“I'll deal with it,” Moody said, summoning it over to himself. “I'll send word to Severus.”
Moody turned and stumped out.
When Hermione returned to the hospital ward after a late dinner, Harry was sitting beside Ginny again. All the lights dancing around Ginny's body were in normal, reassuring hues, but Hermione paused to cast a diagnostic to make sure everything was still alright.
“You shouldn't have done that,” Harry said, while she was in the midst of casting.
“What do you mean?” she asked, pausing mid-spell to look at him. Her breath caught slightly in her chest and her grip on her wand tightened.
“Using Ginny's injury like that.” Harry's voice hard and tight. “You made it sound like it was somehow a good thing she got hurt.”
Hermione sighed, and fought against an urge to roll her eyes.
“I didn't mean it like that,” she said. “You know I hate it when anyone gets hurt.”
“You should have waited. You could have brought it up at the next meeting when Ron wasn't feeling so awful. Did you even comfort him because you cared, or just because you wanted to know where the knife was?”
Hermione's hands dropped to her sides and her eyes narrowed as her irritation with Harry bloomed into offense.
“I wanted to make sure he hadn't cut himself with it. I wanted to make sure no one else found it and got injured with it,” she said in a steely voice.
Harry sighed and glanced over toward her sharply.
“But that's what you were thinking about. When Ginny was hurt and you were healing her, what you were thinking about was 'Oh look, nicks in her skull. I wonder if this information will be useful for destroying horcruxes.' Your roommate was lying there while you treated her, and that's what you were thinking about. One of your best friends was crying in your arms because he had to cut up his baby sister's face, and all you were thinking about was that fucking knife.”
Hermione balled her left hand into a fist so tight she could feel her nails biting into her palm and the shape of her metacarpal bones under her fingertips.
“I am capable of thinking of multiple things at once, Harry.” Her tone was icy. “Or would you rather that the mission had been entirely pointless? That Ginny got hurt and it didn't mean anything?”
“Don't treat it like that, Hermione. Don't treat people like they're nothing but an equation to you.”
Harry stood up abruptly and stared angrily at her.
Hermione twitched slightly. She couldn't understand the emotional reasoning that Harry employed. It was exhausting to try to figure out where he was coming from. It ate into mental resources she couldn't afford to give him.
“Either this all happens for a reason or it doesn't,” she said with cold rage. “You can't have it both ways. If this is all supposed to be meaningful then you can't get offended when I point it out and accuse me of being callous.”
Harry paled further and dragged a frustrated hand through his hair. He stared at her with his eyes flashing for a moment before turning away, his lips curled slightly.
“The way you treat people… sometimes, I feel like I don't even know you anymore,” he said.
“Maybe you don't,” she said in a clipped tone, staring down at her wand, finishing the diagnostic on Ginny.
“You should have waited, you shouldn't have talked about the knife tonight. It's not like we have a horcrux. You could have waited,” he said again as though it were the final conclusion of their conversation.
Hermione pursed her lips slightly and took a breath before responding.
“The war isn't going to wait for us to grieve, I'm sorry you disagree with my decision. I didn't mean for it to hurt anyone.”
Harry turned away from her.
Hermione walked into the next room and leaned against the wall, feeling somewhat frozen.
Her hands were trembling slightly. Her stomach felt as though it had been twisted viciously. She regretted eating anything.
She took several deep breaths through her nose and pressed the palms of her hands hard against the wall as she tried to recentre.
She shook her head and tried not to let herself dwell on what Harry had said.
After another minute she straightened and glanced down at her watch to check the time. Ginny's bones still had hours to regrow.
Hermione mulled over the procedure. She should have Padma watch her perform it.
After Malfoy demanded her, Moody and Kingsley had decided to pull one of the field healers and have them trained to help with hospital shifts. Padma was the best field healer they had and a fair hand at potions; she was chosen to apprentice under both Hermione and Poppy.
When Kingsley informed Hermione that Padma was being assigned to the hospital, he framed it as support for Hermione because she was stretched too thin. But Hermione had been stretched too thin for years. She knew why they had reassigned Padma. They needed the redundancy because Hermione's function as healer had become secondary to her status as Malfoy's possession.
Padma was her replacement.
Now, with all the prisoners the Order had broken free recently, they could afford to give up a few more fighters to specialise in healing. Poppy was in charge of training fifty new field healers. Padma was slowly taking over Hermione's assigned hospital shifts and all the basic potions with the goal of Hermione only being on call in case of emergencies and advanced potion making; freeing her up to research and work on Malfoy.
When Hermione had informed Moody of Malfoy's intention to train her, Moody reminded her to do anything Malfoy required.
Hermione had felt slightly ill as she had agreed.
It wasn't as though she didn't agree. It was just — hard sometimes. Deep down, she wanted Moody to still seem conflicted; to show remorse over what he was steering her toward.
She wanted someone to care. To object for her. So that she wouldn't feel like such a whore as she did it.
It wasn't really rational. Strategically she knew Moody was right. Even if he didn't order her to do whatever Draco wanted, she was still intending to.
That was the bargain.
But sometimes she still wished someone would try to say no for her. So that Hermione could be reassured that the sick, clawing sensation inside of her was reasonable. That it was indeed as horrible as it felt to be sold to a Death Eater in exchange for information. Because, while Malfoy wasn't generally abusing Hermione or forcing her to have sex with him, if he were, Moody would give her the same instructions.
After all, they'd all expected Draco rape her when they'd sent her.
Somehow Hermione hadn't been prepared for how devastatingly lonely it would be to process everything alone. How her solitary mission would slowly eat her inside. Like a sinkhole inside her chest.
Of course, she could go to Minerva. Minerva would care. She'd object on behalf of Hermione. But it would be selfish of Hermione to turn to her for solace. It would just make her former Head grieve more. Hermione wasn't going to stop. She wasn't going to be dissuaded. Even if by some miracle Moody and Kingsley were.
She just wanted to stop feeling alone. To have someone tell her that what she was doing was meaningful. That it was alright that it hurt.
It was silly. Emotional. Wishing other people would be emotionally tortured on her behalf. She tried to squash it. But it kept rising up inside her.
She'd always been too desperate for verbal affirmation. To have someone tell her that she was clever, to reassure herself of her value with grades and praise.
She bit her lip. No one would ever praise her for what she was doing.
If most members of the Resistance were to learn, they'd probably accuse her of corrupting the war effort.
The war between Good and Evil was won by Good's refusal to compromise. Not by using Dark Magic. Not by selling a healer to a Death Eater for information.