Before she could say anything else, Hermione found herself abruptly jerked forward with a mouthful of hair in her mouth as Angelina pulled her into a tight hug.
“Oh, Hermione. Don't let yourself start thinking like that. You have to be able to visualise victory. Feel it. Fight for it. See yourself on the other side of the war. If you let go of that hope, you're going end up somewhere dark. Light always wins over Darkness. But you have to believe it.”
Hermione felt something inside her stiffen. She pulled herself away from Angelina, shaking her head, her mouth curling. “That's not enough to win a war. I'm not going to bet this war on my or anyone else's ability to believe in victory.”
“You still want us to use the Dark Arts, don't you?” Angelina stared at Hermione with the expression of a disappointed parent.
Hermione struggled against rolling her eyes as she nodded.
Angelina's shoulders drooped slightly. “If we lose ourselves to win, is it really winning? If we poison ourselves to get it and become the monsters we're fighting?”
Hermione clenched her jaw, as she fought against the urge to shake Angelina. “What exactly do you think will happen if we lose?”
“We'll die.” Angelina shrugged faintly.
Hermione suddenly understood why Draco hated Gryffindors so intensely. She couldn't stop herself from scoffing.
“Do you really think we'll just die? Angelina, they're not going to shut down Sussex when they win the war. We're livestock. You didn't see the prisoners they brought from the last curse division. They were—“ Hermione's voice shook. “They were dissolving, rotting, skinned and still alive, there were things crawling inside them—“ her voice broke off. “The ones that could still speak begged me to kill them.”
Hermione hissed between her teeth. The choking sense of frustration rose as she was forced to face, once again, the perpetual optimism of Resistance fighters. The stress and despair inside her felt toxic, like acid eroding her slowly at a cellular level. “If we lose — They'll round us all up and use the Resistance fighters as lab rats or whatever else they want to until they run out of us. After we blew up the last curse division, they just made a bigger one. The war isn't supposed to end with the Resistance. The Death Eaters are supposed to conquer the Muggle Europe next. That's the vision. The deal. All the Dark Beings allied with Tom because he promised them that. I don't know if he's insane enough to think he can do it, but that's his claim. And he'll probably at least pretend to.”
Hermione felt like she might start hyperventilating just thinking about it. Her chest was stuttering and jerking and she kept drawing short, quick breaths.
“But, Hermione,” Angelina laid her hand across Hermione's, “we're winning.”
Hermione froze and blinked slowly as she stared at Angelina in disbelief. She almost laughed but then realised with horror that Angelina was entirely serious. “We're — what?”
“Winning.” Angelina's jaw jut out, and her expression grew defensive. “We are. Think of all the prison raids. We got hundreds of people out since the spring. We've successfully countered hundreds of attacks this year. Staying true to the Light is paying off. The war is favouring us now. Soon the wizarding world will start to realise that. That's how hope works. It takes a spark.”
Hermione felt as though she'd been struck sharply in the head; as though she were mildly concussed and it explained the surreal world she abruptly found herself in. She stared wordlessly at Angelina, who gave Hermione an encouraging smile. “You aren't out there so you probably don't see it. I know things were dark for awhile, but it's always darkest before the dawn, and I'm pretty sure, we're at dawn now.”
Hermione swallowed hard as she struggled against the temptation to scream. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears and a migraine rapidly manifesting.
They weren't winning.
They were surviving. The Resistance was balanced on a knife edge held in place by Draco. Using intelligence Gabrielle Delacour used her body to tear out of Death Eaters. They were using it to maintain the Resistance while the Order struggled vainly to find Horcruxes that could be anywhere in Europe.
They were not winning. They were not anywhere close to winning.
Angelina was staring at her hopefully.
“Yes…” Hermione heard herself to say. “I–I suppose you're right. I'm not out there, so I don't see it. I — didn't realise that we're — winning.”