Author's note:
I want to thank those who read/reviewed/favourited/followed Prodigal, it makes me really happy!

So I present chapter two, hoping it is decent. And once more I want to emphasise that going dark is different than being dark, going dark takes a while. Give Hermione her time and she'll be Dark!Hermione, but she is first and foremost a scholar, wishing to know just from a scholastic perspective.

Also, Hermione is of the opinion that two magical parents can have a squib, who can have a squib, who can have a squib. In her mind a muggle born to two muggle parents that know about magic is a squib, because a squib is a muggle that knows magic exists. She reasons that muggle=nonmagic person/parent of muggleborn, squib=nonmagic that knows about magic from parents(wizard/squib) and wizard=magic person.

That said, enjoy.


Prodigal

Contrary to popular belief, the eldest Peverell brother did not die childless and neither did his children. And many centuries later a muggleborn girl finds that her ancestry is so much more than she had ever thought of it.

Dark!Hermione

Chapter Two

The eldest was the worst

His greed foretold his fate

For with him, death did not wait

Arcturion Black, on 'The Tale of the Three Brothers'.

Hermione ran down the stairs to meet her parents, one of her less neat and much smaller copies of the family-tree securely in her grasp.

"Look, mum, dad!" She exclaimed as she slapped it onto the dining table, rattling her father's cup of coffee and nearly making the mug fall over in her enthusiasm, "we have a wizard ancestor!"

"Oh," her mother exclaimed softly as she bent over the paper and gave it a curious look, scanning the various unfamiliar names that eventually gave way to names she recognized from what she herself had told Hermione about her family's history. "Look, John, she is right. Hermione, dear, isn't this up to where cousin Maxwell came?" Her mother's well-manicured finger tapped a name somewhere in the middle.

Hermione nodded enthusiastically, bushy hair bobbing along as she pointed to another name, "yes because from that point we've been a family of squibs. Or rather, descendants of one squib so muggles, really, but still with some knowledge of magic so just like a squib, but then more muggle. See, here, Desdemona Peverell married Hubert Granger. From that point we've been the Grangers because Desdemona Peverell was the last of eight generations of muggles, or squibs, all direct descendants of Antioch Peverell, who was the oldest of three brothers. I believe there was a book about him somewhere in Diagon Alley, can we go, please? Mum? Even to just look?"

Margret Granger laughed, "well, we did have a trip planned to see London again this week. How about it, John, shall we do it now or do you still want to wait?"

John just grumbled, drinking his coffee with his trademark I-need-coffee scowl as he unfolded his paper, "hmpf."

"That's a yes, dear, let's buy you some more books then," Margret decided as she patted her husband's shoulder and shoved a plate of scones in his direction, "John, I want to leave just after tea-time. I expect you to be ready by then."

Hermione grinned excitably as she rushed back up the stairs, intent on making a list of what she'd buy. She hadn't yet received her Hogwarts letter with the books she'd need for the next year but she had an idea of what she would and wouldn't need. And aside from that she had a whole list of books she wanted to buy for her self-study, some light reading and background reading on her newfound (albeit long dead) wizarding relative. She knew for sure he was a wizard, the records she had been using for the last couple of months had his name written under various duelling forms and he was even listed in her Notable Wizards and Witches throughout the Centuries book, in the 13th century section. It didn't say why, aside from being a 'notable dueller' but those were there aplenty, but he was in there and that was what mattered.

Later that afternoon, once again sitting in her parent's car, she was excitedly rattling off every single thing she learned while at Hogwarts. Her parents listened, entranced by the stories she wove about flying broomsticks, moving staircases and plants that could eat a person whole. Her stories sounded so much better in person than written on paper in the letters she sent home every week.

oOoOoOoOo

Diagon Alley was just as Hermione remembered, a dishevelled place bursting with life and, most importantly, magic. Some tiny stalls were laid out in front of the shops, witches and wizards loudly advertising their various, brightly coloured and decidedly odd wares as they clamoured for attention. Hermione turned her nose up at the few glaring at her for her muggle attire, she knew they were prejudiced (horribly so) and thus justified her actions easily.

She directed her parents to Gringotts, the huge building with its guards position outside the golden doors was very easy to find amongst the less inconspicuous shops lining the cobblestone road.

The pound-to-galleon booth was empty of any other muggleborns, Hermione noted immediately, it was to be expected. The train had only arrived a few hours ago, no one just back from Hogwarts (save for her and her parents) would be visiting the Alley for at least a while yet.

After her parents converted their money she ushered them inside Flourish and Blotts and once again was hit by the nostalgic smell of books. Really, the shop was incredible. Shelves that went up to the ceiling, stacks of books higher than a person and the books. Books that were small, big, huge, filled with drawings, words, and some were even empty. Some were old, bound in leather and with thin, fragile parchment for pages and others were lavishly covered with expensive silk and with intricate titles and fine decoration on the spine. Yes, Hermione decided, this was by far her favourite shop.

She was eagerly browsing through the various sections, politely refusing the help offered by the clerk for now, and her parents stayed close. They weren't eager on losing her in an environment they didn't fully know and feel comfortable in, much less one where they were seen as second-class citizens.

"Look," Hermione said happily as she gingerly picked a thick book from between several others on the shelf, "this is one Neville told me about, you remember him from my letters, right? Well, he said it's common for wizards to look up their ancestry because purebloods care very much about lineage, as does the rest of the world apparently, because 'dropping names' can help you in the future."

"Wasn't that Neville boy a pureblood," her father asked as he ran a head through his own brown curls, "like the other boy you mentioned, the one you called inbred?"

"Yes," Hermione admitted, "but Neville is nicer, even a bit shy, but he is a pureblood too. He's been raised by his gran and great-uncle so he knows a lot about that stuff, he said that if I wanted to know more I should buy A comprehensive guide to notable, respectable families, extant and extinct. He says it updates every few month, so I don't have to buy a new one, and that apparently every family has one at home, or is supposed to anyway. He was forced to learn it all when he was eight so he would know who was who at Hogwarts, but he isn't really in that stuff. Like I said, he's shy."

"We'll take that one then," John agreed as he picked the book from his daughter's arms, immediately hunching over as the book's heavy weight hit him. He grunted as he adjusted its weight, "darn, Hermione, you could have warned me. This is heavy."

Hermione merely grinned, after a few months her of carrying her over-filled bag around had made her resistant to any but the heaviest books, and really, this one didn't even come close.

In the end she ended up buying The Tale of the Three Brothers, which was part of a book called The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and it was supposedly a fairy tale about her ancestor, which was odd but slightly interesting as well, and she recognised it as the book she had first seen mentioning Antioch Peverell's name.

And aside from The Tales of Beedle the Bard she bought quite a bit of books she might not even necessarily need for her coming school year but could prove useful for the background reading she usually did for her papers or other assignments. The helpful clerk, who winked at her and told her he was a muggleborn too, had shrunken the books for her and promised that the charm would wear off within three hours as she wasn't allowed to un-shrink them herself.

And so they left Diagon Alley, grabbing some ice-cream for a parlour in muggle London before heading to the car for the drive home.

oOoOoOoOo

Hermione's fingers turned another page as she carefully sipped from her mug of hot chocolate, the book she bought was turning out to be quite interesting. It held various little facts on pureblood families, as well as the usual propaganda and a full list of mazes in the law purebloods could make use of, but apart from that is was a veritable well of information. The author was very detailed in his research ad had family-trees of almost every pureblood family that ever existed in the United Kingdom, it even held names of some Slytherin students (including Draco Malfoy, the prat) and she even saw a few of her teachers in it. She even saw Parvati's family-tree, apparently her cousin once-removed had married a 'muggle' and had a 'halfblood' with him.

It were tiny details like that that showed that the author was a pureblood, a prejudiced one, as well. Muggles, halfbloods and 'mudbloods', which Hermione guessed was a condensing name for a muggleborn, weren't even mentioned by name, with the notable exception being the last remaining members of a formerly prosperous family or one that could father pureblood children. Harry Potter, for example, was shown as 'Harry James Potter, halfblood' meaning that if he married and fathered a child with a pureblood girl his children would be pureblood by default.

Hermione snorted, this was wizard's logic at its best. Instead of naming it a 'three-quarter blood', which he was, he was falsely categorized as a halfblood. Really, wizards made no sense.

She had already written Neville about her discovery, having sent the sent to a wizard post-office that had muggle front so that muggleborns without an owl of their own could send letters without having to trek all the way to Diagon Alley, or another wizarding community for that matter. The business was founded by a muggleborn, as no pureblood would ever do anything for a 'mudblood', Hermione supposed, and it was free of charge. You simply sent a mail, they then sent it per owl to the addressee. Professor McGonagall had pointed it out when she asked, apparently she wasn't the only muggleborn not in possession of an owl, and her head of house advised her to send a can of owl-treats along with her envelope one day as the owner appreciated that more than money. Apparently running the business wasn't that expensive nor hard if the owner could do it without income.

Hermione turned another page, she really should send one, they did save her a lot of trouble after all, doing it for free.

In the end, two weeks and one hasty trip back to Diagon Alley for extra books on the subject, Hermione finally sat down to think.

She had a list of facts written down in front of her, assorted from the two books she had just read, and truth be told they disturbed her.

Why?

Because Antioch Peverell was dark. Not you-know-who dark but definitely not someone she'd ever want to run into. Because duelling, back in the thirteenth century, meant killing your opponent for sports. And Antioch Peverell had been good at it, until he was murdered. The comprehensive guide to notable, respectable families, extant and extinct had said he was murdered by the family of one of the wizards he himself killed and the Tale of the Three Brothers claimed he was murdered so another could control his mythical, all-powerful wand that he was boasting about.

She was more inclined to believe the first book though, the latter being a fairy tale.

But that wasn't really what mattered, what mattered that she descended (even though that was centuries ago) from a dark wizard. But that was where she had to sit down, think, and write a list of what she knew and what she though.

She knew Antioch Peverell was dark, the books only supported that fact, but what did dark mean? The older books mentioned it as if it was blonde or has blue eyes. Something normal, something that was to be expected. The newer books were different, the dark was bad, they seemed to say, so don't go there. Ron Weasley and other, fellow Gryffindors had echoed those opinions, dark wizards were bad, evil and dark. They were of the opinion that Slytherin was a training ground for dark wizards, dark had become what 'mudblood' seemed to be for the purebloods.

An awful, demeaning word that had a whole history behind it.

She had, of course, sought up 'mudblood' and a whole world of prejudice against muggleborns and their family had opened up for her. How the parents of muggleborns had once made up part of the inquisition, how muggleborns were turned against their own and how troubles had erupted between what seemed like two different people, those who had one foot in the magical and another in the muggle world against those raised firmly on magical ground.

And because of that, because muggleborns were also 'part muggle' the purebloods thought they could turn on them. Of course, that was centuries ago and by now it was just mostly old prejudice that only really said 'muggleborns are trash', but the point remained that there was a history behind such a simple word. It didn't take away the indignation she felt at 'her kind' being called something that basically meant dirtied blood, as if blood could be muddy, but she understood. Not all, because she never would

And that was exactly the case with the word dark. But something in her said that there was even more, that there was more to be found if only she opened her eyes to properly look for it. That there was a whole world hidden behind a flimsy gate, waiting for her to open it just like she once, figuratively speaking, opened the gate that led to magic.

But another part of her was cautious, wanting so desperately to heed her classmates' comments and warnings about dark wizards and witches.

But she was Hermione Granger, she'd never back out of an assignment, no subject could get the best of her. So she opened one of her most recent purchases, another history book, and grabbed her cup of tea (no more than one mug of hot chocolate a day, her parents said) and set out to know just what they meant when they said dark and how the perspective on it seemed so different now than what she'd read in older books.

She was Hermione Granger, she had a question, a mission, and she would find the answer.


Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Volenta