Chapter 15: Hermione

Best Efforts

"Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt." ― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Earlier that evening—
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Hogsmeade Village

Hermione apparated to the outskirts of Hogsmeade, landing on a dirt road leading in the distance to a wooden signboard proclaiming Welcome to Hogsmeade Village.

As soon as Hermione materialized, she crouched and aimed her wand with her right hand in preparation and pulled a silver knife with her left. But all was quiet around her. In the distance by the signboard, a group of cloaked figures was gathered together, and she could also hear various pops of apparition.

Across the road, Katie Bell materialized. The two witches met eyes, and Hermione nodded in acknowledgment. Like her, Katie was a reserve Auror, leaving the Auror core several years ago to work at the Improper Use of Magic Office. They angled toward one another and headed down the center of the road toward the action.

"Hello Hermione, nice night for…whatever this is," Katie said pleasantly. The witch always seemed at ease, perpetually calm no matter the situation—even when explosive rune stones had set upon her office.

Hermione, by contrast, felt like a ball of tension ready to break.

Hermione returned Katie's greeting, and they arrived at their destination in moments. As they approached the signboard, Hermione recognized Harry's voice shouting, and soon enough, she found him and a group of around a dozen Aurors, trainees, and reserves.

In the distance, Hermione noticed the rooftops of the village alit by spell-fire. A piercing howl echoed through the night air, and Hermione's stomach dropped.

"Everyone grab a silver weapon from Galway! But also remember, we want to capture first. Lethal attacks are a last resort," Harry's voice was booming. "Smith, Jones, Finlay—apparate to the Shrieking Shack and walk west toward the main road. Make sure the forest is clear, and then cast the strongest wards you can manage. We want this contained. Jones and Starling—I need you to set up triage down the road in case we need to evacuate civilians or the injured."

Harry was in his element. He had shed his outer cloak and had his white shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, Auror's badge gleaming at his belt, wand in hand, and everyone was rapt with attention.

A silver gazelle whizzed in front of the group from down the road, and a breathless voice emerged from its mouth, "Zonko's S.O.S.," before the animal quickly vanished.

Harry looked around, noting the presence of Katie, Hermione, and a couple of others nearby. He nodded, "Danvers—take Bell. Wang needs reinforcements at Zonko's. Go!"

A tall man in Auror's robes motioned toward Katie, who nudged Hermione with her elbow and then took off.

Before Harry could give another order, the familiar sight of a silver toad floated beside Harry, and Neville's frantic voice rang out. "Harry, three wolves just entered Hogwarts grounds from the Forbidden Forest. Maybe more. Hagrid heading toward the gates."

A moment of silence, and then Harry hissed, "Shit!" He looked around, taking stock of those that remained.

Only a few were left. Hermione, two wide-eyed junior Aurors, another reserve whom she did not recognize, Harry, and Galway, who was fumbling with a small satchel of silver weapons. Immediately, Hermione knew something was wrong. There should have been more people. Dozens more.

Harry nodded to himself. "Alright." He turned to Galway, "Galway, I need you to stay here. Anyone else who arrives, send them to do a perimeter, ten meters out into the forest, clockwise around the village from here. Pairs only. No one goes alone." He faced the rest of the group. "Everyone else, grab some silver. We will apparate to the Hogwarts gates. Hermione, you should come with me. We'll try to assess the situation at the school. Lacey, Poole, Barnes, you three will clear the main path from the gates toward the village."

Everyone sprang into motion. Galway handed out silver-plated daggers and darts to the remaining Aurors, and Hermione approached Harry. He was still wearing the trousers of his embroidered dress robes but had shed the jacket portion and had his shirtsleeves rolled up. A silver dagger and collection of darts hung on his belt. She asked in a low tone, "Where is everyone?"

"Everywhere," Harry replied, looking severe. "Werewolf sightings in magical villages near Norwich, Edinburgh, Brighton, here." He ran his hand through his hair, "Now Hogwarts. Robards tried to call equal numbers to all the fronts. This is all we have."

After a rendezvous with Hagrid at the school gates, Harry and Hermione began to sweep across the grounds with a tentative plan to move from the gates to the Black Lake, up toward the greenhouses, and then around the rear of the castle to Hagrid's hut, where the gamekeeper had been the first to spot the creatures.

The two made a good team, but if they encountered even one werewolf, Hermione was not confident in their ability to capture it. The best they could hope was to drive it away from the castle and, in the worst case, to use lethal force. She clutched her largest silver knife at her hip and scanned around with wand outstretched. She also took much comfort in the fact that Headmistress McGonagall personally sealed the windows and entryways of the castle.

The grounds were quiet. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Hermione was struck by the thought that had it not been for last month's attack in France, the hillside would be covered in twinkling lights, dancers, food stalls, and music.

"Do you have an emergency portkey?" Harry asked as they traversed a steep slope leading down to the lakeshore. "I should have asked earlier."

"Yes," Hermione replied, twirling quickly to her left to face what turned out to be a wayward leaf in the wind.

"Good," he nodded. "Make sure you use it if we get cornered."

Hermione contemplated her friend from the side of her eye and inquired, "Do you have an emergency portkey?"

Harry did not immediately reply, though Hermione knew he had heard.

"Harry," she admonished, quickly readjusting the parameters of her mission in mind. Harry was now more than her partner for this assignment. He was her responsibility for emergency evacuation.

"Hermione, I know what you're thinking. Don't worry about me. That's an order," he said in his most official voice. "I have the cloak in my pocket here, and I can always disappear."

"That cloak won't hide you from a werewolf at a full moon, Harry, and you know it." Hermione briefly recalled Fenrir Greyback's harsh inhale but banished the memory away. She needed to focus.

Harry left her statement unanswered, and they soon reached the edge of the Black Lake. A perfect image of the full moon reflected off the still surface like a mirror.

They paused, and Harry cast several detection spells around them. No large humans or creatures were nearby. They continued to move along the shore toward the Forbidden Forest. In the distance, the white surface of Dumbledore's tomb looked aglow in the moonlight.

A human scream and then a ringing howl pierced the air.

Harry and Hermione ran together toward the sounds emanating from the castle's direction. Harry was taller, stronger, and faster than Hermione, who was still wearing her cushioned dress shoes—not ideal for traversing dirt and grass. He quickly outpaced her, and Hermione lost sight of him as he crested a bluff on the steep slope.

Cursing, Hermione shucked off her shoes altogether and ran in earnest after Harry.

At the top of the hill, the Hogwarts Greenhouses and the southeastern wall of the castle came into view. Hermione spotted Harry ducked behind the edge of the nearest glass structure. When she caught up to him, she perceived the sound of voices, and the situation revealed itself to be more dire than she had feared.

Three students in school-issue cloaks were cowering in the space between Greenhouses One and Two, and beyond them, three wolves approached in a crouch. Hermione arrived in time to see Harry run in front of the students, one of whom yelped in surprise and shielded them with his body.

"Hermione, get them out of here," Harry said, unnaturally calm. He had his wand trained on the wolves and a silver dagger in his secondary hand.

Now close enough to observe the wolves, Hermione made a rapid assessment. These were undoubtedly werewolves and not mundane wolves. Their muzzles were short in proportion to their heads, and their fur was so close to their bodies that bulges of muscle and the wiry, man-like silhouette of their bodies were evident. Hermione recalled the night long ago when she and Harry came this close to Remus in wolf form, and the surge of fear that tickled up her spine rendered her fourteen again for the briefest moment.

Hermione cursed and called out urgently. "You three, come here! To me!"

Three terrified faces whipped to her, and then one of the wolves facing Harry snarled and lunged.

Harry had always retained his seeker's reflexes. The force of his advanced shield charm was enough to stop the wolf and propel him backward. The students did not hesitate after that and scrambled toward Hermione.

They were older than she had originally guessed, perhaps fourth years, two girls and a boy. The boy had curly, sandy brown hair and huge brown eyes and looked to be the shortest and most scared of the group. The girls were around Hermione's height. One had her long blonde hair in a plait down her back, and the other cropped dark hair around her shoulders. All three had the familiar Gryffindor crest on the breasts of their cloaks.

Hermione had already decided to send the students away with her emergency portkey and help Harry when she heard harsh, ragged breathing coming from behind them.

Another wolf with black fur and yellow eyes glared menacingly. He approached slowly from the direction Harry and Hermione had come from. Now, they and the students were trapped in the narrow aisle between Greenhouses One and Two.

"Hermione, leave," Harry called during a pause in the barrage of hexes he was throwing at the three wolves to stop them from advancing more.

"Another one over here, Harry," Hermione called back, her voice surprisingly even for how jittery she felt.

Harry cursed, yelled an impediment jinx with enough force to stop a moving train, and glanced back at them. "Portkey!"

But there wasn't enough time for that, even if Hermione thought that was the best idea, because, at that moment, the black wolf growled and leaped, fangs bared at Hermione's throat.

"Flipendo!" Hermione yelled ferociously, knocking back the wolf midair. She did not wait to see where it landed. As soon as the incantation passed her lips, she hissed to the students beside her, "Wands out! Do you know shield charms?"

Hermione could only assume they nodded because, at the corner of her eye, she noticed Harry dodge a swipe from a tawny-furred wolf. She switched her wand and knife, moving the blade to her dominant hand, and, pushing the dark-haired girl out of the way, flung the knife with practiced ease at the wolf.

She missed. Or rather, the wolf crouched in a pouncing pose at the last second, and Hermione's blade only grazed the wolf's hind leg. It was enough to cause the creature to yell in pain but not incapacitate it.

Whipping back around, Hermione took stock of the black wolf again. It had just picked itself off the ground and focused again on Hermione and the students. Hermione could hear Harry's furious spell-fire behind her. The boy whimpered.

"Shields now, all sides," Hermione commanded as she took three purposeful strides toward the black wolf to give the students room. She heard a chorus of Protegos.

Hermione shot a stunner at the wolf and quickly followed up with a slicing hex and a burning hex, aiming for the wolf's eyes, but she growled in frustration when the spells rebounded slightly off the wolf's flank instead of hitting true. Werewolf coats were resistant to magic, and she would need to be close enough to reach a vulnerable spot.

At that point, Hermione realized something was wrong with this pack and how they acted. They were not responding to rabid instinct, eagerly taking every opportunity to sink their teeth into human flesh. They were in control. They were coordinated, and Hermione suspected that meant these werewolves had been dosed heavily with Wolfsbane.

Hermione wished she had time to contemplate what that meant, but she knew the most urgent task was to get the black wolf out of commission and keep it away from the students so that she could turn around and help Harry.

The wolf snarled and quickly jumped toward Hermione, swiping its claws. Hermione stepped successively backward, out of reach, and the thought struck her that a full-grown werewolf at a full moon should be faster. Perhaps it was Hermione's stamina that was better than she previously assumed, but not even her regular dueling practice kept her in good enough shape to take on a creature of this size.

She shot conjured ropes out of her wand, and though they did not take hold of the black wolf's body, they did get tangled in its legs. Hermione took the momentary opportunity to look behind her, and she gasped at the sight of the blonde student being levitated in the air by her classmates and finding purchase on the roof of Greenhouse One. Harry hurled a series of silver darts fiercely at the three wolves he was facing.

"Wingardium Leviosa," Hermione intoned firmly, and the other two students floated in the air to join their friend on the greenhouse's roof. She had to admit it was a better vantage point for safety than the ground.

The black wolf, free from the ropes, let out a low growl, and Hermione waited for it to take a pouncing position to attack again. When the wolf jumped toward her, Hermione swung her wand from the ground to the sky and shouted an incantation she had been eager to use since first learning it.

Hermione always had a knack for fire.

A wall of blue flame erupted from the ground and pierced the air. The black wolf, mid-pounce, hit the wall head-first and let out a sound of agony as it fell to the ground next to Hermione. It did not get up immediately, writhing on the floor in pain. Patches of fur smoldered, and an acrid stench filled the air.

"Incarcerous." Hermione's ropes finally appended around the whimpering wolf's body.

She muttered a counter-spell, and the wall of flame dissipated, leaving behind a line of scorched earth.

"Bloody brilliant!" The curly-haired boy's voice shouted from the rooftop above, and Hermione was pleased to see that all the students were unharmed. "Shut it and help," the dark-haired witch hissed at him, and Hermione could not pause to see what exactly they were trying to do because she heard Harry grunt. Turning to face the opposite direction, Hermione was horrified to see that Harry was surrounded, backed up against the wall of Greenhouse Two, panting. The three wolves had finally achieved gouging distance.

Hermione spotted a rock lying in the grass and did the first thing that came to mind.

"Engorgio." The rock enlarged to ten times its original size. It could now engulf Hermione's torso. "Wingardium Leviosa." The rock—boulder, now—levitated to eye level. Hermione spat out the last spell with all the force she could muster. "Depulso Maxima!"

The boulder shot forward, and it was with relief that Hermione's aim was true. It barreled into two of the werewolves, flinging them into the nearby wall of the castle. The shock of the projectile allowed Harry to take his silver dagger and stab it into the side of the tawny wolf, whom the rock had not hit. The wolf yelped in pain and fled down the aisle toward its pack-mates, who were feebly stirring on the ground.

"Now!" A shrill voice declared from above, and then a barrage ensued.

The three students had apparently accessed a rooftop latch to Greenhouse One, and they were currently pelting the three wolves Harry had been facing with small objects they had summoned from inside.

As soon as the first projectile hit, Hermione knew. She nearly gagged from the smell of stink-sap. The wolves Hermione had hit with the boulder were barking in outrage, having only just recovered from the hit. The tawny wolf sat off to the side, out of the line of fire, breathing heavily, eyes trained on Harry. Harry and Hermione made eye contact and turned to face the pack, preparing to bind them or drive them off for good.

In the distance, a low, resonating howl sounded through the night air. It echoed. It filled Hermione's head and almost vibrated with its power. The students were shocked and began pausing their throws. The three wolves stilled.

And then they fled. Despite their injuries, the wolves fled faster than Hermione could have predicted, disappearing behind the walls of Greenhouse Two and continuing on. The tawny wolf still had Harry's silver dagger in its side, and its gait was laundering and uneven—but it ran with vigor through the pain.

The students above feebly tried to halt the wolves' progress with more stink-sap pods, but they all missed. Harry and Hermione wasted no time running after the wolves, shouting a slew of binding and impediment charms, but it was useless. They were out of sight in moments, and the night was entirely still and silent again.

Hermione turned back to the aisle between the Greenhouses that had been their battleground and was shocked to see a pile of ropes on the ground instead of the burned, captured black werewolf.

"Bollocks, they're all gone!" Hermione cursed. "Harry, are you alright?" She turned back to him; he was breathing heavily and did not immediately reply.

"Expecto Patronum," Harry chanted, and his silver stag appeared. Neville," he began, "Drove off four wolves by the greenhouses. They seem to have fled into the Forbidden Forest." He sighed wearily, looking up at the three students standing still on the greenhouse roof. "There are three students here, all unharmed," he paused, "all unharmed, right?"

The students nodded enthusiastically, replying in the affirmative, and the brown-haired boy added, "Yes, sir, Harry Potter!"

Harry nodded, returned to his stag, and said, "All unharmed. Please come collect them." The stag cantered off, disappearing into the castle.

Hermione turned to the students and adopted her sternest expression. She took a few moments to conjure a sturdy ladder against the greenhouse wall, and the students started clambering down.

Hermione spoke, "We're going to let Professor Longbottom and the Headmistress deal with your punishment because wandering outside on the night of the full moon during an internationally imposed curfew is one of the less intelligent things a person can do."

"We didn't mean to be out so long!" The dark-haired girl protested when she reached the bottom last. "It was a horrible mistake."

"We only wanted to touch the tomb," the boy added glumly, and the blonde witch elbowed him sharply, muttering, "Shut up, Willy."

"Touch the tomb?" Hermione asked, eyebrow raised.

The boy remained silent and contrite, but the blonde girl eventually sighed and answered. "It is believed that if you touch the tomb of Albus Dumbledore on the night of the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, you will," she hesitated, looking down in shame, "get perfect grades during the end-of-year exams."

"We're taking NEWTs next month," the dark-haired witch added pathetically.

"I—" Hermione's head throbbed. She did not know how to respond and decided to say as much. "I don't even know what to say."

"Hey Hermione, come over here," Harry's voice came from around the corner, near the castle and beyond where Hermione's enlarged rock had broken apart.

Hermione huffed and said, "Stay here," to the students before walking to join him.

The dark-haired girl spoke to her friends as Hermione walked away. "I said it was a bad idea, Imogene. Now we'll get expelled for sure."

"Don't say that, Phoebe. Oh, Merlin, my mother is going to kill me." The boy.

"We won't get expelled! Oh, stop crying, Willy."

Hermione rolled her eyes, tuning out the students' voices as they continued to argue, and walked over to join Harry. He faced in her direction, looking down at a patch of grass.

When she reached him, he asked, "Is that what I think it is?" and pointed to the ground.

Upon a blade of grass, looking almost black in the moonlight, was a single drop of blood.

Hermione hissed in recognition and opened her beaded bag. She summoned a vial and some tongs. She used the tool to extract the wet blades of grass, secured them inside the glass vial, and closed it with a stopper.

"Good," Harry nodded, looking pale and tired, and when his eyes met hers, Hermione's stomach dropped at the pain she saw. Harry's voice was soft when he spoke again. "Now, tell me how bad it is."

He turned around, and Hermione gasped.

Harry's back was soaked in blood.

Two hours later—
St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

"And you bore witness to the attack?"

The healer's voice was businesslike and focused. It was so incongruous with the swirl of chaos erupting in Hermione's mind, her chest, and the very air she breathed that she did not immediately respond.

"Miss Granger?"

Hermione blinked, and the healer's green robes came into focus. She was short, maybe Hermione's mother's age, with brown hair tied back in a bun at the base of her neck. She looked exactly like a healer should. That was good.

"Yes," she replied, eventually. "I mean, I was there, but I did not witness Harry get…injured."

The healer began to jot notes down on a clipboard.

"Tell me," Hermione pleaded softly, interrupting the scratch of the healer's quill. "Is he—was it…" but she could not find the words.

The healer pursed her lips in sympathy. "There is a lot of tissue damage at the puncture site. We cannot determine whether they were caused by teeth, claws, or a combination."

"But that means," Hermione began, dazed, "we don't know whether he was bitten?"

"The wounds are responding well to treatment. It's impossible to know whether the disease has taken effect until the next lunar cycle."

One hour later—

She held vigil at Harry's bedside in near-darkness, only a candle illuminating the small room. The false window on the wall mirrored the real night sky, and Hermione could not bear to watch the moonlight awash on Harry's bandaged back as he slept when they didn't—couldn't—know if he would ever look at the moon as himself again.

When Ron walked in, Hermione let out a ragged breath. He was as dirty and disheveled as Hermione felt, but at least he was wearing shoes.

He knew before she could say. She saw it in his eyes, but he let her tell the story uninterrupted.

By the end, Ron's expression was grim but in a hopeful way that only Ron could pull off.

"No matter what, we'll be there. He's survived worse than this," Ron stated, and Hermione was too tired to discuss the injustice of it all—yet—and so she simply nodded.

"You both need to stop running about on the full moon without me," Ron said, attempting humor. And Hermione gave him a breathless chuckle at the memories of Buckbeak and Sirius and her Time Turner. But that got her thinking about how Harry had saved them all that night so long ago, and Hermione had failed to save Harry that evening. She fought back tears.

It turned out that Ron, also a reserve auror, had been dispatched to a magical suburb of Brighton, which was "a bloody mess" but "without much actual blood." He and a group had chased a pack of wolves out of a storefront they had been ravaging and down to the shoreline.

"It's like they didn't want to fight. It was weird," he mused. "Chased them all over, trying to slow them down, trying to stun them or corner them, anything, but all of a sudden, they were gone. We lost them around the water. One of them let out this big howl, and I swear, Mione, it's like they vanished into thin air."

"Our wolves didn't act right either," Hermione agreed warily. She rubbed her eyes into the palms of her hands. "Nothing makes sense."

"What are we going to do?"

As she watched the curve of Harry's spine rise and fall with his breath, Hermione was resolved. "We're going to help Harry. And then—I'm going to solve this."

Up Next: Draco learns another one of Theo's secrets.