Hermione tried to wrench her head free as she attempted to pull out her knife without drawing his attention.
He pressed the tip in and hit bone. He shifted the blade until it found a space between her ribs. Hermione's eyes widened as she stared up at him.
“Here? Or should l start lower?” His voice was taunting. He was unconcerned with the fighting around him.
Hermione didn't know whether to try to reach for her knife or stop him from stabbing her in the heart.
Was there even a point in making a choice? She could feel herself bleeding to death.
He started to push it in slowly.
As the tip of the knife began cutting into her skin, Rabastan stilled. His hold on her hair loosened, and his expression went slack as he dropped dead at her feet. Hermione collapsed with him and caught herself with one hand.
Behind Rabastan, just beyond the anti-apparition point, a masked Death Eater was standing alone in the field.
Several Death Eaters nearby froze and turned with surprise when Rabastan fell.
They were dead before they could raise their wands.
Hermione just stared. She suspected her punctured lung was collapsing. She pressed her hand against the wound to keep herself from haemorrhaging and to prevent air from seeping into her chest cavity.
She watched blankly as the Death Eater who had just appeared began making his way across the field.
It was Draco.
She'd never seen him fight, not really. But the style was still familiar.
He was as deadly as she'd imagined.
The influence of Bellatrix Lestrange's training was obvious. The fluidity of movement. The wake of bodies he left behind him as he stalked across the field. Bellatrix's unpredictable style had been driven by her sadism — her insanity.
Draco's style was brutal efficiency.
He wasn't concerned with maiming or causing pain. He didn't want prisoners. He killed everyone.
He showed no hesitation as he mowed through the panicking Death Eaters around him. The ways he could conceive of to rapidly kill people was terrifying. It was entirely a numbers game. Minimum effort, high return.
It was impossible that he had ever fought to full potential before. If a Death Eater had ever fought that way before, everyone would have known about it.
He cast a spell on the ground that turned the radius surrounding him into liquid. Fifteen Death Eaters immediately vanished beneath the surface. Screaming. He cancelled it, and left them behind to be suffocated by the earth around them.
He cast curse after curse after curse, most of them nonverbally. The Death Eaters steadily dropped.
He conjured a flock of dozens of silver hummingbirds. Several Death Eaters hesitated, visibly confused. Draco whipped his wand forward, and the tiny birds shot through the air like a hail of bullets, burying themselves into the throats and chests of anyone nearby without a powerful shield. He called the birds back, dripping blood, and shot them off again.
He was within a few feet of Hermione.
He reached out and grabbed her by the left wrist. She gave a low scream as she felt her damaged bones fracture in his grip. He pulled something out of his robes. Holding it high over his head, he activated it.
It was like all the air and sound in the area was suddenly sucked away. Deadly silent. Everyone around them dropped to the ground, gasping and clawing at their throats.
Hermione was screaming in pain and panic. She felt her wrist breaking as she tried to get free. The Death Eaters were gasping silently for air as they suffocated.
“Harry! Harry. Ron! Stop. Stop! You can't kill everyone! Stop, Draco!” she was screaming. Their faces were turning blue.
The struggling was coming to an end. The bodies went still.
“Draco, stop!” She renewed her struggles to tear herself free and felt the bones in her hand shatter. “Stop!”
“You idiot,” he snarled through his mask, releasing her wrist. “Wait here.”
He tossed the dark artifact onto the ground. It sizzled and twisted up into a heap of scrap metal. He stalked over to Harry, Ron, Fred, Charlie, Remus, and Tonks. He performed a reviving spell on each of them followed by a muttered “obliviate” before he levitated the unconscious bodies up behind him as he turned back. He summoned her wand up off the ground and dragged her up by the arm.
It was hard to breathe.
Moving was agonising. Her left wrist felt like it was being crucioed. Blood was streaming down her side.
It got harder and harder to breathe as Draco pulled her across the field.
She needed to seal the puncture. As soon as she could find someone — someone who could perform the spells to keep her from bleeding out. Who could remove the air from her chest cavity.
If she could apparate. If she could apparate to Grimmauld Place.
If she could.
She stumbled. Her head was feeling light, and it was hard to think straight. She tried to breathe but felt as though she couldn't.