Hermione stared down at the square of paper she was holding in bewilderment.

She furrowed her eyebrows as she folded it in half, and then stopped, feeling at a loss.

She couldn't remember how to fold an origami crane.

She'd folded more than a thousand of them. Large and small. Day after day. She had distinct memories of folding them.

But somehow—

She couldn't remember how to do it anymore. She'd kept trying to, each morning after she read the newspaper, but somehow she couldn't figure out how to make them anymore.

She couldn't remember the order of the folds. Was it a diagonal fold first? Maybe she was supposed to fold it in half and then again? She tried both ways.

She couldn't remember. The knowledge was—gone.

She had none of her previously folded cranes to look over in order to reverse engineer the process. The elves always banished them all by the end of the day.

Hermione sighed to herself and set the paper aside.

It must have been lost during her seizure. Perhaps there had been brain damage.

The memory—the knowledge—had vanished from wherever she'd kept it. Like it had never existed. Except she knew it had. She remembered, distinctly, of being able to fold them.

No matter.

She didn't even know why she folded cranes. She couldn't remember when she'd learned it. Maybe in primary school...

She pulled on her cloak and headed outside.

The estate was dreary and muddy. Winter was giving its last gasps before spring. The windows were occasionally tinged with frost in the morning, but the days warmed and it rained in sheets for days at a time.

The rain was only coming down lightly so Hermione ventured forth.

She had gotten to the point that she could traverse most of the gardens surrounding the manor; as long as it wasn't too open. Open spaces she still couldn't handle.

When she occasionally tried to force herself past the hedges and into the open, rolling hills, she felt as though someone were dissecting her; slicing her nerves out of her body and laying them out in cold and the wind. Her mind would just fold in on itself and leave her alone in a state of stark terror.

She couldn't—couldn't manage.

She wondered if she'd ever be able to handle it. Whether she'd ever recover from the agoraphobia. The fear felt as though it had rooted itself deeply, twining inside and through her; from her brain and down her throat, wrapping around her lungs and organs like an invasive vine; waiting to strangle her to death.

On the days it wasn't pouring rain Hermione spent most of her time wandering the estate. She would return inside caked with mud and have no choice but to trail it inside and through the halls. Wizarding homes had no traditions of keeping door mats or boot-scrapers when a quick scourgify could banish most mud. Hermione muttered internal apologies to the house-elves each day.

Her days had sunk into a sort of dreaded monotony.

She woke up and had breakfast. She read the newspaper repeatedly. She had folded origami. She ate lunch. When it wasn't pouring outside she went and explored the estate for hours upon hours. If the rain was too heavy she only went out briefly and then exercised in her room until she was ready to collapse. She showered. She explored the manor. She ate dinner. Sometimes Malfoy came and performed legilimency on her. Sometimes he came and fucked her indifferently over a table. She went to bed. She woke up and repeated the routine.

Day after day.

There was nothing more novel than the news.

She never spoke to anyone but Malfoy and Stroud.

Knowing the breeding program was all a ruse didn't change anything. Knowing Voldemort was dying, that he had horcruxes, didn't change anything.

Not for her.

Malfoy was still spending all his time trying to hunt down whomever it was that had destroyed the locket. When he came to inspect her memories he had looked visibly ground down. He only explored her mind briefly, as though he were afraid of damaging her and causing another seizure.

Hermione began to suspect that Voldemort crucio'd him regularly; every time Malfoy reported that he still hadn't caught the culprit.

He wasn't, she realised, returning to the manor looking pale with fury; he was pale from the physical shock caused by torture. In fact, he looked like he was being tortured daily. The symptoms showed more distinctly each time she caught sight of him. He seemed visibly eroded; as though he were on the verge of a breakdown.

Crucio did that to a person. When used too frequently, even if it didn't drive a person insane, its effects could become long-term.

His hands twitched the way Hermione's still sometimes did. She wondered if he was getting therapy for the torture. Whether he had time to.

Surely he would; he'd gotten her treated after her seizure. He would probably use the same healer. He had to have one. He'd likely put a healer on retainer during the war. He wasn't the type to go sit in St. Mungo's waiting room.

She tried not to notice the symptoms; the pallor, the occasional spasms in his fingers, the dilation of his pupils. She reminded herself that he was trying to hunt down the last of the Order; every time he came back tortured it was a sign that he had failed and the Order survived.

But it bothered her, as a healer. The deterioration; she couldn't stop herself from noticing it and gnawed inexplicably at her conscience.

She ignored it.

Voldemort was dying. Voldemort was dying and Malfoy knew and he had responded by climbing the ranks, and wiping out the Order. She had wondered why he was so slavishly obedient even in the face of having her as the mother of his future children, now she knew why. Of course he'd be willing to do anything to stay in Voldemort's good graces.

Ron had been right. Malfoy probably regarded himself as the successor. How could he not? The High Reeve. The Dark Lord's 'Hand of Death.' When Voldemort finally faded, who would dare dispute that Malfoy was next in line? There was no other Death Eater who could compare.

Malfoy clearly intended to become the next Dark Lord and unless Voldemort happened to kill him before then, Hermione fully expected him to.

She wondered what kind of Dark Lord Malfoy would be. What did he even want from it? Hermione still didn't know. Maybe she would never know. She'd always wonder and never understand him.

He deserves to die, she thought to herself. He deserved to be crucio'd. The world would be a better place if Draco Malfoy were killed or driven insane.

But the thought of him blank-eyed in Janus Thickey bothered her somehow. Passively watching the toll that regular torture was taking on him made her feel oddly guilty.

She couldn't do anything about it, she coldly reminded herself as she strode through the hedge maze, even if she did want to help him. Which she did not. He was a Death Eater. It wasn't as though anyone had forced him to become a Death Eater or to murder Dumbledore or be the one to kill off the entire Order of the Phoenix and a large percentage of the Resistance as a whole. He deserved every bit of suffering that went in hand with his servitude. More even.

If she didn't get to kill him, the irony of it being Voldemort who slowly did the deed was both fitting and satisfying to contemplate.

Mostly.

Hermione sighed and stopped walking, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. Trying to clear her mind and stop thinking.

It seemed that she had managed to retained a bit of a bleeding heart, even for depraved monsters. She'd always hated the mere idea of torture. It had bothered her to witness Umbridge's. Apparently she couldn't even enjoy Malfoy's.

Her next fertile period was made distinctly worse by the fertility potion.

As it approached her breasts swelled several cup sizes larger and without a bra to support them they hung and ached and were throbbingly sensitive. Her lower abdomen swelled in a way that made her look as though she were actually in the early stages of pregnancy. It was horrifying. Hermione found herself suddenly vividly, viscerally confronted by the idea of pregnancy in a way that she had managed to ignore and avoid until then.

She cried. Her clothes didn't fit. She couldn't exercise, it was too uncomfortable. She felt extremely tired and on edge. She just curled up in her room and tried to ignore all the things her body was doing.

When the table appeared she found it somewhat painful to lean across it and feel her weight pressing down on her chest. She swallowed hard. Her entire body felt over sensitive, particularly in places she very much did not want to think about. When she heard the door open she focused intently on the pain, bearing down harder on her breasts than necessary and forcing herself not to pay attention to anything else.

Please don't get pregnant. Please don't get pregnant, she begged her body.

After the five days, when Malfoy appeared to inspect her memories, he seemed slightly less on edge. Not so deathly pale. Less recently tortured. She feared that it meant he'd made some of break-through in his investigation.

He examined her memories carefully. More thoroughly than the previous time but still without disturbing any of the locked memories. He did watch Hermione's conversation with Ron repeatedly as though checking for details. When he came upon her reluctant concern over his torture symptoms he withdrew from her mind.

"Worrying about me, Mudblood?" he said with a sneer. "I have to admit I never thought I'd see the day."

"Don't take it as a compliment," Hermione said stiffly. "I felt sorry for Umbridge when he tortured her too but I'd gladly dance on her grave."

His mouth quirked with amusement. "Unfortunately the snakes ate her."

Hermione found herself smiling before she could stop herself. Malfoy gave a barking laugh.

"You are a bitch," he said with a faint shake of his head.

Hermione's smile vanished. "Some people deserve to die," she said coldly. "And the ones who didn't—you killed anyway."

He rolled his eyes as though she had merely critiqued his manners.

"I did what I was instructed to do," he said with a shrug.

"Do you tell yourself that to ease your conscience?" She sneered at him as she sat up on the bed. "When you strung them up and left them to decay? Did you think you were being noble?"

He gave her a thin smile and quirked an eyebrow. "Your Resistance was quite boundless in its hope even after Potter died in front of them. They were the sorts that would never believe reports of death based on Death Eater hearsay. How many more fighters do you suppose would have tried escape if they hadn't seen the bodies rot with their own eyes? Surely you don't believe in encouraging suicidal optimism?"

"Someone is still out there," she said. "Someone you haven't caught."

He smirked faintly. "Not for long."

Hermione felt the blood drain from her face so sharply it felt as though her head had been hollowed out. "Have you—?" Her voice shook.

"Not yet. But I can practically guarantee it," he said with cruel smile. "Long before the Dark Lord has faded, your last Order member will be dead and your precious little Resistance will never know they even existed."

"You don't know that," Hermione said fiercely.

"I do know it," he said, his expression became so hard he could have been carved from marble. "This is a story with only one ending. If your Order has wanted a different one they should have made different decisions. Perhaps some hard, realistic ones. They should have let go of their fairytale notions that they could somehow win a war without ever getting their hands dirty. They were idiots, nearly every one of them." He sneered down at her. "Do you have any idea how easy it is to kill someone when you know they're hoping only to stun you? Very. So easy I could do it in my sleep at this point."

Hermione stared at him, watching the way his mouth twisted in derision and the fury in his eyes as he spoke.

"Who do you hate so much?" she asked. She still couldn't understand it. It seemed to defy the bounds of magic.

"Many, many people," he said with an insolent shrug. Then he smiled. "Most of whom are dead now."

He walked away before she could ask him anything else.

After nearly a month, Montague started visiting the manor once more. Hermione didn't bother spying on him. She had concluded that he probably wasn't a member of the Resistance or the Order. If there were any chance of it Voldemort surely would have sent Malfoy after him.

When she came back from her walk one day she found a half dozen House-elves on the veranda of the North Wing setting out a large table and arranging vast quantities of flowers everywhere. One of them immediately vanished with a sharp pop and a moment later Topsy appeared and approached Hermione.

"'Mistress is having an Ostara party this night. The Mudblood is to stay out of sight," Topsy said.

Hermione blinked and glanced around the veranda which appeared more like it was being prepared for a wedding banquet than an celebration of the vernal equinox.

"Alright," Hermione said and went and found a different entrance to the manor. She watched the preparations from the upstairs windows and concluded that the equinox was merely an excuse for Astoria to throw a party. There was nothing of the rituals or traditions apparent other than the abundance of flowers.

When evening fell the veranda was lovely, aglow with fairy lights tucked into the enormous bouquets of daffodils and tulips. Astoria must have had shipped from somewhere else, Hermione theorized, the Malfoy estate was still cold and barely hinting at spring.

Hermione watched the guests arrive, Death Eaters, every one of them. They were stiff and formal with each other until the drinks started flowing generously.

When everyone was seated and the meal well underway Hermione stepped back from the window she had been watching from and grabbed her cloak. She slipped down a quiet hallway and out into the gardens. She could hear the voices from the party over the hedges. If she could find a good position she might be able to eavesdrop. Perhaps someone would drop useful information about the Order or the Resistance. Or the other surrogates.

The Daily Prophet was always crammed with speculation but it was hard to ever know what might be true.

She followed the winding paths of the hedge maze. Her footsteps were silent. She hadn't been told not to come outside.

Trying to eavesdrop on what was clearly becoming a drunken dinner party was a relief. Hermione felt—alive. Rather than feeling like a mechanical dead creature who passed day after day, folding origami, exercising, and waiting for a table to appear in the middle of the room for her to be clinically fucked on and then left once more for another cycle.

The veranda was just on the other side of the hedge from her. She could hear the voices clearly.

"She's got barely any fingers on her," came a voice. "Can't show off something like that. Creeps the fuck out of me. At first, I could barely get it up to take her, but now that she's up in the duff she's got the most incredible pair on knockers on her. Definitely makes up for the lack of fingers."

Hermione froze. They were talking about the other girls. Possibly Parvati or Angelina. They'd both lost most their fingers.

Some of the girls were pregnant.

"At least yours has both her eyes," came another voice. "Mine's a bloody horror to look at. I take her from behind or drop something over her face so I don't have to stare into that fucking hole in her head. Got a patch that covers it now, but still..."

Hannah Abbott.

"They're not meant for looking at," Astoria's sharp voice interjected.

There was drunken, braying laughter at that.

"You should see how I've got mine trained," another voice chimed in. "All I have to do is snap my fingers and she bends over. Her quim's so loose I prefer taking her in the arse unless it's one of the mandatory days. Must have been a slut back in Hogwarts, but she knows how to suck a cock. I have her under the table every morning while I eat breakfast."

Hermione felt as though someone had stabbed her. The horror she felt was physically painful.

There were many exclamations of admiration.

"You've got the Mudblood, haven't you Malfoy? Saw that nice big Prophet article about it. "

"I do," said Malfoy in a cold voice.

"The Warden hated her back in school. Probably came in pieces I'll bet."

"No," Malfoy said, his voice was clipped. "The Dark Lord wanted her kept intact."

"Lucky bugger," someone muttered.

"Must be fun, staring into her little know-it-all face as you shove in. Does she cry? I always imagined she'd be a crier. I had so many fantasies back in school of pinning her down on a desk and reaming into her while she sobbed."

Hermione's skin crawled and she pulled her cloak around her more tightly.

"I've never paid attention," Malfoy answered in a bored tone. "What the Dark Lord commands I will perform, but there's not much to her to hold my interest."

Several voiced grumbled something about Malfoy but the conversation moved on.

Hermione's ears perked up. They were discussing the death of Umbridge. Complaining about patrols in the Forbidden Forest and what a bother the centaurs were. It seemed none of them knew anything about the horcruxes. It was disappointing if not surprising.

She kept listening.

Malfoy was getting sent to Romania. That was news. There were executions scheduled there and Voldemort wanted them done with ceremony. A demonstration of strength in case any of the other European countries interpreted the attempted assassination of Thicknesse as a sign of weakness. The High Reeve would do them himself.

Hermione wondered if that was the reason Voldemort had stopped torturing Malfoy. He would need to be in peak condition to show off his talent for murder in Romania.

There was mumbled jealousy about Malfoy's assignment. Hermione's lip curled. What kind of loathsome creatures got jealous that someone else got to go kill people?

"Are you going to Avada them all?" someone was asking in an awestruck tone.

"That would be the tradition," Malfoy said, drawling so overtly Hermione could practically see the eye-roll that was surely accompanying it.

She wasn't sure what was more unnerving, Malfoy's casualness or the other Death Eaters' enthusiasm.

The conversation wore on, offering nothing useful. Then there was the sound of chairs moving and people standing and Astoria was driveling on about the flowers in the hot house.

Hermione faded through the hedges back toward the other entrance of the manor. She didn't want to be stumbled upon if one of the Death Eaters decided to go explore the hedges.

She was nearly back to the house when suddenly,

Immobulus.

The hex caught her in the side of the head. She froze in place as a Graham Montague stepped through the French doors of the manor.

"Who knew slipping off to take a piss would make me so lucky?" He seemed to be marveling as he approached her. "With all the wards Malfoy added to your wing in the manor I was afraid I'd never reach you again. Has he knocked you up yet?"

He cast a pregnancy detection spell on her and grinned when it came up negative.

"I never thought that getting Astoria host an equinox party would be the thing that finally worked," he said with a chuckle. He was studying her face, his expression was triumphant the way it had been on New Year's Eve. He unclasped her cloak and pushed it off her shoulders. "Fuck. You didn't have these last time."

Her breasts were still somewhat enlarged from the fertility potion. He grabbed her left breast and squeezed it hard as he drew closer, so that their bodies were almost pressed against each other. He buried his nose in her hair, breathing in. He smelled sour from wine. Drunk.

"You were supposed to have been mine, you know," he said, stepping back slightly to look her over again. "I was the one who caught you when you attacked at Sussex. When I saw you standing under a sky full of burning dementors—I wanted to fuck you right there in that field." His grip on her breast tightened as he spoke, his fingers digging into the flesh. If Hermione could have moved at all she would have been gasping from pain. "That was how I earned my Mark, you know, catching you. My exceptional service to the Dark Lord. When I saw you at Sussex, I recognised you from the cave. Remember how I told you I'd ask to have you. I was the one who reminded the Dark Lord about you for the breeding program. He said you'd be mine. But then he changed his mind and gave you to Malfoy."

Montague hissed and twisted her breast hard in his hand. "Fucking Malfoy gets everything. But I owe you so much pain for stabbing me with those poisoned knives, I'm not going to let him get in my way. I've been fantasising about this for so long. I even bought a pensieve, just so I could watch you kneeling in front of me and unbuttoning my trousers as many times as I wanted."

Hermione would have been shaking if she could move. She didn't know what Montague was talking about, but she recognized the sound of cruel and obsessive revenge in his tone. He smiled at her and placed the tip of his wand against her forehead.

"We don't want Malfoy to come interrupt our fun now, do we? Confundo."

Hermione's mind blurred as the immobilising hex was removed and she collapsed into his waiting arms.