Every day the war stretched on seemed to make the odds shrink a bit more.
Harry was breaking under the pressure and guilt. He was so thin and exhausted she was afraid he'd crack any day.
He kept withdrawing, further and further into himself. The death of Dumbledore so shortly after the loss of Sirius seemed to have knocked him off kilter in a way he never fully recovered from. Every death and injury among his friends seemed to prod him a little closer to a precipice she wasn't sure he could come back from.
Harry was clinging to the hope that somehow the war would end in such a way that life could be normal afterward. It was that impossible belief that continued to carry him forward.
He was the one who insistented most adamantly that the Order and the Resistance never use dark magic. If they did that, he argued, there would be no going back. They'd be tainted by it for the rest of their lives. No better than the Death Eaters.
So Hermione was forced to watch the Order and most of the Resistance side with him. And then watch their friends die in her hospital ward. They were relying on Harry. If he despaired, he'd break altogether and give up.
The Order was in desperate need of an edge. A bit of information. To know before a raid hit. Where vulnerabilities lay. Anything.
Malfoy could give them that.
He'd been personally trained by his Aunt Bellatrix before she'd died alongside his mother. He'd climbed high.
Now he'd made an offer they couldn't refuse.
That she couldn't refuse.
Clearly he knew, acting like a king demanding a tribute.
Because he was fascinated with her...
She mulled over it.
If Severus hadn't corroborated it, she would never believe such a thing.
To avenge his mother. For a pardon. For her, both now and after the war. Which was the true motive? Were any of them? Or was there another angle he was playing?
His mother had been dead for over a year, in a freak accident alongside Bellatrix Lestrange when a Death Eater tried to stop Harry and Ron from escaping Lestrange Manor. It wasn't really either side's fault that she had died. If her death had ended Malfoy's allegiance, it would have happened then. Not a year later. Not after he'd used the void his aunt left to climb into an even higher position of power.
However — wanting a pardon seemed odd. Unless there were some incredible odds she wasn't aware of, the likelihood that the Order could win seemed slim at best.
So, because of her? Perhaps he had hated her more than she had known. Or lusted—
She shuddered with revulsion, and tried to shove the thought away before catching herself and forcing herself to stop and consider it.
If wanting her was his motivation...the opportunity rested on more than merely her consent. Once he'd had her once, or maybe a few times — if it was just fueled by revenge — he'd get tired of her.
Perhaps it was just a game to him.
Play spy for a little bit, get a chance to bring her to her knees. Knowing she'd crawl for him if it meant saving Harry. Saving the Order. And then — once he had what he wanted — he'd turn back. Cast her aside and watch them all die.
Her throat contracted, and she felt like she might be sick. She forced away her horror and ignored the wrenching, twisting sensation in the pit of her stomach.
She had to find a way to fascinate him. To hold his attention and interest.
Would it even be possible?
She drifted out of the room, feeling frozen, and went back to the hospital ward. The room was still silent.
“Poppy, do you need me right now? Or is it alright if I go out?” she asked quietly.
“Of course, dear. You should go rest. You've been on your feet for twelve hours now,” Pomfrey told her gently. “If anything happens I'll call for you.”
Hermione fidgeted the bracelet on her wrist. It carried a protean charm that the Order used to summon her to the safe houses where she was most urgently needed.
She left the hospital ward and headed up to her room. She had no intention of resting. She went and changed into fresh clothes, and then went out to the front steps and apparated away.
The wizarding world didn't have what she needed.
She made her way to the nearest Waterstones.
She browsed through the sections. Picking out books; from the philosophy section, from the psychology section, from the relationship section, and the history section until she had a large armful.
The female clerk who rang up pile quirked an eyebrow as she scanned the titles. Several histories and biographies of concubines and female spies; a thick guide to sex; The Art of War by Sun Tzu; The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian; The Prince by Machiavelli. Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini; a book on body language. It was an admittedly odd selection.
“They're for a uni essay,” Hermione lied impulsively, feeling the need to explain herself.
“A few of them will be handy for personal use too, I reckon.” The clerk gave her a saucy wink as she put the books into a bag.
Hermione felt herself blush, but forced herself to laugh.
“Well, I am buying them,” she quipped, but the words tasted like sand in her mouth.
“If you come by again you'll have to let me know this essay goes over with your tutor. And whether any of these end up useful for extracurricular activities.”
Hermione nodded awkwardly as she paid and carried the bag out of the store. McGonagall's face had flashed before her eyes at the girl's words. Minerva knew too.
But Moody had been the one chosen to speak to Hermione. She wondered why.
She felt slightly ill as she looked at the selection of books she now owned. She wanted a cup of tea. Well, actually she wanted to crawl into a hole and die there, but tea was her second choice.
She found a shop nearby and fished out the book whose title least unsettled her while she waited.
“ Work toward your goals — indirectly as well as directly. Life is a struggle against human malice, in which wisdom comes to grips with the strategy of design. The latter never does what is indicated; in fact, it aims to deceive. The fanfare is in the light but the execution is in the dark, the purpose being always to mislead. Intention is revealed to divert the attention of the adversary, then it is changed to gain the end by what was unexpected. But insight is wise, wary, and waits behind its armor. Sensing always the opposite of what it was to sense and recognizing at once the real purpose of the trick, it allows every first hint to pass, lies in wait for a second, and even a third. The simulation of truth now mounts higher by glossing the deception and tries, through truth itself to falsify. It changed the play in order to change the trick and makes the reason appear the phantom by founding the greatest fraud upon the greatest candor. But wariness is on watch seeing clearly what is intended, covering the darkness that was clothed in light, and recognizing that design most artful which looks most artless. In such fashion, the wiliness of Python is matched against the simplicity of Apollo's penetrating rays.”
Hermione gnawed her lip as she poured herself a cup of tea and contemplated Malfoy again. Her hand wandered up to her throat and she nervously played with the chain of her necklace, twisting it in loops around her fingers.
Then she rummaged through her bag and used her wand surreptitiously to transfigure her quill and parchment into a pen and a small notebook. The notebook was crammed with notes by the time her pot of tea was empty.
As she stuffed the books into her expanded satchel, she reconsidered the situation in which she found herself.
She could not walk into it with any assumptions. If she did she would likely overlook something.