They had a civilised dinner that evening, laid out across a table with several different dishes on offer. The elves that served them never appeared, but the serving platters were refilled every time Hermione glanced away. She enjoyed herself, the conversation light and easy as they talked about school.
Grindelwald seemed genuinely interested in their classes and easily shared what he remembered from school. She was surprised by how much difficulty he had remembering his classes; she could hardly imagine herself forgetting them. Apparently they arrived at school by floo – except for the first years who had to sail the ship up the Norwegian coast. Grindelwald swore up and down it was designed to get them used to being cold, wet and miserable.
They shared several jokes at the expense of Gilderoy Lockhart's duelling club and Delores Umbridge's takeover of the school, then laughed more are Gellert explained how he'd once mistaken a rat familiar for his hat.
They spent a long while discussing divination and Harry demonstrated his skills by reading their fortunes from the gravy boat, predicting great misfortune and the loss of a favoured pet for Grindelwald and the discovery of a true love who would betray her to love another for Hermione. Grindelwald declared that codswallop and used the reflection in his spoon to predict, in a terrifyingly accurate imitation of Trelawney, that Harry would discover his passion for farming and raise a herd to spotted cattle. He had just begun to warn Hermione that her owl would soon suffer a tragic injury when he suddenly froze mid sentence.
He sat completely still for several long seconds, staring off into the polished silver of his spoon. Hermione and Harry shared a concerned look before Hermione reached out to touch his shoulder. Just before her fingers brushed his jacket, he leapt to his feet sending his chair crashing to the floor behind him. Hermione jumped backwards with a squeak she hoped nobody had heard.
'He plans to attack the base in London tonight.' Grindelwald declared, rushing out of the dining room and into the corridor. Harry and Hermione followed him in a clamour of scraping chair legs and questions. The dark wizard reappeared seconds later wearing his long black coat and carrying a briefcase. 'I saw it.' He said, as if that explained everything, which it did when Hermione remembered that he was a seer.
She hurried into her room, grabbing the beaded bag and sticking her wand into her jeans before following him out of the living quarters.
'London is an hour behind, it was dark when they attacked, so we have about two hours. We must attack Malfoy Manor immediately.'
'What about Grimmauld Place?' Harry protested, rushing to keep up with the rapid pace the older wizard set as they hurried down to the cells.
'Warn them immediately, if they don't have another safe house, send them here. Send us your patronus when you're done. If we begin our attack in time, we can hopefully divide the death eaters between the two locations.' Harry nodded and disapparated to warn the order to evacuate. Gellert left Hermione outside the two occupied cells with orders to ensure that Malfoy was silenced whilst he hurried to retrieve his army.
Fifteen minutes later, a whimpering Malfoy was side along apparated to his ancestral home. They ducked into the hedges that lined the driveway as a pair of cloaked and battle ready death eater's appeared at the gate only seconds after them. They were followed by several more, then more. They counted over a hundred apparating in in just the time that they had been sitting there. It seemed Voldemort had been recruiting.
They used the waiting time to disillusion themselves and lay the jars outside the three entrances to the manor grounds – each one with an engorgement rune sketched infront of it on the ground. Once the wards fell, Harry and Hermione would travel around the grounds, opening each jar and powering the engorgement rune as the creatures escaped to carry out their mission.
They returned to where the bound and gagged Malfoy waited in the hedge just as Harry's patronus arrived to let them know the order had begun their evacuation.
Hermione watched with bated breath as Grindelwald left with Malfoy. The dark wizard paused at the gates, then passed through without resistance. She watched him all the way up the drive and through the open front doors. Two green flashes indicated that he'd successfully disabled the guards and then he was gone.
She waited for fifteen minutes without indication of how their plan was proceeding before shouts indicated that the two dead guards had been found. She checked her bond with Grindelwald, glad to find that his magic was still mostly dormant as the lights blazed to life in the entrance hall. Then, less than half a minute later, the wards crashed down around the manor like a shattering glass dome. Death eater's poured out of the entrance, shouting and gesturing, any semblance of order in shambles at the unexpected attack.
Then Grindelwald's magic pulsed, the invisible wave of power sweeping through the property. The jar next to her writhed to life as she powered up the rune and opened the first jar. A sea of bugs crawled out, climbing over one another in their haste to achieve their goals. As they crossed the rune, their bodies began to swell. Ants and spiders that reached her waist scuttled away down the drive as she apparated to the next site. This time, wasps bigger than horses took off with a noise like a helicopter. At the next site, knee high fleas poured in a black river into the stables and blanketed the back lawn in black carapaces.
Then she was back at the front entrance which had descended into carnage. Spells flew everywhere even more effectively than they'd ever imagined, bouncing off the exoskeletons of the ants and slicing off the legs of spiders that just kept coming with the remaining seven. Hermione released the reinforcements from the fourth jar before apparating directly into the drawing room.
She was fortunate enough to get caught in the shockwave from a blasting curse from Grindelwald's wand. It threw her unshielded body into the wall where she collapsed behind a splintered table, shielding her from the notice of the two duelling dark wizards.
The room was devastated – cursed fire climbed the drapes, sand and broken glass coated the floor in a thick layer. Water fountained from a burst pipe in the wall, soaking shredded sheets and pillows. More water dripped from the ceiling, which was spider webbed with cracks.
Knowing that Grindelwald could hold his own, Hermione hurried down to the hall to the cellars that they'd been kept in last time. The guards must have abandoned their posts to join the battle because she encountered no resistance as she reached the stairs. She couldn't believe her luck when she then found Nagini guarding the occupied cells. She pulled an enchanted jar out of her beaded bag, took off the lit and lobbed it at the snake. The first one smashed harmlessly against the floor but the second landed right on top of the snake. It stopped it's curling advance, as the jar sucked the huge creature in, bending it into a U shape before sucking the entire animal in. Hermione slammed the lid on and pocketed her newest captive. Now with access to the cells, she blasted the barred door off its hinges, and found Flitwick waiting for her. The tiny professor waved in greeting, an unmistakable look of relief on his face.
'Miss Granger, it is very good to see you.' He squeaked. 'It sounds like you and Potter are causing as much havoc as usual.'
'That would be the bugs.' She told him as a mosquito flew past the tiny barred window with a sound like a jet aeroplane. Flitwick hastily led her over to the prone body on the floor – Ron was caked in a thick layer of blood and grime and his arm was cradled to his chest. She didn't pause to take any more in, knowing the Grindelwald couldn't last forever upstairs. She shoved a portkey into Flitwick's hand, the tiny wizard grabbed onto his student and the two of them were sucked into nothingness.
Mission accomplished, Hermione hurried back to the drawing room where Voldemort and Grindelwald duelled. The entire side wall had been blown away, bringing down a large section of the ceiling nearest the fireplace. The cursed drapes had caught fully and the flames had spread through the hole and into the room above them. Maggots coated the floor around Voldemort's feet, crunching beneath his boots and making him slip. The younger dark lord launched a conjured black snake at Grindelwald, which was eaten by a wintery wolf, which then charged at Voldemort and was melted into a puddle by a fire spell. The puddle formed into a tidal wave which split either side of Grindelwald and splashed against the walls. It was transfigured into oil, and squirted into Voldemort's eyes, then caught fire and left both dark wizards throwing fireballs as they climbed debris to get clear of the burning pool.
She climbed up onto the table, stepping across to a massive ceiling slab and scrambling up the back side of Grindelwald's pile. Above her she heard Grindelwald's grunt of pain as one of the fireballs seared a little too close to him, exploding against the wall behind Hermione and showering her with shards of hot stone.
There was a draconic roar as one of the wizards formed another beast, then another crash of falling stone as yet more of the room collapsed. Hermione lunged upwards the last couple of meters, grabbing Grindelwald's ankle and disapparating as the last of the ceiling and every floor above it finally gave way to gravity and thundered down where they had been only seconds ago.