Every time Hermione appeared at a high level Order meeting, she laid out the case for why all the fighters needed to be taught more effective magic to duel with. Every time she found herself being given disbelieving looks.
Apparently being on “the Light” side required that they fight against completely stacked odds. Never mind that their enemies wanted to kill them all, and then murder and enslave all Muggles in Europe. Apparently that was still an insufficient reason to kill Death Eaters in self-defence.
The response she got each time was the same. She was a healer, didn't she know how using dark curses eventually corrupted a person? If Order and Resistance members made the personal choice to use those kinds of spells it was their decision. The Order would never require it of anyone. Never teach it to anyone.
Besides, someone would always blandly point out to Hermione, she hardly even knew what it was like to be out there in a battlefield facing the choice of ending someone else's life. She was always back at Grimmauld Place acting as a healer, Potion Mistress, and researcher for the Order. That was where they needed her. She needed to let the people specialised in combat be the ones to make decisions about the war strategies.
It was enough to make Hermione want to scream.
As she stood beside Lee Jordan, seething, she heard a grating tap of wood on the ground and turned to find Mad-Eye Moody entering the room. He looked straight at her.
“Granger, a word,” he said.
Steeling herself she turned to follow him down the hall. She hoped she wasn't about to be scolded yet again for having the audacity to question the Order's war strategy. She didn't imagine Mad-Eye would; he was one of the few Order members who didn't disagree.
Moody led the way to a small room, and once they were inside it he turned and cast a series of complex and powerful privacy spells.
Once he finished he looked around the room carefully. His magical eye was spinning as he scrutinized every corner. After a minute he looked down at her.
He seemed oddly tense, even for a man who barked “Constant vigilance,” more often than he said anything else.
He seemed uncomfortable.
“We're losing the war,” he said after a moment.
“I know,” Hermione said in a leaden voice. “Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person aware of that.”
“Some people — can only fight fueled by optimism,” Moody said slowly. “But — we're running out of optimism.”
Hermione just kept staring at him. She didn't need him to tell her that. She knew.
She was the one who had to hold people down as they died in agony from curses she couldn't reverse. Who had to then walk into a debriefing room and list the dead and the injured, detailing how long recovery was expected to take and whether those people could be expected to fight again when it was completed.
“An opportunity has come up,” Moody said in a low voice. He was studying her face carefully. “One that could turn the tide of the war.”
Hermione didn't have any reserves of hope left within her to brighten at those words. Based on the context in which Moody was speaking to her, she suspected the price of it was steep enough to be questionable.
“Oh?”
“As Voldemort's forces have grown, Severus's intelligence has grown limited. He's primarily kept researching and developing new curses with Dolohov. They don't inform him of attack strategies.”
Hermione nodded. She had noticed that over the last several months. Some of the other Order members had taken it as an opportunity to begin questioning Snape's loyalty once again.
“We have an opportunity to bring in a new spy. Someone with a high rank in Voldemort's army is willing to turn for us.”
Hermione stared at Moody skeptically. “Someone highly ranked wants to turn now?”
“Conditionally,” Moody clarified. “The Malfoy boy. Says he'll turn spy to avenge his mother. With the assurance of a full-pardon and—“ he hesitated. “And he wants you. Now and after the war.”
Hermione stood stunned. If Moody had just cursed her she couldn't have been more astonished.
“Severus thinks the offer is legitimate. Says Malfoy had some kind of fascination with you in school. There's nothing to indicate the offer was made under orders.”
Hermione barely registered the words as she stood reeling internally.
She hadn't seen Malfoy since school.
Sixth year had barely begun when he started war by assassinating Dumbledore and then fleeing. She would hear about him occasionally when Severus gave updates on Voldemort's military structure. Malfoy had been climbing rank steadily over the years.
Why would Malfoy turn? The blame for the war could be legitimately placed on his shoulders. There was no plausible reason for such a late switch in alliance.
Perhaps Voldemort's power wasn't as assured as they had thought. Perhaps the ranks were beginning to break. It seemed too good to be true.
But why want her?
She didn't recall their school rivalry being anything to write home about. He had always paid far more attention to bullying Harry than her. She had always been more of a footnote; an added insult because she was a Muggle-born. She'd never been the true target of his viciousness.
Unless...demanding her was some sort of revenge on Harry.
Maybe he thought she and Harry were together. Bastard.
She stood there thinking until Moody spoke again.
“There's not much I wouldn't do for the intelligence he could offer. But you have to agree. He wants you willing.”
No. No. Never.
She swallowed the refusal. Her hands fisted until she could feel the outlines of her metacarpal bones beneath the skin.
“I'll do it,” she said, not letting her voice waver. “Provided he doesn't do anything to interfere with my ability to aid the Order. I'll do it.”
Moody studied her carefully.
“You should think about it more. You can have a few days. If you do this — you can't tell anyone. Not until after the war. Not Potter, or Weasley, or anyone else. Kingsley, Severus, Minerva and I will be the only Order members aware of it.”
Hermione looked up at him steadily. There was a sensation in her chest as though something inside her were shriveling and dying, but she didn't let herself attend to it.
“I don't need more time to think,” she said sharply. “I realise what's being asked. The sooner we get the information the better. I'm not delaying that so I can have time to mull over or dread a decision I've already made.”
Moody nodded sharply. “Then I'll send word you agreed.”
Removing the wards from the door, Moody tramped out; leaving Hermione alone to absorb what she'd consented to.
She wasn't sure what she felt.
Like crying. That was her most immediate desire.
It felt as though Moody had dropped the war on her shoulders.
But also — hope — maybe. Insomuch as it was possible to feel hopeful after essentially agreeing to sell herself to a Death Eater as his war prize.
Hermione hadn't felt hopeful in a long while.
Somehow, up until Dumbledore died and even for a bit afterward, she had thought the war would be simple and short. Harry had escaped death so many times in school. He, Ron, and she had beaten so many impossible odds.
So, she had thought that being clever, being good — that friendship, and bravery, and the power of Love were enough to win the war.
But they weren't.
Being clever wasn't enough. The goodness in her was being ground to dust under the weight of all those lives lost or ruined with nothing to show for it yet. Friendship didn't stop someone from dying screaming in agony. Bravery didn't win a battle when your enemy had a multitude of methods for removing you permanently from the war, and you were trying to beat them with petrification hex. Love hadn't yet defeated Voldemort's hate.