Chapter Twenty-Five – Hermione

Harry returned back home a few seconds after he had left, leaving Luke and the others to complete their treaty with the Vong.

There was still so much work to be done with his business. He was determined to bring his home planet up to speed. He also envisioned that once all the new technology was in place across the globe, then the magical people coming out would not be that big of a deal. Of course, he would have to wait and see if that truly was the case once they reached that point.

He was also thinking that perhaps the magical people could develop many of their potions for consumption by the non-magical people. If they used potions, like Pepper-up for instance, a potion that solved the common cold and flu viruses, they could make a mint. Plus, that was only one potion. What if they could make Skele-Gro that would work on non-magicals? What about the burn paste or bruise paste? The possibilities were endless.

Maybe he should have another discussion with his management team, he thought. If they put some master brewers on the problem and they make even one of those potions work for non-magicals then the rest will likely be able to work as well. Not to mention, selling just one of those potions would fund the research for all the others. And, if the potions absolutely required magic to work at all, then perhaps magic can be applied to the potion similar to how they applied magic to the security badges for the squibs and non-magicals that worked for them. Even though a witch or wizard applied the magic to the card, the employee without magic was the one tied to it. He was sure they could find a way.

Harry immediately put that down in his datapad so he wouldn't forget.

A few weeks later, at the office, Harry was introduced to a new hire by Remus.

"Harry, I'd like you to meet one of our newest hires," he said gesturing to the young woman standing next to him. "This is Hermione Granger. I taught her Defense during my one year teaching at Hogwarts. She was only a third year back then but she had a very impressive mind. She still does. I knew she would make a good addition to our crew. Hermione, this is Harry Potter."

She held out her hand and shook hands with Harry. "We've met once before, Mr. Potter, when you visited Hogwarts in my sixth year and came to our Herbology class."

"Yes," he said shaking her hand. "I remember meeting you, Miss Granger, along with a few others."

"Please, you can call me Hermione."

"In that case, you can call me Harry. We don't stand on ceremony around here." Harry turned to Remus. "Has she been brought up to speed?"

"Mostly, but I thought I would discuss the more secure items with you before going any further."

"What exactly does he have you doing?" Harry asked Hermione.

"Research and analysis," she answered.

"Analysis of?" Harry turned to Remus.

"She looks at how our products are trending in the market and how some of the new products we are almost ready to release will likely perform. She then makes recommendations so we can improve the process and/or change our schedule." Remus explained.

Harry thought about that and found he liked it. It would be very beneficial to the business and help prevent mistakes in marketing and rollout of new products.

"Hermione," he said turning back to his new employee, "do you know of others who are similar to you and could help with this important work? Perhaps some others who have graduated and need work or at least a better paying job?"

"I can think of a few," she said with a smile.

"Good. Please get in touch with them and ask if they would be interested in a well-paying job. Let Remus know of any who are interested. A five person team would be a good number to start with, but we will consider more. I think this type of work will be very beneficial to our company and we'll need more than just you to handle the load. I believe we can even expand on this too if all goes right."

"I'll get right on it, sir," she said excitedly.

"It's just Harry and you're going to have to hold off on that until after we have a discussion about the things you don't know about this company. After all, if you are going to analyze all of our products then you need to know about all of them, even our future ones that only a select few have been made aware of."

"Sounds fascinating. When do you want to meet?"

"My wife and I are having lunch together in my office at noon. Why don't you and Remus join us? I'll have the food delivered for all of us. Will that work for you, Remus?"

"Yes, I have no plans for lunch. Thanks for the invite."

"Your free as well for lunch, Hermione? No hot date or anything?"

"No," she chuckled. "I'll be there."

"Great! Come prepared to be astonished," he said as he walked off.

oOo

When Hermione walked into Harry's office at noon with Remus following right behind her, she just stopped, causing Remus to bump into her. She had never seen an office quite like it. First of all, it was massive. Harry's desk was huge and it curved around in an arc. Across from him on the wall, many large monitors filled the entire wall and were showing images from his many offices across the world and occasionally displaying information on where that office stood on their current projects.

On the far side of the room, near a glass wall, was a large conference table with plenty of comfortable chairs. There was also a small kitchen recessed into the back wall not far from the table. Sofas and cushiony chairs were in another section of the office with a large coffee table in the middle and end tables thrown in with the sofas and chairs.

It also looked like he had his own loo, but the door was closed so she wasn't sure.

"Don't worry, Hermione, everyone does that when they first see his office," Remus told her.

Hermione saw a pretty woman talking and sitting in Harry's lap at his desk. She assumed that was his wife. They both stopped talking when she and Remus entered the room. They then stood to greet them.

"Remus! Hermione!" called Harry. "Come on in. We're expecting one more then we can eat."

"Who else is coming?" asked Remus curiously.

"That would be – Well, look who's here! You can see for yourself."

Sirius had just entered and strode toward the group.

"Remus," Sirius said in greeting.

"Sirius," Remus replied.

"Harry," Sirius greeted.

"Sirius," Harry replied.

"Lisera," Sirius greeted.

"Sirius," she replied.

"Now that we got that out the way," Sirius said, "what is Hermione doing here?"

"She happens to work for us now," replied Remus.

"Really? How interesting!" he said excitedly.

"Hang on!" Harry interrupted them. "Before you two get started, there's some introductions that need to happen." Harry turned to his wife and gestured to Hermione. "This is Hermione Granger, a recent important addition to our quaint little company." He saw many eye rolls from his guests at that statement. "Hermione, this is the Senior Vice President of Research and Development. She also happens to be my wife, Lisera Potter."

"It's nice to meet you, Hermione. Welcome aboard!" said Lisera.

"You too, Mrs. Potter. It's great to be a part of this."

"No, no, no! I'm sure my husband told you we don't stand on ceremony around here." Hermione nodded. "It's Lisera."

"That's a very pretty name," Hermione said. "I don't think I've heard it used before."

"Same here. You're the first Hermione I've ever met and I like your name too."

"Shall we eat?" asked Harry, changing the subject. "I'm starved!"

Harry led them toward the conference table.

"Todge?" Harry called.

Suddenly the table was full of delicious food with a wide variety for everyone. Harry seated his wife as Sirius assisted Hermione before the men then took their seats.

"You have elves working here?" asked Hermione curiously.

"No. Not technically. I have Potter elves who insist on making sure I get good food. Since I spend far too much time here, they bring the food to me. Todge is my head elf, but it was his son, Benny who cooked all this food. Oh, and he's really good at it too. He even prepared a variety since I told him I would have guests today for lunch. Hopefully you can find something in all of this that suits your fancy."

"It all looks absolutely delicious!" she replied.

"Help yourself, everyone. Get what you want so we can start bringing Hermione up to speed. That's why we're all here, after all. And, I promise to not tell you something spectacular or alarming, Hermione, when you're taking a bite."

"Thank you," she said with a chuckle as she filled her plate.

After everyone had a few bites, and Hermione's mouth was empty of food at that moment, Harry started.

"Hermione, what I'm about to tell you is only known by a few people outside this office. The magical contract you signed when you took the job, covers company secrets and you can consider that what you hear today is covered by that same agreement, only you can't tell anyone else in the company what you hear in this meeting. It stays with just the ones in my office today. Understand?"

"Yes," she said nodding nervously.

"Okay then. The first thing you need to know, Hermione, is that I'm a time mage."

"What?" she asked, dropping her fork. "A time mage? I thought those were fictional."

"I sure hope not. That would be very bad for me. I assure you I'm real and not fiction. I am indeed a master of space and time. It's important you understand that as everything else I need to tell you hinges on that one piece of information."

"I've never met a time mage before," she replied. "It's rather hard to fathom that they actually exist."

"Well, as far as I know, I am the only currently living time mage in existence. Dumbledore did find a manuscript or a book left over from the days of the Hogwarts founders. It was notes written by a time mage that existed in that day and time. Dumbledore used a ritual in it to summon me back to Earth. I was then able to latch on to the signal and travel back, but I'm getting ahead of myself and losing you at the same time. I need to start at the beginning."

Hermione nodded, confused. Travel back from where?

Harry began and told about his horrible relatives and what happened at the age of six. Occasionally, the others would add a comment. He told about Joban and his droids, meeting Revan and training with the Jedi. He then explained what a Jedi was and by extension what a Sith was. He even briefly touched on his activities in the war before telling about all the amazing tech and how space travel to other planets was such a common thing in that other galaxy. How, after his return to Earth, he wanted to help by bringing his home planet up to speed with the tech in the other galaxy. How he met Lisera on Nar Shaddaa while working to buy all the tech he needed for Earth.

Hermione was shocked by it all. The fact that Lisera was human but not from Earth was amazing to her.

Then he told her that very soon they were going to introduce products that would include ships for space travel and droids. That would lead to establishing a large space station outside the atmosphere of one of the neighboring planets where ships could be designed and built for purchase. Eventually, Earth will need its own large space station for ships to park when visiting. He then had to explain about large ships too big to land on a planet.

"Lisera and I actually have a small space port at our home with a few ships. Lisera put it all together for me and it's fully functional. Once we have enough people from Earth flying in their own space ships, I believe we can do a much better job of exploring our own galaxy and hopefully find more habitable planets or at least some close enough that they can be made habitable. In the other galaxy they have tech that can change a planet to make it more hospitable for humans, as long as the planet is somewhat close and only needs some minor adjustments."

"That's amazing!" Hermione said.

"It's not instantaneous but it's a lot faster than one would think possible for an entire planet. They also have ready-made buildings that enable you to establish residency or an outpost on a planet very quickly and without too much hassle. What do you think?"

"I don't see where you need me at all," Hermione told them. "All of this will sell without a problem. I can't think of anyone who would say no to this."

"Hermione, listen to me carefully. You've just heard the big picture. That's what I'm good at. I can see what needs to happen on a big scale. The problem is in the details. That's where you and everyone else in this company comes in handy. I need you for the details and believe me there will be many, many details from all of what I just told you."

Hermione nodded to show she understands.

"Ideas are nice and it's great to have all the big plans," he continued, "but rolling out the ideas takes people who are detail oriented. As they say, 'the devil is in the details." If any of you are expecting me to handle all those details, you will be sorely disappointed. Lisera just nodded her head and agreed with her husband. Why do you think Remus handles the day to day operations of the company? He's much better at it than I am. It never even crossed my mind to add your type of job. That's a detail I completely missed, but once told I was sold on the decision. We definitely need your services, Hermione, and this is just the beginning."

"I will do my very best then, Harry."

"I'm counting on it, Hermione."

"You'll do great, Hermione," added Remus.

"I don't think we have anything to worry about with you on board, Hermione," said Sirius. "I know how hard you work and how smart you are. Remus outdid himself when he hired you."

Hermione blushed.

"Hey, I do happen to know what I'm doing," replied Remus. "Well, most of the time anyway."

"Hey, I just thought of something else, Hermione, that you might be able to help us with," said Harry.

"What's that?"

"I had another idea that I brought up last week to management but it hasn't had much traction yet. I was wondering if you might know some people that would be suited for this."

"Are you talking about the potions idea?" asked Sirius.

"Yes," replied Harry. "You see, I was thinking that what if we could make potions that will work for non-magicals? Even selling just one would finance research for all the others."

"I don't know if it can be done, Harry. I thought potions only worked on people with magic as it interacts with their magic to address the issue."

"That's the thing. No one has provided a definitive answer to that question so I think it's still up in the air until someone can provide evidence to the contrary. Even if it requires magic to work, why can't we find a way to provide magic with the potion? We did it with our security cards for squibs and non-magicals that work for us."

"Isn't that a lot different though?" she asked.

"I'll grant that it's different, but I can't tell you for certain how much different. I had to create a customized spell to make that work. Sure we use blood from the employee and that helps but it's the Substitute spell that really ties the card to the employee."

"Can you explain that more?" Hermione asked.

"Sure. Our security is based on both magic and tech, so the security cards need both to work. It's simple for a magic user who gets hired. They can perform their own magic without help. However, when we hire a squib or a non-magical, the process has to be different even though they sign the same magical contract and receive the same type of security card. A person with magic has to perform the magic for them on the card and also the contract using the spell I created. The card is then tied to them magically and the contract is tied to them magically as well."

"I see what you mean now," Hermione said. "That must be some spell."

"It's actually fairly simple and could be used for nefarious means if it ever got out. I call it the Substitute spell. It substitutes the witch or wizards magic just while using this one spell and ties it to the security card and the contract, making it look like the squib or non-magical had magic when the card was made and the contract was signed. This means the spell is cast twice for each employee that needs the assistance."

"So, if we modified that spell a little more, we might be able to provide magic for potions?" asked Hermione. "That's sounds very possible, but we really need to determine first if needing magic truly is a hard and fast rule for potions."

"I'm willing to fund some research on that because I think it has a good chance of working whether it requires magic or not. I think we'll need a couple open-minded potion masters and whatever they need. Do you know of any who would fit the bill, Hermione?"

"I have some contacts that I'll get in touch with. I know that at least a couple students from my year went on to complete their mastery in potions and there are others from previous years that might work as well." Hermione then laughed. "I bet Fred and George Weasley could make the potions work. They can do amazing things with potions. That's what most of their products are made from at that crazy store of theirs."

"Weasley Wizard Wheezes, right?" asked Lisera. "I've been there before."

"Yes, I was pretty good at potions myself, but for the life of me I can't figure out how they make some of those potions work. You know, for two guys who didn't get their NEWTs, they are very impressive with what they can accomplish."

"We'll keep those two in mind then, but since they have their own business and are doing quite well with it, we'll only involve them if we get really stuck," replied Harry.

"Just as well. You can't get them to be serious for a half a second," Hermione responded.

"Hey, I thought I was Sirius!" Sirius joked.

All the others at the table groaned.

oOo

Hermione ended up bringing in Padma Patil, Michael Corner, Lisa Turpin, Terry Boot, Daphne Greengrass, and Mandy Brocklehurst. Daphne and Mandy had both received their masteries in potions but were not getting paid that well, since their names were not well-known yet as potion masters.

None of them could believe how much of a raise they received just by going to work for Harry Potter at Fly, Inc.

After Mandy and Daphne found out what they would be doing, they knew they would be famous as potion masters if they could pull it off. They ended up working closely with Harry. Hermione would even join them on occasion and lend a hand.

It took some time but after thorough testing they were able to verify that potions did indeed require magic to work for a person. They mainly worked with the Pepper Up potion to see if they could modify it. As it turned out, Mandy was pretty good with spell creation herself so between her and Harry they made some headway. They started with Harry's Substitute spell and worked from there.

After six months of hard work, brewing potion after potion, they finally came up with a solution that worked like a charm. The spell Harry and Mandy created was woven into the process of brewing the potion. The spell had to be cast several times into the potion as it was made. The final touch was a rune sequence Harry, Daphne, and Hermione came up with that they powered so it kept running until all the potion was gone. The rune sequence kept the magic active in the potion while it sat on the shelf.

As soon as all the potion was used up in the bottle then the rune sequence triggered a hard stop.

They had to spend another six months testing in labs with volunteers to make sure there were no side effects they couldn't foresee. Then they had to get approval from the governments across the globe to be able to sell it. Since it was a natural remedy and not a prescription drug, that sped up the process.

The packaging they came up with included a potion bottle with the tiny rune sequence made in the bottom. The mold that they made the bottles from included the rune in a slightly raised fashion like raised lettering. Each bottle had to have its rune activated after it was filled with potion.

Later, at the facilities they built, where they made the potions and processed all the bottles, some very smart rune masters Harry was able to hire, came up with a rune sequence that sent a little burst of magic to each bottle as it passed over on a special conveyor machine, activating the rune. The bottles of potion were then placed in individual packaging which was then placed in boxes with more bottles to be sold to retailers.

Commercials were generated to advertise the new product. Word got out about the new all natural medicine that was a cure for the common cold and flu. You took two tablespoons and your cold or flu just disappears, like magic.

A new company was formed for the potions. The company was called Magical Potions and their first product was called 'Pepper-Up, the magical cure for the common cold and flu. Just one dose and you'll be good as new.'

Later, Magical Potions came out with many more products, such as Magical Potions Burn Paste, Magical Potions Bruise Paste, Magical Potions Skele-Gro, and so on. All the products sold fast. They could barely keep them on the shelves. Hospitals and medical clinics were buying the products in bulk. No one had ever seen natural medicines work this fast.

Magical Potions constantly sought out more experienced and knowledgeable brewers to work for them and at very good pay. This caused a large uptick in the interest in potions at Hogwarts and other magical schools around the world, since jobs were aplenty.

Magical Potions had to expand and open more plants in many different countries. The company started hiring potion masters and experience brewers in all the magical communities, putting them to work.

Daphne and Mandy moved over from Fly, Inc. to Magical Potions and became officers in the new company. Their names got out among the magical communities and in the non-magical world for their incredible contribution to everyone's good health.

oOo

After a couple more years, Harry and Lisera decided they needed a vacation. They traveled around some and even went back to the other galaxy to visit and see if anything else had changed in technology. They also wanted to see how droids were created and get some plans for building their own space ports in space.

While back it home, Harry was working more on his time mage grimoire when he remembered about Dumbledore finding a time mage book that had the summoning ritual in it. Dumbledore was very old now and getting ready to retire. He thought it best to go visit him and see if he could get a copy of that book. It would be good to know of the spells and rituals the other time mage came up with.

He sent Hedwig off with a note to see if he could pay Dumbledore a visit. She came back with a reply that said anytime would be fine and gave the password for his gargoyle. Harry made plans to visit the headmaster the next day.

He teleported to the gate where Hagrid let him in. Hagrid walked with him up to the castle, talking all the way. Once Harry was in the castle, Hagrid went back to what he was doing. Harry made his way up to the headmaster's office, gave the password, and went up the spiral stairs.

"Come on in, Harry," Dumbledore told him before he could knock.

Harry went in and noticed the professor was really looking old.

"Hello, Albus. How are you holding up?"

"Hello, Harry. I think I've done all I can and it's time for me to take a break."

"I don't blame you. You've certainly earned it."

"I did what I could. Now, tell me, what brings you to my office today?"

"I was wondering if I could get a copy of that time mage book where you found the summoning ritual. I was updating my own time mage grimoire the other day and realized I should see what the other time mage came up with. Why reinvent the wheel? In fact, he may have figured out some things I never even thought of."

"Of course, seeing as how you are the only two in history that we know of, and we don't even know the other one's name, you should rightly have it."

"A copy will be just fine, Albus."

"I have no need for it, Harry. You might as well take it. It will serve you much better than me. Gryffindor only said in his memoirs that the time mage was a very old man at the time. He never mentioned his name and insisted that he leave his book with Gryffindor so any future time mage would be more likely to find it." Dumbledore turned his chair around and reached over into a lower bookshelf, picking up the book. He turned back and laid it in front of Harry. "And, here you are."

"Thank you then. I much appreciate it."

Harry looked down at the book and paused. He then shook his head and picked it up.

"I won't take up any more of your time, Albus. My vacation is coming to a close so I'll have to get back to work."

"You have been a very busy man, Harry."

"That I have and I'm only just getting started," he said as he stood to leave.

Dumbledore chuckled. "I have no doubt about that, Harry."