Harry Potter: The Price of Silence.

Life seemed to burn back into Nott when he stared at Daphne. Hermione swore she saw his jaw tremble slightly, swore she saw tears gathering in his eyes.

With another shake of Daphne's head, Nott lowered his arm and slumped. He swallowed, and then the cold emptiness returned to his eyes.

Daphne looked away.

While Voldemort's speech went on, Hermione was transfixed with Malfoy and Astoria. He lowered his hand from her mouth and wrapped it around her shoulder, hugging her protectively to his chest, then whispered something into her ear.

Hermione quickly moved to stand beside them.

"Breathe Tori," the younger version of Malfoy said, his voice shaking almost as much as Astoria was. "You need to breathe."

"I... I c-can't " she sobbed quietly. Tears dripped from her chin. "... I.. I can't.... he's going to ... I can't watch..."

"You need to. You can't look away while he does this," Malfoy hushed, securing his arms tighter around her. "If the Dark Lord thinks you sympathise with your sister, he'll kill you right alongside her."

Astoria whimpered as Daphne was made to kneel before the crowd.

"This girl has betrayed us, in the worst possible way," Voldemort seethed. "If she loves her muggles so much, then she will die like one."

He conjured a set of ropes around Daphne's wrists, and Astoria's knees buckled as they were tied to opposite podiums, forcing Daphne to spread her arms, leaving her wide open for the slaughter.

Malfoys arm's tightened again, concealing Astoria's shaking as best he could. "You need to calm down."

Astoria shook her head furiously. Tears slipped down her face faster. "I can't.... this is... I can't watch this-" When another sob broke through her lips, Malfoy's hand flew to her mouth again.

A few Death Eaters turned to look at her. Malfoy glared at them until they turned away.

Hermione hadn't seen this much emotion in Malfoy since his dragon had been injured. His eyes were frantic, his fingers trembled against Astoria's mouth, and his voice was more emotional and panic-stricken than Hermione had ever heard it. He looked desperate. Hopeless.

"Tori please, please calm down." His eyes kept flickering from stoic and cold, to burning and distressed. It was as though he was desperately trying to build his Occlumency walls but couldn't. As though he were trying to fly them up and protect himself, only for them to crumble instantly. "He'll kill you if he thinks you're a sympathiser. Daphne doesn't want you to die."

The way Malfoy's usually strong voice broke near the end, the pain laced in the last word, made Hermione's chest tighten.

"Please calm down Astoria," he whispered again. "I can't lose you, too."

Astoria convulsed when Voldemort conjured a blade. The silver caught the light of the torches before he used it to slice the back of Daphne's uniform open. The two Gold Masks pushed the pieces of shredded fabric down to reveal her back, shoulders, and ribs. There was no doubt, if Malfoy wasn't holding Astoria up, she would have crumbled on the floor.

"I promised Daphne that I would keep you safe," he said quietly, desperately. "I'm going to keep you safe. I don't care what I have to do, I will keep us all safe. Do you understand?"

Astoria nodded but before Malfoy could continue, she reached out to her left.

Nott's stoic expression broke when she grabbed his hand. He sharply turned his head to stare at Astoria, and just for a second, his eyes were broken. He squeezed her hand tightly in his own, took a deep breath, and then turned back to watch the execution.

Hermione couldn't watch anymore. She just... couldn't. As one of the Gold Masks stood behind Daphne, an axe high in the air, she turned and pushed her way back through the cloaked figures.

A door had appeared on the other side of the mob, and Hermione was all too quick to lurch forward and grab the handle. She didn't care where it led her. Didn't care if it took her right back to Malfoy's drawing room and she had to watch herself being tortured by his aunt again and again and again. Anything would be better than this.

She swung the door open and stepped inside, only to come face to face with a pair of deadly, ghost-like eyes.

Hermione's heart lurched in her throat. She was distracted by the fear that twisted through her she didn't realise where this door had taken her for a moment. When she saw the familiar stone pillars - now tainted with violent flecks of red - she knew where she was. Back in Malfoy Manor.

Voldemort's red eyes slithered to his side. He whispered and chuckled something to his loyal serpent on the floor, bent down so she could wrap herself around his arm, then Apparated.

Hermione nearly vomited when she saw the drawing room. She'd seen many battlefields over the years, she was no stranger to the smell of rotting flesh and stagnant decay, but this memory - fuck, Malfoy's memory - was one of the most gruesome things she'd ever come across.

The smell hit her first. It battered into her senses like a sledgehammer. The foul, stale odour of flesh at the early stages of decay wasn't something you could confuse with anything else. The room reeked of blood, the dark floor was sticky with it. Her boots clung to the floor with every tentative step she took inside.

The smell, however, was nothing compared to what she saw.

Parts of Lucius Malfoy's body were scattered around the drawing-room, all matted with crimson and flesh torn jaggedly at the edges. One arm lay near the window, the other near the entrance. His torso was sprawled across the dining table, his legs were splintered and mangled into the metal chandelier, and his decapitated head lay next to the fireplace.

He looked as though he'd been like that for days. His skin had taken on that unmistakable blue-grey tint of a corpse and the flesh was bloated, ready for the next stage of decomposition. The most unsettling part of his appearance was the expression on his face. Although his eyes were glassy and vacant, his face was twisted into a perpetual scream, frozen, never to move again.