Expect the Unexpected

Summary: Hermione's parents die in a car accident, she is left to pick up the pieces of their live and makes some shocking discoveries about herself. What will she do? Who will she turn to?

Author's Note: I became inspired to do this story after reading a couple of similar plot lines on other stories. I'm sure people will figure out right away the basic plot, but I'm going in a different direction than the previously posted stories. This is alternative universe! I have changed characters pasts to suit my storyline. I am going to try my darndest to keep the characters personalities, as a whole, as close to what J.K. Rowling wrote. Also, as this is AU, there are some characters I have decided not to kill off (as they were some of my favorites).

I have gone through and did a spell check, but if I missed anything please let me know and I'll make the appropriate changes.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter.


October 17, 1979

The air crackled in the house as screaming could be heard from the bedroom. The visitors waited, anxiously, for the news. After many hours a man rushed into the room.

"Lucius, come quickly!"

Lucius rose from his seat, with his wife Narcissa right behind. They followed the man to the master bedroom. They saw the midwife holding one baby and the woman in bed holding another.

"It's twins. A boy and a girl" the man stated.

Lucius calmly walked over to the bed, "Carolina, let me have her."

Through her tears, Carolina nodded, kissed her daughter and handed her to Lucius.

"Martino, we must act quickly to keep her safe."

Martino nodded and the two men quickly exited the room with the precious bundle in Lucius's arms.

Narcissa took the baby boy from the midwife and walked to Carolina. She carefully placed the baby in her arms.

"Have you thought of a name?"

"Yes, we decided on Blaise. Blaise Alexander Zabini."

"Welcome to the world Blaise Alexander Zabini."


September 1, 1998

Hermione Granger was excited!

Today was the first day of her last year at Hogwarts. While in all technicalities last year should have been her final year, but leaving to search for Horcruxes with Harry and Ron and then the Second Wizarding War, her schooling became a distant priority. Now that the war was over, she was being given the opportunity to complete her seventh year. In fact, all students were given the opportunity to complete (or in some cases redo) their seventh year. On top of being able to complete her education, she has been selected as head girl.

After the war ended, she asked Professor Snape to restore her parents memories. With their memories of her firmly in place, she spent the course of a week explaining everything that had happened over the past year. At first, her parents were incredibly upset that she had deceived them by erasing their memories of her but eventually their anger wore off into understanding of why she did what she felt was necessary to keep them safe. She had spent the summer relaxing and getting to know her parents even better. As they had moved to Australia, and had a successful dental practice there, Hermione spent the summer in Australia.

Pulling herself out of her thoughts, Hermione made her way to the head girl and boy's compartment on the train. She arrived prior to the head boy, whomever he was, stowed her stuff quickly and made her way to the prefects car. One of her tasks as head girl was to assign the prefects to specific cars to ensure the ride to Hogwarts was safe and orderly. She quickly assigned cars to the prefects who were present and headed back to her compartment to await the head boy.

She had barely settled herself into the seat when the door opened and in walked Draco Malfoy. To say she was shocked was an understatement. While she knew the Draco's grades rivaled hers, she had made the assumption that he wouldn't be returning to Hogwarts for to redo his seventh year.

"Malfoy"

"Granger"

Malfoy quietly stowed his luggage and sat down across from her.

"I already handed out assignments to the prefects" Hermione informed him.

"Okay" Draco responded quietly.

Hermione took Draco in. While she would never admit this allowed, Draco had developed into an incredibly handsome young man. During the past three years she had developed a slight crush on him.

There was something different about him today though.

She hadn't seen Draco since that night at Malfoy Manor.

"Draco, I know that this might be a little late, but I want to thank you for not turning Harry over to Voldemort after we had been captured by the snatchers."

Draco looked up, with surprise on his face, "um...you're welcome"

"Can I ask you a question?" Draco nodded and she continued "why didn't you turn Harry over? You were a death eater. Why did you help us?"

Draco sighed and stared out the window at the passing landscape for a moment before answering.

"I never wanted to be a death eater. My father had failed Voldemort and his punishment was that I was to be made a death eater. I received the dark mark on my sixteenth birthday, such a great present." Draco paused before continuing, "when the snatchers brought you guys to us, I truly felt awful. Secretly I was hoping and even praying that the famed "golden trio" would be successful in taking the dark lord down. I couldn't admit that to anyone, but I knew that if Voldemort knew that Harry was in the manor, that it would be over, I didn't want that to happen."

Hermione nodded at his explanation, she had a gut feeling that he had been forced into being a death eater and had somewhat redeemed himself in her eyes by not admitting that Harry was with her.

"I hated seeing my aunt torture you Hermione. Obviously we were never friends but I wouldn't begrudge anyone to Bellatrix's craziness. I am truly sorry that happened to you."

"Draco, that wasn't your fault. You had no control over Bellatrix. I don't blame you for what she did to me."

"I also want to apologize for everything I ever said or did to you. I should have known better. This war has definitely shown me the error of my ways. I would really like if we could start over and possibly be friends, especially since we are head boy and head girl and have to share a dormitory."

Hermione smiled, to which Draco reciprocated. "I'd like that"

Draco put out his right arm, "Hi, I'm Draco Malfoy, Slytherin"

Hermione giggled and shook her head, extending her right arm and shaking his hand. "Hi Draco. I'm Hermione Granger, Gryffindor. It's a pleasure to meet you."


October 15, 1998

"I swear to god I'm going to kill the first years!" Draco yelled as he came through the portrait door to the head common room.

Hermione, sitting in front of the roaring fire reading a book, burst into laughter.

"What happened now?"

Draco threw himself onto one of the couches, "Well it seems that the "house unity" program is working far better than expectations as I just caught about 25 first years in one of the empty classrooms. There was firewhiskey everywhere! They even managed to get into Snape's supply and were concocting potions. They didn't even know what they were making! They were just throwing ingredients into the cauldren's and drinking up. I had to take points from every house and send seven of them to the infirmary. Bloody idiots!"

"Were the kids you took to the infirmary okay?" Hermione asked.

"Madame Pomfrey thinks they'll make a full recovery but it might take awhile. I had to wake up Severus, he is examining the leftover potions as we speak trying to determine what they made."

Hermione nodded and went back to reading her book.

"That looks new?"

"Yeah, my mum and dad sent it, birthday present."

"When's your birthday?" Draco asked.

"It's in two days." Hermione answered.

"Blaise's birthday is the seventeenth as well. We got permission to go to Hogsmeade, you should join us."

"I don't want to intrude on your party for Blaise."

"You wouldn't be. Blaise has actually invited Harry and Ron along, if you can believe it. They have agreed to come, you should too."

Blaise inviting Harry and Ron to celebrate his birthday did indeed surprise Hermione. Blaise, Harry and Ron had quite a few classes together and had developed a tentative friendship with the Slytherin. They discovered that Blaise wasn't as bad as they thought he would be. Blaise abhorred the dark lord and his family had gone to extreme lengths to stay out of Voldemort's control. Blaise had informed Harry and Ron that one reason the dark lord had essentially "ignored" the Zabini family was because of Lucius Malfoy. Lucius had integrated himself as a "key player" to the dark lord and in his own way controlled who Voldemort allowed into the "circle".

"Why not, you only turn 18 once!"

Two nights later the ragtag group of teens entered the Three Broomsticks to celebrate two birthdays. In tow were Draco, Hermione, Blaise, Pansy, Theo, Ginny, Luna, Ron, Harry and Neville. There were some awkward moments when they all got there, as prior to the war Gryffindors and Slytherins didn't get along. All it took was Luna starting a rousing version of "happy birthday" and the teens began behaving like teens. Houses were forgotten about and conversations ensued. By the end of the night a random stranger would assume they were all friends. Prior to heading back to Hogwarts they all actually agreed that they had had a great time and that they should do it again. They made plans for the next Hogsmeade day, which would be in November. Hermione went to bed that night tipsy but incredibly blessed with her life thus far.


November 5, 1998

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall walked briskly through the halls of Hogwarts, past anxious first years who trembled at the sight of seeing her to the seventh years who quickly got out of her way.

She saw the student she needed to speak too standing about fifty feet away. She was deep in conversation with her roommate. Minerva approached the two students.

"Miss Granger, I need to speak to you, urgently"

Hermione stopped what she was saying to Draco and looked over to the headmistress.

"What's wrong, am I in trouble?"

"You did nothing wrong Miss Granger, I just received some urgent news that I must share with you, privately."

"Okay. I'll talk to you later Draco." Hermione said and followed McGonagall to an empty classroom at the end of the hall.

Draco knew he should have gone off to class, but there was something in McGonagall's tone and facial features that told him that whatever news Hermione was about to receive, it wasn't going to be good.