Hermione shrugged. "Done. So can we just get this over with? My friends are going to be wondering where I am if 10:30 rolls around and I'm not back. I'm guessing from the manner in which Draco is preparing the ingredients that it's not a 'Just Add Water!' kind of potion."
Snape didn't answer, as he was reading a passage from one of the ancient books she had glimpsed in his office. Draco finished stirring whatever he was stirring and brought it over to Hermione, letting it steam underneath her nose so that she inhaled a good whiff of it. He proceeded to lift her right hand and fit the warm beaker into it, his gaze never leaving hers.
Malfoy sure is acting awfully solemn about this whole affair, she thought.
Hermione lifted the glass container to her nose and drew it past her swiftly, not fast enough to spill it but quickly enough to avoid the damaging effects of any noxious fumes. Its lime green consistency belied the strange, bitter aroma that coasted past her nostrils. Smells like Mandrake root...curious.
Malfoy replied on cue, as if he were reading her thoughts. "Believe me, Granger, if I was trying to poison you, I could have succeeded long before this. The scent you smell is piper methysticum, commonly known as 'kava kava.' It's a popular calming agent among Pacific Island tribes. It should taste slightly like Mandrake root, but it hardly has the same effects."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. Snape whipped around. "And exactly when did I say to add that?" he snapped harshly.
Draco shrugged. "I know what I'm doing. It doesn't have any catalytic effects on the potion. I read the spell too, Professor."
Hermione had the distinct impression that Snape was trying to hide his anger at being momentarily one-upped by a man he thought inferior to even Granger, and simultaneously deny the fact that it proved both of the students to be talented. Her classmate was clearly brighter than he let on. So why the hell is he baiting Severus so much? If I were his lover...
She didn't even try to finish that thought.
"Come on, Granger," Malfoy growled. "I didn't prepare this for you to stare at it." He issued a snort at her skepticism and strolled back over to his worktable.
Hermione walked over to Snape, still holding the unconsumed liquid in her hand. "Shouldn't you take a drop of my blood first, before it's contaminated by the potion?" She held out her left wrist, palm upturned.
I hate seeing my own blood, she thought with disgust. But this has to be done. Snape reached for a clean, ceremonial knife that was lying next to the book, and she realized she couldn't watch. Hermione closed her eyes, waiting for the sting of the blade, whipping across her skin to produce the dark red substance that sustained her. Waiting for the pain.
It never came.
Cautiously peeking one eye open, Hermione looked for the silver sheen of the blade. It wasn't anywhere in sight. She opened both her eyes and stared at Snape in surprise. He was wrapping the knife in a velvet covering, and began whispering words in the arcane tongue of the time before Middle English, that of the Wyrds and the Norse Druids, his voice resounding in the chamber like bells buried in stone.
That was when she saw it. The faded page, undoubtedly centuries older than Dumbledore himself, stained by lifetimes of use. But the words remained the same.
Hermione read snatches of the text in familiar medieval calligraphy, her eyes widening in horror. She had heard of this spell's existence. Once...
ipsa vellet te rogare...si deceret virginem...congreges inter catervas ire per saltus tuos, floreas inter coronas, myrteas inter casas...nec Ceres, nec Bacchus absunt...detinenda tota nox est pervigilanda canticis...moxque Marti de sacello dat pudicam virginem... rura fecundat voluptas, rura Venerem sentiunt...1
And she knew. Witnessed it in the gleeful condescension of Draco's silent mirth as he leaned against one of the laboratory tables. Guessed it from the lack of any charm preparation and the strange tongues in which Snape spoke instead. Noticed it in the way a task that was a nuisance to both Slytherins took so long, from the secret smug looks the two men shared between them.
They had never intended to perform Fidelius.
She set the beaker down.
Severus realized that Hermione had read the book over his shoulder in the same second that she bolted for the door.
He grabbed her arm with one hand, waving the oaken entrance shut with the other using wandless magic. It slammed shut, and halfway across the room, the breeze generated blew papers off Severus' desk out of sheer force.
Hermione, frightened beyond all belief and bound by a state of perpetual indignation—How dare they?, she thought—twisted and yanked downwards with all her might. The unprepared Potions master lost his grip, and in the process, his balance as well. He toppled over a lab chair as Draco whirled around to see what the commotion was.
There was no time to think, no time to stop and weigh the consequences of her actions. There was only action and reaction. Reflex. Unbridled instincts, the need to escape before something extremely bad happened.
And she wasn't about to wait and find out what that was.
"Petrificus Totalus." The words were out of her mouth before she even knew she had uttered them. The look of shock and murderous rage on Snape's face was plastered in time as his muscles stiffened from her curse.
Yup, that's definitely worthy of expulsion, Hermione thought absently as she shoved Draco out of the way and scrambled for the nearest exit.
The knob handle turned in her grasp, but the door held fast. Hermione spun, darting towards the office entrance...
"Imperio!"
She ought to have known better.
Before Hermione had a chance to swear at herself for her stupidity, she felt the state of panic and fear melt away in cool, lingering waves that flowed off her skin. She lowered her wand arm.
Feels peaceful, doesn't it? She heard a mocking voice inside her head remark. Now turn around...
Hermione complied, measuring her steps in obedience until she faced her attacker.
Malfoy stared disconsolately at her, his wand leveled at her heart. Somewhere in the back of her mind Hermione noticed that his hands were trembling ever so slightly. Come here.
One again, she had no choice but to obey, retracing her steps back to the desk where Snape was waiting with the vial as Draco guided their path, one hand gently steering her by the shoulders.
The Potions master wordlessly handed her the concoction. His lithe frame was shaking with silent fury.
Drink it, Draco whispered. And Hermione couldn't tell whether the voice was in her mind or in her ear, so close was the younger Malfoy in proximity.
Dimly, she was aware of her fingers wrapping around the glass, Draco throwing Severus a look of triumph, watching in mute horror as every second brought the vile liquid closer to her lips...
Stop. Stop! STOP!
Malfoy's concentration must have lapsed momentarily, because she felt the cotton-like swelling in her head suddenly disappear.
Hesitating only a moment, Hermione threw the drink onto the floor and watched in satisfaction as the glass shattered into a thousand pieces mingling with the green substance that oozed on the floor and had spattered the hems of their robes.
There, Hermione thought. He can blow up at me, kick me, and curse the day I was born, but he can't force me to help him harvest his stupid, precious blood.
Her victory was short-lived.
Snape was furious.
He looked first at the ruined potion, then his stained robes, and finally at Hermione. In a single, barely perceptible movement, he whipped out his wand from somewhere in the folds of his robes and uttered a disarming spell that sent her flying across the classroom.
Hermione hit the far wall with a whooshing sound, much the same as when she had tripped and fallen backwards to the linoleum gym floor on Muggle rollerskates as a child. The pain wasn't nearly as acute as the burning feeling in her lungs, and she slid to the floor, gasping for breath.
"Mister Malfoy," the Professor intoned calmly, as if nothing had happened, "I trust you did think ahead and make enough of this potion for two doses?"
Or he could do all three and still screw me over.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
"Who else is coming tonight?" Lucius asked, his words muffled from the manner in which he was using them on Professor Sinistra's neck.
"Patience, darling," Sinistra cooed, stopping the delightful sensation she was sending down his spine long enough to speak. "It's meant to be a secret. Besides," she added, curling her manicured fingernails over his back in little circles, "Severus had to find someone for the ritual this year."
Suddenly, Lucius assumed a serious tone and sat upright again, looking straight into the gaze of his lover. "Has it been that long already? I didn't think the time would come so quickly."
Sinistra arched an eyebrow. "You're disappointed?" A smile crept along her lips. "I thought fourteen years was plenty of time to quench anyone's thirst for privilege."
Lucius's expression melted into a grin. "Not mine."
At that moment, they looked into each other's eyes, and saw the presence of another, one as close to theirs hearts—or loins—as they were to one another.
"Is he coming?"
Sinistra twirled a bit of Lucius's hair in her finger, toying with it as a cat might play with yarn. "All in good time. Now if only you had found a willing acolyte, he wouldn't have to dip into forbidden pools such as ours?" She gestured in distaste at Hogwarts castle.
Lucius shifted at the feel of something cold and almost wet sliding up his chest between the witch's fingers. "I'm afraid that trying to acquire a virgin Dark Arts pupil at Durmstrang is like asking gold to fall from the sky: it only happens when you're sloshed, and even the best of hallucinations are completely useless."
The Astronomy professor sighed. "I suppose we'll have to keep ourselves busy, then, while our dear Professor works his magic, as it were?" She grinned, lifting the dagger under his throat to slowly slice its way through Lucius's shirt from the inside out.
Suddenly, pain. Lightning sharp and fast down his chest, a thin red line welling from the path of the athame. Malfoy's shock faded into pleasure as Sinistra's lips trailed their way downwards to lick at his wound. He hissed.
"Do that again, lady," Lucius rasped, "and I doubt I shall be able restrain myself from ruining the celebration."
"Aww," she purred, nuzzling at his ear, hips sliding forwards across the silken fabric of his trousers, inching closer to oblivion. "Just a tiny taste?"
With trap set and sprung, Sinistra claimed his mouth for her own.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Malfoy Jr. walked over to where Hermione fell. He knelt down, watching her silently as her breathing evened out.
As soon as she had recovered her senses, Hermione kicked with all her might. Draco's chest thumped against the sole of her shoe, and she started to crawl away.
She didn't get far. Malfoy grabbed her ankles and yanked her backwards, causing her to lose her balance. Hermione searched out the stones in the floor, the walls—anything that she might use as a handhold. But the little left of Hermione's shortened fingernails simply dragged along the smooth granite, proving too painful to continue; the blocks were worn smooth and impossible to grasp.
She slid inexorably toward her predator and whatever fate he had in store for her. He reeled her in, inch by inch up her legs until he could hold her down.
Hermione was sitting braced against the wall like she was before. The only difference was that Draco's dark form now straddled her legs. Never a good sign, she thought.
He picked up the spare vial, unstoppered it with his teeth, and spat the cork out to the side—one hand holding the elixir, the other fighting off her arms.
"Hold still, damn it!" he yelled, struggling to fend off her attempts to scratch him. In the process of attacking, Hermione ripped most of Draco's sleeve off his left arm. It took her several seconds to stop and stare in horror at the ornate symbols burned into his alabaster skin.
She had never seen Snape's Dark Mark, but Hermiojne knew it was there. Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw—the force of evil branded into the flesh, etched above the muscle and sinew, forever a part of the soul. The skull and snake were within a circle of ancient rune symbols, those encircled by yet more languages of the long departed. But no one had told her it was a living, moving thing. Constantly shifting as if the eye was watching through sheens of translucent cloth, the numbers and letters faded in and out in a circular pattern. The border was the color of Draco's eyes, the skull's gaze as black as Hell.
It was both beautiful and terrifying.
Malfoy stopped wrestling with her and saw what she was looking at. "Little idiot!" he hissed in Hermione's ear, forcing her jaw to one side as he placed the arm behind his back. "Do you know what you've done?"
Snape sat on one of the tables, violating his own rules as he watched the scuffle with detached amusement.
"I've uncovered the most unsurprising secret at Hogwarts. I've just proved you're the blind git I always knew you to be. I've forced you to reap what you sow—"
That made him lose his temper.
SLAP.
She recovered slowly, staring at him through glassed-over eyes. Then she struck back.
Her nails dug into his arm, drawing blood. "Ow! Mudblood bitch!" Draco placed a thumb over the vial, his distress over his status with Voldemort apparently forgotten as he roughly seized both of her wrists in succession, forcing them down while his occupied hand fumbled for his wand. Somehow, Malfoy managed to lift his wand in the same hand that held the elixir without spilling a drop of it.
Several seconds and three clumsy attempts at a binding spell later, Hermione's hands lay tied together with a length of extremely strong twine. "You should thank me," Draco muttered, putting away his wand. "You were frantic enough to hurt even yourself."
In reply, Hermione straightened and spat directly in his face. "You're welcome."
For a moment, she truly believed Draco would strangle her. He wiped off his face with the back of his sleeve, staring at it with a horrified, incredulous expression, as if to exclaim, 'NOBODY spits on a Malfoy!' Quite amusing, really, Hermione decided. Fancy that, he's actually angrier than Snape.
Malfoy shoved the potion in her face.
"Drink it," he snarled when Hermione didn't move.
"I'd rather die than take that poison!" she screamed back at him.
In her mind, Hermione could predict his response down to the last word: 'That can be arranged.'
The younger Malfoy glared at her, pride and prejudice at war with one another. He sneered, leaning forward. "That can be arranged."
Death Eaters were so predictable.
He waited for her to comply for a second time. When she still refused to take the potion, his eyes narrowed into slits of steel. "Have it your way, then," Draco whispered softly, the softness of his voice almost belying the rage in his gaze.
Without warning, Hermione's air supply cut off. She was dimly aware of his cold fingers pinching her nose, barely drawing a gasp before she had to close her mouth to avoid the vial's noxious contents.
She felt the glass pressing relentlessly against her lips, trying to force them to open. Meanwhile, ten seconds elapsed as she writhed and twisted, desperately trying to get away from Draco's 'present.' The air she had ran out too quickly. If only she could duck to one side, or kick him...
Her mouth came apart, Hermione trying to suck her top lip over the lower one. But Malfoy seized his chance, shoving the tip of the vial forcefully between her teeth, the other hand loosing her nose to yank her head backwards by the hair.
Caught in the most submissive, vulnerable stance possible, entwined in what one could construe as little more than a death grip, Hermione sobbed in defeat. The warm liquid was a repulsive intrusion. It spilled down her throat, and Draco wouldn't release her until she had swallowed the last gulp. Her stomach threatened to rebel; the potion violated her senses as she sputtered to breathe, breathe—
—and she caught a glimpse of Severus Snape's unabashed elation just before the effects of the elixir took hold.
"I think we can release Miss Granger now...if she so wishes."
Hermione could only manage half a nod as she sagged to the floor, barely noticing as Draco released her hands from their spell.
The stuffy feeling in her head intensified once again, and her limbs felt weighted. Peaceful and placid thoughts broke in waves, washing over her like the tide. She was not tired, merely relaxed, basking in the stillness of the night air, floating somewhere between the conscious and the dream world. Her whole body tingled with awareness, the sensitivity spreading like raindrops on her skin from her head to her fingertips.
Everything was dancing...
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Hermione couldn't remember what was said, but Snape gave Draco a few hurried instructions and retreated temporarily into his office. And then Malfoy had taken her hand, and she rose to her feet, having neither will nor way to resist, no urge to fight him at all...
There was a cabinet, and Draco pulled on a dusty jar, and suddenly there were stairs, and they were descending into darkness.
Draco emerged in the Slytherin common room behind a tapestry of a forest mural. He clamped his hand over Hermione's mouth as footsteps crept past their hiding place. A squeal of excitement, loud kisses and moans, and the slamming of a door on distant stairs, and they were alone.
Dimly, Hermione started to object. I should have cried out, stomped on his foot, said something, but I didn't. I should have said something.
She must have spoken her thoughts aloud. "No, you shouldn't have," Draco said quietly, leading her towards a large door with the golden letters 'HEAD PREFECT' stamped on it.
Malfoy pulled her inside and shut the door. It was an expansive, single suite, filled with green and silver decorations, but Hermione was too dazed to regard anything that required detail or specific description. "Why—"
"Why are we here? To prepare you for the ceremony," Draco replied calmly, enunciating each word slowly as if lecturing a small child. "I keep some supplies I need here, and you need preparation," he finished.
"Oh." She swayed on her feet, nearly losing her balance.
Draco noticed that she was about to fall. "Watch it, precious," he intoned smoothly, catching her and setting her down on the edge of his bed. "Wouldn't want you hitting your head and ruin the surprise."
My head...so dizzy... Hermione slouched sideways, curling up on one side on the bedspread. Every word was a monumental effort. "What...surprise?"
Malfoy smirked as he sorted through several small potions bottles and canisters of dried herbs. "You'll see."
He found the selections he was looking for quickly, and turned back to her. "How do you like my suite, Hermione? I know it wouldn't be your ideal choice of décor, but I thought something that said 'Slytherin' without saying 'square' ought to do nicely."
She didn't answer. But then again, he hadn't expected her to.
"Of course," he cocked his head to one side, "I'm always open to fashion suggestions."
"Comforter is comfy...filthy bastard..." she mumbled, struggling to fight off nausea.
Draco watched her squirm in discomfort on his bed, a flash of something else wholly different sparking in his eyes. "Feel free to visit anytime, and you can lie on them all you like."
"What?" Hermione rolled too far, unceremoniously spilling off the bed in a plop.
"Nothing." He knelt down, dragging her to her feet. "Now," Draco began, "Normally you're supposed to be an active participant in the anointing process. However," he noted bemusedly, fighting down a chuckle as she swayed back and forth, "I'm more than happy to oblige you."
Malfoy stooped down, retrieving another object previously hidden from sight, identical to the one Sinistra held at that very moment. He held the dagger aloft, and Hermione couldn't tell if it was his teeth or the silver that grinned at her in the moonlight that seeped through the curtains.
"But first," Draco continued, stepping forward to play with the edge of her robes on her shoulder, "these will have to go." He ripped her robes open, exposing her casual outfit underneath.
And the knife flashed down.
Author's Notes:
1 Translation: 'She herself would wish to ask you, if she might bend your chastity...You might associate among crowds to go through your glens, among flowery garlands, among myrtle shelters...Neither Ceres, nor Bacchus are absent...The entire night is to be occupied, to be kept awake all night with songs...and soon she gives a chaste virgin from a sanctuary to Mars...Pleasure fertilizes (abounds in) the country-sides...' From "The Vigil of Venus," Anonymous.
Although many traditional Wiccan and Pagan ritualistic elements exist in the coming portions of the text, please keep in mind that the Death Eaters are PERVERTING them. Almost everything they do violates the Wiccan Rede.
That is all. Enjoy.
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