A Tale of Three Dark Ladies

[black_hat]

*sigh* More crack for the holiday. Actually, I wrote this some time ago and it's completely wild, exaggerated characterizations and everything. So keep that in mind, eh :-) Erm, T/G, T/L, T/Hr and a FIGHT!

                                         

A Tale of Three Dark Ladies

 

Hermione took a sip of the tea, tasting it for any trace of poison.

 

Not that it would kill her, after all.

 

“So how was your day?” Luna asked politely.

 

“Oh, wicked,” Ginny said, grinning and toying with a knife between her fingers. “I crushed the goblin uprising on the side. Nasty buggers. I’ve gotten every ounce of information from the prisoners…and then some.  ”

 

“I’m sure,” Hermione said, setting her cup down primly.

 

“What did you do, then?” Ginny demanded.

 

“Well, since you’ve asked…I translated all the manuscripts, brewed an elixir potion, and sorted out that little dispute in New London. I should manage my time better, I know.”

 

“Why don’t you make yourself little notes? Little notes always help me, when I can find them. It’s like a new surprise every minute, you know,” Luna said lightly.

 

Hermione and Ginny waited, looking at Luna expectantly.

 

“More tea?” she inquired.

 

“What did you do today, Luna?”

 

“Hmm…” Luna said, straightening out the tablecloth. “I did many things today.”

 

They waited.

 

“And at night,” Luna continued.

 

“That, technically, is a day,” Hermione interrupted. “Are we going by a twelve hour day or a twenty-four hour day?”

 

“Oh, you’re keeping count...” Luna said.

 

“Well, yeah,” Ginny said. “Just name something. Anything.”

 

“I got to travel. It was so lovely.”

 

“Where?” Hermione demanded.

 

“It’s not as much a where as a when.”

 

“Then when?”

 

“I can’t quite say.”

 

“Oh for—admit it. You didn’t do one thing of use for our Lord.”

 

“If it’s only one thing, then no.”

 

 Hermione glared. “Never mind. I don’t care to know.”

 

Luna smiled peaceably. Ginny paused for a moment, thoughtfully. “I guess it must be really hard for you two.”

 

Luna and Hermione glanced over quizzically. “I mean, I was the first one. I suppose it must be hard to keep his favor with me around. I’m really sorry.”

 

“Excuse me?” Hermione said bitingly. “You were hardly the first. That would be me, my dear.”

 

Ginny laughed. “Oh no. I knew him first. Soul and body, body and soul.”

 

“Point taken. He was just using you for your body.”

 

She gritted her teeth, and Hermione continued on. “I’m not sure about the soul part.”

 

“That’s exactly what happened,” Ginny protested.

 

“Then how do you explain what he told me? That I was his mind, practically a second him. Hmmm?”

 

Luna paused for a moment. “Were you eavesdropping?”

 

“What?” Hermione asked, bewildered.

 

“You must have been,” Luna reasoned. “It’s a bit of a misunderstanding, really.”

 

“Oh, be clear for once,” Ginny said.

 

“I see how you’re all getting befuddled. He said I was his mind, body, and soul, if I recall correctly. So you two must have overheard and misunderstood the subject of his claim.”

 

“The hell we did,” Ginny said angrily. “You recall wrong. You must have been daydreaming.”

 

“You recall incorrectly,” Hermione reprimanded, shaking her head.

 

“Or we were all in the same bed that time,” Luna mused.

 

“I would have remembered that,” Hermione said quickly. Ginny didn’t look as certain. 

 

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” she growled, as fiercely as a lion would. “We all know the truth. It must be so hard for you to say it. I pity you. I do. On the inside.”

 

Hermione frowned, her eyes flashing. “Now, wait just a minute, Weasley.  That’s a load of rubbish. I’m clearly the most useful out of the three of us. The both of you—working together—could not match me in the Dark Lord’s favor.”

 

“Well, no one bloody knows what it is that Luna does around here!” Ginny retorted, hitting her fist against the table. The silverware clattered. Luna looked out the window dreamily.

 

“Then my superiority is that much more apparent,” Hermione said softly, shrugging.

 

“What?” Ginny asked, just as softly. She pushed back her chair. “Did you just say that you—the bushy-headed know-it-all— are better than me?”

 

“Luna, was I in any way unclear?”

 

The wide-eyed girl shook her head. “You were very clear in your meaning.”

 

“Thank you. And I’m glad you have the good sense to agree.”

 

“Really? Is that what I did?” Luna smiled a shade darkly. “It’s funny how the human mind works. Perception is in the reception…and the conception of the end result. If that’s what you want to see, then do go ahead. It’s all the better…”

 

Hermione froze. “W-.”

 

“She said that you have a bloody big head that’s going to trip you up,” Ginny snapped. “Let’s take this outside and settle it once and for all.”

 

“You must be joking.”

 

“I’m dead serious,” Ginny said sinisterly. “Speaking of which…”

 

Hermione flushed. “All right. I’m going to have to explain your condition to him later. But I’m sure he’d understand completely, after having to deal with you all this time…”

 

Hermione stood up as well, unsheathing her wand. Ginny smiled and licked her lips.

 

Luna peered up at the two with interest. “May I watch?” 

 

“…Wait a moment,” Hermione said. She looked at Ginny. “Don’t you think this is a little too convenient for our Luna?”

 

“…Yeah. If both of us are out of the way, then little Miss Innocent will….”

 

Luna blinked. “I sense a lack of trust.”

 

Ginny pointed her wand at Luna. “Let me handle Pop-eye here. Then we duel.”

 

“Go ahead,” Hermione said, crossing her arms and smiling to herself.

 

Luna sighed. “My tea parties always end so abruptly.”

 

With that, the tea pot she was holding erupted into what seemed to be a well-conceived magical well of power. “But it would be rude not to let the guests have the last drop.”

 

She threw it into the air. Hermione and Ginny dodged. Hermione shrieked as a few drops burned through her clothing.

 

“Why you!” Ginny screamed, sending curse after curse in Luna’s direction. Except Luna seemed to be standing everywhere.

 

“She’s poisoned the tea!” Hermione yelled, scandalized.

 

“Oh, not poison. How crude. Just a little something to help you see a new side to old things.”

 

“I am going to kill you,” Ginny announced.

 

“You may certainly try.”

 

“Ginny, follow her voice. Her voice!” Hermione yelled. “Close your eyes. Use your other senses.”

 

For the first time in awhile, Ginny took Hermione’s advice. She closed her eyes and listened for Luna rather than try to see her.

 

“Hah!” Ginny yelled and fired a Killing Curse at the sound of someone creeping across the floor.

 

“Crookshanks!”

 

“Bugger,” Ginny whispered. Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She resisted the urge to hex. Her brothers had played that trick a million times.

 

“To hell with this,” she declared. “Hermione, get down.”

 

She summoned a very powerful curse that would strike everything within a ten mile radius. She minimized it then hexed away. It was her specialty, after all.

 

She heard several people screaming. Oh well. She certainly hadn’t started this but she would finish it.

 

Ginny cracked open an eye. Both of her competitors were lying unconscious nearby.

 

“Well. Looks like I win,” Ginny said brightly.

 

“Think again,” Hermione said. She was safely encased in the mirror on the wall, Crookshanks purring contently in her arms.

 

“Then…who? What? Two of…”

 

“I had to split myself in two to survive your attack,” Luna replied calmly. “I don’t like doubling up, you know.”

 

“I rather like it,” the second Luna replied. “It is forty-forty vision, after all.”

 

“But if hindsight is twenty-twenty, what is forty-forty, then?”

 

“Hind is the rind of the mind, and…”

 

“Argh!” Ginny screamed in frustration. “Enough. Let’s just go ask him who his favorite is.”

 

“That is actually quite reasonable,” Hermione said.

 

“I agree,” the two Lunas said in unison.

 

“Oh, pull yourself together, Luna,” Hermione commanded as she stepped out of the mirror, Crookshands at her heels with his tail held high.

 

“I thought I-um-killed him—accidentally, of course,” Ginny said nervously.

 

“You did. One of him,” Hermione said.

 

“You made a Horcrux for your cat?!” Ginny exclaimed. “I thought animals couldn’t have…”

 

Hermione looked suspicious.

 

“Never mind,” Ginny said. “See you losers later.”

 

With that, Ginny ran out the door and down the dark hallway to the Dark Lord’s chambers.

 

“Don’t run in the halls!” Hermione shouted after her disappearing figure. She paused. “Coming, Luna?”

 

“Eventually.”

 

Hermione shrugged and walked at a leisurely pace down the hall, following Ginny. She of course knew the answer the Dark Lord would give. She held her head up high and pressed her robes down neatly by her sides.

 

“You look nice,” Luna said, leaning quietly against the main doors. Hermione glared.

 

“How did you get here so fast?” Luna looked vague.

 

“I bet Ginny’s already in there,” she said. “I don’t want to look like I’m worried.”

 

“Actually, Ginny’s right there.”

 

Hermione turned to see Ginny grinning at her from her place on the window seat. “Worried, huh?”

 

“So you actually waited for once…” Hermione observed dryly. “All right. Shall we go in?”

 

They opened the doors with an impatient Ginny trying to push her way in first. Then they stopped short in surprise. They had never entered the Dark Lord’s room unannounced before…and they quickly saw why…

 

Luna was the first to speak.

 

“Why…hello, Harry. I thought you were dead.”

(A/N :looks around innocently)