The new arrival turned out to be extremely hungry in addition to frustrated. Ral took her down to the kitchens and politely asked the house elves to get her some food, which they were more than happy to do.

"So you're Elspeth's pen pal?" he said, after Teysa had eaten her way through three pumpkin sandwiches and was finally looking as if she were going to slow down.

Teysa nodded, neatly patting a few crumbs away from the corner of her mouth with her napkin. "And when I didn't hear from her in a few weeks, I got concerned," she explained. "We've been writing back and forth for years, and she has never missed a response."

Chewing on his lip, Ral made a split-second decision. "Okay, so I think I know who did this to her," he said, then put up a hand to stop Teysa from rising up into a whirlwind of fury. She would probably have fallen off the high stool they had put her on anyway; her feet were dangling about a foot above the ground. "Nobody believes me, so maybe I—" he grimaced, "—it's possible that I'm wrong, but I don't think so."

Quickly, he brought Teysa up to speed on the events of the semester.

"Well," she said, pulling a face, "I do think you might be jealous—" Ral growled at her, "—but I also think you're correct, so it doesn't matter."

"I just don't know what to fucking do about it," Ral complained. "I mean, I guess I could try to follow Emmara or something? But I don't even know if that would work, and those aren't the kind of spells I know how to cast. I'm not so good at subtle."

"I don't know how to cast them, either, but I can direct you to do so." Teysa's eyes were sharp. "I'm an excellent tutor, and I have a good knowledge of subterfuge and spying."

"But if you can't cast them yourself—"

"I'm a squib." Teysa's admission made her face screw up as if she'd swallowed a lemon. "I can't cast spells."

Well, that did explain why she wasn't at school at Hogwarts. "I'm a Muggleborn," Ral shrugged. "Hell, I nearly went to high school at a Muggle school. Well, I guess I wouldn't have because I wouldn't want to leave Jace and Elspeth, but I bet I'd have learned a lot."

Teysa's thin eyebrows went up expressively. "Hm," she said, as if she hadn't been expecting that reaction. "Well, I'm sure I can teach you some very useful spells." She gave him a thin smile. "And then we can figure out exactly what is going on."

First things first, Ral thought. They needed a place for Teysa to stay, and spending time in the Hufflepuff common room or dormitories was definitely not a good idea. Ral got on all right with the other Slytherins, but he didn't spend much time in the dungeon as a rule; someone might notice. He wasn't close to anyone in Ravenclaw. Well, what was left was pretty obvious. Ral grinned darkly. Emmara was going to be sorry she'd fucked with Jace, and maybe even sorrier that she'd fucked with Nissa.

"C'mon," he said to Teysa.

"Where are we going?" As she asked, she carefully got to her feet, wincing a little. "Damn."

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Teysa snapped, and Ral paused at her sudden irritation, then shrugged.

"All right then," he said. "We're going to find a friend."

He had been a little worried that Chandra would still be hanging around the Hospital Wing instead of back in her dorm, but they had go slowly, partly because Teysa seemed to be limping slightly, and partly because Ral wasn't sure that he wanted to run into anyone else with her. There might be awkward or annoying questions, since he had no idea what the provisions were for non-wizard visitors at the school who weren't relatives.

When they reached the Gryffindor common room, it was deserted apart from Gideon, who had his feet curled up under him as he squatted on the couch, frowning over a Potions textbook. He looked up briefly and nodded at Ral, smiled politely at Teysa.

"Is that your sister?" he asked Ral.

"Oh, ah—" Before Ral had quite decided, Teysa smiled winningly and answered for him, "Yes, that's me."

"Um, yeah, Gideon, this is Teysa," Ral said, wondering if they really looked that much alike. "Teysa, Gideon. Hey, we were just looking for Chandra, is she around?"

Gideon's forehead creased back into a frown. "She's up in the dorm," he said. "She's kind of upset. You, um, you might want to be careful going up there. She tends to—break things."

"Been there." Ral shrugged and led Teysa up the stairs towards the Gryffindor girls' dormitories.

He didn't bother to knock, opting instead to just throw open the door. This turned out to nearly be a painful error, because a wave of crackling flame was suddenly heading directly for his face. Luckily for him, he'd had his hand on his wand, and he managed to snap it up and shout, "Protego!" before he and Teysa were charred to a crisp.

"Oh," Chandra said, dully. "It's you. Sorry."

"Yeah, what'd you think?"

Chandra was sprawled on her bed, idly playing with her wand—well, maybe not so idly. She stared up at him, sighed, and shrugged.

"This is Teysa," Ral said, letting his new friend squeeze in the door behind him. "She's here to help us get rid of Emmara."

"Oh really?" Chandra sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She looked at Teysa skeptically. "How exactly is a ten-year-old going to help?"

Teysa stared her down levelly, drawing herself up to her full height of slightly-less-than-five-feet. "I am seventeen and a half," she said, "and I happen to be the heir to the Orzhov family, so I have a great deal of experience with dark magic."

"Huh," Chandra said. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to look for Elspeth."

"Oh," said Chandra, then, "Ohhhh. Oh wow."

"So can she stay here? Seems like the easiest place for her. I think it's better if Emmara doesn't know about her."

"Yeah, I'll figure something out." Chandra's face puckered slightly. "Um, I'm sorry about the, um, the fire thing," she said rapidly, staring at her feet.

"I'm fine." Ral rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "It's not a problem."

"I'm not sure what happened."

"Professor Lovegood said you might be an elementalist," Ral offered. "Like me."

"A what?"

He shook his head. "We can talk about it another time. Right now I'd really like to figure out what the fuck Emmara is doing to Jace and the others and how to stop it."

"Right. Let's see how good you two are at magic," Teysa smirked.

Hermione collapsed into bed with a sigh. She had been intending to do a little work this evening, and then read through some of the more promising titles that she and Luna had hunted out of the library, but she was just so tired. Maybe she'd just go to bed early, just this once—

A knock on her door startled her back to full wakefulness. For a moment, she considered turning over and just going to sleep, but, with a sigh, she decided against it. Heaving herself out of bed was more of an effort than she felt it should have been. She stood for a moment, rubbing her eyes and trying to smooth her hair, and then, finally, she answered the door.

Outside, Luna was shifting from foot to foot. She looked up with a hopeful smile when she saw Hermione. "Good evening!" she said brightly, and Hermione had to smile back. It was almost unsettling, how warm and wonderful everything seemed when Luna was around. Something about her just lit up whatever room she was in. "I wondered if you wanted to go through some more of the books together."

If it had been anyone else, Hermione would have said that she really ought to get some sleep instead, but her mind weighed the thought of an extra hour of sleep versus an extra hour of Luna, and Luna came out miles ahead almost instantly. "I'd—I'd like that," she replied. "Do come in."

Luna had been in Hermione's small quarters before, though they usually spent most of their time together in the teachers' lounge, but tonight she hovered as Hermione slowly got out the books she'd been planning to look over, and Hermione realized that she had left several stacks of ungraded papers obscuring every seat in the room. She laughed and patted the bed next to her. "I'm sorry, I honestly meant to clear this place up a bit yesterday," she told Luna. "I've just been dreadfully tired lately."

"Oh—that's fine." Strangely, Luna was almost stammering. "Er, are you sure?"

Hermione glanced back at her to see that both of Luna's cheeks were flushed, and her hands were twined rather nervously behind her back. "Yes, of course," she answered, a little blankly. "Why would I mind?"

Luna blinked rapidly and smiled widely. "Oh, no reason," she said. "Just, you know, sometimes one's—one's robe can have grab—grabknacks without one knowing about it, and I wouldn't want you to get—itchy."

Hermione raised an eyebrow as Luna moved jerkily closer. "I believe you made that up," she said slowly.

"I did not," Luna responded immediately. "I'd never—just make something up." Her cheeks had definitely turned bright red. "It would be—" she waved a hand, "—unethical for an expert in unusual creatures to simply make something up off the top of her head." She looked to the side, then sighed. "Although perhaps you're right that I don't—exactly—believe that grabknacks exist. Their provenance was disputed as far back as the seventeenth century, and, well, by now, even people who are more open-minded about magical creatures—don't really—think there's much evidence…"

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked sleepily. "I really don't mind you sitting on my bed. I don't mind most people sitting on my bed, really, but I especially wouldn't mind you doing it."

"Especially me?" Luna echoed. "Then I won't refuse, but, um…" She sat gingerly on the side of the bed, then sighed. "'Mione," she said in a small voice. "I know people think I'm odd. Well, I mean. I am odd."

She looked suddenly sad and small and almost drooping as she sat on Hermione's bed, her hands bunching together in the robe above her knees.

"Yes," Hermione agreed, sliding over to her and wondering whether she needed to be comforting. She had never been exactly good at 'comforting.' When Ron or Harry had problems, she was far better at offering solutions than comfort, but she was aware that sometimes people didn't actually need their problems fixed, per se. "I mean, I suppose you're odd, but your friends don't mind. We like oddity. I like oddity."

"When I was nineteen, I kissed one of my friends, and she definitely didn't like it," Luna said abruptly. "You see, I thought she might like it, because I thought she might like me like that, but she didn't. I'm not very good at knowing if someone would like me to kiss them. And it gets awkward, and people think I'm odd. Which I don't normally mind at all, but when people don't want to be around me because I'm odd, I sometimes get sad. Especially if they're people I like very much."

Hermione stared at her, feeling her own cheeks heat just a little. She hadn't spent much time considering romantic situations since the one with Ron imploded so horribly, and she hadn't dwelled on the fact that the signals she and Luna had been sending each other were possibly a little less than platonic. But there had been a good deal of touching and hugging—more than Hermione was used to, or generally comfortable with, even with close friends. And the way she'd found herself looking at Luna at odd moments, even the first time she'd seen her this year, in the loo at that awful party. As if she didn't want to look away.

"Luna," she said. "Erm, do you want to kiss me?"

Luna turned to her, and Hermione was a little concerned to see that there were tears welling up her eyes. "Well, yes," she admitted. "I want to. But I don't want you not to want to be around me anymore."

"I, er," said Hermione. She slid a hand to the side and touched the top of Luna's hand, feeling the tight tension riding in the top of her friend's knuckles. "Actually, I—I think I'd like to kiss you, too."

"You would? Really?"

Suddenly feeling strangely shy, Hermione forced herself to nod.

"Oh," Luna said, smiling. "That's very nice." She blinked once, and a tear rolled out of her eye and down her nose. She reached up and brushed it away. "Oh, dear," she said. "That's awfully silly that my eyes are still doing this, then."

Taking a deep breath, Hermione awkwardly moved one hand up and cupped Luna's cheek. "I honestly don't mind," she breathed, and she pushed the golden strands of Luna's hair back, leaned forward, and brushed her lips against Luna's. Before she could pull back, Luna's hand was in her hair, and Luna was kissing her back as well, sighing into her mouth. It felt wonderful.

Luna's hand turned over beneath hers and laced their fingers together. Breathlessly, insistently, she kissed the corner of Hermione's mouth. "I like this," she said. "I like this quite a bit."

"Me, too," Hermione admitted. The back of her head felt odd, though, the tiredness that she'd almost forgotten coming back with force. "Tired, though," she mumbled. "I think I need to sleep."

"Oh—I'm sorry—I'll leave you to sleep."

Hermione smiled hazily through the veil of sleepiness. "No, no," she protested. "Why don't you stay?" She still hadn't managed to change out of her robes, had she? Oh well.

"Are you sure? I mean—the grabknacks—"

Giggling, still desperately sleepy, Hermione grabbed Luna's sleeve. "Definitely sure. Don't mind being itchy anyway." She pulled her friend down onto the bed, curling against her immediately. The last thing she heard before the darkness claimed her was Luna's soft, happy sigh.