Manacled

60 : Flashback 35

June 2003

Hermione completed the bomb in two weeks. The final product was silver, ovoid with a faint luminescent shimmer, slightly smaller than a crystal ball, and freezing cold to touch.

The timing of the construction had been precise. When it was finished, she sent immediate word to Severus. He was due to visit Hogwarts that afternoon, to select new prisoners for use at Sussex.

"It's only visible to those who know to look for it," she said, handing it carefully over. "It's set to activate at exactly noon on July 1st. There are some cushioning charms where I could risk them, but-don't drop it."

Severus had been surveying it carefully until her warning.

He looked up and sneered at her. "Thank you, Miss Granger, without your warning it would never have occurred to me to be cautious with a bomb."

Hermione didn't blink. "Would you rather I not mention it's delicate?" She arched her eyebrows. "It's designed to target the magic keeping us out of Hogwarts, so the higher you can get it, the better. The Astronomy tower would be ideal. It has some combustive power, but it's primarily designed to break the wards, the lower it is at detonation, the less impact it will have. At least-well, it's based entirely on arithmancy-I couldn't actually test it."

"I'm overcome with confidence," Severus said, looking down at it again.

Hermione was so nervous her chest felt fractured. Lately it was a constant, grinding pain until she could barely breathe.

"I was unaware you had added bomb-making to your repertoire," Severus said after a minute.

Hermione pulled off a heavy dragonhide apron and gloves and looked down at her hands, wincing. Her skin was speckled with burns, and several fingertips were green and withered; she'd have to carve off the remaining tissue and regrow it. Protective clothing and wards had limited effect when working with materials specifically chosen for their ability to destroy protection.

She rubbed her fingers together and watched as the skin cracked and fell off, leaving the bones exposed in places.

She grimaced and carefully wrapped bandages infused with essence of Dittany around her hands. "I started after we heard about the Albanian hospital-just the theory. I didn't understand the reports, and I felt guilty that maybe it was partly my fault that the hospital had been targeted. I thought I should at least know what happened to everyone there. Then-after the raid on the labs of the curse division-I had everything, but it wasn't even worth trying to propose that the Order use a bomb."

She shrugged and started packing up her materials into all their carefully sealed and cushioned boxes and containers while Severus watched.

They were in an abandoned barn in the countryside that the Order had sectioned off for Hermione to work in. Initially, there had only been half-hearted objections made when the idea of using a bomb was proposed, but in the end the Order had agreed. No one had a better idea, and after half a year, and dozens of casualties from the attempts, there was a sense of raw desperation in everyone.

Hermione gingerly placed a flask, still half-full of shimmering, silver liquid, into a warded box and sealed it with several protective spells. "When Bill brought his analysis of the wards on Hogwarts last month, I realised that there was a chance I could combine charmwork and arithmancy with the traditional use of potions and alchemy for explosives. I was rereading Dumbledore's collaboration with Flamel on the uses of dragon's blood and had the idea that it would react with silver nitrate dissolved in unicorn blood powerfully enough to dissolve the wards. The main challenge was finding a way to suspend it in something that could penetrate and adhere to the magic, so I used manticore venom to emulsify it. The detonation is primarily intended to create a blast radius large enough to destabilise and collapse the wards when the solvent hits it. I ran the numbers dozens of times before I brought the proposal to Moody; I'm almost positive I've calculated it all correctly."