Dee's Books was a tiny, out of the way shop, but there was always a steady stream, or at least trickle, of people browsing. Not everybody bought something, but, more often than not, the type of person who pursued a book into the type of store that Dee's was was going to come back if they hadn't found something at first look.

Hermione loved it.

For the first three months of her encore—not including the month that she'd spent recovering in Mr. Knobb's hut—Hermione was content to simply live. She woke in the morning, made herself breakfast, showered and dressed, then left the apartment to shop. She had a book collection to rebuild and build upon, a wardrobe to fill, hobbies to acquire. She frequented Eleanor Boulevard, exchanging Muggle and wizarding money and feathers, spending hours wandering the bazaar and browsing. She became very good at bartering, much to the chagrin of the merchants. Sometimes she ate lunch out, other times she returned to her apartment and made something. After lunch, she ran the register 'til Dee closed the shop, then joined her landlady for a late dinner before retiring to bed with whatever book she'd brought up from downstairs or bought at the Boulevard.

She acquired the trinkets the apartment had lacked initially: a wizarding wireless for her bedroom, curtains. A desk to put beneath the window in her bedroom, the book shelves to cover all the other walls in that room. Book shelves in the living room were implemented a little more creatively, becoming end-tables for the sofa and to store things on—or rather, strew things out upon in a messily ordered fashion that her parents had always insisted meant true genius.

On the weekends, when Dee's shop was closed, she began to assemble the garden on the roof. It was a slow process. It had to be mostly secret from the landlady, and smuggling anything remotely interesting into the building in the first place was a challenge. Hermione had never backed down from a challenge, though—she'd needed one after so long being the positively ordinary Helena. Seeds weren't so difficult to smuggle, and therefore not only much more readily available at Eleanor Boulevard, but more worthwhile for her to buy for the roof.

She had a good start on things by the time autumn rolled around and things needed to be pruned for the season. It took a week to work out the proper way to go about it, but she eventually erected a small greenhouse in the center of the roof, where even passing wizards not affected by her anti-Muggle wards couldn't see it from the street, and moved the beginnings of her garden there. There were sturdy, dirt-smudged tables with seedlings at the center, the piping of the watering apparatus hung from the ceiling, stacks of empty pots and boxes, pots full of plants. The hatch was in the far corner of the greenhouse with the door to the rest of the roof directly behind it, both well away from the more dangerous plants and any that might try to grab her.

She'd charmed the entire roof to, first, repel Muggle eyes; second, it would appear to any who managed to see it—be they the wizarding passers-by or Muggle-borns not yet attending school or Squibs—as though she had a rather mediocre collection of dying potted plants and a grimy, cracked greenhouse.

Meanwhile, her apartment acquired personality and became home. She took out a subscription to the Daily Prophet and began to catch up.

Then things caught up with her.