A/N: I don't know if I need to put a warning up, but this chapter has a sort of allusion to sexual coersion/blackmail/rape, I'm not really sure how to categorize it. And it just sort of happened, it wasn't even planned, but it fit into the chapter nicely. Nothing explicit or anything happens!
On a separate note, I wrote this chapter really fast because I know there are people waiting on it, so be prepared for some minor spelling mistakes. Sorry, I just really wanted to get it up!
Alright, enough from me, enjoy!
Hermione was correct; fatherhood suited Severus just as well as potion making. She surmised that it had to be all those years he had spent as Slytherin's Head of House. He scoffed at her and said that it wasn't anything difficult, and he had no idea why others had such a hard time with it.
As the week progressed, Severus seemed to remember that he was in fact a Professor and enforced a mandatory study time for Harry, where he had to work on his summer assignments. His argument had been that no ward of his would turn in sub-par homework when he had a very intelligent woman as well as one of his own Professors within shouting distance for three whole months.
Harry had bregrudgingly agreed, but found some of the material confusing, and often came to one of the adults for assisstance.
"Morgana, do you know anything about the goblin wars?" Harry asked, already dreading this assignment. He was half tempted to write gibberish for his History of Magic essay, just to see if Binns actually read them all or not.
"Of course I do. Do you have your book? It will make the assignment much easier," she hinted, knudging him gently back to his room to retrieve his thick History book.
"Now, this specific Goblin war...," she started, and Harry found that he liked her form of teaching much better than Binns'. She didn't drone on and on for what felt like hours; she took what she knew and gave him precise, efficient descriptions that didn't leave him yearning for his bed.
Likewise, his Potions homework was involved and confusing, and he braved his guardian's possible ire by asking him about it. He was pleasantly surprised to find the man nothing like he had been in class. He answered Harry's questions calmly, showed him examples, pointed out books he might use, and even took him down to his lab to give him a quick demonstration.
Severus was surprised to find that when there were no distractions or classmates chucking ingredients around the room, Harry was actually quite competent at brewing, and allowed the boy to assist him with the potions he had to make for the upcoming year, stocking up the infirmary.
It had been a week of this content, domestic bliss, when Hermione got a firecall from Elise. She was shocked to see the young girl's face in the flames of the sitting room's fireplace, and rushed to answer the call, hoping Severus would keep Harry busy for a while longer.
"Elise! It's wonderful to see you," she exclaimed. She couldn't help but check over her shoulder, paranoid that the boys would walk in at any moment.
"Hello, my dear. Your papers are finished, if you would like to pick them up. I understand you're caring for a child; would you like to come fetch them tonight?"
Hermione bit her lip, but nodded nonetheless. "Yes, please. The sooner I have them, the more grounded I'll feel. I'll come round tonight around ten, if that's alright?"
"Of course. I'll be in the foyer, waiting for you. See you tonight."
And then she was gone just as fast as she had arrived.
Hermione tried to brush the conversation off, but her excited nerves were evident as she joined Severus and Harry in the basement potions lab.
"And what has you in such a chipper mood?" Severus snapped, wiping his hands on a rag. He had sent Harry upstairs to wash up, so they were free to converse.
"Elise called while you were down here. My papers are finished. I will have an official identity now. She said I can pick them up tonight."
Severus eyed her shrewdly, frowning harshly. "You aren't going alone, are you? I don't know if I trust them. Especially if she frightened you last time."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself," Hermione returned, palming her wand with a smirk.
"Fine," he grumbled, before they treked back upstairs.
That night, Hermione left the manor at half past nine, apparating to the alley with her hood already in place. The walk to the shop was at once too short yet too long; she was excited to receive her papers yet nervous at the same time. She would have to embrace her new persona as herself, and give up the person she had become up until that point.
But, in times of war, sometimes you had to make drastic sacrifices. Burying her old name was just one of many she would gladly give if she could see Harry grow up healthy and happy, without half the challenges they had had to face in her school years.
True to her word, Elise was waiting in the foyer of the shop, prim and pristine and beautiful in her simplicity. She was smiling calmly at Hermione, but her face was almost too calm, too blank. It set Hermione's nerves on edge.
"Hello, my dear. Racifer has the papers in the same room you met in last. Just head right on in. He's expecting you."
Hermione thought she might have imagined the sorrowful look the girl sent her as she opened the door, but the eyes that lingered on her back were not imagined. Hermione paused in the doorway, half turning to meet the girl's eyes. They were blank once more, as if she had simply imagined the look.
A chill swept through Hermione's body then. She wasn't sure if it was the same sort of chill Elise had sent through her at their last meeting, or if it was just an instinctual reaction to the thinly veiled warning coming off of the small girl.
Either way, Hermione's wand was in her hand when she entered Racifer's domain. The man sat behind his monstrous desk, leaning back at ease as he watched her enter, amusement glittering in his eyes.
"My dear, welcome back. How have you been this week?" he asked, his eyes twinkling in a way that reminded Hermione strongly of Dumbledore, and there was that chill again, jaggering up her spine.
Something was not right.
"It was fine, thank you. How ever much I love small talk, I would rather get my papers and leave. I have other engagements tonight," she insisted, keeping her voice calm and aloof.
Racifer's cheek twitched, like he was trying to fight a smile. "Of course, of course." He produced a bundle of thick parchment from his desk and handed them over, watching for her reaction as she flicked through them.
"These seem to be all in order. Birth certificate, school records, even a banking history. My, you have been busy, my friend. I must thank you for the expedient work. It is most appreciated." She produced the bag of coins from her pocket and placed it on the desktop. "That should be more than enough to cover the charges. More, in fact, for the rush order."
She stood and smiled at the man, though he couldn't see it through the darkness her hood provided. "I thank you for your time, sir." As she turned to leave, she thought for a moment that all those warnings had actually made the meeting quite anticlimactic, until she felt a steel grip around her arm.
She stopped dead in her tracks, her breath frozen in her lungs. "Now, before you disappear into the crowds of Knockturn Alley, don't you think that it would be proper and courteous to show a man a face to put to the name, Morgana Ophelia Wilkes?"
Hermione felt herself stiffen. She had been in situations similar to this before, she hated to admit. Being a witch didn't seem to scare many men off around these parts, which was quite terrible for many men around these parts.
She knew exactly where this conversation was going, and she was not going there. She had more important things to do with her evening (like poking her eyes out with a rusty spoon, or chopping off her own fingers, or ballroom dancing with a ravenous bear) than deal with a perverted, chauvenistic wizard that had that certain vindictive glint in his eye.
However, it would be fun to put the fear of her into this man. His oily, over-confident personality grated at her nerves, and his blatant lascivious intentions struck her like a slap to the face.
She slowly reached up and removed her hood, showing the man a glimpse of her glamored face, her long black hair, her shimmering eyes, her pale as death face. And then she showed him her Death Eater grin, the one she knew for a fact scared people enough to cause them to lose control of their bodily functions.
He visibily paled when he saw her frightening beauty. Even if most of it was only magic, she had worked hard on this disguise, to be both intimidating and attractive in equal amounts.
Her wand was at his throat, and he was up against the wall in seconds. His eyes were wide and frightened, and she found herself revelling in the feeling that she could cause such fear in another. When he tried to speak, she shoved the wand harder into his throat, and grinned when she saw the fear in his eyes level up another notch or two.
"Now, I am a lady, so I will refrain from fighting too dirty. However," she trailed off, stepping back far enough to get enough leverage to bring her knee up with sufficient force between his legs, and grinned as he choked out a pained gasp, "I am not too far above getting physical to protect myself. Perhaps that will teach you not to proposition women in such a way in the future. You never know when they'll be something you weren't expecting."
With that, she let the man fall to a graceless heap on the floor before stepping over him, her cloak flicking him in the face as she passed. "Again, I thank you for your work on these papers. You have a good evening, Mr. Racifer," she said sweetly, before pulling her hood back up to cover her face.
She took even, measured steps out of the room, and found Elise standing at the counter still, frozen like a statue with a look of hopelessness and horror on her face.
"Elise, are you alright?" Hermione had to ask. It wasn't the girl's fault that her employer was such a creep, and the girl had tried to warn her. The poor child looked like she was enduring painful torture.
When she heard Hermione's calm voice, Elise seemed to snap out of her horror-filled trance. She snapped her attention up to Hermione, and a blinding smile filled her face.
"You're just full of surprises; aren't you, my dear? Wonderful, just wonderful. I hope you gave him a few good shots." She sounded so wistful, like she would give anything to give the man a good beating, and that made Hermione highly uncomfortable. If Elise knew what Racifer did to his female clients, then did he ever try to do anything to her?
"Elise," Hermione started cautiously, reaching out to take the girl's hand. It was freezing cold, but Hermione ignored the wrongness of the feeling in order to get the girl's attention. "Are you safe here? He doesn't hurt you, does he?"
Elise laughed outright at that. "I would like to see him try," she spat viciously, and once she had calmed, she turned warm, smiling eyes towards Hermione. "I knew there was a reason I was fond of you," she trailed off softly. "Hmm, well. I suppose I should go kick Racifer while he's down. Lord knows, I don't get many chances. You did good tonight, my dear. Have a splendid night, and enjoy your new identity, Miss Wilkes."
With that, Elise hopped down from her stool and skipped into Racifer's office. Through the door, Hermione could hear the man moaning, and figured Elise would have some fun before he had enough strength to get up again.
Feeling loads calmer, Hermione left the shop, clutching the file of documents to her chest. She knew what she needed to do next, but she wasn't sure if she could do it by herself.
Squaring her shoulders, Hermione decided that if she could take down a preying wizard in his own shop, she could do this on her own. She apparated with a pop, and ended up in a clearing in the Forest of Dean. She recognized an area where they had pitched their tent at one point, and made for that clearing. Digging through her robes pockets, she pulled out a piece of paper, her name written carefully across the entirety.
Hermione Jean Granger stared back at her, the name that represented her past, and all that she had done before this point in time. Hermione was the young girl who had not fit in in Muggle society. Hermione was the girl who had had such high hopes for the wizarding world, only to find that it was just like the Muggle world. Hermione had been naive, blinded, and ultimately disillusioned.
And now she was dying.
Hermione dug a hole in the ground, the sounds of crickets chirping and owls hooting filling her ears as she did so. Names held power, she knew. And now she was going to bury hers, destroy it, so that like the phoenix, she could rise from the ashes of her past to begin her present and future.
She set the paper in the hole, and a quick spell from her wand had the paper going up in a ball of flame. She watched the fire flicker as it ate at the parchment, and slowly, letter by letter, her name disappeared until nothing was left. She covered the hole with the displaced dirt and sighed.
"There is no more Hermione Jean Granger, only Morgana Ophelia Wilkes."
She nodded to herself, determined to see all of this through. Standing, she took one last look at her small grave, and with a content smile, disapparated for home.