The Dark & the Middle

Chapter 9

"We need better wards on our bases," she told him without preamble. Kingsley raised an eyebrow. "I met with our contact and aside from one or two strays, everyone that attacked Dortmouth was a rookie. The Order's gotten sloppy with setting up wards and we're paying for it."

"Might I remind you," Kingsley said, lowering his voice, "The Death Eaters use dark magic to build their wards; we do not."

"The Death Eaters are winning this war," Hermione snapped, turning sharply to face Kingsley. "I can only do so much for your Order. My contact is the reason more safe houses weren't destroyed like ours. Something needs to change."

Kingsley pursed his lips and looked around the camp. With a nod, he pulled Hermione into his tent and resealed it with a silencing spell. As soon as they were secure, he rounded on her.

"Your contact should have let us know about the attack before it happened," he said, accusing her of not sharing all the information she'd had. "We need to upgrade our wards, yes, but whoever your spy is should not be the one to tell us how to do so. I want information from him only, understood?"

"We can use him for more—"

"We will not fight dirty!" Kingsley yelled. Hermione glared at him and Kingsley glared right back. With a quieter voice, he said, "You are a strategist, Hermione, not a front line warrior. I need you to do two things, and two things only: design our attack formations and keep this alliance."

"I—"

"If I find out you've taken control of our contact and are overriding my orders," Kingsley interrupted, eyeing her dangerously, "Both positions will be transferred to someone who will obey their leader and you will take up a position with Poppy."

Hermione fumed. She knew Kingsley had been slowly pushing her off the battlefield after she'd used an avada in an ambush, but she hadn't expected such a blatant command. Why, she wasn't sure. She knew Kingsley had been chosen to lead the Order for a reason, but she tended to forget just why.

"I will create countercurses for what's seen on the battlefield," Hermione countered tightly. "Snape cannot, so I'll take that up as well."

"Very well," Kingsley said stiffly. He motioned to the tent door and the flaps opened. "You're dismissed."

Hermione stormed out of the tent and didn't stop moving until she was well out of range from the camp. She looked around the silent forest and without using her wand, she sent a frustrated blast of magic out in every direction and screamed.

This wasn't how this war was supposed to go. Harry was supposed to have defeated Voldemort over a year ago at Hogwarts, not watch as Voldemort disappeared in front of him. Even so, Hermione was supposed to be on the battlefield alongside Harry and Ron instead of stuck doing Kingsley's office work. She enjoyed spellwork and creating countercurses, but not when that was the thing keeping her from fighting. For Merlin's sake, they weren't even winning! They were struggling to stay on their feet even with the help of Malfoy and Snape.

Your Order isn't going to win if you don't take a spell out of our book.

Hermione hated that Malfoy's words rang through her head without her permission and in front of her, a tree burst into flames. She had half a mind to let it burn, but the smoke was sure to draw attention so she put the fire out and got rid of the smoke. With a huff, she dropped to the ground and leaned against the trunk of the smouldering tree.

There wasn't much she could do with Kingsley keeping her from the front lines. Even designing countercurses wouldn't do much good if she couldn't see the wand movements or hear the words spoken when the curse was cast. Neither of those excuses would get her back to fighting though, so she wouldn't waste her time. Kingsley was not known to change his mind so for the foreseeable future, she'd be stuck between the medical wing and meetings with Malfoy. With a little luck, Malfoy would uncover some grand information that would help them win this war in a week. Unfortunately, she didn't have much faith such a thing would happen.

After several minutes cursing Voldemort to his grave and throwing in some colourful words about Kingsley as well, Hermione walked back to the camp and made her way to the medical wing. Even if it was what Kingsley had ordered her to do, Hermione knew she could do more good there than in the forest cursing wizards and an endless war. After all, the last thing she wanted to do was be useless.

"Hermione!" Padma exclaimed, rushing up to her the second Hermione had stepped into the tent. "Thank goodness you're here!" She looked so relieved Hermione worried something had gone wrong in the short time she'd been away from the hospital. Before she could really start to panic though, Padma said, "I'm starving! I left a chart with the rounds floating there. Bye!"

"Wait, Padma—"

Padma was gone before Hermione could ask her anything else, so she sighed and summoned the chart she had mentioned, glad nothing seemed to have gone terribly wrong in her absence. Padma and Madam Pomfrey were definitely capable of running the medical wing by themselves, but sometimes unknown curses came in and it was really Hermione who had the best chances of getting rid of them. It was part of why she'd decided to do more work in the hospital than on the battlefield in the first place.

Most of the patients were still sleeping, but a few had woken up and were glad to see Hermione had returned. She chatted quietly with the few who wanted to talk and checked with Oliver to see if he was feeling any better from the new curse he'd been hit with. Pomfrey had been able to modify her countercurse enough that those who had been hit with the curse were now able to heal normally, much to Hermione's relief.

"It was Padma's idea to perform both the counter spell you created and the one for regular acid burns at the same time," Pomfrey said when Hermione asked about it. When both spells had been performed at exactly the same time, it seemed to completely counteract the new acid curse.

Hermione continued doing check-ups on those who woke up. Not many of them were up to talk, but there were a few who asked what she'd been up to and if they should be worrying about any new attacks on the Order safe houses.

"It doesn't look like it," she assured a young girl. She didn't immediately recognise her and wondered if she'd been transferred from one of the other safe houses. When she asked, the girl nodded.

"I was at a safe house in Camberley," she said, twisting her fingers in her blanket nervously. "Most of us got out, but I was the closest to the blast."

"Blast?" Hermione asked before she could stop the word from leaving her mouth. The girl nodded.

"The Death Eaters blew up the building," she said quietly. Hermione's eyes glanced over her injuries as she explained that even though everyone had been far from the building, the Death Eaters had still made sure to flatten the building and prevent anyone from ever being able to rebuild it. "It was almost like they'd combined a bombarda spell with a muggle bomb."

Hermione's mind was already spinning with this new information, so she said a half-hearted goodbye and quickly finished up with her. As she left the girl's bed, her brain was filled without questions, the least of being why Kingsley hadn't shared with her the details of the attack on the Order. While an explosion wasn't difficult to believe, until then, the Death Eaters hadn't devastated whole buildings. It was too muggle for them.

She stopped mid-stride as she was suddenly hit with an idea.

Your Order isn't going to win if you don't take a spell out of our book.

Maybe Kingsley wouldn't like it and perhaps it was a bit too muggle, but there was currently no rule in wizarding warfare that said she couldn't. She was certain the Death Eaters weren't playing by the rule book as it was and technically she wasn't going against Kingsley's orders since it wasn't stepping onto the battlefield. Bombing a Death Eater base would be no easy feat, but if anyone could do it, it would be her. And she had just the place to try it on.