Repopulation Efforts Underway!

"Potter's Mudblood is among the first surrogates chosen by the Dark Lord to increase the magical population."

Hermione read on.

The first phase of the British repopulation efforts have now begun. Eligible half-blood and Mudblood surrogates have been assigned to many of Britain's most eminent wizarding families in the hope of improving the Wizarding population. The assignments have been personally approved by the Dark Lord himself in consultation with Healer Lydia Stroud, who has spent her career specialising in magical genetics and wizarding fertility.

Most notable among the surrogates is Mudblood Hermione Granger, last surviving member of the terrorist cell known as The Order of the Phoenix. The witch has had a reputation from a young age for her romantic associations with famous wizards. This was particularly notable in 1994 with not one but two Tri-Wizard competitors, Harry Potter and Viktor Krum. Now she may have found her way into the bed of her most powerful wizard yet.

Draco Malfoy, most renowned for his assassination of Warlock Albus Dumbledore at the tender age of sixteen, has long been an esteemed Death Eater. The Prophet has confirmed with several sources that surrogate Granger was delivered to Malfoy Manor just over a week ago. Since Lucius Malfoy abdicated his title of Lord to his son following the death of Narcissa Malfoy in 2001, the family line has been without a succeeding heir.

Unfortunately young Lord Malfoy cannot become too attached to the traitor warming his bed. When she has produced three Malfoy heirs, Healer Stroud confirms that surrogate Granger will be transferred on to another pureblood wizarding family in order to further aid in diversifying Britain's magical blood.

If the results from the diversification efforts are as successful as anticipated Healer Stroud hopes that such efforts will begin being rolled out across wizarding Europe within a year..."

So, Malfoy was the one who had killed Dumbledore. Another name on the list of those murdered by the High Reeve.

Lucius was still alive somewhere.

There was no mention of the other women in the breeding program. Hermione's eyes raced across the other columns, gathering up every scrap of information.

The next column listed executions within Britain that had been performed by the High Reeve. There was a picture. Several wretched-looking men and women on their knees upon a platform. Behind them, in black robes and an ornate mask, stood the High Reeve. In the picture, he drew his wand and, with a casual flick, killed the first person. He barely spared the falling body a glance before casting a second curse on the next person. The picture's loop was only a few seconds long, but Malfoy killed three people on the platform before it began again.

Hermione stared. Taking in every detail.

Knowing that it was Malfoy made it obvious that it was Malfoy. The casually elegant posture. The indolent casting. The deadly coldness that seemed to radiate from him.

However, neither the article about the repopulation efforts nor the column regarding the executions made any reference to the fact that Malfoy was the High Reeve. As though the title and its bearer were separate.

The anonymity was surprising. The newspaper didn't even offer any speculation regarding the High Reeve's identity. As though it weren't permitted to print such a thing.

Hermione mulled over that detail.

The High Reeve was Voldemort's right hand, ostensibly his representative. Hermione wondered if the anonymity was in Voldemort's interest or Malfoy's. She suspected it was likely Voldemort's. The Dark Lord had an exceptionally powerful puppet. Even Voldemort himself, when he killed Harry, had not cast the killing curse with such rapidity and lack of effort.

It wouldn't do to allow Malfoy the opportunity to gather his own followers, accumulate personal power, and then try to overthrow his Master. Forcing Malfoy to keep himself anonymous behind his title—only allowing it to be known by Death Eaters and other trusted servants—it was probably a means of controlling Malfoy.

Voldemort was keeping Malfoy quite close.

Perhaps Malfoy had secret ambitions that Voldemort worried about.

It also made Malfoy the perfect trap for Resistance fighters. If anyone tried to save Hermione, they would assume they were simply attacking a pampered, second generation Death Eater. They'd have no idea they were walking into the grasp of the High Reeve, Voldemort's most infamously deadly servant.

Hermione skimmed through the rest of the paper. Northern Europe was still not under Death Eater control. Voldemort was moving aggressively to bring the Scandinavian countries to heel. Apparently the vampires, hags, and other Dark creatures that had been brought to Britain during the war had been moved up into Northern Europe during the last several months.

There was no mention of the insurrection in Romania. No mention of any known members of the Resistance still fighting.

Pius Thicknesse was still Minister of Magic. There was a Tri-Wizard Tournament planned for the upcoming year. Several pages were devoted to international Quidditch matches. Apparently the diversion of sports retained its appeal even under dystopian regime.

The rest of the paper was composed of society pages.

Astoria Malfoy was quite the socialite. She attended every event, bought tables at charities, and donated lavishly to post-war memorials. Malfoy was largely absent from the society pages, only occasionally joining his wife.

Hermione read every word, including the advertisements. Looking for any hints. Any subtext. Anything that might be unspoken but implied.

If such things were included in the news, Hermione was too ignorant of current events to detect them.

Finally she refolded the newspaper carefully with her stiff fingers and returned it to the place it had been abandoned on the veranda.

She massaged her freezing hands as she hurriedly made her way up through the manor.

She was, surprisingly, not having a panic attack by wandering back by herself. Perhaps it was only because she was so distracted by the cold. She crossed her fingers and hoped.

The route back to her rooms was simple. The moment she returned, she rushed into the bathroom and turned on the cold water. She let it run over her numb hands until feeling gradually seeped back into them and the water stopped feeling hot. Then she turned on the taps of the bathtub and drew a warm bath.

She sank into the water with a sigh, relishing the relief from the cold ache throughout her freezing body. She rubbed her feet and ankles until the last bits of grime disappeared from them.

After living in a cell for so long, she was never going to take being clean for granted again. She didn't know if she'd ever get over the newfound thrill of sinking up to her neck into a large quantity of water. It was the one and only high-point of her existence currently.

The same could not be said for the food. Which, although clearly expensive in its ingredients, was intended to be solely nutritional. She didn't know much about pre-pregnancy diets, but she didn't see why she was only allowed to eat unsauced, unsalted, and over-cooked vegetables, rye bread with unsalted butter, and boiled meat and poached eggs (also without salt.) She would kill for a bag of crisps.

As she sat in the water, slowly warming up, she considered the revelation of the day.

Her "surrogacy" under the careful watch of Malfoy was being used as bait.

The taunting, luring language of the front page article was enraging. A precisely balanced tone, seeking to simultaneously dehumanise Hermione in order to prevent pity from the general public while endeavoring to stoke outrage among any sympathisers.

Hermione wondered what sorts of safety measures had been put in place to catch would-be rescuers. Were there other Death Eaters stationed in Malfoy Manor? Or was the High Reeve presumed to be capable enough to personally handle all comers?

If it were the former, Hermione would have to keep watch and try to discover them. They would be an added complexity for her escape—unless she could somehow evoke their sympathy. Or perhaps try tricking one of them into killing her if it came down to it. A highly ambitious and dubious scheme, given that Malfoy would probably find the idea in her mind long before she had any chance of enacting it.

If it were just Malfoy, well, that would be a worrying indication of Voldemort's confidence in Malfoy's abilities.

Just how dangerous was Malfoy?

Hermione rested her head on her knees and tried to remember more clearly the circumstances of Dumbledore's death over eight years before. The details felt—foggy.

She scrunched her eyes shut and struggled to recall it.

It had happened less than a month into sixth year. The wards had gone off in the halls when a Killing Curse was used. The castle had been filled with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and screaming, stampeding students. When the darkness finally faded, there were dozens of injured, panicked students and Dumbledore's dead body. It had been trampled in the chaos.

First year Hufflepuff and Slytherin students had just re-entered the castle from a Herbology class. They were the only ones who had seen anything. The statements were contradictory.

Dumbledore had passed by. There was an older student in the hallway. Maybe two. Male. A Ravenclaw. A Slytherin. A Gryffindor. A Hufflepuff. Cormac McLaggen. Adrian Pucey. Colin Creevey. Ernie Macmillan. Draco Malfoy. Zacharias Smith. Anthony Goldstein.

The first years didn't recognize many upperclassmen after only three weeks into the term. The general consensus was that it had been someone blond.

They heard a curse. Then darkness. A few said it happened in reverse: the darkness then the curse. Everyone was screaming and running. No one could see anything. All the wards had been shrieking.

When the darkness faded, the professors assembled everyone in the Great Hall. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement arrived to interview the students and examine the body.

The autopsy concluded the cause of death was a Killing Curse to the back. No other recent magic detected.

There had been something else—something about Dumbledore's hand—

Hermione tried desperately to remember. It felt like it had been an important detail. The memory danced out of reach.

All the older students named by the first years were interviewed and cleared of suspicion. All but Draco Malfoy. He was absent. The castle and grounds were searched. He was gone.

Aurors were dispatched to Malfoy Manor and found it impenetrable. He was presumed guilty. Whether he'd personally cast the curse, had help, and why he'd done it had been unanswered questions.

The Order had assumed it had been an attempt to redeem the Malfoy Family after Lucius' failure and imprisonment following the battle in the Department of Mysteries.

Hermione couldn't remember it ever being confirmed that Malfoy had killed Dumbledore. After Death Eaters seized control of the Ministry of Magic six months later, it had been difficult to get good information. The Daily Prophet immediately became a full-fledged propaganda machine.

Had it been confirmed? She didn't remember.

Hermione's inability to recall it was meaningless. She couldn't even tell where the gaps in her memory were. Until a question was put to her, she didn't even realise what was missing.

When she tried sorting through her memories magically, it was like crawling through tar. Exhausting. Almost futile. If she poured more than the barest strand of magic into attempting it, the manacles activated and sucked everything away.

The clearest sense she had of where the lost memories were located was from Voldemort, Snape, and Malfoy's various efforts to break into them.

The pain, shock, and trauma had blurred the details. It seemed as though there were few lost memories scattered throughout the war but the majority were concentrated in the last year, right up to her imprisonment.

The gaps in her knowledge tore at something inside Hermione. She was desperate to know what was missing but terrified of recovering the information. It made her feel as though she were walking through a minefield. She had no idea what the missteps might be.

Trying to accept the loss of information—of understanding—was like a sensation of bitter poison inside her.

Why had they lost the war?

Couldn't she at least remember that?

It was as though she and Malfoy were playing a game of chess, but only he could see the board.

She was desperate for any scrap of knowledge.

As soon as she knew so would her enemies. Her ignorance was simultaneously a shield and a weapon. It was buying her time to escape, but it might come down upon her at any moment.

For some reason, she was almost certain it would bring her end with it.

It felt like the sword of Damocles above her head.

Her fingertips were shriveled from the water when she finally climbed out of the bath. She felt drained. She climbed into the bed and hugged a pillow to herself.

Her mind ran on and on, full of questions she had no answers to.

The next day, Malfoy appeared again immediately after lunch.

Hermione's heart sank, but she pulled on her cloak and followed him docilely. Just walking behind him made her heart pound. She wondered if he could feel it through whatever it was he had that monitored her.

When they arrived at the veranda, Malfoy immediately conjured a chair and seated himself, flicking open a newspaper. The front page story was about a new monument in honor of Voldemort. It had been unveiled in Diagon Alley. Hermione stood awkwardly beside the doorway, wondering where to go.

She glanced over at Malfoy and started to open her mouth to ask a question, but it was like her body swallowed it before she could force the words out.

Quiet .

She couldn't initiate conversation.

She stared out bitterly at the hedge maze. She supposed she would just go and wander about aimlessly.

She started walking away but as she did so, a faint sense of discomfort crept over her. She looked up, and took in the open, grey sky...

Her heart seemed to abruptly stall.

It was as though all the oxygen and sound that existed were abruptly sucked away, and there was simply a void of vast endlessness before her.

There was no air.

She felt like she were suffocating. Her heart started pounding. Beating faster and faster. She could hear it.

She could see the steps. The gravel. The hedges.

It felt like...

Nothing.

As though the universe ended at her toes.

If she stepped forward another inch, she'd fall into it.

She froze. She tried to move but just trembled and couldn't. She bit her lip. Trying to breathe. Trying to force herself to walk forward.

It was so—open.

She shut her eyes.

It was just in her head. It was just in her head.

She fought to breathe. Dragging in a series of sharp, gasping breaths as she struggled to think.

She'd been alright yesterday. She'd been so horrified and angry. She'd run several miles. But now—

She couldn't—

It was all so much.

She didn't remember the world feeling so wide before. The sky was so...high. The paths just went on and on. She didn't know where they ended.

Her hands started shaking and twitching as she thought about it. She was going to be sick.

She wanted to go back to her room.

She wanted to press herself into a corner and feel walls against her.

She stared down at her feet and felt tears pricking the corners of her eyes. Panic was rising up through her like a tide. Her heart kept going faster and faster. It felt like a fluttering bird caged inside her chest, beating itself to death as it tried to escape.

Hermione pressed her hands over her mouth and tried to keep from hyperventilating.

A sharp sound abruptly caught her attention, and she looked over to find Malfoy was gripping his newspaper so tightly his knuckles were white. His hands were shaking faintly.

She gasped and stumbled away.

"Sorry—sorry—," she stammered in terror. "I'm going—"

She only made it a few feet before her legs refused to carry her further.

She was afraid of being near Malfoy, but even he didn't supercede the terror that swallowed her as she tried to walk forward. Her lungs felt like all the air had been pressed out of them. She opened her mouth and tried to gasp for breath. It wouldn't go in.

The terror was sinking into her as though a creature had slid its claws into her back. Dragging them down her spine. Tearing her open. Exposing all the muscles and nerves and bones to the cold winter air, and she was dying.

She couldn't breathe.

The world felt like it was tilting sideways.

There were needles sinking into her hands and arms.

All she could see was the open—

She couldn't stop shaking. Couldn't stop panicking. She couldn't go—

It was so open. A void. Nothing. Nothing. Forever. She was all alone in it.

Not even walls. Nothing.

She could scream forever. No sound.

No one would come.

There was darkness eating up the sky.

Then there'd be nothing.

No one would come.

She couldn't—

"Stop," was suddenly growled from behind her.

Reality crashed down on her like a flood. She started and looked back. Malfoy was pale-faced, and his eyes were flashing as he stared at her.

"You're required to be outside. You are not required to go traipsing off. Do not give yourself a mental breakdown that compromises my access to your memories."

His face twisted slightly as he kept looking at her. Drawing his wand, he conjured another chair.

"Sit. And calm down," he commanded in an icy tone.

Hermione dragged in a deep breath and let her feet carry her over. Trying not to dwell on the flood of relief that came over her. She seated herself and stared down at her hands as she worked to regain control of her breathing.

She was in a chair. She was in a chair next to Malfoy. She was not in a void. There wasn't a void. There was marble under her feet. She didn't have to go anywhere. She was in a chair.

She inhaled slowly. To a count of four.

Exhale, through her mouth. To a count of six.

In and out.

Again and again.

She was in a chair. She didn't have to go anywhere.

Her heart slowly stopped pounding, but her whole chest hurt.

Once her chest's stuttering eased, she tried to force her fingers to stop twitching. They wouldn't, so she sat on them.

As her mind fully cleared from her panic, a lash of bitter despair struck her.

She was broken.

She was.

There was no point in trying to deny it.

Mentally, something inside of her had fractured during her imprisonment, and she didn't know how to fix it. She couldn't reason her way through it. It swallowed her from the inside.

She stared down at her lap. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, down her cheeks, and along her lips before falling. The sharp cut of the wind made them feel like ice on her skin. She smeared them away and drew her cloak around herself more tightly. Pulling up the hood.

The cloak was almost smothering her with the warmth it provided, but Hermione still felt cold with horror as she sat silently on the veranda. Trying to think.

She'd been alright. Yesterday. She'd been alright. Why? Why hadn't it bothered her then?

Some kind of agoraphobia. It must be. Somehow, in the cell without light or sound or time, she'd latched onto the security of the walls. The containment had become the only constant in her life. So now, whenever she was free of the urgent horror of her current situation; whenever she had time to think...

The sense of openness created a fear that swallowed her.

Outdoors was far worse than the hallway upstairs.

Maybe she'd just been unprepared. Maybe now that she knew, she'd be able to push through the panic. If she gave herself manageable goals: Walk down the steps. Walk across the gravel. Walk to the hedge.

If she paced herself.

She certainly wasn't going to be getting lost in the hedge maze anytime soon.

Her stomach twisted. Her timeline for escape kept getting longer. She hadn't even had a chance to investigate options for getting away. The longer she took—

She might get pregnant.

She might already be pregnant. If she weren't, every additional month being ordered over that table increased the odds that she would be.

She wanted to cry.

She glanced over at Malfoy who was studying Quidditch scores avidly.

What useful information was she supposed to learn about him? All he did was seethe and read and then go away and murder people.

She was never going to escape. She was probably going to die on the estate.

She studied him in despair.

He was just cold. Angry.

Icy rage seemed to hang over him. She could feel the Dark Magic twisting around his edges.

Who did he hate so much? Was he like Lucius, blaming the Order for Narcissa's death? Were all those Killing Curses revenge? Was that what fueled his rise?

Everything about him had changed. There didn't appear to be even a shred of the boy she had known so many years before.

He had grown, taller and broader. The haughtiness of his school days had faded, replaced by a palpable sense of power. Deadly assurance.

His face had lost every trace of boyishness. It was cruelly beautiful. His sharp aristocratic features set in a hard unyielding expression. His grey eyes were like knives. His hair still that pale, white blond, combed carelessly aside.

He looked, every inch of him, like an indolent English Lord. Except for the almost inhuman coldness. If an assassin's blade were made into a man, it would take the form of Draco Malfoy.

She stared at him. Taking him in.

Beautiful and damned. A fallen angel.

Or perhaps, the Angel of Death.

While she was studying him, he closed the newspaper crisply and looked over at her. She met his eyes for a moment before glancing away.

"What is wrong with you?" he asked after staring at her several seconds.

She flushed faintly and didn't answer.

"If you won't tell me, I will just pull the answer from your mind," he said.

Hermione struggled not to flinch at the threat. She stared steadily at the hedge.

"I—I think it's called agoraphobia," she said after taking several deep breaths. "Something about—about open spaces makes me panic."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It's not like it's rational," she said bitterly as she inspected the stitching of her cloak. The uniform needlework was something orderly to stare at. Something predictable. Something that made sense. Something unlike her irrational mind.

"You have a theory, I'm sure," he said with a challenging tone. As though he were daring her to refuse to tell him, so he could just force his way into her thoughts and drag the conclusion out for himself.

She felt tempted to lie, but it would be pointless. He would, undoubtedly, be in her mind again before she escaped. If she didn't tell him now, he'd still know by tomorrow. Or the next day. Or whenever he decided to investigate her thoughts again.

"It's probably from being in that cell for so long," she said after a minute. "There was nothing—It was like a void. Everyone was dead. No one was going to come for me. I was just there, and I didn't even know how long it had been. The walls—were the only real thing. I guess—I came to rely on them. So now—when I try to walk somewhere, and I don't—I don't know where it goes... I don't know. I can't—it feels like—," she struggled to explain the terror. "It's like—I'm abandoned all over again. That everyone is dead, and I'm just alone—And I can handle it when my world feels small—but when I remember how big it is—I can't. I can't—"

She choked, and her voice trailed off. She didn't know how to describe it. Words failed to capture all the irrational complexity. She stared away, at a loss.

Malfoy's expression seemed to grow harder while she was talking.

"And yesterday?" he asked after a displeased pause.

"I don't know. I suppose my horror exceeded my fear."

He was silent for a moment before he snorted faintly and leaned back in his chair, studying her.

"I have to admit, when I heard it was you I would be getting, I was looking forward to being the one to finally break you," he said and leaned toward her slightly with a hard smile. "But I doubt that it's even possible to exceed what you've done to yourself. It's quite disappointing."

"I'm sure you'll still try," she said looking him in the eye. She knew that her despair was written across her face, but there was no point in trying to hide it.

His silver eyes glinted when he saw it.