AN: Why hello there, dear readers. Another month, another chapter, and another bad habit continued. Right now I'm waiting for TGCWW and Homestuck to update, so while I'm doing that I might as well give you all something for the wait as well. Hussie said to expect his update in about a week, but I have no idea when Kurai will be gracing us all with more of her writing :( Now, I would like to thank Kriszti for, as usual, motivating me to update again (read: saying nice things about my writing and kicking around ideas :D). Also, RielleB baked me some cyber cookies to feed my lifeless muse, which I really wish were real cookies but still made me smile. You should all go read their stories and send them lots of nice reviews, assuming you haven't already. Lyrics are from Planet Hell by Nightwish.

-Ophelia

Denying the lying

A million children fighting

For lives in strife

For hope beyond the horizon

A dead world

A dark path

Not even crossroads to choose from

"I don't know, Hermione, I really don't think we can trust her on this…"

"Neville's right, you know. What's keeping her from breaking her promise? You didn't do any kind of magical bond, did you? Probably not an Unbreakable Vow, but a basic honesty charm or something?" Ginny gazed at me beseechingly, but her face fell when I shook my head slowly in response. Beside her, Neville's frown deepened. They were sitting on Lavender's bed, Neville sitting up rigidly straight while Ginny sat with her legs curled up against her chest and her head resting on her knees.

"So, you're just counting on her word on this, and that's it? It's not good enough, it really isn't."

I sighed. Almost immediately after waking up that morning, I had been cornered in the dormitory by Neville and Ginny, demanding to know where I had vanished to the previous night. From there, they had coaxed the whole story out of me and began to scrutinize every detail of our once-private discussion. The pair had been shocked to hear me recount your outrageous mood swings, but then Ginny had fallen off the bed laughing when I grudgingly described the… ah, suggestive... comments you had also made. Even Neville cracked a smile despite his discomfort at finding himself once more in the girl's dormitory, and despite his understandable hesitancy to find anything you say humorous. I had blushed furiously, glowering at the pair of them as Ginny crawled back up onto the bed and they both tried to contain themselves. However, it had been the last comment you had made that night which had them the most intrigued- and the most suspicious.

"I wish you had asked one of us to come with you to talk to her," Neville said earnestly.

Ginny smirked. "Yeah, she should have. After all, how can we expect her to make rational decisions when she gets so flustered over her own fiancée talking to her, perhaps reminding her of what usually happens the night after-"

"Oh, stop it!" I cried, my face burning as I hid it behind my hands. Neville and Ginny burst out laughing, clutching their sides as they doubled over. After a few long moments, it became quite clear that they were having too much fun to listen to me anymore. I removed my hands to glare at them, but if they noticed me, they did not acknowledge it. It was bad enough that they found my awkward embarrassment so funny the first time I told them, but to carry on with a joke at my expense… Their laughter echoed around the small dormitory, drowning out my annoyed sighs and the impatient drumming of my fingers on the bedside table.

"Look, I know I can trust her," I said loudly. Neville stopped laughing, but Ginny let a few stray giggles slip out. Perhaps my tone was sharper than I had expected, for she gave me a reproachful look after the last of her giggling. "I know I can trust her," I repeated, now that I had their attention. "If she breaks her promise, if she hurts somebody ever again, then I won't stop the Order from killing her. She won't allow that to happen."

"She only promised not to break the law, not to stop hurting people," Neville pointed out fairly.

Ginny nodded earnestly, leaning forward towards me. "Do you really think she can't find a way to hurt somebody without the Cruciatus Curse? She was – is – a Death Eater, and a damn good one. C'mon, you know what she's done. She knows more than one way of destroying someone." Her gaze swept almost imperceptibly down to the scar on my neck; I would not have noticed had I not been watching her so carefully. I lightly touched the scar with my fingertips, closing my eyes. Thin and white, it was my trophy from my quality time with you at your sister's mansion. Ginny didn't need to say more, I could remember well enough how you had threatened to tear me apart with that knife, how your very presence was enough of a weapon that you hardly needed your wand to instill fear. You had held me in place, but you didn't need to, my legs were weak and my mind foggy from the pain. Oh the pain, the endless burning and stabbing and slashing that existed only in my mind… How I had longed to die, I would have done anything to make it end, anything at all. If you had first asked me to marry you right then, right as you brought your wand down and the burning began and those terrible screams were ripped from my throat, if you had said that only as your wife the pain would end… I would have said yes. I would have done it, I would have done anything for you, anything to make it stop.

I opened my eyes once more with a sudden start, as if waking from a dream. Neville and Ginny stared at me, every hint of their previous laughter wiped clean off their faces. Neville looked more solemn than I had ever seen him before, his mouth set in a hard line and his jaw clenched, his face still heavily scarred with the marks from the Carrows' many punishments. Ginny looked pale and old beyond her years, her face devoid of its usual mischievous grin. I did not doubt that I hardly looked better myself, and we all stared at each other in a heavy silence, broken only by Ginny shaking her head violently. Her face seemed to be shrouded in flames as her vivid hair whipped across it, and the sudden movement seemed to jolt life back into us.

"Just answer me this, Hermione," she whispered hoarsely. "Do you think she's changed since the end of the war? Do you think she's a better person now?"

The ashamed 'No' began to roll off my tongue when I thought better of it. "Not yet," I told her with as much confidence as I could muster. She raised an eyebrow but remained silent. "I'm saving her life, and she's spending the rest of it at my side whether we like it or not. She better shape up if she knows what's good for her." I crossed my arms and sat up straight, determined to look as serious as I felt. There were few other things that roused such conviction in me; S.P.E.W., exposing Rita Skeeter, and now saving your life. I would not be responsible for your death, I simply would not.

Neville cracked a smile, the first he had worn in several long minutes. "Well said, Hermione. That bitch may be crazy but she sure isn't stupid." Ginny frowned at him, then at me.

"I think we need a second opinion," she said, sharing a meaningful look with Neville. He nodded.

"Luna, what do you think of this?" he asked, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a Galleon, which he pressed on with his thumb. It seemed to emit a faint blue glow for a split second, but before I could get a better look, it returned to normal, the gold glinting in the sunlight streaming in from the open window. He looked back at me and smiled, holding out the coin for my inspection. "It's the same as the Galleons you gave us back in the D.A., but with a few changes."

I turned the golden coin over in my fingers, peering closely at the edge, where I had originally enchanted the numbers to change. I felt more than just a touch of pride that they were still working with my idea long after the original D.A. had been forced to shut down and examined the Galleon eagerly to see how the system had been improved. I pulled out my wand, pointing it at the coin and muttering "Specialis Revelio". Neville and Ginny grinned at each other when the coin did not react in any way. I smiled too; it was impossible to resist a nice challenge like this, especially one that did not threaten my life if it wasn't solved quickly. It took a few more minutes of tinkering and half a dozen more spells to determine how the coin had been altered, and I looked back up at the pair in surprise. "It exchanges spoken messages as well as just changing the numbers on the edge, and you've put a lot of trouble into hiding the spells. So this is what you used against those Death Eaters all year? It's brilliant, it really is. You've made it into a telephone."

Neville frowned. "A what?"

Ginny laughed, shaking her head at him. "It's a Muggle communication device, Dad has one. He's very proud of it, but Mum doesn't know that it's there. He keeps it in his shed." I laughed too; that sounded just like Mr. Weasley.

Neville shrugged. "Oh, all right then. But you get what it does, then?" I nodded, and he sat up straighter, delighted to receive praise for a change. "Yeah, I thought it was brilliant too. It was my idea, so we could send longer messages."

Ginny also looked rather pleased with herself. Then her expression turned somber. "If someone got in trouble with the Carrows, they could activate the coin in their pocket so that everything that they said would be recorded without being noticed. Then they would send the message out and everyone would know exactly what happened. It's not the kind of thing you would want to have to listen to, you know, but it was important."

"When Luna was captured by the Death Eaters, she had her coin on her. It looked useless, so it wasn't taken away with her wand. She kept in contact with us, and, well…" He took a deep breath, and I guessed what he was going to say before he said it.

"She recorded what she heard happen the night we were captured, didn't she?" I whispered. I felt like something ice cold was settling in my chest; the thought of the entire D.A. listening to my torture all the way to Hogwarts was nothing short of horrific. "But Luna wouldn't actually send that, she wouldn't do something like that," I muttered, more to myself.

Neville and Ginny exchanged meaningful glances before turning back to me. "She sent it as it was recording, so we heard everything in real time. She didn't know what would happen next, only that Harry was captured and there was no way out. She was looking for ideas, anything at all. She was desperate." Neville swallowed, looking uncomfortable. "She sent it to everyone at the same time, not just me and Ginny. We could all hear you screaming, it was terrible, we couldn't help…"

I closed my eyes. So, the whole D.A. had heard that, and now they knew that I was engaged to the woman responsible for it. No wonder they took this whole mess so personally. All was quiet for a few minutes while I contemplated the horrible image in my head; all of my friends listening intently to their coin and hearing my agonized shrieks coming from it. Did they hear you yelling too? Did they manage to make any plans, even a small, frantic suggestion? Luna's soft voice jerked me out of my musing.

I opened my eyes again and saw Neville holding up the coin, which was glowing red this time as Luna's voice issued from it. "We need to talk in person, I think. Why don't we go to the Room of Requirement?" The glow faded as I shook my head.

"The Room of Requirement was burned by Feindfyre, it won't be able to repair itself. We can't go there, I don't think we could even – " Neville held up a hand to stop me.

"The message ended, she didn't hear that. Hang on," he said, pressing down on the coin again. The blue glow reappeared and stayed this time. "Ok, say that again, Hermione."

I repeated myself, adding that we probably wouldn't even be able to enter the room. There was a pause after the message sent, then: "Oh, that's too bad. We can just go outside, then, it's a lovely day." I looked out the window; clouds had rolled in over the previously clear skies, dark and threatening rain. "We can go down to the lake, I wanted to say hello to the Merpeople anyway…" Her voice drifted off and the message ended. Ginny glanced out the window as well and sighed.

"Yeah, Luna, a beautiful day…" she grumbled. "Go get your cloaks, then, it looks like we'll be getting wet." She and Neville stood up, grimacing as their sore muscles stretched, and filed out of the dormitory.

The Common Room fell unnaturally silent as I descended the spiral staircase, every unfriendly eye fixed on me. Neville and Ginny came down behind me, cloaks in hand, and each put a hand on my shoulder. "Knock it off, you lot, nothing to see here," Ginny called loudly, her voice cutting through the awkward silence like a knife. The younger students turned away quickly, but the older ones threw me a final disgusted look before slowly returning to their previous activities.
Harry and Ron were not in the room, but the Weasleys were. To my great surprise, they too regarded me with disgust and seemed to ignore Ginny. George's hand even inched towards his wand before Charlie put a hand on his, shaking his head slightly. Only Percy looked sympathetic, but his reunion with his family was too tenuous for him to make waves just yet. "Come on," Ginny muttered to me, casting a scathing look to her siblings before we made our way through the Common Room.

I turned to her as soon as the Fat Lady swung shut behind us. "Ginny, I don't want to cause trouble with your family, there's already too much going on with you," I told her sadly. She shook her head angrily, her jaw set and her expression stubborn. Her brown eyes blazed with fury.

"You're like a sister to me, Hermione. I won't abandon you, no matter what you choose. They just need to deal with that, because I'm not backing down."

Her words touched me; it felt so good to have a friend like her. Of course I loved Harry and Ron, those thick and reckless idiots, but I needed a female friend every once in a while, someone who would never judge me when I try to talk about feelings or anything besides Quidditch. I knew that Ginny felt the same way, growing up with so many brothers, and we had always relished our summers together, just us girls for once. I took her hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, Gin. That means a lot to me." She nodded tersely and we continued down the corridor. "Look, I know we have a lot to talk about, and we haven't said much about anything but the Ministry's law. If you need to talk, like about Fred and Bill, I'm always here for you."

"Me too," Neville added, moving to stand on her other side and take her other hand. "I don't have any siblings to lose, but I know how it must feel."

Ginny took a deep breath, then glanced sideways at me. "Mum and Dad don't want you at the funeral, Hermione," she said quietly.

The words hit me like a physical blow, forcing me to stop in my tracks. "They… what?"

She turned to me, her eyes glinting with unshed tears. "They think you've betrayed us, they believe Ron. They – they told me that they don't want you at the f-funeral. They're holding it next week, at Shell Cottage, where you guys put Dobby. We don't have a family p-plot. We're old enough that we should, but we couldn't a-afford it. Fleur thinks it's a very pretty spot for them to be b-buried." Tears began to fall despite herself and Neville wrapped an arm comfortingly around her shoulder.

I had to agree with Fleur; Dobby's grave was beautiful, overlooking the sea with a riot of spring flowers in bloom over him. Nature was rapidly reclaiming the spot, which was as peaceful a place as any to rest.

I told Ginny this, for she had not gone to see Dobby's grave yet. She nodded gratefully, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. Neville broke the silence after a moment. "Has there been any luck in capturing Greyback yet?" Her face darkened.

"No leads yet," she said grimly. "McGonagall managed to convince Fleur not to go after him herself, though, which she said took ages. You know how she is, all feisty, she didn't want to give up the fight. None of us did, but McGonagall talked us down too. Only trained Aurors are out looking for him."

She began walking again, as though agitated at being kept from a perfectly good fight. Neville and I hurried to keep up as we made our way down the moving staircases. The inhabitants of the paintings did not whisper to themselves as we passed by, and I was grateful that Ron's rumors had not yet reached them. "Funny thing is," she continued, "all the other Death Eaters were riled up that he escaped. They don't seem to think much of him. Everyone who hadn't worked directly under him offered to help the Ministry track down and kill him. Even the Malfoys were all for it, and Bellatrix was furious that she couldn't fight. Seems like he didn't make many friends in the war, even among you-Know-Who's men."

By the time she had finished, we reached the Entrance Hall, which was completely empty. Ginny strode forward and pulled open the doors, then groaned. Rain was coming down in thick sheets, and there was not a trace of sunlight. As we squinted into the gloomy storm, we could make out a lone figure bouncing down the sloping grounds. It could only be Luna; nobody else would be skipping in such weather. Beside me, Neville looked mildly annoyed and Ginny looked amused. "Honestly, Luna…" she muttered, then we stepped out into the downpour.