Three Hallows, Two Weasleys and One Broken Girl

Chapter 6: All Hallow's Eve

Above is a drawing of how I imagined Hermione when I first read the books. I'm no elitist with this, I never actually finished reading all the books, but I did read the first and second before watching the films, and it is nice seeing how your imagination matches up with the casting decisions.

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Delphi Lovegood had been a mystery at Hogwarts all of her six years there.
She was witty and fairly intelligent, talking willingly with anyone that approached her. She was fairly pretty too, made apparent from her first year, and growing in each of the subsequent ones. Yet she made no friends, and kept herself apart, separate from it all.
Most of the school just jotted it down as her being a Lovegood. Her dips into the bizarre and eccentric were common, and her father was infamous and her sister swiftly becoming so too.

Among the student body, few knew much more than Cho Chang had told Fleur. Three amongst that number were Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley.
In their first year she'd knocked out a troll in the girl's bathroom and had been waiting on the third floor and guided Hermione to Dumbledore's office. In their second, she'd lent Hermione her hand mirror that fateful day she got petrified. In their third, she'd recommended Hermione be given a time turner like she also used, and given a lot of food parcels to a stray dog and a lot of socks to a stray house elf.

Needless to say, in small secretive ways, her presence was woven into all their adventures, and they had a great deal of respect for her. More or less. She did mention nargles slightly too often for any of them to completely decide if she was wise beyond her years or crazy.
Except for Harry who somehow seemed to trust both her and Luna more than Hermione and Ron. Which Hermione could not understand. Well, Ron's middle name wasn't exactly reliable but surely Harry could trust her more with two women who spoke to plants and talked in riddles that she couldn't solve.

Hermione thought about this as she watched the older Lovegood from behind her book as the girl read an anthology on dragons. It was the day of the Halloween feast and everyone had neatened up thoroughly, though of course the Lovegoods had to go the extra mile.

She'd spied Luna earlier, donning a pumpkin costume along with black and green striped stockings, spinning around in a hallway on the seventh floor waving her arms. Delphi had elected to wear a black bowler hat, and three piece suit, as well as a bright orange waist coat and brown and purple striped cravat. Her hair was loose though braided in places and interwoven with raven feathers.

Hermione jumped when the girl she was examining looked up from her book catching her gaze. Delphi winked, smirked at the bookworm's embarrassed flush, and returned to her anthology. Hermione was confused about the literature. She'd checked over the syllabus with Professor McGonigall and she was certain Dragons weren't covered until the last year of the CoMC NEWT.
But then again, this was Delphi. She didn't think the girl even took CoMC.

The pair read in relatively peaceful silence for nearly half an hour before the tension got to her.
"Why are you reading about dragons?" She asked, curiosity overcoming her.
Delphi hummed. "I want to find out if they really are ticklish, in my quest to work out if the school motto is metaphorical or literal."
"Oh." Was all Hermione said, internally though her brain was whirring at a mile a minute. Obviously the motto was metaphorical. Why on Earth would a motto ever be that specific? Why would the founders...the greatest wizards since bloody merlin, have a literal motto which was so obviously intuitive.

"Do you still have a time turner?" Asked Delphi after another awkward pause.
Hermione blinked, "uh, no. I decided to drop Muggle Studies along with Divination...I was losing a lot of sleep."
The older girl nodded. "Sleep is good. Stops your brain becoming sentient and taking control."
"W-what?"
"Terrifying I know," continued Delphi clearly misreading her confusion as horror, "but surprisingly sleep stops it happening. Poor Percy Weasley...I hope he'll manage to take back control someday...Oh, stay behind the feast to talk to Harry. See you when there's candles, Hermione."
And with that she was gone.
Hermione closed her book slowly and set it on the nearest desk.
Then she steadily lowered her head into her hands and silently screamed.