Disguised Affections

A/N: Every day brings us closer to the climax!!

I hope you guys like the chapter. :) WARNING: RELATIVELY GRAPHIC TORTURE - although not as bad as what happened to Dorcas Meadows. A bit of squick to this one, though.

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to review. :)

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Chapter Nineteen

Severus ran up to the boys’ dormitory to shower and change his clothes before he planned on barging into Dumbledore’s office to demand he remove that ridiculous cuff and corresponding glamour. He put on black trousers and a white button down shirt, and threw black robes on over top, desperately trying to imitate his Potions master robes. Now that he remembered who he was, he felt naked without them… as if he was lacking armor and showing his soft underbelly.

He dried his hair with a quick charm and was turning to leave when a large eagle owl swept into the Gryffindor tower and dropped a bundle on the bed. Severus froze, recognizing Atreus, the Malfoy owl. The bird gave him a haughty look before departing without waiting for an answer.

Drawing his wand, he cast several diagnostic spells designed to reveal dark magic. When he found no hint of malevolent intent, he cautiously picked up the cloth-wrapped bundle and opened it.

A long, honey-brown curl fell into his hand, and Severus felt his world tilt dangerously. Hermione. Without conscious intent, his fingers stroked the soft strand, and he lifted it to his face. Apple-blossom shampoo washed through his senses, and fear crept into his heart like a slow-burning poison. Numbly, he picked up the note that had been attached.

Malfoy Manor. 10 pm. I trust you remember the way.

No aurors or she’ll suffer for it.

In that moment, he grew into an old man, hunched and fearful. He wrapped his arms around his torso and keened in pain and loss. This was impossible. It was quite simply impossible for Severus to keep going in a world where Hermione did not exist. Straightening suddenly, his posture grew strong, fury radiating off of him.

“Fuck! FUCK!!” He screamed viciously. Severus grabbed his trunk and slammed it against the wall in his fury. “Mother fucking, smegma-eating buggerer of hippogriffs!” He ripped the down comforter off his bed and destroyed it wordlessly with a flash from his ebony wand.

“What’s crawled up your arse, mate?” Ron’s voice was appalled as he surveyed the destruction around the other boy.

“Godsdamn it,” Severus said, kicking his bed post. He threw the letter and curl at the red head.

Ron’s face drained of color, and his hands began to shake. “Harry!” He shouted. “Harry, get up here right now!”

“I’ve got to go get her. I can’t leave her with that monster.” Severus was pacing furiously, a ball of manic energy with no outlet.

“Oh, gods. He’s got her again. When we got to them last time, Ginny’s body was…” Ron gagged.

“Pull yourself together, Weasel. This isn’t helping. Have your mental meltdown when Hermione’s life isn’t at stake.” He turned and shouted down the steps. “HARRY! Get your arse up here!” He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. Asking Potter for help. I’ve hit bottom and started digging.

The tousle-headed boy entered the bedroom. “What on earth is wrong, Ron?”

The two boys shoved the letter and curl at Potter. His eyes darted across the paper, and Severus saw the genial, slightly foolish wizard fade, only to be replaced with the steely-eyed Boy-Who-Lived-Twice. “BASTARD. That blasted, sodding…”

“Don’t stress your brain thinking up insults, Potter. Save your wit to help me figure out how to get Hermione back safe,” Severus said, struggling to control his frayed temper. “She’s currently being held by a lunatic in one of the most securely held manors in the U.K.”

Ron paced frenetically, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “We should get Dumbledore. He’ll be able to help us. Even Voldemort feared him. Oh, gods. What do you think Malfoy’s doing to ‘Mione right now?”

“It doesn’t help to conjecture, Ron.” Severus’s tone left no doubt that he had been thinking the very same thing, and the conclusions that he’d drawn left him feeling cold. “We can’t go to Dumbledore. He’s untrustworthy. If he hadn’t sat on that information from Draco, Ginny would still be alive and Hermione wouldn’t have scars all over her body. There’s more than that, of course.” His mouth twisted sardonically as he thought of the old man’s manipulations. “The things he’s done to me… are unspeakable.”

“Have you got your memory back?” Harry enquired.

Severus nodded. “I’ll tell you about it one day, Potter. For now, we have to figure out the first step.”

Harry looked surprised. “I should have thought our first step would be obvious. We’ve got to talk to Draco. Who better to help us get onto the Malfoy grounds?”

Ron nodded. “Let me talk to him. He hates your guts, Harry.”

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“Wake up, my darling, my sweetling, my long-lost love.”

Hermione’s eyes fluttered open, and she saw her worst dreams made flesh. Lucius Malfoy, the subject of every single one of her night terrors, was leaning over her, stroking her hair. She opened her mouth to scream, and the pureblood tut-tutted.

“Silencio,” he murmured with a voice as slick as silk. “You know how I like to make love when it’s quiet.” Malfoy kissed her on the forehead. Hermione began to struggle in earnest, but was unable to move from a spread-eagled position. She blanched when she realized he had her splayed out naked on the rack Oh, gods. The rack.

She remembered the rack.

Her eyes bulged as he tilted the mechanism so that she was nearly upright, and Hermione began to pant with fear.

“Shhhh, my darling look out the window. It’s the Malfoy rose garden by moonlight.” His eyes were tender and mad and so very hungry that she shuddered in horror. The pureblood smiled widely. “That’s right! It’s beautiful, isn’t it? You see, I wanted this night to be special for us. It’s our reunion! I neglected you shamefully for that little red-headed tart, and I want to make it up to you. Look around you. If I didn’t care, I’d have kept you in the dungeons, but here we stand in the library! I know how much you love books, you little cunt.”

He frowned, his thin lips curling petulantly. “I was a fool, Hermione, and I want you to forgive me. I focused almost all of my love on her – that slut friend of yours, but she played me false and left me far too quickly.”

Lucius cocked his head to take in her expression.

“Ahh, you’re shy, of course. I knew this would be good between us.” He leaned forward and sucked her ear between his lips. His mouth was all dripping tongue and sharp teeth, and Hermione would have screamed if she’d been able to make a sound. With a snick, his teeth met through her earlobe, and tears leaked from the corner of her eyes in pain.

“Mmm… You are so delicious. I’ve been thinking of what we should do together first. I got to leave you all sorts of love marks last time, but I never got to enjoy the pleasures of your body like I did with the redhead. I’ve decided that’s where I want to start.” His grey eyes grew incredibly cold. “After all, I’m sure you spread your legs for Snape, didn’t you?” The sharpness faded again from his face, once more replaced with lust and psychosis. Although of course Hermione hadn’t questioned it before, it once more became readily apparent to her that Lucius Malfoy was looney as a March Hare.

He dropped his trousers, displaying fine black silk boxers beneath them. Lucius pulled his flaccid penis out of the opening. It hung between his legs, useless and shriveled.

“I bet you’ve never seen such a pureblooded cock.” He gently cupped his hand under his balls and massaged slightly. His other hand coasted down the side of the rack. “See these hinges? I can bend you forward if I like. And I think I want to. I’ll take you from behind so I don’t have to look you in the face.” His eyes widened and he shouted at her, spittle flying from his lips. “That way I don’t have to think about you fucking that bastard traitor. I’ll look into your eyes, but all I will see is his black gaze, staring at me. Condemning me while he fucks you any way that he wants to do it.”

He shivered and paced for a moment. “But he doesn’t love you like I love you. And I’m going to show you.”

Malfoy rubbed a thumb over the head of his organ, and fisted himself while he stared at the curly-haired woman strapped to the rack in his library. His cock refused to respond, hanging as limply as boiled cabbage. A dark look crossed his patrician features, and he stepped closer to Hermione, actually joining her on the edge of the rack.

She was terrified. His face was an inch from hers, and he was panting open-mouthed as he stroked his penis trying to elicit a reaction from it. Lucius’s eyes were fastened to hers, and his tongue darted out occasionally to lick her tears. His movements became more frantic.

Hermione knew something was terribly wrong. She couldn’t see what his hands were doing, but she saw the storm clouds building on his face and knew that he was on the verge of killing her. She heard the sounds of his fist sliding over flesh as he wanked furiously.

“You fucking bitch! You cock tease!” He stepped back, and Hermione had just enough time to see his dick hanging like a dead flobberworm before he pulled back and punched her in the jaw. He hit her so hard that the girl lost herself for a time in a moment of darkness and confusion. In that brief instant, Hermione was once more a child at the beach thrown under the swell of a breaker and getting tossed through the wave, never knowing which way was up until her head finally crested the water and she breathed deeply.

When her eyes opened again, and the world had ceased to jump around her, she saw that Lucius Malfoy had pulled a wickedly sharp-looking boning knife. He dragged the point of it fiercely, deeply between her breasts and then watched as the blood welled and dripped down her belly, running in playful rivulets around her navel and into the thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs.

“Oh,” he said finally, his voice sounding tinny and far away. “That’s so much better, love. You just needed a little coaxing.” He dragged a hand through her blood and sniffed it. “I can smell your desire.” His cock twitched and hardened. His fingers closed around his shaft, and he stroked himself once more, the blood making his hands slick.

---

Draco Apparated into his family estate. He sauntered in, hands tucked nonchalantly into his robes.

“What are you doing here?” Walden McNair sat in a dining room chair in the foyer, facing the doorway. His wand dangled from the fingertips of his right hand while he held a half-eaten apple in his left. “Aren’t you supposed to be at school, Draco?”

The blond boy grimaced slightly as small chunks of saliva and apple flesh flew out of the Death Eater’s mouth. McNair was an unimpressive man – the wrong side of forty, balding, paunchy, completely immoral and dissolute… and one of the fastest wand draws he’d ever met.

“Suspended for a week. That dried-out cunt McGonagall caught me reading the Dark Arts texts in the Restricted Section.” His voice was drawling and distracted. “My father here?”

“He’s busy and doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

Draco shrugged. “I’ll wait to tell him I’m home, then.” He cocked his head and considering, he said, “Tea in the library sounds good.”

“Not the library.” McNair’s voice was curt.

“Why not? I should be - ”

“I said, ‘Not the library,’ brat.” The paunchy Death-Eater’s face was menacing.

Draco shrugged and walked away. He resisted the urge to shrug his shoulders, knowing that what he really wanted to do was shake McNair’s suspicious gaze from his back.

The Malfoy library had a Southerly exposure and faced the gardens. It was an enormous room that had two separate entrances, one through the Solarium and another through the Green Parlor. He walked towards the latter, intent on scoping the house out and communicating it to Potter and Weasley.

In his pocket, his hands were wrapped firmly around a galleon. He concentrated and felt the metal heat up.

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