Thanks to Possum 132 for setting my imagination off at a tangent that cleared up some of the problems with this fic. Valuable review, his.
Awareness and Funds
I – Neither
It was late in the evening, dinner an hour past or so, when Ron began to hunt around for Hermione, who had been acting funny most of the day. A small and acrid fire on one of the balconies attracted him, and when he had exposed himself to the cold winter air he found her. She looked stony-faced.
Ron couldn't help thinking odds were good that there was an Educational Degree against students tending fires – and he knew Filch would have a hissing fit.
"Erm… what are you doing?" he asked cautiously.
The reply was fierce. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"… Burning woolly bladders?"
"Oh, very good, Ron, did you work that one out on your own?"
Ron's response was nonverbal, snappishly feinting to flick her ear. "Would your highness care to let me know why?"
"No," she said, sulkily – and thirty seconds later was crying. You can imagine Ron's horror. She just plopped to the ground, knees drawn to her chin and face in her hands.
For while it's easier than, say, giving up a bad opinion of someone – admitting you're wrong, for crying out loud, giving up the ideal and highest dream of childhood is no picnic either, and only scarcely preferable.
And thus it was a good thing Ron was there to talk her out of it.
Awkwardly he sidled down the wall until he was resting on his ankles next to the wall. "Hey… why don't you, er, calm down a bit… what's the matter?" She looked up just long enough to give her a tear-streaked glare, the most vicious kind. "Okay, or don't tell me. But… um… stop crying…" Because you're freaking me out, he added mentally. And I can't offer to make a pot of tea, and I don't really think it helps when I try it anyway.
"I can't tell you," she said, "because you'll l-laugh at me…"
"No I won't," he said earnestly, relieved that there would be a frivolous note to all of this and that Hermione was already getting over her crying spell. "Promise I won't."
Hermione sniffed. "Yes, you will."
Ron agreed with her that he would give her a free shot at hexing him if he laughed, and – more seriously – that he would never, ever tell anyone, in exchange for the reassurance that "it wasn't a girl-type problem."
"Okay," said Hermione once these negotiations were over, taking a deep breath. She gave him one last suspicious look but something in his expression must have satisfied her. "Well. You know S.P.E.W."
Having been prepared and forewarned and threatened, Ron didn't crack a smile or a joke. "Right."
"Well" – and here Hermione looked down and started picking at the skin around her fingernail – "it seems we have a new member."
"Hey… hey, that's great," said Ron, nodding encouragingly. "So someone else is interested?"
Hermione nodded, still determinedly not meeting his eye. "Luna Lovegood."
Ron did valiant battle with a broad grin. He really did.
"I knew it! I knew it!" Hermione stood up furiously, trying to point at him but winding up a good foot off. "I knew you would laugh at me! Very funny, isn't it?"
Ron's ankles had given out on him and he was sprawled against the wall. He had to hide his face in his knees. "It's not funny. Who's laughing? Not me."
"Well, that's me shown up, isn't it?" Hermione huffed, with something of a sob still in it. "Apparently she'll only believe in things if there's no proof at all. Well, I deserve it, come on, laugh."
In point of fact, Ron hadn't remembered her saying that – if he had ever paid attention to it in the first place – but that put an even funnier spin on it. It took deep sources of manliness to conquer all the jibes and laughter welling up in him, to instead stand and say calmly, "Nope. I'm not laughing. Look at me, am I? I'm not going to say a word."
Hermione had to sniff again. "You know, Luna only heard about it from Ginny. I'll bet Ginny set this all up as a big joke."
"Yeah," said Ron, ruefully. "That's possible. C'mon, Hermione, get over it. Luna might be a good addition to S.P.E.W. She could bring in lots more – uh – good ideas."
Privately he was thinking that she would probably dress up as a house-elf and talk in third person for a while to show her new allegiance. Which would actually be pretty entertaining.
Hermione shrugged.
"Hey, put out that fire now, would you? I don't want to make the Bumsnifforial Squad's day by giving them a chance to dock Gryffindor about a thousand points."
"There's nothing wrong with setting a small, controlled fire in the open on school grounds," said Hermione petulantly. But she did douse it, and Vanished the charred remains of the clothes. They began to walk along aimlessly. "So do you think I should tell Luna that we can have a meeting Monday, or that S.P.E.W. has been officially disbanded?"
"Erm…" Ron wondered why he was the authority for this sort of decision. "Dunno. I'll tell you what, though," he said brightly, "since you can't meet in groups of over three people without asking the dear old toad permission – and I don't think Umbridge with her track record is going to be too sympathetic to our manifesto – I hereby volunteer to sit out the meeting."
She glared at him again, but – whew! – it was with mixed with pent-in laughter, not tears.
"Really," he said, mock-earnestly. "I will sacrifice myself for the good of the cause. I'm sure Harry will agree to as well. Because we're pals, Hermione, we'll do that for you."
"Oh, thanks ever so." She huffed one of their familiar companionable huffs. (Whew! thought Ron. So that hadn't turned out too badly – she was no longer crying and he had not gotten hexed after all.)
---
The second meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare took place at 7:00 on 23 April, 1995, A.D., in the Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Minutes by Acting Secretary Luna Lovegood.
"Well, so far as I can see, the key to our short-term success – "
"Wait a minute," interrupted Luna. "What about roll call?"
Hermione blinked. It was only the two of them at the end of the mostly-abandoned Gryffindor table. "Luna. It's just you and me."
"That's so," agreed Luna, writing slowly and precisely. "Harry's not here… that's why I'm acting secretary… and Treasurer Weasley is also absent… Okay." She looked up brightly. "We're ready now."
"Right." Yet Luna was waiting expectantly. "And what else?" asked Hermione grumpily.
"As president, would you like to call the meeting to order?"
"Er… this meeting is officially called to order?"
If possible, Luna sat up even straighter. She was wearing a polka dot beret on which she had attached her brand-new S.P.E.W. badge. (It had taken a long time for her to obtain the badge, as Hermione hadn't accepted foreign Wizarding money and Luna had taken a while to find any other kind.)
Hermione picked up her thread again: "I think the key to our short-term success – and to be quite honest we need some short-term success if we're ever going to have long-term success…" Hermione shrugged pragmatically. "The key is to raise awareness within our own generation. There is little chance of moving the hearts of the current establishment. It's up to us to nurture and raise up a new one that has some concern for elf rights."
"Why is there little chance of moving the hearts of the current establishment?" asked Luna seriously.
"… What do you suggest we do? If it's to write the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures, I've already done it thirty-seven times." She considered. "Thirty-eight if you count the one I wrote about the unfairness of Buckbeak's trial. But it was pretty emotional and incoherent, and I'd rather not remember it."
"We could take over the Ministry by storm," said Luna.
The horrible part about it was that she was deadly in earnest. As Hermione had learned, Luna took the house-elf injustice even less lightly than she herself. "I don't think that's practical."
"Oh, I don't mean really," said Luna. "Only it's a fun phrase, isn't it? 'Take by storm'? But we could drug the pertinent workers within the Department and issue new regulations with their seals. Daddy has some contacts that can sneak us into the Ministry."
"No," said Hermione flatly, once she had recovered. "We're a legitimate organisation. We want to change the law, not undermine it."
There was an awkward moment where both of them idly fingered the different pamphlets Hermione had made over the past year that colourfully littered the table between them. Finally Hermione cleared her throat.
"The second point," she said, "is funding. It's a vicious catch-22. To sponsor a really attention-grabbing event we need money, and before we can get money we need people's attention."
"I'm rather good at getting attention," said Luna thoughtfully. "At least that's what everyone always tells me."
"I meant… more… positive attention."
"Daddy says any publicity is good publicity. Not that he cares about publicity for The Quibbler," Luna hastened to add, "but he says it's the driving force of any business he writes about… But why are we talking about money anyway? Isn't this a distraction from our real business here?"
"But to fund printing and events," said Hermione, pained. "I don't have unlimited private resources."
Luna shook her head seriously. "No. We have to ditch that sort of thinking. The house-elves need our direct action, not the grandeur of our organisation."
"You really do care about the elves, don't you." (Surely – surely – she didn't sound this ridiculous when speaking of them herself!)
"I can't think of any more important modern cause," said Luna, "except perhaps stopping Bernie Botts, Inc. from using goblin remains in its manufacturing."
"I'm sure Botts… wait, Luna, that's disgusting!"
"I know," said Luna, shaking her head darkly. "But the suffering of the living is even worse than the desecration of the dead. I'm so glad you started on this, Hermione. And once I share in the research you've been doing I can write an article this summer. Daddy doesn't let me during the school year… he wants me to concentrate on my coursework… but he'll surely throw the weight of The Quibbler behind S.P.E.W."
Her eyes were shining.
Hermione began to feel a bit sick to her stomach. There had been a certain magic of their own in these pamphlets and badges that she had pored over and treasured and used to dream of overarching justice. But now as she picked up her copy of the manifesto and fiddled with it… for the first time it felt… silly… like when she was a little girl dressed up in mummy's high heel shoes and a long feather boa. S.P.E.W. would survive this disillusion, but it was necessary that the disillusion come and be battled through. Dreams have to hit unwelcome ground sooner or letter if they're ever to come within a dragonspan of reality.
---
Came a day when Hermione overheard Luna explaining her S.P.E.W. badge to the idle, pointing curious in much the same way not a month before she'd had to explain the significance of the odd-smelling sachet she had been wearing around her neck (it would begin to infuse her with the scent of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack in readiness for an expedition she hoped to take the next summer). If ever there was a chance that Hermione would simply give up altogether, that would have been the day.
Lucky for elfish welfare she was made of more resilient stuff than that. Also lucky that she was quite too busy at the moment to worry too much about it at all. The dream could go safely into hibernation. The results when it emerged from the cocoon and stretched its wings deserve another chapter.