For the Stratego Competition, for Muggle!Hermione.

If Hermione expected to see any other person awake at three-thirty in the tiny university town of Thacker, Buckinghamshire, she quite certainly did not anticipate that the man would be setting an enormous tome on fire with a small, strange object that must have been some new sort of flamethrower.

"Oh, Merlin, bloody hell…" said the conspicuously redheaded man, continuing to curse a blue streak as he realized she'd found him out. Hermione frowned; she approved of neither book burning nor excessive and entirely unnecessary swearing – but really, she felt far more interested in how exactly he'd set fire to the book. The flamethrower he carried had no bulk or fuel canister; it was merely a long, thin stick, about a foot long, seemingly made of wood.

"You'll be going on about your day now, yeah?" the man asked with faux innocence, making Hermione laugh before realizing that he may not have intended for his inquiry to be comedic – but his hopeful grin gave him away. Rolling her eyes, Hermione realized that she should begin to leave; overachieving university students required the presence of their professor for an experiment about the sunrise and its effects on various animals, and Hermione was said professor.

Hermione reached into her purse and extracted a pad of paper and a dull pencil, scribbling down her mobile number. "I'll give you this if you tell me how you've done that," she said, showing the redhead the scrap of notebook paper. "I'm Hermione."

"Oh!" he exclaimed, eyes widening. "That's – that's a telephone number, yeah? Brilliant. Wicked. I can use a telephone. I know how to use a telephone. My dad loves telephones! Er, I'm Ron." (Hermione chortled at the man, reminding him impatiently that he'd have to tell her how he made that flamethrower in order to get the number from her.) "A – a flamethrower. Right, well, you see, I'm – er – I really shouldn't tell you this, I could get in loads of trouble, just don't tell anyone, right, yeah? I'm – I'm a wizard."

She stared for a moment, before breaking out in loud laughter. "I thought you were serious for a moment, my God…"

Ron scrunched up his features. "Er, yeah. Figures you wouldn't believe me." Hermione only continued to laugh, still convinced that this farce was an absolute joke – and an amusing one at that. "I'm serious! Bloody hell, you're not going to believe me, are you?"

After a mildly tense moment in which Hermione laughed and Ron eyed her in frustration, Hermione stopped her chortling. "You're not serious? Oh my God, I was about to give my mobile to a madman. Goodbye, er, Ronald," she said, turning away quickly upon the prospect that this man could be one of those raving lunatics who believed in magic and wizards and unicorns.

"No – wait, hold on, Hermione!" said Ron, and Hermione remained walking away, towards the university at which her students were waiting. "I can prove it!"

At that, Hermione stopped. If he could actually demonstrate evidence of magic… She turned.

Ron grinned. "Watch me. Well, watch my wand, I suppose." Trying and failing to stop herself from rolling her eyes, Hermione regarded the preparation for his demonstration with a raised eyebrow and poorly-concealed distaste. Nevertheless, Ron withdrew his flamethrower from his pocket and waved it through the air. "Aguamenti," he said as he did so, and a jet of water came spurting from the tip of the flamethrower (?) and landed on the pavement around Hermione's feet.

"This is ridiculous," said Hermione.

"No, I swear!" Ron insisted. "I'm not faking anything! Er, got a tissue?"

"Er, alright?" Hermione said, and she reached into her bag yet again to retrieve a handkerchief, wondering what he could do with it other than making it disappear, which she knew anyone could do with a little training.

Ron aimed the flamethrower/hose combination at the tissue. "Engorgio!" he said loudly, and the tissue quickly swelled to the size of a blanket.

Hermione still felt doubtful.

"You don't believe me yet, do you?" asked Ron incredulously.

"No," Hermione said, shaking her head. "But maybe you could try to convince me over dinner? And maybe tell me why on Earth you've been burning books?"

"Sounds good," Ron said, grinning. Hermione raised her eyebrow. "Oh! Er, well, this book had a name in it – this name, it was the name of this bloke who took over Wizarding England, yeah? Killed loads of people. If anyone said that name, his old mates would come wherever the person said it, kill all the people there. So I, er, really needed to steal this from the library and burn it so nobody could read the name? I don't know really, it was assigned to me – I work in defense, see – "

"You can stop rambling, if you like," Hermione said, and she was surprised at how friendly her tone sounded. "And I'm not having a laugh, you'd better call me." She beamed at him before turning on her heels and marching at a steady pace to the university. Her students expected her now –

Ron called her less than fifteen minutes later, at which time she was in the midst of a scientific experiment with her students.

"HERMIONE! HELLO! I'M USING MY FRIEND HARRY'S MOBILE TELEPHONE! THAT'S GREAT, YEAH? OH – WHAT – oh! Harry says I don't have to yell! Well, that's kind of him to tell me, I've been calling him for years. Er, yeah. It was cool talking to you. And I am a wizard. How about I prove it to you Friday night? I'll pick you up at seven? Call me back. Er, call Harry back. Er, if you want."

Hermione never deleted the message from her mobile.