Hermione Granger and the Displaced Sorting
Harry Potter Fanfiction
Chapter 4
A/N: This is going to be a running author's note, but if you read on and enjoy this story, make sure to have my username saved in case my account is deleted. I post on AO3 and Wattpad as well under the same name.
We were so close. With her arriving the day before the book signing, she missed Harry and Ron! But, as a consolation prize, we've got the Hogwarts Express. Enjoy!
September 1st, 1992
"You'll write to us every day, right?" her mum demanded, but Hermione was too squished against her chest to reply.
"Emma, dear, you're smothering her. Literally and figuratively," her dad interceded on her behalf before she died by suffocation before the term could even officially start.
"Oh, but we just got her back," her mum replied, but luckily, she relented, holding her by the shoulders to get a good look at her. "You're just growing up so fast, dear."
"Mum, I've always been mature for my age." And it was true. It was hard to hold onto all childhood innocence when troubled, nightly ghosts paraded through her room, drawn somehow to her abilities.
It wasn't the troubled ones that died pleasantly, and sometimes, they were so scarred by their death that it imprinted on their soul, manifesting their mortal wounds on their ghostly existence. And if that hadn't taken care of her innocence, the psychometry sessions at MI5 did. Even the mildest of deaths were unpleasant when reading them through the echoes of their treasured belongings. A spirit didn't always move on at the time of their death, and when reading the energy embedded on items like that, she sometimes was stuck for the ride.
She'd learned more about decomposition than any person in the world could ever want to know.
But that same skill also gave more weight to the shark tooth necklace of her very first ghost friend. It was the only belonging of his that'd carried a happy memory for him, and any time she missed him, she'd hold it and switch to her metavision.
That shark tooth necklace had taken the place of pride now that she'd returned the two-way mirror locket to Flitwick.
"She'll write as much as she can, dear," her dad soothed. "But we also want her to have time for friends."
Doubly so after Flitwick's ominous word of advice the day before her exams. She didn't want to become lost to the dark side.
"Okay, now, let's go over this again," her father began. "We know how to get to Diagon Alley and use the Owl Post. You're taking the fire lizard—"
"Salamander," Hermione corrected with a put upon sigh since her dad did it on purpose.
"And we're babysitting Santa's elf from He—"
"Richard!"
"What? It's true. Maybe he worked for Krampus and not Santa."
Hermione shook her head, grinning at her parents before her eyes welled up, and she threw herself at them one more time, pulling them into a group hug.
"Oh, Tootsie. It'll be alright."
Her mum attempted a soothing noise, but all that came out was a wounded, wrenching cry that she cut off with extreme prejudice as she pulled away and dabbed her eyes. Her voice was a hoarse croak as she said, "On with you then, before we all change our minds."
With all the books she'd amassed, her trunk weighed a ton, but Flitwick had helped her drag it out the apparition point and demonstrated to her how to shrink and unshrink it at his house during their session that day, so she felt oddly free with her robes on, her trunk and wand in her pocket and Ignis curled against her neck. "I love you mum, dad."
"We love you, too."
"Now go on, Tootsie. Go get a carriage before all the good ones are gone and you have to spend your time riding to Scotland in the presence of stinky boys."
Hermione laughed and ran over to the train, boarding it and eager to find a compartment so she could wave one last time at her parents. She selected one that was mostly empty apart from a small girl with ethereal blond hair and pale, silver eyes. If she didn't know better, she'd assumed she was a ghost.
"Your parents seem rather nice," the girl spoke, her voice just as whimsical as the colorful trinkets she adorned herself with. "Your dad in particular looks like he has a fun soul."
Hermione stood, frozen in the doorway.
"I'm Luna, by the way. Luna Lovegood."
"Hermione Granger," she replied after she got over the shock of the girl's statement. She reminded Hermione of that young ghost girl that started her down the path of MI5. She seemed almost painfully innocent and blunt at the same time. "May I sit with you?"
"I don't own the train."
That should've been a sarcastic response, and yet, somehow she thought it was a serious statement. "Neither do I, but you were here first, and if you'd like to be alone, I don't want to impose."
The girl's odd-colored eyes locked on her so intensely, that Hermione half expected her to sink into the glowing blindness of metavision. After a few uncomfortable moments, she said, "You seem very kind, Hermione Granger, and the blithering humdingers haven't latched onto, so I think it would be really nice to share with you."
Hermione hadn't found any time to read up on magical creatures between cramming a year's worth of curriculum in two months, but blithering humdingers didn't sound good, whatever they were. "Oh, thanks, Luna."
She quickly took a seat next to the window, waving at her parents, and not a moment too soon as a whistle sounded and the train jerked to a chugging trot.
"Oh, I didn't realize I was cutting it so close," Hermione breathed.
"Don't worry. You weren't the only one. The Weasleys almost missed the train as well."
"The Weasleys?" Hermione asked, glancing out the window to see a quartet of redheads board the train.
"We're neighbors."
A minute later, their carriage door banged, and a muffled voice shouted. "I found her, Gin."
Hermione glanced at the tall, lanky redhead as he slid their door open. "Luna. Ginny was looking for you."
"Hello, George," she replied. "Will she be sitting with us then?"
"Oh, I'm not George, I'm Fred." He hefted a large trunk inside. "Blimey, Ginny. What'd you pack in this thing? An entire herd of hippogriffs?"
Hermione rubbed at her head, trying to ease away the splitting pain that'd begun pounding inside her skull.
A small girl, his sister Ginny, she assumed, appeared in the doorway. "Luna! Oh, I'm so glad we found you."
The one who'd called himself Fred, scoffed in the middle of fitting the trunk above in the overhead storage. "We?"
"Oh, hush, Fred."
"I'm not Fred." He dusted his hands and tossed his thumb back over his shoulder as an identical replica appeared in the open doorway. "He's Fred."
Catching onto the fact that they were twins, and obvious jokesters at that, Hermione fixed her attention on the sister through the throbbing behind her eye. The redheaded girl seemed to be equally shy and fierce. It was an interesting combination.
She caught her staring and smiled. "Hi, I'm Ginny Weasley. I've not seen you hanging around with Luna before? Are you a friend?"
"Hermione, and I'm new," Hermione added. "Nice to meet you."
"Yeah, yeah," the twin in the hall interrupted. "You're all squared away, so we've done our brotherly duty."
The twin inside the compartment bowed to them with a suave, "Ladies," and ruffled his sister's hair in retaliation when she scoffed at his actions. He closed the door behind him.
Hermione shifted in her seat, trying to ignore the pain, wondering where it'd come from. It seemed to begin out of nowhere, and the ride had only begun.
She lasted as long as she could, talking with the two girls, before she couldn't take it anymore and excused herself to search for the bathroom.
Well over an hour passed before she felt like she could open her eyes without going cross-eyed. While she still had relative privacy, she switched to her metavision, staring in awe as the world fell into a wash of vivid colors and shapes. It was a miasma of information, assaulting her all at once and rocketing her right back into a headache once more.
"Hey, are you in there?" an urgent but muffled voice whispered.
Pulling her head up with herculean effort, Hermione braced herself and switched to her metavision, attempting to block out all the excess information and focus on just the voice outside the door. She managed just long enough to focus on the indistinct form of mandarin orange pressed up on the other side of the door.
"Lee?" the voice persisted, "It's you, right?"
Hermione buried her face back against her knees once more, sure the person would leave.
"Come on, Lee. It's Fred, and this is the only bathroom that's been occupied for any length of time. Did you set the dung bombs yet?"
Hermione jerked upright, because it certainly didn't take a genius to infer that a dung bomb was probably the wizarding equivalent of a stink bomb.
She switched back to her metavision so she could watch the person's reaction when she answered.
"O-Occupied," she called, willing him to go away so she could flee in private. She didn't want anyone seeing the identity of the person who'd been holed up for ages in the water closet like an inept toddler. She also didn't want to be anywhere in the vicinity when one of these went off.
Who knew what a device like that was magically capable of doing!
The figure straightened and shifted. "Ah, forget you heard anything if you know what's good for you," the person, Fred he'd said, warned as he bolted off.
Hermione didn't waste any time, switching back to normal and bursting through the door before rushing back to the carriage. As she approached, she swore she'd have to figure out why using her metavision hurt so much more in the magical world than it ever had before.
She'd used it in the goblins' arena, surrounded by hundreds of magical goblins and a megalithic nundu and hadn't felt like this. Was it because her adrenaline prevented her from focusing on the pain when it was down to a matter of survival.
Either way, she didn't like not knowing what was up with her powers. Despite all the reading up on the first-year curriculum, the magical world was a huge unknown and starting off this journey on shaky ground left her feeling vulnerable in a way she hadn't felt even when facing the Goblin Trials without a wand.
She could barely stand when she finally made it back to Luna and Ginny, and Luna's head tilted to the side as she considered her.
"You were gone for a long time, Hermione. Were the nargles keeping you preoccupied?" the unassuming girl asked in her airy voice.
Hermione's brows scrunched as another wave of pain hit, more lethal than before, as if something were actively targeting her. Still, she wasn't sure how to respond, as again, she hadn't found the time to read up on magical creatures.
Fortunately, Ginny cut in before her addled mind could rub two brain cells together to formulate an answer. "Luna, she wasn't bothered by nargles, okay? It was probably just nerves for the sorting ceremony."
Hermione collapsed in her seat, her face scrunched and a bead of sweat breaking out on her forehead. In her haze, she realized that Luna's silvery gaze was still locked on her.
"No, Ginny, I don't think that's it." Luna reached around her neck and undid one of the three necklaces there, and then passed over the walkway and looped it around Hermione's thick, bushy hair without so much as a by-your-leave.
"Luna, what—" Hermione broke off. "You, oh. Oh, that feels good."
Luna looked very serious as she nodded. "I suspected as much. It's an amulet of yarrow root, ground gytrash eyes, and unicorn blood."
Hermione's jaw dropped, as did Ginny's, she noted from the corner of her eye. Just from her time visiting both Diagon and Knockturn Alleys for potions ingredients, she knew that was a very powerful, very expensive combination. Despite her headache all but vanished, she moved to unclasp the necklace. "Oh, Luna, I can't possibly—"
"Nonsense. Of course you can, silly."
Hermione relented because there was no way she wanted to spend the train ride curled up in a ball in the corner. "Okay. I appreciate it, Luna. Thank you. And I'll only use it for the rest of our journey. Once we get to Hogwarts—"
Luna's head tilted and her eyes grew distant. "I have a feeling you'll need it more than I will this year."
Hermione stared across at the nearly albino child. She opened her mouth to speak but hesitated. A glance at Ginny offered no help. The redhead didn't seem fazed in the least by the white-haired girl's bold prediction.
Eventually though, Hermione began tucking the amulet into the collar of her uniform, right along with the shark tooth necklace—a momentum of her friend from before, and a token of kindness from a possible future friend. She liked that. "I'll keep it safe for you until you need it back. How about that?"
Luna only hummed noncommittally before opening the conversation back up. Hermione kept her books stowed away, too happy that she was able to concentrate on the conversation now to stress herself out over not getting that last bit of knowledge in.
No, instead, she wanted to care about these two girls—especially the one that'd already taken her in.
Eventually, the conversation looped back around to the Sorting Ceremony.
"Any ideas what it'll be?" Hermione asked, wondering if what Flitwick—err, Professor Flitwick—had mentioned was true.
Ginny shrugged. "I've been told that it's anything from facing a trial to battling a dragon, but none of my brothers that talked could be believed, and the one that didn't is too stuck up with the rules to break the secret code that forces them all to keep quiet about what happens."
Hermione sighed. "You've a lot of brothers, do you?"
"Six, and I'm the youngest."
"Oh, you poor thing!" was Hermione's knee-jerk response, and then she clasped her hands over her mouth, horrified at her bluntness. She had no idea what kind of relationship she had with her siblings. The twins, Fred and George, had been kind enough to help her load her things into the overhead storage.
They could be really close, and she'd just insulted them.
"Sorry! I'm an only child, so I don't know—well, it was bad form of me to assume—I mean, just… I shouldn't have said that."
Ginny snorted, and then burst out into laughter. "No, don't apologize. That's exactly how I feel about myself when I'm in the middle of a self-pity party. They're atrocious sometimes."
The time seemed to fly by now without the splitting headache, and before long, the train's whistled announced their arrival as they began to slow for their destination.
