Hermione doesn't know what she'd been expecting to say, but she realizes belatedly that there'd been some small, uncharacteristic part of her that had almost wanted to be coddled and told that she has no reason to fear. She's never needed that sort of treatment, had never wanted that sort of treatment either, but right now anything is better than the idea of strong emotions leading a demon to her doorstep. Gryffindors had never been known to do things by halves, after all; strong emotions were sort of their forte.

"Then there's nothing to be done?" she half-asks, half-states, voice uncomfortably hollow. "The mages in this world, both native and rifter, simply have to accept the fact that at any moment, they could be warped into something horrible and forced to be put down like some rabid animal?"