The Animagus Wars

Hermione Granger had fallen gracefully and gratefully into the bosom of Academia. Her seven years of Hogwarts had given her seven years of letting her adventurous inner-Gryffindor out and now she was grateful to sink into a sea of Ravenclawish intellectual delights. The charms they'd had to discover, modify and invent in order to defeat Voldemort had reawakened the passion for Charms that had laid deep-seated in her since she'd performed her first accidental magic by charming two pens to write her homework for her. She'd spent the summer after her seventh year haunting Hogwarts in order to absorb everything that Filius Flitwick could teach her

In the fall, she headed to the Orkney Islands to the British University of Magic. The University had a long and confusing past. In the beginning it had been a part of Oxford, but when the Muggles had become suspicious the faculty had cast a large-scale memory charm and moved the university temporarily to the grounds of Hogwarts. Although magical people knew perfectly well that their university had been founded in 897AD, the Muggles who'd been Obliviated could only state for certain that some type of education had existed at Oxford as early as 1096 and perhaps earlier. Over the next several hundred years the campus jumped from isolated locale to isolated locale until it finally settled on one of the unoccupied Orkney Islands, protected by huge Disillusionment and Muggle Repelling Charms and also by small whirlpools which discouraged local fishermen. It was due to its somewhat transient nature that the Univesity had such a boring name. It's hard to name something after its location, like Hogwarts, when that location is constantly shifting.

Here Hermione was in Heaven, generally only emerging from the cavernous library when her arguments over rare Latin conjugations with other Charms enthusiasts became too loud. Even then, they only retired to one of the small coffee bars, which were scattered around the campus to help the students deal with their physical isolation. There arguments would be carried on all night with waving arms, obscure quotes, and complex diagrams all over the place. Hermione, who had perfected the Weasley motto of debate "Louder and longer than anyone else," was a champion at these late night gatherings.

Her absolutely miniscule dorm room was really only a storage place for clothes and books. Hermione had turned her standard issue bunk bed into a shelf for her clothes. Her closet was full the brim with books and she had two more bookshelves on the walls. She didn't have a bed anywhere, but slept on her sofa, when she didn't sleep at her desk. The only other purpose of her flat was the self-replenishing coffeepot Hermione had invented a charm for. As long as she put fresh beans in it every Saturday, the pot would always contain fresh coffee made to her specifications, which Ron described as, "strong enough to have killed old snake face by itself."

Lost almost entirely in scholarly reflection, Hermione had let her appearance go to the extent that it was almost scary some days. She could be seen, rushing to class, coffee grasped in her inkstained right hand, books in her left, raggedy knapsack on her right side, wand holster on her left, busy hair - long from lack of haircuts - speared back with a quill, grey skirt or slacks, white blouse, and usually, given the climate a sweater vest with casual black robes thrown over it, but generally left unfastened. She had two sets of formal robes and three dresses, which she wore only for magic and Muggle formal occasions respectively. Basically, her appearance was the same as it had been at Hogwarts, times five and plus coffee.

Hermione only made an effort with her appearance for a few people, two of whom were Harry and Ron. This was more a survival mechanism that anything else. The last time the two had decided Hermione wasn't having enough fun, Hermione had spent the last Hogwarts weekend of her seventh year minus her N.E.W.T revision notes and on a blind date with George Weasley. Their Auror training combined with her self-imposed life of scholarly retreat did not allow for much gallivanting. However, once every month or so and on each of their birthdays, the three managed to make some time together. Generally, they would sit around somewhere in wizarding London, get mildly drunk and reminisce about the "good old days." The boys would tease Hermione about needing to get out more and she would tease them about the paranoia anyone who survived Moody's "CONSTANT VIGILANCE" school developed.

She had friends at the University. People she could run a theory by, people she studied with, people she argued with, people she occasionally even ate a meal with, but none of them were too close. Hermione was slightly lonely but happy. Thanks to Voldemort's obsessive need to try to kill her best friend, her time at Hogwarts had only given her a chance to learn the practical, almost never the theoretical. Plunged into magical theory, she was soaking it up gleefully. She had taken first level classes in Transfiguration, Dark Arts (a defense and theory course) and Potions, plus more advanced studies in Arithmancy (some knowledge was necessary for charm construction), Ancient Runes (also occasionally necessary), and the very theory of magic itself.

In addition to her classes and professors at the University, Hermione maintained a sort-of mentor relationship with Professor McGonagall by owl. The professor, who insisted on being called Minerva, while somewhat piqued that one of her best students had given her greatest interest to Charms, was also fiercely proud of the young woman's accomplishments and seemed to see them as if they were her own. Over the course of their correspondence, Hermione began to realize what it was her former professor was so proud of. Hermione had been - a Muggleborn, a female, a soldier, a key part of the final battle, an orphan since her sixth year, Hogwarts top student, and the new N.E.W.T. score record holder. To Hermione, some of these things seemed minor, but to Minerva they reflected the ambitions of many less fortunate young women she had taught over the years.

Over her first two years Hermione was vaguely aware of other Hogwarts students at the University, mainly Ravenclaws whose pursuit of knowledge made them terrifying even when compared to Hermione. She had once or twice noticed a silent, dark young man among the Transfiguration students who looked familiar, but she never bothered to find out why. Hermione had almost managed to forget that the only student other than the Ravenclaws who had ever even approached her school scores was a silent, dark Slytherin. Perhaps that was why, in the fall of her third year, it was such a surprise to walk into her Human Transfiguration class and finally recognize Blaise Zabini sitting in the teaching assistant's desk, sipping coffee and humming an aria to himself.