"My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself. I've told you my name: that's the Who. The Where could most readily be described as a prison cell. But there's a vast difference between being stuck in a tiny cell and being in prison. The What is easy: recently, I planned and set in motion events to execute the perfect bank robbery. That's also the When. As for the Why: beyond the obvious financial motivation, it's exceedingly simple...because I can. Which leaves us only with the How; and therein, as the Bard would tell us, lies the rub."
Hermione. Hermione Granger.
Labeled by Headmistress Williams as "astoundingly receptive to memorization and recitation, lacks the adaptation needed for application; thus best suited for secretarial school". That small note was buried in the back of her lower school matriculation files, behind all her muggle belongings, behind all the wizardry books for first years, in a life she no longer could consider herself part of. Stepping into muggle London was not as easy of a transition as in first year - wizarding fashion crept into her wardrobe and mannerisms gleaned from widarding texts were too outdated, too contrived for her parent's increasingly prominent place in muggle society. Everything that didn't warrant a place in the wizarding world was left in the closet of her familial home in Kensington. Oddly enough, Headmistress Williams' remarks so boldly declared on Weldon Park Academy stationary, predicted her current station far better than any Hogwarts professors.
Perhaps that was too melodramatic to be considered truth. Work, any work, for the Order of the Phoenix is important, but even with perception akin to blind, blibbering humdingers, one could easily see the tasks delegated to Hermione were crippling her mentally. The beauty of an eidetic memory is being able to recall information with unwavering accuracy. In application, the process is time-consuming, if only because the Order requires Hermione to thoroughly document every source in a way that can be presented in an Order meeting without her presence. "Without her presence" evolved from waiting to come of age to stagnating in the library nee basement of 12 Grimmauld Place. She is the best researcher the Order has. With the whole of the Black library safely chronicled in the vast vault of her mind, she is likely the best informed.
Hermione was forced to snap out of her reverie for a moment to wrestle the newest request from the pipe that served as her lifeline to the outside world. The parchment was red, meaning: urgent, and scrawled in Molly Weasley's distinctive hand. Hermione neatly placed the request at the front of Molly's stack, which coincidentally happened to be the furthest from her concentration. Hermione's lab notes, filled almost seven times over thanks to spelled parchement, lay open to the key to her salvation. In an attempt to free herself from the basement Hermione is attempting to charm the contents of the books into a single source, accessible by any Order member and functions in the same way a library's card system works but modified with an summoning charm. To enter the charm the user identifies words from the control point and then the charm will automatically find the most definitive source on the issues at hand and reproduce the information in Hermione's standard form.
'My input into the system is effecting the magical vectors associated with the key words in a predetermined fashion just like I had predicted. I was able to adopt the system to work with elf-magic determining Kreacher can operate the system fully.' Hermione cataloged her observations in her lab notes, cringing at remembering Kreacher's not-so-subtle request at summoning a brutal account of a muggle slaughter simply by inputing "all dead mudbloods".
'The system performs accurately in all tests, from obscure compilations of a day in history's events, to specific factual evidence needed to support a conclusion. The system fails in performance trials with the members of the Order of the Phoenix Ginerva Weasley, Ronald Weasley, Mundungus Fletcher, and Rubeus Hagrid. More trials are needed to determine point of failure.'
Hermione snapped her lab notes shut and pulled out her personal notes. Deciding she had done enough for one day for the Order she flipped to her most recent entry: Controlled Casting of the Highest Power. The next hour was spent furiously expanding her theories on increasing the power of one's magic. Her notes were too disjointed for her liking. With no one to debate the finer points of spells she was left to play devil's advocate for every theory, and had to summarize her findings at the end of every section as to not lose her focus. She argued both sides better than anyone in this place, and invariably her inner monologue produced far greater results than discussing theory with Alastor Moody whenever she could corner him in front of the liquor cabinet. She'd given that up long ago after she was bound and forced to take Vertiserum to prove her good intent while trying to question Moody on the protective properties of unicorn hair. Just because unicorn hair is only used in dark rituals doesn't mean hair freely given would still be considered dark. It was suspicious she couldn't talk a single unicorn into giving her any hair. Her last trip into the Dark Forest went rather well with the unicorns until she asked for hair to help protect the Order members. If only she could get Dumbledore, he must know everything there is to know about the Dark Forest and must be on good terms with the unicorns. Dumbledore even had a unicorn hair bracelet he wore; surely he could get them to spare a strand next time he went. The wizard never had time to loiter around and discuss theories though - there was actually a war going on outside these walls. He always did manage to make her feel guilty about not spending more time working on Order requests.
Severus Snape was the only one who would entertain the notion of her extracurricular studies, yet any hope of finding a mentor was immediately squashed as Snape predictably scorned her work for the Order in the very next sentence. It was crushing, to say the least, every time Snape graced her presence. He remained the only person to refuse to use the pipeline Alastor Moody had installed as a mode of communication. Hermione's heart would race when the door to her basement would open of its own accord - Hermione had taken to bribing Order members into participating in her tabula rastious charm - and hoping it would be Harry bounding down the stairs to detail his latest adventure, her heart would sink as her brain registered the floor-length robes, laced-boots, and tedious buttons slowly reveling themselves as Snape would descend the rickety staircase in his infuriatingly slow saunter.
Since Hermione had just been musing about Severus Snape, the surprise of seeing him in the flesh just moments later was quickly overpowered by her fear of being caught working on non-Order business.
"Relax, Miss Granger. If I thought you actually spent all the time you were down here rooting though archaic tomes for obscure references already irrelevant by the time the request reaches your desk, I would have suggested Longbottom for the job." Snape had an uncanny way of making one compliment, two insults.
"Professor, this..." Hermione was halted by the sneering look Snape realigned in her direction, "Mister Snape, this work is far more important than you give me credit for, I am worth many times more than the average Order member. In fact, just this morning I put out a defense report on a skirmish so at the next battle we won't fall to the same mistakes."
"You are worth many times more than the others, but this work is not. The Order won't fall to the same mistakes because the enemy will have evolved by the time those fools read your report." Hermione didn't have a retort; her only accounts of the enemy came through the pipeline above her desk. Admittedly, she had noticed the enemy's tactics were evolving at a much faster rate than the Order, if only they would read her accounts we could evolve more rapidly, too. Snape let the silence swell to emphasize his expectancy that Hermione should be analyzing his words. "Tell me Miss Granger, what is that you are working on?"
Hermione quickly jumped up to retrieve her parchment for the tabula rastious charm, "This is a charm I am developing for the Order that will be able to effectively replace me. It will be able to compile results according to key word at nearly the same rate I can, while not sacrificing quality. The user inputs keywords on this parchment and the results appear on the reverse side. I'm having trouble effectively translating the results from Kreacher and myself to other members of the Order, Ginny, Ron, Mundungus, and Hagrid were all able to retrieve information tangentially related to my test topic, but..."
Snape's palm showed in an attempt to quiet Hermione's rambling account of her work, shortly, Snape asked, "What charm?"
"I was originally using a summoning charm, but since people didn't know the information they were seeking I figured it would only work for me, since it is my information compiled. I developed the tabula rastious charm to essentially fill people's mind, or blank slate, on a topic they know nothing about." Hermione looked hopefully at Snape, she hadn't anyone to bounce ideas off of since her last subject, Hagrid, and she felt bad confusing the poor fellow.
Snape seemed to chuckle, in the way only Snape could, "Your only error is assuming your users have a blank slate. It works on yourself and Kreacher because you are able to single-mindedly hold an idea in your head and the charm builds off the subconscious connotations to your keywords. That wasn't what I was asking though, your pathetic little Order business doesn't hold my fancy. I'm talking about your little black book."
Hermione sighed, she had no way of controlling what the user was thinking and any attempt to lessen the effect of the subconscious on the charm decreased its ability to successfully compile relevant information. Serves them right. Idiots the lot of them. Now I'm going to rot down here. With my little black book, which Snape has managed to spot, once again, completely blowing my cover that, he was seeing things. "Ah, yes. Just a new version of lab notes."
"New version, indeed. Anything good?"
"Just a little bit of exponentialcontrolledcasting."
Full stop. If Hermione didn't know better Snape was attempting to control his tongue, a barb about little girls meddling in matters way beyond their brainpower, no doubt. In Snape's silence, Hermione was left to contemplate the validity of her doubts in her ability. She was a young witch, with little resources in the wizarding world, with nothing more than a freshly stamped Hogwarts diploma. Effectively, she no status or right to be studying such magic. Dark magic. The kind of magic the very man seated across from her could teach her. Snape shifted barely perceptibly in his seat and Hermione was able to deduce his thoughts immediately. "Don't. Say. A. Word. Snape."
"My, my, Miss Granger. They really don't let you out of here. I believe I'm going to half to be on my way." Hermione followed Snape's eyes from the cot in the corner, impeccably made but telling of her situation, to over her head - or what must have been her sorry excuse for hair. "You know, actual Order business to attend to." Snape was already at the stairs. "There is an Order meeting tonight, even Potter is coming in for this one. Oh, forgive me, you are not yet a member. Perhaps next time." The door to her prison slammed closed, the sound echoing in her ears. Every time that insufferable git of a man comes into my basement, he riles me up with illusions of intellectual debate, only to suddenly heave me off my broomstick to hurdle back into the reality of my life. I'll show him. I made it though seven years at Hogwarts with no one to compete with intellectually, I could easily make it seven more. Just like I pushed through school, if I just make it this last bit further, life will better on the other side. Once I prove to the Order I am ready.
Hermione called Kreacher to serve dinner. He was the only one she could count on, the little bugger. He recently took to loitering around her room longer than necessary, so before he returned with her tray of food Hermione made sure to disillusion her lab notes on the counter into the tale of The Beetle and the Bard. Her personal notes she safely tucked into her dragon hide handbag. God help her, as soon as Mother found out she could have access to an exclusive wizarding line of Karl Lagerfeld's her mother would not stop sending her things. Honestly, if muggles didn't already suspect the man was a wizard, Mother was well on her way to outing him. The handbag was well protected though and when she got back into wizarding London no one would steal it from her for fear she had already stolen it from someone much more powerful. Unfortunately, until she was back in wizarding London, Hermione had to be content to use it as a catch all for things she didn't want ruined by her extensive potions lab.
Kreacher returned with a crack that sounded much more harsh than necessary. "Mistress Hermione, Kreacher brought you supper, shame Master Snape won't be dinning with Mistress Hermione tonight. Mistress Hermione would do well to court Master Snape. Master Snape is a good man."
Pretending not to pay much attention to Kreacher on purpose, Hermione began her first course with half an eye on Kreacher. Emboldened by his Mistress' distraction Kreacher made his way over to her lab table and started tidying up. What is Kreacher doing? The only feasible explanation is Snape wants to snoop around in my business to find out what I've really been doing down here this whole time. He's right, I've been producing considerably less work than I first started and spending way too much time on my personal research. I could really use a sponsor though; Snape seems to be my only option. Kreacher is likely reporting back any information he can see. Wait! He just pilfered one of my papers from the rubbish bin. It couldn't hurt to have Snape get my personal notes, they are all very well organized, an exceedingly truthful representation on my thought process, perhaps too hasty though, maybe I should rewrite them before I let Kreacher find them.
"Kreacher is so sorry to spill Mistress' things. Kreacher will clean them up immediately." Hermione looked over to see the entire contents of her dragon hide handbag littered under her desk. Kreacher didn't just knock the bag over, he must have used elf magic because that is no ordinary hand bag. Hermione couldn't see Kreacher but had every idea of what was going on under her desk. After Kreacher popped away to get her second course, Hermione walked over to peek under her desk. Sure enough, Kreacher had ditched the paper from her rubbish bin in exchange for her, now missing, personal notes. Even more telling was the amount of time he took to return with her food, which usually took 15 seconds tops.
'If anything, Snape is surely going to offer me a position as his assistant or even apprentice. As soon as he sees my work he will be obligated to at least direct my studies. I haven't had time to rationally explore every topic because there is just so much to learn and so little time. Oh no. Snape is going to think my brief overview of all the subjects is all I can understand. I hadn't much time! Surely he will see that. A man of his position in the Order is sure to know how much workload I receive everyday. I need more time. I need to let Snape know that I haven't been able to delve into the topics as much as I have wanted to. The wizard must know. He's still working for Voldemort, he must know what a strain on your concentration trivial Order matters can be. Not that the Order itself is trivial. Just tedious some times.'
Hermione's internal monologue kept her through her fifth course, a delectable desert of creme fresh and seasoned fruit. A meal worthy of her mother. If the Order was eating meals like this, they may as well stay home. Hermione began to help Kreacher clean the rest of her workspace. Not much needed tidying but the dragon bone tiled counter under Hermione's cauldron was Hermione's pride and joy. Kreacher had installed it not too many days after her seventeenth birthday, Harry must have found it in one of the upper floor labrotories and sent it down as a birthday present. The boy was just too thoughtful sometimes, it had already been a month, but Hermione had yet to thank him. Ronald and Harry were out risking their lives for the greater good, while she was stuck in the basement. But not stuck for long, Snape was surely curious about her intelligence if he took the time to have Kreacher steal her personal notes. Hermione crawled into bed with the happy thought that tomorrow may be the first of her last days in her basement.