365 days [d.m. + h.g.]

[nine]

329 Days After

Panting heavily, Hermione drew her wand out as she steeled herself for what may reside inside the building. Dark magic seeped from its shingles, darkness swirling out from its sideboards, power choking her as she stepped close to the door.

This was the first mission she'd been on since she was cleared for battle after her stay in the hospital ward. The Order didn't have many people and she did heal quickly. Lupin told her that there was not much that she wouldn't heal from, especially as she became an older and stronger wolf. The information was shortly followed by a warning to not be stupid, plenty of dark curses could still kill her – it just might take longer to do so.

Now, she was leading a strategical attack against a laboratory. One of their new branches of research, where they experiment with prisoners – resistance members and muggles alike – to develop new curses, new potions, new torture methods.

Her team was her typical team with a couple of in training Phoenixes, newbies. They liked to call them fledglings. They weren't promoted to true members until they've seen blood they themselves spilled.

These particular fledglings inspired sympathy. They seemed almost younger than Hermione and her team, which shouldn't have been possible considering how none of her team ever graduated from Hogwarts. But it made sense, the Order needed people, they were likely recruiting kids as soon as they were of legal age, maybe even before.

There were two of them with her team. One was a small boy with shaggy brown hair that was in a constant state of disarray, forever stuck in his eyes. The other was a lanky girl with hair as dark as the night, braided severely to keep it out of the way. Hermione thought the tight style likely gave her a headache with the way she kept scratching at her temples. She'd get used to it, Hermione had to wear her hair like that too, if she didn't want to crop it close to her head.

She felt bad for them, for having to be in this war. She didn't know if they were muggleborn or not, but they had a determination set in their jaw and a fire alight in their eyes that Hermione didn't worry about the reason they were there. They were ready to fight and that was all she needed to care about; not the way the boy's hands twitched in its grasp on his wand before tightening or that the girl had clenched her fists so tight, she had crescents of blood from her nails.

She hadn't learned their names before the mission. She saw them on the roster and used them in her planning of strategy, but they hadn't stuck She used to include studying names when planning for a mission, but as the war progressed and she had lost more than half of the random Order members that made their way into her roster rotation, she stopped trying to know their names. There was that saying about not to name something unless you wanted to get attached and Hermione knew better.

"Alright, get in formation." She waited a breath while the fledglings shuffled around to stay true to their plans, the other members of her team were already standing ready. They knew each other, they fought with each other so much that they had become stilled partners, dancing around each other without even brushing against the other's toes. Their movements were rhythmic and graceful, hundreds of battles had forced them to train and duel until they knew each other's fighting styles and next hex before they knew their own.

It was tightknit and personal, but also exactly what was needed when fighting. But it also meant that an injury or death would jolt the team more than there was time for. They cared about each other, that's what made fighting alongside one another so easy, but oh, so hard.

"Alohomora," she whispered, her wand pointed at the door handle. The very second she heard it click unlocked, she kicked it open, rushing in, her dueling partner following shortly behind before the rest of her team fell inside.