The Fallout by EveryThursday (reposted)

Three

Whirling, her heart pops up into her throat, and it is Malfoy behind her. "What the fuck are you doing! You expect to have the whole lot of them dancing their way across the bloody yard? This isn't a theatre production, or for your bloody entertainment--"

"Shut up! Just shut up! They... they can't be stunned! I have... I've no idea why. I'm not--"

"Then kill them--"

"What?"

"Kill them, Granger!"

"I can't do that!" She knows she looks horrified, but she is, and so it is fitting no matter what he thinks of it.

He steps forward, waving a dirt covered hand in a wide circle. "Why? What the hell do you think happens, Granger? Maybe twenty percent of them are questioned and put in Azkaban - the rest? Dead. Dead, Granger. Shorten the fucking process and kill them!"

"I can't!"

"So you're going to have them pulling fucking ballerina moves--" he pauses, clenching his jaw and his fists and shakes his head. "Here. Here."

He moves forward quickly, grabbing the front of the shirt of the man that she had been sorry to not know the name of. "Hey!"

"Who killed him?"

"Wh-- That doesn't matter!"

"It does matter, you dipshit! You dumb fucking do-gooder bitch! Do you see this? Do you see it? His guts are hanging out his bloody stomach, Granger, but you've got the guy who did it doing a fucking waltz." He seethes, drops the man down with more care than she expected, and starts toward her.

"I am not that kind of person! I--"

"Do you know that eighty-three percent of Stupefied Death Eaters are un-stunned by their allies, and walk from the battle perfectly fine? Did you know that? Almost all of them, Granger. This means, that eight out of the ten Death Eaters that you stun, end up going off and killing one of your friends. Do you like that? Hmm? Are you the kind of person who is going to let that happen?"

Hermione spots a shadow over his head, and when she raises her wand, he visibly flinches. His is raising in counter, but she has already shot, Stupefying the figure. He pauses, his wand still raised and pointing at her heart, before whirling.

"Was that a Stupefy, Granger? Was... Do you not get this! Do you not fucking get it!" They aren't questions, just a scream that have chords rising up from his neck. "Those are lives! Those are your precious Gryffindor chums hanging in the balance! Whose life is more important, Granger? Whose side are you on?"

"Screw you! You don't know--"

"I don't care if your heart is so fucking big it doesn't fit in your chest cavity, alright? I don't care if you want to save the world one bunny and house-elf at a time! If you want to save lives then you'll take them! Sacrifice some sleep like the rest of us Granger, and--"

A jet of green shoots from his wand and hits the crumpled cloak on the ground. Hermione screams and runs forward, bile making a reappearance and burning the already raw tissue of her throat.

"No! You... I... I don't..." Hermione is shaking by the time she reaches the dead, and it is with more relief than she can imagine that she drops and cries over the body of some nameless Death Eater.

"Blaise always said you would lose your mind, but fuck Granger." He sounds as if he is in disbelief.

"Shut... shut up." She sucks it up, and tries to regain some sense of normalcy, because she is acting mad and she knows it. "I... I didn't know..."