"I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went — and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light."

— Lord Byron

"The muggleborn, Raul, was Astoria's lover," Hermione blurted out breathlessly as the present world came back into focus.

"He was," Draco replied. "He had lived in the muggle town near the Greengrass estate. Astoria told me they were secretly childhood friends and he never attended Hogwarts — his parents were frightened by his magic and the magical world. So Astoria taught him over the summers. Eventually, they fell in love. And when the Dark Lord won, she sent him into hiding. But when he had heard she was going to be married off as a part of the decree, he sought to help her escape but he was caught."

Hermione's heart twisted, seeing Astoria's delicate face full of sorrow in her mind. Another casualty in this war.

"And she was already sick." Hermione recalled Astoria's sickly pallor and mentions of her illness. The Order report on Draco when he had first arrived also mentioned it.

"Blood maledictus. None of us knew. She eventually came clean not long after the conversation you just saw when for days she couldn't even get out of bed."

"Then — then she knew that if she got pregnant, she wouldn't survive."

"She knew." Draco swallowed, searching her eyes as if memorizing them for the last time.

Hermione waited for him to say more, but he looked away.

"I won't be joining you for the next one."

Hermione startled at his words, unsure of what to make of them. He was silent as he extracted the current memory in the pensieve and replaced it with the next one. His face was ghostly white, a controlled blankness over his features.

The luminous substance of the memory swirled in the basin. Hermione tried to catch Draco's gaze but he seemed to be avoiding her.

"The lust potion... '' Hermione knew its effects — those who ingested it lost control of their bodies and minds. It was used by Death Eaters to make their victims willing and susceptible to perform sexual acts without their consent. It was used for rape.

Draco didn't seem surprised at the fearful look in her eyes.

"Did you... did she..."

"Please, Hermione. Just watch," he said softly. "We'll talk after."

Hermione's fingers curled, feeling empty and cold without his touch. But she respected his wishes. Dread seeped through her as she dipped back into the pensieve.

***

4 Months After the Battle of Hogwarts

"Crucio!"

Draco's teeth rattled when the curse hit him. Every single one of his nerves felt electrified, as if pure lightning entered his veins. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, the world full of nothing but white-hot pain.

"Tell me, both of you," the Dark Lord's calm venomous voice echoed, "how its possible for a single muggleborn witch to infiltrate one of our facilities, steal information, and leave undetected?"

"M-my Lord," Avery stuttered, "She didn't leave a trace! We weren't aware — "

Avery's words were cut off with a blood curdling scream when the Dark Lord hit him with another curse. Draco kept his head lowered from where he knelt. Avery's screams continued on but Draco ignored it, regulating his breathing, focusing on his reflection in the black marble floor below him. Blood and sweat dripped from the wet tendrils of white-blond hair that fell across his forehead. He stared at the man reflected back at him in the black mirror, pale and indifferent even as the screams continued. His fingertips twitched with the lingering effects of the cruciatus.

"Stand," the Dark Lord hissed.

Draco obeyed, as Avery, still twitching on the ground, staggered to his feet. Draco kept his eyes lowered and watched Avery's blood spill across the black marble. His own magic quivered defensively as the Dark Lord approached, sensing the dark magic pulsing from him. It was unnatural, malignant, and almost alive.

"Avery," the Dark Lord lifted the man's chin with his wand. "Tell me — what does the Dark Mark on your arm represent?"

Avery swallowed. "Power?"

The Dark Lord grinned, his crimson eyes glittering. "That is one. But what is the other?"

Avery kept his eyes shut as the elder wand dug more firmly in his thick neck. When Avery didn't answer, the Dark Lord turned to Draco. "Draco?"

Draco looked up, eyes void as met the face of Harry Potter. It was the same face with red eyes and unruly dark hair. But it was edged with a cruelty, a hunger for violence that had never been there before

"Loyalty."

"Indeed." Avery's eyes blew wide in panic.

"My lord, I swear I never — "

"Silence," he hissed, sending Avery to his knees. "There has been suspicion for weeks about how the Order has been able to target some of our most guarded locations. There is a rat."

"My lord, it could have been Malfoy," Avery spat, "his father was a disappointment just like he will be — "

Before Avery could finish his sentence, he was thrown backwards then hit with another cruciatus. The Dark Lord lowered his wand. "I said silence."

The man nodded, curling to his side.

"In fact, it was Draco's idea to share differing information on where the new facility would be to each Death Eater we suspected turned coat for the Order. The location Hermione Granger infiltrated was a setup and only you thought that was the real location."

Avery paled. "I — "

"Draco," the Dark Lord stood back, eyes holding a cold amusement as Draco stepped forward and lifted his wand.

Avery looked directly into his eyes, pleading as he searched for some kind of mercy.

Draco did not hesitate. "Avada Kedavra!"

***

Hermione Granger was a problem.

"How many of the artifacts were salvaged?" Draco's fist curled around his wand as he stared out at the remains of their warehouse that had been warded thickly and guarded so deeply but was now was left in rubles. It was where they had stored their weaponized supplies such as potions, dark artifacts, and experimental explosives they were working on.

"None," the Death Eater reporting to him bit out nervously.

Hermione Granger had leveled their warehouse to dust, having almost left without a trace if it wasn't for one of the guards that had caught a glimpse of her before she slipped out. The Gryffindor he had known back in Hogwarts had become a larger player in the war even without her two best friends. The war seemed to have awakened — or perhaps killed — something in her.

Draco raised his wand to expect the damaged wards. The wards were supposed to be impenetrable, inaccessible — even by the guards. Any tampering would cause a direct alarm to him.

"You," Draco said sharply to one of the more senior guards that was sporting nasty burns. "How did she get close enough to the wards?"

"I found her somewhere between the north and east posts, working on something with the wards before it exploded from within. We're not sure how she dismantled them — "

"She didn't dismantle the wards, she added on to it." Draco's jaw ticked as he unraveled the magical trace of what she had done. Layering wards was tricky and sensitive. Instead of dismantling them, she destabilized the wards by adding runes to them. In effect, it reversed the spellwork to react inward so that any tampering would cause all the wards to trigger and explode from within.

"Clever," he muttered.

"Where was Greengrave?" Draco asked suddenly, spotting the exact location she had done her work. They remained silent. "From the trace she left behind and the post assignments, he should have covered the area she had access to."

Greengrave was pushed forward. The new recruit's face split into a cocky smile but it did nothing to hide the hint of panic in his eyes.

"Lord Malfoy, you've summoned me."

"Where were you when Hermione Granger attacked?"

"Erm you see, I was on a little break with some mudblood whore I found lurking in the muggle town nearby — "

Draco's eyes narrowed before he twisted his wrist, wandlessly causing Greengrave to his knees. An invisible force took hold of his neck and the recruit clawed at his throat.

"The Dark Lord will not be happy with this. With all of you."

All their faces paled at his warning. Draco sighed as dark magic thrummed at his fingertips. He could not return to the Dark Lord without exacting punishment.

"Ignis sanguis," he whispered.

Screams filled the air as their blood boiled in their own skin.

***

Just before dawn, as pale light peaked through the black line of trees in the distant horizon, the manor greeted Draco upon his return. The manor walls were silent as he proceeded towards the dungeons, half filled with prisoners from the war. Once he reached an isolated cell, he was unsurprised to find two forms on the small cot.

At his approach, the man stirred, noticing him.

"I've tried telling her to stop sneaking in," the man, Raul Barlow, muttered groggily, keeping his voice low enough so as not to wake her. "But she refuses to listen."

The gray light of pre-dawn touched his features from the single celled window, illuminating the fresh cuts and bruises on his face. It rendered him almost unrecognizable from the man they had brought in with blond curls and a boyish face.

"Tippie," Draco called.

The house-elf he had assigned Astoria apparated in. "Yes, master," she bowed.

"Please bring Astoria back to her room."

"Yes, master," the elf squeaked, apparating inside the cell before gently levitating her mistress and disappearing with a muted pop.

"The Death Eater you left in charge while you were gone — nice guy. Doesn't even take off his Death Eater mask. That's the dedicated type of bloke," despite his swollen face, Raul grinned. Regardless, Draco didn't miss the wince of pain. "He has even more emotion than you. You should take more trips and have him watch over us more often. Would like my left eye to be the same pulpy size as the right — really get that froggy look that I'm certain Tori will find adorable."

Draco stared at him blankly before entering the cell. Waving his hand, he lit a single torch as Raul deposited himself on his cot.

"You would save yourself from trouble if you kept your mouth shut around him," Draco drawled.

Raul frowned and went to argue but Draco waved his wand sharply and reset Raul's dislocated shoulder. Raul winced.

"How are the wounds?"

"Just a little bruised," Raul grinned again before grunting when Draco set his nose back in place. "How's Tori? She tells me she's getting better but I can tell when she's lying."

"I've assigned her a healer and so far she's stable and regaining her strength," Draco pointed his wand to Raul's eye and healed it. "That's the extent I can do without raising suspicion."

Raul blinked, blue eyes focusing on him with a more serious look. "Thank you."

"I have tried to advise Astoria to limit her visits especially when I'm gone. If it was someone other than me who made a visit at this hour..." Draco warned.

Raul shook his head. "I tried to tell her I was fine after the Death Eater you left in charge had a chat with me, but she refused to leave when she saw the damage."

Draco inhaled deeply. He would have to inform the house-elves to keep an eye out for anyone possibly discovering Astoria when she overslept in Raul's cell again.

"How was your day, my lord?"

Despite his blank look, Raul, unfettered, winked at him. He reminded him of Theo. "Busy."

Raul raked his hand through his curly blood-matted hair. "The Dark Knight, saving other damsels in distress such as myself, no doubt. But of course, you always come home to me."

"Lucky you," Draco responded drily.

"What would they say!" Raul gasped. "Raul Barlow — suspected Order member and filthy mudblood, rumored to be frequently visited in the late night by Lord Malfoy's wife... and Lord Malfoy too!"

"Don't push it, Barlow."

"You see why Tori loves me."

"Not quite."

Draco threw him a vial pain potion before the man could reply. He turned to leave, but Raul stopped him.

"Thank you. Again."

Draco nodded and continued his way out.

***

"It's ready."

Astoria froze from where she was sitting by the windowsill. She coughed daintily, trying to muffle the sound with an embroidered handkerchief but Draco could hear the dry rasp in her lungs.

"Here," he said, offering her a vial with green liquid. Astoria gave him a watery smile before taking a sip. A few moments later, her breathing smoothened out.

"Thank you," she replied in a soft voice. She got up and Draco offered his arm as he helped her take a seat on the chaise.

Ever since she had broken down in his office, a quiet understanding settled between them. Eventually, she revealed the blood maledictus that plagued her family line, but she did so with a kind of tranquil acceptance. It had been in her family for centuries and she had always known about it.

I'm not afraid, she had shrugged, even though this pregnancy will kill me.

They hadn't really spoken, except in passing, since that conversation. They never spoke about Raul's healed cuts, how the prison guards left the cells at midnight, nor the bags under her eyes when she slipped back into her room in the early mornings. She had never said anything nor asked his motives, seemingly to come to some conclusion on her own. Sometimes he caught her eyeing him curiously across the dinner table, but she kept whatever she was thinking to herself.

"Tell me again how it works?" she asked as Draco placed two bottles before her.

"You already know of the lust potion that has been circling around the Death Eater circles," he began, an underlying distaste in his voice. "It took a month, but I finally broke down the components and extracted the parts that would work for the libido and nothing else. It would simply work as a stimulant to make it... less painful for you and... possible for me to perform my duty."

"A - and I'll still be conscious in my own mind?"

"Yes. Unlike the lust potion, you'll retain full control of yourself, your thoughts, and feelings. You can say 'no' or make it stop if it's too much." Draco rolled the libido potion in his palms, the saturated pink pearlescent hue nauseous to the eye.

Astoria nodded silently.

"The second is a fertility potion. I'll be taking one as well." Astoria plucked the bottle with the lavender substance and examined it. "These two potions along with the basic Occlumency my mother taught you should help."

A tense silence came between them as they both contemplated what was going to happen that night.

"Thank you," Astoria whispered.

She hesitated before placing her hand on top of his. Her hand was cold.

Draco dipped his chin in acknowledgment before pulling away.

***

TRIGGER WARNING: Forced sex/impregnation. (If you want to skip this part, you can go straight to the next section.)

The water droplets clinked loudly as they dripped from the sink, reminding Draco of the thick trickle of blood on metal. Draco looked up into the mirror, barely recognizing the pale waxy face staring back at him. The sick feeling in his stomach heightened. This type of intimacy was foreign to him and it was going to happen like this — both of them unwilling, under the Dark Lord's orders, bred like fucking animals.

For most of the time, he had been able to lock it up, compartmentalize his feelings. He told himself to treat it like those missions he was sent on, those people he was ordered to torture and kill. But this felt different.

With shaky fingers, he tipped the first bottle into his mouth — the fertility potion. It went down easily, a smooth concoction that tasted like pomegranates and barley. He felt no change. Next, he took the bottle filled with the pink pearlescent substance — the libido potion. He took a single sip, liquid warmth immediately seeping through his body. Draco winced uncomfortably as a flush of heat spread through him, his breathing coming heavy. He looked at his reflection again, finding his eyes so dilated his pupils were almost black.

Despite his body reacting accordingly to the libido potion, a sickening panic bolted through him. Immediately, he called upon his occlumency walls, brick by brick, doors sealing and shutting, walling out every emotion until all that was left was a blankness. He inhaled deeply before stepping out of the bathroom.

The smell of burnt sugar, ash, and a sick sweetness immediately overwhelmed him, causing him to pause for a moment.

Finally, he looked up.

Astoria lay in her bed, looking almost as if she were in a slumber of death. Her eyes were shut as she lay underneath the duvet with her hands rigidly by her side, completely clothed in a white sleeping gown.

"Have you taken them? "

"Yes," she responded, eerily calm.

Carefully, Draco lifted the covers, avoiding to look at her face as he settled between her legs. Her body tensed and she shivered before she clinically lifted her nightgown. Neither of them chose to remove their clothes.

"Ready?" Draco rasped.

"Yes," she replied, screwing her eyes shut.

Draco winced when he entered her. Her face twisted in discomfort as he broke through her maidenhood. He looked away before moving under the sheets, trying to keep his occlumency walls in place. Every movement caused both physical pleasure and disgust. He heard her sniffing under him and he felt bile rise in his throat as he caught her face screwed tight, tears pooling down her cheeks. She looked so young and frightened — it sickened him. This, this is what he was, what he had been reduced to.

A war raged inside of him as the potion heightened its effects. Unable to fully control his body, the need for physical pleasure and release burned higher, pushing him further until all he could hear was the harsh sound of their bodies against each other and her cries of pain below him. Finally, with a pained hiss, he finished inside of her.

The next thing he knew, Draco was heaving into the toilet bowl, vaguely realizing he had apparated to his own bedroom. Something in him finally broke, something cracked in his shields. He had never felt so disgusted and violated for what he had just done. He had fucking raped her.

Draco heaved again into the toilet bowl, shaking as he emptied himself.

***

The manor was silent as he made his way down the stone steps to the dungeons. He had not slept — unable to close his eyes without seeing Astoria's face or feeling a sickly sensation engulf him.

He blinked slowly as his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the cellar. The dungeons were sparse, most of the prisoners already transferred except for half a dozen muggleborns.