"Ron! RON! HARRY! Come on and GET UP! Honestly Ginny, this is getting so ridiculous!" Hermione was running franticly around the house looking for all her school things. 'Books?' she thought 'Check. Wand? Check. Parchment? Check. Crookshanks?' "CROOKSHANKS!!!" Crookshanks, Hermione's large ginger cat jumped out of the corner and quickly into a cage. Whether she was obeying Hermione out of loyalty or fear is an unanswerable question.
"We ARE up Hermione. Jeeze, Harry, have the girls in our life ALWAYS been this mental?"
"I think so, mate." Hermione burst into their room in the midst of their laughter.
"Come ON Ronald! Are you two packed?" The last thing Hermione wanted was to miss the Hogwarts Express. There really was no other way to get to Hogwarts if you're a student.
It was a very close shave but they managed to make it onto the train on time. Much to Hermione's disliking, they ended up having to share a car with Luna Lovegood. It wasn't that she didn't like Luna, she just found her constant babble of false information to be annoying. Luna's father was the editor of The Quibbler, a wizard magazine that was usually filled with rubbish stories of pretend creatures that Luna very much believed existed. Hermione sighed every time she thought about it.
"Hello, Luna. Have you had a nice summer?" Harry was always a bit friendlier to Luna than others.
"Oh," she said startled, she didn't realize they had come in. "Yes, t was very nice. My dad printed an amazing story on Torch-topped Ganglers. He had to reprint the issue it was so popular." Luna looked very proud as she showed them the page she had been reading in The Quibbler.
"That's great, Luna. Ron and I had a very good summer, if you know what I mean." Hermione giggled a bit and Ron smiled happily.
"Good for you two. What about you Harry? Have you had a very good summer, if you know what I mean?" Luna asked.
"Oh, well, um, you could maybe say that, but not really. I met someone who is starting here but I haven't seen her on the train." Harry blushed a bit.
"Really?" said Luna, "She's a first year, then?"
"No actually. She'll be in her 6th year with us."
Luna looked up from her magazine for the first time in a while. Her interest in the matter had unusually quickly increased. "What's her name?"
Harry hesitated. Hermione just listened quietly. She rather enjoyed watching Harry talk about girls he fancied. He wasn't very good at it so it was good for a chuckle or two.
"Her name's Vinola--"
"Mooncross!! Vinola Mooncross!" Luna's face was entirely glee, her magazine had been completely forgotten and was lying on the floor where it fell when she jumped up.
Harry, however, looked very unsure about this and Hermione laughed a little bit. "How did you know that?" asked Harry.
"Well she's my cousin Harry! I've only met her a few times but I've written to her loads. If you see her before the sorting, will you point her out to me so I can say hello and surprise her? I don't really know what she looks like now."
"Um, yeah, sure, I will, Luna." The conversation basically dropped of into silence pretty quickly after that. Hermione was sleeping on Ron's shoulder, not sure what to make of the situation. Ron was chatting quietly to Luna while Harry just stared into space, pondering.
In a few hours they arrived at Hogwarts.
"Hermione, come on. We're here." Ron had to wake her up.
"Are we really? But we've only been on the train for two hours!" Hermione had no idea how time had gone by so fast, she had surely only been out for a minute.
"Hermione, you've been sleeping. Come on now, let's go." Ron smiled and kissed her cheek as he lifted her onto her feet. Hermione could not believe that she had missed the whole train ride but was so excited to be back at Hogwarts that she didn't really care.
They made their way up to the castle. Ron and Hermione hand in hand, Luna looking wildly around for anyone she thought looked a bit like her, and Harry was trying not to look, he still wasn't sure how he felt about liking someone who was Luna's cousin.
They got inside and Hermione, Ron, and Harry sat down at their appropriate house table, Luna walked over to Ravenclaw.
"Well, this should be fun. Do you realize that this is the second to last sorting we'll ever see? I think we should enjoy it as much as possible."
"Sounds good, bu-" Harry started.
"Shh! It's about to start." The three, along with the rest of the hall, turned towards the doors where a load of new first years were being walked in. Hermione found it hard to believe she ever looked that small and scared. She looked across the room and saw Luna standing on her seat looking for Vinola. It was when she got a big beam on her face that Hermione knew she had spotted her. She too looked at the first years and saw, right in the middle of them, a girl who looked about 16 and was definitely the tallest, yet most scared, of the bunch with light brown hair and yellow-green eyes.