Learned Profession
(early that July)

Harry had been enjoying a delicious home-made breakfast at the Burrow, enjoying the heartfelt banter between Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Ron was running around like a first-year getting ready for his trip on the Hogwarts Express. Ginny was sitting at the table across from Harry, humour brightening her eyes as they watched Ron's favourite pair of socks hover near the ceiling, just out of his reach.

The cause of his frantic preening was made clear when Hermione entered through the kitchen door. A slightly goofy smile blossomed on her face as she took in the scene, Ron still oblivious to her arrival. She sent a silent spell to the aerobatic socks before taking a seat catty-corner to the love birds at the table.

Waiting for Ron to finish making himself presentable, she tried to strike up conversation over breakfast.

-"Harry, are you even paying attention to me?" Harry, of course, wasn't. It was very hard to concentrate on Hermione when Ginny was sitting across from him, and he had such a lovely view of her eyes. "I was saying you had less than a month before you head off to Hogwarts… to teach…?"

"Oh yeah."

"Have you even started your lesson-planning?"

"Uhm… yes?" Harry figured the list he had jotted down weeks ago counted for something.

Hermione sighed knowingly. "I'll help you with them if you want," she offered, her eyes silently scolding him.

When her glare lingered, Harry glanced from her to Ginny and back and then to Ron (who was now fully dressed appropriately for an excursion into the muggle world) and finally back to Hermione, "What? You want to do them now?"

"No!" Hermione declared, her cheeks tinting pink as Ron joined her, "We'll work on them when we get back."

"Tonight?" Harry asked worriedly, glancing back to Ginny, who was trying to contain a burst of laughter.

"…or tomorrow," Hermione said in a small voice, grabbing Ron and quickly disapparating to who-knows-where.

Ginny's roar of laughter was quickly joined by Harry's.

Harry wasn't laughing the next day, as he and Hermione sat at his cluttered dining room table. He sat with his ink splotched parchment from the beginning of summer, tapping his quill on the corner, 'thinking'. Hermione had a larger piece of parchment, on which was a large grid full of minutely written words that Harry could not decipher from his place across the table.

"You can't just have guest lectures every day, Harry."

"Last year wasn't that bad," he mumbled as he drew a line connecting all the spattered dots.

"You're joking right?" Hermione put down the parchment in horror, "It was absolute chaos!"

"…Once a week?"

"I suppose that could work," Hermione shoved aside another one of Harry's old textbooks in search of her quill. Frustrated, she grabbed her wand and pointed to the pile. Mid-Accio, she changed her mind and pointed her wand at the wall, where a wooden bookshelf magically appeared along the length of the dining room. Another flick of her wrist and the books flew to the shelf and aligned themselves in alphabetical order. "Much Better," she said pointedly, picking up her quill.

Countless hours later, they had developed an overall Seven Year Plan (Harry'd insisted that First-Years and Fifth-Years shouldn't be learning the same things if they had a steady professor), a time-line and objectives for years one through five, and a list of course books, and in the process had gone through Harry's entire stock of parchment.

Claiming it would be torture to send the whole packet to Headmistress McGonagall, Hermione summarized all their hard work into a mere four inches of parchment:

All --Lectures from Aurors, Professors, Portraits, War Heroes, Magical Beings.

Y1-- Theoretical Aspects of Defense; Early Evasion and Blocking Techniques

Y2-- Basic Dueling Skills; Detection, Usage, and Destruction of Magical Devices

Y3-- Defense Against Dangerous Beasts; Recognition and Resistance of Dark Spells

Y4-- Practical Application (cross-referencing subjects, reflexes); Producing the Patronus

Y5-- Benefits and Technique of Non-Verbal Spell-Casting; Competitive Practical Application

NEWT Levels-- Advanced Practical App., History of the Dark Arts, Career Exploration, Student Led Discussion.

When Harry noted the last line, he chuckled, "Too bad they can't all just be student led discussion, then we wouldn't of had to do all this work…" He motioned to the stacks of parchment and broken quills.

Hermione laughed, "Can't you just see professor McGonagall docking 5 points from Gryffindor because you haven't done your homework?"

"Yeah, that would start me off on the right foot with my students!" He absently stroked the pitch black owl that had belonged to Remus.

"It would," Hermione insisted, suddenly mock-serious, "…the Slytherin ones!"

"Herm-ione…" Harry called too late as she disapparated "you left your box…" He nudged the knee-high carboard container with his shoe before noticing the miniature book-shaped tag, each page with a word on it,"This… is…Kreacher's?' what?" Kreacher appeared next to him as he opened the flaps to peer inside at a spindly metal platform, a greenish crochet hand-towel-sized thing draped over one end, and a gray fluffy bag against what appeared to be a highly decorated scripted K.

"What is it?"

"I think it's a bed. I'm sure it will fit in your cupboard… but if you don't want it, just put it up in the attic or something," Amused but not surprised, Harry left the house elf and headed up to his bedroom. If he would have looked back, he would have seen Kreacher sneeking the gaudy thing towards his kitchen.

Author's Notes!

Thank JK for non-verbal spell casting! I would never get through with these if I had to come up with spells for what these wizards can do, lol!

And special thanks to Anrui Shino ( www. fanfiction. net/u/480605/ ) for suggesting that Hermione do something "…house elf related... if not that (I mean, the idea might kill Kreacher it's so kind xD), perhaps something like a library…"

Also, treats for you! I do art for this fanfiction as well, so if you want to see the Grim's Head Knocker ( spatialheather. deviantart. com/art/Grim-s-Old-Place-62858393), or Kreacher's New Bed ( spatialheather. deviantart. com/art/From-Hermione-with-Love-63126750), or a SPOILER that happens between the next chapter and the one after that ( spatialheather. deviantart. com/art/Catching-a-Moment-Together-63017383) just go to those addresses!

And as always, thanks to everyone who reads and reviews! It really helps me get motivated or even inspire me to add something extra to a chapter (like the Harry/Ginny mush at the beginning of this chapter XD). Even if you want to want to rant about it, that's cool too: keep me on track, don't be hurtful.