Chapter 44

Hermione gave Sirius a hug and laughed and squealed when he picked her up and swung her around like a little girl. She was old enough to be amused and not embarrassed by his antics. It helped that he wasn't actually her parent. She'd already bid her parents farewell earlier that morning in the privacy of their home and then Portkeyed to Potter House. Sirius had then escorted her and Harry to Platform 9 ¾ for the second time that September.

Harry on the other hand was ducking and blushing as his godfather ruffled his hair and loudly proclaimed how much he was going to miss him. He groaned out load when the man bent down to say good-bye to Crookshanks, who was not hiding his anger at being confined to his basket. When Sirius was finally finished with his fun the platform was almost empty, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a pair of very blond heads, and more than that she could practically feel them rolling their eyes in their direction.

It was all well and good for Sirius to childishly amuse himself, but it meant that there were no empty compartments to be had. When they reached the back of the train they finally found one with only one occupant: an oddly dressed girl reading a magazine upside down. Harry and Hermione looked at each other, shrugged and he politely opened the door for her.

"Hello," she greeted the blonde.

The girl looked up in her direction but her eyes were far away. "You're Hermione Granger," her gaze shifted to Harry, or at least somewhere in his vicinity, "and Harry Potter."

"Uh, yeah that's right," he answered, "I'm sorry I don't know your name."

Hermione was ashamed to say that she didn't know it either, she barely even remembered seeing the girl around, and Hogwarts wasn't that big. Add to that, she was sitting in a train full of students minutes before it was set to depart, all by herself. That didn't sit right with Hermione, it reminded her a little too much of the girl she'd been before Hogwarts.

"That's okay, most people don't. It's Luna, Luna Lovegood."

"What a pretty name!" Exclaimed Hermione, "I have an Abraxan who I named Selene. So, as you might guess, I'm partial to the moon." Hermione shook herself, telling herself to stop babbling, and extended her hand. Luna took it immediately. "It's nice to meet you. Do you mind if we sit here?"

"Not at all," Luna answered, her smile bright.

"Thanks," said Harry, dragging his trunk and Hedwig's empty cage inside following Hermione. They levitated their trunks onto the luggage rack and then seated themselves across from Luna. Hermione placed herself between Harry and Crookshanks' basket.

"You can let your cat out," Luna said, eyeing the basket with a tilted head.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course, intelligent creatures don't like to be caged."

Hermione sighed. "I know, I hate doing it to him but we went through muggle London and he draws so much attention if he's free."

"That's because he looks like a miniature lion and is completely capable of delivering a mauling," snorted Harry.

Hermione ignored him, but Crookshanks, who was emerging from his carrier shook out his 'mane' and glared at the wizard, almost daring him to test his capabilities and then lept right in to Luna's lap.

"Crooks!" Hermione cried.

The other witch just laughed. "It's okay we're old friends, I'm happy to see him."

"You are?"

"Yes," she peered at Hermione, "is that not okay?"

"No, of course it is. I was just surprised. He doesn't like most people, he's very picky and is a good judge of character," she paused. "Which I guess says something about most people. His name is Crookshanks, in case you didn't know."

"Oh that's lovely. I'm glad to know, I felt badly not addressing him properly."

Harry let out a cough that badly suppressed a laugh, because with the exception of his Mistress, nobody had ever called anything about Crookshanks 'lovely.' Hermione elbowed him in the stomach.

"I bet you wish you could ride with your friend, don't you?" Luna cooed at Crookshanks, apparently oblivious.

"His friend?" Hermione asked.

"Of course, Draco Malfoy's familiar. Then again, familiars often echo the feelings of their masters, though Crookshanks and Draco's cat aren't mates. I believe they consider themselves to be something like siblings which also makes sense given your relationship with Draco." Luna finally looked at Hermione. "I'm sorry, what's her name- Draco's cat that is? It seems especially wrong not to use it now that I know this guy is called 'Crookshanks.'"

Hermione just sat there with her jaw hanging open, vaguely aware that Harry, with his quick reflexes, was throwing up a ridiculous number of privacy spells.

When Hermione didn't say anything Luna frowned. "Oh, I know you and Draco are a secret, don't worry. I won't tell. I've known for years."

"I- Luna, what are you talking about?" Hermione stammered, suddenly wishing that after Harry had found out about them, that she had demanded somebody teach her how to do a memory charm.

"You and Draco are bonded," she answered simply. "It's probably the strongest one I've ever seen, it's really very lovely, but you must miss him at school."

Hermione looked at Harry helplessly who just gave her a small shrug. "Luna."

"I promise I won't tell. I'll take an oath if you like, I know that you don't have any reason to trust me," the blonde continued, her voice guileless and innocent.

"I don't know," said Hermione, she didn't know why she was hesitating, intellectually she knew that she should demand and oath immediately, but she wanted to trust this girl.

"We're cousins you know, me and Draco."

"You are?" Hermione frowned. She thought she was fairly familiar with the Black and Malfoy family trees which, thank Merlin, intertwined a lot less often than some, especially amongst the Sacred 28.

"Yes, his mother's mother is my mother's mother's sister. But his grandmother disapproves of our family so we've never met." She shrugged, like it was no big deal.

Hermione snorted. "Druella's disapproval is practically a character recommendation."

"Is she unkind? I thought maybe she just thought my family was odd, a lot of people do."

"She tried to poison me once," Hermione blurted.

Harry started to cough violently. "She what?!"

"Well that seems a bit extreme," Luna said calmly. "I suppose your blood status is something of a problem for her."

"A bit," Hermione answered wryly as it began to sink in why she wanted to trust Luna so badly, that she already did so enough that she was blurting out very personal information. Even though by all outward appearances they had nothing in common except for their hair color, something about Luna reminded Hermione of Narcissa. And how quickly she had come to trust Narcissa. She made a mental note to never mention that to the older witch since Luna's sense of style would probably give Narcissa heart palpitations.

"She's foolish though," Luna continued. "You and Draco make a powerful couple, you'll have magically gifted babies."

"Uh, thank you," was all Hermione could think to say about this casual observation regarding her reproductive potential. "Harry, we should probably take the charms down, they're against the rules and I'm a prefect, plus you probably don't want to draw any more attention to yourself right now by getting into trouble."

"Are we seriously not going to talk about how you just casually dropped into the conversation that your boyfriend's grandmother tried to poison you?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'll tell you all about it later, honestly it's not all that interesting." She chuckled. "Unless I include the part about the love triangle between Draco's two grandmothers and his grandfather Malfoy."

Harry gaped at her for a second before shaking it off and pointing his wand at the door. "Finite."

It was only a minute or two later when Ron and Ginny appeared. Ron slid the door open and scowled at Crookshanks. "You let that monster out? Put him away Hermione, you know he hates me."

Crookshanks stretched in Luna's lap, the only sign he'd even heard the insult was a slight twitching of his tail. Scabbers' departure hadn't improved Ron's relationship with her cat at all. Hermione suspected he didn't want to admit he had been wrong about Crookshanks and because he didn't even attempt to be nice to her familiar ,Hermione had quit apologizing for the fact that he regularly tried to use the redhead as a scratching post at least a year ago.

"He was here first, Ronald. If you don't like it you can always go sit somewhere else."

"Harry?" He whined.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Don't put me in the middle of this," Harry snapped, then he stood up, picked up Crookshanks' carrier, placed it on the luggage rack and sat back in its place, putting himself between Hermione and the window. "It's not my fault you can't get along with a cat."

Ron huffed but said nothing, just stowed his trunk and flopped down next to Luna, presumably because there was more room on that side. Ginny sat down next to Hermione looking visibly disappointed and Hermione could only imagine it was because there were no seats available beside Harry, which she suspected, was also why Harry had moved. Luna murmured her 'hellos' to both of them and Hermione realized they all knew each other.

After that the compartment was mostly quiet until the train started moving. Since this was their second journey in less than a month there was no need for a prefect meeting because they'd already gone over all the policies and been given a patrolling schedule on September 1st. Hermione was grateful, it meant that she wouldn't have to spend the better part of an hour watching Pansy Parkinson attempt to cuddle up to her wizard and pretend she didn't care. That is, she was grateful until Ron opened his mouth again.

"Hogwarts won't be the same without Dumbledore," he sighed.

Hermione felt Harry tense beside her- she knew he was very sensitive about Dumbledore's ousting from Hogwarts, despite the fact that the old wizard had helped plan it himself in a bid to help secure Lucius' place as one of Voldemort's most trusted followers, her best friend still felt responsible.

"I don't see how it'll make much difference," she snapped. "It's not like we ever saw him except at meals. I'm not even sure what he actually did."

Ginny's head whipped around and Ron's mouth dropped open. "You wouldn't understand, Hermione, you didn't grow up like we did," Ginny practically whispered.

"Actually," she contradicted, "I think I understand better because of the way I was raised. I didn't grow up thinking that he was practically a god."

"We were safer with him in the castle," Ron insisted.

"You mean the castle where he'd been a teacher for the better part of a century and failed to notice a giant basilisk living in the basement and then when he was told about it, he just went on with business as usual?" Hermione sniped.

"That's not fair Hermione, if Sirius had just let Harry help find it the school would be safe and Dumbledore would still be in his rightful place."

"Have you lost your mind!" She screeched, blindly reaching for Harry's hand and squeezing. "Do you hear yourself? Do you understand how dangerous that would have been?! How insane that idea is?"

Ron literally waved her off. "He would have been fine with Dumbledore."

"It took an entire team of creature experts to track down that thing! They brought in a parselmouth from Asia who's older than Dumbledore! He had no business asking Harry to do that job! Sirius did the right thing, the responsible thing! And you know what, this is not the first time there's been a great danger at Hogwarts that Dumbledore failed to address: First Year there was a teacher being possessed by Voldemort and Hagrid trying to raise a bloody dragon in his hut! Second Year, well Lockhart was a menace. Third Year there were the Dementors. Last year he didn't keep Harry out of that Tournament!" She let out a long breath. "I think I feel safer now that he's gone!"

And then, in what couldn't possibly be a coincidence, a tall blond appeared at the door to the compartment and wrenched it open. He found her eyes immediately, clearly checking to see that she was okay. She could tell that he was furious but was disguising it with a sneer.

"What's going on? Merlin, Granger, I could hear you screeching from all the way down the car."

She sighed. "Nothing for you to worry about Malfoy."

He eyed them all in turn. "Well keep it down, will you? Some of us are trying to have a peaceful trip."

"Or what, Malfoy, you'll whinge to Daddy again?" Ron hissed.

Draco just blinked at him, then his eyes flicked ever so briefly to Harry and Hermione, and then back to Ron. "Are you truly complaining that I told my father what Potter said and he got rid of the actual monster in our school?" He asked incredulously.

"He was just throwing around his money."

"Yessss," Draco answered, drawing out the word, "he spent a literal fortune rendering Hogwarts safe again. How dare he?" He finished sarcastically.

"Dumbledore would have taken care of it," Ron insisted, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Right."

As she watched the exchange Hermione realized that this actually played right into their hands. If Voldemort wanted Draco to seduce her to his cause she'd give him the perfect opportunity.

"Well I'm grateful," she said softly.

Draco's eyes snapped to hers. "What's that Granger?"

"I'm grateful that your father alerted the Ministry to the problem and had the school evacuated and even more grateful that he paid to have the beast found and exterminated. Sirius explained that the government couldn't have afforded it on its own and as a muggleborn who hasn't taken her O.W.L.s I'm not eligible to attend school elsewhere. He probably saved my magical education."

Hermione saw the moment Draco understood what she was doing. He smirked and then he leered. "Our pleasure Granger. I guess this is as good of a time as any to tell you I switched patrolling duties with Smith so I'm your partner tonight, I'll meet you outside the Great Hall after the feast."

"Why would you do that?" Harry hissed, thankfully catching on and remembering his part.

Draco shrugged. "I have plans the night I was set to patrol. I'll see you later, Granger," he winked, slammed the door closed and walked away.

"What was that?" Ginny breathed, she looked at Hermione. "It's almost like he was flirting with you."

Hermione snorted. "He wasn't," she said firmly, she knew her betrothed was actually disgusted by the very idea of the charade they'd just enacted.

"I think he's up to something Hermione."

Well that was truer than the other witch could possibly know.

"He was just trying to get under my skin. I won't give him the satisfaction."

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Hermione had to keep herself from skipping to meet Draco after dinner. So, she focused on the speech the new Headmistress had made as she wondered if, perhaps, the plan Lucius, Narcissa, Sirius, and Dumbledore had hatched wasn't going to backfire on them. They had assumed that upon Dumbledore's ousting McGonagall would be instituted as Headmistress.

The Umbridge woman the Ministry had appointed was...something. Hermione knew that Draco had met her before, and she truly thought he'd been exaggerating. But she really did look like a toad. A toad clothed in more shades of pink than Hermione had known existed. However, far more disconcerting than that were her words. She wasn't just a puppet or a Ministry lackey. Hermione's instincts told her that her agenda was insidious.

Harry could obviously sense that she was uneasy and so he kept bumping her shoulder as they made their way out of the Hall. He made a big show of threatening Draco if he so much as looked at her sideways. Normally she would have been amused by the way they sniped at each other, but the sense of dread building in her gut prevented that.

She and Draco lingered in the Entrance Hall, ensuring all the students made their way towards their dorms and didn't attempt to sneak away. After about ten minutes Draco turned on his heel without speaking and Hermione hurried after him. She recognized where he was leading them, and she removed the old piece of parchment from inside of her robes.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," she murmured. She watched as the map came to life and watched the secluded alcove where she knew Draco was headed. "We're good," she whispered to him.

He nodded but didn't turn around, just carefully ducked into the alcove in question and the second she followed she found herself in his arms. He nuzzled her neck. "Sirius' map is going to make this a much more pleasurable year," he practically purred.

"We're supposed to be using it to watch our backs, not to find places to snog. And anyway, it belongs to Harry. He's being very kind to let us borrow it for patrols."

"Don't rain on my parade Mia."

She kissed his jaw. "Sorry, except I'm really not. We have to be careful. That woman is up to something."

"Oh, she's totally a Ministry spy."

"Well obviously, but more than that, she's...slimy."

"She's a toad. I told you this."

"I see what you meant," Hermione answered wryly. "How often do you think you can get away with finding excuses to patrol with me? I didn't expect you to find a way to make it happen this quickly."

"Don't underestimate my determination to spend time with you. Plus, remember my father just saved the school, I can pretty much ask for whatever I want," he smirked.

"Spoiled brat."

"Unapologetically."

Author's Note: I know this is kind of a sketchy description of what happened with the basilisk, but I promise it will be further explained in upcoming chapters. Thanks for reading!