AN: Guys, please enjoy this. I have read enough unfinished LOTR x HP stories that I know how it feels so I will finish this. It wont follow the story of LOTR, but it will brush against it vaguely.

Please R & R.

It started off as an idea but they were all getting desperate, especially after Draco nearly killed himself experimenting on potions. Luna had arrived and brought supplies, asking if it was acceptable as a token of her acceptance, and if she could please stay?

But let's go back to the reason why everyone was desperate.

After the war was over, everyone clamored for change and everyone wanted Heather to lead it. Heather was cranky, tried and just wanted to go to the bottom of the ocean to rest and hide for the rest of eternity.

Hermione felt nearly the same way but she wanted to teach and change people, especially the orphans.

"This wouldn't happen if people only have proper care for children," she confided to Heather one night. "I probably won't be much use in taking care of children, but I can change adoption laws and orphanage adoption requirements."

But Hermione couldn't change that in wizarding Britain. She was only a muggleborn. So long as they settled in the British Isles, she was a second class citizen in the Wizarding world. So she settled in Grimmauld place with Heather and researched laws – seething all the while about injustice.

Draco ended up with them by sheer accident and Potter luck. Heather was shopping, in disguise of course, when she came across Draco looking harried. He was exiting the apothecary and the people looked like they wanted to stone him. Something stirred in Heather and reminded her that no matter everything else that happened between them, Draco was still a distant cousin and didn't deserve to be treated that way.

She stopped him with a hand on his arm and he nearly flinched. He controlled himself and asked with dignity, "Yes, may I help you?"

Heather smiled to reassure him. "Malfoy, don't act all stiff on me," she soothed.

"I beg your pardon?" he said.

Heather allowed her glamor to falter for a second, enough for him to see her eyes and her scar.

His eyes went round. "Potter," he muttered. "What on earth are you up to?"

She grinned and locked an arm around his waist. She ignored his indignant posturing. "Come with me," she said, looking like she was his girlfriend. "By the way, did you manage what you wanted or did the people chase you out?" It was a teasing tone that managed to put him at ease. She was a far cry from the young girl he kept teasing and it made him unconsciously relax.

Draco managed a smile. "They didn't chase me out. It was a tactical retreat. And yes, I got what I wanted," he said.

She took him to Grimmauld place and convinced Hermione. But, perhaps that wasn't proper convincing but she just pushed Draco in the Library and Hermione, buried under mounds of books, didn't even notice him. He gave her a look of alarm when she gestured for him to enter and it turned into outright panic when she closed the door firmly. It wasn't locked, but either way, Draco was too proud to hurry out.

Draco just sat across her and occupied himself with a potions journal. When she finally surfaced and saw him, she blinked several times and said, "Oh. Did Heather bring you here?"

He nodded guardedly. Hermione just hummed and returned the books with a flick of her hand. She grabbed his hand and dragged him to the kitchen.

Kreacher was overjoyed to have another Black to serve and went on a cleaning spree. It only took a couple of days and Draco lost his pinched and wary look and started to smile more.

But weeks coped up in an old house could drive anyone crazy and that's when things started to get desperate. They didn't want to go out to face the world. Grimmauld place had become, for them, the bottom of the ocean.

And that was when Luna came.

Her arrival wasn't all that shocking. However, what shocked the occupants of Grimmauld place was the fact that she could see the door at all.

"Luna?!" Heather exclaimed.

She stood there, dirty blond hair long and tangled, silvery gray eyes protuberant and unseeing. "The nargles led me to you," then her eyes focused with dizzying intensity on Heather. "My father has been taken over by the wrackspurts. I don't think I can stay with him anymore."

An epiphany dawned on Heather. Luna's father had sold them to Death Eaters and it seemed that Luna could not forgive him that fact. Heather smiled in understanding and commiseration.

It took another week and then Hermione slammed a book on the kitchen table in annoyance.

"Damn it, Granger," Draco cursed. He had almost spilled his soup since one of his hands was in a sling due to a recent potions accident.

"Listen up," Hermione said. "I found this locked in a vault under the Black library."

Heather felt her eyebrow climb up, but she said nothing, because Hermione was clearly on a roll.

"It's a book on dimensions travel, specifically on how the Veil of Death was created."

Luna's eyes focused on Hermione. "There are no hyvolspaths in the Veil of Death, Hermione."

Draco and Hermione turned to look at Heather since she seemed to be the only one who understood Luna's cryptic statements that sounded vaguely like prophecy.

Heather touched Luna's hand and smiled. "She means wizards. If you want to move there, there wont be any of our kind." The understanding worked if she was looking into Luna's eyes and it sometimes worked if she was touching Luna. It frustrated Hermione since neither of them could explain it to her.

Draco grinned. "No wizards." He looked happy at the prospect. Well, he would be, seeing as he was a pseudo-criminal among wizards.

Heather laughed at him. "You don't have to be so happy about it," then she turned to Hermione. "What do we do to help? And what materials do you need?"

Hermione's lips pursed in a wonderful imitation of McGonagall. "Well, that's just it. It's frigging hard." She grinned at their surprise when she cursed. "Listen to this. Corpse of evil, Heart of Bitterness, Bones of Loyalty and Blood of Rebirth."

Draco snorted. "Merlin. It's like its saying, 'This is extremely hard. Don't try it'"

Heather ignored him. "I know someone who would have a corpse of evil."

Luna nodded. "Yes. He was evil. The moment he rent his soul, the very essence of magic deemed him evil."

"But the problem would be getting it, seeing as the Unspeakables have it under lock and key," she added.

Hermione spluttered. "Wait. Rent his soul. You're talking about Voldemort."

Draco flinched and a hand went to his forearm. "Don't say his name, it hurts." All three girls looked at him and he nodded earnestly. "It does. He made it so we would fear to say it."

"Ingenious," Hermione muttered. "Fear of the name indeed. But how do we get his corpse?"

Luna patted her hand. "The Dragon and I will take care of it," she muttered.

He looked surprised. "Me? What for?"

"You have his mark. You can break the wards on it." Luna said. It was the clearest they had ever heard her speak. Then her eyes unfocused again. "We must hurry. A lynch is looking for us."

Heather didn't need to touch Luna this time. She was too shocked and angry to notice this though. "Kingsley! The minister is looking for us?"

Everybody exploded into action. Hermione volunteered to grab supplies and no one argued with her seeing as she was the best with glamor spells. Heather went to Gringotts and Luna dragged Draco to the ministry to grab the Corpse of Evil.

On the way back from Gringotts, inspiration struck Heather like a bolt of lightning.

"Gosh," she gasped. "But I have to talk to the others to be sure." Then she paused. "But if we do this, isn't it desecration?"

She dithered on that the whole way home.

The security on Voldemort's body was apparently close to nil.

"I mean, who would want to steal the Dark Lords body?" Hermione mused.

Heather fidgeted and dithered until Luna poked her. She yelped and frowned whilst rubbing the spot. "Guys, I might know the second ingredient but…I don't want to use his heart somehow."

Hermione sighed irritably. "Heather, if you don't say it, I'll sic Draco on you."

"Oi!"the aforementioned man exclaimed.

Both of them ignored him.

"Don't argue, they're just using you as fish bait," Luna told him in her soft and dreamy voice.

Heather was covering her face with her hands. "It's Snape. The Heart of Bitterness. I know most of his life story so I'm sure."

Draco nearly growled. "No. We're not using my godfathers heart. Next."

Heather gave Hermione the "I told you so" look. "Well, I know someone else, but I think she's still alive."

"Who?"

"Aunt Petunia."

Heather sat next to Luna, feeling small and insignificant. Luna hummed serenely while Hermione and Draco yelled at each other at the top of their lungs. Well, Hermione shrieked and Draco growled and hissed alternately.

"Don't worry, there's a third one," Luna said softly. She somehow said this when both combatants were taking a breath so everyone heard her, no matter how softly it was said. Idly, Heather wondered how she did that. Another Pureblood thing?

"What?" they both rounded on her.

Heather, very near the line of fire, tried not to flinch.

"Who?" Hermione demanded.

"The beetle, of course. Her soul is black with bitterness," she answered.

For once, Hermione and Heather understood perfectly. "Oh! Rita Skeeter!" they chorused, grinning at each other.

"What?" Draco bleated again.

Rita Skeeter's burial had been lost among the multitude of funerals that Heather attended but once Draco and Hermione started to rack their brains on where she was buried, Heather remembered the day of the burial vividly.

"It was a Saturday," she piped up, interrupting their brainstorming. "And it was raining."

Hermione, who was more used to Heather's methods than Draco, stomped on his foot to prevent him from saying anything snide.

"Yes, go on Feather," she encouraged.

"There were poplar trees and an old witch on a wheel-chair, crying her heart out. There were stone angels and twelve roses in Hermione's hair."

Upon hearing that, Hermione took on a Eureka! pose. "Of course! On that day, there were twelve funerals. She was buried with the Abbots!"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Of course. She can remember the kind and number of flowers but she forgets the name of the cemetery. No wonder you get along with Loo – Ouch! – Lovegood."

The Bones of Loyalty, was of course, the one that stumped Heather. The only one she knew was Sirius and he had no corpse to steal bones from. And she wasn't sufficiently sure if being a werewolf would affect the rituals.

Draco then broke in that he had an idea for who it would be, but it would need their trust on his judgment.

"Let it out," Hermione demanded.

"Vincent Crabbe," he said quietly.

The urge to laugh was suddenly quashed with the vivid memory of how Crabbe died. But Hermione had a questioning look pasted on her face. So Draco elaborated. "You might think they were dumb apes assigned by my father but they often supported me in everything I did and didn't hesitate to call me a selfish brat when I needed to hear it and gave me a good thumping when I didn't listen."

Hermione was skeptical but didn't complain or say her doubts were Draco could hear it.

The blood of rebirth had all of them stumped. Luna was no help since she saw a pack of tarot cards in the Library. Hermione started some of the preparations she could do with just the three ingredients. When they finally were on the verge of trashing the idea, Luna surfaced from her cards and asked what all the arguments was about, seeing as the Blood of Rebirth was Heather.

There was a sudden silence at the announcement and then the demands started.

"What do you mean rebirth? Heather, what aren't you telling us?" Hermione demanded.

Hermione ignored Heather for as long as was possible, but occasionally casted her worried looks. Draco, who knew about keeping secrets, just smiled and kept her company, for once not brewing potions, to talk to her.

Heather, for her part, was packing the books under the watchful eye of Kreacher. He had heard their plans of dimension travel and ambushed Heather. Kreacher had known she was the softest and least logical when face with an ambush and so secured his own ticket to the dimension travel that way.

Part of his demands was not to leave the books. Heather agreed since it was logical. Heather did not agree on brining Walbruga Black. Kreacher only acquiesced when Heather pointed out that she may not survive the transfer.

"What are you bringing, Draco?" she asked the potioneer.

Draco looked up from his notes. "Potion ingredients, I suppose. I'm resigning myself to the fact that there might not be any of the more specialized ingredients. But there might be new ones too, so I'll need my potions journals."

Heather giggled. She looked up from the books, while Kreacher tittered at the interruption. "Draco, you might as well look up the composition of ink and paper while you're at it. You might run out of it."

An alarmed look came over his face and he ran off, leaving her alone for the first time in a couple of days. Heather looked to Luna, who was shuffling her cards.

"Is this how you feel every time?" she asked Luna.

Luna just laid out her next deck, facing the Joker towards Heather.

It wasn't an arch. It didn't have a veil. It was simply a doorway, square and forbidding. A tattered cloth hung near the top. It made the entire thing feel like a junior Veil of Death.

It was also humming.

"Hermione?" Heather muttered. The, are you sure? was unsaid.

Draco was in apparent agreement. He edged away from it warily. Luna had no such qualms. She nodded at Hermione and jumped in immediately. Everybody gave a yelp.

"Luna!" Heather gasped. She followed quickly and a tugging at the back of her skirt told her that Kreacher was also with her. Vaguely, she heard Draco and Hermione behind her.

The inside of the veil was different than what she expected. It wasn't specifically nothingness since she could feel something occasionally brush her. It wasn't like walking, neither was it like falling. If Heather had to describe it, she would call it drifting, but there was something pulling her along, as well as the vague idea that she had to go at a certain direction.

There was also voices and then singing. Instinctively, she drifted faster. It sounded like Luna, which was just strange and it also sounded like Fawkes, which was comforting in the vaguely shifting darkness. To actually be able to hear something was a blessing, after all.

And then Heather stopped drifting and suddenly, she was falling. She expected pain, but instead, there were dew drops and grass.

Heather opened her eyes and it was to an extremely blue sky.

Guys, I would appreciate it very much if you review.

next update would probably be next week, at the latest. I have tests, you know?

And if you people want pairings, state it now or forever hold your peace.

~Lady Hallen

edited: 1/9/2015