She nodded. “I've been advocating for lethal curses for years. If anyone was surprised that I used them, they haven't been paying attention.”
“Ron's in there. I'm knackered.” Fred swung a door open.
Ron sat in a bed. His shoulder had been sloppily bandaged. How so many Order members could be fighting for so many years without being able to perform basic emergency healing still baffled Hermione.
“Mione! You're alive.” Ron tried to climb out of bed and looked on the verge of tears as he saw her.
“I'm sorry,” she said as she hurried over and pushed him firmly back into the bed before removing the bandages with the wave of her wand. “I should have gotten back sooner.”
Harry gripped her shoulder, pulled her back and hugged her for a minute. “I'm so sorry. I thought they caught you. I looked through the bodies, and you weren't there. I'm so, so sorry. I never thought there'd be so many.”
Hermione pulled away. “I need to treat Ron, Harry.” Her voice was tight as she twisted free.
Ron's shoulder was mangled. The untransformed werewolf had bitten deep into the muscle of his shoulder, tearing huge swaths of flesh loose. The damage was severe.
Someone, presumably Remus, appeared to have dumped an entire container of powdered silver and dittany over the wound.
“Where did you go?” Harry asked, “We looked everywhere for you.”
“I got hurt,” she said, working to keep her voice low. She cleared away the blood, crusted powder and herbs to survey the extent of the injury. “I was bleeding out, and I needed someone with healing experience.”
She handed Ron a vial of pain relief potion. The moment after he swallowed, she cast cleansing charm over the area. He gave an agonized gasp.
Mouths were horribly dirty, especially one belonging to a werewolf with cannibalistic urges.
“Who?” Harry asked.
“A third-party Moody put me in contact with,” she said without looking up.
“Bastards,” Ron muttered, wincing as Hermione crushed up Wolfsbane into a poultice and spread it into the deepest tears in his shoulder. “Anyone who stays neutral in this war is a coward. What do they think will happen if we lose? I wouldn't trust them.”
“Not everyone is cut out to fight, Ron,” she said quietly, feeling obliged to defend the fictitious healer.
“I know it. I've been reminding Harry.” Ron gave Harry a hard look which Harry returned obstinately.
“We all got out, didn't we?” Harry retorted, dropping into a chair next to the bed. “Probably wouldn't have if Hermione hadn't fixed you up before we went back out.”
“The Order needs Hermione more as a healer than you needed her for your suicidal rescue idea,” Ron said between clenched teeth. “Moody and Kingsley will say the same as soon as they hear what you did.”
Hermione pulled the Wolfsbane poultice away and used the tip of her wand to siphon away all the poison that had been pulled up. Then she sprinkled another thick layer of powdered silver and dittany across the wound and set to wrapping it.
Her arm was shaking from exhaustion as she tried to wrap the gauze firmly with one hand.
After failing again on her fifth try, she stepped back and rummaged for a strengthening draught which she struggled to unstopper with one hand. Finally she pulled the cork out with her teeth, spat it onto the table, and drank the potion.
The trembling in her hand eased.
“Harry…,” she said in a low voice. “I need you to give me a hand. I can't manage Ron's dressing with just one. I need you to maintain the tension as I wrap it in order to keep the dittany in place.”
Harry stood and came over.
“What happened to your arm?” He reached out and touched the cast tentatively.
“Just a curse.” She shrugged. “I had to remove the bones. They're regrowing now.”
Harry winced. “I'm sorry.”
“It's fine. It wasn't life-threatening,” she said. “It just takes a while to get everything restored. Now, hold this here while I wrap. And then, when I bring it around, I need you to hold it here too. We don't want too much tension, just enough to keep it covered and everything in place.”
When Ron's shoulder was finally properly bandaged, Hermione started working on all the remaining injuries from his imprisonment. She couldn't figure out how to get the shackle on his right wrist off, so she worked around it. When she finished, she rested her hand lightly on his arm.
“It's not going to heal,” she told Ron soberly, nodding toward his shoulder.
He was pale, his freckles standing out starkly. “I know. Remus told me.”
“This close to the full moon, you're going to feel it every month.”
He gave a sharp nod.
“Remus may have mentioned; we'll need to isolate you tomorrow night. Until we know how severely it's going to affect you during the full moon. This — this is going to change you. You're going to have to be careful. When you get angry, you won't necessarily realize how much stronger and aggressive you'll be prone to get until you do something really dangerous. You — you could accidentally kill someone.”
“He won't,” Harry said defensively.
Hermione's jaw tensed. “Ron isn't the first person I've treated for bites, Harry. It's not going to be his fault, but if we decide to be careless, he could hurt someone. Bites this close to a full moon have consequences. When the wolf can't emerge with the moon, it tends to just simmer beneath the surface, waiting for opportunities to lash out. Ron is potentially dangerous, and we need to be prepared for that.”
“Well, maybe you should have gotten him out like we planned.” Harry crossed his arms and jerked his chin.
Hermione flinched, and the room swam slightly as she felt the blood drain away from her head.
“Harry, shut up!” Ron turned scarlet with rage. “It was your fucking stupid plan! Hermione shouldn't have been there. How the bloody hell was she supposed to have gotten me out?”
Harry was raring for a fight. Hermione could see it in his face. He was always angry after someone got hurt. And now, with Ginny away, he didn't have anyone to console or distract him.
He was lashing out in guilt. Because he'd never known how to deal with what he felt. Bleeding to death from the pain of all he couldn't stop himself from feeling.
“I did everything I could to protect Ron.”
“Yeah, I saw your idea of protecting him. What was that curse you used?” Harry asked.
She met his eyes. “I found it researching. It's one of the few spells that can kill a werewolf fast enough to stop them, aside from an Unforgivable.”
“It was Dark,” Harry said, his green eyes flashing. “Probably one of the darkest spells I've ever seen.”
“I thought Ron was worth it.” If she'd had the magic to spare, she would have hexed Harry across the room.
“We could have brought it down with stunners,” Harry said.
“Really? You were willing to bet Ron's life on that? After all the risk to save him?” Her voice was shaking with rage. “I knew the consequences. I accepted them. I used it.”
“So what? Suddenly you're an expert in the battlefield? Ripping apart your soul rather than believe that we can win with Light magic?” The hurt and fear in Harry's eyes was visible through his anger. “It gets into your soul, Hermione. Dark Magic. That darkness will stay in you after the war. It never goes away. It's inside you. In your magic.”
He took her by the shoulders, and she could feel his hands shaking. He looked ready to cry.
“I don't care.” Hermione jerked free from Harry and pushed her jaw up. “I want to win. I don't care what my soul ends up looking like.” Then she scoffed. "You were more than willing to risk my life; I don't see how my soul is somehow more important."
Harry took a sharp step back and was silent as he stared at her.