Her work study kept her busy most of the time, but Hermione exchanged letters with some of her friends from school. Tracey and Millie wrote regularly, not that either of them were doing much this summer – their letters were mostly filled with gossip about other Slytherins, especially Tracey's. While Hermione wasn't thrilled with all the gossip, she was slowly learning that gossip was just another word for "information network," and in Slytherin, having the most information was critical to success. It helped if she thought of Tracey and Millie as spies helping her plot a devious spy plot, but sometimes it was a challenge – it was interesting to learn that Marcus Flint had been held back, for example, but it was completely uninteresting to learn what Pansy Parkinson had worn to Diagon Alley when she was seen in the company of Draco Malfoy last Thursday.

Blaise wrote occasionally too, and his letters were gems. He wrote outrageous lies about where he was and what he was doing, citing exploring ancient Mayan ruins, chasing lions in Africa, and infiltrating the Forbidden City all on his own. His charming tales were over-the-top and ridiculously funny, and Hermione found herself writing her own lies back about how she was spending the summer planning a heist for the crown jewels, time-traveling to stop an assassination in America, and learning the secret magic of the Australian Aborigines. Their letters flew back and forth, and though Hermione hadn't really learned anything else about Blaise save his skill in fiction writing, Hermione found herself thinking more and more fondly of him. His letters were a treat.

Not all her letters were sent by owl, however. Hermione sent her letters to Harry by royal mail.

Harry was extremely glad to get Hermione's letters in the post. None of his other friends were sending him letters, apparently, despite him sending his owl Hedwig out with letters for them repeatedly when his relatives weren't looking. Hermione could tell from his tone that he was feeling frustrated and hurt, and Hermione could commiserate with that. She knew all too well what it was like to feel isolated with no friends – she had lived it as a Muggle for several years.

Harry's relatives weren't happy with him and had locked his school things up under the stairs. Harry was worried about completing his summer homework, which Hermione thought was a very sensible worry to have. They were also suspicious of the letters he kept getting in the post, but because they came through the 'normal' mail, they didn't stop him. Hermione had responded by sending him a small lock-picking kit (her father had been excited to help her choose one for her friend) and a sketch of instructions. She also offered to invite him over for part of the summer, but Harry declined; he didn't think that his relatives would let him go and stay with someone else magical.

Hermione also spent her free time between arriving home and when her parents arrived home doing her homework and practicing her magic. She felt confident at casting all the spells contained in the 2nd year spell book now, and she was slowly working her way through the 3rd. She wanted to master them all as soon as she could; trickier and more powerful spells often used the easy spells as building blocks, and she was determined to have her basics down pat.

Hermione was careful to keep to the school books she'd purchased at Flourish and Blotts. She'd glanced over a few of the books she'd inherited from Quirrell, and they were Dark. There were many books that were just full of curses or about curse construction from all over the world. There were many on Magical Theory, but at a level much higher than Hermione could grasp. She hadn't explored many more, but she had set aside a couple that looked like they might only skirt the edges of Grey magic. She could read those later, at Hogwarts. She was still partially convinced that something terrible might attack her from within one of Voldemort's books, and she'd much rather that happen at Hogwarts, with a trained Mediwitch in the Hospital wing, so she would stand a chance of surviving such a thing.

During this time, Hermione also practiced flying.

Flying was hard. Hermione had gotten fairly good at gliding, if she jumped off from something high, and if the winds were right. If a cross-breeze came by, though, Hermione would careen off topsy-turvy, the air elemental inside her wanting to play with the new breeze. If she wanted to just fly up, and not slow a descent, the air elemental would get incredibly excited and try to send her every which way – generally up and another direction, instead of just "up". Any progress she was making was a hard-fought battle, and Hermione found herself frequently frustrated from trying.

The worst part was there were no books on this. There were no reference materials she could run to and check and see what she was doing wrong. She had to just muddle through it to figure it out. And she daren't write Snape about it; not only would he be livid at her putting such sensitive information into a letter, but she also desperately wanted to prove to him that she could do it – he'd been so hesitant about teaching her at all.

Hermione didn't stop trying, though. The idea of flying was still fantastic and magical to her, in the way muggles meant it, not in the wizarding way. She may have grown quickly disenchanted with brooms, but Hermione desperately wanted to be able to fly on her own. If nothing else, it was helping exercise her magical core – Hermione frequently exhausted her magic practicing, and re-draining whatever little had come back before bed was a matter of levitating her bookcase for seconds now, not minutes. Hermione wondered if her magic would stabilize and become easier to use at some point as she grew older, and if flying would come easier to her then as well. She certainly hoped so.

One day, Hermione was editing a manuscript for grammar, but the longer she went on, the more questions she had. She finally paused, going into the stacks and bringing back a reference to check something, before shaking her head and calling over her boss.

"Mr. Vitac? Has this one been fact-checked yet?"

"Hmm?" Cadmus came over. "Fact-checked?"

"This book is contradicting itself, and a lot of the claims it's making aren't possible," she told him. "The timeline is impossible. Did this one skip the fact-checkers first?"

Cadmus frowned. "What is it?"

"It's called Magical Me," Hermione said. "By someone called Gilderoy-"

"-Gilderoy Lockhart," Cadmus said, finishing with her. He looked exasperated for a moment, before he sat down next to her. "...You're Muggle-born, yes?"

"My parents are muggles," Hermione said carefully. She hadn't brought the New Blood issue up with anyone at her internship.

"Then you are aware of the concepts of 'fiction' and 'non-fiction'," Cadmus said, nodding. "Lockhart's books, even though they are written as if they are memoirs, I would classify as fiction."

"Fiction?" Hermione paused. "You're saying they're not true."

"I'm saying that the public likes to buy books from a flashy, attractive wizard who they think is a hero," Cadmus said, choosing his words carefully. "The wizarding world doesn't classify books in the same way the muggle world does. Lockhart's books end up next to the exotic werewolf romances, but if the section is classified 'Exciting books', it doesn't mean wizards realize what's true and what's made up."

"Exotic werewolf romances?" Hermione's eyes grew wide.

Cadmus waved her off. "I've avoided you getting those manuscripts. You're too young. But that's not the point." He gave her a grim grin. "If you present something fictional but plausible as 'non-fiction,' and people don't realize it's made up, some people will believe it."

"So no one fact-checked this book," Hermione said, "because it's fictional."

"Exactly." He nodded.

"But some of the inconsistencies aren't anything to do with the made-up story bits," Hermione argued. "If it's supposed to seem non-fictional, shouldn't we make it better?"

Cadmus gave her a wry smile. "I'd rather leave the inconsistencies in there," he told her honestly, a sparkle in his eye. "I'll publish his books because people enjoy them and they sell well, but I'd rather leave clues in that help indicate to people that they're not quite true."

He patted her on the head, and Hermione sighed, returning to checking the manuscript. There weren't many grammar slips, but she still felt like something was fundamentally unfair and wrong about purposefully publishing a book that had errors in it.

Later, when the manuscript had been sent to the binders, Hermione saw the finished product – and the cover, with a very attractive man grinning at her. His perfect teeth gleamed as he grinned and gave her a roguish wink, and without realizing it, Hermione felt her breath catch.

This was the man who had written the book, who was parading around as a hero?

Hermione swallowed hard.

It hurt to admit to herself that had she not read the book first, before seeing the cover, she would have all too easily believed he was a hero. He looked like a hero who would have dashing adventures. A person looking like that, that attractive, anyone would want to believe the best of all too easily.

Though Hermione had managed to admit it to herself, she'd never mention it to anyone else. She made a mental note to endeavor to look past people's looks, and to beware of trying to believe the best of people because she found them attractive. She never wanted to end up tricked by someone's grin and a flirty wink.

Another part of her idly noted that if she managed to end up that attractive when she grew up, maybe people would believe her more easily, too. Hermione touched her riotous hair, self-conscious, and scowled. Life was fundamentally unfair.

It was a day of hard self-realizations. The entire affair left Hermione in a dark mood the rest of the day.