"What?" Pansy laughed. "I'm just saying it would be a waste of 5,000 Galleons. No need to check her out."

"Shut up about that damn Auction, Pansy," Ginny snarled. "No one believes you—"

"What Auction?" Hermione looked to the Slytherin girl. She supposed houses didn't matter much anymore, did they? "What are you talking about?"

Pansy smiled. "Just what it sounds like, Granger. The pure-blood elite are going to put a price tag on us, strut us about, and bid." She bit her lip, lifting a joyful brow. "And if you've been saving yourself for Weasley all these years, they'll give Yaxley another 5,000."

The smell of the banana and the oranges… ripe as the bodies sweating nervously around her. She could taste it all in the back of her throat. Hermione was going to be sick.

"And how did you find yourself on the wrong side of all this, Pansy?" she asked.

Pansy looked away. "Wrong place, wrong time."

"Don't listen to her," Ginny said. "Let's just check you out right quick. Just me and Luna, okay?"

Hermione nodded, already wishing she was asleep again. The girls gave them some space, Parvati and Cho creating a bit of privacy around them.

"Is this what you were wearing during the Battle?" Ginny asked. Hermione looked down at herself. Same clothes, but they were clean. Scourgified.

"Er, yes."

"Good."

They unzipped her jacket, checking her neck and shoulders before helping her take off her shirt. When they confirmed she had no markings on her back, Hermione finally asked, "Where's Ron?"

Ginny's eyes looked to her, then away. "He was alive, last I saw. Same with Neville. Kingsley and McGonagall were killed in the courtyard."

Hermione thought maybe she should have gasped. Should have started crying.

"Pansy thinks there are males to be Auctioned too, so maybe Ron and Neville will be there," Luna whispered melodically.

"There is no Auction, Luna." Ginny hissed through her teeth. "It's just Parkinson playing games with us." She ran her fingers across Hermione's scalp, pressing for injuries.

"I don't know," Luna said. "Draco mentioned it to me, too."

Hermione looked at her, and the fingers in her hair stopped.

"An Auction?" Ginny said.

"Draco?" Hermione asked.

"Mm-hmm." Luna rolled up Hermione's jeans, looking at her ankles and calves. "When I was staying in his dungeons." She mentioned it like it was a holiday she'd taken last year. "He would come and talk to me. Tell me what was going on at school. And a few days before I left —before you and Harry and Ron came, Hermione — he told me there might be something like this."

"What did he say?"

"Just that should I survive the war, and should the Dark Lord win, I should try to kill myself if I couldn't escape." Luna rolled Hermione's pant legs down.

Cho Chang turned around, eyes wide on Luna.

"Because of an Auction?" Ginny asked.

"Something like that," Luna shrugged. "All he said was that he wouldn't be able to buy me. He had to save for someone else."