“I do not run the entire lab.” Severus' tone was vicious. “I operate within the potion and curse divisions. I'm not the one running experiments on dark creatures or developing traced shackles. There are limitations to how much information I can provide without warning.” His dark eyes rested briefly on Hermione. “I may have better intelligence next week.”
“We'll take a team to the Tonks cottage and get the shackle off Ron.” Kingsley rolled up the scroll of information Severus had brought and handed it to Hermione and Fleur to look over. “According to Alastor, the Death Eaters only have a vague idea of where the cottage is at this point. We'll take a group of twenty and split into smaller teams. Fred and Charlie will escort Severus and I through the Fidelius to remove the trace. Everyone else will act as decoys. We'll likely have to fight our way out. We'll go polyjuiced. That will cause confusion over who to target. I'll send word to Potter and Moody to expect us. Granger, get the Polyjuice doses ready.”
“I'll need identities and a time limit,” Hermione said as she stood up.
“Two hour dose.” Kingsley paused in thought for a moment before adding “Use Harry's hair. They'll expect him there. They won't expect there to be twenty-four of him. The confusion will buy us time. We'll have to isolate both Remus and Ron once they get back to Grimmauld Place. Fleur, get two rooms warded in the basement.”
Hermione gave a short nod and headed to her potion cabinet, leaving the rest of the Order to strategise and debate the remaining logistics for the mission.
Hermione readied the potions and watched a roomful of people transform into her best friend before disillusioning themselves and departing Grimmauld Place.
The waiting was the worst. Hermione stood in the foyer and watched the hands on the clock journey slowly across its face.
She hated waiting.
Kingsley and Moody, Harry, Ron, Severus, and most of the Weasleys and the Order. They were all at the Tonks cottage. Hermione was left behind. Maybe Draco was there, trapped between maintaining his cover and preserving the Order.
Anything could be happening.
Growing up, she would never have thought she'd be the kind of person who'd ever agree to be left behind when others were fighting. Gryffindor. She'd thought bravery would always place her at the front lines.
Pragmatism had stolen away any lustre of heroism from her.
She pressed her hand against the window and stared out at the dimming street. The full moon would be out in half an hour.
The clock continued to measure out the relentless passage of time.
She braced herself with occlumency. She gathered up all her recent memories, sorted them neatly, and then pushed them away until her mind was clear.
The Death Eaters waiting at the Tonks cottage were not trainees. Fred stumbled through the door with his hand pressed to the side of his head. His ear had been sliced off by a curse. Moody returned with an arm and shoulder so badly maimed that Hermione initially feared he'd lose it. Remus was in the process of transforming when Tonks burst through the door and dragged him down into the basement.
Two Harrys came through the door a few minutes later. One was groaning and leaning heavily on the other.
“Come on, Ron. We're here. Someone, get him a pain potion!” the real Harry said, half-falling as he dragged the Harry-who-was-Ron further into the foyer.
Hermione dropped next to them and whipped out her wand. Ron was burning up and only half lucid. The combination of latent lycanthropy and the full moon had him writhing in agony.
“Fuck!! Fucking hell.” Ron was sobbing as he arched backward until it looked like his spine would snap. “Make it stop. Make it stop!!!”
He buried his nails in his shoulder, clawing at himself. Harry struggled to pin Ron's arms down and prevent him from maiming himself.
Ron's arms, legs, and body kept rippling and snapping as the polyjuice wore off. Even once his features re-emerged, the popping and rippling of his body didn't cease. The bones in his shoulders and arms keep breaking and stretching and then snapping back into place. His fingers were curled into claws, and he dragged them through the hardwood floor, screaming, tearing his nails off. Snarling in agony as his body fought against the partial transformation.
Hermione and Harry both shot stunners at his head. Ron barely flinched. He whirled and swiped at Hermione's throat, but she cast a shield a moment before he struck.
“Stun him! Everyone stun him!”
Hermione scrambled back as quickly as she could as Ron twisted and lurched and lunged again.
It took ten stunners to knock him out.
Hermione sat in the middle of the floor, panting, as Neville and Seamus and several others took Ron's unconscious body down into the basement.
Harry was on the floor beside her, gripping her hand so tightly she thought the bones might crack.
“I didn't know. I didn't know it would be like that.” Harry sounded lost.
Hermione looked down at their hands. “It can't get out. The wolf can't get out.” She stared at the blood and gouges on the floor. “We may need to discuss having Remus actually bite him.”
They were still sitting on the floor together when Kingsley came through the door, looking weary.
“We lost at least three,” Kingsley said. “We won't know who until everyone has reported back.”
Sturgis Podmore, Susan Bones, and five other Resistance fighters failed to return to Grimmauld Place. They were presumed dead.
It was easier to hope for their deaths than fear they'd been captured.
Hermione ran into Tonks after the Order debriefing. Their eyes met and Hermione studied Tonks' expression. The concern and suspicion that had been visible the day before had vanished.
Moody or Kingsley had obliviated her before she'd left the cottage.
Hermione lay in bed that night, staring up at the ceiling. Kingsley had brought back a classified scroll of analysis on the shackle removed from Ron. They couldn't bring the shackle back without bringing the trace.
Hermione had done a preliminary study of the magic. It was solid spellwork. The shackle was made of tungsten, strong but magically conductive. The spell detail for how the shackle recognized a caster as bearing a Dark Mark was based on an ingeniously complex arithmantical formula and a charmwork technique Hermione had never encountered before.
She turned the information over and over in her mind and didn't know what to do. The information was already partly obsolete. The next shackle would be updated. More difficult or even impossible for the Order to remove.
Even if she found a fault to exploit, the Order wouldn't necessarily be able to take advantage of it. They'd have to decide whether to sit on the information until a vital point, or use it immediately. Any flaw they exploited would result in Sussex redesigning the shackles again.
It was like the Enigma code; if the Order managed to break through the enchantments, it would only result in the Death Eaters perfecting it more quickly.
She rolled onto her side and wondered if the shackles would have been invented if Draco hadn't enabled the Order to stage so many prison break-ins; if the Order hadn't made such an elaborate attack in June and destroyed the original curse division.
Was it inevitable? Or had they caused it? If they hadn't, would there have been any other way for the Resistance to have lasted so long? Or would the war have already ended?
She didn't know.
She could only wonder.
Her bed felt colder than it ever had before.
She slept for two hours before she couldn't any longer. She went down to the kitchen in Grimmauld Place and made tea.
She looked at the scroll of analysis again and then stared out the window at the full moon. Luminous, cold silver. She had loved the moon as a child. The monthly evolution and subtle beauty had always entranced her. Since meeting Remus in third year, the moon had grown tragic and ominous. Its beauty a harbinger of pain.