Disclaimer: I own none of these characters, only the story built around them, J.K. Rowling has that pleasure.

Warning: This fanfic will have themes of sexual and physical violence, domestic abuse, rape, content of the sexual nature.

Chapter 1: Broken

As she walked through the small clearing, the grass tickled her bare legs and crackled beneath her bare feet. She trailed her fingers through the long grass, feeling its dry texture. The sun was warm, but a breeze soothed her flushed skin as she walked. Small, tinkling laughter filled the air, getting louder as she walked closer. She saw two heads peek out as the children ran through the tall grass giggling as they played their game of tag. She reached a small clearing and walked towards a picnic blanket that had been laid out near the edge of the clearing. A man was sitting, back turned, on the blanket.

His hands were stretched out behind him and he was looking upwards, whether his eyes were closed or opened, she could not tell. He was far away, but not. His features were in soft focus, somehow black and white amidst the color. She was curious, she wanted to see his face. She started to walk closer and closer, but he started to fade into the grass. The world was fading. Everything was turning to dust. She started to run towards the fading form. He was fading faster and faster. He started to slowly turn towards her. She was nearly there, almost able to touch his hair. He was faded so much that his form was becoming impossible to make out.

One more step.

She could almost touch him.

All she had to do was reach out with her hand….

A hard tug on her hair pulled her out of her daydream. Three years. It had been three years. Three years since the end of the war. Three years since he started the drinking. Three years since anyone cared. Every night was the same. He came home drunk, yelled at her, beat her, and if that wasn't enough, he forced himself on her. She had stopped fighting a long time ago. It wasn't worth the pain to fight. Every night, she crawled to her hiding place. Away from his insults and his punches and kicks. The hand curled in her hair tightened even further and pulled. She stifled a whimper. He liked it when she cried in pain. His thrusts against her thighs and ass quickened. She mentally breathed a sigh of relief. He had been in a bad mood today, and bad moods meant more bruises. He was nearly done. It was nearly done. She could crawl away and try to heal her wounds, her physical ones at least.

He finished with a grunt and pushed her away. She felt his release staining her thighs and she toppled to the floor. Her exhausted body could barely stand, much less withstand even a soft push. His drunken gaze was on her, pale cheeks flushed. He brushed the hair out of her face, almost lovingly. His fingers brushed across her cheekbones, across the bruises that lay there. She winced at the pain and a look of concerned flashed on his drunken face. That look was soon over taken by a yawn. He patted her on the head and finally made his way to the bed. He didn't bother putting on any clothes as he slumped into bed. She began to make her way toward the open bedroom door. His snores made her relieved. There were nights when he would demand more from her.

Those nights were ones that left scars.

Her crawl was agonizingly slow, but that was all she could manage. After what seemed to be a lifetime, she made it to her destination. She yanked open a small floor cabinet and lifted herself inside. As the door closed, soft lights began to glow in the same space. The space was her only reprieve in her hellish existence.

She had enlarged the space a few years prior when he had started to get more and more violent. By no means was it big, but it was enough to house herself and a small collection of things she didn't want him to find such as pictures of her parents, a few treasured books, and other small mementos from the past. He had found other precious things and had destroyed them simply to make her beg and cry not to. She slowly made her way to her makeshift bed, slowly running her fingers over the photo frames that lined the way. Her bed was simple, made with a blankets and linens that she knew wouldn't be missed. She had to sneak a pillow from a charity box outside the apartments. She missed an actual bed, but nothing would make her sleep with him.

It had been years since she had.

Grimacing in pain she grabbed the small towel from a basket and began to clean herself. She had to do it the muggle way as she only had access to her wand during work hours, and while her use of wandless magic was impressive, she knew she was too exhausted to attempt anything. She rubbed the towel along her thighs and between her legs. The towel was stained bright red.

It wasn't the first time and it had been getting more frequent. She threw the towel back in the basket which was full of other towels in the same state. She leaned against the smooth wood of the back of the cabinet and reached for a jar beside her pillow. She spread the blue lotion against her skin. The dark bruises disappearing as she rubbed the lotion in. The colors disappeared but the pain was left. She was lucky she had the cream. She was allowed to make it when she ran out. He didn't want anyone to see. He seemed ashamed of the bruises in the light of the day. Sometimes he would even rub the lotion in for her. Those were the days she recognized the old him. He was scared that if someone saw, they would take her away. He didn't want that. She didn't bother with clothes. She never did. All she had strength for was to pull a blanket around her small form. She pulled her legs into self and cradled her stomach. She knew she was pregnant.

It had come as a surprise. He was usually careful, but he had been more violent as of late. She had been vomiting for weeks before she had sense to cast the charm while out of sight of her coworkers. She was only a few weeks along now.

She wasn't happy.

She didn't want this.

Once, she had wanted it. But, now? No, she didn't want it anymore. Sometimes, she had seen the old him reappear. But the old him came out less and less. He was so twisted. She couldn't let the twisted him be around a child and she doubted a child would bring him back from the darkness he had succumbed to. So, she had done the only thing she could think of, she had found someone to…take care of it. Tomorrow she had an appointment with a private doctor that she had found through pure coincidence. The man was supposedly discrete, and that was something she needed more than anything. No one needed to hear about her condition.

He had sometimes expressed his want for a child one day, but how could she bring a child into this hell? That was the old him that expressed that want. She doubted that a child would fare any better than she did, though she hoped it would be spared from rape. He wasn't that depraved, was he? She had been careful in arranging the appointment. He was always watching her at work, always had tabs on her whereabouts. Luckily a request from the head of her department gave her an excuse to be in Diagon Alley. It just so happened that the entrance to the practice was by the building which held the archives for rare magical objects through the centuries. A fake name, the last of her galleons from her inheritance, and a standard Ministry owl had secured absolute secret. Tears that had threatened for weeks streamed down her face, dampening her pillow.

She hadn't cried in a year, but this was too much. She had lost everything and tomorrow she would lose something else that could have been. In that small room, under that blanket, was not the woman she once was. That brilliant woman was gone. In her place was a weak woman who was nothing more than an empty shell. She closed her eyes and wept for everything she had lost.

Hermione Granger was broken.

A sigh escaped his lips as he rubbed his palms against his eyes. He scratched at the light stubble on his jaw. It had been a long day and he was running low on caffeine. He had one last patient for today, then he could finally start of the piles of paperwork that had accumulated on his desk. He summoned the file containing the correspondences from his mysterious last client. To be fair, the majority of his clients were mysterious just in case the letters to him were intercepted. His practice was an exclusive, need-to-know establishment specializing in healing of the female nature. His practice was known in the inner circles of society for taking care of "embarrassments".

Young women from the upper crusts of the elite flocked to his practice, alone or under pressure from their families. All the of the young women were afflicted with the same thing, an unwanted pregnancy. Unwed girls that were with child were an embarrassment to their families, their worth lower to nothing. Who would want to marry a girl that had slept around? Pureblood men wanted pure women. He had always thought it was because these 'pure' women were easier to control. Yet, families cared about old traditions so, he put them "right". The families knew their reputation as well as their daughter would be kept pure thus allowing these arranged marriages to continue. He also specialized in a complex spell, one of his own inventions. The spell repaired a torn hymen thus turning "soiled" girls into pure virgins.

Perfect for those fucking pureblood marriages.

The remaining sacred 28 elites held true to old traditions, including those dictating the condition of the bride. Turning back to the parchment sheets in his hands, he studied the perfect, precise script. Nothing indicated the person's identity. The only certainty, of course, was that the writer was a woman. The majority of all the correspondences he received were unsigned, at least visibly. He required patients to sign each reply with their magical signature. Each magical signature was unique, and it allowed him to keep a tight security around his practice. The hidden entrance to the lobby only opened to the specific signature of the person whose appointment it belonged to. Persons requiring a chaperon would be instructed to include magical signatures of who would be accompanying them or if it was the guardians of the young lady, they would need to include the young ladies' signature. Young girls usually had a chaperone, even those who came without their parent's knowledge.

A well-bred lady would never be allowed in the room with a man unaccompanied. Some young women brought a friend, but he also offered his secretary for ladies who couldn't find anyone who would come with them. All the others who sought him out, never used chaperones. They were mistresses and high-class escorts for the most part, so their purity was not on their mind, they merely valued his discretion. He wondered what type of unaccompanied woman this client was. She had declined the use of his secretary and had not included any other magical signatures. He was betting that it was a mistress given the neat handwriting and frank explanation of her problem. Escorts were scarcely more than pretty faces, mistresses on the other hand were sought out for their intelligence and skills.

Whoever she was, she had paid handsomely for his utmost confidentiality. Perhaps a mistress from someone high ranking. Glancing at his watch, curiously muggle in nature, he discovered he wouldn't have to wonder about her identity much longer. He began to straighten his desk, clearing away various requests and patient files left over from his lunch break. He pulled a new patient chart from the file of correspondence from the patient and positioned a quill beside it. He made sure his patients were aware of his security of their files, they were unreadable to anyone except him. That had been an endeavor that had taken a month of nonstop work, a little of his blood, and patience. He ran his hands down his robes, smoothing down wrinkles that had set in as he had hunched over his work. A small tinkle of a bell sounded downstairs and after a few minutes, footsteps began to make their way up the stairs to his office. The footsteps drew closer and finally stopped in front of his door.

A knock sounded, and his secretary open the door slightly and poked her head through the gap, "Your last patient to see you."

His secretary knew better than to refer to him by name before he met the patient face-to-face. His anonymity was just as precious as his patients'. The old woman pushed the door open fully and ushered a woman through the door. The woman slumped timidly in the room, her head down and feet shuffling. For a few seconds he didn't recognize the woman, but as he looked closer, he couldn't believe what he saw.

The woman before him wasn't what he remembered. Her once rebellious curls hung lank and unkempt around her face. They were dark, no longer the sun-lightened honey curls he remembered. He knew she had always been small, even in school she had been dwarfed by nearly everyone even by a few tall first-years. This woman, however, seemed even smaller. Her once merely slim body was sickly thin. He could tell even through her numerous winter layers.

He remembered the woman she had been only three years ago, but Draco Malfoy was sure that Hermione Granger was no longer that woman.