Hermione Granger of Flat 4, Goldin House was perfectly happy, thank you very much. After the Battle of Hogwarts and the downfall of Voldemort, she had visited Australia in search of Mr. Wendell and Monica Wilkins, a muggle couple who had settled outside of Melbourne and opened a dental practice. Upon finding them, she completed the necessary spells to return their memories to those of her parents. The family reunited happily after several long explanations and four pots of tea. Hermione had then spent six weeks exploring her parent's new home and assisting a local shaman in tracking and recapturing an escaped Yowie.
In the time since, Hermione had been doing freelance work in Diagon Alley. Ginny often visited her, though Ron and Harry had been brought into the Aurors within days of the Battle. They had wanted Hermione as well, but she was quite done with the bustle of killing dark wizards. She far preferred the consulting work she did now. Professor McGonagall's recommendation letter had opened doors for her that would not have been open even if she had been allowed to take her NEWTs. It was on McGonagall's recommendation, in fact, that Hermione approached the owner of Parchment and Quill Antique Literature as a Runic Translator and Acquisitions Expert. The tiny hushed store seemed to be part museum, part book store and was run by a woman named Locutia Libretto who looked, at first glance, to be made of paper. The old woman was precise, correct, and strict. She and Hermione got along quite nicely. Hermione's job required her to find and gather various rare books, scrolls, and other texts as well as to create translations of those in Ancient Runes.
It was the latter that she had fallen asleep over as the sun crept into her flat. Light flooded into the tidy studio to reveal books covering every wall of the room. A cauldron sat on the kitchen counter next to a tea pot. Crookshanks lay sprawled across the bed atop a large crocheted blanket. The largest feature of the room was a massive desk made of polished rose wood that was situated directly before the window. Books stacked upon books rose a full foot in the air and a worn copy of Spellman Syllabary was propped open against one of the stacks. Hermione herself was lying open mouthed on her arm, a quill still poised in her other hand over a sheet of paper that was full of her small, neat, cramped writing. She probably would have slept long past the rising of the sun, which was blocked from her view by the stacks of books if not for a large barn owl that landed gently on the closed window sill and rapped disapprovingly on the thick glass pane. The sharp stattico sound startled Hermione out of sleep with force.
"What?!" she gasped, "What is it?" It had not been overly long since her time on the run with Ron and Harry and the habit of fear was still with her. She jumped from the desk, brandishing her wand with speed. The barn owl rapped again, looking singularly unimpressed. She quickly assessed the situation through her half-awake state before groaning at her own stupidity and moving to open the window for the owl. It hopped into the room and dropped a copy of The Daily Prophet onto her desk before clicking its beak at her and holding out a leg that had a small leather pouch attached. The brunette opened a desk drawer full of ink, quills, a tin of badges marked S.P.E.W. and a small bag of gold, silver, and bronze coins and placed a knut into the pouch. The owl imperiously turned and fluttered out of the window as Crookshanks yawned and stretched on the bed before jumping to the floor and wandering to twine himself between Hermione's ankles. She absentmindedly scratched his head with one hand as she sat down and flipped the Prophet open on the desk. The front-page article was an interview with the new Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, about removing all Dark Arts users from the Ministry. The picture showed him standing before a new statue in the Ministry lobby that depicted a goblin, a house elf, a witch, a centaur, and a muggle man standing on a plinth. Hermione smiled when she read in the interview that the statue was called "Equal Footing". It was exactly something that Kingsley would do.
Still smiling, Hermione stood and began to get ready for the new day.
