Ron was still rubbing away the assault on the back of his cranium when Luna answered him,
"What happened, Ronald, is that I have been accepted as a priestess in the service of the Morrighan, which in this case, means Hermione's service."
...as if it was an everyday occurrence to devote your life to the mortal incarnation of a sovereign war goddess on the eve of battle even after that woman throws a deified version of a temper tantrum. Hermione couldn't smother the fresh round of giggles at her self assessment, or at Luna's facial expression. The younger girl looked as if she was a moment away from tilting her head to the side and saying 'duh' in an apathetic tone.
Instead of trying to verbalized this to Draco, Hermione tried pushing the image into his mind, and she only knew she'd succeeded when he gave a decidedly un-posh snort through his nose. Harry and Ron finally looked up at them and a mental image seemed to float into her own mind: her best friends as monkeys startled at the sight of fire for the first time. Draco had even given Harry's glasses and scar to the monkey who's mouth was hanging slightly less open.
When she shot him a quick glare, his eyebrow was raised, as was one microscopic lift of his cupid's bow. It was interesting to discover that he could somehow emote sarcastically through a sneer. She previously not noticed any nuance in his sneers, and seeing it now was yet another comforting reminder that even without a goddess stirring the pot and her brain, she had nothing to fear from him. His affection, strength, and wit was hers, and without divine interference, she likely never would have seen the potential for it.
A warmth bloomed in her chest at the same time as her gut tightened again, and it didn't seem to matter to her that war should objectively be frightening, she had her consort, and the first of her priesthood. Those who knew her power and intellect would support her even if it took her friends overcoming their own protective urges before they could see it.
Remus and Tonks seemed to slide into the room, having heard the crash, and it was clear that Remus was trying to read the tension level in the room. His eyes widened slightly when he took in Luna's new mark, inclined his head slightly at her, and much more fully in Hermione and Draco's direction. Tonks was grinning impishly, eyes darting around the room, and her hair seemed to sprout bubblegum pink from the roots to the tips before she spoke,
"Wotcher cuz, it looks like you and Hermione here set off a bomb!"
Draco spoke to his cousin, brow creased,
"What's a bomb?"
Tonks might have been answering him aloud, but Hermione was assaulting his brain with images of small tangled square packages and oblong flying objects, giant explosions of stone and fire, as well as ruined dusty buildings looking as if they had both blown apart and collapsed in at the same time. The images sent a torrent of ice down his spine. He turned to her and nearly shouted,
"Muggles can make things that do that?!"
She nodded and replied, "You do not want me to show you what they can do to people."
He nodded sharply, and then realized everyone had perked up at their exchange, so he explained:
"We can show each other things, mentally, without speaking."
Mrs. Weasley seemed to take it in stride and nodded back before returning to her mantle of no-nonsense motherhood by saying,
"Explain once we sit, dinner is ready."
Everyone snapped out of their own stupors and moved to the dining room while Mrs. Weasley continued to speak, as if sensing future argument from Hermione in particular,
"Hermione, I've made you something extra, as you need to keep your strength up. I fear it's not the most pleasant, but it will help."
She had served Hermione her stew first, and set a plate of roasted venison liver strewn with garlic and onions down next to the bowl. Hermione wrinkled her nose at the smell but prepared to eat it anyway. She knew the matriarch was correct about her nutritional needs even if the solution was repugnant to her.
Luna's inhaled deeply through her nose, eyes shut and seemingly relishing the scent before dreamily intoning,
"It smells like the oak grove near Hogwarts where I used to feed the Thestrals...like meat and acorns and wild onions."
Hermione smiled and tucked in. It had always taken some intuitive leaps to understand Luna, but knowing that the statement was meant to be comforting allowed her to eat without complaint. The idea of that unseen oak grove also seemed to kick over a stone in her mind, and suddenly she was awash in memories of the school, the Marauder's Map, routes through the school, her mental map of Hogsmeade and the surrounding lands. She knew that Hogwarts was tucked into its environs, a semicircle of mountain at its back, the Black Lake and Hogsmeade forming a wash into several rolling valleys until meeting up with the next mountain range in the distance. The entire area was effectively a bowl, sheltered from the worst of the Scottish Highland weather and prying Muggle eyes by the encircling ring of mountains. Folks in Hogsmeade used the lower meadows for their crops and livestock, and as the foothills grew steeper opposite Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest filled in between craggy stone escarpments and strips of infertile moor.
New ideas were instantly added to her mental map, stone palisades and baileys inside trench and berm, expanded wards, the train track's path through the valley, the mountain pass it used, and a rough tabulation of potential losses for at least four variations on her main idea. The Leaky Cauldron, Platform 9 ¾, Diagon- and Knockturn Alley popped into her mind as well, images of walls and young men throwing stones at them, as well as cafés full of young men and women in berets and older men in stiff brown or black uniforms with red arm bands. Next were men peeling off blue military jackets in exchange for fur coats and hats, men and women with brown skin, painted red, feathers in their hair, tiny hatchets and fierce faces. There was a woman, feral black hair in many braids dotted with red and turquoise beads, swathed in thick furs sitting astride a steppe pony, driving a spear through the chest of a man on the ground. Sacks of paper on ships, being changed hand to hand, turning to ash in a dirty palm. More bombs. Giant crawling shapes, making deafening noises as they too fired bombs from long tubes at their front. A tall woman, bare-breasted and pregnant, standing in a chariot surrounded by a bare-skinned army painted blue and howling. Maps of continental Europe being swallowed by a bright red bleeding from the center out, at horrifying speed. Finally two walls of stone, nearly touching, like a narrow door into a mountain, piled with rotting bodies. He shook his head rapidly to dispel the torrent, but the ideas didn't vanish, rather softened around the edges before fading out of his mind.
She thought and ate, and didn't hear any of the conversation that was crisscrossing the table, ignoring everything else. She wasn't tasting her food, but she was finishing it, and when she did spare a moment of attention mid-thought, everyone seemed to be enjoying their own meals and conversations, and they were unaware of her racing mind. Draco was the only exception, he was creasing his brows, clearly trying to keep up with the flashing images of her ideas and then she saw him try to shake off her final thought. Hermione suddenly smiled wide and sat up very straight, her dimples spoke of the euphoria at a great idea, but her lips were spread thin across bared teeth and her eyes were heavy-lidded with vengeance. The overall effect on her face spoke volumes about her own lethality. Draco was not alone in chuckling at her expression, Remus, Severus, Harry and Ron all looked at her face with amusement, having seen this attitude before, and Harry spoke up first,
"So Hermione, what's the answer?"
"A little bit of the Forage War, Boadicea, La Résistance, Khutulun Ögedei, Farnsworth and Blair for that which is spurious, Blitzkrieg for the pace, and a dash of Thermopylae for the close. We can call him Xerxes, and we'll break him on the Hot Gate of our own making."
Severus and Remus burst out laughing, even if Draco looked concerned about the mention of Thermopylae, he chuckled slightly to himself and shook his head. Of course she would combine classic battles with modern, magical with Muggle, guerilla with pitched battle. Everyone had finished eating, and even as he could sense her mind still racing, Hermione was beginning to wilt in her seat, so Draco decided it was time for bed,
"Alright Herodotus, it's time for bed."
She huffed and crossed her arms, mouth pinched just as it did when someone had answered a teacher incorrectly back at school, so he asked, "What?"
Her response was imperious, prim-toned, amusing and deeply endearing,
"I prefer Sun Tzu."