Things Are Sometimes What They Seem
Summary : To carry on the obsession, I've done another Hermione/? mother/daughter relationship fic. Hope you like it. Basically, Minerva adopted Hermione when she was a baby, after Voldemort killed her parents. Hermione grew up with her and Minerva shows an almost maternal instinct towards Hermione. Hermione thought it was because she'd raised her as an adoptive daughter, but is that all? Dedicated to my best friend headinclouds123. I couldn't have done this without you.
Disclaimer : All characters and book plotlines belong to JK Rowling. Variations on plotlines and the character Selena-Louise belong to me.
Chapter One
1984
She couldn't believe that she'd been chosen for this mission. Her, of all people, to be chosen to go to the Ministry of Magic, the place she disagreed with most in the entire world! Minerva McGonagall's thoughts were interupted when she heard screaming coming from a street opposite a gleaming red phonebox, which was the very well concealed visitor's entrance to the Ministry. She found several people running away from a street called Carisbrook Grove and so, naturally, being an enquisative person, she ran to the street itself, then, upon seeing the sight before her, immediately wished she hadn't. The street looked perfectly normal, with small houses, some fully detached and some semis, all with decorative floral gardens and lawns. However, at the end of the row was a ruined house, partially collapsed and burning, the Dark Mark hovering through the smoke catching Minerva's eye. But Minerva's horror and shock were interupted when she heard a weak cry of help. On hearing this, Minerva abandoned all thought and headed straight into the house. As soon as she shut the dor, as gently as she possibly could without it revolving back on it's hinges, she heard the upper ceiling collapse and a strangled cry come from under it. She rushed up the stairs two at a time and began digging through the searing hot rubble in the master bedroom, to be eventually greeted with the sight of a small girl, who couldn't have been more than two or three years old. She couldn't see if the girl was breathing or not but she had no time to check. She could hear the roof groaning, as it came close to collapsing, which made her hurry even more. The roof collapsed in just as she got a fair distance away from the house, when she was finally able to check on the girl. For the second time in that day, she wished that the action could be reversed. The girl was a lot worse than she had thought. Her brown hair was matted with dirt and ash and was slightly singed at the ends. Her face and skin was covered with dirt and ash, with small burn marks along both her forearms. Her clothes were singed and ruined and she was shivering from the cold of the outside, but mainly from the shock or her ordeal. What the girl didn't know was that she was now an orphan. On her way up the stairs, she had seen the bodies of two people that she knew to be the girl's parents.
Once she had taken her back to Hogwarts to be treated by Poppy, the moment Minerva had dreaded ever since she had arrived in the hospital wing. The Wizarding Social Care squad had come for the girl. She had quickly gone to do some last minute marking before term restarted. In the rush and bustle of the last couple of weeks, she seemed to have forgotten that she was the Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and thus had a duty to her pupils, as well as to the small girl she found on her way to the Ministry.
By the time she arrived at the hospital wing once more, she had overrun more than she had thought. When she entered the large wing, the bed the girl had been in was empty. Her things were gone, there was no tracing her. She didn't even know the girl's name, yet she felt so familiar to her. Almost maternal.
