Lovely Bones

The setting looks almost romantic. The lights are dimmed, and the fireplace is dancing with light, casting shadows throughout the room. The table is set for dinner. There is a bottle of wine, there is food – each plate a rice pilaf with a boneless trout fillet positioned prettily on top of it, decorated with a tiniest tender twig of dill. Lucius Malfoy stares into his plate grimly. Across from him, sits Hermione Granger – or a well-dressed, perfectly groomed body that used to be her. Her hair is silky and long, falling down to her shoulders. She is wearing a gown that used to be Narcissa\'s – before Narcissa had been killed by Voldemort for trying to lie about Harry Potter and save the wretched boy\'s life. Idiot woman is dead now.



Well... better to be dead, than to be like Hermione Granger, who is now an empty soulless shell, and nothing more.



She had been given the Dementor\'s Kiss. She was the first one to receive it. Even before Severus Snape, even before Harry Potter. It\'s not that she had enraged Voldemort more than any others. The Dark Lord simply decided she was too smart for her own good – and he was not going to take any chances. Lucius smirks without happiness. Even on the day of her execution, Hermione Granger had not disappointed Voldemort. She used the Undetectable Extension Charm to conceal two pounds of sugar-free chocolate in her mouth. It took the Dementor a good hour to overcome that little snag. But eventually, she had ran out of chocolate, and out of time.



And now she is here. She was given to Lucius to be his little human doll. To warm his bed, to accept his pleasure, to endure his pain. She is the perfect concubine. She does not sass, she does not argue, she does not even look at her Master the wrong way. Or at all. Oh, if she only would, just once.



“Filthy mudblood cunt!” Lucius tells her with a sneer. “Say something. Say anything. You can\'t be ALL gone – can you?”



She is silent as she cuts her trout unhurriedly, in slow, measured motions, without looking at her plate. She is always looking in front of her, just looking ahead, as if her lifeless gaze is seeking out some event in the distant future that is worthy of fixing upon. She puts a piece of fish in her mouth. And then, her eyes blink. Just once. They blink at the exact rate of once per seventeen seconds, as Lucius had figured it out. Thank heavens that they do. If they hadn\'t, he would have gone insane.



“Whore,” Lucius taunts her half-heartedly. “Such perfect little body. Maybe I should fuck you right here. Right on the floor. Lift your skirt, spread your legs... Force you to orgasm... maybe that will make you scream.”



She does not scream, not ever. The dolls never do. They have no voice. The voice is a part of the human soul, he had been told. They will not scream for him, for their friends, or themselves. They have nothing to scream with. The vocal chords are there, but there is no spirit to drive them. No insult, no threat, no taunt, no amount of begging or pleading will change that, as Lucius had found out.



“Well,” Lucius says dryly, “If I thought that giving you an orgasm would make you scream, I would do it. Honestly.”



He had not touched her since he got her. Not that way. In fact, barely at all, and only to train her body to perform the basic functions necessary for survival. Once the rote memory had been established, he stopped touching her altogether, even though he had wanted to, more than anything, to press his face into her shoulder, and just weep. But he had vowed to himself he would not defile her that way – not with his tears. He would rather rape her or kill her, than force her lifeless body to act out a fantasy of them being friends. In spite of all his taunting and insults, he respects her.



“You do know, I am gay, right?” he asks with amusement. “Of course you do. You must have known for years. You were rarely wrong about people, or ...” He laughs a little. “Simple-minded creatures, my so-called friends. They think that just because I fathered a son, and never took a male slave to amuse me, I am ...”



She blinks, and his train of thought is interrupted. They eat quietly for a few minutes. Or rather, she eats, and he picks at his rice. Eventually, he issues a deep sigh, and opens the wine. He pours himself a glass, and offers one to her. She ignores it – her instincts only tell her to consume what is necessary for survival. Alcohol is not necessary. Lucius chuckles when he imagines a drunk, soulless human shell, ambling into the bedroom...



“I should just spell it right down your throat,” Lucius growls. “See if that reawakens something in you.”



She finishes her trout, and starts eating the rice, bringing small heaps of it to her mouth. He watches her with fascination and dread.



“Hermione,” Lucius says softly now, “I loved him so much. I would have changed loyalties for him. I would have defied Voldemort for him. Why didn\'t he tell me? Maybe your side would have won, if I and my family had defected to your cause. But whilst he kissed me, and held me, and fucked me, and told me he loved me... he never bothered to tell me that he was not really one of us.”



Her face is absolutely serene and impassive, as she stares ahead.



Lucius pauses, then continues: “I guess being a spy and all, he decided he couldn\'t take the chance. He had no idea ... that I loved him so much. Enough to throw everything to the wind for him. If I had known, Hermione. If only I had known.”



Lucius takes a sip from the glass of wine. He drinks, feeling the warmth and tranquility spread through his entire body. He drinks, and watches her eat.



“I miss him so much,” Lucius says quietly. “His dark hair. His eyes... God, his eyes....I saw him the other day. Voldemort has him... well... what used to be him. His eyes are still the same. After all this time.”



A single tear rolls down his cheek, and Lucius does not mind it at all. He finishes his glass of wine, and takes the one he had previously given to Hermione.



“You are not going to drink that, are you?” he asks rhetorically. She is silent, as always. “Of course not.”



He still had not eaten, and he cannot bring himself to swallow a single bite. He continues to drink, and alcohol hits his stomach, spreading delicious, debilitating warmth throughout his body.



“Do you know why you are here?” Lucius asks tiredly. “It\'s because of him. Only because of Severus Snape that you and Harry are here, in my household. He was pretty sure he was gong to die, one way or another. He did not seem to mind. But before going in, he asked me to take care of Harry-bloody-Potter ... and, almost as an afterthought, Harry\'s two little friends. His words, not mine.”



Lucius sips the wine again and muses absently:



“I reminded him of course... that everything was already predetermined. That once the war was over, the enemies would get the Kiss. No exceptions. Severus.. well.. he just said, Lucius... do the best you can. That\'s all I ask.”



Lucius laughs bitterly. “Right there I should have guessed that he wasn\'t really one of us. That he was loyal to the other side. But no, I thought he was just being oddly sentimental...”



Lucius chokes down a sob.



“Well, this is the best I could do, I am afraid. Stick Harry with Draco... and you with me. Couldn\'t get Ron – Bella snatched him right from under my nose... not that it matters. You are not really here. I am just deluding myself... thinking that keeping your bodies alive is what Severus would have wanted. He had probably meant for me to kill you. I suppose, I should – but I can\'t bring myself to do it. I just keep wondering...”



Lucius weeps openly, tears flooding his face.



“I keep wondering,” he speaks drunkenly, “Where you all have gone. If I can figure it out by watching you, maybe I can find Severus, one day, too... so tell me, Hermione, where do you live? Do you live in the ticks of the clock? In the blinking of the eyes?” He laughs softly, and scrutinizes her carefully, hoping to see some hint of reaction, some glimmer of hope.



He swears he sees a corner of her mouth move upwards, slightly, in a faint resemblance of a smile. He is almost ready jump and hug her, or fall at her feet and thank her – but then he realizes his mistake. It is nothing but a shadow cast by the dancing flame of the fireplace.



“Shame on you,” he says reproachfully, but without hostility. “Getting my hopes up like that.”



He finishes the wine, never taking his eyes off her. She is tranquility, she is loveliness, she is perfection itself. She is a ghost of the past, that had stepped out of time, and settled in his household, to comfort him and haunt him at once.



“I love you,” he tells her impulsively.



She blinks.