Poppy Pomfrey had caught Black Cat Flu and was under quarantine. A disease that caused chronic bad luck was one of the last things that the Order could handle sweeping through the Resistance.
The clock ticked relentlessly on while Hermione paced, carefully and meticulously organising her mind. She gathered all her memories of Draco, shoving them into the furthest recesses of her consciousness where she kept her memories of her parents.
She could not think about Draco. She could not worry about whether he was fighting. Whether Kingsley or Moody had him doing anything that put him into extreme danger in order to give the Resistance a slight edge.
She had to work. Thinking about it wouldn't change anything.
She walled it all away.
Seamus appeared at the door carrying an unfamiliar woman and Michael Corner in his arms.
“Vampire,” he said, nodding towards the woman. “I dunno about him.”
He dropped them and quickly apparated away again.
The foyer began filling with bodies. Muggles, Resistance fighters; they were all being brought to Hermione and Padma.
Hermione poured Blood-Replenishing Potion and the antidote for the bite down the woman's throat before trying to quickly diagnose what had happened to Michael. A diagnostic charm indicated his organs were shutting down, but she couldn't figure out why. She started casting an analytic web on the curse signature in order to try to identify it.
Crack.
Kingsley appeared, carrying Tonks. Tonks was screaming at the top of her lungs; her eyes were rolled back in her head.
Hermione cast a stasis charm on Michael in the hope of buying time and rushed over.
Tonks' arm had been cursed; the skin was sliding away as her body flayed itself. Hermione cancelled the curse and cast a spell to soothe the pain before holding a vial of Skin-Regrowth Potion against Tonks' lips.
Blood and a black, acrid liquid spattered onto Hermione's sleeve. She glanced up sharply.
“You're cursed,” she said, watching a growing stain spread across Kingsley's left shoulder through his robes.
“I have to get Potter out,” he said, turning to leave.
She grabbed his arm. “It's close to your heart. Let me heal you.”
He pulled her hand off. “There's no time. Get ready, we're bringing more your way.”
There was a crack as Parvati appeared, weighed down with four bodies.
“Get them to Padma,” Hermione said, chasing Kingsley as he swept out of Grimmauld Place. “Let me heal you, Kingsley.”
She reached out to grab him before he reached the edge of the protective wards. As her fingers closed around the fabric of his robes, he apparated. They both reappeared in the battlefield. It was a town square, hazy with dust, blood and residual magic.
There were bodies everywhere.The Death Eaters were casting curses at the Resistance members who were trying to get the injured away. Dementors were floating overhead, Kissing anyone they came across.
Hermione glanced around with horror.
“Go back to Grimmauld Place! Your job is to stay in the safe houses, Granger.” Kingsley snarled at her; his expression furious when he realized she was standing beside him. He cast a shield around them.
There was a scream of rage that Hermione recognised as belonging to Ron.
“Get back to the safe house, Granger,” Kingsley said over his shoulder as he moved toward the sound.
Hermione prepared to apparate but, just before she vanished, her eyes landed on a boy lying on the ground. His stomach was torn open, likely by a hag or a werewolf.
She knelt down and checked his pulse. Too late; he was already dead. There was a wand in his hand. A Resistance fighter. He couldn't have been fourteen.
A witch beside him had a necrosis curse crawling up her leg. She seemed to have passed out from the pain. There was another body on top of the witch; a young man who'd fallen across her. Hermione rolled him over to see whether he was still alive too.
Instantly he sprang forward. Hermione felt fangs sink into her shoulder as he pulled her to the ground. Hermione cast a dark curse without pausing to think.
The vampire crumbled.
Hermione staggered to her feet, levitating the injured witch into her arms. She glanced around for anyone else within reach.
A man two feet away appeared to have been attacked by a dementor. Hermione moved towards him to check whether he'd been fully Kissed. His soul was still intact, but he was hypothermic and in need of chocolate.
An icy sensation came over her. She looked up sharply to find several dementors closing in.
Hermione took a deep breath and cast a patronus. A flash of light shot from her wand, but her patronus failed to corporealise.
As her patronus drove away the dementors, she pulled the wizard's arm over her shoulders and readied herself to apparate.
She sagged under the weight and cast a quick lightening charm. As she did so, there were several cracks of apparition. Hermione gripped the bodies more tightly as she looked up.
Four masked Death Eaters had appeared less than ten feet away. One of them was facing her. He instantly whipped his wand forward.
Hermione's eyes widened, and she set her mind to Grimmauld Place. Destination. Determination. Deliberation.
She felt the curse collide with her chest as she vanished.
She reappeared in the street outside Grimmauld Place, dropping the witch and wizard and falling forward with agonised gasp.
She was vaguely aware of swearing, and someone grabbing her and dragging her up the steps into Grimmauld Place. She was flipped over and stared into the faces of Padma and several of the Resistance guards in charge of Grimmauld Place security during skirmishes. Hermione shuddered and tried not to sob.
“What spell? What spell?” Padma's eyes were wide and panicked as she leaned over Hermione. Her wand was shaking in her hands.
Hermione gestured wordlessly towards her chest. Padma ripped Hermione's shirt open and gasped.
The acid curse had struck Hermione squarely in the sternum. It had been powerfully cast. The boils were already burning deep into her bones and across her chest up to her collarbones.
Padma rapidly cast the countercurse. Hermione lay on the floor and tried not to sob as Padma summoned potions from across the room.
She was burning. The agony from being cursed in the wrist was nothing compared to this. It was in the middle of her. She was barely aware of anything but the corrosive pain in the centre of herself. She couldn't make out sounds. She couldn't feel the rest of her body. All she could feel was that she was burning. Inside her chest. In her bones. Her skin. Like there was acid in her throat.
Surely someone would stun her. She was on the verge of pleading.
She closed her eyes tightly and waited for everything to stop.
“Hermione.”
“Hermione.” Padma's voice broke through the blur of agony.
Hermione forced herself to open her eyes and look up at Padma.
“I can't remove your bones now,” Padma said. Her voice was trembling as she poured the analgesic across Hermione's chest. “There are too many people dying — and I need you. There are too many curses here I don't know how to analyse. Besides the pain potions and the analgesic, what should I give you?”
Hermione stared at Padma in blank horror for several seconds, struggling to make sense of the words.
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe shallowly before she forced herself to answer. Everything was burning. Even with the analgesic potion, the burning wasn't stopping. If she hadn't felt certain that screaming would have hurt more, she would have screamed until her voice gave out.
She swallowed repeatedly before she forced herself to speak. “Strengthener. A drop of Felix Felicis. And a Draught of Peace,” she said in as low voice as she could manage. She could feel vibrations of her vocal chords in all the pockets of burned flesh.