Chapter 4: Hermione Granger, Reluctant Dragoman

McGonagall's summons found Hermione at half past six in the morning, before breakfast, before her alarm, and — most unfortunately — before she had finished the three-paragraph addendum she was drafting for her Arithmancy revision notes on the subject of base-seven harmonic sequencing. The summons came in the form of a Patronus: a silver cat, needle-sharp at the ears, that landed on her dormitory windowsill, sat for a moment with its tail arranged around its feet in a way that conveyed, entirely without words, that this was not a request, and then dissolved. Hermione was dressed and down the stairs before her dormitory-mates had stirred.

McGonagall's office, at this hour, smelled of pine resin and old parchment and the particular quality of authority that accumulates in a room over decades of consequential decisions. The Headmistress was standing at her desk rather than sitting behind it, which Hermione had come to recognise as a specific register of seriousness. The portraits on the walls were, for the most part, feigning sleep. For the most part.

'Miss Granger.' McGonagall did not sit. 'We have a situation.'