a/n;

song credit is Riverside, Agnes Obel


Down by the water the riverbed
Somebody calls you somebody says
Swim with the current and float away
Down by the river every day

As the days passed Hermione began to feel she was treading water rather than drowning it it. A familiar routine began to develop, the kind that could only be achieved through class schedules, designated study times, and the presence of friends. She alternated between sitting next to Severus and the Marauders during classes, she studied in the library with Severus almost daily before dinner, and spent the evenings in the common room. Her and Remus got a good deal less studying done than either of them might have preferred most nights, but she found herself less inclined to complain than she had been before with Harry and Ron.

You never knew how much longer you might have with a person. How the ones you loved could be wrenched away in the blink of an eye and how much you would miss them when they were gone. She was determined to live differently this time, to experience the ones around her fully. She didn't want to miss a single minute of Sirius and James parading around the common room in matching sets of lacy women's dress robes after losing a bet to Remus. She didn't want to miss Remus laughing so hard next to her that tears rolled down his face as he collapsed against her. She didn't even want to miss Peter, catcalling his ridiculous friends as they strutted past him suggestively.

She didn't want to miss the way she felt as she finally threw her book down to join in the theatrics. She and Remus silently charmed the boy's dress robes to fly up in the back, revealing their scarlet and gold underwear to the room of cheering Gryffindors; she wasn't sure she'd ever laughed harder then when they turned to each other with accusatory glares before going down in a pile of petticoats and tangled limbs.

Severus began inviting her to work on potions with him in the student's lab down in the dungeons, off of the the main classroom. Slughorn waved them in the first couple of times before disappearing to his own quarters, clearly unconcerned about two of the smartest 7th years blowing up a cauldron or setting the room on fire; eventually he simply began to let them come and go as they please. They spent hours talking and brewing, bottling simple medicinal potions that Hermione took to Madame Joy and some they placed in the student's cupboard for general use.

It was one evening about three weeks after her arrival, while delivering an armful of recently brewed potions to Madame Joy's office not long before curfew, that Hermione was again completely blindsided by the unexpected.

She entered the Hospital Wing with a wandless command, eyes scanning the room for any signs of the nurse. It was empty and quiet for once, but Hermione heard voices coming from the healer's quarters at the back of the wing.

"Thank you again, Miss Pendergast. What a clever spell that was, it will be enormously useful when tending to moderate brain bleeds the Quidditch players are prone to getting. Or after a nasty game of gobstones," Madame Joy was saying.

"Oh, you're quite welcome. I actually invented it to help stop the leakage of brain fluid into the back of the throat; it's quite common when a moon frog lays eggs along the top layer of meninges covering the brain," replied a girl in an airy, singsong voice.

"Moon frogs?"

"Have you never seen them during an exam? Well, they are very small, you must not have noticed them. Pesky little creatures, always searching for somewhere to burrow. They crawl in your ears and nose at night during the waxing gibbous of the lunar cycle."

Hermione frowned as she drew closer to the office and the voices inside. They seemed to be moving towards her as the occupants neared the open doorway. Moon frogs? She had never heard of such a thing. It sounded like some of the utter nonsense she would have expected to hear from...

A girl walked out and Hermione abruptly halted in nothing short of shock. Long, waist length blonde hair highlighted in the light spilling from the office behind her. Wide, protuberant eyes a distinct shade of silvery gray. And were those...? Yes they were. She even had sunflowers braided into her hair. The girl stopped in front of Hermione and regarded her curiously, head tilted to the side in a way that reminded her so much of...

"Luna?" She asked incredulously, knowing it couldn't be possible and really if she hadn't been so tired from staying out all last night with the Marauders and then brewing all evening with Severus, the words might not have slipped out. But her brain seemed to have short circuited and gave her mouth a mind of it's own. Or maybe it was the moon frogs.

"Luna? What a lovely name. I'm sure I would have loved to be called Luna. I'm so sorry, though. My name is Pandora. And you're Hermione, but we've never met. We have a few classes together, Advanced Charms and Advanced Potions, and... oh, are you bringing those to Madame Joy? Here, let me help you. You look like you've seen a Blathering Billywing. Don't worry, they're much more afraid of us than we are of them," Pandora told her so matter-of-factly Hermione nearly forgot who she said she was as her mind immediately wondered to the aforementioned Billywing and if it were a classified magical creature or not.

Given Luna's tendency to believe in the wackiest, most unrealistic creatures one could possibly imagine, Hermione supposed it stood to reason her mother had been the same way.

"Thank you, yes I'm here on delivery. I apologize, Pandora, you... you look very much like someone I used to know," Hermione finally replied. Pandora helped her unload her armful of potions as Madame Joy led them back into the nurse's quarters.

"It's quite alright. Sometimes we see things not as they are but as we wish them to be. Was she a friend of yours?" Pandora asked.

Hermione smiled a little at the question. She remembered Luna's bedroom ceiling and the painting she decorated it with of herself, Harry, Ron, Ginny and Neville. The golden chain she had woven between them a thousand times. Friends. Luna had baffled her and at times driven her outright crazy with her fanciful beliefs, but she had never hesitated to accept people exactly as they were. And in the end she had died bravely like so many other people Hermione had begun to count as a friend.

"She was. And as friends go, you couldn't have picked a better one to look like. She was very special. In fact, I bet she could have told you more about Blathering Billywings and moon frogs than even you know. Or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack." Hermione told Pandora, very nearly laughing out loud when the girl's already large eyes widened comically.

"You've heard of the Crumple-Horned Snorcack?! You're the first person I've ever met who has! You know there's a legend that says, "When believers of the unusual meet, forever friends they must then be." Pandora told her earnestly. She placed the last potion on the shelf and reached out, taking Hermione's hand in her own.

What a strange girl.

"I'm not Luna, but I'm quite certain you and I were destined to become friends. Do you like spells? I'm a spellmaker. Or rather, I want to become a registered spellmaker when I leave Hogwarts. It's really a fascinating process, perhaps you'd like to join me sometime? Of course it also requires a good deal of study and planning, and any good spell is created in layers. It can be time consuming but company might make it feel less lonely," she said all of this with such utter sincerity, Hermione had a feeling it had been building for the longest time and she'd simply had no one to say it to.

"That sounds... wonderful, Pandora. Is there a place you usually go to practice?"

"I have this one spot across the lake I like to go when I'm actually testing a new spell, far enough away I don't bother anyone else. Tomorrow I'll be going to pick rosewater stalks near there for use in my next experiment. Would you like to go with me?"

Hermione counted back in her head. She couldn't have walked in the Hospital Wing more than three or four minutes ago and here she was, making spur of the moment plans with Luna Lovegood's mother. She should probably give it more thought, go back to her dormitory and weigh out all the possible ramification...

She thought about her dormitory, the girls there who treated her like a pariah or as if she simply didn't exist.

"Rosewater stalks? I never knew those grew here, they're very rare aren't they?"

Pandora smiled so brightly the lights dimmed in comparison.

They left the Hospital Wing together and parted ways on the fifth floor with plans to meet at the doors to the Entrance Hall after lunch the next day. Pandora walked away with a familiar bounce to her step and Hermione returned to Gryffindor tower thinking about moon frogs and snorcacks and the strange path she seemed to be carving through life.


"So what's the difference in these different colored stalks?"

"Well the pinkish color means they're not fully grown yet, bright red is ripe and what we're looking for, then the darker purplish means they're close to dying. Those are more common in potion making, most notably Amortentia. But the red stalks are good for manipulating with magic as they can bend and retain their original shape very well."

Hermione and Pandora were nearly knee deep in the shallows of the Black Lake examining and collecting the rosewater stalks Pandora was after. The sun was high, the day uncharacteristically warm for early October and so they'd forgone jeans and sweaters in favor of high waisted shorts and loose, tucked in tank tops. The wind over the water was cool and refreshing and the bright sunlight reflected off Pandora's hair until it appeared more silver than blonde.

Hermoine bent over and felt around the muddy lake bottom for the roots of the stalk before digging it out carefully with her fingers. The stalks were all Pandora needed but she thought she might surprise Severus with the roots. They were always looking for new ingredients to use and substitute in their own experiments.

"How long have you been creating and practicing new spells?"

"Oh since first year, really. I read so many spellbooks before starting school that by the time I got here nothing was really new to me anymore. It was still fun learning to use them, but there wasn't anything I hadn't heard of. So I started finding empty classrooms to go to. At first I did small variations of a spell, simple things that didn't require much study. But pretty soon I started researching spell building and charting. Most spells, like Transfiguration and Charms, need precise Arithamancy to create, you know. The most effective curses as well. All magic is more effective when it's developed properly."

Hermione nodded in complete understanding as she yanked another red stalk from the mud.

"That makes sense. Everything is better with proper study."

Pandora laughed, a high, tinkling sound that danced over the sparkling waters.

"Is that why you spend so much time in the library? I see you in there every day when I'm researching, you now. I've thought about asking to sit with you, actually."

"But you've never said a word? And we have so many classes together too but we've never met."

The other girl actually looked a little embarrassed now.

"Ah, well, I just... that is... people think I'm strange. Even the other Ravenclaws, they don't really... well no one shares my interests I guess. So I don't really talk to anyone. And it seems like you've had so many friends since you came here, I just didn't want to intrude, I suppose."

Hermione was a bit dumbfounded. She thought of Lily and the other Gryffindor girls who made it no secret they didn't want her company. The long years before Hogwarts, before Harry and Ron.

Pandora's downcast eyes and slightly hunched shoulders reminded her painfully of Severus.

When had she become such a magnet for the lonely and the misfits?

"Pandora, I'm going to be completely honest with you. I'm not entirely sure how I've wound up with so many friends here, because I'm historically bad at making them."

"We've become friends in less then a day, though. I mean, sort of. If you'd like to be, that is," Pandora trailed off again. It struck Hermione as rather funny that the girl had so much to say until it came time to this.

"I'd love to have another friend, Pandora. What's more, I think I'd love to have a female friend. Too much testosterone is damaging for the brain, I think. Yesterday I caught myself arguing with Sirius and James about which of the Hollyhead Harpies looks better on their broomsticks."

"Have you checked your ears for moon frogs lately?"

"You'll find this hard to believe, I'm sure, but no. Perhaps it would be easier to have someone do it for me."

"Hermione, you are in such luck. What would you have done if we hadn't decided to become friends just now?"

"The possibilities seem bleaker by the second, Pandora."

The rest of the afternoon passed in an absolutely strange and unusual ease. There was no studying or books this time, two things Hermione rarely felt comfortable without. But there was sunshine and laughter and even a chase for pixies that left them both gasping for breath, sprawled on their backs in a grassy field far beyond the Black Lake, where Hogwarts was a distant shape under the setting sun. She had never seen the castle from this vantage point. Sometimes it was so easy to forget it wasn't the absolute center of the universe, that there was a wide world beyond it waiting to be explored.

"Pandora, thank you."

"You're very welcome. But for what, exactly?"

Hermione closed her eyes, sinking back against the soft grass and breathing in deeply. Pandora lay next to her, silver blonde hair tangling with her own long braid. She couldn't bring herself to care.

"For showing me a different side to this place. And for making it feel just a little less lonely."

"I'm so glad! It's certainly good to take a break from the books every now and then. Fresh air is the best defense against Mustmite Moths, you know. They do love a cluttered mind. They'll make you grumpy and sour if left untreated for too long, fluttering around in there stirring up dust."

"Grumpy and sour, you say?"

"Oh yes, terribly."

"Pandora, I have this friend. Textbook Mustmite Moths, I think, probably a severe case. It's definitely dusty up there. I might need a little help airing them out. What do you say?"

"Of course! Severe cases can lead to all sorts of nasty complications. Completely impair your cognitive reasoning skills. This could call for extreme measures."

"What, beyond airing out his cluttered mind?"

"Well Mustmite Moths are terribly afraid of one thing, you see. Besides fresh air. Tell me, has your friend ever heard of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack?"