She slammed into the heavy wood and gripped the handle. She tried to turn it, but it wouldn't budge. A searing pain spread through her hand and up her arm as she kept trying to make it turn. Finally she gave an agonized scream and jerked her hand away. She stared down at her fingers and found the flesh burned and scorched to the bones. The knob was white hot.
Lucius laughed. The same unnerving, unending laugh he'd had as he watched Ron die.
The vibrations of it moved through her veins like ice. She turned slowly to find him standing across the room, grinning as blood trickled down his face, filling his mouth and filtering around his teeth.
He lifted a pale hand up to his throat and coughed. “I enjoyed that. Did you think you were going to escape, little mouse?” He gave a low chuckle. “You will die in this house. Like many Order members before you. There is no one left to save you.”
Hermione stood staring at him. The burns on her hand were throbbing painfully with every beat of her racing heart.
As she stood by the door, a slow sinking sensation swept over her.
Draco wouldn't come in time.
He wouldn't. They'd used up all their luck surviving as long as they had.
Lucius wasn't Astoria. Kidnapping Hermione from her room had been premeditated and planned specifically to thwart Draco.
She stood studying Lucius until he flicked wand towards her. Hermione felt his magic seize hold of her and drag her forward. When she reached him, he sidestepped and she slammed into the bars of the cage in the centre of the room.
A bar caught her in the forehead, and her vision wavered from the impact. She slumped and shook her head, trying to clear it as she struggled to think.
She felt a flutter in her abdomen, and her throat thickened as her shoulders shook. She pressed her injured hand protectively over her stomach. “Please, Lucius — you don't want to do this.”
His fingers dug into her shoulder as he turned her to face him. His face was covered in blood, and there were gouges down his forehead where she'd nearly clawed his eyes out.
Could she run again? Was there any point in trying?
Her legs abruptly gave out, and she slid down the bars to the floor.
“Don't do this, Lucius,” she said. “You don't want to know.”
Lucius knelt and tilted her head back. She stared into his cold silver eyes.
They were just like Draco's. She'd never noticed that before.
Lucius raised an eyebrow. “I have been commanded to find the last Order member, and I will. This is not a task I am permitted to fail.”
Hermione stared at Lucius dazedly, there were spots riddling her vision and a detail that felt just out of reach. A key. She studied his face, looking for Draco in it. Their eyes were so similar; they had the same desperation in them.
Lucius looked desperate.
Her eyes widened.
Voldemort aspired to immortality. He had no intention of having a successor. He only cared about power so long as he controlled it.
He'd burn the Wizarding world to the ground rather than let anyone else rule.
“He's going to kill Draco if you fail, isn't he?” She felt his fingers flinch almost imperceptibly. “The injury last week — it wasn't a test, it was your punishment. Are you the one who had to crucio him?”
Lucius' eyes flickered before turning colder.
When Hermione saw it, she tilted her head back gave a choking laugh. Of course, she should have known they'd have the same tells.
She held his gaze and leaned forward.
“I am the last Order member. The very last one,” she said after a moment. “Everyone else is gone now. I'm all that's left.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I did blow up Sussex.” She kept looking into his cold eyes. “Harry — Harry was dead. Everyone was dead or captured, there was no one to stop me. I created the alchemy and designed both of the Order's bombs. The poison you found so interesting, I invented it too. Thestral blood. Monkshood. Asp venom. Arsenic. Pufferfish. Water hemlock roots. Newt skin. It was mine.”
She drew a deep breath. “You're right though — there was a spy among the Death Eaters during the last year of the war. I was his handler.”
There was a flash of triumph in Lucius eyes. Hermione wanted to spit at him.
“But you won't save Draco by finding him.” She studied his bloodied face and heard his laughter as Ron died screaming. She leaned closer, her voice dropping into a whisper. “The spy who killed Umbridge and destroyed the locket is your son.”
Lucius' expression went blank for a moment before twisting into an enraged sneer. He seized her by the throat, jerked her forward, and slammed her back into the bars of the cage.
“My son would never ally himself with the Order.”
Hermione choked but didn't break her eye contact with him.
“He — hates Voldemort,” she rasped out. “He — has always — hated him. Why do you think there's a cage in your drawing room? Voldemort kept your wife in it.”
Lucius jerked as though she'd struck him. “You're lying!”