Of Hunger and Horcrux Hunting
The constant moving around was beginning to wear on Hermione. The tent may not need as much pitching as a standard muggle tent, and they may have some comforts inside that muggle camping trips lacked; they may not have to carry heavy packs, by virtue of undetectable extension and featherlight charms; but she was still tired of it. Tired of carrying the weight of the world, which no spell could lighten.
She set and dismantled the wards now like she’d been doing it her whole life. It felt like she had; it certainly felt like she always would. She wondered if she’d ever be able to simply turn a key in a door again, or whether this barrage of spells was her new minimum for feeling safe. She wondered if she’d ever sleep again without being in a bubble of magical protection.
But it wasn’t just the repetitiveness of finding a new camp, setting up, and casting the wards. It was also the time they spent planning their next move. It was the circular discussions, the mutinous silences, the lack of space. She’d never spent so much time in the company of her boys and no one else, and she loved them - Merlin knew she loved them both - but she was desperate for some space. A girl chat. The library. At this point, even a bathroom break would do - and, speaking of, she’d give rather a lot for a shower.
It was a new experience, and Hermione wasn’t one to complain. She was learning such a lot - about magic, and horcruxes, and herself, and the boys. She liked new experiences. This one was just… a very long, seemingly never-ending, new experience.
A light at the end of the tunnel would be welcome. That was all.
And she was hungry. They were rationing the food she’d packed, because it was difficult to buy any more when they were unable to access Gringotts or trust any built-up areas. That was the point of the tent, after all. And she hadn’t yet found a way around Gamp’s laws of elemental transfiguration, which prevented the conjuring of food.
The horcrux sapped her good mood, and the routine of setting wards sapped her enthusiasm. Their lack of direction sapped her motivation. But the hunger… that sapped her hope.
She usually cooked. That meant she could see the dwindling quantity of food, and that meant that she took less food than she gave Harry and Ron. She knew they were hungry too, but wondered at what point her love for those two amazing wizards became her own starvation.
How low she could feel, and yet how much love she had for them. How she resented being the one doing the magic, the cooking, the research - and yet how she determinedly, doggedly, did so. How hopeless it felt, and yet how a hope burned in her - a tiny candle, but stubbornly weathering the storms - that they would all, somehow, survive, against all the odds stacked against them.
It was nonsensical. But Hermione loved her boys, and she refused to let something as trivial as possible starvation stop her from fighting for them and with them. Open war was a new experience for them all - but they were in it together. And all they had was each other.