Ours To Catch Chapter 17

Time with the Lovegoods was something Hermione would always find interesting. If it wasn’t Mr. Lovegood going off about some new beast, new to Hermione and the rest of the world at least, he was telling stories about how amazing her thought Luna’s mom was. Hermione had asked who Pandora Lovegood was and it seemed Mr. Lovegood couldn’t stop talking about her. Hermione couldn’t tell if the poor man actually knew his wife was believed to be dead or not. He talked as if she was going to walk through their front door any second. It was sad really.

Luna herself seemed indifferent whenever Xenophilius talked about her. Luna was more interested in talking about the different animals Hermione was sure had to be made up and helping Hermione do her research. Luna was a Ravenclaw after all, so searching for knowledge was always something Luna had time for; especially when it was helping her friends.

Luna showed Hermione their humble, for a pureblood at least, library and helped to find any and all books relating to pureblood society, customs, traditions and family lines. It was very tedious work as Hermione made sure to copy everything she felt was important, and made sure to write down references as well. Hermione wanted to focus on writing down as much information as she could before she had to leave for the Weasley’s because she knew she wouldn’t be able to do anything while there and when she got to Hogwarts, she wasn’t sure what kind of time she would have to look through books. At least this way, going through her very well-organized books was a lot faster than going through books.

With only a few days left with her stay with Luna, Ginny arrived. The redhead was like a whirl wind of distractions when she arrived. At first, Hermione hadn’t wanted to share much with her, especially after learning that the light side may not actually be the good side, she couldn’t be sure exactly where Ginny fell. But Luna assured her time and again that Ginny could be trusted, so with just hours left before they were due to floo back to the Burrow, Hermione told Ginny everything. Honestly, it was a relief to tell someone that was in her own house as it would be easier to do talk things over with someone that belonged in the same common room.

For once in her life, Ginny was stunned silent.

“So, you’re telling me, the Bellatrix Black, the woman who hasn’t hidden how much she hates muggles and muggleborns, actually doesn’t mind them? She actually wants to help them?” Ginny said, her mind completely blown about the Black sister’s and their supposed intentions.

“Yeah, that was my reaction as well.” Hermione said with a small smile. She understood why Ginny didn’t believe her, hell, Hermione still didn’t believe it herself. She was just going with the flow until she had more information. “This is why I’m trying to get as much information as possible. No matter how well-hidden Bellatrix’s supposed acceptance of everyone regardless of blood status. But I’m afraid after everything they told me, that I might not be able to openly study my books at Hogwarts, so Luna has been helping me copy as much pertinent information as possible so I can have my notes and not the books.”

“Hermione even tried to first copy all the books word from word instead of just notes.” Luna helpfully added, teasing Hermione.

Ginny gave Hermione a skeptical look, causing Hermione’s embarrassment to worsen her blush Luna had started.

“Well, it would have been nice to have the books, even if on parchment rolls.” Hermione defended, “We just learned relatively quickly that we didn’t have enough time to copy every book and every word.” Hermione said with a huff. She had tried to use a few spells to do it for her, but they didn’t work out write and when she asked Mr. Lovegood, he tended to go off on a tangent about how his wife does, not did, the same thing. And Luna, well Luna would just smile and Hermione knew she wasn’t going to get what she wanted from either Lovegood.

Ginny had to laugh at that. Of course Hermione wanted to copy an entire library so she could have it with her someplace she wasn’t supposed to. This would just be another example of why Ginny thought Hermione would have been good place in two houses: Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.

“I guess I can help you then.” Ginny said, she wasn’t sure what exactly Hermione was trying to prove or disprove, but she knew Hermione. She knew Hermione was a good person and wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone else, especially on purpose. So as far as Ginny was concerned, even though she knew her parents wouldn’t like Hermione doing this and would see it has Hermione trying to hurt them, Ginny would help. And she wouldn’t tell a soul about it either. That’s what friends were for after all. “I’m a pro at taking fast notes.” Ginny gloated with a wide smile.

“That’s because you wait until the last second to do all your homework and have no choice but to take fast notes with as much information as possible in it to get a passing grade.” Hermione scolded.

“Actually, Ginny does her homework on time.” Luna defended before Ginny could get a word out, “She often spends time with me in the library doing homework with me.” She added with a blissful smile, watching as Ginny’s face went as bright red as her hair.

Hermione studied her two friends for a moment, both of them too focused on the other to realize they were being studied. Hermione would have to watch how these two interact in the future; she wasn’t aware they were… that close. Especially with all the boys Ginny tended to date and dump every other month. She would need to see Luna’s reaction every time Ginny gets a new boyfriend.

In the meantime though, she was just happy to have two of her friends support her on her knowledge gathering mission. She was happy that she wasn’t alone in the new direction the war, at least for her, seemed to be going. Ideally, she would like to bring her boys in on the information as well. But she wasn’t sure how that would go down.

Harry would likely assume it was some trap to get to him. Which, with what’s happened every other school year, it very well could be. But Hermione liked to thing it wasn’t always about Harry. Especially since the Black sister’s had grabbed her, not Harry. If they were trying to get to Harry, they would have been able to easily grab him at the Ministry like Bellatrix had grabbed her. As far as she could tell, this had very little to do with Harry as far as the Black sister’s were concerned.

And Ronald, well, Ron wouldn’t believe anything she said. He likely wouldn’t even think it was a trap to get Harry. He would probably accuse her of switching sides to try and gain favor of some sort like he accused her of doing in the Tri Wizard Tournament. Whatever he would accuse her of, he would bring the rest of his family in on and she didn’t want that. Every instinct in her body was yelling at her to not let Molly and Arthur know about what she was doing; which was another reason she had been so hesitant to tell Ginny anything. Ronald could not know anything.

As much as she wanted to share with her boys and have them support her as much as she supported them, she knew that wasn’t very realistic. She would have to stick with just Luna and Ginny knowing and hope the boys never found out. Which shouldn’t be very hard since they hardly spent time together outside of helping Harry whenever someone was trying to kill him. As long as she was in the library, she was pretty much safe from the boys finding something out.

The twins though, the twins liked to show up at random times even when she was in the library because they liked to do their own research for their new gadgets. But they weren’t going to Hogwarts this coming year. It was confirmed they were going to open their own joke shop any day now. So, all Hermione had to do was survive the rest of summer with them and make sure they don’t figure something out and tell their folks. That shouldn’t be too hard.