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“This is never going to work,” Harry pointed out with a huff, rubbing his temples as he leaned into his desk. Hermione was, as she often did, pacing the narrow length of his office, a gargantuan ancient tome cradled in her arms and her wand stuck through the French knot at the back of her head. “You’re the one that told me this is never going to work.”
“It’s going to work,” she insisted, her brow furrowing as she turned the delicate, dust covered page with a care belied by her frenzied behavior.
“How many times did you tell me Muggle technology fries out around magic?” He continued with a scowl. “Three quarters of the ideas I’ve had in the last ten years you’ve shot down because they relied on computers.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Harry,” Hermione replied, wrinkling her nose. “I’ve shot down more of your ideas than that.” Harry leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. He really did love his job at the Ministry of Magic. He was doing exactly the sort of work in the Auror’s office that he’d always hoped he’d be doing, work he thought would have made his parents proud. Sirius would have been proud. He clung to that, taking comfort in it on the days when Hermione made him so irrationally insane he wanted to quit and become a hermit.
You’re just not thinking it all the way through,” She insisted, barely losing steam as she lectured and read simultaneously. There were times when he was really envious of her ability to multitask, particularly when his case log started piling up. “With the proper application of protective charms there’s no reason to think we can’t get it up and running.”
Without missing a beat, she reached out and opened his office door. Ron stood on the other side, a large cardboard box in his arms. “Oye, where do you want this?”
Hermione drew her wand from her hair, pointing at Harry’s credenza and Ron obediently shuffled into the room, dropping the box unceremoniously on top of Harry’s improper use of magic forms. On some level Harry thought this was probably deliberate.
“Dad! Shake a leg!” Ron called out into the hall. A moment later Arthur Weasley shouldered his way into the already crowded office, depositing an ancient looking CRT monitor on the credenza beside the box Ron was unpacking.
“What’s that?” Hermione asked, her brow furrowed.
“A computer?” Ron asked hesitantly.
“Well, it used to be a computer,” Harry nodded, stubbornly trying to ignore them and actually get some work done.
“The fellow at the Muggle Flea Market sold us twenty of them for fifty quid,” Arthur said delightedly. “We didn’t find any fleas while we were there though.”
“Well I don’t guess it should matter,” Hermione’s lips puckered in a thoughtful pout. “As long as you put all the proper charms on it.”
Ron nodded with a sigh, “And the one we took to St. Mungo’s, and the one at Hogwarts. We can get a few charms right.”
“Well, no time like the present then,” She nodded firmly, closing her book with a note of finality. Dust curled up from the pages and she pressed it into Ron’s arms. He let out a cough, hugging it to his chest.
“What’s it going to do?” Arthur asked excitedly as Hermione reached out, pressing the little toggle switch on the edge of the keyboard. There was a pleasant chime followed by a cartoon of a boxy computer with a happy face.
“Change the world,” Hermione replied with a gravitas Harry felt was entirely unbefitting the situation. She raised her wand, her eyes narrowed in concentration and without meaning to he shifted down in his chair until he was nearly cowering behind his desk.
There was a burst of light and a conclusive blast blew the papers from his desk, sending them drifting to the floor. Ron had backpedaled into the corner by the door, ducking behind the book he still held and Arthur was blinking blankly at Hermione who was staring down the computer as if it were a death eater.
“Those charms never do that when I use them,” Arthur observed softly to Harry. Harry nodded slowly, opening the drawer of his desk and pulling out a Misuse of Muggle Artifacts form as Hermione cautiously approached the computer.
“Oh my god, it worked,” she whispered reverently.
In the corner of the screen was an initial capital M in a deep red, the faintest gold gilding its tasteful illumination. Across the top of the screen where the words “Search Tomes, Scrolls, and Books on MSTOR.”
“Everything’s here,” She said, tearing up, a beatific light on her face as if she were having a religious experience. “The medical archive at St Mungo’s, the Hogwarts Library.” She tapped the screen with her wand and a list of titles appeared. Ron leaned over her shoulder curiously.
“Is that the Department of Mysteries Reference Repository?” He asked. Hermione’s head bobbled excitedly, too overcome to speak. Ron leaned back on his heels, making a horrified face at Harry behind her. Harry let out a resigned sigh, opening his other desk drawer and shuffling down to the bottom for the Magical Accidents and Catastrophes forms.