Napping for an hour and a half on the Knight Bus made a world of difference. With some rest, Hermione was able to mind her temper and her emotions much better; she knew she'd been irritable and not very well-behaved at the Weasley's, and she was somewhat embarrassed by the fact. She wasn't proud of snapping at Mrs. Weasley and letting a secret slip in her anger; it was very unbecoming of a Slytherin, to be so careless.

And with a brief nap, Hermione was able to fake being well-rested and fully-functional in front of her parents, who wanted to know all about her sleep-over. Hermione could tell they were fishing, so she was careful with her words.

"Harry's cousin is horrible," she told them honestly. "He used to beat up Harry all the time. Harry's made to do all the chores there, while his cousin is terribly spoiled. I'm worried Harry's even getting enough food."

Her parents looked alarmed at this.

"This doesn't sound like a good place for a child," her mother said, her eyes with concern. Hermione… is Harry being abused?"

Hermione bit her lip, considering.

"Not anymore," she said honestly. "I think he used to be, maybe? At least somewhat?"

Her parents looked horrified by that answer.

"The problem is they're Harry's last remaining family," Hermione hurried on to explain. "And Harry's well-known in the wizarding world. He probably has to stay there for protection – if whoever put him there had any sense, they'd have drawn up blood wards around the property to help protect him."

"Like the one we did?" her father asked.

Hermione nodded. "Right. And as Harry gets older, that probably won't matter as much, as he'll be better able to protect himself. But until then…" She trailed off. "It's just not a good situation for anybody."

Hermione's mother's eyes were suspiciously shiny.

"I hate to hear that a child is being abused," she said. "Are you sure we can't call Child Protective Services?"

Hermione took a moment to imagine what would happen, before shuddering violently.

"If they took Harry and his family in, the Ministry of Magic would find out," Hermione said with conviction. "I have no doubt that the Ministry barge in and do something foolish to try and rescue Harry - possibly risking the lives of anyone in the police department or with Child Protective Services. I don't think they'd actually make an effort to have him adopted - he's too special, to wizards - so they might still do something horrid with him, like throw him in a magical orphanage or make him a ward of the state."

"Are you sure that's worse than his current situation?" her father asked gently. "Hermione, Harry sounds like he needs help."

Hermione tilted her chin up, defiant.

"And I helped him," she said. "As of today, Harry's escaped, and he's going to stay at Ron's house for the rest of the break. I spent the night helping coordinate the plan and making sure the Weasleys knew where to go to get him."

Her parents looked surprised. They exchanged a glance, but Hermione could see their instinctive urge to discipline her was warring with their pride.

"Escaped?" her mother echoed.

"You helped him escape?" her father echoed.

"Yes. This way, Harry will still be protected, in a magical household," Hermione added. "And he's been there enough of the summer that whatever protection his relatives' blood wards can provide him has probably renewed."

Her mother gave her a pointed look.

"Hermione, if there's a problem with his family, the correct response isn't to help your friend run away from home..."

"Anything else would have taken too long," Hermione said stubbornly. "I couldn't go to the Muggle police, because the Ministry would cause havoc if they found out. I couldn't go to the Ministry, either - that was my first thought, but when I investigated, it could have taken weeks to get him out of there, with all the paperwork and bureaucracy nonsense necessary. And the important thing was to help him, like you said. So I did - he'll be safe at the Weasleys', and they'll feed him and be nice to him for the rest of the summer, at least."

Her mother sighed, while her father looked pleased.

"Well, I'm glad you rescued your friend," he told her, ruffling her hair. "Much better than hearing you were off having sex."

Hermione's face flamed. "Dad!"

Her father and mother both laughed at the expression on her face, and this time her mother gave her a genuine smile.

"I just hope his relatives aren't worried about him," she mused. "Though, it doesn't sound like they care much about what happened to him at all."

Hermione shrugged. "I can send them a letter, so they know."

Hermione spent part of her Saturday writing the Dursleys a letter, explaining Harry had gone off to stay with the Weasleys for the rest of the summer, and thanking them for their understanding and care of Harry for the first half of the summer. She wrote it entirely in third person and didn't sign it, and she sent it by Royal Mail. Let the Dursleys wonder who had come and taken Harry away; she didn't care to inform them.

The second half of the day, Hermione spent practicing flying in the backyard. If a car could fly, why couldn't she? She had enough magical power now, she thought. She couldn't quite tell how fast it was growing, or if it was increasing exponentially at all, but she knew she was much stronger than she had been when Snape had first done the ritual with her.

Then again, it wasn't power that seemed to be the issue, really. Hermione wasn't really having trouble getting herself into the air anymore – it was steering that was the issue. Her power seemed to want to go all over the place. It was like whenever she called on it, the air elemental inside of her just wanted to be let out to dance across the skies. Which made sense, Hermione supposed. If she were an air elemental, she wouldn't want to be bound and controlled to a body. She'd want to be free and just fly…

Her father found her sleeping under a tree before supper, and Hermione awoke fairly groggy. It took a moment to remember exhausting her power reserves again. That, combined with the scant hour or so of sleep she'd stolen on the Knight Bus… it made sense that she'd dozed off, she thought.

Supper with her parents was fine, and Hermione spent the rest of the evening reading on the couch for a bit before excusing herself for bed early. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and braided her hair on autopilot, exhaustion making her mind comfortably tune out.

As she laid down, though, she automatically reached for her wand to levitate something to exhaust her power reserves, before pausing. She'd already exhausted them earlier until she literally couldn't fly anymore. Should she even bother trying, when she had nothing left?

With a sigh and a flick of her wand, not even remembering to say the incantation, Hermione tried to levitate her trunk, filled with books.

To her surprise, she felt the spell connect, and her trunk hovered in the air, steady and not wobbly at all.

A little more awake, Hermione concentrated, following the path of her power back into her as she kept the spell going. Once she found her power reserve, she was shocked to find it nearly almost full.

Almost full!

After she had just exhausted it just a few hours ago!

Rationally, Hermione knew that she had to regenerate power somehow. She'd presumed it happened slowly, over time, like when she slept. But to regenerate it so quickly... was that normal? Was that because she was constantly exercising, pushing her limits?

Hermione was relatively sure that it wasn't normal. She remembered how exhausting the Ventus spell had been to cast during the snow ball fight after winter break, and how slowly her power had returned to her afterward.

But then... how?

What was a 'normal' magic regeneration rate?

She wondered as she levitated the chest, feeling her power gradually drain out of her. By the time she let the chest settle gently back down on the ground, Hermione was already half asleep, and she dozed off fully not a moment later, her wand still held in her hand, dreams full of magical theories and possibilities.