Disclaimer: Not mine.

Chapter Six: A Shadowed Mirror of Folly

Author's Note: Thanks to all of my wonderful reviewers including my anon reviewers pdli and Kat. Thanks for liking the story, and telling me so. :)

XxXx

Luna woke up to the feeling that she had fallen asleep and forgotten to do something, but she was soon distracted by the fact that sometime after coming out of the forest she had ended up sleeping in Hermione's bed.

She was pretty sure this wasn't where many other girls had ended up when Hermione had gotten upset with them (and she vaguely did remember Hermione seeming upset about something). But then, most of the other Ravenclaw girls didn't really like Hermione all that much; she made them look bad.

Luna smiled; she didn't really mind Hermione making her look bad. She was almost two years older after all, so they weren't really all that comparable.

Still, sleeping with someone was important right? The other Ravenclaw girls giggled over it all the time. While they might not talk about it with Luna, she knew they were always discussing who was sleeping with who, or who ever so very much wanted to.

Luna felt sort of happy. A lot of the girls dated the people they slept with.

Well, Luna had finally slept, curled up and warm, by Hermione's side, and it had been nice and she really wanted to do it again.

And even better, Hermione had asked her to sleep with her. That meant that Hermione liked her, right?

Luna looked up at the canopy of Hermione's bed, her mouth slightly open in wonder. Did that mean that Hermione was now her girlfriend? They had slept together after all. Luna wasn't sure. But wouldn't it be neat if it were true? Luna hadn't ever had a girlfriend before. Maybe she would just pretend anyway, it would be fun. They could hold hands.

She hadn't ever actually dated anybody before, not unless you counted that time she went as friends to Slughorn's party with Harry. But she didn't want to date Harry. She wanted to date Hermione.

She hoped this meant that she and Hermione really were dating. She'd have to ask her about it later. Right now, she grimaced; she really needed to get going.

Too bad Hermione wasn't awake yet. Oh well, she could always ask her later. Like at breakfast. Or at dinner. Or tomorrow while they were studying for the DA.

Maybe this means that Hermione would now want to hold Luna's hand sometimes, Luna thought that would be rather sweet. She couldn't wait. She rather thought she would like having a girlfriend. They could even study together more now.

Granted they already studied together now, but Luna was sure it would be different, probably a lot cooler, if she was Hermione's girlfriend.

She looked shyly across the pillow at Hermione, who was still sleeping with some of Luna's long hair wrapped tightly around her hand. Luna vaguely remembered Hermione playing with it last night as she waited for sleep to come claim her. Even though the other girl tended to tangle it up, she rather liked Hermione's hand in her hair.

But it was really time to go.

She didn't feel like stealing herself out from under Hermione's arm and out onto where the floor still held its predawn chill. But she did, uncurling the sleeping girl's claim upon her hair and shrugging out of Hermione's pajamas in return.

Luna didn't bother perform the badly needed drying spell upon her clothes from last night, she didn't want to risk the slight hum she could just hear coming from one of her pockets. She smiled; she would have to find a lot more lake-stones to take to the forest.

Hermione didn't wake up; instead she just curled up into the space that Luna had vacated. Looking down at Hermione, the worries she usually wore across her face in daylight erased by dreams and sleep, Luna couldn't wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow was Thursday, and they were supposed to do some research together in the library for the DA.

Maybe Hermione would hold her hand. Luna scribbled a quick note telling Hermione that she'd left before Hermione awoke and a footnote to say that she thought that Hermione looked rather sweet with her hair statically splayed out across the pillow. That was properly romantic, hopefully Hermione would like it.

She quickly stuck the note in Hermione's hand. Smiling still, Luna turned away from the bed and ducked quietly out of the room.

Down the stairs, across the strangely deserted Gryffindor Commons' Room (when did these people study?), and Luna was quickly out of Gryffindor Tower and heading down to stop at the fifth floor before returning to the bottom of the castle to get ready for breakfast.

XxXx

Harry spent the night after the DA meeting madly combing through old letters received during the summer, looking for one only mildly scathing and offhand comment about nonverbal spells. At least he had thought the comment was about nonverbals, but considering that all the letters were written in a purposely vague and nondescript manner for security purposes, he wasn't always sure what was meant in them. It was frustrating.

Granted definitely not less worse than being completely stalled over the horcruxes, at least with the DA they were doing something. Making progress,

Almost as frustrating though, as the complete lack of help Lupin had given when asked about performing nonverbal spells. He was sure that Lupin had tried to be helpful, but all he had really done was rephrase what the text had said on the subject. Less than helpful. Hermione had already gathered all of that information. They needed more experience-oriented advice, not theory.

Lupin though, had been too busy to sit down and really discuss it. Lupin had been busy all summer, and it was only worse now that school was in session and he was teaching.

Harry knew of one Order member who wasn't teaching and wasn't doing any eh, official Order work though, but it grated his teeth to ask him for help. But he was going to do it anyway. He must be halfway to actually liking pain, from all the letters he sent to the bastard. Well, was it truly possible to be in mental pain?

Harry shrugged at his own bleary thoughts and went back to rifling through old letters.

He finally fell asleep sometime around two or three in the morning after eventually finding that particular comment from a letter dated sometime back in July, and hastily penning a rather sleep-deprived request for further information.

He was afraid he'd have to rewrite it in the morning. His correspondent after all, had sent his last letter back through McGonagall with bright, blood-red grammar corrections scribbled all over it.

It was stupid; he could barely read the red scratch for one thing. And for the second, the old witch had actually chuckled at it as she had revealed the letter's true contents from under the security spell. At least the letter's reply had also been included.

Harry didn't even want to know how she was getting the letters into and out of Hogwarts. Like him, she was merely following Dumbledore's final orders pertaining to Harry's extracurricular education.

Unfortunately, so was the other person implicated in Dumbledore's final contribution to his pensive. Going into that pensive was really the worse incident of Harry's entire summer. And there were several to choose from.

Harry could swear that even with hundreds of kilometers between them, that man still made him get hot under the collar. Harry liked it better when he had been allowed to just completely hate the man, instead of needing him for all sorts of highly-important-war-things.

Even without his solid stance as a spy, the man simply had too much knowledge about truly horrific things, not to be useful. And now Harry knew from first hand experience how much groveling it took to get that man to help him again.

Harry fell asleep to the sounds of his own nightmares coming to claim him, it seemed that awake or not, he could never get away from death eaters.

Harry, unable to stay asleep for long, was out of bed again well before breakfast. The letter needed to get sent off before anybody was likely to be awake to notice him, anyway.

Once dressed, he decided to forego actually doing anything actually more time consuming than proofreading the letter for clarity. If Snape wanted to complain about his dismal attempts at spelling or sentence composition… then perhaps the glee that Snape surely felt belittling Harry Potter would spur him to send his reply a little faster. One could hope for small favors, anyway.

Harry headed to McGonagall's office; hoping that the older witch would be about to pass his letter on to wherever its intended recipient was living. God, he hated all this.

What good was Snape when the only help he had really offered thus far was a dead man's name when consulted about R.A.B? What good was that? Not even Hermione had been able to make any use of it.

Harry liked to ignore Snape's other activities. They made him feel strangely anxious. He didn't want anybody more to die.

But he still burned as he handed over his request for advice to the headmistress. It was so stupid of him to think Snape would give a straight answer to this. Snape would, in all likeliness, get so caught up in what he would find as a blatant invitation to insult Harry at his whim, that he would forget to include the information or advice.

Harry really wasn't looking forward to reading his reply.

He should have just put up with what little help that Lupin could provide.

He quietly thanked McGonagall for taking the letter and headed quickly out of the newly redecorated headmistress' office. He already had a headache coming on, and he still had to finish proofing the potion's essay that was due later today.

Sometimes, Harry thought his decision to come back to Hogwarts this year was silly. He should be out destroying the horcruxes. Or he should be researching for them.

Instead of doing anything of use, he was heading down to breakfast and the horrid headlines of The Daily Prophet, and then going obediently straight to his first class. He didn't understand how in a time of war, he could feel both such frustration and such desolate boredom.

He was exhausted with all this horrid waiting.

He needed to be doing something already. Hell, even Snape was doing something. Harry scowled; he didn't need to be thinking about that so early in the morning.

XxXx

Hermione awoke to find the first rays of dawn just making their way into her window, and her bed empty, any traces of its other occupant long dissipated. She frowned slightly to herself becoming more and more annoyed as she became more awake. The girl had just left.

Hermione had been so upset, so concerned over that silly little girl… and Luna hadn't even thought twice over all that Hermione was risking by having her up here!

Hermione ignored how little consideration she had given the same matter last night; it wasn't nearly the same thing.

This was the part of Luna that Hermione had always seethed over. Rules, especially the fair and logical ones, existed for everyone's' benefit. Hermione had actually broken the one about not having eh; romantic interests sleep over, only because she was concerned over Luna's safety.

She did not break rules just because she felt like it. She had been very concerned for Luna's welfare as a matter of fact, the girl apparently thought nothing of the dangers associated with the Forbidden Forest. Who wouldn't be concerned?

Though how Luna could be so disconcerting about mucking about in the forest and yet still be so resistant to spending time in her own house, was beyond Hermione. She knew that Luna was often teased, but surely it couldn't so bad, could it?

Certainly, Hermione wasn't exactly popular in her own house either, but she didn't let the pettiness of the other students bother her. Or at least she tried not to; those were things that had to be faced if one was going to deal with the situation properly.

And even if it was that bad, and Hermione was frantically working out when in her school schedule she could find out exactly what was happening within Ravenclaw territory, that was still no excuse not to wake Hermione up to say goodbye. A note, even one as sweetly weird as the one Luna had left, was no substitute.

Exasperated Hermione rolled over in bed; she only wanted to keep Luna safe. One would think that Luna would help out a bit in this endeavor.

Of course Luna's safety wasn't really any concern of hers. She knew that, and she shouldn't have stepped into this whole situation. Except, Hermione was also quite certain that Luna herself wasn't overly concerned about it either.

And there in was the problem. The damn girl needed a keeper.

Hermione couldn't be anybody's keeper.

It was truly dim of her to want to both have Luna beside her, and to ignore any increasing importance that the girl held for her. It was silly. And she was still really peeved at Luna for leaving so rudely; after all, didn't she think that Hermione would be hurt by it? Perhaps she had meant to cut Hermione like that.

Or, more likely, had the girl actually thought that the note would be enough?

God, Hermione rubbed her head, she was acting like the two of them had actually slept together. But all they had done was sleep. Hermione knew it wasn't really a big deal; Luna at least certainly didn't seem to think so, therefore Hermione really needed to get her act together.

She was behaving like a lovesick Hufflepuff, mooning about in bed as she was. She sat up in bed.

Overreacting was not something she was into. She was rational. And sane most of the time too.

She traced the space on the pillow where Luna's head had laid. It was for the best after all, if the girl had managed to sneak out of here early enough not to get caught.

Either way, she shouldn't have let her emotions sway her into offering the girl sanctuary last night. For one thing, it was against school policy for a student to sleep in the dormitory of another house.

Granted it was one that was broken repeatedly, but as a seventh year, she should have set a better example. For the other thing, she knew she was misrepresenting her intentions to Luna.

She didn't want a relationship with the girl. She didn't want one with anyone.

Hermione's other commitments might have offered up a terrific excuse to get Ron to give up his silly notions, but even that had misfired in the end. But wasn't her own behavior just as silly? None of them had time for the normal silly flights of fancy that most people indulged in during adolescence.

Hermione knew she was too young to actually trust that any relationship she entered into now would last. And she didn't have the time to waste on a temporary, childish one. She certainly didn't have the extra energy to deal with the inevitable end to the relationship.

Just look at Ron and Harry, all of their various relationships had ended quickly and badly. It was silly to think any of that was worth the effort.

Hermione quickly scrambled out of bed, she had wasted enough time on this situation already this morning. Had wasted a lot of the last several days, actually. There were more important things that she needed to do.

Straightening her bedcovers, she hurried so she could leave some time to give one last proofread to her potion's essay before heading down to breakfast.

They were here to learn after all; in the long run any relationships she had here wouldn't matter. So it was irrelevant to the rest of her life if she left here without indulging in that particular activity. Hermione bet that lots of people didn't date while they were this young.

Her parents, after all, hadn't met until they were in dental school. Therefore, nothing had come of any of the relationships they might have had before that. And they were happily enough married, weren't they? Assuming she survived the war, she still had plenty of time then to settle down with someone.

And if she didn't… Well, better not to form any attachments, right? She didn't want to leave anybody crying after her. And she didn't want to be the one left crying either. And with the danger they would be in during the war... Anybody attached to her would be a target, just as she herself was a target.

Granted, Luna was probably already a target, because of what she had already done and was doing for the war… So Hermione certainly had no business endangering Luna's life (or her own) any further with some ill thought-out relationship.

Hermione couldn't believe the mess she had gotten herself into during these last several days. It had really only been that long since she first kissed Luna. Hermione felt her face burn once again. She didn't know what had come over her. She had always been the collected and rational one in her house.

Granted it wasn't hard to earn that title in Gryffindor. But still.

She had no business going all hormonal and hufflepuff over a girl she had kissed just once. Granted, as far as kisses go, it had been an awfully nice one. But it was still silly, and still just as meaningless. She would have to make sure she didn't mess up again.

Avoiding the girl when possible would work. Not touching her too, would help. These were simple things that she could surely manage well enough. Convinced that she now had everything properly controlled, Hermione turned her thoughts back to what she had to do today.

After all, she had much bigger things to worry about. Like the war, school, and all the other concerns in her life that were truly important.

Ignoring how that excuse was evolving into a repetitive mantra in her head, Hermione turned her attention to her potion's essay again. She wanted it to be perfect.

XxXx

After a quick shower to get the telltale wet wood smell out of her hair, Luna pulled on a fresh uniform and patted at her hair with a towel. She made a face in the mirror, and fixing the way her cork bottle necklace hung about her neck, she cheated a bit and cast a quick detangling charm over her head, before blinking back at the foggy mirror.

She was sure she knew a defogging charm. How did it go again? Her eyebrows scrunched up in thought. She had heard other girls using it before in here… She twisted a lock of wet hair about her finger as she tried to remember the sequence of how the wand movements went.

"If you're trying to fix that rat's nest on top of your head, you really ought to try applying a brush to it Loony." Padma Patil whispered grumpily from where she was fixing her eye make-up in the mirror beside Luna. She wasn't exactly a morning person from what Luna knew.

And the ability of the walls in the girls' bathroom to echo anything was simply horrid. All the girls complained of how a toilet flushing could be heard clearly even up in the Common Room. You could even hear it when some of the girls would use a shower stall in tandem with a girlfriend. Luna usually found it was terribly funny.

Luna looked at other girl thoughtfully; she needed to tell her about the DA. They were alone in the bathroom. This wasn't likely to remain the case for long. And of course, she might not get another chance to speak with the seventh year.

They weren't quite friends. But they were alone in the bathroom. Probably the best time. She'd better whisper or everyone in the Common Room would probably hear it too.

"Do you remember the DA?" Luna busied herself with straightening her tie; this is how you look nonchalant.

Padma looked over at the other girl, did she even hear or understand what Padma had been talking about?

How in the world did Hermione Granger pass over Ron Weasley, the best friend of Harry Potter, for this silly little girl who couldn't even fix her tie without giving it an undue amount of attention? It boggled the mind.

Padma rolled her eyes; it wasn't like the girl could even comb her hair properly, "The one from a couple years ago? Yes, but it stopped last year, remember? Why do you even care to know?"

Luna looked down at her wand, and then folding her still wet hair into a slight askew bun, stuck the wand in to secure her hair into place. Now it wouldn't look so unkempt.

"This Saturday evening, Harry Potter is starting it up again." Relieved, Luna ducked out of the bathroom, and headed up to breakfast. It was done.

She couldn't wait to see Hermione.

XxXx

For once Luna felt quite awake at breakfast, it was a weird experience she thought, like having electric heat searing down her spine. Though at least thanks to the still lingering clouds from the storm last night, the morning light in the Great Hall was dampened a bit. The dim natural light prompted the use of the hall's chandeliers that cast slight, dancing shadows across the room.

It was really as good of a morning as there ever was.

She kept one eye upon Hermione, of whom she could only see pieces of from where she was sitting on the other side of Neville. Her other eye was reading the latest copy of The Quibbler. Luna cocked her side to one side for a minute, Neville it seems, had been getting wider lately. Maybe he had taken to having seconds servings of pudding, or something.

Strange how she could barely see Hermione from behind him.

Of course, it really wasn't helping that for whatever reason, Hermione was sitting all hunched over like that. Usually the prim girl had ramrod perfect posture. Hermione rather liked doing things perfectly, it was rather puzzling at times.

But really that made her current behavior kind of bizarre, why would she be all crouched down like that? She hadn't brought a textbook to breakfast again, had she? Maybe.

Ignoring the jabbing elbows of her housemates as they scrambled about eating their breakfast, Luna grabbed an apple from one of the serving dishes. With Neville sitting there blocking Hermione out like that she'd never catch her eye.

Oh well, they were supposed to study together for the DA tomorrow. She'd see her then. And the actual DA meeting was only couple days after that. So really, she didn't need to see Hermione today. But it would have been nice.

Luna yawned. Breakfast had just gotten a lot more boring. Too bad she had to go to the lakeshore during lunch. Maybe she'd catch Hermione's eye during dinner. And if not, she would see her tomorrow.

Luna felt uncharacteristically sulky as she headed off to her first class.

XxXx

Several hours later and even after the lunch that Luna hadn't attended, Hermione felt almost proud of herself. She had resisted the urge to glance over at Luna all during breakfast.

Instead she had alternated between talking about their classes with Neville and Harry, and reading about all the new Death Eater activity in The Daily Prophet. The ongoing events in the paper had certainly helped get her mind off of Luna.

She hadn't even gone looking for her during lunch. Instead she had helped a very sheepish Ron fix his potion's essay. That boy wasn't ever going to pass his N.E.W.T.s, if he didn't start revising now. She would make up another timetable for him. Maybe that would help.

Harry's face had still been rather dark at lunch. Hermione figured he had looked across the headlines at breakfast, but really the recent news wasn't all that horrid compared to what had been happening almost weekly since the middle of summer. She didn't know why he was still upset about it at lunch.

Though he had come to breakfast looking rather upset too. She ought to ask him what is going on. He was bound to tell her eventually. She wondered if it had anything to do with the family in Derbyshire.

Just last week, the entire family of five had been found murdered, the death mark hanging forlornly over their house. The father of the underaged children had been a muggle, and Hermione could only deduce that their mother hadn't had a chance of protecting her family alone against the death eaters' attack. Any further details of the attack had been left out of the original article

But the paper was still printing reactions from it in today's paper. A week old, it made still made Hermione's heart pound with worry. The attacks had initially made Harry look rather sick too, but he had gotten rather good at wiping that off his face quickly.

Now he just tended to look angry a lot at breakfast.

That's what they were fighting against. That's what she needed to focus upon. That could have been her parents.

McGonagall swore that every necessary precaution had been taken to protect Hermione's parents, and all of the other parents of the muggleborn students. Especially since Hannah Abbott's mother was killed last year. The girl still hadn't returned to Hogwarts.

XxXx

Ron had to admit that he was rather glad him and Hermione had patched things up. His potion's essay certainly had showed a marked improvement. So now he was dastardly thrilled to finally turn in the revolting thing to Slughorn first thing after lunch.

Whoever had decided that seventh year, N.E.W.T. level potions would be perfect right after lunch ought to be hexed for their efforts. He had learned the hard way not to eat too heavy of a lunch right before potions.

Now he was usually rather hungry halfway through his afternoon classes, which was still hours and hours away from dinner.

Bloody poor planning on somebody's part.

Potions that day was rather boring at least. Perhaps he'd have time to nip something from the kitchen before the next class.

All they were doing was adding a bit of this or that to their cauldrons (admittedly now that he had made up with Hermione, she was doing most of that part, he just sliced or diced, or did whatever she said to whatever she handed him).

It was a perfectly boring double potions, and so he was more than happily planning out what he would suggest to Ginny after Quidditch practice. She was going to love all of his ideas.

He had spent all last evening after the DA, while Lavender and Parvati had been talking and giggling at him in the Commons Room about the bloody dresses they were planning to wear to the Halloween feast and whether or not it would be turned into a ball, planning out his patrols.

He had half of the castle already mapped out. It was going to be great. He couldn't wait to show it all to Ginny after practice.

He was interrupted in his ponderings by Hermione handing him a piece of what looked and smelled like shriveled up, moldy bark with explicit instructions to crush and chop it carefully.

Trying not to breath, he started in on it. Eh, maybe he wouldn't be going to the kitchens next after all. This was disgusting. Why couldn't they just use something else, anything that didn't smell like vomit?

He didn't understand why everything had to be so disgusting. Seriously, why didn't they all die every time they ingested some of these vile concoctions? Considering some of their ingredients you'd think they'd be lethal. Plus, they always reeked.

He hated potions.

XxXx