“I just don't know why you're asking,” she said. She felt too drained to have the current conversation.
“It may surprise you, Granger, but I have no particular wish to see your friends dead.”
Hermione said nothing. She had no idea what kind of response to make to the comment.
“My father—,“ he started and then hesitated; his face became a cold mask. “Nevermind.”
Hermione slumped internally. She needed to have this conversation with him. She reached out and caught his wrist. He stilled and looked back toward her, his expression closed.
“I'm sorry. The question caught me off guard. I don't fault you for what your father does. It's just—,” her voice broke off briefly and her hold on his wrist tightened. ”I know you never had anything but contempt for the Weasleys — but what he's doing to them is horrific.”
Malfoy was silent.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I doubt you'll believe me, but I don't — there is no reasoning with his vendetta.”
“You disagree with him?” Hermione asked, studying his face cautiously.
He used his other hand to take hold of hers and pulled his wrist free. “If I blamed them for my mother's death, I wouldn't have asked about the Weasley girl.”
“Thank you for asking,” she said, glancing awkwardly around the room. “It must be difficult for you. I know you admired your father.”
Draco looked distinctly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had gone in.
“Right. Well — later, Granger,” he said and apparated without another word.
Hermione stood there for several moments, reviewing the conversation before she headed back to Grimmauld Place.
When she got there, she found her room occupied by Harry and Ginny. She fidgeted in the hallway and then started up toward the uppermost floors of the house. As she passed one of the smaller rooms, she caught sight of a shock of red hair bent over a table of maps. She paused and tapped lightly on the door.
“Hey Mione,” Ron said distractedly as he moved pieces across the maps and then scratched his head absentmindedly with the tip of his wand. His expression was tense.
“Got a minute?” she asked.
“Sure.” He stuffed his wand into his back pocket and looked up at her. “Just reviewing what's been happening since I left. Lot of raids while we were away, you must have been busy.”
He was giving her a penetrating look. Hermione dropped her eyes.
“I'm sure you see the strategy,” she said quietly.
“Kingsley's using the horcruxes to keep Harry off the field,” he said.
Hermione gave a short nod. “You understand why, don't you?”
Ron's expression hardened further as he shrugged and nodded.
“No good risking him in a skirmish when we need him for the final blow. Yeah. I get it. That doesn't mean I like it. And some of these—,” he pulled a few scrolls over and glanced down at them. “They're pretty much suicide missions. I hadn't realized how safe Kingsley has been playing it because of Harry. Seeing what he'll do when we're gone for a few weeks—“
He broke off as he stared angrily down at the reports. “What exactly were the casualty rates while we were gone?”
Hermione opened her mouth to answer, and he cut her off.
“I don't need you to tell me. I can see the numbers right here. Fucking — fucking bloody unbelievable. If Kingsley were here, I'd punch him.”
His face was growing scarlet with rage.
“Ron, we can't afford to play it safe anymore,” Hermione said, her stomach knotting itself as she thought about all the people whose eyes she'd drawn shut during the past several weeks, the new hospice safe house she'd helped Bill ward. “I don't think you realise how depleted our resources are. How many years do you think Harry's vault can feed an army? The hospital ward is running on fumes. Europe is getting locked under Tom's control. The only option we have left is to take risks. And we can't risk Harry.”
Ron was silent. Hermione could see the muscles of his jaw working as he kept clenching and releasing it.
“We need to find the horcruxes,” he finally said. Hermione let out a low, deep breath that she'd been anxiously holding and nodded.
“We do,” she said. “Tom and Harry are the linchpins. Ideologically, the Death Eaters are too diverse. It's Tom's power that keeps the army cohesive. If we can kill him, permanently, there should be enough infighting to give the Resistance the upper hand.”
“I guess that's the one upside to Tom's delusions of immortality, he isn't bothering to groom a successor,” Ron said woodenly as he looked over another mission report. Hermione could see her signature on the bottom, verifying the injured, calculating the losses in neat, impersonal numbers. “Although I don't doubt the Malfoys will think they're first in line now that Bellatrix is dead. Fucking psychopaths.”
“You need to convince Harry that the horcruxes are the first priority,” she said, staring at Ron intently. “Especially now, after Ginny. I'm worried he just wants to ignore them.”
Ron's expression grew strained.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
Hermione hesitantly drew closer.
“Ron, I hope what I said at the meeting last night didn't make you feel like it was your fault. You saved Ginny. I didn't think it would be appropriate to withhold the information but I didn't mean to hurt you by disclosing it.”
“It's fine,” he said, expression stiff. “You made the right call.”
“I'm sorry—”
“Don't. I don't really want to talk about it,” he said in a shaking voice that brooked no argument.
Hermione's eyes darted across his face, recognising the tension around his eyes, the scarlet tipping his ears while his face grew so pale his freckles stood out like drops of blood across his face.
If she pushed, he'd explode.
Hermione felt her heart sink.
“Right. Well, I'll leave you to review,” she said turning to leave.
She made her way up a flight of stairs slowly.
The number of subjects she avoided with Harry and Ron in order to not fight with them had slowly created a chasm.
Trying to stay focused. Stay on mission. All those personal issues and arguments she'd put off for another day. Assuming the war would end and they'd have a chance to deal with it all without compromising their focus and risking someone's life.
But the war had rolled on for years.
Now they barely knew how to speak to each other at all. There was so much unspoken resentment. So many things they'd waited too long to say. Every disagreement was about a thousand more things than merely the issue at hand.
The notion that they could ever go back and fix it felt impossible.
Maybe there had been a chance before Malfoy. But now—
Hermione felt almost certain that she had crossed a line that they would never allow her to come back from. To them, the magnitude of the betrayal would permanently sever things.
Just thinking about it made it hard to breathe.
She found herself in a practice room. She went over, slotted her feet under a wardrobe used to store equipment and started doing sit-ups until her abdominal muscles felt like they had been injected with acid.
She had discovered that Draco's exercise regime was an excellent way of channeling her stress, frustration and grief. She never intended to tell him, but she wished she had started exercising years ago. The physical symptoms of stress could not be suppressed with occlumency. Funneling it all into exercise was an excellent means to burn it off.
The surge of endorphins afterward was an additional upside.
After doing so many sit-up repetitions that she could barely peel herself off the floor, she rolled over and started doing push ups. She was rubbish at them, but she was also resolved. She was determined to work her way up until she actually did as many in a row as Draco had instructed.