“Thank you,” she said, resheathing the blade she was holding and slipping everything into her satchel.
“For the record, you are not allowed to sell them or give them to anyone else.”
Hermione's hands stilled, and her eyes darted guiltily up to Draco's face. His eyes were locked on hers, and the silver in them glittered.
“Is that clear, Granger?” His tone was ice.
She gave a begrudging nod.
“I will expect you to wear them every time you forage. I will look for them.”
She tensed and swallowed hard with irritation. “Fine.”
His expression softened marginally. “Well, this has been delightful. I cannot even remember how many times I've wished I could spend Christmas Eve getting lectured on how to read a diagnostic charm.” He smiled insincerely. Hermione said nothing. There was a pause, and then he added, “Per your request, here's a warning. I'm going to start teaching you hand-to-hand combat starting next week.”
Then he reached into his robes and pulled out a scroll of parchment. “My latest installment for Moody.” As she accepted it, he smirked at her. “I have to say, you've ended up being quite expensive, Granger.”
He vanished without a sound.
On Christmas Day, Hermione had the morning hospital shift. Angelina had been badly cursed during a raid in Muggle London the night before; she'd been hit in the knee with the acid curse, and while she was down, a Death Eater had added on an additional internal organ destroying curse. Fred had managed to grab hold of her and bring her back to Hermione before Angelina died in his arms.
The final repair work was too complex for Padma or Poppy.
Hermione sat in the quiet hospital ward and slowly reconstructed the tissue and tendons in Angelina's knee. “Alright, I need you to bend it, and see if the tissue formed properly. Regrowing bones for injuries like this doesn't always work properly.”
Angelina bit her lip. Her skin was grey from pain, but she moved her knee as requested.
“Ugggghh.” She gasped faintly and stopped. “Inside. It hurts inside — like it's grinding.”
Hermione cast a diagnostic and studied it. Due to the urgency of saving Angelina's organs, the acid curse had been overlooked for several minutes before being countered. It had destroyed most of the bones in Angelina's knee and left huge pockets of lost tissue. It was difficult to repair when there was so little of the original tissue left to build from. Hermione had initially feared she'd have to amputate it, but there was just enough intact after the bone regrowth for it to be healable.
“I see the problem. I'm going to stun you. You don't need to be awake for this part.”
Angelina nodded and closed her eyes.
It took nearly four hours before Hermione rennervated Angelina.
“Alright, try moving it again.”
Angelina lifted her leg and bent it slightly. “That's better. It twinges a little.” Her colour seemed much healthier.
“You'll need to stay off it for at least a month, but I think you'll be able to walk on it. It will hurt, particularly on cold days. You may limp a little. You'll always feel it. But you can still fight, if you want.”
“I'm not leaving the fight,” Angelina said firmly.
Hermione nodded, unsurprised, and began massaging a potion into Angelina's new skin. As Hermione worked, she became aware of Angelina's intense stare. Hermione glanced up and met her gaze. “What?”
Angelina tilted her head, still studying Hermione. “Sometimes I try to remember you from before the war, and I can't see that person anymore.”
Hermione's jaw tensed. She tried to restrict her advocacy for the Dark Arts to Order meetings, but her position had become known in the wider Resistance over time. Members of DA regularly took it upon themselves to evangelise to Hermione about the power of Good and the evil of the Dark Arts.
She could tell, by the expression on Angelina's face, that she was about to be subjected to a new lecture.
She forced her voice to stay even. “Who is it you thought I was then?”
“I don't know. Loud, forward, positive. Rather abrasive, to be honest. When you organised DA, you were a bit ruthless, but there was a honest sort of righteousness to it. Now, when you're not in healer-mode, you just seem ruthless. You're so quiet most of the time, but there's this rage around you that I feel sometimes. Like the war turned you into someone else. I feel like you let it.”
The corner of Hermione's mouth twitched, and she felt her eyes narrow. “War is a crucible. Do you think any of us will come out on the other side the same as we were?”
Angelina looked down at her knee and shrugged. “I'll carry scars inside and out, but deep down I'm always going to be the same person.” Angelina looked back at Hermione. “But I don't know if you're the same and I just never saw it, or if you've really changed that much. I feel like you've let go of yourself.”
Hermione's hands stilled, and she sat back. “Let go?”
Angelina shifted and looked uncomfortable. “I guess I'm worried about you. Fred said, when he was visiting George here, that it seemed like something happened to you. Like the last bits of the old you just — disappeared one day. And I've been watching you lately, all I see is this — I don't even know what it is. Sometimes I think it's rage. Other times I think it's despair. But it's as though you're lost in it.”
Hermione's mouth felt dry, and she swallowed repeatedly, buying herself time by recorking vials. She gripped the glass so hard her hands shook faintly.
“This war has eaten me, Angelina,” she finally said slowly.
Before she could say anything else, Hermione found herself abruptly jerked forward with a mouthful of hair in her mouth as Angelina pulled her into a tight hug.
“Oh, Hermione. Don't let yourself start thinking like that. You have to be able to visualise victory. Feel it. Fight for it. See yourself on the other side of the war. If you let go of that hope, you're going end up somewhere dark. Light always wins over Darkness. But you have to believe it.”
Hermione felt something inside her stiffen. She pulled herself away from Angelina, shaking her head, her mouth curling. “That's not enough to win a war. I'm not going to bet this war on my or anyone else's ability to believe in victory.”
“You still want us to use the Dark Arts, don't you?” Angelina stared at Hermione with the expression of a disappointed parent.
Hermione struggled against rolling her eyes as she nodded.
Angelina's shoulders drooped slightly. “If we lose ourselves to win, is it really winning? If we poison ourselves to get it and become the monsters we're fighting?”
Hermione clenched her jaw, as she fought against the urge to shake Angelina. “What exactly do you think will happen if we lose?”
“We'll die.” Angelina shrugged faintly.
Hermione suddenly understood why Draco hated Gryffindors so intensely. She couldn't stop herself from scoffing.
“Do you really think we'll just die? Angelina, they're not going to shut down Sussex when they win the war. We're livestock. You didn't see the prisoners they brought from the last curse division. They were—“ Hermione's voice shook. “They were dissolving, rotting, skinned and still alive, there were things crawling inside them—“ her voice broke off. “The ones that could still speak begged me to kill them.”
Hermione hissed between her teeth. The choking sense of frustration rose as she was forced to face, once again, the perpetual optimism of Resistance fighters. The stress and despair inside her felt toxic, like acid eroding her slowly at a cellular level. “If we lose — They'll round us all up and use the Resistance fighters as lab rats or whatever else they want to until they run out of us. After we blew up the last curse division, they just made a bigger one. The war isn't supposed to end with the Resistance. The Death Eaters are supposed to conquer the Muggle Europe next. That's the vision. The deal. All the Dark Beings allied with Tom because he promised them that. I don't know if he's insane enough to think he can do it, but that's his claim. And he'll probably at least pretend to.”