Unsurprisingly Luna Lovegood had been sorted in Ravenclaw. Harry and Hermione immediately took her under their wing, both very protective of her already.
When the sorting and start of term feast had ended, Harry grabbed his invisibility cloak and slipped it to Hermione. The plan was for her to follow the Gryffindor first years and overhear the password so she could later sneak into the common room. Once they were all asleep she'd go up to the girls dormitory and steal back the diary from Ginny.
Harry had waited up for her and when she returned to the Ravenclaw common room, she held up the diary triumphantly.
"No trouble?"
"None."
"Great, I'll lock it up in my trunk until we can get our hands on some basilisk venom. I only wish I had the sword of Gryffindor so I could go straight down to the chamber and take care of it. I wonder if Sectumsempra would work."
"It probably would except its blood and venom would splatter everywhere" She pointed out.
"Good point."
"Do you think you could simply control it with parseltongue?"
"I suppose I might be able to, especially without Riddle there to overpower me. But I don't think I or anyone could control it enough to let me kill it."
"Maybe we should forgo the chamber for now and instead secretly slip the diary to Dumbledore. Let him take care of it."
"I don't like the idea of leaving anything to him."
"I know but wouldn't it be worth it? You know he'd do whatever it takes to destroy it and then that's one less horcrux to worry about."
"I guess," He conceded.
And so the next morning at breakfast Harry waited under the cloak outside his office, leaving the diary and a note addressed to Dumbledore telling him it was one of Voldemort's horcruxes and to not under any circumstances write in it, at the foot of his door. He waited there, guarding it to make sure no one else touched it. As soon as Dumbledore exited, the headmaster instantly noticed it and picked it up. Harry then slipped away down the hall.
He hadn't signed it of course. Dumbledore would have no idea who had sent it to him. He just had to hope he would take care of it.
Feeling angry that he had been forced to get help from the man who'd manipulated him, Harry instead marched into the girls' bathroom suddenly determined to kill the basilisk, sword or no. He wanted to take care of the rest of the horcruxes on his own. Without having to run to Dumbledore for help.
He spoke parseltongue and opened the entrance. He summoned the broom he'd bought at Diagon Alley, a nimbus 2001, and flew down into the chamber.
If Barty Crouch Jr. could summon enough rage and hatred for a spider to make the killing curse work on it then surely if Harry could manage the same he could use it on the basilisk.
He knew it was an unforgivable curse, the worst one of all. But it wasn't like he was using it on a human being nor was he taking the life of someone innocent. This creature was dangerous and had been used to kill Myrtle. In the previous timeline it had petrified Hermione. He used that last thought in particular to summon as much rage and hatred as he could.
If Hermione hadn't figured out how to use the mirror she would have died! He reminded himself, channeling all the anger he'd ever felt.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Naturally Hermione was horrified when he told her what he'd done. "You what?!"
"It worked and now it'll never hurt anyone again" He said simply.
"You could be sent to Azkaban for that!"
"And how exactly would anyone find out? No can access the chamber but me, no one even knows where it is!" He pointed out.
"Still I can't believe you actually used the killing curse" She looked shaken.
"It's actually really efficient when you think about it, no blood or guts, no fight, just quick and clean."
She didn't answer him, just kept fixing him with a look, like she was afraid…of him.
"Hermione?" He was concerned now.
"Promise me you won't use it again!"
"Hermione—"
"Promise me!" She said fiercely, looking at him with an intense piercing stare. He hadn't meant to make her so upset.
"I'm sorry" He told her and he meant it. "I promise," He continued when she didn't reply. "I promise I won't ever use it again."
"Thank you."
After that they changed the subject but things still didn't feel quite normal between them yet. Harry hoped he hadn't damage his friendship with her in any way. He'd never seen her like this before, not even when he'd cursed Draco in sixth year.
Fortunately however, within a few days Hermione seemed to recover and everything was as it should be again.
"Luna, where are your shoes?" Hermione asked one morning at breakfast about two weeks later. Harry glanced down and saw that her feet were bare.
"They've gone missing but it's okay I'm sure it's only nargles" She said serenely.
"Are you sure someone hasn't taken them?" He said though he already knew it was the truth.
"I suppose it's possible but nargles are a more likely suspect."
"Accio Luna's shoes!" Hermione cast the spell and a few seconds later they came flying out of another Ravenclaw student's bag much to their surprise. Luna smiled at Hermione and thanked her.
"Between Neville always losing things and now those awful bullies taking Luna's stuff, I'm going to be using this spell a lot this year" She told Harry on their way to class.
"Not if I can help it" He muttered.
When they got back to the common room with the rest of the Ravenclaws that evening, Harry stood up on a chair and cast Sonorus! That quickly got everyone's attention.
"Harry what are you doing?" Hermione whispered.
"You'll see," Then he raised his voice so the others could hear him. "I have an announcement to make. Luna Lovegood is officially under my protection, anyone who messes with her is messing with me and I will not hesitate to hex the lot of you! Got it?"
The crowd collectively gasped and whispers filled the room.
"You can't do that!" One student said.
"Oh yeah? Watch me! You all saw what I did to Malfoy last year. Well let's just say I've learned plenty more spells since then."
"I'll report you!" A prefect said.
"Go ahead, I'll make sure to tell them you allowed students from your house to bully others." The prefect turned red at this and couldn't seem to think of a response.
No one else challenged him after that, he definitely wasn't dealing with Gryffindors.
A few days later, Luna had been harassed again, by a student who clearly thought that Harry was bluffing but quickly learned the hard way that he wasn't. After that the bullying stopped altogether.
Harry had been spending a lot of his free time using the harvesting kit he'd bought a while back on the fresh basilisk carcass. It was amazing really, how each individual part of its body could be used for various kinds of potions. He had decided it would be smart to make a few of these potions to have on hand, in case he ever needed it.
He split his time between doing this and helping Hermione look for the diadem in the Room Of Hidden Things.
"It would be so much easier if the summoning spell worked on horcruxes" He was saying while they cleaned the cluttered room together.
"True, but it makes sense that it wouldn't work, otherwise it'd be all too easy to find and destroy them. Horcruxes have to be hard to make, find, and destroy to be able to grant something as powerful as immortality."
"Which just goes to show how determined Voldemort is for making seven of them. Although that last one was technically an accident."
"How do you accidentally make a horcrux?" Hermione asked curiously, after a moments silence and Harry shrugged in reply. They had never had a chance to discuss it before and so she'd never really thought too much about it.
Suddenly her watch beeped. "It's been an hour, we'd better head back before we're missed."
Since neither of them really needed second year classes they used the time turner to go back an hour after each one to then use the time on more important things, effectively giving them an extra twelve hours every day. The consequence of this was that they were aging more rapidly but as it wasn't actually particularly noticeable (at least so far anyway), they decided it was worth it to have plenty of time to work on their other projects.
When they rejoined Luna and Neville for lunch in the great hall, Harry noticed they were giving them both an odd look. "What is it?" He finally asked after a few minutes.
"Neville's concerned because you keep disappearing on us. I've noticed it too" Luna said simply.
"We just want to make sure everything's ok with you two. It's like you vanish into thin air after class and then show up again coming from a different direction" Neville piped up, looking somewhat red. Was he blushing?
"Everything's fine" Hermione assured them and Harry seconded this.
"I think I know where you've been going" Luna said smiling knowingly at them.
"You do?" Harry shared a nervous look with Hermione.
"I saw you pulling Hermione into a broom cupboard once or twice so did Neville."
Neville's face was indeed reddening more and more every minute. "Luna!" He said with embarrassment. "I told you not to mention that part. Let them have some privacy."
Now Harry's face was red and Hermione blushed too. They shared an awkward sideways glance. "It wasn't like that!" He protested.
"Honest!" Hermione added, sounding like she wanted to sink into the floor to escape the situation. A feeling which he joined her in.
His mind was flashing back to the articles Rita Skeeter had printed about them and how uncomfortable it had made them both. He hated thinking he might be accidentally giving Hermione a reputation around school. What if other people had seen them?
"It's okay, you don't have to worry about us telling anyone" Luna continued as if reading his mind, still smiling that knowing smile. "Just promise you'll stay away from any mistletoe, it's full of nargles" She warned.
"R-right" He mumbled unsure of how to convince her they really weren't doing what she was implying. Hermione nodded feebly and covered her face with her hands.
"Luna, would you give it a rest? You've embarrassed them enough already" Neville scolded the blonde who seemed completely oblivious to her own behavior and the reaction it was causing.
"I'm only trying to help, nargles are a very serious business. You three should really get a butterbeer cork necklace like mine to protect yourself."
"That's not what I mea—oh never mind" He sighed and shook his head in resignation. He had warmed up to her rather quickly but her oddness still made him nervous or awkward around her sometimes. Harry was just pleased Neville was willing to give Luna a chance.
"I'm sorry Hermione," Harry told her apologetically, the minute they were alone together.
"Sorry for what?"
"You know the—rumors that might get started about us now" He explained awkwardly.
"Oh that! Actually I think it's a good cover" She told him and he looked at her in surprise. She was completely unbothered.
"C-cover?"
"Well we don't want anyone finding out the truth now do we? So if they think we're only going in there to snog then no one will suspect anything. It's the perfect cover!"
Harry felt a little dazed. He was not expecting this to be her reaction. "Y-yeah. I guess it is." He wasn't sure what think about this whole thing.
The truth was that, apart from being embarrassed by it, worried about what Hermione would say, the truth was part of him wished it were real. Ever since realizing his feelings for her, he'd tried to push it aside and not think about it. They had more important things to worry about and they certainly didn't need any added complications. Their friendship was rock solid right now, they were closer than they'd ever been. He didn't want to do anything to ruin or jeopardize it.
He'd gotten so good at reading her, knowing how she felt about things with just a look and vice versa. But this was seemingly the one subject where he couldn't tell what her true thoughts were. It was maddening. In the end he decided not to push it, for now anyway. He just had to trust that he would know when the time was right.