Hermione Granger and the Displaced Sorting

Chapter 16

Hermione Granger and the Displaced Sorting

Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter 16

A/N: This is going to be a running author's note, but if you read on fanfiction and enjoy this story, I post on AO3 and Wattpad as well under the same name and try to reply to all comments on there if I'm able 😊

New A/N: School's out, so I'm writing again, though I should be writing on my original works. Shhhh. Let me have some fun.

October 14th, 1992

Madam Pomfrey returned and put Lee out of his misery, though Hermione was a little sad to see the dreadlocks returned to their non-sentient glory. He bid her farewell over his shoulder on the way out the door, not even pausing in his haste to escape the Hospital Wing. And Hermione couldn't even hold that against him. If she'd been battling it out with her wild nest of curls come to life, she would've jumped at the offering of freedom, too.

Two hours later, Hermione was digging into the veritable feast that'd blipped into existence on the bedside table when she slowed her chewing. Goosebumps raced up and down her arms.

"Hello, Hermione," an airy voice called, startling her enough that she catapulted the bite of mincemeat pie into the air. Luckily, she'd kept her reflexes honed with her various training exercises, and she caught the errant trajectory in a fast force field that she guided carefully down to her tray.

"Luna!" she breathed.

The blonde in question tilted her head. "That's really quite an impressive bit of magic, you know. It's a good thing that the undlies don't linger on Wednesdays."

Hermione blinked, unsure what to address first, as was usually the case with the otherworldly Ravenclaw. Finally, she settled on, "Aren't you supposed to be at dinner?"

Luna tilted her head, her clear grey eyes staring off into the distance. "Are gargalapuffs tiny horned beasts of terror?"

Hermione's mouth opened and closed in several false starts before she cleared her throat. "Er, I really don't know."

"Exactly," Luna replied with an of-course-silly cheer.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Right. And why don't you know if you should be at... Luna, where's your tie?"

"Nargles, I suspect," Luna answered serenely. "I've been putting up signs."

"For your tie?" Hermione checked.

"Among other things."

Hermione frowned, studying her friend with more scrutiny. The shirt she wore ill-fit, too large by at least a size, her skirt also hung loose, tied in place with a frayed ribbon dotted with radishes and bells on the end.

How in Merlin's baggy robes had the white-haired girl managed to sneak up on her wearing bells?

"Luna," Hermione began, "have many of your things been disappearing?"

"Oh, yes. Quite a lot. But it's only a matter of time before the nargles let up."

Hermione hadn't run across any nargles in her studies of creatures, but admittedly, her effort into anything outside of the assigned curriculum, her dueling lessons with Flitwick, her own daily MMMA, and figuring out how to dissolve the forced bond with Erl had fallen to the wayside. She still hadn't even figured out the mystery behind the decidedly not horseless carriages.

"Oh. Well, I don't know about nargles specifically, but Hogwarts possesses several enchantments to keep out wayward creatures, I'd imagine."

Luna smiled as her head tilted. "Yes, but nargles have a nasty way of getting around protections." Then, a wistful sadness stole over her. "Although they were a lot better when Ginny was around. I suspect the nargles didn't care for all the blitrots, and so it kept them at bay."