Disclaimer: No loopholes have been found to JK Rowling owning Harry Potter.
Parts of this chapter have been quoted from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
A/N: Remember that a few chapters ago, Barty Crouch Jr. walked away from his home with Bertha Jorkins and his father's wand, so he doesn't need to steal one now. He's at the World Cup just because he likes Quidditch, and it's a good chance to spy on certain people.
Chapter 63
They partied and recounted the play by play of the match back in the big tent until they were about to fall asleep on their feet, and then Hermione and Ginny retired to the girl's tent for a good night's rest, but they had only been out a couple of hours when they heard Mr. Weasley's frantic voice shouting, "Ginny! Hermione! Get up! Fire!"
"Fire?" Ginny said groggily.
"Fire?" Hermione repeated. "Fire!" She could see orange light flickering on the walls of the tent and the rising sound of a crowd of people screaming. "Merlin, it's the whole camp!"
"What's happening?" Ginny cried.
"There's no time to pack! Get out now!" Mr. Weasley called over them.
Hermione knew she only had moments. She grabbed her wand from the bedside table, and then her hand dove to the bottom of her trunk and pulled out the one thing she had packed and not expected it to get cold enough to wear: her basilisk-skin coat. Ironically, she would now be wearing it to (hopefully) protect her from the heat.
A shiver rippled through the air—one that seemed to sweep through space like a tangible thing.
"What was that?" Ginny said worriedly.
"Anti-Apparition Ward," Mr. Weasley said, with the certainty of someone who knew it well. "We have to go! Run!"
They emerged into the night and took in the scene in a split second. A crowd of wizards in black robes was marching in their general direction. Four human figures were suspended above them about sixty feet in the air. The wizards in the front of the procession were burning tents and blasting aside any that were in their way with their wands. Most of the camp was running away from them, screaming, but some witches and wizards who looked like Ministry officials were running towards them. Hermione couldn't understand what the marchers were doing until she looked closer and saw that they appeared to be wearing white masks—masks painted like skulls. It clicked then: the four suspended figures, flailing in midair—two adults and two children.
"Oh, God, the muggles!" she shouted.
There was no time to react. "You go! We have to help the Ministry!" Mr. Weasley yelled. He had his wand out, along with Sirius, Bill, Charlie, and Percy, who were already sprinting into the fray.
"Sirius!" Harry yelled.
"Get out of here, Pup! We'll find you after," the reply came.
"You lot get into the woods and stay together," Mr. Weasley ordered. "We'll find you once we deal with them. They're probably just rabble-rousers." He turned around and ran after the others.
"C'mon!" Fred yelled, taking charge. "I got Ginny. George, you get Hermione."
"I can take care of myself," both girls protested.
"Don't argue," George said. "Harry, Ron, keep up." He grabbed Hermione by the arm and pulled her along towards the trees.
Hermione took another look around and said, "Oh no, where's Dobby? Dobby?"
Pop! "Miss Hermione! Miss Hermione!" he said, running as fast as his little legs would carry him to try to keep up.
"Dobby, quick, get on my back," she said.
The elf did as she said at once, climbing up to her shoulders. "Miss Hermione, there is being Death Eaters!" he said. "Followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!"
"Oh, bugger, that's who they are?" George said. "We gotta move!"
A growing crowd of wizards was trying to confront the marchers, and things were getting ugly. The marchers began shooting curses, whilst the Ministry wizards were trying to make sure the muggles weren't hurt. Once they hit in the woods it became much harder to see. All that was visible seemed to be dark shadows blundering through the trees, interspersed with bright flashes from stray curses behind them.
"Miss Hermione!" Dobby squeaked from her shoulders. "Dobby shoulds gets you out of here!"
"What? How?" she said.
"Side-Along Apparition, Miss."
"Side-Along Apparition? What's that?"
"It's where you apparate and take someone along with you," George said. "It's only supposed to be for emergencies."
"But there's an Anti-Apparition Ward—no, wait you're an elf. But wait, you can do that? You never mentioned it."
"It is being Old Elf Lore, Miss. Dobby shoulds be getting yous out of here."
"No, Dobby, I can't leave my friends—"
Suddenly, there was a thunderous boom behind them, and the forest was filled with a sickly green light.
"Dobby is sorry! It is being too dangerous!"
"No, Dobby, wait—!"
POP!
After the fact, Hermione reflected on this experience and appreciated the fact that she felt like she had been pulled through a real, live wormhole, but in the moment, all she could think about was the world turning black and the feeling of being squeezed so tightly that for a fraction of a second she was certain she was being crushed to death.
And then it was over. She gasped a lungful of air and fell with a thud to the Burrow's living room floor.
And Mrs. Weasley screamed.
"George!" the Weasley Matriarch cried after her initial shriek of horror. "What happened? All your hands went to Mortal Peril!"
George wasn't listening to his mother. "What the hell?" he shouted. "We're home? How?"
Hermione was down on all fours with her eyes squeezed shut, trying not to throw up. She couldn't understand how wizards could Apparate on a regular basis if that's what it felt like. She only looked up when she heard a scuffle. George was trying to throttle Dobby.
"Why did you do that?" he yelled. "We had to stick together. Take me back. Take me back!"
"George, no!" Hermione stumbled into him, forcing him to drop Dobby.
"George! Hermione! What happened?" Mrs. Weasley.
"Why did you let him take us?" George shouted at Hermione.
"I couldn't stop him!" she cried. "My parents ordered him to keep me safe, and their orders take priority."
"George, please!" Mrs. Weasley pleaded.
George crumpled and gave his mother an anguished look: "Mum…Death Eaters attacked the camp."
Mrs. Weasley screamed again and fell back on the sofa. For a moment it looked like she'd fainted, but after a moment, Hermione realised she was staring up at the Weasleys' nine-handed family clock. Mrs. Weasley's and George's hands pointed to Home. The other seven all pointed to Mortal Peril. "What about the others?" she asked weakly.
"F-F-Fred had Ginny," George stammered. "They and Ron and Harry ran into the forest. We were with them—"
"My p-parents ordered Dobby to keep me out of danger, so he pulled me out, and George because he was touching me," Hermione explained shakily.
"The others were…were helping the Ministry people."
"Ohhhhh…" Mrs. Weasley moaned. The horror of Death Eaters attacking her family seemed to have overridden the shock of a house elf performing Side-Along Apparition. "Please come home, Arthur—all of you."
"I need to go back," George asserted.
"Absolutely not!" his mother snapped back to attention.
"Mum, everybody else is still out there. Fred's out there—"
"And you're not going back into that."
"They won't know we're there—"
"No, George," Hermione interrupted. "She's right, it's no good if you just put yourself in danger again."
"But—"
"Just a moment. Maybe Dobby can help."
Dobby stood there, wringing his hands as the three stared at him. "Please be pardoning Dobby, Miss Hermione, but I must goes. Your parents orders Dobby to tell them if you is in danger."
No, Hermione thought. No, he can't. It was one thing to pull her out, but she was not going to let his orders to keep her safe hurt the safety of anyone else. Hermione was glad she had memorised Dobby's new orders word for word. She could play the loophole game as well as he could.
"Dobby, wait!" she said. "Your orders said, and I quote, 'If Hermione is in a dangerous environment, you will tell us as soon as possible so long as your presence is not needed there to protect her.' But I'm not in a dangerous environment now. I was in one a few minutes ago, but now that I'm out, the order doesn't apply anymore."
Dobby straightened up and got a grin on his face. He didn't like being forced to the sidelines any more than she did. "Miss Hermione is very crafty. How can Dobby help?"
"Okay, first off, keep yourself safe. Stay hidden or keep to a safe distance if it gets dangerous. I want you to go back and try to find Harry—I'm sorry, Mrs. Weasley, but he's the Boy-Who-Lived; he's the biggest target. If he's still in danger, bring him back here, and if you can, bring any of our group who are with him. If the danger's passed, come back here, and take us to him."
"What?" Mrs. Weasley started.
"Only if the danger's passed to my parents' standards, ma'am. We need to go back. They'll be worried about us, and our stuff's still there anyway. Can you do all that, Dobby?"
"Yes, miss, Dobby will do it." He saluted her and vanished with a Pop!
Mrs. Weasley's hands were shaking. She stayed on the sofa, muttering to herself worriedly. George sat down next to her, and she grabbed onto his hand like a lifeline.
George himself didn't look much better. "Fred and I have never faced anything apart," he said sorrowfully. "He's in Merlin knows what trouble, and he probably doesn't even know what happened to me."
Hermione sat on his other side and awkwardly patted his shoulder. "They'll be okay," she tried to assure him (and herself). "Fred's resourceful. Ron can do strategy. Harry can cast a Patronus. And Ginny knows more hexes than anyone her age should be allowed to." That got a weak chuckle out of him.
There was a chime, and all three of them looked up breathlessly at the clock. Fred's, Ron's, and Ginny's hands all swung around from Mortal Peril to Lost. Mr. Weasley's, Bill's, Charlie's, and Percy's were still stuck on Mortal Peril.
"Well…at least they're out of danger," Hermione said awkwardly. "See? What did I tell you?"
George visibly relaxed, though certainly not completely. "Well…that's half the problem solved, then," he said, trying to smile.
Mrs. Weasley was still too worried to speak, though from the look of it, she was no longer in danger of crushing George's hand. Hermione kept rubbing his shoulder, not really sure what to do.
"They'll be okay, too, Mum," George said after a minute. "You know how brilliant Bill, Charlie, and Percy are, and Dad's no slouch either."
"Uh huh," Hermione agreed. "I just hope Sirius is alright, too," she muttered to herself. She didn't want to think about what would happen to Harry if anything happened to Sirius.
It took another couple minutes for Mrs. Weasley to stir again. When she did, her hands were still shaking. "Oh, my nerves," she said. "I'm too old for this business." But even as she said it, a determined look crept over her face, and she stood up. "Come on, I can at least get you two some tea. I feel like I need to do something." She stood up from the sofa, hesitated, then lifted the rather heavy clock off its spot on the wall and carried it to the kitchen. (Hermione was surprised that it looked like it used a spring-driven escapement instead of a pendulum. It seemed just a little too modern for wizards.) She grunted from the weight. "Merlin's beard," she continued muttering, "I don't think I've moved this thing since…well, since the war…not much need to, I suppose." She set it down on the kitchen table with a thud and began fumbling with the teakettle.
"Let me help with that," George and Hermione said in unison, reaching out and grabbing the kettle at the same time.
"Oh!" Mrs. Weasley jumped, laying a hand on her chest. "Excuse me, Hermione. For a moment, you two sounded like…"
Like Fred and George was the obvious implication. Hermione wasn't sure whether to be pleased about that or offended to be lumped in with those troublemakers.
George forced a laugh. "Watch out, Mum. There's no telling what could happen with three of us."
That was enough to get a weak laugh out of both Mrs. Weasley and Hermione. The Twins were good to have around like that. "Oh, Merlin help us all," Mrs. Weasley said.
As she relaxed a little more, though still brooding and spending most of her time staring at her clock, George and Hermione got the tea ready, and Hermione tried her best to make conversation in hushed tones. "Bloody hell, Death Eaters now?" she muttered in frustration. "What is wrong with this country?"
"Yeah, I dunno," George said. "We've had a nasty three years around here, haven't we?"
"Mm hmm," she lowered her voice to a mere whisper. "I'm getting a little worried. I don't normally put stock in divination, but everyone seemed so serious about that prophecy Professor Trelawney made. Did I tell you about that?"
"Not the whole thing."
"Oh, well…" she glanced at Mrs. Weasley. "I'll tell you and Fred later, but she predicted some Death Eater would find…You-Know-Who and try to bring him back."
"Yikes," George hissed. "You don't think that…?"
"I don't think so. It doesn't smell right. Why not declare himself to the world if he is? But the servant could be behind the riot."
"That sounds bad," he agreed.
"Yeah, I know. I do hope your family's alright."
"I know." George spoke a little louder, for his mum's benefit: "I'm…sure they're fine. I mean, the whole Ministry's here. Even if those were real Death Eaters, they're way outnumbered."
Hermione frowned: "Then why attack there at all?"
"Dunno. Make a statement, maybe? Or maybe they've just been drinking. That'd be even better for us."
They sat in silence for a few minutes and drank their tea, trying not to think of all the things that could have gone wrong back at the campground.
"George?" Hermione said.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for looking out for me back there."
He gave her a half smile. "No problem," he said. "I don't know what we'll do without you this fall."
"Oh, I know. Who's gonna keep you two out of trouble?"
"Hah. That's a lost cause, Miss Goody Two-Shoes." She shot him an annoyed look. "But still, you're a Goody Two-Shoes who's improbably fun to have around."
While not strictly accurate (she was enough of a bad girl to get grounded this summer, after all), that was enough to make Hermione laugh loudly, much to Mrs. Weasley's bewilderment.
Suddenly, the clock chimed again, and all conversation stopped. Mr. Weasley's, Bill's, Charlie's, and Percy's hands all shifted from Mortal Peril to Travelling, which was where they were supposed to be. The three in the kitchen breathed a sigh of relief, but then, Fred's, Ron's, and Ginny's hands bounced to Mortal Peril again. Yet they only stayed there a few seconds before they also shifted to Travelling.
"What the bloody hell—"
"George!"
"Sorry, Mum. What was that?"
"Could've been anything…" Hermione said. She didn't really know how the clock worked. How did it know there was Mortal Peril? Was it based on the Weasleys' own beliefs? That seemed like it would be easiest, but it would miss things if they were unconscious. Maybe it detected that a Death Eater passed by her friends as he made a getaway? Whatever it was, it was quick.
With a pop, Dobby reappeared, making them jump.
"Dobby! What happened?" Hermione said worriedly.
"Harry Potter is safe, Miss Hermione," the elf said, to her relief. "And so is all the Wheezys. All the Death Eaters is gone."
"Oh, thank Merlin," Mrs. Weasley said.
"Thank you, Dobby," Hermione said. "Can you take George and me back there?"
"Yes, miss, Dobby can, but just to be warning you, there is being trouble with Mr. Barty Grouchy."
George burst out laughing.
"George," Hermione scolded. "He's had a hard night. You can't blame him if he's having trouble with names."
"Don't care. I'm totally using that on Percy."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Weasley," she said. "We'll come back with the others on the Portkey. Don't worry. If Dobby says it's safe, I'm sure it is."
Mrs. Weasley sighed and didn't look like she wanted to let George go, but she just said, "Do be careful, dears."
"Please be holding tight," Dobby said. Hermione and George took his hands. Hermione braced herself, but it didn't make the feeling of being squeezed through a one-dimensional tube much more pleasant. When they landed, Dobby immediately dropped to his knees, panting. They were just outside a clearing in the woods where a large group of wizards were gathered.
"Get some rest, Dobby," Hermione said softly. "I can see why that's for emergencies only."
They stepped into the clearing, and they saw Amos Diggory interrogating someone they couldn't see. "What did you see, elf?" he demanded. "Who was it?"
A squeaky voice replied, "I is seeing—" and Hermione realised it was the voice of Mr. Crouch's house elf, Winky. "I is seeing—I is seeing—" she repeated oddly, as if she were unable to talk about what exactly she saw.
"FREEZE!" The wizards saw Hermione and George, and a dozen of them pointed their wands at them. The pair did just that. But as everyone turned and looked, certain members of the crowd recognised them.
"Hermione!"
"George!"
"Harry!"
"Fred!"
Most of the wizards—Hermione could tell by their robes that they were Aurors—lowered their wands as the group welcomed them again. Hermione was relieved to see Sirius standing unharmed by Harry as well.
But then, in a blink, Barty Crouch was towering over them in a seeming rage. "You two!" he roared. "Did you conjure the Dark Mark?" He pointed at the sky.
"What—" Hermione looked up and gasped as she saw a horrible sight—one she had only seen in books: a vivid green cloud in the shape of a skull with a snake emerging from its mouth—Voldemort's mark.
"Well, did you?" Mr. Crouch demanded.
"What? No! I'm a muggle-born," Hermione said. "And he's a Weasley. We'd never do that!"
"It's true," Mr. Weasley spoke up.
"I think, unfortunately, our perpetrator had escaped," Mr. Diggory said, pulling Mr. Crouch back.
Mr. Crouch grumbled, but he said, "I fear you are right, Amos. As for you—" He turned and glared at the elf who was lying on the ground. "Winky, I ordered you not to wander off."
"But Mr. Crouch, I is seeing—here! Here!"
"That's enough, Winky. I will not tolerate a servant who cannot follow orders."
"But Mr. Crouch, Winky was trying to help—" the elf continued.
"Be quiet. I ordered you not to leave the camp, and you disobeyed me. This means clothes!"
Winky shrieked in horror at a frequency that would have given dogs fits and prostrated herself, clutching at his shoes. "No, master! Not clothes! Please, not clothes!"
Hermione was horrified at this display. She hadn't seen what led up to it, but she got the gist. It was an eye-opener, though. She had never imagined that a "normal" elf would react this badly to being given clothes. "Mr. Crouch, you can't do that!" she spoke up. "The camp was on fire and being trampled. She could've been killed back there. You couldn't force her to stay there.""I have no use for a servant who disobeys me," Mr. Crouch said coldly. In a shocking move for such a formal man, he ripped his tie from around his neck and threw it over top of Winky, who sobbed all the louder. "An elf who forgets her place is no elf at all."
The Ministry officials dispersed after that, leaving Winky crying on the ground. Mr. Weasley corralled the group. "Come on, all of you," he said. They turned to go, but Hermione lagged behind, staring at the poor elf. "Hermione, come on," he repeated.
"J-just a moment," she stammered. She stepped forward without a word, took off her snakeskin coat, wrapped Winky up in it, and carried her away, cradling her like a little child. Winky was crying too hard to notice at first, but her sobs subsided at the motion, and she stared up into Hermione's face. She didn't speak, apparently too shocked that anyone would show her any kindness given her present estate.
"Bringing the elf?" Mr. Weasley asked.
"Do you have a problem with that?" Hermione said sharply.
"No, no, of course not," he said, holding up his hand. "I just don't know what you can do with her."
"I'll think of something."
"So what happened?" George asked as they caught up with the group.
"What happened to us? What happened to you?" Fred demanded. "One minute you were there, and the next you disappeared."
"Sorry. That was my fault," Hermione said. "My parents ordered Dobby to keep me safe, so he transported us back to the Burrow."
That shocked the others. "Elves can do that?" Harry said.
"Blimey, you mean Mum knows about this?" Ron asked worriedly.
"She would've known from the clock, anyway," George said. "Now seriously, what happened?"
"Well, we ran into Malfoy Junior," Fred started.
"He was a real berk," Ron added. "He wanted to know where the…" He turned red and trailed off.
"Where the mudblood was," Harry said softly.
"Oh," Hermione said.
"Ron about smacked him in the gob," Ginny said. "We were already worried about you. But we kept going. And then that skull thing appeared."
"Did anyone die?" Hermione asked fearfully.
"Not that we know of," Sirius said. "It's odd."
"We heard the man that did it," Harry continued. "He was right there by that clearing. But they didn't catch him. The Aurors thought we did it for a minute, but Sirius and Mr. Weasley talked them down."
By the time they got back to the tent, things had calmed down, but Bill, Charlie, and Percy all looked pretty beat up. Hermione nearly hexed Percy when she explained about Winky, and he took Mr. Crouch's side. The few encounters she'd had with the man all suggested to her that Barty Crouch was a thoroughly unpleasant human being.
In any case, the muggle family, the Robertses, were all safe, but the Death Eaters or whoever they were had all got away, scared off by the Dark Mark. Of course, that didn't prove much. They might have been mere troublemakers who were terrified that real Death Eaters showed up, or they might have been real Death Eaters who were afraid that their master would be angry that they disowned him to stay out of Azkaban. It was the Dark Mark that puzzled everyone. Why was it cast? And by whom?
"Look, will someone just explain why the skull thing was a bigger deal than people trashing the camp and hexing muggles?" Ron demanded pragmatically.
"It was You-Know-Who's symbol, Ron," Mr. Weasley said quietly. "It hasn't been seen in thirteen years. It was almost like seeing You-Know-Who himself in the flesh again."
"But why?"
"Ron, You-Know-Who and his followers sent the Dark Mark into the air whenever they killed," said Mr. Weasley. "The terror it inspired…you have no idea, you're too young. Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and knowing what you're about to find inside…" Mr. Weasley winced. "Everyone's worst fear…the very worst…"
Hermione shuddered at the image. She couldn't help imagining it now—seeing the Dark Mark floating over her own house, finding her parents lying lifeless inside. It might be worse than seeing Voldemort himself, because you knew you were already too late. She couldn't imagine much that was worse—maybe dementors, but dementors trumped just about everything.
"So what do we do, then?" Harry asked worriedly.
"Just keep a watchful eye out, Pup," Sirius tried to comfort him. "That's all we can do."
With the camp secure, they were able to stay back in the tents and try to get a few hours of sleep before catching the first available Portkey out in the morning, but there was one thing Hermione had to do first. Luckily, she had brought a little bit of parchment with her in case she wanted to do some maths on the trip. She took out a piece and began to write a letter.
A precious few hours of sleep later, Mr. Weasley packed up the tents with magic, and they loaded up to leave. But Hermione had her work to finish. After she finally passed out from exhaustion, Winky had slept like the dead on the floor of the girls' tent. This morning, she stood weary, stooped, and downtrodden, wandering aimlessly around the campsite and moaning to herself softly. Hermione thought she seemed disturbingly like Moaning Myrtle, but hopefully she could change that.
"Winky, come here, please," she said. Winky slowly wandered over to her. She crouched down in front of the elf and said, "I want to help you, Winky."
"Winky does not deserve help," she said and sniffed loudly. "Winky is a bad elf."
"No, you're not," Hermione insisted. "You probably don't want to hear this, but I think Mr. Crouch was completely out of line. I think you're a perfectly acceptable elf. Now, listen." She held up the envelope. "This is a letter to Professor Dumbledore at Hogwarts. Do you know who he is?"
Winky's eyes grew very large, and she nodded silently.
"Good. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to Hogwarts, go to the kitchens, and ask for Sonya. Tell her you have a letter for Professor Dumbledore from Hermione Granger and ask her to deliver it. It tells all about your situation and asks him to bind you to the school. I don't know if he'll be able to pay the transfer tax to do it properly, but I know he'll at least let you work in the castle."
Winky stared at her in awe: "M-M-Miss Hermione Granger is h-helping Winky g-gets a new p-position?"
"Yes I am. I can't stand to see an elf hurt like that."
"Y-you is m-most kind, Miss…Winky will do what you ask." Winky seemed to summon up her energy and vanished into thin air, taking the letter with her.
They packed up and took down the girls' tent, and then the whole group went to work on the big one.
"Phew, that was some night," Fred and George said in unison.
"Tell me about it," Hermione said.
"At least we got our money," Fred suggested. "That'll be a big help for our, er, work."
"Well, there is that." Hermione reached into her handbag to pull out the small bag of gold that Bagman had given her last night. But suddenly, something felt wrong about it. She opened it up and gasped. The galleons had turned from gold to a dull bronze colour, and they began to crumble to dust in her hands. On the faces, a picture of a little bearded man was pointing and laughing hysterically at her. "This—this is leprechaun gold!" she yelled.
"What!" the Twins yelled. They quickly found their own bag of gold, and sure enough, all that was inside was disintegrating leprechaun gold. "That cheat!" they yelled.
"We need to do something about this, George," Fred said firmly.
"Agreed, my brother. It's one thing if we go all in, but that's straight up robbery."
"Now please don't anything rash," Hermione urged them.
"Don't worry, ickle Hermionekins," George said with a grin. "We can be subtle."
"When we want to be," Fred added.
"I reckon we'll start by just writing him and go from there."
"Oh. That's alright, then. I can't believe I let myself get conned," she griped.
"It's not your fault. Even Dad bought in," Fred said. "I reckon he thought he was good for whatever he had to pay out."
"Not with that book, he wasn't," she said. "Fifteen to one, honestly."
"Don't worry about it," George assured her. "We're all in this together. But no time now. We need to get home before Mum goes spare."
They were just about to leave the camp when Hermione heard a voice calling her name. She looked up and saw a familiar face.
"Septima!" she called, running over to where the Vector family was passing by.
"Oh, Hermione, thank Merlin! I was so worried," Septima said. "I couldn't get any word."
"I'm fine," Hermione assured her. "The Weasleys looked after me. What about you? Are you all okay?"
"Yes, we're fine. We were farther from the front of the camp, where the trouble started. We had plenty of time to get away. Of course, we're not too happy about these events—"
"Yes, Death Eaters again," Gaius said. He was keeping a tight grip on little Georgina's hand. "I can't believe after all these years…Well, Georgina might prefer Hogwarts, but if any more incidents like this happen, we may send her to Beauxbatons after all at Christmas." The little girl sniffed worriedly.
"It'll be okay, Georgina," Hermione said. "If you have to come, at least you'll have one friend there already."
"You'll be my friend?" she said hopefully.
"Of course I will. If we wind up going to a new school in a new country together, we'll have to stick together, right."
Georgina smiled and hugged her. "Thank you, Hermione," she said.
When they finally got back to the Burrow, Mrs. Weasley ran out to meet the group in hysterics, still frantic over not hearing any news about their condition. Mr. Weasley and Percy were called into the Ministry right away to deal with the fallout. Meanwhile, the rest of the family de-stressed. Harry, Sirius, and the rest of the Weasley children went out for a game of four-a-side Quidditch. Hermione sat safe on the ground on the front porch and studied some abstract algebra—that was, until she remembered something important that made her smack herself in the forehead, and she ran out to the paddock.
"Ginny!" she called out.
Ginny swooped down on her broom and hovered beside her. "Hey, Hermione, what's up?"
"Ginny, where does Luna live?"
"Over that ridge," she pointed. "Can't miss it. Her house looks like a giant chess piece. Why?"
"She and her dad were at the World Cup, remember? We need to make sure she's okay."
"Oh, bugger, we forgot all about her. I'll come with you."
"Oi, Ginny! Now we're one short," Ron complained.
"I'll come with you," Harry said after a moment's hesitation.
Ginny looked up in surprise to see Harry descending to join them. "Really, Harry?" she said.
"Sure. That way, it'll be even for them. And besides, I don't think I've really met Luna properly yet."
"I'm not sure there is a proper way to meet Luna," Ginny joked.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll like her, Harry," Hermione said. "Granted, she'll drive you out of your mind, but she's so adorable while she's doing it."
Both girls giggled at Harry's bewilderment as they walked over the ridge to the house that the Weasleys called the Rookery. The Lovegoods' house did, indeed, look like a giant rook, and it was surrounded by strangeness. Magical kites flew suspended in the air and tied to a cable that led to one of the windows. Beside the front door stood something that the adjacent sign called a dirigible plum tree, which Hermione had never heard of, but which grew plums that floated up from little vines in a way that made them look oddly like radishes. On the other side of the door were chalk drawings of creatures that looked a little like pixies, but not quite…hanging from dirigible plums. The door itself had a knocker shaped like an eagle that was identical to the one at the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower, except that it didn't ask a riddle. Ginny knocked it loudly three times and waited.
A minute later, Luna Lovegood opened the door. "Hello, Hermione. Ginny…And hello, Harry Potter. What a surprise," she said with a smile. Beneath her long, blond locks she appeared to be wearing a pair of earrings made out of, once again, dirigible plums.
"Hi, Luna," Hermione said. "We wanted to make sure you were okay after last night."
"Ah, that's very thoughtful of you. We're both fine, although I was worried about Dad for a while. He was reporting on everything. But he says the best thing about running a non-traditional publication is that people usually don't pay much attention to you when you're sneaking about."
Well, that was certainly putting a positive spin on things.
"Would you like to come in?"
They agreed and entered the house. The place looked stranger on the inside than the outside. The entire ground floor was the kitchen, where all of the cabinets and even the sink and stove had been custom-made to fit the curvature of the walls and were painted with flowers, birds, and insects in bright colours. A wrought-iron spiral staircase stood right in the middle of the room, which led up to what would have been a living room if it hadn't been hopelessly cluttered with books, papers, and enchanted miniatures of probably-non-existent creatures, and dominated by a large, old-fashioned printing press. A man with shoulder-length white hair was sitting at a writing desk beside the press, scribbling frantically.
"Hello, Dad," Luna called loudly. "Ginny's here. And these are my other friends, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter."
"That's nice, Moonbeam," her father said without looking up.
"Don't mind Dad," she said. "He's been writing stories all morning. Enough things happened last night to fill a special edition."
Luna's father was the editor of the Quibbler, which, though Hermione wouldn't say it, was basically a supermarket tabloid. Hermione was sure Mr. Lovegood would come up with some…unique explanations for the attack on the campsite.
"Would you like some gurdyroot tea?" Luna asked.
"Oka—"
"No," Ginny interrupted. "Er, something a little more traditional, if you don't mind."
"Of course not. I'll go start it." She hopped on the railing and slid back down the stairs.
Harry and Hermione gave Ginny an inquisitive look. "If you don't recognise the name, it's best to avoid it in this place," she whispered. "Trust me."
The three of them sat in awkward silence broken only by the scratching of Mr. Lovegood's quill. He seemed completely oblivious to them. A couple minutes later, Luna returned carrying a tea tray.
"So where did you go when the Death Eaters came, Luna?" asked Harry.
"Oh, hello, Ginny, when did you get here?" Mr. Lovegood spun around and was staring at the group intently.
"Just now, Mr. Lovegood," she said.
"Ah. It's good to see you, then, especially after all the trouble. Moonbeam, who is this boy?" he said sharply.
Ginny and Hermione giggled at Harry's expense again. Oblivious as he was, Mr. Lovegood was still the father of a thirteen-year-old girl and apparently had been alerted at once by another male voice in the room.
"This is Harry Potter, Dad. He's a friend of Ginny's," Luna said as serenely as ever.
Mr. Lovegood's eyes fell on Harry's scar, and his mouth dropped open comically in surprise.
"Into the woods," Luna said.
"Huh?" Harry asked.
"Where I went when the Death Eaters came," she answered his question without missing a beat. "I met some very nice Scandinavian girls who helped me find my way through. Oh, and Dad, this is my other friend, Hermione Granger. The Arithmancer." Hermione wasn't sure why she heard capital letters.
"Oh? Oh!" Mr. Lovegood turned to see her as he was shaking Harry's hand. He immediately shook her hand just as eagerly. "My Luna's told me about you, Miss Granger. An extraordinarily unfiltered mind in the area of mathematics. The subconscious mind has an incredible ability to perform calculations very quickly, but most of us have such strong barriers between the conscious and the subconscious that we can't access that power, and it takes years of practice to overcome. But you, Miss Granger, seem to have successfully removed those barriers at an early age and unlocked your full potential. Oh, I wonder if you might allow me to perform a few magical scans." He grew more and more excited as he pointed to a strange headdress on one of the workbenches. "They might prove invaluable to my efforts to recreate the Lost Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, which was said to allow one's thoughts to flow from conscious to subconscious and back unhindered so as to unlock the maximum intelligence and creativity of one's mind."
Ginny gave Mr. Lovegood a patronising smile. "They both have a lot of wild theories like that," she said quietly. "Can't make head or tail of half of them."
"Actually," Hermione said, looking up at the tall man in surprise, "I understood every word of that, and it was basically right."
Ginny's jaw practically hit the floor. She looked like she might faint. Hermione was pretty well shocked, too. It might be a first for her encounters with either of the Lovegoods, but she completely believed it. She had read quite a bit about the so-called "savant syndrome" because she seemed to possess the same natural talent that many savants did for lightning-fast calculation, though thankfully without the intellectual disability. Admittedly, it was something she had had to learn and practice much more than the typical savant. In any case, savants could have amazing untaught talents for both analytic skills like arithmetic and creative skills like painting, and while there was precious little research on the subject, it seemed like a big driver was that they had access to the enormous wealth of sensory and analytical information that the human brain normally filtered out from the conscious mind. She hadn't heard of the Lost Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, but a magical device that could unblock those filters could be incredibly powerful.
"I think I'd like to try those scans, Mr. Lovegood," she said.
"Ah, excellent, excellent," he said with a wide smile. "Now, sit here—" He cleared a space on the workbench and began waving his wand around Hermione's head. "—and tell me what is four thousand, nine hundred twenty-seven multiplied but seven thousand, four hundred twenty-nine?"
"Thirty-six million…six hundred two thousand…six hundred eighty-three," she replied.
Mr. Lovegood asked her progressively harder maths questions, up to and including multivariable calculus and some examples of Arithmancy problems like modifying spells, not stopping until he had reached the limits of her abilities, which took some time. And yet, Hermione was smiling. After the terror of last night, it felt refreshing.
Luna, Harry, and Ginny spent the time discussing the match, but Luna seemed more interested in the fight between the leprechauns and the veela, and she also had her own bizarre theories about the match such as that the Irish Seeker, Aidan Lynch, was suffering from something called Loser's Lurgy.
"It was really obvious the second time he crashed, since he dove first, didn't even get the Snitch, and still failed to pull up," she reasoned.
"Or his brain was still addled from the first crash," Harry countered.
"Well, I suppose that's possible."
Ginny giggled: "Luna, I think if you ever commented a match at school, it would be hilarious."
Luna frowned in thought. "I don't know how much people would approve," she said. "Most people always seem so focused on the score."
"Um, that is why most of the people are there," Harry said uncomfortably.
"Oh, I know. It's just that most people take too little time to really notice the world around them." She leaned in a whispered conspiratorially, "I don't think any of my roommates can even see the nargles."
"Well said, Luna," Mr. Lovegood said as he placed his strange headdress with ear trumpets and propellers on Hermione's head.
"Nargles?" Harry mouthed to Ginny.
"Don't ask," she mouthed back
"That is what I hope I will be able to fix with this helmet," Mr. Lovegood continued. "The difficulty is that while the wrackspurt syphons remove sources of distraction from the thinker's immediate area, in doing so, they narrow one's focus, making it harder to take in a full view of the world. There, now, my dear, are you feeling any less encumbered, more creative—a more open mind, perhaps?"
"Can you see any nargles?" Luna asked.
"Um, not really, Mr. Lovegood," Hermione said. And she thought she must look very silly, besides. Ginny and Harry were trying not to laugh. "And what do nargles actually look like, Luna?"
"Like this—oh, where is it…here."
She handed her a sketch of a strange creature. It looked superficially like a Cornish pixie, but it had sea-green wings, four arms instead of two, and from the sketch of flowers around it, it was only about an inch high. It was a very nice sketch, worthy of any field guide. Hermione made a genuine effort to look around her surrounding for anything like it, but she saw nothing. "No, I don't see anything like that," she said.
"Well, they are very hard to see," Luna replied. "It's easiest around midnight on the equinoxes, but you have to surprise them."
"…Right…Did you draw this, Luna? It's really nice."
"Oh, yes, thank you. I've been practising for Care of Magical Creatures class this year."
"I'll be in that," Ginny said. "And Arithmancy."
"That's nice. It's too bad you have to leave, Hermione. I tested into fourth year Ancient Runes. We could have been in the same class."
"I know, but at least you'll have Ron in that class. He could definitely use some open-mindedness," Hermione said. Ginny laughed that that. "And actually, Mr. Lovegood," Hermione continued, "the way I became so good at maths was by memorising a whole bunch of useful arithmetic, so I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask about creative skills."
"Oh, I think you're more creative than you think, Miss Granger. And I think I've gained some useful notes either way," he said as he took some more scans. "Thank you for humouring me."
"I think I understand what you mean about her driving me out of my mind," Harry said as they walked back to the Burrow. "My head's still spinning—nargles and Loser's Lurgy and all that."
"Luna really is a good friend, though, Harry," Hermione said. "She tries to look out for me, and I try to look out for her. I was hoping the rest of you could do that for me since I won't be there…But you're right. I can only take her in small doses."
"I try to just roll with it," Ginny offered. "I think I built up a tolerance to her when I was little. Ron's not gonna know what hit him in class, though."
Back at the Burrow, Hermione had to pack up to go home. She would have liked to stay longer, but she was leaving for France tomorrow to get her supplies and get settled in with the language before the term started, so she didn't have a lot of time to socialise. She did, however, have just enough time to discover that Bill played chess just about as well as Ron and had a very different playing style. After he beat her, she suggested playing another game by mail, which he accepted. She was determined to keep up a regular correspondence with her friends while she was away anyway, and if she was lucky, she might get some interesting tidbits on cursebreaking out of it, too.
She'd thought her parents wouldn't know anything about the attack when she finally Flooed back to the Leaky Cauldron, but she'd forgotten about the fact that everybody in the pub would be talking about it. As a result, her mother was nearly frantic by the time she got there.
"Hermione," Emma Granger said, hugging her. "They're saying there was an attack or something last night. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Mum," she insisted. "Dobby got me out right away." Faster than I wanted him to, she added silently.
"But what happened out there?" Dan Granger asked.
"What, you mean the attack or overall?"
Hermione's parents exchanged a concerned look. "Did something else happen while you were there?" her father asked.
"Oh, nothing big. I found out wizards have absolutely no common sense when it comes to memory charms. I won about six hundred pounds in a bet, but the bookie wasn't good for it, but Harry bought me a magical video camera that's worth that much by itself. And I helped an elf who had been unfairly freed find a new home."
"Oh, Hermione," her mother said. "And you wonder why we don't want you staying in this country."
"No, I understand, Mum," she said sadly. "At this point, I'm starting to wonder why I want to stay."