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.