As soon as the thought dawned on her she felt certain she was right. How, she wasn't sure. But she was willing to bet on it.
How irritating. She should be enraged but couldn't summon it. She should be swallowed by despair. But intellectual aggravation was as much as she could muster.
As though his legilimency wasn't invasive enough; trawling through her mind as though it were his own personal oyster bed. She was certain he was also somehow reading her mind through the manacles.
He never skimmed her thoughts. She had noticed. She remembered how Snape used to do that with students. Dip in through the eyes and glean what was forefront. When she made eye contact with Malfoy he never bothered to.
Hermione turned around. She stalked out of the hedge maze and made her way back to the veranda where Malfoy seemed immersed in a book on alchemy.
He snapped the book shut and looked up at her while she stood staring at him. Hands on her hips.
She couldn't say anything but she could glare.
He seemed to realise that she couldn't say anything and just smirked faintly and looked back at her.
“Yes?” he finally said after nearly a minute.
“Are you reading my mind?” she said.
He smiled broadly.
“And it only took a month for you to realise it,” he said in mock praise. “Although granted, you have been rather busy crying and moping and being afraid of hallways and the sky.”
The nice thing about having no emotions was that Malfoy's nastiness merely felt like pebbles being dropped into a pond. A small, quick splash into her mental imperviousness and then stillness and indifference again.
“How is that possible?” she asked raising a skeptical eyebrow. It defied several fundamental laws of magic.
“Rest assured, Mudblood, I am not reading all of your thoughts. If I had to subject myself to the constant stream of your consciousness I would probably Avada myself. You only register when you're doing something — interesting. And it spares me from having to show up just because you're trying to descend a staircase by yourself.”
Non-drugged Hermione would have flushed angrily at his mockery. But Present Hermione just blinked and considered the information.
So it wasn't a constant thing. That was good to know. But when something registered enough he was somehow able to delve in and read her foremost thoughts. That — was a problem.
She studied him. She would have to steal whatever it was that he was monitoring her with. Umbridge had described it as a charm carried by the head of the household. Hermione wasn't sure what it could be. Magical charms were normally something metal to channel the magical connection. And they needed to be worn; necklaces or bracelets or rings were the most common.
Malfoy didn't seem to wear any jewelry, not even a wedding band. The only visible piece on him was the black ring on his right hand.
Maybe that was it.
“You can't steal it,” Malfoy drawled.
She looked at him sharply.
“It's not a thing. It's not this,” he said, and raised his hand to show her the band she'd been eying. He slid it off his finger and tossed it to her. She caught it reflexively and studied it.
It was some type of black metal. It didn't seem to have any kind of strong magical signature the way something connected to the manacles would. But maybe it still was. He might be lying. Maybe he was trying to misdirect her.
She wondered what he'd do if she swallowed it.
He burst out laughing.
“Don't swallow it.”
She looked up sharply and he quirked an eyebrow knowingly. He smirked and held out his hand. She reluctantly dropped it into his palm and he slid it back onto his finger.
“As I said, it's not a thing. You can't steal the trace. Not the one on you. They used blood magic to make your manacles.”
Hermione stared at him in astonishment.
“I'm in your head?” she said, her mouth dropping open slightly as the realization struck her.
They had taken her blood.
When she was at Hogwarts, they had taken vials of her blood, and her hair. She had assumed it was for genetic testing. It hadn't occurred to her that it would be used to perform a blood magic ritual.
That meant that she was, by her lifeblood, tied into Malfoy's consciousness. He could sense her in the back of his mind. It was like blood wards on estates and castles, creating a subconscious connection to the Lord in possession of it. Blood wards allowed the owner to detect when someone entered or tried to tamper with anything. Hermione existed in Malfoy's mind in a similar manner.
If she weren't entirely emotionless she would have been cold with horror.
He nodded.
“You're Potter's Mudblood. Additional security measures were considered necessary. So, let us establish now how things work: I will always know what you're doing and I will always be able to find you. Unless you can get those manacles off.” He eyed them and gave a faint smile. “I would dearly love to see you manage such a thing.”
He laughed.