Hermione couldn’t breathe.

It wasn’t just that she couldn’t breathe – she was almost positive all the oxygen had just evaporated from the world. No amount of gasping would deliver the breath she needed into her lungs.

Her head spun, hands clutching the robes around her chest.

“Breathe, love, you need to breathe,” Draco said, placing a hand on her back and vanishing her mask.

But that was the problem – there was no air to breathe.

“She’s having a panic attack, mate,” Theo said, rushing to stand in Hermione’s eye line. “Hermione, look at me. Here, let’s breathe together.”

Theo grabbed her hand, placing it over his chest while he mirrored the action on hers. He took a slow, deep breath, and let it out. His eyes were glassy, filled with unshed tears over what they had just done – but he had to make sure she didn’t pass out.

“Breathe in,” Theo instructed. “Now out.”

She shook her head, eyes continuing to flick over his shoulder to the woman on the ground behind him. To the blonde-haired girl beside her.

“I know, love,” Draco said. “It’s horrible – it’s monstrous what we’ve done. We didn’t know – we would never have done this if we had known. You need to breathe.”

“Come on, Mione,” Theo said. “Breathe with me. In and out.”

She tried to match her breaths with his and slowly oxygen returned to the world. Theo stepped forward once her breathing had taken on a healthier rhythm, pulling her into his arms.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “So sorry. But you need to hold yourself together at least until we get back to the manor. Can you do that?”

Hermione wasn’t sure.

Her skin crawled the way it had when Ron had attacked her, but her heart felt empty and hollow. She had done this – had killed these innocent people. The Dark Lord had lied to her – lied to all of them perhaps, definitely to Draco and Theo. She felt so stupid, so foolish to have believed his outrage at a group of Death Eaters working on their own to murder innocents.

They were the Death Eaters murdering innocents.

She wondered who they were – these witches and wizards they’d killed. Were they important to the order? To Kingsley or Moody? Did they have families? Friends that were worried about them?

Oxygen was evaporating once more as she clutched Theo’s arms.

“Drake…” Theo said softly. “I think we need to stun her.”

There was a flash of red light.

Then everything went quiet.

…

Hermione would find out later that after she’d been stunned, Draco had summoned her mask once more and hoisted her into his arms.

Theo had gone downstairs to inform the other Death Eaters that Couteau had been called back to the Dark Lord to report on their victory and that they were expected back at the Lestrange Estate.

Once Yaxley, Travers, and the others had disapparated at the edge of the property line, Theo had signaled for Draco to come downstairs and follow suit.

They’d landed in the entryway of the manor and Draco had immediately revived Hermione.

The moment she was conscious she began to gasp once more, her cries growing louder as the night’s events flooded back to her.

“What’s this? What has happened?” Narcissa asked, quickly moving into the entryway and dropping to her knees where Hermione half laid in Draco’s arms.

“They – they were m-muggleborns,” Hermione ground out through her sobs, her hands reaching for Narcissa as if she were a liferaft.

Lucius came around the corner then in a swirl of midnight blue robes with his hair free from its usual tie, quickly taking control of the situation and scooping Hermione into his arms.

“My study, now ,” he commanded the group behind him as he was already setting off at a quick pace.

When they arrived in his office, Lucius gently set her on one of the overstuffed wingback chairs, his thumbs brushing at her tears.

“I need you to listen to me,” Lucius said in a firm but kind tone. “Are you listening?”

She nodded, her breaths still coming in quick gasps.

“I’m so sorry, but I need to see what happened. I can take the memory from you to look at through the pensive. If I do that, the memory will remain but the emotions may be… lessened. Is that all right with you?”

Hermione nodded again, her hands opening and closing in her lap as if she were reaching for things that weren’t there.

Slowly, Lucius pulled his wand from his pocket and pressed it to her temple.

“I need you to bring forth the memory – I know, I know,” he said at her panicked look, gripping her hands in one of his own. “It will be hard and I am so sorry. But once it’s over, it’s over – I promise.”

She brought forth the memory, the sweet summer breeze and the cottage, the first man she’d killed, their quiet footsteps on the carpeted stairs, the blonde girl’s death, the woman’s screams.

I’m not trash like you.

Lucius pulled the wand from her temple and with it, a luminous spider web of memory clinging to the tip.

“Wonderful job, darling,” Narcissa said to her in a kind voice, perching on the arm of her chair and wrapping her hands around her shoulders.

Hermione closed her eyes, leaning against Narcissa’s shoulder as Lucius stepped away towards the pensive to review the memory. She had to admit that though the feelings of disgust, horror, and grief were still present – they weren’t as debilitating as before. She was still torn to pieces, but now they at least held together into the shape of herself.

Draco was standing close by, his focus on her and Narcissa while Theo came forward and cast a diagnostic spell on Hermione before summoning a calming draft and forcing her to take it.

“Why would he do this?” she asked Lucius once he’d finished the memory.

Lucius ran a hand over his face, his brows pulled together in an uncharacteristic expression of discomfort.

“I can only imagine that he had no intention of you finding out,” he said slowly. “There were enough of you with the element of surprise to eliminate the group without issue. If the witch hadn’t mentioned Moody I daresay he would have gotten away with it.”

“But why , Lucius?”

With a great sigh, Lucius sat into the chair opposite, leaning forward until his forearms rested on his knees.

“He is targeting muggleborns, Hermione. This will not be the last of this kind of mission… Especially now that safe houses are being constructed. I believe he sent you as a message to his other followers who are aware of your blood status, even if they are not aware of your identity.”

So she had been right. It had been something to prove, just as it always was.

Karkaroff had been to prove that she could kill.

Rosemund had been to show that she could capture and bring back alive, as well as work with other Death Eaters within the ranks.

Tonight had been to prove her willingness to kill “her own kind”. Even if she had not known it herself, that didn’t matter to the Dark Lord. Appearances mattered. After all, she wasn’t truly the Dark Lord’s second in command. That was something she’d come to realize very quickly – the Dark Lord did not work with others. Just positioned them around him like pieces on a chess board.

She looked like a queen but was merely a pawn.

“What do you want to do now?” Lucius asked, his eyes searching her face.

She blinked, confused by the question.

“What do you mean?”

There was a long beat of silence, broken only by the crackling fire and the whisper of breaths in the room before Lucius shifted.

“Do you want to rest – to take a dreamless sleep?” he clarified, though something about the set of his mouth made her think it wasn’t what he’d originally meant.

Finally she nodded, letting Narcissa help her from the chair and pass her to Draco, who guided her back to her bedchamber.

As she took the dreamless sleep, she could have sworn she heard him say:

“He will pay for this, I promise you.”