Sometimes she wondered bitterly if Moody and Kingsley regarded her as having any limits. Make her a whore, then make her a murderer. Did they just assume she'd want to?
It felt sometimes as though they were walking her down to Hell and watching as she passed through the gates. She wondered how pleased they were to have a tool who would suffer in whatever way they needed her to.
Moody was her handler. He handled her. Whatever trace of hesitation he'd had when he first asked her to give herself to Malfoy, he'd moved beyond. She was useful. An excellent pawn for the Order. The key to the piece they really wanted.
Malfoy.
Compared to Draco's value, Hermione was an acceptable loss.
If Harry and Voldemort were the Kings on each side of the board, then Malfoy was Voldemort's Queen. Gaining him was worth sacrificing almost every other piece on board. He was unrestricted and deadly. Crucial.
It made sense. Strategically, she saw the logic. She understood the necessity.
But on a personal level, it hurt so deeply she could barely breathe.
She hated herself.
She hated Moody. She hated Kingsley.
They'd take, and they'd take, and she'd be left with nothing but ashes when the war ended.
But they weren't really taking. She was offering. It wasn't as though they were requiring anything of her that she wasn't willing to do.
For Harry and Ron, she reminded herself. It will be worth it.
But something inside of her felt as though the war was corrupting her. She was twisting. Reshaping herself into a creature that felt like everything she hated.
Darkness gets into your soul, that was what Harry always said.
Never mind how irredeemable she thought Draco was for killing Dumbledore. If she sold Draco out at some future point, she imagined she'd belong in a far lower level of hell than even he did.
But she'd still do it.
Minerva had been right. Hermione was fully willing to damn herself if it meant winning the war.
She slipped down the bank of the creek, gathered up several stones, and began building them into a stack.
Her mother had travelled a great deal before marriage, and had told Hermione how in Korea the people would pile rocks up, each one representing wishes and prayers.
Mothers would build large towers of prayers for their children.
Hermione had built stacks in her backyard as a child, praying many prayers for friends. Heartfelt prayers that had lain unanswered for years until she reached Hogwarts.
Hermione laid down large foundation stones for Harry and Ron.
Then she placed a stone for Ginny. Fred. George. Charlie. Bill. Molly and Arthur.
Percy had died during the Ministry takeover.
She added stones for Remus and Tonks, Neville, Poppy and Severus and Minerva and the Caithness orphans. She was afraid she'd be too selfish if she included everyone in the Order and the Resistance. The stack was somewhat unstable.
She picked up one last stone and hesitated.
If the pile fell the wishes wouldn't come true.
She stared down at the final stone in her hands, brushing her fingers across it slightly. It was cold but the bite slowly faded as she kept hesitating, turning it over and over in her hands. Holding it out, then drawing it back and holding it longer.
Maybe she shouldn't place it.
Maybe it was selfish.
She almost put it back into the creek.
Then she bit her lip and placed it.
The stack wobbled but didn't fall. She let out a sharp sigh of relief and nearly cried.
She washed her hands off in the creek and then stared at the tower she had built.
It was a silly, superstitious ritual. It didn't mean anything.
But she'd given nearly everything for the war, and it had yet to be enough. Superstition felt like all she had left.
She cast a spell to repel muggles around the stones and apparated away.
She kept healing Draco, night after night. The venom combined with the runic magic made the injury one of the cruelest she had ever encountered. No matter what she did, it stayed fresh. He should have been in a hospital or on bed rest, not apparating and spying and whatever it was Voldemort had him doing.
She scoured old healing textbooks, and stayed up late into the night brewing potions she hoped would help heal or at least ease the pain further, but nothing she tried worked. Nagini's venom was essentially a neutralising agent against any type of healing, Magical or nonmagical.
It should have eventually worn off. When Arthur had been bitten by Nagini in the ministry, the venom had faded after a few days of blood replenishing potion. But runic magic interacted with the venom, and kept the venom isolated in the incisions. Hermione couldn't simply flush it from Draco's system.