Chapter 2) A Real Family
Selected Listening: Australia- The Shins
***Author's Note: Thank you for your reviews and comments! Someone asked about my update schedule. I'm going to try and stick to every-other Saturday, but depending on my schedule, it could take up to a month if I'm on a particularly tough chapter. I like to put a lot of thought and detail into this series, so please be patient if you're waiting for the next update! I'll do my best to make it worth it. For now, please enjoy!***
A few days after Kingsley's visit, Anastasia, Albus, and Minerva fled to Shell Cottage for a well-deserved rest. They relaxed on the beach during the day and played exploding snap in the evenings. One afternoon, Albus brought Anastasia to the unicorn ranch his friend owned, and Anastasia played with the iridescent beings all day. When they returned that evening, Minerva surprised them with a cake from the local bakery.
"For they are jolly good fellows, for they are jolly good fellows!" she sang.
"Oh Minerva, you shouldn't have!" Albus waved off.
"Yes, she should!" Anastasia chimed as Minerva placed the chocolate-iced cake in front of them. It was covered in candles and rainbow sprinkles.
"Don't forget to make a wish," Minerva said, mostly to Anastasia.
"What should I wish for?" Albus said jokingly.
"Isn't living this long wish enough?" Minerva chastised.
Anastasia wasn't listening to their banter. She hadn't even thought about what to wish for, but she was already blowing out the candles and she went with the first thing that came to mind.
I wish I could meet my mother.
As Anastasia leaned away and let Minerva cut the cake, she thought quietly to herself. She had never given much thought to who her mother was before. She had that single picture of her on the nightstand, cut from an old group holiday photo. She assumed her mother was kind, and patient, and loyal, and all the things that Hufflepuffs usually were, but she didn't know any details. She didn't know her mother's favorite song or how she fixed her hair. She didn't know what kind of magic her mother was best at or what she did for a career after Hogwarts besides being part of the Order. Part of her was sad she didn't know these things, even though she usually ignored this part.
"Minnie, what was my mother like?" Anastasia asked. Albus had turned in early, but the other two had stayed up late. Minerva had curled up as a cat in front of the wood stove, and Anastasia sat on the couch, listening to the sounds of the waves lapping against the shoreline outside.
Minerva transformed back into a human and came to sit on the couch beside Anastasia. She summoned a hairbrush, pulled out Anastasia's pigtails, and began brushing them out, pulling through tangles caused by the seaside wind.
"Well, she was kind, and sweet hearted, fairly quiet…your hair has gotten so long. I think it will do better in a ponytail now," Minerva said and gathered up the girl's hair in one hand.
"That's boring," Anastasia said.
"The ponytail or my description?" Minerva asked with a laugh in her tone. She didn't have any children of her own, and often treated Anastasia as her own daughter. Anastasia thought it was nice, but a bit jarring during the school year when they were required to pretend they barely knew each other. Together Minerva, Albus, and Anastasia made quite a family of misfits.
"Your description. Ponytail is fine. Do you remember anything else?"
Minerva frowned and pursed her lips.
"It was such a long time ago, and she wasn't in my house, so I didn't interact with her as much. Pomona would know more than I do…what brings this on?" Minerva finished Anastasia's hair and transfigured the brush into a mirror.
"I realized that I don't know much about her, and it would be nice to know something more," Anastasia said, as she took the mirror and examined her reflection. She now had a wavy ponytail with two ginger coils framing her face.
"Maybe, I can talk to Pomona," Minerva said gently, "she'll know at least a story or two."
"Thank you, Minnie," Anastasia said and hugged her tight.
Even though Hermione knew Anastasia's true identity, Hermione still had to tell her parents that Anastasia was a muggle-born student like herself. In Hermione's owls, her parents asked to meet Anastasia's parents before the trip and suggested they all have lunch together. To which, Albus told her to reply, "my dad will be able to come."
On the day she was scheduled to leave, Anastasia came down the steps to the headmaster's office, carrying her suitcase and wearing her rucksack for day trips. She wore her standard muggle outfit that Charity had bought her some time ago—a striped t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers—and had her hair in a ponytail like Minerva showed her, with two coiled bangs on either side.
"Ready to go?" Anastasia asked. "Do you have my passport?"
Albus rose from his desk and handed her the deep red book with a gold United Kingdom seal flanked by a lion and a unicorn. She opened the folio to find a picture of herself smiling back at her. It was the first picture that had ever been taken of her, and it had only been taken the week before. Minerva had to use her muggle camera, and Anastasia had worn her white button-down shirt and Gryffindor tie for the occasion. In the photo she looked proud, and she smiled to herself, shutting the passport and tucking it in her rucksack pocket.
"Before we go, I require your opinion on the defense against the dark arts teacher this year," Albus said. He had several books on his desk including Voyages with Vampires and Wanderings with Werewolves. A grinning man in a cape appeared on each cover. "What do you think about Gilderoy Lockhart?"
"Um…I don't know what I think, because you never let me read his books," she said point-blank. "You said anyone who broadcasts his accomplishments in thwarting the dark arts that widely has never actually seen the dark arts, and those who have seen the dark arts wouldn't be happy to tell you about it."
Albus chuckled.
"Glad to know you were listening."
"So why in the world do you think he would make a good teacher?" Anastasia asked. She put her suitcase down and slumped into the chair in front of the desk. Albus usually had Anastasia listen in on the interviews for the position each year and give her opinion after each candidate. The problem was, the position was cursed, so no matter how good of a candidate they received, they would always leave by the end of the school year for one reason or another.
Albus folded his hands together atop the desk.
"I don't, but I do think, if he has done all he claims to have done, he should be able to handle the curse without any problem. If he is in fact a fraud, well…maybe he deserves what he gets."
"Grandad!" she scolded. "You can't lure people into a cursed teaching position hoping something awful happens to them!"
"Anastasia my dear, years ago, Tom Riddle took my ability away to hire a good defense teacher. My only choice is to serve what justice I can with the bad luck he's given me," Albus said simply.
"What makes you think he will want to teach? Have you even asked him yet?" she asked.
"Oh, he will teach. I believe Mr. Potter's presence will be enough to convince him," Albus said thoughtfully. Anastasia sighed. Of course, Harry was the most important piece to this inane puzzle he played. It wasn't fair to any of the students, including Harry, but it did make Anastasia feel incredibly irrelevant whenever her father stated Harry's importance over hers. Instead of confronting him, she decided to change the subject. After all, he was going to do what he wanted anyway.
"Are you going to show up in muggle London, looking like that?" she asked.
While it never bothered her before, she suddenly felt self-conscious of her father's looks. The way Albus's beard dragged down to his waist, and his long white hair. It made him look like Santa Clause, and she really didn't want to go to lunch with him like that.
To her relief, he laughed at her comment.
"Polyjuice, my dear!" he said, and took a vial off his desk, slipped in a red hair from a different vial, and drank up. Anastasia stood alarmed as his face bubbled and changed.
In only a few moments, he looked like a younger version of himself, with short ginger hair, barely a beard, and no wrinkles whatsoever. With a wave of his wand, his clothes changed to a sensible pantsuit. He and Anastasia looked more alike than ever.
"Oh, thank Merlin," she said, and walked to the fireplace.
"We won't be flooing today, dear," he said, and held out his arm.
"No, I hate apparition," she complained. It made her feel woozy and sick to her stomach. The sensation killed her every time.
"If we take floo, we will appear in the Leaky Cauldron and be seen together. Much easier this way."
Anastasia took his arm and held her breath. She felt the strain on her head and chest and legs for about thirty seconds, until she and her father stepped out onto the cobblestones of an alleyway in the city. She leaned against the brick of the next building and coughed onto the ground, close to vomiting, but not quite.
"Ah, wonderful," Albus led her into the populated street, where people were walking this way and that, shopping and what not. They alley was right next to the muggle entrance to the Leaky Cauldron, and Hermione and her parents were already standing there.
"So good to see you!" Hermione said and they collided in a hug. When Hermione drew back, she noted Albus's appearance, and jumped. He winked at her with a twinkling blue eye.
"Um…is this your dad?" Hermione asked warily.
"Uhh—"
"Elphias. Elphias Green."
"Pleased to meet you," Hermione said, and then introduced her own parents. Hermione's father was tall and lanky with curly hair like Hermione's but cut short. Hermione's mother was shorter, with dark short hair and dark eyes like Hermione's. They made a sweet, but awkward couple.
"Elphias? That's the best muggle name you could come up with?" Anastasia asked Albus as Hermione and her folks walked in the way of the restaurant.
"Elphias was one of my dear friends. It's a fine name," Albus said with a smile.
The meal passed and was only slightly painful. Albus kept making punny jokes with Hermione's dad, to the point the girls could only stare at them in indignation. Hermione's mother gave Albus the phone number of the house where they would be staying in Australia, and Albus pretended to pay great attention to it before slipping the piece of paper into his pocket.
"Bye, um, dad," Anastasia said when they walked out of the restaurant at the end of the meal. She gave Albus a hug around the waist.
"Have fun, be safe," he said and patted her shoulder.
"Don't worry, we'll take good care of her," Mr. Granger said, as he turned from the front door, but when he looked up, Albus had already apparated away.
They walked back to the public parking garage. Anastasia became overwhelmed as she had never seen so many cars packed together in her life. Despite all she knew about the muggle world, she had never really lived it.
"Stasia, get out of the street!" Hermione yelled, and pulled her to the side as a sports car went zooming past.
"Stay alert girls, crazies driving nowadays," Mrs. Granger said as she opened a dark blue minivan. She and Mr. Granger loaded into the front, and Hermione went around to the other side. Anastasia was momentarily baffled by the door handle, and her friend ended up opening it from the inside.
"Have you been in a car before, at all?" Hermione whispered as Anastasia climbed in. Anastasia shrugged with a smile, and slid the door closed behind her. Hermione helped her with her seatbelt.
Anastasia found the roadways to Hermione's house horrifying and opted for staring at the console in the middle of the van. They had a classic rock station playing, and that brought her some sense of comfort as cars zoomed around them.
"Do you like AC/DC, Anastasia?" Mr. Granger asked.
"I like a lot of bands," Anastasia said. "I have tons of albums at home." Most of which, Charity had given to her for muggle education.
"That's fantastic! I'll have to pull down my record collection from the attic," he said.
"Oh Martin," Mrs. Granger sighed, "don't make a mess before we leave." Hermione shook her head along with her mother.
Finally, they reached the neighborhood, and the roads began to calm. They drove into a suburb lined with cute little houses and flowers and picket fences. Hermione's house was all the way at the end of one of the roads on one side of a cul-de-sac. They unloaded from the car.
Anastasia looked at the beautiful two-story house. It had blue paneling with white trim and a gorgeous garden out front, blooming with hydrangeas and other summer flowers.
"It's beautiful," Anastasia said, "your house is like a fairy tale."
"Thank you," Hermione said with a stunned smile, "but I think you have me beat in that department."
Hermione's mom grabbed Anastasia's suitcase from the trunk of the van, and they all went inside together.
"My bed has a pullout bed for guests, so you'll stay in my room tonight," Hermione said.
The inside of Hermione's house was just as quaint as the outside, with a little sitting room to have tea in, and a nice kitchen with granite countertops. They went up the white banister staircase where there was another small bathroom, and the girl's room on one side. The master bedroom was on the other side of the hall.
"Alright girls, go ahead and get Anastasia settled in, and then we can have some tea and discuss travel plans before dinner."
Anastasia awed at Hermione's room. It had white molding and furniture and purple paint, polaroid of friends and family stuck to the walls, and a bookshelf filled to the brim with classic muggle literature and Hermione's first year schoolbooks. It was so pretty, and girly, and sweet. Everything about it seemed comfortable and normal. Not hard stone walls or antique furniture. The only thing that didn't impress Anastasia was the view out the window was only the brick wall of the neighbor's house.
"You subscribe to the Daily Prophet?" Anastasia asked as she found the pile of them next to Hermione's window. Even though her father had a subscription and skimmed it quickly at breakfast for any important news, Anastasia had never really taken an interest in adult wizarding happenings.
"Course I do, it's the only way to keep up with the magical world over the summer," Hermione said, pulling out the under-the-bed cot and putting the proper sheets and blankets on it.
"How did Dumbledore do it by the way?" Hermione asked "That was him, wasn't it?"
"Oh, he used some Polyjuice potion," Anastasia said, turning to give Hermione her full attention.
"Polyjuice? That sounds familiar…" Hermione said.
"It lets you turn into whoever you need to be for like an hour as long as you have a hair of theirs. Grandad saved up a bunch of his old hairs from different ages so he can put on a disguise whenever he needs to," Anastasia said.
"Oh right! They mentioned that in our history of magic text," Hermione said, "During the time Voldemort was alive, people would use it all the time to hide, and would have to ask each other security questions to make sure they were talking to the person they thought they were."
"Really?" Anastasia asked and turned back to the stack of newspapers. The headline of the paper on the top of the stack was a translated version of the article from Le Monde Magique outlining the Flamel's Funeral. There was a picture of the service, where her father and Blaise and all the rest were standing under the trees of the cemetery.
"Look, I made the front page!" Anastasia laughed. Hermione came over to see what she was pointing at. Anastasia held her finger on the spot under the tree where she stood for the service, but of course there was no one there.
"I don't see…" Hermione looked up at her in confusion but saw Anastasia's playful expression and started laughing, "Come on, let's go down for tea."
The evening passed favorably. Anastasia's parents explained everything about their travel arrangements over tea and biscuits. The flight in total was 24 hours after accounting for layovers. They were staying in a beach house close to Bondi beach in Sydney, and the girls would have their own room with a bunkbed. Hermione, who hated heights as much as Anastasia hated automobiles, already determined that Anastasia would sleep in the top bunk.
After tea, Mr. Granger hauled his old record collection down from the attic for the girls to look through. He showed the girls hundreds of records. Areosmith, Queen, The Ramones, and Blondie. Anastasia laughed at all their funny haircuts and clothes. Hermione was quiet but looked through the covers in detail with a mediative smile on her face.
Mr. Granger put on a record and started dancing ludicrously around the room, waving his arms this way and that. Mrs. Granger came in and announced dinner was ready, but Mr. Granger pulled her into a frantic tango. She laughed loudly, and they scooped Hermione up into their dance and got her giggling. Anastasia was perfectly content to sit on the couch and watch them have fun, but Hermione's mother offered her a hand.
"Come on, Stasia, you too!" she said, towing her into the upbeat chaos until the music wound down and left them sore with laughter.
Anastasia wondered if her mother would have liked silly dancing like that.
Anastasia's fake passport worked effortlessly, and once they reached the rental house in Sydney, Anastasia and Hermione spent the break in the most joyful way. Every day they would wake up late, eat a hearty breakfast, go to the beach, have ice cream, and then settle in for the night. One afternoon, they went to the opera house for a theater show. Another, they went to the zoo and saw koalas and wombats and some very poisonous snakes. If they weren't out and about, they would tuck into the living room and watch movies all night from the trunk of vhs tapes left for guests. On the last night, Anastasia opened the trunk and looked through everything.
"The only one we haven't seen yet is Sleeping Beauty," she said.
"That one is soo awful," Hermione whined.
"It can't be that bad. Do you mind? I haven't seen it," Anastasia asked.
"Fine, if you must. But I think I'll read while you watch," Hermione said, and pulled out her copy of Hogwarts: A History, which would have been fine if she actually stuck to it.
"Can you imagine being so insulted that you weren't invited to a party that you cursed an innocent child?" Hermione asked in the middle of the party scene.
"Not really," Anastasia said, hoping she would be quiet.
"And a prince waking her up with a kiss—what garbage!"
"At least she had someone to wake her up…" Anastasia shrugged.
"They barely know each other!" Hermione protested.
"But she doesn't have to spend any more time locked in tower," Anastasia said bitterly, "trust me, it's not that good of a time."
Hermione quieted down a bit and stared at her best friend.
"How long did you say you had to live in the headmaster's suite?" Hermione asked.
"Eleven years," Anastasia answered.
"Eleven years…" There was a sympathy in Hermione's tone. The malted light of the television faded to black as the tape reached its end with a scurrying screech. Anastasia pushed the eject button with her toe, leaving the room in silence.
"You know, you're lucky, Hermione to have a real family. Sure, I have grandad, and Minerva, and Charity, and even Hagrid. But that doesn't erase the fact that my entire existence was an accident. They didn't intend to have to care for me all this time. That's why I must keep my identity a secret, because if everyone finds out who I actually am…I'll be more hassle than I'm worth," she said, thinking of Shaklebolt's shock at discovering what had happened, and then imagining that at about ten thousand times worse.
"Don't say that," Hermione tried to comfort her with a hand on her shoulder.
"It's true, okay?" Anastasia said, thinking of all the close calls she had the year before, how she was nearly found out by Snape and nearly killed by Quirrell, "The least I can do is try to be as little trouble as possible. I really want to do better this term."
In the morning, they packed up, and loaded into the taxi to go to the airport. Anastasia had finally learned to use the seatbelt properly and hooked it herself before looking out the window at the Sydney townscape. Anastasia was glad to be going back home, but as they pulled away from the little house in the city, she couldn't help but already miss her life with the Grangers. They had treated her so kindly, and never made her feel like she should hide anything about herself. Moreover, Hermione felt like a sister to her now.
It made Anastasia wish she had been born into a muggle family.