Hermione froze. No matter how much she'd tried to prepare herself, no matter how often she'd done this in person, to expose her mind to his was a far more horrendous experience than anything she'd imagined. At once, she felt the level of his dominance over her. It was focused and pointed, now that it was all he had left. Harry had liberated her physically, but Ron's Dark Magic still held her on so many deeper levels. She gasped as she felt each one, like an ice-cold knife stabbing at each point as it moved through her. There were so many! Hermione was astonished as she realised just how firmly under Ron's magical heel she'd really been. She wondered if Harry already knew.