August 27, 1980
A pair of bright yellow headlights arced across metal signpost, which stood straight and narrow in the corner of the darkened suburban intersection. The reflection of the light briefly illuminated its letters – they read "Victoria Lane". The car whose lights the beams belonged to soon following as it rounded the corner of the street, the hum of its engine growing louder as it made it's way down the paved road.
On Tuesday evenings, Richard Granger attended the meetings of the South Bedford Dental Practitioners Association, where he served on the volunteer board. He was an orthodontic surgeon and his wife, Nancy, a pediatric dentist. They ran a busy and successful little practice in a well-to-do neighborhood in Bedfordshire.
The man in the car pulled the nose of his sedan into Number Ten, one of the many narrow driveways lining Victoria Lane; it was nearly eleven o' clock at night and the street was quite deserted. He put the gearshift of his car into "park" and turned off the engine.
The weekly meetings of the Association were usually a bore, and the one tonight had certainly not been an exception. That pompous peacock, Dr. Willoughby Fogg, had gone on another one of his monotonous drones about his research in gingival sensitivity.
Richard snorted at the memory. As if the subject hadn't been excavated quite thoroughly already. It was hardly groundbreaking. Honestly, a doctorate was wasted on that man.
He hadn't wanted to sign up for the board – whose other members were just as stuffy and self-absorbed as Willoughy Fogg – but Nancy had pushed him into it, to – as she had put it delicately – "be involved and mingle". She herself had taken up with a local book club in the next village over, a group comprised mostly of gossiping housewives who met on Sundays for tea to discuss the latest scintillating romance of choice.
Neither he nor his wife, he knew, was particularly enjoying their newfound past-times. They were not naturally outgoing people; quite the opposite, actually. They were the sort who most kept to themselves, and who were perfectly content with each other's company. Group activities – and, God forbid, raucous group activities –were found to be positively distasteful. The Grangers ascribed to the belief that, as a general rule, one's time was much better spent on an evening in with a cup of tea and the latest edition of the Journal of Clinical Dentistry, thank you very much.
But Nancy had pleaded with him that they needed to push themselves to stay active and "make new friends". If not for their own social amusement, then to at least keep their minds off the part of their lives – or really, the part missing from their lives – that neither wanted to speak about.
He closed his car door and sighed, looking up at his home. Painted a light robin-egg-blue with pale yellow trimmings, even in the darkness the house gave an impression of warmth and cheer. It was a family home. The corner of his lips turned down, and in that moment, the sad expression made him look a decade older than his forty-two years.
When they first had moved to the neighborhood, years ago, he and Nancy had planned for it to be a family home – a home with children. They had been young, fresh-faced dental school graduates, and in love. They had opened the practice together, and after the few years it took to secure the business's smooth running, they'd turned eagerly to pursuing the next chapter of their lives together – parenthood.
Two years of hard trying and several hundred disposable pregnancy sticks later, they were still not expecting. These things were often unpredictable, and took time, they knew, and so remained hopeful. But after passing the four year mark, however, they could no longer delude themselves into thinking their lack of success was due to unluckiness, and went to seek the advice of a specialist.
Oh, how desperately, they had wanted it to a home with children. But life's cruel randomness had chosen Nancy to have a rare health condition that, though benign in all other ways, made her barren. He'd been flabbergasted, and angry – how could his Nancy, the gentlest and sweetest woman he knew, who had a heart big enough to love a hundred children, have a "hostile womb"?
The following months had been a dark period of their lives – Nancy had had to take time off from work to recover emotionally. But they had resigned themselves to what fate had given them, and moved on to other options. If they couldn't have children of their own blood, then fine – that didn't mean they couldn't love another child. They'd turned to adoption organizations with a fervor family members had found alarming.
But the Grangers quickly found the adoption process in England to be time consuming and harrowing – the sheer number of legal and administrative hoops they had had to jump through – home visits, evaluations of their financial soundness, interviews with acquaintances to gauge their mental and emotional fitness – had taken almost a year. Then they were placed on the waiting list.
That infernal waiting list from hell.
The fact of the matter was, it had been three years that they'd been on the damn list and they were no closer to getting a child of their own than the Queen was likely to sprout antlers.
After the twentieth time their inquiries had been met with the standard "No, no news yet, but it won't be long now" from the adoption center representative, he had entertained, in a moment of wild desperation (egged on, perhaps, by a large, strong whisky), the idea of simply taking a baby.
Perhaps he could circumvent the whole convoluted contraption of a system and pay off a pregnant teen to just give them baby secretly, instead of to the hospital for adoption. The baby would have a good home, he'd thought defensively, a good future, and it would be the most loved child in the whole of Britain.
But then he'd come to his senses and thought, baby thievery was hardly the sort of role model behavior appropriate for a future father. Well that, and the fact that he would fare miserably in prison.
And so the couple had done nothing, but continued to wait. The dawning of a new decade had come and gone, and he was still waiting, filling the intervening time by putting himself through useless things like dental association meetings with fools he couldn't stand.
Sighing, Richard Granger hitched his bag onto his shoulder and walked up the angled driveway towards the front door. He paused there, rummaged in the pockets of his jacket for his keys, and let himself into the darkened house.
Unbeknownst to him, the man's every move since his car had turned the corner, had been watched by a pair of huge, violet, tennis ball eyes hidden, at that very moment, in the dark hedge lining the neighboring Number Nine's yard.
Not long after, the light in the upstairs bedroom of Number Ten went out and the house was quiet, save only for the chirping of grasshoppers breaking the silence of the humid night.
With a small 'pop', the eyes, and the creature they belonged to, vanished into thin air.
Earlier that day
Albus Dumbledore stared unseeingly at one of many spinning sneakoscopes whirring lightly on a side table in his office, lost in thought. His left arm dangled into a handsome mahogany crib that stood at the center of the circular room.
He pursed his lips and considered the events of the last fortnight. The Potters still suspected nothing, and unless some external force intervened or he lifted the spell of his own accord, they never would. Only last week at the meeting at the Bones's house, the young couple had introduced and celebrated their new baby boy with fellow Order members. Baby Harry's presence had done wonders in lifting the spirits of the usually somber gathering. Everyone had surrounding Lily to coo at little Harry in her arms as James had stood with his arm around her, both ecstatic as they received the congratulations.
The ever-affable Sirius Black had been practically gloating with pride for his godson, telling anyone who would listen how he had already bought a toy broomstick for the infant, and would be teaching him to fly as soon as the boy learned to crawl. Others, too, had smiled and laughed and praised the new life in their midst. Why, at one point, Dumbledore could have sworn he'd even glimpsed Alastor Moody looking as if he were blinking back tears.
No one suspected a thing about the missing twin, it seemed.
Or the prophecy, for that matter.
Dumbledore wasn't sure if he felt more relieved or uneasy about the fact that so far, he had heard only radio silence from the other side on that front. No indication that Voldemort was instigating a manhunt for his supposed destroyer; no whispers of unusual maliciousness towards a newborn. Perhaps the sneak that had heard the snippet of the prophecy had gotten cold feet.
Suddenly, he felt something wet. The baby, who had been playing with his hands, had taken one of his fingers into her toothless mouth and was now covering it with slobber. Her brown eyes were lively and laughing at him.
He smiled and his heart softened. He had become very attached to the child in the few weeks since he'd stolen her away from the Potters (he grimaced at the use of that word, but there was really no better way to say it). But his affection notwithstanding, he would have to give her away, and soon.
He'd given the next stage of his plan deep thought. Now with the child disassociated with the Potters, and therefore, with the prophecy, it was a matter of what to do with her next. The most obvious answer, and – there was no way around it, the best answer – was to place her with muggle parents. The child would be hidden in plain sight… only somewhere no one would bother to look. He would be the singular person in the wizarding world to know of her existence as a witch, until it was time for her to enter Hogwarts. And even then, no one would suspect her parentage if he spun the right tale.
Her training would need to start early, before the age of eleven; he could easily have access to her while she lived in the muggle world, in order to teach her. It would not be difficult. He could claim to her parents to be a distant relation, her great-great uncle or something. In fact, claiming her as a distant niece might even serve the situation well once she eventually entered Hogwarts, as a cover for continued private training and lessons…
His train of thought was interrupted as he felt the child move from chewing his finger, to gnawing at his knuckle. He looked fondly down at her in the crib. Her hair had grown out considerably since her birth, and it was a darker brown than it had been before. The eyes and the magic, however, were unchanged.
Though it was paramount to keep her existence a close secret at this stage, upon bringing her back to Hogwarts he had quickly realized that he needed help taking care of the baby while he looked for a more permanent home for her. Despite his hundred years on the planet, his reputation and knowledge, and the fact that he was an long-serving and excellent Headmaster of a children's school, Albus Dumbledore had absolutely zero experience with infants. Bookishness did not, apparently, translate into application where diapers and bottle-feeding were concerned.
Therefore, early on he had conscripted a Hogwarts house elf named Tansy to aid with the baby – a loyal house elf was much more discreet than another person – and child and elf had taken an instant liking to each other. Tansy had also apparently taken well to foster-mothering – where before she bowed and scraped to him as Headmaster repeatedly in his presence, now he found himself being scolded by the elf at least twice daily.
As if he's said his thoughts aloud, just then a squeaky voice said admonishing on his left, "Headmaster, you is not letting the little Miss sleep, you is not. The little Miss needs her nappy time!"
Suppressing a smile, he acquiesced, detangling his finger from the baby's grasp and moved back from the crib. Hermione gurgled at the loss of contact. Tansy immediately replaced him beside the crib and with began fussing with the blankets inside, wrapping them neatly around the child.
"Tansy. I need you to do something for me, please."
The house elf pulled her doting gaze from the baby's face with considerable difficulty, then turned her violet eyes to look at him. She gave a little bow.
"Yes, Headmaster, what is you needing Tansy to do?"
"I need you to stand watch outside a muggle home tonight, and inform me when its owners have gone to sleep." Dumbledore paused. "Then we will take Hermione there… to her new home."
The elf looked aghast.
"Take… take the little Miss away, away from Hogwarts, to live… with muggles? But sir!"
Dumbledore sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He found himself doing that a lot these days. "Yes, unfortunately, it must be so. She cannot stay here, in the castle, once term starts in three days time. I cannot care for her while I am to do my duties here at the school."
"Tansy can raise her, sir! Tansy will do a good job with the little Miss, Tansy will see she becomes a proper young lady, she will," the elf replied eagerly, her eyes enormous.
"No, Tansy. She deserves a real family – parents – to raise her. You wouldn't want her to grow up in the Hogwarts kitchens, would you? These muggles…I have watched them. They're good people. They'll love her very much."
"Oh, but Headmaster. What will the little Missy do without Tansy… what will Tansy do without the little Miss?"
Tears, which had welled up in her large protuberant eyes, were now spilling over in large droplets and running down the elf's long nose.
Dumbledore gave her a sad little smile.
"Don't fret, Tansy. It's not goodbye forever."
Later that night, a strange pair of companions stood on the porch of a quaint, robin-egg-blue house with canary yellow trimmings.
One of the companions was a tall, thin, man in a dark cloak, with a long beard of white trailing down to his knees. Next to him stood a funny little creature with bat-like ears who was wearing what looked like a starched pillowcase. The creature was sniffling quietly.
The tall man knelt down, and produced something from inside his cloak. He paused over it, perfectly still, as if in prayer. Then he stood back up abruptly and squared his shoulders. A second later, both he and the creature had disappeared.
Where they had stood, all there was left was a small bundle of blankets, shifting slightly with the rise and fall of the breathing of the infant tucked inside. Her eyes were closed and she was in a deep sleep, oblivious to her surroundings and the fact that, in a few short hours, she would be woken quite suddenly by the exclaimed shout of surprise of one Richard Granger, D.D.S, on his way out for his morning run.
But for now, nothing would interrupt her pleasant dreams. The infant turned her head slightly and a small hand came to rest on the corner of an envelope that had been tucked in with her. The baby named Hermione let out a small, almost soundless sigh, and was carried off by that fickle mistress, slumber.
