A/N: It's been eight years and I'm rewriting this monstrosity. I hope you like what I did with the place. No beta reader because we die like men
"Hermione, just come down to the Great Hall." Minerva's voice was slightly exasperated as it came through the floo and Hermione shook her head, staring at her chalkboard and the various equations she had on it. It was right on the tip of her tongue, the solution to her problem with the telescoping spell was right there but it eluded her. "Hermione!" At the sharpness of McGonagall's voice, she wrinkled her nose. It wasn't as if she wasn't listening. It's just she was otherwise... occupied.
"Headmistress, as much as I…" She trailed off as she stared at the problem in front of her. The answer to it was right there. She just had to crack into it.
"Do I need to come and get you?" There was a slight hiss to the words and Hermione let out a small sigh.
"I feel like I would be better utilized here, figuring out my charms and spells, preparing for summer break, and going over my course load." She took a step back from the chalkboard as she said it, her voice trailing off a bit absentmindedly.
McGonagall let out a heavy sigh. "I need to speak with you about that but first, come to the Great Hall." It was an order and the way that the headmistress said it, had the hair on Hermione's neck standing straight up. It was enough to pull her away from the tantalizing problem that had enthralled her for most of the week. Her stomach churned slightly but she shoved it down and grabbed her robes, pulling them on as she left her cramped classroom.
Her classroom was small, the one tiny window was constantly dirty, no matter how many times she cleaned it, her desks were held together by magic more than anything, her books had been taped back together, but the cramped space was her home. She was just thankful McGonagall had been able to scrounge up enough funding to give her a chance. She thought Spell and Charm Creation: A Practical Approach had very good merits and helped students create a good base if they were wanting to further their education in that area, specially the sixth and seventh years.
Some people… they hadn't really agreed. Although she was loathe to wonder if it was the course itself they disliked or her. As much as Voldemort was dead and gone, buried in a mass grave in the Forbidden Forest with the other Death Eaters who had been killed, that insidious belief that muggleborns were less than were… persistent.
She had come out of the war full of hope. She went back and finished her last year of school, went to a top magical university where she majored in spell and charm creation, both theory and practical approach with a minor in arithmancy and potions. A move Ron had never quite forgiven her for. He had told her that they had been through a war and while he understood she wanted to go back to finish her final year at Hogwarts, secondary education seemed a bit much. Their blowout fight and break up had been… devastating and as it was they were just starting to get back to being friends and it had been well over a decade.
But after that she had hoped to join the Wizengamot as a legislature, wanting to help build the wizarding world back up. She had been all but laughed out, not the right… family name. A rather roundabout way of saying she was a muggleborn and she would never actually get into any serious legislating position. That had stung, so she had tried to get into some thinktanks that created magical items but her use of muggle objects and ideas in her potions and spells had… well not gone over well. Funding was routinely pulled, she had found herself 'let go' again and again and again.
She hadn't even been able to work as a freelancer. No one was willing to give her funding to back her projects or help her make a start up. Harry, bless his soul, had promised her 50% if she could find the other remainder but… she had never been able to get it. All of it had pressed down on her until she felt like her back would break because no one wanted to work with her. People stared at her with awe in the streets, whispered about her, children learned about her in their history books but she was frozen out of every job she had applied to and she was getting no where in the wizarding world with her chosen profession. She knew that the Aurors would have taken her in a heartbeat but she was tired of fighting and chasing after bad guys. She wanted to do what she felt she was passionate about but she seemingly wasn't allowed.
It was enough to really dishearten a person, it was. That was how she found herself, nearly homeless, in Hogwarts, begging McGonagall for a job, something, anything so she could have a roof over her head and some form of money to put in her Gringott's account. There was a bitter sort of shame to beg but she had. McGonagall had told her all the positions had been filled and that bitterness had grown worse until, McGonagall had told her they had a slight discretionary fund for 'experimental classes'. That had been two years ago and she had been set up as a Not-A-Professor teaching basics of spell and charm creation to whichever students wished to take it.
Granted she also spent a good portion of time stepping in to cover for Potions and Arithmancy when the professors were sick or had an unavoidable appointment. Her classes themselves had always been small, less than ten students but she hadn't minded. It gave her time to think and create her own spells, things she could use as an example. Plus the students who came to her class seemed to really enjoy it.
However McGonagall's words had that sick feeling swirl in her stomach as she mad her way through the staff entrance to the Great Hall. The table was packed and she slid into the spare seat at the end as she listened to the excited chatter of the students as they celebrated the last day of the school year. She was certain that after the lunch, they would all head for the Hogwart's express and head home for the summer break.
She smiled wistfully and remembered her days as a student and how she had been so excited to go home and see her parents but dreaded leaving the magical world to go back to the muggle one. She loved her parents and would have never traded them for anything in the world but she loved the magic world and growing up, she hated to leave it. The fact that in a week or so she would leave the school behind as well for the summer was a bittersweet one.
She only half-listened to Minerva make her goodbye speech before she excused everyone to pack. Hermione was staring straight ahead, trying to work out that tantalizing problem in her head. She was so close to cracking it. She just knew it. It took a bit and some finger snapping in front of her face to jolt her out of her own head.
She turned and smiled as Minerva. "Sorry, got lost in thought." She shifted to look at her former professor, the Great Hall quiet and empty of staff and students. "I did come down though." She smiled and it slowly started to fade as Minerva let out a heavy sigh, her expression sad.
"They've cut the funding." The words hit like a blow to the stomach and Hermione felt like the world had been yanked out from underneath her feet.
Not again.
