It would feel incredibly weird to be constantly looked at. Every guy that walked pass almost running into the street sign or walking right into oncoming traffic turning the corner. Every girl that walked past has an envious look on her face. It wasn't normal and almost every time someone stared, she thought to herself, "What in the world ARE they looking at?" that was until she saw her reflection in the glass, and then it was all too apparent.
None of these people knew who she was… she didn't even know who I was. All they saw was an incredibly gorgeous girl sitting alone in a café minding her own business. Unfortunately that wasn't what she saw. Her reflection showed an extremely confused girl who didn't know where she belonged anymore, so all she could do was go back to the one constant thing in her life, muggles.
That obviously wasn't the best thing she could have done, but it had to be much better than the constant stares from the witches and wizards in Diagon Alley, who knew who the new girl was, but not the old one. They all thought she appeared miraculously out of thin air… it's only time till the truth comes out.
Everyone thought that she just showed up after being lost for her seventeen years of life, when in fact she had been living a charade. Being a muggle-born bookworm, placed in the house of Gryffindor was not how she should have ended up. If she hadn't been placed in the care of muggles for her own protection when she was only a month old, she probably would have ended up being one of the people she despised. Not that she can really despise them anymore, they are kind of her family… biologically.
No one was treating her the same, except for Ginny. She still acts as if Hermione didn't have a dramatic appearance change over one night. She doesn't think Hermione will change just because her appearance did. She still thinks of her as her best friend since they were twelve. She knows Hermione will still like the same things she always did and she knows that she'll never forget her, regardless of who her biological family is.
Regrettably, Hermione can't say the same for most others. Ron can barely speak in coherent sentences around her, let alone look her in the eye anymore, rather than her figure, which is actually rather amazing. Harry isn't too bad though, but he doesn't treat her as Hermione, yet he does… if that makes any sense at all. She is still the one that he comes to for answers to difficult questions and anything to do with school work, but in general conversation… it's like she's speaking a foreign language to him with the looks at her.
So she figured a muggle café was the only option left, if she didn't want to hear whispers from every single witch or wizard in the magical community.
All this thinking about who she was, at this very moment, has only made her think of it more. So unfortunate to say the day when her physical appearance changed keeps playing through her head.
"Hermione! Breakfast!" her mother calls.
"Just a minute" I say, as I quickly try rush down the stairs, hopping straight out of bed, not bothering to change or even give herself a once over in the mirror. Too much going on today, I am meant to meet Harry, Ron and Ginny in Diagon Alley at 11am, so we can shop for school supplies, and then I'm going to be staying at the Weasley's for the last week of summer holidays.
Three weeks ago we received our Hogwarts letters, and surprisingly the owl that dropped off her letter had two others with it, one being the letter telling me I had been given the privilege of being Head Girl, and another addressed to a small boy, who just so happens to live down the street from her parents' house.
To say I was surprised would be an understatement, I never thought anyone of magical background lived in this muggle area. I mean it's nothing special, it's just a nice, quiet neighborhood in London.
"Hermione!" her dad calls.
"I'm here, hold your horses"
"Finally, your breakfast is waiting, and we have something important to tell you, that cannot wait, because it's your birthday tomorrow and we think you should know beforehand"
"Before what?"
"Just eat your breakfast please darling"
I eyed her parents suspiciously, but continued to eat her breakfast.
"So… shoot" I said once I had finished eating.
"This is not easy to say, and I don't want to tell you, but it needs to be said sooner rather than later. Hermione you're going to experience a very big change soon"
"Mum I've already hit puberty, please we've had this conversation before"
"No it's not that, at all, you're going to have a very dramatic appearance change, because you are not our daughter, you were placed in the care of us, because you were thought to be in danger-"
"I-"
"Please don't interrupt Hermione, we know that we should have told you earlier about all of this, but there was no good time, and on your birthday the charm that was placed on you will lift and you won't be Hermione Granger anymore, we want you to know that even though you won't technically be our daughter anymore, we still love you like you were our own, and if you decide that you don't want much contact after this because of your real family, then that is fine as well, we won't hold a thing against you, I will miss you terribly, but you deserve the right to choose what is best for you, and if that doesn't include us, then so be it"
"But… I'm so confused… why?"
"You were thought to be in copious amounts of danger, we weren't told of anything other than that, you just needed to be protected so that no one could find you"
"What's my name?"
"Katrina…"
"That's not what I meant mum"
Her mother sighed, she didn't want me to know this, she obviously knew it could ruin me, but whether I wanted to be or not, I wasn't a Granger anymore, nor was I ever.
"…Zabini"
I stared at her parents for the next hour unable to comprehend anything that just happened or anything that was said later, I can't believe I'm a Zabini.
Yes… that is who she is now, Katrina Zabini. One of those people she despised throughout the stages of her Hogwarts life. One of those who hated everything she stood for. Now she is one of those and she can't help it, she can't stop it, and she can't pretend like nothing has happened, because this is big, this is much bigger than what most people have to face in their lives, apart from Harry of course, who has defeated Voldermort so many times that we have all lost count.
It's just one of those things you can't avoid… like the plague. Meaning, meeting your parents for the first time. To say Hermione or rather Katrina was anxious or nervous would be a massive understatement. They are Zabini's, they are followers of Voldermort, and it's just so weird and different. What if they don't like me? Kept running through her head "Wait… what if they don't like me? I have got to be kidding myself, why do I care? I don't that's what, I don't care… Yes, yes I do care." She thought to herself "What if they decided it was better for me to stay as I was and to never have met them, or even know I was a part of their family… what if they don't like me?"
Oh bloody hell.
As much as Hermione would like to avoid this, she can't, and as much as she has put this off, it can't go on any longer, she has to meet them, and that meeting just so happens to be tonight. She just can't stop herself reading the note that Blaise owled to her.
Dear Katrina. Sorry if it is uncomfortable for you, for me to call you that.
This is really rather awkward, but would you like to have dinner with us tomorrow night? I understand if you have something better to do, or simply just don't want to, but it would mean a great deal if you could come.
My… our parents really would like to meet you in person rather than hearing of you in the Daily Prophet. I understand what it's like to constantly be in the limelight, feeling like everyone is watching your every move, like you can't do anything without it being talked about.
I would really like to get to know you better and it would mean the world if you can come but please don't think I am trying to guilt you into coming, that's actually the opposite of what I am trying to do, if you don't come then that is fine.
Please owl me your reply.
Love,
Blaise Zabini
P.S Sorry I really should have written this letter again, but I don't think I could do it much differently.
Much to her own chagrin, she accepted, which she thoroughly regrets doing now, but it's too late. She has to face them, and it would be better to do it now before school starts back.
It's almost time that she flooed to… her family. Earlier she was anxious and nervous, but both of those emotions have pretty much doubled since she kept thinking to herself more and more about what's going on in her life lately, which was probably not very smart. No, not smart at all.
She steps into her fireplace at her 'parents'' house. They decided to go out for dinner tonight because her 'mum' could not bear to watch her walk through their fireplace to her new family, she would have been completely distraught. So it probably was better for them not to be here, she probably thinks that she will never come back.
Hermione takes a deep breath, grabs a handful of floo powder and just cannot bring herself to throw it into the fire. She waits a minute then throws the floo powder into the fireplace and yells "… Weas- Zabini Residence!" at the last minute as she step in and is whooshed towards the oncoming house. Hermione landed in the living room of the Zabini Manor and no matter how graceful she tries to be, she still manages to stack it over her own feet and onto the floor. Quickly she gathers herself and pulls herself to her feet as Blaise walks through the door after hearing the thud she made.
A/N: Yes… so this is my story. Would love some reviews if that's possible. But I know how busy everyone is these days that people can't write a one sentence comment on something that probably took them a whole five minutes to read…
Sorry.
Just please review.
xx
The semi-pointless part of Hermione's flashback that I wrote, but in the end cut it out cause it just didn't seem to have any point other than to fill in the chapter, where she goes to see the person down the street who received the other Hogwarts letter.
[The next day I went to the boy's house, just to find out some facts, like if they were muggles or wizards. I knocked and quite a young woman answered the door, she looked to be around her early twenties, but in fact she was actually thirty, I mean talk about good genes.
I spoke politely to her for about an hour before I had the courage to bring up the letter from Hogwarts that had her son's name on it.
""I don't mean to be rude or anything, or try to offend you but I saw the letter from Hogwarts addressed to your son, and I am just so curious, are you magical?"
She laughed at me, yes laughed at me. "Oh my god Hermione" she said between laughs.
"I don't see what is so funny…"
"Don't I look the slightest bit familiar to you?"
"No…"
"You don't think you've seen me at all? Not even once? At a party perhaps?"
"No…"
"I'm Oliver Wood's older sister, eldest of three, I thought you were meant to be the smartest which of your generation…" she laughed at me again.
"I never said I was, everyone else does. But I really don't recognize you"
"You don't think I look the slightest bit like Oliver?"
"Well yes, now that you say it, I see that you are his sister, but really? Why are you here, in muggle London? In my street?"
"For one, I had no idea that you lived in this street, it was only when you came to my door an hour ago that I realized that you lived here. As for the muggle London part, well my husband's parents are a half-blood and a muggle so he wanted to be closer to them and although his father is used to magic it just didn't seem right to floo or apparate into their home and it's not like I have to travel far to see her family since they don't mind having other family floo or apparate straight into their house"
"Wow, how long have you been here and I just haven't noticed?" I asked in utter shock.
"A few years"
"Oh god, people really shouldn't call me the smartest which of our generation if I can't even recognize someone I know when they are standing there looking me in the face, I mean seriously, I just cannot believe this. So is Benjamin excited for Hogwarts? I mean I know I was ecstatic, I read all I could about the magical world, before I even got onto the train for the first time."
"He hasn't stopped talking about it since he got his letter. He has grown up with magic and everything, and all he has ever dreamed of was getting into Hogwarts, I mean it's all Oliver ever talks to him about, he tells him of the wildest stories of Harry Potter, and how he was the best seeker he had seen. When he told him the story of Harry being on the Quidditch team in his first year, he made my husband go out and buy him a broom, and has spent all his time practicing ever since, he wants to be the second first year to be on a Gryffindor team.
"This also happens to be a dream of his, get into Gryffindor, just like everyone else in our family"
I laughed, "Your family sounds like the Black's, only they were all in Slytherin until Sirius, and you never know he could be placed in Ravenclaw"
"Oh please don't tell him that, I won't hear the end of it until he writes me what house he gets into" she pleaded to me laughing.
"Wow I wish I had known you lived closer before now, I've enjoyed this"
"As have I, it's a bit lonely when my husband takes Ben out to a magical park so he can fly on his broom" she sighs, "So onto a new subject, Miss Hermione Granger, smartest witch of her generation, tell me you are the Head Girl this year"
"Ah, but of course, every letter I receive from her friends pretty much told me that if I didn't get Head Girl that they would hunt down McGonagall and get her to change her decision"
"Well be glad of those friends Hermione, if they really are true they will be there no matter what happens, so any idea who Head Boy is yet?"
"Not a clue… I really don't want to know who it is, because I know neither Harry or Ron is, Harry is Quidditch Captain and Ron is a Prefect, so I'm not looking forward to hearing whom I have to share a dorm with"
"Ah don't worry Hermione, he couldn't be that bad"
"Well if it's who I think is most likely to get it, it is that bad…" I sighed."]
