She didn't greet Betha. She remembered the stupid, specific series of tapping Malfoy had done on the janitor's closet door, and repeated it. Bill came into the fake cafe some seconds after her.
"Mr Weasley." Betha sounded disgruntled but polite. Hermione didn't care. Bill's greeting barely registered, because when Hermione opened the door, there was no ladder. Just brooms, a mop, and a bucket filled with questionably brown liquid.
"We change it," Bill said from beside her. He pulled the door shut and then did a different sequence of taps.
"Is that morse code?" Hermione's mouth spoke without permission.
Bill's eyebrows creased faintly in the centre. "No?" He didn't know what morse code was.
He opened the door and the ladder was there. She peered up into the void, and without wasting more time, hauled herself up.
Her blood was boiling. Getting here had not given her enough time to cool off. But she was thinking straight.
The Order was bullshit. She wanted to know why.
Bill was following her, wisely keeping a distance, and not attempting to stop her. She could tell he was tired. She wondered if she might have traumatised him.
Ignoring the sudden silence as the office's occupants stared after her angry march, Hermione burst into Lupin's office without knocking.
"Remus-" The rest of her angry sentence disappeared in her throat. Kingsley sat in the chair with parchment and figurines spread in front of him across the desk. It looked a mess. Lupin was nowhere in sight.
Kinglsey was an intimidating man; even compared to Lupin, who was a literal werewolf, his presence was heavy, solid, and authoritarian. She shrank back, her bravado flickering.
Bill came in behind her.
"This isn't going to work," Bill said before anyone could break the silence following Hermione's outburst. She stumbled sideways to lean near the door frame as her strength wavered. Her adrenaline was tapering off, leaving her weak and pumped full of too much oxygen to think clearly beyond the blood rush.
"What happened?" Kingsley's voice boomed into the room, even though he spoke in a low, almost gentle, voice.
"She killed Greyback." Bill collapsed into the chair opposite Kinglsey. Kingsley went still, narrowed his eyes, and then surveyed Hermione.
"I didn't," Hermione finally mumbled, "That wasn't Greyback-"
"He was disguised!" Bill said through a clenched jaw. Hermione winced.
"If he was disguised, how do we know it was Greyback for certain?" Hermione looked between the two men. They had no immediate answer, which made Hermione grin.
"He-" Bill coughed, "He hunts children."
"You let him hunt children?" Hermione stared between them.
"No!" Bill was flustered. "No, just– Greyback is the only werewolf we know with the habit. We've never caught him doing it, though." Hermione's eyes widened. Bill was mortified. "We would stop him, Hermione. Merlin! We're not monsters."
"So, this is based on habits?" Hermione nodded slowly. "Right. But, has anyone seen him transform into the top hat-wearing git?"
"Once, maybe." Bill looked at Kingsley.
"Once ?" Hermione would comb her hand through her hair, just to have a firm grasp of something, but it was too curly. She laughed instead, exhaling through her nose in short bursts, which helped calm her. "I hurt him. He'll live if they know the countercurse."
She thought she was ready to kill people. Except, her stomach was twisting and turning as it dawned on her: the man in the ridiculous top hat could die. Greyback or not, that man would die. Was it Snape who knew the countercurse? Why did it feel like she dreamt it?
"If they know the countercurse?" Kingsley demanded. Then he shook his head. "Doesn't matter anyway. That location has been compromised, we won't be getting any more information from the butcher shop."
Hermione laughed. So bright and sharp, it hurt her lungs. Bill raised his eyes to meet hers, and she didn't miss the way Kingsley glanced at Bill. She sobered. She needed to be careful. She was as yet unaware of who headed the Order- who made the choices; but she knew if she continued, she'd be thrown back to Malfoy without question. Or worse, banished.
Deemed worthless.
"What Bill was doing?" Hermione needed to lower her voice an octave. She sounded too undisciplined. "You wouldn't have found anything."
"How did you gather that?" Bill interrupted, a little huffy. Kingsley made a click with his tongue. Hermione waited, but Kinglsey said nothing to silence her. She contemplated Bill before continuing.
"The butcher was sending the meat to another location, not to Vold- He-who-must-not-be-named." Hermione said patiently. Like she was explaining to Harry and Ron. They're useless, Malfoy's voice echoed in his head. She cracked a smile.
"So you're saying we were looking at a dead end?" Something about Kingsley made Hermione feel uneasy.
"Where's Lupin?" Hermione glanced around, as though Lupin would materialise once she said his name.
Kingsley and Bill glanced at each other again. Frustration inflated her diaphragm.
"Where is Lupin?" Hermione took a step further into the room now, away from the safety of the doorframe. She didn't mean it to look threatening, but intimidation may be her way forward, a way to get answers. "Or Professor Moody?"
She wished Malfoy was here, because maybe he did read minds, and maybe he would tell her if she asked. In a blinding second, it hit her that Malfoy probably already knew the answers.
The infirmary. She just needed a portkey back to him. If they didn't cooperate with her.
Kingsley leaned back into his chair. Bill and Hermione looked at him: Bill with an expression of uncertainty, and Hermione with one of determination.
"Remus is with his son and wife." Kingsley didn't blink. Hermione still felt uneasy.
"He's married?" Hermione blinked her thoughts into a coherent string. "And he has a baby?"
Kinglsey and Bill exchanged glances. Again.
"Would you stop doing that?" Hermione inhaled to calm herself. She was going back into shrill territory. She watched enough movies with her parents to know that the more dramatic a woman became, the less likely anyone would take them seriously, and the more likely they'd be tossed into an asylum.
She conjured a chair and yanked it up to the desk, so they all sat in a triangle. All of them were on even footing.
The chair rocked a little with one too-short leg, which annoyed her. At least it was comfortable.
"I know I have lost my memories." Hermione flattened her palm to the desk's surface to ground herself. "In my mind, I'm still seventeen. I know about Bill's wedding. Other pieces come back to me. Some are lost."
"Hermione-" Kingsley raised a hand to stop her, but she responded with a glare. He lowered his palm to his lap where he left it. Bill was watching her, too.
"I am very good at whatever it is we trained for. I have muscle memory," Hermione heard the words in Malfoy's voice, a little snobbish and proud, "and it would be a shame not to put me back in the field."
"You're a liability-" Bill began, but Kingsley silenced him with a look. Bill shifted and exhaled in not quite a sigh, nor a huff.
"I am only a liability because no one is filling me in. What are you hiding?" Hermione looked between the two men. To their credit, they didn't look phased. "What is the Order hiding?"
"Hermione," Kingsley started tiredly, "you can stay with Bill." Bill groaned. Kingsley didn't seem bothered. "I'll have better orders distributed. And Hermione, you will be briefed more thoroughly going in."
"I don't want that," Hermione shook her head, "I want answers. I want you to tell me why, after three years, we don't have numbers, we're shutting down, and poor choices are being made ever since I had my miscar-"
The word stopped her. It was like she had inhaled water while floating on her back, and she was suddenly aware that she had drifted far from land. All she had been looking at was the sky.
Hermione looked for land.
"Put me in the field, with or without Bill," she finished. Her throat was tight, but she sounded firm. "But you are underutilising me."
"What would you do differently?" Kingsley asked quickly. He was stroking his chin as his mind whirred. She could see his eyes lose focus for a second like he was considering something. This was a chance.
"Example. The butcher is a good start. But isn't it odd? He's buying meat with Knuts and Sickles. Not Galleons. Not even muggle money." Kingsley contemplated her words. He gave a twitch of his fingers to encourage her to continue. Her toes found purchase and she was going to run.
"We're starving? Right?" Hermione looked at the two men, her own stomach empty, even now. "The Order is starving. But so are they." Kingsley was connecting her dots too slowly.
"We can target where they get their food. And my guess is, he's getting all that meat for himself and his inner circle. Maybe not even them." She wondered who would even know anything to confirm. They had no one on the inside. No Green Blood, no Death Eater to send behind enemy lines.
"They have pureblood money, Hermione." Bill shook his head slightly, dismissing her.
"They're not spending all of it, are they? And they don't have Malfoy," Hermione rebutted. "Didn't his mother ask for asylum?"
"She's gone," Kinglsey answered, "And his father never showed."
"So, you had the opportunity to take Malfoy gold to fund the Order, and you let her go missing without investigating?" Hermione was trying to understand. Kingsley shifted, but his face gave nothing away.
"Okay, forget that then. Who is in charge of the Order?" Kingsley blinked in response. "Do we have a leader, or are we leaving everything up to Harry Potter? Who is currently gone for the foreseeable future, chasing bits of soul about the entirety of England."
"Moody is dead," Kingsley said so quietly, Hermione thought she misheard him.
"Professor Moody?" Hermione rocked back into her chair and it clicked against the floor. "How?"
"He was leading a recon. We don't know which Death Eater cast the spell, but it took about three of them to land a hit." Kingsley's body seemed to melt into his seat. "We have no leader. We didn't even get to recover his body."
"Professor Moody was the Order head?" Hermione felt whiplashed, "How long has he been dead?"
"Two weeks after the three of you destroyed the Horcrux." Kingsley was sounding more tired the longer they spoke.
"But it's been more than two weeks since then!" Hermione furrowed her brow. "Why hasn't there been a newly appointed leader?"
"We're restructuring because we're losing people." Kingsley leaned forward, and Hermione finally looked at the spread of paper. Letters and letters. All in different handwriting. The figurines were tokens and toys. Memorabilia.
"As in, they're dying?" Hermione needed that clarified. Kingsley shook his head.
"They're migrating away from England" Kinglsey touched a map, "To safety, for their families."
"But, they must know if Vol- He-who-must-not-be-named is successful, he'd hunt them down. He won't stop with just England." Hermione could feel the hopelessness coming from the men sitting beside her. In this room, in what was supposed to be the headquarters for the Order.
The leading resistance, and the wizarding world's best chance to overthrow a tyrant.
"We're starving." Kingsley held up one finger, "We lost our leader." A second finger, "People are leaving." His third finger joined the other two, "And Harry hasn't found any more Horcruxes." He held up four fingers and wiggled them.
"So what?" Hermione looked at them incredulously. "Harry's still out there looking!" Hermione rounded on Bill like, he had added to the negative points made. " You can be our leader, or Lupin, or McGonagall, or anyone ." Hermione gestured at nothing with flourish.
"So what if people are leaving?" Her voice was beginning to rise. "We can find more, we can rally." She thought for a second. "And even if we don't have the numbers, we have the talent and the fight. We should train. We need to fight smarter."
Bill's back had straightened as she spoke. Kingsley was leaning toward her, listening to her words without an ounce of dismissal.
Her toes dug in. She was sprinting.
"We need to organise hunting parties. If funds won't help us pay for food, we need to source it. We're fucking wizards; we use magic. We can bloody well feed ourselves." Hermione found that the most irritating point. Her stomach would agree.
"Is this what you want to do?" Kingsley's head tilted slightly. "You want to run HQ? Operations?"
"No one would listen to me." Hermione laughed. She circled her temple with a finger. "I've lost my mind, remember?"
Bill looked bashful. Hermione was satisfied with his reaction.
"Call an election within the Order. Place a leader. I'll work with whoever would have me, but otherwise, let me do my own thing." Hermione knew it was pushing her luck.
Working with someone, allowed that someone to keep an eye on her. Working alone, allowed her to go rogue. And the double-edged sword of showing her worth was that they would want her on a leash, so they could have her do the work where they were lacking.
"You'll stay with Bill and Fleur," Kingsley said, with a tone of finality that dissuaded her from pursuing it. That was fine. She needed to see what other holes they had, and how to improve them.
The Order had become disordered. And putting all that hope on Harry's shoulders was possibly the worst thing they could do. He would get himself killed saving them.
Hermione wanted to get her hands dirty.
She didn't have a death wish. But if she died, at least there was someone waiting for her on the other side.