𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍-𝘏𝘈𝘙𝘙𝘠 𝘗𝘖𝘛𝘛𝘌𝘙

Chapter 5

Lovesbitca8 TAKES CREDIT THIS IS HER WORK - FOUND ON AO3

When they spun into their destination, Hermione had two seconds to let her eyes adjust to the dark before she was forced onto a chair, arms behind her. They affixed her hands to the back of the chair with a Sticking Charm. Because he'd tightened and shortened her dress, she struggled to press her knees together, the wooden seat pressed against her bare backside.

Yaxley moved away from her, speaking with the guards in low voices, and Hermione looked around her to find chairs with restrained Lots lining the entire room.

Not a room. She looked up to a tall ceiling, maybe three stories high, dizzying her. Catwalks and ropes, but also strange things hanging from pulleys. Velvet curtains dropping down from above.

Backstage, Macnair had said. They rented out a theatre for this.

No, of course not. Hermione shook her head. No one rented anything.

She looked to her right and found Ginny sitting next to her, staring down at her knees. It looked as if Dolohov had the same idea as Yaxley and had shortened and tightened Ginny's white dress. Ginny looked up at her, eyes wet, and mouthed, Hi.

She looked around. One of the Snatchers was still restraining and silencing his many charges. Her eyes drifted toward the source of light. The stage. They'd decorated it. She squinted at the tall pieces, trying to figure out what they were.

Movement across the stage, and Hermione found herself staring into the other wing, directly at Ron Weasley, struggling against his chair.

She gasped, soundlessly.

Ron was screaming in silence, and she saw his lips form her name.

She could just make out twenty other chairs, lined up just like theirs. Neville sat slumped over in one. She thought she could make out Oliver Wood in another.

Hermione turned to Ginny, wiggling to get her attention, but Ginny was already staring across the stage, smiling softly, cheeks wet with slow tears.

The buzzing she'd associated with portkey travel ebbed and grew, and Hermione realized she was hearing an audience, just beyond the curtains.

Hermione whipped her head around, trying to take in as much as she could. Exits, hiding places, weapons.

There were about seventy prisoners according to Yaxley's count yesterday. There were fourteen Death Eaters on this side of the stage, and half of them were planning to bid. They couldn't do that from back here.

Seven guards for fifty girls. Possibly similar ratios on the other side.

She looked up and found Pansy staring directly at her, twenty feet away. Her eyes abruptly flicked to one of the guards and then back to Hermione.

Hermione looked and found a dark-featured twenty-something bloke. He was thin with dark brows that made him look more menacing than his size suggested. As she looked at him, his eyes drifted to her thighs.

A chill raced along her skin, and she watched as he blinked away. She looked back at Pansy, not knowing what she wanted. Was she warning her?

Before she could think on it, a man swept in through a door, Macnair trailing behind him. Ludo Bagman. His eyes traveled over the chairs, stopping briefly over the faces he knew. He looked down at his shoes and fiddled with the papers in his hands.

"The Death Eaters thank you for your services, Mr. Bagman," Macnair hissed, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Yes, Macnair. I am... glad to be of service." He shuffled the papers, and Hermione recognized them as the notes the appraiser had taken.