A/N: Yes, this does mean Draco and Hermione are technically second cousins. Yes, it's still a Dramione story but I won't be focusing on the familial relationship. Sirius has said before that ANYONE who claims to be a true pureblood, comes from people that married distant (and not so distant) cousins. Even Harry and Ginny are third cousins and Arthur and Molly are also related through the Black family. I understand that this will squick some readers out, so if you want to opt out now, I totally understand and won't hold your squicks against you. I, personally, can't handle reading Snape/Harry pairings, but I wouldn't judge the writers or readers that love them. To each their own.

Chapter Three
Memoria

April 1998

The side effects of being under the Cruciatus Curse lasted much longer than many would have thought. A combination of Bellatrix's expertise in the specific curse, paired with the length of time Hermione had been under it, made it near impossible for the little witch to be left alone at night. The first time she'd had a seizure in her sleep, Kreacher had woken the entire house, screaming for someone to help his special Young Miss. Elf magic could heal, certainly, and Kreacher had done his best with the grotesque carving on her arm, but some things were best left to potions and time, both of which were necessary for Hermione's recovery.

Snape did what he could, moving back and forth between Hogwarts and Grimmauld Place, grateful that the students had yet to return to the school from Easter holidays, giving him a mild reprieve from his duties as Headmaster. Voldemort was on a hunt for something, the Elder wand if Harry was to be believed, and the Death Eaters were left to their own devices while their master was on his own mission. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of work for the Order. When the cat's away . . .

When he was at Grimmauld Place, Snape brewed in a spare room on the fourth floor, keeping Hermione alive and out of pain with a variety of potions that she drank down with no complaint, once mentioning that she'd handled a worse recovery at the end of fifth year when Dolohov's curse had her ingesting upwards of ten potions a day for weeks until she was finally healed. Sirius and Snape both requested she never mention that time again, and she couldn't understand why.

Sirius had scarcely made it out of the Department of Mysteries alive, but he'd been in worse situations and battles, and what Snape's issue was regarding the Department of Mysteries was well . . . a mystery. She eavesdropped later on when Mrs Weasley stopped in to bring food for everyone and the redhead asked after Hermione's health.

"She'll be all right, won't she?" the witch asked. "It's not as bad as last time?"

"Please don't mention that," Sirius pleaded. "Poppy told us all Hermione could have died then."

"She could have died a few days ago as well," Mrs Weasley said softly. "They shouldn't have run off. The Order should have stepped in right from the beginning. Damn Albus," the woman cursed their fallen Headmaster. "If only he had stuck around to tell us what he needed done."

"My apologies for disturbing your predetermined end-of-war schedule," Snape hissed at her. "Perhaps I could have delayed killing him," the bitter words rolled over the matron, "but regardless of timing, I can guarantee you that Albus Dumbledore would not have shared with you anything he did not want to. He told children his plans to end the war and, from what I've gathered, he didn't tell them much. It was how the man worked. Little pieces of information at a time to keep you coming back for more. He hand-fed all of his pets."

"We weren't his pets," Sirius argued quietly, his tone implied that he was trying to remain in control of his anger.

"Of course, we were!" Snape snarled. "You the dog, I the snake," he said and rolled his eyes. "And if you haven't figured it out yet, he had three favourite little lambs, all ready for slaughter."

Harry slept beside her each night to make sure she was safe. Hermione figured a lot of it was more for him than for her. They'd taken to sharing a bed when Ron abandoned them on the hunt. For weeks they had tried to stay on a schedule. One would rest while the other took watch, but after so long they were beyond exhausted and one morning she woke to find Harry's arm draped over her protectively, snoring next to her. She remembered smiling, for the first time in weeks, and feeling safe. Feeling loved and a part of something whole. Family. She had lost her parents to Obliviation, and so she clung to Harry desperately to fill that familial void in her life.

A void that was starting to become familiar again.

When she wasn't resting from her injuries or begging for information from the Order or, at the very least, something to do, she had taken to staring at the Black Family tapestry on the wall. Her fingers gently raked over the embroidered name of Regulus Arcturus Black, willing information to be parted from the wall into her mind. Who was he? What was he like? Why did he have to die? Who was her mother? Why did they give her away, and to Muggles of all people? The Blacks, Regulus included, had been blood purists. Sirius and Andromeda had been the only exceptions. Right?

Her recovery took a rough step in the wrong direction one night when Harry had been summoned back to Shell Cottage to make plans with the Order. She woke in the middle of the night feeling like she was being suffocated only to find Sirius holding onto her tightly as her body thrashed in his arms. When she finally stopped seizing, Hermione tried to hold back her emotions, but they flooded her senses and she sobbed like a child against his chest while he stroked her long black curls, kissing her forehead and muttering apologies as though he had been the one to curse her.

Sirius whispered promises of protection. Told her that he would never let her go and that she was a part of him and a part of his family and he would do his best to take care of her from that point forward, no matter what it cost him.

Hermione's tears dried up as she breathed in Sirius's comforting scent, the feeling of safety enveloping her in a way she hadn't felt in years, not since she was a little girl and her dad—Richard Granger—hugged her tightly after picking her up at Kings Cross Station after her fourth year at Hogwarts when Cedric had died and Voldemort returned. She had been terrified deep down, covering up her fears with Gryffindor bravery and bravado, but the moment her dad wrapped his arms around her, she was small and fragile and felt like she could really, truly let go and allow herself to be afraid and have those fears chased away like monsters in the closet or the bogeyman beneath the bed.

Sirius made her feel like that again. Small and yet safe.

She reached a small hand up and touched his shoulder length black hair. Soft in texture like her own and as black as midnight with a gentle curl to it. She wondered if Regulus's hair had been the same. Wondered if he smelled like leather and sandalwood like Sirius did and, if so, was it something that would have calmed her as a child. Would he have hugged her and held her and calmed her fears, eased her nightmares, and told her that he would chase away the monsters? Hermione wanted to think that he would have.

Regulus Black had been a Death Eater, that much was certain. But he had also defied the Dark Lord; tried to bring him down by stealing and attempting to destroy a Horcrux. But he had failed, and his act of defiance had cost him his life.

Had cost Hermione her father.

Sirius's hugs were both a kind comfort and a painful reminder to the witch.

When the seizures stopped and she could sleep alone through the night, Hermione tried to get downstairs as quickly as she could every morning before Kreacher appeared with a tray of a dozen different foods to serve her in bed. She had tried pleading with the elf to let her downstairs, but he insisted that his special Young Miss needed her strength, and then went blathering on about how he was denied the privilege of caring for the special Young Miss, and how her honourable father Regulus . . . "liked to eat porridge with blueberries, and he liked bacon and tomatoes and beans but he did not like eggs and does special Young Miss like eggs?"

"Eggs are fine, Kreacher, thank you, you really don't have to go to all the trouble of—"

"Master Regulus, special Young Miss's honourable father, liked pumpkin juice in the morning but tea in the afternoon and does special Young Miss like pumpkin juice in the morning but tea in the afternoon?" he asked her.

His blue eyes stared up at her the same way that third years gaped at their first unicorn in Care of Magical Creatures. It made her incredibly sad and uneasy at the same time as though she wanted to dismiss him away but was terrified of offending him, or worse, causing him to think he had done something wrong and end up hurting himself in response.

Hermione offered a small smile. "Doesn't everyone drink pumpkin juice in the morning?" she asked conversationally.

Kreacher scowled. "Master . . . filthy blood-traitor brat that he is," the previously chipper elf hissed, "drinks coffee." He spoke in a tone that was hateful and defiant and said the words as though coffee was the very worst thing in the world simply because Sirius drank it.

Hermione frowned. "Kreacher . . ." she said hesitantly and then swallowed hard, "I . . . I would like it very much if you stopped speaking ill of Sirius."

He stared at her in severe confusion.

"Please," she begged him, and frowned when he recoiled from the word as though she had struck him. Hermione sighed in frustration. Never before had she wanted a house-elf, least of all this specific one, but she couldn't help but think that someone in the wizarding world should have written an owner's manual on how to deal with them. "Kreacher," she cleared her throat. "I . . . I order you to treat Sirius with respect," she said. "No more calling him names. No more calling anyone names," she corrected.

Kreacher stared at her, his mouth open and his fingers twisting in the long white hair that stuck out of his ears. Hermione cringed at the sight and then added, "And please wash your hands before you go back to the kitchen," she said nervously.

"Of course special Young Miss, Kreacher lives to serve the noble House of Black," he said and bowed low to her.

Hermione pouted guiltily. "B-but . . ." she stammered, "don't let anyone treat you badly. And only do things if you really want to. And if Sirius harms you in any way . . . I . . . I give you permission to . . ." she tried to think of something not so terrible that it would further provoke the strange animosity between Master and house-elf. "I give you permission to give him tea instead of coffee!"

Kreacher gaped at her with amusement as though she had just given him permission to poison Sirius. A part of her immediately began to worry that perhaps her new found uncle was allergic to tea leaves.

By the time Kreacher had filled her plate three times over, Hermione ordered him to leave her alone, something that still made her guilty, but apparently got easier with time. She slowly made her way down the stairs and into the library, desperate for something to do other than to stare out her bedroom window and wonder how the war was going on as no one was willing to offer her any information lest they stress her out.

"You're supposed to be resting, Miss Granger," Snape drawled as she stood in the doorway of the library, not even raising his black eyes to greet her as he devoted his attention to a book on a table in front of him; quill in hand, he made notes in the margins.

Hermione scrunched up her face at the sight as she reminded herself that books with his notes in the margins should probably be looked at with caution considering the trouble one of them had landed Harry in the year before. "Black," she said quietly as she stepped into the room and sat down across from him.

Snape looked up at her, raising a brow. "Beg your pardon?"

"Miss Black," she corrected, a bite to her tone. "Isn't that who I am? Or is the tapestry wrong? Am I just some bastard child that was dropped on the doorstep of a Muggle family; the castaway of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black? Did my father even give a—"

Snape closed the book loudly, slamming the cover shut and cutting her off of her angry rant. She looked up at him with grey eyes, nervously twirling a lock of black hair between two fingers. She was angry that she was being kept in the dark about the war, which only served to remind her that she had been apparently kept in the dark as to her own origins, but she certainly hadn't meant to snap at the Potions Master like that.

Before she had a chance to officially apologise, he cleared his throat and then spoke in a mildly threatening tone, "Be careful to choose your next words, Miss . . . Black."

Hermione nodded her apology instead before asking, "So that is my name then?"

Snape sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You are not some . . . bastard, Miss Black," he assured her. "Your biological parents were indeed wed. I should know, I was present for the occasion," he added, rolling his eyes.

"You were at their wedding?" she asked, her interest peaked.

Snape nodded and then sneered. "Forcibly."

She hesitated before finally summoning the courage to ask him, "Who was my mother? The tapestry doesn't say."

"I imagine your father charmed it as such," Snape answered, opening his book once again and dunking the tip of his quill in a nearby ink pot, "the same way he charmed it to keep your name off of it until Potter decided to let you bleed all over magically enchanted floors. As for the identity of your mother, that is not for me to say," he drawled.

Hermione frowned bitterly. The man clearly knew the answer to her question but was purposely keeping the information to himself. Did that mean her mother was a terrible person? Someone she would be horrified to discover had given birth to her? She briefly panicked at the thought that her mother might have been Bellatrix Lestrange. The House of Black was known for inbreeding and it wasn't a secret that they'd married between cousins and . . . Oh Merlin! Hermione paled. She descended from people who married their first cousins!

"She was not a Black," Snape said irritably.

Hermione let out a sigh of relief. "How did you—?"

"Gryffindors are unbearably transparent with their thoughts. It almost makes the years I spent learning Legilimency a waste of time," he said.

"Why did he keep me a secret?" Hermione asked the Potions Master. "Why was I not on the tapestry until I 'bled all over magically enchanted floors', as you put it?"

"That is not for me to say."

"Then who can say it?!" she snapped. "I have questions, who can answer them for me?"

Snape looked up at her and raised a brow. "After six years of putting up with you knowing all of the answers to my questions," he said in a tone of annoyance, "I find this new side of your personality much more intolerable. However, at least you've ceased with the incessant hand raising."

"Can you tell me anything?" she begged him.

He snarled. "It is not—"

"For you to say," Hermione frowned, "yes, I know."

Several minutes passed in silence between them before Snape finished writing something at the end of a page and closed the book, setting his quill down to the side before capping the inkwell. "Your father would have the answers you seek," he told her.

"Yes, well, he's dead, isn't he?" Hermione said in a quiet anger.

Snape very briefly narrowed his eyes at her statement. "Obviously," he said, a note of sadness in his tone.

She looked up, catching his slight change in demeanour. "You knew him?" she asked and he nodded. "What . . . what was he like?"

"More tolerable than his brother . . ." Snape said instantly and then added, "and daughter."

Hermione smirked at him. "Does the Order need any help with research?" she asked, peering over at the cover of the book he had been writing in, noting that it was simply an old potions book. "Sirius and Harry won't let me assist with anything else because of the . . . the seizures," she frowned. "I can't brew anything because I'm likely to drop an ingredient and blow up the house, and I can't even fight because my wand was . . ." She sighed as she reached into her pocket to pull out the walnut wand from her robes that recently belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry had apparently allowed Tonks to use it during the infiltration of Gringotts, but Hermione woke up one morning and it had been returned to her as though it belonged with her.

Hermione hated it.

"Is that her wand?" Snape asked the witch. "Strange thing to hold onto. A keepsake from the time you were held prisoner."

"I wasn't held prisoner," she corrected him. "Harry and Ron were. I was tortured."

"Prisoner just the same. A lack of bars does not indicate freedom, quite the opposite," he insisted as though he knew from personal experience what it was like to be kept. Perhaps not a prison, but a cage or a very tight leash.

Hermione frowned as she looked at the wand in her hand. "I kept it because I need a wand and this one was available. Now . . . is there anything I can research?"

"I left a stack of books in your room," Snape said, gesturing to the door.

"Not my room," she swallowed. "I don't live here. Besides, I've . . . relocated."

It had been Kreacher's idea of course, but one that Hermione didn't argue with. One evening after taking a bath, she wrapped herself in a soft towel and left the bathroom to return to the guest bedroom where she had been staying only to find all of her things missing. When she finally tracked them down, they were neatly folded and stacked on a chair beyond a wooden door that read, Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black.

She entered regardless and set herself up in her father's old bedroom, tearing down any and every mention of Voldemort he had plastered to the walls. She left up the photographs and the rest of the decor in the room. Green and silver draped the bed, walls, and the windows and she was half tempted to turn them all red and gold as a strange way of defying her father, something she had clearly not been able to do growing up. Her Muggle parents had always been so agreeable and anytime she was home from Hogwarts it was filled with vacations and catching up. She wondered what Regulus Black would have thought about his only child being sorted outside of Slytherin.

She left everything green and silver, though, much to Harry's distaste. When asked why she refused to change it, Hermione shrugged and, with no further explanation, said, "I'm comfortable here."

"I was told." Snape nodded. "Still, if you can't manage to carry the books to your new . . . location, I imagine the elf would be pleased to assist you."

Hermione grimaced. "I don't like him waiting on me."

"He seems to enjoy it quite a bit. You would deny the little beast an ounce of happiness?" he accused her, clearly amused when she gasped in reply. "Leave him in the caring hands of the mutt who he loathes to serve and once tried to help kill?"

Hermione shook her head, knowing that he was trying to provoke her into an argument, quite possibly for his own entertainment. "How can Kreacher be so devoted to . . . to Regulus but not to Sirius?" she asked, purposely not referring to the dead former Death Eater as her father, something she was struggling to do in her own mind as she fought the urge to separate herself entirely from the man, but yearned to connect with him as well. "Were they so different?" she asked. "He . . . my father," she looked down as she spoke the word quietly, "couldn't have been more than eighteen-years-old when he died. I know he was a Death Eater, but . . . but he was good in the end. Like you."

Snape scowled at her. "Do not presume to know a thing about me, Miss Black."

"He was only eighteen—"

"Draco Malfoy is an eighteen-year-old Death Eater, tell me, what do you think of him?" he snapped at her.

Hermione recoiled from the words and looked away from the Potions Master, anxiously twirling a lock of her hair between her fingers before finally whispering, "I . . . I don't want to talk about Draco Malfoy."

He watched her mannerisms which seemed to annoy him further. "Interestingly enough, I do not care to talk about Regulus Black. If you want to know more about your father, go and read his diaries," he said, waving her off.

She looked up with sudden interest. "There are diaries? His personal ones?"

"Obviously or I would not have mentioned them." He stared at the girl incredulously as he made to stand, gathering his belongings into his arms.

"Why did you have my father's diaries?" she asked curiously.

"They were given to me."

"Why would he—" she began but was cut off when Snape hissed in pain and grabbed at his forearm.

"I have to go."

"The Dark Mark," she whispered, "He's . . . he's calling for you?"

Snape nodded. "Yes, and for once in my life I'm quite pleased to be entering his company as it relieves me of yours." He snarled at her but Hermione could see the strange worry in his black eyes.

She stood to say goodbye. "Umm . . . be . . . be safe, sir," she said softly.

She contemplated going downstairs to find someone else to pester for a job to do or information on what was happening outside of Grimmauld Place, but when she heard laughter coming from the drawing room, she frowned. She could hear the sounds of Remus and Sirius, the latter, her uncle, going on and on about some prank or other that Harry's father pulled back in Hogwarts. Sounds of delight echoed up the hallways and stairwells and Hermione frowned wishing that Sirius was sitting with her instead, telling her memories of Regulus.

Perhaps, she wondered, Sirius doesn't have any good ones.

She returned to her room—Regulus's room—with his diaries in her arms and sat down on the green and silver bed, ignoring the large Black Family crest that had been painted over it. She reached for the leather bound book, opening the cover by using the tip of her finger with delicate ease, staring at the script on the inside noting the owner and year.

September 1st, 1972

I sat with Sirius and his friends on the train even though Mother said I shouldn't. He's a bad influence, she continues to say and, after seeing the amount of Dungbombs my brother and his comrades have collected, I can't help but wonder if she was right. Whatever personality traits our parents found distasteful in Sirius before he left for Hogwarts, have been made worse by his friends.

Potter encourages him through competition, one trying to outdo the other at every turn. Pettigrew applauds his every move to the point where I couldn't not roll my eyes at him. As much as I love my brother and have always looked up to him, even I couldn't contort myself into such a position to kiss his arse so well as Pettigrew does. Lupin seems to be the only logical mind of the bunch, and yet, still a Gryffindor which, according to Mother, might as well label one a blood-traitor from the start. He's a half-blood, though, so it wouldn't really matter. I know because I asked him and then received glares from each of Sirius's friends as though I had cursed them all.

Sirius says that blood status doesn't matter at Hogwarts.

I can't help but feel that, regardless of what my personal opinions on the purity of ancestry are, it does in fact, matter. Especially now that I've been sorted into Slytherin. I couldn't do it. The Sorting Hat appeared like it wanted to give me the choice but I . . . I'm not like Sirius. Not brave like Sirius. Or foolish like Sirius. He can take the beatings and the bruises, the broken bones and the whipping . . . but I don't have it in me to willingly martyr myself.

Not for principles I don't fully understand.

I met a girl on the train when I was sent to find the trolley. She fought me for the last liquorice wand and called me a prat when I bought it right out from under her nose. She traded me three chocolate frogs for the item and laughed when I tried to kiss her hand after she introduced herself.

She was sorted into Gryffindor.

Sirius is wrong.

It all matters.

When Hermione woke the following morning, Regulus's diary held open on her lap, she yawned and closed the book, eager to set it aside before Kreacher showed up and started shovelling food at her. The witch turned to place the diary on the table beside the bed and gasped at the sight of her vinewood wand sitting there, pinning down a note that read:

Miss Black,

I believe this belongs to you.

S.S.