Thirty-Three
Day: 1474; Hour: 14
"Hermione."
"Hm?"
"I, er... I need to talk to you about Ron. And...Malfoy."
Hermione blinks four times at the book in front of her, the text blurring, and then raises her eyes to Harry. "What about it?"
"Well, it's just... He's been through a lot, and we need to be careful with putting too much on him. I don't know what's going on with you and Malfoy, or...or what it is, or anything. If it's something you need or...want..." Harry sighs heavily, shoving a hand through his hair.
"You're asking me to hide it from Ron." She looks at him blankly, smoothing the pages of her book.
"Yes. I mean, don't tell him. Try to...keep it to yourself for a little while. He might hear about it, or find out somehow, but he's going to need time. We worked with him before, but Ron didn't really believe the things we heard about him. He didn't work with him when we came back, like I did, to see it. I know you guys aren't like...like Ron and Lavender were, and I know you two don't feel like that toward one another anymore, but-"
"I understand."
"You don't look like you understand." Because she's thinking of Draco, of fragility and shame, and of the promises she made to herself. "I don't think he can handle it right now. He went through too much, and you and Malfoy... It's not worth getting Ron back to normal. Whatever-"
"I'll place worth wherever I want to, Harry," she snaps, and he looks surprised and then angry. "Getting Ron back his health, physically and mentally, is extremely important to me. Of course I'm going to do all I can to help with that. I'm not going to tell him about Draco, and I'm not going to...do anything in front of him. But I'm not going to stop...hanging out with Draco because-"
"I didn't ask you to."
"Okay. And if Ron somehow finds out, we'll handle it from there. And once Ron gets better... Whatever happens, happens. I don't expect either of you to understand, or to agree. But you'll have to accept it."
"I do. You know that. I don't know if I...approve." She opens her mouth, but remains silent when he shakes his head, shrugs, and stops being careful. "He's still an asshole. I don't get it. I know he's not prejudiced anymore, and he's on our side, but he's still the same git he was at Hogwarts. I know Ron and I were gone for...for a couple years, but...Malfoy? All the guys in the the world, and Malfoy for a boyfriend."
Hermione doesn't bother telling him he's not exactly a boyfriend. It would only make it harder.
Day: 1475; Hour: 10
Ron's grin is awkward when she pulls away, though it might be because of the tears now on his shoulder. Hermione cups his face between her palms, and she knows her smile is watery but she can't help it. She runs her finger down the thick scar on his face. It starts from his hairline and travels all the way down to his jaw. She wonders if it's the one Lucius had given him – the one Harry told her about.
"I missed you."
"I missed you, too." His voice sounds strained when he says this, his eyes darting toward Harry and his mother at the other side of the room before coming back to her. He gives her a look like she just said something he couldn't hear and then leans forward to kiss her on the lips.
The kiss is chaste, and his whole body tenses when he does it. Hermione blinks at the hospital bed as he pulls back, and then drops her hands to his shoulders with a reassuring squeeze. It wasn't like she had never kissed Ron, or even Harry, before. But those were usually when someone moved their head and the other missed the cheek – accidents that they were too close of friends for it to be all that awkward.
This was a little strange.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm a little..." He dropped his hands from her, rubbing the knuckle of his thumb across his forehead. "I'm a little lost."
"That's okay." Her reply is almost too quick. Inside her it feels like a deep chasm. This huge void that feels impossible to jump across, to get to the other side, to get to him. There are too many things she can't say or ask, because she is afraid to know, and afraid that it might break him.
She feels as if she is playing with such a fragile thing that even holding it will bruise the skin. She can't imagine what Ron has gone through in the time he has been gone, and while she is filled with happiness that he is back, she is terrified of what he came back with. She wants to save him, but she doesn't know if she can, or how, or if he'll even let her. She's lost too.
"Healer Sorres has been taking care of you this whole time. I don't think the woman has even slept. When you're ready...she's going to want to ask some questions, mate." Harry is trying to be delicate as well, but his version is honesty while leaving out the hard stuff.
"What kind of questions?" Ron sits down on the bed, looking exhausted now.
Hermione sits next to him, reaching for his hand, because she can't find it within herself to stop touching him. To stop validating his movement, because he's alive, and because if he shatters she wants to catch every piece of him. She'll catch them all and stitch him all back together, and she'll fill in all the empty places with herself if she has to.
"We don't need to worry about that right now. When you feel like you can answer any possible question in the world, that's when I'll let them ask you." Hermione has no trouble taking this for fact when it comes out of Molly's mouth.
The older woman rushes over, hugging Ron as if he were a newborn and could nearly disappear within the love between her arms and body. Hermione releases his cold hand, listening to Molly's hushed words of comfort and love into the top of her son's head. Locks of red stick to the tears on her face, and Hermione has to blink several times to keep herself from crying as well.
Harry squishes himself in between her and the wall, grabbing her hand as she waves at her face, like the air could dry it all up. He squeezes it like it's going to be okay, but his palm is as sweaty and hot as hers. Somehow it feels like the two of them are intruding on something, yet they didn't belong anywhere else.
"Oh, come here," Molly laughs, her breath catching on it, as she grabs Hermione's arm and yanks it too hard. "Oh, Merlin, I'm sorry...nearly pulled it off there."
Hermione huffs a laugh and scoots closer, her cheek against Ron's and her arm around his back. He pulls an arm away from his mum, wrapping it around her shoulders. Molly shifts and Hermione can feel her arm loop around the back of her neck, pulling her even closer. Harry drops her hand then, his leg brushing hers as he stand and leans down into the space between Hermione and Molly. The moment his arm comes around her back and his forehead meets her and Ron's , she promptly bursts into tears. Undignified tears. Loud, messy tears.
Harry's glasses go crooked against her face, and he's laughing oddly, like he might be crying just a little and trying to cover it up. He's smiling when she opens her eyes, and then she's laughing too, then Ron, then Molly. Laughing and crying all at the same time, and it's ridiculous, because she's happy, sad, and maybe a little crazy. Maybe just crazy enough to think they might be okay after all. They were one, two, three, and they would be okay.
Day: 1477; Hour: 7
Draco gives her a nod as he walks past her, barely looking at her, and Tonk's hair turns a vibrant shade as she grins. Hermione smiles back, returning the squeeze when the other woman reaches out to grab her arm in greeting. It had been too long since she had last seen her, but that couldn't be helped by either one of them.
The last time she had seen Draco was the night in the bathroom. With a kiss to the bruise he left on her shoulder he had been gone, sauntering down the hall and into his bedroom. She had stared at the empty spaces before turning off the tap and righting the bathroom, joining the young girl in the bedroom with no beds. It was really an empty room with spare blankets, and Hermione had stared at the ceiling thinking about too many things. Her pillow had smelt of shaving cream when she woke up the next day, and he had been gone from the house.
She knew that he acted like this when he wasn't sure about something. Perhaps it was because Ron and Harry were back, and he thought she didn't need or want him anymore. The whole 'attacking him in the bathroom' thing should have solved that, though. He might have still been angry over her leaving on that mission with Harry, or any number of things she couldn't know. It bothered her though, just as it always did. She hated when he got like this. At times she thought herself a masochist, but she doesn't know if she could even stop unless he made her.
The way he could make her feel, the way he made her lose herself, was worth ramming into the stone wall he was outside of the bedroom. Or whatever place they happened to do the things they did in a bedroom. Besides, Hermione Granger has always liked a puzzle, and she would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that she cared about Draco. Maybe she could admit that she even needed him, just a little. Even if he was completely infuriating, an absolute pr-
"Are you heading this?" Hermione looks up at the tall, surly man in front of her, recognizing him but not knowing.
"Yes."
Lupin had asked her to bring a group of new recruits in to watch an interrogation and explain the different tactics and how to use them. Hermione had never really done one, but it didn't mean she didn't know everything about them. She had read about them, heard about them, and remembered watching one of them in the beginning as well. Draco's, in fact, and she has to physically shake her head to get the images out of her mind. Lifetimes ago, it felt like, when she was someone else and he was just a worthless traitor.
"Yes or no?"
"Yes."
"Bring them in then. It's started."
Day: 1478; Hour: 8
Ron is clumsy in his bones, like he has too many of them to put his trainers on without being all awkward angles. He had been like that when they were kids, as if he didn't know what to do with all the extra length in his limbs. Then he had pushed past puberty, grown out and into himself, and it went away. Not that Ron was ever graceful, but he was fully in control of his body and the strength behind it. Unless he was hungry – scary things were known to happen, then.
She thinks it's from the pain potions, or maybe from staying in the same position a lot when...he was gone. She almost bends to help him, but she knows his temper would flare if she did. That's one thing he never got that much control of.
"You don't have to go back, you know." Hermione says this so softly it is nearly a whisper.
"I'm not laying around anymore," he says gruffly, tying his laces.
"Stubborn, the lot of us." Arthur moves his lips in a way that might be a smile, and Molly continues wringing her hands as he draws her closer to him.
Arthur had only recently been released from the hospital himself. The combination of several Cruciatus Curses and the news of his sons had shut down his body and his mind. The amount of damage the curse had done was nearly irreversible, but once they fixed his body, his mind came back with it. His family needed him, and they were the most important thing in the world to him.
She had visited him once, standing as still as he was lying, with his broken body and glazed eyes. He began to move violently not fifteen minutes later, as if in a seizure. Spell damage, the Healer had said as he dragged her from the room. It happens whenever he tries really hard to move. At least we know he's still in there. Then the Healer had smiled, like it was suddenly okay.
The tremors would still come sometimes, but it wasn't stopping Arthur from rejoining the war. Nothing was stopping any of them, because they simply didn't know what else to do but keep fighting. Except for George. Hermione hadn't even seen him since before the Graveyard. She thinks half of his soul left with Fred, and though none who knew him would be the same again, she is afraid George will never come back from the darkness that filled up the cavities inside of him.
Sometimes she forgets to not think about it, and it feels like a razor slicing away all the things within her. There is a burning in her gut and a pain so sharp within her chest that she cannot physically move. All she knows is that she misses them, and that she's sorry. She's sorry because she is alive and they are not, and she's sorry because she could not save them. Sometimes, in the darkness, she'll lie in bed and wish she were dead. And it's not in the way that she would actually kill herself but that she whispers to them. Will you come back and I can go? I don't like it here without you, because if she could, she thinks she would give her life up for them to come back and live. She knows she will still not be able to be with them then, but at least she would know that they were alive, and maybe happy too.
Then she feels selfish, like maybe she isn't thankful enough. She wants to win the war for them, and she has to do great things now. She has to make it count. She can't waste it. If she does, then it was all for nothing. Then they all died for nothing. She thinks, I'll go out today, and I'll smile. I'll do something I've never done before. I'll laugh and I'll love, I'll live and I'll be happy. Because I'm alive. But sometimes she forgets, because she misses them, and there are days when the sadness and guilt overwhelm everything. There are days Draco puts the sugar bowl too far back on the top of the fridge for her to reach, and she gets angry. When she sweats too much, stubs her toe, or Harry laughs at her hair in the morning. She gets angry for stupid things that don't matter, and she forgets to be happy and thankful, and she's sorry for that too.
"Where are we going?" Ron asks, pushing to his feet.
"Malfoy Manor," Harry tells him, and laughs when Ron makes a face.
"Why the hell are we going there?"
"New Headquarters, mate."
Ginny slings an arm over Hermione's shoulders as they start to walk out of the room, and Hermione hugs her. The redhead makes a face and smiles, like she thinks Hermione is a little weird, but that's Ginny. Hermione can see through her though, because the pinch of her mouth and the way Ginny squeezes her so hard her wrist cracks. They both laugh, and for a second, she forgets to be sorry.
Day: 1479; Hour: 11
"They are relentless," Hermione breathes, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
"They are mad. Bloodthirsty. I've never seen them fight like this. They just don't care." Harold pants, pushed against the wall beside her.
Death Eaters usually take their time in a fight, dueling with the same cockiness and air of superiority that they lead their lives with. Now, she thinks the only reason any of them are still alive is the distance between them and the rapidly approaching pack of black hoods. If it weren't for the minimal amount of time they had due to distance to duck for cover, they would have been defeated half an hour ago.
"We don't have time for prisoners today. Cast to kill, if you can," the Auror leading the mission tells them and the rest of the team, signaling to step out into the path again.
They step out as a unit, voices joining to form a fiercely loud "Avada Kedavra," and a few Stunning spells before jumping back behind the wall of the building. They turn, running around to the side of the other building to repeat the process, until there is no opposition left.
Day: 1481; Hour: 12
She begins to make her way toward the alley she had come from, her hand in her pocket and wrapped tightly around her birth control, wondering why she doesn't give in and just use contraceptive potions. She's almost to her destination when someone rams into her shoulder. Her eyes widen at the impact and her hand automatically darts into her coat, wrapping around the end of her wand as she looks up. A man, around her age, grabs her shoulders, laughing at something his friend had said.
"I'm sorry!" He grins, and holds her steady before dropping his hands.
She manages to shake her head, him and his friends still laughing at something as they walked away. Her fingers drop from her wand, and a woman barely misses knocking into her, too enraptured with the man holding her hand. Cars zoom past on the road, music blares from a shop behind her, there's laughter and a hundred voices that rise up to her ears.
She takes a seat on a bench, oddly numb, waiting for a bus that she won't take.
Day: 1483; Hour: 18
She is still a gasping mess when he rolls off of her and to the edge of the bed, sitting up. He bends to collect his pants from the floor, and lifts himself up for just long enough to pull them over his firm bum. He reaches up to shove the sweat-dampened locks of his hair off his red face, and glances back at her over his shoulder.
She admits to her confusion, because it has been a very long time since either one of them tried escaping from the bed this fast. The bathroom thing she could almost ignore, but this is different. Even if they had somewhere to go, or were just done for the night afterwards, they never left so quickly. There were always several minutes for coming down and catching their breaths before a rather slow and tired extraction from the bed.
He stands, grabbing his shirt and pulling it on. The buckle of his belt clinks as he grabs it from by the door, and he gives her a brief nod before walking out.
Day: 1486; Hour: 6
She stays at the Burrow for two days, and when she leaves, she feels she cannot walk fast enough. The Burrow has always been a place of zaniness and chatter, and the silent grief that darkens its walls now is too much for her to bear. She feels guilty at her thankfulness for leaving, but this is not a place that she can stay and not hit bottom in.
Day: 1489; Hour: 12
Nothing happens for three days. There are no attacks, no captures, and nothing is found. No one knows if they should be worried or if it's okay to start hoping that the war is really over this time.
Day: 1490; Hour: 13
She has her boots and jacket off when she hears the squeak of floorboards. Draco is staring at her from the dark of the hall, and she ignores the sudden jolt of her heart at the sight of him. It had been several days, but she reminds herself of the last time they were together, of that dirty feeling when he could barely look at her. She can't read his expression, but there's a certain way he walks that tells her something is wrong. He's too slow, like his steps are measured.
"You alright?" She decided to be nice, even though she is a little angry with him. She doesn't know why they suddenly regressed so much, but it's not a pleasant experience. He is supposed to be her escape. He is supposed to make her stop feeling all those bad things she can't handle feeling anymore. And this isn't supposed to hurt.
He steps into the living room then, and she has to fight back a sigh. He's angry, his body thrumming with it, like an elastic band, plucked when you pull it tight. It might snap or it might hold together, but there really wasn't any way to know for sure. All she does know is that it's nothing she wants to deal with. She had spent the whole day as a delivery girl, which meant she had to run back and forth to different locations, delivering packages she wasn't allowed to see. It was a form of torture for curious people. She had gotten used to not being able to know most things that happened, but it was a true test not to open anything when she was alone and could do it so easily.
"Fine." This sounds more like a grunt than a word.
She begins to remove her holster, not sure about how to deal with him, when he's in front of her. He looks at her a moment, his eyes dark, and then reaches a hand up to grab the bun at the back of her head. She winces when he fists it, pulling her hair tighter, and doesn't really think when she turns her head away. All she knows is that she feels awkward, and angry, and confused, and when he bends his head, she turns hers.
It's the first time she's ever denied him from kissing her, and his whole body turns into a statue. His lips are just above her cheek, and he must be holding his breath because she doesn't feel it on her skin. There are a couple different thoughts that skid across her mind, and she's stuck between regret and determination. Maybe she will kiss his neck, and deny him of kissing her mouth like he once did to her, as some sort of petty payback. Maybe he will leave now, even more angry, and maybe they were so fragile that this is the last time he'll get so close. Something had been bothering him ever since she got back from that mission, and now she has rejected him in the only truly vulnerable way that he opens himself to her.
Maybe he will think she's done, or that it's because of Harry and Ron. Maybe he will decide it's not worth it, or will close himself from her completely. But she can't be afraid of these things, because she's Hermione Granger – she's brave, she does what needs to be done, and she was supposed to be happy. She was supposed to be happy so she didn't have to be sorry.
Her heart pounds, so hard he might hear it, and she feels as frozen as him. There's a dozen implications and outcomes that make her thoughts a scrambled mess, and then she is speaking one of them before she can stop herself and he can move away.
"I'm not a war whore."
She blinks at the wall, wondering what and why she just said that over anything else. Some stupid term from a million conversations ago with people she couldn't remember about Seamus and Lavender, about people who slept around and later blamed lack of morals on the war, and why did she just say that? Her heart picks up speed, her face goes red, and she's pretty sure that a heart attack is going to hit at any second.
His hand loosens from her hair, his breath finally meets her face, and she knows he's about to walk away. "No." He shakes his head once, and he stays.
"And...I'm not that sort of girl. I'm not a girl who sleeps around with different people. And...oh, God. Y-you know I like routines. I like my routines. I get used to things. Then, all of a sudden, it's like it was in the beginning, and I guess you're angry, though I don't know why. Which is fine. But now you ignore me, and you don't look at me, and you...Jesus, you kind of make me feel...well, you do it, like that would be alright. And it's kind of not... I mean, I would like some sort of... Well, if something is bothering you, I would like to know. That's what I mean. That's the only thing I mean."
She only blinks because the terrified unblinking stare she had on the wall was making her eyes water, and she absolutely refuses to let him think she's emotional. It's bad enough that she's blushing so furiously she's nearly on fire, and that her hands are shaking. She can't even believe she just rambled that out, to him, while he was here, listening, and looking at her. Holy shit, had she actually just done that? Threw herself on top of the gallows like it was the best place to be on a Friday night?
At some point in her stupid sputtering he had dropped his hand away from her and stood up straight. He hadn't walked away though, and she still couldn't meet his eyes. He was about three seconds away from laughing at her, she is sure. He's probably giving her a crazy look, and is about to ask her questions that she can't answer.
"What do you want from me, Granger?" Like that one. Crap, shit, damn, like that one.
"I just wanted to know if you were angry about something."
Because she had already revealed too much – had almost let on to the fact that he was a bit more than a lover, a frequent...shag, to her. They had never set expectations beyond neither one sleeping with someone else. There weren't supposed to be emotions. Their entire hormone-driven relationship was supposed to be convenient, not emotional. Sure, she thought of him as a friend, and sometimes she was pretty sure he thought of her the same, but they weren't supposed to really care. If they stopped having sex tomorrow, neither one should have cared at all, let alone if one didn't want to fall asleep next to the other.
"I am."
"Oh."
"Not with you." And then his voice drags over letters he doesn't form words with, as if he's unsure about telling her more. Probably because he is still angry with her. He must be. It's just that she isn't the current cause of the fury he came down the hall with.
"Oh."
She's even more confused now, and she accidentally looks at him when he huffs an exhale through his nose and leans away from her. He's still an elastic band, but different somehow. Maybe he's confused too. He bites his lips, thinking, and rolls his neck.
"What if I'm a war whore?"
She blinks at him, surprised to find a laugh bubbling up in her throat. It escapes a little, on a breath, and he looks down at her. Her heart does something crazy at the grey in his eyes, and this is it, she thinks. A couple more seconds and her arm will go numb, and she'll get these pains, and then she'll be really screwed. What happened? That's what they will all ask. Oh, Draco Malfoy asked her what it meant if he was a war whore. She didn't get it. Then he looked at her, and bam. Looks are lethal.
She is hysterical and she knows it, but there's nothing she can do. "Well, I kind of went into this..."
The blank look he crafted on his face is gone, his lips turning down into a frown and his eyebrows furrowing. She wants to run her finger over the wrinkles in his forehead, and she thinks she's breathing too hard. "Thinking I was a whore?"
"Well...the Lavender thing." She doesn't even like to say it.
"I'll have you know I've only," he pauses, as if searching for the right term, "shagged five people in my life."
That's a lot less than what she thought it would be. She's guessing his hesitancy before "shagged" meant he wasn't including oral sex. "Yes, well, I've only slept with you."
His frown is gone after she says this, and there's something on his face that she can't read. "I know."
"Okay." Then, after a second, "Sorry."
His lips twitch, and for some reason she finds this more alarming than the blank look. She doesn't know what to do with herself at all. "I can't believe you thought I was a whore."
She blushes more, a disgruntled noise in her throat. "It's not like I actively thought, 'Oh, Draco Malfoy is a whore'. I just sort of thought...you might be a little used to it. More than me, anyway, which isn't really saying a lot at all, because obviously..."
She trails off, wanting to stop her nervous yapping before she got ahead of herself. Before she said stupid things, again. She's wondering why he seems offended that she thought he was a whore, when just one minute ago he was asking her what it meant if he was one. Perhaps he meant the non-emotional aspect, and he had really asked, 'What if I'm just in it for the sex?' If he did, she had really, really given too much away when she told him she wasn't one. It's what she had meant, though. I'm emotionally invested, to some degree, in you and this, she had basically screamed.
He wasn't running for the nearest exit. She has no idea why not. Had he already known? Had she given herself away within those moments before she left for the mission, when she thought she wouldn't see him again? Did he somehow find out that she didn't cling to him because he was a person, because she thought she might die and he was just some guy who could make her forget, and feel good, and be alive? Did he see right through her, and to the fact that she did it because it was him?
Maybe that was why he stopped staying. He figured she was too close, and he wanted to stop her from getting feelings. He didn't stop having sex with her, though. She doesn't know what that means.
"You think too much. It's half your problem."
She would like to tell him that it's his fault for never answering her questions. She can't analyze all of this right now, though, not when he's here and she doesn't know what is safe. She changes the subject to the only one he really likes for her to bring up. "I just wanted to ask that before..."
His eyebrows go up, and he rocks back on his heels, and she knows him. She knows him well enough to know that he's certainly not going to kiss her now, and that she'll be the one to have to do it. So she does, pushing herself up on her toes, and very much afraid of him rejecting her because she had him, or because of the things she had said.
It takes him four seconds, maybe just to make sure she knows what it feels like, before he kisses her back. She pushes her hands up his arms, her fingers catching around the holster over his shoulders, and she uses the grip to jerk him closer. His hands close around her hips, slide up to her sides, and then he reaches between the press of their bodies, pulling his wand and then hers.
He moves to tuck them into his pocket, and her hands move down, under his arms and over his ribs. "You better not lose that."
His fingers skate her jaw before wrapping around the nape of her neck. "I'll try," he murmurs before pulling her mouth back to his, warm and dry, leading them down the hallway.
Day: 1491; Hour: 1
She decides not to think about it, about him. She doesn't want to think about the conversation they had, or the things she said, or what he asked, and what it could mean. She doesn't know the answers, and short of asking him, she can't know. She knew what it felt like to dangle out there, off the edge, and she didn't like it.
What she does know is that she is awake now, in his bed, with her hand numb on his shoulder, after several hours of sleep. What she knows is that despite what she had said yesterday, and despite not knowing what he meant yesterday, some part of it made him not rush off again.
When she first decided to do this whole thing with Draco, she told herself she would just let it go where it was going to go. That's what she was going to do now – what she has to do, even. She didn't have the space in her life to be confused, and she wasn't ready for it to be over. Not yet, anyway.
Thinking was half her problem, he told her. So she thought about not thinking, and she thinks it might be okay to think about remembering not to think.
Right.
Day: 1492; Hour: 11
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God, oh, my God." The woman was yelling this so quickly that the words started to blend into a scream, her eyes pinched shut and her hands over her ears, as if that would make it all go away.
Hermione's back was to the wall right next to her, breathing quick, two Aurors in line next to her. Donny, the youngest one, was grimacing down at his leg, the red of his blood almost black against the cement. They had followed her like an unofficial leader when everyone got split up, and she feels responsibility clog up her veins like the blood does the gaps in the pavement.
The woman's scream in her ear blocked out the others all around them until she drew a breath, and Hermione reaches over to yank the hand away from her ear. "You need to run. See that building, with the gargoyles, up ahead?"
"What?" Panic, solid and harsh.
"Run," Hermione yells, thrusting her hand out in front of them.
The woman takes off, wobbling on her heels and her briefcase left behind. Hermione wipes the sweat from her forehead before it can drip into her eyes, the hot summer air thick in her lungs. She moves to the edge of the building and darts a look around it, spotting someone convulsing on the ground, but no Death Eaters. It had been that way since they arrived. Hermione hasn't actually seen a Death Eater, though she knows they must be somewhere, given the colors that streak across the sky and the Dark Mark alive in the clouds.
She thinks they must be on the top of the buildings, and Lupin had agreed with her, sending half the team into buildings to get to the roof once the anti-Apparition wards were in place. The other half were separated, fleeing to areas that looked clear while dodging the jets of curses that came out of nowhere. They also had to avoid getting shot by a dozen Muggles, eyes glazed, shooting at everything that moved. From their state of dress and soiled skin, she guessed that they had been prisoners before the attack.
She can only hear two guns going off now, and the screams had died down when most of the Muggles had taken off. They would be caught further out by the Obliviation team, and would go the rest of their lives never knowing what truly happened. The few who managed to slip out would never be believed, because there would be others that had been there who had never seen the crazy things that they did. They would probably be told that the Muggles under Imperius had gone and become murderers while their families had worried and waited for them to return, thinking kidnapping and death. The families of those that died would blame more innocent people. The newspapers would say the killers were put to death, but the Prime Minister would step in, secretly, and send them off into isolation to never know the world or the ones they loved again.
This is her enemy. This far-spreading disease of destruction that ruins the lives of people who could never even know what they lost it for. The Muggles, the normal people in the world, confused, scared, and in pain, without even the chance of defending themselves – of even knowing what could come. The broken families, the darkness of the Burrow, the tombstones, the scars, all the empty places in their lives that will never be filled up again. This is her enemy.
There are still a few people running back and forth, stuck from trying to avoid the 'fireworks' and bullets. Others are shoved under abandoned cars, and she had passed one woman with her head bent on the steering wheel and her hands folded. The screams were mostly coming from those who had been hit with curses, hexes, or bullets. Laughter echoed around the streets, a rumble under the noise of anguish. Metal shrieked, bricks crumbled, glass shattered, and fire crackled. She has seen twenty-four bodies – twenty-two Muggles and two Aurors.
The Muggles couldn't stand much of a chance. It was their duty to defend them, but they had come so late and took too long to find the Death Eaters. Hermione walks with their blood on her boots, and she feels sorry for this too. She has found that in war, no one is ever really good enough, and she has learned this in all the hard ways.