Hermione's trip to Diagon Alley had been eventful. By the time Ms. Zabini had let her leave, after embarrassing Blaise with stories about him as a child (that Hermione privately thought were adorable), it had been nearly dinner time, and she'd had to hurry home to get back in time for supper. Her parents had been slightly worried, but they were pleased to hear that she'd run late because she was meeting her friends' parents. Good manners were very important to the Grangers, and Hermione could tell they were proud that she'd made sure to introduce herself to the adults she had met.

The summer resumed and carried on much as it had been – she went to her internship and read all day, and she practiced her magic and flying in the back yard. She was getting solidly better at flying, now. If she was very careful, she could slowly levitate herself straight up about six feet and straight back down. It was exhausting, trying to tamper down on the excited air elemental still dancing around inside of her, but Hermione was slowly getting the hang of it. She was at least confident of her gliding ability – if she ever fell off a broom or was thrown off the Ravenclaw tower, she'd be able to glide safely back down to the ground.

Blaise's letters changed after his mother had met her, and Hermione wondered if she was reading them over before he sent them. He was still ridiculous and over the top in them, but he told stories she suspected were true, now, instead of fanciful, obviously false tales. The story of Draco falling prey to a trick wand that had enchanted his robes to be pink and purple with a large, florid theme had sounded all too real. She could practically imagine Draco storming around, demanding someone fix his robes while Blaise and Theo laughed hysterically. She wondered if the three boys visited each other regularly over the summer, and if they visited Gregory and Vincent as well. With Floo powder making magical travel easy, she imagined they probably did.

The difficulty lay with the fact that because Blaise was now telling her truthful stories in his letters, she felt obliged to reply in kind. Only… Hermione wasn't spending the summer doing exciting things with her friends, practicing Quidditch, or playing pranks – she was spending it reading for her internship, reading other magic after she got home, and practicing drawing her own ritual circles. She was well aware that none of those things were particularly interesting to describe in a letter. Theo might have been interested, but he liked magical theory, and maybe even Draco would be curious, as he had somehow come in second in the class. Hermione wasn't terribly close with them, though – she was friends with Blaise, who was easy-going, outrageous, flirty, and fun, and Hermione sincerely doubted he'd want to read about how she spent all day experimenting with ritual circles and triangles with sidewalk chalk on the patio.

She eventually wrote back her own stories of exciting wizarding things she had done earlier in the summer. She told him about rescuing Harry with the Weasleys from his Muggle relatives' house, though she didn't go into details about how they'd flown off with him in an illegally-enchanted car instead of on brooms. She mentioned the Weasley twins approaching her about working with them, as well as how curt Mrs. Weasley had been to her. However, Hermione had a dearth of wizarding stories to write back to Blaise about, so it was with that in mind that she reached out to Neville, inviting him to meet her at Diagon Alley the next weekend to visit, figuring to kill two birds with one stone: to see a good friend, and to get a story out of it as well.

Neville had happily accepted, though he warned her his grandmother would be lurking around, as he wasn't allowed to go to Diagon Alley alone. He asked if she wanted to meet for tea at 3 o'clock, which sounded nice, but wouldn't exactly make a good story. Hermione crossed her fingers that something interesting would happen. It was the wizarding world; it wasn't exactly unheard of for unexpected things to crop up.

Harry was still staying at the Weasleys' for the rest of the summer, and he sent her letters by owl, now, like the rest of her friends. He expressed his happiness for her and her internship, teasing her that there was no other job she'd be best suited for. Harry seemed to be spending his summer playing Quidditch in the back yard with the Weasleys, doing chores to help out around the Burrow, and hanging out with Ron. Hermione urged Harry to be sure to finish his summer homework, and she was proud of him when he responded that he already had.

Hermione felt mildly apprehensive about Harry spending so much time with the Weasleys, especially with Ron. She knew that Harry and Ron shared a dormitory at Hogwarts, but somehow, Harry staying at Ron's house felt different. There was a measure of worry there, that Ron would convince Harry that Hermione was evil and brainwash him into not wanting to be her friend anymore, and she would be tossed to the side. Hermione believed in Harry, remembering his fierceness as he confronted Blaise about being her friend, but she could recognize her old insecurities were tugging at her nevertheless.

Hermione spent a lot of the summer thinking about her friends and missing them. Friends had never come easily to her, and the ones she'd managed to make, she cherished. She wasn't comfortable going to their houses to visit them, but she longed for the time when she would be.

It wasn't until Hermione was reading a letter from Harry, where Harry mentioned that Ron's younger sister, Ginny, was anxious about getting sorted, that Hermione realized what that meant.

Ginny was younger.

There would be new first years coming to Hogwarts, now.

And that meant Luna Lovegood would finally arrive at school.

Hermione Granger had a lot of complicated feelings about Luna Lovegood.

Not the bad kind. Just… tangled ones.

On one hand, Luna had been the one to offer the prophecy of her being a New Blood. Her words and her help in Flourish and Blotts two years ago had been what put Hermione on the path she was on. That power Luna had, of glimpsing the future… that intimidated Hermione. She had a vague understanding of how the wizarding world viewed time, but it was still impressive and eerie that some people could see the future. Hermione felt somewhat awed by Luna, in a way, and had mentally put her on a sort of pedestal.

But on the other hand, Hermione had liked Luna. Luna had helped her pick out school books, and she'd helped her get her start in the wizarding world. Hermione wanted to be friends with her – real friends, not a worshipful-type one. And Luna had said they could be the best of friends, hadn't she? So surely she wouldn't mind if Hermione treated her like a friend, and not with reverence?

But it had been years. They'd met two years ago. What if Luna didn't remember her?

What if she didn't want to be friends after all?

What if she had changed?

Hermione hadn't been good at making friends at Muggle school. She'd been terrible at it, actually. She'd managed to get Harry and Neville to be her friends by deliberately picking them out and making a conscious effort to be friends, and then informing them that she wanted to be their friends. She got lucky with them, she felt – neither Harry nor Neville seemed to have ever had good friends either, before, so they just stuck with her by default.

Hermione wasn't entirely sure how she'd pulled off making friends in Hogwarts with others without trying to. She supposed a lot of it was she was finally surrounded by people like her, who didn't designate her as weird or other, like the muggles had done in primary school. Hermione had managed to make a few close friends in Slytherin, in addition to Harry and Neville, and she was friendly acquaintances with several Ravenclaws and most of the rest of the Slytherins in her year, too. It was more than she'd ever managed before, and Hermione was glad of it. But that had developed over the course of a year. With Luna…

It was frustrating. It felt like it was supposed to be different, somehow, their friendship. Like it was supposed to magically just snap into place, fully formed. Like they would go from separate individuals to trusted confidants in a moment, magically.

Hermione reflected that she had probably been hoping for too much back when she first met Luna. She had no friends then, and Luna's promise of being her friend had meant the world to Hermione. That fierce emotion was still there, when she thought of Luna – of someone wanting to be her friend – and Hermione still held that desire tight.

But she had no idea if Luna felt the same.

It was a really, really weird feeling, wanting desperately to be the friend of someone you barely knew, and Hermione didn't like it. She also despised herself that she'd been too anxious to ever send Luna a letter; surely, Luna would be more comfortable with becoming her friend if Hermione had kept in contact with her over the two years since they'd met. But Hermione never had.

As best as she could, Hermione put the matter from her mind. Either Luna would still want to be her friend, or she wouldn't. Hermione was determined to be okay and accept it no matter what.

Though, that didn't stop her from going along with her mother to Muggle London one day and picking out a few silver charms, hoping she'd be able to hook them onto the bracelet she'd given away in a magical bookshop so long ago.