Hermione's first thought upon waking was that even the cotton sheet felt too heavy on her sensitized skin. She began to tremble, memorized pain wracking her body.
"Oh, Merlin, Mrs. Pomfrey! She's awake, and shaking— "
"Now, now, dear it's okay, you're in the hospital wing," a warm voice began to murmur. Hermione could almost sense an adult hovering over her, worry and anxiety bleeding into the air.
"Here, I'm going to put you back to sleep dear, just hold still— "
Cool liquid washed down her throat, and Hermione sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Hermione's second time waking up was much more difficult in practice than thought. Her eyes were sealed shut with tears and grime. Slowly, she cracked them open to look around, bleary with disuse.
The hospital wing was white, sterile but for the sun shining in massive windows. Empty beds spread on each side, sheets clean and turned back, waiting for the next patient.
"Hermione, I'm so sorry," the voice whispered again. Looking, she realized that Pansy was at her bedside. Her eyes were swollen and red with grief. "We didn't know! Draco said he just wanted to scare you, and we didn't want to go against Marcus— "
"Everyone knew." It wasn't a question. Hermione's voice was brittle and rough from prolonged screaming.
Pansy began to cry. "The older years told us to leave you alone that night—and, and we all listened, we didn't know—Hermione, I'm so sorry, we didn't know what they had planned!"
Hermione had known she wasn't well liked in Slytherin, but Pansy and the other girls had become her friends. The first friends she had ever had. They sat together in class, at meals, in the common room, talking and laughing together. Hermione realized with a catastrophic bolt to her heart that the girls had not meant it. Every smile, invitation, secret joke; it had all been a farce to trick Hermione into opening herself up. And she had followed along blindly, too dazed by their acceptance to see the steel jaws closing shut around her. Her frozen, shattered heart did not even have the energy to twitch in reaction. Her chest was empty, void of feeling.
"You knew," Hermione said.
Pansy had become her best friend. At first, they had danced around each other like snakes poised to strike. But over the weeks, she had come to appreciate Pansy's snarky attitude and teasing humor. They had become close, sharing jokes and helping each other with homework or the other girls. Hermione had begun to entrust herself to Pansy, something she had never done with anyone except her mother. Now, she remembered why she had always found friendships to be so idiotic. Entrusting pieces of her heart to anyone other than herself allowed other people to damage her irreparably.
"Hermione," Pansy whispered brokenly, staring at her best friend through a sea of tears.
Once Hermione had begun to scream, the sounds scraping against the dorms all the way from the common room, Pansy and the other girls had realized their mistake. They had tried to go and stop Marcus, but an older boy was guarding the only way out. Pansy listened to Hermione scream in horror and agony from the hall, the noise scratching her ears relentlessly.
Pansy had realized too late that Hermione was worth more than a simple ally. She had begun the year by keeping Hermione close just to see what she was like, but it had transformed into friendship. She had become reluctantly impressed by the other witch's vast intellect and magical talent. Slowly, even Daphne and the others had grown close to the muggleborn witch, looking into her sparkling amber eyes without thinking of her blood status first.
"We didn't know! They wouldn't let us get to you…."
Hermione's eyes were dull now. Her blood stained the bandages wrapped around her body, red. The same red Pansy had seen smeared across the common room floor.
The same red she herself bled.
Those amber eyes looked straight through her, no longer focusing on Pansy. Hermione shuddered, pupils narrowing to pinpricks, before breathing deeply. "Leave," she said, still staring sightlessly.
"Hermione…."
She didn't respond.
Dumbledore took Pansy's old seat. Hermione continued to stare at something no one else could see, occasionally trembling.
"I have been gladly informed that you will make a full recovery, Ms. Granger."
She did not respond.
"But before you return to your dormitories, there is something very important I must tell you. Several weeks ago, Professor Flitwick approached me with a concern. He had noticed that you were bound under intricate charms work, but he couldn't discover the reason for it."
Hermione trembled and then stilled once more.
"The matter did not seem to be causing you any harm, so I allowed it to slip my mind— "
"No," Hermione rasped.
Dumbledore blinked in surprised. "Beg pardon?"
"You didn't notice it. You just forgot." Hermione turned a bitter smile on him, much too bitter for one so young. "I'm a Slytherin, Headmaster. And snakes don't matter to you."
Dumbledore looked on his young student. She was battered, bruises marring her pale face and disappearing beneath her hospital gown. Her arms, laid atop her torso, were bound in bandages all the way down to cover even her fingers. The nurse had told him she needed multiple doses of Skelegrow over several days and dreamless draught just to stop the unending screams. Never in his time as Headmaster had a student been hurt so badly.
"While that is not true, it is also a conversation for another time, Ms. Granger. As I was saying, Professor Flitwick noticed a complex enchantment cast upon you. Usually, the only way to break such an enchantment is for the original caster to methodically take it apart, spell by spell. But, a lesser known way to break such an enchantment is that, when the object of the enchantment is under great duress, the spells simply cannot stand the force and snap away like threads. Ms. Granger, have you looked in a mirror these past few days?"
Startled by the break from explaining, Hermione was surprised into shaking her head.
"Ah, well, I have one right here for you. Go on, look."
Dumbledore held the mirror at eye-level, forcing her to look into it. Deep bruising surrounded amber eyes, and her lips had been gnawed to bits. But what caught her attention was the strange luster of her skin. She had always been the same bland color her entire life; no amount of sun had ever changed her skin from its dull papery shade, other than to add freckles. But now, it gleamed, pale and smooth where her skin was unbroken. She raised a bandaged hand to touch her cheek in confusion, but the movement shifted her curls over her shoulder, causing her to pause.
Her hair had always been a mix of chestnut and coffee-colored strands. But now, the curls spilling over the pillows and blankets gleamed jet-black. It was not a subtle change between dark brown and black; her hair had transformed from coffee to deepest ebony. The contrast between her hair and skin was startling and alien.
"What happened?" she whispered, forgetting her ire.
"The enchantment was broken by the final Unforgivable. The strain the spell caused on your body forced the charms binding you to snap, revealing that the enchantment was hiding your true appearance. It is a very subtle, well-worked glamour to have succeeded for twelve years. I would not be surprised if it was meant to last much longer, perhaps even your entire life."
Hermione couldn't stop looking at the face in the mirror. The features had stayed the same, but her coloring felt wrong, too much contrast.
"The enchantment also hid you from genealogy spells."
Hermione began to shake. "So it's true then," she whispered.
"What is true, Ms. Granger?"
"When Professor McGonagall brought me my letter, I got curious. I wanted to know if maybe there was magic in my ancestry that had cropped up again in me. But looking through family documents and photos, I realized that I… am not my father's daughter. We look nothing alike. My birthdate is two years before my parents' marriage. I began to wonder if maybe, my true father is a wizard."
Dumbledore nodded. "Well then it does not come as a surprise to you or your family. That is, admittedly, a relief. I was not looking forward to that conversation. Now that the enchantment hiding you has been lifted, your name has appeared in a genealogy text."
Hermione watched without breathing as the Headmaster placed a thick book in her lap. "This is a magically updating record of all noble wizarding families," Dumbledore explained, lifting the embossed cover. "Once a child is born, the book will update to include the child's full name and date of birth. However, since the enchantment hid you, the book did not update with your information until three nights ago, when the enchantment was broken. Since then, you have been receiving all manner of owls, bearing letters and gifts."
"Let me see," Hermione said desperately, forgetting to keep herself collected. She had waited for this moment for months, years if she counted always wondering about the innate strangeness that set her apart from her peers. If she could tear the book from Dumbledore's hands and read it herself, she would. But her arms ached in protest when she tried to move them.
"Before you see this, you must understand that your life is going to change, Ms. Granger. Wizarding laws are very different from muggle ones, and you already have one claimant on your blood by Morgan le Fay."
"Morgan," Hermione whispered, remembering the portrait of her ancestor in a rush.
"Yes, she came to retrieve me when she felt you were in danger. She informed me to invoke her right of claim on you, as her only magical descendant. You are now heir to all she left behind, which is substantial. This inheritance would change a great deal of your life on its own, as la Fey was once a traditional seat among the Sacred Twenty-eight, the law-makers of magical government. As her only heir, you now have duties and responsibilities you must be educated in."
"Please," Hermione gasped, "I can worry about all that later. I just want to know who my father is." She was quickly losing control of her emotions, too ragged from her torture and the moment at hand.
Dumbledore tapped the book with his wand and pages turned themselves quickly, until finally coming to rest. His finger traced to the bottom of the large page, passing small ovals painted with tiny portraits. "Ah, here it is," he said, tapping a portrait of a black haired girl with amber eyes. "Astarte Black, daughter of Sirius Black and an unnamed woman, your mother."
Astarte Hermione Black.
Sirius Black.