Author's Note: The poll is still up! Feel free to vote for a pairing for Luna for later on in the story.

Secondly, there are some huge hints in this chapter as well.

Thirdly: What I think about Kari Limbo cannot be said in polite company. That said, you have to hand it to the woman, she managed to catch both Guy Gardner and Hal Jordon-both of whom were willing to marry her. That woman was a master of manipulation-she got Hal Jordan to walk down that aisle! HAL JORDAN! Damn that woman was good. I rest my case.

Chapter 9

The candles extinguished the moment Hermione opened her eyes. She wobbled slightly, then fell to her side, exhausted. Nothing had been, she decided, as she had expected.

She looked up at Luna, who sat at a table, embroidering a scarf. "You let go."

"I did," whispered Luna. "I'm sorry. So very sorry."

"It's alright," Hermione said gently, as she sat up. "You were only nine years old. You shouldn't have had to try to protect me."

"How could I not?" asked Luna, putting down her embroidery. "Does being younger mean that I should only be protected and not protect as well?"

"You know what I mean."

Luna quickly helped Hermione over to a chair. "You had exhausted your magic. I did what I could…" Luna paused, sniffling, "But I had an accident."

"And now we're stuck forty years in the future."

Luna nodded miserably.

Hermione let out a sigh. She slid out of the chair and gave Luna a hug, brushing away her tears. "It's not your fault."

"But-"

"It is not your fault," Hermione said in a way which made it clear she would entertain no other options. "You were a child."

Luna took the handkerchief Hermione handed her and blew her nose. "Sometimes it's hard to believe that."

"Well it's the truth. You are not at fault in any way, shape, or form for what happened."

The two sat down on the floor, chairs forgotten. It was several minutes before Hermione broached a subject which had been bothering her.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would you have believed me?"

Hermione thought back to how she had been a year before at this time of the year. She shook her head slowly. "No, you're right. Thank you for being there for me."

"What are sisters for?" asked Luna, with a watery smile.

Hermione returned her smile. "We should clean up the wax and the chalk before we go to bed."

Luna nodded her understanding. "Untended magic can do unexpected things."

"I'll go grab a bucket of water and a mop if you take care of the candles and wax."

Hermione emptied the chalky water out in a sink in the girl's bathroom of the North Tower. After rinsing the mop, she took both back to the supply closet she'd taken them from.

Hearing footsteps, Hermione quickly stepped into the closet, closing it almost completely. Her eyes widened as she saw Madam Pince through the crack.

What was she doing here? According to the Weasley twins, Professor Flitwick and Professor Vector were patrolling this night.

The woman paused, glancing around as if searching for something.

Hermione felt her stomach drop to her ankles. Had somebody noticed the spell? She had to warn Luna.

Careful to stay in the shadows, Hermione followed Madam Pince, unsure how to get away to warn her sister. The woman was climbing up the only staircase to the level she and Luna had commandeered.

Madam Pince paused at the fifth floor landing and looked around. Hermione felt faint. Surely Madam Pince would notice the warded fifth floor rooms.

But she didn't.

After a moment, Madam Pince continued climbing. Hermione waited, nerves fraying, until Madam Pince came back down the staircase.

At the fifth floor landing, she paused and shook her head. Then she continued on.

Hermione waited several minutes, listening carefully for the sound of footsteps. Satisfied that nobody was coming, she ran back to the classroom.

Luna looked up when Hermione walked in. "Are you alright?"

"Madam Pince was looking for us," announced Hermione.

"Us?"

"Well, something. And she stopped at this floor, looking for something."

Luna tilted her head to the side. "Perhaps she felt the magic."

Hermione nodded. "I think she did."

"That would make sense."

"Sense how?"

"Madam Pince is not just a witch. I think."

"What do you mean?"

"The second time I visited you-when I was caught-Madam Pince was the one to catch me. She made the vase I put your flowers in with a transfiguration spell. When I asked her what spell it was, she said that it wasn't a Wizarding spell and then sent me to bed."

"Oh," said Hermione. After a long minute, she continued. "That would make sense, I suppose. There have to be more types of magic than Wizarding. Uncle Kent was a sorcerer and Zatara doesn't use a want-unless it's part of his act."

Hermione paused, wondering who Uncle Kent was. With a sigh, she dismissed the thought for later consideration. John Zatara, on the other hand, was a famous magician and superhero.

"I don't think there are many Witches and Wizards who practice more than one type of magic," Luna said unsurely.

"I think we should think about this more later. After we've had a chance to rest."

Luna nodded her understanding, and pulled out two pillows and a couple blankets from where they were hidden in the next room. "Are we staying here tonight?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Once they'd set up their beds, Hermione said something which had been bothering her for nearly an hour. "How much do you remember?"

Luna looked down. "One of the men hit me and then you killed them and then I took us here. I know some things, like that you're my sister and my name is really Luna Tamar Belmont. I can't remember Mom and Dad. Not really. And sometimes when I'm not paying attention, I'll say something about people or places I knew before, but I can't remember how I know this or who these people are."

Hermione nodded her understanding. "I-I don't remember killing them, but I remember asking what happened and then us traveling to now. I remember things like you do as well. I think. Do you know why we don't remember before?"

Luna shook her head.

"How did you-how did you end up with the Lovegoods?"

"I landed on their property. Mummy-Mrs. Lovegood knew what had happened. She was a researcher with the Department of Mysteries. When she found out it was just accidental magic, she and her husband took me in. They said I was their daughter and made everybody believe I was their daughter to protect me. And then Mummy died a couple weeks later-right after I turned ten. Sometimes I think Daddy thinks I really am his biological daughter." Luna shook her head. "He hasn't been the same since Mummy died."

"They're not really your parents."

"I know. But they took me in and cared for me and raised me as their own. And that's what parents do. And even if they had not, I would call them Mummy and Daddy because to slip could mean that Aurors would do to me what they did to you. If not worse. Unauthorized time travel is highly illegal and strictly punished. You were lucky you were so young. You could have been sent to Azkaban."

Hermione looked at Luna. "They erased my memories and put a compulsion on me!"

"A compulsion?" Luna said, horrified.

"I think it's to follow the rules," Hermione said quietly. "And to obey adults or those in authority. I don't remember them doing the actual spell though."

Luna nodded, eyes hard. "We'll start looking for ways to undo compulsions tomorrow."

Hermione nodded her agreement. "After breakfast. The boys will worry if people don't see me."

Killed? How could she have killed anybody?

Hermione shook her head. This was something she would have to spend a lot of time thinking on. Time she didn't have.

But even as she thought about, the sense that it had been justified came to Hermione. Her lips thinned. How could she think this killing was justified? Yes, the man had struck Luna, but that was not an offense worthy of mass murder.

Unless more had happened than Luna remembered. Which was, Hermione reflected, entirely possible. She'd had the injuries she came into the hospital with well before her travel through time. Which implied that the men had done more than rough her up. But Luna had only been bruised. Perhaps she had been trying to protect her baby sister and her magic had reacted, badly.

She would be unable to figure this out unless she had more information.

With a mental sigh, Hermione rolled onto her side to look at Luna. She absentmindedly studied her sister's appearance. For a moment Hermione wondered how she could have missed the resemblance between her and her sister.

They had the same, delicate turned up nose. Their mother's nose. Likewise, they had their mother's oval face and large lips. The bottom lip was slightly bigger than the top-though not by much. They had their mother's thick, wild curls and fast growing hair. And they had her sturdy not-quite-hourglass body type-more curves than anything else.

Hermione had their father's forehead and cheekbones, while Luna had their mother's. Luna had their father's colorless, almost blonde hair and dark grey eyes. Hermione had their mother's brown hair and eyes. Both girls had their father's cleft chin and widow's peak.

In that instant, Hermione wondered how she knew this. And once again, the source of the knowledge slipped away.

She smiled at the sight of the doll in Luna's arms. Their mother had made Sandy the Golden Girl for Hermione when she was an infant. Hermione had passed it on to her sister when she'd started first grade. It had been the year that the real Sandy had… the real Sandy had… he… he had gone away.

Irma Pince watched the students to enter the library purposefully that Saturday. Somebody had been playing with non-Wizarding magic the night before, and she wanted to know who.

Technically, she supposed she should turn the perpetrator over to the headmaster for him to deal with. Normally, the child would only receive a slap on the wrist, or if the spell they used had been particularly dangerous, they might face expulsion from Hogwarts. Wizarding laws could be quite Draconian at times. But in the current atmosphere, the child could be punished far worse than that.

She would not turn in a child for using magic other than Wizarding, ever. But other people might. And Irma was determined to ensure that didn't happen. Not while there were dementors at the gates and in Hogsmeade. There was just too large a possibility that something could go wrong.

But dealing with this on her own meant that she had to find the child without aid and without using magic which might tip others off. Unfortunately it was proving harder than originally suspected.

It was, she supposed, possible that one of the new first years had prior magical training-or perhaps once of the upper years. It was also possible that it was a child using magic found in one of her books.

Irma knew that the books of the library were not, in fact, hers, but she was the one to care for and organize them. She was the one to keep track of them. And far too many of the older books had bits and pieces of spells from various other branches of magic-particularly the magic used by the Britons.

Among the Wizarding, though it was not illegal to know another form of magic, it was heavily frowned upon. The Wizarding considered other forms of magic to be quaint and somewhat backwards, barbaric, for lack of a better word. This view certainly did nothing to raise the Wizarding in the eyes of the international magical community at large.

Irma's mother had not been a witch herself, though members of the Limbo family certainly possessed magic. Irma winced mentally at the thought of her younger cousin, Kari. The girl was so dramatic at times.

Their ancestor had married a Briton sorceress several centuries before and it was from this woman that the Limbo family possessed magic. Despite what Kari often said, they did not practice "gypsy magic" whatever the hell that was-though their family was Romanichal-they practiced the magic of the Britons.

She and Kari were the only magic users of their generation, but there were numerous cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and grandparents with magic of their own. Generally, any child born into the family would learn either from their own parents or grandparents, or, if need be another family who would come to live with their branch of the family until the child learned all the family magic.

Irma had been accepted to Salem Academy of Witchcraft entirely by accident. There had been some sort of clerical error or perhaps the school administration had not noticed that Irma was a Limbo, and as a result, was already learning another branch of magic. Whatever the cause, Irma had been the first member of the Limbo family to be accepted to a Wizarding school of magic, and the entire family had insisted she attend so that she could learn new forms of magic which might benefit the family.

Her eyes widened as two girls walked into the library, worried looks upon their faces. She could feel it from where she was sitting. Magic was thick around both girls. It seemed that neither had learned how to clear their auras after doing powerful magics or magical rituals. They were just lucky that most Wizarding never bothered to learn how to sense magic.

Part of Irma was shocked by the identity of the girls, part of her was kicking herself for not realizing who it had been earlier. Of all the students Irma knew, Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood were the most dedicated to learning for the sake of knowledge alone.

The only question was, what was she to do now that she knew who the perpetrators were?