Hermione gave a curt nod with assurance she did not feel as Snape added, “He'll have a considerable advantage of power over you. However, the fact that you hold his attention means you may still have a hand worth playing. After nearly six years, when he had a chance to demand anything, you were what occurred to him to ask for. You will have to utilise that knowledge carefully if you wish to equalise things or make him loyal.”
“Malfoy isn't stupid. He'll expect it.”
“He will.”
“But you think I can manage it?”
“Are you trying to fish for compliments, Miss Granger?” Severus said coolly. “At this point in the war, I think almost anything is worth attempting. That you have any chance of succeeding is highly unlikely. You have agreed to sell yourself in exchange for information to an incredibly dangerous wizard who has obtained most of his power by means of his own considerable intelligence. A wizard whose current motives are a mystery; even to those who have known him a lifetime. He is exceptionally isolated and mercurial, even by Death Eater standards. He did not get where he is by being easily beaten or having predictable weaknesses.”
There was a long pause. It appeared Snape had no further insight to offer.
Hermione stood, feeling freshly demoralised.
She was selling herself in a gamble with a multiple points of failure. It would likely be futile.
She was going to do it anyway.
She hesitated, a question rising to her lips that she was almost afraid to ask.
“Is he—,” she stammered. “How — cruel do you know of him being?”
Snape stared at her with his inscrutable black eyes.
“I haven't known him well since your fifth year. However, bully though he was, I had never considered him to be a sadist.”
Hermione nodded jerkily, feeling light-headed as she turned to go.
“I wish you luck, Miss Granger. You are a better friend than Harry Potter will ever deserve.”
Severus' voice had a trace of regret in it. Hermione paused and brought her hand up to her throat, tracing her thumb along her collarbone for a moment before twisting the chain of her necklace between her fingers.
“I'm not
He gave a short nod of agreement. She left Spinner's End without another word.
When Hermione returned to Grimmauld Place, she went into the bathroom and stared at her reflection.
She was thin and tired-looking. Her skin was pale from lack of sunlight. Her features were sharper than they had been in school; a bit daintier. Her protruding cheekbones made her look more elegant. Her eyes — well, she had always thought they were her best feature — large and dark, but with enough fire in them that they didn't make her look too naive. Her hair remained her cross to bear. Still bushy, but it was long enough nowadays that the weight held it down somewhat. She kept it braided and pinned back to keep it out of her face when brewing and healing.
She pulled her clothes off and stepped into the shower. The hot water beating down on her skin felt like safety. She didn't want to leave it, but after scrubbing herself from head to toe she made herself shut off the water and step out.
She cast a quick shaving charm on her legs and under her arms, and toweled off.
Wiping off the steam from the mirror, she appraised the body in the reflection critically.
She'd have to hope Malfoy's subconscious interest was primarily in her mind because she was certainly not Helen of Troy. Stress had eaten away her curves. She was bony and thin-limbed. Not particularly flawed anywhere, but generally lacking in softness in the places men typically liked to hold.
Insofar as general sex appeal went, she was assuredly middling. It was simply not a quality she had ever had the thought or time to cultivate in herself. Dwelling on how she came across sexually — it just hadn't really seemed to be of pressing importance.
It had not occurred to her that the war was going to require her to offer herself — as a mistress? Whore? War prize? — to a Death Eater.
She did not bother to fuss over her underwear or clothing as she dressed. There was no point in trying to pretend to have wiles or attributes she did not. She would undoubtedly do it poorly. Trying to undertake an additional angle might cause her to exceed her limitations and reveal her hand.
As she prepared to leave she glanced in the mirror and fingered the chain around her neck, hesitating before she pulled it out from under her shirt and stared at the amulet that hung from it. The pendant of Aset. A tiny throne rested upon deep scarlet stone, a sun-disk, fitted between two horns. It had been given to Hermione when she'd briefly studied healing in Egypt, before returning to Europe to study in Austria.
She pulled it off and slipped it into a beaded bag under her bed.
If she died, Severus would probably know what it was.