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The Gilded Cage	By : ApollinaV Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 118790 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter or anything recognizable to the HP-Universe, JK Rowling does. I’m not making any money off the writing of this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter 9 – Ex Post Facto The next morning Hermione was even worse for wear, she’d spent the night on the couch hurriedly scribbling every abstract thought and notation that came to her regarding freshening charms. Every muggle corner market and stop-n-go shop had ‘em; spritzers for the upholstery, socket fans filled with liquid potpourri, even little evergreen trees for the automobile. The wizarding world didn’t bother with such things. What was the use? A few waives of a wand and the air was clear and fresh again. But what if they could be convinced they needed something like that? Hermione could create a market for some such charmed device, witches would be wondering how they ever go along without one. Her head pounded with the possibilities. Granddaddy Granger smelled of warm pipe tobacco, flannel shirts, and his fishing hole after a good rainstorm. It was the kind of scent that inspired comfort and many happy memories. Occasionally when she pined for his bear hugs and mugs of cocoa on the back porch she tried to think about how he smelled and often wished she could just inhale whole big lungfuls of it at a time. Was it possible to create an enchanted device to absorb a scent, regardless of how complex, and faithfully reproduce it on command? How many galleons would someone pay for something like that? Her staff would not be happy. At least not until the bonus checks were drafted. Hermione had them working around the clock on all sorts of projects covering every discipline of magic. They needed a break. She needed a vacation. But more importantly she needed to expand. What started in the Weasley’s garage five years ago, had moved and expanded four times since then. This time she would just purchase the warehouse outright. Eight months ago when Hermione knew she needed to expand she balked at the idea of ever filling up a two story warehouse and settled on a more ‘manageable’ space. Now she just wished she had the time to talk to a realtor again. Time. That was yet another project. If she ever had the time to get around to it. True all the ‘known’ Time-turners had been destroyed in her fifth year of Hogwarts, but the original research still existed. Granted, it was mostly in Middle English, but eventually Hermione would get ‘round to it. Then maybe she’d have the time to hit the stacks of half formed ideas and shelved projects. Maybe. At present, if Hermione had a time turner she’d cuddle up with her pillow and tell the world to bite her ass. “Crooks!” she screamed, “I’m running late so get your gingy-butt over here.” She knew he understood her perfectly well; every morning was the same fight. Even in the magical realm there wasn’t an easy or pleasant way of giving a cat a pill. Crooks was too smart to take it in his food, too cunning to let her sucker him into it with a belly rub, and much too devious to let himself be found every morning when she hollered for him. And of course Crooks was smart enough to know he needed to take it. That was the problem with Kneazles, too bloody smart. Not that she’d stand for a dunderheaded familiar. “If I have to go hunting for you it’ll be much worse. I’m in no mood to play!” Hermione didn’t have the luxury of waiting on his master’s leisure this morning. “I’ll stun you if I have to!” Of course she didn’t really mean it, how could she? The sad truth was Crooks was no longer a kitten. Hermione had a difficult time imagining he’d ever been a kitten. Kittens had kitten-fur, soft spiky kitteny-fur. Crooks would never have stood for it. Sadly though, he was getting on in years. She tapped her foot before threatening, “One! …” a faint scurrying sound came from the bedroom “Two! …” She could hear his nails clattering on the wood floor. “Three!” The grumpy half-kneazle came to a lurching halt in front of her feet and eyed her with angry yellow eyes. She met his glare, “Oh don’t give me that, you marmalade monster. You know it’s for your own good.” Hermione proffered the pill that was supposedly beef flavored and yummy for cats and kneazles alike (Ha!) and watched him grumble a bit before taking it from her. “And I’d better not come back to find it on the rug again.” Hermione could have sworn he rolled his eyes at him, but once the pill was gone she offered him a chicken treat. “Good baby,” she crooned. “Right. Fine. Now that’s settled…” Hermione glanced around her kitchen and parchment littered living room, “Where’s my satchel? I swear… the story of my life, once I get it all together, I can’t remember where I put it… ” Years ago she’d graduated from her small beaded bag that held mostly everything to a Mommy-purse that really did hold everything, before having to trade it in for a messenger bag that held everything plus the proverbial kitchen sink. Hermione pondered a possible scientific explanation. The Law of Expanding Crap. The more room she had to house crap the more crap she found that needed to be housed. It was all patently unfair. She didn’t honestly have time for this, even if she was the boss, Hermione would never think of coming in late or miss a single day of work. That would be inexcusable. “Accio Satchel!” she cried before cringing as a heap of books flipped over. The moments were few and far between, but there were moments when Hermione found herself wishing for a house elf. A little help every now and then wasn’t so much to ask for, was it? The moment Hermione arrived at work she was instantly assailed. Edwards handed her a stack of phone messages, her daily calendar, and the status report of each current project. Hopper wanted to bend her ear just for a tick, which meant he wanted at least an hour of face time to schmooze. Gibson was on to something, which was either earth shatteringly good or bad enough to unmake all creation and break several laws of physics. And Jordan wanted more time off because his wife was going into labor… right now. Jordan was given the week. Thankfully Edwards suggested that he send flowers to the new family or else she certainly wouldn’t have thought about it. Hermione delegated that task to him. Hopper was put off. Indefinitely, if at all possible. First priority was to check on Gibson, Hermione couldn’t really afford any more explosions. The muggles got all flighty last time that happened. It turned out Gibson was on to something, but nothing dramatic, which was just great with Hermione, she couldn’t handle much more drama. By the time she made it to her own office it was past lunch, the phone messages had tripled, and she hadn’t even had the opportunity to check her email. No doubt her inbox would be full. Whereas most wizards wouldn’t give the muggle world a second glance, having an office where electricity and internet connection were available was a necessity. Really the technology gave her quite an advantage over all of her competitors. Most of her staff was accustomed to the strange muggle contraptions and laptops that dotted most of the workstations. It wasn’t that she tried to hire muggleborns, but she mostly snapped up the students that the Ministry tended to overlook regardless of their genius; which invariably meant muggleborns. In all actuality Hermione was more concerned with that intangible spark of brilliance and creative thinking than abbreviations after a name. Before any product was launched it was thoroughly vetted by a series of subject-matter Masters, but most of her staff had only a Hogwarts education. Surprisingly this had the opposite effect of what everyone told her to expect. Early on Hermione was given advice to hire only Masters, but shortly found out that most Masters spent their time arguing with her about why something could not be done. It just wasn’t worth the effort. As most Hogwarts graduates couldn’t get apprenticeships if they didn’t have experience, and couldn’t get experience unless they had apprenticeships they were usually stuck in a weird jobless limbo. Especially if they had the blemish of being muggleborn on their transcripts. But she never had to argue with them when she proposed a new project. Oh certainly there were some incredulous looks and more than a few of them said ‘One. Two. Three. Not it!’ But to date nobody had ever jumped on her desk whining and complaining that she was asking them to do something fundamentally impossible. Maybe only theoretically impossible. By the end of the day, which was somewhere between quitting time and dawn, Hermione had caught up on email, sorted through most of the research left with her, read all the progress reports (which usually took forever because she constantly had to edit, add her own comments, look up facts, and suggest other alternatives), and most of the phone calls had been returned with the exception to the ones who didn’t appreciate being called in the middle of the night. Along the way she managed to grab a bit of nosh courtesy of the clever muggle magic machine the ‘microwave.’ Which just meant Hermione had time to apparate home and drop in bed only to wake five hours later and do it all over again. *
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- 9
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The Gilded Cage