Lily's Journal - Chapter 19

AN: Hey guys.

In this chapter Harry starts working with Tonks on a few dangerous projects, dangerous for his enemies.

And Hermione has an interesting conversation with a few other girls.

Hope you guys enjoy this one.

Chapter 19

The new school year brought a lot of changes to Hogwarts.

A new defence professor, Alastor Moody, who was probably the most paranoid person Harry would ever meet in his life. The man was constantly scanning his food and drinks with detection charms, afraid of poisoning. He also had an enchanted eye that could see through walls, and he wasn't afraid to use it to punish his students.

Sure, his lessons were almost as good as Moony's were, but Harry could still do without the random curses he threw around to see if his students were following his philosophy of Constant Vigilance.

The guy was probably crazy, but everyone had a lot of good things to say about him. Nym said that Moody was the reason she was so good at duelling, he was her instructor in auror academy. Sirius said that the guy had arrested or put down a lot of death eaters in the war against Voldemort, and that he was by far the best auror alive. Even his dad's portrait had said that Moody was 'a good one'.

But despite all that, Harry still wasn't completely onboard with the new professor. Mostly because he was already tired of dodging random curses, or hearing the retired auror scream Constant Vigilance.

Dumbledore's proclamation about the triwizard tournament was also something new. Something that was well received by the school, despite the fact that only those of age were allowed to participate.

The day after they returned to school, Hermione went to the library, to find out everything she could from the tournament. She returned to the common room a couple of hours later and said it was a good thing that the tournament would be only for students of age. The tournament was stopped because the number of fatalities became too high, the last one to be held ended up with ten people dead due to a manticore attack, all three champions, two judges and five spectators.

Harry had wanted to participate in the tournament, but after Hermione showed him the results of her search, the idea immediately died, He wasn't that suicidal. Besides, he had more than enough adventures on his own, there was no need to invite more trouble for himself.

Harry was now trying to convince the professors to hold other competitions between the schools, and he wasn't alone. All four houses united, mainly because of the lack of quidditch, and they were now working on a good proposal to show the professors. Their current list had quidditch cup between the schools, a duelling tournament, and a couple of academic competitions.

Harry wasn't too involved in the proposals, he was giving a few ideas and putting his name on it, but most of the work was being done by the quidditch captains, and coordinated by Daphne.

He was much more interested in the research projects they now could do, since they had access to the RoR again.

He was finally working on the magical replicator. It was Hermione's idea, but Harry had a lot more grounding on it since his alchemical transmutation already did something similar, especially after he learned the periodic table, stellar nucleosynthesis and supernovae, and other chemical processes. He could now produce pretty much anything with his transmutation, the only problem was the magical cost.

It took a lot of magic to power transmutation of heavier elements, the higher the atomic number, the higher the cost. At the moment, using pure hydrogen Harry could only power the transmutation of mercury.

It caused a bit of a fight when Harry told the others he could make gold out of basically nothing, since the hydrogen used in the transmutations came from the air making runes. The girls all had various ideas of how to spend vast amounts of gold, ranging from Ginny's idea of buying military aircrafts, to Hermione's idea of giant supercomputers and a private space station/labs, to Daphne's idea of using vast amount of gold to expand the scope of their company through 'campaign donation' to various politicians all over the world, to Luna's idea of a giant zoo filled with every single animal, magical and non-magical.

But in the end, after talking with Remus and the older scientists, it was decided to put a limit on the amount of gold they would make yearly, in order to not crash the magical economy, or the price of gold in non-magical society. Harry was limited to make only 100KG of gold per year, which was basically nothing. But they didn't really need the money, they had more than enough coming in from both EE and Marauders Inc.

The sales of mirrors and recording balls went international after the world cup, with stores opening in France, Germany, USA, China, India, Egypt, Uganda, Mexico and Brazil. All of those nations had a larger magical population than the UK, in some places like Germany and France, it was barely larger, and in others like China, India and Egypt, it was orders of magnitude larger. The result of a larger client base to such a novel product was obvious, and their stores were almost constantly out of stock, their products selling almost as soon as they were made. And the profits would grow even more in the coming months, with 10 new stores opening all over the world until the end of the year.

EE, on the other hand, went through major changes.

Elemental Energy had a new contract with the military to provide electricity to 70% of all military bases in the UK. Facilities were being built all over the place, with a lot of magical help since they didn't need to be as careful to hide magic from the military, the government already knew about it.

The test facility in Lancaster was a major success, and they should have permission to provide electricity to the civilian market by the end of the month. There were already power plants being built near all the major population centres in the Isles, with a focus on the Merseyside area since it was close to where the werewolves were enchanting the mirrors.

But the major changes came from their research division.

The fabricator that they had built during the summer break was finally out of testing, and they were already working on proper production of microchips. It was the only time they broke the agreement on gold sales, selling tons of gold directly to the government to gather funds for a few building projects. A two billion pounds factory was being built near Portsmouth, to produce 60nm chips. With almost the same amount of money being spent on other, smaller projects all over the Isles.

Those smaller projects were a result of the rapid expansion of the company, an expansion that ended up forcing them to make changes to the company. After all, those projects weren't energy related.

That was how Elemental Energy ended up changing names to Terracorp Energy, a subsidiary of the larger Terracorp, the new company they started. Terracorp had a few other subsidiaries apart from the Energy one, there was Terracorp Communications, which was in charge of their future cell phones, made to work like computers and using their new 60nm chips, the people in charge of the project were calling it a Smartphone. There was also Terracorp Automobiles, which were going to use some of the engines David and Hannah had worked on to make cars, maybe even electric ones.

There were a few other subsidiaries, but the big one was Terracorp Aerospace, their most important project and the reason the company was named Terracorp. It was going to work with airplanes, both conventional, and possibly new models using fuel cells or electric ones. But the main area would be space exploration. It was a statement that was already in the name of the company, Terracorp, meaning that they wanted to expand beyond their planet.

Things were still in its infancy, and they were still looking for people to work on space based projects, but the few people they hired were already working with Vibranium, trying to find a way to use it for a space capable vehicle. Harry had wanted to use the metal to make a space elevator, but Dr. Völler had said it wouldn't be possible at the moment, there was still a few things they would need before attempting a project like that.

Dr. Völler was coordinating the original crew of scientists to work on a project of their own. Now that they already had a good grounding on runes, they had taken the metallic hydrogen project, working on it as a potential fuel for a new space craft. They estimated that it would take months, maybe a year for them to have a sample ready for testing, but Harry was still a bit exited to see it, especially because for some reason he wasn't able to make the element using his transmutation.

Hermione had an idea as to why he wasn't able to make metallic hydrogen with transmutation. She said that it was mainly because it wasn't the element's 'natural form'. It wasn't exactly a good theory since the element wasn't a mix, it was just hydrogen in a metallic form instead of the more common gas or plasma. But the theory also explained a lot about how the transmutation worked.

Harry had discovered one of the weirdest and less documented rules of alchemy, transmutation worked by taking a 'sample' from the closest source of the element you wanted. He had conducted some tests using pure silver, powering a transmutation near a solid ingot of silver, and another near the molten metal, and they both produced different results. One of the transmutations gave solid silver, and the other gave molten one.

It was an interesting discovery, and one that ended up creating a 'law' for their group before they even needed to work on it. The 'law' was the ban on all transmutation outside of the planet. They didn't need to try a transmutation outside of the planet and end up with it gathering the 'sample' of the material from the plasma of the Sun, or other exotic states that might exist outside of Earth.

An interesting bit of data from that research was that they once again detected the previously undiscovered radiation that magic leaves behind. It was only the second time that they recorded it, and in this second time they actually managed to learn a bit more about it.

The radiation is surprisingly not harmful to carbon based life forms, and it also apparently has a similar behaviour to light in the double slits experiment, being both a particle and a wave depending on certain parameters that they still haven't discovered. It is the traditional 'magical residue' that any magic leaves behind, something that magicals could already detect for thousands of years, but it was the first time that non-magical means were used to detect it.

The only thing that they managed to confirm about it, was that it exists outside of earth's atmosphere, another confirmation that there is magic in space, something they had already learned with the FTL experiment with the portkeys. Some of the scientists decided to work on this radiation, but it wasn't a priority at the moment, they had other projects to work on, more important ones.

Like Hermione and Penelope's main project for this school year, learning how the RoR works and making one outside of Hogwarts.

The room was an amazing piece of magic, and a major help to any research project. So they wanted to learn how to make more rooms. The girls are working with the scientists, but at the moment, they only learned that the room was made using a previously undiscovered runic language.

The scientists were helping with learning the underlying properties of the language, while Hermione and Penny try to actually translate the runes and understand how to make arrays with it. And they only learned as much because the Grey Lady, Ravenclaw's house ghost and also the daughter of Rowena herself, was unusually chatty about the room, wanting to see if other could succeed in replicating one of her mother's greatest achievements. The room itself was no help in this project. While it actually crated new runes sometimes, when it came to its own runic arrays, the room was no help at all.

Parvati had said it might be easier to find the rituals the ancient magicals used to imbue their alphabets with magic, and then use it on the Latin script, something that is easier said than done. Those rituals have been lost for over a thousand years, and no one knows were to even start looking for it. Some say that it might be possible to find remains of the rituals in Scandinavia, but that was never confirmed.

Harry snorted a little, remembering Hermione's complain about 'short-sighted, moronic Romans' not using the rituals on their alphabet, because magic script was a barbarian practice that had no place in 'civilized' Rome.

The girls are currently trying to see if they can use the Greek alphabet to make a copy of the room, but they aren't expecting it to work, and they don't have much time to work on it at the moment, the room is being used a lot to work on other, more technological projects.

Harry, with the help of Ron and some of the girls, was currently working with Lee Jordan on the Iron man armour they discovered the room could make the previous school year. The project was still in its infancy, and they didn't know enough about all the tech that went into it to properly work on the armour, but they were expecting to have a prototype sometime after the new year.

They are even building it with proper materials sourced from outside of the school, so when they do have a prototype, they can send it to the scientists and they can help find any issues with it.

The armour was cool, but what Harry was really interested in was the reactor that powered it. It was way better than any traditional power generation, not as good as Hermione's lightning bolt generators, but it was a good source of clean energy that needed no magic to work. Something they could sell to the civilian market without working with the government and being at the mercy of their poorly disguised spies.

"You know, I remember this room being a bedroom."

Harry shook his head to drive away the thoughts and looked up, seeing She-who-must-not-be-named closing the door as she walked inside the RoR, current in a configuration that would be perfect for military research. Or at least that was what Harry asked it to be.

She was wearing ripped jeans and a band t-shirt, her hair was bright blue today, and her eyes were a violet colour that was apparently her default one, without changes. Something she inherited from her crazy aunt Bellatrix, and something Harry knew she hated, so that meant she was probably in a good mood.

"The room can turn into anything you want. The question is why you wanted a bedroom?" Harry asked with a smirk. It was always fun messing with Nym.

"Shut up! Haywood was crazy hot, alright." Nym responded, her hair turning red and then returning to blue. "I wonder if she's still single. That girl can do some amazing things with her tongue." She mused, making Harry blush a little.

"That sounds like not my business." Harry said, earning a smirk from Nym.

"What's wrong, wonder boy? Thinking about your little perv of a girlfriend playing with other girls?" Nym asked in a lecherous tone and giving him a wink.

"Don't really need to think about it, Hermione would be more than happy to show me if I asked." Harry said, showing a lot more confidence than he was actually feeling, and earning a laugh from Nym.

"Fair enough!" She said, recovering from her laughter.

"Have any news from the outside to a poor inmate of Hogwarts prison for teenagers?" Harry asked, changing the subject and making Nym start to laugh again.

"Nothing important." Nym answered, after controlling her laughter again. "Wolfy said the goblins are being annoying, complaining about the gold Marauders Inc. is making out of the country. That gold never enters gringotts, and the goblins are complaining about it, saying that the gold should pass through their bank because Marauders Inc. is a British based company." She added.

"That is on purpose. The goblins tried to scam us when we were setting up the company, trying to ask almost twice the normal amount of gold for a business vault. So we decided that if they wanted to mess with us, we would mess with them." Harry explained, remembering what Sirius told him about the goblins.

The greedy bastards tried to scam Sirius out of their gold. Thinking that just because Sirius was in Azkaban for over a decade, that he didn't know how much he had to pay. Sirius said that Andromeda almost cursed someone when he showed her the amount of gold the goblins were asking for.

"Anything else?" Harry asked.

"Ollivander accepted one of the wolves as an apprentice. Apparently Wolfy had to pay a lot of gold, but the old man accepted a twenty something werewolf with some talent for wandmaking." Nym explained.

"Good, that's great!" Harry said.

And it really was. They had been trying to find someone to buy wands from, but no one wanted to deal with the repercussions of selling wands to werewolves. Not even for a lucrative exclusivity contract. The ministry was not known for being lenient with wolves, or anyone connected to them. Having a werewolf trained in wandmaking would easily solve that problem.

"Anyway." Harry said, moving things along. "I have our project ready!"

"What is it?" Nym asked excitedly. "You never really explained what you wanted my help with."

"There are a few different projects I want to build." Harry said, walking towards a table where he had prepared something earlier, and signalling for Nym to follow him.

"She-who-must-not-be-named I presen..." Harry started, but was interrupted by a loud sigh.

"Alright, Fine. You can call me Nym. Just stop with the She-who-must-not-be-named nonsense." Nym said, making Harry smirk in triumph. He knew he would win one day, and he was just proven right.

"Nym, I present to you, the experimental handheld railgun." Harry said, pointing towards the large gun shaped object on the table, and causing Nym's mouth to open in shock.

"How did you sneak a gun into Hogwarts?" Nym asked in a shocked tone. "I know Dumbledore is old, but I still think he wouldn't ignore such a major security risk." She added.

"I built it." Harry explained. "But, that's not important right now. The important thing is that this gun can shatter all shield charms I know."

"Not important? You think building guns isn't important?" Nym asked, still shocked.

"I told you we would be working on military tech." Harry explained again, not really seeing why she was so shocked. He had told her they would be working on military tech.

"Anyway, what do you know about railguns?" He asked.

"Not much, I just know they are supposed to be stronger than normal guns." Nym answered. "All aurors have gun training because we occasionally have to work with muggle police, so we need to fit in with muggle society." She explained.

"Well, the basic concept is like this." Harry said, and then proceeded to explain how a railgun worked. Nym hid it well, but he could see that the concept terrified her. Magicals were already at a major disadvantage against regular guns, a railgun would make things even worse.

"It is a good thing that the muggles only know those things in theory or initial experiments, because those railguns sound terrifying." Nym said after Harry finished his impromptu presentation on the mechanics of railguns. "And you're telling me you built one of those?" She asked.

"Not really." Harry responded. "It isn't even a proper railgun. The concept is similar, a projectile that uses kinetic energy instead of explosives, but the application is different because I used magic to build it."

"I built them by first making a proper barrel and then cutting it in half. I then proceeded to carve a complex runic array on the inside of the barrel. The array contains a runic version of a bombarda on the back of the 'gun', and gravity runes, as well as runes to expel air all over the barrel." Harry explained, casting a feather weight charm and picking up the large gun shaped object from the table.

The thing was larger than any traditional rifle, the barrel almost the size of the combined six barrels of a minigun, but it was still shaped like a rifle, and could be used as such because of feather weight charms.

"What I want to do is find a one-way shield to seal the barrel and create a vacuum inside it, and then create some type of trigger mechanism, connecting it with the runic array in a way that will fire the explosive rune in the back, accelerating the projectile inside the vacuum. I believe I can push an explosive rune of this size into accelerating a projectile in a semi-vacuum to around two percent the speed of light." Harry explained, earning a confused and slightly annoyed look from Nym.

"Why do you need my help? I hardly understood a quarter of what you said." Nym said, shaking her head a little and with a small, sad smile on her face. Harry could hear her muttering 'annoying geniuses thinking everyone is like them' under her breath.

"I need your help because you have more practical knowledge about traditional guns than I do. You could still help me with cartridges, projectile sizes and a few other things. We also need to test this prototype. I haven't properly measured it, but I'm pretty sure the projectiles are moving at around twice the speed of a normal 7.62 rifle, even with the added size." Harry explained, giving her a soft smile and earning one back, something that made him really happy.

Nym had some weird insecurities ever since she started spending time with them. She was older than all of them, even Penny. And because of it, she always thought that she should be a mentor of sorts, but she knew way less science than any of them, so she always seemed lost when they started talking about their projects. So anything that made her feel happy and useful to her friends was good for Harry. He liked Nym smiling and joking around, and he wanted to keep her that way.

"Anyway, this is not the only project we will be working on. It is just the first that is ready for testing." Harry said, moving the conversation along. "I want to make rune stones that hold blasting and exploding curses. Like magical grenades." He explained, and the glint in Nym's eyes showed that she liked the idea.

"This sounds promising!" She said, her hair briefly turning a bright orange and then returning to blue. "It would really help the aurors if we find a way to replicate a stunner into a rune stone." Nym added, and Harry thought that it sounded good, but he still wanted more lethal options. Both his mum and dad had told him multiple times that he should always use lethal force if someone cast one of the unforgivables against him.

"Then let's get to work!" Harry said, earning a large smile and a nod from Nym.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

While Harry and Nym were working in the RoR, another conversation was happening in Hogwarts.

Hermione walked into the room, and saw the other girls she had invited already there.

The room was one of the previously abandoned classrooms that they had modified into a common room, so they could spend time with their friends from different houses. It had a nice fireplace and comfortable chairs, bookcases and banners of all four houses lined the walls, and a nice carpet covered the floor.

Hermione still didn't agree with what they had done, modifying a part of the castle without asking for permission from the staff, but she still used the room more than the others. She knew it made her a hypocrite, but the room was a nice, comfortable place to study outside of the chaos that was the gryffindor common room.

Walking into the room, she saw the others were all waiting there. Luna seemed excited. It wouldn't surprise Hermione if Luna already knew what she wanted to tell them. The ethereal looking ravenclaw could be a bit moon-brained, but she was still the most perceptive person Hermione had ever met. Hermione said nothing about the little demon resting on Luna's shoulder as it hissed and threw flames her direction when it saw her entering the room.

Iggy was a Satan-spawn disguising itself as a science experiment, and nothing would change her mind about it.

Padma and Parvati were arguing, as they usually did.

The Indian twins really surprised Hermione. She had always thought that they were two opposites. Padma, being in ravenclaw, always preferred to use her mind over her looks, while Parvati was a gossip queen and had an air of vanity to her. Hermione still remembered that one time in second year when Parvati and Lavender covered themselves in makeup, trying to get the attention of that fraud, Lockhart.

But now that both of the twins are working with them, and Hermione is spending more time with the girls, she realized that they are similar in many ways. Padma is quite obsessed with her looks, just in a more subtle way than Parvati, with more focus on making sure her makeup looks 'natural'. While Parvati has a quick wit and an analytical mind that she almost never shows, and even if she mostly uses it for bogus subjects like divination, she occasionally also shows her brilliance in other areas.

Daphne was looking just as beautiful as ever, with her long hair almost touching her bum, and her gorgeous blue eyes. Hermione was really hoping Daphne was interested in her proposal, she was almost as beautiful as Fleur or Tonks and Hermione wanted that beauty closer to her. And her mind was just as beautiful, Hermione might not have known Daphne for long, but the slytherin really impressed her with the insights that she brought to their discussions, and the speed she was catching up on science.

Sue Li was a surprise. They had barely seen her since the end of last school year, the girl taking an almost single-minded focus on their electrical projects. She was quite short, almost as short as Luna, but she was also extremely cute in that girl next door kind of way. She was also seriously smart, but had the same problem of many smart individuals before her. She could get so focused on her projects that she would ignore everything else. Hermione snickered, remembering the time Penelope visited the Li house during the summer, and Sue's mum complained about how her daughter had spend a full week locked inside the shed working on her projects, barely eating and without taking a shower the whole time she was there.

And finally, the last two girls inside the room, Susan and Hannah.

It was a shame that Harry was so opposed to trying anything with Hannah because the hufflepuff was seriously beautiful, but Hermione could understand. It was quite obvious that Neville liked Hannah, and Harry was unwavering loyal to his friends. It was one of the things Hermione loved about him.

Hermione was hopeful that things would work with the other hufflepuff. Susan was gorgeous, with long red hair, actually red instead of the Weasley orange, beautiful hazel eyes and a well developed figure even for their age. There were two things that Hermione really liked about Susan... Her good nature and her brilliant mind for defence and magical laws. Those were the two things Hermione liked about Susan, nothing else, and no one would make her confess otherwise.

There were a few other girls that Hermione hoped to talk to, but they weren't available at the moment. Tonks was in the RoR with Harry, working on their military project, Ginny was working on a prototype broom with Ron and Megan, Tracy and Lavender were 'gathering intelligence', which means they were listening to gossip somewhere else in the castle, and Penelope was working on her mastery with professor Flitwick. She also had a boyfriend, but she deserved better than Percy.

Not to mention Fleur, who should be arriving with the Beauxbatons contingent for the tournament. Hermione couldn't wait to see the beautiful French witch again.

Hermione was hoping that some of those girls would be interested in dating her... and Harry, definitely Harry and her. Harry was an amazing person and she loved him, so she wanted to reward him with a bunch of beautiful girls. It had nothing to do with the fact that she wanted to kiss them, and then watch as they kissed Harry right after. She just wanted Harry to be happy with her and a bunch of absolutely gorgeous girls, with luscious lips and thicc thighs and...

God, I have issues. Hermione thought.

"So, what do you want to talk about, Hermione?" Susan asked as Hermione sat down on the only available chair.

"I know what it is, and I'm first!" Luna said while petting Iggy, the genetically modified Iguana letting out a bit of smoke.

"How do you know?" Hermione asked, genuinely curious. Even if she was sure she wouldn't understand the answer.

"The Nargles told me." Luna responded, making Hermione groan a little. She already expected that answer, but it didn't make it less annoying.

"Anyway." Hermione said, shaking her head and focusing on the other girls, who were looking at her expectantly. "I just want to tell you all about an opportunity."

"What opportunity?" Daphne asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm... willing to entertain the idea of a coven if any of you are interested in it. I already talked with Harry, and he is willing to try it." Hermione said, earning a few shocked looks from the girls. Even Daphne showed a reaction, a brief look of interest, something that she hardly ever did.

"Didn't expect that from you, Hermione." Parvati said, earning a nod from her sister and the two hufflepuffs.

"I've read about covens, but I didn't find much on it. What I did find, was good enough for me to be willing to try it." Hermione lied. No one needed to know she wanted a coven for... reasons, but the snort from Parvati and the incredulous look from Luna showed that not everyone was buying her lie.

Luna would probably say that she learned the true from nargles, wrackspurts or whatever, but Parvati was probably thinking about all the times Hermione would look at her and Lavender in the showers. Hermione knew her less than subtle looks would bite her in the arse one day.

"I'm not surprised you didn't learn much about it. As far as I know, the last coven died just shortly after the statute of secrecy was signed." Daphne said, earning a nod from Susan.

"You're right." Susan confirmed. "But the coven laws are still in the books, they were never repelled or changed in any way. The only reason a coven hasn't existed since then is because no one tried to make one." Susan added, while Parvati and Padma exchanged a few brief whispers. It was low enough that Hermione wasn't able to hear it.

"We're interested. Harry is cute, and covens aren't that uncommon in India, so we don't have a problem with being in one." Parvati said, earning a nod from her twin sister.

"In fact, if Harry was born in India, both his family and the government would have encouraged him to form a coven." Padma added, earning a few curious looks.

"Why?" Hermione asked excitedly, the promise of new knowledge firing up her mind. Sure, she preferred academics to cultural facts, but every bit of knowledge was a good thing in her opinion.

"Parselmouths are honoured in magical India, and are encouraged to have many children to pass along their gifts. Healing spells cast using parseltongue are almost three times more effective than normal ones. It is the reason why snakes are seeing as symbols of healers in many cultures." Padma explained, making Hermione nod her head in thanks.

It was an interesting bit of information, and something she should tell Harry, she knew he would love to learn medical charms, even if he maybe never thought about it, it was just the kind of person Harry was, he loved to help others in need, and healing charms were all about helping people.

"Before you all give your answers, there are a few conditions that you should know." Hermione said, bringing the mood down a little.

"Of course there is." Daphne said in a bored tone and with a smirk, making Hermione snort a little. Daphne was probably expecting some kind of conditions right from the start, she was their 'politics expert', even if she was too young to be involved in proper politics, but she still had a quite cynical view of the world because of it.

"It is normal." Parvati said. "Every coven has a first, or matriarch, or any of the other names they are called. And the first always set up conditions for others to join the coven." She explained.

"Well, there are only a few conditions." Hermione said, earning the attention of the other girls. "The first and most important is that we solve our problems amongst us girls. We all know Harry would worry about hurting our feelings, so we shouldn't bother him with our issues with each other."

"That is your job, Hermione. The first wife is always in charge of solving problems between the others." Parvati said, earning a nod from Padma so it was probably true.

"I'm willing to do it, if you join the coven you can bring your problems to me and I will solve them to the best of my abilities." Hermione said simply. It wouldn't be a problem for her.

"The second condition." Hermione started. "Before you even get a date with Harry, you'll go on a few 'dates' with me. I need to know if you're compatible with us." She added emphasising the air quotes. She didn't need to spook the girls, but judging by the snort from Parvati, she wasn't really successful in make it seem innocent enough.

"The third isn't really a condition, but it would be nice if you're willing to date girls as well. It would be easier if we were all dating each other instead of just a bunch of girls dating Harry. We all know how he would feel about it." Hermione said in a soft tone, trying to make it seem as innocent as possible. But she wasn't successful, Parvati burst out laughing while her twin snickered, the two hufflepuffs were shaking their heads and even Daphne had a little smirk on her face.

Luna, of course, didn't even seem to listen. She was busy petting Iggy again.

"Why don't you tell the truth, Hermione? You just want to sample the goods before Harry." Daphne said in a dry tone, making the other girls laugh and Hermione blush a little.

"Not true! I'm just thinking about Harry." Hermione lied. She wasn't convincing anyone.

"I don't have a problem with it." Parvati said, bringing the attention to her. "I've tried things with Lav before, it felt... nice." She added, blushing from head to toe and earning a scandalized look from her sister.

"I don't know if I can do... things with other girls, but there are some benefits to covens that I'm interested in." Susan said, earning a grateful look from Parvati for taking the attention away from her.

"What benefits?" Hannah asked her best friend.

"Coven laws allow the women of the coven to pass on her own name to her children, as long as she gives the same amount of children her husband's name." Susan explained, earning a brief look of surprise from Daphne.

"So, I could name my... second child with Harry a Bones instead of a Potter, same goes for a fourth or sixth child." Susan said, blushing just as much as Parvati did before.

Hermione could understand. She was the one that was already dating Harry, and she would still blush if she started talking about having kids with him. Not that she didn't dream about a little boy with beautiful emerald eyes, a little copy of Harry with just a bit of herself, but that was for her future, a late twenties Hermione. She didn't want to even think about it now.

"Well, my father would definitely love if I did that. He always complains about not having a son, and how the Greengrass name will die with me and my sister." Daphne said in a perfectly bland tone, but Hermione could still hear the pain she was hiding behind it.

"It sounds nice for you three, Susy, Daphne and Luna. You can keep your family name going." Hannah said, earning a nod from Susan and Daphne, and taking Luna's attention out of her pet.

"Daddy won't care anyway. He just wants me to be happy." Luna said in a happy tone, and went back to petting Iggy.

"Lucky you!" Daphne said, and this time the pain was even more apparent in her voice.

"Yes, well, I guess everyone is interested?" Hermione asked, earning a nod from everyone, which made her really happy. "There is just a tiny problem, Hannah." She said, making the hufflepuff frown a little.

"What problem?" Hannah asked.

"Harry refused to try anything with you." Hermione said, earning a pained look from Hannah. She was probably thinking that Harry didn't think she was good enough for him. "He refused because he doesn't want to make an enemy of a certain Longbottom by stealing the girl he likes." She added in a teasing tone, earning a laugh from the other girls and making Hannah blush bright red.

"I told you Neville likes you!" Susan said triumphantly.

"It is quite obvious." Daphne added, agreeing with Susan.

Everyone laughed again, teasing Hannah about how both she and Neville liked the other for almost a year, but neither of them ever tried anything.

"I guess I'm asking Nev for a date next Hogsmeade weekend." Hannah finally said, earning cheers from the other girls.

"And I'm going on a date with Hermione next Wednesday." Luna said, and then she jumped on Hermione's lap and kissed her.

Luna's lips were softer than Harry's, and tasted like chocolate. It was nice.

"Luna! Don't do that!" Hermione said as they broke the kiss, blushing from head to toe.

The kiss was nice, and Hermione wanted to do it again. Despite her oddness, Luna was gorgeous, and more importantly, a really nice person. But still, she didn't want to kiss Luna in front of the other girls, not yet, no matter how amused Daphne and Parvati looked.

"But I want to kiss Harry, and you won't let me do it until I go on a date with you." Luna said, pouting a little. She had no problem telling everyone what she really wanted.

"Fine. We can go on a date in the room of requirement next Wednesday. Just don't tell Harry yet." Hermione said, earning a beautiful smile from the shorter girl. "And take Iggy out of my hair." She added, trying not to show how scared she really was of the little abomination that was dragged into her hair when Luna jumped on her.

"Well, I was going to ask you to be the second after Luna, but I'll wait a little. It seems you have your hands full, Hermione. Or is that your lips?" Parvati asked in a teasing tone, making the other girls laugh loudly.

Hermione groaned in painful embarrassment. She just knew Parvati wasn't going to leave her alone later in the dorm. She prepared herself for the future shame she would be subjected to by Parvati and Lavender in the dorm, because Parvati would obviously tell her best friend.

But, maybe it would bring another girl to the coven. Hermione could handle a bit of embarrassment for a chance to play with Lavender's...

God, I have issues. Hermione thought again.

But then again, having issues could be fun sometimes.

AN 2: Harry starts working on things to protect the people he cares about.

And Hermione working on Harry's reward for being a nice person. It has nothing to do with her, she just wants to reward her boyfriend, and no one will get her to admit otherwise.

I will see you guys in the next one.