Hermione popped up by the Great Lake – the same place where the High Reeve showed up when he brought Pansy for her to heal.
Before killing her himself.
Hermione threw the portkey – an empty can of sardines – on the ground and left it there, not that she was going back to the Manor ever again. She walked up the mounts, and down the courtyard, shivering – not from the cold, but because of what she knew awaited her at Hogwarts. Upon entering the castle Hermione didn't look around – her face dead with grief, her eyes empty, unseeing. She was caught off guard when Cho appeared around the corner, running towards her.
"Hermione!" Cho exclaimed. "What are you doing here! I saw you come down from the Lake..."
Cho got very close, but didn't lean in to hug her, looking at her left arm aghast instead.
"Cho, is everything alright?" Hermione blurted out. "Were you attacked?"
Cho frowned, looking at her as if she was mad, asking, "What happened to you?"
Hermione took a deep breath. "I need to see Harry, where is he?"
He probably didn't know about Pansy, he probably had no idea where she had gone, and Hermione will have to be the one to tell him the horrible news.
"Harry is fine, but you are not," Cho pointed out. She took Hermione by her good hand and started to drag her into the infirmary. "Your hand is covered in blood, and I will not tell you anything until I heal you properly while you explain to me what the hell happened to hurt you like that."
Hermione swallowed but allowed herself to be dragged, because she wasn't ready to face Harry, not with what she will be forced to tell him.
Cho made Hermione sit on one of the infirmary beds while she brought some things to clean up her wound and some potions to help it heal better. Cho took Hermione's left hand softly, pulled up the sleeve, and started cleaning the blood off her skin with cleaning charms.
"So, how did this happen?" she asked, looking at the bone-deep cut on the fourth finger.
Hermione huffed indignantly. "I tried to cut the finger off," she said. Out loud, this whole situation sounded ridiculous.
Cho raised her eyebrows. "Do I need to be worried about your mental health? Has the High Reeve driven you to insanity?"
Hermione sighed, "No, I understand how this sounds, but... I had my reasons."
"I'm all ears."
"He... didn't let me come back here."
Cho's facial expression turned comically horrified. "So you decided the best thing to do was... this? And yet they call you the Brightest Witch of Her Age. A bit of a stretch, I think."
Hermione groaned. "It doesn't matter now, I just need to talk to Harry."
Cho scoffed, "What you need is to get this wound treated."
Hermione smiled at her softly. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"
Cho smiled back. "Don't get used to it." She looked down at Hermione's hand, now clean from all the blood. "I missed you. We didn't know how you were holding up back there. It was weird not having you by my side."
Hermione swallowed back her tears. "I didn't know you were the sentimental type."
Cho smiled softly. "Eh, I guess times like these make people change."
When she was finished with the wound, Hermione asked, "So, can I now go speak with Harry?"
"Yeah, yeah. He either in the Great Hall or in the Gryffindor common room, sulking."
Of course, he's sulking. Hermione prayed for Harry to not get back to his depression after hearing the news she would tell him.
She found him in the common room, reading. That's how she knew his mind was already not in the right.
"Hey," she spoke softly.
Harry looked up. "Hermione!" He stood up, hugging her tightly. "You're back..." Hermione smiled. And then the tears began. "Oh my god, Hermione, what happened? Why are you crying?" Harry asked, frightened.
"I—I have to tell you something..." she sobbed.
"Well, what is it?" Then he saw her hand and his expression darkened. He took it and lifted it up to see better. "Did he do this? Did he hurt you? That was not what we agreed—"
"No, no, it doesn't matter... I have to tell you something about Pansy..."
Harry frowned, the name catching his attention. "Pansy? What about her?"
Hermione couldn't stop the tears from running down her cheeks, sobs raking through her chest uncontrollably. "Oh, Harry... Pansy is... She's dead... They killed her..." she choked out, hugging so she wouldn't have to see his grief-stricken face. She couldn't bring herself to say the High Reeve's name.
"Who's dead and what am I going to wear to the funeral?" she heard a sleepy voice say.
Hermione withdrew from Harry and saw a black-haired woman over her shoulder.
Her heart stopped for a moment. And then started beating again.
"Pansy," she yelled, running to a very confused witch and hugging her so tightly they both almost fell to the ground. "Oh my god, I thought I will never see you again!"
"Uhm, who are you and what did you do to Granger, because this show of affection to a Slytherin is illegal in Gryffindor law."
Hermione leaned back, looking over Pansy, making sure this was really her. "I'm sorry, I'm just—I'm just so happy you're alive..."
"Why did you think Pansy was dead?" Harry asked.
Hermione looked at him, wiping the tears with the back of her hand. "Because... I saw her die. I saw her get tortured and killed, and I—I don't understand how... How did it happen..."
Harry frowned and Pansy rolled her eyes, but her voice was soft. "Well, Granger, now you know I'm okay. Don't tell me you came all this way just to look into my face, no matter how hot I look."
Hermione stared at them both guiltily. "Well, actually... Yes, that's why I'm here."
"And you left your husband all alone?" Pansy sighed theatrically.
"He is not my husband."
Pansy kept grinning. "But you married him."
"Ugh, it doesn't matter, I left because I thought—you know what, who cares. I'm here now, and—I don't know what I'm going to do next."
Harry's face, unlike Pansy's, was grim and serious. "Start off by telling me how you saw Pansy get killed."
Hermione's eyes widened. She didn't want to retell it. It was too horrible. Although now that she thought about that scene while knowing that Pansy is safe and sound, standing right before her, she couldn't be sure if she remembered it all well enough.
She sat down on the reddish sofa in front of the fireplace. Pansy sat by her side, seeming nonchalant, but her eyes were tense. Harry remained standing.
"It happened last night," Hermione began, staring at her hands, then at the fire in the hearth. "Crabbe and Pucey came to the Malfoy Manor—I'm not sure why exactly, nobody told me, although I think they wanted to see me and mock me, but—they brought someone else with them." She looked at Pansy. "You. At first, I didn't notice it was you, you were wearing this huge cloak and there was a hood on your head... Then, Crabbe took it off, and I immediately recognized you, even though you didn't look at me as if you didn't even see me... Then he... The High Reeve... He started torturing you with Cruciatus... You recognized him, you spoke his name, begging him for mercy, but he kept going... I couldn't watch, I wanted to stop him, but he immobilized me, and all I could do was watch as he—as he killed you..." Hermione finished with a sob.
"It wasn't Pansy you saw get killed, it was someone else," Harry stated.
Hermione nodded, "Yes, now I know. But... why?"
Pansy looked shocked but somehow fascinated too. Her lip corners quirked up on their own. "They were looking for me. They wouldn't have calmed down until they found me...
"And it would've brought them here, to Hogwarts..." Hermione added quietly.
Pansy grinned. "That cheeky bastard. Now I'm dead to all of them," she said, looking up at Harry. "Now I'm free."
Harry didn't seem all that relieved though. "But how could Crabbe and Pucey bring Pansy to the High Reeve if they knew what he would do to her?" he asked. Then addressed Pansy, "I thought you were friends with them in school?"
Pansy's face hardened, her gaze tensing even more. "Yeah, well, I knew they would sell me out the first chance they got. Never trusted them too much. What did they do, though?"
Hermione swallowed thickly. "Crabbe and Pucey, they were talking terrible things about you, and you cried and... they acted as if you were just a nobody to them, as if you weren't their friend... They laughed at you, saying that this is what traitors deserve... They laughed when you were tortured and they mocked you when you died... I'm so sorry, Pansy..."
Hermione cried upon remembering all this. Pansy's face blanked out. She was visibly hurt but tried to hide her feelings. "What did Crabbe do?" she asked, voice deadly cold.
"He... kicked you..."
"And Pucey?"
"Well, I don't really remember all that well—"
"Pans, maybe that's enough—" Harry interjected.
Pansy's empty eyes turned to Hermione. "What did he say about me?"
"He said... that it's too bad you betrayed the Dark Lord..."
Hermione was surprised Pansy was more interested in details of how Crabbe and Pucey acted and not how the High Reeve used two of the Unforgivable curses on her.
"There was Zabini, too," she added. "But he didn't do anything, he just stood aside. Actually, he... he came to warn us maybe half an hour before that Crabbe and Pucey were coming... spoke with the High Reeve some more before all of it, I didn't get to hear what exactly, though..."
Now, all that happened the previous night slowly found its place in the puzzle of Hermione's mind. Zabini had come to warn the High Reeve of the visit so they could have the time to get ready, so he could warn Hermione to act properly, otherwise her un-mudblood-like behavior might've caused Crabbe and Pucey to get suspicious. Zabini probably also told him that they were bringing Pansy with them—fake Pansy. The High Reeve must've expected that his fellow Death Eaters will want to see a spectacle of his notorious power and merciless techniques... To keep the act up, he made sure they saw him kill and torture the girl – Hermione didn't want to think who that might've been, she was just glad it wasn't Pansy – and that's how he made sure the real Pansy would be finally left in peace.
Pansy sighed, leaning back on the sofa. "Merlin's fucking beard..." she said, a grin appearing on her face. "I knew Malfoy still had a soft spot for me in his cold, dead heart..."
"He didn't do it for you, he doesn't care about anyone but himself," Hermione said, but neither of the two of them listened to her words.
"Dammit, now I owe him... Owe a life to a Malfoy again..." Harry complained.
"My life, you mean," Pansy corrected.
Harry frowned. "That's what I said."
Hermione sighed. "I can't go back to the Manor now..."
The couple looked at her. "Why not?" Harry asked.
"I kind of... forced him to let me out of the Manor, implying that I was never going to get back..." she said.
Pansy seemed confused. "How could you leave him like that? Didn't you give him an Unbreakable promise?"
Hermione shook her head. "No, I didn't... I don't know why, but he didn't ask me to..." She looked down at her hands and at the wound. "He gave me this stupid ring, though..."
She lifted her left hand up. Pansy immediately grabbed the hand, trying to see the ring up close, frowning, a dark expression crossing her features. "He gave you this?"
"Yes," Hermione answered, caught off guard by Pansy's reaction. "Is there something... wrong with it?"
Pansy touched the ring with her finger, and it warmed up as if it were alive. Then, she said at last, letting go of her hand, "No, I don't think so. It's just... I didn't think he'd give you this, that's all."
"Is this some sort of ancient Malfoy heirloom?" Hermione asked.
"Something like that," Pansy mused.
"Well, I cannot take it off and I cannot leave anywhere without his knowledge. But I could leave and get rid of the ring if I cut it off with my finger..." Hermione contined. " He said it wouldn't help but I was ready to try."
Pansy and Harry exchanged a rather worried look. "You tried to... cut your finger off to get the ring off?" Harry asked carefully, as if he was talking to a retarded person.
"I know how crazy this sounds, okay, I just thought... I'm sure I would've been free of that ring if only I had finished cutting it off... He told me it wouldn't do a thing to get rid of it, but he was rather worried when I started slicing into the flesh."
Now they looked at her as if they were both ready to put her at Saint Mungo's.
"I must say, Granger, that is a very normal reaction when someone is trying to literally cripple themselves," Pansy said.
"Yeah, if you do something like that in front of me, I will make sure to stupefy you before you get any harm done," Harry added.
Hermione rolled her eyes, annoyed by them both. They didn't know what she knew, they hadn't seen what she has. They haven't got the slightest idea how much the High Reeve reveled in seeing someone's physical torment... She will never forget the way he stared down at the girl he was torturing – full of fascination, full of obsession, as if he wished nothing more but to destroy everything...
"Speaking of getting harm done, "Harry said, interrupting her train of thought. "We have some updates on the Horcrux business for you."