Otherwise known as: How Luna tore apart the fabric of reality so that her friends could get decently laid, and accidentally saved the world in the process.

A/N: Welcome to Chapter Nine! Here there be angst!

At the bottom of this chapter I have addressed a review from a Guest - I can't reply when you post them anonymously, dear - but you can just scroll right on past that if you don't care to read it.

Unbetaed as always.

Love Always,

Eli x

Disclaimer: I do not own the works herein, all characters from the Harry Potter Universe belong to JK Rowling, and all characters, storylines, situations, plots and the like do not belong to me. I make no money from this work.

Warnings: Rated M for situations, swearing, violence... The whole lot, basically.

Iacta Alea Est

Chapter Nine

As soon as the decision had been made, Hermione flew into planning mode. While her preference would always be to return home, such as it was, exactly as it was – to a familiar place where she knew the ins and outs like the back of her hand, where things rarely changed and she was in full control of her little corner of the world – she acknowledged their ability to do good here, and the animation that had come to Ginny and Lavender as a result. Something they had, of late, been missing. She perched at the foot of the bed on a Louis XV armchair of powder blue with a notebook and pencil Dorea had rustled up from one of the adjoining rooms as Dorea, Ginny and Luna (who had skipped up the stairs seconds after Hermione and Ginny had finished their conversation with a blithe smile and vaguely approving nod) filled Lavender in on the finer details of their situation. Lavender was holding up remarkably well, she took the news of her new condition with Gryffindor courage beyond compare. McGonagall like, she'd given a regal nod as she filed away the information for later perusal, recognising that this was not the greatest problem here – she wasn't stupid, she recognised Dorea Potter from her portrait at St Mungo's in the boardroom (died 1979, during Dragon Pox research). Died 1979. None of them had said the words at that point but Lavender would have gotten an Outstanding in Deductive Reasoning were they to teach it at Hogwarts.

It seemed odd to her that for once she was the one participating in a wacky, impossible adventure – that was an area usually reserved exclusively for Weasleys, Potters and their muggle-born sidekicks (see: Lily Evans Potter and Hermione Granger). At Hogwarts, everybody had known and expected that the Golden Trio would be at the centre of any mysteries, and the rest of them mere bit-players, collateral damage. Not now, though. Now, it seems she had found herself at the heart of the action with no training for this sort of thing. She was an extra in their lives and had always known that – Hermione's roommate, later Ronald's fiancée. Not Lavender in her own right, no. She was the action/adventure equivalent of "always a bridesmaid, never the bride" (Lavender had always adored Muggle films, she and her father had watched Die Hard together every Christmas for the last eight years despite how it made her mother fume). So, you can understand how everything felt a little distant to her, a little unreal at the moment as she realized that she had in fact been chosen by a higher power to go back in time and win the War. As a werewolf (don't think about that right now, Lav). Anyway, the crux of the matter was that now she was thrown into the craziness that seemed to follow Hermione Granger and her friends around, and she felt woefully underprepared, but she was determined to ride it out with dignity.

While Lavender struggled with these thoughts, and Ginny and Dorea tried their very hardest to help her, and Luna hunted down stray Wrackspurts, everything Hermione knew about the Wars was deposited into her book. Protected by the strongest charms she could remember, the book held a comprehensive timeline of all the events of the Wars against Voldemort, and anything else she may find useful, as found in her mind and added to by the other girls. Lists of horcruxes, Death Eaters, deaths and births, the ages of people they know and the current Hogwarts class were all inked in. Even Dorea assisted, elaborating on certain sections and filling in blanks with dates and other pertinent information. The only thing she wouldn't do was violate the privacy of her boys, which the girls could appreciate given their lives in the nineties.

"What date is it?" Hermione asked finally, realising they had not bothered to ask this question so far.

"18th April 1979," Dorea hummed. "My James and his Lily are due to get married in two months," she added with a proud smile for the girls. Hermione nodded, scribbled that at the top of her book, but was cut off from vocalising her next question by Ginny grabbing her arm and staring at her, wide-eyed.

"Regulus," she breathed, and Hermione understood. Regulus wouldn't be dying until the end of this year – that meant that they could feasibly come up with some way to save him. Ginny loathed Regulus' death because it had contributed heavily to Sirius' guilt laden insanity once he had returned to Grimmauld Place at the end of Hermione's fourth year. It wouldn't be easy, though. They would be in need of more allies, people who could inform them as to Regulus' activities, or even just inform them when Kreacher disappeared (as that would be their cue to move in). They would be in need of insiders, and they'd need to begin movements quickly.

"It would be worth it," Ginny said vehemently, after swearing Dorea to silence on the matter and obviously thinking along the same lines as Hermione. Her eyes burned with her old Weasley fire as she leaned over the bed as though they could set off to save the boy now. "So worth it."

Luna reached over and traced a finger over Ginny's chin. "Family is so very important, don't you think?"

After that, where was only the one occasion on which Ginny and Hermione butted heads again, and that was when the redhead was informed of Hermione's brilliant plan to ensure they focused on the mission without distractions – such as the man her best friend had had a crush on for four years.

"But, Sirius-"

"Not Sirius, Gin. You'll get attached, and they are not the same men. He's Black. No-First-Name Black." Hermione snapped, jabbing her pencil in the air.

"So Remus will be No-First-Name Lupin, then?" Ginny retorted acidly, her eyes narrowing.

Forcing the lump in her throat back, she nodded firmly. "Yes."

Ginny scoffed. "Yeah, that's likely. Don't be a fucking hypocrite."

The brunette blinked a few times before a smirk broke over her features. "Why, hello, Ronald, and here I thought I had left you in the nineties."

Ginny leapt to her feet, looking like she'd love nothing so much as to wring Hermione's throat, but was caught off guard by a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, stop it." Lavender groaned from the bed. "Honestly, if I wanted to spend my wedding day arguing, I'd have let Molly plan it."

The two girls stopped blank, suddenly realizing what they had been saying.

"You're right, that was out of order. Sorry, Gin. Lavender." Guilt burned a path up Hermione's throat as she realized exactly how this had fucked with Lavender's life plans – she had never really considered it before, past the worry for her newly-infected acquaintance, but Lavender was right. Had all things been normal, she would be married by now. To Ronald. She would be Mrs. Lavender Weasley. They would all be sat around a marquee in the Weasley orchards watching the happy couple shove their tongues down each others' mouths, trying to control their gag reflexes. Now Ron wasn't even born, nothing more than an idea of an egg, yet to be fertilized.

"This is the worst day of my life," Lavender laughed, a single tear glistening on her eyelashes even as she tried to make light of the situation. "No wedding, no husband, no family, and I'm a werewolf. Could things get any worse?"

Luna perked up immediately as though this had been a cue she was waiting on. Leaning forward, she took Lavender's hands in her own and trapped her in her luminous gaze. "Well," she grinned, "at least you get a Mate!"

Silence reigned, as this information sank in all around – Werewolf mates were things of legend, but Hermione and Ginny knew Lavender idealised that relationship because of the romance novels she'd had stuffed under her pillow for seven years. It was a bit insensitive, sure, to bring it up so soon after her life had collapsed – but this was Luna, and Luna could do these things without consequence. It was just part of her charm. What response they were expecting, they weren't sure, it seemed like maybe they wanted a positive reaction to this news? Lavender always had been fickle…

It wasn't to be.

"Seems life can get worse," Lavender growled, yanking her hands away from Luna and glaring around at the rest of the group with surprising vehemence considering she was bed-bound. "Get the fuck out of my room."

Lavender stared at her reflection, one finger tracing the curving, vicious scars on her face down towards her collarbone, where they joined neatly with the half-moon bite that had poisoned her. Poison, a word chosen deliberately, of course, to reflect the disease mutating her cells as she stood there in her underwear to watch. She had been poisoned. It had been easier to deal with the first time, ridiculously, as then it was like a trade – she traded her beauty, her vanity, her eternal weakness for strengths such as enhanced senses and a more fulfilling diet. The weight gain from the meat had been a relief for a girl built to be curvy like her, especially when it came with a ready-made excuse that even her mother couldn't argue with (the werewolf infection). But now she got the consequences of these perks. One day a month where she would lose her mind, her treasured body, be torn apart from the inside and reshaped into something not-human.

Something animal.

What she didn't realise the first time she had been attacked was how very lucky she had been, not to have been turned. She had been focused on her survival, of course, and later the damage to her face and chest. She chastised her past self now, as she looked at the body that seemed the same but was so strange now. Poisoned. How dare you, Lavender, she screamed in her own mind at the part of herself that still applied lipstick in a morning and bemoaned the way her largest scar cut across her cheekbone, sending the angle all wrong and leaving a mangled lump of flesh in the hollows of her cheek. How dare you be so ungrateful.

For she blamed herself, of course. This was her karmic retribution for being so self-obsessed about the scars. For not appreciating the chance she had been given when the last attack had spared her.

She was a werewolf.

For a girl who had only known three werewolves in her life, two of whom had tried to kill her, the reality of the situation was all too terrifying. If you add to that the fact that the Wolfsbane potion wasn't available to the public yet in the 1970's, and Hermione had never learned to brew it due to 'personal concerns' – a pitiful excuse from someone who suffered from a persistent case of know-it-allitis – well, it seemed that her life was some sort of cosmic joke.

And now the girls had reminded her of that other consequence – the one she had forgotten, the benefit, if you can call it that, of lycanthropy she had not gained with the first attack. Her Mate. Her primal brain seemed to purr at the very idea, but the rest of her was revolted. She didn't need a mate. Until this morning, she had had a perfectly wonderful man, she was getting married, she was in love. He brought all of her senses alive in a mostly pleasant way, and she could have happily spent her life curled up on his chest listening to his breathing. Sure, Ronald wasn't a clever man, nor was he the most handsome of men, but he was a loving, loyal man and she had adored him.

She had lost him.

Angrily, she shoved her arms into her robes and threw herself onto the bed, barely noticing the sting of her tears as they came.

Reviews: Guest: Hi! I'm sorry if you don't like the way I'm portraying the characters, and you feel like I'm bullying Hermione. It's not my intention, I assure you, but I'm trying to be as honest in my characterisations as possible to give them room for growth. Plus, I feel that if you went through everything this lot are going through at the moment, the last thing you'd want is someone acting like they know everything, bossing you around – especially if you know better – which is an integral part of Hermione's personality, as seen in the books. I try to remember that she's only nineteen so she's bound to still be a little rough around the edges, as they all are. I feel that these frustrations added to Ginny's volatility and Luna's general annoyance with Hermione's more logical side (also canon) leads to scenarios you may think dumps on Hermione. If you'd rather not continue reading, I understand that, I didn't come into this expecting that everybody would love my choices. Thank you for coming this far, though, and I hope you enjoy the next thing you read!