Chapter. 3

WWMMD

What would Minerva Mcgongall do?

Hermione's notes: Do you ever think of us? I do. Everyday, i think about you, us and the people we used to be. I try not to. I don't tell Harry, but he probably knows anyhow.

Do you remember the time that Errol and Crookshanks had a row? My cat had tormented your poor owl for weeks, nipping at him, and trying to corner him. When Crook finally had corned him, he pulled feathers off until he bled. I thought you were going to be so mad at me. I thought you were going to stop being my friend. You had told me to watch Crookshanks, around the owlery. You told me he was after your owl. I didn't listen. I'm sorry. I know i told you this already. It took you a few hours but you forgave me, if you remember. You cracked a grin, and joked that i'd owe you one for the rest of my life.

Does it still apply? Do i still owe you one?

Because there are things you've done.

Things i don't think i can forgive. Even if i owed you one.

I really loved it when you smiled.

I don't think i ever told you that.

.

.

.

So here it is.

The second wizarding war.

Where people are no longer the people they once were.

Everyone has 2 selves. The version of them before war, and the one that came after.

In this war. Brother fights against brother. Betrayal comes often. It is impossible to know who to trust. And there is so much death.

It only took Voldemort 3 years to garner near complete control over the wizarding world, and muggle world alike.

That's right the muggles know about magic now.

Quite a nasty shock for them when they found out.

There was a summit called by Voldemort, once. It had been ensured that this summit was not intended for blood shed. It was a peace talk, they were told. Voldemort and the Order of the Phoenix had been at war in Britain for the better part of a very bloody year. Ron's defect to the Death eaters had already crippled the Order by this point. That wasn't to say the Order wasn't blowing back as hard as they could. For every Death eater killed, it seemed the Order would lose 2 soldiers. The stats on that weren't great, but it wasn't sustainable for either side. Not in the long run. If nothing else, Voldemort was a pragmatist. He could not maintain his pureblood ideals for a new world, if he continued to lose his loyal followers.

The summit had been a peace talk in Voldemort's eyes. But his offer wasn't of attrition, it wasn't any type of compromise that would satisfy the Order. No. He expected the complete surrender of the Order, and their army. All muggleborns, were ordered to be sterilized. Harry Potter was ordered to be turned over to Voldemort at once. High ranking Order members would be imprisoned, in Azkaban, for the term of life. If they refused his generous offer, he threatened they would live to regret it.

The Order turned it down flat. The summits conclusion ended with little fan fair, and surprisingly no bloodshed.

Hermione hadn't been allowed to go to the summit. Harry had been the only one their age to go. On their side at least.

After the Order rebuffed his offer, Voldemort seemed eager to come through on his threat. Whatever his reasons the next day he revealed to the muggle world their existence.

It was chaos. Death eaters began to openly hunt muggles in the streets. Striking down anyone who wasn't with them. It was devastating to watch, the muggles were unbearably helpless, a single death eater could destroy an entire town overnight. And they did frequently.

The only bright side was that muggles flooded their ranks, quickly after that. Excited by the prospect of defending themselves against this new threat they never knew existed, and had no understanding of. The Order's army grew. But against the power of a wand, a muggle was little more than a spell catcher. They were distractions for the Death eaters.

When Hermione finally got to ask him about it. Harry told her he had seen Ron at the summit. He told her he barely recognized him. Said he sat next to Fenrir Greyback during the proceedings, the werewolf had clapped Ron on the back with a smile. From where Harry sat it seemed like they shared a joke. Hermione didn't ask Harry about it ever again.

After what they had witnessed of Fenrir Greyback for themselves, back when they had been the golden trio, it made Hermione sick to her stomach to think of Ron being chummy with him.

Back in the present Hermione's life still currently hung in the balance, and she finds herself sick to her stomach yet again.

Ron hadn't answered her. He hadn't looked at her since she asked what was to become of her.

'What's going to happen to me?

Probably because the question was so obvious he didn't think it even warranted a response.

They would torture her. Heal her. Torture her. Heal her. Over and over. Until she broke. Until she told them everything she knew. Then they would kill her in some ungodly agonizing manner.

How would Minerva Mcgonagall conduct herself if she became a prisoner of war? Hermione began to wonder.

Hermione held no one in higher regard. She prayed silently that she hadn't been among those killed at the attack on base camp. They couldn't lose her now. Who would lead them?

Minerva Mcgongall is her teacher. Hermione her youngest, and most promising protege. She is the Order of the Phoenix's fearless leader, currently.

Ron searches his pockets, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He lights it with the tip of his wand. Pulls the cigarette to his lips, and takes a drag. It's smoky and the stench tarnishes the air around her.

If she wasn't magically bound to the chair, she'd like to smack his cigarette to the ground.

Hermione might have never said it out loud, but she thought of Professor Mcgonagall in the way she had her parents. It was funny though to Hermione she wasn't technically an orphan, but she felt like one. Neville, Harry and Hermione all had that in common she guessed. Even if you couldn't label them all orphans. There were no other parental figures in their lives during the war. There was only Professor Mcgonagall to fill the role.

The professor had taken them all under her wing at the start of the war, like frightened little fledglings and they had been. The way she interacted with them since then had changed of course. It had to. When the war first started the Professor hadn't been in charge of their military. It had still been Alastor Moody. Before he died.

Professor Mcgonagall could still treat them like her Little Gryffindors back then. Dote on them, soothe them with empty promises. Now though that she is the sole leader of their army. She is Commander Mcgonagall. She speaks only in clipped tones, hissing orders at them like a mad cat.

Harry told her he thought it was her way of distancing herself from them. If you kept someone at arms length, it might not hurt as bad when they died. Hermione agreed, that he was probably right.

It didn't matter that Commander Mcgongall treated them as military weapons now. Or that she didn't seem to have any kind or consoling words for them. She was doing what she could to keep them alive.

Hermione had fought with her own back right up against Commander Mcgonagalls in plenty of battles during the war. Keeping each other up, and protected. Facing down Death Eaters together, back to back in the middle of a battle was no small moment. It was a testament to their bond. To their loyalty.

Hermione trusted her implicitly.

Minerva Mcgongall was a person she would die for.

So how would Minerva Mcgonagall order her to proceed, now that she was captured?

The answer would depend on the one she asked.

She felt that the Professor would command her to fight to her last breath. To persevere, and endure whatever they did to her. If only for the small chance that she might someday escape her captors.

She felt that the Commander would remind her that the Order secrets she knew, could not risk being leaked. That it would be better for them to die with her, than tortured out of her. The commander would tell her, that she had played her part in the war, and her usefulness had run it's course.

Ron holds his cigarette between 2 fingers and takes another drag, slow, and smoldering. Only Ron could make the disgusting habit seem so alluring.

The younger Hermione clad in her school tights licks her lips hungrily. Hermione swats her back into the far recesses of her brain.

Hermione decides that the Commander was probably the one to listen to. Hermione couldn't bear to think of the amount of people who might die because she gave their names up. Or of the devastation it would cause the Order. If they tortured her, and got information out of her she'd die a traitor. But if she died before they got the chance to interrogate her, she'd die a martyr.

Hermione had made a selfish split second decision when she grappled with Malfoy on the stairs at base camp, earlier. She had desperately clung to the notion he might actually be helping her, she clung to hope that she could live on. That had been a mistake she should have forced his hand then, she should have made him kill her.

There is a series of palpable booms, somewhere distantly.

Cannon fire?

"Where are we?"

Another question goes unanswered.

Had the Death eaters attacked base camp, and laid siege to some far away place at the same time... Or were they still closer to the Order's base camp than she realized.

All she had served to do by taking the portkey Malfoy offered her was to revisit her most painful memories, and prolong her suffering on this earth by a few hours.

Ron summons a chair for himself. Lounging back in it he crosses one leg over the other. His cigarette is pinched between his fingers and he raises a hand, his thumb scratches at his temple. She isn't the only person here with a-lot of her mind. He seems as deep in his own thoughts as she is.

If the chance came again, Hermione would take it. She would rather die a martyr, than a traitor.

If Hermione wasn't stuck to her chair, her foot would be bouncing up and down. It's nerve racking sitting there with Ron Weasley in complete silence as he smokes a cigarette, like he hasn't a care in the world. Meanwhile Hermione's life is all but forfeit.

How could he remain so calm? Was he truly this unfeeling now?

Had he turned away from the light so much that there was nothing about Hermione's predicament that bothered him?

Was there even a sliver of something he still felt about her, in him? If not her, than his own family he at least, had to still feel something for, right?

In the war Hermione had been greatly effected when people she knew died, even the ones she barely knew.

"How's George?" She asks.

She hopes to see a glimmer of something. Some type of feeling that's left in him.

Any of the Weasley's who were still alive had followed Ron to the other side. It's part of why loosing him had been so devastating to the Order. Along with the Weasley's went their support, various contacts, and safe houses they had provided for the Order. As far as she knew only 4 Weasley's still lived, and only 3 of them were Weasley by blood. Ron, George, Percy, and Fleur. They were all that remained of their families pureblood legacy.

"Dead." His answer, devoid of any emotion that she could discern.

She can't stop her jaw from falling on the floor.

Occluding. Maybe. She thought, maybe earlier he had. She couldn't of been sure. Now she was much more certain. If he occludes... it probably meant he spent a great deal of his time in the presence of a Legilimens. Who she wondered?

He sees her still watching him.

Hermione decides to capitalize on it while she had his attention.

"I'm not asking you to send me back to the Order."

He scoffs.

"Is this the part where you beg me to help you? To spare your life?" He flicks ash into the air between them.

"Please. Don't let the Death eaters or Voldemort or whoever you sent the patronus to, take me. You know how much I know. If they get the information i have out of my head, the Order is done for. The war will be lost."

"Have you forgotten i switched sides?"

"No." She grinds out through clenched teeth. She could never forget. "I know you, Ron. You can't let this happen." She sounds a little hysterical even to herself.

"It's been 3 years. You don't know me."

"I don't care, if it's been 100 years. I will ALWAYS know you. You can't have turned entirely heartless. I don't accept that." She sighs. "Kill me. If you ever felt anything for me, before. Spare me from what they'll do to me. I am begging you, Ron."

His blank expression breaks momentarily, he seems surprised by her. He hadn't expected Hermione Granger to beg him for death.

"Where's your house courage, Hermione?"

He's schooled himself back into indifference.

"I think it left me around the same time you did." She tries to focus on her breathing.

He pulls another drag of his cigarette, like he might be considering granting her mercy. Then he turns his back to her. Like the first time he had, it guts her.

Their conversation is over, Ron will not speak to her for now. She must have bored him, or annoyed him.

They sit, both of them unmoving for a long while. Ron smokes another cigarette. More cannon blasts go off, intermittently. The sky turns from gray to nearly pitch black. Hermione doesn't know what they're waiting for, but it can't be anything good. She's tired, and trying to keep herself from falling asleep. The day has been long and taxing. She can't fall asleep here, it isn't safe.

All at once both of their heads snap up. To the sound of someone coming through the wards.

It's like someone dumped ice water on her face. She suddenly isn't tired.

With bated breath she watches, following Ron's eyeline. He discards his cigarette, stamping it out with his boot. He looks tense.

Is he unsure of who exactly is coming through the wards?

Ron pushes to stand from his chair. Then he's kneeling beside her. Wrapping a warm hand over her mouth. Wand in his other hand trained on the darkness in front of them. Prepared to strike. She can feel his breath hot on the side of her cheek.

Hermione hopes he can't hear her heart thundering against her chest, or her blood as it rushes to her ears, and other extremities.

"Shh." He whispers in her ear.

Hermione battles the sudden urge to gulp.

Then a single dark figure cuts through the perimeter, and the final ward glimmers around them. Or him, she assumes by his size.

A dark black cloak. Hood pulled over his head. Wand drawn. A Death Eater mask on his face.

From her vantage point she turns her face to watch Ron sideways. Recognition flashes on his face.

"What the hell took you?" Ron relaxes beside her, and takes his hand from her mouth.

"Got held up." That voice.

Author's note/ This chapter was heavily inspired by Lana Del Ray's- dark paradise. Also i recommend checking the story out on AO3. I am Catstclaire on there no periods. I post in the notes section there. Things that don't necessarily effect the story, but are good to know. The notes are Hermione's thoughts, and questions she has for Ron.