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"Something terrible has happened," Hermione said, stumbling to the kitchen table and collapsing heavily into a seat.
"Yeah, we all forgot to stock up on more hangover potion when it was our turn to buy groceries," Harry muttered.
Ron's moan was muffled by his head in his arms.
"No, you don't understand," she snapped. With one hand pressed against her forehead she looked formidably cross for a moment, but her ashen expression quickly took back over as she raised her sleeve. Black ink swirled there in constantly twisting, curling lines moving up and down her forearm.
"That's a bit on the nose, isn't it?" Harry asked, frowning. "Just... the placement and all. Given everything. 'Spose we were all a bit too drunk to make good tattoo choices, though."
"Tattoo? Who got a tattoo?" Ron groaned.
"Hermione did. When'd you even get out of the house to go find a magical tattoo artist anyway? You got hammered quicker than I did, and there's no way I could have walked or apparated anywhere last night."
"Hermione got a tattoo?" Ron asked, startling upright and then promptly turning a rather deep shade of green. Then he got a good look at Hermione’s arm and all colour suddenly drained from his face as well. "Blimey, 'Mione... You don't do anything by halves, do you?"
"I know!" Hermione wailed. "What am I going to do?"
"I don't understand," Harry said, looking back and forth between them a few times until the room tilted and he was forced to close his eyes. Which was rather a good thing, he quickly realised, as the swirling lines of the tattoo were apparently making him nauseous as well.
"Oh god, put it away, my stomach can't take the distraction charm."
"Honestly, Ron, it's not a charm. It's actually a rather fascinating bit of history-"
"Hermione!" Harry snapped. "Ron! Will somebody tell me what the bloody hell is going on?"
Hermione went quiet again, opened her mouth and then closed it. Silently she looked between them until Ron took pity on her.
"Somehow - though I bloody hell don't know how given how much Firewhiskey we all drank last night. But, somehow, Hermione has cast a soulbonding spell."
Harry furrowed his brow, waited a moment for the words to rearrange themselves into sense, and then shook his head. ”… Nope, I still don't know what you’re talking about.”
"Oh, Harry. I've gone and magically bound myself to someone," Hermione said forlornly, "and I don't even remember who it was!"
With that she promptly put her face in her hands and burst into tears while Ron conveniently returned to his previous shade of green and bolted out of the room. That left Harry to pat Hermione gingerly on the shoulder, still feeling miserable, no more enlightened, and indeed a great deal more ill than when he'd first awoken.
*
“So… you’ve got them practically everywhere and they’re swirling because it doesn’t want me to look at it?” Harry concluded.
“Close enough,” Hermione sighed. “It’s only supposed to be legible as something other than moving shapes to the person I cast the spell with. At least until we finish the spell, and then it settles down into small matching marks.”
“Meant to be romantic, I think,” said Ron from the doorway, making them both jump and then groan in miserable unison. He was leaning rather heavily on the doorframe himself and drinking from a glass bottle, which he tipped in their direction. “Found some hangover potion in the back of a cupboard!”
“Oh Ron, I’m pretty sure that one's gone off already,” Hermione said.
Ron shrugged, “I’ll take my chances. It's not like it could taste more foul than it usually does, and I'm pretty sure it can't make me feel any worse.”
Hermione frowned harder and opened her mouth, but Harry hurried to cut her off before they started bickering. He didn't think his head could take a fight on top of everything else. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything about who it was?”
“Yeah, they’re meant to be right hard spells to pull off,” Ron agreed. “My parents told us once that they thought about doing it when they got married. But the spellwork was too tricky to do on top of all the wedding arrangements, and that would have been sober, so I don’t see how you managed it.”
“I’d hardly lie about something important like this,” Hermione said waspishly.
“I dunno,” Ron said consideringly. “If it was someone embarrassing I’d probably play dumb, too.”
“Well, George did spike the punch with something strange,” Harry hurried to say. “It's not just you, I don’t think anyone else there probably remembers anything either.”
He was attempting to be consoling, but it didn’t really work. Hermione’s lip quivered just a little and Harry realised too late that what he’d said would mean there wasn’t anybody out there any less in the dark than she was who could give them some answers.
“Can’t you just go around asking people if they see anything other than moving swirly things?” Ron asked.
“It won’t be reliable,” Hermione said, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders. “I don’t know at what point we stopped the spell. Plus there’s so many variations, and that’s just what I remember off the top of my head. I hardly have an in-depth knowledge of the subject.”
Harry winced pre-emptively.
“I really think we should-“
“-go to a library,” Harry and Ron chorused.
“Can’t you just owl order a few books?” Harry asked. “Just to get a general idea of what we need to look out for? I’m sure we can narrow down the most likely candidates while you do that, and if we can get it down to a few people it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out, right?”
“I suppose it might do for a start,” Hermione said cautiously.
“Yeah,” Ron agreed. “Yeah, we can always go to the library later if that’s not enough. You know, when we’re all a bit more capable of focus and reading and all that. I don’t know about you, but everything’s still pretty fuzzy over here.”
Hermione sighed and stood up. “I’ll use Pig then, shall I?”
Ron waved an ambivalent hand at her and quickly sunk into her empty seat. “He won’t be able to carry anything back for you, though,” he called after her as she hurried from the room. “Still mental, that one. Wants to go read an entire library for something that can be worked out just by looking at it.”
"How do we know it's not...," Harry said, trailing off and gesturing between them.
"One of us?" Ron asked. "Nah. Hermione's like a sister to you and we had really good reasons to break up in the end. Everybody knows it doesn't take if you aren't compatible enough."
“Does this sort of thing happen very often then?”
“Well, no. Not really. Like I said, Mum and Dad wanted to do it for their wedding. But still, how hard could it be to figure out?”
*
Rather hard, as it turned out. By the time Hermione re-emerged with a stack of books and searching for owl treats for the Flourish & Blotts courier owls, Harry and Ron had a full list of everybody who had been invited or that they remembered tagging along at the start of the night. They'd even managed to get half way through fire calling them all.
“Well at least that’s Blaise Zabini done,” Ron said with an exaggerated shudder. “Not like he’d soulbond with a Muggleborn even if he was drunk as a skunk. More likely to throw a curse. Who brought him along anyway? Whoever it was we should really take them off the Christmas card list.”
“We don’t have a Christmas card list,” Harry pointed out dully, as he backed out of the fireplace and brushed ashes off his knees.
“Then we should make a Christmas card list just so we can take them off it,” Ron said, with a stubborn tilt to his jaw.
“Are you crossing people off already?” Hermione asked, alarmed. “But none of them have even looked at my arm yet!”
“I thought you didn’t think that would work anyway?”
“No, they haven’t looked at your arm,” Harry conceded. “But from what Ron remembered most common forms generally show marks on both parties, right?”
“But I haven’t confirmed that yet!” Hermione said furiously, dropping the books on a table with a pointed thump.
“You said you remembered the basics,” Ron pointed out. "So do I!"
“Well, yes. From what I remember it is mostly mutual marks. But I’ve never studied bonds properly! They have a very long and complicated history that I couldn’t possibly remember enough of for something like this.”
“Alright,” Harry said, walking past them both to pop the kettle on. “So if nobody turns up with marks of their own, we’ll just go through the list again from the start. But on the off chance that they do have matching marks we might as well try to get through them quicker this way first.”
Hermione huffed, but cracked open the first book and didn’t disagree.
“Once we’ve all had a nice, calming cup of tea we’ll just head on over to Ginny’s and make sure we didn’t miss anyone on the list. She was the only one I remember who wasn’t drinking, she’ll know better than we do if there were any stragglers that showed up. Ron, could you do the next one?”
“Oh we needed a cup of tea, did we,” Ron muttered, getting to his feet with a huff. “Or did you just not want to keep talking to Slytherins and getting your trousers dirty?”
“How many sugars?” Harry just asked with a grin.
*
By the time they floo'd through to Ginny’s flat even Harry’s grin had lost its shine and they were all looking a little frazzled.
“- there’s only two people left on the list,” Hermione was saying as she stumbled out of the fireplace after them. “But I don’t know either of them very well at all, so it must not be showing on the other person. Oh, this is going to take forever-“
“She doesn’t give it a rest, does she- oh!”
“Good tomorrow,” came a cheery voice.
“Luna!” Harry said, surprised.
“Did we get out at the wrong fireplace?” Ron asked, looking around in confusion at the decidedly Ginny-less room.
“Don’t you mean good afternoon?” Hermione asked.
“Oh no,” Luna said with an easygoing smile. “I was just visiting. Ginny said you sounded rather hungover earlier, Harry, so I thought tomorrow might be a better day for you all than today is.”
“Er, where is Ginny then?” Harry asked.
“She just popped downstairs for a moment. I think she’s worried about Nargles in the front garden.”
“Ri-ight,” Ron said.
“I’m sure she won’t want to dally in the middle of an infestation so she might be back soon. Tea?”
“We just had some, thanks,” Harry said, and they all trooped forward to take seats around the table with Luna.
“A sensible decision. You never know when a leprechaun might have made their home in somebody else’s teapot.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione all blinked and then exchanged a bewildered stare.
“Leprechauns don’t live in teapots,” Hermione said after a long moment.
“Don’t they? That’s not been my experience,” Luna said with a gentle smile. “Oh, I almost forgot, Ginny left you something.”
Standing and wandering over to a sideboard, Luna fished out a small piece of parchment that looked like it had been hastily torn from the bottom of a scroll.
“Just in case the Nargles caught hold of her, I suppose,” Luna said, offering it to Hermione.
The parchment contained a list of half a dozen names that looked like they had been scribbled down so quickly they were almost illegible.
“Are you sure she was coming back?” Hermione asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Luna said. “Ginny does live here after all. She said those names might be useful to you, though. They were the last guests to show up who weren’t directly invited that she could remember.”
They all bent their heads over the list.
“Dean we already spoke to, but Ernie and Susan weren’t on our list….”
“Michael Corner’s on here,” Ron said loudly, stabbing the parchment with his finger. “Look, right there!”
“Oh honestly, Ron, even if he was there I doubt it has anything to do with when he dated Ginny in school.”
Ron subsided, grumbling, and Hermione tucked the list into her pocket.
“Thank you, Luna,” she said with a strained smile.
“Terry Boot is home today,” Luna replied.
“Um. Okay?”
“I thought we might visit him first,” Luna said. “So I firecalled him before you arrived. He’s the only one outside of London so I just sent notes to the others by owl. I suspect we’ll have some replies waiting when we get back.”
Hermione blinked and then looked to Ron and Harry for help.
“You didn’t need to-“
“It’s no trouble,” Luna said, standing and pulling on a coat that had been hanging off her chair. “If you don’t want tea I suppose we can get started right away then?”
Before any of them could protest, she’d thrown floo powder into the fireplace and called out Terry Boot’s address and they were all forced to shrug and follow her.
*
One by one they worked through the remaining people on the list and a few more besides, until finally they floo’d back to Grimmauld Place with Luna in tow.
“I suppose we just start again from the top of the list tomorrow,” Hermione said, sounding tired and tugging at her sleeves absentmindedly.
“Just not Zabini,” Ron moaned in protest, face planting onto one of the couches.
“Oh no,” Luna agreed. “Blaise was awful last night. The way he insulted Penelope and pulled out his wand when Seamus yelled at him. It would be a terrible shame if it was him. You’d be better off not knowing.”
Everyone stopped a moment and blinked at Luna yet again.
“Did... did Ginny tell you what Blaise did at the party?” Harry asked slowly.
“She didn't have to. It was rather hard to miss. He was being quite loud, and most of us were downstairs within excellent hearing range.”
“You were there? You owled us days ago saying you were busy,” Hermione said, voice starting to rise. “You came after all and you never said anything?”
“Should I have?”
Ron caught Harry’s eye and made rather frantic motions of his head towards the door, but Harry just frowned and shook his head.
“I think what Hermione’s trying to say,” Harry interrupted gently, “is that we probably would have put you at the top of the list if you were at the party. You know, given that you were already there with us and, um, all.”
Hermione was making inarticulate noises of frustration, but Luna just smiled.
“But I was having so much fun-”
“Fun?” Hermione’s voice was taking on a decidedly shrill note that had Harry grimacing and finally joining Ron in his slow, unobtrusive journey toward the door. “I can't believe you! What part of this could possibly be fun?”
“I thought it was a rather grand way to get to know you better,” Luna just said cheerily, reaching down and lifting the hem of her shirt just a little way up her stomach to reveal a swirled mass of familiar looking lines. “It doesn’t seem to have spread as far on me. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was because I wasn’t the one to initiate the spell, or maybe I should have tried wearing my Wrackspurt siphons.”
Harry abruptly grabbed a now frozen, gaping Ron by the arm and forcibly hauled him over to the doorway, where a small scuffle ensued.
“You- Wrackspurt-,” Hermione spluttered, then sat down suddenly and nearly missed the armchair.
“You seem upset,” Luna noted, and Hermione just covered her face with her hands and gave a small muffled scream.
“You should have said something,” she said through her fingers. “Anything!”
“Um, maybe- stoppit, Ron! Ow, gerrof- um, maybe we should call it a day,” Harry said, elbowing Ron furiously.
“But she’s- Luna is-“
Harry frantically clamped a hand over Ron’s mouth. “Just, y’know, sleep on it. Give Hermione some time for it to sink in. Maybe you could pop around for breakfast tomorrow and we can all talk about it?”
The last he said with a wince, while Ron made a wounded sound against his palm.
“Alright then,” Luna said with a smile at Hermione that went unacknowledged. “I’ll come round once I’m done with the morning harvest of our dirigible plum. It’s been quite prolific lately. I think the moon must be in the perfect alignment to produce as many plums as quickly as possible.”
Hermione made a muffled wounded noise of her own while Harry quickly hurried over to usher Luna back to the fireplace.
“That sounds nice. I’m, um, sure the moon has a big impact on plum harvests at this time of year. Safe trip home!”
Then with a flash and another smile she was gone, leaving Harry to turn cautiously back to the rest of the room.
“Looney Lovegood,” Ron was muttering under his breath. “Hermione’s gone and gotten herself soulbonded to Looney Lovegood.”
Hermione just looked shellshocked. “Don't call her that, Ron,” she said absentmindedly, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and then looking at her own hand in surprise. “We haven’t called her that since fourth year. She's our friend now, remember? Don’t be mean.”
"But it's Luna Lovegood! You can't be compatible with her!"
“No, I can't be. Oh, Harry,” she continued, looking at him helplessly. “What am I going to do?”
*
After a night spent sleeping on it, things unfortunately didn’t look much better. They took turns popping in to see Kreacher about the breakfast plans for something to do while they waited for Luna to arrive, until they were all unceremoniously discharged from the room and the harassed house elf put up a barrier to stop them entering again.
Downcast and all fretting just a little, they retired to the sitting room and stared at each other.
“I’m going to have to ask her to help me break it,” Hermione said tonelessly.
“Do you think she will?” Ron asked, scratching an ear. “I dunno. She sounded pretty pleased about it last night.”
“She might have a slightly… alternative viewpoint on it all,” Harry said with a weak smile.
Hermione groaned and tucked her legs underneath her, pulling a cushion into her lap and starting to pick at the fringing. “Do you think she’ll be hard to convince, Harry? There must be something I can say.”
“Yeah, Harry, you’ve always understood Luna best. What can Hermione say?”
“I dunno,” Harry said with a shrug. “I never really understood her better, I don’t think. I was just more willing to listen to her. Maybe let her explain first?”
“Explain? How can she explain why she had us gallivanting all across the city for a laugh when she knew we were looking for her the whole time!” Ron cried.
“Er, I doubt she was really thinking about it like that to be honest,” Harry shrugged. “She said she wanted to get to know Hermione better. Knowing Luna, it was probably as simple as that.”
Hermione just sighed, and they all subsided into silence until the fireplace flared green and Kreacher popped eagerly into the room to invite their guest through to the dining room.
“Don’t know why we’re bothering to eat in there,” Ron muttered, and then yelped when Hermione and Harry both kicked him in the back of the ankle. Kreacher just started talking loudly about ‘how nice it is to see my master supporting his friends in proper wizarding traditions’ and Luna smiled brightly at them all.
Breakfast itself didn’t go much better, either. Before they’d even finished their sausages, Hermione was leaping to her feet in a rage while Luna blinked up at her.
“You have to help me break it,” Hermione cried. “I haven’t found anything yet on how to break a bond from just one side, and Luna, we were both drinking. We didn’t choose this!”
“I was always told that the bond doesn’t take unless it’s meant to,” Luna said serenely, sipping at her tea. “My parents were bonded, you know. My mother told me all about the ceremony when I was little.”
Hermione subsided a little, looking horrified. “I- I didn’t-“
“It’s quite alright,” Luna said, taking another sip of her tea and then putting her cup back down carefully. “It must have been a bit of a shock for you.”
“Yes, yes it was,” she said, sitting back down. “Still, you must see why we have to break it. Most bond spells are cast as a deliberate, serious choice in a committed relationship. It’s not something to take on lightly - or after drinking.”
“I won’t ask you to complete the bond if you don’t want to,” Luna said serenely. “There’s no harm in leaving it undone. You might want to check with a mediwitch, but I do believe even the marks will subside in size after a while.”
Hermione spluttered. “We can’t just leave it half complete.”
Luna just gazed back at her calmly. “I don't see why not. If we weren’t meant to be bonded then the spell wouldn’t have taken, which means it won’t take with anyone else.”
Hours later Hermione was still spluttering. “It’s just a spell! It’s not fate or destiny or any of that other rubbish, it’s just a spell like any other spell. Being harder to cast doesn’t give it some mystical, unknowable quantity!”
But Luna wasn’t to be so easily persuaded.
*
After a few weeks of increasingly irate owls and firecalls, Luna had left London on what was apparently a short research expedition for a Quibbler article. Which left Hermione to fume with no outlet. Instead she had taken to stomping around Grimmauld Place as if under a constant storm cloud until Ron and Harry were tip-toeing for fear of provoking another long rant about the difference between fate and basic spellwork.
“Ow,” Hermione said out of the blue one evening. “Ow! Oh my, that hurts.”
Harry and Ron looked up from their chessboard and saw Hermione had sat up, her book fallen from her lap while she held both hands to her stomach.
“What’s wrong?” Harry asked, alarmed and half rising.
“I don’t know,” Hermione said, sounding just a touched panicked. “I just had this really sudden, sharp pai- ow!”
“That’s not normal,” Ron said, hurrying over to her. “Help me get her out front so we can apparate to St Mungos, Harry.”
The apparition area was bustling and full of people. But Hermione gave another great cry and collapsed the second they appeared which brought a healer rushing over to examine her.
The concern quickly faded from his face however, once he’d waved his wand in a complicated pattern above her head.
“You’re fine,” he said brusquely, already moving on to the next person. “You’ll need to ask the welcome witch where your bond mate is if you want to visit.”
“Wait,” Hermione cried, making him pause. “Are you… are you saying that Luna is hurt?”
“Is Luna the person that you’re bonded to?”
“We never… that is, it’s only a partial spell-“
“Well, that can be enough if you’re a proper match,” he said and then hurried off before she could form a response.
“But we aren’t… we shouldn’t be….”
“Oh, come on then,” Harry said, ducking his face down as a few people began to stare and hoisting Hermione’s arm higher around his shoulders. “Let’s just go see whether she’s been admitted or not.”
By the time they made it to the front of the line the stares had progressed to pointing, and Harry left Hermione groaning in Ron’s arms to lean over the desk a little desperately.
“We’re looking for Luna Lovegood,” he said, eyeing off a Hogwarts aged kid that looked like he wanted to bounce over and ask for an autograph and was young enough not to realise that now was probably not the time. “Not sure if she’s been brought in yet, but-”
“Luna Lovegood, yes, first floor,” the welcome witch said. “Creature induced injuries.”
Hermione looked pale and Ron gave an audible gulp.
“She didn’t tell me where she was going-,” Hermione started to say, voice wavering.
“If you could move aside please,” the welcome witch said piercingly, and they all startled and then quickly hurried for the stairs.
When they reached the first floor they were ushered to a waiting area and promptly unnerved by the news that Luna was still being stabilised by the healers. The longer they sat, however, the straighter Hermione was sitting until she was at last upright again without any support.
“It must be working at least, whatever they’re doing,” she said, sounding relieved and no longer gripping her sides.
“Hermione Granger?” yet another healer called from the doorway.
“Here! Yes, we’re here,” Hermione said, jumping to her feet and hurrying over, Harry and Ron following more slowly in her wake. “How did you know to call me? No, never mind, how is she?”
The healer quickly consulted the small bundle of scrolls in her hands. “It looks like Miss Lovegood submitted an in case of emergency contact form with your name on it a few weeks ago, is that correct?”
Hermione just gaped.
“That sounds like Luna,” Harry offered from behind her.
“Right, well she’s recovering nicely. She seems to have stumbled across an illegal Graphorn on somebody’s property, the Aurors left just before you arrived. Nasty abdominal wound from the horns, apparently it was mistreated and not too happy to be approached, but we’ve successfully closed the wound and put her on a round of blood potions. She’ll likely be unconscious for a few weeks without intervention-“
“Oh my god,” Hermione gasped.
“- but now that you’re here the bond should have her up and about in a few hours,” she finished with a flourish.
“But we aren’t- that is, we don’t have a completed bond,” Hermione said.
“Oh. Newly married then? Hard to tell just from the forms these days, nobody seems to want to share a name anymore. Did you want to get a jump on sealing the bond, then?” the healer asked. “There’s no reason why it shouldn’t take. The potions she’s on can’t interfere with that kind of magic.”
Hermione just stared at her wordlessly.
“Blimey,” Ron said quietly.
“They weren’t planning to complete the bond,” Harry explained when the healer looked to them questioningly.
She furrowed her brow. “Oh. Okay,” she said, seemingly as flummoxed by the idea of half a bond as Hermione had been when Luna first suggested it, but quickly looked determined again to breeze on past it. “Well, you’re still welcome to visit and sit with her. The emergency forms will guarantee that no matter the, er, state of your relationship. She’s unlikely to be moved from this ward so you can just come straight on up next time you visit. Once the potions have left her system we’re just monitoring the wound and waiting for her to wake up.”
“Will it take long?” Hermione finally asked, a hitch in her voice. “For her to wake up, I mean.”
“It’s hard to say. Anywhere up to a few weeks is normal for a Graphorn injury as the wound usually resists spell treatment, sometimes even a month or more can be common. At this point it’s best if we just allow her to wake up on her own,” the healer said, smiling kindly again now.
“But if we complete the bond-“
“She’s going to be just fine,” the healer repeated firmly. “It might take her a little while longer to get back on her feet but if you weren’t planning on finishing the bond then there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for you to do anything different to that plan.”
Hermione looked agonised, anyway.
“Hermione,” Harry asked, taking her by the hand and turning her around so they could look at each other. “Hermione what’s wrong?”
“She’s still in pain,” Hermione said, tears filling her eyes. “It’s not hurting me anymore, but somehow I still know that she’s in pain and… Harry. Harry, I don’t want her to be. It doesn't feel right. Everything I read said that this shouldn’t be happening until the spell is complete.”
Harry looked to Ron, at a loss for what to say, but he just shrugged.
“Would you like to see the emergency form,” the healer asked, making them all look up.
Still smiling, she separated a single sheet of parchment from the other scrolls in her hand and held it out to Hermione, who took it with trembling fingers.
She scanned down the page and then stopped, raising her other hand to her mouth in shock.
“Emergency contact: Hermione Granger, Grimmauld Place. Soulbonded, confirmed,” she read out in a small voice.
“The Ministry register is spelled to check all claims of connection to make sure nobody is legally obligated to care for someone they don’t actually know or have a relationship with,” the healer explained. “I can’t advise you on whether or not to complete the spell, but if your plan not to was because you didn’t think it was a true bond, well. You can see for yourself.”
Hermione stared at the page blindly for a moment, and then straightened her back and shook her hair out of her face. Passing the form back to the healer she asked, “where is Luna’s room?”
“Um, Hermione?” Harry and Ron both started to say, but the healer just smiled and started leading the way and Hermione followed right on her heels without exchanging a word with them. “What are you doing?”
“She’s just down the end on the right,” the healer said after opening a door. “Good luck!”
Then she turned and left them to it. Confused, they followed Hermione into the room and down a long row of beds filled with mostly sleeping patients until they spotted familiar blonde hair spread across a pillow and still accented by tiny dirigible plum earrings.
“Are you really-“
“I thought you didn’t-“
“Oh be quiet, both of you,” Hermione said with a huff, stepping forward to Luna’s bedside and taking her hand. “You’ll disturb the others.”
“I don’t think they’re all that inclined to take notice right now,” Ron said dryly, but looked nervously around the room anyway.
“What do you need to do to complete the spell?” Harry asked.
“It’s simple, really,” Hermione said breathlessly, and then leant down and gently pressed her lips to Luna’s.
Nothing happened for a moment except Ron gaping and Harry blinking in surprise, and then Hermione stepped back again without letting go of Luna’s hand, smoothing back her hair with the other and looking apprehensive.
They waited a moment, and then another, and then all of a sudden Luna blinked open her eyes and smiled.
“Hello,” she said blearily. “Did you come looking for the secret colony of wild Augreys, too?”
Hermione gave a slightly hysterical giggle and then suddenly threw herself at Luna and hugged her fiercely.
“Oh, hello Harry, hello Ron,” Luna said over Hermione’s shoulder, seemingly noticing them for the first time. “Are we in St Mungos? Was one of you hurt?”
“If you ever,” Hermione said furiously, voice muffled by Luna’s hair, “go creature hunting without me again I’ll- I’ll-“
She pulled back just far enough to look Luna in the eye.
“Of course I won’t go looking for things without you if you don’t want me to,” Luna just said serenely, and Hermione gave an inarticulate cry and kissed her again.