Hermione had been away training as a healer when the revelation regarding Voldemort having horcruxes had been made. Horace Slughorn admitted that Tom Riddle had questioned him on the subject, and Severus had revealed that Dumbledore had been mortally wounded by a ring from the Gaunt House.
Gradually the Order concluded that Voldemort had somehow created even more than one horcrux, although how he had done so was a mystery because no one knew how the dark objects even worked.
It was, they were almost certain, the reason that Voldemort had been able to revive himself after trying to kill Harry as a baby. Tom Riddle's journal which had nearly killed Ginny had been one. The Gaunt Ring.
But they weren't sure if there were more than that, or what the objects were, or where they could find them.
They had created a timeline of Voldemort's life following his graduation from Hogwarts, trying to guess if there were other points at which Voldemort might have created more.
She read through the sections on horcruxes that the new book had. It detailed exactly how to create them. A murder was required to tear the soul, and then an incantation to remove the piece of the soul and bind it to another object. There was no mention of creating more than one. Hermione wondered whether the soul containers had to be inanimate or if they could potentially be living vessels, considering Voldemort's strange attachment to his snake Nagini.
She outlined all the information onto a scroll and then carefully placed everything into a warded briefcase. She slipped it beside the desk and left it for Moody to pickup. They tried to keep actual meetings limited to diffuse suspicion. There was no particular reason for Moody to meet with the Order's healer every week.
As she headed up to her room she evaluated Malfoy's interaction with her that day.
He'd apologised. It had been quite surprising.
She pulled her notebook out from under her bed and considered.
The previous week she had made a page in which she detailed her best guesses regarding Malfoy's moral code. She reread the comments she had made the week before.
She added a note, “
The book on horcruxes had probably been his way of trying to buy her forgiveness. She wondered if he'd been holding it for a while or had only gone to the trouble trying to obtain it because he'd felt guilty over hexing her so many times.
She added, “
Then she closed the notebook and put it back under her bed, replacing the wards carefully.
She lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She felt exhausted. She'd only gotten a few hours of sleep before getting up at four in the morning to go gather potion supplies.
She had run out of Severus' potion for the acid curse already. She had no more acromantula venom to make more.
The curse was awful and slow healing. The damage it inflicted was immediate and hard to reverse. The potion Severus had invented was an analgesic that helped to neutralise the acid and stop it from continuing to corrode the body once the curse was cancelled.
Severus had been correct about how easily it was used. A strong shield could stop it, but it had become the most frequent injury the hospital ward dealt with. It didn't matter where on the body it struck, the recovery was slow.
Hermione had brewed every single other analgesic and alkalising salve she could think of but their efficacy paled in comparison to the potion containing the acromantula venom.
She was getting so desperate she was considering trying to hunt down an acromantula. She knew that Voldemort had their service along with all the rest of the dark beings.
Her eyes suddenly popped open.
Perhaps Malfoy would be able to get his hands on some. If he still felt like he owed her a little, he might agree to it.
The next week her aim had improved considerably. She had been practicing with the ricochet charm on the practice dummies at Grimmauld Place and had grown more adept at moving around as she cast. Malfoy seemed vaguely pleased.
He critiqued her form more, and stalked around her scrutinising her technique in a way she found unsettling. When she finished, he handed her a scroll of things she was supposed to do in order to get in shape. Pushups and jumping and crunches and something called a burpee which Hermione vaguely recalled her cousin having once introduced to her. There were a half dozen other things included as well.