Manacled (dramione)

Chapter 33: Flashback 8

May 2002

The news regarding Voldemort's absence was the opportunity Moody and Kingsley had been waiting for.

They had been slowly sharing the blueprints, prison rotations, and other information that Malfoy had been supplying the Order with. Laying out plans. Waiting to strike.

They were ready.

Charlie, Harry and Ron had been urging for such an attack for months.

At long last, everything aligned.

It was the biggest coordinated attack ever made by the Resistance. Almost every fighter they had was brought in. They targeted several of the largest, most protected prisons, as well as the curse development division.

Hermione was so stressed leading up to it, she nearly had a nervous breakdown. Stocking the hospital. Brewing massive batches of all the crucial healing potions. Trying to be prepared for anything.

There was a terrifying doubt, deep down, that she might have sent the Resistance to its doom. That it was possibly all a long elaborate trap, laid by Voldemort and Malfoy.

She kept replaying Malfoy's momentary hesitation, wondering whether it had been a sign of betrayal.

Everyone else left and Hermione, Poppy, and a handful of other healers waited nervously in Grimmauld Place. Waiting to hear anything.

Hermione nearly wore a hole in the floor of the foyer with pacing until the bodies started pouring in.

It was a flood of dying and injured people.

Her clothes and hands were drenched in blood, and the entire house was converted into a hospital in order to accommodate everyone.

She barely believed it when she was informed hours later that it had all been a spectacular success.

The Order broke several hundred prisoners free and reduced the prisons and the curse division to rubble as they fled.

At the advice of Severus, the Order raided the labs of the curse division and brought back a huge haul of many rare and incredibly valuable potion ingredients that Hermione had been unable to get her hands on for years; including an entire flagon of Acromantula venom. Hermione nearly wept when Padma Patil handed it to her.

The condition of the survivors brought from the curse division was horrific. They were so horribly tortured and cursed that many were insane. Their bodies destroyed and ravaged beyond repair. There was no recovery for most of them; she could only ease their pain and hope they'd die quickly.

The animosity toward Severus among the younger Order and Resistance members aware of his role in the curse division spiked to an explosive extent. Moody had to exclude Severus from Order meetings in order to maintain peace.

For the uninjured fighters, the coordinated attack was accomplished in less than a day. But for Hermione and anyone else with even a scrap of healer training, it was only the beginning.

They were run ragged trying to care for the inundation of horrifically injured and malnourished people abruptly thrust into their care, in addition to all the injuries sustained during the attack.

They moved the basic injuries out of Grimmauld Place as rapidly as possible, to free beds for the complex curses and wounds that required Hermione's specialised care.

It was weeks before Hermione could be spared to forage or liase. Malfoy had, in the meantime, summoned her urgently twice to retrieve notes he'd left, warning of impending counter-attacks. Voldemort had been enraged by the blow and struck back at the Resistance forcefully. Godric's Hollow was burned to the ground, both the muggle sections and the magical. Voldemort strung together and hung the bones of Lily and James Potter from a gallows for the Order to find when they arrived.