Hermione didn't know where she was in the morning. It had been a very long time since she woke up next to somebody or even warm for that matter. She snuck out of the bed and put on her baby doll dress. Draco was awake by the time she had stepped out of the bed.As she went to leave, he stopped her."Can't forget your bracelet. We both know you can't be trusted, don't we." He pulled out his wand and made the bracelet fit around her wrist. Hermione didn't like his touches around her wrist and wanted to pull it back, but she refrained. She had to get back to where she was, where nothing affected her. She still wasn't there yet, but she would work on it during the day."I can't get the dress off with the bracelet on," Hermione said quietly."And why should you need to." Draco responded. "I will take it off for you when you need to.""What if you're not here?""Then you're going to have to wait."I can always cut the dress off if I need to, Hermione thought defiantly. She started to walk off to start preparing for the breakfast service."I want you here when I get back this afternoon," Draco called after her."I have duties," Hermione said."I will tell you what your duties are. You are mine, mudblood, you will perform whatever duties my mother gives you after you fulfil mine. Is that understood?" He said, he was starting to get angry."Yes," Hermione said and quietly left. She could only go by what they told her, she would let them sort out whatever power struggle was going on between the household members. It didn't matter. Hermione was pleased that her indifference was starting to return.In the afternoon, Hermione was cleaning the windows on the lower floor. She had managed to calm her mind fairly well. What Draco had done was cruel and she was stupid for not having suspected that he was playing games with her. She would not be so stupid again. The repetitive work was helping her set her thoughts in order.When she had worked herself around the corner of the house, she was a man in the garden. She had never seen anyone in the garden before. The household members, as far as she knew, never really ventured out there. The man was facing away from her tending to some of the shrubbery. He had brown hair and was fairly skinny. Something struck her as familiar, but there was no one in the household like him. He turned slightly as he worked. Neville.Hermione ran to the nearest door and flew outside. "Neville!" she yelled as she ran towards him.Neville looked up in shock and was nearly bowled over by Hermione's forceful bear hug."Hermione. Is that you?" he asked.Hermione hung onto him for the longest time. Her emotions were all in uproar again after she had spent the whole morning trying to calm down. She was even crying again. "How have you been?" she finally asked."Good. I tend gardens. I was always good at Herbology at school. Turns out I'm a good gardener too.""Do you live here?" she asked, confused as she had never seen him."No, I live with the Froshters, but they share my services with other families. I come here a couple of times a week to tend to the garden. Do you live here now?""Yes, I serve here," Hermione admitted. She had to hug him again."You've lost so much weight, Neville.""So have you Hermione," he said quietly. "How have you been?""All right. Better now that I've seen you.""They're not treating you badly, are they?""As can be expected," Hermione said."I bet Draco is a right shit.""Yeah, well, nothing new there."They sat behind one of the shrubs and talked for a bit before Neville told her that maybe she should go before someone noticed she was gone."It is so good to see you, Neville.""I'll be back in a couple of days," he promised."I'll come and see you then," Hermione said brightly before walking back to the house. Normally no one really paid attention to where she was as long as the duties got done, but with Draco's orders to be there when he got back, she needed to make her way up to his room.Draco wasn't back yet, so Hermione sat down in one of the chairs. The house was completely quiet. One of the elves must have made Draco's bed when she was downstairs doing her serving duties. So much for getting the barrier back in place, she thought to herself. Seeing Neville had brought it crashing down again. She had to calm down, she told herself, clear her mind. But it was hard. Seeing Neville had brought so much back. She would see him again in a couple of days too.He had gotten so thin and tall, but he still had that kind face that she had always loved. Compared to Draco, who was also tall, but he had grown harder and colder. Draco still had some of the youthful features to his face, but there was something aging in his eyes as well. She didn't want to think about Draco as he was. She didn't even want to think of him as he is.She could hear him coming now. She knew the sound of the long black boots he wore. She stood up and waited."Good. You're here," he said as he entered the door. He had blood on him. It was speckled on his white shirt, so it must be on his robes and pants as well. "This will need to be cleaned." He dropped his robes on the floor. "Run me a bath." Hermione went into the bathroom and started the water as Draco undress, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor. When she stopped the water, he came in and stepped into the bath. He was completely naked."Get me a drink," he ordered. "And then come rub my feet."Hermione did as she was told. She got his a whiskey from the decanters in the bedroom and gave it to him, then sat down at the end of the bath, where he placed his soak foot in her lap."The Dark Lord is very annoyed," Draco said, looking at her as she started to rub the foot that was soaking her dress. "It turns out the muggles have found some way of rooting out the people that we've imperiused. All the people we have placed within the government and the military have started to disappear. Who knew the muggles were so clever. We can't definitely say who is under the Imperius curse, but somehow the muggles have worked out how to detect it. They have practically removed all of our resources within the muggle world. I bet you know how they do it.""I don't," Hermione said and continued to massage."Maybe the Dark Lord should question you about it. I'd bet you'd sing like a canary." He was amused with his own dark thoughts. "But then you'd probably won't come back, and we can't have that can we."Death threats were something Hermione was used to. They didn't worry her too much, nothing had ever come of them and even if it did, ending this awful existence wasn't something she would necessarily fight if the event arose."Get me a towel. I need to get out. I have to speak to father. I think you need a bath. I like you nice and clean. Get in." He said while pulling out his wand and taking off her bracelet. He waited with his towel wrapped around his waist while she got undress, then put the bracelet back on. Hermione climbed into the bath while he watched and stayed while he went into the bedroom and got dressed."I'll be back before dinner to dress you," he said and left the room.Hermione drained the bath and refilled it. The thought of being in the same water as him was revolting. Hermione stayed in the bath until the water got cold. It had been a very long time since she had a hot, leisurely bath. Mostly she had to wash herself with cold water and a washcloth. She normally had to use soap to clean her hair, which didn't do anything good to the condition of it. Draco had expensive shampoos and all sorts of conditioners. She chided herself for being so ridiculous and thinking about things like conditioning her hair. She shouldn't care what her hair looks like.Hermione's hair was dry by the time Draco returned. She was still sitting in a towel waiting to put her clothes back on. Once she was dressed, she pulled her hairpins out of the little pocket she had made in the hem of the dress, and pulled her hair into a tight bun. She had learnt to take the bun out before entering Draco's room in the evenings because if he pulled her hair out, she would never get the pins back and she was down to her last two.The dinner service was long tonight. The Malfoy's had guests again, which meant reduced rations downstairs. The guests were two Deatheaters that Hermione didn't know. Mrs. Malfoy gave Hermione a frozen look when she saw the new dress, and Draco and his mother exchanged meaningful looks about it. In the end, Mrs. Malfoy ignored it.They were also talking about the loss of their muggle agents and informants. They speculated that there must be a person or a group of people responsible and if they could be found then they could circumvent the whole process."Going back and recruiting more agents has risks though. We've lost two of our men who went into the muggle military to recruit. Neither has been seen since, although I am sure that if they are alive, they would never give any information away." Lucius said. "Like it matters. They're only muggles, what would they do with the information anyway. Even if they knew everything about us, what could they possibly do," one of the guests said flamboyantly.Lucius looked less convinced than either of the guests. "It is still not a good idea to have them privy to any information about us."None of them paid her any attention and Hermione stayed to clean up when the family and their guests moved to one of the entertaining rooms for their port and after dinner cigars.After clearing the plates, Hermione waited in the garden for the guests to leave. She couldn't really relax because the night was likely not over for her. Draco would call her as he always did and she might not have time to go into the garden again. The lack of her own time was grating on her. She needed that time to decouple and create the abstracts in her life that supported her.Draco did call. Hermione could tell that he was tired again, which was good because it would be quick. He was partially undressed already and indicated her over to the bed."You smell lovely," he said. "I should make you have baths every day, I think. Maybe after dinner, you should go have a bath and wait for me."He was a little drunk and Hermione could smell alcohol and cigars on his breath. He proceeded to take her dress off and after replacing the bracelet, he nudged her into bed.Sex was quick tonight. A few long, smooth thrusts and he was just about spent. He groaned into Hermione's ear with each thrust and bit her on the join of her shoulder and neck as he came. Not so bad, Hermione thought. She wasn't quite as detached as before but neither was it the complete intrusion it had been the previous evening. The barrier was weak but it was doing an adequate job.He ordered her to stay when she made to get out of bed. She rolled back into bed and lay there staring at the ceiling. Draco fell asleep with his arm over her waist. Hermione knew that she would have to stay until morning again. She felt resentful that her time in the garden was being waylaid. She would rather have her time in the garden than a warm bed to sleep in, if the choice was this bed.
