Hermione checked personally that all the Slytherins who had their names down for going home over the Yule break got onto and off the Hogwarts Express. She couldn't do much to help them after they disembarked but she could at least make certain that Luna was the only student dragged from the train. Not a great consolation but it would have to do.
The half-blood Snakes hiding in the bolt-holes she'd warded had all elected to remain. Communication with their families had been sporadic. At first, letters had been smuggled to the Owlery and mugged on their return. Hermione would've preferred to use an anonymous owl but anyone caught receiving a message on an unregistered bird was subject to Ministry questioning. Surveillance had got tighter with more random intercepts of messages, prompting the switch to the Royal Mail.
Most half-blood families had mundane postal addresses they were quiet about. Moppet collected the letters and dropped them off in a post box in Dufftown. Replies went to Tracey Davis's home, to which the house elf had access because of the inheritance bonding rite. Thus far, the system had proven secure though the missives themselves had been less than reassuring.
The Crowdys refused to leave their land. There would be no discussion of departing England. The Haricotts had more readies and could've fled but they'd missed their chance to go unremarked, leaving them stuck doing business with Death Eaters. The Vengs were middle-class, only one generation removed from Muggle-born, and with too many Muggle relatives to risk decamping. No one knew what was happening with the Moncrieffs. Jaakan hadn't had a reply since the end of November.
Unless she lay herself open to a charge of kidnapping, Hermione couldn't take the children out of the country without their parents' permission. She wasn't confident she had a safe place for them but in extremis she'd knock on Finch-Fletchley's door. Or see how much leverage she had over her Max relatives. Probably not enough to risk someone else's life.
But the quartet were marginally less frightened of staying in Hogwarts than they were of being Snatched. Moppet would look after them over the holidays and they had plenty of supplies, books, and entertainment. They could even pop between their cubbies with the house elf's help so they could socialise as they wished.
Hermione wished she'd shut herself up with them when she saw who was waiting for her. Rookwood and Dolohov stood flanking her grandmother when the Express arrived. Their presence cleared the platform like cholera at a Paris Masque.
There was an intimate little meeting at Malfoy Manor, an exclusive get-together for the Old Guard. Nott Senior was there, looking better than he'd been at the start of term, and Avery, who did not look at her at all, occupied one of the dainty chairs in the drawing room. Mulciber, Snape's friend whose father had gone to school with Tom Riddle, leaned heavily against the arm of a chaise like a swooning Regency lady.
And the Dark Lord, who filled the room with his presence until her gaze could go nowhere else. He sat in a wingback chair near the fire with the snake. The snake! Nagini coiled around his seat, basking in the heat from the hearth. Hermione wondered how much the change in size had affected her metabolism. Constrictors could get big but she was venomous. You can't just scale up and expect a viable creature.
"Lady Rosier." Riddle's voice was silk. Hermione suppressed an urge to curtsey. She did bow her head and murmur a 'milord'. At least they weren't in the long gallery.
She held her Occlumency shields so tightly she could barely think.
"Severus tells me you are quite the Healer." He smiled, near lipless, a thing that shouldn't be. "Antonin and Augustus spoke well of your research." His eyes shifted to Madam Rosier. "Such a clever girl, isn't she, Siglinde?"
"Yes, my lord." The words were beige or magnolia, a sort of off-white neutral that could be anything. Both witches evidently wished to be anywhere else.
"What is wrong with Weyland? Can you tell us, dear girl?" The rising intonation of his voice made him sound almost indulgent, a doting uncle encouraging his favourite niece to show off for his friends. He slid a thin hand towards Mulciber as his attention returned to her. Hermione looked where he indicated, studying the grey haired wizard.
Magical maladies tended to be obvious. He had all his limbs in the right place and nothing was on fire. Hermione stepped over to him, skirting Avery, for a closer inspection. He was sweating, a fine gloss on dry skin, and breathing shallowly. Once a big man, he had shrunk in Azkaban, wrinkles at his neck and wrists. Someone had pushed up his right sleeve, the veins prominent and cross-hatched with scars that looked like teeth marks.
Had he tried to bite his own wrists to kill himself while in prison?
"He's been poisoned, my lord." Hermione put two fingers on his mouth and pulled down his lower lip. The interior was pallid with a yellowish tint. "Liver damage or bile obstruction, so a cirrhotic curse. Judging by the lack of jaundice or abdominal swelling, I'd say one of the ones that mimic arsenic. It could be chronic exposure. That school of curses are insidious."
"You are not yet an apprentice?" The Dark Lord asked mildly. No one was fooled.
"No, my lord, just an aide to the matron." Her stomach clenched. Someone was going to die. Riddle looked too pleased for them all to get out of this intact.
"Yet when Weyland went to his family's Healer, the wizard was unable to diagnose his symptoms. Put it down to malaise from Azkaban." He made a 'tut, tut' noise then nodded to Avery, who scuttled out at speed.
He returned with Rowle dragging a beaten man bodily into the room to dump him at his master's feet like a hunting dog with downed bird. Hermione didn't recognise the wizard and was relieved. She wouldn't give herself away if she genuinely had no idea what was going on. Her ignorance didn't make witnessing this any easier.
"You have been found sadly wanting, Moncrieff." Riddle flicked his wand, jerking the Healer up by his neck. There must be some pressure there because he gurgled, blood drooling from his broken nose. Rowle, she guessed it was Rowle because the big blonde was rubbing his knuckles, had eschewed magic for the direct method.
"Please, no, forgive me." He wheezed, trying to rise to ease the choke-hold. The Dark Lord dropped him abruptly back onto the floor where Moncrieff gasped, trying to clear his airway without coughing. Broken ribs, Hermione charted. She kept her hands folded in front of her. She could do nothing. One glance aside was enough to show her Siglinde Rosier would be no help. Her grandmother was staring at the hearth as though fire reading.
"How long has your family served the Mulcibers?" The question was idle. The Dark Lord was toying with his prey.
"Two hundred and thirty years, lord." Moncrieff propped himself up on his knees, straightening his back but keeping his head lowered. He looked prepared to grovel. He looked prepared to do just about anything to get out of this alive. "We are honoured to serve."
"Of course you are, half-blood." Avery laughed and Hermione decided she was going to kill him too.
It took Jabez Moncrieff a long time to die; paralysed by a curse before being slowly devoured by Nagini. Riddle didn't even ask him any questions. Hermione pieced together what happened later from Mulciber while she was treating him. The Healer had quietly taken it upon himself to remove the Death Eater with a slow poison mixed in with the restorative tonics he poured into the ex-convict. He would have succeeded and escaped notice if Tristan Nott hadn't shared one of her atomised potions.
Mulciber had vomited black bile for an hour then felt much improved. He was suspicious enough to go directly to his lord. They hadn't had any proof when Riddle sent Rowle to drag in the Healer. He was merely the most likely non-pure-blood. He'd already suffered a beating before she'd made her best guess diagnosis.
Hermione didn't expect due process from terrorists but they hadn't even checked. They had power and indulged themselves, lashing out at the nearest target. It was so fucking stupid she wanted to scream. They had magic and opportunity and they just wasted it like toddlers throwing tantrums. If she had a group of fanatics at her beck and call, she'd be ruling Britain before tea-time.
Dolohov escorted the Rosier ladies home, loitering in her potions lab as she gathered a treatment regimen for Mulciber. The Russian wizard asked intelligent if slightly off-the-wall questions, echoes of the rigours of his own profession twisted to fit hers so he could prolong their conversation. He seemed to enjoy her company, which made Hermione nauseous.
"I would live here, if you accepted my suit." Antonin said carefully, the shoals of the English language ever present, the tenses making his offer awkward. "You need not worry of your grandmother. She will not be alone."
"That's kind of you." She decanted a potion that had thus far refused to behave with any of the alternate media. The miscibility of therapeutic brews was a very useful distraction from her desire to smack him over the head with a cauldron. She made conversation because telling him to fuck off would cause offence. "Do you have a residence in Britain?"
"My house has been given back to me." There was dryness in his remark enough for her to flick a glance at him. He looked almost soulful. Very Uncle Vanya. She might have sympathised if the scar she didn't have didn't ache. "The Ministry did not mind it well."
"They even manage to half-arse neglect." Hermione agreed. Rosier Hall was almost a thousand years old; seven years in the Ministry's hands and it was looking its age. "I've hired someone from Gringotts to fix the worst of the damage. I expect as a Curse-Breaker, you'd prefer to put everything to rights personally."
"I have no trust for goblins." Dolohov said heavily, his disdain contorting his mouth, showing deep cut lines not visible when he was expressionless. Life, or rather his choices, had not been kind to him. "I would, yes, work myself." He held up his hands, calloused on forefinger and thumb from wandwork with the writer's bump on his middle finger, to show willing. "I am not an idle man."
"You're too thin." She said, keeping to her role as medic because maybe, maybe it was the safest path. "A little idleness would give you a chance to regain condition. How are you eating?"
He smiled at her. Actually a smile, directly at her. The sight was surreal. If she could show Granger this memory, she wouldn't believe it. There wasn't a spectacular transformation or a glimpse into some soft centre of his being. Dolohov looked less vulpine, less predatory but only marginally. He did seem to appreciate her attention, though.
For Yule, he gave her a specimen of Scylla's Waterwheel, an aquatic carnivorous plant, within an enchanted sphere of water. The delicate thing bobbed and twisted, its finial spikes twitching hungrily. While they were having preprandial drinks in the Malfoys' drawing room, Rookwood showed off by feeding the plant conjured insects, chuckling as they were devoured.
Hermione could just about put up with Dolohov courting her. He didn't try to touch her. He and Yaxley brought her things and chatted, wanting to show her how respectable they were. She outranked them. That mattered to them. She was someone valuable; young and healthy and pure and clever. To Rookwood, she was something.
His gaze was sticky. His eyes followed her around the room, seemingly through walls even when she slipped away in the company of her grandmother. This Yule was more ostentatious, the peacocking blatant. Riddle was certain he was going to win. He compelled the Malfoys to drag out every bauble and rite. He wanted the old ways; all the ancient rituals to compensate for the desolation of his childhood.
It would've been terribly sad if it hadn't been terrifying.
Hermione clutched a crystal goblet of ominously red punch, the cinnamon didn't hide the iron under-taste, and timed her breathing. Inhale one two three, exhale one two three, pause. Repeat. Do not look at the body hanging from the chandelier. The Dark Lord hadn't bothered with a stag illusion this year.
Fenrir Greyback had brought in people, the remains of people, for a pyre on the west lawn. The stinking smoke seemed to chase you. Hermione hadn't liked to think of herself as retreating from the horror but she'd jumped at the chance to escort Siglinde inside when her grandmother began to wheeze. They were hold up in a fussy parlour with lace hanging like cobwebs, her pulling potions from her pockets and various poorly Death Eaters compliantly drinking them.
She could honour the memory of Jabez Moncrieff and poison the lot of them. She'd happily dose Rookwood just to stop him looking at her. But after Mulciber's recovery, she couldn't risk it. She'd have to ask Moppet to stop with the Carrows' toxic socks. A copy-cat case would point the finger directly at her. Hermione consciously relaxed her jaw before she ground her teeth to splinters.
The heirs were kept close though the Inner Circle still kept its secrets. After the feast, the younger witches and wizards were dismissed, encouraged to amuse themselves with frivolities in a ballroom bedecked with ivy and mistletoe. No one protested their ejection. They slunk away, some with poorly concealed purloined brandy, to loaf and fret while their elders plotted.
Hermione decided that if she actually had to live in Malfoy Manor, should Bellatrix get her matrimonial wish for Draco, she would rip the roof off for some fresh air in the house. Every room was cloying; the ballroom considerably more so once Parkinson started mixing flaming cocktails. The junior Death Eaters flaunted their Marks trying to chat up the witches. To avoid committing murder, Hermione grabbed Nott and opted to court hypothermia on the balcony.
"When this is all done, my Yule celebrations are going to be austere." Theo observed, rugging himself in his cloak to keep the heat of the Warming Charm against his skin. "I don't like parties."
"Sounds good." She agreed, gazing pensively over the snow shrouded garden. Hermione wanted to go back to Rosier Hall and bury herself in her work. She was running out of time.
They lapsed into quiet, standing close to enjoy each other's company with the excuse of the weather. They hadn't exactly snuck off together but there might be comments from some of the saner adults present, if only to have something other than the Dark Arts to contemplate. Nott took a deep breath, held it then exhaled, a meditative cigarette break without the cigarette.
"Has Rookwood asked you about Runes?" He whispered the unsweet nothings into her ear.
"He's commented on my research but I got the impression he was more interested in me than my work." Hermione replied after running through the erratic encounters she'd had with the former Unspeakable. He'd talked a lot to her breasts. She'd been uncomfortable enough not to have paid as much attention as she probably should. "What'd he want?"
"I don't know." Theo couldn't hide his grimace. "Augmentation, mostly." A noise from the ballroom caused him to hastily blank his face. Hermione twisted around to look through the French doors. It looked like some of the thugs were recreating a raid, savouring a graphic retelling.
"Muffliato." She flicked her wand to be sure of the casting. "Augmentation? What, in spell adjunct for duration?"
"Proximity." He shook his head marginally. "That's what puzzled me. It's a niche use. You only need to be so precise in fixing a ritual to a location. You work with the land, not pin something wherever. Unless you're trying to move a ley."
"Is he?" Hermione asked in a studiously neutral tone.
"I hope not." Nott breathed in slowly again, giving away how tightly he was holding himself. He was badly worried, she realised. "My family has the finest collection of Runic works in the British Isles. Rookwood's been visiting. Father can't forbid him access."
"Can your elves track what he's reading?" She had dipped her toes into the Nott collection. Centuries of scholarship had given the family an immense and eclectic library.
"He's warded himself against them." Theo said dourly. "Against fey in general, I believe. Probably a precaution against Dementors."
"Yaxley is researching too. Compulsion magic." Hermione considered the more coherent Death Eaters. "Is your father looking into anything?"
"He hasn't said so." Unspoken was the acknowledgement that keeping his heir from perdition was a priority for Tristan Nott. He had not offered Theo for Marking, excusing the delay with the old chestnut of his son finishing his schooling. "Your grandmother?"
"Blood magic." Her tone was as morose as his. "Though that may be more for me than the Dark Lord."
"Merlin, it's going to be messy." Nott groaned.
Messy was a gargantuan understatement. Over the Yule break, two prominent kinships had fled the country. One of the extended families had managed to get away, exploiting connections with the Spanish Ministry to obtain international Portkeys. They'd burned their homes with Fiendfyre to destroy anything that could be used for a magical trace, even their wands.
The other family had not been so implacable or so fortunate in their acquaintances. The patriarch had tried to bribe someone in the Department of Magical Transportation and had been denounced. Death Eaters had disappeared the whole lineage. It wasn't even in the papers. Hermione learned of it because one of their house elves had survived the attack to flee to Hogwarts.
Moppet found him and brought him to Cathal, able to convince the terrified youngster of her witch's benevolence solely because of her own wand. Anyone would would give a house elf a proper magic stick for spelling was not someone who valued adherence to Ministry decree. Even so, a first sense of her aura, the house elf began to sob abjectly.
"Darks magics!" He wailed, cowering behind a cauldron.
"Cathal mine is not bad witch, Ouphe." Moppet insisted, pulling him out into view and holding on. He was too exhausted to pop away but he was scared enough to go no-seeing and maybe never come back. "She'll help. We'll help. Rest still."
"I won't hurt you." Hermione soothed as she extended her left hand slowly; an offering not a threat. She couldn't and wouldn't claim him while he was in such a state but she could give him some of her magic to replenish himself. He hesitated an unflatteringly long time before timidly touching his fingertips to hers. Gradually the tears stopped.
"They's all gone." Ouphe said to the floor. "Can't feel anys of them."
"It's possible they're not dead." She had to be blunt in giving consolation. "With the wards around Azkaban, you may not be able to sense your bonds." Hermione looked to Moppet, who'd know better how elf magic worked. She shrugged hopelessly. Azkaban was as good as dead.
"Ouphe stays here, hides here with Moppet and Cathal." Moppet ordered. She received a desultory nod. "Ouphe doesn't bond to Hogwarts, not with Professor Nosey sort of Headmaster." Her ears twitched emphatically. "Cathal has magics enough to keep you." Another watery nod. She poked the little male with her wand. "Moppet says so."
"Moppet says." Ouphe agreed, wiping his face with his hands. Hermione hugged him and held him against her like a child as he shivered.
She couldn't actually do anything to alleviate the situation except sustain Ouphe until his family were released from Azkaban, assuming they were not in anonymous graves or werewolves' gullets or most stomach churningly the sacrifice at a Yule rite. Hermione had been to several, had shared libations, and the thought of having drunk... she put that memory far, far out of mind.
There were other things she had to sequester in her id; administering the Cruciatus during detention and casting Dark curses on her classmates during DADA. Cathal could no longer avoid overt use of the Unforgivable as since invoking blood magic on Amycus he was almost pathologically keen to see her do her worst. She suspected he got off on it, a consensus shared by Parkinson and Greengrass, who were happy enough to offer up Rosier to avoid the professor's attention themselves.
Malfoy was put on the spot too. Carrow enjoyed using the blond as a demonstration aid then compelling him to use the same curses on his fellows. Just as misery loves company, so does corruption. Amycus wanted them all as filthy as himself. The only restraint he showed was in not cursing Cathal personally, which did not go unnoticed.
"He's running mad." Zabini hissed, a monogrammed handkerchief pressed to a suppurating wound on his neck that refused to be healed magically. He would have leave it to drain naturally and tend it carefully to avoid a scar. They'd all seen the cicatrices left if the ulcer was scratched or abraded before it mended.
"I have noticed." Hermione snarked as she poured a mixture of aloe and nixie's tears over Nott's hands. His skin was already peeling away from his fingernails despite prompt medical attention. Carrow had insufficient control of the flaying charm but that didn't stop him from demonstrating it.
"What are you going to do about it?" The beautiful wizard demanded with none of his trademark suavity.
"Nothing." She snapped back. "Absolutely nothing."
"Nothing?" His expression smoothed into the flawless marble of his mother the Lamia.
"That's right." Hermione confirmed almost cheerfully. "Because unlike Harry 'Chosen One' Potter, I'm obliged to do fuck all."
"Vulgarity does not suit you, Rosier." Zabini reminded her of Oscar Wilde; all that wit and no ambition to be more than handsome.
"Nor ennui you." She grinned with all her teeth at him. This morning she had held down a fourteen year old while Madam Pomfrey reconstructed eight of his ribs. He couldn't be sedated because he was on the Calming Draught and she couldn't use Skele-Gro on so many fine bones as it risked calcifying his entire chest or infiltrating bone into his lungs. Immobilising a limb was easy enough, not so the thorax. The boy had tried hard to keep still but he'd been in too much pain.
"You're Head Girl. It's your duty to act as our advocate. Get the Headmaster to rein in Carrow." He ordered with all the arrogance of the spoiled princeling he was. Zabini bestowed his gaze upon Nott, whom he had long ago written off as too boring to contemplate. "You're Head Boy. Do something."
"We have been 'doing something' for months." Theo spoke in a measured tone, consciously keeping his hands relaxed. Cathal had given him something for the pain but he could only take so much before becoming addled. He needed to be aware enough to be careful. Montague had knocked himself out then degloved the delicate new skin from his fingers in his sleep. "All you've done is make potions for your personal use from Rosier's ingredients."
Zabini sneered as he left. That he was feeling the strain showed how bad it was, if Hermione had needed another demonstration. She wrapped Theo's hands in soaked gauze then put an Impervius Charm on the fabric. He smiled wryly.
"Appealing to his better nature doesn't seem to work." Nott held no sympathy for Zabini, who stood to lose little regardless of which side won. He could simply go overseas until people forgot his green tie or his fence-sitting then return in a few years to amuse himself among the socialites. He was high born enough he wouldn't be ostracised. "If it comes to violence, can we rely on him?"
"No. He'll run." Future experience made her sure. "Not the only person shoving to the front of the queue but he won't stay." Hermione grimaced, tidying up her first aid supplies. "We should put Hestia and Flora in charge of escorting the younger Years out of Hogwarts. They won't want to stay with their cousins off the chain."
"Bad business." Even in trusted company, Theo limited himself to a single bland observation on the murder of the twins' father. Amycus and Alecto had got their own back on Lycus for disowning them. "I'll drill the First and Second Years, and have a quiet word with the Thirds and Fourths. If anything gets into the Castle, we need everyone sure of what to do."
She couldn't tell Nott about the Final Battle. There was no sensible reason why Cathal would think Harry Potter would return to Hogwarts or that Riddle would confront him there. Instead, Hermione had raised the possibility of the Castle's wards failing due to the Dark Magic being thrown about inside. It wouldn't have to be a complete collapse to allow the creatures lurking in the Forbidden Forest to assail the school. Hence the need for an evacuation plan.
"Corwin's home is the closest. As the heir, he can call his family's house elves to Apparate the children away." There had been some debate about where to withdraw. Nott Manor and Rosier Hall had been suggested, giving Hermione the devil of a time trying to find an excuse to refuse going anywhere near a Death Eaters' home. She'd opted for proximity and pushed for it but the decision had yet to be finalised. "Quick and quiet."
"I'd like to think myself jumping at shadows." Theo lifted a hand to instinctively rub the weariness from his eyes then stopped himself at sight of the gauze. "Regrettably, though..."
"It'll get worse before it gets better." Hermione said, cast iron certain.
