Chapter content warning: mentions of attempted suicide, institutionalised sexual violence.
Was it silent and cold, or warming against nothing with more heinous insults and threats in the dark of her bag? Hermione spent the next several weeks constantly thinking about this question, employing all her self-control to stop herself checking the bangle she had cast off her wrist. It settled into her subconscious like Poe's tell-tale heart, thumping away in her head and possibly not in reality.
The day after Remus left, Grimmauld Place was back to being as miserable as it was when Sirius was moping about it, all of them nursing physical hangovers, and Harry and Hermione reeling from the fights with Remus and Draco. Trying to translate from Welsh was impossible – Hermione just laid in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, trying not to cry or throw up. Ron emerged at 5pm, having missed the entire thing.
"Hermione?" He knocked on her door and entered her room. She closed her eyes against the light of the lamps in the hallway. "Where's Lupin?"
"Gone," she croaked. "Him and Harry fought."
"About what?" Ron asked, just as hoarsely, throat dry from drinking.
"Tonks," she said.
"What about Tonks?" he pressed. She sighed – she could never tell when Ron was going interrupt her and say he had enough with any talk about feelings, so she only gave bare minimum answers these days. It lead to more prompting from him to get the precise level of information he decided he was comfortable with.
"Tonks is pregnant," she said.
"What? Why would they fight about that?" Ron asked.
"Why don't you ask Harry," she suggested, pressing her hands into her eyeballs, trying to relieve the dehydrated headache pounding in her head. She didn't want to talk about Remus pressuring his wife to abort their pregnancy ever again.
Ron finally stumbled out again, leaving her to her dusty solitude.
She went to Sirius' room close to midnight, desperate to both see and not see what Draco had said, and in need of a distraction so she wouldn't be tempted to check.
"Harry?" she knocked softly, entering.
"Hey," he said quietly, sitting on Sirius' old bed. She walked over and saw he had the copy of the Daily Prophet Remus and Ron had brought with them. EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT FROM THE UPCOMING BIOGRAPHY OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE, by Rita Skeeter.
"Oh Harry," she sighed, moving to take it away from him. "You don't need to make yourself more miserable."
"What happened in Godric's Hollow, Hermione?" Harry asked, but it sounded more like a statement than a question. "Imprisoning a child because they didn't have magic? I have to go there."
"He'll be expecting it, Harry," she said sadly. "I know how badly you want to visit. But it would be such a risk."
He didn't say anything, only looking at the family portrait printed with the article, and the tiny baby's waving arm in the photograph. Hermione tentatively reached out and touched Harry's hand.
CRACK.
They both jumped; there was a great commotion downstairs, rough swears and yelling.
"Kreacher!" Harry gasped, and they both ran out of the room.
"What the –" Ron said as they ran into him in the hallway. Hermione wasn't sure if Harry had told him about Kreacher's mission.
"Come on, Ron!" she shouted, racing down the stairs after Harry. They skidded into basement kitchen of Grimmauld Place to see Kreacher wrestling with one Mundungus Fletcher, trying to grab his wand.
"Expelliarmus!" she shouted; Mundungus' wand flew through the air to her left hand. He threw Kreacher off and ran for the stairs, but Ron was too quick on the uptake and tackled him to the ground.
"What!" the horrible thief yelled, all righteous indignation. "Wha've I done? Settin' a bleedin' elf on me –"
"Shut up," Harry said coldly, pointing his wand at Mundungus as he crouched on the floor across from him, looking into his face. "We've got some questions for you." Mundungus' face hardened in comprehension.
"Look, I ain' never volunteered to die for you," he started. "Fuckin' You-Know-Who coming at me –"
"I don't care about that," Harry said, and Mundungus rolled his eyes.
"If this is about 'em ruddy House a' Black goblets, I ain't got none left, and Sirius didn' care 'bout none of this shit –"
Kreacher moved suddenly, and within a seconds he had attacked Mundungus with a saucepan at the insult to the heritage of the Black House.
"Call 'im off, call 'im off!" Mundungus yelled, cowering against the heavy metal.
"Kreacher, stop!" Harry shouted. Kreacher froze and turned to Harry.
"Perhaps just one more, Master Harry?" he suggested, as far as the slave magic would let him. "For luck?"
Ron looked at Hermione, gesturing at the suddenly-polite elf and mouthing a rude question, as Harry vaguely threatened Mundungus with Kreacher again.
"When you stripped this house down you took a locket from a cupboard in this kitchen," Harry said; Ron's face lit up with understanding. "What did you do with it?"
"Why?" Mundungus asked, looking at Harry with interest. "Is it valuable?"
"You've still got it?" she asked, excited; this was too good to be true, and indeed Ron brought her back to earth.
"No. He's wondering how much more money he could have asked for it," Ron said, tilting his head and crossing his arms in disgust.
"More?" Mundungus repeated, barking a rueful laugh. "Wouldn't've been hard…seein' that it were requisitioned from me."
Someone else had stolen it? Hermione looked to Ron nervously, as Mundungus described some Ministry official who he'd bought off in exchange for the locket.
"Who were they?" Harry asked.
"I 'unno, some old hag. Er…short." He crinkled his eyebrows, thinking. "Looked like a toad."
Harry jumped, dropping his wand, and it ignited in Mundungus' face. She magically threw water over him as she stared at Harry and Ron in horror, and Harry flexed his scarred hand.
"Kreacher should Disapparate him, Harry," she said after a moment. "A Death Eater would snipe him at the front door, no doubt." She leant in to whisper in his ear. "Unless you think we should Obliviate him?"
Harry was still for a moment, but then shook his head. "Kreacher," Harry said, nodding towards Mundungus. "What Hermione said."
She handed Mundungus back his wand as Kreacher gave her a careful look.
"Yer fuckin' mental, all of ya,' Mundungus said. "Well, good luck gettin' that back, coz –"
Kreacher Disapparated, leaving them all in silence. She turned to Ron.
"Kreacher told us what happened to Regulus – how he got the locket," she explained. "And now –"
"Umbridge," Harry spat. "Fucking hell. How are we going to get it off a senior Ministry official?"
"Do we try her home or the Ministry?" Ron said thoughtfully.
"How would we find out where she lives?" Harry said.
"…Dad works there," Ron said after a moment. Harry clicked his tongue in disagreement, turning away.
I'll work on him, she mouthed at Ron while Harry's back was turned. "Harry?" she asked. "We should probably go to bed…we can start working on this tomorrow."
Ron's expression suddenly shifted; he looked annoyed as he left the kitchen. "Yeah. G'night," he said, the door swinging behind him.
Was Ron still upset they had made progress on the Slytherin horcrux without him? It seemed a little churlish. She turned back to Harry, who was being spoiled by Kreacher, who had returned from his mission full of sudden affection for his master.
"Master's…associate, is right, that it is bed time," Kreacher said, looking at her doubtfully. She gave the elf a sad smile; he immediately turned back to Harry.
"Fine," Harry said sullenly. "Let's go to bed."
But it was not a very restful sleep. Hermione stared at the ceiling for hours, trying and utterly failing to not think about Draco Malfoy and the Schrödinger's bangle in her bag.
The next few weeks were busy with planning. Ron came into his own once again, a fountain of Ministry knowledge gleaned from his family and an easy source of common-sense problems and solutions that did not come as quickly to her or Harry. The Ministry knowledge was particularly important - try as she and Ron might, Harry was insistent that they not reach out to Mr Weasley for help. He was certain the Burrow was being watched and it would put everyone in danger.
"What about other Order members, then?" she asked. "I went to Kingsley's apartment after we left Surrey, I could sneak in."
Harry hesitated, and Ron leapt on it.
"That's a good idea, Hermione. Listen, he can at least confirm that Umbridge's office is on the first floor."
They had started doing recon outside the Ministry's muggle entrance, and were picking up on stray bits of information from too-talkative Ministry employees.
Harry looked unconvinced. "Won't they be watching all Order members?" he said doubtfully.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Are there any Order members at the Ministry that haven't had their identities revealed?" she asked. So many of them had been found out when they got Harry out of Surrey.
"No," Harry said shortly. "So there's nothing we can get from them that's worth the risk."
"But what about –"
"Even if we find her address, there's no guarantee we could get in, if she's warded the place half as good as here," Harry interrupted.
He was determined. Harry had latched onto certain parts of the plan, and was impervious to her and Ron's attempts to get him to at least consider other options. He had decided that infiltrating the Ministry was the only way to get close to Umbridge, and now he was stubbornly refusing to reach out for help beyond the three of them. Hermione ground her teeth when she thought of the fact the only Order member Harry would apparently trust to get involved was Mundungus effing Fletcher.
"I tried, Hermione," Ron said later that evening, in his room which Harry had previously been set up in. "You know what he's like, when he gets an idea in his head."
"I know," she said, pacing past the window. "It's just – he's hardly ever been like this. Last time he was this unreasonable –" She stopped, and looked at Ron.
"It was when we were breaking into Umbridge's office at Hogwarts," she finished, realising the obvious common factor.
"Can you blame him?" Ron asked, fiddling with the Deluminator. "Evil bitch tortured him. I'm not surprised it gets to his head."
She stared out the window; there were no visible Death Eaters tonight, from what she could see. And then she thought of Draco, and quickly turned away from the window.
"Maybe when we get inside, we can grab an Order member and get them to help," Ron said. Hermione shuddered.
"God, that would be such an unpleasant thing to spring on someone," she groaned. Hermione grimaced at him. "But maybe you're right. Harry's just not listening."
Ron sighed. "Let's keep at it. Those Ministry wizards on the way to work are pretty loose-lipped, anyway. We're picking up a surprising amount of information with our current approach."
She shook her head. "Somehow it was better when we went to the Ministry with one hour's notice, instead of weeks," she said sadly, folding her arms across her chest.
Ron jumped up off the bed, clearly intending to give her some sort of reassuring touch, and Hermione impulsively shrunk away. Draco's cursed Vow had practically Pavlovian conditioned her at this point to back away from Ron.
"Um - I'm going to go shower," she said, edging towards the door and trying to escape. Ron looked away.
"'kay," he replied shortly, an icy, false politeness to his tone. It was obviously a lie she was meant to press on so he could start arguing with her, but she took him up on it, making for the door as quickly as she dared. Into the silence of the evening.
This was the worst part of the day: when it got dark and quiet. Maybe it was because she'd gotten so used to running away to Draco at the end of every day. All Hermione could think of, in the quiet stairwell, under the shower pressure, in her silent bedroom, was blond hair and pale skin and cold hands. His fingers that would shake when anxious, always calming the longer she spent with him, pouring liquor and magic and breathy moans down his throat. She would hold out her Vow hand and remember exactly how much longer his fingers were than her own, his hand taking hers, his fingers inside her, making her blind with want.
She was going as mad as Sirius had been when he was stuck in this house, she could tell.
What good would it do to ignore him, she had started to consider. There was no way out of what they had agreed. But there was an easy name to her resistance. It was the dignity to not crawl back to a man swerving between unwilling participation and hateful murder, who threatened to kill her parents for bringing her into a world that he thought he was so entitled to.
He had said it. There was no way to take it back, either in reality or by ripping the memory out at wandpoint, like he had done in the past. All that was left was for Hermione to try as hard as she could to resist going back to him. "Try", because succeeding was too ambitious. Her attempts were not working. Insomnia had struck her big time; she was getting three hours of sleep a night, alongside five hours of lying awake and falling into insanity.
The point at which she had to go back to stave off madness, so she could continue to help Harry on his mission. That was Hermione's new internal compromise and water level. She waited until the insomnia made her body complain loudly every time she moved, and her bare wrist warmed with phantom messages, and finally pointed her wand into her bag at 1am one morning, Accioing her loud, guilty silver bangle.
"Lumos," she muttered, tilting it to read.
23/08/1997 Please reply to at least save your own life.
Bastard. And yet, the timestamp he had added to his message, and what it meant for the days and weeks she had left the bangle in her dark bag, made something in her chest feel a tiny bit warmer.
She tapped the tip of her wand in the palm of her left hand, wondering how to comply with the Vow. Eventually, Hermione decided to send a single x.
She placed the bangle in the middle of her bed, resuming her routine of watching it intently in the dark. But she didn't have long to wait.
Thank you Hermione, it glowed back within a minute. She sighed, terrifying memories of the aftermath of Ron's poisoning circling her thoughts.
Do not kill yourself, she replied. She had only intended to look at what he had sent. There had been a plan, to look at his message, and think for weeks longer about replying. Draco had ruined it.
I won't, he assured her.
And don't kill my parents either, she added.
If it helps her avoid a needless decapitation, I've never fucked Pansy, he sent back, wresting half a laugh from her chest. There was no chance for her from the moment she Summoned the bangle, it seemed.
The second Harry's mission is finished, I'm doing what you did, she sent back. You won't be able to even if you try. Mutually assured monogamy.
An idea so good Granger's going to plagiarise it, Draco commented. You think a world after Potter's mission exists?
Hermione thought of her plans to trigger a suicide bomb if surrounded so she would leave behind no corpse to desecrate. Yes, she said, half-truthfully. She really did believe there was a chance they would survive. I have hope we will both make it there, she etched out, sending her anti-Voldemort wish into his base of operations.
If you have hope, then I should have it too, he said. Because I want everything about you, Hermione.
His words had eased her physical suffering, but the misery lifting had left Hermione with a complicated, tight feeling in her chest instead.
Why do we fight like this, then? she asked him. It was coming up a year since the first quidditch game of their sixth year, and Draco walked into the classroom where she was crying about Ron and Lavender. It felt like a foreign country now – like a different person entirely had pined over Ron. But one thing was the same: her and Draco, viciously fighting with their wands, their hands, their words. Was this just who they were, as people?
You're a fighter Hermione, her bangle read. That's how you've survived so many Death Eaters. It's another part of you that I need.
Literally, I needed it to breathe when we fought in November last year.
Was that it? Her horrible aggression, combined with Draco's poor mental health and obsessive tendencies, lurching from one emotion to the next? She had always thought love was meant to make you a better, stronger version of yourself. Though, thinking of how she had felt about Ron, her feelings hardly ever manifested in a positive way…
Hermione sat blankly for a moment, realising something obvious. When had she fallen out of love with Ron?
But I shouldn't have said what I did, the bangle glowed, distracting her. I'm so sorry Hermione. I didn't mean it.
She didn't believe it. You're falling back into blood supremacy, she forced herself to acknowledge. His words glowed and dimmed quickly.
I'm not.
Please Hermione. I swear I'm not. Don't think that about me.
But why wouldn't she think it, Hermione couldn't escape thinking, as she stared at his engraved pleas. He had written the proof into his enchanted watch and sent it to her.
I have to do what he says, he begged. I have to hold the seat at the table. My father's been stripped of his wand, I'm the only one that can do it.
So what? she asked, feeling very empty. You thought you may as well enjoy it?
There was a pause.
I hate it. It makes me want to turn my wand on myself every day. The only reason I do it is to try and save you.
But I understand you feel differently about the men you kill.
She closed her eyes to avoid thinking of terrified muggles being killed by Draco's panicked, shaking hands, but the blankness only made her think of Dolohov's face caving in on itself instead.
Why was it so very costly to try and save Harry from Voldemort? How much blood had to run across Malfoy manor, Hogwarts castle, the roads and skies of London to secure Harry a chance at a way out? Was it better, that the muggles that Voldemort captured for fun were being killed by someone who was helping the resistance, who didn't want to murder them for their non-magical identity? If the end was all the same to them, what did it matter?
In the bleakness, an opportunity glinted. The chance to clarify something she had been meaning to make explicit for months.
I think it might be forgivable, she sent back. But only if you do your best to get Harry out too, if we're captured.
The bangle flickered like she thought it might:
I don't care if it's forgivable. I didn't Vow anything to Potter. I'm not risking either of our lives for anyone else.
She smiled slightly. Finally, the power of their entwined curse was on the other foot.
If you pull me out and not Harry, you cannot stop me running back in, she scratched into her bangle. And I would Draco. You know this. And you would have to follow me. You might as well save us the trouble.
This has been the nature of your Vow since we first agreed it, she continued. I know you didn't know what you were signing up for. I don't think either of us did. The number of people who had died for this one chance were now innumerous.
Several moments passed by in unlit silence.
I would never have agreed to try and save Potter, he eventually wrote back.
I know, she said.
He is keeping me in this hell, the bangle blinked. Keeping you from me.
Harry is trying to save us all, she corrected him.
A long minute passed, during which Hermione wondered how much of this hadn't been obvious to Draco since he threw her to the ground and Imperiused her. He was surrounded by Death Eater information rather than Order context, she supposed. Maybe the Death Eaters just thought Harry was on the run for his life, rather than setting out to destroy Voldemort.
I wish you had sold your soul for something else, Hermione, Draco eventually replied. I'm sick of working towards impossible goals.
It is possible, she sent. You don't know what I know.
I wish I could believe you, Draco wrote. But it doesn't matter. If that's where you've cast your promise then I have no choice.
She lay down on her bed, staring at the ceiling again. It didn't feel good, or powerful, to reveal to Draco that he was slightly more stuck than he'd hoped because she had manipulated him. He'd been so smug and self-assured when he'd turned the Vow on her (twice! Two times), that she thought the turnabout might feel satisfying. But Draco's sad resignation was like ashes in her mouth.
Her tiredness caught up with her before she could dwell on it too long. The relief at being back on speaking terms washed away the miserable tension keeping Hermione awake, and she was out.
It was much easier to work on the shaky plan to infiltrate the Ministry with eight hours sleep per night. Draco hadn't known much more than them about what was happening at the Ministry: he passed along the steadily anti-Muggle-born Prophet headlines each day, and confirmed that Yaxley was running the show, but that was about it. He'd grown so immediately suspicious of Hermione's vague questions that she hadn't wanted to push further.
The order to jump came from Harry sooner than she was expecting, as Ron was thinking out loud about the Hogwarts Express on the first of September. Hermione wasn't at all sure she agreed until Harry collapsed five minutes later, Voldemort filling his head with images of senseless murder from Germany as he hunted a particular man (a thief, Harry called him; though he knew not what he had stolen). If they were to get caught, best to do it while they had a few minutes between a Death Eater altering his master that they had caught Harry and Voldemort's arrival.
She crawled into bed late that night, after staying up until close to midnight with Ron and Harry reviewing the infiltration plan.
I'm not sleeping until you reply, her bangle read petulantly when she finally pulled it from her wrist.
Sorry, she wrote back, smiling slightly. Working late. How is Hogwarts?
Draco had been most unpleasantly surprised when Narcissa insisted he return to school; particularly with dear Aunt Bella backing her up, he was in no position to argue to stay at Malfoy manor. He would be one of several Death Eaters there, apparently. The cursed Defence role, and the more recently deadly Muggle Studies role, were being filled by some unpleasant sibling pair called the Carrows. Snape, meanwhile, had delivered his final insult to Professor Dumbledore, and was appointed Headmaster by the puppetised Ministry.
It had only made Draco more upset when she tried to say she was glad he would be somewhere less dangerous and miserable than Malfoy manor. Once he had stiffly said he had enchanted her an escape from the cellars should she ever end up there while he was at school, they had tried to avoid talking about it. Hopefully these were less treacherous waters to wade through now his move had happened, and he was back at Hogwarts. Hermione was desperate for normal school news, the idle gossip of the Pansys and Lavenders of Hogwarts to distract her from reality.
Empty and miserable, he wrote back. Depressing to think about the would-be first years that were killed.
The policy shift towards eradication at the Ministry of Magic had been quite rapid. Snape, being half-blood and having a lick of common sense, had apparently successfully argued that they begin with just murdering the eleven-year-olds who would have started Hogwarts that year under a non-fascist dictatorship, rather than every single muggleborn the Quill of Acceptance had picked up over the past hundred years.
Snape had said it would be the least noticeable way to eradicate bad blood from Hogwarts, Draco told her several nights ago. The muggle government was sensitive to children's deaths; it would be prudent to go about it more carefully than the of age mudbloods. Any current student with dubious blood dumb enough to return to Hogwarts would meet an unfortunate accidental end before the school year was out. And Voldemort had agreed, and sent Death Eaters out to murder three eleven-year-old children in their beds that evening.
At least that means most of the muggle-born students left, she replied.
It's very strange to be back here without you, Draco said. Caught myself thinking I should head to the Room earlier.
I thought you hated that Room, she commented, pulling on a hoodie and climbing into bed.
I thought I did too, he wrote back. Turns out the world outside that Room was a lot worse than the world inside it.
She thought about their pine trees and fighting and drinking. A first kiss filled with blood that made her freeze and him radiate with laughter. I miss my pine forest room too, she said.
It was a nice thought to have, before throwing her luck at the Ministry and possibly dying. We should sleep, she said, hoping not to tip him off. You wouldn't want to miss anything important in mandatory Death Eater Muggle Studies.
I miss my old Muggle Studies tutor, he joked. Though they were so hot it was hard to concentrate.
It was magic, how he could make her laugh mere hours before she ran at the government. I should have known any guy interested in me had a hot teacher fantasy, she wrote back, trying not to laugh. Goodnight.
She was planning on a Fainting Charm, but she felt so light she fell asleep before she could cast it.
She woke up at 6am and immediately started nervously sweating. Hermione pulled off her bangle, scratching in a horrible message to wake up to:
If you don't hear from me by this afternoon, our run at the Ministry has gone wrong and we might need your help. Sorry. I love you.
She got dressed quickly and went downstairs, speed-reading the plan as fast as she could.
"Would Master's friend like coffee?' Kreacher said.
She looked up – he must have noticed the stress, because that was the first time she'd been promoted from Harry's "associate" in Kreacher's language. Truthfully, the answer was no – but she didn't want to be impolite.
"That's very kind, thank you Kreacher," she said, double checking they had packed everything they needed.
"Morning," Ron greeted, Harry following him, looking tired but relaxed, like he always seemed to in moments of peril. She tried to take courage from it; her hands wanted to shake.
They Apparated out carefully and lay in wait by the Ministry's entrance. The terror did not affect her spellwork, though; the first witch fell quickly to a silent Stun.
"Mafalda Hopkirk," Ron read aloud from the identification card they had stolen from her unconscious body, as Hermione Polyjuiced into her form. "And the coins – here –"
"Thanks, Ron," she said, putting on Mafalda's glasses and looking at them both. "Ok?" she asked them both.
"Yep," Harry said, looking at his watch. "Come on, Mr Magical Maintenance will be here in a second."
The second and third identity thefts worked well, too. Within ten minutes all of them had transformed and were passing through the unpleasant public bathroom portal to the Ministry.
She tripped out of the Ministry fireplace slightly, watching for Ron and Harry's transformed figures to arrive too. They were there seconds later, Harry staring at the new authoritarian sculpture in the Atrium that let everyone know, magic was might, and muggles should hurry up and get underfoot.
"Come on," Ron said, and they headed towards the golden gates and the lifts to level 1. Despite the height of the man Harry had transformed into, none of them were successful in finding Umbridge amongst the crowd –
"Cattermole!" someone yelled; they all jumped guiltily and turned around. An unpleasant older man was striding towards them, golden robes and an aura of power making other employees swerve around him.
"Morning, Yaxley!" someone called from beside him.
Hermione froze, Draco's horrible warnings suddenly all she could think about. Thankfully, the rotted Death Eater was interrogating Ron's stolen identity rather than her's, because she knew she would have immediately stuffed it up. She thought the minute she regained her faculties she would want to strangle the life from this hideous man with her bare hands.
"Given up your wife already, Cattermole? Probably wise," Yaxley sneered, leaning into Ron. "Marry a pureblood next time."
"Ah –" she said stupidly; Yaxley's gaze flickered to her for one horrifying moment, but then back to Ron again. He was probably used to people making terrified non-verbal noises in his presence, she supposed.
And then he left, with a threat to Mr Cattermole's wife if Ron somehow didn't manage to stop the weather malfunction in his office. Hermione realised she had been holding her breath, and tried to take steady gulps of oxygen again.
"What do I do?" Ron asked, looking as horrified as she felt. "My wife – I mean, Cattermole's –"
"Let's go there now," Harry said, but Ron shook his head, suddenly looking at Hermione.
"No – we don't have much time. You two go find Umbridge – but how do I stop it raining?" he asked.
Hermione understood – it was the part of the plan Harry wasn't privy to. Ron was going to bring in an Order member if he found one en route to Yaxley's office. She quickly ran through some charms to prevent damage and fix the problem, although Ron seemed to miss them in his nerves about poor Cattermole's wife.
They reached level two in the lifts and she gave Ron a slight push out to go find Yaxley's office, though the look on his face as they left immediately made her change her mind.
"Harry – I think I need to go help, I don't think –"
But the lift grilles opened again on level one, and there Umbridge stood, looking right at her.
"Ah, Mafalda!" the horrid witch said. "Travers sent you?"
"Yes," she said mechanically, focusing entirely on not looking guiltily over at Harry.
"Good, good," Umbridge said, going back to her clipboard – and Hermione could see she had the locket, thank god. She started doing water cooler talk about murdering muggleborns before asking Harry whether he was getting out.
"Uh – yes," Harry said.
Hermione screamed internally – now they were all separated, Ron had no idea where to find her or Umbridge, and Harry was stuck on level one. He'd just have to catch the next lift down, she guessed…
But Umbridge swept them along, and there was no sign of Harry as they exited the lifts and walked down a hallway to –
Hermione tried to stifle the gasp. Dementors and terrified muggleborns, everywhere; it was just a genocidal processing chamber. Umbridge took out her wand and a silvery cat Patronus emerged, protecting them all from the magical despair.
"I hear Travers has had issues with a certain Wilkins," Umbridge said to her, laughing slightly and expectantly.
"Oh – uh, yeah," she said sympathetically, hoping vague affirmations would get her through this.
"I must say, I am surprised," Umbridge said, tutting as they strode past sobbing men and women. "We really must get on top of the rot within this government," she said, an almost sad tone to her voice.
"Agreed," Hermione replied, looking straight ahead.
"We're in here – ah, good morning, Yaxley!"
I am going to have to fight him, she realised, mentally counting how long she had Polyjuice coverage for, and eying up the courtroom door slamming behind her. She'd take Umbridge's torture over Yaxley's any day when time ran out. An easy decision, for once.
But Harry was here, somewhere. She needed to give him or Ron time to find her – there was no point her leaving when the horcrux was right here.
Hermione was still not entirely sure to what purpose Umbridge had brought her along today, but daren't ask. Note taker? The peon who fetched her drinks? She tentatively pulled out a quill and parchment from her beaded bag as she followed Yaxley and Umbridge into the row of seats at the front of the courtroom's raised platform; Umbridge did not give off any signal that this was incorrect so she sat and waited while Umbridge and Yaxley muttered about Azkaban expansions to fit the masses of magical people they were incarcerating.
She estimated she had another 45 minutes left…what if Harry didn't come? Then all would probably be lost – in such a case, would it be better to try and stab the horcrux first? That would almost certainly lead to her getting captured, and Voldemort might find out one of his horcruxes had fallen so far out of his control the cause would be lost. Plus, it might fight back like the Ravenclaw diadem had. No; better to try and take out Umbridge, first – she was closest, Hermione thought, as she scribbled notes of the horrible proceedings where Umbridge was in her element, bullying people with the arm of the law and bigoted hatred.
A new witch entered the docks below, and Yaxley suddenly sat up. A moment later, his expression changed from interest to annoyed disappointment, and he slouched back in his seat.
Hermione looked back at the witch in the docks, whose hands were quivering with terror, and felt a hatred she'd never endured before slide through her entire body along with the realisation.
Yaxley was here for the meat market. Picking up comely-enough muggleborns from the conveyer the Ministry had created to send them to Azkaban, and then their deaths.
She had to try and kill him. Could she do a silent Imperius? Because if so, she could control Umbridge, and then they could both attack Yaxley. She'd never tried it before, but -
"I'm behind you," Harry whispered, and Hermione leapt in the air. Ink went everywhere, but it appeared Umbridge and Yaxley were too deeply involved in making the poor muggle-born witch before them cry. She waited for Harry's signal, hoping he would move to take out Yaxley as she was stuck beside Umbridge…
Umbridge was laughing softly as the woman she interrogated fell into incoherent tears. "You can't have been selected by a wand, Mrs Cattermole, because wands only select magical people. And you are not magical, are you? I see here," she said, pointing at her little clipboard, "that your parents were, ah, grocer-"
"Stupefy!" Harry yelled behind her; she followed suit, screaming her Stun in Umbridge's general direction; grabbing onto her squat frame to use as a shield against Yaxley. But Harry was too good; he had caught them entirely off guard.
She was climbing over Umbridge and casting before she realised it. "Sectumsempra," she hissed, lashing her wand at Yaxley over and over again, slashing deeper into the huge gashes she was drawing from his groin to his throat, grabbing his wand where it had fallen beside his Stunned hand. "Raping, monstrous c-"
"Hermione!" Harry said, and she took one moment to memorise the shock on Yaxley's dying face before turning around. Harry was holding the locket around Umbridge's neck, but busy aiming his wand and casting spells elsewhere; she aimed her wand at the horcrux.
"Geminio," she cast, doubling the locket; and a second later, the despair hit her. Of course, she realised - Umbridge's Patronus had extinguished when she had been Stunned.
"Expecto patronum!" Harry cast; the beautiful stag leapt from his wand and chasing dementors from them and the poor witch in the docks, Harry sliding down to where she was chained and freeing her. Hermione looked back at Umbridge; Stunned askew, Yaxley's blood flicked across her pink turtleneck.
She deserved to be slashed as well; a bloody death after what she had done to Harry. But logic was starting to kick in – it wouldn't be sensible to use one spell in this double homicide.
It was easy to think of the hatred deep in her heart for the evil, fascist torturer as she aimed her wand straight into Umbridge's toad face. "Avada Kedavra," Hermione said. The green flash was clear; she leant down to attach the fake locket and feel Umbridge's neck, but there was no pulse under her bloody fingertips –
"HERMIONE!" Harry yelled. She whipped around; dementors were bearing down on him and the imprisoned witch.
"Coming!" she called back, jumping down from the platform and thinking of how happy Harry had looked at the night-time feast after the Chamber of Secrets had been closed. "Expecto patronum!"
But her otter did not emerge. A bigger, flying beast soared out of her wand –
She froze; the silvery baby dragon fading immediately. No, she thought blankly.
Harry started to gasp, his stag dying completely as he fell to the floor. She pulled herself together, thinking of Draco dragging her by the hand to the Prefect's Bathroom. "Expecto patronum!" she cast, and oh my god it was so embarrassing – the small dragon burst forth again, circling over Harry and chasing off the dementor angling for his soul.
"Oh, I'm sorry Harry-" she started, but he was already getting back on his feet, recasting his stag and shaking the chains on Mrs Cattermole.
"Hermione, how do we –"
She pointed her wand at the chains. "Relashio," she said; they loosened and Mrs Cattermole shook them off.
"We need to get the others," Harry said, "we need as many – ah –"
He had seen it; green eyes taking in the angry dragon hissing at the dementors.
"That's new," he said simply, heading towards the doors wand-first and throwing them open.
"Head for the exit," he shouted at the muggleborns there. "Who has wands?"
"Patronuses now, if you can," he continued ordering, jogging to the front to lead. "Get ready to fight your way to the exit. The moment you're out, leave the country."
Strength in numbers, Hermione thought, handing Yaxley's wand to someone who didn't have one and following Harry to the front of the group. They had just reached the lifts when a completely drowned Ron appeared; apparently he was the husband of Mrs Cattermole, who threw herself into his arms and started babbling about getting their children out. Ron talked over top of her at Harry.
"They know – there's intruders –"
"We need to go," Harry said, as Hermione's Patronus disappeared in fear; he shoved them all into two lifts for the Atrium.
They arrived into chaos; several wizards were sealing the fireplaces. She looked at Ron, terrified, as Harry ran forward and tried to intimidate their way out –
And then the entire Atrium was drowned in an ear-splitting alarm; and the muggleborns started to Stun the Ministry wizards and sprint to the open fireplaces. Hermione grabbed Harry and dragged him towards a fireplace at the end –
"SEAL IT!" someone shouted from the lifts; and there were three wizards sprinting towards them, shouting "SEAL THE EXITS" -
And one suddenly fell, and she saw Mr Weasley's furious face, arm outstretched to cast red Stuns across the Atrium –
She grabbed Harry and Ron and she twitched, fucking hell, she twitched away from Ron like she always did, into the approaching Death Eater as she Disapparated –
But it was too late; they were in Islington, inside the Fidelius of Grimmauld Place, and Harry and Ron held both her hands, her wand was not available. She kicked the Death Eater off her; he curled away as her boot connected with his groin, and she twisted into thin air again, thinking of Death Eaters and tortured muggles and the open air –
And then they fell over, in the forests of Dartmoor, winded and coated in blood and –
She looked around wildly. But it was just the three of them; a rattling gasp; blood, slick and streaming down her hand.