Disclaimer: Not mine.

Chapter Five: Lamb Amongst Such Fiends

Author's Note: Thanks to Moogles, Kat, Spatula, and all my other encouraging reviewers, I'm glad you all are enjoying the story.

XxXx

It hadn't been raining earlier that evening. At least not in the Room of Requirement. Luna wondered, briefly, if she asked the room to make it rain, would it? She'd have to test that out later.

Luna stood upright lost in the gleaming downpour upon a dark path, the howling dances of midnight's magic screaming its strange rapture all around her. Her arms reached out by their own accord this time away from the beaconing moonlight streaming madly down from between the ghoulish clouds above her as she stood deeply still against the shivering, dripping chill creeping towards her from the depths of the forest. It felt like the entire forest was watching her.

It was time. Pushing her cumbersome hood away from her sodden hair she turned her gaze deeper into the forest's darkness. She could barely see the trees and brush through the shower. Perhaps she should have brought her wand. Though a drying spell wouldn't have lasted long in this. And any light she might summon would stand weak against the hungry, frenzied darkness.

Her wand was nothing more than the mere magic of a half-grown witch. Here, half-wild like this, she was just another creature in the forest. But such deception couldn't last long. She looked around desperately; she needed to find the right bush.

Turning her back on the dark shadows frolicking in the night's torrent, she centered her thoughts and tracked her memories of this place until she was standing frozen behind a lone set of bushes off to the side of the portentous, decrepit oak tree that had as of late been patronizing her dreams with its looming branches. It belonged here no more than she did.

But she focused not on the lifeless swinging of the branches above her tonight, and instead bent over double fishing something hot and throbbing out from among the leaves sheltered by the low brush, before scurrying back towards the borders of the forest. Her twice-discarded lake pebbles now safely hidden in her cloak's pocket.

XxXx

Neville stood looking east out of his dormitory window watching the rain smash up against the glass. His thoughts were too unsettled for sleep. He hated rain, and tonight he was up late, stuck with only it for company. Harry Potter wanted to lead the DA with him. Granted, there were four other officers of the club, but each of them had other roles. He would have thought that Harry would rather have Hermione or Ron lead with him, they were much closer to Harry, and had proven themselves to be so brave and done much more to aid Harry in his struggles than he had ever done.

But it was indeed he, Neville Longbottom who as a child had been worried he would turn out to be squib, who was to lead the DA. Well, help lead anyway. Though exactly how, he wasn't sure.

It was but a quarter past midnight (Gran would surely say he ought to be in bed by now), and he paused in his regard of the darkened, rain-pelted grounds when he saw a small, cloaked girl with glowing, long blonde hair dash out madly from the cover of the gloomy forest. He groaned in disbelief. He knew that lone, crazy girl. Who else would visit the forest during a night storm?

He had hoped that perhaps Hermione's sensible influence would help settle the girl, but apparently the girl hadn't, eh, quite rubbed off yet on the absentminded Ravenclaw. What was she doing in the forest, and in this weather to boot?

He had watched her tonight while he sat practically numb with nerves by Harry's side, playing dreamily, twirling one of those pale tresses about a slim finger during the DA meeting. She always seemed so wistful to Neville, like she didn't quite live in the same plane of existence as he did. He really didn't know where she got some of her ideas, but he read The Quibbler and he could usually see where the fodder for Luna's beliefs came from.

But what would Luna want in the forest? What business could possibly direct her away from the castle into its dangerous terrain in the middle of the night? He stilled suddenly, what if she hadn't wanted anything in the forest? What if she had been taken there against her will, and her mad dash back to the castle was actually her frantic escape?

He searched the school's grounds again, imploring his eyes to make out every hidden detail, but the girl had scurried as quickly out of sight again as she had appeared. He peeked at the shadowy forest one more time, at least it seemed that no one had followed her out of its dark confines.

He quickly grabbed his own cloak and awkwardly swung it over his pajamas. Luna was running awfully fast, maybe something really was wrong. He ought to catch up with her, and make sure she was all right. It would be the Gryffindor thing to do.

Afterall, he knew her, counted her as a friend. Even if she had gone in there willingly, something could still be wrong, or be about to go wrong. She had an alarming tendency to put a rather low priority upon safety when it came to her projects, often disregarding the wellbeing of her health completely.

The absentminded girl was certainly up to something herself or caught up in the affairs of others. He grabbed his own cloak and headed for the stairs.

XxXx

Hermione glanced up from her fireside chair in the Commons Room to find Neville, in a cloak and pajamas, come barreling down the stairs like he had been caught trying to go up into the girls' dormitory. He didn't even see her sitting, with her own cloak blanketed across her knees, alone in the flickering light as he rushed by towards the portrait hole, until she called out to ask him where he was going so noisily after curfew.

"I just saw Luna come running out of the Forbidden Forest. I was just about to go see if she was alright." He threw the words at her over his should before turned swiftly back to the portrait hole as Hermione rolled her eyes, although her face betrayed her sudden worry in its paleness, and she quickly jumped up, leaving her books and revisions scattered in the corner behind her. Hermione was certain that Luna hadn't mentioned any plans to go into the forest tonight after the DA. She certainly didn't ask for help, but Hermione refused to let herself feel hurt for that.

"I suppose we better go fast if we expect to reach her before she makes it down to the Ravenclaw Commons Room", Hermione smiled at Neville and latched her cloak around her neck. He sighed, resigned, and motioned for her to go first as they hurried away from Gryffindor Tower.

XxXx

While Hermione and Neville were anxiously making their way done the staircase from the seventh floor, Luna was by no means heading eagerly back down towards her Commons' Room. People tended to congregate in there for marathon studying bouts which seemed to last all night, and allowed for little privacy. She was heading up instead for her cozy little alcove on the fifth floor.

Her hair was heavy and discomfortingly wet. She had dismissed the angry rain and wind in the forest in her excitement for the mutated pebbles, but inside the calm and stillness of the castle she could certainly feel that her hair hung in tangled; messy bunches sticking out in all directions from her head. It was even dripping water droplets onto her equally damp cloak. She only vaguely remembered it raining among all her other concerns in the forest.

How strange, and now she was a mess. Hanging her head off to one side, she tried to wring the excess water out of her long hair as she hurried up the spiraling staircase. She distractedly realized that she really ought to hurry now; she had no excuse to be out this late after curfew, and even less for being outside. Perhaps nobody would notice her wet hair. Or the wet shoeprints. Or the, eh, twig she just found in her hair. Better perhaps, to hurry.

She was barreling around the last bend in the staircase before the landing on the fifth floor and the safety of her alcove when she ran into something warm, and soft, and stirringly familiar. Feelings similar to those she felt in the forest rang heated peals in her chest. The 'umph' she heard was also familiar, and so was the blush she saw stealing across Hermione's face as the two of them braced each other against the cold stone wall to keep from falling into a mad heap upon the floor. Luna was rather pleased to note that this time, Hermione was the one who found herself pinned closely up against the wall. No escape this time. She shyly offered the girl a rather wet smile, "hello."

"Luna you're soaked right on through! Are you ok?" Hermione picked up a wet wisp of hair that was stuck to Luna's collar to twirl around her finger; she pursed her lips at Luna when small droplets of water streamed down her hand and into her shirtsleeve.

Luna blinked slowly back up at Hermione and sniffled, "I tried to wring it out. Then I ran into you." She wrapped her arms a little securer about the taller girl. "Perfectly fine, thank you."

Hermione stared down at where she could see more droplets clinging to the eyelashes surrounding the girl's large, darkened sleet-colored eyes, she was rather too tired to be trying to get a straight answer out of Luna right now. And due to whatever she had been doing in the forest, Luna was very keyed up. "Did you indeed?" God, she was still holding onto the girl. Hermione knew better, but she didn't let go, not quite yet. The silly chit could have gotten herself hurt or worse out there in the forest chasing any one of her mad schemes.

Hermione really hoped there wasn't any mention of wrackspurts or rigickrops in Luna's explanation of tonight's foray into the dark, besieged forest.

Maybe it would be enough if Hermione could just ensure that the girl made it safely back to her dorm. And stayed there safe, for the rest of the night. She was really tempted to pull out Harry's Marauder's Map and watch to see that she stayed there, but she really didn't want to wake and explain any of this to Harry. That could wait until the morrow. Or even the next afternoon.

As long as Luna wasn't planning on going back out there into the forest tonight, minus a wand too by the looks of it, she could probably try to get the full story out of the girl tomorrow when they were to meet in the library. That idea was sounding more and more appealing, and besides Hermione could feel the girl shiver against her in her wet clothes.

And Hermione was pretty certain that the front of her own cloak, which had stayed safely in the castle this whole evening, was also quite damp.

Neville shuffled his feet behind the two girls who still hadn't let go from colliding into one another. For someone who swore nothing was going on between them, Hermione sure liked to touch this girl. He awkwardly looked back towards the ascending staircase behind them; he really ought to just leave. Hermione, as usual, had everything well under control. And she looked quite happy to handle everything herself as she glanced over Luna's head to smile at him and indicate that he could go on; she'd of course take care of it.

Hermione, of course, was good at taking charge of things. Like potions, for instance, or study sessions. He wondered lightly as he wandered back up to the seventh floor why Hermione hadn't accepted the Headgirl position. He had assumed over the summer that she would take it and had been looking forward to being Headboy and Headgirl with her.

She said she had ended up refusing it because she just couldn't see herself being able to give it the time it deserved. And during the summer, she had said they weren't even sure who, if anyone, would be returning to Hogwarts this year, it was a surprise and a huge relief that Professor McGonagall had managed to keep the school open at all. He looked down behind him at where the two girls were still conversing quietly in each other's arms.

Whether she wanted to deal with anything else on her plate or not, by the looks of it, she would be taking on Luna and all of the oddness and fathomless beliefs that entailed. Neville smiled, Luna was a very sweet girl, he was fond of her, but she had always seemed rather hung up on Hermione. Especially when Hermione disagreed everything that came out of Luna's mouth. Hermione was the only girl he had ever really seen Luna truly argue with, everyone else who scoffed at her ideas usually got dismissed as being too slow as soon as they were even considered. But she had certainly always seemed to care about what Hermione thought.

And then she certainly liked to argue with Hermione; at least she did after Hermione dropped some of the jaggedness of her remarks around Luna. When the two of them weren't taking turns glancing or staring at each other. But Neville was pretty sure that was a more recent development.

They were both rather lonely in the same way, Neville reflected as well. He knew that sometimes Luna had only really put up with his own rather troll like remarks and opinions because she valued him more as a friend rather than a confidant or collaborator. And he knew she certainly wasn't about to turn towards her own house for companionship, though he didn't know why nobody there seemed to like her.

Hermione might not say so, but he been noticing long before their current fight that Hermione was growing away from Ron in much the same way, looking for the same things as Luna. And while Harry and Hermione still seemed close, Harry had so many things going on, what with the war, and he sometimes saw the way that Hermione looked at how close Parvati and Lavender were. Hermione was certainly studying more and more by herself as of late. She wasn't helping out her classmates as much either, she didn't have the time.

Hermione didn't seem to have any close girl friends, and though he hadn't known that Hermione liked girls like that, he had seen Luna and Hermione getting closer and closer to each other all of last year. They certainly had got on with each other swimmingly at times. He supposed that Hermione probably thought it really nice to have someone to talk to that could at least keep up with her. Even if that someone had a tendency to say the exact sort of outrageous thing that incensed Hermione up into an academic tantrum. But then, Hermione was very fond of her little bookish tantrums.

Because Luna was definitely smart too in her own vague kind of way, perhaps really the only current student in the castle who stood a chance at competing with Hermione when she started talking theory at the rather high and very subjective level that she currently favored. Well, except Neville had to admit, he often didn't know what level exactly Luna was operating on most of the time; the girl did say the strangest things. But Hermione certainly seemed to be into that lately.

XxXx

Hermione gave herself a few more minutes to breathe in the wild, slick scent of Luna's hair before she finally pushed lightly against the girl to place some much needed space between them. Odd, how no matter how much she made herself promise to leave the younger girl alone, Hermione always found herself being drawn in. Well, she really shouldn't.

Just because Luna was ever so very tempting, especially when her reflecting, starish eyes were regarding up at her so trustingly, it didn't mean that Hermione had anymore room in her life for a girlfriend than she did for a boyfriend. Even though, right now with Luna smiling wistfully amidst all her shivering, Hermione wanted one- this particular one- so very badly. But she really shouldn't.

But Hermione couldn't help returning her smile just a little bit, and motioning softly to where the staircase dipped downward, asked, "If I walk you down, do you think you could stay in Ravenclaw territory until at least morning?" It was only hours off after all.

Luna's smile deepened a bit, and shying stealing the hand that Hermione really hadn't meant to offer her, cheerfully replied softly, "No, but I wouldn't mind walking down there with you. I would even escort you back up here. And then we could continue on to your Gryffindor 'territory' where we could repeat the whole thing again, if it pleased you…" Luna's eyes were as heated as her other hand when she brought it up to flirtily play with Hermione's hair. Hermione found that she really was having trouble finding her breath.

"We could go all over the castle. You used to wander the castle after dark. We could go back to the forest, it's quite wild tonight, but I wouldn't be as scared if we were both there. Wouldn't it be fun?" She was still fiddling with Hermione's hair as she tipped her head up to whisper in Hermione's ear. Hermione forgot to breath.

Ignoring the part of herself that told her that she really ought to pull away now before she became any more entranced, Hermione instead used her captive hand to pull the storm-fevered girl closer to her, finally whispering, "Why won't you stay where you're safe?"

Luna shook her head, and Hermione felt a wet and cold reminder against her flushed neck of how cold the slender girl must really be under her strange fever, before distractedly replying that she usually didn't spend nights within the realms of Ravenclaw.

Hermione stopped, a coulple odd sightings of the girl suddenly coming back to life within her addled mind, but she was still a bit uncertain what the girl could possibly be doing there all night long. And when would the girl sleep? A dry, somewhat amused part of herself answered her own question promptly: at breakfast, at class, or at every other place during the day that people had seen the dreamy girl doze off at one time or another.

Luna still looked rather shy at Hermione's previous question. Hermione wanted her to be safe? In Ravenclaw territory? She of course didn't know that ravens could willingly eat their young; she'd have no reason to really. The smartest thing that Hermione had ever done was to get sorted elsewhere. And maybe kiss her in the library. It was really the best comeback she'd had Hermione use in an argument yet.

Luna shivered again. It was odd really, having the heat pool in the center of you when you still couldn't quite feel your toes for their numbness. In a small voice she admitted to Hermione, "I would rather not go back there tonight," the girl bit her lip and sniffled a bit, "I really wouldn't. I'd rather be anywhere else." Apparently including the Forbidden Forest, thought Hermione.

And it was then that Hermione found that she was indeed still very capable of rash, stupid things when it came to her dealings with Luna. Why did all of her best, perfectly laid out plans go so quickly out the window? She would have to deal with a lot of aftermath later; but she was exhausted, and tired of watching Luna shivering.

They were closer to it than the Ravenclaw dormitory anyway. And nowhere else would she be able to keep a better eye on Luna's wayward tendencies. And she could make sure that the girl warmed up properly so that she didn't catch a cold. And most of the other girls weren't really speaking to her anyway. And most importantly, Luna was certainly no boy to be denied access up the stairs. It was the best solution available really, when you took the time to think about it.

She smiled a bit at her trembling and numb companion, pulled lightly on their joined hands and whispered, "Come on then, I can loan you some pajamas." And then promptly blushed at the wicked smile that she got in reply.

XxXx