Hermione arrived at her internship one Monday morning to discover everyone in an uproar, people running all over the place. Even the copy-editors and fact-checkers had been pulled into the chaos, all of them taking orders from the seldom-seen people in the binding room. There was a lot of yelling, but there still seemed to be some underlying order to the abrupt explosion of chaos. Curious, Hermione located her boss.
"Mr. Vitac?"
Cadmus looked down at her. "Oh. Good morning, Hermione."
"Good morning, sir," she greeted. "Sir… what on earth is going on here?"
"What's going on?" He laughed. "Student booklists came out! We have to be ready!"
"Book lists?" Hermione repeated. "Oh, you mean for Hogwarts?"
"For Hogwarts, for Beauxbatons, for Durmstrang, for Ilvermony – we publish a lot of the most used textbooks. And all of them publish their book lists the same week. And we need to be ready!"
He gestured with his wand at all the chaos.
"Right now, people are finding the masters of the textbooks required. Things will settle down once all the Master copies have been located. Then the spellers will be quite busy for the week, duplicating as many books as required for the pending orders."
"Pending orders?" Hermione questioned. "How do you know how many to make if the bookstores haven't even put in an order yet?"
"The schools send notice of how many students will require a particular book," Cadmus said. "We make that many, plus 5-10%. It's usually pretty accurate."
Hermione stared at the chaos, pages performing daring feats of leaping ladder to ladder, tossing books down to fact-checkers, who sprinted back and forth from the spelling room.
"Um," Hermione said. "How should I help?"
Cadmus looked down at her, smiled, and patted her shoulder.
"Why don't you start with coffee and tea for all the spellers?" he suggested. "They're going to need it."
Hermione didn't much like playing coffee girl at her internship, but she didn't let it show. When she walked into the spelling room levitating two large trays in front of her with coffee and tea, the spellers barely let her set them down before descending upon the trays in desperation, craving their caffeine. It was like watching wild animals descend on a carcass at a zoo, and Hermione was amused to watch them fight each other over the sugar and milk.
Hermione looked around the room. Books were scattered everywhere, large tables covered with master copies, tall piles of book copies stacked on the floor. There were large charts pinned to the one of the walls, each headed with a school's name. The chart listed titles and authors, what year, required copies, and copies produced so far. Hermione found the Hogwarts list and moved closer, scanning the chart.
"…the Lockhart books?" she exclaimed. "All of them?"
One of the copiers looked up from her cup at Hermione's exclamation, giving her a grimace.
"We haven't the slightest idea, either," she told her. "There's no reason for that."
"I'm betting the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher made it a condition of her contract," another copier said, coming over to join the conversation. "That either she got to include all the Lockhart books as class texts, or she wouldn't take the post."
"Why do you presume it's a she?" the first copier snapped.
"Oh, come on," the second copier scoffed, pointing at the list with his tea. "It's got to be a fangirl of some sort. No sane person would ask for those as legitimate textbooks."
They started arguing, and Hermione winced and moved on to the pile of books on one of the tables. Some of the spellers were already adjusting the Master copies' spells, removing the copyright protection spells and preparing them for duplication. One of them glanced down at Hermione.
"Going back to Hogwarts, are you?" she said. Hermione nodded, and the speller smiled. She went over to a man who looked like a hawk, before coming back to her.
"I'm Sylvia," she told her. "You can work your internship in this room, today, and try to help us duplicate the books."
Hermione was shocked. "I can?"
Sylvia gave her a small smile, shrugging. "Sure. Why not? You're supposed to learn this sort of thing here, right?"
Hermione didn't correct her, and Sylvia took Hermione over to a corner out of the way and showed her the Gemino curse.
"It's not a very difficult spell, perhaps, but it does require focus and enough power to back it up," she explained. "See if you can't copy one or two of your required spell books today. If you do, you can take them with you, and you'll have that many fewer to buy!"
"I can keep them?" Hermione asked.
"Sure." Sylvia smiled. "Any books you manage to duplicate today are yours. Be careful not to wear yourself out, though! And don't be too hard on yourself – Gemino is a tricky spell."
Sylvia left her alone after that, and Hermione clutched The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 – a book she had already had for a year. She bit her lip, looking down at the book. Even if it was difficult, she might as well try.
The Gemino curse had a tricky sort of wand movement, and Hermione practiced it a couple times before aiming it squarely at the book.
"Gemino!"
There was a rush of power from her, and suddenly there was another book sitting there. It was as if it had popped into existence out of nowhere.
Hermione squealed happily, the noise entirely undignified. She found herself utterly unable to care. She had just made a book-!
After a minute of celebrating, Hermione considered the book and frowned. Sylvia had said it was hard. And she'd just gotten it on her first try.
Curious, Hermione held her wand and closed her eyes, mentally tracing from her wand to deep inside her, and when she reached the 'pool' of power inside of her, she gasped. Nearly a third of it was gone! A third!
Never had a spell taken so much out of her, Hermione was certain. Except, maybe, when she transfigured the lead pipe, at the beginning of her first year. But she had been weak, then, and hadn't been practicing. She was much stronger now - and it had still taken a third!
Hermione looked to the duplicators and spellers with new respect. If they could cast this curse all day long…
She shivered. That was power.
Well. At least she'd made a book for Harry. She doubted he would have gotten one in advance.
Mentally shrugging to herself, Hermione aimed her wand at the book again.
"Gemino!"
Again, the strong rush of power, and another book popped into existence. It was only slightly less exciting the second time, and Hermione still felt flush with her success. Curious to see if this one had used the same amount of power, Hermione traced her power back inside of herself, only to find that her power reserves were now half full.
…Half full?
Half?
Hermione had not taken a math class in a long time, but she was relatively sure that one third plus one third was two thirds, not one half. Two thirds of her power should be missing, not one half.
Hermione paused.
"Gemino!"
There were three copies, now, not counting the master. Hermione quickly mentally dived back down her arm into herself, to find about one third of her power remaining.
Hermione wanted to bash her head off the wall. This didn't make any sense!
Well. At least she had copies for Harry, Ron, and Neville, now. She didn't dare make copies for her Slytherin friends, as they'd take offense, and she would be surprised if her Ravenclaw friends hadn't already bought the book a while ago as she had.
If she only had one or two spells left in her, she was going to make it count. Hermione wandered over to the table of Masters, replaced the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2, and slipped off Gadding with Ghouls. She returned to her corner, looking at it distastefully. This was going to be a textbook?
Annoyed, she pointed at it, carefully tracing the spell with her wand and casting.
"Gemino!"
The book popped into existence, but the strong rush of power felt less strong this time. Hermione was concerned, before she tried casting again.
"Gemino!"
To her astonishment, it worked again, and she didn't feel entirely exhausted – just like she had been running very hard, somehow. Hermione took a moment to center herself, reaching for her power, to find it half full.
What?
The spell, Hermione decided, either made absolutely no sense, or Hermione was rapidly improving at it, or Hermione had some kind of superhuman power-recovery system. She'd never heard of regenerating power so quickly – though, upon reflection, it wasn't really the kind of thing often discussed. Was this what casting magic was like as you got older? Powerful spells would empty your reserves, but they'd replenish fast enough you'd barely notice?
Could a witch train herself to have seemingly infinite power?
Hermione had no idea.
"Gemino!"
Hermione tried to keep an awareness of her power inside herself, watching this time as the spell erupted from her wand, duplicating the book. The power for the spell flooded out through her and her wand, leaving her with about a third, but even as Hermione watched, her power started regenerating quickly, recovering to about a half in a minute, slowing at that point, but still coming back to her much faster than she'd ever imagined.
At this rate, she could completely drain her power, and it'd all be back within an hour, Hermione estimated.
Hermione grinned.
There were seven Lockhart books. If she wanted to make four copies of each one (for herself, Harry, Neville, Ron), she would need to cast Gemino twenty-eight times (twenty-seven, minus the one she'd already done). If she cast a conservative seven times an hour, she'd be done in four hours. If her regeneration rate held steady.
Hermione began casting.
It was fun. It was simultaneously a rush to feel so much power leaving her at once and utterly exhausting, to feel so much magic drain all at once. And her magic seemed excited, wanting to rise to the challenge – even as low as Hermione got, her magic would regenerate even quicker, and after she'd caught her breath again, she'd be able to cast again. And again. And again.
When she took a break for lunch, she'd copied all the Lockhart books already - complete sets of books for her, Harry, Neville, and Ron. She looked at them proudly, neat little stacks of eight books that hadn't existed before, pulled into being by her power and sheer force of will.
She glanced back at the big table, where everyone was still casting, numbers still updating automatically on the charts as done books were put into big bins. She turned back to her own little piles, thinking, before raising her wand again.
By the end of the day, she had ten piles, instead of four. She was sweaty, exhausted, and kind of crazed-looking, but she felt exhilarated. She'd never used to much magic for so long a period of time.
This must be what Aurors felt when they trained, Hermione mused, wiping her forehead and the back of her neck with her robes. They must cast powerful spells over and over and over, then take a break, and then practice again, and again, and again. She could scarcely imagine the amount of power necessary to do such a thing. That must be why they had to practice and train so much – to increase their magical endurance and regeneration rates as much as the possibly could.
Sylvia came over to Hermione at the end of the day and gave her a smile.
"Did you manage to duplicate a few of your books?" she asked.
"Those," Hermione said, gesturing clumsily to the piles at her feet. Sylvia's eyes widened and sparkled.
"Well done!" she exclaimed. "You're what, almost thirteen? I never thought you'd manage to duplicate eight books! Good for you!"
She beamed at Hermione, who looked back at her, puzzled.
"No…" Hermione said slowly. "I didn't manage to duplicate eight…"
Sylvia blinked at her.
"I managed to duplicate seventy-four," Hermione said, sweeping her arm wider.
Slowly, Sylvia turned, looking around at the ten little piles of books stacked nearly around Hermione's seat.
Her eyes grew huge.
Methodically, Sylvia began shrinking them, piling them all into a box she had brought over for Hermione, before handing Hermione the box, her eyes still wide.
"I think," she said faintly, handing the box to Hermione, "that we are going to have to talk to Mr. Vitac about you."