Value and worth, Chapter 8

~o0o~

She's back in the hallway again. This time her hair is long like it used to be, and he takes advantage of it. He twirls a lock and gently presses it against his nose, inhaling deeply. She feels as if currents travel along the hair and into her, spreading from her head and down her spine.

He smirks when he spots how red she's grown from the action. To find that she is watching him.

He leans in and caresses her cheek. "You want me close, don't you?"

"No," she says, her tremble revealing her words for the lies they were.

Barty smirked. "Oh really? Then how come I can do this to you?"

And then he kisses her. Only this time, she doesn't pull away. This time his lips travel down, licking and biting her neck and it feels amazing, her knees go weak and all she wants is to pull him closer . . .

Hermione wakes with a scream.

"No, no, no . . ." She clutched her shaking hands to her chest and tried to steady her breathing, her eyes shut and trying to wipe away the mental image imprinted in her brain. Trying to forget the feel of his skinny body on her, because it wasn't right. It wasn't right at all. She shouldn't even be thinking about him to begin with.

What was wrong with her?

He'd been a subject to be studied, nothing more, and yet . . .and yet here they were, with Hermione caring about his well being, about him improving and her fantasising about him. It wasn't right, on so many levels. Not to mention highly unethical.

"He's just my subject, I'm supposed to study him, that's all," Hermione whispered to herself. "That's all."

He was just making all of this really difficult.

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It couldn't possibly have gone better.

Barty walked outside the yard, in broad daylight, knowing she was observing him from her window. But he could only smile as he faced away and wandered about. When he sensed her stop looking, that's when he sneaks away among the trees. Truly out of her sight.

They were done with experiments for today and there had been a lot of them of late. It seemed Hermione was rather adamant about maintaining a strictly professional atmosphere around them since the incident three days ago. Whenever he would start teasing her about it she would shut him down and he was too amused to protest.

Stepping around the bushes and rocks and stones, Barty thought back to the other day when he had got close to her. When he had been so close he could count the freckles on her nose, smell the scent of her shampoo. How unnerved she'd been. It had been delicious.

But it was only a small step in his plan. He still needed to push her more, drive her further, but without arousing too much suspicion.

He arrived at the rock, tracing the hum of magic seeping off of it with his fingers. The rune was barely visible, but Barty knew what it was. He knew a lot of things.

And he was about to let Hermione in on some of it too. In due time.

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Hermione paced her room, back and forth, not sure if she should go down for dinner. She had heard Barty walk back into the house not long ago and she knew this was when he'd be preparing a plate for himself. He was always hungry after his walks. She supposed his body was still weak after everything and easily tired.

Though he never seemed weak to her. Especially not the other night.

She shook her head. 'Stop thinking about it!'

It was useless, the thought made its way forward to burn her mind's eye no matter what she did to discourage it. So perhaps she needed to confront it once and for all.

Before she knew it, Hermione was on her way down the stairs, her steps surprisingly determined.

Barty turned around and delicately raised a napkin to his mouth, watching her sudden confrontational stance with interest.

"I'm only getting some dinner," said Hermione, giving up her original quest as soon as she saw him.

No matter, she'd just tip toe around him for the rest of the experiment like she'd done these past few days. So what if he was making her feel unmentionable things? So what if she always came back to find him withdrawn and mumbling strange things? She didn't care about that, she wasn't at all curious. And most especially, who cared if she failed to prove anything and consequently was held responsible for Barty Crouch Jr losing his life? Who would cry about him? Not her, that was for certain.

She felt his eyes on her as she prepared her food and had to stifle a frustrated sigh. No, not her. Not at all.

"Did I do something to upset you?"

Hermione whipped around, her soul ablaze. This man, honestly! "What ever made you think that?"

Barty rolled his eyes. "You're such a child."

"I'm the child?!"

Barty shrugged and proceeded to cut a piece of his beef. "Open and honest communication is the key to any successful and prospering relationship, Hermione."

She wanted to smash his head in with her plate. "What would you know about relationships? You killed your own father!"

Barty stabbed a piece of meat with his fork, eyeing it, "That was me communicating how much I hated him."

"You are unbelievable."

"Thank you."

Hermione took a deep breath and grabbed her plate.

"Where are you going?" asked Barty.

"I think I'll have dinner in my room tonight."

She could see him flexing his fist, as if resisting an urge to blow up. "I don't think that's wise."

Hermione braced herself. "I don't care. I'm a grown woman, I can do whatever I want."

"That's what you like to think, but as I said before, you're behaving like a child!" Barty growled, running his hands through his hair, scaring her for the first time since coming downstairs. "Clearly you are not ready!"

"Ready for what?"

He looked like he hadn't heard her. "I need more time . . ."

"Time for what? You know, Barty, I'm really tired of having one-sided conversations! Now, if you don't mind . . ." She started for the stairs, but he was up in half a second.

"Wait!" He grabbed hold of her hand and her plate smashed to pieces on the floor.

"Ah!" Hermione erected the shield and Barty was knocked to the side fast, sliding until he hit the table with all its content and rolled off of it. She was breathing heavily and couldn't even bother to feel concerned for him anymore. This was too much. She couldn't have this much to handle and still be expected to make an impartial judgement of his case. She simply couldn't!

And you've already admitted that you're not impartial, haven't you?

She squeezed her eyes shut, damning her own mind to hell. That's what it deserved for caring for this monster after all. "Enough! Enough of this!"

Barty coughed and sat up, his lip split and bleeding and a gash was on his hand from where it had mingled with the broken pieces of plate and glass. He paid it no mind and waited for her to continue.

Which she did. "This is getting way out of hand! You! You are only a subject for me to study! You're not to have any say in my personal life nor are you supposed to make untoward advances on me!" It all came rolling out now, all the pent up emotions. "And me, I'm simply an observer! I am not here to talk or divulge anything to you anymore! I owe you nothing! Your kind wanted to kill me and everyone I cared about! You are the reason why one of my friends doesn't have any parents and another had to see Cedric Diggory die! I am done!"

Barty remained silent.

Hermione wasn't even looking at him anymore, she was just trying to hold whatever was left together. Because if she didn't . . . If she didn't . . .

It was useless, she buckled and let her knees give in. She sank to the floor and hugged herself. "I'm done."

" . . . done with what?"

Hermione gave a strange sound, a mix between laughing and sniffing her nose. "With whatever this is. I just want to go back to a time where I never met you."

Barty frowned, and as he spoke his tone held impatience. "A time where you never met me? You mean a time where you just took whatever life threw at you? Without question?"

She opened her mouth to argue, but the mad look in his eyes was back and she knew better by now than to argue with it.

"You were in a war, Hermione. Everyone wanted you dead, me included, and yet here you are, still very much alive. You stood right by Harry Potter's side when he took down the greatest wizard who ever lived— an eighteen year old doing what even the ministry could not! You held your end of the bargain, saving the world, and how do they repay you?"

He watched as her mind went over all the things she'd been through since starting her job at the ministry. At the belittling tasks she'd had to deal with and the undeniable unappreciation of her efforts to make the world a better place. Even Kingsley gently urging her to show her public support so that their society wouldn't think her against the lack of new reforms.

Since Barty, she'd begun to see the injustice. Towards herself, towards him . . . She'd lied to Croaker for his sake.

Although, Hermione considered, it hadn't been all for his sake. She knew people like him would be cast aside if they held no value to the department. And despite all she'd just said about him, if she could save someone from being stepped on, she would.

Barty smirked. "Admit it, meeting me has changed you and that isn't the part that scares you. It's that you like it, that's what scares you."

Hermione swallowed. "I . . ."

She stopped as she watched him crawl his way to her. It should have looked ridiculous, but instead it looked like he was a man with a mission. He once again ignored the debris on the floor and she flinched at his palms and knees scraping it off the floor leaving trails of blood instead. He continued until he was right next to her, whispering in her ear.

"You see?" he said, moving a lock of hair behind her ear as he liked to do. "See how close I can get when just a second ago you had the power to throw me across the room? This means you want me here, Hermione."

She ducked her head. "No, I—"

"You do."

"I don't—"

"Stop. Lying."

She bit her lip as she realised he was seeing her mind so clearly even without occlumency. Because he was right, if she truly didn't want him there the runes would have activated the shields, right? She dared raise her gaze again and met his dark eyes. "It doesn't change anything."

He grinned the most wicked smile and his bony fingers left her ear and traced down her jaw, then her throat and then further still until it reached the middle of her chest. Her breath quickened and he could obviously tell. "Something tells me it does."

And then, against all logic, against all reason, Hermione leaned into his kiss.

His hands were still bloody as he grabbed hold of her face, she belatedly realised, and that must mean there was a line down her throat and her chest that was bloody as well, but she couldn't be bothered to care. She just needed to figure out what this was.

Barty, meanwhile, only seemed to want to consume her. His hands, his lips, his whole being was so full of greed and want for more of her. And yes, he was right, she liked it. She really did.

For too long she had been cast aside and overshadowed. Whether it be by her work or even her romantic life. When was the last time someone had wanted her like this?

When was the last time she had felt wanted?

"This is completely insane," she gasps, her mind scattering all the more as he holds her close and works his way down her neck.

He chuckles against her skin, her whole being humming from it. "You say it like it's bad."

It is. Was? What was he saying?

She doesn't know what to say and responds with grabbing his hair and the groan he gives does more to her than she'd ever care to admit.

Having run out of space to kiss, he tugs at her muggle jumper, it already being on its way down her shoulder anyway, and pushes it down even more, growling at the exposed skin he sees there. He begins to lace his kisses with bites and claws with his right hand at her shoulder painfully and Hermione was certain there would be bruises in the morning.

It's when that hand travels south that some of her senses return to her. She started shaking her head. "N-no. No!"

No shield erected, but she hadn't wanted it this time. She wanted him to stop. All by himself.

To her surprise, he did. It was as if she had ordered him to do it— he had responded as soon as she'd said it and had removed himself from her and now sat calmly opposite her as she caught her breath. Though, to be fair, Barty was catching some breath too.

She had done that to him . . .

No, she had to snap out of this. "I am going to go to my bedroom. You can't follow. Understood?"

Barty nodded curtly.

"All right," said Hermione, confused about this behaviour. But who was she to argue the one time he complied? "I'll see you tomorrow."

She left him and as soon as she shut her door behind her, she brought her hands to her face, burying herself in them. She gave a silent scream.

When her hands were brought down she stared at the blood on them. His blood. Combined with all that had happened she felt . . . oddly branded.

He made me his.

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She was his. Finally, they were getting somewhere and she was his now. His thumbprints on her, his blood on her . . . she was his.

Barty was chuckling to himself from where he sat on the floor still. He hadn't moved since Hermione had gone upstairs, his mind too busy to replay the images of the two of them. Granted, he might have shared more than he'd cared to do at this stage, but her response . . . oh, how her response delighted him. He was close now, closer than he had thought, soon he could share all his plans with her. She'd understand, she'd see that all he had done, all he had suffered in her absence . . .

Barty's chuckling grew louder and he knew himself that it would look strange to anyone who would see him: him alone in the dark, sitting among broken pieces of glass and bleeding.

But no matter, Hermione had kissed him. Out of her own volition. So what if she ran away soon after? She'd be back.

After all, mused Barty while licking his lips, she always was.

~o0o~

A/N: Hellooooo how you guys doing? All good?

It seems with every update I remark on how long it's been since last, but you know what? It doesn't matter if it's slow, progress is still progress! Remember that, precious jelly beans!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed and know that I am so thankful for your continued enthusiasm for this little piece of Bartmione!

Until next time!
/Primrue