Chapter 1
The Truth Revealed
Hermione was sitting in the great hall having breakfast and dreading potions when Ron and Harry slumped onto the bench next to her, the both of them groaning.
"What's wrong with you two?" she asked, eyeing Ron distastefully as he shoveled the food on his plate into his mouth.
"We have Snape first today." Harry replied after he took a large drink of the coffee in front of him, grimacing at the thought. "That's enough to ruin anyone's morning."
Ron nodded his head vigorously while waving his fork at Harry before swallowing, "What he said. Greasy dungeon bat would put anyone off breakfast."
"Obviously you don't include yourself in that category," Hermione retorted, rolling her eyes at Ron's pig-like eating habits. "And it's Professor Snape, Harry. We should be brewing the lineage potion today. I heard that students in previous years have had some nasty shocks. Parents having affairs, a pureblood line not being as pure as the family believed, a couple of times students even found out that they were adopted."
She did her best to keep her voice level so as not to betray her nervousness. Over the summer, her parents had sat her down and revealed to her that she had been adopted. Not wanting to put something of that magnitude into a letter, she had opted not to tell Harry or Ron, instead deciding it was the kind of news one broke to their friends in person. Unfortunately with everything going on she hadn't gotten the chance to say anything to the boys and now it was about to be too late.
Hermione was dreading this double potions class, nothing could be worse than finding out her true lineage while in class surrounded by her peers. Her parents hadn't been able to give her any information about her biological family, telling her that the section in her file that would have held such details was mysteriously empty, leaving the agency baffled. She could only hope that once she found out who her biological family was, that they would accept her for who she was. She would change for no one's acceptance, not even her family's. She loved her parents and her life, and no one was going to take that away from her, least of all people who hadn't even wanted her to begin with.
Ron grinned through another mouthful of food, "Yeah, bu tha's no li'ley to be any 'o us, now is it?"
Harry chuckled at his best friend as Hermione looked revolted before rolling her eyes for the second time that morning. She sniffed primly as she rose from the table and swung her book bag over her shoulder, "You two had better finish quickly so you're not late. We can't afford to lose more points," she added with a direct look at Harry.
Ron waved her off as Harry said, "We'll be there on time Hermione. Promise." She raised a skeptical eyebrow at her two best friends, not believing them in the slightest, before turning on her heel and heading for the dungeons, the pit in her stomach growing heavier with each step.
Snape swept into the potions lab, the door slamming shut behind him, as he sneered at the fifth years he had to endure that morning.
"Besides Gryffindor's know-it-all, can any of you remind your fellow students what we'll be brewing today?" Snape drawled. Silence met his question and he looked expectantly at the Slytherin students. "Malfoy? Nott?" With a suffering sigh he said, "Very well, Miss Granger, if you would."
"We should be brewing the lineage potion today, Professor." Hermione quietly replied, her usual enthusiasm lacking.
"Correct," Snape barked, flicking his wand at the blackboard in the front of the room. "Well, brewing instructions are on the board, why are you all still staring at me?!"
After an hour of silent brewing, Hermione took a moment to compose herself and attempt to calm her nerves. The final step was only a prick of her finger to release three drops of blood to the potion. Easy enough for anyone who wasn't about to be faced with an earth shattering revelation.
"Hermione, get a grip," she muttered to herself. "Everything on that sheet is new knowledge and you love that so buck up. You can do this."
Taking out her wand with a shaky hand, she quickly sliced the end of her finger and squeezed the droplets of blood in, before healing the small cut. With a steely nerve she didn't feel, Hermione dipped her quill into the completed potion and quickly wrote her name at the top of her parchment, flipping it over on the tabletop before she could see the forming results.
Harry gave her a quizzical look as he tried to catch her eye, but she refused to look in his direction. She couldn't handle his questioning looks right now, and she didn't want to start what was sure to quickly turn into an argument with him and Ron in the middle of class.
After a long five minutes, Hermione quickly duplicated her parchment, stuffing one into her bag, while rolling the other up to turn into Snape.
He slowly raised an eyebrow at the normally eager girl, having watched her intentionally keep both sheets of parchment face down, sparing neither a glance.
"Miss Granger, why is Gryffindor's resident swot intentionally avoiding knowledge? Surely you of all people wouldn't be afraid of something as simple as your family line. Unless..." he taunted, as he took in her shaking form, "you're ashamed of your Muggle family."
"No sir, I am not ashamed of them at all," she said defiantly, meeting his eyes with a burning flash from his thinly veiled insult. "However since you'll no doubt see once you review my work, I was recently informed by my parents that I am adopted, and I would rather not find out which family decided I wasn't worthy of their name in front of my peers, half of whom have made it quite clear that they find me inferior because of my Muggle upbringing," she hissed at him, trying not to alert the table of Slytherins closest to his desk to the subject of their conversation.
Professor Snape's eyes startled a fraction before being drawn down to the rolled piece of parchment on his desk. A lazy smirk spread across his face as he composed himself again. Reaching down and picking up her results, he slowly started to unroll it as he looked her square in the eye, goading her into further reaction.
His eyes slowly left her heated glare as they began to scan the results that had been magically reviewed by her quill. The shock was on him though as his mind comprehended the names on the page. Reading it once, then twice more still not believing the written words, his Occlumency shields collapsed. The revelation was enough to make his lips part ever so slightly as he glanced from her to the page as though her face would give him the answers he needed.
"EVERYONE OUT!" he roared, making her jump. "NOW!"
Everyone scrambled to get out of the potions classroom, spilling their carefully brewed potions and sweeping their things carelessly back into their bags.
"Granger, don't move. Malfoy, in my office. Nott, you too."
Malfoy's silver eyes widened at his normally unflappable godfather. Quickly nodding his head, he hastily dragged Theo out of the classroom, wondering what Granger had done.
Harry and Ron halted their hasty retreat when they heard Snape demand for Hermione to stay behind, loudly protesting at being thrown out.
Hermione took care to make her face appear neutral as she turned around to face them.
"Harry, please," she begged, "I promise we'll talk about this later but I need you to trust me. There are things I need to tell you, but not now."
"Now wait a minute Hermione," Ron demanded, his face already starting to go red at being dismissed by her, "you're hiding something from us and we have a right to know what it is!"
"Ronald," she snapped, "You may be one of my best friends but I will be damned if you think you have a right to know something about my life that I don't even know yet!"
Her eyes went wide as she snapped her mouth shut, her mind catching up to the words that had left her mouth.
Professor Snape rose from his seat and came around to stand next to Hermione, his black eyes burning holes into Harry and Ron as he resisted the urge to give even more away by placing himself between her and them.
"Get out," he hissed, "and if Miss...Granger," he added with hesitation, "decides to tell you what has occurred here after you leave, then that is her prerogative. But for now this does not concern you. And that'll be ten points from Gryffindor, each."
Harry grabbed Ron's sleeve and frog marched him out the door, pausing to look over his shoulder and give Hermione the best supportive smile he could.
"Whatever it is, it'll be okay 'Mione," he promised.
She gave him a shaky smile in return, the pit from earlier doubling in size as she was left behind.
Standing next to her potions Professor, Hermione was confused and scared at what was on that parchment. Whatever that sheet held, had shaken not only herself but the notoriously self controlled Head of Slytherin.
She slowly looked up at Snape, braising herself for the contempt and hatred that she knew was coming only to be shocked by seeing him look at her with a mixture of awe, heartache, and the most curious thing of all, joy.
"Professor. . ." She started to ask, but he swiftly cut off her question, with a shaking hand.
"Miss… Hermione…" he settled on softly. "I think you'd better sit down for what I'm about to show you," he said, his voice more kind and gentle than she had ever thought him capable of.
The shock of her first name coming from his mouth was already enough to make her promptly collapse into the nearest chair. Then when his hand hesitated at her shoulder, she gaped up at him as if he'd had a personality transplant, because surely this was not the same professor from the start of class.
Professor Snape gently set the parchment in front of her before saying with the same quiet awe, "I will be at my desk if you have any questions."
Her eyes immediately dropped to the words in front of her, her breath stolen from her as she learned of her birth given name and true parentage for the first time.
Adhara Narcissa Malfoy
Date of Birth: June 5, 1980
Sibling: Draco Lucius Malfoy
Father: Lucius Abraxas Malfoy
Mother: Narcissa Druella Malfoy née Black
Godfather: Severus Tobias Snape
AN: DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER. THERE IS NO MONETARY GAIN ASSOCIATED WITH THIS WORK OF FICTION. ALL RIGHTS TO THE HARRY POTTER FRANCHISE ARE PROPERTY OF J.K. ROWLING.
Hello! This is my first foray into writing fan fiction. This is very much a WIP, and I plan to post 1-2 times a week. I know it will probably take a few chapters for me to really find a writing style, so please bear with me! This story refuses to leave me alone and I hope you enjoy reading it, because it has been a blast to write so far.
A billion thank yous to my wonderful pals SlytherinLovesAGryffindor and Snapes_know_it_all for being such amazing Betas and encouraging the crazy adventure. I couldn't have done this without you both.
Thanks for checking this out!
This work is cross posted on AO3 and I am in the process of updating all chapters currently posted there to this site.