Her experiments were going well as April bled into May, and she was almost certain she'd found her proper path. She wouldn't know if it would work precisely as she wanted without some testing in the muggle world, given the magical one tended to treat what she was doing as more of an amusing quirk than something to be studied. Hermione Granger was confident though that she was going to change the world with this.
Outside of her personal experiments she took Defense class. Professor Quirrel seemed more and more interested in her, and she had to admit, as nervous and stuttering as he could be, if she had a question, he was quick to answer, and often gave her points for inquisitiveness. He invited her to a few after hours sessions in his office, and she was happy to get his opinions on magical combat.
Her ideas with the basic spells, he was quick to point out, were common enough. He'd seen too many fools in his days as a hunter of Dark Wizards go in with only a single fire spell, then be shocked when their flames, which did so well against dark creatures, failed against an intelligent target. He even pointed her in the direction of spells like a fire whip, which, as it maintained a connection with its caster, was not something her enemy could easily turn away, or worse, take control of.
She was still cautious, of course. Professor Quirrel was a good sounding board, but she wasn't going to share all her ideas with him. She only asked him once about potions, for instance, and then mostly to ask about why it was a path so few pursued given it was quite lucrative. His answer was depressingly mundane. Waving a wand, learning an incantation, and simply willing something to happen was easier than spending hours over a bubbling cauldron.
Mind, he did advise her to look into more rituals. The Rites she had returned to Hogwarts were nice enough, but there was power yet untapped in them. Rituals, complex spellcraft that often involved multiple foci and even sometimes more than one magical individual. They were so much that most didn't bother learning more than a few, maybe an Unbreakable Vow for a noble family, but there was more there than that. The ability to bind a soul beyond death, the power to make yourself stronger than the greatest wizard in history. If you were willing to sacrifice for it.
That…was a disturbing train of thought for her. Her goal was such that sacrifices were going to have to be made. What she wanted was not going to happen gently or easily. Still, it wasn't in her, not yet, to hurt anyone or anything else without need, and looking into Rituals, the strongest ones required something far beyond what she was willing to allow herself to do, but she filed them all away. Perhaps, someway, she could find payment for their effects that weren't quite so steep.
Still, given her own idea was working well, she was no longer without swords to use, when the time came. She would have to be cautious, of course. Her desire would require fighting at some point in the future, but she was not, in fact, looking for a battle. She hoped that, if she planned well enough, she might even avoid direct confrontations completely, but as an old saying went, 'hope for the best, plan for the worst', and she intended on following that advice.
It was the end of May when something happened to finally interrupt her studies. A commotion from outside, with flashing lights and a few distant voices, caused her to go to the window and use an old word to open it, allowing her to watch as Harry Potter and the Weasel faced off with Draco and his two henchgoons. She wasn't sure what had happened, but the five were flinging colored lights at each other, basic stunning charms, before Hagrid stormed out of his hut.
The half-giant took three curses, one from the Weasel and two from Draco and…one of the toughs, she wasn't sure which one. He didn't seem phased by them though, and quickly roared at the three Slythrens, ordering them away from his home, loud enough that she could hear him. The three, knocked down by the sheer force of his voice, getting shakily to their feet and then scampered off, shouting threats behind them.
It came out later that day that apparently, Hagrid had acquired a dragon egg at some point, and had, quite illogically and also very illegally, taken it upon himself to hatch the ruddy thing. The two boys, with Harry being a regular visitor to the man, had found the secret, and kept it, and the three Slythrens had, on overhearing something was up, decided to tail the duo, eventually leading to the confrontation she'd witnessed.
Technically, Harry and the Wes…Ronald had done nothing wrong exactly. They hadn't reported a crime, but that was no reason to punish them, especially given that Hagrid himself had only committed the crime of hatching the thing, which was only vaguely against the law. He'd acquired it in a game of cards in Hogsmeade, which was perfectly legal to do there, and thus, it was very much not his fault that it was here in the country which was the only truly illegal part of the whole thing.
That said, Snape, claiming to have witnessed the fight, not that she'd seen him there at all, was quick to take seventy-five points a piece from Harry and Ronald, the pair not even protesting. They looked positively abashed, and everyone who HAD witnessed it raised their voices in protest for the pair, saying it was Draco's group that had flung the first spell, and Snape merely sniffed at that, as he took his seat.
Headmaster Dumbledore was quick to then take fifty points apiece from the three Slythrens, again, to balance the scales, and it was obvious from his expression that Snape had been informed of this earlier, as he winced, but didn't appear shocked in the slightest. Still, they would face no other punishment, as, at the end of the day, it was a battle fought and ended with no harm to either side.
That left the matter of Hagrid, but the Headmaster assured the students that, while he had not purely been innocent in the matter, Hagrid had final say on the rearing of creatures found in the vicinity of Hogwarts as Keeper of the Grounds. His hatching of the beast was well within his right in that position, and in fact, moderately expected, given how it had happened, so he would face no further punishment than a slight garnish of wages to make up for damage done to his own home by the beast in question, and to help facilitate it's transport to a dragon reserve in Romania.
It should have been the end of it, just one more weight on the scale to her desire for change in the magical world. Then said magical world decided that one weight needed to be joined by a thousand more, as men and women from the Ministry for Magic, the governing body of magicals within the borders of the muggle nation of Great Britain, began to come to the school on a regular basis.
For the rest of May and just before testing began in June, they were civil, polite, but forceful that Hagrid needed to come with them to the Ministry's main building somewhere in London. That was all well and good, and had they hidden their contempt for the half-giant, she might have even celebrated them for wanting to get the full story of what had occurred, but it was clear that wasn't what they were doing.
One of the aurors, a sort of police enforcer for the Ministry, all but said they planned on taking him straight to Azkaban, the Wizarding World's worst prison by far. She had, in the back of her mind, already added that to the weight of things that needed changing, but hearing them talk so casually about it, about taking a man who had committed only petty crimes in the grand scheme of things to such a horrid place? It was enough that she almost hexed one of them.
Worse, it was clear they had no intention of hunting down the person who had committed the real crime, the one who had given Hagrid the dragon egg. In fact, the way they spoke, even if he HAD turned in the egg the very instant he had his hands on it, merely possessing it would have seen him sent to the wizarding prison. As if they didn't care about who had committed the offense, only that someone was punished for it.
Her scales filled to overflowing, as she saw the very incident that caused her desire for change writ large before her eyes. Snape was a symptom of this society, not a cause, as none of these people were old enough to have learned beneath him. This was just how the wizarding world was. You found someone to blame for a problem, hit them with the worst punishment you could, and moved on, regardless of their culpability, most often without even investigating whether a crime was real or not, because authority had spoken.
She was deep into her final essay for Defense Against the Dark Arts during lunch when the worst of them came. A toad of a woman, screeching about how she'd see Hagrid clapped in irons. She had a whole slew of aurors with her, all looking like they would rather be anywhere else, but raising no objections to her as she stormed up to the table at the head of the Great Hall, and even held out an order from the Ministry.
The Headmaster, reading the order carefully, even pulling out reading glasses rather theatrically, noted that it lacked the seal of the Chief Warlock, a position held by the 'Strongest' Wizard in the country, which was currently Headmaster Dumbledore himself. He openly mocked the woman to her face, pointing out that even if the Minister for Magic HAD issued the order, he would need a full majority vote of the Wizengamot to bring it into compliance, and he doubted very much the man had enough backing to override his own decision on the matter.
The woman was not deterred, and continued to screech and croak for most of the rest of the meal, driving the students to leave as she made a fool of herself. Afterwards, Hermione heard her voice from outside, and going to the window, which she had learned to leave open, just for the fun of it, she watched as the woman walked right up to Hagrid's hut, and all but demanded he consent to being taken.
The half-giant refused to even answer her, and when she pulled her wand, it was one of her own aurors who stopped her from casting. He said something that seemed to make the horrid woman go purple for a moment, before she stormed back towards the school, only to stop when she found it was only herself, as the aurors walked to the stone line just past Hagrid's cottage, and then vanished, appirating being the preferred method of transport for adult wizards and witches.
The woman looked almost ready to return to Headmaster Dumbledore without her entourage, but then paused, screwed up her face as her whole body shook in frustration, and then began to march away. Hermione, looking down at her, realized she was close enough, and with a wicked grin on her face, held up her hand, her wand slipping into it from her sleeve where she'd taken to keeping it, and began to cast.
The spell she used was, strictly speaking, not one for polite company. It had been part of a book of 'prank' spells that varied from harmless pointless, to actually terrifyingly effective weapons, depending on circumstances. It was also something for Third Years or so, as such, casting it left her somewhat drained, but she stayed long enough to watch the woman get just past the small stone wall, and then vanish.
The woman vanished, specifically. The toad's skin, or rather, all her clothing and jewelry down to her skivvies had been left behind, falling into a neat little pile on the ground. Hermione smiled as, within seconds, a very panicked looking young man appeared, looking for all the world like he'd stared into some dark abyss and had it stare back at him, stumbling forward to grab the bundle of clothing, and then vanished, once more leaving the items behind.
Seeing a bit more fun to be had, Hermione banished the spell, a simple enough task, even if it left her all but completely drained now, given the distance. An older woman then appeared, her robes marking her as an auror, probably a high ranking one, who looked about with the air of someone expecting an ambush, even drawing her wand at one point as she approached the pile of robes and jewelry.
The auror woman spent a moment or two inspecting the things, even casting a spell at them, but then shaking her head as she gathered it all up herself, and vanishing, leaving Hermione to smirk at the slightly haunted look she thought she could see on the woman's face as she did so. It was worth having to trudge back to her dorm to sleep for most of the rest of the day to recover from the exhaustion she felt.