“Please! Not him!! Hurt me! He doesn't understand!! Please don't do this to him!” Molly's voice was broken as she begged.
There were pieces of meat dangling from chains around Molly. Hermione squinted in the low light.
Severed arms.
A torso.
George's head.
Her throat contracted, and she doubled over and vomited so violently there was a tearing pain through her back as her body convulsed.
She looked up again as she wiped her mouth.
Bill, Charlie, Fred, and George were all dead, in pieces that dangled from the chains. Ron was still alive. Barely alive. Tonks was dead, her organs hanging down from her body. Remus hung beside her, so mangled he was surely dead too.
Above the Weasleys, Remus and Tonks, there was another figure. A skeletal corpse.
Hermione's fingers spasmed as she gripped the bars.
“Is — is that Harry?” she choked out.
“Yes,” a girl nearby said dully. Hermione thought her name might have been Mafalda. “When You-Know-Who stopped using Killing Curses, he cast a spell, and Harry started rotting. He put him up there — so we'd all see it happen. And all his closest friends too. They've been torturing them for hours now.”
Arthur's screams were growing fainter.
“Please!! Don't hurt him. Arthur. Arthur.” Molly kept sobbing and begging as she tried to reach him.
Hermione's fingers twitched, and she tucked her chin down and looked away from the tower.
Her cloak was gone, her necklace, her bracelet. She'd been stripped and redressed into a thin grey dress; even her hairpins and hair ties had been removed. Draco's ring still glittered on her hand.
“Malfoy!”
The blood in her veins ran cold, and she stiffened and turned. There were crowds and tents interspersed among the cages. Death Eaters, guards, and Ministry Officials were mingling and drinking. A Death Eater stepped forward and shot a curse up at the bodies hanging from the Astronomy Tower. There was drunken, braying laugher.
A few men were leering into the cages.
“You're sweet. Perhaps the Dark Lord will give you to me as a favour,” a Death Eater was crooning as he tried to grab one of the prisoners through the bars.
“Malfoy!”
Hermione looked for Draco. She saw Lucius approaching instead.
“We thought you and the others might miss the whole celebration,” a ragged voice called out.
Hermione huddled low to the ground and averted her eyes as Lucius came closer. Her ears were still ringing from the explosion. She held her breath and strained to hear.
“The Dark Lord required my presence,” Lucius said, his voice was an unnerving, caressing drawl. “There was — an unexpected situation.”
Hermione felt her throat close. Draco.
The other voice dropped lower. “Sussex?”
“Indeed,” Lucius said quietly. “The Dark Lord is keen to keep it quiet. Only his most trusted.”
Hermione slumped in relief. Not Draco.
“Is it true then? Everyone?” The ragged voice was persistent.
“Did I not just say it's being kept quiet? Do you want to know what the Dark Lord does not wish to be known?” There was a singsong quality within the softness of Lucius' voice. “When he is concerned about spies in our midst? I should hate for him to learn you were heard prying. I still shudder to think of what happened to poor Rookwood last week.”
“I didn't — I only meant to — polite inquiry was all I meant by it. Look! I save something for you. There were plenty who wanted to finish him, but I said you deserved the honors. Look, he's still alive.”
Hermione glanced up and saw Lucius and the other Death Eater looking up at the Astronomy Tower.
Arthur had gone still, and Molly's screams had turned to quiet sobs.
“Still a few of them alive.” The ragged-voiced Death Eater shot a curse at Remus, and Remus' body jerked and then went limp again. “That one won't die. No matter what we throw at him. Regrown his organs twice now.” He sniggered. “Then there's the mum. She screams louder for her spawn than when you crucio her. But I saved the best for you. Potter's best friend, the one who was always with him. I made sure no one killed him.”
“How very thoughtful you are, Mulciber.” Lucius crooned the words as he studied the Weasleys overhead.
His face grew drawn and thoughtful. His features were almost skeletal, the skin tightly pulled over his skull, and the hollows of his cheeks and eye sockets were sunken, almost black holes in the darkness and flickering torchlight. “I had hoped to have more time to savor the experience — but the Dark Lord wants them dead before the day's end.” Lucius' voice was wistful. “I have devoted some thought to just how I should go about it.”
A sickly yellow curse shot from Lucius' wand and struck Ron on the side of the head. Ron's body started jerking, and his eyes widened and bulged out, as though he were suffocating.
“Don't—” the word was halfway to Hermione's lips before she bit it back.
Lucius' grey eyes were glittering as he stared up at the bodies strung overhead.
“I made a vow at Narcissa's grave that I would kill every blood traitor in this country. I knew Potter belonged to the Dark Lord, but I hoped to be the one to send the rest of Potter's beloved 'family' after him.”
Lucius flourished his hand, but the movement was spasmodic, as though it were a tic he had. His expression tightened as he stared up at Ron and, with a wave of his wand, ended the curse suffocating him. Ron gasped raggedly. His chest heaving. His eyes deadened.
Lucius waved his wand in lazy spirals and spoke slowly. “Burning is a particularly painful death. The Muggles used to burn witches. Burn them until there was nothing left to recover. All I have of my wife is an empty tomb. There was nothing left of her. Although I looked — many times.” His hand flourished again.
“It's fitting, I think, that you know the pain she did.” He raised his wand. “This is for my wife.”
A dark green curse flew up and struck Ron on his foot. Smoke curled up, and Ron flung his head back and screamed as it spread up his leg.
Hermione's body shook; her throat contracted as she tried not to vomit. She knew the curse. It turned blood to molten lead inside the body. It was a slow curse. She pressed herself against the far side of the cage and tried not to sob.
Lucius threw back his head and laughed.
Molly jerked and roused herself. “Please. No! Not my son. Please don't hurt my son!!”
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears, but she couldn't block out Ron and Molly's screams. Or Lucius' laughter.
The screaming was gradually growing quieter when something warm and cloyingly sweet met Hermione's nose. Her eyes snapped open to find Dolores Umbridge's face merely inches from hers, studying Hermione with vicious glee through the bars of the cage.
Umbridge was flanked by several guards.
“I believe I recognize that deceitful little face.” Umbridge gestured to a guard. “You, open it and grab her.”
There was the shriek of the cage door, and a hard hand caught hold of Hermione's arm and dragged her out. Fingers tangled in her hair as her head was wrenched cruelly back.
Umbridge gave another small laugh, and it ghosted across Hermione's face, warm and sugary as though she'd been eating candy only a moment before.
“It is you. I would know that filthy face of yours anywhere. I haven't forgotten you.” Umbridge's eyes were glinting. She gestured over her shoulder. “Make a note. I want her transferred to Sussex, next batch they ask for, top of the list, for Dolohov personally.” She leaned closer to Hermione, and her voice was almost a whisper. “He's always looking for new toys to break.”