"A puzzle page?" Barnabas repeated, baffled. "Why?"

"We already have a daily crossword," Hermione said patiently. "I'm just suggesting we have a whole sheet taken up by puzzles instead of only above the fold."

"The crossword writer is hard pressed as it is to write one per day," Barnabas objected. "To do more—"

"Not more crosswords," Hermione interrupted, annoyed. "Other puzzles."

Barnabas looked very confused. He looked up at Leland, who sighed.

"Our market research has told us that the crossword is one of the top reasons people say they subscribe to the Daily Prophet," he explained. "By expanding the puzzle page, we hope to appeal to this audience more and draw in new subscribers."

"Oh." Barnabas looked thoughtful. "What kind of other puzzles are there?"

"Runic puzzles," Hermione said promptly. "Cursebreaker puzzles. We could do just a basic jumble – like a word scramble – too."

"This is a lot," Barnabas protested. "I haven't the slightest idea what a cursebreaker puzzle would look like." He looked rather baffled at the prospect of the entire thing.

"I'm not saying you would have to write them," Hermione said testily. "Just include them."

"Well, naturally not," Barnabas agreed. He gave Hermione a quizzical look. "Do you intend to write them?"

"No!" Hermione was hard-pressed not to throw her hands up in aggravation. "We can hire someone!"

"With what budget?" Barnabas demanded. "Who would we even find?"

"I'm sure Hermione can handle finding someone to write her new puzzles," Leland assured Barnabas, stepping forward to smooth things over. "And as for budget, I have some numbers, Barnabas, that I think we should go over. The Classified section here, for example – what are we charging per line?"

Hermione scowled and wandered off into the Daily Prophet building, leaving the two men to talk numbers and advertising, neither of which particularly interested her in the slightest. With the silver permission bangle on her wrist, theoretically, she could access anywhere she wanted to go in the building, and she was curious to try it out.

The Daily Prophet had an interesting setup, Hermione noted. The hallway was bland and boring, with doors to a few offices, but as she reached the end of the hallway, it was clear that most of the work happened here.

There was a large room with dozens of cubicles set up, giant chalkboards, with some sort of printers whizzing away at the side. The room was loud and bustling with activity, and Hermione noted several writers wearing earmuffs of some sort as they typed away on typewriters, presumably to help them focus.

At the front of the room were two boards – an enormous chalkboard, and an enormous corkboard that seemed to have the incomplete proofs of the next issue pinned on it. There was a man frowning and charming different stories to appear in different places, resizing things to see if they would fit, while Sherrie Dunlap, the News Editor, was having some sort of staff meeting in front of the chalkboard with her team. Hermione drifted closer to see what she could overhear.

"The werewolf house opens tomorrow," Sherrie said, chalk clacking on the board as she wrote. "We need someone there to cover the opening. We can use it as a jumping-off point to question the security at the World Cup."

"On it," someone said from the crowd, and Sherrie nodded.

"We need someone else on this Gobstones story," she said, pointing to an item on the board that said bloody gobstones. "An entire shipment of Gobstones was cursed. They've been crushing kids' fingers and drawing blood. Parents are outraged. How did this happen? What kind of quality and safety checks does the Gobstones factory have? What is the Ministry doing about it? Has anyone been fined? Have they sent safety inspectors to examine the facility?"

"I know someone in the Gobstones factory," one writer volunteered. "I'll use my in to get to the bottom of this."

"Excellent," Sherrie said, writing something next to the gobstones item. "Next! Dickens, where are you at with that goblin story?"

"Still digging," a writer from the crowd said promptly. "I've got the basics of the story, but there's something about the way people clenched up when I interviewed them that makes me suspicious they're covering up something big. I'll dig for another day or two before letting it go."

"Perfect. Rita?"

"I've got a lead that someone broke out of Azkaban the night the dementors vanished," Rita said smugly. "I need a bit more proof, and I'm hoping to get a name, but I fully intend on tracking that down."

Sherrie whistled. "Well. Alright, then." She clapped her hands. "Everyone get to it! I need drafts by two at the latest!"

The writers all scattered, and Sherrie seemed to hunch over, exhausted. She straightened a moment later as Hermione came closer, blinking.

"Didn't see you there," she said. "Everything going well?"

Hermione blew out her hair in frustration. "I guess. I left Leland to talk to Barnabas about numbers and such."

"Why did you come, then?" Sherrie said, ever the sharp one. Hermione winced, grinning sheepishly.

"Am I that obvious?" she asked.

"I have years of sniffing out the truth," Sherrie told her, smirking. "Out with it – what's going on?"

"I want to expand the puzzle page," Hermione confessed. "I thought it'd be easy enough – a couple more puzzles under the fold, boom, full puzzle page. But Barnabas seems to think we can't afford it or that it's stupid—"

"Barnabas Cuffe got the job because I didn't want it," Sherrie said flatly. "I'd much rather be on the floor in the heat of it all than dealing with cranky advertisers and the Ministry all day. Come on, let's see what we can do about your puzzle page."

She led Hermione over to the layout wizard, who was still rearranging things.

"Hermione, this is Tetris," she introduced. "Tetris, this is Hermione Granger, the new owner."

Tetris nodded his head slightly. "Pleased 'ta meetcha."

"Tetris? Is that your real name?" Hermione asked, astonished. The man grinned widely.

"Nah," he dismissed. "'s a nickname a Muggleborn gave me. Has to do with rearranging or summat, I think. Never could remember my real name, anyway – some hoity-toity long thing like GawainRobinHenryRichard that nobody liked anyway. Tetris 's better."

He grinned, and Hermione found herself grinning back.

"Hermione has an idea for the crossword page," Sherrie said. "She wants to add more puzzles. Can you bring up that sheet?"

Tetris nodded and flicked his wand, and the proofs all shifted and moved around, the crossword page now pinned up on the board in the middle.

"Right now, we've got the crossword, an' usually some sorta story continuation on the bottom, maybe a coupla ads," Tetris said. "Nuthin' important, really. What were you thinkin' you wanted to see?"

"A word jumble," Hermione said, starting off easy.

"I've seen those," Tetris said. He flicked his wand again, and a rough sketch of a jumble landed on the proof, pushing out an ad. "What else?"

"A cursebreaking puzzle," Hermione said. "Like, imagine a grid where you have to put the right marks in to undo a hypothetical curse."

"I can do a curse," he said, flicking his wand, and an 8x8 grid appeared on the page as well.

"A runic puzzle," Hermione said, getting more excited. "Like an actual, incomplete warding circle, and the player has to complete the circle by filling in the missing runes."

Tetris paused a moment, thinking, before flicking his wand again. A circle within a circle appeared on the page, the words RUNES GO HERE written between the two. Hermione laughed.

"A real warding circle?" Sherrie said, looking at Hermione curiously.

"Yes," Hermione said emphatically. "If trouble is coming – if You-Know-Who is planning a return with the help of Pettigrew, people need to be prepared. If we make learning wards fun, through puzzles, maybe people will pick up how to protect themselves and their homes along the way."

"That's low-key brilliant." Sherrie looked mildly impressed. "I never would have thought of that."

"Any other puzzles?" Tetris asked. "If y'want to take up the whole page, there's room left."

"I don't know." Hermione frowned. "I wonder if we could do some sort of logic puzzle, too."

Sherrie laughed.

"Trying to teach the Wizarding World critical thinking?" she commented. "Let's keep our goals realistic, now."

Hermione grinned, a bit embarrassed.

"This is all entirely reasonable," Sherrie said, looking it over. "We consistently get feedback that the crossword is many people's favorite part of the paper, so this will go a long way in making those people happy, I suspect."

Hermione had an idea.

"Why don't you get another crossword?" she suggested. "Trade The New York Ghost or The Wizard's Voice for ours. Then each paper can publish two."

"Like a syndicate?" Sherrie asked, considering. "That has potential, possibly. We'd have to decide which paper has the better puzzles, but our writer would probably love a task that wasn't just creating the crosswords. It'd be a nice change of pace getting to solve a few instead."

Hermione beamed. She felt much better about her idea after talking to Sherrie. And the layout Tetris had sketched out looked good.

"I can put feelers out for a puzzle writer," Sherrie told Hermione. "There are a few people I know – they'll want a full salary, of course, but—"

"That's fine," Hermione cut her off. "I'll invest more directly if necessary. Though I don't think it'll be an issue – Leland's talking to Barnabas about advertising, and I think another classified sheet too."

Sherrie blinked. "…just like that?"

"I mean, yes? I'm the owner now, right?" Hermione bit her lip. "I thought it was customary for people to invest directly in their business."

"Generally speaking, sure, when major changes are happening." Sherrie looked Hermione over, examining her with a scrutinizing gaze. "Most business owners would not start investing personal gold for something as superfluous as a puzzle page."

"It's not superfluous to me," Hermione argued, embarrassed.

"You're going to put your own gold on the line for this?"

"Look," Hermione snapped. "It's not just puzzles. It's puzzles with a purpose – warding circles can save someone's life someday. A cursebreaking puzzle will expose people to new ideas about magic and how it works. The jumble can include useful spells that people might not know. And a logic puzzle or brain teaser of some sort could gradually help people learn how to figure out the truth on their own. This is important, Sherrie. It's not just puzzles to me."

Hermione stood tall and firm after that pronouncement, trying to look confident and adult. Sherrie was still looking her over, evaluating, and after a long moment, she nodded.

"I'll keep your motivations in mind when looking for a puzzle writer," she said, finally giving Hermione a respectful nod, and Hermione felt her knees go weak with sudden relief. Sherrie looked back at the layout, nodding slowly to herself, almost lost in thought. "A puzzle page with a purpose – that's something I can get behind."