AN: Originally written for Round 8 of the Dramione Remix. The original remix couple was Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov.

Present Day

The first thing Hermione notices when she comes to is the lack of noise — no cars, no voices, nothing but the soft rustling of wind on trees and the muffled steps of three, no, four people. The pain comes next, almost like an afterthought — her head is pounding; her left shoulder is on fire; there's a stab of pain on her side every time she breathes in. The witch ignores it all. She doesn't open her eyes, does not make a movement, but forces herself to keep breathing the even, steady breaths of someone out cold.

There's barely any light left, and what light there is flickers softly as they move. Trees, probably, and the full moon.

They did not think to restrain her, did not think to tie her up, and under different circumstances that arrogance would have cost them, but she's injured and unarmed and alone. Even if she could break out of the levitation spell — and she can't — there's likely four wands between them, and she doesn't have so much as a butter knife. Those are bad odds any way you look at them, so she keeps silent and still, and waits for an opening that never comes, because the moment they cross the wards, she realises where they brought her.

Hermione must make a noise, because one second she's airborne and the next she falls to the ground with a thud - the sharp pain on her chest and shoulder almost causing her to blackout again. She rolls to the side, coughing and wheezing and trying to catch her breath.

"Looks like our little bird's awake at last," Scabior says, dropping to a crouch next to her. "Not so high and mighty now, are ya?"

"Piss off," she manages to say, gritting her teeth to stop from crying out when another snatcher kicks her.

"On your feet, dove, or Greyback here will drag you all the way to the house, which I for one will get a kick out of, but I don't know that you will care for it."

She pushes herself up despite the pain and forces herself to move, trying to ignore the fear building in her chest. Hermione's been in tight spots before — in the war, during ops, in missions that went pear-shaped at the drop of a hat — but this slow panic clawing at her, this growing terror in the back of her mind, this is new. And Hermione is better than this, she was trained better than this, but she can't think and she can't calm down, and soon they'll be at the Manor, and she should have made them kill her back in London.

She walks between them until they're within sight of the house and then she stops, unable to go any farther. Malfoy Manor looms before them like something out of a nightmare — dark and dangerous and full of horrors — and the only way they're dragging her in is if they kill her first.

Without giving them time to realise she's stopped, without giving herself time to think about it, she lunges at the snatcher to her right, grabbing his wrist and spinning behind him so that he's between her and the other three. Scabior's stun hits the man right in the back and he falls to the ground, almost dragging her down with him, but experience and training kick in and Hermione jumps clear of him, his wand safely in her hand.

She hits one of the snatchers square in the chest with a hex that throws the woman clear across the courtyard, and then hurls a curse at Greyback, who deflects it at the same time Scabior casts a tremor jinx on the ground around her that almost knocks her off her feet. Hermione jumps to the side and backs away, trying to keep them from flanking her. She's too slow — her chest protesting every move, her left arm a dead weight, worse than useless — but she's cornered and terrified, and that's fear she can use. Her spells are desperate, vicious, as she tries to goad them into hitting her with something that will put an end to this.

It's the end of the line for her, and she has no illusions to the contrary. The wards won't let her Disapparate, and running would have been a poor option even had she been capable of it. It's the end and she's made her peace with it. People like her don't make it to old age, don't die tucked safely in bed, surrounded by family and friends and loved ones. She never expected to.

She would have preferred to die with her bow in her hand, but a wand will do just as well.

The sectumsempra that hits her is Greyback's, and the howl of pain it rips from her throat turns into almost-hysterical laughter, and Hermione can taste blood in her tongue.

"That's all you got, mutt?" she asks, firing two jinxes in rapid succession. Neither lands. She's losing steam. "No wonder they won't let you into their little club, if that's all a half-breed like you can manage." Come on, Greyback.

The werewolf growls and lunges at her, but the contact never comes. Invisible hands yank him back and he falls to the ground with a startled yap that might have been funny if it weren't also terrifying, because Hermione had been so busy focusing on the snatchers that she did not see the robed figures emerging from the house until they were right on top of them.

Her eyes meet Draco's for a split second, and then he says, "Crucio," and the whole word explodes in agonising pain, and she falls to her knees, unable to so much as breathe — all she can do, all she has in her to do, is scream as the spell sets all her nerves on fire.

The pain ends as suddenly as it started, and for a second the relief is so intense she cannot feel anything else — no terror, no fear, none of the pain from her broken ribs and dislocated shoulder, nothing from all the bruises and cuts she's covered in. And then it all comes crashing down on her again, and it's all she can do not to sob.

"Now, now, Draco, darling," says a voice that makes her go cold all over. "Don't break my toys." Bellatrix kneels down in front of Hermione, burying a hand in her hair and jerking her head back so that she's looking at her. "It's such fun when I get to break them myself." Draco is just at the edge of her vision, silent and still, with a face like marble — fair and dispassionate and cold. "Did you think you could run from me, little girl?" Bellatrix's lips brush her cheek in a soft, tender caress that makes her skin crawl. "I always get back the things that are mine."

"If you're going to kill me, just get it over with." Please. Please kill me.

Bellatrix chuckles, a sound like glass, and lets go of her, pushing herself up to her feet. "And where would the fun be in that?" She spares Hermione one last glance before turning towards the house. "Bring her in."