faintly feels the tingling of a tergeo on her body, hears Malfoy casting it on himself, and feels the heat of a fire being charmed into the Floo. For some reason, she feels emptier and more exhausted now than she did the night they returned from Charon. She stands in the same spot she stopped in, staring at the floor with a colorless mind.

She feels dirty.

She feels dirty, ashamed, and weak. Having to watch all those girls be used and violated, while she's just come home with a man who'd cut off someone's hand for her in spite of the fact that he said he didn't care about her.

"You cut that man's hand off," she says, her voice almost dreamlike.

"Shoved it down his throat, too," Malfoy says with a slight smirk. "Did it scare you?"

"It..." Hermione frowns. "No. No, it didn't."

"Come here," Malfoy says quietly, and he stands at her side, facing her profile. She feels his fingers against her jaw, turning her face toward his.

Before she can blink, ice covers her mind like a blanket of February snow, infusing cold into her skull. He slips inside, walking the halls of her memories while he gathers up the false ones, removing the trauma little-by-little. He seals the box and sends it deep inside of her, so deep that she can't even remember what the memories made her feel. Though she maintains her feelings of shame and guilt from tonight's events, she at least has reprieve from the nightmares he created.

"Thank you," she says, and then she turns away from him. She takes a few steps away, crossing her arms over her chest. Now that her adrenaline is wearing off, she realizes how chilly it is in the room in spite of the fire. "Well, we've got about a month until the next one. Is it going to be the same as this one?"

"Similar, yeah. Just a little more formal." His voice is muted. "There will be more people there, including more Death Eaters."

"Will the Dark Lord be there?"

"No. He never comes to anything like that."

"He doesn't like to celebrate anything?"

"The Dark Lord likes to bask. He'd rather sit in the spoils of war than show them off."

"Of course he would." She rolls her eyes and paces back and forth across the floor. Her heels click with every step.

"How are you feeling?"

She looks across the large room at him. He's gone to stand in front of the Floo, one hand on the mantle as he watches the flames dancing back and forth. He isn't looking at her but on his face, she can see his exhaustion. A thousand lifetimes, flashing across the angles and planes.

Maybe he doesn't think this is a good life, either.

"I just had an orgasm in front of several people I used to go to school with, with my school bully's hands up my skirt." She spits the words out like a bitter potion. "How do you think I feel?"

"You knew what it would be like," he says without looking away from the fire.

"You're right, I did. I did know. But it doesn't make it any less traumatic. I don't..." She hesitates, unsure if she wants to say what she wants to say next. But she has to, so he can understand. "I don't like sharing those parts of myself with just anyone. I never have. There are things I've done with you that I've never done with anyone else, and for other people to see them feels...Horrendous."