"Do you ever have any recurring dreams?" Lavender Brown asks.
Hermione can't remember the year that conversation takes place. Fifth, maybe? 'Normal' was hard to date-stamp when you attended Hogwarts. It was as if Hermione's recollection of her time at school was a finite resource and her memory had only bothered to make room for the learning, the danger, the highs and lows, not the mid-ranges.
The conversation had probably occurred over breakfast, though. What she does remember is Ron chewing on toast with his mouth open.
"I dream I've forgotten something important and I can't remember what," Neville tells them.
No one is surprised.
"I always get chased, right?" Ron said. "And it's a sodding spider big enough to ride! Only my legs don't work. It's like I've been hit with Leg-locker or something. I fall over and the spider climbs on top of me…"
Seamus liked to pluck at low-hanging fruit. "Are you sure this isn't the spider's nightmare?"
Everyone laughs. Well, almost everyone. Hermione sees that Harry is smiling, but he's also distracted because distracted is what happens when Voldemort's trying to kill you and you've also got girl problems.
"I reckon those monster dreams are common," Lavender said. "I have the same ones. Can't see what it is, but there's always something nasty coming after me..."
Parvati leans in conspiratorially, school tie in danger of falling into a large bowl of congealing porridge. She whispers to them, "Padma dreams that she hasn't studied for her exams."
"How do you know what she dreams? Did she tell you?" Hermione inquires.
Parvati's stare is a bit cooler when she looks at Hermione. They are friendly enough, but like Lavender, Parvati is as shallow as a puddle and Hermione finds guilty gratification in giving her a hard time on occasion.
"She doesn't need to tell me," is Parvati's surprisingly serious response. "Sometimes, we suffer each other's dreams."
"Twin magic," Neville says, nodding.
Ron snorts. "Then Hermione must be the missing Patil triplet because I reckon she has the exact same recurring nightmare! Right, Hermione?" He waggles his eyebrows at her. "Right?"
Hermione played with her salad fork, pushing the tines into the pad of her thumb and observed the marks left behind—four, tiny, depression points. She's had that dream, of course. But usually there's another theme that takes center stage.
She stands alone and there is a decision to be made—the choice of a spell, a door to open, a chess piece to move. A whole slew of decisions that are time-contingent because behind her, in the darkness, is not the bogeyman, but Ron, Harry, mum and dad, the Weasleys and Ginny. They await their fate, passive and entirely dependent on Hermione's choices.
In her dream, Hermione never makes the correct choice. She chooses the wrong door or opens the wrong book. She looks down at her hands and is horrified to see the black, creeping tendrils emerge—a network of poison that splays outwards. She is the root of misfortune and her friends and loved ones fall down, dead, the blood vessels in their faces traced over in black. Hermione's monsters are never hulking, great beasts that hunted you. Her monsters were her bad decisions.
She looked across the table now. This was not the happy, worn, oak surface of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall and it was not Ron's smiling, freckled face looking back at her, waiting for her answer. Alexander Amarov's piercing, gimlet stare was something she would never get used to, no matter that Malfoy and Agent Richards quite often looked at her in the same way. He watched her now, managing to look curious and knowing at the same time.
Hermione had been in the fleet for three weeks—two of those weeks were spent unconscious and in recovery. The days after her convalescence were probably even more unsettling. For the past four nights, Amarov had requested her presence at dinner, at what he referred to as the 'Captains' Table'. Everyone in attendance was dressed in formal attire. Among the Principals of the fleet, apparently it was the custom to dress for dinner.
Tonight, Amarov wore a slim black suit over a finely pressed, white shirt. The buttons of the shirt were miniscule—looking like black, map pins against the starched, alabaster fabric. The overall effect was sleek, simple and in stark contrast to the garish décor of the rest of the cruise-liner. No tie tonight, Hermione noted, though he'd been wearing one on every other occasion she'd seen him, save their introduction on the kidnapper's trawler. He'd managed to put on some of the weight h'd lost since his ordeal. The hollows in his cheeks were filled out, though this in no way lessened the inhospitable angles of his cheekbones. An exceedingly handsome man, by popular standards. Pity about everything else.
Twelve others set at the long table. All of them captains save for the only two women present—Hermione and Honoria. As if sensing Hermione's train of thought, Honoria glanced up from her second course. The look she gave Hermione ought to have singed the skin of her face.
Honoria's hatred for Hermione was understandable. She resented Hermione, but there was also the not insignificant matter of Honoria being utterly besotted with Amarov. It was laughable, really. Honoria's devotion to her employer was no longer a great mystery. Honoria liked her boys bad, it seemed. Crazy bad. Hermione's present position as Amarov's favourite magical collectible did not go unnoticed by Amarov's inner circle. But fleet members did not question Amarov's decisions lightly. Hermione had no such qualms. At the first dinner, she'd listed her demands, ignoring the amused looks of the other dinner guests. She'd made attempts to negotiate, to trade, to convince and when all that failed, she threatened. But all she got from the man was a short pause in his conversation to whichever fleet captain he'd been talking to before Hermione interrupted him.
The look he gave her was almost paternal—I see you wanting my attention, my dear, but you will wait.
So she waited. Three more excruciating dinners. Then a fourth. Each time, she ignored the clothing he sent to her room. They were beautiful, tasteful outfits, aesthetically speaking, with red carpet labels. Hermione tossed the first and second ones out of a porthole before Amarov had the tiny window sealed shut. The third she'd manages to shrink and shrivel over a heating vent and the fourth she easily ruined with water. On this, the fifth night, no dress had come. Maybe he was running out of outfits in her size? And so like every night before, Hermione attended dinner dressed in Professor Belikov's faded denim shirt and slacks, rolling up the sleeves and hems and using a curtain tassel as a belt. She was barefoot. At no point had shoes been provided, which was a shame, because being a barefoot captive did not do much for one's morale.
Not for the first time, Hermione wondered if her recent actions were perceived by Amarov as petulance rather than protest. Maybe she had to pick her battles? She felt less like a captive member of a British Ministry for Magic scientific team, than a tantruming teenager, waiflike in her too-large, men's clothing and sulking. She gripped the fork harder. Breaking point was near. She felt it. If something didn't happen soon, if Amarov continued to deny her from seeing her friends she would…
She would do absolutely nothing, because so long as the bio-feedback trigger was embedded into his chest, he was literally a walking bomb. And even if he wasn't, there were six guards in the room. They stood with their backs to the walls, arms folded. Two of them wore sub-machine guns strapped around their chests.
Around her, the other diners spoke in about four other languages, including English. They laughed, argued, drank and ate. Hermione learned a great deal about the fleet's inner workings. She learned the name of the captains and first mates, the vessels and cruisers, and bits and pieces regarding course changes, security and housing. No one bothered to censor any information in her presence. But it was all quite useless if she could not find a way to relay it to Malfoy.
"The bisque is very good," Amarov said.
His voice was barely audible above the clinking of cutlery and glass, but it effectively halted all other discussion at the table. After four days, Amarov had apparently decided to acknowledge her presence.
"Do you know which country boasts the most Michelin stars? You may think it's France or Spain. Or perhaps the US?"
"It's Japan," she supplied, because she'd read it in a Readers' Digest in the waiting room of her father's orthodontic practice one day.
He smiled. "My chef hails from Osaka. Before all this, he had just taken three stars. As such, I highly recommend the bisque."
Hermione put her fork down. "You'll forgive me if I find it hard to muster much of an appetite when there are sick and dying people imprisoned in your fleet."
The diner seated to Amarov's left was an obese, red-faced Frenchman. Louis Renauld was his name and he was the captain of the ship that held the magical prisoners. Most of the people in the fleet knew it as the 'games ship'. Renauld opened his ruddy mouth to speak, but Amarov held up a hand.
"There seems to be a lot of rumour and conjecture flying around. Permit me to set the record straight, Miss Granger. We are well supplied, but our resources will not last indefinitely. The food you see before you is the result of some very creative cooking with very limited ingredients. Louis, please enlighten our guest." Amarov picked up his wine glass and sipped from it.
"If we abide by our current rationing regime, we will have enough stored food to last approximately eight months, maybe ten. Perishables are another matter, of course. Though we avoid it as much as possible, supply ships have to make trips to the mainland, at great risk," Renauld said.
"At great risk, Miss Granger," Amarov echoed. "A risk my men bear for the good of the entire fleet. That includes you and your friends."
Her uneaten bisque was cleared, and a third course of escargot in garlic butter was brought out.
"You actually think you can convince me that what you're doing here is good? Are you all liars, delusional or just plain stupid?"
"Watch your manners, witch," snapped the Frenchman.
Amarov did not look in the least bit put out. He was as calm as glass. "Miss Granger, permit me to ask you a question."
"Only if you answer one of mine in return."
"Fine," Amarov allowed. He handled his escargot tongs deftly, extricating one snail with a small fork. "I'll go first. What is the estimated duration of survival for a Muggle residing in an urbanised section of the UK? London, for example. Your team did their homework, I'm assuming? You are aware of the figures?"
She was loathe to play along, but it was obvious that the conversation was leading somewhere important. "Without secure shelter, about four days."
"And how long have I kept my thousands of fleet citizens alive?"
Hermione did not have the precise answer to that question. Amarov supplied it.
"Ten months, twenty days." He removed another snail. "In that time, we've had babies born to mothers who will never have to fear their children being ripped from their arms and devoured in front of them. We've had marriages, birthdays and anniversaries. The children go to school and when my people are sick, there are doctors to see to them."
"You mean like my friend, Padma? The doctor you are forcing to work for you?"
"What other function would you have her serve? Wasn't that her job on your team? My priority will always be the humans of the fleet, but as it happens I have taken in Magical refugees who need medical care. She is treating her own kind and I imagine that she would choose to."
"What about simple medicines? Antibiotics, for example. You aren't making any of it available to the magical captives. People are dying. They could save themselves if you had only let them keep their wands!"
The other diners might as well have been watching a ping-pong match. Their gazes went back and forth, between Hermione's rapid fire volleys and Amarov's return serves.
"Miss Granger, a year ago, most of the people on this planet had no idea that the magical race even existed. How long do you think this fleet would last if I permitted near a thousand wizards and witches the use of their wands? How do you think the humans of the fleet would feel?"
"I'd day they'd be relieved! Some of the most impossible rescues and evacuations of Muggles to date have been carried out by Magical folk!"
"You bend the laws of physics. You vanish into thin air and reappear. You fly. You kill with words, and somehow you think my people would welcome that kind of unchecked power in such close quarters? We are a floating island of steel, wood and fibreglass held together by martial law and desperation. That is reality. Magical unrest in this fleet could sink us."
"So what use are we to you without our wands?" she asked, rhetorically. "Why keep us here? You use us for blood sport! You use wizarding children for experimentation!"
"Ah, that," he said, and then sighed with what looked to be authentic regret. "You are referring to Zabini and his son, and the creature being kept in the labs?"
"Eloise Withinshaw," Hermione reminded him.
"The child in the lab came down with typhus. We made a decision which included not having her death be meaningless. As it was, she was euthanized painlessly and her mother was compensated with additional rations for her remaining, healthy child. And with her passing, little Eloise has assisted the search for a cure."
"It's as easy to justify as all that, is it?" Hermione asked, quietly. "And what on earth did Blaise's four-year old son do to deserve being put into the Pit?"
"It may surprise you to know that it was not my decision to put Zabini's son into the Pit. That was a mistake and it was made in my absence, isn't that right, Louis?" Amarov asked, with a voice like knives. In that moment, Hermione realised Amarov seemed to be handling her with kid gloves. Others were not so fortunate.
Renauld was sweating. He laughed nervously and muttered to Amarov in French.
"English, please," Amarov ordered, without looking up from his escargot, "and give your reasons to our guest, not to me."
"Of course," Renauld said, staring mutinously at Hermione. "Your friend, Blaise Zabini attempted to escape on numerous occasions with his son and he injured two guards in the process. He stole supplies and caused great dissent amongst the others. He was a routine criminel and the Pit is punishment. But, as Alexander says, it was a…how do you say? Error in my judgement to put his son there as well."
"The fights are a brutal and bloody business, but they are these for a reason." It was Honoria who spoke now, and Hermione was surprised to note the resignation in her voice. "There must be effective disincentives to rioting and anarchy. The keepers of the fleet are out-numbered, you realise this?"
"More and more each day," Hermione replied, with artificial cheer. This earned her a snort of amusement from Amarov.
"We have no police here, Miss Granger. We have an illusory upper hand and we have guns. These are lawless times and the people need structure."
"And somehow you think making them watch their comrades being taken apart by zombies is one way to achieve that?" Hermione demanded.
"Punitive deterrence works, my dear. It's the oldest trick in the book. There are other refugee camps. The humans of my fleet are free to try their luck elsewhere if they like. I hear the Outer Hebrides has not fared so well. From other camps, I hear news of looting, murder and rape. Scared people can be very…scary."
Hermione surveyed the table, stared long and hard at each of the captains. "So that's it, then? All of you have no moral objection to any of this? Every act of barbarism committed in the name of survival is justifiable." Hermione nodded. "I see the meek will not be inheriting the earth any time soon."
Amarov steepled his fingers as he regarded her. "You will not even consider the merits of any reason I have given you because it suits your purposes to think of me as some kind of monster."
She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Your insane need to create the cure first has resulted in the death of five of my colleagues! You have kidnapped me and three others. None of us have done anything to harm you!"
He leaned forward on the table, an unsettling gleam in his eye. "Not so." Amarov wiped his mouth on his napkin and stood up. He turned to one of the guards. "Please show Professor Belikov and Dr Prestin into the room. They are waiting outside."
Hermione felt her hands grow cold. There was unpleasantness ahead. Everyone in the room could sense it.
A moment later, the doors to the dining room opened and in walked Belikov, looking like he was being marched to certain death. His mood did not improve upon seeing Hermione there. The fleet's chief physician—a horrid weasel of man called Prestin—followed behind.
"Alexander," Belikov said, in greeting.
"Vadim, thank you for waiting. I wanted to share the happy news with the rest of the captains." Amarov began to walk around the table. "Friends, it would seem that the Professor has managed to synthesize a cure for the Infection. He came to tell me personally, just before dinner."
There were gasps, surprise, and from Honoria, the same dread Hermione was feeling.
"Is this true?" Renauld demanded.
"It is what he tells me," said Amarov. "Yet more testing will have to be done, but the future is bright, isn't it Vadim?"
The elderly scientist remained silent and grim.
"Tell me, what are the three rules for anyone who joins us in the fleet?"
Belikov was very pale now. "Obedience, loyalty, honesty."
"Honoria, what do you say? Has the Professor done it?"
Honoria looked around the room, seeking silent reassurance from the other captains. There was none. "If the Professor says it is ready, then I suppose it must be…"
"You trust Belikov?"
"Of course."
"Good." Amarov smiled at her. It was a wide, beaming smile that brought two bright spots of colour to her cheeks. "Hold out your arm, my dear."
She frowned. "I beg your pardon?"
"Hold out your arm so I can have Prestin inject you with a dose of the pathogen." He turned to the doctor. "Prestin, you've brought a sample?"
Hermione watched this exchange with growing horror. Granted, she would have gladly shoved Honoria Cloot into the icy sea the first chance she got, but this? This was evil.
Honoria was perplexed. "I…I don't gather your meaning, Alexander. You want to infect me?"
"Yes," he replied, emphatic. "Vadim says the serum is ready, so curing you would be a simple matter of giving you a dose of the cure after Prestin infects you. But only if you volunteer, of course?"
It was sick. Hermione didn't know which was more twisted, Amarov's request or Honoria actually appearing to acquiesce. She held out an arm to Prestin, who pulled on a pair of thick, latex gloves and then removed a syringe from a flat, leather case. Contained within the syringe was an amber-coloured liquid—a sample of the Infection, Hermione presumed.
Prestin approached Honoria. "Hold still."
Honoria's eyes were wide and stricken as she looked at Amarov, likely expecting a last-minute reprieve, a sign that this was some sort of show, a charade. But then Prestin uncapped the syringe and pulled her wrist towards him.
"Stop," came a soft voice. It was Belikov. "There is no cure."
Honoria snatched her hand away from Prestin. "What the hell is going on?"
Amarov sat at the edge of the dining table, arms folded. "I don't know. Vadim, why don't you tell us?"
"This madness has to end, Alexander. I thought if you trusted me, you might have me administer the serum to the captives and then release them."
"I did trust you," Amarov replied and there was regret in his voice. "As did Honoria. You leave us no choice."
Belikov seemed resigned to his fate, whatever it was, but there was something else on his mind. "What about my grand-daughters?"
"They will be cared for."
"You can't do this," Hermione protested, as the guards removed the scientist. She rose to her feet. "And you're wrong, you do have a choice!"
"He lied to me. And he would have been party to the release and potential creation of hundreds of new magical zombies on the British Isles. Have you ever seen what these creatures can do?" he demanded. "They are as different from human zombies as you are different from me."
Renauld cleared his throat. "Nevertheless, perhaps the witch is right? Don't we need him?"
Amarov had resumed his seat now, replacing his linen napkin across his lap. "Malfoy will take over. After all, he's used to running an operation like this. Honoria, I believe it's time to show Miss Granger the file."
As ordered, Honoria passed a folder across to Hermione, who took it and sat down.
"What is this?"
"Surveillance photographs, pay-rolls, receipts, travel itineraries and transcripts of intercepted conversations," Honoria said. "Otherwise known as evidence."
"You're aware that your handsome colleague was manufacturing drugs for his Master?" Amarov clarified.
Hermione leafed through the documents. "Of course we knew. Malfoy received a life sentence in Azkaban for the use of Unforgiveables and for his work in producing black market magical pharmaceuticals during the Second Wizarding War."
Amarov leaned back in his chair. "But do you know what type of drugs he worked on?"
"Yes, I've read his file. It was mostly illicit narcotics and profitable cures for common ailments. None of this is news to me."
"Indeed? I think otherwise. Your Aurors raided Tom Riddle's operations in London about seven years ago. They shut it down and threw all those naughty little Death Eaters in jail, including your Mr Malfoy. But the Ministry lacked the scientific expertise to determine what had been produced in that lab. Necessity is the mother of invention and the sad truth is that magical people don't rely on ingenuity, they just wave a magic wand to solve their problems," Amarov said. "Literally."
Hermione unearthed a scroll that held the familiar DMLE letterhead. It looked to be a list compiled by the DMLE investigators, cataloguing the numerous substances that had been seized in the raid.
Stapled to it, was a word-processed report.
"As you can see, I took the liberty of acquiring a copy of that list and engaging an insider to verify what was found. I trust you recognise the name of my consultant?"
The man's signature was at the bottom of every page in the report Amarov had commissioned. "Hendry Tan," Hermione read, looking up at Amarov. "The man who worked with Malfoy."
Amarov nodded. "Riddle offered the funding, security and secrecy that enabled Tan to play God in that laboratory. Keep reading. I think you'll see why poor Hendry thought it was preferable to hang himself in his own lab rather than help me to bring this information to the authorities."
The report was highly technical, but by now Hermione was familiar enough with the terminology to understand what she was reading. She nearly wished she weren't.
Viral agent. Neurotropic class. Infiltration of peripheral nervous system, afferent nerves, central nervous system. Prodromal encephalitis. Transverse myelitis.
Mortality 99%. Application: bio-weaponry (non-magical humans)
The text on the page swirled into a mass of black scrawls. Hermione blinked to clear her vision. She read and re-read the thing, and then laid the scroll and attached report down on the table with a shaking hand.
"You freed the co-creator of the virus that eventually caused the Infection, Miss Granger. Tom Riddle, Hendry Tan and Draco Malfoy are jointly responsible for the death of millions. The latter two worked in the same laboratory. They respectively created a virus and anti-virus that was never meant for the wizarding population. It was to be sold as a weapon or deterrent against Muggles."
Hermione blinked away tears. "But it's deadly to Magical people as well…"
"Dr Tan found an overseas buyer, but Riddle wasn't willing to part with the formula just yet. Tan got greedy. Before his conscience caught up with him, Tan managed to sneak a sample out of the lab without setting off any alarms. He selected a vessel that could pass through magical wards undetected, but didn't count on the virus doing what viruses do best…"
And just like that, it all made sense. "He tried to smuggle it out inside a wizard," Hermione surmised, her voice listless.
Amarov smiled. "Very good. Patient zero was a janitor. He came, cleaned and then went home at night. He lived a very normal life for the next six years, never realising that he would be the harbinger of the most deadly plague mankind has known. The rest, unfortunately, is now our common history."
"You said…" Hermione's voice cracked. She swallowed and tried again, "You said you shared this information with the government?"
"My contempt for your kind is well-known. I've been lobbying to have your people exposed for years. I was told to go away, to bury that report, to not risk destabilizing a peace that existed between Muggles and Magicals for a millennia. We were assured that the threat had been contained by the British Ministry for Magic. After all, Riddle and Tan were dead and Malfoy was facing the rest of his life in solitary confinement. And if the Muggles did chance to dig a little further, we risked being the unwelcome recipients of Obliviatus, or worse. That is how you people keep your secrets, isn't it? You destroy our memories. You control minds. Your kind cannot even be trusted to protect the future of your people, let alone consider the lives of the billions of non-magical humans who keep the world turning. Your arrogance has brought humanity to its knees. So I will give wizards and witches no quarter, Miss Granger. The old world has been unmade by this plague and I am going to help stitch it back up again. But this time, we'll be in charge."
Hermione placed her cold, shaking hands in her lap and fought not to be sick over the dining table. The stares of the others around her were not made of anger, oddly. It was a resigned condemnation which was even worse. Honoria was not spared from this, either, Hermione noted. Despite her loyalty to Amarov, she still could not shake off the taint of her origins.
The truth of what Amarov was saying and the authenticity of the documents would have to be doubted, of course. Skepticism was the hallmark of good science...
"Do you understand, now?" Amarov asked, almost gently.
She looked down at a the pile of documents—there was a black and white photo of Draco as he walked down a London street, dressed in a Muggle suit, long legs striding across cobblestones. He was younger and there was more of the teenager she remembered from school and less of the quiet, weary man she saw today. The one who sometimes, in unguarded moments, looked at her as if she had the only key to a lock he had never had any interest in opening before.
Yes, she understood now.
Harry grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the exit, "We're leaving without him."
"Harry, no." She dug her heels in. "We need him."
"No one needs that! No one can possibly be that desperate!"
She had made a choice those many months ago at Azkaban. Amarov and Honoria were responsible for the deaths of her colleagues, but that would not have happened if Hermione had left well enough alone. She had inadvertently freed the one person Amarov was convinced could end what had started. And perhaps Malfoy would indeed be that person. Amarov had claimed Malfoy at great cost to Project Christmas. The only way for all the recent death, pain, paranoia and distrust to be worth it was if Draco succeeded. Right now, that was all that mattered.
There were eight courses in total that night. Hermione barely recalled what came after the escargot. The world was too bright and brittle and the sounds of conversation around her was jarring. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other, as Honoria escorted her back to her room.
"Now you know why I'm here," Honoria told her. "Hurts having your heart broken, doesn't it?" the younger woman taunted, before she locked Hermione inside the room.
Hermione knew she was not just referring to Draco.
Author's Notes:
Just cleaned up some typos. I also forgot to mention that you should check out Dracoaddicted's amazing graphics and fanmix on her tumblr. Her work is beautiful! If the link below doesn't show up, just look up 'diarycrux' on tumblr.
Caught up on reviews this morning and though I'd respond to a review re. D.R.A.C.O not being peer reviewed:
I have to tell you first that I get excited when people take notice of the science in this story and ask questions. I'm a social scientist by profession, but a complete science nut. I love reading about science and talking about it and lamenting my lack of math skills. For the medical and biochem references in this story, I rely on friends to help me sound like I'm not (completely) talking out of my arse. I'm sure there's always going to be some of that, however! I should probably thank some of these real life people. There is a surgeon, an anaesthetist, an oncology nurse, an army nurse and of course, the real Alec Mercer, who really is a neuroscientist and was tickled to have been killed off in Chapter 22. Oh, and I also use Wikipedia!
Anonymous Biochemist, in response to your question:
Voldy's drugs lab was a secret operation, so D.R.A.C.O was never peer reviewed or published in academic journals. The drugs created in that underground operation were funding or aiding Voldermort's terrorism campaign. Some regular drugs probably did end up being sold to legit pharmaceutical companies and were granted patents, etc, something like the original Infection, D.R.A.C.O and any related trials was never meant to be public knowledge (certainly not the Infection!). The Ministry was aware of D.R.A.C.O's existence only because they had its creator in custody. D.R.A.C.O is not a bio-weapon, so Malfoy would have had no reason to attempt to hide its redeeming qualities when he was captured and tried. That information was in his Ministry file and that is the only reason why Hermione busted him out of Azkaban in the first place-because of D.R.A.C.O's potential. I don't think Hermione cared that it hadn't been peer-reviewed. By that point, any whiff of a successful broad-spectrum antiviral would be a lead worth investigating, in Hermione's opinion, anyway :)
Side-note: I'm actually getting a little embarrassed about using D.R.A.C.O in this story. I'm kinda wishing I'd made up some other fake name! Mortifying to think of rather serious people coming across my fanfic while Googling D.R.A.C.O! *hides face*
Additional author's notes (17 March, 2014)
Aaaaaaaaaaaand it's 4am and I need to be up in 3 hours, but whatever, zombie discussion beckons thanks to Satellite Heartbeats's review :)
As it happens, I engaged in a looooong debate with friends over the weekend about the details of how a zombie virus would spread. I, too, am an avid consumer of zombie-related entertainment and it's something I think about quite often (happily!). The real Alec Mercer is someone I consult with a lot, on this very same issue, as he's able to discuss the neurobiological side of things and is also very familiar with zombie lore. We have friendly, er, arguments about things.
The Infection in LITOZA spreads as a virus in both Muggles and Magicals. It kills you and then re-animates you. Though you don't have to be dead for ages before it happens. There will be some infection threshold that is eventually reached when a person is infected, causing all respiratory and neurological functions to stop (i.e., clinical death) and then they come back as a virus-infected corpse. I know, I know, it doesn't gel with how viruses work (needing A living host), but we're talking zombies in HP fanfic here, so some suspension of scientific disbelief is called for. What I try and aim for is internal consistency within the suspended disbelief :)
When Muggle's come back, it's just basic amygdalic brain functions. The mystery is what happens in the brains of Magical zombies. Clearly there are some higher order brain functions happening, making them markedly more dangerous. In Filch's case, his brain was devoured when he was attacked, so there was no capacity for him to re-animate. Hermione's goal was to stave off death with Re-Gen, long enough for an anti-viral to be created.
You're right in that zombie viruses based on zombie lore are pretty crap viruses, when you think about it. They're not as elegant as HIV and they're kinda self-defeating. I asked Mercer why zombies devour humans. I mean, it can't be that they're eating them because they're dead, so their former digestive systems don't derive any nutrition. Or do they? It depends on your type of zombie. So why bite people at all? It could be because a biting zombie is a zombie that successfully spreads the virus. And viruses want to spread.
My zombies are the walking dead. And the ones that are falling apart are like that from a combination of trauma and because they're decomposing. Mercer reckons that in a real zombie apocalypse, they'd all be incapacitated in less than a month in the absence of some mechanism that slows down decay (I think there was an article speculating about this about a month ago, too?). Bacteria are amazing and will do the work of zombie culling more efficiently than people needing to go out and chop heads off. The brain itself will be reduced to mush and runny fluids in a very short time, so it won't be capable of animating a zombie, and an animated zombie wouldn't be very mobile for very long if we're dealing with a natural state of decay post-mortem.
I hope that answers your questions without ruining your fic enjoyment! :D Thank you very much for your review!
Rizzle