Hermione's body was thrumming with the adrenaline coursing through her veins, the anticipation of being back in action filling every molecule of her being. Not having an outlet for her anger recently had been doing her emotional state no justice. The ability to take everything she was avoiding, everything she was refusing to allow herself to feel and focusing it all into her rage and using that rage to do what she and Neville did best was the very thread that held her together. With no outlet for it she found that it was becoming too much and the walls within her mind had begun to crumble, all the thoughts and feelings she had been running from since the battle of Hogwarts and the events with her parents following it had slowly begun seeping through. Given another week without being able to watch the blood spill from another person and she was fairly certain she would have been rendered a catatonic mess.
She shivered at the thought. Hermione Granger of the past, the girl with the too big heart, the girl who forgave too easily and wore her heart on her sleeve was best left where she belonged. She refused to succumb to the weakness of emotions, refused to allow her pain and suffering to gain traction in her mind and point blank refused to allow herself to be weak and vulnerable to not only those around her, but also to herself ever again.
It was better this way. The woman with too much anger, the woman with enough skill and perseverance to render men and women dead with just her bare hands and some simple knives, the woman who refused to love and to trust anybody outside Neville, Charlie and Luna ever again lest they disappoint her or abandon her to death. Yes this woman was much more to her liking than the girl she had been.
Standing here, obscured from view by the the night sky and the small gathering of trees they have tucked themselves behind, with Neville so close to her side that she can feel his breath ghosting past her ear, she feels more in control than she has done since the last time they went out seeking penance for all the ways they believe they failed those they loved the most. After all, when she really, truly allows herself to wonder how she got from the girl of the past to the woman of the present, she knows deep down that revenge isn't her only driving factor. No, if she were willing to feel what she refuses to, she would admit that she sees this as a way to atone for her failure to keep Harry alive, to keep her parents safe and save all the other lives that have been lost along the way.
Maybe when she finally comes to the end, when death takes her from this hell, all her failures will be outweighed by the amount of evil that had been banished from the world by her hands, by her blade and she will be allowed to find peace after her demise and rejoin those she has lost and beg them for forgiveness.
But she refuses to allow herself to examine her actions as anything beyond her thirst for vengeance. Examining oneself takes more emotional stability than she has possessed in a very long time and allowing anything to creep out from behind her walls except her anger, her all consuming rage and thirst to cause pain and death, is something that she can never see herself being able to do without completely breaking down. She's pushed so much behind the wall and in such a hasty manner that allowing one thing out would surely cause the rest to follow and that's not a risk she is willing to take.
From their hiding place she could see Draco standing at the North entrance to the house, just like he had said. Every so often he would cast a discreet glance in the direction of their hiding place,although he could not see them so she wondered how exactly he knew where they were hidden. She supposed it was either just a coincidence or else he wasn't a complete idiot when it came to strategy and knew it was the place that most made sense for them to be. Refusing to acknowledge what may be mistaken for some sort of compliment to his abilities she settled on it being a coincidence.
Neville nudged her, whispering "you ready?" under his breath. She nodded her ascent and watched as he produced the vial from Theo from his pocket, removed the cork and took it from his proffered hand. He took one of his blades from its holder and used it to pierce a small cut on the end of his index finger, allowing the blood to drip into the mixture. Wiping his blade on his trousers and returning it to his holder he reached for the vial, reapplied the cork and shook it.
Hermione watched as his blood mixed so easily with the blood of the others and she finds herself thinking about how poetic this blood, blood that is considered pure, the very thing this war is all about is what is going to allow them to gain access through the wards and allow them to slaughter the death eaters within. She watches in amusement thinking how when it's all mixed together there is no differentiating between what blood belongs to whom and the same would be true if it were her 'dirty, muddy, blood' that had been added except for the fact that being as she wasnt a pureblooded, sacred 28 member and therefore her blood contained none of the properties of incest for the familial recognition of the wards. With regards to anything else, including magical levels, there would be no difference. In fact considering how she was top of her class, dubbed brightest witch of her age and didnt have to worry about aforementioned incest, her blood would probably contain higher levels of magic than the precious purebloods. She did always revel in the knowledge that she, a witch with no family magical history to her name, could always out magic every other person in her year at school.
Unfortunately with the steps Voldemort had taken after the battle, her magical talents were obsolete now. That however did not deter her, but made her stronger, forcing her to mould her body into a weapon. She wonders how many of their precious purebloods would have been able to do the same. Probably not very many she muses. Between the cowardness she has witnessed from them over the years, always wanting to hide behind whatever they deemed to be the more powerful side and their aristocratic sensibilities not wanting to get their hands dirty in the literal sense.
She sees Draco beginning to move to survey the area he is in charge of watching and by her count they have 90 seconds before he will be heading back to his post at the door and turning his back to them making the perfect opportunity to sneak up behind him and "stun" him.
When going through the plans with the Slytherins in the cave, Hermione had noticed a very big flaw in Draco's plans. While he had seemingly either momentarily forgotten they couldn't actually use magic to cast a stunning spell or he had just assumed they had other means for doing so and while they did in fact have another way to knock him out, they knew getting him to agree to it would have been a tough thing to sell. So she simply said nothing and resigned herself to dealing with the tantrum that was sure to follow.
She was also excited to tell Charlie when he returned that they had finally found a use for the dragon sedative he had stashed in the bunker should the need ever arise to use it.
Neville handed her the needle and vial of sedative and she drew the liquid and got ready. He unstoppered the blood mix again and poured half, like Theo had said, which produced a slight shimmer in the air giving them their que to move forward.
They moved quickly with a silence they had perfected through rigorous training and practice. Neville quickly grabbed Draco in a chokehold from behind while Hermione knocked his wand from his hand and immediately administered the sedative to his thigh. His eyes rolled back before closing and when his body went slack Neville released him, and he fell to the ground with a bang.
Neville eyed the prone form before them. "Well that's going to hurt in the morning. Are you sure we didn't give him too much?"
Hermione shrugged, her eyebrow lifting slightly as she tried to remember her calculations for the dose she had administered. "Nah, he should wake up in a couple of hours. He will definitely feel like shit for a day or two but he should live. I'm sure we will find out for sure the next meeting they grace us with. I can already hear the indignant complaining we are sure to have to listen to and we cant even throw up a silencing charm to mute it out so i would think that will be payback enough."
Neville stifled a laugh. "Let's get moving."
As promised security was pretty low level and they made their way towards the meeting room without seeing another soul until they got to the last corner. Theo and Blaise stood at the entrance to the hall on which the door to the meeting room was located, Theo laughing about something while Blaise rolled his eyes at his friends mischief, a slight curl to one side of his mouth where he was very obviously trying not to reward Theo's antics by laughing.
Neville held the pouch of the darkness powder out and Hermione nodded to let him know she was ready. They would have to move fast if they wanted to ensure they had time to get to the room before enough had passed in which the two men couldn't excuse their tardiness in reaching the room to warn those within the meeting.
They crouched down low, covering their mouths and donning the night goggles they had managed to get from a camping shop a few months back when they had been out on a supply run. Neville released it and the hall immediately descended into darkness, the coughs of the two Slytherins echoing off the walls. Racing towards the room they both armed themselves with their knives and each took a handful of the powder to throw in to be sure that the room would be fully under the cloak of darkness. The element of surprise would be the only advantage they would have over a room full of death eaters with magic to wield and who would rejoice at the opportunity to throw an Avada at them.
Stopping at the double doors, Hermione looked to Neville on the other side, raising her fingers in a count of three. At one they threw themselves through the doors, and just as planned the darkness powder rendered the vision of everyone else in the room to zero except them.
Immediately springing into action Hermione buried her right knife up through the jaw of the first person she came across ensuring that any noise they would have made would be stopped before it even had any time to properly form into a warning scream or plea for help.
The confused questioning of what was going on and quiet mutterings of fear were starting to merge together in her ears as the blood rushed through her veins, the adrenaline speeding up her heart rate. Her body naturally discarding the noises she hears as words and instead giving her a target to aim for. Every noise like a saccanto of I'm here, pick me next as she moves around the room. She could see Neville on the other side of the table working his way around in the same manner.
She picked up a shout in her haze from a voice she recognized as Rowle of "throw up a barrier charm on the door so they have no escape."
Oh yes please do, that way we can make sure that none of you manage to slip out, she thought to herself. It really did take her by surprise how much they clearly still underestimate the vigilante threat. They had taken out so many of the death eaters since they first began these missions that one would think they, as mostly Slytherins, would have more self- preservation that to lock themselves in a room blinded in a darkness that could not be cast aside by a lumos, with people they knew were out for blood. Although she supposed the ego that death eaters had developed after Harry's death and the order's defeat at Hogwarts played a role. They believed they were untouchable in this new world and oh how happy she was to prove them wrong. That and the fact that their tactic thus far had ensured no screams had been heard yet which probably dulled the fear factor somewhat.
It really wasn't as fun if they weren't terrified of the end they were about to meet and so, the next person she came upon she made sure to rectify the situation. Driving both her blades into the back of the death eater and quickly dragging them down tearing skin, muscles and everything in between resulting in a blood curdling cry falling from the man's mouth for a few seconds before she drew them out and used one to slice his throat as his body descended towards the ground.
As she had suspected the reality of the situation clearly began to sink in and they all began scuttling like ants trying to make for the exit. She could hear some begging for the barrier to be dropped before they were all slaughtered, for which a refusal from Rowle was given stating that they were dead anyway at the dark lord's hands if they let the vigilantes escape.
Spells began flying around the room with no real targets, easily dodged by the duo as they continued to pick off the remainder of the room.
The air was beginning to clear as they finally both met at the other end. Neville moved quickly bringing his knife down through the bottom of Rowle's wand arm causing him to drop it while Hermione kicked the back of his legs causing him to drop to his knees as she stepped forward holding her blade to his throat.
With Rowle disarmed, the barrier charms fell and Theo and Blaise entered the room, looking at the blood and carnage around them. Blaise wore a mask of indifference only broken by a look of disgust when he noticed blood on his obviously expensive shoes that he immediately vanished with a sigh.
Theo on the other hand had the same expression as a child on christmas morning, all wonder, joy and excitement.
"Sweet Salazar, this is so bad ass! Not going to lie, im extremly dissapointed we could't actually see the stabby stab, ninja murder spree because of the powder, we need to figure out a way around that next time. I'm also going to need someone to teach me how to do this," he gestured at the blood and bodies surrounding them, "so I can live my best movie star life."
Hermione and Neville exchanged smug looks before turning and smirking at Theo's antics. Although she wanted to dislike the Slytherins and even though they had made waves towards proving their trustworthiness with this raid, they still were a long way away from being friends, she couldn't help the growing fondness for Theo the more time she spent around the man.
Neville gathered up the maps and plans of the order's safe house tying them all together.
"Right, we need to send these to Lupin. I take it there's an owl here we can send them with?"
Blaise finally joined the conversation, "yes i can go and send them off with an owl while you too swiftly exit the premises so we can call this in. Don't want to be leaving it too long unless we want to raise suspicions. "
Hermione nodded in agreement, reaching for a quill and a piece of parchment and scribbling a short note, ensuring that she wrote in a way that wouldn't be recognisable as her handwriting. She reached down to Rowle, lifting his hand and cutting off his middle finger before attaching the note and body part to the plans and handing them over.
Theo grabbed them and unrolled the note to read it. " 'You're welcome.' I don't understand why the finger and the note?"
Hermione shrugged. "Their continued adversary to the vigilantes is pissing me off. It's just a little Fuck you because im feeling a little petty today."
Theo laughed before handing everything over to Blaise. "Right, off you pop then so we can call this in with the noseless wonder. Oh by the way, where would we find Draco?"
Hermione and Neville shared an amused grin before bursting into laughter and leaving to return back to the bunker and back to the order.