Atoning

"How can you even think of this, Albus?" Snape demanded, incensed.

"I am thinking of the war effort, Severus."

"What happened to you?" Snape demanded. "You used to care about winning the war, but people were still people. You would never have sent a teenager out to kill people with families and lives in the last war-"

"And we barely won the last war," Dumbledore interrupted. "I intend to stay ahead of the enemy this time, especially since Voldemort"-Snape flinched at the name-"has the Ministry fooled."

"But this, Albus? Sending a fifteen-year-old out to the front lines?" Snape whispered, pleading. "She's like my daughter, Albus . . . she's a child. . . ."

"And I want her to grow up to be happy and healthy. Bus Severus, we both know she's not a normal teenager. Even you would cringe at some of the things she's had thrown at her-"

"And she's lost her mind because of those very things! Dumbledore, she's already insane-"

"Which gives her the perfect defense should she be captured by the Aurors," Dumbledore said quietly.

"Sleep on it," he said, telling his mentor the same thing he'd told his student as he rose. "I have a class in ten minutes." He turned and didn't look back.

***
"Your decision?" I asked him.

Dumbledore sighed heavily, suddenly looking very old. "If you should want this . . . the job is yours. Your decision?"

I felt a heavy weight settle on my shoulders as I replied. "Yes."

"Have a seat, Hermione," he said quietly . "I take it you are aware of the Order?"

"Yes, sir."

"Lemon drop?" he offered. I refused the sweet. "i would like you to join."

"I beg your pardon?" I asked, surprised.

"I would like you to join the Order. It is necessary for you to be part of the Order so you can receive any and all backup and supplies you need."

"Very well. How do I join?"

"Our next meeting is tomorrow, Sunday, at six o'clock in the evening. The Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix may be found at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Floo to that address at about six-fifteen, wearing your Rose costume, if you would. That should give me time to announce that you will be joining us and allay any fears that you will turn on us."

"You mentioned something about backup?"

"We never send anyone in alone if we can help it," he explained. "With Severus, it is impossible for him to take a partner, and he is well-versed in defending himself. You are still a student, and, while you conduct yourself and your spells admirably, anyone can be taken by surprise. Your raid two nights ago was proof of that." His eyes twinkled at me.

I sighed heavily. "Tomorrow night?" I confirmed. "Where shall I Floo from?"

"This office. The Floo powder is in the green canister just above the fireplace."

"All right, sir. May I go? I have a million bits of homework to finish."

"As well as your beginning group to teach?" he asked.

"How did you-never mind, I don't think I want to know. Good night, sir."

"Good night, Hermione. Oh, and don't worry about your Potions essay; I daresay Severus will not begrudge you the extra sleep you will receive from omitting an assignment."

"Very well." I turned to leave, Dumbledore's voice following me down the stairs: "Tomorrow night, call me 'Albus' or 'Dumbledore'!"

"You got it," I hollered back to him.

When I reached my room, I collapsed on the couch, trembling. I ran my hands over my face, again and again. What did I just agree to?

You agreed to kill people, a nasty voice in my mind whispered.

Shut up, I grumbled to myself, then pulled out my defense book; I could take out my bad mood in the phrasing of Umbitch's essay. While it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying as taking care of her nastiness myself (she still hadn't given up on forcing me into ridiculous tasks for the hell of it), it was still an outlet, and one that I desperately needed.

. . . and, as the author so kindly explains, counter-curses are still curses . . .

***
How I made it through the next day, I'll never know. I was a nervous wreck over the meeting that night, and Umbridge's class didn't help things. I could barely eat anything at dinner, though I was extremely grateful for the wine (and, for once, didn't water it down).

At last, at long last, it was time for me to get to Dumbledore's office. I packed up my Rose clothing into my bag, then made my way to the office, all the while feeling a blanket of gloom smother me.

Calm. Controlled. Powerful, I told myself repeatedly, as if repetition would make it true. Calm. Controlled. Powerful.

"Ice Mice," I said to the gargoyle guarding the staircase to Dumbledore's office.

Once safely ensconced in his empty office, I stripped down to my underwear and pulled on the killing garb. A dark gray sweatshirt covered my torso, and tight, matching pants wrapped around my legs. Black shoes wrapped my feet, and my mask adhered itself to my face. With the mask on, magic settled around me, welcoming me home, and I could feel myself changing-my hair darkened, straightened, and grew, but was held rigidly in place; I became taller; my throat changed somehow, though I couldn't pinpoint exactly how. My spin grew straighter-though whether that was an effect of the costume's magic or because I needed to seem confident, I couldn't say-and a dozen white roses appeared in the bag I hadn't noticed before. It was a well-made bag, with camouflage spells woven in, and I noticed the same spells on my clothing.

I picked up the canister of Floo powder. Do I really want to do this?

No.

Do I really need to do this?

. . . Yes.

"Number 12, Grimmauld Place!" I called, before I could talk myself into chickening out. I stepped into the fireplace and felt myself spinning. My elbow clipped a brick, and I hissed in pain, tucking my arms even farther into my body.

I was spat out into the kitchen and the middle of chaos. People were shouting at Dumbledore and at each other. A plate was thrown at the wall and shattered. I ducked a flying glass.

"ENOUGH!" I bellowed. The room immediately went still. "What is going on and why are you acting like three-year-olds?" I asked softly.

"Ah, Rose. So glad you could make it," Dumbledore said, standing with a smile. "I'm afraid you walked in just as we were debating the pros and cons of letting you join."

"Well, let me sum it up for you," I said bluntly. "Pros: I can kill, I can maim, I can send messages if that's what you want, and I can never be caught. Cons: you don't know who I am, where I come from, or if I'll turn on you once the war is over-with the exception of Dumbledore, of course, who trusts me-which, now that I think of it, is another pro. Did I miss anything?"

"I don't believe so," Dumbledore replied mildly.

"Just a minute!" Shacklebolt roared. "Her impudence and recklessness could get us all killed!"

"Shacklebolt, believe me, I am more than willing to kill myself before letting Moldy-Warts win," I told him. "And what recklessness are you referring to?"

"Where you go in alone and try to kill people!"

"One: I went in alone because I didn''t have backup. Two: I don't need backup because anti-Disapparition wards have no effect on me. Three: I kill people for your side. Four: Moldy-Wart is feeling the pinch with so many of his Daisy Pickers gone."

"And you trust her? Albus, she's insane!" Elphias Doge protested.

"Hey! Over here. I'm not insane, Doge. I just know that making fun of something makes people less afraid of it."

"And with that," Dumbledore said, "I give you Rose. How many are willing to go with her and watch her back?"

"We can't let her kill people!" Molly Weasley protested.

I smiled. This would be fun.

"Mrs. Weasley," I began, "let me make one thing perfectly clear: by killing these men and women, we are saving innocents. Killing one is worth saving many. The greater good must come before all else. That's why you're fighting, isn't it? To save the lives of innocents? If it's not the reason you're fighting, I suggest you take a long hard look at how much you're willing to sacrifice."

"I will sacrifice anything for the war effort," she hissed.

"Even your family?"

"What!" she shrieked.

"Would you sacrifice your son if, by doing so, you would save an entire family and take out one of the Daisy Pickers?"

"What has that to do with anything!" she cried.

"It has to do with everything. Because I've made that choice before: Save a family, or kill three of his lackeys? Which one would you pick?"

"Save the family, of course!"

"And when the three lackeys take another family the next night, and the next, and the next, suddenly you have three families that could have been saved. How do you weigh one families' lives against three families'?"

"She has a point, Molly," Moody said. He pointed a gnarled finger at me. "You'd be a good Auror. Are you applying for the program?"

I laughed. "Moody, I've yet to finish school. I know killing, and I know escape, and I know how to take others with me when I escape. Seventh-year Transfiguration? Beyond my skills."

"You're still ion school?" Molly demanded, outraged. "Albus, how can you think of this!"

"Because I'm the only one who is cold enough to kill without mercy," I told her. "Besides, I can do a great crazy-which means that, if I somehow manage to screw up badly enough to get captured by the Aurors, I can get off with a stint in Mungo's."

"And if you get captured by the Death Eaters?" Snape asked.

"I kill either them or myself."

"Wait-if you get captured by Aurors you'll go to trial, but if you get captured by Death Eaters you'll kill them? Why?"

"Why the hell would I want to kill Aurors?" I asked Shacklebolt. He blinked at me; apparently he hadn't thought of that.

"Your first mission is tonight, Rose," Dumbledore said quietly. "Who will go with her as backup?"

"Where am I going?" I asked him.

"You're going to kill Yaxley. He's a lower-level Death Eater than what you've been doing so far, but him being killed will send a message."

"What message will it send?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"That I will kill anyone, and nobody is beneath my notice. Right?"

"Right," Dumbledore confirmed. "Who will go as backup?"

There was a pregnant pause as members of the Order considered each other.

"I'll go," Bill Weasley said, standing up.

"I thought you were in Egypt," I said, confused.

"I came back to help out here," he explained.

"Your intelligence obviously isn't as good as you think it is," Mrs. Weasley said.

I grimaced. "Mrs. Weasley, I focus my woolgathering on threats, not allies. Though I suppose I'll have to start paying closer attention now."

"Who else will go?" Dumbledore asked.

There was another pause. Once more, everyone sized everyone else up.

"For Pete's sake, I'm not going to let any of you die," I snapped. "You'll be up on the hill outside his house, obscured behind bushes. You only come in if there's a Daisy Chain of more than forty in there."

"Daisy Chain?" Dumbledore asked, curious.

"Gathering. But if Voldemort's there, I'm finding another target," I told him. "I'm not about to take on the head honcho without my group."

Dumbledore nodded. "Understandable. When are you planning on taking him on?"

"When the others are up to the level they need to be to face him. Now, someone volunteer or I'll pick somebody."

"I'll go," Moody grunted. "Least I can do . . . and this way, I can keep an eye on you."

I shrugged. "All right. Let's do this."

"Meet me in my office when you're done," Dumbledore told us. "And . . . if you have time . . . I wouldn't say no to a few more getting taken out tonight."

I nodded, then gripped Bill and Moody around the arms and Displaced. We landed silently on the hill overlooking Yaxley's estate.

"Hold still," I murmured to them, then wove the air around them. "Unbreakable Invisibility charm," I said softly. Unless you know elemental magic, and have been trained to see it, you'll never know it's there. Now sit tight-if the air around you gets very hot, then very cold, it means I'm in trouble."

I crept down the hill, calling on the earth to muffle my footsteps, fire to keep me warm, and the air to make me hard to see. I slipped into his house through the kitchen door and flung a web throughout the house.

Three floors up, there were seven wizards and five witches gathered. I smiled-I had the exact number of roses I would need-and hurried up the stairs, careful to remain silent. I paused outside the door to listen in.

"-can't let this go on!" a man cried. "She's killing us, one by one-"

"-And scaring cowards like you," a woman said coldly. "Let her come; at my house, I have surprises in store for any who dare to cross the property line without my permission."

"As did Malfoy, and she hamstrung him."

"Why wasn't he killed?" That was another man, puzzled.

"He was the first one attacked, and his house was the most well-warded of us all. She was sending a message: she'll kill us no matter how well we hide ourselves."

"I will indeed," I said, opening the door. They turned to gape at me, and I used the element of surprise to my advantage. I sucked the air from the room-that would earn me a few more seconds-and pulled the moisture from the bodies of four of the men. They dropped, the blood solidified in their veins. I fired the skulls of the three remaining men, and their brains fried. I smothered the five women with water I'd taken from the first four men.

Fifteen seconds after I entered the room, they were dead. I pulled the dozen roses from my pack, and went to work charming blood from the dead. For the ones I'd dehydrated, I pushed the water back into their bodies to make their deaths a mystery, and I dried out the lungs of the women I'd drowned.

I conjured a thirteenth rose, upon which I put the blood of the twelve deceased Death Eaters, and nailed it to the front door. Then I made my way back to Moody and Bill.

"Twelve dead," I told them. "Seven wizards, five witches."

"You're a cold one, Rose," Moody told me.

"I know. Feel up for another raid?" I asked them.

"You just killed twelve people."

"And?"

"You want to kill more people tonight?"

"The more people I kill, the better. The night is still young; it's barely ten o'clock. We can still hit the Lestranges."

"If you're sure," Moody said doubtfully. "Dumbledore did say that he wouldn't mind a few more Death Eater deaths tonight."

"Good," I said firmly. "Let's go, then." I gripped their upper arms and Displaced once more.

Again, I crept into the house. It wasn't until I was on the second floor that I felt something shiver through me.

"Intruder!" someone screamed. He pointed his wand at me; I blasted him through the wall. The sound of running footsteps told me I was about to have a fight on my hands. I put my back to wall and readied myself.

Stone walls, I thought. [i[I could kill everyone in here without any trouble at all.

I expanded my consciousness. Thirty people in this house. Forty-two dead; not bad for a night's work.

A spell hit my arm, severing my hand from my wrist. I caught it as it fell, siphoned the blood from the floor and the wall, and Displaced.

My hand shot out to the foundation stones.Everyone was off the first floor; that would make things much easier. It would be harder for them to escape.

I collapsed the house.

I heard people scream as they realized what was happening. Blue lights shone around the property line-people were trying to Disapparate, but the barrier was keeping them in, just as the invisible net around my wrist was keeping the blood from falling.

The house lost its shape completely. I felt bad for any animals that had been in the house, but there had been no way for me to save them. I conjured thirty white roses and let them flutter to the ground, this time without any blood at all.

Moody and Bill came charging up, wands drawn. Their jaws dropped when they saw me standing outside the rubble.

"You collapsed the house," Bill said.

"Once I was spotted on the inside, yes." I grimaced. "I don't suppose either of you know how to reattach hands?"

"What?"

"Spell I didn't get out of the way of in time," I explained. "Is that a 'no', then?"

"Yes, it's a no," Moody said dryly. "Come on, we have to get to Dumbledore's office."

I nodded. "Hands," I gasped. The blood loss was making me dizzy. I gripped them both and Displaced to Dumbledore as all went black.