If a Thing's Worth Doing

Harry nudged Ron in the ribs. "Over there," he said, pointing across Platform 9¾.

Ron looked, and all but jumped out of his skin. "Hermione!" he cried. "Is that YOU?"

The girl smiled, the expression spilling across her face and threatening to split it from ear to ear. "Ron! Harry!" she answered happily, tucking a loose tendril of hair behind one ear. "It's so good to see you again!"

"We didn't hear from you all summer, Hermione," said Harry. Ron just stared, and made the occasional 'gah' noise. "What happened?"

"Well," said Hermione briskly as she fell in beside the two, "you know my parents decided that we ought to visit America this summer-"

Harry nodded. Hedwig had looked positively stricken when he'd read Hermione's letter to that effect aloud in front of her cage.

"-so I wouldn't be able to visit the Burrow." She looked at Ron, who was still goggling. "Unfortunately it didn't quite go as planned. Ron, are you all right?"

Ron swallowed. "Fine," he croaked. "Hermione, you've got-"

"Yes, yes, Ron, I know," Hermione said patiently. "I'm getting to that. You see, when we visited Boston, I found a shop selling some vintage American magical texts that are almost impossible to find in Britain. I still had some of my birthday money left, so before we headed for Maine I bought a copy of Aloysius Spengler's Theoretical Foundations of Runic Spell Construction. I figured it'd be something to read on the train between cities."

The boys exchanged glances. Hermione might look almost unrecognisably different, but that was definitely Hermione behaviour. "And? Go on," Harry urged.

"Well," Hermione continued, "chapter four talked about the use of ancient runes to improve the compartmentalization of mental spell components. I won't bore you with the details-"

"That's a first," muttered Ron. Hermione ignored him.

"-All I'm going to say is that it sounded simple enough, so I gave one of his procedures a try." She sighed. "Unfortunately, it got a little out of hand and blew up in my face. Literally."

"Hang on," said Ron slowly. "Are you trying to say that some mouldy old American spell changed you into- THIS?"

She laughed. "Of course not, Ron! It wasn't even a Transfiguration spell!" She sobered. "No, it simply blew up. I got thrown halfway across the room by the backlash. When I woke up, my parents had somehow found a magical hospital in Derry." She sounded awfully proud of that. "The Healers there told me I should've read the rest of the book, because an accident like that was what had almost killed Aloysius Spengler in the first place."

Harry winced. Ron whistled softly. "But you were all right?"

"Not really." Hermione sighed ruefully. "They said I'd risked serious permanent magical damage and that I mustn't try any more spell-work for two months. In fact, I wasn't even supposed to read more than a few pages a day for a while, because my eyes had taken the worst of the explosion."

"You've GOT to be joking," said Harry, awed. "You? Not read?"

"That's what I said!" Hermione exclaimed. "I didn't want to believe it either, but I didn't have any choice. Not if I wanted to go back to school in the fall."

"So what did you do?"

"Well-"Hermione smiled. "I asked the Healers to explain it to my parents for me. They bought me this." She rummaged about in her rucksack and held out a small black box to Ron, who examined it wonderingly. "I haven't had one in years, as they don't work on the Hogwarts grounds. It's called a Walkman, Ron. It's a Muggle device that plays back recorded words and sounds, you might've seen one-"

"Not that I remember," said Ron, who was poking at buttons at random.

"Ah. Right. Well, anyway, my parents bought me this and a whole stack of Books On Tape. That's when Muggles take some book they've written and have someone read it aloud into one of these devices so they can play it back later."

"Like when the Ministry makes a recording of a prophecy? Does it show pictures, too?"

"It won't do that, Ron," said Harry, who'd seen Dudley shatter his own Walkman in frustration the month before. "Just sounds."

Hermione nodded. "Exactly. I couldn't get any magical books this way, there aren't any, but at least I could keep up with some kind of study without having to read."

"That doesn't explain why you look like that," Harry said, pushing his glasses up his nose as he looked Hermione over again. "I don't remember any Muggle recordings that can change how a person looks."

For Hermione's appearance had indeed changed. Her long, mousy-brown hair had been pulled back into a ponytail. While it still frizzed every which way, it was a striking departure from her usual looks. Her face, though still recognizable, was noticeably more angular, her cheekbones more prominent. She hadn't put on her Hogwarts robes yet, as the train hadn't arrived; the Muggle top she wore had been cut for wearing in the heat of summer, baring her shoulders and arms. That was what had made Ron splutter more than anything else. Hermione had muscles- toned, sculpted shoulders, solid-looking forearms, and upper arms that would've made even Dudley wish he were thin.

Hermione tried to look superior, but she couldn't entirely hide a smile of genuine pleasure. "That's because there aren't any," she said. "It's only that- well, one does tend to feel a bit of a useless lump if all one does is sit about listening, instead of doing things. I noticed that the hotel we stayed at in Maine had a few. . . extra facilities."

"Extra facilities?" Ron repeated doubtfully.

"An exercise room." Hermione sighed happily. "People think you're quite rude if you sit in your hotel room and don't come out to talk, but for some reason no one seems to mind if you take an hour or two and simply exercise. And every Muggle I saw who went in there had one of these on. . ."

Hermione went on to describe the exercise machines to Ron, who had never heard of such things as treadmills or climbing machines before and thought they sounded rather like someone's idea of a magical prank. The Nautilus machines she spoke of sounded even stranger, with their pulleys and weights and specifically targeted muscles, but their strangeness bordered on the magically acceptable somehow. Harry took a moment's pleasure in imagining Dudley entangled in one of the things before regretfully admitting that his cousin's bulk would probably tax even the best-made of the lot.

". . . and by the time we came back, I'd gotten to the point of bench-pressing sixty kilograms," finished Hermione with a smile.

Ron shook his head slowly. "You don't do anything by halves, do you, Hermione?"

"If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well," Hermione said briskly. There came a piercing whistle and a roaring noise. "Say, isn't that the Hogwarts Express?"