Neville found himself beaming at everyone for the rest of the week, and many noticed that he was often distracted.
"So what do we do?" Harry asked when Neville and Luna finished their explanation of what they had discovered. Hermione was distracting Sarah while he broadcast the information to her.
"I don't know, I was hoping you-" Neville began before being cut off by a gasp from Luna.
"Harry, in a few minutes, Hermione is going to get a letter," Luna explained in a hurried whisper. "DO NOT let her open it in here. Take her to your room, and leave Sarah here with us."
Harry had no idea what was going on, but he knew he could trust Luna. "Remind me to ask you something later."
"I am a seer, while Trelawney would actually be classified as a prophet. I see possibilities of what can happen based on people's decisions, while she sees what will definitely happen. I can also see auras and bonds," Luna explained quickly, still whispering.
Harry barely managed to get out an, "Oh," before his attention was drawn upwards by the arrival of the morning mail. Moving quickly, he was beside Sarah and whispering in her ear before most people realized the mail had arrived. "How do you feel about staying with Uncle Neville and Aunt Luna for a little while?" Sarah looked surprised at the titles, but nodded happily. "Alright, be good and have fun," Hary said as he watched a letter drop towards Hermione. Moving quickly once more, he grabbed the letter before Hermione could, since he hadn't broadcast Luna's prediction. At her look of confusion, he whispered to her, "We're going to go open this in private, and Sarah will be looked after by Luna and Neville." Hermione's look of confusion didn't lessen, but she nodded and followed Harry to their room.
"What do you know about this letter, Harry?" Hermione asked once they made it to their room, a hint of impatience in her voice.
"Only that Luna warned me not to let you open it in the Great Hall, and to have you open it somewhere private," he answered honestly.
What could it be that Luna didn't want me to open it in the Great Hall? Hermione asked herself, looking a little afraid of the letter that was currently in Harry's hands. Tentatively, she held out her hand for the letter, which Harry gave to her. She stared at it for a moment, before moving to the couch, where Harry joined her. Both continued to stare at the letter for a while before Hermione gathered her courage, took a deep breath, and broke the seal.
Slowly, almost fearfully, she removed the letter from the envelope with shaking hands. Still moving slowly, she unfolded the letter, and began to read.
Harry, who wasn't reading the letter until Hermione had read it and said he could, watched as her grip tightened on the paper and her face drained of color. Tears were welling in her eyes, but she continued to read through them. Despite that, Hermione finished reading fairly quickly, before grabbing onto Harry and sobbing into his chest. Unsure of what had upset her, he simply rubbed her back and made soothing noises. After a few minutes, when she had become a bit calmer, Harry tentatively asked, "Love? What did it say?"
Hermione pulled back a little to wipe her eyes. With a sniff, she said, "I-it's fr-from M-Mum. Sh-she and D-dad w-we-were..." Unable to finish, Hermione grabbed the letter and gave it to Harry, before sobbing and burrowing into his chest again.
With one arm wrapped around her, Harry began reading the letter that had upset his Hermione. It didn't take long before Harry was shaking almost as much as Hermione, but where Hermione was shaking from horror, despair, and sadness, Harry was shaking from rage. He also had the same emotions running through him that Hermione did, but he allowed his anger to cloak them, before he buried all of them and comforted Hermione. Later, he would think and feel. Right now, Hermione needed him to be strong.
It didn't take long for Hermione to fall into an exhausted slumber in his arms, allowing Harry to think about the letter. Harry had admired the Grangers after staying with them over the summer, but the letter impressed the hell out of him. Not because of its contents, but because of the way it was written. Although the writing was shaky from her cruciatus exposure, she explained everything matter-of-factly, even when describing her own gang-rape. The only crack he saw was the tear drop where she mentioned how Dan had been put into a cruciatus-induced coma, like the Longbottoms. Then there were the names. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Avery, Rookwood, Dolohov, Mulciber, Macnair, and the three Lestranges, kept running through his mind. He knew that those were the names of the same Death Eaters who were at the ministry. Looking down at the figure of his sleeping wife, Harry silently vowed vengeance.
Luna paused momentarily as they made their way down to dinner, processing the fact that her friends were in no shape to care for Sarah tonight. She quickly flipped through scenarios as she continued to follow Neville into the Great Hall.
Neville was the only person to notice Luna's pause, or the look in her eye that meant she was flipping through scenarios of the future. He didn't know the exact scenarios she was flipping through, but trusted that she would tell him if it wasn't someone else's secret.
When they reached the Great Hall, Luna leaned into Neville and whispered in his ear, "No matter what I say, DO NOT visit Harry and Hermione tonight." Neville nodded, and the couple plus Sarah sat down at the Gryffindor table, with Sarah in the middle. "Sarah, would you like to have a slumber party with me tonight?" Luna asked immediately after sitting down.
The little girl frowned. "But what about Mummy and Daddy?" She asked.
"I'm sure they'll be fine with it, but just to make sure..." She looked passed Sarah to Neville. "Neville, will you check if it's alright with Harry and Hermione? If they say yes, please don't bother us, but if they say, no, we'll be in the Room of Requirement." Neville nodded, knowing from his girlfriend's advice earlier not to go to them.
Sarah however, was still frowning. "Do they regret adopting me?" She asked in a small voice.
"No, not in the slightest," Luna assured her. "Unfortunately, they do have things to take care of, and for tonight, they can't take care of you, no matter how much they want to." Sarah didn't look reassured, but nodded anyway, and started to eat. Luna sighed, unsure as to what she could do to reassure her. She knew that tomorrow, Hermione would practically smother her, and that Harry would explain with as little detail as possible what had happened, but until then, she would be sad. Luna hated seeing people sad, especially children, but couldn't do anything about it. With a sigh, she joined Sarah and Neville in eating dinner.
It wasn't until later, in the Room of Requirement, that she struck on an idea to take the little girl's mind off her parents. "Sarah, do you want to do something me and my daddy used to do?"
"What did you used to do?" She asked, still looking a bit sad.
"Well, my daddy owns a magazine," Luna explained, "and he wanted to use it to tell the truth about the government. Unfortunately, magazines that published stuff the ministry didn't want known ended up getting shut down. So we would come up with ridiculous creatures and use them to replace real things. But," Luna lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "this room can create whatever creature we come up with." Sarah's eyes widened comically, and Luna was relieved to see that no hint of sadness existed in those eyes.
Sarah's young mind raced with possible creatures, until she found one she liked. Closing her eyes, she concentrated until she felt something warm and fuzzy in her lap. Opening her eyes, she let out a delighted squeal at the pure white rabbit that was in her lap. Luna smiled as she watched her coo over the rabbit, before closing her own eyes in concentration. She opened them as soon as she felt the weight on her back. It was only a few seconds before the lemur crawled around to sit on her lap.
It wasn't long before the two girls began making different animals; polar bears that acted like kittens, playful wolves with wings, and Sarah even made a giant frog with a saddle, which both girls enjoyed riding. Just one hour after Luna made the suggestion, Sarah had fallen asleep. But, instead of the sad look she wore earlier, she had a blissful smile that Luna echoed, pleased with how she had handled the evening.
While Sarah was falling asleep, Hermione was waking up. At first, Harry didn't notice, but Hermione quickly changed that by pulling him down into a needy kiss. When they broke apart, Hermione begged, "Harry, please take me."
Harry sighed. "Hermione, I-"
"Please," Hermione begged again, throwing in puppy-dog eyes.
Harry hated that look. It turned his will to jello, and he knew he had to stay firm. "No, Hermione." He held up his hand to stop her from trying again. "Hermione, I love you. You know I do. But our first time should not be when you're this distressed," he said persuasively.
Hermione looked ready to beg again, but she sagged, knowing he was right. Still, she wasn't quite ready to give up. "Then why have you said no before now?"
"I didn't want you getting pregnant yet," he said.
"There are charms and potions for that," Hermione said with an eye roll.
"I know, but I looked up bonds, and I found out that it will negate all forms of contraception."
"Really?" Hermione asked, looking curious. "I must have missed that," she mused. There was a thought-filled moment of silence before Hermione perked up. "What if we left school?" She asked.
"What would we do?" Harry asked. "Although I don't regret it, we can't exactly go hunting for Voldemort with Sarah. And you couldn't come if you were pregnant, either," he pointed out.
"Alright, Voldemort needs to die," she grumbled, causing Harry to chuckle.
"True, but we don't even know what his Horcruxes are," Harry said.
"Why don't you try Legillimency on him?" Hermione asked.
Harry shuddered. "I tried, once. The first time Dumbledore mentioned Horcruxes. He trapped me in his mind for what felt like years, showing me scenes of torture and rape he had committed."
"Oh," Hermione answered faintly, looking pale. There was another thoughtful pause, and Hermione perked up yet again. "What if I join you?"
"I never thought of that," Harry admitted. "But there's another problem; assuming we can get the information from his mind, how do we keep him from finding out and moving them?"
"We can't," Hermione admitted after spending several moments trying to find an answer. "We'd have to be able to get to the locations before he would."
Harry nodded. "Which would mean during the summer. Except that he would probably hide one of his Horcruxes here at Hogwarts."
"What if we do it on the last day of school?" Hermione suggested. "If there's one at Hogwarts, we can get it then, and then portkey to wherever the others are. We should ask Dumbledore what he thinks, though," she added, causing Harry to grimace, but agree.
"We'll do it tomorrow, though," Harry said when Hermione looked ready to go then and there. She pouted a little, but agreed, and headed towards their bedroom. As soon as she lay down, Harry cast a sleeping spell on her before what happened to her parents could hit her again.