Hermione sighed as she settled down into the couch in the Gryffindor Common Room on Christmas morning. She had worked tirelessly to ensure that she would have all of her holiday homework completed by Christmas morning. Her goal in this was to be able to take a bloody break over the holiday. She had been sure that she'd be able to handle the additional pressures of taking so many classes in one year.

It was just her luck that the way the schedule had worked out this year meant she physically couldn't take all the classes. At first, the Time Turner had seemed like such an honor. Now, less than half of the way through the school year, she was already prepared to get rid of the ruddy thing! Her life was so hectic that not even her tightly managed and portioned out class/study schedule could keep everything under control.

It was with all this in mind that Hermione had decided to take the Christmas Hols for herself. She had spent her first few days feverishly completing all of her homework, and now the rest of the time was hers and hers alone. Even when her boys frantically worked to complete their own Holiday homework in the last few days of break, as she knew they would, she would be able to sit and relax, doling out advice with little additional stress.

Honestly, she needed the break.

Hermione had been tempted, oh so very tempted, to use the Time Turner to extend her holiday as long as possible. Truthfully, she was still tempted to do it, fingers lightly tracing it's outline underneath her shirt. But she held firm; she didn't want to forget what the regular length of a day felt like.

So it was that she came downstairs on Christmas morning to a very festively decorated Common Room, and for the first time all school year felt very relaxed. Her mound of presents was, in her opinion, rather modest. But she was still quite excited by the prospect of new gifts. Her parents had teased her endlessly when she'd asked to stay at school for the holiday, poking fun at how "adult" she was, being nearly 14 now, and how "adults didn't get overly many presents at Christmas, darling."

She did miss them terribly, but she'd rather stay at Hogwarts with her friends than visit a boring dentistry convention disguised as a Christmas Holiday in France. They'd spent a wonderful summer there, but the conference they'd been invited to after an accidental meeting one night at dinner the previous summer was not quite Hermione's cup of tea.

But regardless of their teasing, Hermione saw her parents had still sent her a number of presents. She eyed a few of the thicker ones with relish; those were quite possibly some of the books she'd not so subtly hinted at in Flourish and Blotts.

"Happy Christmas!" She greeted the Weasley's and Harry as she came down. An out of sync chorus of "Happy Christmas, Hermione" greeted her back. Everyone had mostly already gotten themselves settled; Hermione had been in no rush to head down, thoroughly prepared to follow through on her mission to relax.

With her arrival, there was an unspoken signal that Christmas morning could begin; presents were hoarded, wrapping was shredded, and thanks were given. All around, everyone had a pleasant morning.

This all changed the moment Ginny screamed bloody murder, letting out an ear splitting, unholy shriek of pure terror. Hermione turned in time to see her chuck something straight at a wall with a very solid thump and race up the stairs, presumably to her dormitory.

Everyone sat in the silence, staring at each other. As the silence verged away from communal confusion and into uncomfortable stillness, Hermione decided to break it.

"Is she alright? What just happened?"

The redheaded brothers all looked at each other, and it was Percy who finally spoke up.

"Ginny had a… difficult summer. We'd thought she was over it. She'd been doing much better by the end of it, and she hasn't had any problems now that we're back at school."

Hermione rolled her eyes. Boys, she thought are sometimes so blind.

She first grabbed the thrown object, a rather nice leather notebook. She rifled through the pages and found them blank; a diary then. Not cause for concern on its own, but something niggled at the back of mind.

She then reached over for where an envelope sat unopened, attached to shredded wrapping paper. It was rather rude to read someone else's letters, but desperate times and all that.

Dear Ginny,

Happy Christmas! We know we didn't do this last year, and we didn't want to bring it up this year because we wanted it to be a surprise! So don't feel bad if you didn't get us any gifts, or anything. Besides we all chipped in for this! We noticed that you spent a lot of time with your diary last year, but this year you didn't even have it! We wondered if you filled it up, or maybe had lost it, so we got you a fresh one! We hope you like it, and we should all hang out sometime soon! We know you're close with Loony, but it's good to have lots of friends, right?

Anyways, Happy Christmas again!

From,

The Gryffindor Girls

Gemma Nelson

Sam Bailey

Claire Foster

Laura Hobbs

P.S. Sam wanted to write "From, Your Roommates, but Gryffindor Girls sounds so good!"

Hermione looked up after reading it a second time. Well, that was nearly no help at all!

She held up the book so the boys could see. "Any idea why this would make Ginny upset?"

Surprisingly, it was Harry of all people who flinched. "That looks almost exactly like the diary she had last year. The one that, uh, you know…" He trailed off and looked around at the Weasley brothers.

Fred scoffed. "Almost killed her? And the rest of the school?"

Harry just nodded and shrugged.

Oh. That was where she had seen it before. Harry and Ron had informed her of what all had happened very briefly before the end of the last year after she'd woken up. This diary was nearly identical to the one from last year, at least at first glance. Harry had held onto it for a short period of time, though how it had passed hands back and forth was never explained.

None of the boys seemed to be doing anything even remotely productive, so she sighed and resigned herself to her task. "I'll go check on her, then. I'll be right back."

She rushed up the stairs, and barged into the Second Year girl's dormitory, anticipating a sobbing girl. Or at the very least, some smothered sniffles.

Instead, she was greeted by total and almost eerie silence.

It took her a moment to determine what, exactly, was happening and where Ginny might have gone. She noticed one of the beds had curtains shut closed. Every other bed was immaculately made. She wanted to march over and open up the curtains. She wanted to grab the girl up in her arms, and tell her it would all be alright.

And honestly, a tiny part of her thought What in the world do you have to cry about?! You weren't the one who was petrified!

It was the very clear memory of a flash of red hair as she saw sickly yellow eyes through her handheld mirror the year before that was nearly enough to overwhelm her resolve.

But she reminded herself that even though she was petrified, she hadn't had Voldemort stuck in her head for a year. Also, she hadn't faced down an absolutely astonishingly large basilisk (if Harry's accuracy in relating stories was to be trusted), while her only friend betrayed her.

So really, Ginny did have quite a bit to be crying about. Hermione supposed it was just so hard to remember that, when Ginny seemed to unaffected by it most of the time. She stared longingly one last time at the curtains. She hadn't even known Ginny could cast a Silencing Charm. Hermione itched to Dispel it, but firmly turned herself around marched back to the Common Room.

Five sets of eyes stared at her, expectantly, as she returned empty handed.

"Ginny just needs a bit of time to process it. Having it all brought up so suddenly and unexpectedly was just a bit much for her. She'll be fine."

Hermione put on a bright smile and watched as all the boys went back to their own presents and Christmas with a bit less cheer. She was just glad none of them had heard the left off 'I hope' at the end of her reassurances.

Thankfully, Ginny did seem to get through her ordeal on her own. She ended up being well enough to attend dinner later that evening.

Sadly, Hermione's life was crumbling around her by the time that happened. At breakfast, a package had flown in with the mail, headed straight for Harry. It was easy enough to tell what it was based on its shape. Harry was getting a new broom. Hermione hadn't realized Harry had ordered a new one or that, like with his old Nimbus, Professor McGonagall had ordered one for him.

But it was with dawning horror that Hermione realized Harry wasn't expecting this gift. For some unknown reason, Hermione also seemed to be the only person in this whole castle capable of remembering that there was a mass murderer on the loose who specifically wanted to kill Harry. Hermione was briefly pleased at further vindication of her heartfelt belief that Quidditch addled the brains of anyone who played it, was interested in it, or even heard about it too often.

Her day continued to spiral downwards as she failed, again and again, to get the two boys to listen to reason. Why couldn't they see that it was possibly a trap? She wasn't hating on Quidditch! She wasn't just being a nag, or a bookworm, or a million other names that she had been sure she'd left behind after her first year at Hogwarts.

Each of those names, each insult Ron flung at her during their argument, they were like individual cuts, slicing into her skin. She could handle any one of them, but all of them? She wondered how long she would last.

Hermione resolved herself that even if it killed her, emotionally at least, she would save her friend. So it was with a heavy heart that she went to Professor McGonagall and explained the whole situation.

The Professors came during lunch and confiscated the broom, promising to return it once they had fully determined if it was curse and tamper free. The betrayed look on Harry's face hurt a thousand times more than the hate filled glare that Ron sent her. Couldn't they see she was just trying to keep them safe?!

Hermione spent the rest of the day alone, save for a few scant minutes when Crookshanks deigned to grace Hermione with his presence. She was sure to dutifully pet him and lavish him with attention before he went off to do dignified cat things.

Half-kneazle things, she supposed, if the pet store owner was to be believed. Hermione despaired at being so lonely and bored after only a few hours that she became that pedantic. It seemed that the whole of Hogwarts was out to ostracize her. Apparently, the Firebolt was a bigger deal than she had anticipated.

She was pleasantly surprised to receive support from an unexpected ally at dinner that evening.

Hermione was delighted to see that Ginny left her room that evening looking mostly normal. She was a little pale, and Hermione would never mention how her face looked slightly splotched or her eyes were too red. Hermione knew intimately what a well cried face looked like, and she never liked it when her parents had drawn attention to it. She doubted Ginny would appreciate it either.

Ron, in his everlasting genius, was talking loudly about how unfair it was and how some people were just so full of themselves. His words cut deep, but Hermione steeled herself against them. She and Ron had always had an explosive friendship; it was the fact that Harry didn't defend her which stung her the most.

Ginny had evidently had enough and scooted down the table to be closer to Hermione. Perceptive as she was, she must have noticed the three weren't sitting together.

"What is he going on about now?" Ginny whispered, voice hoarse and raspy. Oh yes, definitely the voice of someone who'd cried so hard their throat had gone raw. Hermione just gave her a watery smile.

"Harry got a last-minute present in the post this morning. Unknown owl, unmarked package. No clue who it was from. It was a Firebolt, apparently. I told McGonagall about it, and she confiscated it to check it for curses."

Ron had gone on and one about how much his sister loved Quidditch, so she fully expected her to side with them, to blame her for defiling a rare and beautiful artifact of the holy sport known as Quidditch. She also knew Ginny harbored quite the little crush on Harry with his 'Eyes as green as a fresh pickled toad.'

So Hermione was rather shocked when Ginny narrowed her eyes, turned her head, and hissed.

It was a sound nearly exactly like the ones that Hermione had heard Harry make the year before. It was a sound virtually identical to the ones she heard in a few of the nightmares she'd had over the summer. It was a sound indistinguishable from the one she'd heard last year before she was petrified.

She knew that Ginny had been possessed. Knew that Ginny had opened the Chamber. She'd done her best to forgive Ginny, to remember it wasn't her fault, or barring that just forget the whole ordeal. But it wasn't until that moment that she understood exactly how deeply affected by the whole ordeal Ginny had been. The look on her face had morphed, and she seemed to almost be a different person entirely as her visage twisted into one of pure seething anger.

Ginny stood, abruptly, and marched over to her brother and Harry. She quickly, deftly, and harshly smacked Ron across the back of his head.

"Morgana's saggy left tit, but I knew you were stupid. Honest, I thought it was mostly ignorance and selfishness. But apparently, Ronald, you are not only unfailingly obtuse, you must also be willingly, purposefully simple minded! Because Merlin knows that's the ONLY reason I can think of that when an unmarked, surprise package comes flying through the BLOODY WINDOW, your first thought would be anything other than 'Oh, look, a perfect opportunity for someone to attack us with a cursed object.'"

Ginny was heaving now, and most of the Great Hall was staring at her. She looked around, noticed the crowd of admirers, and grimaced at the way the room seemed to be holding its breath. She grabbed Ron by the robes and pulled him close and whispered something in his ear.

To Hermione, who had been edging closer and closer during the whole tirade, it sounded suspiciously like a hissed "Because none of us have ever been attacked with a cursed object by madmen before, have we?!"

Ginny shoved him away from her, looking down on him as though he was little more than one of the bugs Professor Snape had them crush in potions class. She turned her head to Harry, stared for a moment, and only uttered, softly "I expected better."

She spared her other three brothers a mere glance, and a sneer, before she stormed out of the Great Hall. Fred muttered "Merlin, it's like a smaller, meaner version of Mum." George just flinched with each step Ginny took as she fled the Great Hall. Percy resolutely looked away, back to the Ravenclaw girl he was talking to.

In watching their reactions, stunned and mouth agape, Hermione barely noticed a small, blonde Ravenclaw getting up to follow Ginny. Hermione took it as a cue to follow as well. Sadly, by the time she'd reached the hallway leading the Great Hall, the two girls had disappeared. Hermione desperately wanted to thank them but hadn't a clue where they had gone. What's more, she'd quite honestly lost her appetite, and refused to head back to dinner.

She didn't think for a moment that Ginny had been standing up for her, but it was certainly nice to have someone agree with her. It was a nice ray of sunlight in what had otherwise been an overcast and dreary day.

It was early the next morning when Hermione went about her mission to find Ginny. She had seen Harry and Ron giving her short, furtive glances all throughout the evening in the Common Room, but she wasn't going to make it easy for them. If they wanted to apologize, she'd accept it, certainly, but they needed to actually apologize. She needed to hear them say the words.

She stopped short quickly after starting her search, however, when she realized she had no idea where to begin looking for Ginny. Breakfast, she decided, would be the most likely place. Even though she'd woken up early, however, it appeared she hadn't risen early enough. Ginny hadn't been in her Dormitory when she'd checked, and she hadn't been at breakfast, either.

Her next thought was the Quidditch pitch, but it was so cold out that she doubted even a diehard Quidditch fanatic would brave the winter morning. Feeling slightly defeated, she decided on a quick jaunt to the Library. She didn't hold out much hope that Ginny would be there studying or doing homework, but it was the only other place she could think of.

To Hermione's surprise, Ginny was in the library. She was huddled at a corner table with the blonde girl who had followed her out of dinner the evening before. They were rather furiously discussing the book in front of them, and Hermione was reticent to approach. Nothing ventured, nothing gained she thought as she firmed up her resolve.

"Ah, excuse me? Ginny?"

The redhead's hair swished as she flicked her gaze up to peer at Hermione. She furrowed her brow slightly, and responded simply "Yeah?"

Hermione did her level best to not fidget as she murmured "I was wondering, if you wouldn't mind terribly, if I might spend some time with you? While I study? It's only, I ever so appreciate you standing up for me last night, even though I know it wasn't for me, for me, so much as it was-."

"Yeah, that's fine." Ginny had glanced at the blonde Ravenclaw, and although the Ravenclaw hadn't said anything, her slow blink had apparently meant something to Ginny.

Hermione was momentarily angry at being interrupted, but also rather glad. She knew quite well she had a tendency to babble when nervous and she didn't want to make a bad first impression on the blonde. She sat, and there were a few moments of rather awkward silence, as the conversation the two girls had been having before didn't seem to resume itself.

Hermione fell back on old habits. She turned to the blonde girl and gave her the best smile she could muster.

"Hello! I'm Hermione Granger, and it's a pleasure to meet you."

"I'm Luna Lovegood. I haven't any complaints about meeting you so far. I rather like your moxie."

Hermione was momentarily taken aback at the rather unusual word, but Ginny just rolled her eyes. "Luna, you don't need to use every new word you read in a foreign book."

"But if I don't use them, then they'll be lonely sitting all alone in a book that was written overseas. It's a public service. Besides, you know Niggling Pulsaptera have rather exotic appetites."

Hermione tried desperately to recall any creature by that name, magical or otherwise, but simply hadn't the foggiest idea. "I'm sorry, but what's a Niggling Pulsaptera?"

Luna's face lit up and Ginny groaned and wiped a hand down her face. Hermione was sure she heard her mutter "Now you've done it." as Luna began to babble at a pace that, in all honesty, impressed even Hermione.

"They're a small, magical subspecies of beetle! They're known to be quite pesky; they burrow in books and scrolls, often found in libraries as a result, and their diet mainly consists of the written word. They're distantly related to Bookworms, or at least I believe so, but Bookworms actually feed of the ambient magic in the paper or book itself, whereas Niggling Pulsaptera feed off the magic inherent in the word. BUT! They're known to have exotic appetites; they prefer the less commonly used words. So the more I say a word, like 'moxie,' which was coined and mostly used overseas, the less likely it is that the word gets eaten by Niggling Pulsaptera that live here in the Scotland! I've always wondered why there's so few in the Hogwarts library - it's a veritable feeding ground for them, or so I'd assume."

The small bundle of information cocked her head slightly and turned to Ginny. "You don't think Pince is in on it, do you? Finds some of the darker, more esoteric books, and feeds them to the beetles so they stay away from the ones she's willing to let us see? A rather suspicious lack of Pulsaptera leads me to believe we might need to investigate it."

Ginny was about to respond, when Hermione finally managed to interrupt. During Luna's whole diatribe, her shock had morphed into a mounting horror at the idea of a race of magical creatures which ate words out of books. It was anathema to everything she held dear!

"This is all rather fascinating. I've never heard of such a dreadful creature! Devouring the written word is, well, it's rather terrifying. Would I find their entry in my Monster Book of Monsters for Care of Magical Creatures? Or should I check Scamander's work?"

Luna just looked at her queerly, and said "Oh, I doubt you'd find it in either of those. But if you like, the Quibbler did an article on them a while back. I could likely find the back issue for you, if you like?"

There was a quality to Luna's voice, and it caused Hermione to bite back her initial retort of Oh, so then it was just a joke? She instantly felt like the butt of the joke again, the bookworm, the know-it-all, bushy-haired beaver of primary school. Of course, the pretty blonde girl wasn't talking about a real magical creature, she was probably talking about one that was made up. Maybe even one she made up on the spot; it was well known, in Hogwarts as it was in Hermione's muggle primary school, that she was more than a bit of a bookworm.

It was just the sort of thing that Sarah from down the road might have done back home. Make something up and pretend to be excited about it, then when Hermione also expressed interest, mock her endlessly for it.

But Luna didn't sound mocking as she talked about The Quibbler. She didn't sound like the girls and boys who used to call her names. She sounded more like Hermione used to, before Harry and Ron, when she'd tried to talk about her most recent favorite book with one of her classmates.

The hard-eyed glare that Ginny was giving her surely didn't have a lick to do with her decision, either. Most definitely not.

So she bit back her response, her biting words of defense and criticism to keep out the hurt, and instead asked unsurely "I've heard that The Quibbler is a rather… unorthodox paper. That they're rather, uhm, liberal? Yes, liberal with their sources of information."

Luna considered for a moment, then ventured "No more so than the Daily Prophet, I wager. Have you read some of their thoughts on the whereabouts of Sirius Black? Atrocious, I'd say."

Hermione couldn't really fault her for that. At the very least, the Daily Prophet seemed at least a little sensationalized. Surely, Sirius Black was a crazed madman, and he was definitely dangerous. But the Daily Prophet had ran two articles a few days apart claiming that he had been sighted on the same day, at the same time, in two different places!

"But that doesn't mean that some of The Quibbler's more exotic articles are any less preposterous, does it? I mean, I wouldn't know of course, I've never read the paper. It's just something I've heard about. I wouldn't want to use them as a reference in a school paper, as an example, if it weren't going to be taken seriously by my professor."

It was the glare on Luna's face, the cold look she'd levelled at Hermione that had made her backtrack and rationalize her statement so quickly. Hermione was sitting with them in the hopes of finding new friends, or at least study partners. She didn't want to alienate them quite so quickly!

Luna's mouth was pursed in an odd moue, almost as though she'd bitten a lemon, with scrunched up eyebrows and nose, when suddenly she smiled. It was a sharp smile, and Hermione had a moment of fallen hope, realizing she'd likely lost their friendship and was about to made fun of. Instead, what words left the girl's mouth soared her spirits nearly as high as they'd flown when she'd first heard she was a witch.

"And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione, / How thou lovest us, show in our brother's welcome; / Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap: / Next to thyself and my young rover, he's / Apparent to my heart." the girl whispered so softly that Hermione nearly didn't hear her. But she did hear it, and she wasn't making it up.

It was Shakespeare!

When Hermione had first gone to school, it had been without the benefit of having any friends. With both her parents working together in the same dental practice, she had often been left with a nanny. Her nanny was a young, sweet college student named Melinda. She'd been ever so wonderful, but not very good at scheduling play dates. Worse, she generally avoided going to the park due to the rather nasty glares she got when the other mother's assumed she'd had a teenage pregnancy.

So Hermione and Melinda had stayed inside and played puzzles and reading and make pretend together. That suited Hermione just fine; she rather enjoyed playing Dentist with Melinda, and Melinda always had fun new puzzles.

Yet when she'd gone to attend school, no one had wanted to play Dentist with her. She was faster than the other children at completing the puzzles, and they were reading so slowly! Still, she tried to be polite, and play their games, and read at their pace, and she never finished her puzzle first.

It was to be her first exposure to the cruel truths of the world; that often times there are bullies, and that they were mean and insensitive. Worse, bullies didn't need a reason to be mean. Hermione's first day of school had ended in tears after the girl's had mocked her, mercilessly, for her "dumb name that no one even knows how to say," even though she had made an effort to be kind to them.

She had gone home, sobbing and wailing to her parents, begging to know why they'd given her such an atrocious name. They had, in response, produced a book. A beautiful book, bound in leather and emblazoned with stark gold lettering.

Inside were many different stories, but the one they showed her and spent the whole evening reading to her had been The Winter's Tale.

Hermione had cried anew, but not due to bullies. Hermione had realized she'd been named after a queen. A beautiful, kind, loving, wonderful queen who everybody loved, and who had come back to life at the end. She had, with this in mind, devoured all of Shakespeare's works. She didn't understand all of them, and her parents hadn't let her read some until she was older because the jokes 'weren't appropriate.' But her diligence had paid off, and she'd become closely acquainted with her namesake's author's works.

It was from then on that any time she'd had a particularly bad day at school with the bullies that she would cheer herself up by reading one of Shakespeare's plays or sonnets, either by herself or with her parents. This morphed into quoting competitions, where her parents (avid lovers of Shakespeare themselves) would compete with her to see who could recall the best quote, or stump the other two with which play or sonnet the quote was from. Proving you knew a quote by finishing the line was the best way to prove you knew it, and so quote competitions were a common occurrence in the Granger household.

So it was many long years of ingrained training and repetition that caused Hermione's nearly automatic response.

"If you would seek us, / We are yours i' the garden: shall's attend you there?"

Hermione's hand flew to her mouth, and she just knew that she'd ruined this. Nobody liked a know-it-all! The one time she had done this with Harry and Ron, she'd horribly hurt Ron's feelings. He'd been rather clever and referenced a quote from the Wizarding version of A Christmas Carol (which Ron wouldn't admit, but Hermione was quite sure had been plagiarized) and she'd just happily finished the quote. He'd grumbled at her for a week about it.

Instead, to Hermione's utter shock, Luna continued to smile a pleased smile, the smile of the cat which not only caught but devoured the canary, and did something Hermione never expected to happen in Hogwarts, or honestly anywhere outside of her own home.

She followed up with another quote!

"She is spread of late / Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!"

"What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now / I am for you again: pray you, sit by us, / And tell 's a tale."

"Merry or sad shall't be?"

"As merry as you will."

"A sad tale's best for winter: I have one / Of sprites and goblins."

Just as Hermione was about to respond, Luna abruptly interrupted her and pivoted "All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely players."

And although yes, that was rude, Hermione was having too much fun, and was a bit too busy being nostalgic for home to notice or care over much. Instead, she paused for a moment, closed her eyes, muttered the line back to herself, then smiled as the rest of the scene came to her.

"They have their exits and their entrances, / And one man in his time plays many parts, / His acts being seven ages." Hermione paused then. She was in the middle of a line, but if she continued, she might go on forever! Luna had started off at a rather wordy line, and unlike with her parents, Hermione wasn't positive of the rules of this game.

Hermione was relieved, and excited, as Luna's smile grew wider, almost predatory, and she pivoted again. Hermione had to close her eyes as Luna spoke to keep up with her, so quickly did she switch scenes and quotes!

"No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even / The natural fool of fortune. Use me well. / You shall have ransom. Let me have surgeons. / I am cut to th' brains."

In that moment, it didn't matter if Madam Pince heard them, or they were kicked out. This was fun in a way Hermione only rarely got to experience at Hogwarts.

"You shall have anything."

"This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once."

Ah, that tricky witch. Not quoting the whole line in an attempt to throw her off? But Hamlet was a house favorite, and Hermione was often allowed to be Ophelia. It did not throw her off for even a moment.

"Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so."

"You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not."

It was at that line that Hermione paused. There was some quality in Luna's voice, a mixture of probing and pleading, that Hermione didn't recognize. She had mostly been quoting from habit, long lines entrenched in her mind through repetition. But at Luna's most recent utterance, Hermione took just a few moments to sit back. To think. To parse through the quotes they'd thrown about, and it was with a dawning understanding in her eyes that she murmured:

"I was the more deceived."

"'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.'"

"'Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, / How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself, / (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet, / To put an antic disposition on).'"

They both paused then, Hermione and Luna, bushy brown frizz and ethereal blonde locks, rich amber locked on glinting blue, a creeping flush versus a composed porcelain.

"Is not the truth the truth?" Hermione ventured when Luna seemed unable, or unwilling, to continue their tete-a-tete.

Luna lightly hmmmed to herself, and held out a hand, making a so-so gesture. "Though I am not naturally dishonest, I am sometimes so by chance."

Hermione frowned at that. It wasn't a direct quote, but she got the meaning well enough. She opened her mouth to continue, when she was interrupted by a loud THUNK. She and Luna both turned their heads in surprise, to see Ginny's head firmly attached to the table.

"Here lies Ginevra Weasley, survived by her too large family. Her death was caused by terminal confusion, mostly from being subjected to two ridiculously smart witches. One, she could handle, but two was more than any mortal could be expected to suffer through. So brave, so strong, so true. Also, she died from a terrible first name. Alas, we hardly knew ye."

"Just WHAT do you think you are doing?!" All three girls jumped, and Hermione turned in horror to face one of the few adults in the school who she could categorically describe as both her favorite AND her least favorite.

"I will not have you disturbing my library!" the pinch-faced librarian hissed. "Out! All of you, out! And don't come back till tomorrow!"

The three hastily gathered up their belongings and scurried out as quickly as they could. There was a moment of bated breath between them as they all stared at each other outside the library. Later on, Hermione wouldn't be able to say who had started it, but all three ended up bowled over laughing their hardest.

After a long, stressful, and frankly terrifying third year, Hermione only though I forgot how good it was to laugh.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Luna murmured "I haven't done that in a long time. My Mum used to read Shakespeare to me, when I was growing up. 'Magic is more than waving a wand and saying a spell. It's in the beauty we manage to find and make for ourselves.' Shakespeare was a squib, you know. He grew up around magic, and though he couldn't cast a spell, my Mum argued he was one of the best wizards ever born."

"Your Mum sounds like a very wise woman." Hermione offered.

"Yes, she most definitely was."

The somber silence that fell over them, muffling their echoing laughter under its depressive oppression was rather symbolic for the entirety of their year, if Hermione did say so herself. Brief flashes of enjoyment to be found in an otherwise terrifying time.

The rest of their break was not nearly as eventful. Apparently, Luna and Ginny had accepted her, and if she was honest with herself, she enjoyed the change of pace.

She loved her boys, she really did, but they weren't always the most intellectually stimulating. Ron would much rather goof off or procrastinate, and Harry often followed his lead. And no, chess at all hours of the day did not count as intellectual stimulation. At least, not past the first game or two.

But Luna and Ginny kept her on her toes. They referenced books and talked about things from class in addition to other inane topics, and it managed to be a wonderful blend of schoolwork and idle chitchat that Hermione had never managed to reach with her boys or her dorm mates.

Even better, they didn't talk about Quidditch once!

Honestly, considering the fact that the two girls not only noticed but were also willing to explain the few mishaps where Hermione's Muggleborn background led to misunderstandings, she felt she was almost taking advantage of the two. She desperately wished she had something she could give them, something she could do to show her appreciation for them so easily adding her to their small group.

She almost, nearly, so so close, told them about the Time Turner. But even that was a little selfish, as just a way to spend more time with her new girlfriends.

Huh. She had never had 'girlfriends' before, and she'd found she rather enjoyed it.

But it was as she walked up to their regular library tables on one of their last days before the end of the holiday that her opportunity arose.

"I know you think we need it in time, but we don't. I really doubt that every single person who has ever participated in one of these rituals has known this extremely obscure and difficult branch of magic." Ginny's voice was filled with all the scorn a loving friendship could fling, which was surprisingly quite a lot.

"Well, yes, but I also doubt that 'every single person who has ever participated in one of these rituals' has gotten away scot free without any damages."

"You're the one who's always saying correlation isn't causation, and anyways I don't even think that's a correlation! Those two things might not even be related!"

"Oh, pooh on you."

"She's right, you know." Hermione finally interrupted, a light smile resting on her lips. "You didn't prove that those two things were correlated at all, let alone a discussion about cause."

The two girls looked up at her, startled by her appearance at their table. Not that it was uncommon; Ginny and Luna were just so deep in conversation they hadn't noticed her. Ginny shuffled some of the books and papers about with a huge triumphant grin on her face as Luna said:

"I think I liked it better when I was the only smart one around here."

"Oi!"

"Yes, well" Hermione ignored Ginny's outburst, as did Luna "at the very least you now have someone else to bounce ideas off of? What are you arguing about, anyways?"

"I'll give you both something to bounce off of." Ginny grumbled as she crossed her arms and glared.

"That's a terrible threat. This is why we're the smart ones." Hermione was doing everything in her power to keep her smirk in check.

"Obviously." Luna piped in, her smirk no less constrained.

"You're going to get us kicked out again, and then where will you be, huh smarty-pants'?" Ginny stuck out her tongue.

"Actually, you're the one who mostly gets us kicked out. And once again, I have to ask: what were you talking about?"

Ginny and Luna had one of their silent conversations then, a quick staring contest that either contained a million meanings, or none at all. Hermione was never sure. Eventually, Ginny nodded, and Luna turned to explain.

"We're planning a ritual. We wanted to celebrate Samhain last October, but that was ruined for obvious reasons. We're planning on Imbolc this February 1st." Luna leaned in close, almost conspiratorially, and stage whispered "Ginny saw the Egyptian Solstice Ritual last summer. At Dendera."

Hermione looked confused for a moment, before venturing "Is that a big deal?"

Luna groaned as Ginny gave a smug smile and said "I told you she wouldn't know it. It's a dying part of our culture, how could you expect her to know?"

"Because I saw a cadre of Zeitwarmles! How could I see that, and not be hopeful!"

"Maybe you were hopeful about the wrong thing?" Hermione was still on the fence about the whole 'imaginary magical creatures that Luna can't prove exists, but Hermione can't technically disprove them either, so let's all treat them as real' situation. But at least Luna had made a few good points, and Hermione had gotten a new 'quote-buddy' out of it.

Luna just nodded morosely. "I s'pose." Then she perked up. "But now I get to tell you about it! Many different magical cultures still follow some of the old religions. Mostly, this is an excuse to practice the old rituals that go along with those religions. Many witches believe that the old religions were actually ruses created by our ancestors to get the muggles to willingly accept our magic as natural and acceptable. Some others believe instead that many ancient religions were co-opted, and it was only with the rise of certain monotheistic religions which vilified witchcraft that the two, religion and magic, became antithetical." Luna was in full fervor now, full of passion, and Hermione was right there along with her.

Ginny looked on in amusement with a soft-hearted smile.

"That's rather fascinating. So do some witches or wizards still actively practice, or believe in these ancient religions? Which are most prominent? If it's still prominent, why haven't I seen any druids or other religious movements around?"

"Mostly due to Hogwarts and, well, muggleborns. After the Great Separation, and the invention of the Statute of Secrecy, things began to change. As muggles, and by extension muggleborns, moved their society forward, and relied less on the religion of their forefathers and more on science and technology, holidays and religions changed drastically as well. Muggleborns, especially in the early years, had an intense fear of anything 'pagan,' and so we were forced to adapt or throw out the muggleborns and stagnate even further as a society. We adapted. Mostly."

Hermione looked conflicted at that, as though she didn't enjoy all the implications involved in that interpretation but couldn't necessarily refute them. She decided, instead, to push on.

"So you're going to be holding a celebration? Performing a ritual? Don't you think that's a little dangerous to do without supervision or preparation?"

Luna seemed to take this as a rallying point to her argument. "You see? We need to take the proper precautions. It's dangerous!" Her arms gestured wildly in what was vaguely Hermione's direction.

Ginny just rolled her eyes. "She means getting a teacher involved."

Luna pouted in response "Semantics and details. The point is, I don't think we should work on it until we've for sure learned Occlumency enough to be safe. You said yourself that just watching the ritual at Dendera was an emotional experience. Imagine how directly feeling all that emotion might be inside the ritual!"

"You can't honestly believe that every single witch or wizard to ever perform the rituals at Imbolc knew Occlumency. That's crazy! Besides, you know I'm rubbish at meditation! We were willing to do the old ritual without knowing Occlumency, I don't see what the problem is now!" She muttered under her breath "And I'd rather be practicing those divination throws anyways."

"Because I didn't know about it then, but I do now!" Luna flopped back into her chair, letting the breath rush out of herself.

"Ah, two things." Hermione broke in. "Firstly, why in the world would you want to practice divination? I'm taking it now, and I can tell you for certain, I won't be taking it next year. I'll finish the year, of course, but it's just so-. Well. It's a rather wooly subject, don't you agree?"

Luna just blinked at her and answered before Ginny had a chance to. "Well of course it's a wooly subject. It's divination." She said this with such certainty and aplomb that Hermione was shocked. Professor McGonagall had said the same thing, it was actually where Hermione had gotten the phrase, but unlike her professor there was no scorn in Luna's voice.

At Hermione's obvious lack of comprehension, Luna continued. "Divination is the art of determining the threads which make up the weave of the world. The Fates in ancient myths are known for spinning, measuring, and cutting the threads of destiny. Of course over the course of all of time that has ever existed at least some of those threads would be wool. Saying divination is a wooly subject is just as true as saying it's a rather silky subject."

Luna frowned, before she continued. "Do you suppose they also have, er, what's the muggle word? Those blended threads, the very soft ones? PolySylvester? I suppose they might, but can muggles be the focus of a divination?"

"They can, actually." Ginny jumped in.

Hermione was thoroughly lost, at this point, and resigned herself to being along for the ride. When the two other girls got going on a topic, they were like the Hogwarts Express; a fast, nearly unstoppable blend of scarlet and gold.

"They can't, of course, make divinations themselves, but wizards and witches can make divinations or find answers to questions being posed by muggles. And muggles have, in the past, been at the center of Prophecies. So I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least a bit of Poly-" she looked over at Hermione for assurance "ester? Polyester mixed in with the rest of the threads of fate."

"How in the world do you know all of that? It wasn't mentioned anywhere in my textbook, and Trelawney hasn't even broached the topic! It's been all "tea leaves" this and "your rabbit is going to die a terrible death" that. Or worse, the ever popular "Harry Potter is secretly a grim in disguise and will die a terrible horrible death!"

"There seems to be a lot of dying in your divination class. Have you considered divining less death?" Luna inquired.

"Tell it to Trelawney." Hermione grumbled.

"Regardless, it was mostly out of this book." Ginny slid a tome entitled Looking Behind to See Ahead: The Lost Art of Divination by Cecilie Aisling. Then she crooked a smile and slid another book across. "And just because I know you'll ask about it soon enough."

The second book, much thinner, was entitled The Inner Peace, The Outer Prosperity. It had no listed author and was rather ragged looking.

"We think that one was supposed to be in the restricted section, but we found it by the section on Merpeople Rebellions. A rather small section, to be sure, but as we didn't break any rules to get it, it's ours now." Her smile was sharp and jagged, but Hermione couldn't bring herself to care. These both looked like wonderful finds.

Hermione's attention was firmly placed on the book about divination. A brief perusal of the table of contents showed that most of the methods were different from Unfogging the Future. And not all of them dealt with seeing the future or making predictions. Some, or more honestly most, of the book seemed to be dealing with questions of what is or what was.

"Where did you find this?! This looks ever so much more useful than the garbage we're learning now!"

"Uhm, in the library? Where else does one find new and interesting books?" Luna was so matter of fact, it sometimes made Hermione want to pull her hair straight out!

"Yes, but where in the library!"

"Oh, I don't recall. We were looking for information about Imbolc, shortly after Samhain hadn't worked out. There's a chapter on it in there, and some of the divinations that used to be performed with or adjacent to different celebratory rituals."

"Wait a moment, what was the second thing you wanted to say, Hermione? We sort of just barreled right over you." Ginny brought the conversation back to center.

"Oh, yes. That. Sorry. Just that, uhm. Well, if you wanted the help, I have some experience with meditation. Not a lot, mind!" She waved her hands to ward off their hungry glares. "Just, you know, it was something my parents thought might help me calm down at school when I got too anxious about… a test. Or something."

She trailed off, and she could feel the two younger girls' eyes on her, but neither one said anything, for which she was grateful. Not even Harry and Ron knew how badly the students had bullied her before Hogwarts. Well, she had a suspicion that Harry had something of a good idea, but she was sure neither of them would force the issue.

"Does that sound like a good compromise, then, Luna? We practice with Hermione, but do the ritual regardless of how far we get?"

"Well, she is known for her rather intense study schedules. I suppose if she can't get us in good shape, no one could."

Hermione just smiled and opened up what was likely to be one of her new favorite books for the rest of term.