Belomorkanal
The first interrogation was by a kindly MinKol officer, who integrated magic into it and made it entertaining. Hermione thought it lasted about four hours but with both the interrogation and the waiting contained in the dark inside of one of the steel works, she had no way to be exactly sure. There was tea, and snacks.
The next interrogation was by GRU. Sharp, precise, it pushed her to the limit but she founded herself treated with some respect, like a young officer, she supposed. They saw her as a military woman, in the service of the British government against Voldemort, before his Machtergreifung. They wanted maps, descriptions of spells, blow-by-blows, estimates of the strength of forces. That interrogation lasted all of the next day.
The third one was by the FSB. It lasted six hours and was much more interested in her politics, her beliefs, the objectives of Dumbledore, his actions to create and hold the coalition together, and indeed the politics and actions of the Death Eaters, to the best of her knowledge. After this interview, she was allowed a short time for food, and then was taken to face a mixed group from all three services. The kindly woman from MinKol was back; she requested that Hermione show her memories in a pensieve that had been brought up. Hermione consented.
An hour later, she was out in the evening, in a refugee camp, with a cup of tea, watching the sun set, and having caught up with a rather flustered Ron, who had handled the experience less well than she had. “I don’t know why they wanted to know so much about what Dumbledore was doing. He was the best.”
“They want to understand why they’re fighting this war,” Hermione answered, taking her turn watching Teddy. Narcissa, Draco, Andromeda, and Tonks weren’t back yet. She understood Narcissa and Draco very well, considering the suspicion they were under, but didn’t quite get Andromeda and Tonks until she realised that it was probably because, of course, they, too, were relatives of … Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione shuddered a little, and shivered a little more, all her memories going back to that strange night in the Malfoy Manor, which bothered her right up to that moment, as if Bellatrix had put something in her head that just wouldn’t let her go.
Beyond what she put in my arm. That feeling of attraction was as terrible as it was alluring and confusing and mysterious, and again she shoved it away, and sat next to Ron drinking her tea as the stars came out.
At length, Andromeda returned to them. Hermione had already been shocked to hear the sound of guns firing distantly in the west. She had not thought the enemy was so close, and in fact, she had never expected to hear this. She wasn’t exactly the type to watch war movies or listen to war stories. War had not been a part of her life until she entered the magical world, so she was only used to magical war.
But that thunder was on a night where there should no thunder. It came and went in bursts. And the soldiers had a knowing look, as it came and went. Hermione knew enough, she had read a few Hornblower books, seen a few documentaries, to know that it was artillery, and it might well be dozens and dozens of miles away (or even hundreds, she thought she remembered from some history book a story of the guns on the Somme being heard in London), so she reassured Ron and kept drinking her tea.
Then that casual observation replayed in her mind. The Somme. The young witch froze for a moment, and tried to grasp the scale of what was going on. From what she had heard, the Morsmordre blitzkrieg stretched from Scandinavia to Iberia.
Andromeda put a hand on her shoulder. She looked weary, old, exhausted and miserable, at a spiritual level. Hermione glanced to Ron. “Back in a minute.” She rose, and stepped away with Andromeda.
“Misses Tonks, what’s wrong?”
“It was just very exhausting, that’s all,” she answered, looking out to the west. “I suppose I just never realised how big this was. You know it’s strange, growing up, I was taught that muggles weren’t people, but meeting Ted’s parents and family, and being welcomed as part of them… They loved me. His family, especially—they thought my relationship with Ted was a fairy-tale, really. I couldn’t hide being very posh, even if I could hide being a witch, you see,” she smiled thinly. “So they thought I’d been disowned and run away from my old money family somewhere, probably titled, for the sake of love with a Cockney Boy. His parents knew the truth… And understood that what the rest of their family knew was mostly the truth, too. I… I loved him very much, Hermione. And I learned to respect muggles as people. But… This is like a number.”
“A number, what’s like a number, Misses Tonks…?” She trailed off. She remembered something that she had stayed up late at night to watch, without her parents’ permission, which had been seared in her mind, one summer. Threads.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. Threads. “...How many, Misses Tonks?”
“You don’t …”
“I’ve seen Threads. Please tell me,” Hermione stared to the west too, with her eyes welling with tears.
Andromeda froze for a moment, and muttered something under her breath. “Two billion, Hermione. There’s two billion dead. It’s already the most destructive war in human history, twenty times over. I’m sorry. I… I never imagined the Wizarding World could do this, I still don’t want to, but here we are, and they’re riding to the east, riding the wind to the east. They say the wizards of Germany have gone for Voldemort, they’ve handed the country to the Morsmordre, they’re already on the River Oder.”
Hermione grabbed and squeezed at her own hands and at her coat, before desperately hugging Andromeda Tonks. “I… We were only there three days ago… Two billion, two billion? But there’s only six billion people on the entire planet.”
“Yes, yes … I know, Hermione.”
“This is what my failure did? Two billion dead? This is what the Order failing did? Two billion dead?”
“No, Hermione, don’t think that way, you can’t think that way, it’s not going anywhere good, you did your absolute best, it isn’t your fault AS A CHILD that Dumbledore’s mistakes came home to roost for you Hermione, don’t do anything stupid, Gods, enough people have died, please be safe Hermione!”
Hermione was walking off, almost in a trance, toward the edges of the refugee camp. She walked, and walked. She respected Andromeda Tonks, respected her so much really, for the incredible feat of breaking free of her prejudices, and in childhood, and abandoning everything for love. She doubted she could do the same.
But she had to be away from the wizarding world in that moment.
It was also not quite true that she knew nothing of war. For the past year, in the safe-house, she had done anything that she possibly could to keep herself distracted in France, including watching rebroadcasts of American cable television. Shortly before Voldemort’s takeover of Britain, Nigel Hawthorne had finished narrating a documentary called Russia’s War: Blood Upon the Snow.
She approached the Russian soldiers who were on the perimeter in a state almost of a trance, her face white like a sheet. A few of them turned toward her.
“Hey?” One asked, smoking a cigarette, and looking west, where the guns were sounding. There was an exchange, and another came forward, who spoke English well.
“Do you know what you’re here for?” Hermione asked, feeling almost like it was an out-of-body experience.
“Yeah.”
She realised in that moment, the young man was scared. Hermione forced herself to smile.
“They’ve said magic is real… Someone from a Ministry of Witchcraft showed it to us. Crazy thing. They say there’s this dark wizard—like Hitler, but worse—he’s trying to take over the world. I don’t know what to think. It’s crazy times. But the bombs flew, they had to fly for something, right? I did a tour in Chechnya, I’ve seen shit there…” He shook his head grimly, taking a long drag on his belomor. “I guess we’ll know soon enough. They say the enemy is advancing out of Prague, they’ll be here soon. Maybe you’ll get to go to the rear first,” he shrugged and gestured. “Empty wagons for the tanks and the guys, after all, they need to go east.”
Hermione stared blankly, and then looked west again. They’re already in Prague… She shook her head. “Are you scared?” She asked.
He laughed, and gestured with his cigarette. Maybe he was just trying to impress a cute girl. Maybe it was true. “No. Chechnya, remember? And my gramps did this, too.
The young witch shook her head slowly, just to find a one of the strange cigarettes thrust into her hands.
“Here, have this,” the unnamed soldier said. “It’ll stiffen you up.”
She took it, and he gave her a light. It was the most horrifying thing she had ever tasted in her life, like setting liquid ass on fire and inhaling it into her lungs or something like that, this acrid intensity that wanted to knock her over. She knew cigarettes were cancerous and caused heart problems.
She had also failed, fucked up, fell short of the mark on the most important passing grade of her life. McGonagall was dead, could never punish her for this, and … Nobody could, except herself.
Hermione took the longest, hardest drag on that cigarette that she could. She coughed afterwards. She took another. That time, she didn’t cough. The rush of nicotine started to steady her, and she loved it, even as she knew it was addictive. It was the end of the fucking world, it was time for a smoke.
And then air-raid sirens started to sound. Hermione jerked, looked around—made herself take another puff on the cigarette. “Are they coming?”
“Bombers, at least!”
“Can I fight?”
The soldier laughed. “I don’t know, but you might as well ask!”
The four fighters dropped their bombs well clear of the camp, but she saw the missiles and the tracers rise high. Then she went and asked. Along the way, with a little bit of transfiguration to create something valuable for someone, she got herself an entire pack of belomors and a lighter.
She never looked back.