So she drops the pliers to the ground, walks stiffly to the table and seizes up the silver truncheon, and then before she can think better of it – before she can think of the risks of permanent, perhaps fatal, harm – she swings it hard at the side of Malfoy's head. He goes down in a heap, and then a cruciatus rips through Hermione, driving her to the ground as the truncheon falls from her nerveless fingers. Voldemort's voice cuts through the agony like a knife as she twitches on the floor, screams caught behind her teeth: "That will be enough, Mudblood. I want the boy to be hurt, not dead. Wormtail. Take it to young Draco's room and restrain it, so that it will pose no risk while he is unconscious. And lay a binding spell upon it as well, to prevent it from causing harm once it is free, just in case the boy is incapable of doing so properly when he awakes."