Draco stared back, his lip curling viciously. “It doesn't matter to me what you do. Granger is leaving.”
Severus arched an eyebrow and looked back at Hermione. “Really?”
The corner of Hermione's mouth quirked down. “Yes. I gave him my word that I would go.”
Severus was silent for long enough that her heart began pounding in her chest.
He rolled his eyes. “Very well, given that I would seem to be the only one remaining who remembers the purpose of the Order.”
Hermione conjured a table and then scrounged through her beaded bag for parchment and ink. She started writing and then looked up at Draco.
“You should take Ginny now. That way I'll be there by the time she wakes. I'm assuming it's not a quick trip to wherever you're hiding us.”
Draco was staring at her, his eyes calculating. “I don't trust you, Granger. I trust Snape even less.”
Hermione's heart stalled, but she just blinked slowly. “Alright. Stay then.”
She looked back down at the scroll and resumed writing. There was a long silence.
“I want an Unbreakable Vow,” Draco said abruptly.
Hermione's fingers twitched before she looked up at him. “From me?”
Draco sneered. “No. Not from you. From Snape. I want his word that he won't interfere or take you anywhere.”
Hermione looked over at Severus, her heart pounding heavily in her chest. “Alright. Do you want me as Bonder?”
“You are both fools,” Severus said, drawing himself up.
“Will you do it?” Draco's eyes were narrowed into slits.
Severus gave Hermione a sidelong look and then snorted. “Of course, I will make an Unbreakable Vow,” he gave a dismissive wave of his hand, “given that it is the only way to get anything done.”
It was made in a matter of minutes.
Draco didn't look at Severus as he extracted the vow, his eyes were locked on Hermione.
Then Draco stood, his eyes still on her face.
“I'll be back in a few hours.”
He picked up Ginny. Just before he vanished, Hermione's lips parted.
To say—
To say—
“Alright. I'll be waiting for you,” she said, turning back to the table she'd been writing at and picking up the quill again.
She didn't look up as he apparated silently away.
The moment he vanished, she dropped the quill and looked up, staring frozen at the place he'd disappeared from. She half-expected him to reappear.
He didn't.
Her fingers tapped on the table for a few moments, and then she turned and walked past Severus, snatching her bag up from the floor and using her wand tip to carve runes into the floor. The trapdoor glowed and appeared. She knelt down and began pulling supplies out.
Severus was silent as she began emptying several glass vials and then charming them into a multitude of delicate glass spheres.
She pulled a cauldron from her bag and conjured an intense flame beneath it before upending an entire keg of powdered silver from Draco's supplies into it.
“I never imagined Draco could be so easily fooled.”
Hermione's jaw twitched as she pulled a flagon of resin out.
“He has always wanted to get me away from the war more than anything else.” She was quiet for a moment before she added, “I told you before, my life is important to him. And — in spite of himself, he doesn't want me to hate him. I suppose you could say he has predictable weaknesses now.”
She pressed her lips together and her throat tightened. “I've never broken my word to him, he trusts me to keep my word.”
“He'll never trust you again when he discovers you lied to him.”
Hermione didn't look up from her work. “No. I don't suppose he will.”
“Are you going to tell me what you're planning? Off to kill the Dark Lord yourself?”
The corner of her mouth quirked downwards as she shook her head. “I'm going to blow up Sussex.”
There was a long silence. “Really?”
Hermione shrugged a shoulder. “It's theoretically possible, and I don't have an abundance of options at the moment.”
“You intend to kill everyone in that building to save Draco?”
Hermione started dripping resin into dozens of the spheres. Her hands were steady, her focus razor sharp.
“I need Draco to live. I can't — I need him to live.” She swallowed and lifted her chin. “Besides, there's almost no one to save in that building. I tried to save the victims from the last curse division, and I couldn't. They all died.” She pulled out box filled with over a hundred vials of highly concentrated poison. Aerosolised, a drop was enough to kill a room. “I can make it quick for everyone there. That — was the best I could do the last time.”
She measured several drops into every glass sphere.
“If I blow up Sussex, I can save Draco, spare the victims whatever else would happen to them, and — I can kill the scientists working there. Maybe Dolohov will even be there. Tom probably won't build a whole new lab again now that Harry is dead. He won't have enough scientists to restaff to that scale, even if he wanted to. Which will mean he can't send everyone imprisoned at Hogwarts there. I'm sure he'll come up with something else — but at least he won't be able to have them all tortured to death in order to further his cause.”
Severus was silent for several minutes.
“So — that's my plan. You should probably leave,” Hermione said without looking up. “I've never made these types of bombs before. I may blow this building up.”
“I'm sure it will be a much quicker death than what Draco will do if he returns and finds his safe house destroyed. Is this a suicide mission for you then, or are you intending to come back?”
Hermione sealed several glass spheres and placed them into larger spheres. “I have to come back. For Draco.”
“If you don't come back, he'll assuredly try to kill me.”
Irritation bloomed in the back of her mind, and her hold on a vial of crushed fire crab eggs tightened. “I'm sure you'll come up with something, Severus. You've been a spy for almost as long as I've been alive.”
There was another long silence.
“If you don't come back, what do you expect him to do?”
Hermione froze, and her occlumency walls wavered. “I'm going to come back. I told Draco I'd be here waiting for him.”
Severus didn't say anything else. He just stood watching her in disapproving silence.
She made dozens of bombs, each no larger than a snitch and encased every one of them in silver before dipping them into her invisibility potion and storing them inside the countless pockets in her cloak.
Then she stood, picked up the paper on the table and folded it in half, starting to put it away into her bag before hesitating and putting it back. She pulled out her knives and slipped them both into an empty pocket in her cloak.
She glanced over at the mess of bomb materials scattered across the floor. “Don't touch anything. I'll clean up when I get back. I'm off now.”
Severus looked her up and down carefully. His onyx eyes inscrutable. “How are you intending to get there?”
Hermione's heart was pounding violently in her chest despite the sedative, but she lifted her chin, her mouth quirking in the corner. “You took me to Ashdown once for foraging. I used to go there every week until the wards kept me out.”
Severus stared at her for another moment and extended his hand. “Give them to me. I'll do it.”
Hermione's eyes widened. She hesitated for a moment before she gripped the fabric of her cloak and shook her head. “I promised Draco I'd leave and not come back. If this doesn't work and Draco—” her voice cut off briefly. She studied the floor. “There has to be someone to find the horcrux. Besides — these”—she gestured down at her cloak—“I didn't have much time. They're sloppy, I have to activate them.”