A/N: Written for dysfuncentine 2014. Prompt: After fulfilling Character A's most fantasized sexual desires, Character B cannot look him/her in the eye.

Warnings/Contains: dubcon, role-playing, rape-play or fantasy, choking/breathplay, bondage, rough sex, ANGST (seriously, don't look for a happy ending), established relationship, breakup!fic

XXXXX

He stands before her in voluminous black robes, hooded, low candlelight catching the barest sheen from his Death Eater mask. A column of darkness, he seems taller. Bigger. When his hand lifts, wand out, she thinks his fingers could encircle her throat, snap it, no problem.

Her own hands slip against the footboard behind her, sweaty, and there's a tingle at her hairline where more sweat beads. Something thrashes against her chest, making it hard to breathe, to think, and she realizes it's her heart. He's coming closer, taking his time, playing with her, and she lets go of the footboard and grips her arms as if she can ward off an Unforgivable. Beneath her fingers, the old scar: "Mudblood."

He chuckles and brings the wand up to her cheek. "Scared already? We're just getting started." It's a whisper, but still the same sneering voice from Hogwarts.

Hermione bites her cheek and clenches her thighs, eyes squeezing shut. She swallows a whimper, throat tight.

This is the fantasy.

The wand digs into her cheek and drags downwards, carving a path along her windpipe and clavicle, then dipping lewdly between her breasts, barely covered by the flimsy shift she wears. In its wake, the wand leaves an ache, but it's nothing compared to the pull at her pussy, a desire too sharp to even be called an ache. It cleaves her, and she opens her eyes.

This is her fantasy.

His hood has fallen back, and the mask gleams. She cannot make out his eyes behind the snake-like slits. He is a faceless, heartless embodiment of pureblood righteousness and evil. He will not be moved.

Hermione's eyes dart around the room as she crawls backwards and away from him up the bed. He's taken her wand, locked the door and windows...

She slips on the satin coverlet, right arm going out beneath her, and he laughs again. He gives his wand a casual flick, and with a sibilant word, silken ties loose from the bed curtains and wrap around her wrists, jerking her up and back against the headboard.

"Oh, Granger, you were never so much fun in school. Of course, back then there were rules against tying up Mudbloods." His voice shifts from amused to cruel in a breath. Hermione's feet slide against the covers, restless, toes twitching, fingers curled against the bindings. It's him, and it's not him, the mask a thing she's never seen him wear, a thing, he's said, he's never actually worn. But each time he speaks, it's real.

It's Draco behind that mask.

XXXXX

The chill wakes her. The room is still dark, curtains drawn, and Hermione shifts onto her back, sighing at the ache between her legs. She reaches blindly to the other side of the bed, but instead of feeling another warm body, there's nothing but thrown back covers.

She frowns. It's Sunday, Day of Rest and Snuggling in Bed with Draco and the Prophet. Brunch in bed optional. Lazy, post-Saturday Night Kink lovemaking not.

Fumbling for and turning up the light beside the bed, Hermione clutches the sheet tight to her body and blinks blearily around the room. There are no signs of their play the night before; the bed curtains have been retied, her wand rests on the table beside the bed, and she doesn't see the remains of the shift that was torn off her. No Death Eater mask or robes.

It's as if none of it ever happened.

Except for the ache. That ache and the tightness in her throat when she swallows.

She closes her eyes. She can see herself, naked, stretched out and bound, powerless, beneath a masked Draco. His hands wrap around her neck, thumbs digging into her windpipe. His hips snap a brutal rhythm, relentless, and she thrashes, cries crystal sharp, high. Her eyes are open wide, locked on the mask, when she comes.

Hermione's eyes open in the present, and she sits up, breath coming short, heart beating fast. A slickness accompanies the ache between her legs, and she grabs her wand, casting a warming charm then flicking the curtains open. Sunlight floods the room and she squints, letting her eyes adjust before slipping out of bed. Passing a mirror she spots bruises at her neck, hips, and thighs; she looks forward to wearing them the whole day.

If Draco's not here to enjoy Hermione's morning after arousal, she supposes she must go find him instead.

XXXXX

As she descends the stairs of the house they've shared for almost three months, she ties her robe and tells herself the nervous energy in her belly is excitement, not anxiety at waking alone.

Maybe it's later than usual (she doesn't check). Maybe Draco's in the loo. Maybe he got hungry and didn't want to wake her.

When she enters the kitchen, there he indeed sits, Prophet in both hands unfolded and blocking her view of his face and upper body.

"Good morning," she says, and her voice is thinner than normal, and it hurts a bit to speak. She begins to raise a hand to her throat but stops.

"Morning," Draco replies from behind the paper. Not a finger twitches on the parchment.

Hermione fidgets, twisting her fingers. She wants to give him a kiss, put her arms around him, but everything tells her not to. The unease in her belly has spread to her chest, which tightens.

"Have you eaten yet? I've no idea what time it is," she laughs, as if at herself. "I thought perhaps it got late and you didn't want to wake me." Silly Hermione, oversleeping.

He turns the page, parchment crackling, and she catches a glimpse of his face, taut and pale. "I've eaten." He sits up straighter in his chair, and she bends to the side, peeking under the table to see that he's dressed.

"Are you going out today?"

"Yes, I've some things to do," he answers immediately.

"Like what?" The blood in her veins doesn't know if it wants to boil or freeze.

Draco thwaps the paper on the table, eyes rolling ceiling-ward as he sits back, like a child told he can't go out and play. "Things. Since when do you need to know every little thing I do?"

Hermione's mouth opens, but she has no idea what to say. She's reminded of the stupid fights she and Ron had when they'd given it a go after Hogwarts and the war, before they settled on being friends again.

She and Draco don't fight like this.

"What's wrong?" she asks. She's too shocked, too scared, for her temper to get in the way.

Draco shrugs, sighing deeply. "Nothing." He gets up and heads toward the hallway and the closet. She follows him and wraps a hand around his arm. It's like a Crucio directly to her heart when he shakes her off.

"Draco! What is—"

"The...stuff from last night is in your bag over there." He nods at the table near the door. "I have to go." He opens the closet door and fishes for his robes.

Last night.

Her blood has finally chosen, prickling her skin from the inside like frost on a windowpane. Fear slices through her, cold and swift.

"Wait!" She blocks his passage to the door.

Draco looks up, but his eyes stop at her throat and widen for the briefest of moments before shifting back down to his hands as he moves his wand from the wrong to the right pocket in his robes.

"I thought last night was...I thought..." Hermione can't finish, panic further tightening her already tender throat. "You agreed," she finally manages. "You wanted to." Her voice is so small and hopeful, she hates it.

Draco raises restless hands to his head and runs them through his hair, tugging harshly. He stares past her at the door. "I agreed. But I didn't want to. Not really."

Every cell of Hermione's body feels like it's imploding, turning her inside out, trying to hide and protect her from the shame and anger, the anguish.

"Your dick sure said differently," she spits. Anger is the safest, the easiest, she figures, the least likely to destroy her.

He almost meets her eyes then, jaw clenched, as he glares at the hard set of her mouth, his face flushed. "I did it for you. And you were so..." he trails off and squeezes his eyes shut, hands fists at his sides. "...responsive. You wanted it so badly. I couldn't help but get caught up in it." His voice has grown thick, his face and neck blotchy. "I didn't think you'd actually—"

"What? Go through with it?" She's shouting, tears clouding her vision, and she wishes they could be called angry, but she hasn't been this sad in a long time. The only thing keeping her from falling apart completely, from dissolving into a puddle of liquid shame, is the fact that Draco cannot look her in the eye. "Go through with what took me months of self-examination and internal debate to have the courage to even think of suggesting to you? And what of all that rubbish about being safe and making myself vulnerable that you kept preaching at me? Was that just a form of blackmail after you asked me to bugger you last month?" After her tirade, Hermione falls back against the arm of the comfy chair nearby, simultaneously horrified and cleansed by her words.

Draco shakes his head silently, disbelieving, she supposes. He's turned towards the kitchen, but even in profile she can see there are tears now in his eyes. She pictures him last night pushing her legs open and back roughly, her frantic but feigned struggles. His sleeve sliding down his arm to reveal the faded Dark Mark as he thrusts inside and begins fucking her hard, fast, and ruthless, telling her how tight she is, but that he'll never come inside her Mudblood cunt.

Eyes burning, head starting to pound, Hermione pushes off the chair and stands right in front of him. Her throat feels so raw she's afraid to swallow or speak, but she can't let this go. "You said you understood, Draco." She takes his chin gently in her fingers and turns his face to hers, but he only gazes dully at her forehead. "You said you knew. Living with that danger and now facing it, experiencing it how we want, safely..."

Draco backs out of her grasp and into the wall behind, eyes downcast. "It wasn't the same."

She waits, but he will not say anymore. She's gone strangely calm, but it doesn't feel like there's time to make sense of why yet.

He stands there, hands deep in his pockets, and Hermione nods like she's decided what to have for dinner and has snapped the menu shut.

"Last night before I passed out, and this morning when I woke, I felt so light. Euphoric. Safe." She pauses, an unsteady smile briefly pulling at her lips. "Now I wish I hadn't been the one to return your wand after the war. I wish I hadn't fought for us so hard—with our friends, your family, the public. I wish you'd died in the Fiendfyre." It's the cruelest thing she's ever said—to anyone. She doesn't even know if she means it, but she thinks right now she does.

Draco tucks his chin, shoulders hunching, stiff like a man Petrified. "I don't know what to say."

Neither does Hermione, and she watches as he leaves, certain that the house is now once again hers alone and wishing she only hurt as much as when he'd called her "Mudblood" as a child and meant it.