For most of her schoolmates, vacations meant sun, free time, games, friends, travel, and especially, no homework. Hermione could get on board with some of that. She enjoyed lounging by the pool as much as the next girl. She loved travelling with her parents, particularly when it was somewhere brimming with culture and learning, to fill up on stories she could tell Harry and Ron when she got back to Hogwarts.
The "no homework" part, though, she had always had a little more trouble with.
She could picture them now, Ron probably playing Quidditch with his brothers, Lavender tanning on the beach in the south of France where she'd told Parvati and Hermione repeatedly her older sister was taking her in July. With their school books stuffed at the bottom of their trunk, forgotten until a week or two before September 1st, when they would suddenly remember the professors had set summer homework. But Hermione had already finished all her assignments, barely two weeks into the holidays. She could now start the fun part of her vacations: getting ready for next year. From her bag, she pulled out a huge tome, at least 800 pages, she'd convinced Madam Pince to let her borrow for the summer. It was an introduction to Arithmancy, a new topic she'd be starting come September.
Hermione set the book on her knees and opened it to the first page, the musty smell of the old parchment mixing with the aroma of freshly cut grass sending tingles to her fingers. She sighed. This, right there, was what summer was all about.