Author's Note: I do not, and never will, own Harry Potter.
Written for: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, Herbology #11, and the Multi-Ship Challenge.
Prompts: empty, Hermione/Luna, and "Write about someone who conceals a part of their personality, or something that is important to them, and how this thing is revealed to someone else."
(This is very AU for Hermione's sixth year, so you know.)
It's Luna who notices first.
Not that that's a surprise, since Harry's lost in his own nightmares and Ron's too busy trying to fill in the hollow inside himself. Hermione always gets up from the dinner table precisely twenty-five minutes early, and Luna's DA-sharpened eyes can't ignore the lines of stress sharpening her face and the empty look in her eyes. Her hands shake when she picks up her bookbag and it always takes her precisely twenty steps to escape into the Great Hall.
After the second week, Luna starts following.
It's no great trick, really. The thin trickle of crowd hides her dirty blonde head as she bobs after the sixth-year Gryffindor, her own bookbag thumping uneasily against her knees. Hermione doesn't look behind her once.
The stairs wind up and up, and Luna trails behind. At the fourth floor landing, Hermione does look behind her, but Luna pretends to examine a painting with great interest, and her own reputation is such that Hermione clearly takes no notice.
You'd think she would have learnt from the Ministry, Luna thinks, not without a tinge of sadness.
Hermione doesn't stop again until she reaches a particular corridor, and the Room of Requirement's door appears. She ducks straight in, so quickly that Luna actually breaks into a run, trying to keep up. The door clicks shut and melts into the wall, so fast Luna stumbles against the stones.
She pauses.
Interesting.
The next week, she takes up a post behind a statue, waiting. Hermione comes dashing up this time, red-faced. Her eyes are swollen like she's been crying. Just as she starts pacing in front of the Room, Luna sneezes, unable to take the dust in the statue's alcove anymore, and Hermione freezes, her wand sliding out of its holster and into her hand.
"Who's there?" she demands. Her aim is steady, even if her voice is not. Luna sighs and steps out.
"Sorry, Hermione," she apologises. "I was just-looking at this statue for Nargles-" Her excuse, threadbare as it is, peters out in a thin whisper, and she's sure that Hermione will see right through it, but the fifth-year Gryffindor just blinks at her and shakes her head, thumping back down the steps.
She doesn't leave the Great Hall again for two days.
The next day, Luna sees Hermione tip a whole plate of rolls into her bag when no one else is looking, and disappear from the Great Hall with a rushed murmur about the Library.
This time, Luna vows, will be different, and she does make it, and her hand closes on the door knob right after Hermione disappears through it, and she yanks it open with all her strength-
Only to stumble in, jaw dropped in shock, to see Hermione sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by kittens of no kind Luna has ever seen.
"Hermione?" Luna blurts out. The other girl stiffens, collapsing backward and yanking her wand out of her sleeve. Her cheeks are redder than yew berries.
"What-how-" Hermione stammers. One of the kittens mews, waving its multi-pronged tail in the air and Hermione scoops it absently into her lap.
"I followed you," Luna replies. The door has closed behind her, almost without her noticing. "I noticed you kept leaving..."
"You're the only one," Hermione murmurs, a tinge of bitterness seeping into her voice.
"I don't think bread is good for kittens," Luna changes the subject, pointing at the rolls now scattered across the carpet. Hermione blushes again.
"I know, but they're easier to sneak out," Hermione explains. "Everything else is too messy."
"The house elves would be happy to help you," Luna points out. Hermione shakes her head fiercely, bushy hair bobbing.
"So what are they?" Luna asks, pointing to one of the kittens, now preoccupied in attacking her sock.
"I don't know," Hermione admits. "I found them. Sort of. I was on the North Tower, and they just appeared."
"Why were you on the North Tower?" Luna sinks to her knees, extending her fingers to one of the kittens, whose questing nose bumps against her knuckles. She has to admit they are rather cute, even if they are a bit unsettling to look at. Three eyes arranged in a sort of triangular configuration, pronged tails, and multicoloured fur in vivid stripes.
"Um," Hermione pauses, seemingly not even noticing the kitten gnawing on the strap of her book bag with tiny, pointed teeth. "I was um."
"Yes?" Luna gently prompts.
"Praying," Hermione mumbles. "I was praying."
"And then the kittens just appeared out of nowhere?" Luna continues, rescuing one from the depths of Hermione's bag. It emerges with a quill clenched between its teeth and an ink splotch on the top of its head.
"Yes."
"Why are you taking care of them in here? Why not bring them to Hagrid? Or anyone?" Luna persists, confused. Hermione shakes her head again.
"I-can't," she says. "They-they don't make any sense! I've scoured the Library for anything that sounds even close to them, and I've stayed up until dawn I don't know how many times, and they shouldn't be here, no one has ever seen them before..."
Luna blinks, surprised at how distraught Hermione sounds. It seems perfectly logical to her. A new species, perhaps, or a mutation. Her father would be ecstatic to discover them.
Then again, Hermione's nothing like her father.
"What if I told someone about them?" Luna proposes. "Everyone expects it from me. No one has to know you found them. Or what you were doing when you found them."
"I couldn't ask you to do that," Hermione protests, but Luna can see relief making her shoulders shake. "What would you even say?"
"I was on the North Tower when they appeared out of nowhere, and I thought perhaps I should tell someone," Luna says calmly, ignoring the kitten chewing on the hem of her robes. "I'm sure Hagrid could set up some kind of accommodations for them."
"Thank you," Hermione whispers. "Here, I'll get them corralled properly, you can't just let them run free in here, I've been trying to manage, but they get into everything, even if it is the Room of Requirement."
Soon enough, all the kittens are climbing over each other in a large cardboard box, an old blanket provided by the castle cushioning the bottom. Luna can carry it easily.
"You don't suppose I can erm, still see them, do you?" Hermione asks, biting her bottom lip.
"I'm sure Hagrid wouldn't mind if you came down with me," Luna replies. The smile on Hermione's face is transcendent.
"Come on then," Luna says.
Word count: 1,152 words