A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! I am excited to go on this wild ride with all of you. You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions. Big thank you to lanamarymack for alpha/beta reading this chapter.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter two and be on the lookout for chapter three soon!
Hermione Granger looked at herself in the mirror, smoothing down the front of her blouse. Was it wrong to wear jeans to court, she wondered? Would the judge respect her opinion any less if she didn't appear professional?
She turned her head this way and that, looking at the angles of her face. She knew that she took after her mother, but she hadn't been face to face with her mum in over eight years, when she asked Sirius to stop taking her to the prison for visits. She didn't want to talk to her parents anymore, not when they had betrayed her. Would her resemblance to her mum have grown or faded in the years between?
God, she really didn't want to know either way.
Frowning, she wondered why the court was letting this farce go forward anyway. She was seventeen now and would be an adult in the eyes of the law next year. Why were her parents fighting for custody of her now? It would only be a year, anyway, before she would cut them out of her life for good. Besides, they hadn't cared about her enough as a child to not get arrested, so she just didn't understand what was so special about her now.
Of course, that wasn't true. They'd only just been released after serving a long prison sentence. They had filed for custody basically as soon as they got out, which Hermione supposed could be seen as nice, but as far as she was concerned, they had failed as parents when they had picked Tom Riddle over her.
Sirius promised her not to worry. They had been fighting to enforce visitation at the prison for years and he'd been able to block it every single time. When her parents' friends started sending her things, he'd even gotten her last name changed to Granger so she wouldn't be so easy to find.
And, Sirius told her that the judge would take her desires into consideration. Apparently, she was old enough to decide where she wanted to live.
Which brought her back to her conundrum with her clothes. She wanted to look smart — like she had a good head on her shoulders — so the judge would take her desires seriously.
"Well, I'm not going to change now," Hermione whispered to her reflection, deciding that it would be good enough.
Trudging down the stairs, she found Remus, Sirius and Harry at the breakfast table, a huge pile of waffles between the three of them. Sirius was looking especially sharp with his dark hair slicked back and wearing a tie. His police badge shined on his belt, knowing that judges usually looked highly on officers.
Remus and Harry were dressed normally. Harry, with his perpetual bed head, had pulled on an oversized flannel as a jacket. He'd be going to school as usual. Remus was the picture of home in his well worn jumper.
"How are you feeling today, Hermione?" he asked gently. "Not nervous, I hope."
Hermione gave him a weak smile. "I'm as fine as I can be," she answered. "I just wish this day was over already." She stared down at her empty plate, knowing that she wouldn't be able to eat a single bite today.
"Don't worry," Harry said, looking at her over his glass of orange juice. "Just think, in a few hours, we will all be back here having dinner and celebrating. Hey, Sirius, think we can get pizza?"
Sirius gave his godson a grin and agreed, knowing that it was a family favorite. Hermione looked around their small kitchen and thought about all the pizzas the four of them had shared over the years, the first when she was just six years old. That was a fond memory that she knew she would carry with her for the rest of her life. Harry and Remus hadn't known to expect a hurt little girl, but they accepted her nonetheless.
Hermione looked at the clock that hung above the hob and bit her lip, knowing that they were going to be late if they didn't get a move on. She wondered how she'd managed to piss away the whole morning lost in thought.
"We should go," she said, regretfully.
Sirius agreed and stood up from the table, putting his plate in the sink. He waved goodbye to Harry and Remus before leading her out to the garage, pulling his motorbike out. It was a zippy little Bonneville, one he'd gotten when he was a teenager and had lovingly kept up with the maintenance. He didn't usually let her ride on it, but today was a necessity.
Hermione grabbed her black helmet and slipped it over her head, before crawling onto the back and wrapping her arms around Sirius's waist. He kicked the start and then they were off, flying through the streets.
God, she hated this thing, Hermione thought, as she buried her hands deeper into Sirius's protective leather jacket. She kept her eyes trained on the road ahead of her, praying that they would make it there in one piece.
And, of course, they did. Sirius could be a bit reckless at times, but he was always very careful when it came to his two wards. Hermione hopped off, taking care not to burn herself on the muffler, before handing the helmet back to Sirius.
She turned to look up at the massive stone building where the court was held. So this was the place where her fate was going to be decided. This was where she would finally come face to face with her parents after years of avoiding them. Her stomach twisted in agony and she was glad that she hadn't been able to eat any breakfast. It wouldn't do to get sick in front of the judge.
"Just be honest, Hermione," Sirius told her, sensing her nerves over the situation. "Tell the magistrate how much your parents' actions...their pasts have hurt you. They will make the right choice."
Hermione wanted to believe, she really did, but she was just so nervous.
They walked into the courtroom in silence. Sirius stepped away to talk to his barrister while Hermione took a seat. She looked around silently. There wasn't too much of an audience, seeing as this was just a family court, but she thought she recognized one of her parents' associates sitting on the opposite side.
Antonin Dolohov. The name popped into her head from thin air. He'd been little more than a teenager, churlish and rude and large. A memory of him sitting at their kitchen table drinking shots with her father materialized. He'd had a thick accent and he didn't really enjoy talking to an inquisitive little girl like she'd been. He always said she had too many questions.
Hermione didn't think she saw Tom Riddle, but really, would she recognize him if she did? It had been over ten years and she only had brief flashes of what he'd looked like. He was handsome, yes, but she also posed him as a monster in her memory, always stealing her parents away from her.
But then, that wasn't really true. Her parents had always gone willingly.
She didn't have to wait long until the double doors were opening once again and the opposing side of this drama walked in. Hermione couldn't see her parents right at first. They were obscured with the overly genial smile of their barrister, Slughorn. But eventually she saw them and...
Hermione swallowed thickly, wondering why it felt like she'd gotten a stone lodged in her throat. Her parents were nearly just as she remembered them. Her mum — Bellatrix — was older than Sirius, but somehow she had no streaks of grey in her wild, black hair, unlike her guardian. She was overly slim, her arms seeming to have no width to them in the smart, white blouse she wore. Her legs seemed endless in a pair of pumps.
Her mum always hated pumps, Hermione thought with a hint of nostalgia. She must have wanted to put the best foot forward, too.
That wasn't to say that her time in prison hadn't taken a toll on her mum. She looked a bit more haggard, wide-eyed and tense. She had crows feet at her eyes and the lines around her mouth had deepened.
Hermione's gaze shifted to her father. He was as tall as she remembered, not just some imagined giant. Like his wife, he looked a bit too slim. His dark blond hair had darkened in the intervening years and now looked to be the color of burnt toffee. He wore it just a bit too long to be respectable and he had apparently made the decision to grow a beard.
People had often remarked how much she took after her mother when she was a child, but she could now see that she got all her coloring from her father — Rodolphus — even down to her bright brown eyes.
When her mum first laid eyes on her, sitting primly in her chair, she stopped cold in her tracks. Bellatrix brought her hands up to her mouth covering them in surprise. Her grey eyes glistened with tears. "Hermione," she whispered, looking at her as if she was seeing a shade.
Hermione rolled her eyes. Laying it on pretty thick already, she thought, rather uncharitably. What was the point? The magistrate wasn't even here yet to see the doting mother that Bellatrix played.
"You've grown so much," she said, stalking towards their table. "Sirius never even gave us so much as a picture—"
Sirius stepped in between them, acting as a convenient barrier. "Stay on your side of the room, Bella," he insisted. "You don't have any right to talk to her right now."
"You dare to tell me what to do? After everything you've done!" her mother practically shrieked, sending murmurs through the courtroom, before her father was pulling her over towards their own table.
Hermione was just disappointed that the magistrate hadn't been in the room to see her mother's outburst. Maybe then he would rightly see that she was unfit and Hermione wouldn't have to explain at all why she wanted to stay with Sirius.
And what had she meant, what Sirius had done? How could they suggest he'd done anything at all when it was their actions that had gotten her taken away from them in the first place?
There wasn't much more time for speculation. The magistrate walked in not long after Bellatrix was settled down. Hermione felt her stomach twist from the nerves and she hoped that this all would be over quick...
Hermione paid very close attention to all of the proceedings. She didn't want to miss a single thing that was said about something as serious as the matter of her guardianship. But, she was quickly dismayed by how chummy Slughorn seemed to be with the judge.
"Good morning, Your Honor," Slughorn said with an affable smile. "Quite surprised to see you here today. I thought you and Susan were on holiday until November."
"That was the plan, Horace. So good of you to remember," the magistrate answered, with a broad smile of his own. "But our eldest daughter is expecting a baby any day now. Susan couldn't bear the thought of missing it."
Hermione scowled from her seat, crossing her arms over her chest petulantly. Why didn't their barrister have this sort of relationship with the magistrate? Why didn't old Merryweather have any sort of quips about vacations and wives and babies? She could already feel that they were on the backfoot.
Slughorn crafted a very pleasant narrative about her parents. That they had been involved in drugs, but that was all in the past now. They had both done their time and realized the error of their ways. They were completely clean and were willing to take a drug test at any point. They just wanted their daughter back. To start over.
Merrythought was not quite convincing in rebuttal. Yes, he had loads of details about her parents past crimes — stealing, assaults, drug dealing, drug possession, bribery, witness intimidation — stretching all the way back to the time that they were still teenagers. But, no, he couldn't provide any proof of any criminal activity or wrong doing of any sort since they were released from prison.
"They have turned over a new leaf," Slughorn said, resting his hands atop his rather rotund stomach, a grin permanently etched on his red face.
How could anyone believe someone with such gin blossoms, Hermione snarked to herself?
Slughorn continued that her parents had made many efforts to continue a relationship with their daughter, but that they had been thwarted, prevented, stopped at every turn by none other than Sirius Black himself. Hermione's faithful guardian was accused of parental alienation, of poisoning Hermione against her parents, so much so that she refused to see them.
Merrythought argued that Sirius had been simply acting in the best interests of Hermione. He reminded the court that countless other court appearances had agreed that Hermione should continue to be in Sirius's care, without a relationship with her parents.
And, shouldn't her best interests be the only thing that mattered?
Slughorn did not seem to agree. "Unfortunately, we do not believe that Mr. Black is capable of seeing the situation clearly. His opinion of my clients has been tainted by his work as a police officer. He can't see them as anything but criminals, and we have already established that the Lestranges are anything but criminals now," he said, slippery as a fish. "Letting the child reform a bond with her parents is the best thing for her."
Hermione resented him talking about her like he knew anything about her or what her best interests were. She was seventeen already, for god's sake! How was less than one year of a forced relationship with her parents going to change anything?
She was so caught up in her silent ranting that Hermione failed to realize the magistrate was addressing her until Sirius shook her shoulder. Wide-eyed and embarrassed, she hopped up to her feet. "I'm sorry, your honor. Can you repeat that?" she asked. This was not the impression she'd hoped to make.
"I asked, Miss Granger, for your opinion on all of this," he repeated, sounding rather annoyed that she hadn't been paying attention. "If you had your way, who would you like to stay with?"
Hermione pointedly ignored her parents. Her mum was looking at her with such longing that it was sure to tug at the heartstrings of someone who cared more. But Hermione didn't. "I would prefer to continue living with Mr. Black," she said, raising her chin up. "He's all I've known for the last ten years. My parents are little more than strangers to me."
"Any other reasons?" the magistrate pressed.
"Well, I'm in my last year of schooling before I'll go to University, and I really wouldn't like to change schools—"
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "Then it is a good thing that you wouldn't need to change schools, as your parents are in the same district," he said, condescendingly. "I think I'm ready to make my ruling."
Hermione sucked in her breath hoping beyond hope that he would come to the reasonable conclusion.
"I must say that I am troubled by the way that this relationship has broken down while Miss Granger was in Mr. Black's care. For her parents to have no contact of any sort... I can see why the Lestranges feel this rises to the level of parental alienation," he said, taking off his readers and looking at Hermione directly. "Miss Granger, I normally take into account what a child of your age wants in these kinds of scenarios, but I don't think you are able to fully formulate the whole picture, given the little contact you've had with your parents over the years."
She could feel her heart hammering against her rib cage as she listened to his words. Blindly, she reached for Sirius's hand, needing to hold onto something that would keep her grounded.
"I'm going to award custody to your parents, effective immediately," he said. "Hopefully this next year will give you enough time to repair your relationship with them."
Hermione heard her mother's excited squeal when it was announced. She turned to look up at Sirius's in utter shock. "What?" she asked him, helplessly. She was not supposed to be going home with the Lestranges. She was supposed to be going home with Sirius and getting pizza with Remus and Harry.
Sirius pulled her into a tight hug, her face pressed against his chest. "It's going to be okay, Hermione, I promise," he whispered into her ear. "You'll be okay. You always are."
She swallowed, staring over Sirius's shoulders at the other side of the room, where her father had pulled her mum into a loving embrace. She felt completely numb.
Once her parents had finished their squeeze, her mum was walking over to their side quite proudly. "Hermione, love, we really ought to be going," she said with a bright grin, like she was truly happy. Only, how could she be happy? She'd never loved Hermione to begin with, otherwise, she wouldn't have left her so often. "Say goodbye to Sirius."
"But what about my things?" Hermione asked, helplessly. Her whole life was at the dingy little townhouse that she shared with Sirius and the others. How could they just completely uproot her from her home?
"We'll arrange a time to collect your things or for Sirius to drop them off," her father said, pressing a hand to her shoulder. "We'll have Slughorn contact you sometime this week, Black."
Sirius nodded, unable to do anything else.
Hermione didn't want to be separated from him. He'd been the only stable thing in her life ever. But now, he just stood there, looking frail and unsure and...
And he couldn't do anything to stop it.
So Hermione followed her mum and dad from the courtroom, moving on autopilot, while her mum talked her ear off about how her room was just as she left it, but she could make it into absolutely anything she wanted to. And wasn't she so excited to finally be headed home?