Covered in Crimson

Abject fear. That was what Draco saw in her eyes. Not that he blamed her – he was certain he’d be feeling the same thing in her place, awakening in a strange location with her would-be killer looming over her. He froze in his tracks, and opened his mouth as if to speak, but words seemed to fail him at the moment. His jaw worked up and down like some demented marionette, producing no sound.

She hadn’t moved, just kept staring. She hadn’t made a sound either. No scream, no shout, nothing. Had his hands around her neck removed that ability from her, Draco wondered? For the thousandth time, he had no answer.

Finally shaken from his paralysis, Draco slowly set his burdens on top of the small desk, and raised his hands as if in surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you, Granger,” he rasped, barely above a whisper. “I promise. I know you have no reason to trust me, and lots of reasons not to, but I swear on Merlin’s wand, I’m not going to hurt you anymore.”

Hermione’s response was to cringe away with the little strength she possessed, her eyes filling with tears. She tried to speak, and achieved little more than a croak, though he was quite certain she’d tried to say “No!”

He made a move to retrieve the sweatpants and t-shirt he’d set aside for her, and in her terrified state, she interpreted it as a further threat, flinching again and letting out as much of a shriek as she was able to produce. “No Granger, no. It’s okay. I found some clothes for you. I just want to help you get warm.” He reached slowly for the items, again displaying his upraised hands in a gesture to calm her. “See? Right here.” He nodded to the fabric just out of his reach, flicking his eyes briefly toward the pile, then back to meet hers. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

His thoughts were whirring while trying to keep her from killing herself with panic. “She’s never going to believe me. Why should she? All she knows is that the last time she was awake, I was trying to kill her. I raped her nearly to death. Of course she’s terrified. How do I explain this when I don’t know anything either? But I’ve got to try, or neither of us will get out of here.”

“Look, Granger. I woke up a few hours ago, and I don’t know how we got here or what happened. There’s some pretty horrible evidence that I was responsible for what happened to you. I can’t remember anything from the last few days – nothing at all. And my memory for what happened before that is like Swiss cheese. I know we’ve never got along, but I don’t hate you this much. I swear. I don’t,” Draco implored her to believe him. He continued, “I cleaned you up as best I could and put you on the bed. I know you’re hurt, and I’d like to help you, but I can’t find my wand, and yours is missing too. I’m starting to think somebody may have dumped us here.”

Something resembling a blink in response told him that he might have been on the right track. Granger still hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken. It was fairly likely that she was still unable to do either. When he looked in her eyes, Draco still saw fear but it was now laced with pain as she became more alert and aware of her surroundings. The immediate adrenalin rush had ended, and the true extent of her injuries would now become apparent to her. It was also pretty clear that she probably didn’t believe his claim of ignorance. He decided to confront this head-on. “Granger, I can see that you don’t believe me, and that’s fine. I understand. The only thing I can do is show you by my actions that I’m being as honest as I can be. Let me help you. All I want to do is get you into something warmer so you don’t freeze to death. It’s March, and it’s damned cold. You’re hurt enough as it is without compounding the problem with hypothermia. Please, let me help you.”

Draco could see that she was calming ever so slightly as he spoke, so he thought if he kept it up, it might pacify her further. “I’m just going to reach over here and pick up the sweatpants, shirt and a pair of socks for you, okay?” he practically cooed. Moving slowly and deliberately, he did exactly as promised. “Now, I’m going to come over to the bed and I’m going to help you put these on.”

Unsurprisingly, Hermione’s reaction to this was not happiness. Draco saw her eyes first widen in fear then narrow in trepidation. “I know, you don’t want to me touch you, and you’re naked under there. Here’s the thing, Granger. We’re both grown-ups and neither of us has anything that the other hasn’t seen before. I also cleaned you up before, so I’ve already seen it all. That may sound a bit crude, but my only desire here is to get you into something warmer than a thin blanket and my old cloak. You won’t get better if you can’t stay warm. Please, just let me do this without fighting.”

Hermione’s big brown eyes, red-rimmed, bruised, and watery, blinked once in assent. She tried to speak, but couldn’t verbalize her words aloud. The squawk she made was understood, however. “Waah” Draco knew she was asking “Why?”

“Why, what, Granger? Why did I ra… Why did I hurt you before? I don’t know. I wish I did. I wish I didn’t do it. I may be a rat bastard and a cruel sod, but I didn’t think I had it in me to be a rapist. There, I said it. I’m confused, and as I told you earlier, I honestly – Wizard’s oath – don’t remember doing it. Why do I want to help you now? I think that’s an even harder question to answer, Granger. Can’t you just accept it on face value for now? We’ll figure out the rest as we go along. I’m not asking for your forgiveness now, because I probably don’t deserve it, but let’s just get the both of us out of here, OK?” Draco pleaded.

He backed away from the bed, just a step, to allow her to make a decision. Giving her some power in this venture would probably not be a bad idea, he guessed. Draco’s eyes met Hermione’s and he waited for her reply. Her gaze flicked between him and the clothes in his arms, and she seemed to weigh his words and her situation. She sucked in a breath, and tipped her head just enough to constitute a nod of agreement. Draco sighed in relief and sought to reassure her one more time. “Okay. Good. I’m coming to the bed now, and I’m going to remove the cloak and blanket. I don’t think you should move, so let me do all the work. Just try to relax, okay?” With that, he moved slightly closer and tried not to notice her flinch as he lifted the blanket away from her body.

“Running commentary might work – keep her a little distracted from what I’m doing,” he thought, and launched into a play-by-play of each move, each action before he took it. “Here we go. I’m removing the blanket. Now let’s get the sweatpants on first. I’m guessing they’ll be a little big for you, but I thought they would fit better than the jeans. Yeah, I found these too,” as he indicated the faded blue denim he was wearing. “I don’t think I told you before, but I was also, umm, unclothed when I woke up. The only thing I could find that clearly belonged to either one of us was my cloak, which I used to cover you. That’s one of the reasons that I was thinking that there’s a little more to the story than just you and me ending up alone in this godforsaken place.”

Draco had moved further down the bed to have access to Hermione’s feet and legs. He hesitated briefly before touching her ankle. Looking only at her face for the moment, he asked her permission to proceed. “I’ll need to move your feet a little bit to get these things on you. Is it okay if I shift your leg to do that?” Getting a squeaking “Ya,” in reply, he bunched up each leg of the sweatpants in turn, and carefully pulled them in turn over each foot. Kneeling on the bed on her right side, he slowly tugged them up by the gathered elastic waistband, concentrating intently on minimizing how much he moved her and how much incidental touching he could avoid. He didn’t need her to start freaking out on him now that he’d made some progress. “Okay, that’s good,” he encouraged. “Almost done. I’ll just need to shift your hips over a little to get these all the way up.” He reached over to grasp her left hip in an attempt to get the fleece fabric over the last hurdle, and that’s when their tentative peace shattered.

“Ahhh. Ahhh. Ahhh,” Hermione wailed.

Draco leapt back from the bed, hands away from her body in an instant. “What? What? I’m sorry. Did I hurt you? Are you okay?” He moved around to the other side of the bed and saw the reason for Hermione’s pained howls. Since he’d placed her in the bed, she’d developed an enormous livid bruise on her left hip that matched exactly to a man’s handprint. As he glanced over her body, he noticed that there were black and blue marks emerging all over her torso, arms and upper thighs as well. He’d hurt her again by touching an area that he’d obviously injured hours earlier. “Oh Merlin,” he gasped. “I’m sorry, Granger. I didn’t see that bruise. I’m so sorry.” Draco’s voice sounded choked and halting, his sincerity unmistakable even to the desperately pained woman writhing as much as her injuries allowed on the tiny bed. He darted from the room into the adjacent bath, shuddering in disgust at himself, both for what he’d done and for his weakness in letting his own distress be on display for Hermione to see. He leaned with his back against the door he’d slammed shut, breathing rapidly, and shoulders rising and falling with the effort. An insidious internal voice scolded him, “Weakling! What do you care? Go in there and finish her off. Get rid of the damned Mudblood. She’s of no use to anyone. Take her again. Kill her now!” He shook violently with the extreme effort of resisting the urge to listen to the voice, to comply with its demands. His headache, which had ebbed and flowed throughout the morning, came back once again with a vengeance, threatening to blind him with its intensity. “NO!” he roared, not entirely sure what he was denying. With Hermione not even half-dressed on the other side of the door, the depth of his struggle and the horrible ache behind his eyes became too much to bear. Draco passed out cold on the floor, giving in to the bliss of oblivion.

Hermione, still moaning in pain, heard his single cry and then the sickening thud as his body hit the floor. She could scarcely move a single muscle, let alone finish dressing herself. It was evident that he’d either been attacked or somehow hurt himself. Either way, she was thoroughly unable to help him or herself. She began to hope that death would come quickly, maybe for both of them. With that thought, she too succumbed to nothingness.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Draco was first to rejoin the land of the living, though he wasn’t so sure that he’d cared to. He’d clipped the side of his head on the sink as he fell, and now had a lump on his temple to add to the pounding in his brain. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but when he’d pried open the door to peer into the bedroom, it was clear that the sun was much lower in the sky than it had been while he’d tried to get Granger dressed. “Granger!” he exclaimed, seeing her half-naked body in the same position he’d left her hours earlier. She seemed to be unconscious again, not at all responsive to his shout.

“Damn.” He took three long strides to reach her bedside and looked down at her still form. Scanning from head to toe, it appeared that she hadn’t moved an inch since he’d run from her in a panic when he’d inadvertently caused her additional pain. He was alarmed to find that there was a small stain of blood on the bed near the juncture of her thighs. She’d apparently re-opened a wound, or was bleeding from inside. He felt his face flush red at the thought. He didn’t know what to do for her, but she’d made it this far and he didn’t want her to die now; he knew that much. If she was to survive, she needed to be an active participant in her recovery, at least by virtue of sharing knowledge. He’d have to awaken her by whatever means he could.

He started with calling her name, in progressive degrees of volume. “Granger. Granger. Granger!” He even resorted to something that would have been unthinkable at most points in their acquaintance. “Hermione. Hermione!” That just didn’t feel right, and she didn’t respond to either name anyway. He knew she was alive; he could see the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. He tried rousing her with a shake of her foot, then her knee, next her arm, and finally a touch of her cheek. Of all the ways that he had touched her in the last several hours, that had felt far too intimate, and he pulled away quickly, still unsuccessful in his mission. He was at a loss for what to do next, when the impish child that still lived somewhere within him needled him to toss a bucket of water on her head. He snorted aloud in amusement, then felt terrible at finding something funny in such a serious situation. But it did give him an idea. He returned to the bathroom and soaked one of the bath towels he’d found in the dresser in cold water. He rang it out so that it wasn’t dripping, and brought it to the bed. He started at her hands, bathing her once again in cool water. His touch was gentle but firm; his goal, after all, was to rouse her, not to soothe her. He moved the wet cloth over her arms, neck, and chest, allowing it to drape over her breasts briefly. Finally, when he could no longer avoid it, he washed her face. Watching her intently, he looked for any signs of awareness, and was rewarded a few moments later when he saw her eyelids begin to flutter.

“Herm… Granger. Granger, please wake up.”

“Ohhhh,” she managed to moan. “Naugh dree”

“No, Granger, I’m sorry. This is not a dream. It’s a lot closer to a nightmare, but we’re both very much awake. You passed out again, and I, uh, sort of did too. We both need to stay awake for a little while if we’re going to get out of this alive. And I’m going to need your help to get you into better shape.”

Hermione nodded once in acknowledgment. “Coh,” she struggled out.

“You’re cold?” Draco confirmed. At her blink, he reached for the cloak to drape over her and said, “Okay, I’ll cover you up for a moment, but I need to be really blunt with you, Granger. I need you to tell me what to do somehow. You’re, uh, bleeding from your, uh, personal place and we need to stop it.”

At her look of confusion at his hesitant terminology, Draco groaned. “You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?” he mumbled to himself.

“Your vagina, Granger. It’s bleeding. I know it’s my fault, but what can I do to make it stop?” Draco had never been so red in his life, guilt, shame, and humiliation warring within him for prominent display on his face.

“Hurrs,” she mumbled in confirmation.

“I’m sure it does. So what can I do to help? I don’t have a lot to work with here, but I’ve got some gauze, something called Band-Aids, towels and a set of sheets. Is there something I can do with any of that?”

Hermione seemed to hesitate for a moment, considering what he’d told her. She looked up at him with a great deal of trepidation, but nodded once. “Wot,” she grated out, and managed to lift her hand in the direction of her mouth.

Draco interpreted her request. “Water? Are you thirsty?” When she confirmed with another nod, he hopped to his feet. “That I can handle. Water coming up.” He moved quickly to the kitchen, immediately regretting his haste when his sore head protested. He grabbed one of the glasses he’d left on the table, and swished it under the running faucet for a moment to rid it of as much dust as he could. He then filled the glass and returned to Hermione’s bedside. He held the glass out to her, but she didn’t seem to have the strength or ability to reach out and grasp it. With a roll of his eyes that was slightly more amused than annoyed, Draco held the glass to her lips. “I’ll help you, but don’t get used to it. Eventually you’ll need to do this for yourself, you know.”

She sipped slowly, but deeply, peering over the rim of the glass in wary disbelief that he was actually helping her after everything he had done to harm her so thoroughly. When Draco saw that she had taken her fill, he removed the glass and set it on the floor beside the bed. “Better?” he asked.

“Ya,” was all she could manage in reply.

“Good. Now we need to get your other, uh, problem taken care of. You have an idea about what to do?” Draco waited for her to try to express what she wanted.

“Coh. Swe,” was what Draco heard.

“You’re cold? You want the sweater put on under the cloak?” His eyes flicked over to the desk, falling upon the thick cable knit he’d found in the basement.

“Nnn.” She made a slight move side to side with her head.

“No? Not the sweater?” Draco was confused.

“Swe swell,” she struggled mightily to form the “ell” sound.

“Swell? Oh! Swelling. You want something cold to help with the swelling?” he confirmed as understanding dawned.

“Ya,” she verified.

“Will a cold compress do? We don’t have any ice. What if I soak a piece of this towel in cold water and wring it out, then put it, uh, there?” Draco’s eyes drifted to her crotch for the briefest of moments.

“Ho thin.”

“You want me to soak the whole towel,” he indicated, understanding her request. Not quite comprehending the reason for using the whole towel, Draco just shrugged, but rose to return to the bathroom to accomplish part one of his task.

When he returned with the cloth, intent on placing it between her legs in as much of an “all-business” fashion as he could muster, she stopped him with a barely raised hand and the vocalization, “Ro.”

“Ro?” he thought for a half a second and got it. “Oh – roll it. Sure.” He rolled the towel along its shorter edge, making a compact package. He hesitated once more before speaking. “I think it would be easier to put it in place if the sweatpants were out of the way. They’re keeping your knees together and I can’t maneuver this around them. I’ll pull them back up after.” At her look of horror, he raised a hand to placate her. “Don’t worry, now that I know about your bruises I’ll be extra careful and we’ll get you clothed. I’ll help you put the t-shirt and sweater on too, and there’s a pair of socks for your feet. Let’s just get the compress in place first, then we’ll get everything else handled, okay?”

She nodded once in agreement, and Draco carefully pulled the sweatpants below her knees. He decided that the constant chatter he’d used earlier had actually been helpful in keeping her from becoming too upset, so he kept up his prattling as he worked. “I’m going to have to raise one of your knees. It will probably be better to lift the right one, yeah?” He looked at her face for agreement, and seeing it, gently placed his left hand in the crook behind her knee, opening her to his view. “I’m sorry. I know this is embarrassing – for both of us – but for the moment, just think of me as ‘Healer Draco’ and we’ll get through this without too much fuss, right?” He shifted the rolled, wet towel into position between her legs, and immediately understood why she’d wanted the whole thing. Her entire vulvar region was red and swollen – worse than they’d been earlier - as were her inner thighs. The large towel would provide some relief for the whole area, he hoped. He tried not to inspect too closely so that her humiliation would be lessened, but he had to ask. “Granger, what about the bleeding, uh, inside? Shouldn’t we do something about that too?” he questioned.

“Nnn. Swe fursss,” she answered, shaking her head once. “This hep too.”

Draco shrugged and accepted her decision. “Okay. Whatever you say. How about we get you re-dressed now? The sweatpants might even help keep the towel in place. They might get damp, but I’ve found another quilt so we can use that to keep you warm if we need to let the pants dry out for a while. Does that sound okay?” He met her eyes again for agreement.

Hermione nodded her consent and Draco moved closer to restart the laborious process of getting her clothed. A tiny degree of trust had been established as he’d tended to her needs in the last several minutes, and she relaxed her limbs a bit, allowing him to more easily move the fabric up over her knees, thighs, hips, and finally settling it in place at her waist. The sweats were definitely too large, but that was probably a good thing, given the current circumstances, and a drawstring helped in securing them at her midsection. Next, Draco reached over her to lift the gray t-shirt from the back of the chair where he’d abandoned it hours earlier. She assisted him minimally by trying to lift her arms as he slipped the garment over her head. She shuddered briefly when his body briefly came into contact with her still-naked chest. He pulled away swiftly, apologizing with a glance. “Awkward” didn’t come close in description. Draco then offered her the heavy brown sweater. “Do you want this too?” he asked. At her nod, he bunched up the sweater’s bottom and positioned it above her head, dragging it down when she indicated she was ready. He lifted her hair out from under the sweater’s back. “Now it’s just the socks. Do you want those?”

Her “Ya” was comparatively enthusiastic, and he pulled the pair over her tiny feet. He remembered the slippers and trainers he’d found, but didn’t think she’d be using them for a while yet. “I’ve got a couple of options of footwear for you when you’re feeling up to moving around. It’s probably best that you rest a bit, and then we can figure out what you want me to do next. I’m going to take a look outside to see if there’s anything that will tell me something more about where we are or maybe lead me to some food. I’m hoping that if you rest your throat a little, you’ll be able to speak and help shed some light on what happened here. I’ll be back in an hour; get some rest.”

With that, Draco exited the room, closing the door behind him and leaving Hermione to contemplate what he’d done for her after what he’d done to her. It wasn’t very long, though, before sleep claimed her once again.