A new pattern settled over Hermione's life as the next few weeks passed by. The boring mundane life of a school student by day, a budding magical practitioner by other stolen moments.
By day, she was the perfect, if a little more quieter than usual, genius that she was. She sat in classes, the teacher's voices washing over her. She acted her part well, doing things as they were expected of her. It did not require her conscious attention. She did it all with automatic, mechanical motions. Her mind was, however, miles away from the classroom.
She speculated magical theory while copying arithmetic problems. Visualised spell matrices while underlining sentences in English literature. Considered how to increase the conduit efficiency of her body while pretending to follow along to a history lesson on Victorian industry.
When the final bell rang, she walked home like any other child, exchanged the usual pleasantries with her parents, and retreated to her room. That was when the real day began.
Evenings were reserved for practice and experimentations. She practiced not just charms she knew from memory but tried new applications by moulding her magic to achieve desired effects, to refine a new casting style suited for her – wordless, fluid, fast and minimal.
Some nights she returned to light manipulation, trying to move beyond altering brightness or hue, experimenting with shaping light into finer, more stable forms. Other nights she worked on telekinesis, honing precision rather than brute strength. She could now guide objects through intricate flight paths — weaving circles, spirals, and complex arcs in the air — and keep them steady.
When that became too easy, she layered the difficulty. Two objects, then three, each tracing a different path under her simultaneous control. It demanded more mental discipline than raw magical effort, and that challenge pleased her.
She revisited her earlier experiment to hide the glow, despite its difficulty. She had finally managed to cloak the glow for full two minutes, albeit it strained her. Casting anything during that window still overloaded her badly, making her vision swim. She made a note to return to it later, when her capacity improved.
It wasn't all just spells she remembered from books. She created new applications too, with her magic acting as the enabler of her will in the physical realm. She willed her magic to form a blade, to cut through a paper sheet. It wasn't a clean cut as she was expecting. It was a rough tear, yet it was proof it worked.
Despite her careful approach, she couldn't resist testing her limits. She didn't do it recklessly but didn't avoid it either. She believed that increasing her body's efficiency and the amount of magic it could channel depended on how much she used it. Just like a muscle, you can only grow it when it is regularly pushed, but with plenty of rest in between.
After pushing herself too far one Thursday, resulting in a nosebleed and severe migrain that last two days, she had to admit to herself that she needed to take a break.
And so, Saturday became, reluctantly, a rest day from magic, not by choice, but necessity.
---
That afternoon, she found her father in the living room, glasses low on his nose, sipping tea while scanning the Financial Times. The rustle of the paper was the only sound, and the numbers and names on the page drew her attention immediately.
She leaned on the arm of his chair, eyes flicking over the columns. The knowledge was there in her head, clear as memory: which of these companies would grow into giants, which would vanish, and which would fail spectacularly.
She tilted her head to the side, considering. Why not? I have the knowledge, so why not use it? Besides, more money is always welcome. More money, more resources, more freedom.
Without a word, she reached down and plucked the paper from his hand.
"Hermione!" he objected, startled by the abruptness, yet his lips twitched with amusement. "I was reading that."
Hermione didn't respond but quickly scanned the whole page. Seeing her expression made him pause, feeling something else was at play here.
She tapped the names of a few companies, gesturing to her father. "Invest in these companies. They'll make you a good profits." She took a pause, and spoke again, pointing at another ones. "Sell any of these stocks that you might have. These companies are going to tank soon in a few years."
He frowned, looking over her shoulder at the newspaper.
"You realise those are tech companies, right? Computers, the internet, and…" he peered closer, "…mobile phones. You've seen how big they are now, darling. No one's going to carry one of those bricks around unless they've got clown trousers."
"Oh, don't worry about that. They'll fit in a pocket, in a few years." Hermione said matter-of-factly, still reading. "Smaller than a wallet. Everyone will carry one. They'll use them for news, messaging, pictures, music. Everything."
He gave a short laugh. "You make it sound like science fiction."
"Future of technology always sounds like science fiction." She folded the paper neatly and handed it back.
Before he could answer, her mother walked in with a plate of biscuits. "What are you two conspiring about?"
"Your daughter's trying to turn me into a stock-market gambler," her father said, half amused, half skeptical.
Her mother set the biscuits down. "Are you going to listen?"
"I might," he said, watching Hermione with a thoughtful expression. "She's either frighteningly confident or just frightening."
Hermione picked up a biscuit. "It's not gambling when you already know the outcome."
Her parents exchanged a look — part humour, part consideration.
Finally, her father shrugged. "Alright. A small amount. Consider it… an experiment."
Her mother smiled. "If it works, you can pick our next holiday."
Hermione smiled cheekily. "You might want to start looking at brochures already. I want to go someplace cold."