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Chapter Text

day 1,929

5th of October, 2000

Hermione’s only experience with death had been a slow, arduous process that stretched over days in a hospice center when she was nine. She had paced the edges of the sterile white room, fingers trailing along the tiny windowsill as her grandmother’s breaths grew more labored. 

The slow trickle of narcotics. The faint beeping of a heart monitor. The crinkle of bed sheets. The death rattle that came when a soul was dragged down by the claws of the abyss.

That was what Hermione had thought death was for the longest time.

She had been wrong. 

So very, very wrong.

Death was hoarse screaming beneath a shock of scattered spells, lights flashing red and purple and green. So many green flares. The relentless, ringing echo of Avada Kedavra cast over and over and over again. It was the scent of melting flesh from acid hexes, the sound of tendons ripping to shreds by flaying curses. It was warm blood splashed onto her cheek, shoving leather between teeth and screaming don’t die, don’t die, please, please don’t die. It was sticky heels tracking through a safe house after silence descended, the tendrils of whispered apologies following her like a ghost.

Hermione’s hand trembled, her wand pressed so tightly to her palm she sometimes wondered if her callouses had grown around the hilt. She never put it down. Never sheathed it. She slept with it. Bathed with it. Ate with it. By now, she knew every groove, every imperfection in the vine wood. Her magic thrummed through it, as familiar as the pulse fluttering in her wrist. 

There was no room for hesitation, no space for mistakes. If she failed, she died.

Hermione had grown accustomed to death and all its sounds in the six years since Voldemort was resurrected in the Little Hangleton graveyard, but not once had she thought her reckoning would come from someone so familiar. She looked into death’s eyes and found that they were gunmetal grey and storm-lit. Hermione stuttered a step back. 

She had never realized how very afraid she was to die until now.

Her body locked up. Her mind emptied.

He surged forward, ripping the hideous mask from his face. It dangled from his fingertips, rain sluicing down the sharp cut of his cheekbones, washing away the blood that stained his skin and soul. His hair was longer than the last time she saw him. It plastered to the sides of his face, curling at the edges like a restless wave. 

Spells cracked and arced above them, around them; everywhere. They were surrounded.

His gaze flicked over her soaked hair, the cut of her collarbones that were too sharp beneath her mud-stained jumper, the neckline frayed and hanging limp off her shoulder. His attention snagged on the tight black trousers, the combat boots, the mint-green scarf tied around her head. His chest heaved beneath his ink-black robes. His jaw feathered. And then, slowly, he lowered his wand.

Hermione’s grip tightened around hers.

“Oh, Granger,” he drawled, a callous smirk rising. “Your bleeding heart is going to get you killed out here.”

Her brain kick-started back into action. She opened her mouth, sent a hex his way; weak-willed, but something. Malfoy countered it with a shield and returned a lazy Jelly-Legs Jinx that missed her by meters.

They danced like that for long, dragging minutes. It was child’s play—not a real duel. He was barely even trying, using non-lethal jinxes and shielding mostly. 

A hesitant step back, a sidestep forward, a swish-swivel of wands. Half-hearted stinging jinxes and weak jets of smoky flames. He was supposed to be ruthless. That’s what they all whispered, anyways.

So why wasn’t she dead already?

At some point, his mask had fallen from his fingertips. She stepped on it, jerking back at the brief, sickening thought that it might have been someone’s bones beneath her boots.

It had been hard, at first, to ignore the bodies. But as the battles stretched on and the dead piled higher, bodies became boulders. Then rocks. Then pebbles.

She hardly noticed them anymore. Not unless she stepped on one.

The Full Body-Bind hit her from behind.

Hermione’s breath caught in her throat as her limbs snapped rigid, magic locking her in place. She met Malfoy’s gaze just as she began to teeter forward. He looked shocked, then furious. He surged forward, catching her before she could face-plant into the mud.

“Little nephew, what do we have here?” said a voice from behind, slick with amusement. “Is this Potter’s little Mudblood?”

Malfoy stiffened. Slowly, carefully, he lowered Hermione to the ground. The mud squelched beneath her body.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t even twitch her fingers.

Malfoy’s face was unreadable as he flicked his gaze over her, assessing. Then he looked up. And just like that, his entire expression changed. A soft, cruel smirk curled across his lips, his eyes clouding over until every flicker of emotion was gone. 

“Could be,” he drawled. He crouched down, grabbed her elbow and dragged her closer to his planted feet. His gaze was mercurial in nature, but then cold and clinical as he surveyed her. “I don’t really recognize her.” He lied. “Been a few years.”

“Lift her up, then. Let’s have a look.”

Malfoy rose to his feet like a leaf unfurled beneath the sun. He flicked his wand, levitating Hermione upright. She came face-to-face with Rodolphus Lestrange, expression hardening.

He grinned, his teeth rotting black in places. “You got a golden cunt, girl?”

Lestrange’s fingers toyed with the belt loops of her trousers.

Hermione bucked instinctively but it was in vain. Her body was still trapped by the magical bonds. Lestrange leaned in, inhaling deeply. “You mudblood whores all smell so sweet,” he crooned, his hot breath felt like acid against her skin. “Is that how you do it, then? Make yourselves sweet as pie so you can distract our pricks while you steal our magic?.”

Hermione’s lip trembled, so she bit down on it hard enough to taste blood. Then she spat her dirty blood right in his face.

Lestrange recoiled, wiping at his cheek. His dark eyes gleamed with an ugly, furious light.

“Get bent, you pathetic, racist, misogynistic piece of shit,” she hissed, her voice rasping. “Fuck you and your absolute wanker of a lord—”

Pain ripped through her like fire.

She arched back, spine snapping tight as she screamed into the air. The force of Crucio drowned out everything else. The battle, the rain, the rapid beat of her heart. She registered nothing aside from the pain, the taste of copper flooding her mouth when her molars cut into her cheeks.

Distantly, she heard Lestrange snarl, “Is this the Mudblood or not, Draco?”

A pause.

A hesitation?

Malfoy’s voice came, slow and measured. “It could be.”

A memory flickered in and out of existence between the sparks shooting light exploding stars behind her eyes.

Draco, look at him, isn’t it Arthur Weasley’s son, what’s his name?  

Her ears rang, teeth chattering against her screams.

Yeah, it could be.

“Please, please—”

Yeah, it could be.

“IS THIS POTTER’S MUDBLOOD OR NOT, NEPHEW?!”

The fire was in her bones, her veins, her cells. It was everywhere, corrosive in nature and it was killing her. She was dying. She was screaming.

Please, stop, please, please—

Her mind flickered, unbidden—something was yanked forward, a memory or a moment planted, for she knew it wasn't hers. Because there was Draco’s magic, and hers responding in kind, hovering inside of her like they were his lips at the edge of her jaw, whispering promises to her. I’ll never let you go, I swear it.

Hermione couldn't fathom what exactly was happening, but intrinsically, she knew—he had done something, shown her something that was from a different world. A different plane of existence all together. The moment spoke of a time before duty overcame desire, of a realm that existed beyond the moment their lives demanded children to march across the board and face each other with contrasts too vast to change.

Hermione went limp and the pain receded like a wave, only to come back tenfold. Her muscles twitched, nerves firing rapidly, the neurons in her brain utterly scattershot. Where is the pain, her magic asks her cells, find it, heal it, stop it.

“Have you had your fun, uncle?” Malfoy drawled, as if bored. 

As if watching Hermione die was nothing.

Lestrange let out a huff. “We take her regardless. If she’s not the Mudblood, we can always feed her to our Lord’s pet.”

Hermione's heart was a battering ram against the confines of her ribs, pounding hard enough that she thought her sternum might crack. The thudthudthudthud echoed in her ears, drowning out the cruel laughter that surrounded her. The string of fear crept down her spine, twisting, transforming. She knew too much. She knew everything. 

They couldn’t take her. They absolutely couldn’t take her.

“Malfoy, please!” She screamed as fear found a home in the spaces between her ribs, right alongside desperation. “Draco!”

Strangely, it felt instinctual to call for him. As if her body knew him at a cellular level, her magic melded with his. It made no sense. And still, she found something inside of her unfurling, this need—like trees needed air. If he could help her, if he helped her—

Her head swiveled hard to the left, heat blooming in the wake of the crack that Lestrange’s backhand made. “Think he’ll help you, girl?”

His eyes were on her, but she couldn’t look at him. The arteries in her heart were closing, squeezing—so close to rupturing in her chest.

The niggling sensation in the back of her skull returned, a gentle prodding, a whisper of let me in—she wondered, briefly, if he would save her or if he would stand by and let his uncle have his way with her.

Hermione was so tired that she truthfully didn't care if he saved her or damned her. Tired of running, of fighting, of always being the one who had to make it through. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She had fought so hard, so fiercely, to protect everyone she cared about. 

Her magic was seizing beneath her skin—stuttering, crackling, dying. This was the ultimate, final betrayal. She had been given this gift, and she had let it slip away. She tasted static on her tongue, and couldn’t feel her fingers.

Bile curdled in her stomach, rushing upwards until she tasted vomit at the back of her throat.

Rodolphus Lestrange’s hands gripped her tighter when she remained silent, his fingers like iron shackles against her skin, pulling her from Malfoy's tenuous grasp. His fingers twisted into the fabric of her clothes, violating, assessing. It felt as though he was touching every part of her at once, like he was peeling away her very soul. She wanted to scream, to tear at him, to claw at him with everything she had, but she was frozen in place, paralyzed by something deeper than magic. All she could do was breathe—and even that felt like it was slipping from her.

The Malfoy Heir stepped back, eyes shifting from her to Lestrange, expression unreadable. His wand hand hung loosely by his side, fingers flexing. He could have stopped this. He could have ended it all right here.

But he didn’t.

For a moment, Hermione thought she saw a flash of guilt, maybe, or regret. But it was gone before she could fully grasp it. His mask was back in place, the cold indifference she’d known so well. He wasn’t the same Draco Malfoy she had once known, not the smirking git from second year, or the scared boy in fourth.

He was far more dangerous than the boy she once knew, and she hated that she felt compelled to know this version of him, too.

Why was it that it felt as if he had power over her? That something inside of her begged her to see through his mask, the feeling of knowing you were forgetting something and knowing it was beyond your grasp.

Lestrange’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “You’re a lucky one, Mudblood. If you’re the right one, I’ll make sure you get special treatment. If you’re not…well, then you’ll be a perfect little snack for our lord’s pet.” His grin stretched wide, showing off those rotted, broken teeth.

Hermione’s mind whirled. If she could just think fast enough, find a way out. Her wand was still clutched in her hand, still there, though her fingers trembled as if in protest of the magic she might need to use. She needed to act. She had to fight back. But her body wouldn’t cooperate.

“Malfoy,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, weak, but just loud enough for him to hear.
“Please. Don't do this. Don’t let him take me.”

For a split second, the world paused. The rain cleared away long enough for her gaze to stay locked with his, untainted. And for a moment, the cold, detached mask faltered. His jaw twitched, his eyes darkening. His lips parted, as if to speak, but the words never came.

Lestrange’s cruel laughter broke the moment, the sound slicing through the air like a knife. “What’s this, Malfoy? You’ve suddenly gone soft?”

Malfoy's grip tightened around his wand, his fingers curling in a way that spoke volumes. He flicked his wrist, and as the silent spell lifted her body higher, something dark speared across his face. Was it doubt ? Regret?

Hermione barely had time to register that look before a burst of red light shot across the battlefield, striking Rodolphus Lestrange square in the chest. He let out a guttural gasp before crumpling to the ground, unconscious. The spell holding Hermione vanished in an instant, and she collapsed, her limbs trembling as sensation returned all at once.

Before she could process what had happened, a familiar hand grasped her arm, hauling her upright. “Got you,” Harry panted, his glasses askew, sweat and dirt smeared across his face. His green eyes burned with fury as he took her in, scanning for injuries.

Ron was at her other side a second later, his wand still raised, face thunderous as he glared past her.

Malfoy stood motionless; his wand clenched tight in his hand. His face was pale, rainwater dripping from his chin, but he didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink as he stared at them.

Ron’s fury exploded first. “You slimy, spineless piece of shit,” he snarled, stepping forward, wand trained directly at Malfoy’s chest.

Malfoy’s wand arced as quickly as Ron’s swished, shielding himself from the purple curse streaking out from the tip of Ron’s wand. Hermione jerked out of Harry’s arms, grasping Ron by the elbow.

“No! We should take him in!”

Harry threw up a shield to block all three of them from a Stupefy zinging their way from Malfoy’s wand, snarling one right back as soon as his shield dropped. Harry took up a dueling stance, the best between the three of them, and Hermione and Ron instantly flanked him. 

His right, and his left hands. His brains and his brawn.

A sneer curled over Malfoy’s lips, turning them thin and grey. It was an ugly expression. It always had been. “Confringo!”

“Protego!”

“Petrificus Totalus!”

“Locomotor Wibbly!”

Draco snarled, lunging as he cast, “Crucio!”

“Reducto !” Hermione screamed, shoving Harry aside as she leapt forward to take the hit of the Unforgivable…but no pain came. Not even a sting.

You need to really want to cause pain—to enjoy it.

Hermione gasped, falling to her knees before Malfoy. He staggered back, looking perfectly horrified. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her hands trembling as she braced herself on the ground, wand caked with mud. She stared up at Malfoy. His face was pale, his hand still outstretched as if the curse had slipped through his fingers, its intended victim nowhere near receiving its wrath.

A horn sounded somewhere behind them. One short, two long sounds and Hermione locked up, understanding it was an order to fall back. 

Hermione staggered to her feet, grasping Harry by the elbow, keeping her wand trained on Malfoy as she took a chance to glance around the battlefield.

She wished she hadn’t.

Bodies were strewn everywhere, and the majority of them weren’t in Death Eater Black.

Cracks started to sound seconds later, signaling that the Anti-Apparition ward had been lifted. Hermione didn’t waste another second before stumbling forward, limbs spasming as she looped her arms through the crooks of both her best friend’s elbows. "Go!" she shouted, and Harry only jerked his chin in a nod as he turned on his heel and disapparated them away.

But just as the pull centered around her navel, Hermione watched Draco Malfoy crumble like a house of cards in the rain, and realized that something was horribly, terribly off-kilter.

Chapter Text

day 1,930

6th of October, 2000

Hermione collapsed to her knees as they landed at the outer checkpoint, her arms wrapped tight around Ron’s middle. It was the early hours of dawn, when the English sky became a murky, cobalt haze. She stared up at the stars clustered between pockets of grey clouds and pine canopies. They had made it to the Forest of Dean, and judging by the lack of screaming, no one had Splinched themselves.

Ron loosed a groan that was equally as long and drawn out as Harry's. The latter mumbled something about his scar as he sagged to the side, teetering for half a second before Hermione snagged him by the collar and yanked him back. There was a faint clicking sound, and she numbly realized that was her teeth chattering together. Tremors wracked through her limbs, and her grip on Harry’s shirt slackened when her fingers spasmed.

Her knees hit the ground with a splat, and she found herself careening towards the mud at an unbelievably slow, and yet quick, descent.

Ron snagged her around the middle, and she met his blue eyes, blinking slowly.

Her adrenaline must have worn off, because there it was—the aftershocks of the Cruciatus. 

“Hermione?” Ron choked when she began to seize outright.

Her mind spun with the echo of words she couldn’t remember ever hearing, and she could faintly make out a burning sensation on her right arm.

She fumbled for her sleeve, biting back on the scream desperate to claw its way to freedom. Flexing her hand into a fist, she found nothing but unmarred skin—so why did it feel like there was a knife cutting into her flesh?

Faintly, she registered someone shouting, “Clear for the next jump!” 

All Hermione could do was squeeze her eyes shut as Harry snatched both her and Ron’s hands and took over Apparating them.

Three jumps—thats what it would take. She braced herself for each violent yank through space, doing everything she could not to black out with every twist of pressure and magic clawing at her chest.

By the third jump, Hermione couldn’t feel her arms or legs. Half her face had gone numb—like she’d been dosed with lidocaine before a tooth extraction. Except this wasn’t a dentist’s chair; this wasn’t a normal life.

She might’ve laughed, if her throat weren’t scorched. The idea of her parents and their dental practice and the mundane felt like another world, and most certainly another life. Something she had watched once in a dream and forgotten on waking.

The blood in her veins moved too slowly, dragging like sludge through a body that felt torn open and badly stitched back together. The bright side—if there was one—was that Lestrange’s Crucio was somehow less agonizing than Bellatrix’s.

So…small mercies.

Hermione snorted, a raw, breathless sound. Was this what it looked like—madness creeping in? Was she finally breaking after four harrowing years of war, a failed Horcrux hunt and too many burial pyres lit to count?

No, Hermione knew this wasn’t madness. Her mind was too strong to break so easily.

But god, it would be so easy to let go, to finally stop fighting—to free fall.

The pain had settled into a dull, low roar in her bones. Her magic fluttered weakly, like a dying star in some distant quadrant of her chest. Scientifically (because that part of her still worked, somehow) she wondered if the Cruciatus Curse had a measurable effect on magic. It damaged nerves at a cellular level. And she’d once theorized that magic lived in the cells too, developed in the womb, passed down like DNA.

She’d called it MDNA—Magical Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Obviously.

Harry’s swearing dragged her out of the sterile white walls of her Occlumency space, snapping her back to the present. Ron groaned through gritted teeth, his arms around her now.

When had he picked her up?

“Hang on, Hermione,” Ron rasped. “We’re almost there.”

The final Apparition landed them in the overgrown backyard garden outside Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place with a deafening crack. Ron’s knees hit the stone path first, followed by Hermione’s shuddering collapse atop him. She barely managed to roll away before vomiting into the hydrangeas. 

“Hermione...” Harry’s voice was frayed, like a loom nearing the end of its spool. He bent to help her up, but she slapped a trembling hand against his chest and shoved weakly. 

“I’m—fine.” 

Bile coated her tongue, and her knees buckled again. Christ, she had been better off after Bellatrix’s torture than she was right now. What the bloody hell had happened to her?

The front door flew open, and the wards shimmered weakly as Kingsley and George rushed out, wands raised. Behind them, Dean barreled through, his shirt soaked in blood that Hermione couldn’t tell was his or someone else’s.

“We’ve got them!” George shouted back into the house. “We’ve got them—Merlin, get Pomfrey, Hermione is seizing—!”

“Not seizing,” Hermione gasped. “It’s…just—aftershock. I'll be fine.”

She wasn't entirely confident in that statement, but there were bolder lies she'd told than that.

“Crucio,” Harry wheezed. “That fucker Lestrange Crucio’d her.”

“Bloody hell,” Ron whispered, still cradling her. “‘Mione, we shouldn’t have Apparated—”

“Opposed to what?” she snapped, having the vague sensation that she may have been drooling. “I didn’t see a bloody tube out there, Ronald.”

“Hermione…” Harry trailed off, wincing.

Ron’s face went red. “Why do you have to be—”

“Ron!” Harry snapped, and Ron pressed his lips together to staunch whatever vitriol had been on the precipice of spilling.

George looped an arm around her shoulder, while Harry came around the other side holding her up by her middle. There were too many voices shouting over each other, and she winced at the specks of black dancing over her vision. Her knees buckled when another hard tremor shot through her, an earthquake confined to a body, and she was lifted—floated, maybe—across the threshold of the old Black residence. The moment they crossed into the dim foyer, the chaos hit her like a wave.

Grimmauld Place was no better than the front they just returned from.

The entrance hall had been turned into a triage center. Injured bodies lay on conjured cots, across the stairs, on the bloody carpet itself. Spells sparked and shimmered as healers moved between them. Fred knelt at someone’s side, shouting for another set of hands. Lavender Brown had blood running down her chin, holding a pressure pad to Dennis Creevey’s thigh. There was screaming—there was always screaming—but this time it was loud and close and far too much for her to deal with right now.

Hermione flinched when a girl shrieked in agony as Padma performed the counter-curse to an Acid Hex, while Molly held a twitching boy down right beside her as Bill muttered healing spells with white-knuckled focus.

Harry and Ron called out for space to be made, and like a wave, the room parted, giving way to the Golden Trio as they dragged Hermione onto an empty cot. Just as Harry attempted to shove her down for the third time, Arthur’s voice boomed through the cacophony:

“GINNY—Where’s Ginny?”

Silence panned out, and the whole of the Weasley clan seemed to echo Arthur’s question. Ron grabbed Hermione’s shoulder as he jerked his gaze across the floor, counting the red heads.

“One, two, three—six, seven…”

Ron halted when he touched his own head, and Hermione knew he had finished the count.

Eight Weasleys, not nine.

Arthur’s voice cracked like a whip. “Where is she?” he demanded again, louder now, eyes searching the carnage for auburn hair, for freckles, for his little girl. “Where’s Ginny?!”

Not a single voice lifted in answer, and in the stillness that followed, Hermione thought the silence was somehow louder than the screams.

Molly’s hands slipped off the boy she’d been holding. She straightened slowly, her face draining of all color. “Ginny’s not here?”

“She was originally with Seamus and Ernie—” George said, but his voice broke halfway through. “I thought—Fred and I—we thought we saw her with you, Dean?”

“She was—she was with us during the second push,” Dean choked. “But then the line fractured and— fuck—I thought she made it back. I thought—I didn’t know—”

Arthur’s wand dropped to his side just as Ron’s fingers went rigid on Hermione’s shoulder.

When Molly swayed on her feet, Hermione felt something inside her fissure further, like another wave of the Crucio was sinking into the marrow of her bones.

Harry went still beside her, and when his face paled beneath the grime and dried blood; there was a sharp twist in her gut.

“No,” Harry said. “No, I swear, she was right behind us.”

“She’s not here,” Kingsley said grimly, stepping in from the door. “We’ve accounted for everyone who’s Apparated through the safe points. Ginny Weasley is not among them.”

“No, no, no—” Ron stumbled back, shaking his head. “She was right behind us—she was—she—Hermione?”

He turned to her as if she could fix it, because that’s what Hermione always did. She fixed problems, she solved riddles and had kept everyone she cared about alive for the better part of nine years. But sometimes, she wished she had someone she could look at the way Ron and Harry looked to her—someone who would take care of her, who could solve her problems when she was tired and broken and just wanted to crawl into a hole and be left for dead.

She had tried to warn them that after the Cumbria raid, Voldemort’s army would push back twice as hard for this attempt at freeing the Muggleborns held captive. She just hadn’t expected them to use that heavy a hand. She had never seen so many new curses in one fight. 

Hermione’s voice scraped out, “We were split after the third push, when the seasoned Death Eaters showed up. There were a lot of them, more than I anticipated, I’ll admit. I remember she turned back to help someone—”

“You let her out of your sight?” Ron snapped, his face turning that ugly shade of burgundy. “She’s on your team—”

“Our team!” Hermione choked out, her voice hoarse. She squeezed her eyes shut and shoved her temple against the heel of her palm. “We all lost track of her, Ron, don’t pin this on me.”

“She’s your direct flank, Hermione.” Ron tried again.

“Ginny…” Arthur sobbed, choking on a sound no father should ever make as he collapsed onto the bloody stairwell. It would need to be Scourgified, and Hermione debated if she was fit enough to attempt casting one—just to keep Arthur from sitting in so much blood. She wondered if it belonged to Order members, and if so—who.

Harry pivoted hard, stalking toward the hall that led to the cellar. His eyes burned like green fire, and Hermione bit back her whimper as she forced her arms to move. She shoved herself upright and stumbled after him.

“Harry!” she croaked. “Harry, don’t do this!”

He was already halfway down the steps to the cellar, wand drawn by the time Hermione caught up with him. He had slammed the door open and when it banged against the stone wall, dust plumed into the hallway.

The cold of the basement hit her in the teeth, and she leaned against the dank cement wall, holding her wand arm down at her side to keep it from spasming into a swish and flick.

She should sheath it, but Theodore Nott was in here, and though he was bruised, bleeding, and bound to a chair by the old boiler—he was still a Death Eater.

Harry needed her right now. He always needed her.

Their captive’s legs stretched awkwardly at the sound of their arrival, and his head lolled forward. Cerulean blue eyes peered up at them when Harry raised his wand.

“Where is she?” Harry thundered. “WHERE’S GINNY?!”

Theo grimaced, and shook his head, as if attempting to dislodge the ringing Harry’s voice left in his mind in the wake of the Chosen One’s fury.

“Harry, come on, don’t do this—” Hermione grabbed his arm, yanking it down just as he sent a silent spell crackling toward Theo’s chest. It missed by inches and singed the floor.

Theo looked up through swollen eyes, and the blood that clung to his lip like rust cracked with his broken smile. “Should’ve figured Potter’d be the first to snap.”

“You tell me where she is, or I swear I’ll—”

“Harry.” Hermione's voice was ice.

He turned on her, green eyes backlit with his righteous fury.

“He knows, Hermione. He has to know. He defected weeks ago after the Cumbria raid, and he’s been feeding us information, but he’s still one of them. He knows what they do to girls like—”

“I know, Harry,” she said gently, wrapping her hand around his trembling shoulder.

She stepped into the makeshift cell, locking eyes with the Nott heir. She lifted her chin, and though her body strained to fuction, her voice didn’t.

“Do you want a way out?”

He blinked. “Out?”

“Yes, Nott. Out,” she hissed. “Out of this cell, out of this war—”

Theo snorted. “There is no getting out, Granger.”

She rolled her jaw. “I take it you want to live?”

“Do you consider this living?” He asked, jerking his chin to his meek surroundings.

Her eyes narrowed. “Fine, then. What do you want?”

“All I want to do is to kill that egomaniac, no-nosed wanker,” Theo said easily, his voice dropping into a tone far too cool and dark than she ever recalled the young wizard being capable of.

Her gaze flicked to the marks littering his bare arms and chest, the twin pinprick scars along his throat and the many purple jagged, serrated edges that lined his milk-white skin. Had they come from developing curses, or being the one the curses were tested on?

“So, you want a deal?”

“I just told you what I want, Granger.”

“It’s Hermione,” she snapped, and rolled her shoulders back when she felt another tremor pulse through her bones. “You need to tell me what you know about the internment camps they’ve been taking people to, and then we can discuss your grand plan for murder.”

“Muggleborns, you mean.”

Hermione’s breath was a harsh inhale through her nose, and she held it as she stared down at the Nott Heir.

”Ginny is a Pureblood.”

”Sure she’s not dead?”

Harry snapped forward, and Hermione slapped her palm against his chest to stop him from doing something he would regret.

”We’d know if she was dead.”

Theo snorted. “Yeah?”

She rolled her wand between her fingers, and expelled a hard breath. The urge to hex him was strong.

“Where do they take prisoners?”

”There are plenty of places I could name.”

”What about the girls, specifically. What do they do with the girls?”

Theo’s mouth twitched, a flicker of disgust flashing in his gaze. He took her in, bloody and barely standing, and something hardened in his expression.

“Listen, I worked in the lab. I’ve told your crazy Metamorphmagus this already. I was on the Curse Development team in Cumbria until you crazy twats blew it up.”

Harry snorted, and stepped beside Hermione. “Yeah, and so was Severus Snape.”

Theo’s eyes flicked up at Snape’s name. “Yeah, well, he wasn’t in the lab I was in. Not the one they used for field-testing in Cumbria.”

Hermione’s gut went cold. “Field-testing?”

Theo’s jaw clenched. “If you want your girlfriend back, Potter," he said, nodding toward Harry, “then you’re going to need someone high-ranking. She will be a priority prisoner and the likeliness of her being held in a camp or a lab is slim.”

“You’re beating around the bush right now, Nott.”

“Perhaps,” he said, leaning back as if he had all the time in the world. “All I’m trying to sh is that you need to get in contact with someone close enough to the camps to know the list of captives, and when those transports move.”

“And let me guess, you know someone?” Hermione pressed, leaning harder against the cellar wall. “This is all very convenient timing, Nott.”

He gave a serpent's smile in return. “Slytherin, remember?”

She only knocked her head back into the cement to distract herself from the tunnel of heat burrowing into her muscles. She needed to lay down, she knew that—but Ginny was missing, and Harry's temper was out of control these days, and Ron would have killed Theodore Nott the moment he set his eyes on him.

Harry made a noise like a growl. “Tell me who I need to get in contact with.”

Theo’s eyes didn’t leave Hermione. “There’s not a single shot in hell you’d ever be able to convince your little group to let you walk into a room with a Death Eater.”

“What about me?”

Theo's eyes slid to Hermione, and he blinked once—then snorted. “Infamous Golden Girl Hermione Granger? Yeah, I would say just about anyone would.” He clucked his tongue.

Hermione’s stomach twistedc, and the horror must have been written all over her face—because Theo snorted.

“Not to do what you’re thinking, Granger.”

His gaze flicked over her body, and he arched a brow. 

“Unless…”

She shot a stinging jinx his way and muttered, “Git,”

Theo shifted, attempting to stretch his bound arms.

”You gotta let me out of here if you expect some more tongue wagging from me.” He said. “As much as I love being tied up, this isn’t exactly the kind of foreplay I was promised when I defected.”

She scowled. If she could eliminate one House from existence, it would certainly be Slytherin.

Hermione swished her wand, and Theo slumped forward, free from his chains. He rubbed his wrists, and loosed a sharks grin when he took in the way she now loomed over him, wand tip pressed to his temple.

”Talk.”

He pressed his head harder into her wand tip, and his cerulean eyes widened almost playfully as he said, “Careful, Granger. I like it rough.”

She actually sneered down at him. “I put someone in a jar for an entire school year, Nott. I’ll not hesitate to do the same to you.

“Kinky,” Theo sighed, as if put out, then said, “Fine, if you wish to be boring then know that the only one who knows the transfer routes is The Arbiter. They oversee the majority of all operations.” 

Hermione blinked at the name, and oddly, there was a crack down the middle of her chest, a tension that lined her spine like the pressure drop before a storm. She registered a shiver rolling through her, one not borne from pain or from the remnants of Crucio or blood loss or even exhaustion. This was the chill of a memory being dredged up, one she hadn't experience but somehow knew regardless.

Her magic surged suddenly beneath her skin, a jolt that made her breath catch. It reached forward like a tether straining toward a source it had once been bound to.

She steadied herself on the wall, breath shallow. “The Arbiter?” she echoed, carefully, as if saying it too loud would enact a Taboo.

Theo watched her, curiosity lining his gaze. He looked far more lively now than he had been just moments ago.

Harry stepped forward, his wand now raised. “Who the bloody hell is that?”

In her mind’s eye, just for a moment, Hermione saw pale hands, scarred fingers, an angular jaw shadowed in candlelight. She heard a voice, hoarse from screaming, whispering, “You have to trust me, Granger.

Chapter Text

day 1,931

7th of October, 2000

Hermione toyed with the pen in her hand, clicking the cap over and over again. Her eyes drifted, unfocused, to the far wall of the Black residence’s formal sitting room—though calling it formal these days felt laughable. She was certain no one had done any true lounging in this particular room for quite some time. Last Christmas, perhaps. Or was it New Years? 

There were gouges in the wainscoting from one of the twins’ failed experiments. The curtains, a gaudy emerald velvet, hung heavy with dust and faint scorch marks from Sirius’s cigarettes. She told him daily it was a filthy habit—but, begrudgingly, she’d grown used to the smell. Sometimes, when he was off on long cons with Remus and Tonks, the stale air made her anxious, and she’d light one herself just to calm down.

When the chandelier above her head swayed faintly, she glanced up. 

She couldn’t tell if that was from the draft, or her own imagination.

Her thumb pressed and released the pen cap mindlessly, click, click, click. The voices around her droned on, and so she just stared, and clicked—two things she could still control.

A nudge to her wrist came from the beat-up pair of boots crossed over the table, her spine pressed against the chaise beside his thighs. The clicking stopped as she glanced over her shoulder and met a familiar pair of grey eyes—and for some reason, her stomach hollowed at the sight. Her brows twitched; his lifted in return.

His edges had grown softer over the years, more lined around the eyes and mouth, though his grey eyes still held that same reckless glint when he wasn’t looking too closely at anything. The hollows of his cheeks were a little deeper, the stubble along his jawline more permanent these days.

Sirius’s hair, still long, dark, and tangled, fell in waves past his shoulders, now streaked with threads of silver. Despite the years, there was still something undeniably magnetic about him—still, in some ways, the charming, untouchable Black heir. But sometimes, when no one but Hermione was watching, she saw the truth: behind the smirks was a man who still believed he had to atone for sins that were never truly his.

Sirius dropped his feet to the ground and leaned over his knees, his mouth hovering beside her ear. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Some,” she said.

Two hours, to be precise. 

Hermione glanced around at those in attendance, all of them engrossed in their own discussions—allocation of funds, procurement of Portkeys, safe house expansion, holding facilities that needed more members on rotation, medical supplies, and the ever-growing requests for spare wands. The list of needs was endless, but their coffers were little more than fumes. Many of the older members had drained their Gringotts accounts before Voldemort seized the bank two years ago, and those Galleons had vanished in the blink of an eye.

Once, Hermione had suggested robbing a Muggle bank. Only Tonks had seemed intrigued. Everyone else vetoed it immediately.

“You should skip tonight’s drop,” Sirius said, his hand resting on her shoulder with a gentleness he seemed to save just for her. “They’ll be fine without you.”

In many ways, Sirius had become a father figure not just to Harry, but to her as well. Three strays, thrown together into a strange, mismatched sort of family.

“You know I can’t,” she said. She really couldn’t—she didn’t trust Harry not to use the drop as an excuse to chase the many threads of leads they had on where Ginny could possibly be.

“Harry will be fine without you for one night,” Sirius tried again. “They’re only taking three people to St. Mungo’s and coming right back.”

“Whether it’s a raid or a drop, I’m not letting him go anywhere without me,” she replied, her voice firmer now. “Ginny is gone, and he’s angry. And when he’s angry, he’s reckless. You know this, Sirius—”

“Harry is a big boy,” he muttered, but the darkness pooling in his grey eyes were ghosts she knew only he could see.

”We can’t afford for him to fall off the deep end right now,” Hermione whispered back, sitting straighter. “I’ll be fine. I can sleep when I get back.”

They both knew she wouldn’t.

She had an endless list of tasks to tackle. She needed to forage for potion ingredients, to check on the infirmary stock, to meet with Moody—they had estate plans to attempt to draft after a few partially successful recon missions on the Inner Circle’s favorite haunts. She had to do more Horcrux research, and she needed to read up on Wizarding Law again for the new bill Voldemort was using his pawns to push through the Wizengamot.

They had been entrenched in this war for over five years, and Hermione was beginning to see no end in sight other than the utter annihilation of the Order.

They still had three Horcruxes left, and they were no closer to discovering what they were, and where Voldemort had hidden them than they had been upon the murder of Albus Dumbledore at Draco Malfoy’s hands.

She squeezed the pen in her hand, and as quick as the despair had settled in—she washed it away by rising her Occlumency walls.

Sirius sighed and dropped his head between his shoulders. He twisted the Black family ring around his finger, and she wondered, not for the first time, if he felt it was as much a noose as it was an heirloom. And why he wore it at all, honestly.

Across the room, Kingsley cleared his throat, and Hermione lifted her gaze from the deep gouge she’d scratched into the table with her thumbnail.

“Remus will do one last round of questioning on Theodore Nott before we clear him for the field.”

Hermione blinked at this news, and felt warmth creep back in through her veins.

“He’s being cleared?” 

Kingsley steepled his fingers and gave her the familiar, contemplative look he wore whenever she challenged him.

Mad-Eye grunted, echoing her skepticism.

“With the casualties of the last battle,” Kingsley said evenly, “we need every wand willing to fight for the Light.”

Hermione’s eyelid twitched at his words. The casual way he said casualties. The way his voice sharpened at Light. He was one of many who now advocated for the use of darker tactics—not necessarily the Unforgivables, but darker curses they’d sworn to reject since the war began. With Voldemorts Curse Developing labs, and the slow integration of blending Muggle and Magic fighting tactics by the Order, the war had become far bloodier and deadlier than the first Wizarding War.

And yet Harry, stubborn as ever, still refused to cross the line. He advocated for Stunners and the use of Expelliarmus whenever possible, and no amount of pragmatism had quelled his desire to keep to fighting the Dark with pure Light.

It was fucking asinine and at this point, down right negligent. The young recruits looked to him for guidance—and most of them didn’t even make it past three months on the front lines before the earth called them home.

She had once agreed with him. So had Ron. But that moral compass had long since begun to crack. They were losing. Always reacting. Always running.

Voldemort had them cornered like rats.

They were down to three safe houses, and two of those three were likely compromised after this last battle.

“Do we have any information on who this Arbiter person is,” Harry started tightly, “Someone Volde—”

“Harry!” Ron barked.

Harry’s nostrils flared. “—You-Know-Who has to trust them right? Hand picked?”

”Groomed, more likely,” Shacklebolt mused.

Sirius snorted. “Ridiculous.”

“Likely someone from his Inner Circle,” Remus offered. “It has been months since You-Know-Who has been seen. He’s still hiding in Hogwarts last we heard.”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of the title,” Kingsley admitted. “Since  the Ministry has all but fallen, he could be placing officials in his puppet government.”

“Probably Bellatrix,” Harry muttered.

“She’s too mad to be an arbiter,” Sirius said dryly.

Ron frowned. “What is an arbiter?”

The Weasleys collectively sighed before Bill answered. “Someone empowered to judge. It’s probably just a title so they can hold anonymity.”

Moody’s magical eye swung back to Hermione. “This bastard’s trusted enough to make decisions he doesn’t have time for. Likely runs the machine while Riddle plays emperor.”

“It will likely be a very competent, talented caster in the Dark Arts,” McGonnagall said. “I will see what else I can learn this evening.”

Under the table, Hermione rolled a splinter between her fingers, worrying it into a sharp point.

The title nagged at her, familiar in a way that left a metallic taste in her mouth. Where had she heard that before, and why did a shock of pale, platinum hair come to mind when thinking of who The Arbiter might be?

Harry’s knuckles had gone pale, and when he spoke, it was to no one in particular. “Nott said they decide who goes where, who lives and who doesn’t come back. Vold—”

“Harry!”

“For fucks sake,” he muttered in response. “He’s a general, maybe? Is that a thing now?”

“At this point, I’d say You-Know-Who is attempting to orchestrate a tighter leash on his army by fully installing a hierarchy.” Kingsley mused. “He had his Inner Circle, which were commanders of sorts. But now he needs someone to reign in the commanders.”

“Always has to be one of those,” Sirius muttered. He sat back in his chair, the legs tipping slightly, his hair falling into his face.

Hermione blinked down and noticed she’d pressed the splinter deep enough to draw a dot of blood. She rubbed it away on her jeans and reached for her pen; anything to keep her hands busy while the others kept bickering.

Did it matter who this person was? Probably not. Only that there was someone powerful that had risen in Voldemort’s ranks—surpassing his most trusted advisors if it wasn’t one of his original Inner Circle. They were getting older, so it would make sense that this person would be young enough to keep everyone in line, but trusted and respected enough to be able to do so.

“Is there anyone from the first war that would fit such a description?”

”Plenty,” Moody muttered.

Hermione sighed. The topic shifted to what this meant about retrieving Ginny, and the logistics of securing her freedom. They knew she was alive—only because the Weasley family clock lived in the Black sitting room and had since the Burrow was targeted the summer they should have been going into their fifth year.

Ginny’s picture hovered over lost and as Hermione stared at the youngest Weasley’s face—a picture from well over ten years ago—her gut tightened.

Finally, Hermione had enough.

“It’s quite obvious what we should do,” she said, letting her gaze sweep deliberately over every face at the table. “In order to retrieve Ginny, and to find out more about who the Arbiter is.”

She looked at Harry, and found his brows drawn above his perpetually smudged glasses.

“We have tried spies in the past, and all have failed epically. We need someone on the inside,” she announced, holding her tongue on who their current spy amongst the Dark Lord’s army was—not everyone knew Snape was a double agent. Only herself, Kingsley and McGonagall did, and even that many people was dangerous. “A sleeper cell, if you will.”

The room quieted gradually after she spoke, like a guttering flame.

“Are you volunteering, Granger?” Moody asked at last, his magical eye fixed on her even as the other drifted to the door.

“I’m not the obvious choice,” Hermione replied, voice even. “It has to be someone who has been engrained into the hierarchy since birth, someone who knows where to step and what to say to avoid suspicion.” Her thumb still worried the splinter in her palm, though her gaze remained steady. “Someone with backing behind their name, who has been on the front lines—someone willing to play the part long enough to get us what we need.”

Sirius gave a short laugh, more breath than sound. “And you think we’ve got someone like that lying around? We can barely field enough bodies to show up.”

They did, actually.

Hermione’s gaze flicked to Kingsley, and he raised a brow.

“We’ll table this discussion for now,” he announced, and everyone nodded, slowly rising from their spots. As leadership filtered out of the room, Hermione remained seated, waiting for Kingsley to address her.

“A word, Miss Granger? Potter, you can come too.”

She rose from her spot on the ground, rolling her tense shoulders back as she followed Kingsley up the stairs to his designated office. When the door clicked shut, and he cast a Muffliato on the door—she spoke,“I’m surprised you hadn’t thought of this.”

”Who’s to say I haven’t?”

Harry volleyed his gaze between them, and understanding dawned. “You can’t expect Theodore Nott to play spy, Hermione.”

She crossed her arms. “I think he’s willing to do whatever it takes to end this war, just like I  am. Are you, Kingsley?”

Kingsley’s jaw tightened.

“We should use him.” Hermione pressed.

”It’s a gamble I don’t believe we should take right now.” Kingsley countered.

”It’s more than that!” Harry argued.

“Is it really such a gamble?” she snapped. “He already has access. He already has information. We’ve had him here for almost two weeks, which leaves our window of time to avoid suspicion slim. If he wants to live badly enough—and I think he does—then he’ll keep feeding us what we need. It’s the perfect opportunity.”

Kingsley remained silent and skeptical, and Harry only turned his cheek, glaring at the wall.

“We make him take an Unbreakable Vow.” She suggested.

“Also unreliable.” Kingsley stated, and leaned against his desk. “He would need to be an Occlumens.”

Hermione nodded. “I’m aware.”

Kingsley studied her a moment longer.“You’re an Occlumens.”

She lifted her chin. “Yes, sir.”

Kingsley looked at her, long and hard, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “You don’t actually want to send Nott at all, do you?”

Hermione pressed her lips into a fine line. “Not exactly, sir.”

He cocked his head, and Harry loosed a long sigh.

“If we wait for someone else to do it, we lose,” she said. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting anymore. I’ve studied the hierarchy, I understand their protocols. I know their beliefs, and how to become someone they trust. Theodore Nott is a Sacred Twenty-Eight. His father is Inner Circle. His best friend has been a Death Eater since he was fourteen. He is, factually, the perfect person for me to pose as.”

“Polyjuice is not a solution in this situation, Miss Granger.”

“It can be.”

Silence fell between the three of them, the kind of quiet that was on the precipice of agreement.

“This is a mission you would be completely alone in, Hermione.” Harry said, standing straighter. He was their general in many ways. Sometimes, she found it strange to look at him when he behaved this way, remembering the cheeky eleven year old she met on the Hogwarts Express. “No backup, no recon, nothing. You’d be blind.”

Hermione picked at her cuticle absentmindedly. “I’m aware.”

He sighed, and removed his glasses, dropping them onto the table beside him as he scrubbed his face. His palms caught on the dark stubble growing along his jaw and chin, and Hermione thought without his glasses on, he looked older.

“It’s done, then?” Harry asked. “Your new formula for Polyjuice?”

Hermione nodded. “One week, three days, eleven hours, twenty-one minutes and thirteen seconds.”

Harry stared at her, his glasses still lying on the table.

“We will need to Obliviate the rest of leadership.”

She nodded. “I’m prepared for that.”

Harry leveled her with a hard look. She had expected him to become dejected after so much death, and yet, determination still burned a green fire in his eyes.

She hoped, in that moment, that without his glasses on, he couldn’t quite see how afraid she really was.

Chapter Text

day 1,932

8th of October, 2000

Theodore Nott sat at the far side of the holding cell, his hands clasped loosely in front of him, long fingers interlaced, head tipped back just slightly to rest against the chair. His posture was maddeningly at ease, now that he was no longer in chains. They’d even let him shave since she last saw him, and his hair no longer hung in his eyes. She stopped just outside the door, and cocked her head.

Idle, aristocratic, handsome—she had thought masking herself into a son born of the sacred Twenty-Eight wouldn’t be that difficult—but now that she was watching him, she found a strange dignity to him when he behaved as if he assumed he was alone.

She made a mental note.

“I thought they’d send Shacklebolt,” he said dryly, his eyes sliding over her in a slow, deliberate sweep before he fixed on her face. “You know, the Dark Lord always knew he was a rat. It was unsurprising that he fled the cause at the end.”

The back of her neck prickled at the way Theo had said cause, as if the Order was seen as nothing more than a silly little gamble against the darkest of powers.

Hermione arched a delicate brow before pulling a chair over to sit down. She held her hands in her lap, tangling her fingers together as she leveled the former Death Eater with a glower. Her wand was sheathed against her thigh, and she itched to wrap her fingers around it.

Instead, she said: “I have a plan to end the war.”

Theo laughed baldly, and when he realized she wasn’t joking, that laughter quickly died.

“You’re serious?” he said with a sneer. “My, what an optimist you are.”

Hermione lifted her nose in the air as she announced, “I’m going to infiltrate his army whilst polyjuiced as you.”

Theo didn’t so much as lift the corner of his mouth in a smirk. He only met her gaze, and held it.

“Sure, Granger.” he drawled. “Tell me your real plan.”

“That is my plan.”

His blue eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head down with deliberate slowness. “You are aware there are measures in place to keep Order members from infiltrating our ranks with polyjuice, yes?”

The way he said our, like the word was something sour, had her resolve hardening. “I’m aware, and it’s why I’ve adjusted the formula for the potion to keep that from happening—”

“I’m not talking about wards, Granger.” He deadpanned. “You will be tortured and held until the potion wears off.”

She lifted her chin. “I’m prepared for that.”

“You are absolutely not prepared for what they will do to me—to you—in order to ensure you’re not a spy.”

“This is the only way to get close enough to find Ginny—and to truly understand where You-Know-Who’s weak points are. From what you've told us, his core intelligence, the path to his downfall, isn't held by one person. It's obviously fragmented, likely spread across several minds amongst his most trusted.”

Theo huffed a laugh. “Which I am not one of.”

“I intend to change that.”

His laughter continued, until it sounded mad in nature.

“You can’t be serious.” He suddenly said, and all traces of madness ceased. He lunged forward, and Hermione had her wand drawn and trained against his neck in an instant.

He stared down at her, looming like some sentinel of rage.

“The only reason I’m still alive is my blood,” he snarled softly.

“And the reason this war is happening is because of blood like mine,” she hissed back. “It’s all the more reason that my plan will work,” she spoke softly, pressing the tip of her wand harder into his jugular. His pulse thrummed wildly beneath the point, and she fixed on every single vibration. “How could a Muggleborn know so much? You’re the least likely to turn—a Pureblood, a sacred Twenty-Eight—your father is Inner Circle. You’re young, and itching to prove yourself—.”

“You’re so fucking far from the mark, it’s not even funny.”

Hermione continued, undeterred. “You-Know-Who has deliberately scattered his knowledge—to prevent us, or any potential defector—from ever piecing it all together. That needs to change. I—you—need to shift the tides, because right now, the entire world is hanging on us succeeding. I refuse to let failure be an option.”

Theo held her gaze for long, silent minutes, until finally—he sat back down. He smoothed the wrinkles in his trousers and clasped his hands over his crossed knee. She almost laughed at how easily he regained composure, and could have sworn—he reminded her of someone. But who? She racked her mind and came up empty. 

“What would be your plan if they figure you out?” He asked far too casually. “What if you’re exposed in front of the Dark Lord himself?”

She met his gaze and spoke evenly. “Then I die. But I’d rather die trying than sit here waiting another moment, fighting pointless battles that only lead to more of my friends dying.”

He loosed a bitter laugh. “You don’t know what it’s like there.”

“I know what it’s like here.” Hermione’s jaw clenched. “And I’m tired of it, so I need your memories. Your habits, your mannerisms. All of your secrets.”

For a long moment, Theo studied her, as if weighing whether she was madness or courage incarnate. Then he leaned forward, voice dropping. “No.”

“I’m not asking for your consent, Nott.”

His nostrils flared. “I’m not a prisoner anymore, Granger.”

“That can change,” she countered. “You’re a defector. No matter how much Kingsley says he trusts you, how much Remus questions you, or how many ‘leads’ you may end up providing, you are fundamentally still a Death Eater in our eyes. You are nothing more than front line fodder. Your freedom, and your chance to see You-Know-Who dead, hinges entirely on your cooperation at this point.” She paused, and leveled him with a brutal look. “Or would you prefer to spend the rest of this war, however long it lasts, rotting in this cell? Because I assure you, we have plenty of others who would love to see you there.”

Theo’s jaw tightened, and for the first time, a flicker of true fear came into existence, nothing more than a star quickly shooting across a blackened sky. His gaze seemed to lose some of that cynical amusement she’d come to register as his mask beyond the one he donned as a Death Eater.

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

“I can assure you, I am capable of ‘getting it’,” she snapped.

His laugh was scathing, and dark—and it tickled something at the back of her mind, a phantom of a memory she couldn’t quite grasp. What was it about him that had her feeling as if she’d lived this moment before?

“You don’t know what pain is. You might think you’re prepared for physical torture. But you’re not. They will break your mind, Granger. They will break your soul. And they will see you. They will fucking know.”

There was a cold knot tightening in her stomach, but she refused to let her discomfort show. She pushed back against the fear, wrapping her Occlumency around it like a protective shell. 

This was the dark reality she had accepted. This was the cost.

“I’m not asking you to protect me. I’m asking you to help me end this. You want him dead? This is how it happens. You will give me every single memory, every habit, every dark corner of your mind that will make this believable. And I will take it.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping to match his cold baritone, but hers came with an edge of steel. “I’m an Occlumens, and a damned good one. I’m prepared to see what’s in there, and I’m prepared to fight you for it if need be.”

She pulled her wand from her sheath once more, the vine wood familiar and comforting against her palm, and aimed it steadily at his temple. His eyes flickered to her wand, then back to her face.

“Legilimency?” he stated, a single brow arched. “You think it will be that easy?”

“I don’t think anything about this will be easy,” Hermione said, her voice a low, dangerous hum. “But I think it’s necessary at this point. You’re being uncooperative, and I’m in leadership. I have clearance to do just about anything I need in order to succeed.”

He stared at her for a long moment, as if she were a puzzle he could not for the life of him find the final piece to.

“What’d they do to you, Granger?” he then asked, and his blue eyes cast across her features, fixing on the grim line of her lips and the tension in her jaw. “What happened to that prissy little swot who vouched for House Elves and wanted to make the world a better place, without violence?”

Hermione ignored the taunt, taking a deep, fortifying breath. The next step, she knew, would be the hardest. It wasn't just about extracting memories; it was about immersing herself in a mind that had witnessed unspeakable atrocities, a mind shaped by the very evil she sought to destroy.

She was still that girl, in many ways. But her trajectory had changed. Her life had changed, and she had to adjust to the realities she was presented with.

“Legilimens,” she murmured, and pushed.

The world shattered into a kaleidoscope of fragmented images, a sudden, violent assault on her carefully constructed Occlumency walls. It was chaotic, his defensive scramble in his attempts to push her out. There was a wavering in his shield, a slight tear in the fabric of his mental walls and she dove for it like a hawk. Distantly, she heard him groan. She was trying to be gentle, but she was furious—she had been so angry for so long, that this felt like nothing more than retribution. Theodore Nott had done nothing to her personally, as far as she was aware. But he had been a part of the swarm that destroyed everything she loved about being magical. 

A sudden, sickening drop came into being.

She plunged into darkness, and the first clear image slammed into her consciousness: the stench of cleaner and scorched hair, the glint of steel on a dissection table, and a high-pitched, inhuman scream that tore through the air, vibrating against her teeth like a live wire.

Her rage intensified when she realized where she was in his memories. She had gone straight for it—the Curse Development lab. She wanted to know exactly what Theodore Nott did, and within seconds, she was shown that he was far more complicit in the research than he let on.

A wave of nausea hit Hermione, threatening to overwhelm her. But she forced herself to breathe, to push deeper, to hold onto the chilling conviction that this was the only way. 

Her senses sharpened until she honed in on the cold, clinical air of the lab. There was the unmistakable tang of blood hanging in the air like a funeral shroud, and searched for the source.

She watched as Theo lifted his gloved hands to his face, and looked at them as they violently shook. He took a deep breath until they grew steady, and he began to meticulously arrange instruments on a sterile tray. Hermione slowed her magic, and curled around the memory when a muffled whimper from a figure strapped to a table in the center of the room caught her attention. There was a flash of red hair, and her heart almost lodged itself in her throat—of course, it wasn’t Ginny, but still—it could have been. That could be Ginny right now.

The young woman's eyes were wide, and the brown in them were a pretty shade closer to obsidian than chocolate. Hermione wondered if she was still alive, but cast the thought away when a voice vibrated through the memory.

“She is quite an excellent specimen.”

“Thank you, sir.” Theo replied quietly.

“She’s stable enough for the final phase.” Said the blurry faced stranger. She tried to pry, but no discernible features made themselves known in the memory. “Now, let us see if this iteration holds the binding properly.”

Hermione's stomach churned. Specimen? Iteration? Subject? The casual cruelty was a physical blow. She tried to pull back, to create distance, but Theo’s mind was a torrent, pulling her deeper into the sensory overload. She felt the detached curiosity, the intellectual analysis of the curse's effect, the faint, almost imperceptible tremor of disgust that Theo had mentioned. It was a bizarre, horrifying duality. She found his actions and his internal revulsion existed simultaneously.

There was a sudden, blinding flash of emerald green light, followed by a sickening thud. Hermione jolted, and when she realized the spell wasn’t aimed towards her—she still didn’t relax. Not when the bound figure on the table went limp.

Hermione gasped, a choked sound that was swallowed by the cellar. Her own mind recoiled, slamming against Theo's protective shields, which seemed to flicker, momentarily weakened by the now shared trauma. She pulled back, gasping, her body shaking uncontrollably. Her wand arm dropped, trembling, and the cellar floor seemed to tilt beneath her.

“Have fun, Granger?” Theo's voice was a low, taunting rasp, but there was a tremor in it she hadn't noticed before, a hint of genuine exhaustion. His face was pale, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold damp air of the cellar. He looked as though he'd just run a marathon, and she realized the exertion of allowing her access, of reliving those horrors, was taking its toll on him too.

Hermione stumbled back, hitting the stone wall behind her, sliding down until she was huddled on the floor, gasping for breath. The image of the dead girl, the casual murder, was seared behind her eyelids.

“That,” she choked out, her voice raw, “that was a human being! Not an experiment!”

“This is war, Granger,” Theo snorted, a harsh, humorless sound. “She was a Muggle. That's how they see them. And that's how you'll have to see them if you want to survive inside.” He leaned forward slightly, his eyes fixed on her, no longer taunting, but cold and serious. “That was just the first layer. You wanted secrets? That wasn't even close to one. That was a normal fucking Tuesday.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “You need to be stronger than that, or you won't last a day.”

Hermione pushed herself up, gritting her teeth against the lingering tremors. Her stomach still roiled, but a fierce, cold anger was beginning to override the nausea. She would not break. Not when Ginny was out there, when she had seen, for the first time, the true, clinical horror of Voldemort's war machine.

That could have been Ginny on the table.

“I need more,” she demanded. She raised her wand, her hand still trembling slightly, but aimed it true. Her eyes met Theo's, finding a blazing intensity in their blue depths. “Show me everything.”

Theo studied her, his expression shifted until it was nothing more than bleak, morbid disappointment.

“You’ll never be able to forget it.”

“I don’t want to forget it,” she snarled, her hand trembling in the air. She gritted her teeth until her shaking ceased. “I need to know everything there is to know. Every detail. Every bloody conversation. I need to know who you shag, who you drink with, who you work with—”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then another, as if he needed to calm himself until he was capable of giving a silent, almost imperceptible nod.

When she raised her wand again, Theo whispered, “I guess I’ll see you in hell when this is over, Granger.”

Hermione took a deep breath, and pushed her mind into his once more. 

She hadn’t meant to let the thought stretch forward, but when it passed through her shield—I already am in hell—Theo internally flinched. 

Then she seized his mind until it was so thoroughly hers, she couldn’t tell where she began, and he ended

Chapter Text

day 1,933

9th of October, 2000

When Hermione shut the kitchen ledger, the final snap of it echoed louder than she intended. She stiffened, quickly casting a glance around, and was less surprised than she wished to be when she saw Harry leaning against the door frame, his brows pinched in what looked to be deep thought.

Noticing her attention, he straightened, and made an attempt at a smile.

“Go over alright?” he asked, and Hermione was reminded once again, that subtly was not Harry Potter’s strong suit.

“I suppose,” she replied. She attempted to sound breezy and unbothered, despite being anything but.

She couldn’t get the horrors she had witnessed out of her mind—but she supposed that was the entire point, now wasn’t it? To become as deeply disturbed and dark as the man she was set to become. A body she would remain in for however long it took for her to destabilize a regime as dark as the one Tom Riddle had created.

He nodded absentmindedly, and kicked his toe against the tile.

“Can he be trusted?”

His voice was so quiet it barely reached her, but there was no mistaking the tightness in it. The accusation hidden under the question.

Theodore Nott wasn’t doing this for altruistic reasons—he had an agenda, and was using the Order as much as they were using him.

Two wrongs never made a right, but Hermione had long since abandoned such notions that the world was just.

“He gave me what I needed in the end.”

He shoved his hands into his jeans pocket, when he looked at her—it undid her. She found herself leaning against the counter to stay upright. Was that judgement…or pity?

A stone burrowed deep into her stomach, weighing her down further.

“Do you ever think about the troll?” he asked after a beat.

She blinked. “The one in first year?”

“Yeah.”

A brittle laugh stumbled out between her lips. “Not exactly top of mind these days.”

His gaze became far off, and she wondered if he was thinking about all the what ifs of that night.

“I think it started there.”

She cocked her head, and folded her arms across her chest. “Our friendship?”

The smile he directed at his feet was sad. Something cracked in her chest, threatening to cave it in.

Why did this feel like goodbye? 

“That too.”

“Then…what?”

“This path,” he finally looked up, and there was something terribly final in his gaze. “If Ron and I hadn’t come to that bathroom to get you…” he shook his head and chuckled mirthlessly. “I just think your life might have been easier if you weren’t my friend.”

His words stung, like a bee had lodged itself in her chest, buzzing around her heart until it found the perfect place to puncture.

“I would never undo that—” she started, and then shook her head, biting her tongue hard enough, blood bloomed. She swallowed thickly, accepting the coppery tang of her saliva. It was better than the tears pricking at the back of her eyes. “I would choose you—in every version of this war, in any timeline. I would choose you over being safe.”

Harry blinked at her, like she’d just handed him something too heavy to hold. His jaw worked, but no words came for many long seconds. 

The wait was agonizing.

“You shouldn’t have had to choose,” he finally said, voice cracking. “It shouldn’t have been either-or.”

Hermione looked away, blinking up at the ceiling. “It doesn’t matter. I would still choose you.”

“Even knowing what it cost you?”

She gave a humorless laugh, and wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve. “I’ve buried more friends than I can count, Harry. Some with my own hands.” She swallowed, hard. “I know the exact weight of a body. I know the sound it makes when it falls limp. I know how long it takes before warmth fades from the skin.”

Harry's breath caught, but she found she was unable to stop. Or rather, unwilling. Didn’t he understand that she didn’t care what it took? That she would sacrifice everything—anything—for him?

“I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since Hogwarts. I flinch when I hear children laugh, because it sounds too close to crying. I can’t remember what it feels like to sit outside without waiting for the sky to fall.”

Her hands trembled slightly at her sides.

“And still, I’d choose you. Every time. In every life. Even if it meant I ended up here again—because you are the reason I ever learned what hope looked like.”

She turned to him fully then, eyes glistening but fierce. “I’d still choose you.”

“I…” Harry’s breath hitched. “I never asked you to do any of that. To be this way, to become this person.”

She flinched, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Where is the ceiling, Hermione?”

She leveled him with a dark look, and she knew it made him uncomfortable, but she didn’t care.

“It doesn’t exist,” she said flatly. “I will never feel as if I’ve done enough,” she snapped. “There is always more I could do. There are things I’ve done that I wish I’d done differently, knowing the outcome now and knowing if I just changed one thing, one moment, it could have saved so many lives.”

“That’s not fair,” he cut in. “To you, to me—it makes me feel like—like I owe you—”

“This is war, Harry,” she all but snarled. “There is no time for you to feel guilty!”

“Well I fucking do!” He snapped, standing straight. He towered over her now, and she wondered how she hadn’t noticed before how different he was now compared to that night he returned with Cedric Diggory’s body in tow.

“None of us asked for this, especially you!” She shouted back, throwing her arms out wide. “So stop feeling sorry for yourself right now because it isn’t helpful!”

Her chest heaved in time with her staccato pulse, and she stared up at him with pure fire thrumming through her veins. It wasn’t until his gaze flicked down to her hand that she realized she was clutching her wand.

“Not once have you ever made me feel small,” she began in a breathless, broken tone. “You have never told me I was too much. You have always let me be me, and loved me for who I was.” She swallowed thickly. “You have always let me be loud and difficult and stubborn and scared. No one had ever done that before, not until I learned I had magic and that I belonged somewhere. Please, Harry—don’t start now.”

He looked down at the floor as he spoke; his voice was barely a whisper, “You’re not loud or scared anymore, though. You’re quiet and sad and sometimes, Hermione—you scare me with how far you’re willing to go.”

“There is nothing I won’t do to save the people I love.” Her voice broke on the words. “There is no amount of distance I’m unwilling to travel to ensure that.”

Harry exhaled slowly, his hands trembling as he reached for the back of a chair. He leaned against it, and dropped his head between his biceps.

“You have to come back, Hermione," he said fiercely. "You can't leave me here and not come back. I need you, Hermione. You're my best friend and I fucking need you, do you understand?"

She nodded, and swiped at her eyes to keep him from seeing her tears.

“I will.”

"I'm serious," he snapped, pinning her with a hard look. "Don't promise me unless you mean it."

She inhaled sharply, and stared up at him, truly unsure of what to say for the first time in years.

"If something goes wrong, you pull out."

She began to shake her head, but he silenced her with a finger.

"We will find another way."

They wouldn't, though. They'd tried every avenue, and they were still in the same place they had been a year, two—even three years ago. 

Silence stretched between them, and in the air hung the truth neither could speak aloud.

Harry whispered: “I miss her so much.”

Hermione closed her eyes. “I know.”

“I keep having the same dream about her,” he murmured. “She's in front of me going up the tower stairs, grinning like she’s going to hex a firstie for fun. And then I wake up, and I can’t breathe.”

Hermione wanted to reach out for him, but balled her fists against the waist to keep them still. 

“I’ll bring her back,” she said. “I promise.”

He drew a deep breath and held it, before expelling it like he hoped the stress would go with it. 

“It’s a bloody mad idea.”

“I know.” she whispered. “But we have no other options on the table right now. I have to do this.”

“You don’t, though.” He muttered. “Anything you’ve done, you haven’t had to.”

She didn’t answer him right away—because how could she explain it? There was no clean cut way to tell him that all she knew now was how to make impossible choices. That every day, she woke up and felt the war gnawing at what was left of her and still chose to stay in it. That there were things she’d done already, things she couldn’t speak aloud, not even to Harry, not even to herself in the quiet of her own mind.

You haven’t had to, he’d said.

But wasn’t that the point?

No one had to do anything in this war. That’s what made it a war. She could have left with her parents to Australia and lived a completely mundane, Muggle life. But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d become a soldier and justified murder with kill or be killed. She had learned how to train her magic into obeying her just so she could exploit the wisp of Legilimency she had tapped into. She turned it into a tool so she could rip memories out of prisoners that left them bleeding at the gums. She’d sent people to die with half-formed plans and three good guesses. She’d watched Justin Finch-Fletchley bleed out in her arms while she choked on the scent of burnt skin and didn’t even cry.

She had stopped crying sometime last winter, she realized. Around the time the snows came, when Harry had gotten frostbite in his wand hand during a battle in Diagon Alley after they had made an attempt at a break-in at Gringotts to get the cup.

No one had to do any of it.

But she always did, because she had never known how to stand by and watch the fire spread when she still had water in her hands, even if it scalded her on the way down.

So no. Maybe she didn’t have to. But she would anyway, if not for herself, but for Harry, and Ron, and for all the ones who didn’t come back.

Because deep inside of her was that little girl that still believed she could do something if she just tried hard enough.

“Maybe not,” she replied after a long moment spent in contemplative silence. “But that’s who I am.”

He pulled away, and when she glanced up, she found his mouth had contorted into something unrecognizable, a sneer or a frown—she couldn’t tell.

It tugged on a memory; of another boy who had grown up on the opposite side of this war. The very same who had stared at her across a bloodied field like the sight of her had broken something in him just days before.

She pushed the memory away, wondering how she might leverage it to get more information out of Theo at a later date.

“I just want it to be over,” Harry said.

She gave him a watery smile. “It will be soon.”

His laugh pulled her back to the present. It was caustic, and when she looked at him, she didn’t see hope—she saw resignation. Regret. 

But beyond that, she spotted anger. Pure, unadulterated anger.

“Will it?” He whispered, and turned his cheek. His jaw feathered as he contemplated his own question. “I don’t think it will ever end.”

“Harry,” she hissed, and stepped closed, gripping his forearm. “You can’t say that!”

“I’ve spent a decade fighting him,” he whispered. “I’m tired, Hermione.”

 She saw the cracks then—the carefully hidden chasm in his soul. 

“Do you trust me?”

“With my life.” He snapped, almost as if he were offended she would even ask.

She nodded, and reached for his hand. She squeezed it once, hard enough the blood left her fingers. 

“Then trust me with this.”

“If Ginny…” he cleared his throat, fidgeting where he stood. Hermione’s chest constricted—he looked so much like his first year self at that moment.

“I’ll find her.” Hermione said, taking a half step closer. “Theo’s memories showed where they keep records of every single person they capture, dead or alive.”

Harry flinched.

“She’s alive,” Hermione whispered. “I’ll get her back.”

His throat bobbed. “I should be the one going to get her. I should be with her. I shouldn’t have let her come on the mission anyways—”

He cut himself off, and Hermione tensed when she noticed the glimmer of unshed tears in his emerald eyes. He quickly pivoted away, and cleared his throat.

“Harry…”

Ginny had said something to her before the mission, Hermione remembered it now. She hadn’t really understood at the moment, but she did now.

Do you think children understand war?

“I shouldn’t have let her go,” Harry whispered.

Hermione reached for Harry’s shoulder, and the moment she pulled him closer, he fell apart. He pulled her tight against him and buried his face in her hair, choking on his sobs. 

A single tear slipped free from her eye, and rolled down her cheek as she smoothed her palm over the back of his head. Her resolve hardened, and she bit down on her lip hard enough it bled. 

Her eyes dried, and then cleared as she snapped her Occlumency walls into place. She was in a library, and she was pushing the books of her life into place.

There was a fire crackling, and Crookshanks wove through her legs.

She took a deep breath, pushing on the leather spines of her memories as she slotted them into place.

“I’ll get her back, Harry. I promise, I’ll bring them home.”

When his breathing finally steadied against her shoulder, she let her hand fall to his back, fingers curling into the worn cotton of his t-shirt. She pressed her cheek to his chest and shut her eyes.

Ginny’s words kept echoing, quiet and sharp as a curse.

Do you think children understand war?

Hermione had been a child once. She’d thought she understood—thought she could read about wars in books and know something of sacrifice, and of grief. 

She had studied guerrilla tactics from the Muggle wars—Vietnam, Algeria, even the Warsaw uprisings—late at night when she couldn’t sleep, pouring over heavy books and fading memoirs in the corner of Grimmauld’s library with a wandlight and a highlighter. She’d traced maps of battles with her fingers and memorized how ordinary people turned cities and forests into traps, how resistance cells melted into the populace, how they turned scarcity into an advantage. She learned how to think in ambushes, how to ration supplies, how to weaponize the enemy’s arrogance.

What struck her most wasn’t the victories; there weren’t many. It was the resilience of those who fought anyway, who carved out just enough to make the machine stutter, if only to keep hope alive.

When she began applying these tactics to their missions by structuring safehouses in concentric rings, dispersing caches of wands and potions, insisting on small, mobile units over large forces—even Moody had grudgingly admitted she was “a bloody clever girl.”

It didn’t escape her notice of what exactly she was teaching them.

In the process, those who remained true to the Order learned what it was like to turn into shells of their former selves. Fighting clean was not how heroes won in the stories, so she’d stopped believing in those stories a long time ago.

War didn’t just make her understand. It made her grow up in ways she couldn’t undo. It made her into something she didn’t always recognize when she looked in the mirror.

She was not a child anymore; none of them were.

So she held Harry a little tighter, and when she spoke, her voice was steel.

“I can do this,” she whispered, her lips just above his ear. “You have to trust me.”

His breathing slowly evened out against her shoulder. For as long as she’d known him, Harry’s grief had always been silent, and once more that exhausted quiet that Hermione knew so well came to surface. It was the same silence that filled Grimmauld Place every night. One borne of despair and the harrowing truth that the light at the end of the tunnel was just a pinprick of color.

She pressed her cheek to his chest, letting her fingers curl into the worn cotton of his t-shirt. Would they even be able to live beyond this war once it was over? Or was the future they were fighting for not their own? Hermione stroked the back of Harry’s neck, and sighed deeply. She knew the answer.

For a long moment, she simply held her best friend. She took in his pain, hoping it might forge itself into another layer of her resolve. Telling herself that this was why. Harry stood for her when no one else ever had, and she understood the raw, guttural agony of losing someone you loved. She knew intimately the depth of a promise broken, and a stolen future. 

Hermione’s brows pulled together, and she went stiff. 

Think you can hit me, Granger?

A dark laugh echoed through her mind, as if the person who produced it was right there in the kitchen with them. She blinked and looked around—of course, there was no one there beside her and Harry, and the faint hum of the ice box. A chill skirted down her spine, fanning out across her arms until gooseflesh rippled like a wave over her skin.

Too slow, my love. Try again.