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.
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.