DRAGON'S HEARTSTRINGS || dramione | harry potter

Chapter Five

"They're all dead," Hermione heard the High Reeve say after a long silence.

They were in the living room of Malfoy Manor – that same living room Hermione thought she'd never forget, but now it looked so different she didn't recognize it, so she treated it just like any other room – walked around curiously, looked at the paintings, admired the architecture and tried not to show her nervousness while the High Reeve read over what she spent the whole day writing. He was sitting on the fancy velvet armchair in front of the hearth where the fire was merely smoldering. He read it carefully, his eyebrows drawn together in focus. He finished reading the paper ten minutes later and Hermione shivered when he finally spoke up.

"Not all of them," she interjected, looking over his shoulder at the list she had written. There were a lot of names on it, and she whole-heartedly tried to write down every single one she managed to retain. "A lot of the members, unfortunately, died during the last few years, but a great number of them still reside at Hogwarts."

The sigh he let out sounded more like a hiss and Hermione could tell he was irritated. She sat down on the second armchair next to him, wanting to inspect every little expression of his from up close. He looked up at her, that same non-expression quickly covering up the irritation.

"As an insufferable know-it-all, you should be well aware that there is nothing in it for you to keep protecting them, Granger," he said, scrutinizing her with his stormy eyes. "After all, they were the ones who gave you to me as if you were a lamb brought to a slaughter without even knowing what my true intentions are."

His words hit a deep-seated, still-bleeding wound that she kept in her heart ever since she was little – of being an outcast from everybody else, of never being anyone's first choice, of comforting others after watching her friends die without ever being comforted by them, of protecting and caring for everyone in the Order while never getting that same treatment herself, of sacrificing her family, her own life to end this war and having none of the closest people come to see her out...

She could have asked, And what are your true intentions? Or could have said, I do feel betrayed, but instead, she sat up straighter and looked right into his eyes. "I am one of the Order's members, and I will protect it even if it's the last thing I do. But now is not that time. There's the whole Order of the Phoenix on that list. I have no reason to lie to you about that."

He sighed once more and threw the paper in the fire that was so small just a moment ago, but furiously ate up the list just now. "You don't win a war with numbers like these," he stated.

Hermione flexed her fingers in her lap. "Yes," she spoke up after a moment. "I'm familiar with how... complicated our situation has gotten since the Battle—"

"Complicated? The situation is completely fucked, Granger. I'm surprised Voldemort hasn't slaughtered all of you there yet," the High Reeve said, and she flinched upon hearing that name – he said it without pausing, as if it were a name like any other. That's what the pros of being Voldemort's right hand must be like.

"Well, we've been keeping safe—"

"Doing shit ton of nothing, from what I've gathered," he snarled. "Not a single victory, not a single battle won throughout all these years. And what has Potter been up to these days? Although I suppose that does not matter since Voldemort's been living his life as if the Chosen One no longer existed."

"The most important thing is for Harry to be safe and sound," Hermione said, frowning. "He doesn't like it either, but without him, everything's lost. If he dies, there is no more hope left for us to win anything..." she went on, feeling her skin get flushed with simmering anger.