manacled by senlinyu

Chapter 12

The hall that Voldemort resided in was damp and warm like a reptile cage. Somewhere underground. The walls that she could see in the darkness were stone with no windows.

Far underground.

The air was thick and sour. Stale. Putrid with dark magic.

Hermione broke out in a cold sweat and Malfoy dragged her forward as she fought to escape. It wasn't a conscious choice. Every cell in her body screamed for her to get away.

Malfoy's hand on her was like a vice. She couldn't wrench herself free. He barely seemed to notice that she was writhing in his grip.

"My Lord," he said with a respectful tone as he bowed. "I have brought the Mudblood. As you requested."

His words were punctuated by Hermione's panicked stuttering breaths as she tried to quell her panic. A crushing weight suddenly bore down on her back and forced her prostrate upon the moist stone floor. She could barely breathe under the pressure and fought to drag oxygen down her throat as her jaw was ground into the hard floor. The sound rattled in her ears.

"Oh, yes," Voldemort murmured in a caressing whisper. "Stroud mentioned she was not yet gestating."

Hermione rolled her panicked eyes upward so she could see from where she was pinned on the ground. Voldemort was reclining in a large stone throne staring down at her indolently.

He waved a hand, it had dull scales on it.

"Bring her forward," Voldemort ordered.

The weight crushing Hermione into the ground was released and two attendants pulled her up off the floor and dragged her up the steps of the dais, forcing her to her knees at Voldemort's feet.

Voldemort didn't sit up. He turned his head slightly and wiped the corner of his mouth. Hermione squeezed her eyes shut but he drove into her mind. His mind inside hers felt like a branding iron. He was burning her. Damaging her. She was screaming and screaming until her lungs and throat gave out and she just shook in agony.

Hermione had not realised how much her shock from being removed the cell had dulled everything. She hadn't remember it hurting so much. Or perhaps Voldemort was feeling vindictive due to her lack of pregnancy.

It was like having her consciousness flayed.

She didn't know how long it lasted. Forever. She felt like she should have died several times along the way.

Voldemort tried breaking through the magic around her locked memories and when he finally gave up he proceeded to ravage all her recent memories. Her arrival at Malfoy Manor, the first time Malfoy raped her in his room. And the second time, and the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth. He made her relive all ten of them as though he were curious to see how Malfoy did it. Her panic attacks. Her conversations with Malfoy. Her limited interactions with Astoria. Her questions and suspicions and schemes. He pored over the months with excessive cruelty and curiosity.

He razed her mind until she hung limp. Her muscles too worn to even shake.

Finally he withdrew and the hands gripping Hermione allowed her to drop to the ground, spasming.

"You knew the Mudblood in school," Hermione heard Voldemort say after a minute.

"Indeed, My Lord," Malfoy said with a faint tone of derision. "One of Potter's favourites."

"She dreams of your death quite desperately. More than she dreams even of mine," Voldemort said with amusement.

"A sign that she has a sense of what is even possible," Malfoy drawled.