[His pause speaks volumes, and his actual reply says more than Hermione initially realizes. But then, after a moment:]
"It would have been"? Don't you mean "it would be"?
[It's less about grammar and more about the fact that one of those implies that a rifter has been possessed, which she still hasn't actually heard about. She's kept largely to herself since her return from her mission, and while she's picked up enough idle gossip to have heard that one of her rifter friends has died, she hasn't yet heard the real specifics.]
no subject
"It would have been"? Don't you mean "it would be"?
[It's less about grammar and more about the fact that one of those implies that a rifter has been possessed, which she still hasn't actually heard about. She's kept largely to herself since her return from her mission, and while she's picked up enough idle gossip to have heard that one of her rifter friends has died, she hasn't yet heard the real specifics.]