She ought to worry, Hermione told herself, and yet she couldn't come to care. Ron was away many times on missions, and this was a mission of sorts, she supposed.
A little part of her seemed happy with the peace, and she squashed that part quickly. Ron was her husband, and she ought to worry.
But she didn't.
Certainly took you long enough, that squashed part re-emerged to say, you finally realise that this is a match that has beaten odds till now.
Till now. Not anymore.
Hermione tied and re-tied her unruly hair, and re-did the dishes' cupboard, and worried about everything connected to nothing.
And then it struck her, that she had a mission!
Quickly, she went to the bedroom and hoped that Winky, in her concern for Mistress Hermione's mental state, hadn't cleaned up.
Mistress Hermione's mental state indeed! Winky didn't even know words like mental state or concern. Hermione wondered if she was truly in such a state as to expect a house elf to have a sound grammatical knowledge.
Bah Humbug!
The vial was there, capped and almost empty. There was a drop of it left, and briefly, she wondered if Snape could have tested the quality, were he alive.
She's been thinking about Snape a whole lot lately. It was odd, really.
She had never thought of him so much, at least not since school, and not since 4th and 5th year.
Hermione blushed as memories of the summer of 4th year came back. It was the time when she was "discovering herself" as her mother put it. She couldn't sit still in potions' class, and desperately pushed her mind into overdrive, just to keep it off the topic of Snape.
Well, Snape's chocolate voice actually.
"Oohkay! Time for a bit of research," Hermione spelled the label off the bottle and set to work.
"Paranoid seal," she said to no one in particular, "now why does that seem familiar?"
She sniffed the vial and made a note of the ingredients she could fathom from smell, and ran through some spell books to see if there was a spell for reverse engineering a potion.
Turns out, there were none.
"Well that's not possible," she huffed and fire-called Molly.
An hour later, Hermione was no closer to an answer, and much more closer to a meltdown, having spent that much time listening to Molly twist her ear about children and "continuing the line"; pshaw! As if there weren't enough Weasleys in the world already!
Grumbling about nosey mothers-in-law and her own stupidity, Hermione decided tea would be nice. A quick glance at the clock showed that Ron's hand was pointing at "Elevenses". He must still be at the manor then.
Briefly, she wondered what was taking Ron that long to talk to Harry. Well, she thought, at least he is trying.
As she sipped tea and thought about the seal.
"Start from the beginning," she told herself, "and see where it leads." She had to know about this seal, especially if prices of potions and charms were going up. She had been mildly surprised when she found that charms were patented too, and people had to pay for the more complex patented charms. It was an elaborate system, but it came down to: "It's magic!"
It was like the muggle version of software and music and all that copyrighted stuff. She figured there was pirating in the wizarding world, but it would be far more difficult to fool magic.
If the copyrighters were smart enough to figure out the loopholes, that it. And she was pretty sure the idiots at the ministry couldn't be bothered to be efficient of course.
That's it! Hermione snapped her fingers. Seals were charms! Which meant they had magical signatures of the caster. If she could get the signature, she could have a name, or at least a lead to follow.
Unless they were using junior casters for the seal, a senior caster would test the potion with some sort of spell designed to tell of the potion's merit, and if the seal was That popular that it helped the producers to raise prices and not expect sales drop, then the calibration of the merit gauging spell was pretty high, and that required complex spell casting.
Complex spells, she knew from personal experience, required concentration and power, proportionate to the complexity. Like how potion brewing had similar requirements.
Hermione was happy like this. An idea with research involved and she was in her element. Ron and Harry and Draco and Charlie and Luna all went sailing out of her thoughts and she became driven by this seal, The Paranoid Seal.
It was an odd name, she concluded, but strangely made sense. Paranoia had served them well during the war and shortly after. The Order's Paranoia had kept the oblivious lot of muggles and magical folk protected.
She shook her head and concentrated on the task at hand. She wanted to know how she could get the magical signature of the charm caster, and how she could figure out the owner.
The charm probably needed to be amplified to do it, she thought. Now how would one technically apply such amplification? There were so many things to figure out, and since it was charms, she figured Flitwick would be able to help. She probably could catch him after lunch, but she had to hurry. It was already noon.
She fire-called the headmistress' office.
McGonagall was in, but called out an "I'm busy!" from her desk. Hermione bit her lip, and forced herself not to be demanding.
"I'll call back Professor," she said, and made to withdraw from the fireplace.
"Oh! Ms. Granger! Wait!"
"Yes Professor?"
"I'm sorry dear, those ministry representatives have been bothering me all morning, and so I thought it was them again."
"Oh, may I ask why Professor?"
"Incidentally, I wanted to discuss that with you, would you be free for tea at around 3?"
"Of course, Professor. I have taken the day off."
"Any particular reason?"
"Oh, just recovering from the flu actually."
"Oh my! Are you better now?"
"Cured actually, Harry had some brilliant potion."
"I see. Was there any reason you called, Mrs. Weasley?"
"Actually, I was wondering if I may have a word with Professor Flitwick, at lunch?"
"Oh I'm sure I can arrange for an extra seat at the High Table."
"Err, the High Table? Well, I was thinking more of just a chat. I, err, don't want to impose on you."
"Nonsense! Unless you don't want to eat at the high table of course," McGonagall frowned at her.
"No no, not at all! I would be honoured to."
"Very well then, lunch starts in about 15 minutes. Perhaps you should, prepare?"
"Thank you Professor, I'll see you there."
"Good bye Mrs. Weasley."
"Good bye Professor."
Hermione sat back from the fire, and it turned back from green to golden. Hermione had never sat at the High table before. And to be in the sight of all those children!
Hermione groaned and got up to change her clothes. They would probably whisper and speculate, and there would be wild rumours flying free around the school.
They'd probably start one saying that Flitwick and she were having an affair!
Hermione tried not to let her overactive imagination run wild, and got ready to travel to Hogwarts. No time to take the Floo, she thought, and left a note for Ron to find. If he even came back before she did.
Concentrating on the spot just outside the front gates, she closed her eyes and turned on the spot.