“Sorry doesn't bring back a corpse,” Hermione said, her voice shaking as she tried to rein in how venomously enraged she felt. Her neck and jaw were tense, straining with the effort of keeping her posture neutral. “There are things that should be rote. Someone is injured, you cast advanced diagnostic and ensure you know the exact extent of the injury. You don't ask them to tell you what happened. You were a field healer for years; I can't believe I'm even having this conversation with you.”
“I know. I know. I'm so sorry.” Padma started crying harder.
Hermione's tongue twisted with all the frustration she wanted to pour out at Padma. She felt so angry she could feel her magic crackling in her fingertips.
She slid her hands behind her back and curled them slowly into tight fists as she forced herself to swallow her fury.
Hermione drew a sharp breath and looked away from Padma. “Where's Alastor?”
Padma sniffed and wiped her eyes. “War room. He's barely left since the Order held their debriefing. We lost Shacklebolt yesterday. Harry says Draco Malfoy killed him.”
Hermione froze. “Harry saw Kingsley die?”
Padma nodded, her exhaustion visible across her face. “A lot — a lot of people died yesterday. I have the records mostly tallied for you. Ron's a mess. Lavender was killed too. They've been close, you know. Since he got mauled, they've been really serious. When he saw her die, he lost it. Harry tried to get him away, but — Ron was — apparently he killed the Death Eater that killed Lavender, and he broke Harry's wand arm when Harry tried to stop him. Kingsley got them both out, but as Harry was pulling Ron past the anti-apparition wards, he looked back. He said he saw Malfoy in front of Kingsley, and he knew it was Malfoy because Malfoy pulled off his mask and smiled before he used the Killing Curse.”
Hermione swallowed and felt her legs threaten to give out. The hospital ward around her swam slightly.
Padma touched her on the arm. “Sorry, I should have told you more gently. I know you two were close.”
Hermione blinked and felt dazed. “What?”
“Shacklebolt. You were friends, weren't you? You seemed to meet a lot.”
“Oh — we — we—,” she swallowed. “It was mostly hospital ward logistics.”
What could she say about her relationship with Kingsley?
There was void in her chest where her emotions over his death should be. It was a blow, a horrific blow to the Order to lose him; she'd had sincere admiration for his skills as a strategist, for his capacity to make impossible choices. Yet the things he'd done — that he'd made her complicit in — his tacit allowance of torture, his disregard for her advice as a healer, his exploitation of Draco. He'd been a puppet master, who found strings he could manipulate and made the Order dance accordingly. He'd kept them alive through sheer genius, but Hermione found herself gasping with relief at being free of him.
She didn't know what to feel over his death.
“I don't think Kingsley thought of anyone as his friend,” she finally said, looking away from Padma.
“Well, Ron is pretty wrecked over it all. Over Lavender and then everything else on top of it.”
Hermione nodded absent-mindedly. She hadn't known Ron and Lavender had become serious. She'd been so preoccupied with research and experimental potions, with worrying about Draco, with caring for Ginny; she'd barely paid attention to any of the relationships at Grimmauld Place. It hadn't seemed important. She didn't have the time or energy for everyone's relationships to be important to her.
Kingsley was dead. Lost in a battle that the Order should never have let themselves be lured into.
The war was coming down to the line, and the Order had nothing to show for it after six years. All they'd been doing for the last year was surviving. Without Kingsley's deft manipulation reining in Harry and the Resistance, she didn't know how they were going to manage even that.
Draco would be next.
She could feel it written into the future.
It had been in his eyes as he watched her apparate away.
Padma was reciting the list of the dead, the injuries — Hermione was only half-listening to the report.
“I need to speak to Moody. Make sure it's all written down, Padma; I'll verify the reports later.”
Moody was sitting behind a pile of paperwork. His expression hardened when he saw Hermione. He cast a dozen privacy charms before he spoke.
“You're alive. I've been buried in reports, Patil said you'd been injured and then went missing, and that damned elf came in, sent to “inform me” that you'd been removed for your protection. How long has Malfoy been using it?”
Hermione swallowed and drew a deep breath. “Last April. That's what he told me.”
Moody's mouth twisted. He was the most paranoid man she'd ever known. Discovering that Grimmauld Place had had a latent spy in residence immediately after losing Kingsley had to have been a shock.
“I thought it was bound to Potter.”