Chamomile

July, 2004 

As she hurried past the overflowing infirmary, Hermione Jean Granger decided that perhaps the worst thing about being a werewolf was her nose. Back when vanity was something she’d held onto, somewhere around her fourth year at Hogwarts, Hermione had spent more time than she would’ve liked to admit sitting in front of the mirror, scrutinizing and admiring in equal measure. She’d been rather proud of her nose, and considered it one of her best features.

Those days, and her vanity, were long gone.

To most people, and thus most noses, the hallway likely wouldn’t smell like much of anything. Perhaps the slightest hint of residual blood, singed clothing, or the perfume the younger healers sometimes liked to wear.

Hermione’s nose picked up everything. The last week of hallway traffic. Every drop of blood. Every dark curse Pomfrey and her team struggled to save, every soul they couldn’t. Curses and blood smelled the same, like iron. Death smelled like burning rubber.

Hidden beneath all of that, beneath the gore and decay, Hermione could smell the living. The adrenaline of fear, the sweat of stress, every touch. Each inhabitant had a scent, and Hermione knew them all. It was an unrelenting assault on her senses.

Hermione hated the weaknesses of being a werewolf almost as much as she hated the strengths.

Ignoring the bile rising to her throat and the spots quickly appearing in her vision, Hermione rushed past the door to the hospital ward and down the long hallway that led to Kingsley Shacklebolt’s office. The paintings on the walls jeered at her as she passed, relics of the pureblood Black family that had once lived there. Hermione had tried to take the paintings off the walls many times, but they were stuck firmly to the walls. No amount of magic or brute force had any effect. So she ignored the chatter as she reached the half open door, letting herself into Kingsley’s office without announcement.

Kingsley had added yet another layer to his wards. Hermione could feel them under her fingertips, thrumming like plucked strings. The level of protection around his office was beginning to border on paranoid, and Hermione wondered what precious item warranted such security. Perhaps Kingsley simply thought too highly of himself.

He was sitting at his desk, combing through papers, quill in hand. The gold earring in his left ear shone in the light, and the bags under his eyes were practically purple. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.

‘Kingsley’ Hermione’s voice shattered the silence, and surprised the man at the desk. His eyes shot up from his papers, landing on Hermione.

‘Granger.’ He nodded in her direction. While there was a second chair in the small office, no motion was made for her to sit down, so she leaned against the doorframe with practiced nonchalance. Kingsley set down his quill and gazed seriously at Hermione, his fingers laced together on the desk in front of him.

‘Recently, I was visited by a certain Lucius Malfoy.’

That explained the additional wards.

Hermione struggled to maintain impassivity, to not let Kingsley see how her head was spinning. The Malfoys were one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the purest of pureblood families in Wizarding England. When Voldemort had come back they’d thrown in their lot, and themselves, practically at his feet. Lucius’s son, Draco, had gone so far as to kill the headmaster of Hogwarts. And even before then, when they were students together, the younger Malfoy and his pureblood friends had gone out of his way to make Hermione’s life, and the lives of students like her, miserable. She couldn’t count how many times the haughty blonde had stared at her in disgust, “Mudblood” slipping from his lips.

The Malfoys were a prejudiced and dangerous family. And they had absolutely no reason to turn their back on Voldemort. What the Malfoy patriarch was doing at Grimmauld Place was likely nothing more than espionage. Kingsley was a fool if he didn’t see that.

‘Lucius made me a very interesting offer. One that I intend to take.’

Hermione was reminded of visiting the zoo with her father when she was little, going to the lion exhibit and pressing her nose to the glass barrier. Kingsley’s expression was much like how Hermione assumed she’d looked at the lions, as if at any second the animal would strike. Kingsley’s right hand, still on the desk, was practically twitching with desire to grab his wand.

Hermione had a sinking suspicion she wasn’t going to like whatever offer Malfoy had brought to the table. Was she being sold? Hermione knew she’d been something like pretty once, perhaps the Malfoys wanted her.

Or was she being used as bait? That was the likelier story.

Kingsley had no problem with using her as bait, something that Hermione knew from years of experience.

Her mind raced through possibilities as she waited for Kingsley to speak again.

“Lucius has offered to harbor a spy.”

And just like that, Hermione understood why she’d been summoned.

“I’m asking you to go to Malfoy Manor. Moody and I consider you to be the best witch the Order has at our disposal,” Kingsley paused for a moment, likely deciding his next words. “And you and I know that considering your…affliction, you have a certain level of protection that the rest of us don’t.”

Hermione’s anger was molten, the scent curling in the air around her.

‘Affliction?’ she scoffed, ‘Just call it what it is.”

With a small sigh, Kingsley leaned forward on his desk. “You have certain talents that give you a leg up, ones that will likely help you survive this mission. It isn’t simply because of what you are.”

Maybe if she was still seventeen and afraid, Hermione would've believed him. But she’d learned the hard way that to Kingsley, her wolf was all that she was. She’d learned that lesson the day she made the vow and all the days that followed, where she was forced to abandon her friends, her family and the search for Voldemort's shattered soul in the same endless moment.

Hermione thought about Christmas at the Burrow, playing Wizard’s Chess with Ron. He’d explained to her that the pawn was the most powerful piece of the game, and she’d believed him at the time.

She couldn’t believe how wrong that was. The pawn was simply the pawn.

“Pack your things, Granger. You leave tomorrow.” Hermione knew a dismissal when she heard one.

When she was halfway out the door, Kingsley spoke up again.

“War requires…”

“Sacrifices, I know.”

It was Kingsley’s motto for her, one he’d repeated every month for the last four years. It rattled in her head as she walked back down the hallway, taking up too much empty space that was once full.

She could smell the inhabitants of the safehouse before she could hear them, each individual scent mingling with the aromas of dinner. McGonagall was cooking, which meant enough Indian food to feed a small village, bought with transfigured rocks. Hermione’s stomach growled, but she pushed the feeling down. It was far too close to the full moon, and Hermione’s pent up anger from her conversation with Kingsley would inevitably bubble up at the first minor inconvenience.

So she kept walking, searching for quiet.

Like everyone else in the Order, Hermione had found her own ways of engineering silence. Some people had casual meaningless sex, while others did the kind of drugs that made the world unrecognizable or drank cheap muggle alcohol until they threw up all over the hallways.

Hermione had her punching bag.

She often imagined the bag was Kingsley, pictured his face, imagined the blood that gathered on the bag wasn’t from her split knuckles, imagined the pain as if it was happening not to her but to somebody else. Hermione could get lost in her head, in her knuckles pounding against the fabric, the dull pain.

So lost, in fact, that she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her. She swung around, instinct taking over, poised to strike.

Standing in the doorway was Ron Weasley, inches from her raised fists. “Blimey, Hermione.” Ron was all concern, taking in Hermione’s bloody knuckles and the sweat staining her brow, making her hair stick to her face.

Often, Hermione wished that Ron would just give up, just hate her like she knew everyone else did. They didn’t have to tell her, the silence spoke for itself. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Hermione would wake from a dream to laughter coming from downstairs. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend it was Hogwarts all over again.

It was useless dreaming. To everybody but Ron, those days were long gone.

Ron still had hope, Hermione could see it in his eyes. She felt a surge of pity for the boy she once loved. Hermione had learned the hard way that hope and disappointment were two sides of the same coin, where one went the other trailed behind like a shadow. It was an arrangement not unlike that of Ron and the pretty brunette standing in the doorway behind him.

When she’d still loved Ron, Hermione had been beyond jealous of Lavender Brown. She remembered with startling clarity the night in the Gryffindor common room when Ron and Lavender had snogged in the middle of the dance floor. She remembered the burn of the Firewhisky she’d downed afterwards, how she’d wandered the empty halls, her only company the bottle and her jealousy.

And she remembered crying next to the lake, strong arms around her like an anchor.

The next morning, Ron had looked at her about the same way as he was now, guilt and pity vivid in his eyes. Behind him, Lavender’s gaze was all haughty anger, as if Hermione had done something to personally offend her. As if Hermione was to blame for all that Ron did, or all that he didn’t do.

Everyone found their ways to cope. Ron’s, unfortunately for Lavender, was women.

Hermione almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

The silence was heavy and awkward, and Hermione stared at the floor, waiting for Ron to walk away, to leave her to her punching bag and her silence.

“I… we didn’t know anybody was in here.” Ron finally muttered, practically under his breath. Hermione couldn’t be bothered to hide her sigh. He and Lavender weren’t going to get the hint.

“I was just leaving.” She let the venom drip into her voice, her exhaustion and residual anger. Ron looked pained, and his mouth opened but no words came out. With a small sigh, Hermione walked out the door.

The loud thud of her boots against the wooden floor was practically swallowed by the silence. She let the door slam shut, and the hallway smell enveloped her.

Her bedroom, small and impersonal, was the next floor up. It had been a closet once, back when Grimmauld Place was still noble, and besides the small bed in one corner retained the same lack of decoration or personality. Hermione had little need for more than that, she was rarely at Grimmauld for more than a few days before Kingsley sent her off on one thing or the other. All her possessions, what little she still had, were contained within the small bag on her shoulder.

She put the bag on her bed, rifling around through the contents. Her stomach growled, and she was relieved when she felt the smooth edges of the carton of cigarettes she’d purchased in muggle London earlier that day.

She put the cigarettes into the inner pocket of her jacket and, leaving her bag on the bed, opened the small window in front of her. She welcomed the hot summer air, the slight breeze. Her knuckles hit the windowsill, and pain shot through her body. She welcomed the pain, let the ache take her over, and pulled herself up onto the roof.

Her legs dangled over the edge, the scuffs on her boots made visible in the slowly fading light.

Hermione lit her cigarette the way her father used to, appreciating the flick of the lighter and the perfect orange flame. Every inhale dispelled some of her hunger, and by her second cigarette she no longer thought of food at all.

Muggle London surrounded her, lit up in shades of white and amber. Music was coming from somewhere, laughter too, and a baby was crying. On the street, far below Hermione, a girl and a boy passed in a car with the top down. In the passenger seat, the girl was laughing. The boy had a satisfied smile on his face. They would never know of magic.

The thought comforted Hermione.

She smoked four more cigarettes, welcoming the burn in her throat. She thought of Malfoy Manor, of what future might await her. She thought of her parents, safe in Australia. Let herself imagine that sometimes they missed something they couldn’t externalize, couldn’t understand, simply longed for. She thought of Ron’s guilt and Lavender’s anger and how little of it mattered anymore.

When the pinks and oranges had fled the sky, and the last flat around her had finally darkened, she slipped back into her silent, empty room.