Mischief and Bravado
Hermione’s heart hammers as she strides across the main floor of the Darling Square Library, her head on a swivel as she does her best to be inconspicuous. She lets out a sigh of relief as she wends between two bookshelves and spots George seated at the small table in the back corner.
“I’m going to need your help.”
George looks up at the sound of her voice and raises an eyebrow. “I take it you didn’t get the list?”
Hermione shakes her head and drops heavily into the seat beside him. “No, and the reference librarian at the desk might throw me out if I try to confund her again. That was just worse than the land registry.”
George’s lip twitches. “Granger, I thought I was the one who was in danger of getting us kicked out of the library.”
“Oh, hush.” Hermione rolls her eyes. “I just may have … underestimated how difficult it would be to get a list of library users.”
George frowns at her. “How so?”
“Well, I was right earlier.” Hermione bites her lip. Australian library privacy policies are similar to British ones when it comes to giving out patron information.”
George leans back and crosses his arms over his chest, forehead crinkling. “What exactly does that mean?”
Hermione sighs. “Most countries have some sort of privacy requirement for personal information related to government entities, which means public libraries are subject to them, since the libraries are funded by the government.” She glances at George, who simply nods. She takes this as an invitation to continue.
“Because of these requirements it’s not just against policy, it’s actually illegal for libraries to give out personal information about their patrons. Things like full names, birth dates,” she catches his eye, “and residential addresses are all protected.”
“So pretty much everything we’re looking for,” George says.
Hermione purses her lips and nods. “Pretty much.”
“Alright.” George leans forward and folds his hands on top of the table. “You said you thought this might be the case. So what’s our new plan?”
Hermione pauses and chews the inside of her cheek.
George watches her, eyes narrowing. “Come on, Hermione. What’s your plan? I know you have one.”
“Even with a confundus, it’s going to be difficult to convince anyone here to just give us a list of everyone with a library card and their address,” she says slowly.
George nods across from her, a smile glinting at the corner of his mouth. “Which is how you almost got us kicked out of the library.”
She ignores him. “So we’ll need to do more than just confuse them. We need a distraction.”
“And that’s where you need my help.” George’s smile widens and Hermione is reminded forcefully of how he was at school, all mischief and bravado.
“Yes.” She rakes a hand through her hair and glances around the library, wondering now if this all isn’t a terrible idea. “I was hoping you had something we could use to distract them so one of us can get into the computer and print off a list.”
George bends and takes his bag from the floor, dropping it onto the table in between them. “How much time do you think we’ll need?”
Hermione pauses, considering. “About ten minutes would be perfect,” she says at last. “That should be long enough to figure out where the list is, print it, and get out of there.”
George gives a short nod and opens his bag. “Two decoy detonators should do it,” he says, almost to himself. “We can drop one near the front to draw everyone out and then another downstairs to get them further away. You’ll just need to make sure you get behind the desk without being seen.”
Hermione grimaces. “And now I wish I had thought to ask Harry for his invisibility cloak before we came here.”
George snorts. “That would make things a bit easier. I have some darkness powder with me. We could use that?”
Hermione shakes her head. “I won’t be able to see enough to find the list. No, I’ll just do my best to get behind the reference desk and into the computer without being seen. It can’t be harder than sneaking into Snape’s store room.”
George grins. “It’s always exciting when you get impish, Granger.”
Hermione rolls her eyes and looks down at the table, feeling her cheeks warm. “You’re making fun.”
“No, really.” George leans over the table and sets his chin in his hand, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiles. “I love seeing that brain of yours be put to dangerous uses. We used to say at school that you’d be the perfect partner in crime for us if you ever decided you’d rather make trouble than study.”
She chews her lip, a pulsing flush working its way across her face. “And here I thought I just annoyed you two.”
George’s smile flickers somewhat, and he drops his gaze back to his bag. “So two detonators should work perfectly. I should probably be the one to drop those, since you’re one step away from getting thrown out of here.”
Hermione glares at him. George merely laughs.
“And you’ll be better at using the computer to get the list, so you should be the one to sneak behind the desk.”
Hermione nods. “That should work.”
“Excellent.” George glances down at his watch and then surveys the area around them. “Is there anything we should be waiting for?”
“I don’t think so.” Hermione rises from her seat and takes her bag from the ground, slinging it over her shoulder. “Give me a few minutes to get into position by the desk, and then go ahead.”
George nods, coming to stand beside her. He puts a hand in his bag and turns to look at her. “One last thing before we go.”
Hermione doesn’t say anything, just raises an eyebrow as George takes his wand out of his bag.
“Do you have your wand?” He asks, gesturing to her bag.
“Yeah.” Hermione reaches around her shoulder and finds her wand near the top of the bag’s contents. She slides it out, running her thumb along the smooth wood. “Why?”
“Hold it out this way.”
Frowning and feeling more than a little foolish, Hermione holds her wand out towards him.
“Invenio,” George mutters, tapping Hermione’s wand with his own.
Hermione’s wand glows a faint gold and warms in her hand, a pulse of heat flashing against her palm. She glances up at George. “What—”
“Tracing charm,” he says. “In case something goes wrong and we get separated.”
“How does it work?” Hermione runs her fingers along her wand, the vine now cooled and matte as usual.
“You say the incantation,” George says, “and your wand will point you in the direction you need to go to find whatever it is you’ve traced. Watch.”
He takes several steps away from her, glances over his shoulder, and waves his wand, murmuring the incantation. Hermione watches as George’s wand spins in his hand, coming to land squarely on her right hand.
She smiles, eyes pinging in fascination between their two wands. “Brilliant,” she mutters. “But is there a limit to the range it will work across?” She looks up and meets his eye. “What if I apparate back to the hotel? It would take you quite a while to find me just by following the wand’s direction.”
“There’s an indicator that lets you know how close you are.” George walks towards her and holds out his wand. Hermione takes it and her eyes grow wide. George’s wand pulses with the same heat Hermione had felt from hers when he cast the spell.
“It’s cold when you’re far away and gets warmer as you get closer,” George says, plucking his wand from between her fingers. “It’s not perfect, and not great for long distances, but should be enough for our purposes here.” He twirls his wand and smirks at her. “You weren’t planning on using this little endeavor as an excuse to ditch me, were you?”
“Not anymore.”
George laughs and holds his own wand out. “Glad to hear it. Now you go ahead. Incantation’s invenio.”
Hermione clears her throat and grips her wand. “Invenio,” she says as clearly as she can, touching her wand to George’s. She sees the faint gold glow appear around his wand just as it had hers, and supposes her first attempt was successful.
“Right.” George shoves his wand back in his bag and faces her. “I think we’re ready then, Granger.”
“Lovely.” Hermione stows her wand back in her own bag and straightens. “I’ll meet you back here at the table afterwards.”
“And if you get run out of the library, never to return?”
“Then that joke still won’t be funny.”
“Fine, fine.” George puts his hands up in mock surrender. “I’ll meet you back here. I can promise ten minutes, mind you, not any more.”
Hermione tosses her plait over her shoulder and adjusts the strap of her bag as she turns. “Noted.”
She meanders across the library, trying to appear unassuming. Near the reference desk she ducks into the women’s bathroom, leaning against the wall and waiting for the distraction to ensue.
She doesn’t have to wait long.
A loud bang sounds from outside the bathroom, along with the hiss of what sounds like smoke. Hermione hears the shuffle of feet and suppressed shrieks that must be the library staff and nearby patrons scurrying to see what happened.
Taking a breath, Hermione opens the bathroom door and ducks out.
The main floor of the library is in chaos. Near the front door a cloud of smoke and a cacophony of squawks and bangs emerges. Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione sees the reference librarian and other staff members dart around the disarray.
Hermione crouches behind the reference desk, peering over her shoulder. The computer sits on the desk, the screen lit. Likely the reference librarian hadn’t had time to shut it down properly before running to investigate the tumult.
Kneeling to stay out of sight, Hermione scans the screen in front of her. To her relief, the library software seems to already be opened, and she quickly finds the button on the side of the screen reading Users in bold letters.
A list loads. In the “surname” search field Hermione types “W,” and watches as a new, shorter list populates in front of her. It seems to Hermione the computer knows she is in a rush, the names loading so slowly on the screen they might be dawdling just to laugh at her frustration.
Another booming noise echoes from down the stairs and Hermione glances down at her watch. Nearly seven minutes have elapsed. George has promised ten.
Her heart quickening, Hermione looks back to the list in front of her. No new names load after Wyznewski, Laura finally appears, and she wastes no time as she finds the Print button and holds her breath.
The printer next to the monitor whirs to life, spitting out two, then three, then four sheets of paper. Hermione chews her lip and watches as the blinking “printing” button sputters and dies. Without another moment to pause, she snatches the papers from the tray and hurries away from the desk.
She doesn’t fully exhale until she reaches the table and chairs in the back corner, still mercifully empty. Hermione drops once again into a chair and sets the papers face down on the table, her eyes scouring the area around her for signs of George.
He materializes within a minute, expression bright as he weaves through the bookshelves towards her.
“Got everything?” He asks, setting his bag down under the table and taking the seat beside her.
Hermione nods and gestures to the papers. “I think so.”
“Excellent.”
Hermione’s gaze slides to him. “Your distraction was effective.”
“They always are.” George grins at her. “I told you I would be useful here.”
She bites back a smile. “For the record, I never said you wouldn’t be.”
“For the record, I’m still pretty sure you had thought it.”
“For the record, you can’t prove that.”
“For the record, saying someone can’t prove something is kind of the same thing as admitting they’re right, Granger.”
Hermione lets out a short chuckle and shakes her head as she pulls the printer paper towards her, turning it over so the list of patrons sits in front of her. She spreads the papers out in front of her and chews her lip as she turns towards the first one, bending close as she scans the contents.
The information is organized in five tidy columns: first name, surname, date of birth, phone number, street address. Hermione chews her lip as she takes in the rows upon rows of tidy text.
“Oi, budge over.” George nudges her shoulder and pushes his chair closer to hers, leaning over to study the papers.
Hermione turns and frowns at him. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you read, obviously.”
“I don’t need help reading this,” Hermione says. “It’s just a list of names. Two people really aren’t needed for that.”
George rolls his eyes. “Don’t render me redundant, Granger,” he says. “I need to have something to do, you know, otherwise I just make trouble.”
“I’m sure that’s all too true,” Hermione grumbles, scowling at him.
George leans back in his chair and smiles at her, though it looks to Hermione to be more of a grimace. “I’ll try not to slow you down, but I absolutely will go mental if you make me just sit here in silence with nothing to do.” He drops his gaze and shrugs. “And I’m really not responsible for anything that happens after that.”
Hermione huffs but moves over and sets the list between them.
“I’ll start from the bottom of the Ws, you start from the top,” George says, already bending over the last page of the list.
Hermione ignores him. She tugs the first sheet of paper towards her and bends over so close to the table the ends of her hair brush the scratched wood. She runs a finger down the list as she reads, refusing to give herself an opportunity to miss something.
She makes it through her two pages without finding anything. She sits back in her seat, her fingers twirling the ends of her hair as she chews the inside of her cheek.
“Find anything?” George asks beside her. She can hear him shift as he talks, sliding the paper away from him.
Hermione shakes her head. “No Wilkins at all that I could see.”
“Me either.” He runs a hand through his hair and looks to her. “So I guess this tells us at least one thing, right? Your parents aren’t in Sydney.”
Hermione nods, looking down at the table. “At least we know for sure,” she murmurs.
“And you were right,” George says, nodding towards the table in front of them. “This was a much quicker way of figuring that out.”
Hermione swallows and nods. “Yes it was.”
George gathers the paper into a pile and looks over his shoulder before taking his wand out of his bag. With a quick wave, he vanishes the list of patrons. “Don’t want to leave any evidence,” he says in a light voice as he stows his wand away.
“Good thinking,” Hermione responds. She twists the ends of her hair around her fingers one final time and then gets to her feet. “I suppose we’d best get on to the next, then.”
George raises his eyebrows. “And where is the next stop, exactly?”
“I’ll ask for a map of greater Sydney from the reference desk,” Hermione says. “We’ll map out the different cities and towns surrounding here, and we’ll start going to their public libraries and looking through their user lists.”
George nods. “That seems as good of a next step as any.”
“It will be a bit annoying, having to go to all those different places,” Hermione shrugs. “But I don’t know of a way to look up library user records anywhere other than the individual cities’ library branches. We’ll just have to move quickly and hope Mum and Dad didn’t go too far.”
George furrows his brows and glances back at her. “And what’s the plan if we don’t manage to find them in any of these towns around Sydney?”
Hermione crosses her arms and worries her lower lip. “Then we move on to other Australian major cities.”
George nods again, slowly this time. “So you and I get to take a grand tour of Australian libraries.”
“Excited?” Hermione raises an eyebrow, trying to inject some lightness in her voice.
“Can’t wait.” George sits up and smirks at her. “There’s just one flaw I see in this plan so far.”
Hermione scowls at him. “What?”
“You can’t be the one to go and ask for a map of Sydney from the reference desk. You’re at risk of being thrown out, remember?”
She sighs and rolls her eyes. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“The one piece of leverage I’ve gotten on you in seven years? No. Never.”
“Fine.” Hermione sinks back into her chair and glowers at him. “You do it, then, if it will make you happy.”
“Granger, darling, anything that allows me to be of use to you makes me happy.”
“Just go,” Hermione says, half laughing now as she shoos him away. George goes, sending her one more smug smile over his shoulder as he does.
He returns several minutes later, a bloated and creased map clutched in his hand. “Here you go.”
Hermione takes the map from him and opens it, spreading it over the table. “Perfect,” she says as she scans the roadways and town names. “We can take some notes tonight to use and hopefully find another map at a different library.”
“We can just keep this one,” George shrugs. “I went around the corner and duplicated it so we didn’t have to give it back. I figured you might want to take it with us.”
“Thanks,” Hermione nods. “That will help.”
George returns to his seat and peers over her shoulder. “So where do you want to start?”
Hermione shrugs. “Probably with the closest towns, maybe the ones to the north of the city, and then work our way around from there.”
“Sounds good.” He gestures towards his bag on the ground. “I have enough detonators in there for us to visit six more libraries before we have to call it a night.”
Hermione snorts. “As much as I love the preparation, I think we should probably call it a day.”
George blinks at her. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” Hermione nods, running a hand over her hair and sinking lower in her chair. “We’ll want to rest and pack so we’re a bit better prepared for a full day of going around to different places doing—” she glances up at him and gives a wry smile “doing exactly what we did today.”
“Alright,” he says. “Whatever you want.”
Hermione nods again and folds the map back into its original form before tucking it safely in her bag.
“Ready to eat and go back?” she asks.
George shrugs. “Sure.”
He rises, and they meander through the main floor of the library towards the front doors.
“You know,” George says, swiveling his head around. “I’m going to kind of miss this place.”
“Oh, really?” Hermione raises her eyebrows.
“Yeah,” he says, waving absently to the reference librarian behind the desk. “We’ve spent the better part of two weeks here. You get attached to a place after that kind of time.”
“And here I thought you’d rather die than spend any sort of time in a library.”
“For the record, I never said that.” George wags a finger at her. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Granger.”
Hermione gives him a small smile over her shoulder as she pushes open the heavy front door. “Noted.”
“And while we’re on the subject of wild accusations you have made of me today,” George continues. “You know you never annoyed us when we were at school, right?”
Hermione doesn’t answer, merely arches an eyebrow in his direction as they join the crowd of people in the busy street.
“Alright, fine,” George puts his hands up. “Fine, you didn’t annoy us often. Most of the time you just made us be a little smarter with our plans, which was a net benefit for us.”
Hermione’s lip twitches. “Good to know.”
George grins and nudges her shoulder. “Honestly, when we get back I should remember to thank Ron for always bringing you around. You have no idea how many times you helped us out by repeatedly pointing out the flaws in our plans.”
Hermione’s stomach drops at the mention of Ron, and she crosses her arms over her shoulders. “Great,” she mumbles.
George slants a glance at her, eyebrows furrowing. “What have you heard from Ron and Harry?” he asks, his voice taking on a lighter tone that Hermione suspects is meant to cheer her up. “How’s that ministry project going?”
She breathes in, attempting to dislodge the weight that has dropped in her gut as people push past her. She inhales, making a show of looking both ways on the street before they cross.
“Nothing,” she chokes out. “I haven’t—haven’t heard from them.”
“Oh.”
She can feel George’s gaze on her, and looks studiously ahead.
“Want me to send a note to Mum so she can rain hell on them for ignoring you?”
Hermione takes a deep breath. They are almost to their usual side street to apparate, and it cannot come soon enough.
“No,” she shakes her head and tries to keep her voice light to match his. “I can rain my own hell down on them, but thanks.”
George snorts. “I believe that.”
They reach the side street at last and it takes everything in Hermione not to sprint to the center of it and disapparate all by herself.
“We can find some dinner by the hotel and begin our planning,” she says as they make their way to the middle of the street.
George nods. “Sounds good. I’m assuming we’ll want to get an early start tomorrow?”
She shrugs. “Libraries won’t open until eight or nine in the morning, but yes, we’ll want to start right around then.” She meets his eye and does not say what they are both thinking, that they will both be awake far earlier than that.
George brushes hair from his eyes and stops walking. “We’ll likely be in for some long days.”
“Yeah.” Hermione nods as they step into the shadows of the street. “Are you ready for it?”
George grins and holds out his hand. “Of course.”
Hermione puts her hand in his and closes her eyes as George turns on the spot. The world collapses and presses against Hermione on all sides, and she says a silent goodbye to the Darling Square Library, thanking it for all it has done during these first two weeks in Australia.