Half an hour. That's all she had.

She memorized the scroll of her friends' names as the sun set on the Manor.

How does one prepare for an audience with the Dark Lord?

Her question was answered twenty-five minutes after Draco left when Mippy knocked on her door.

"Master Draco says you is to wear this."

Mippy held a scrap of black silk over her outstretched arms. It looked like a négligée. Lace across the bottom and top, short and low with thin straps.

When Hermione pulled the silk from the elf's fingers, Mippy twirled her ear and waited by the door.

"Thank you, Mippy." She didn't recognize the sound of her own voice.

The elf stayed in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. "Mippy is to stay until Miss is changed. Then we is to go downstairs."

And just when Hermione thought she could get away with being obstinate.

Hermione marched into the bathroom, shucked her jeans, ripped her jumper off, and slid the silk over herself. It was as short as her gold shift dress, if not shorter. So, she was his whore. The mirror reflected the scowl and narrowed eyes of a sex slave. Her eyes caught on a fluffy robe hanging from a hook, and she considered flouncing downstairs completely covered. Or perhaps not going at all. Make him come back and drag her.

"Miss!" The elf was knocking, her voice plaintive.

Hermione frowned. Would Mippy be punished? Simply because she tried to delay the inevitable.

She took one last glance in the mirror to make sure she was covered, and then followed Mippy out of the room, fuming, down the stairs and into the Malfoy entryway.

Draco waited at the fireplaces for her. His eyes took in her attire as she descended—a quick glance at her bare legs, and then back to her face.

Perhaps he did want her. Perhaps something about her had attracted him.

He pulled at his sleeves, concentrating on the cuffs, and said, "You'll need to remove your bra."

Clinical. Like a doctor would.

She felt the blush rise in her cheeks. Her teeth parted to bite back, but she saw he was in his Death Eater robes. And just as he had changed into his uniform—his costume—it seemed she must as well.

She reached behind herself and struggled to unclasp and remove the bra under the silk. He concentrated on the stones below his feet as she handed it to Mippy.

The elf disappeared, and then it was just them again. But instead of feeling exposed, she felt ignored.

He moved to the front doors, not waiting for her to follow. She trudged behind him like a petulant child, down the steps, into the brisk air, and down the stone path as the cold pricked her skin, pulling her breasts into peaks. She glared at the back of him, covered in thick robes while she was forced into a scrap of silk. Holding onto that irritation, holding onto the cold so she wouldn't think about what was going to happen next.