Hermione left the forest with the knowledge of three new wards she'd be placing on every Order base she knew of and a handy spell for checking for wards without setting any off. Malfoy had begrudgingly sworn to give her more regular updates and they'd parted ways after a very tense, rather uncomfortable session of him showing her how to do dark magic.
Not to her surprise, almost everyone was sleeping when she returned to the Order's new camp. She took the time to set up all three of the wards Malfoy had shown her and practically dragged herself back to her tent. Wards as powerful as the three she'd just set took a lot of energy and magic; to have practiced several times in the forest earlier and then do them once more over a larger camp had her swaying slightly as she walked. No one was awake to notice, though, and she made it all the way to her bed before she collapsed.
"Hermione?"
She groaned and rolled onto her back, blinking into the darkness as a voice called her name. She was still in her regular clothing, but she'd made it to her bed.
"Hermione?" the voice asked again. She blinked again and Harry and Ron were standing beside her bed.
"I'm okay," she grumbled, scrubbing her face with her hands and wondering when her arms had gotten so heavy. "Out for Kingsley," she explained dumbly.
"You've been gone all day," Ron told her with a frown. "It's past midnight."
"It took a long time," she said. Ron and Harry looked skeptical, but when they realised she wasn't in danger or hurt, they seemed to accept it. "I'm okay," she repeated for them.
"You shouldn't go out alone," Harry told her. He glanced to where Ginny was sleeping and she could see how worried he was. "It's dangerous; even with the Order, it's dangerous."
Hermione just nodded and after a few seconds, he and Ron returned to their beds. As much as she wanted to tell them both she'd gone to keep an eye on a Death Eater base, she knew it would only worry them. The last thing they wanted to hear is that she'd been within sight of a Death Eater base alone and well past dark. She'd just have to keep up the ruse that she'd been setting up a new safe house, though it wasn't a very unbelievable lie at this point.
It didn't seem like Hermione had fallen asleep, but when she blinked again, the darkness was gone and the sun was lighting up the tent. Ron was snoring across the room, but Harry was nowhere in sight. She leaned down to see the bunk below her and found both Harry and Ginny curled up and fast asleep.
Rather than lay back down in her bed, she quietly got up, showered, and got dressed before leaving the tent to find food. She'd never been one to sleep in and typically, after she woke up the first time in the morning, she had trouble going back to sleep. It was an advantage when living through a war, she supposed, but there were always days when she wished she could get a little extra sleep.
The camp was just waking up as she walked through the tents to find breakfast. Not many others were awake, but the medical wing was bustling. If Hermione wasn't in a bit of a rush to talk to Kingsley, she would have stopped to help for a while. She turned away instead, telling herself she would stop in after finding Kingsley.
Hermione didn't eat breakfast in the tent they were serving it. She got her bowl of oats and walked through the maze of tents instead, searching for Kingsley as she ate. He wasn't in his tent, so she wandered through any of the areas she thought he might be in. It wasn't until she'd finished her breakfast and sent the bowl back to the kitchens that she found him speaking with Harry outside of their tent. With a frown, she walked up behind him and waited for Harry to finish speaking.
"—and good," Harry said, nodding briefly at Hermione. Kingsley twisted around and glanced at her before turning back to Harry.
"I'll be by later to check again," Kingsley told him. Hermione saw Harry's jaw tighten and she narrowed her eyes at Kingsley, wondering what they'd been talking about. She didn't have much time to muse before Kingsley turned away from Harry and looked back at her. "How can I help you, Miss Granger?" he asked, grabbing hold of her arm and steering her away from where Harry was standing.
"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.