Hermione Granger and the Displaced Sorting
Harry Potter Fanfiction
Chapter 11
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.
New A/N: We get our first glimpse of Harry now. Hope you enjoy the tease! We're skipping around more as Hermione settles in and her days get somewhat repetitive.
September 2nd, 1992
After the bond with Erl had repaired itself, and he returned to setting up his corner of the room with the belongings he'd collected from his time at the Granger residence, Flitwick took Hermione for a walk around Hogwarts to show her where her classes were, discuss shortcuts he knew about, and even walked her down to the owlery to deliver her letter to her parents. By the time they made it to dinner, it was eight, and she only had thirty minutes before the Great Hall closed for curfew. Only a handful of people remained within, most probably eager to sleep off the weariness of the first day or hang out with their friends.
She didn't spot any of the second year Slytherins, and that suited her just fine. Though of course, that did mean that a looming confrontation might be in the works when she returned.
Pushing aside that thought for now, she prepared a plate, scooted aside a boat of gravy, and began working on a schedule for herself, including her studying, running, maneuvers, and time with Flitwick.
It was a fairly packed schedule, but she could make it work. She'd always been driven.
There wasn't any free time for friend-making in there, but she figured she could eke out a study group in the library with all the time she planned to spend there and make friends with them.
She slipped away her writing supplies when she noticed the rest of the students filing out and hurried to her feet to follow. If she could slip inside the Slytherin common room at the back of a large pack, she might be able to make it to the dorm without incident where her odds would be the more favorable four on one.
Her plan worked, and inside, the dorm was empty save for the larger girl, Bulstrode. The others must be in the common room, still, though she'd kept her head down, and it was a vast space.
Figuring she'd feel the other girl out, especially since she'd have to pass by her bed to get to the bathroom, she slowed to a stop, holding out her hand. "Hi, I figured I'd introduce myself officially since we're going to be sharing a room for the next six years. I'm Hermione Granger."
The girl didn't look up from the diary she was writing in. "Yeah, I know who you are. The whole school does."
Hermione faltered, gulping at the thought of the entire student body discussing her circumstances. "Oh, well, I never caught your first name."
"Good," the girl continued. "You're the Mud—ggle-born that decided to force her way into Slytherin. Don't drag me down with you."
Hermione suppressed a flinch, instead forcing a cheery smile as if she hadn't just been insulted. "Bulstrode it is, then. Nice to meet you."
And she carried onto the bathroom, spooling up energy into her hands in case the girl decided to do something when her back was turned.
"Where's your trunk?"
Hermione flinched, so taut with tension, that she almost accidentally blasted Bulstrode into the wall before she quickly dispelled the energy. "I'm sorry?"
"Your trunk," Bulstrode repeated, climbing to her feet. She loomed over Hermione, much larger than she'd recalled from the day when she'd usually only noticed her while she was sitting in class or, like now, relaxing on her bed. "You don't have a single belonging in here. Parkinson and her lap dog checked, earlier."
The hair on Hermione's neck rose, and Ignis vibrated in a hiss too low to hear, but she felt just fine. The thought that her dormmates had been seeking out her possessions was terrifying, and she was glad she'd carried them shrunken in her pocket all day. "Why? Are you looking to pick up where they failed?"
Bulstrode's heavy brows weighed down her curious expression. "So you're not so stupid, after all." She ambled back to her bed, flopping on her stomach and resuming her writing, calling carelessly over her shoulder, "Better learn to sleep with one eye open, Muggle-born."
September 3rd, 1992
Hermione knocked her shoulder into the pointed archway on her way out of DADA with the Gryffindors, as Parkinson shoved her aside. "Show off mudblood," she hissed. "You're a traitor to Slytherin."
Hermione frowned, trying to figure out how putting an end to the chaos in Lockhart's class, could've made her a traitor to their house.
Lockhart's big idea of a great beast to face was letting loose a cage of irksome pixies. They'd been annoying until they strung a Gryffindor student, Longbottom, from the chandelier. Then, she'd grown irritated with the professor, especially when he tried to cast a spell, only for his wand to be stolen by one of the menacing pixies. After that, students had backed to the far corners of the room.
Fed up with everything, she straightened, stretched out her arm, and shouted a spell that Flitwick had taught her.
"Immobulus!" She cried out, watching in repressed amazement as the two dozen pixies cartwheeled slowly through the air. Only their startled eyes darted around. Her brow arched in satisfaction, the single expression she allowed herself as she sheathed her wand back in her sleeve.
Done with the self-centered and increasingly inept professor, she headed for the exit, figuring between the eight remaining Gryffindors, they should be able to help their friend down safely.
But apparently, stopping an attack on their peers marked her as a traitor to her house.
She glanced back in the room, catching the intense, green-eyed gaze of a bespectacled student, staring her down. He was so deep in thought, or arrogant, that he didn't even flinch when she caught him staring.
Potter, she remembered his name was, as she exited the room, eager to put some distance between her and Lockhart before she gave him a piece of her mind.
She'd be bringing her own study material from now on because he'd lost any lingering respect she'd kept in reserve. A lot her parents' and the other professors' attitude and demeanors with him now made much more sense.
September 5th, 1992
The weekend had finally arrived, and she couldn't have been happier for once in her life that she'd be getting a break from academics. There was a lot to do on her list, starting with exploring the castle proper.
Ignis rolled over on her pillow with a stretched yawn before glancing at her with his tongue halfway out and a goofy smile. Noting that her attention was on him, he scrambled up and frolicked and played in a circle, showing off for his mistress.
She could feel his happiness, but she'd never felt anything of the sort from her bond with Erl. It was a one-way connection, because it was forced?
Most likely. Flitwick had been dipping into some magical theory with her, trying to explain why spells worked the way they did, why they needed certain wand movements and incantations when most of her previous experience had been wandless and nonverbal. So far, she'd deduced that a large portion of magic worked off intention.
So the intention had been bollocksed.
Could she undo the netting to release him?
She pondered this as she vanished the scorch mark footprints on the pillowcase where Ignis had danced around, and went outside, making her way up to the viaduct courtyard and over to the northeast corner, taking in the spectacular view of the sunrise cresting over the surrounding highlands. It lit the loch with brilliant shades of coral, tangerine, and fuchsia.
She's discovered the view for her morning workout was much better here than inside the tall walls of the Hogwarts grounds. And much more isolated as well, since as far as she could tell, the boathouse was only used that first day upon arrival to ferry the first years across the lake.
That meant even if there were other go-getter students up at the crack of dawn with her, she wasn't going to run into them here—especially since, technically, a wrought iron fence blocked the entrance to the stairs. It was low, though, and easily jumped, even if the failure of an alohomora implied that she was almost certainly going where she wasn't supposed to.
She did a couple of stretches on the first landing before starting her warm-up, jogging down the numerous sets of stairs, zigzagging to and fro across four different rocky outcroppings.
At the bottom, she entered the boathouse, appreciating the tall stained-glass windows and Viking carvings that decorated the darkened, briny wood. She stopped to stare for a moment at the hand carved wooden sconces in the shape of some octopus like creature with a separate head and wide jaw, recalling that she'd need to get on researching magical creatures the second she had a minute to breathe. She'd been running full tilt since she got here.
While the platform on the outside of the shelter was double the area, it was still too exposed to the Great Hall if anyone happened to approach and gaze out the windows, so she did all her maneuvers inside.
And despite the interior being smaller, it was big enough to house twenty canoes, with a four-meter-wide walkway on all sides, giving her plenty of room to dip and dive into rolls and evasive maneuvers, which she did. Ignis even helped, spitting the occasional fireball her way that she could either evade, block with her shields, or return.
It was worth the risk to keep her skills sharp, and without more helping hands, it was the best facsimile of her sessions with Trainer Hart that she could pull off. She loved her wand and everything they were learning in class, but it seemed silly to rely on such a fragile, easily stolen thing when she'd already been spinning raw energy for ages.
Both Ignis' and her eyes rounded in tandem when a particularly large fireball got away from them and sizzled on the deck boards. Luckily, the wood was protected by enchantments and a nearly constant dampness from the proximity of the water, so Hermione was instinctively able to form a shield inside the water aisle down the middle of the boathouse and direct it to put out the fire. It was only afterwards as she was pushing stamina to the max as she sprinted up the shin-splinting stairs with Ignis catching the breeze on her shoulder, that she realized exactly what she'd done and what all she could possibly do if she could create shields like that away from her person. She'd essentially discovered, to quote her nerdy Star Wars father, "the force."
September 9th, 1992
Hermione kept her things shrunken on her and took to showering with a protection shield set around the shower cubicle when she bathed. Since her belongings were never there, her dormmates, led by Parkinson, had attempted to mess with her in the bathroom, only to run into her shield that she'd gotten better at making nearly invisible after all her practice with it in the early mornings.
After a few attempts at that, and some more verbal sparring that'd ended rather ambiguously with Hermione getting in an insult that Parkinson was usually too confused by to properly parry back, they'd taken to largely ignoring her.
So her routine consisted waking at six to use the boathouse and its stairs for the next two hours to continue her mixed magic and martial arts, what she'd jokingly referred to as MMMA, a spin on the increasingly popular style of professional fighting, before showering and breakfast, followed by classes until four. Then, she'd work in the library for an hour and head up to Flitwick's. After sharing her concerns with him about Erl, he'd been helping her try to study bonds.
She'd continued exploring Hogwarts' expansive grounds and untilizing the secret passages Flitwick had pointed out to her.
Ahead on her homework, she'd started the week in a good place, feeling more sure-footed now that she'd grown more comfortable with the layout of the vast castle, as well as learning most of the names of students in her year.
But, she was dreading today. Immediately after Herbology, where they'd moved from theory to practice of repotting mandrakes, she had her first flying class.
Not only would the first years likely be able to recognize that she wasn't one of them by this point, but she had to go into this class knowing that the only reason she had to do so was because she'd failed to get passing marks like every other subject she'd tested out of on her exams, and that mindset of failure was not something Hermione Jean Granger was accustomed to.
Although, as a silver lining, she realized that she didn't need to make friends with a study group in the library—which hadn't been going the greatest. Even though she spent an hour after classes there, and a further two and a half hours there after a rushed dinner and before curfew, she tended to lose herself in her studies while there.
She arrived, not recalling a single name of the first years in the class until her eyes crossed a familiar redhead and blonde.
She'd already made a good connection with Luna and Ginny, so her promise to Flitwick? She considered that fulfilled for the time being as she made her way over to them. At least, that was the plan until a splitting headache pierced her in the back of the eye, making her stumble. A quick glance around showed students giving her an odd look, and that gave her enough strength to power through until she stood beside the two girls.
"Luna, Ginny," Hermione greeted, half out of breath with pain. "H-How's Hogwarts treating you so far?"
Luna tilted her head, staring off into the distance as a small frown marred her white-blonde brows. "It's taken some time to get used to all the nargles and wrackspurts infesting students. But the worst is the blitrots. I'm especially worried about those."
Pain forgotten, Hermione glanced at the distracted blonde and caught Ginny doing the same thing. Their eyes met for a brief moment in concern for their friend, but Hermione's headache chose that instance to rear with a vengeance.
Unbidden, her hand travelled to her temple, as if she could shield herself from the pain.
"—ulet."
Hermione blinked a couple of times, breathing through the nausea. "Sorry?"
Luna repeated her statement, her eyes startingly intense. "I said, you're not wearing your amulet. The one I gave you?"
If she was in less pain, she would've been embarrassed. "Oh, right, sorry. I hadn't needed it lately, so I've taken to leaving it in my trunk."
Since she wasn't about to pull her trunk and enlarge it out here on the lawn of flying class, she'd have to power through.
"That's okay," Luna replied in an airy voice as she pulled another necklace from around her neck. "I have another one."
"No, Luna, I couldn't—"
"It's okay. I suspect you need it more than I do."
Hermione dropped her token refusal, too eager for the protection. In this state, she'd kill herself if she got on a broom. "Thanks, Luna. I promise, I'll wear the one you gave me before from now on and get this back to you as soon as possible."
Luna smiled. "I know you will, Hermione."
The headache lifted with the necklace encompassing her neck, and as the fog cleared from Hermione's thoughts, she added one more mental tally to her long list of mysteries she was working on, shuffling it, with great reluctance to the top. Blinding headaches needed to take priority, even over Erl's bond. She couldn't help others if she couldn't help herself.
