In the weeks that passed, Hermione spent most of her time reading up on the latest advances in transfiguration and charms, much to the chagrin of Madam Pince, who refused to let her check out the darker books she found as reference.
"Rabid old librarians!" Hermione muttered under her breath as she furiously walked back to her chambers. She could either explain to McGonagall why she needed "Magical signatures and their extraction, " which sounded innocent enough, but it dealt with not finding and identifying the magical signature of a witch or wizard, but with copying it, sort of like polyjuice for the magical signature.
She figured if she could get the concept right, she could reduce the application to just identifying, but for sure, McGonagall would not be pleased. The last thing Hermione needed was her former head of house to be nosy and watchful of her.
Sighing, she realised that what she was about to do would be breaking about 50 school rules, but they wouldn't bother a teacher now, would they?
She carefully transfigured the book into an enameled box, and hoped Winky wouldn't hate her too much. For all that Hermione had fought for the rights for House elves, this was a pretty bad turn of leaf.
"Winky," she whispered, and the elf in question popped into existence.
"Yes Miss?"
"Shh... can you take this box and go straight to my quarters? Leave it on my bed please? "
Winky frowned at her, she probably felt the magic on the book..err..box, and then nodded, disappearing with a pop.
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, and tried not to look too guilty as she made her way out the library. Madam Pince gave her a slightly suspicious look when she didn't check anything out. Although, Hermione wondered why no one ever used this method to sneak books out of the library. Hermione pondered this question on her way to her chambers.
"Hermione!"
Said person turned around, a bit startled, and saw Professor McGonagall walking quickly towards her.
"Professor?"
"Well, we're colleagues now, so you can call me Minerva."
Hermione smiled, "Still not used to it Prof..err.. Minerva."
"Oh well, follow me please."
Puzzled, Hermione followed the headmistress, who led her into her office, and stopped in front of the Headmaster's portrait.
"Well Albus, I have brought her here, so if you are done with treating me like your personal house-elf, may I get back to my duties?"
Hermione was a bit embarrassed, but McGonagall only huffed when the headmaster chuckled and winked at her.
"I have some work to attend to, the elves will bring tea in a short while, please make yourself comfortable. Albus," she turned back to the headmaster, "I will return soon, so kindly do not get Ms. Granger into more trouble than absolutely necessary."
With that, the headmistress briskly walked to the fireplace and disappeared.
Hermione stood and shuffled her feet.
"Sit down Ms. Granger," Dumbledore gestured to the arm chair opposite his portrait, and Hermione sat down. A tea service set itself on the table, while the teacup hovered in front of her. A moment later, Hermione realised that it was waiting for her to tell it how she wanted her tea.
"Oh! Eh, no milk, lemon and two sugars, please," she watched in fascination as the tea poured itself, the lemon was added and sugar cubes danced and fell into the cup, while a silver spoon stirred on it's own.
Even years after being a witch, Hermione was fascinated by how easily magic made everything seem.
Her quiet observation was broken when Albus coughed to get her attention.
Hermione's tea hovered, and she plucked it out of the air and turned to the headmaster.
"Yes, headmaster?"
"Ah, I was just wondering," he waited for Hermione to sip her tea, "what reason you might have had for sneaking a book out of the library."
He chuckled and twinkled as Hermione choked on the tea and helplessly dabbed at her mouth with a serviette.
"Well," she coughed, embarrassed at being caught out, "you can probably deduce professor?"
"Of course, of course," he beamed, "Why do you need that book?"
"How did you know?"
"Ah well, the secret for being omnipresent, as people have termed me," he leaned in conspiratorially, "is portraits."
"Portraits?" Hermione thought a moment, "Oh, of course, they are everywhere, except the places of personal privacy!"
"I'm surprised you didn't think of it sooner, Ms. Granger," Albus sat back in his chair.
"To be honest, I never really thought about it before."
"Ah well, there is that, and what about my question?"
"Oh, well I was researching this new seal that they have on charms and potions, that sort of attests to purity and power, I think, and I was wondering what made the charm so good, and who markets it."
"Ah well, testing the quality of the quality testing charm?"
Hermione grinned, it was sort of redundant.
"Well, might I suggest something?"
"Of course Professor," Hermione set her teacup down.
"You could try inquiring at the patent and products registration department at the ministry."
Hermione could only say, "Oh!"
It had not once occurred to her, and she was struck by the simplicity of it. It took her a lot to not smack her forehead.
"Happens, Ms. Granger, often we get carried away with our own thoughts to see the answers right in front of our eyes."
Hermione knew that Dumbledore's statement carried a deeper meaning, but her mind was too busy figuring out whom to address the letter to, whether there was a form to fill out, and so on.
"Also, I hope you remember that Arthur is the minister for magic?"
Bollocks! She didn't remember, she wondered if Dumbledore would take the mickey out of her if she accepted it.
Of course not! This was Dumbledore!
"Well of course, Professor. I was just wondering if there was any form or something. I wouldn't want to impose on Mr. Weasley."
So much for trusting Dumbledore on that matter.
"No matter Hermione, I'll talk to Arthur about it, give it a day or two. Meanwhile, I took the liberty of having Winky return the book to the library. I hope you don't mind."
Hermione blushed, "Not at all Professor."
"Well, I believe Minerva is on her way back here by now, perhaps we can take tea again quite soon. I believe you have the portrait of Hope Harper in your living room?"
"SO that's her name? She refused to speak with me."
"Hope's a bit hostile to new comers. She'll speak up soon enough."
But I've been there for weeks! Hermione wanted to protest.
"But of course, some people tend to take longer than just a few weeks to open up now, wouldn't you agree?"
Hermione just knew he was reading her thoughts, but she was rather sure that portraits couldn't use magic literally. But this was again, Dumbledore they were talking about.
It was a bit annoying actually.
Hermione thanked the headmaster and left for her chambers. She had a couple of hours before dinner and she wanted to take a while to rest. Sometimes she wished for a telly to pass the time, some cartoons even.
On second thoughts, she decided to take a long bath. She was rather tired from all the work, albeit self-imposed.
In the bath, she soaked and let all the tension release from her body. She was quite exhausted. Resting her head on the edge of the tub, she thought about how much her life had changed in just a few weeks. She wondered what Ron was doing.
He was probably out drinking with his fellow aurors, she supposed. He usually didn't spend too much time worrying about things. It was what made him oblivious most of the time. But didn't some wise person say that ignorance was bliss?
She sighed and breathed in the scent of lavender and camomile, imitating the muggle aroma therapy. It helped a bit.
She closed her eyes, and slowly drifted off to sleep, dreaming of something familiar, yet too vague to be recognisable.