AN: Just wanted to put in a quick note before the start of the chapter.

I am sorry that I don't really respond to reviews, but I promise that I do read them, and respond when I can.

Also, if you have a negative review, I AM okay with that, I promise; so long as it is respectful and gives good criticism. If I can use that to improve upon my story, all the better. If I can't have an open discussion with you about what it is you don't like, I have no idea how to fix whatever it is.

Anyway, the whole point of fanfiction writing is to ask what if, and then run with the evil plot bunnies. As long as we all have fun, both as readers and writers, that's really what's important.

Thank you for reading! And now? Back to the chapter!

Last time...

"Ron, I barely believe the gold in my own vault is real." Hera pointed out. He just looked at her like he couldn't grasp the concept. "Think about it, Ron. If you woke up one day, and was told you were rich, would you believe it?"

"Well, when you put it like that, I guess not." Ron chuckled.

"When I met my account manager at Gringotts and he told me I was rich, the first thing I said to him was 'Prove it', because I didn't believe something like that could happen to me." Hera admitted, sheepishly. "Knowing what I know about goblins now, I'm surprised he didn't just cut me down then and there. Instead, he threw his head back and laughed like he'd never heard anything so amusing before."

Chapter 30

That evening at dinner, Hermione met a challenge she had not thought she would face; learning how to feed herself again. None of the other Slytherins laughed at her, which she was still pleasantly surprised by. Instead, several had vowed vengeance for the dishonour to their House. She thought she'd nearly insulted them by insisting they not do anything, but they were more than pleased when they realized she wanted to take care of this personally. After all, the person who sent the puss wasn't the problem; Rita Skeeter was. They promised resources, should she need them, and wished her luck in her first foray into vengeance.

She was shocked out of her thoughts, in which she was mainly staring at her nonfunctional hands, by Victor. He was sitting on her right, fork with a small bit of food on it in hand. The little smile he gave said that he'd noticed how brightly she was blushing, and who wouldn't, but still he persisted; holding the fork like a hesitant offering. When she accepted the bite, blushing all the more for it, Hera tapped her on her left shoulder. She was not expecting to find another fork that held a small offering of food, though Hera's smile was a lot more wickedly mischievous than Victor's had been.

"Did you two plan this?" Hermione asked quietly, after accepting the bite.

"Hermione, denying the rumours will do nothing but fan them. I plan on leaning into them so hard, people will wish they'd never believed that stupid cow. So of course I plan on feeding my girlfriend in her time of need. I won't even be lying. You are a girl who is my friend, and you need food." Hera replied impishly.

"V'ile I also, of course, plan on feeding my girlfriend in her time of need," Victor added. "though you are decidedly more than only my friend."

"This will make the rumours worse." Hermione insisted, though she couldn't help but be inwardly pleased when Victor offered her more food. It certainly made things easier than trying to muck it about with her hands as bandaged as they were.

"Of course it will, which will give us more opportunities to catch that lying cow at whatever it is she's doing to get what information she does get right." Hera concluded. "Luna and Colin want to do an article in the Quibbler for it, which I said I'd talk with you about first, explaining the full truth of it all, and because not many take the newspaper seriously, no one will believe it, which will set the trap all the better."

"And you're okay with this?" Hermione asked Victor.

"It is sound plan." Victor nodded. "Remind me never to make Hera angry. She is quite protective of friends. I still haff nightmares about shark incident."

"You scolded him for trying to rescue me?" Hermione asked Hera under her breath in disbelief.

"It needed to be said." Hera replied, completely unapologetic. "The boy tried to gnaw the ropes off your body with his own transfigured shark teeth. What if he'd gnawed you in half on accident?"

"Did you tell Ron about the plan?" Hermione asked, having a sudden thought.

"Yeah. Why?" Hera replied, another forkful of food in hand.

Hermione makes a show of leaning in to whisper something in her ear, and says. "Because he looks like a tomato that's about to explode."

Hera looked over, saw that Ron was indeed glowering at them all, and sighed. "That idiot. We just talked about this."

"What's his problem?" She wondered, though she hadn't meant to say that aloud.

"Oh, I can actually answer that one." Draco interjected from his place in front of Hera. "He has a crush on the both of you."

Both girls sputtered at this.

"Think about it. He realized you were both girls at about the same time." Draco pointed out. "He was angry at you for going to the Ball with Krum, and angry at Potter for going to the Ball with me. He's got the emotional maturity of a teaspoon, so he does what all immature imbeciles do. You know that whole tripe about boys pulling pigtails of the girls they like? Yeah, it's only the immature little shites that do that, and you can not tell me that Weaslebee doesn't fit that profile."

"Wait, so what would you do if you liked someone?" Hera asked, now morbidly curious.

"Can't tell you that, darling. You might actually fall for me then." Draco teased, and now Hera was sporting a nice blush of her own.

"I suppose I could do worse." The girl replied, eyeing him critically.

"Of course you could. I'm the best." He insisted with a grin, preening like a peacock. "I am a Malfoy, after all."

"And so humble too." She snickered at him.

Of course the letters kept coming, which were easily taken care of, and they all got to practice their detection spells. Professor Snape taught them all a nifty spell to silence a Howler, though it was mainly used to insure privacy in conversations. This he did after Hera hit a Howler with a spell so hard that it exploded into a shower of snow, changing the weather of the room, and incidentally starting a massive snowball fight that had taken a full three hours to calm down; mainly because Hera had discovered that she could mold things out of snow and ice, and proceeded to craft herself a nice little fort from which to defend her ever growing stash of snowballs. She had yet to find a return to sender spell that disguised what was in the envelope, but that just inspired her to work on creating one, though she had yet to complete the research. Rita Skeeter kept printing articles via Witch Weekly, and Ron seemed to be in a strop every time he saw the three of them hanging out together; no matter how many times they reminded him they weren't actually together together.

Both Hera and Hermione had weathered the mail admirably, but that all stopped at Easter, when Hedwig brought Mrs. Weasley's gifts. Hera's chocolate egg was the size of a dragon's, Ron's as well; and considering they'd actually seen one, they could accurately say that. Hermione's, on the other hand, was barely the size of a chicken's. It also came with a Howler both Hera and Hermione had been too shocked to silence, and Mrs. Weasley's opinions blasted throughout the Great Hall. The entire room seemed to chill in that one moment, and then Hera calmly stood and walked out of the Great Hall with a quiet grace, leaving her chocolate egg behind. Ron abandoning all decorum and bolting after the girl a moment later was not wholly unexpected.

...

That evening found Hera in the makeshift potions lab she'd been using for her mastery. She immediately started gathering ingredients, separating them, going back for more. She was not expecting to see Professor Snape inspecting the potion notes after her fourth trip to the storage room she shared with the potions classroom. He didn't berate her for going through his classroom ingredients cupboard, as that was what it was there for. Instead, he went over the recipe she was planning on attempting, making little notes as he did so.

"The concentration in your potion will be too high if you follow this exactly. I've made corrections in the margins for you to look over." Professor Snape commented. "Other than that, I see no issue. Will you be needing assistance, or do you already have help?"

At that moment, Fred and George burst into the room.

"I see. Well then, carry on. I expect accurate notes on readings, results, and possibly a paper about it all later. Expect to be published." The man continued, before leaving the classroom as if he wasn't seeing students out of bed after hours.

"Did he just-"

"Did we just-"

"Are we really-"

"Yes, no, and maybe." Hera answered, as she began to prepare the ingredients. "Now wash up. We've a lot of work to do this weekend."

...

"Where'd you even learn about this potion anyway?" George asked. Fred was busy chopping up things, or else he would have contributed to the sentence.

"Dreamt it." Hera admitted, blushing as she concentrated on counting the stirs she made in the cauldron.

"And it won't…" George hesitated, uncertain how to voice his worry.

"It won't hurt anyone." Hera confirmed, eyes on the cauldron still. "Professor Snape wouldn't have given the go ahead for us to work on it without him if it did, especially knowing what I planned to do with it. He just fixed the concentration, made a few suggestions in the margins."

"What's it supposed to do?" Fred asked, before passing her a bit of the prepared ingredients, which she tossed in with a flash of light from the brew.

"That would be telling." Hera replied with a mischievous grin. "Trust me. It'll work just fine."

"Are you sure?" George asked, now morbidly curious.

She just snorted. "I don't know why it shouldn't. Worked on Sif easily enough."

"I thought you said you dreamt this." Fred pointed out. He looked to George and mouthed 'Sif?' George shrugged.

"I did. Doesn't mean it didn't happen." She replied, unbothered. "It's one of the reasons I'm so good at Divination. Just because you're dreaming, doesn't mean you aren't experiencing something real."

"Where's Hermione?" George decided to ask. They could figure out who Sif was later.

"Oh, she's trying to figure out how that cow Skeeter is getting onto the grounds when she's been banned." Hera replied easily. "Muggles have these little devices we call 'bugs' that help them listen in, so they can hear conversations without being there. They're called bugs because of how small and unnoticeable they can be. While magic interferes with muggle tech, it doesn't mean there are not magical equivalents. I just don't know what those are. So, Hermione's on the hunt."

"And she didn't think to ask us?" George asked, feigning insult.

"I think she's taking it on as a personal vendetta." Hera snickered. "Something like that? Sometimes, it's best to go it alone."

It was oddly silent in the Burrow. Arthur wasn't sure if he should count his blessings or worry. Molly had been in a right state upon learning that Tony Stark, one of the most publicly influential muggles in the US and the world at large, was Hera's brother. She thought it was baseless lies that besmirched Lily and James' reputation; which is how Rita Skeeter had publicized it, of course. She'd even gone so far as to send the man a Howler; something Arthur had not been too happy about, as it meant work at the Ministry trying to smooth things over. Just because he was in the know didn't mean it was automatically okay to send him things like that, as he could have been with those that were not in the know.

Then she'd seen the articles in Witch Weekly suggesting that Hera and Hermione were in a sort of triad cheating triangle situation of teenage drama together with Victor Krum. Instead of asking the girls about it, or asking any of their children at the school, Molly had sent a Howler with the Easter eggs. He'd sent an inquiry, knowing Molly hadn't or wouldn't, and discovered the girls and Victor Krum were not in a triad relationship teenage drama cheating thing together. They were all friends, something that seemed to send Ronald into fits Arthur likened to the boy's mother, but Hera was actually quite worried about the articles. Someone had sent undiluted bubatuber puss to Hermione, out of anger over said articles, and they hadn't caught it in time.

What if it had been something worse? What if it had killed her? He could only imagine the state she'd been in with the second task. Hera had deep seated issues with losing the people she cared for, especially where she'd had no one for years. He wouldn't believe it that those muggles cared for her, not with what she told him of her life, and he couldn't imagine being confronted with the possible loss of those she'd chosen to care for now.

For that matter, why wasn't anyone outraged that a fourteen year old girl was being forced to compete in a competition meant for 'Of Age' witches and wizards? Arthur knew for a fact that was how she'd gotten herself out of Albus' magical guardianship. The things she kept having to confront, the things his kids were asking him because they were worried about her, boggled his mind; he didn't know how she was handling it all. Molly now saw the twins as lost souls, because they'd become Slytherin, and worried at Hera's fate for the same reason; never mind that all of their children had tried to jump ship for the girl, or that Slytherin could help her navigate the trouble she found herself in far better than Gryffindor ever could. After that quiet talk with Charlie over a liberal amount of Fire Whiskey, he knew the girl still had plenty of Gryffindor recklessness in all that Sytherin guile.

He wasn't sure how Charlie knew that Hera could speak to dragons, or even how Hera knew she could speak to dragons, and quite frankly he wasn't sure he wanted to know. It probably had something to do with Hagrid. Oh, who was he kidding? Of course, it had something to do with Hagrid, and his love of 'inneresting' creatures. She had punched that hippogriph last year.

"Molly?" Arthur called out as he walked through the living room and into the kitchen, thinking to get himself a nice cuppa after the hard day he'd had, when he was met with the most unusual sight.

There was a Molly-esque looking mime in his kitchen. There was a Molly-esque looking mime in his kitchen, chasing Hera's snowy owl Familiar Hedwig. At least they were until they'd heard him, and then they froze. It looked like the poor dear didn't know whether to hide or try to explain what happened, but she wasn't talking, and Arthur had always been terrible at charades. She seemed especially desperate to get to the owl, but nearly burst into tears when he tried to help her. As he read the letter, he could understand why.

'Dear Arthur,

As you are the father of several of my friends, including one of my best friends, I thought it only fair to warn you. I have figured out how to send 'gifts' to all the people who have sent Howlers and envelopes with questionable things inside to me and my friends. As I know Molly is one of those people, I felt you should know what the 'gift' will do. The more hateful words a person wants to say, the worse it will affect them, and Molly said some absolutely vile and hateful things. Everyone that received a gift will keep it until they learn the error of their ways, or apologize to Hermione for their willingness to follow that stupid Skeeter's word like it was gospel instead of thinking for themselves. Maybe this will teach people to watch what they say, or at least think before they say it. After all, if one can't say anything nice, maybe they shouldn't say anything at all.'

It wasn't signed, but it didn't need to be. He shouldn't laugh, he really shouldn't, but that didn't mean the desire wasn't there. Molly had refused to believe the stories the twins told of Hera's most excellent pranks over the last three years, but Arthur knew better. After that summer before her Second Year, Arthur could tell that the girl was both fair minded like her mother, and loved a good prank like her father. If the girl felt the need to enact any sort of retribution, she wouldn't hesitate just because the offender was an adult, or someone she liked and respected.

On one hand, he didn't feel it was a child's place to exact retribution, but she wasn't exactly a legal child in the eyes of magic anymore. On the other hand, Molly often acted first and thought after, as did many of the adults in Hera's life. None of them were taking action to safeguard against things like the unfortunate incident with the bubatuber puss, and no punishments were ever really given to them, because as adults they did not seem to recognize they were to be held to the same standard they had for their children. Things were allowed to happen to Hera that would outrage a parent, but nothing was ever done about it, and she never seemed to enact any sort of retribution unless the problem involved harm to someone else. Perhaps he would leave this alone for now, and see if Molly could work through her embarrassment to the lesson she was refusing to acknowledge that she needed to learn.