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Hermione was very surprised by how easy it was to get Harry's new cottage connected to the local power infrastructure. She had helped due to his request of wanting to have a telly, though why he couldn't do it himself was a bit more murky.
"You know, the local utilities would be more willing to work with the homeowner, Harry."
"You've got at least somewhat more experience merging magic and technology than I do though." was his reply, and that was that.
In all honesty, it didn't bother her; she thought it might be an interesting challenge to take up. The consensus of the magicals she'd broached the topic with was decidedly more pessimistic.
"Everybody knows magic and eckeltricity don't mix!" Arthur, who should have been an expert, declared quite confidently. His incapability of pronouncing 'electricity' somewhat refuted his own claims.
"Muggle electrical devices have never worked in such a magic-heavy location as Hogwarts. The same is true for any magic-heavy location such as the Ministry and homes with magical protections. The devices invariable break, be it due to sparking or melting, due to the combination of magic and the electrics." came Professor Burbage's comment upon owl-wing when asked.
All in all, Hermione wasn't very hopeful that she could solve this problem very quickly and rather imagined herself working on it off-and-on over the next years, given it was solvable at all. Harry wasn't particularly let down when given this estimation as he had assumed it wasn't a 'simple spell to be cast'. He did open his cottage to her as an experiment location, even let her design and control the protections for it since she might have to change them in the course of her research. He also belaboured the point that she shouldn't burn herself out for his currently non-existing telly watching, which was dear of him, regardless of how unneeded it was.
The cottage had been newly built by a magical construction firm on land owned by the Potters, but due to the first war and the decay of unmaintained spells, the protections were but magical traces, themselves all but vanished. It sat on the edge of the land, somewhat close to a small village in Wales. Unfortunately, it wasn't close enough that the utility was willing to draw a line and pylons out to it. Upon discussion, they gave their recommendation to purchase a petrol generator and use that as a local power supply. Of course, this wasn't quite what Harry intended, but upon further reflection, it actually seemed quite appropriate for magical households in general, given their isolationist tendencies.
After some discussion with the power company (and many trips to the library near her parents' house), they'd had a generator delivered, and a rather confused technician had given her an overview of how the generator operated. He didn't quite understand what she wanted with such a generator when the house wasn't wired for electricity and there was no evidence of electric machinery. He seemed to have resigned himself to explaining without actually understanding.
A few days later she settled in for her first test; lighting a lamp with the generator. The protections of the cottage hadn't been placed yet, so this was a control. The generator grumbled loudly and the lamp illuminated the room quite well. Next was to use magic around both the lamp and the generator to see when they would break down. Curiously, nothing she did caused them to stutter or flicker at all. The grumbling became a constant background tone to her confusion as she cast spell after spell in the vicinity. The generator stubbornly resisted her efforts to disturb it even when she cast some of the most magically intensive spells she knew at and into it. No hitch, no interruption. As if she hadn't cast a patronus at all. In a fit of pique, she spelled the generator from its consistent grumble to a gentle hum.
It was with a bit of bewilderment that she reported her findings to Harry, who suggested setting up the protections and seeing if that changed anything. Without anything better to do, they did just that. Over the course of the next month layer after layer of spell and enchantment snapped into place under their wands and runes, all accompanied by the mellow humming of the generator. The protections around Harry's little cottage were now on par with some of the most magical locations in the country. Were one able to see the magic it would have been like looking at a flare in the darkness. Yet the soft humming continued without issue and the light bathed the sofa in a warm amber.
Her final test was a torch. A quick flick on-off in Harry's cottage proved it to work without issue. One apparation and a few steps through a gate later, the inactive torch started warming in her hand. A few more steps towards the castle and a small shower of sparks caused her to drop the torch to the ground. Moments later, the only remnants were some metal bits and a lens, lying in a puddle of molten plastic on the ground. A sharp wand motion and those remnants vanished, Hermione already walking past on her way to tea with headmistress McGonagall.
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Hermione was surprised by how easy it was to enchant the generator to have no need of petrol at all. In essence, all a generator needs is movement and magical means of displacement weren't hard for someone who had achieved their O.W.L.s, let alone their N.E.W.T.s as she had. With that, the only barrier to Harry having his telly was the purchase and mounting of an aerial. The specialist couldn't do the installation of course, due to him being a muggle. A few conversations (and more trips to the library) later, however, found Hermione cradled in Harry's arms on a broom as he flew them to the roof, her eyes squeezed shut. A sticking charm or two and the aerial was mounted, the cable coiling down to the shrubs. Harry's telly project was complete with a few further adjustments, just in time for him to see an episode of MasterChef. Hermione foresaw a great many new dishes in the upcoming weeks.
It didn't stop there. A telly was all well and good, but the internet would be the future. Hermione was sure of it. Just look at Wikipedia, spares so much time going to the library!
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Hermione wasn't very surprised when neither broadband nor cellular connection were interfered with by magic. Setting up the line took a bit of thought and effort since the utility couldn't get close to the house, but she managed. Wikipedia, e-mail and Skype were a whole new world for her, but she knew how to handle that. She'd entered a new world once before. Helping and teaching other magicals with an interest in electronics or the internet let her share her experience with others and build a community.
When she was requested by the Department of Mysteries and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to help them figure out a way to deal with the rising danger of secrecy breaking she was all too happy to help. A few lectures on how camera-phones and YouTube worked were just the tip of the iceberg. Most didn't believe her when she explained that these muggle advances and magic would exist side-by-side without issue, too caught up in what 'everybody' knew. The look on Ron's face when she first showed him her magically powered screen kept her grinning like a loon for hours.
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Hermione didn't even blink when her IDS pushed a notification to her display. A couple of hand waves had what she was currently working on fade toward the window and the notification zoomed to eye level. A few more gestures, and she had an exploitation-suite queued up and autonomously following the C&C packet-trail. She beckoned her actual work back over, letting it dart back under her fingers as she started typing. A ping from her exploitation-suite let her know that with an arithmantic query, alohomora, point-me and various non-magical exploits, the C&C had been pwned. A grin crossed her lips as she remembered the other times she'd had to teach the lesson: Nobody messes with the server farm in her basement. Now she had to decide what to do with her newly acquired botnet. Maybe some prime number searching; maybe some DDoS. She kept thinking about it while she got back to work; terminals, programs and data floating all around her office.