My beta-readers, fredfred and InquisitorCOC, deserve a huge thank you. They helped a lot.

Chapter 6: The Friend

Richmond upon Thames, London, July 9th, 2005

"Dr Granger?" Ron wondered if she was having a flashback.

Granger recovered at once, though, and shook her head. "Sorry. Just a memory." She looked a little rueful.

"Ah." Once more, he was tempted to pry, but Granger didn't seem to be in the mood to share. Well, not if it concerned her past - he was sure that she was always ready to give a lecture.

She gave him a look, her expression a mixture of annoyance and fondness. "Yes, it was about your counterparts," she told him.

"Ah," he repeated himself. "I'm easy to read, hm?" he prompted her.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You're more subtle than him."

He nodded, acknowledging her rebuke. "Déformation professionnelle, I'm afraid."

She made a noise halfway between a scoff and a snort. "Well, I guess Ron could have grown more subtle with age as well."

This time he couldn't resist. He had to ask: "Did he die?"

"No," she said quickly. Then she took a deep breath. "He was alive when I was transported here. But we were in the middle of a battle, and…"

"And the odds weren't great," he finished for her.

After another of her sad looks, she nodded. "The odds weren't great from the very beginning, but it was a particularly tight spot."

That explained her fixation on returning at all costs. "And you feel guilty for leaving them."

The glare was back as she bared her teeth. "I didn't leave by choice."

"But you still feel guilty about it." It was plain to see. Obviously, she had never told her therapist about that event.

She clenched her teeth so hard, he could see her jaw muscles twitch, then turned away and grabbed a sheet of paper - at random, he was certain.

But he nodded and left the room.

Now both Harry and Granger were sulking and annoyed with him. It wasn't one of his better days, to be honest - even if you didn't count him getting shot and nearly killed.

"It's good," Granger commented after the first bite.

"Thank you," Harry replied - after a noticeable pause.

"Harry's a good cook," Ron said. Not as good as Mum, of course. But better than Ginny, which was - despite her claims of not caring about it and not wanting to be a housewife anyway - a sore point for Ron's sister.

"Not all of us want to live off takeaways," Harry replied. It almost sounded like their usual ribbing.

Ron shrugged. "Cooking for yourself is inefficient." He could always visit home, anyway, if he wanted to eat well.

"And you'd burn half your meals." Harry snorted.

"That happened once, and I was pissed," Ron retorted. "And you didn't exactly do anything to prevent it, either."

"I was drunk, and watching you was funny."

"So you claim," Ron shot back.

"My first attempt at cooking ended with a ruined pan," Granger said after a moment. "The instructions were incorrect."

Ron chuckled - he could imagine that: Granger, glaring at a smoking pan as if it were the pan's fault, cookbook in hand, wearing a little apron…

"You were at fault for picking the wrong instructions, then." Harry sounded a little too sharp for friendly ribbing.

"Nothing a spell couldn't fix," Granger retorted, in an equally not so friendly tone.

Ron cleared his throat. "We need to talk about what we're going to do now," he said. Before these two drove each other mad.

"We have to stay under the radar," Harry said at once. "If Yaxley is behind this, then we can't trust anyone in CI5."

"Colin would never betray you," Ron pointed out.

"He can be fooled. Easily," Harry replied. "And everyone knows that he likes me. I bet you a hundred pounds that Yaxley has him bugged already, in case we make contact."

"That's probably how they got Bones. Must have bugged her or her car," Ron agreed.

"She would have checked," Harry retorted.

"After Scrimgeour? Yes. But she might have missed something. Or Yaxley had this planned for some time, and was aware of her contingencies." Ron shrugged.

"It doesn't seem to have been a well-planned operation so far," Harry pointed out. "The attack on the safe house had too few people to succeed. But two days later, they had over half a dozen shooters in the park."

Ron nodded. "Rush job on the house. He didn't know how long we planned to stay and hit us on the first night with what he had available. Then he got reinforcements for the ambush at the park."

"It won't help him, though." Harry grinned. "Scrimgeour and Bones killed by a sniper? A shootout in a public park in the afternoon, in the middle of London? MI5 and Special Branch will be all over this. He can't keep this in house. And he didn't have enough time to cover all his tracks. He's going down."

"But he has to have known that. Why would he take such a risk?" Ron pointed out. "Killing Scrimgeour triggered the whole thing. After that, Bones wouldn't rest until she found the killer. But killing her made things worse."

"Yaxley's not the smartest bloke," Harry replied.

"But he's smart enough - more than smart enough - to realise that much. So, why start all this?" Ron shook his head. "And where did he get his reinforcements? You can't just hire mercenaries." This wasn't a movie. He snorted. "He's got a backer."

Harry slowly nodded. "Yes, that would fit. But it's still a huge risk to take."

"Perhaps he had no choice," Ron speculated. "If his backer has a hold over him and ordered him to procure Dr Granger, what are the odds Scrimgeour would have found out?" After the fact, most likely.

"So he decided to go for broke?" Harry sounded doubtful. "He could have run."

"And be hunted by CI5 - and by his backer as a loose end?"

"Good point," Harry conceded.

Ron noticed that Granger was staring at them both. She looked very impressed.

And he liked that, he realised.

"That is a convincing conclusion - but it depends on Yaxley being behind the murder of Scrimgeour and Bones," Granger said. "And there's no evidence to support that hypothesis."

"His counterpart was an enemy of yours, though, wasn't he?" Harry said with a frown. He didn't like to be wrong, Ron knew. Well, no one did.

"That doesn't mean, though, that your Yaxley is a criminal," she replied with a frown. "He could be a perfectly upstanding, if abrasive and annoying, police officer."

"That's true," Ron admitted, ignoring Harry's glance towards him, "but so far, the people you've met have been pretty similar to their counterparts in your world, haven't they?"

"Not identical. Not enough to condemn a man for it," she replied with a glance towards Harry.

Ron's friend scoffed. "Really? You trusted us because of them, didn't you? That's why you revealed your secret."

"I revealed my secret because it was the only way to save Ron!" she retorted.

"You called me Ron," Ron pointed out. She also did it when she had that nightmare, he recalled.

"A slip of the tongue," she said, then took a deep breath. "Yes, the similarities are striking, but there are differences."

"We're older than the people you knew," Ron said. "And we've had different experiences."

"Exactly!" She nodded, a faint smile on her face. "And your Riddle died in 1985. The one in my world survived. That's a huge difference."

Harry scoffed again. "Yaxley's old enough to have been turned before that. People suspected that there was a mole in CI5 who fed Riddle information that allowed him to evade the police."

"But if it was Riddle who turned him, then who would be able to call on him now?" Granger asked.

"Some of his supporters and fellow terrorists were never caught," Ron said.

"But would he have trusted anyone with such information?" she replied, shaking her head as she answered her own question.

"That's based on your knowledge of his counterpart, isn't it?" Harry asked with a hint of a smirk.

"Yes," she spat.

"And it fits our profiles of Riddle," Harry told her.

"Which means that it's unlikely that Yaxley is working with or for someone who was with Riddle." She sniffed.

"Unlikely doesn't mean impossible," Harry said. "And it certainly isn't Dawlish. The man's too stupid for this. That doesn't leave many others of the proper age and position."

"In any case, we have to assume there is a highly-placed traitor in CI5," Ron cut in. "Which means, as we said before, we cannot trust anyone. We have to stay on our own until the mole's found."

"Which will make you appear suspicious," Granger pointed out.

"And you as well," Harry retorted. "You were present at both assassinations."

"And if it's Yaxley," Ron added, "he might try to use this to get you."

"Britain's most wanted," Granger muttered, "once again."

Ron tried to cheer her up. "It won't be for long. Moody's going to find the mole sooner rather than later."

"Unless he's coming after you because he thinks you've turned traitor," she retorted.

"He wouldn't!" Harry replied, glaring at her. "He trusts us."

"Does he trust anyone?" Granger glared back at him.

"Didn't you tell us that we can't assume everyone's like their counterpart?"

"Please!" Ron raised his voice. "Arguing about that won't help our situation. We have to decide what we do now."

"How safe is this house?" Granger asked. "Can we stay here while this whole mess is sorted out?"

"No one but us and Sirius know about it," Harry replied.

"And can Sirius be trusted not to rush over here as soon as he hears about the whole thing?"

While Harry clenched his teeth and didn't answer, Ron made a note of another hint that people and their counterparts in Granger's world were very similar - she certainly knew Sirius's likely reaction well.

"I guess that means we'll have to leave," Granger said with a sigh.

"I'll send him a mail - through a secure account," Harry told them, standing up.

"Let's hope he'll listen," Ron heard Granger mutter as Harry left the room. He hoped Harry hadn't heard her.

"We really can't assume everything's the same," Granger told him as soon as the door closed behind Ron's friend.

"We can't trust people just because you trusted their counterparts," he replied, "but there's nothing wrong with being suspicious of people whose counterparts were your enemies."

She pressed her lips together but didn't contradict him. He took that as acknowledgment of his point.

Ron found Harry in the kitchen, doing the dishes. "Sirius should have bought a dishwasher," he commented.

Harry snorted. "It wasn't as if he actually cooked back in the seventies. Not that he's cooking anything nowadays, either."

Because Harry's godfather had hired a housekeeper as soon as he had inherited his family's fortune and ancestral home. It must be nice to be rich, Ron thought, then pushed the thought away. He was better than that. Money had been tight growing up, as one of seven kids with only Dad's salary, but now that every one of Ron's siblings was earning their own money, Mum and Dad could afford a lot. And Mum was a far better cook than Sirius's housekeeper, anyway.

Ron leaned against the counter next to him. "Granger gave me a list of all her enemies in her world." He should have asked about a list of her friends as well, but… you couldn't trust someone because of their counterpart's actions.

"Must be a huge number, what with her charming personality," Harry replied, not looking up from the pan he was scrubbing.

Ron rolled his eyes. "You weren't exactly acting like Prince Charming, either," he pointed out. "Of course, Ginny would kill you if you had been." His little sister had a stereotypical redhead's temper. Fortunately, she had chosen tennis instead of, say, kickboxing.

Harry snorted at that but still didn't look up.

"Is that why you're so… cranky? Are you missing Ginny?"

"I'm not 'cranky'," Harry replied, glaring at him. "I'm just not trying to get into Granger's pants."

"Please try to be a little more original," Ron told him. "And don't tell me that it's about her keeping secrets. You knew she wasn't telling us the truth before, but now that she's spilt her guts, you're still mad at her."

Harry glared at him, but Ron didn't flinch until his friend sighed. "Magic. Mind-controlling magic. Who knows what she can do? Or has done? It was different when we were guarding a boffin, but a witch? What if she thinks she knows best and makes us agree?"

"If she could do such a thing, or would do it, wouldn't she have done it already?"

"She might have," Harry retorted with a frown. "We can't tell what can be done with magic, and what can't. Most of our training is useless in the face of magic."

Ah. Ron nodded. That explained Harry's attitude - they couldn't trust their training as they had before. Not in the face of such a revelation.

"But there's more," Harry went on. "She knows our counterparts. She probably knows stuff we haven't even told each other. Don't tell me that you're alright with that!"

He wasn't. But she had saved his life. And Ron didn't think she meant them any harm. "If she knows too much, it isn't her fault. Blame our counterparts. Anyway, here's the list." He unfolded the list and held it up so Harry, whose hands were wet, could read it.

"Malfoy… all three of them, actually. Travers. Yaxley. Dolohov. All three Lestranges." Harry tensed, as Ron had known he would, but didn't comment. "Crabbe. Goyle. Crouch. Avery. Jugson. Carrow. Carrow. Rookwood. Pettigrew." He scoffed. "That's no surprise. Umbridge?" Harry blinked. "Isn't that the woman Arthur keeps complaining about?"

"Yes."

"Her counterpart is a magical terrorist?"

"Was," Ron told him. "The names with an asterisk are dead. And she wasn't a terrorist but an eager genocidal bureaucrat, according to Granger."

Harry whistled. "That's a lot of dead people."

Ron nodded. He glanced over his shoulder, then added: "And Granger was involved with a number of the deaths." Which was both worrying and reassuring. And he couldn't, yet, say which feeling was dominating. Or should.

"Did she tell you that?"

"No. But her reactions were telling," Ron told him. She had been 'lost in thought' a few times as well. "Anyway - it's a long list."

"And some of the names don't ring any bells," Harry pointed out. "Fenrir Greyback?"

Ron shrugged. "A werewolf, or so I was told."

"Werewolves. What's next, vampires?" Harry asked with a snort.

"There's a market for blood pops made with real blood in Granger's world," Ron replied with a wry grin.

Harry sighed as he shook his head. "This is weirder than one of your stupid movies."

"They're not stupid," Ron replied out of habit. "They just don't have the budget for their special effects. And it doesn't matter. We've got a list of suspects now."

"And no proof."

"That's what Granger kept saying," Ron said, then smirked when he saw his friend clench his teeth. "What did Sirius tell you?"

"He hasn't answered my mail, yet," Harry replied. "I told him not to do anything stupid, though."

Ron hoped that Sirius would listen - combat experience in the Guards didn't make you a police officer. And he had been a tank commander, not exactly SAS material. Though he had had some experience in Ulster…

"He'll listen," Harry said as if he had read Ron's thoughts.

Ron nodded. Sirius still blamed himself for the death of the Potters, after all. On the other hand, if he thought Harry was in danger, he'd rush in no matter what. "So…"

Harry held up a hand, and Ron heard his cell phone vibrate. "Message from Sirius," his friend said. He wiped his hands, then checked - and cursed. "They're looking for us. As suspects."

Damn.

Ron had expected that this would happen - the traitor would frame them to try to protect himself - but it was still a shock. What would Mum and Dad think? His brothers? Ginny, of course, would never believe it. But Percy? Bill? "Well, we didn't plan to show our faces in public anyway," he said. It wouldn't do to appear actually worried.

"Feh." Harry frowned.

"And we don't need to buy food - Granger has enough to last two lifetimes," Ron added.

"That's not food," Harry complained. "That stuff makes spam taste good in comparison."

"I like Mum's spam recipe," Ron said. Times had been lean in his childhood, and they had eaten spam quite a lot.

"Let's tell Granger."

They found her in the living room, where she was watching TV. Ron saw pictures of Scrimgeour and Bones on the screen as well as Granger's and swallowed his joke about mindless entertainment.

"They've been talking about the murders non-stop since I switched the telly on," Granger said. "And they speculate about whether I was kidnapped, killed or brainwashed into becoming a murderer."

"The BBC?" Ron couldn't imagine the news going that far.

"No, not the BBC," Granger admitted. "But the rest of the channels." She sniffed. "I expect them to mention your past at any moment," she said with a glance at Harry.

Harry muttered another curse in response.

"Sorry," she mumbled, "but we'll have to expect it and prepare accordingly."

"Prepare for what?" Harry asked.

"With so much attention from the media, everyone will recognise us," she replied. "We won't be able to set foot outside without a disguise."

"We don't have to go out," Ron pointed out. "We can stay here for months if need be."

"Are you suggesting that we should hide here until someone catches the traitor?" she asked with a frown.

"No," Ron said. Granger and Harry would drive each other crazy. "But we don't have to go out right now. We can wait until the next celebrity scandal breaks." Or until Yaxley was arrested.

"I need a dependable base for my experiments. And an inconspicuous source of power," she told them.

"You'll have to do without," Harry replied. "Suddenly using far more power than normal would betray our presence."

"I can't do research without power."

"You can't do research if you're dead, either."

Ron shook his head. "You can't do research as long as someone is willing to hire mercenaries and criminals to hunt you down. Until the traitor's backer is found, you're stuck."

Her expression told him that she loathed their situation - but it couldn't be helped.

"We can go through your list," Harry said. "It's not as if we have any better leads."

"Just because their counterparts…" Granger started.

Harry cut her off. "...yes, yes, we can't condemn anyone for what their counterpart did. But," he went on with a grin, "we can investigate them."

"While we're Britain's most wanted?" she retorted.

"Yes." Harry nodded. "I'm not going to hide and wait for someone to solve my problems for me."

Granger shook her head at that. "That's familiar," she commented with a rather sad smile as she stood. "I'm going to bed."

Ron wasn't sure if he should be glad or concerned about Harry glowering at her as she passed.

He sighed. "Let's go over the list and make some plans."

Harry agreed after a moment. "Too bad we don't know if we killed some of them already in the park."

Ron hadn't actually done any killing, but it was nice of Harry to include him. Probably.

"So… her Malfoy was best friends with Crabbe and Goyle?" Harry asked after looking at the list again.

"They way she described it, they were his minions," Ron corrected him.

"Hm. Our Malfoy would have loved minions to do his bidding. What are the chances that he hired some thugs? He couldn't rely on his dad all the time." Harry rubbed his chin. "And we know he had some shady contacts."

"It's quite a step to go from buying marijuana to hiring hitmen," Ron pointed out.

"Malfoy might have hired them as thugs, to beat up his 'rivals'," Harry replied. "Remember when he tried to send the rugby team after us?"

"Oh, yes!" Ron chuckled. Malfoy's dad must have spent a lot of money to smooth things over so his son wouldn't be expelled.

"Or perhaps he needed bodyguards to keep Parkinson away," Harry joked, then blinked. "Damn."

"What?" Ron asked.

"I just had a thought," Harry replied. "This was Sirius's bachelor pad in the seventies."

"Yes. And he bought it under a fake name."

"He did. But how many women did he invite over? And how many of them might remember the flat?"

Ron frowned. "How many of them would make the connection to us? You weren't even born when he started using it."

"No. But he was over the moon when he was made godfather," Harry said. "He would have told his girlfriends. And all it takes is for one woman to remember."

Ron sighed. "Who gets to tell Granger that we have to move again?"

"You. She's less likely to turn you into a newt," Harry replied with a grin.

Ron frowned, but his friend was probably correct.

"I should have thought of that. It's obvious in hindsight."

Granger took the news better than Ron had expected. And worse, in a way. "Don't blame yourself. What would your therapist say?"

"This is different. I should've known better," Granger replied. "I've been hunted before."

"By wizards."

She snorted as she slid out of bed. "Wizards who could easily mind-control police officers and order them to hunt us as well. Hiding out in muggle hotels didn't work out well for us. If the police hadn't tried to arrest us before the Death Eaters found out..."

He didn't look at her legs as she grabbed the jeans from Frankie's. Not overly long, at least. "How easy is magical mind control?" he asked, trying not to show how disturbing he found the subject.

"It depends on what method you use, but it's generally quite easy. Obliviation - erasing someone's memories - is very common. It's how the Statue of Secrecy is enforced. Then there's the False Memory Charm, which allows you to implant artificial memories in someone's mind. It's far harder to use - you have to take great care to construct memories if you want them to influence the target. But done right, you can give someone an entirely new personality or set of goals."

Ron was aghast. That sounded… like Total Recall. "Is that what your enemies were doing?"

She shook her head, then pulled her hair back and put it into a bushy ponytail. "No. They usually stuck to the Imperius Curse." Looking at him, she added: "It's basically an order you can't refuse and want to execute. Casting the spell on a human earns you a life sentence in Azkaban. That's a prison in the North Sea staffed by monsters. Most inmates lose their sanity within a few years."

He wanted to ask her why she was so determined to return to that. The way she'd worded it, that prison wasn't new. On the other hand, her family and friends were there. And her magic wand. Although… she had spoken as if she had personal experience with those spells. "Did you use them yourself?"

"What?" She turned to him, shirt in hand, teeth bared.

"Not the Imperius, the others, I mean," he was quick to explain.

"Oh." She sighed. "I considered it. Quite thoroughly. The False Memory Charm, that is. Obliviating enemies was pretty standard. And witnesses - wouldn't want to endanger the Statute of Secrecy." She scoffed.

She had mentioned that before. "Keeping magic a secret is of such importance?"

"It's pretty much the only thing all wizarding countries agree upon. Breaking it is the worst crime you could commit. Far worse than massacring a few dozen muggles," she added in a bitter tone.

He had the distinct impression that wasn't a hypothetical example. "Worse than using the Imperius Curse?"

She pulled her shoes on. "Yes."

"Does that mean you'll have to obliviate Harry and me?" he asked before he could stop himself.

She looked startled for a moment. "No. Your world has no magic. There's no Statute here." Frowning, she went on: "Of course, some of the bigots would still claim this was breaking the Statute of Secrecy. They invented bogus charges of 'stealing magic' to justify their murders."

"And you want to return there?"

"I have to. I left my friends."

Friends who might be - were, probably - dead by now. But he knew better than to point that out. Judging by her expression, she was already aware that she might be returning to avenge, rather than help, them.

"So, where are we going?" she asked, grabbing her bag. "Do you have another safe house prepared?"

He chuckled, ruefully. "I wish." Moody would tell them that they weren't vigilant enough after this mess was sorted out. "No, we'll visit a friend of mine," he said with a smile.

"A friend?"

He nodded. "A good friend. She won't betray us."

She had an odd expression, he noticed. "Who is she?"

"Luna. Luna Lovegood." She looked rather incredulous, so he added, slightly annoyed: "It's an old and perfectly fine name."

"No, no." She shook her head. "It's not that. Does her family live next to yours?"

Ron blinked, then groaned. "You knew her counterpart as well?"

"We went to the same school."

Ron shook his head. This was eerie. What else did she know? "Ah… were we involved?"

"What? Us? I mean, your counterpart and I?"

"No, I mean my counterpart and Luna's," he explained.

"Oh. No, not to my knowledge. And I've known Ron since he was eleven."

Good. So not everything was the same.

"Is she a cryptozoologist? Hunting Nessie?"

He laughed. "No, no. She's no cryptozoologist."

Near Savernake Forest, Wiltshire, Britain, July 10th, 2005

"Luna lives here?" Granger asked before Harry had even stopped the car. "It's a barn! And a broken-down one, at that!"

"It merely looks like a barn," Ron replied as he got out of the car.

"It smells like a barn, too," Granger remarked.

"Luna's very thorough," Ron said.

"Thorough?"

"Yes," Harry replied, still behind the wheel. "Even Moody would be impressed."

"That's not really reassuring…" Granger trailed off. "Wait…"

But Ron had already reached the big gate, pulling it open for Harry to drive the car inside before closing it behind them.

The inside looked as it should - full of the derelict remains of a failed farm, with barely enough space left free for a vehicle to park, the only light provided by their car.

"It is a barn. And Luna doesn't live here," Granger stated as she climbed out of the car.

"Right." Ron nodded, slightly disappointed that she had seen through the small deception already. "Moody was the clue, huh?"

"Unless you deliberately wanted to mislead me, it means that Luna's paranoid. Which means she'd never let you drive up to her real home," she replied, shaking her head as she looked around.

Then the entire barn was plunged into darkness as Harry switched the lights off. Granger didn't comment, though, not until Ron had pulled out his flashlight to show her the way to the side exit.

"Couldn't someone spot the light?" she asked as she made her way towards Ron.

"The barn doesn't let any light out," Ron told her. He had helped Luna fix it that way over one summer.

"Ah. And the side exit leads to a secret tunnel?"

Harry scoffed. "Don't be daft - that'd mean you'd have a direct lead to her home from here."

Ron couldn't see Granger's face, not without being obvious about it and shining his flashlight in her direction, but he was certain that she was pursing her lips at Harry's comment. "And traipsing through the countryside won't lead any pursuers to her?" she retorted in a cold tone.

"No. Not with the route we're taking," Ron told her as Harry handed him his set of night vision goggles. "We'll be moving through the underbrush for most of the distance."

"We've only got two sets, sorry," Harry said. He almost sounded sincere.

"Great. I missed stumbling through a dark forest so much," he heard her mutter.

"Just hold my hand, I'll guide you," Ron offered.

"No need. I've got my own."

"You do? Of course you do." Ron shook his head as she pulled out a set of night vision goggles - a Russian model, Ron recognised the type - from her bag.

Luna would love her. Probably.

Granger definitely wasn't at home in the woods. Even with night vision goggles, she had trouble navigating the forest. At least Ron assumed her repeated, whispered queries about whether or not they were lost indicated that she was lost. And she didn't have an easy time marching, either.

But they had made it to Luna's hideout anyway, if later than planned. It was still the middle of the night, though, and so Luna wouldn't be mad at them.

"That's her real fake barn?" Granger asked, staring past him at the back of a decrepit-looking wooden building. "Oh God, I'm more tired than I thought to be saying that."

"Yes," Ron told her with a grin.

She huffed. "So… do we go and knock?"

"In a way." Ron took a deep breath and stepped closer to the back of the barn, looking for the slightly loose plank. Luna tended to move it around… ah, there. He pulled it back a little and stuck his finger inside, moving it until he felt the cool metal of the fingerprint scanner.

A moment later, part of the wall swung open, revealing a narrow space with a hatch in the floor, barely big enough for one person to step inside - and needing to duck their heads if they weren't on the short side. He did so and opened the hatch, then pointed at the spiral staircase leading down. "Here we are."

He quickly descended the stairs until he reached the steel door at the bottom, where he smiled up at the camera. "Hi, Luna! It's me, Ron!"

The door didn't open.

After a few seconds, he heard her voice - digitally altered. "Password?"

"Swordfish."

The steel door started to swing open.

"Swordfish?" Granger asked behind him.

"A movie starring John Travolta," Ron explained.

"Ah."

It was also one of the movies he had watched with Luna when they had been dating, but she wouldn't know that. And he wouldn't tell her. It was none of her business.

He stepped through the airlock - at least Luna wasn't running her NBC protocol - and into the hallway - or entrance hall, as Luna called it. And there she was - dressed in one of her 'ironic' T-shirts and baggy jeans with ballet flats. Not one of her weirder looks, this time.

"Ron!" She hugged him. "I told you the shadow men behind the government would hunt you down one day! I told you!"

"It's not quite…" he tried to explain.

"Fortunately, I've been preparing for this eventuality! This bunker is shielded against all the ways they could use to track you! They won't get you!" He felt her nodding - her chin repeatedly dug into his shoulder. "And neither will they get Harry and…" She tensed in his arms. "Blessed Mother Goddess!"

He turned his head, with some difficulty, and noticed she was staring at Granger. "Ah, Luna, this is…"

"An alien! You brought an alien here!"

"I'm not an alien!" Granger protested at once.

"You're Hermione Granger. Kidnapped at the age of eleven. Found seven years later, with amnesia. Identified through DNA testing and reunited with her parents. Proceeded to complete her missing secondary schooling in record time despite her history, then went on to study quantum physics, becoming a researcher after earning her doctorate," Luna stated, without releasing Ron. "Claimed her research was purely theoretical, yet found herself the target of multiple kidnapping attempts by an unknown yet clearly powerful secret organisation." She sniffed. "It's obvious that you've assumed the identity of the real Hermione Granger who was conveniently killed years ago before your arrival on Earth in order to gain the resources needed to return to your home planet. But the secret global anti-alien forces have seen through your deceptions and are now trying to arrest you without revealing that aliens exist!"

Ron managed to turn his head far enough to see Granger. She was staring at Luna, speechless.

And then Harry laughed.

"That's ridiculous!" Granger snapped. "I'm not an alien!"

"Of course you'd say that!" Luna retorted. "But how else can you explain the countless inconsistencies in your life? If you aren't a member of an alien species whose technology is far in advance of our own, how would you have managed to research something for which people are willing to murder senior police officers? After missing seven years of your secondary education?" She finally released Ron and took a step towards Granger, pointing her right index finger at her. "You might have fooled the Grangers, and you might have fooled the government - although the government may have been on to you from the start, and just let you believe you succeeded in fooling them so they could reap the results of your research for their own secret weapon programs. But you haven't fooled me!"

"Wha…" Granger blinked. "That makes no sense!"

"On the contrary! It makes perfect sense!" Luna shook her head wildly. "But you've made a fatal mistake! You dared to attack my friends!"

Uh oh. Ron grimaced. Luna was what Mum called a gentle soul, and she was a lovely, if eccentric, girl, but if she thought someone was threatening her few, very few, friends… "Luna, she's not an alien."

"I know you have to say that."

"No, I mean, we know the truth. And she's not an alien. She's human. Although you're correct in that she isn't the original Hermione Granger." Ron stepped between Luna and Granger. Just in case his ex-girlfriend hadn't been joking about the anti-authoritarian thug counter-measures she wanted to install in the ceiling.

Luna blinked. "She's human, but she managed to fool a DNA test? She's a clone!" She clapped her hands together. "The government has been cloning promising people for their shadow research think tanks! I knew it!" She slid around Ron and peered at Granger. "How old are you? Historically, I mean. Biologically, you've obviously been subjected to an accelerated growth treatment."

"I'm twenty-six years old! I'm not a clone!" Granger insisted.

"Are you sure?" Harry cut in, still chuckling.

She glared at him, then at Ron, as if this was his fault. Well, he should have expected this, Ron guessed. "She's not a clone."

"I'm Hermione Granger, a witch from a parallel Earth," Granger spat. "I ended up here due to a magical accident, and I was misidentified as this world's Hermione Granger."

"A witch?" Luna frowned. "A magical accident?"

"Yes." Granger held her hand out towards a small tobacco box on the shelf behind Luna and snapped: "Accio box!"

A moment later, the box flew towards her outstretched hand, and, from hidden speakers, Luna's voice yelled: "Alert! Alert! Smoker intruder! Alert!" - loudly enough to hurt Ron's ears.

She heard the loud, very loud, sound of a gong being rung and knew she had made a fatal mistake. She hadn't disabled all the alarms, and now the enemy knew that there were intruders on the premises.

"We need to go!" Harry hissed, jumping to his feet.

But they were so close. And Voldemort… he was supposed to be busy dealing with the diversionary attacks while they broke into the manor.

"Come on!" Ron yelled, grabbing her shoulder. "We've failed! We need to leave!"

No, she had failed. All those Order members risking their lives, and she had let them down. Their chance to get the Horcrux, lost. She shook her head, forcing back tears, as she ran towards the wardline, casting a Disillusionment Charm almost without thinking. Fifty yards until they could apparate to safety.

They cleared the gardens. Forty yards.

Halfway through the open ground. Thirty yards.

Twenty yards. Almost.

The hedgerow in front of them blew up. She barely saw the Blasting Curse before she was thrown to the ground. She rolled over the lawn - her Shield Charm had held - as a cloud of dust started to settle and chunks of earth and roots rained down on her. Harry! Ron!

She looked around, pointing her wand in every direction, as she tried to find her friends. The cloud still concealed everyone and everything, but it would thin out on top first, and her Human-presence-revealing Charm would show.…

Half a dozen markers became visible between her and the wardline - and she couldn't yet tell who among them were Harry and Ron, and who would be Death Eaters.

She - belatedly - dashed towards the wardline. At an angle, away from the Death Eaters. If she could get out and flank them...

She saw a flash right in front of her, then she was flying through the air - another Blasting Curse, she realised, right before everything went dark.