Albus was true to his word. Hermione was scheduled to meet with Mr. Smithe the coming week, three days before start of term. She found the prospect of meeting such an intelligent person both exciting and intimidating.
What if he proclaimed her a fool? What if her questions were stupid? What if she made a complete and utter fool of herself?
She drove Harry batty with her worries; Harry in turn drove Draco batty with Hermione's worries and Draco asked Hermione (Via owl-post of course, no one wanted to face Hermione while saying…) to kindly shut up about it, or she would be getting a head start into proving herself utterly incompetent and star stricken, albeit in a non-interesting way, in his eyes, never mind in the eyes of Mr. Smithe, whatshisface.
Hermione didn't know whether to be amused or insulted when she received the note from Draco, and settled for amused, after imagining how Draco must have looked all the time Harry went on and on, and how insane Harry must have driven him, to cause this note to be sent to her.
Hermione did kindly shut up about it, and instead, did more research on the theory she had read concerning the charm, and made many hundreds of pages of notes on how she could possibly reconstruct it from scratch.
Of course she would try; it was in her nature to be nosy, err… curious.
Thus Hermione spent five days in a state of controlled hysteria; thank Merlin the students weren't here yet. One would pity them, having to face a Hermione in this state of mind, and hair.
Albus watched this in a constant state of amusement from Hope's portrait, having taken to watching Hermione's progress over spreading local gossip, much to the consternation of the other portraits. Albus always had the best versions of everything, thanks to his outrageous imagination. He was, a favourite among the ladies, preference be damned.
Although Albus' mind was a bit pre-occupied, wondering at the ease of the entire episode. It was a bit worrisome that Jonathan, as he knew him, had shown rather unusual compliance. Oh, he had fought tooth and nail, but it was still lesser than he had expected. Perhaps the freedom had mellowed him, so to speak, and reduced his paranoia; or even made him friendly.
Dumbledore snorted at the last part. Friendly indeed! It painted a rather silly picture to have Jonathan play the part of a sociable human. It was absurd. It made him think that Mr. Smithe had something up his sleeve. But, there was nothing Albus could do about it, and so he watched the little ball of hyperactive energy, that was Hermione, drive anyone who she came in contact with, to the nuthouse.
The day before she had to meet Mr. Smithe, Hermione suddenly calmed down. She was normal, and people walked on eggshells around her. It was unusual to see her so calm. Everyone was surprised to see her completely non-hysterical, so naturally, they assumed something was brewing; the calm before the storm theory.
Only Winky and of course Dumbledore were not surprised in the least bit. Minerva therefore had to conclude that Dumbledore had found a way, through bribe or threat, to have Winky keep Hermione dosed with something like a calming potion. Only he had the gall to sink to such levels as drugging a close acquaintance.
She was immensely glad for his lack of morals on occasion, and his deviousness.
"Are you prepared, Ms. Granger?"
"As prepared as anyone can be."
"Now, listen carefully. The location is un-plottable, therefore, you have to travel by Floo. You will throw in the Floo powder, and mention clearly, 'Oculto'. You will wait till the fire turns from green to blue, signalling that the connection is open. The password will be Verdade."
Hermione repeated the words to Dumbledore till he was satisfied with her pronunciation. She was well aware that if she said the first wrong, she could be lost hopelessly, or if she said the second wrong, she'd end up burning herself in the fire. She filed the words away to figure out the language and meaning later on. They seemed strange and exotic.
Dumbledore stopped her just as she was about to toss in the Floo powder.
"I hope, Ms. Granger, you will be able to fathom the gravity of this meeting. Mr. Smithe is a very private man, and it took me a lot to convince him to this. I only did it because I trust you to be very careful and not tread where you are not invited," he gave her a meaningful look, at which Hermione flushed, and then grew stern. "I will not have you jeopardising my relationship with Jonathan because of something as unimportant as curiosity, do you understand, Ms. Granger?"
Hermione was taken aback at the stern tone, and nodded meekly. Did she, as usual, ask for more than she could handle? She swallowed her fear and tilted her chin up, "You can trust me Sir."
"Very good, Ms. Granger, see that you don't lose it." He gestured for her to go ahead; Hermione drew in a deep breath and stepped into the green flames. "Verdade" she enunciated clearly, and held her breath, ready to leap out of the fire if things went bad. The flames sputtered, and Hermione was scared for a split second, before the flames turned a rich blue, and she was whisked away to somewhere in West Devonshire.
She landed slightly stumbling in a large but comfortably furnished sitting room, mentally making a note to have her fireplace cleaned. She cast some cleaning charms and smoothed her robes and hair, and wondering where the owner had gotten to.
"A few minutes late, but that's alright."
Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice, and spun around, wand drawn. He stood almost behind her, and she would have said something were she capable of words at that moment.
"Hey, now. It isn't polite to point a wand at your host, is it?" He canted an eyebrow.
"Ummm."
"Do you need to get cleaned up?"
"Err. I'm good thank you."
"AH! She speaks!"
Hermione blushed. And smoothed her robes a little more. A pair of black boots came into view, quite close, she noted, to her sensible pumps. She looked up and … eh... he was quite close to her, and he reached down with a hand...
To dab at her nose with his thumb.
Huh? Hermione was squinting to see his perfectly manicured thumb rub at the tip of her nose.
"There," he breathed, and she realised that his other hand had come to hold her face still, while he had bent a little. Their faces were close enough that she felt his warm minty breath.
And Hermione started, lightly stepping back. "Err, thank you, Mr. Smithe?"
"That's pronounced Smythe, with a y. "
"Oh, err. Sorry."
"Oh, doesn't matter my dear," he smiled, and Hermione was struck.
He was taller than Ron by a couple of inches as she could tell, there was a thin scar running from his forehead to chin on his left side; his long silvery hair was tucked behind his right ear, where a gold ring glittered in the sunlight streaming into the room. His smile had faded into a little quirk of his lips and his blue eyes shone with humour.
He was perfect.
Hermione shook such thoughts from her head. When she had heard about him, she expected an older person, especially if he was Dumbledore's personal friend, or close acquaintance. He was... young and vivacious and …
Stop it Hermione! You are not here to hit on him! Her mind screamed at her.
She managed to get herself in control and smiled politely, apologised for her tardiness, and her rather tongue – tied behaviour. He just laughed it off and asked her to call him Jon, if she didn't mind him using her first name.
He offered her an arm, that she took, a little flushed at his charming demeanour. Jon didn't seem so private as Dumbledore had warned her. Quite the opposite actually! He seemed to enjoy showing her around, and answering her questions, and being an utter gentleman. By the end of a couple of hours, she was floored.
Either Dumbledore and Jon are weird when together, or this wasn't Mr. Smithe. But he was so well versed in the theory of the charm and everything she could throw at him, that she quickly dismissed the latter option.
Dumbledore and Jonathan must have had some sort of falling out, which was the only reason she could think of that explained the two entirely different behaviours. Something wasn't right.
She decided that it was time she pushed her luck just a little. Biting her lip, she hesitated and slowed her steps, which caused him to slow down along. She realised they were still walking arm in arm.
Hermione gently freed her arm and looked him in the eye.
"You are so much more beautiful than your pictures," he smiled a wide smile.
Uh, what pictures?
"Dumbledore showed me a picture so I could recognise you. The old coot didn't tell me you were this brautiful."
Hermione was sure that her face was red as Ron's hair. "Thank you, and I too was pleasantly surprised to see that you were so much younger than I expected."
He laughed that lovely deep laugh again. Really, this was getting too difficult for her to resist. "I'm quite sure Albus would have told you that I was all grumpy and serious."
"Err, something like that."
"Ah well, Albus gets the wrong idea sometimes. I just love that man."
Hermione was not sure how to respond to that. Something was definitely not right here.
After a nice lunch, they retired to the patio where they sipped chilled wine in the hot afternoon. Hermione hadn't had this much fun in ages. She was just about to close her eyes and enjoy the warmth when she heard a beeping noise from his wrist.
A gadget? What in the world?
He glanced at it and grew serious. Seeing Hermione's questioning gaze, he gave a small smile, and explained that a potion of his was ready to be moved on to the next stage.
"It's like a muggle alarm clock. It is tuned to the potion I want to watch over, and when it reaches a certain stage where it needs my attention for the next step, it beeps and lets me know. It's sort of like a programmable charm."
Hermione was astonished. This man spoke as if he was into both muggle as well as wizarding advances. It was truly fascinating!
Although she was quite sad that their time was at an end, she was so excited about meeting such a charming and intelligent person. She was gathering up her notes and things when he requested that the details of what she had learned today not be discussed with anyone but him.
"I understand," Hermione nodded, "You can trust that this will be safe with me."
He kissed the back of her hand, and hesitated.
"Yes?" she asked him.
"I had a really wonderful time with you Hermione."
She wasn't sure where this was headed, "As did I Jon. It's too bad we can't have more time."
"I wouldn't mind having you over another day."
"Err, I'm sorry, but I should tell you, I am still in the process of getting a divorce from my husband of 8 years. I'm not really ready for something this early."
"Oh," he seemed disappointed. Hermione was a little worried that she had overstepped some line.
"Well, you're welcome to drop by anytime. Just let me know a day early. It feels good to talk to someone this knowledgable."
Hermione wondered how many times in the span of a few hours could anyone blush.
Finally, they said goodbye and Hermione went back to her quarters. What a weirdly unexpected surprise Jonathan was! Humming to herself, Hermione went about her quarters, securing the notes in her desk draw, and putting an extra locking charm on it. It was not until she sat down at her desk did she notice the letter waiting for her.
She quickly broke the seal, and saw that it was her divorce papers, finalising the separation. What a way to end a day, she wondered, feeling depressed again as the memories flooded back to her.
She sighed and headed to take a long soak.
Dumbledore watched silently from the portrait. Hermione seemed happy. He stroked his beard and thought. He had expected some reaction from Ms. Granger. He had expected a lot of reaction actually. Instead, she seemed pleased and relaxed, and not in the least bit ruffled.
Something was definitely not right, or, Dumbledore stopped to think.
Had things finally started going right?
It was puzzling indeed.
Dumbledore left for a visit to his old friend, Jonathan.