A/N: If there are any native French speakers willing to help me with some parts upcoming in the fic, please PM me! I am doing my best to translate certain things accurately, but a review of my attempts by someone fluent (who could be temporary French beta) would be much appreciated :)

CW: Infertility discussion

When Hermione visited Luna, Susan tagging along, Xenophilius Lovegood was a perfectly welcoming host.

"I have tea, if you like," he said. "I also have things that are not tea, if you would prefer, but I find most people generally prefer some sort of tea. I also have teas that are not-tea, that are more unconventional plants we can dump into hot water. Some of them cause hallucinations, but the rainbow bubbles can be quite relaxing and meditative, I find." He looked at the three girls. "Perhaps not if you're going to go on a hike though, yes?"

Hermione hastily agreed and just took some biscuits from the tray with her instead, noticing later each biscuit was shaped oddly like some twisted hybrid of an owl and a bear.

"Are all pureblood magical parents like that?" Hermione asked, munching on her biscuit as they walked through the field behind Luna's house.

"What, welcoming?" Luna asked, blinking. "If they're polite, I suppose."

"They don't all offer hallucinogenics, if that's what you mean," Susan laughed. "But you already know that, Hermione."

"He's just so accepting," Hermione said, making her way through some weeds. "It's like, 'Hello, we are going to go explore your backyard for devious coven purposes', and he responds with, 'Excellent, of course, and would you like some tea?'"

"Are you parents not accepting?" Luna asked Hermione. "It sounds like you've got some thing of your own bound up in talking about this."

Trust Luna to be insightful enough to see through to the core issue. Hermione sighed.

"Alright, yes, I'm kind of frustrated," she admitted. "I mentioned Jade and Milan to my parents, and they were horrified. They were furious with the entire thing, and when I explained that it's common for wizarding people to get married early, they wouldn't just accept it as part of the culture. They wanted to know why, and I didn't know what to tell them." She scowled. "I just wish they were a little more open-minded at times. It's not my fault purebloods wed and bed each other as soon as legally possible."

"It's because purebloods lose children all the time," Susan told Hermione, tromping through the woods. "A lot of pureblood families have immense difficulty having pregnancies that stick. Miscarriage is very common."

"It is?" Hermione said, surprised. "There's a lot of purebloods about. I wouldn't have guessed that at all."

"Well, it's mostly from the Sacred 28, who have had trouble for ages," Susan admitted. "Not all of them, but many of the families have a lot of trouble."

"Not yours, though," Hermione pointed out. "Nor the Weasleys. Why's that?"

"No idea," Susan said, sighing. "I know it's why the custom of marrying so early started. If it might take ten years to have an heir, better to get started rolling the dice as soon as you can make a magical bond."

"I wonder if it's because they're pureblood," Hermione theorized. "Like, if they're marrying each other all the time, they'd end up with interlocked family trees and bad genes, which could contribute to the miscarriages."

"Most purebloods don't do that, though," Susan pointed out. "There are a few families who are fanatical about purity – the Blacks come to mind – but most don't care if you're Sacred 28 or not, just if you've got four magical grandparents."

"Eight magical great-grandparents, if you're a Death Eater," Luna chimed in cheerfully.

"And the ones that don't have trouble too," Susan said. "Daphne's mom, Evelyn Greengrass, is most known for it. Her breeding is impeccable, but she's had more miscarriages than anyone else I know. And she's still trying for a son."

Hermione bit her lip.

"I guess that makes sense," she admitted. "If it were a genetic issue, we'd see more of our classmates with birth defects and severe issues going on, anyway."

They continued traipsing through the forest a bit further, careful not to step into wild gnome holes or touch a bowtruckle tree. They looked around as they went, examining the area and the trees and bushes.

"Daddy says most of this is all ours on paper, so we're still good," Luna said, gesturing around. "Though the trees really belong only to themselves."

"What exactly are we looking for?" Susan asked again. "What defines 'the perfect tree'?"

"I'm not quite sure," Hermione admitted, "but hopefully we'll know it when we see it."

That 'it' turned out to be just up ahead, as they came around a bend. Hermione and Susan both stopped short and gasped, Luna following up from behind.

"Oh," said Luna. "Do you think this tree will work?"

In the middle of the glade on a rare flat patch was an enormous London Plane. It towered above them, maybe forty meters tall, its branches stretching out widely in a grand manner. The flaking, multicolored bark was beautiful, the trunk enormous, and just seeing it made Hermione excited.

There was something majestic about the tree, something magical. The tree itself had a presence, dominating the small clearing it had claimed as its own. And it was enormous. A tree like this… it had spirit and a drive of its own, and it'd clearly been succeeding on its quest toward the sun for over a hundred years or so, at this point. A tree like this… it deserved respect.

Its age, its majesty, its magic…

As Hermione took it all in, something about this tree just felt right.

"We wouldn't have to cut it down, would we?" Susan mourned.

"No, of course not," Hermione assured her. "We'll build the house in the branches, and a ladder or stairs up around the trunk to get in. We might need to remove a few branches to get room for a foundation, though."

"If we're doing a magical foundation, shouldn't it be in the ground?" Luna asked. "You can't bury wardstones in midair."

Susan glanced around. "We could try implanting them in the trunks of other trees?"

"Not a good idea," Luna stressed, suddenly looking worried. "There are too many ash, oak, and thorn trees around here for that to be safe."

"We can bury the wardstones, and then just not build anything outside of them," Hermione assured Susan. "That should work, I think."

"They have to be part of the final structure," Susan argued, shaking her head. "We need to have the bottom floor be on the ground, and then the rest of it can be on top."

"Fine," Hermione conceded, rolling her eyes. "If you insist."

"I don't insist," Susan said back snippily. "Magic does."

Hermione sighed. "Alright."

The three girls scoped out the tree, taking measurements and discussing what they wanted the tree house to ultimately look like, as well as how it would be made.

"We can't use wood from this forest," Luna commented. "The other trees would be sad, seeing the mutilated corpses of their dead friends every day, and they would judge us for it."

Hermione stared. "Is… that how that works?"

"I don't know." Luna shrugged. "But do you want to chance having the forest mad at us?"

Susan sketched out a rough floor plan as they walked around the tree. Once she was done, the three of them pulled on their air elementals to fly up into the branches to examine that area, which quickly became a game of climb-the-tree and jumping from branch to branch.

"This tree is spectacular," Hermione declared, grabbing another branch and hoisting herself higher. "I'm almost already above the tree line, and the branches aren't even getting thin!"

"We could build a look-out tower," Susan said, excited. "We could have one below the trees, to look for threats coming from the ground, but a higher one too, to look for threats from above or far away!"

Hermione paused.

"Wouldn't people just Apparate?" she asked. "And then we wouldn't see them coming at all?"

"Not if we put down Anti-Apparition Wards," Susan said smugly, folding her arms. "Or if we make the whole thing Secret-Kept and they can't get past the wards."

After they'd decided upon the tree, they walked toward the nearby muggle village, keeping track of how far it was and what the land was like.

"There's not nearly enough room in here to bring a vehicle," Hermione frowned. "Not nearly enough."

"No one is going to want to drag wood in by hand this far," Susan said, sighing. "We'll have to buy all the wood in advance, won't we?"

Hermione winced. "Maybe?"

"Daddy's not going to like muggles wandering the forest," Luna warned. "It's dangerous. It's a magical forest. They're not going to know what to do if they come across an erkling."

Susan shot Luna a sharp look. "Are there erklings in these woods?"

"No," Luna said. "But there might be dugbogs."

Hermione let out a frustrated sigh.

"I don't want muggles attacked by dugbogs or gnomes or anything," she said, rubbing her head. "That'd be a great way to get the Ministry involved, which I want to avoid at all costs."

"Then hire wizard builders," Susan prompted.

"But then they'll know about it," Hermione complained. "I don't want anyone magical except us knowing where our treehouse is. I know we can Secret-Keep it once we're old enough, but if we don't have to, I'd rather not."

Susan raised an eyebrow. "So what's the plan?"

"First, go back and check with Luna's father," Hermione said, nodding to Luna. "If he's okay with it, then figure out a final floor plan. Go learn architecture, I suppose. Maybe buy all the wood we'd need? And after that…" She winced. "I don't really know. Maybe if we found muggles who were teenage boys, they'd be willing to traipse up here and do it, if we paid them enough. Teens are less likely to be bothered by the inconvenience than a proper tree-building firm."

"Do the muggles have that?" Susan asked, eyes wide. "Firms that do nothing but build tree houses?"

"I have absolutely no idea," Hermione admitted. "I figured when we got to that point, we'd look and find out."

After a tiring journey back and a break for water (and collapsing in the back yard), Hermione, Susan, and Luna approached Xenophilius Lovegood, explaining to him their plan and what they wanted to do.

"The big London Plane?" he asked. He blinked, then looked at Luna.

Luna nodded. "It's the one."

Xenophilius looked at Luna very seriously.

"That tree can only hold one tree house, you know," he told her.

Hermione and Susan exchanged a wary, skeptical look. Luna's father's oddness was fine, really, but sometimes it seemed somehow... more.

"I know," Luna said solemnly. "And this tree house is the one it will hold."

Xenophilius looked surprised, then excited, then thoughtful.

"And you three intend on building it yourselves?" he asked.

Susan snorted.

"We're only off for another week," she said. "We can't build an entire treehouse in that amount of time."

"I was hoping to hire muggle builders, honestly," Hermione admitted. "I don't want many wizards knowing about where we're putting our coven hideaway, but the tree is so far from the muggle village that I don't know if that's really feasible."

"Hire?" Xenophilius' eyebrows went up. "You were going to pay them?"

"Yes?" Hermione wasn't understanding something. "That's generally how commerce works…?"

Xenophilius looked to Luna, lost. Luna tilted her head, then looked at Hermione.

"It's probably very expensive to build a treehouse," Luna said carefully. "It will cost a lot."

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed. "Oh. That's not a problem," she assured Luna's father. "Gringotts will change gold over for me into muggle money, if I need it." She paused. "Or I could just offer pure gold. It'd be a better deal for the muggles, with the current exchange rate, I bet."

"You just have gold ingots in your vault?" Susan asked, snickering. "Do you really, Hermione?"

"Yes. So?" Hermione defended. "I have an underground vault. Of course I'm going to keep at least some gold bars in it."

Susan laughed. "Living out your muggle buried treasure fantasy, are you?"

Hermione flushed and shot her a look, but Susan only grinned.

Xenophilius was twirling his stringy blond hair, thoughtful.

"You have to go back to school soon," he said. "If you were to leave the gold bars here, I could reach out to some people I know who would be happy to build you a tree house in exchange, who can keep a secret. They're not from around here. Then it could be done by the time you're let out again from school."

"You could?" Hermione was surprised, but excited. "You know people who can build treehouses?"

"I do," Xenophilius said cautiously. "You'd need to provide at least somewhat detailed floor plans, and you'd probably need your coven to do the wardstones for the foundation ahead of time…"

"Not a problem," Susan said confidently. "We can get Harry and Blaise whenever."

Luna was looking at her father oddly.

"You know builders?" she asked. "I didn't know that."

Xenophilius winced, then offered her a strained smile.

"They were… friends of your mother's," he said. "Family, practically. We don't really keep in contact much anymore. But if it's for a safe place for your coven…"

Hermione winced herself, looking away. She imagined after Luna's mother's untimely death, reminders of her from visiting her side of the family would be incredibly emotionally painful. She couldn't blame him for not keeping in touch.

"Okay," Luna said finally. She looked at Susan. "We can get the gold and do the wardstones before April 3rd, right?"

"Shouldn't be a problem," Susan said. "I'll figure out about the wardstones and owl you all."

"And I'll get the gold," Hermione said. She blinked. "Err—how much gold do you think this sort of thing is worth?"

Xenophilius shrugged.

"If you leave a pile of gold and silver bars, I'll have them take what they think is fair and leave the rest," he said. "They're very fair, really."

Luna muttered something under her breath, and her father gave her a cross look, but to Hermione, who genuinely had no idea what raw bars were worth, didn't know how much building a tree house could cost, and really didn't want to bother doing the math, it sounded like a fine idea, given Xenophilius trusted his contacts enough.

"I'll make sure to get it to you before we go back to school," she promised, "ideally when we do the wardstones for the foundation. Would that be soon enough?"

"Yes." Xenophilius' smile was strained. "I still have to reach out to them and get in contact before construction can begin. And I imagine that might take a little bit of time."