They left her petrified. Face up. It was a blessing actually. She couldn't hyperventilate when all she could physically do was breathe.

Luna had been able to walk by herself when they locked the door, stumbling along behind Yaxley. She gave Hermione a small smile as the door closed, and Hermione spent the first ten minutes of her isolation trying to decipher it.

Was it a thank you? Was it meant to say, it's alright that you didn't listen to me?

Hermione stared at the ceiling, waiting for what came next.

So, Pansy was right. An Auction of sorts. Yaxley mentioned the cost of the bodies he'd killed, and Dolohov was under the impression that the signature on her arm would change to his, probably with an exchange of Galleons.

It explained why Yaxley had bothered to heal Luna. They were more valuable alive.

How valuable, she wondered.

Pansy said 5,000 Galleons for virgins. That sounded like an awful lot for a one-time experience.

It took a while for Hermione to realize that the curse Dolohov hit her with was still bleeding. She’d stopped the spread of the razor blade nicks with her Finite Incatatem, but did not heal the skin. She lay there, feeling a slow seeping wetness across her back, cold in the marble room.

She tried not to mourn Parvati or the Baxter girl. She didn't know the fate of the fifth one. Just like how she tried not to mourn Harry or McGonagall. None of it had to be real yet. She just needed to survive the Ministry holding cells, and then take it a step at a time.

She remembered the plans she made as soon as Harry's body appeared in the courtyard. Leave the castle, find the younger students and anyone who hadn't joined the battle, and then hope to find everyone else. That felt like years ago. She could have done something similar if she had let Luna die. If she had found something dark inside of her, connected to that green light.

Harry had never fired a Killing Curse once, always content to disarm.

Harry was dead.

The thought crawled over her still skin like ivy. Harry was dead. He’d failed. And what chance would she have against Lord Voldemort, even if she could get free?

Harry had warred with himself: Hallows or Horcruxes – which was more important? Perhaps he’d chosen wrong?

She heard footsteps, loud clopping sounds of a man who wanted everyone to know he was coming.

They paused in front of her door. She stared at the tiles on the ceiling, waiting for the door handle to turn.

She counted to ten, breathing slowly. Then to twenty.

The footsteps moved down the hall, quieter as he left.

She knew Yaxley's quick pace, like a shark in a small pond, ready to dart, ready to swerve. Dolohov rested his weight on his heels, making him a clumsy runner. She didn't know Macnair. He wasn't at the Department of Mysteries, and her interactions with him were sparse.