Ours to Catch Chapter 6

Hermione didn’t see her boys for the rest of the ride to the station. She wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t have come back; they always came back in the end when one of them pissed each other off. But for once Hermione was thankful that her oldest friends hadn’t returned. The conversation she had wit Ginny and Luna was a lot more informative that what she likely would have had with the boys.

“I think the boys were so focused on what Malfoy was doing, they didn’t really notice anything else.” Ginny commented as all three of them relaxed in their new spots. Hermione had moved over to the bench the boys were while Ginny and Luna opted to stay sitting next to each other.

“They do seem to focus on only one thing at a time.” Luna agreed. “Where did you go Hermione, during the battle?”

Hermione felt put on the spot. If it had been her boys asking her, before the battle and their complete lack of acknowledgement of the danger she had been in, she would have immediately told them with no questions asked. But after the Ministry battle, she wasn’t so sure she should tell them. She was concerned that Harry and even Ron would think she was making things up to take the spotlight away from Harry; which she would never do. That was something that always happened between Harry and Ron; Harry getting the spotlight and Ron getting jealous and trying to get the spotlight himself.

With Ginny and Luna, they were both a year below her and while Ginny was Ron’s younger sister and Luna was in the D.A. with her, she really didn’t know them that well. At least not as well as she knew her boys. But at the moment, she didn’t want to tell the boys what happened because she didn’t think they would take it as seriously as it should be or they would make assumptions and get mad with her. She needed a lot more information before she told her boys; but did that mean she could tell the girls?

They already knew something had happened. Luna already mentioned Hermione had been missing during part of the conflict and Ginny had also commented about her absence. Ginny was really good at keeping secrets from her family as she had kept many from her family for Hermione and for herself as well. She had told Ginny several of her more personal concerns about her feelings towards Victor last year and as far as Hermione could tell, the redhead had never told anyone. Ginny had even come to her to talk about her growing feelings for the Ravenclaw currently sitting with them. If Ginny could show trust like that with Hermione, as Ginny wasn’t entirely sure her parents would support her if she did come out as gay, then Hermione could show some trust with something big as well.

It also helped that Hermione had to talk with someone about it.

“Bellatrix found me as the prophecies started to collapse.” Hermione explained, opting to go with her gut feeling; she was a Gryffindor after all, she was allowed to be impulsive once in a while. “She took me to Black Manor with her sister.”

“Mrs. Malfoy was there!” Ginny exclaimed, shocked the ice queen would be anywhere but in her palace at Malfoy Manor making sure the Death Eaters weren’t destroying the place. How the Ministry hadn’t opted to raid the place to arrest all the known felons that were hiding there was beyond her. “You had two Black sisters holding you there?” Ginny asked from the edge of her seat, shocked that her best friend survived a meeting with such strong members of the enemy forces.

“They were actually, kind of nice.” Hermione said with a scrunched up face as she thought back about what had happened that night. In all honesty, they really weren’t mean or degrading. Sure Bellatrix had called her that awful name, but to Hermione, it sounded more like a pet name than a bullying name.

“I imagine they would have quite the manners given how they were raised.” Luna added in her airy voice, “I can’t imagine them being rude to you if given the choice.” She added, earning her odd looks from both Ginny and Hermione.

“Rude to her?” Ginny asked with a shocked look on her face, she may be crushing on the blonde, but she didn’t calling out her comments if she knew they were wrong. “Bellatrix is a knowndeath eater! She has fun killing and torturing muggleborns and muggles alike!”

“Yes, I suppose there is that.” Luna murmured, seemingly nonplussed about what was said.

While Luna could easily sprout some things that Hermione would easily call nonsensical and unrealistic and brush off some of the blonde’s ramblings. But sometimes, if someone was paying close attention and not brushing her off, Luna could say some very smart and profound things. There was a reason she was in Ravenclaw afterall.

“But Bellatrix, or Narcissa for that matter, were actually both fairly nice.” Hermione countered, agreeing with Luna. “They were talking about a prophecy and something to do with them and their other sister.”

“Something with all three Black sisters?” Ginny asked, starting to grow concerned. “What would all three of them want with a muggleborn? No offense ‘Mione.” Ginny quickly added; she didn’t want her friend to think she thought less of Hermione because of how she was born.

“I don’t know.” Hermione said, frustrated that she didn’t have more information. She had gotten mad for something similar at Harry; but at least Hermione didn’t even have a chance to get more information whereas Harry did. “Tonks arrived before I could get any information.”

“Tonks was there?” Ginny asked, shocked again. “Wasn’t her mom kicked out of the family though? How would she have gotten into Black Manor?”

“There were a lot of articles written about it when it happened.” Luna added, “My father said it was news of the century when it happened.”

“A member of a noble family being kicked out of said family? That would definitely make headlines.” Ginny added. Wizarding families were obsessed with anything that happened with the nobles, so someone being kicked out would have been talked about for years afterwards. Ginny personally didn’t understand why people were so obsessed with them but thanks to her mom and dad, she knew a lot about noble families that she really didn’t care about. “What was Tonks doing there?”

“I don’t know, practically as soon as she was there, she took me back to the Ministry.” Hermione said, frustrated at the lack of information she had. For all the questions the encounter had caused, there was such little time spent with them and even less information gleaned. It was quite frustrating.

“What do you plan to do about it?” Ginny asked, knowing how frustrated the know-it-all witch likely was about not knowing anything that had happened.

“I want to go back to Grimmauld Place and see if there’s anything there that I can read and study to learn anything about the Black family and what may have really happened if the sisters aren’t as estranged as everyone says they are; especially if Tonks was at Black Manor and walking around with no issues of wards.” Hermione said. If she really wasn’t considered part of the Black family, the magic wouldn’t have let her in the place without a lot of fighting.

“That would be a good place to start.” Luna said in a distracted voice.

“There’s bound to be something there that might go into more detail than the newspapers did and Sirius doesn’t go snooping anywhere in that house, apparently too disgusted to go through his families things.” Ginny said, coming up with a plan as she spoke to help her older friend. “My mom was already planning on sending us there fairly early on the summer break, I’m sure I can convince her to let you go early as well.”

“I know I already had plans to go there, but I don’t think I want to go early.” Hermione said, already cringing at all the chores she would be forced to do without magic by the Weasley matriarch. She wouldn’t be able to do any research if that were to happen. “I’m actually hoping to convince my parents to let me spend some time at Diagon Alley somewhere for a little bit before going to Grimmauld.”

“Do you think they would let you?” Ginny asked knowing how concerned Hermione’s parents were with everything that seemed to happen to their daughter while in the wizarding world. Ginny had read countless letters and stayed up many nights listening to Hermione complain about how her parents didn’t seem to understand Hermione’s need to be in the wizarding world regardless of how dangerous it was.

“Why don’t you spend some time at my home Hermione?” Luna asked with a serene smile, “That way you can do all the research you want and my father would be more than willing to help get any books you need. And then once you’ve done your research, you can go straight to Grimmauld to meet up with the others.”

“That’s perfect Luna.” Hermione said with a smile. Luna’s father was notorious at keeping documents regarding anything to do with anything magic, including the noble families. Since Luna’s father was a reporter of sorts himself, he would likely be more than willing to let Hermione go to some wizarding libraries to do research. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” Hermione asked, worried that her father wouldn’t like hosting someone at the last minute without being asked permission.

“Of course not, in fact, Ginny, would you like to come over as well to help?” Luna asked with a calculating look in her eyes that typically fit a Slytherin’s face instead of a Ravenclaw’s. “I’m sure three heads are better than one, or even two.”

“I bet reading a bunch of old books would be a lot better than dusting things any day. I’m sure I could get my folks to agree to it.” Ginny said with a smile, more than happy to spend time at Luna’s no matter what boring task they would be doing.

“Then it’s settled.” Hermione said with a smile, happy she finally had a plan to figure things out; even if the plan didn’t involve her best friends, she would take something over nothing. “I’ll owl both of you as soon as possible to figure out dates.”

Things would hopefully start to clear up for Hermione once she had her books. She was confidant there was nothing she couldn’t figure out as long as she had access to a library.