"She is proving to be most satisfactory, my Lord. And it has been a pleasure to teach her that she belongs to me, body and soul," Malfoy says with the terrifying sincerity he can affect, which tries to shake Hermione's belief in him and comes too close to succeeding. His voice drips with venom and cruelty and a sadistic enjoyment, and Hermione cringes and leans into his leg, ducking her head to press her cheek hard to the side of his knee, trying to appear cowed – and genuinely trying to ground herself in the midst of this horror that has only just begun. Malfoy reaches down in response and curls his fingers around the base of her neck, and soothes it down over her upper back as though she is a dog. "Good bitch," he murmurs distractedly as he pets her, and his touch is humiliatingly comforting, and – and he cannot be the man she kissed earlier. He can't but he is, and Hermione thinks she is beginning to understand what Malfoy had meant, when he'd said he couldn't trust that she could even say yes to him freely. She still disagrees, but she understands now. Because this is...madness.