Abagail woke up a very happy woman that morning. She looked over to her husband and sighed happily, he knew just how she liked it. He also said she would get what she wanted and rolled out of bed to begin the day. She decided not to tell Hermione anything about the adoption until it was all settled. It was a good day to be Duchess Granger and she had just the lawyer in mind, she looked into every one who won an adoption case, and then who won the most. It was a daughter and father run firm, and they were going to be in business by the end of the day.
First she had to get ready for the day, and then fix herself a cup of tea.
Crouch Jr. and Moody were both getting ready for their own holiday trip to France. It was decided that Moody would temporarily transfigure Crouch into a hamster then disillusion him, and cross the border with him in his pocket. It would be easier to get to muggle France with a hamster than with someone following invisible. It would be easier magic wise for him to wear an invisibility cloak, but too much could go wrong.
At least that's what Moody said. When they got to wizarding France, they would find the go between front, and change in the bathroom. Crouch would of course go into the other stall as a hamster before being returned to his human form.
They were packing books, clothes, the usual holiday items so as not to arouse suspicion.
"Let's run through it again!" Mad-eye gruffed.
Barty sighed good-naturedly, "Physical training, running, ducking, dodging, stamina. Wards, hopefully. Magic, quick thinking, non lethals. Impression of occulmency for something she can work on before she sleeps. We can only shove so much into a week, Alastor."
"And she will work from dawn until well after dusk! She will sweat, cry, bleed, and swear at us! And you will build up her… resistance to that damn torture curse," Alastor Moody looked away in distaste.
"I don't hate her though! She's my pupil, I'm supposed to protect her not hurt her! Not torture the lass! I don't want that trust to be broken! It's bad enough I used the imperius on her."
"It could mean life or death or insanity. Doing that will save her, and we can't afford to lose a mind like hers, let alone her talents," Moody huffed at his younger friend.
He didn't like the idea either, but after losing Alice and Frank, he knew that it wasn't any sort of life to live. It did them a disservice. Barty knew that it was possible to train the body to build up a tolerance, most of the death eaters had to. It wasn't until he became crazed to find the one who would bring about his downfall that he started torturing his followers.
With the plan so far, Hermione was on the frontline to be hit with the torture curse. He just didn't want to be the first one to cast it on her. It filled his heart with dread since he only wanted the best for his pupil who filled him with pride and taught him the rewards of being a teacher.
He was far from looking forward to it, but logically he had to agree with Alastor. In the end however he would end up asking Granger herself and she would make the final decision.
For the time being though they had to make sure they had everything in order, and the rest of the papers graded for the week before they left tomorrow morning. Crouch was not so secretly excited about being able to see a muggle castle, the only reason he was dreading the visit was because he didn't want to have to torture his student.
She was a good lass, they knew they were asking a lot from her, but she was the best shot they had.
The Hogwarts' potions master was having a lie in. It was the second day of the holiday week, and he had done his patrolling yesterday, he would make an appearance later in the Great Hall for lunch. For breakfast however he just wanted his cup of coffee that was graciously made by Maga. He noticed that she also made him apple and cinnamon oatmeal with a side of toast and sunny side egg. And since she made sure that he noticed, he knew he was also going to have to eat it before he left his room.
'Damn interfering elf.' He thought with a chuckle.
He had picked up his latest read from his nightstand, promising himself 20 minutes now and most of the day in the lab, and then an hour of reading before bed. He was stocking up on medicinal potions for personal use. The dark haired wizard had already made owled the orders from the hospital wing and St Mungo's Hospital. The hospital wanted the more challenging potions which he gave most of his time to yesterday and made a large batch of the simpler ones to split between the medical places.
He already made plans that after this batch of personal potions he was going to try to tackle his personal projects again. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a stupid dunderhead. He may be a sour person, but even he knew the importance of down time. Even better since he figured this holiday he may finally be left to his own devices with Albus being busy.
His golden boy had stayed at the castle, he had two visiting schools who had to stay, the headmaster had appearances to keep up with in addition to his titles that his holidays normally went to. The old wizard was going to be very busy this holiday, with a little hope too busy to bother the potions master in the dungeon. He didn't have much hope, but it was still there.
As he sipped his coffee he saw the floo in his living space flash green and sighed in annoying at the floo call.
It was his holiday for Merlin's sake! Granted he just finished up his allotted reading time, but Merlin's left tit why bother him?
He answered the call anyways.
"Oh good. Severus, I was hoping I'd be able to drop by later and have a nice chat with you. Alastor is going away for the holiday and-"
"Good morning, Minerva. Yes, of course drop by. It's not like I had anything planned for my holiday," he grumped at the elderly witch.
"Oh you hush up, Severus. You can continue your plans, I'll just make myself comfortable in the corner. Unless you planned to go out…?"
He sighed, "No, Minerva. I was going to stay indoors today in my lab. You are of course welcome as long as you don't distract me. I'm making a medical batch today, so it's fine."
"Good. Afterwards Hooch and I were planning on dragging you over to the Three Broomsticks. Don't make plans for dinner, you're ours tonight, dear."
She quickly ended the floo call so he wouldn't be able to get out of it. Leave it to his friends to be strong if meddling witches with a taste to get toasted. At least they were good fun. He might as well enjoy being with them in public while he could. After this year any time in public that wasn't school business would be seen as free time and he refused to give up more of his life than he had too, to the Dark Lord.
Thimi moved the curtains over silently and invisibly to wake up her Mistress. She let the witch sleep in and now it was time to start the day. It was almost 11 o'clock, she was going to be very busy this week and she would make sure the young witch was taken care of, but she also had to take care of herself.
Hermione slowly started to rise from her slumber as the sunlight hit her eyes. She blinked lethargically and looked around at her surrounding before stretching her body out in bed and rolling over onto her back. She rubbed the grit from her eyes and knew it was time to get up and get ready for the day. After getting ready she would try to figure out the day's plan.
She had one day of holiday to herself and planned to stop by the Ministry of Magical France. While she had planned on putting up a ward to prevent the ministry from knowing about her doing magic in her vacation home, she wanted to know if she could legally perform magic outside of her home. She looked up the locations of the magical ministries so she knew where to go.
That would be her first stop. Second stop would be their bookstore and then their robe shop. All of her robes were for that of Scottish weather, none for the warmth of France. Nothing too fancy, she was sure it was going to have a few holes in it by the time the holiday finished, but she also wanted to be prepared. She was comfortable in her muggle clothes, but she wouldn't always be in her muggle clothes during a fight and it would be practical to be comfortable ducking and dodging and what have you in her robes as well as her muggle clothing.
Shouldn't be too hard. While she was there she would be sure to grab Thimi some yards of fine cloth for herself.
The elf in question had planned on staying at the chateau unless her witch called for her. She planned on cleaning up the castle as much as she could before the wizards arrived tomorrow. She would be so happy to see her old boy master Barty. She adored her new mistress, but holding a new baby, that baby would always be one of hers in her heart.
She just hoped that their training wouldn't be too tough. Kind mistress Hermione would just keep pushing herself and then where would Thimi be? Taking care of mistress because she wasn't doing a good job taking care of herself. She was prepared though, because mistress was a Gryffindor.