As soon as the admission passes his lips, she freezes, her heart sinking like a stone. Her pulse is pounding and her stomach is uneasy. The words 'death eater' ring in her head, and she suddenly feels too close to him.
But it's his continuation of confession that keeps her from moving away. She can't very well judge him on acts that he was forced to do against his will. It occurs to her that he could be lying, but she doesn't think so.
If he wanted to lie, he could have just bypassed the question or told her something else. He didn't have to tell her something that was obviously so horrible for him. She can't imagine being under the influence of an unforgivable and doing things that she wouldn't be able to clear her conscious of.
"That's terrible...that your own father would do something like that, and now you have to suffer the repercussions. I'm sorry that you went through that," she offers understandingly, though her stomach is still turning.
She remembers vividly the final battle he mentioned...she was there. The shadows still haunt her sleeping hours. She fears that he was there, that he might have done something terrible to someone she knew, but she can't ask him that, "Are you okay?"