"You are the love of my life," Y/N said. "I love you."
"If loving me comes with shame," Hermione breathed in a shaky breath. "I don't want your love."
In a matter of seconds, Y/N's world came tumbling down. Hermione's words hit her...
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Y/N couldn't move — not even to breathe right — but she felt everything.
She felt the blade drag down her cheek. Slow and deliberate — like Wormtail thought he was being gentle. As if slicing her face open was an act of mercy.
His breath coated her lips, hot and sickly; a stink of rot and sulphur, like something died in his lungs and fermented. Her lip curled, or tried to. The spell locked her still, her body more corpse than girl.
She wanted to look away — wanted to close her eyes and sink inside herself, or better yet, die. But he had taken even that from her. Her gaze remained pinned to him, his pale, ratlike face hovering inches from hers.
"Such a shame," Wormtail said, his voice almost fond. "Voldemort wanted you as his own, you know — to follow in your father's footsteps. You had every chance. But no. You chose traitors. You chose him."
He glanced behind him.
And Harry — Harry was screaming.
His voice cracked like glass under pressure. He thrashed against his bindings, his whole body jerking with the force of his desperation.
"Stop! PLEASE!Please — " Choked sobs punctuated Harry's desperate pleading. "Merlin, just STOP! Don't touch her, Wormtail, please — I'll do anything! I'll do anything you want, I'll give myself to Voldemort, just please don't hurt her!"
His cries fell on deaf ears.
Wormtail turned back to her and crouched again, gentle as a man tucking a child in. With sticky fingers, he brushed a mat of blood-soaked hair from her forehead. The cut he'd made earlier glistened under the moonlight; skin split clean to the temple.
"Are you ready?" he asked, straddling her chest. "Just blink, and it'll be over."
Harry uttered a guttural cry — something closer to an animal than a boy. Raw. Shattering. "Don't touch her, just take me instead! Please, please, please . . ."
Wormtail ignored him.
The blade hovered.
Then descended.
It kissed the skin beneath Y/N's left eye — and dug.
Wormtail hissed as her skin sizzled beneath his palm, scalding hot. His fingers recoiled, but he forced them back down with a snarl. "You little bitch," he let out a growl under his breath. "Stop fighting."
She didn't. Couldn't. Her body burned from the inside out — a last-ditch resistance. Magic pulsed through her blood like magma, her skin fevered, blistering even under his grip.
The knife dug deeper.
He drew a slow, curved line, tracing the socket like a surgeon, steam rising from her face where the metal met heat. Her magic scorched beneath the surface — blind and furious — but the spell held her down like chains.
