“Oh.” Poppy gave another sigh, and her exhaustion grew visible in her face. “During Harry's first year, after that unfortunate situation with Professor Quirrell, when I first examined Harry, I became concerned about his magical signature. It was irregular, almost as though he had two.”
“Two?” Hermione echoed, a cold creeping sensation slowly bleeding over her, as though there was ice sliding through her veins.
“Yes. I'd never seen anything like it before. I went to Albus. He said it must be from the Killing Curse all those years before, that it must have split off a small piece of Harry's signature. It's such shame no one thought to have him examined as a baby before he was left with his relatives. Albus looked at the diagnostics himself and said it was nothing to be concerned with. When I pushed, he said Harry would likely be subjected to extensive and traumatic examination at St Mungo's by researchers wanting to use him to study the Killing curse. Albus said he thought the issue would resolve itself eventually. It seemed that it did, over the years the signatures appeared to rebond.”
Poppy tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. “But — with all the headaches he suffers from, I wonder if perhaps it didn't happen properly.”
Hermione felt as though she'd been struck.
“There were two magical signatures? Not a residual curse signature and a magical signature?” Hermione said sharply.
“Magical,” Poppy said as she nodded and pulled out the chair beside Hermione. She sat down with a sigh. “I tried to find record of a similar phenomena in healing history, but there's nothing like it that I could find. Then again, Harry is the only person who ever survived the Killing Curse.”
Hermione's hands started trembling. “You said — I asked you about his magical signature years ago. You said it was fine. That it was normal for Harry.”
Poppy rested her hand gently on Hermione's shoulder again. “I didn't want you to worry. By the time you asked, they were almost entirely bonded back together.”
Hermione's mouth twitched, and she struggled to find words to ask the next question. “So it was the same signature? The smaller piece was identical?”
“Not exactly. Due to the split, Albus said it developed uniquely—”
Hermione stood up so abruptly her chair fell backwards, clattering on the stone floor. “That's not how it works. Magical signatures are soul-based, they don't — develop differently. I have to go.”
She fled the kitchen and raced upstairs to grab her cloak and satchel and then ran out the door of Grimmauld Place before anyone could stop her.
She apparated with a hard crack and reappeared in the designated spot in the Forbidden Forest that the Order has chosen for approaching Hogwarts.
The castle stood in the distance. Even from where she stood, she could smell the Dark Magic in the air, mixed with the metallic tang of the explosion. She started toward the castle as quickly as she could.
“Granger?” A broad-shouldered Resistance fighter appeared from next to a tree, a disillusionment charm fading away.
She looked over at him sharply. She recognized him vaguely but not well enough to know his name.
“What are you doing here, Granger?”
“I need to see Harry.” She stared at him, gripping her wand so tightly she could feel the wood biting into the bones in her hand. Her whole body felt cold. “I came because I need to see Harry.”
The man looked bewildered. “He's at the castle. Everyone moved in. There's no one out here but scouts to keep watch.”
Hermione swallowed hard and nodded. “Then I'll go to the castle.”
They made their way to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. She could see the Astronomy Tower, smoking and damaged from the blast. They stopped near several heavily disillusioned tents.
“Hermione, what are you doing here?” Angelina came out of a tent.
“I need to see Harry.”
“Now? Can't this wait until tonight?”
Hermione scoffed. “If it could wait I wouldn't have just apparated five hundred miles.”
“Alright. Fine. I'll send word. Stay here at camp. We'll send a few people in to get the message to Harry.”
Hermione swallowed and resigned herself to waiting. There was a burning sensation in the pit of her stomach.
It felt like hours. Hermione joined the field healers in the tent, healing the injured fighters and determining who needed to be sent on to Grimmauld Place.
She got snatches of reports on how things were going closer to the castle. After the bomb went off, the wards had collapsed entirely. The Resistance had moved in quickly. The attack had taken the prison entirely off-guard. Beyond the wards the security was surprisingly lax. The guards had fallen back.
The Resistance currently held the Entrance Hall and the Great Hall. They were trying to strengthen their foothold before the inevitable counterstrike.
There was a nervous energy over how well the attack had gone so far. Harry and the team that had snuck into Hogwarts during the initial attack still had not reappeared.