Hermione explored the room she had been placed in. There was little to it that hadn't immediately met the eye.

The wardrobe was filled with more of the same scarlet dresses and robes that she was currently wearing. They were in various weights, presumably for summer and winter weather. The drawers held more bonnets and woolen stockings. More flimsy red shoes.

Hermione pulled a pair out of the drawer and stared at them. The soles were thin, and they were fabric; they would wear through rapidly. If she wanted to run, she'd have to steal new clothes and shoes.

The portrait on the wall was of a young witch. Pretty and blonde. Undoubtedly one of Malfoy's ancestors. She had the same sharp features and disdainful expression. The witch couldn't have been more than just graduated from Hogwarts when she was painted. She stared indifferently at Hermione, seated casually in a high backed chair, a book beside her.

Eventually Hermione turned away and surveyed the rest of the room. There was a door designed to blend into the wall across the room. She went over and opened it.

A bathroom, primarily occupied by a large claw-foot tub. No shower. Nothing but the most essential objects were provided: soap, towels, a toothbrush, a small cup for water.

Hermione walked over and washed her hands. As she withdrew them, she pretended to accidentally knock the cup off the counter. It hit the ground with a loud, sharp sound but failed to break or even crack.

There was a protection charm on it.

Malfoy was thorough.

She picked it up and rinsed it before replacing it. As she turned, she found that there was a portrait in the bathroom as well. The same young witch stood studying Hermione with a knowing look.

Hermione feigned innocence and walked back into the bedroom.

Within an hour, there was nothing left to possibly inspect in her room. Not that Hermione expected she could find anything or get into much trouble with the piercing supervision of the portrait on the wall. The witch had been apparently ordered to watch Hermione like a hawk.

Hermione went to the door of the bedroom, and, after a moment's hesitation, she turned the knob and walked into the hallway.

Her heart immediately began pounding.

The sense of terror and freedom that she experienced by merely walking into another room by herself was staggering. As she pulled the door shut behind herself, she leaned against the door and tried to take a slow breath.

Her fingers twitched around the doorknob as she glanced around and tried to compose herself.

The long hallway that vanished into darkness felt so—open.

She swallowed nervously. She had assumed some effects of her long imprisonment would continue to haunt her. Actually experiencing it was more than unsettling. It was horrifying.

Her attempts to breathe and calm down were failing. Her chest stuttered in tiny, rapid inhalations.

The only sound in the cold, dark wing of the manor.

She bit her lip. Her mind—she had always been able to trust her mind. Even her locked memories felt like a defense mechanism. Finding herself panicking and hyperventilating because she had walked into a hallway of her own volition—

This was a betrayal.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe evenly. Tried to pull her hand free from the doorknob she was clutching desperately, as though she would drown if she let go of it.

Her ability to reason and tell herself she was alright was insufficient persuasion to her mind and body.

She tried to make herself take a step away from the door, but her legs refused to cooperate.

The terror coursing through her body had her frozen.

It was a hallway. Just a hallway, she told herself. She was allowed to be there. There were no commands holding her back—

There were no commands holding her back...

...just herself.

After standing there for several minutes, trying and failing to force herself to move, she abruptly sobbed and huddled closer to the door.

She couldn't remember the last time she had cried. Long ago in her cell.

As she stood there shaking and hyperventilating in the hallway of that empty wing of the manor, she cried. Over everyone who was dead now. For everyone Malfoy had killed. For all the girls back at Hogwarts being sent out into a world of horror. Out of rage over the manacles locked around her wrists, and the manacles she found she had somehow locked around her own mind.

She went back into her room, closed the door, sank onto the floor and kept crying.

It took her a full day before she could force herself into the hallway again.

She was determined to make herself overcome the panic. The next morning, she opened the door wide, crouched on the bed, and made herself stare at the hallway until her heart stopped pounding painfully in her chest from the mere sight.

She would lose all chance of escape if she couldn't even walk out of her room without having a mental breakdown.

She sat in bed and ate the breakfast that appeared while she contemplated the problem.

It had manifested when she was alone. She wasn't sure if it was because the manacles' compulsion to be obedient had previously distracted her from it or if it were an insidious form of mental trauma; that being imprisoned for so long had damaged her to the point that being controlled by others was the only way she knew how to function now.

She hoped it was simply the manacles, but she feared it was the latter. Imprisonment had eaten away at her psyche in ways she felt afraid of fully realising.

She steeled herself. She was determined to overcome it. Whatever it took.

When her dinner appeared that evening, she made herself eat it while sitting by the open door. Her hands shook so much she dropped half the food from the fork. By the time she finished eating, the trembling in them had eased enough that she could drink water without spilling it down her front.

She stared down the hallway. She stared at all the shrouded furniture and the many portraits of cold faced, pale, aristocrats.

She tried to remember what she knew of Malfoy.

How had he managed to climb so high in Voldemort's ranks at such a young age?

He—had been involved in Dumbledore's death at the beginning of sixth year. The circumstances of that had never been entirely clear. She remembered being awakened abruptly by the castle's screaming wards during the aftermath. Minerva McGonagall and the rest of the professors had been pale with shock and horror as they frantically tried to discover what had happened. Malfoy vanished in the chaos.

It was the first and last major event of the war that Hermione associated specifically with Malfoy. After that he disappeared into Voldemort's ranks. Another faceless Death Eater.

His mother had died several years into the war. Hermione remembered hearing about Narcissa Malfoy's death in Lestrange Manor. It had happened during a rescue mission. Harry and Ron had been caught by Snatchers. When the Order went to rescue them, a Death Eater lost control of a fiendfyre curse and burned down the manor with Narcissa and Bellatrix inside it.

Narcissa's death had driven Lucius Malfoy insane. He had slid easily into Bellatrix's vacated shoes of madness. He'd placed the blame for Narcissa's death squarely on Ron and Harry and devoted himself to avenging her by hunting down the Weasleys. Arthur Weasley's brain damage and the near death of George during the war had both been caused by Lucius. He became a loose cannon within Voldemort's ranks. He'd been too useful and deadly for his insubordination to get him killed, but he'd constantly danced on the line.

It had occurred to Hermione that Lucius might be the High Reeve, given how vicious, hate-filled, and quick to murder he was. Since he wasn't, Hermione wondered if he was still alive. Perhaps following the war he had finally overstepped and gotten himself killed. Hermione hoped so. The way Lucius had laughed while Ron died screaming in agony—Hermione would never banish the memory.

But Malfoy...

She didn't think he'd been treated as particularly important or considered a significant Death Eater during the Order meetings she recalled. Whatever he'd done to claw his way to the very top must have occurred toward the end of the war. Perhaps he had been involved with whatever caused the Order's plans during the final battle to fall apart.

Because she'd been a healer, Hermione hadn't been there for the entire battle. Something in their strategy had gone wrong. There had been far more Death Eaters than the Order had anticipated. Voldemort had cast a killing curse and Harry had fallen. Then he had commanded Lucius to confirm Harry was dead.

Harry hadn't been dead.

So Voldemort cast another killing curse, and another, and another, and another. After half a dozen killing curses, Voldemort had gone and confirmed for himself that Harry was dead. For insurance, he had Harry's body dragged up into the air and hung from the Astronomy Tower. Everyone watched as Voldemort cursed Harry's body with a fast acting necrosis curse and the entire thing rotted away before their eyes.

Harry's blank green eyes—Hermione saw them every time she closed her own. The expression on his face; the realisation he had failed had been written into it in death.

Hermione shook as she thought about it.

Her best friends had died before her eyes. By some extra cruel twist of fate she hadn't been allowed to follow them.

They had left her behind.

She squared her shoulders and forced herself to step into the hallway. She had faced all manner of horror. She wasn't going to be defeated by her own fractured psyche and a hallway.

One step.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Her breathing grew fainter, and she clenched her hands into fists until she could feel her nails sinking into the skin.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She froze and looked down. One of her hands was dripping blood into a trail on the floor.

It was the same shade as her dress.

She stared down at it until a puddle the size of a knut gradually collected by her feet.

Then she continued down the hall. She counted the dripping sounds instead of her footsteps until she reached the end.

She had no destination in mind, so she turned around and started back, trying the knobs of doors along the way. Some were locked. Others weren't. She peeked into more empty bedrooms filled with shrouded furniture. She would return and explore them all carefully later. Perhaps something that might prove useful would be found in them.

She was shaking as she re-entered her room. Feeling drained, she immediately crawled into bed.

As she fell asleep, she dreamed of Ginny.

Ginny—from near the end of the war, with hair cut above her shoulders and a long cruel scar down one side of her face. She was huddled next to a bed and looked up sharply at Hermione as though startled.

Ginny's expression was twisted in anguish, covered in tears. She was sobbing uncontrollably.

"Ginny," Hermione heard herself say. "Ginny, what's wrong? What happened?"

As Ginny opened her mouth to answer, the dream faded away.

When Hermione woke the next morning, she knew she must have been dreaming. What had she been dreaming about? She couldn't remember. Something—something sad. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and tried to remember it.

She couldn't bring herself to go near the door that day. She huddled by the window and looked out at the misty gardens that lay outside. There was a hedge maze to one side. She traced her way through it with her eyes.

She studied all the grounds of the estate that she could see. Trying to take note of anything that could be useful. Where would she go if she were trying to hide? If she were trying to escape?

The day passed slowly.

Having a sense of time once again was vaguely unsettling. The steady ticking of the clock constantly caught her attention. A continuous grating sound. If she let herself listen to it for long, it made her fingers begin to spasm with each click of the gears.

She found that her mind had a tendency toward wandering and losing itself. She would interrupt herself from some odd thought and realise hours had passed.

As the day drew to a close, she stared at the door.

She should make herself go out again. She hadn't even seen Malfoy since she'd arrived. She had intended to try to watch him. Study him. Arm herself with some kind of understanding of him.

All those plans had faded away during the last two days.

She stood up and moved slowly towards the door. As she was wrapping her fingers around the knob, there was a sudden pop behind her. Starting, she turned sharply and found a house-elf standing behind her.

"You is to get ready for tonight, mistress is sayin," the elf said, averting its eyes and then popping away.

Hermione felt as though her heart were in her throat. Her hands started trembling.

She considered for a moment not readying herself.

Undoubtedly, if she did, Malfoy would appear and force her to. Who knew what else he might do to her if she provoked him. The compulsions in her mind stirred...

Obedient.

Not to resist.

Her brain automatically began cataloguing the things she had been instructed to do.

She wasn't sure if the compulsion made her rationalise obeying or if obeying actually was the rational choice.

She went into the bathroom and turned on the tap in the bath. The scalding water poured out and she watched the tub slowly fill.

She wondered if she could somehow drown herself before Malfoy could get there. As Lord of the manor, he could probably apparate anywhere. She shuddered at the thought of having him drag her, naked, out of the water by her hair.

She pulled off her robes and sank into the water, hissing but relishing the pain. She hardly felt anything nowadays. Apparently the manacles didn't restrict her from heat.

That was a useful piece of information to file away.

After she had washed, she dried herself with a lavish, oversized bath towel. Then she pulled on a fresh set of robes. The long, scarlet, buttoned dress, and then the open scarlet robe. Then she pulled on the stockings. She hated them so much. If it weren't freezing inside the manor, she would never have worn them. Aside from the dreadful red colour, she could almost pretend the robes were just clothing, but the horrid, crotchless-ness left her feeling constantly exposed.

She would only get knickers if she was bleeding or pregnant. Otherwise, she was to remain—accessible.

When she was dressed, she stood uncertainly in the middle of her room. She wasn't sure where she was supposed to go. What she was supposed to do.

The door abruptly swung open, and Astoria appeared, looking white as a sheet.

"Good, you're ready. I was afraid I'd have to send Draco to drag you," Astoria said as she glanced up and down Hermione with a critical expression. "I'll show you where to go tonight. After this, I shall be elsewhere. I'll expect you to prepare and go there every designated night without issue. I was realising... you really don't need all the body parts you have just in order to reproduce. So if you're thinking of causing problems—keep that in mind."

A chill ran down Hermione's spine, and she nodded.

Astoria swept from the room, leading Hermione through the house, out into the foyer, and then up the large staircase and down a second floor hallway. The portraits muttered as they passed.

"Whore."

Hermione heard it murmured more than once.

Astoria stopped at the seventh door.

"Go in and wait. Draco will come when he chooses, but you're to be in there at eight o'clock sharp."

Without pausing further, Astoria continued down the hallway and disappeared into the darkness.

Hermione's hands were trembling as she grasped the door knob and tried to open it. It wouldn't turn at first, and she had to take several deep breaths to calm herself and make her hands stop shaking enough to grasp and turn it.

Stepping into the room, she took in every detail she could.

It felt sterile.

She had assumed her room was bare and cold out of indifference, but perhaps it was simply the way Malfoy was. There was a large bed, towering wardrobe, a desk and a chair.

Hermione would have imagined Malfoy as having a more luxurious room. All green and silver with expensive sheets and throw pillows covered with too many tassels.

The room before her could have belonged to a monk.

It was functional. That was really all that could be said about it. No wonder Malfoy was so cold.

She shied away from the bed and went over to the chair by the desk. Sitting down, she looked over the contents of the desk's surface. Blank parchment and quills. She held her hand out hesitantly toward the quills, wondering if she was able to touch them.

As her fingers got close, she felt a faint burning sensation and pulled her hand back.

Her stomach was twisting itself with dread, and she tried to distract herself by reciting arithmancy formulas while she sat there.

She was used to waiting endlessly. What was an hour after sixteen months of sensory deprivation? She just needed to stop thinking about what was about to happen next. Her stomach felt so twisted she thought she might be sick.

Suddenly, the door clicked. She stood and turned sharply in time to see Malfoy stride in. His hand was up at his throat, pulling his collar loose. He clearly had not expected to find her there. He stopped abruptly and stared at her, actually seeming to pale slightly before pressing his lips together into a hard line.

"Mudblood," he said, after a moment. "Today is the day, I see."