Ginny crying, “I didn't mean to.”
“Something to warm my cold heart.”
A hard kiss as she was pinned against the wall.
“I didn't want you.”
The sensation of her wrist, shattering under an iron grip.
“You seem pleased to have successfully whored yourself. Happy to know you've got your chess piece locked in place?”
Harry was standing in front of her, pale and enraged, his face crusted with dried blood, “If that's how little you believe in us then you aren't someone whose help I need.”
She was sitting next to Tonks, who was staring at Hermione guardedly, her eyes suspicious. “How many people did you kill today, Hermione? Ten? Fifteen? Do you even know?”
Minerva McGonagall, gripping a teacup, her voice shaking, “You're no sinner; this is not a fate you deserve. And yet, it seems as though you're determined to try damning yourself if it means winning.”
Her own voice, “If my soul is the price of protecting them — of protecting you. That's — that's not a price. That's a bargain.”
“You're mine. You swore yourself to me,” growled into her ear.
Severus looking coldly at her, “If you manage to succeed you're just as likely to destroy the Order as save it.”
Hermione crying, “I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did this to you.”
Finally, Malfoy was standing over her, his face white, his eyes glittering with rage, “I have warned you. If something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order. That isn't a threat. It is a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the survival of the Resistance as Potter's. If you die, I will kill every last one of them.”
It was like falling as the past broke free, surging up through her mind and swallowing her.
Chapter End Notes
Additional Illustrations:
Benevolent Surveillance by Ceresartsy.
Hermione with her book by iamacult.
The headaches by heidiM.
A vessel by animusdiscidium.
Malfoy and Hermione by grapesodaandpuddin.
High Reeve and Surrogate by grapesodaandpuddin.
Malfoy and Hermione at the manor by charlespowers.
Sketches by dralamy.
Hermione by anottart.
The High Reeve by NadiaPolyakova.
Malfoy and Hermione by honeyintheskies.
'Malfoy always comes for me,' by todays.wizard.
<p>Flashback 1</p>
Three years earlier.
March 2002. Nearly six years after the death of Albus Dumbledore.
Hermione's teeth ground with frustration as she bottled antidote potions. She'd just gotten out of another pointless Order meeting.
Sometimes she wondered if she were the only one aware that they were losing the war.
As she shelved the new bottles, she tucked a few into her pocket and hurried into the next room where Madam Pomfrey was bustling around. The hospital ward occupying the second floor of Grimmauld Place was eerily silent.
No one currently in the room had an easily healed injury.
