Hermione Granger No More!

by Rita Skeeter

It was with utmost shock that the employees of the Ministry Department of Magical Law Enforcement witnessed a change in status on the archives of one of the most sought-after students of Hogwarts, after Harry Potter himself. The author is naturally speaking of Ms Hermione Granger, best friend of the boy-who-lived and one of the participants in the infamous incident in the Department of Mysteries only a few days ago. Said young lady has been previously wrongly accused by various gossip mongers of being promiscuous, manipulative and power-hungry. Some even had the audacity of calling her a traitor to our Golden Boy and his cause! All of the above relied on her lack of family connections who could protect her from those vicious accusations. It has always been well-known, after all, that she is of muggle heritage.

However, her enemies can no longer attack her with no fear of retaliation. As the ministry officials discovered a few hours after the "incident", and as the author learned from a reliable source this very morning, Hermione Granger never existed! It seems that the use of an unknown dark curse on Ms "Granger" during that fateful night cancelled the effect of a particularly strong, long-term concealment charm that had been placed on her the night of her birth in order to hide her identity from the public. Further investigation showed that the couple she grew up with had no relation to her, other than a well executed memory charm to convince Mr and Mrs Granger they had a daughter named Hermione. The aurors in charge of the case appeared to have reached a dead end at the time, as they had no way of telling whether the girl had been kidnapped, or abandoned by her own parents. Enquiries were made in all magical and non-magical hospitals of the country, in an attempt to find out if there was an archive of her birth in any of them. They were in luck, as a muggle clinic in Brighton confirmed that a woman of unknown identity gave birth on the nineteenth of September, 1979. Both the woman and the infant disappeared without a trace a few hours later. Their description of the mysterious woman, combined with other intelligence the author was not privy to, the aurors reached the conclusion that the mother was pureblood Elena Nott, who perished in October 1979 due to unknown illness.

Now, the author feels certain that the same question is burning the lips of all her wonderful readers... Who is the father? Prepare yourselves, dear readers, for the answer more than explains Ms Nott's wish to hide her pregnancy from everyone, including her parents, her brother, and the unsuspecting father of her child. For the aforementioned father is none other than the head of one of the oldest and richest wizarding families in Britain... The very much married Lucius Malfoy!

If this is not the biggest scandal of the century, the author will gladly eat her quill and tomorrow, your very own Rita Skeeter!

ooOOoo

To say Alexander Nott was furious would be an understatement. He had been pacing around the terrace for at least half an hour, a copy of the Daily Prophet in hand. His breakfast remained untouched on the table, long forgotten.

"I take it you were completely unaware of this?", his wife asked dryly. She seemed cool, collected, as only pureblood women could, sipping her tea in a manner that would have convinced most people that she was entirely indifferent to the matter. Her husband, however, wasn't most people.

"Do you really think I would have kept it from you if I were not?", he answered to her insinuation.

"Well, lying to one's wife does seem to be in vogue these days.", a slight twitch of her lips indicated that she wasn't really accusing him. "I never thought I would say that, but I'm glad you're as old-fashioned as they come, darling."

His wife's soft-spoken words seemed to calm the head of the Nott family for a while. His rage resurfaced soon, however.

"Please don't try to distract me, Catherine. This is my sister that bastard defiled! My little sister! She had a child out of wedlock! A bastard child! And she didn't even tell me, she didn't even let me help her! For all I know, he could have killed her to cover his own tracks!", his voice cracked as he punched the wall, angry tears flowing down his usually impassive face.

"Don't make such accusations light-heartedly, darling. Elena was ill..."

"I'm tired of listening to that story, Catherine. The healers all told the same tale yet not one of them could say what her illness really was, remember?"

Catherine sighed as she approached her husband, cupping his face. "Darling, you're not thinking clearly", she said patiently. "The healers are bound by their confidentiality vows. I think that her inability to name the cause of her illness wasn't due to incompetence. They were the best, after all."

"You think she stopped them from telling us? Why would she do that? We could have helped her, get her better treatment, we-"

"Your parents would have done nothing if they knew she was carrying an illegitimate child, my love. They would only disinherit her and forbid you to have any contact with her again. You know that. Perhaps she chose to spend her last days in peace with her family instead of being abandoned and alone. You cannot blame her for that, can you?"

"I suppose not. But she should have known that she could tell me anything, she should have known that I would never abandon her!", Alexander fell in his chair, defeated.

"She was told that she was going to die while she was pregnant with a child that should have never been conceived. I cannot blame her for lacking proper judgement."

At her words, her husband raised his head from his hands and looked at her wearily. "The girl, Catherine. What shall we do with the girl?"

ooOOoo

The silence in Malfoy Manor was deafening. The lord and lady of the house were sitting facing each other. Neither was speaking. The Daily Prophet rested on the table between them, the smiling picture of Rita Skeeter mocking them both. Lucius Malfoy's gaze was darting between his wife and the front page of the newspaper. He looked, for lack of a better word, shocked. Narcissa Malfoy however, lacked any expression. Her face was blank, stony, and she was looking at nothing in particular. The silence stretched for what seemed like an eternity, before it was shattered by the entrance of Draco, who slammed the door open in his haste to reach his parents. In his hand he was clutching tightly another copy of the accursed newspaper. He looked straight at his father as he spoke.

"Is it true, Father?"

Lucius remained silent.

"Well? Is Granger your daughter?"

"I don't know."

"Does this mean she could be? Did you cheat on Mother?", Draco was yelling now, his hands tightly clenched in fists.

"Don't raise your voice at me boy..." Lucius was interrupted by his wife, who spoke for the first time, her voice as cold as her eyes.

"Answer your son, dear. Did you or did you not fornicate with that woman?"

Lucius took a deep breath and finally said "Yes. I did."

No one spoke for a while. Then Narcissa rose from her seat and snapped her fingers. A frightened house-elf appeared waiting for its orders.

"Prepare a feast for seven to be served in the east dining room at eight sharp.", she snapped.

"Yes, my lady!", croaked the poor creature, before apparating away.

Narcissa, without so much as another word, headed for the door.

"Where are you going Mother?", asked Draco, dumbfounded at his mother's reaction to the news.

"Why, to send away the invitations for dinner, my love. It is time for your sister to meet her dearest father do you not agree? And I would never deny Alexander an Catherine the chance to meet their only niece.", she flashed a cruel smile at her husband and made her exit, leaving the Malfoy men staring after her.