Summary: The Bones family is reunited with their oldest daughter who has been missing since a kidnapping that happened in 1962. Nine-year-old Cecilia A. Bones (Hermione, she insists they call her) isn't as enthusiastic about her "return" however.
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1962
Chapter 1.
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She had never really looked like either one of them, sure she had had the same ash brown tone of hair as her father, and dark brown eyes as her mother, but facial features, height, build, all other aspects of appearance had varied greatly from theirs. She knew to herself that she had noticed before. All children picked apart their parents to compare themselves with at some point, but she had simply disregarded the divergence in their appearances.
She would grow into it, she had reasoned. And if that thought had not comforted her enough, she could always justify it with the fact that sharing a gene pool didn't necessarily mean you had to be a carbon copy.
She didn't share their gene pool though. The certificate that she had dug up from an old box in the attic, after hours of searching, which was currently crumbling in her harsh grip, substantiated that much.
She felt somewhat disappointed that they hadn't thought to share this with her, then again telling your daughter that she was adopted had probably not been a priority in comparison to comprehend a reality in which said daughter was a witch, and that a society based upon magic was an actuality.
Accommodating her had probably been their priority, they had been great parents.
The only reason she had even thought to look for such a document as an adoption certificate was because she'd seen that blasted, ancient newspaper that had been published in the mid-sixties. The one that featured a picture of her two-year-old self on the front cover, sitting on the floor as she threw the photographer a childish smile while playing with a hippogriff plushie. The cursive, heavy script that covered the upper part of the page announced a dark toned message, "Missing. Last seen June the fifth, 1962,"
June the fifth, 1962.
1962.
None of it made any sense to her.
She should be happy about Sirius' deceased family's hording problems, they were what had led her thus far in her search for answers, but she wasn't. She had recently taken up on cleaning out Grimmauld Place for every last bit of trash, dark magic, and what else she stumbled upon. She had started in their attic and finally reached the basement, once home to the house elf Kreacher but now abandoned of any life (not counting whatever infestations of magical wildlife that she might discover.)
Hermione had always loved order. At her office, at home, in her life, in general, Hermione just found order relaxing. That was why she liked cleaning so much, and why cleaning her own home especially comforted her. This was also why she used cleaning as a distraction more often than not, the pestering thoughts that plagued her wouldn't reach her if her mind was busy doing something else.
The healer had suggested more than once that she had a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
…Luna would have told her it was the nargles, but Luna wasn't alive anymore.
Few of her friends were.
The newspaper she had found in the basement had been found in a huge pile of old publications, and Hermione being Hermione (she had always been a bit of a epistemophiliac) couldn't help but look through the papers, books, and even school essays. After sorting through several issues of Wizardry Weekly, Daily Divination and a few potions assignments ("How the Pepper Up Potion Came to Be, by R.A.B," "Leeches, the most underrated of basic ingredients," and "Fluxweed: an analysis,") she fell over the paper that featured her face (The prophet, which had barely even made a name for itself back then, according to Professor Bins, at least.)
Toddler Hermione didn't differ in appearance much from the adult version – sure she had aged twenty-years since then (if that truly was her) but still they shared many features. Lips, nose, eyes, coloring, and the god-awful hair that she had come to love. It had personality. Though on toddler Hermione it had been much, much shorter. Either way, a quick trip to her parents' house had confirmed her fears, and Hermione Granger wasn't Hermione Granger.
Supposedly she was Cecilia Bones, impossible but… it had still inspired a strange sense of curiosity in her. Else she wouldn't have found her way into her parents' house, rummaging through old photo albums in a desperate attempt to find one picture from before her toddler years. Luck wasn't with her, all the photo albums had only older pictures, even the date noted on most of them started out in the later part of 1981.
A coincidence? She was still hopeful.
If Susan Bones had still been alive Hermione might have reached out for a magical comparison test, or maybe even a muggle DNA test. If this was to be trusted Susan had been her niece. Odd thought to have of someone who had essentially been her very own age for as long as she had known. She wished she had listened to more of the stories Auror Moody had been telling the others about Edgar Bones, and that she might have had the chance to meet Amelia, like Harry had.
A quiet sigh escaped her lips as she grabbed the old cardboard box, and rose from where she had been kneeling – the small thump had her turning around in curiosity. She had dropped something from the box, it seemed.
She placed down the box and hastily picked up what seemed to be a stone necklace, leather strapped and at least as old as her. It looked worn out, but also very weather beaten. Where had her parents found this?
The more she hummed over the stone, the more she realized she had seen a stone like this before (actually she had a stone exactly like that one in her pocket…) She pulled the runestone she had found in Sirius' basement from her jeans pocket, comparing them for several minutes silently.
Hermione frowned. Why would her parents, her none magical muggle parents, have the other half of something that came from the basement of Grimmauld Place? It just didn't make sense.
She felt a headache coming, it had already been a busy day at the ministry, she was not in the mood for riddles. Perhaps what was most perplexing about the whole matter was why the stone was split?
They were the identical halves of a whole rune, that much she had deducted. It looked to be of an older script, maybe it was elf or goblin magic? She wasn't sure which rune it was, not one she was familiar with at least, or could recognize, whilst split.
Therefore, Hermione pushed the two pieces together …and was swallowed whole by a strange flash of light.
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