Dumbledore sent Professor Snape to the Hospital Wing to begin educating Hermione on what her newfound heritage meant for her, bearing thick books and an overstuffed bag. The potions professor was vaguely irritated at the order, but he had grown to like the serious young girl in his house. She was diligent in all her studies, while perhaps too willing to call attention to her admittedly vast intelligence, and she did not cause a ruckus in his classroom. She sailed quietly under the radar in terms of disruptive behavior, which he vastly preferred in a student, especially compared to unnamed others.

He had always wondered about the girl. She had held a startling resemblance to his friend Regulus Black, but he had considered it a quirk of genetics. Now that her enchantment had been broken and he could see her true appearance, he was startled to see how closely she resembled her ghastly father, Sirius Black. They had the same chaotic hair and lithe form, although she came across as much more daintily beautiful than the cut edges of her father.

He would try not to hold her parentage against her, for she was also a part of Regulus, and a Slytherin. It helped immensely that she did not have the same grey eyes as her father.

Unfortunately, Snape realized as he reached her bedside and beheld her pale face, the girl was nearly identical to her cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange. There was a similar madness lurking beneath the delicate beauty.

"We will begin with your la Fey heritage," Snape intoned, dropping several heavy tomes onto her lap. "You are the last scion of the la Fey house, which brings many responsibilities. All of Morgan la Fey's holdings were auctioned after the descent of her house, but the vaults in Gringotts remain untouched. Goblins do not care for the wizard way of things, so the finances of the vaults were never assumed into the Ministry of Magic. As soon as you are able, I or another will take you on an excursion to Diagon Alley to settle the transference of Morgan's assets to you."

Snape tapped one tome with his wand, and it opened to a page on ancient wizarding government. "You are too young to be seated among the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but here is a chapter that will teach you its function and purpose."

"Exactly what sort of things can I expect to happen now? Is this all being… publicized or anything?" Hermione asked, wringing her hands in the cool sheets.

"I would have chosen to allow you to inform your housemates at your own discretion, but alas, it was not my decision." Snape curled his lip with distaste. "The headmaster has taken it upon himself to inform your closest friends, who undoubtedly owled their parents immediately."

"My closest friends?"

"Miss Parkinson, Miss Greengrass, Miss Davis, Miss Bullstrode, and Mr. Zabini, I believe."

Hermione did not consider any of those people her friends, at least not any longer; but it was still strange that Blaise was included. He had always been cordial, but certainly not friendly.

"I also have for you all of the correspondence that has been owled to you since your heritage was revealed. I have been instructed to help you… parse through it."

"… Correspondence?"

Snape lifted a large bag and opened the mouth. Hermione peered in to see hundreds of letters, all made out to Miss Astarte Hermione Black, Honored Descendent and Heir of the High Witch Morgan le Fey, Heir of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black.

"Bloody hell," Hermione whispered, the curse slipping out before she could contain it.

"Correct," Snape replied.

Hermione was trying her best to absorb the influx of life-changing information. Without Snape's surly help, she didn't think she would have been able to handle any of it. She had theorized that her biological father was a wizard, but she had never considered that he was the equivalent of wizarding royalty. And compounding that was the news that she was a direct descendent of the esteemed witch Morgan la Fey, which launched her stratospherically higher than she had been before.

With her newly discovered heritages, Hermione was a veritable juggernaut of wizarding society. An ancient wizarding line believed totally extinct for a millennium combined with the power and prestige of a noble wizarding name had made Hermione into the prized jewel of magical Britain.

Luckily, she had Snape to help her navigate the treacherous waters of magical society. However, he believed she needed reinforcements.

"As I am not… female, I cannot instruct you on all of the variables of this new life. However, your cousin has insisted on coming to the school herself to meet you and begin your formal instruction. But before she arrives, I will help you sort through your mail."

Before Hermione could question him on the mysterious cousin, Snape cast a quick series of spells and letters began to fly from the bag. They sorted themselves into three haphazard piles, but not without a few becoming lodged in Hermione's hair.

Snape gestured at a pile filled with varying envelopes decorated with beautiful, looping script. "These are all formal correspondence from other wizarding families, likely congratulating you or welcoming you or inviting you to some useless function. We will go through these first, as they are the most important."

As Snape began to help her decipher the strange, upper-crust wizarding world, Hermione gradually became acquainted with what her new heritage demanded of her. There were functions, dinners, charity balls, politics, social niceties, business obligations, all sorts of things meant to twist and confuse her. She knew without a doubt that any self-righteous pureblood would dearly enjoy the chance to embarrass the new scion of the infamous la Fey and Black households. That meant she had to get a handle on her new life, quickly.

"You are not expected to attend any of these ludicrous events," Snape said when they opened the fourth invitation. "You have not accepted an official wizarding guardian in any case, so there is no need to respond. These letters are formalities from other wizarding families."

"Do I have to have a guardian?" she groused.

Snape glowered down his long nose. "Most assuredly," he sneered, "a mere girl of twelve should need a legal guardian to—"

"Guide me?" she interrupted acerbically. Annoying her professor certainly wasn't her favorite pastime, but it helped her ignore the sheer weight of her newly discovered ancestry.

The potions master heaved a long suffering sigh and ignored her comment with a dark look on his face. She grinned slightly. Then she remembered all that had happened and her smile went thin and sharp.

"Your guardian will likely be another from a notable pureblood background. Perhaps someone like a Malfoy-"

"Any Malfoy that comes near me will regret it."

Her quiet conviction, delivered with no inflection or change of expression, caused Snape to pause. He internally cursed his godson for his foolish actions against the girl; he had not known of her secrets, but Draco should have known better than to make an enemy of a witch that promised to become powerful and ruthless. Now, the situation was even worse when Snape counted that Hermione and Draco were third cousins. And terrifyingly, despite Hermione not yet knowing the ins and outs of wizarding society, Snape had no doubt her fearsome intellect would catch on quickly and then utilize the natural power that came with her last name to rain vengeance on her housemates. Snape would have to take it upon himself to encourage his idiotic students to first apologize to the housemate they had so wronged and then befriend her once again.

Looking at Hermione's blank face, Snape knew it would not be simple task for the young Slytherins to coax her into the fold. But judging by the mountains of letters surrounding her bedridden figure, every noble family had learned of the young Black heir; each family would encourage their children to befriend her, despite bridges thoroughly burned.

"I need to take notes," she muttered to herself, eyeing the piles of correspondence. Snape conjured a quill and parchment; she politely thanked him before immediately sectioning the parchment into neat blocks.

In the first block, she wrote the names of the noble families that had written her letters to congratulate her on "returning to her rightful place." She rolled her eyes at the pompous language of the letters. She drew small boxes next to each family name. When she had written a thank you letter and mailed it, she would put a check in the box. Some of the letters she had read had been polite and welcoming; others had bordered on mocking. Her vindictive half wanted to be petty and refuse to write the mocking letters a reply. But her logical half held sway over the matter; she wasn't going to go out of her way to offend families that could benefit her later out of immature pettiness. No matter how much she desired to ignore the letter a family by the name of MacMillan had sent.

Besides, since she was the last heir to the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, it was purely her decision on how she got on with other wizarding families. She could build or destroy ancient alliances as she desired. The thought of the power over her own future was drugging, but she reminded herself that until she knew more, she wanted to let the other purebloods believe she would ally with any of them. She had bridges selected for the torch, but she wasn't ready to light the flame quite yet.

In the second block of her parchment, she jotted quick descriptive notes on the contents of letters from organizations such as Gringotts, which asked for her to come settle matters concerning her family vaults and la Fey inheritance; Flourish and Blott's, asking if she would like to resume the traditional Black monthly stipend for books from their mail-order catalogue; the Ministry of Magic, requesting she be escorted as soon as possible to their registration counter to finalize her titles; various companies, welcoming a member of the Black family back into their traditional spot on whatever board or committee; and most amusingly, a letter from a magical art association that invited her to sit for renowned artists in an attempt to capture the likeness of her ancestor, Morgan la Fey.

In the third block she organized, she created a comprehensive to-do list, refined and inspected by Snape. The most important task to accomplish was her Ministry visit. Until she had her new titles officially in order, she was going on her infamous Black looks, a tiny picture in a wizarding genealogy book, and the demands of a painting. Next, she needed to ward everything she owned and the area around her bed to protect herself. She already had a mental list of strong wards she had come across in her private readings that she intended to learn and use. While her official titles would protect her from the mainstream bigoted housemates, the pluckier Slytherins may still attempt to treat her as they had before, which was no longer acceptable; since she now had the power and prestige of noble wizarding names, she intended to use them.

Those two tasks would consume her until they were accomplished, but she persevered in outlining a detailed to-do list to occupy herself. Snape tutted in reproach or silently approved as she revised the list over and over until she had her next week perfectly planned, down to how many seconds she would spend at each meal.

Her third task was to visit Gringotts. She had quite a bit to do there between settling the Black vaults and the reopened la Fey treasuries, and the goblins' letter had sounded rather urgent, so Snape had advised she move it to a more important spot than seventh, where it had originally lived. Her fourth task followed directly from her third; once she left Gringotts, she planned to shop.

Her professor had begun to roll his eyes and insist she change it before she explained her reasoning. As a pureblood, there were certain expectations she needed to meet. Firstly, she needed her house's crest sewn in family colors onto the heart of her robes. She had noticed the tasteful embroidery on Theodore Nott's and Daphne Greengrass's robes. Since she had first met them, they had acted as well-groomed scions of their pureblooded houses. Hermione planned to emulate their cool, aloof manner, despite that she was no longer friends with them by virtue of their cowardice.

Hermione also had plans to respond to Flourish and Blott's letter in person. A mail-order book catalogue directly connected to a lesser Gringotts vault sounded like the most innovative aspect of wizarding society she had encountered yet; it was a positively modern approach compared to the inefficient medieval aesthetic wizards insisted on. While she was there, she needed to find more instructional texts on magical high society. Until whatever cousin Snape had mentioned arrived to advise her on how to act, she needed accessible information. She refused to ask anyone else for help, especially within Slytherin. The next time she spoke to a Slytherin student it would be to curse Malfoy within an inch of his weak, spineless, sniveling little life.

Those four tasks would take up the better part of the next two days. She had been excused from school activities by the headmaster to handle her affairs, and she had worked weeks ahead in her classes anyway. The next week was devoted only to settling into her new responsibilities and learning just what she was getting herself into.

Rhythmic clicking led Hermione to look up from her parchment, which was now covered in her neat, compact script. "It seems your cousin has arrived to take my place," Professor Snape said as he rose from the chair he had conjured at her bedside. They had just finished the last letter, from a Greek researcher requesting a donation. A wave of Snape's wand had the myriad scraps of trash fluttering into a waste bin.

A beautiful, but severe looking witch gracefully inclined her head to Professor Snape before turning on a pointed heel to peer at Hermione intently. The woman's hair was pulled into a slippery twist Hermione suspected was French, highlighting sharp cheekbones and angled brows. Grey eyes perused Hermione's face with careful attention, and seemed to find her lacking.

"Check on dear Draco for me, Severus," the woman politely ordered. "Tell him to write more. Until next time." Professor Snape sneered slightly but accepted the dismissal, leaving Hermione to face her strange cousin.

Hermione clasped her hands in her lap to bely her nerves. The woman regarded the ink staining her fingertips with a sniff.

"Well, you look just like Bella," the woman finally said after an interminable eternity of judging Hermione's appearance. "But there is enough of your father in you to see a resemblance. Bella's eyebrows were never so ungroomed."

Hermione nearly laughed. After months of being needled by her housemates, the underhanded comments of her cousin were less than ineffective. She remained silent, sensing the woman had a few more choice remarks to make before she became helpful.

"I suppose your eye color is from the le Fay ancestor on your… muggle side. Grey is the most traditional eye color for a Black, and would have been better suited for you. Gold is almost garishly feral." The woman crossed one ankle over another and tilted her head, thin lips pinched. "My name is Narcissa. Narcissa Malfoy, that is, formerly Black. I believe you have met my son, Draco?"

Fingers twitched into claws. Even the sound of his name nearly sent Hermione back into the blinding rage that had put Flint in St. Mungo's. "Yes," she said, struggling to maintain her façade. "We met on the express.'

Narcissa's polite smile revealed teeth but not emotion. "Excellent. I would hope that as cousins, no matter how distant by blood, you could become acquainted. He's a very bright, talented boy."

Talented at getting himself in over his head, Hermione hissed internally. She remembered the limpid fear and regret in his eyes, the same grey as his mother's. Yet he had still watched rather than stop Flint—

Limbs twitched in phantom pain and Narcissa looked on without losing her tiny, well-mannered smile. Hermione wondered if she knew every gory detail of that night. She wondered if Narcissa approved of what her son had planned for the mudblood.

Not a mudblood, Hermione thought with vicious pleasure. No, worse. I'm one of you, but with the perspective of a muggle and the experiences of a mudblood. Except I have the power to stand up to you.

"He's an important part of Slytherin," Hermione said with chilling calm. "He's taught me quite a bit." Like how I should never trust people who act friendly. To always keep strong wards around myself. To commit to an idea instead of cowering from the truth when it looks you in the eye.

"Good," Narcissa responded, smile in place and frozen eyes filled with taunting humor.

She knows everything, Hermione realized. She knows how her son and another boy tortured me, a fellow student, a 12-year-old girl, and she just doesn't care, even though we're related. She just doesn't care.

Suddenly unwilling to cater to the calculating creature beside her, Hermione bared her teeth in a vicious laugh. The edges of her lips curled slightly, fey humor lurking in her eyes like thinly veiled threats. "I'm sure you were so proud of your scheming son for how he trapped the stupid mudblood," she said.

Narcissa's face twisted into shock and disgust when Hermione casually used the taboo slur. Most shocking to Narcissa was the girl's forward attack; no hiding behind coquettish half-truths and smiles for this one. As Hermione's face lit with manic glee, Narcissa was struck dumb by how much she was reminded of her brash sister, Bellatrix Lestrange.

"I burned the common room. I burned Marcus Flint, and oh, I enjoyed it. Your son would have burned too if Dumbledore hadn't ended the spell before it had the chance to remember the weak little boy hiding in the corner." Hermione pressed her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes mischievously at the paling woman. "If he ever tries anything again, I will kill your son. It would be no great loss to anyone except for you. It would be a charitable service to eradicate a wizard that squanders his talent on trying to scare little girls."

Amber eyes half-lidded with lazily promised violence, Hermione watched the older witch flounder with no small amount of venomous glee. Narcissa's grey eyes were wide and the small smile had slipped from her face in a breath, fear tightening her lips and jaw into fine blades.

Narcissa believed her son had never made a larger mistake than angering the unstable witch cozied in the infirmary bed. Severus had written at length the night of the incident to update Lucius and his wife on the situation and any possible outcomes. While they had laughed then over the way Severus described a 12-year-old, first-year student as an actual threat to their son's safety, Narcissa was no longer laughing; now, she wondered if her son had inadvertently caused the girl to go completely mad.

For the majority of the year, her only son would be trapped in close quarters with a dangerously unstable young witch that Severus had claimed was years beyond her peers in sheer magical talent. Narcissa faintly remembered the violence her sister had wrought when her fellow students had gone against her in some way, often disproportionate in response to the slight. The identical ruthless gleam in Hermione's amber eyes had made Bella the most feared witch in first Hogwarts, and then all of magical Britain.

Narcissa had often wondered at night what life would be like if she had to fear her own sister. Now, her son would have to fear his cousin, and he had struck the first and unforgivable blow. Merlin, the girl had been tortured with Cruciatous! Narcissa's soul guttered when she realized that Bella's favorite curse had been introduced to her tiny, vindictive incarnation.

Making a snap decision that would no doubt disturb or anger her husband and son, Narcissa smiled warmly, dropping the cool mask she had shown the girl. "You are truly an heir of the Noble and Ancient House of Black. I'm impressed with your defense of yourself. I know you will use that lethal tongue to also defend your family name."

Hermione's eyes narrowed in suspicion when her haughty cousin settled into a friendly persona on a golden snitch's turn. The following compliments made her even more suspicious.

"I don't know if you have been informed, but tomorrow, and the next however many days it will take to get your affairs in order, I am who will accompany you on your errands. I'm sure you have an idea of the things that need to be done, such as claiming your title and inspecting your properties. Since you are a member of the family, newly discovered or not, I decided it would be nice to make it a family outing, to get to know each other." Narcissa smiled prettily, eyes shining. "Draco will come along, and Lucius is meeting us for lunch at a lovely place right on Diagon Alley. With Draco there, it will also be easier to begin teaching you how a pureblooded woman acts in public, both when alone and when escorted by a wizard."

She leaned in close to Hermione almost conspiratorially, eyes suddenly serious and stern rather than glittering with happiness. "Draco also desperately desires to apologize to you for his abominable actions. He's spent quite a while crafting his apology," she said, placing her manicured hands over Hermione's ink stained fingers. "You will let him try to make amends, won't you? He was terribly confused by that brutish Flint boy's ideas, my son was coerced into going along with something he knew was wrong! Oh, and to think you're his cousin also! He's torn to pieces with guilt, he's simply depressed with regret!"

Narcissa's eyes were so openly earnest as they beseeched Hermione that it made her squirm in discomfort. It made her nervous that Narcissa could change so quickly from the detached pureblood to the sparkling socialite. Hermione herself had never had the talent for changing her personality to fit in with others; the best she could do was detach into an emotionless state where she simply existed without care. The rapid change from chilly to effusive Narcissa had undertaken threw Hermione off her game. The threat of impending violence leeched from her body, the fey smile sliding away. She just wanted Narcissa to stop looking at her like she held the key to eternal life in her ink-stained hands. The raw emotion in her expression was extremely disconcerting to Hermione, who had enforced rigid control over herself since she could understand what it was.

"I'll consider it," she answered, hastily withdrawing her hands from her cousin's grasp. It was the best Hermione could promise, anything to get the older woman to stop beseeching her with misty grey eyes. Of course, even if the apology was genuine and everything Narcissa claimed was true, which Hermione strongly doubted, it wasn't likely a few words would soothe the burn in her chest. Draco Malfoy needed to hurt, too. She just hadn't decided how yet.

Narcissa smiled gratefully and fluttered a hand over her heart. "Oh, I knew a girl as bright as you would recognize reason."

Hermione barely refrained from rolling her eyes. She didn't know what exactly had caused the drastic change within the woman before her, but she almost preferred the callous power player to whatever this was. The pale pallor of Narcissa's skin had gone deathly white as her eyes widened in horror, and then she had been smiling and happy half a second later. Hermione had triumphed because she had thought she had gotten to the woman by threatening her son, but the personality change was a shot Hermione didn't know how to interpret.

She would analyze the situation at her leisure when she had the time. For now, she had an obnoxiously friendly cousin to understand.