"Luna, this seems like a rather, ah, questionable plan," noted Hermione.  The hesitancy of her comment somewhat understated her feelings...she was frankly terrified.  But yelling never mattered to Luna, the Ravenclaw only got stranger the more upset you got, so Hermione restrained herself, as usual.

"How do we learn, if not by asking questions?" chirped Luna, as she tapped a tiny silver chisel with an equally tiny hammer against the stone archway before her.  They stood in a dim and dusty storeroom, apparently abandoned, off of Diagon Alley.

"Mmm, yes.  But I'm not sure we've learned quite enough to open a portal to..."  Hermione trailed off.  She couldn't bring herself to say it, the notion was so ludicrous.

"Another dimension," finished Luna, helpfully.  She studied the book of Ancient Runes beside her for a moment, then tapped at the archway with her chisel again.  "It's actually not that hard if you know enough to read between the lines."

"Yes, but do we?  Know enough, that is?  How did you come by these...um..." Once again, Hermione's words failed her.

"Planar coordinates?  It comes back to asking questions, of course.  Father makes a point of asking random questions whenever he happens to run into someone who works at the Department of Mysteries, on the theory that with a large enough set of attempts, they're bound to slip up now and then.  He got this one last week from someone who'd apparently been temporarily Confunded."  Seemingly satisfied with the runes, Luna set down the hammer and chisel and moved to the Portable Potioneering Platform nearby, peering into one of the cauldrons at a bubbling silvery liquid.

"Confunded?  That doesn't suggest to you that the information might be...er...a bit suspect?"

"Oh, of course.  But from what she told my father, the dimension in question is a lot more advanced at fighting intense magical battles than we are here.  I've every faith in Harry, but with Dumbledore gone, I think we really ought to explore every option to help, shouldn't we?"

"Well, yes, in general, but there must be a line somewhere.  And my heavens, are you brewing Arcanist's Quicksilver?" Hermione's expression grew even more alarmed.

"No," said Luna, and Hermione sighed in relief.  "I brewed it a few hours ago, I'm just keeping it warm now."  Hermione's relief vanished, and she silently counted to 10, in Greek.  Luna, oblivious, dipped a heavy casting ladle into the cauldron, shaking off the drips, then smoothly brought it to the archway and began to fill in the runes she'd carved one by one.  Despite their vertical orientation, the magical metal did not immediately drip down the exterior, but instead flowed upward into the grooves, filling out the shapes and glowing with a soft sheen.

"That's ins-...incredibly dangerous, Luna!"  But rather than try to stop her and risk destabilizing the rather literally mercurial magical substance, Hermione immediately began warding the area around the arch with layers of the strongest Shield Charms she could muster.

"Oh, yes," agreed the Ravenclaw.  "That's why we're doing it without telling anyone, particularly Harry.  Don't want to risk losing anyone else crucial."  Hermione's extreme offense at the irrationality of this statement got tangled up with her comparatively mild offense that Luna didn't think she was important enough not to risk on an obviously insane plan, and further her moderate chagrin at the immodesty of the second offense.  "It's also why I only asked you to show up after lunch, so if I killed myself brewing it, you wouldn't be hurt.  But everything seems to have gone quite well.  Professor Snape would be proud, if he didn't seem to be evil now.  Or ought that be 'more evil'?  Actually, he might be proud regardless of being evil, he was always quite professional about Potions..."  Hermione sighed.  There was no dissuading her, and the brewing was the most dangerous part of Arcanist's Quicksilver...Luna must have been more talented with Potions than Hermione had thought.  But then being underestimated was one of the peculiar Ravenclaw's defining characteristics, beside peculiarity itself.

"Oh, fine.  What's next?"  Luna had already set down the ladle, and raised her wand.

"Only activating it and specifying the coordinates, along with my letter requesting aid.  Their dimension is on a different time axis than ours, so we ought to get a reply effectively immediately..."

"Oh, that sounds reas-" started Hermione, relieved that Luna was not planning on either of them leaping through the archway like idiots, but she stopped short as her brain caught up to the rest of the sentence.  "A different time axis?  What does that even mean?"  Her hand leapt instinctively to her throat, where a small crystal hourglass no longer hung.  Luna made a few passes with her wand while muttering a low chant that sounded like Arabic.

"You've never read the Burroughs treatise, Meandering the Multiverse: a Mulling of Maybes?  You should really spend more time in the Ravenclaw Tower library, I'm certain you'd pass the knocker..."  Before Hermione could even decide how to respond to this, the runes in the arch flared, and the space beneath it filled with a kaleidoscope of light, a rainbow somehow mathematically multiplied by itself.  Luna withdrew a tied scroll and a small glittering circle about five inches across, one surface matte, the other reflecting the shifting light of the arch with its own iridescence.

"Luna, is that a compact disc?!  Where did you even-"

"Owl-order, of course," she breezed, and threw both the disc and the scroll into the arch in turn, with quick underhanded tosses.  The arch flared with painful brightness for a moment, then cleared, showing only the wall of the storeroom, the runes dark.  After Hermione's eyes adjusted to the normal light level again, she saw no sign of the CD or Luna's scroll.  But on the floor in front of the arch lay a strange device, rectangular and studded with slots and grooves, some of which were set with jewels.  A scrap of paper, unrolled, lay beside it.  Hermione picked up the paper as Luna claimed the device, and both set to examining the acquisitions.

Greetings, Ms. Lovegood!

  I have to say, this Voldemort character sounds like quite a handful.  But from what your letter described, this ought to complement your abilities nicely and make him much less of a problem.  Good luck!

P.S. Send back the Garment Grid when you're done, or just one of those flying broomsticks instead and we'll call it even!

        -Paine

"Well, that's not very helpful, it doesn't even explain how to use the thing, let alone what a Garment Grid...Luna, maybe you shouldn't fiddle with the gems that w-"