Hermione Granger: Seeing the Big Picture

Hermione Granger

"Accio horcrux. Accio soul. Accio fragment of Tom Riddle."

Nothing. Well, she hadn't expected that to work. She wandered over to the nearest pile and poked at it. Maybe she could do a bit now… No. Once she started, she'd feel the need to work into the late evening, and then the others would come looking for her. And they couldn't know. It was far too dangerous for her to even know the word horcrux. One skilled legilimens was all it would take to reveal her darkest secret. But there'd been no one else to help Dumbledore, and then continue the search after he was gone. She wouldn't subject her friends to the same risk.

She was so close. It was in this room, somewhere. Dumbledore had told her that she could find the diadem, that she was brilliant and determined. But when it came to horcruxes, all she could think about was everything she wasn't. She couldn't think like Voldemort, couldn't imagine what would drive someone to do such terrible things. She wasn't patient enough, and wasn't bold the way Harry was. There were so many important qualities she didn't have. If someone were to say, accio the perfect horcrux hunter, she wouldn't fly through the air, either.

An idea began to form. Qualities I don't have. Slowly, she stood and looked at the ceiling. It arched far above her and the endless stacks.

"Accio nets," she said, adding a variation in the wand movement to allow for a more generalized spell. Three hair nets, seventeen pairs of fishnet stockings, and a sturdy fishing net flew at her from various points in the room.

Discarding the others, she focused on the fishing net, doubling its length and width again and again until she had to levitate it above her head to gauge its size. Eventually, it spanned a quarter of the room. She strengthened and duplicated it until a half dozen thickly lined nets were floating above her. Using a sticking charm, she attached them to various points on the ceiling, allowing for generous gaps on the side. The room now resembled a large cluttered tent, with the nets draped across the ceiling and drooping down.

"All right." She took a deep breath. "A diadem would be silver or gold. It most definitely would not be made of wood. Accio items made of wood!"

They came at her fast. Chairs and tables and cabinets, cricket bats and desks, wooden pull-toys and podiums. She redirected them as fast as they came, all up into a net above her. The net ballooned until it filled the space from top to bottom, everything creaking as it pressed together.

"That's one," she said. "Accio items made of paper."

And so it went, until the nets above were bulging with furniture, or books and letters, or jumpers and socks. That left enough space to clear one side of the room, where she sent anything made of granite, marble, and other types of common stone. She didn't want to risk all that weight in a net, even with sticking charms.

She walked among the remaining items, now taking up only a fraction of the space. Lots of bottles and glasses, as well as jewelry and bejeweled chalices. Would the diadem have glass in it? Seemed tacky to have glass jewelry in such an artefact, but she shouldn't risk it. There were other ways. "Accio bottles." They shot out and were levitated up to another net. "Accio drinking glasses." She carefully ducked out of the way as some broken glasses came at her, and sent them on their way. "Accio chalices." There, that was better. Still a sizable pile, but with a few days' work, maybe—

She stopped as a glittering blue gem caught her eye. "Oh. Oh!" She rushed forward, digging into a pile of necklaces and earrings. Her hand closed around something thicker and cold. Too cold for the temperature of the room, sending a chill down her back. She yanked it out.

The tiara had an oval sapphire set in the center. An inscription was etched into the silver: Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure.

"There you are," she whispered. "You beautiful, horrible thing."

Despite holding it tight in her hand, the diadem remained cold, chilling her skin. She slid it into the large pocket of her hoodie and prepared for a jump to the door, which was still flickering wildly. There was a moment when the light flashed and she thought she might discover where everything went when it wasn't in the Room. But then she landed at the door and exited at a run, happy to leave it behind.

The gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office had no ears to hear a password, as most of it had shattered into rubble long ago. The door gaped open, and the stairs remained stationary, their magic broken when the roof of the tower had been sheared off.

The drizzle had abated, but the wind scraped through cracks and above the jagged tops of the walls. Roof tile and masonry littered the floor, the grey sky pale against the rain-darkened walls. Owls from the owlery perched on the rim, heads buried in their puffed chests. One owlet crunched on a moth the size of her thumb. She touched Fawkes's old cage, rusted at the hinges.

Only a few fragments of wood indicated that book-filled shelves had once lined the walls. The pensieve had disappeared, either destroyed during the last battle here or pilfered afterwards. Protection charms cast on the headmaster's desk had helped it survive the elements. The ornate mahogany had mottled and discolored, but the wood hadn't rotted and the drawers still moved on their slides, if a little stiffly.

She opened a middle drawer and took out a butterscotch sweet in a cellophane wrapper. She replenished them regularly, and the desk seemed to keep out rats.

Returning to the doorway arch, she fed the sweet to one of the frogs sitting at its foot. The frog croaked happily and jumped from its perch. Underneath was an oval depression, just large enough for a hand. She pressed her palm to it and said, "I'd like to warm my feet by the fire."

The arch slid to the left, the stones creaking and groaning, until it found a bit of wall tall enough to fill it. The arch settled into place, and the wall inside it moved, the stones folding inwards until they revealed a new staircase heading down.

Hermione lit her wand and descended, sending bits of light to the hanging lamps on either side as she went. At the bottom of the steps, she peered into the gloom until she spotted the mantel's familiar shape. "Incendio."

The fireplace roared to life, melting away the darkness to reveal a cluttered sitting room. The walls were lined with bookshelves. A standing mirror, two floor lamps, and a water-stained cabinet leaned against them. A broken brass globe lay on the coffee table, and two velvet-covered armchairs flanked the fireplace. In one was an old woolen throw blanket. In the other, Crookshanks sprawled upside down, his tail twitching against the fire-blackened frame of a painting propped against the chair back.

"Crookshanks, there you are! How did you… Oh, never mind. I should stop being surprised at the places you get to." She sat on the edge of the chair and scratched his ears. "I'm lucky you're on our side."

He closed his eyes and submitted to her scritches, but only briefly. Soon, he'd shifted to his side and narrowed his eyes at the painting.

In delicate brushstrokes, a line of string dangled close to the bottom edge. It swayed gently, then twitched like a mouse's tail.

He reared up, mouth open and ears flattened, batting at it madly.

She smiled. "You've made a new friend. And he's choosy about his friends."

"I'd like to think he's a good judge of character." The portrait of Dumbledore twitched the string higher. Crookshanks fell back, legs windmilling. "I only wish I could pet him. There's a cat in a surviving portrait on the second floor I sometimes visit, but it's not the same. The poor thing has developed a nervous disposition and scratches up my robes." He held out his arm, revealing a sleeve with a cuff in tatters. He dropped his arm and smiled at her. "It's good to see you again, Hermione."

With the string out of view, Crookshanks settled down to groom himself, licking his paw thoroughly before scouring his head.

Hermione gathered him into her lap and shifted sideways onto the seat, resting her head on the ornately carved frame. "I'm sorry I haven't been by sooner." She rubbed the back of her fingers against a belly of silky fluff. "There was an attack on our base. Your house. It was destroyed, and a lot of people were captured. Neville, Oliver…" Her voice quavered, and she took a breath. "Remus. Sirius." She described the events leading up to their final stop in Hogsmeade. "I'm sorry about your house," she added.

"I'm not likely to use it again, am I?" Dumbledore settled into his chair. "And how are you?"

"I'm…" What could she say that wouldn't sound like whinging? There was something about talking to a deceased person that made one's own problems look rather trivial. "Wishing things were different."

"Things have not gone as we hoped," Dumbledore agreed. "I thought I'd made plans for every eventuality, but certain things were beyond my foresight."

She gave him a weak smile. "You didn't plan on coaching a hopeless bookworm on how to lead a resistance movement in a magical war?"

"Despite how things may look, you've done quite well, Hermione. Anyone would have struggled in your position. And you see into the heart of people. Millicent is proof enough of that. You think carefully about your options, but when you need to, you take action. Trust that you can make the difficult decisions."

She tried to take his words to heart, but it didn't feel like she was doing well at all. A tear slipped out, running down her face and dripping into Crookshanks's thick fur. "I miss Hogwarts. I miss you."

The year after the school shut down had been hard. But Dumbledore had taken her under his wing, giving her lessons in magic and books on memory spells, so she could send her parents away with no worries of their daughter. And later, as the war dragged on, he'd given her memories of Tom Riddle and the task that must be done before he could be defeated.

He never said so, but she knew such things had been meant for Harry, and that he hoped she would pass the information on to him when he returned. And then there had been the day when he'd clasped her by the hands and told her that they could no longer wait, that she must begin the search. She'd been so determined to find the horcruxes, so sure that they could end the war in a few months and return to school. That was over four years ago.

"I wish… " But she shook her head. She wanted to run to someone, to bury herself in their arms. But who? Ron, who would get all the wrong signals? Her parents, thousands of miles away, with no memory of their daughter? Millicent?

The thought of Millicent's face if she ever asked for such a thing made her smile despite herself.

"I haven't been afraid of death in a long time," the portrait said, "even when I was still alive. But I regret that I'm not alive to reassure you. I imagine such words from a portrait hold little weight."

"It's fine," Hermione insisted, although it pained her to see someone so like the wizard she knew, and yet not quite. He had knowledge and advice to share, but the warmth and reassurance she'd felt in the real Dumbledore's presence was gone. His wealth of experience felt more limited, as if Dumbledore had taken some secrets to his watery grave.

He'd been so strange the last time she'd seen him alive, before their attack on Azkaban. She'd wondered if Harry might be there, and he'd gotten such an odd look on his face. Then he'd gripped her tightly by the shoulders, telling her urgently not to mention Harry unless absolutely necessary. That had been easy enough, since her heart still ached whenever she thought of him. It was the simplest of the tasks Dumbledore had asked of her.

But it was the more difficult—the nearly impossible—task that had brought her here today. Enough of this sogginess. She took a breath and straightened. Crookshanks didn't care for the new angle of her lap and jumped down to sniff at a tarnished candelabra.

"I found it," she told the portrait, and she felt a thrill, a sense that she couldn't quite believe it. After all these years and all the dead ends.

Dumbledore leaned forwards within the frame as if he wanted to pop out of it. "You brought it here?"

Nodding, she first retrieved a small bag she'd stowed behind an armoire. "As far as I can tell, it's real." She pulled the jeweled diadem from her pocket. It was even colder now, freezing the small bits of moisture on her skin and sticking to her fingers as she pried it loose.

His eyes held a bright intensity. "You did it. A horcrux."

She laughed bitterly. "One horcrux in six years. I'll be old and grey by the time we finish."

He smiled and pulled at his beard. "There's nothing wrong with being old and grey."

She made no comment on that. Chances were, she wouldn't have the opportunity to be old and grey. There had to be a way to find the horcruxes faster. "You're sure there are six?"

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "I'm not sure of anything. I—that is to say, the real version of me—was still studying Tom Riddle and his obsession with immortality when… well, when I died. How ironic."

"I know you've suggested books to read and people to question, but everything is so scattered now, and with our limited resources—"

"One step at a time. Destroy this one first."

She nodded and set the diadem on the hearth. Opening her bag, she reached within, deeper and deeper, until her shoulder bumped against the opening. Thank goodness for undetectable extension charms.

It was as if the hilt found her outstretched hand, settling into her palm. She straightened, pulling out a long and gleaming blade. Fine lettering was etched below the hilt: Godric Gryffindor.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Dumbledore said.

It was more than beautiful to her. "I remember the day the sword came to me. It was after I was captured and stuck in that prison camp."

She'd been sent to a temporary prison camp in the middle of a peat bog in the Outer Hebrides, and she'd counted herself lucky. Her original destination had been Azkaban, but she was downgraded to a low-security camp. They dug peat every day to build more structures and reinforce the walls—exhausting, muddy work. Work that could have been done in minutes if any of the guards wanted to lift a wand. But the pointlessness was the point, she supposed.

It was a clear day at the end of a long shift, settling into evening. The rains had abated, although the wind never let up, a constant drone that numbed her ears. She did her best to ignore it. On her way to the kitchens for dinner duty, she took a moment to rest in a spot where two peat walls met, out of the sight of the watchtowers. Someone had dragged a long, rotted branch there. It was too long and heavy to lift completely, but she awkwardly angled one end upwards and braced herself against the wall. The narrower end of the branch broke off on a flat edge, and she raised her foot to scrape a layer of mud off her boot.

She tried not to look directly at the bright pink flannel of the women's prison uniforms, embroidered with kittens on the collar. While thankful to trade in her grey threadbare ones for the thicker flannel, she sometimes wondered if this new uniform was a very bad attempt at morale or a very good attempt at humiliation.

At least her hair was still too short for the mandatory pink ribbons. Her first day at the prison, a cheerful female guard had taken her mugshots: front and side, and then another guard had grabbed her by the hair and spelled her bald. It was as if all her hair let go at the root, and she tumbled to the floor, the guard above her squeezing every single strand in her fist. She'd dropped the curly mass into a bag with her other belongings, propped her back up, and the cheerful guard had snapped two more pictures. Hermione had stared into the camera, unblinking, the shocked tears still on her face.

After eleven months, it finally reached past her chin if she tugged it straight, although the harsh soaps in the communal showers hadn't done her any favors. It frizzed more with each wash and grew outward rather than downward.

She kept scraping, dragging out the precious little free time she had in a day. Footsteps approached from around the corner with a rapid squish-squish. They stopped when someone tripped over the other end of the branch and a pair of limbs collided with hers.

"Bugger." She clung to the stacked peat wall and stayed upright. The interloper wasn't so lucky. He sprawled face-first in the mud, sputtering and cursing.

He wore the much less revolting prison staff uniform in navy blue, but it took her a moment to place him with the layer of dark ooze he now sported. Then she laughed. "Malfoy. I must say, this new look suits you."

Draco Malfoy growled and tried to jump to his feet, only to slip-slide onto his arse a few times before he awkwardly scrambled upright. "You should show the proper respect to—" And then the light of recognition entered his eyes, and he laughed. "Oh ho. Granger?" He siphoned the mud off himself and promptly propelled it at her.

She had no wand and no defense, and the mud hit her with a cold smack, drenching the front of her prison uniform and spattering on her face.

He tilted his head and examined his handiwork. "That's better. Finally, your outside matches your inside."

She felt her face flush and hated that such digs still got to her. The prison guards were liberal with their insults and she could tune it out, but somehow it still hurt coming from someone she knew. Even if that someone was Malfoy. She lifted her chin. "Practicing a new comedy routine to entertain the troops? I thought your job was to follow Umbridge like a lost puppy."

She'd seen them many times at a distance over the last few months, the warden distinctive in her pastel suits, scurrying to and fro along the embankments in the high-security section. And Malfoy slouching after her, a permanent frown on his face.

"It's part of a rotation of apprenticeships," Malfoy snapped. "I haven't settled on a career." His mouth twitched. "You know how it is. So many fields are open to you when you've aced your NEWTs." He took a beat, watching her face as she fumed. "Ohhh." He drew out the sound as long as possible, an award-winning performance in dawning realization. "That's right. You didn't pass your NEWTs. Or your OWLs, for that matter. You're practically a magical illiterate."

"You might recall our new warden shutting the school down. 'For the safety of the children,' or some such nonsense."

"That's strange." Malfoy tapped his chin. "I received a personal invitation from the Ministry to sit my OWLs at their London offices, and with my top scores, I was admitted to Durmstrang. My parents arranged it all." He gave her a mocking pout. "Did your parents not know how to do that?"

She wanted to smack that pout off his face. "The London exams required the endorsement of a Ministry-approved tutor, and none of the tutors would return my owls, let alone vouch for me. I imagine life is easy when Daddy is greasing the wheels. Did he get you this job, too, or did you work you way up to being Umbridge's lackey?"

"There's nothing wrong with having Daddy—" he stopped short, his pale face flushing brightly. "What I mean is, my family is an integral part of wizarding society. It would be a disservice to not ensure the Malfoy heir his proper place in that society."

Hermione eyed him doubtfully. "Does Umbridge know about this? Because she seems to think your proper place in society is to fetch her tea."

"I'm very valuable, I'll have you know. Umbridge knows what would happen to her political support if I'm not treated with the proper respect. My father has a lot of people behind him."

She smiled at his choice of words. "Your father's not the only one."

It took Malfoy a few seconds to catch her meaning, and unfortunately for him, those were seconds he didn't have. Before he could spin around, he was surrounded by pink-clad arms dragging him backwards. Parvati and Padma held him still while Ginny grabbed his wand and tossed it to Hermione.

Hermione caught it. It had a nice balance. Hawthorne, if she wasn't mistaken. She held it up in offering. "Professor?"

Minerva McGonagall stepped out of the shadows. She'd traded her silvery bun for a long braid down her back. She'd been spared the hair removal, but the prison didn't allow hair pins. Somehow, she still gathered an aura of grace despite her limp and the atrocity of a uniform. "I don't imagine it would work for me." She gestured at her arms, currently covered in flannel but sporting tattooed runes underneath. Ones that prevented her from transfiguring into her animagus, as well as performing wandless magic.

Hermione was dismayed. In her head, she imagined this part of the plan would be led by the Professor. "But surely with a wand…"

McGonagall shook her head, but she smiled encouragingly. "Carry on, Miss Granger."

Padma hissed and pulled her hand away from Malfoy's mouth, shaking her hand. Droplets of blood fell to the ground. Malfoy had actually bitten her.

"Help!" he called loudly. "I'm being—"

Hermione shot off a silencing spell. Malfoy's mouth continued to move, but no one heard him.

They moved quickly but carefully after that, tying Malfoy's hands with several pink ribbons. They went into the first prisoner shelter, dragging him along.

The lone guard inside froze when he saw the group of prisoners coming at him. He didn't even manage a sound before Hermione stunned him. Lazy arrogance was his downfall. It was common in the guards, not expecting a group of half-educated muggle-born and half-blood girls to be a threat, to plan an escape, or to watch carefully when the guards performed unlocking spells in full view.

They shoved the guard inside one of the empty cells. Malfoy attempted to follow, but Hermione pulled him back. "Oh no," she said sweetly. "You won't have to sit in a cell with the rank and file. You're important enough to be our hostage."

They worked their way towards the low-security men's camp. When they found a guard alone, Hermione stunned him, and soon several of them had wands. Darkness was falling when they nearly collided with a group of muddy and haggard men.

A red-headed figure rushed forward. "You got out," Ron said. "I thought we were coming to rescue you."

"Whoever got out first, you said in your message. I hoped we'd trip up someone with a wand, and we did." She jerked her head at Malfoy, still mutely shouting something or other. Studying Ron in the fading light, she stopped short. She'd only glimpsed the male prisoners through the gates from a distance, but now… "What on earth are you wearing?"

Ron faced her in what could only be described as a sailor outfit. Not a sailor's uniform, but an outfit. The kind seen on a child, complete with a bright blue neckerchief and a jaunty white hat embroidered with an anchor. With his freckles and the unflattering bowl cut, he looked like an abnormally tall seven-year-old.

"Something I want to throw in a fireplace." He tugged at the hat. "It's spelled on. Can you believe it? I'd work on undoing it, but we've got other concerns."

They worked their way to the front gate, only encountering a lone guard here or there. And still no alarm. It worried Hermione. It was low-security, but it wasn't that low. The guards in the watchtowers must have seen them by now. "Doesn't this seem a little…"

"Too easy? Yeah." Ron peered around a corner and ducked back. "I think I know why."

She darted a glance at where he indicated. The area near the front gate had been designed to allow for no cover. They were at the last row of buildings, before thirty meters of flat ground. Inside the front gate, two rows of guards waited—nearly every guard in the low-security section. And in the center stood Dolores Umbridge, white-gloved hands folded neatly in front of her.

Hermione pulled Malfoy close. He smelled like soap and fancy shampoo. She briefly flashed on the suite of rooms he must have, while they were washing themselves in unheated showers. She gripped his collar tighter. "Time to make yourself useful."

The guards all aimed their wands when they emerged, until Umbridge spotted Malfoy, Hermione digging his own wand into his neck. Umbridge raised her hand, and the guards lowered their wands, but they didn't sheath them.

"Open the gates," Hermione called. "Or you can explain to Malfoy Senior what happened to his son on your watch."

"What a beastly little girl." Umbridge shook her head disapprovingly. "I should have taken the opportunity when I was headmistress and punished you properly. You might not have come to such a bad end."

Something about the sweetness in her voice chilled Hermione to the bone. She took a breath and continued. "Tell your guards to drop their wands."

"Hmm. No, I don't think I will."

As headmistress, Umbridge had treated the students much like the decorative kitten plates that adorned her office walls: something nonthreatening to be kept in the proper place. Hermione needed more leverage. Releasing the silencing spell on Malfoy, she hissed in his ear. "Convince her to let us go, or I'll seal your mouth. I've heard it takes months to undo that spell, and you won't like how they feed you in the meantime."

Malfoy nearly jumped out of his uniform. "Warden, let's be reasonable. They're not important prisoners. No one's going to miss them."

Umbridge tsked. "I can hardly let them go. How would that look?"

In his element now—touting his own importance—Malfoy relaxed a bit. "I'm sure my father can smooth that over. What you should really be thinking about is how it would look if I get hurt."

Umbridge pursed her lips. "Hmph! You haven't exactly been uplifting my career lately, have you? Perhaps your father isn't as influential as you think."

Paling, he wriggled in his bonds. "That's not my fault! That's…" He swallowed.

"If I hadn't listened to you, I'd still be in my nice ministry office!" Her face turned an ugly shade of pink. "This hasn't been a step up. It's been a step down. And it's your fault."

This wasn't going as planned. "You told her to become warden?" Hermione whispered to Malfoy. "You came here voluntarily? Why?"

Malfoy called out to Umbridge instead. "It's good work experience. Everyone at the Ministry appreciates your efforts."

"Everyone at the Ministry has forgotten me. They've already filled my old position!"

Umbridge pulled out her wand, aiming at Malfoy, and everyone scattered. That was enough of a signal for the guards, who started casting hexes at the prisoners.

"Hermione," McGonagall shouted, "Remember what I taught you!"

Transfigurations. Of course. She transfigured the mud and peat below her into hardened walls, fortifying their position. Many of the guards lacked combat experience. If she could just pick off enough to demoralize them—

She suddenly found herself whipped high into the air, catching flashes of her friends and the guards as she spun. Then she was hurtling toward the ground again. "Arresto momentum," she rasped out, which slowed her down, but not enough. She twisted herself before she hit and landed on her shoulder, hard. The pain jolted through her body and she cried out. Someone called her name, but she couldn't tell who.

Umbridge stood in front of her in all her pink glory, flanked by ten guards.

Hermione pulled herself up and tried to search in the mud for her wand, but her right arm wouldn't respond. It hung there limply. She had no wand, no weapon of any kind, and knew she could do nothing to defend herself when Umbridge raised her wand. But still, she climbed to her feet and stood her ground. She wasn't going to be cowed by the likes of Umbridge.

And then… there was something in her left hand. A gleaming sword, shining like a beacon in the twilight.

Umbridge cast her curse. Hermione raised the sword without thinking, as if she'd always held the sword in her hand.

The curse rebounded off the blade, and Umbridge screamed.

"Ron, everyone! Tactic Six."

She squeezed her eyes shut and covered them with her good arm, hoping everyone else remembered to do the same.

"Lumos solem," Ron called out.

Even through her arm and her eyelids, the edges of a blinding flash could be seen. The guards started cursing. She dropped her arm and saw them stumbling, temporarily blind.

She raised the sword again and had the wild urge to shout liberty! But instead she simply shouted, "Let's go," and that was inspiring enough. They rushed the gates, and didn't bother with an unlocking spell, blasting them apart.

Hermione had only looked back once as they ran through the gates. The center of the clearing had held a twisted figure, like a stunted, wind-bent tree, dressed in pink frills and pearls.

The portrait of Dumbledore had listened quietly to her recollections, even though he'd heard them before. "An act of bravery. You've shown you're worthy of that sword on more than one occasion. When you arrived at the resistance base with the sword in hand, I knew that you could find and destroy the horcruxes."

It had been a joyous moment. It had led to her and Ron's first kiss, swept up in their feelings of exhilaration. And it all felt so long ago. She could barely hold onto a shred of the optimism she'd felt back then. "Are you sure about this?" She gazed distractedly at the reflection of the diadem in the sword's blade. "This is the only horcrux we've encountered, at least since Tom Riddle's diary. Perhaps there's a way to analyze it. Find out how many others—"

"Miss Granger," said Dumbledore in a firm headmaster's voice that took her back to her first year, "You're stalling."

That brought her mind back into focus. She'd been drifting, idly imagining the uses of the diadem. It gave the wearer wisdom, and she felt in sore need of wisdom right now. "Let me think for a moment."

"You haven't been practicing your mental exercises."

"No," she admitted. She'd done so diligently at first, mentally preparing for the moment she encountered a horcrux, which she imagined might happen any day. But then she'd become leader of the resistance and that had taken priority over a search that never seemed to yield any results.

"Now is not the time for thinking," Dumbledore said. "Now is the time for action."

"Right." She steadied the sword in her hands. The diadem gleamed in the firelight. Her reflection played on its surface, twisted by its curve. She looked like a strange creature, squat and hunched. Sad and weak and tired. She couldn't remember not being tired. It had been years since she had slept without waking in the night. She wasn't up to this task. Dumbledore should have picked someone braver, someone who didn't make so many mistakes.

The air tasted stale, making her tongue dry and sticky. She could see Malfoy smirking at her in that dark pub in Diagon Alley. We'll leave it all up to you, Miss Know-It-All. She should have told Dumbledore to pick someone else, and gone away to some other country, to a muggle school where every answer could be found in a book. Real life was too bewildering.

The diadem gleamed in the firelight, the silver accents turning red.

Crookshanks hissed at it, his fur bristling.

Her own voice surrounded her, hissing into her ears. Using good young men for comfort. Stringing them along because you wanted to be perfect in their eyes, wanted the safety net of their arms. Weakling. Coward. Liar.

"Hermione," Dumbledore called. And then, in a harsh voice. "Destroy it!"

She shook herself out of her thoughts and looked at the horcrux. I can do this. At that moment, she didn't believe it, but she said it anyway. I can. I must. She raised the sword and struck.

The sword was powerful. It split the diadem in two, reverberating in her grip, the blade gleaming brightly.

Dumbledore let out a long breath. "Well done, Hermione."

All doubts bled away and for one shining moment, she knew she'd struck a real blow against Voldemort, had overpowered one piece of his twisted soul. She held still, the sword still in her hands, and tried to burn that feeling into her memory. Because finding the next Horcrux could be years away.

xx

When she returned to the Three Broomsticks, she found Ron alone, eating a bag of crisps. He didn't look up, shaking the bag for the crumbs at the bottom.

"Where—" Hermione began.

"Don't know. Off to nick more supplies, I suppose."

Hermione sighed and settled in a seat across from Ron. "Are you going to be all right?"

He shrugged, still not looking at her. "I've handled worse."

She nodded, knowing that he didn't deserve to be hurt, not after everything he'd been through. But sometimes there were no good choices, just ones that caused the least amount of damage. "If you ever need to, you can always—"

"The main tunnel is reinforced, but there's still more to do." He dropped the bag on the table and vanished it. "Reckon I'll get back to it."

He'd stood up when Millicent shoved the door aside, shaking her umbrella. "Got another message."

His eyes brightened a bit. "Mum?"

She nodded, quickly casting a drying spell on the umbrella. "Figured I'd check for messages again. Your mum's a talker when she gets going." She dropped the scroll onto the table.

This message was shorter than the last:

Good news! My old chum might have a way to reduce the security-threat level of certain prisoners and get them transferred out of Azkaban. Nearly impossible for Lupin with his werewolf status, she said, but possible for Ginny and Neville, due to their age and—well, their blood status. Such is the world we live in now.

Apparently, it's been done in the past, but at a higher level than she's currently at. She's up for a promotion, though. She said if she can pass along a bit of information valuable to the Ministry, she'd be a shoo-in and could arrange things. I certainly don't want to compromise anyone, but perhaps there's something we can share that won't harm us? We may not be able to rescue poor Ginny and Neville, but at least we can get them out of that horrible place.

M.W. (Mum)

Hermione set the message down, at a loss. "I can't imagine any valuable information we have that wouldn't get one of us hurt or killed."

Ron looked grim. "I can."

She waited, watching Ron's face go from stony to slightly uncomfortable. "Well?"

Millicent broke the silence. "He's talking about the Phoenix. Give him up. His information is useless at best."

Hermione was indignant. "It's not useless!"

Millicent raised her eyebrows. "I said, at best. It's useful to the other side as he informs them of our locations."

"He didn't…" Hermione fumed. "He's given us valuable information in the past."

"Right. That's why we're doing so well."

She rounded on Ron. "Isn't it true what he wrote? That the language of the transfer would put a trace on my current residence?"

"How should I know?" he said sharply. "We weren't exactly posh before the war started. Never saw the point of learning the intricacies of vault management."

Heat broke out on her face. Her record of saying absolutely the wrong thing to Ron continued unabated. She turned to Millicent.

"It's true," Millicent admitted. "But it's a good strategy to release information after the harm's done. Makes you look good to your supposed allies."

"We don't know that he sent it too late. He could have sent it before the attack—"

"Or he could have sent it yesterday. We don't know, do we?"

"Look," Ron said, more gently. "I know we were hard on you before, and I know you don't want to admit you're wrong—"

That stung. "I'm perfectly capable of admitting—"

"What harm is there in checking? If he's so great, why aren't we doing better? Getting information that would turn the tide—"

"We're getting information." She turned away from him. Besides information on the enemy, the Phoenix had sent her books referenced in Hogwarts: A History that helped her on her search for the diadem. But she couldn't tell them about the horcruxes, not without endangering them. Any of them could be captured, questioned. It was dangerous enough for her to know.

Ron shifted on his feet, and she couldn't tell if he wanted to comfort her or confront her. His eyes were troubled, and he seemed on the verge of saying something. He could tell, she knew. He could tell she was keeping secrets from him. She wanted to tell him it was for his own good. But he knew that, too.

"Hermione," he said softly. "It's Ginny. It's Neville."

Ginny, who'd been so full of cheerful defiance the last time she'd seen her. What was she like now? And Neville. Sweet, brave Neville.

She was going to let them suffer for the sake of an unknown Death Eater who may have his own dodgy reasons for wanting to topple Voldemort's regime?

She teetered back and forth until Dumbledore's words came back to her: You see into the heart of people… Trust that you can make the difficult decisions. She needed to see the Phoenix to know if she could really trust him. "I suppose… We could test him."

Ron and Millicent visibly relaxed, and she wondered if they were right, after all. Still, they'd elected her leader because she made smart decisions, not popular ones, and she wasn't going to burn this contact just yet. "I'll arrange a meeting. Get some answers. And I'll need something to write a note to myself. I never remember our meetings, so I need a place to write down who he is. "

Ron frowned. "You always take one of those muggle pads and quills with you."

"Pens," she corrected absently. "Something else. The notes I bring back are in my handwriting, but… Sometimes the messages he sends me are also in my handwriting."

"Blimey," Ron said. "Maybe the Phoenix is you from the future. You're using a time-turner and sending messages to yourself. And don't remember because meeting yourself would interfere with—"

"What use would that be? All she could do is send us messages about things we can't change—" Millicent paused. "Wait, maybe it is you."

"A more likely explanation is that he charmed the pen to imitate my handwriting." She frowned. That was odd. Most pureblooded wizards struggled with muggle pens, failing to get the angle and pressure right, and writing charms designed for quills didn't fare much better. Even some halfbloods made a scribbled mess of pens since they went straight from crayons and pencils in primary school to quills at Hogwarts. "Or perhaps it truly is my handwriting. But no doubt the Phoenix is aware of my note-taking system, and he didn't remain secret this long by letting me write down whatever I please. I need a hidden method of telling myself what I've forgotten." She sighed. "Like a pensieve."

Millicent nodded. "It could hold your memories while you're obliviated so you could retrieve them later." She gave Hermione an appraising look. "I'm surprised you've heard of them."

Hermione gave her most haughty look, straight off the face of Draco Malfoy. "I'm surprised you still underestimate me." That earned her a rare grin back.

"We had one in our family once, although it was sold off long before I was born," Ron said. "Where are we going to get one with no money?"

"And how am I going to extract a memory for the pensieve before the Phoenix obliviates me?" Dumbledore had shown her how to pull long gossamer strands from her head with her wand, and it was anything but subtle. "He'll surely notice such a thing."

Millicent swatted the air like her objection was an annoying gnat. "There's a potion that will release memories without a wand. They drip out of other orifices."

Ron wrinkled his nose. "She's going to collect memories from her…" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Knickers?"

Hermione was scandalized. "Ronald!"

Ron shrugged helplessly, his arms wide. "She's the one who said orifices!"

"I meant your mouth or nose, troll-brain." Millicent turned back to Hermione. "The usual place is the ear. Easy enough to put your hand to your ear with a vial up your sleeve. The potion can be calibrated to only release memories from a specific,"—she shot him an evil grin—"orifice."

"That's wonderful," Hermione said irritably. "Now all we need is to buy a pensieve and this potion, which I imagine is a bit more expensive than your usual pepper-up."

"I don't know where we can buy them," Millicent said. "But I know where we can steal them."

"Oh?" Hermione doubted such items would be easily lifted. "What magical place is this?"

Millicent crossed her arms. "Being muggle-born, you've probably never heard of it. It's called Brigadoon."