Snape's advice helped. After a couple days of misery and meditation, Hermione managed to recognize when she was feeling guilt, acknowledge it, and dismiss it as having served its function. It still felt awful, and she still felt the oppressive feeling like she was choking from time to time, guilt strangling her throat and voice, but having acknowledged her guilt and her culpability helped, in an odd way. It made it easier to recognize when and why she was feeling guilty, and it became easier to focus on the future and let the past go.
Determined to do better, Hermione made an honest effort at trying to figure out what would happen in the future if she carried out her biggest plan. The caveat here was she couldn't ask anyone who didn't either already know, or who was intelligent enough to put together why she had been asking in retrospect after the anticipated event occurred.
This resulted in an extremely limited list of people.
"The Dementors?" Lockhart asked, blinking. "What do you mean, Miss Granger?"
"We didn't always have them, did we?" Hermione repeated. "Only after the Dark wizard Ekrizdis died and they found his fortress. What happened to prisoners before then? Was there a prison? Who guarded it?"
Lockhart toyed with a quill thoughtfully.
"I know that there had been small, local prisons before the International Statue of Secrecy. There were problems with breakouts that attracted muggle attention, I recall," he said. "They originally planned on building a purposeful wizarding prison on some remote Hebridean island, but Minister Rowle instead insistied on using Azkaban after his election."
"And… people were just okay with it?" Hermione ventured. "With Dementors?"
"Well, no," Lockhart admitted. "But giving the Dementors a target to haunt dealt with that problem, and the zero percent breakout rate went a long way to convincing the public."
"But everyone there is insane," Hermione said. "If they weren't when they got there, they go mad fast."
"Been reading Eldritch Diggory's investigative reports, have you?" Lockhart said, grinning. Light seemed to glint off his perfect white teeth. "You're right – Minister Diggory was horrified by the conditions of the prison. He didn't have a way to deal with the Dementors, though, and he died of Dragon Pox before he could figure one out."
"What do you think would have happened?" Hermione asked. "If he had?"
"If he had figured out how to handle the dementors?" Lockhart mused. "Well, I imagine he'd have put in trained wizards as guards. There probably would be a more substantial break-out rate, I imagine – the dementors keep the current prisoners fairly drained of magic, as well as mad – so it probably wouldn't have been a popular decision." He gave her a sympathetic look. "History is very cruel, at times. The reality is that once prisoners are out of sight and mind, most people no longer care what happens to them."
Hermione sighed. "Thank you, sir."
Tom Riddle was even more unhelpful.
"They'll hire guards, won't they?" he said. "It seems obvious. It's not like they're going to just abandon the prisoners on an island to govern themselves." He paused. "Though – it would be quite funny if they did. I wonder what sort of twisted government they'd come up with."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Magical Australia?"
Tom snickered. "Maybe."
Hermione went to her friends last. Though she very much didn't want anyone in her coven to know about her plans so they would be protected in the event there were unexpected legal repercussions from her actions, Hermione suspected at least one of her coven had figured out her plans.
Or, at least, knew what she planned to do.
"What would happen to Azkaban without the dementors?" Luna said, blinking. "You mean after your plans on Midsummer?"
"This is a hypothetical situation," Hermione hissed, eyes darting around in alarm. "I am just curious."
"Of course." Luna hummed. "Well, the question isn't really 'what would happen to Azkaban', is it?"
Hermione blinked. "It isn't?"
"I doubt it. A prison is a prison, after all – if there are no old guards, you just find new guards to guard it." Luna's eyes were a very clear blue, unclouded. "People won't care about that as much as they will about what happened to the dementors."
"They'll care about the dementors?" Hermione repeated, astonished. "Luna, everyone hates dementors—"
"Yes, of course," Luna cut her off. "But think, Hermione – if the Minister suddenly wakes up one morning to news of all the Dementors just being gone, what's he going to think?"
Hermione paused. "Err—he's going to want to know what happened, I guess?"
"And if he goes to Azkaban and finds evidence of someone powerful destroying them all – one person – people are going to get scared," Luna said. "They'll suspect Voldemort, I imagine – who else would have a motive to lessen security at the prison where most of his followers are held?"
Hermione bit her lip. "That... that's valid."
"If people think Voldemort's returned to power, you'll have mass hysteria," Luna said, playing with her hair. "Scared people are stupid people. That's a much larger issue to deal with than just 'who will guard the prison'."
Hermione blinked.
"That's… a really, really good point, Luna," Hermione admitted. "That's probably exactly what would happen."
"I know." Luna tilted her head. "So what are you going to do about it?"
"Explain to me why people blaming it on Voldemort would be a bad thing," Tom Riddle wanted to know. He was standing over Hermione, his hands on his hips as she practiced Fiendfyre in the Chamber of Secrets, the Elixir of Life carefully moved off into a large pipe and out of the way.
"It will cause panic and hysteria, which no one wants," Hermione said. She flicked her wand, and the rat made of hellfire disappeared. "They might cancel the World Cup? And overreacting to the wrong threat seems like a bad thing for the government to be doing."
"Good. Again," Tom instructed.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Malignis Fiendfyre."
A giant peacock of flame erupted from the end of her wand, fluttering and running around the Chamber, and Hermione held a tight leash of control on it, even as she managed to refocus and partially listen to Tom.
"—care what the government says or does," he was saying. "If you're really that worried, use that fear."
"Use it?" Hermione repeated. Her peacock morphed into a vulture of flame. "How?"
"Make sure you're seen."
Hermione flicked her wand, and the vulture disappeared in a large plume of smoke and fire as she whirled around to look at Tom, her eyes wide.
"Be seen?" she said incredulously. "Tom, the whole point is to not get caught—"
"I'm not saying get caught," Tom said patiently. "But it's not as if you intend on freeing the prisoners, is it? Some of them are bound to see you, and a few will be coherent enough to give witness statements."
Hermione's jaw dropped.
"And if they identify me?" she said. "Just—allow them to arrest me for wanton destruction—"
"You're not imagining this properly," Tom chided. "You're imagining a typical witness statement. Imagine it from the perspective of a crazy person."
Hermione shook her head, not getting it. Tom rolled his eyes and abruptly dropped to the ground. He ran his fingers through his hair several times, messing it up, and when he looked up at her, his eyes were unnaturally wide.
"It was like an angel of fire," he breathed rapturously. "She came and destroyed the demons, and she smiled at me as she passed, and it was as if I had seen the face of God—"
"What did she look like?" Hermione prompted, getting into the roleplay.
"Like an angel," Tom sighed dreamily. "Fire and power lit up her face, and her eyes burned into my soul."
"What color hair did she have?" Hermione insisted. "What color eyes?"
"It was dark except for the fire," Tom objected. "All I could see was the purifying fire and righteousness of her cause—"
Hermione snickered, dropping her character.
"Okay, I take your point. Still, it seems risky," she said, musing. She tapped her wand to her lips, thinking. "It would only take one prisoner to see me and remember enough to bring everything crashing down."
"Why would they betray you like that?" Tom asked. "To them, you are an angel, delivering them from evil and harm. They're in Azkaban – they're not there because they have experience in ratting people out. And they're not going to care that you're using Dark magic to do it."
"And when the Ministry gets reports of a woman destroying the dementors on her own?" Hermione asked cynically. "What then?"
Tom shrugged. "At least they won't be worrying about Voldemort?"
Hermione rolled her eyes, lifted her wand, and resolved to try again.
