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The Secret

Chapter Two: The Truth; Part One

Hermione had had the first dream during the third week of July. Over the next few weeks, she experienced the same dream several more times. By the end of the summer, she had practically memorized it, and was struggling to understand its significance. For surely the dream had to be important since it was such a recurring one.

Today was August 23rd, roughly a week before she would be leaving for Hogwarts for the start of her fifth year. On this particular night, she once again awoke from the dream. As she had started doing, she slowly climbed out of her bed and went to the bathroom for a drink of water. On her way back to her bedroom, she noticed several differences.

Usually, on these trips to the bathroom, the hallway light was on, her parent's door shut, and all the lights downstairs were off. Tonight however, the first thing she noticed was that her parent's door was open. Going into their room, Hermione saw that the bed was perfectly made, never slept in. This surprised her, for her parents were usually in bed by the time she fell asleep. She glanced at a clock beside the bed. It read 3:27.

::What's going on?:: she thought to herself in confusion.

As she left her parents bedroom, she also noticed that there were lights on downstairs. Starting to become worried, for Voldemort was back and the Death Eaters had been openly attacking Muggle homes all summer, Hermione hurried back into her room. Searching through her vanity drawer quickly, she opened a long wooden case and grabbed her wand. She swiftly and silently crept out of her room and down the stairs towards the kitchen, expecting the worst.

What she saw upon entering the hallway just outside the kitchen made her freeze in shock, before her wand slid from her hand and clattered to the floor. ::What the bloody hell going on?:: she thought to herself again, her anger and uneasiness evident even in her thoughts.

There were three people sitting around the kitchen table, and Hermione only recognized Professor Severus Snape. It was not the younger Snape that she had been seeing in her dreams, but the 'greasy git' she had known for the past four years.

Sitting across from him were older versions of the other two people in her dream. They were quietly and amiably conversing with the Hogwarts professor. The two adults, obviously Mikhail and Isabel, were sitting side by side with his arm around her waist. All three had smiles on their faces, and seemed very comfortable and relaxed in each others presences.

As Hermione's wand clattered to the floor, she stood frozen just outside the kitchen. The three adults turned towards her as one upon hearing the noise. All three froze in shock, the woman gasping and them men beginning to speak hurriedly.

"Hermione!" Mikhail gasped. "What are you doing up? It's 3:30 in the morning. You should be asleep!"

"Hello Ms. Granger," Professor Snape said simultaneously, in a quiet and amused tone. "Sorry if we have disturbed your night. You seem a bit, ah, surprised, one might say. Hmmm…guess we'll have to explain to her sooner than we expected." This last part was directed towards the two sitting opposite of him.

During this, Isabel had been sitting, staring at Hermione. On hearing Snape's last sentence, she shook her head as if to clear her thoughts and quieted the two men, for they had kept talking to the deaf ears of Hermione.

"Hermione, dear, why don't you sit down. You look awfully pale," the woman stated kindly, worry evident in her clear and familiar voice.

"First off, before anything happens, I want to know where my parents are, and what you three are doing in my house, especially you, Professor," Hermione spoke with a touch of hysteria in her usually calm voice.

"Mya, come and sit down, and we'll explain everything," said Mikhail, his voice also surprisingly familiar.

Hermione jumped at the nickname used by the stranger and looked at him suspiciously. ::Only my father, Harry and Ron call me that. How does he know of that name?:: she thought to herself in wonder, before taking a seat at the head of the table, facing the three adults.

"I would like know what is going on, now," she said softly.

The three looked at each other, as if silently conversing. The two men finally gave the woman quick nods.

She turned towards Hermione and said quietly, almost fearfully, "Hermione, there is something you need to know about your family. You are not exactly Muggle-born." At Hermione's shocked gasp, she hurriedly continued, "Our family is not exactly what we seem."

"Our? We?" Hermione asked in a small voice. "You are part of my family? This makes no sense. My parents are Michael and Elizabeth Granger, they are both only children, my grandparents are all dead, and we have no other family. How….how can you be a part of this family? I have never seen you before in my life! Except for in dreams, but still….what is going on?" Hermione finally stopped to take a breath, looking at the woman expectantly.

Isabel looked once more at the two men in the kitchen, who once again, both nodded at her.

"Hermione, we are your parents," the woman explained softly, gesturing to Mikhail and herself. "I think you already know our names, Mikhail and Isabel. You must admit that these are extremely similar to those of Michael and Elizabeth. Now before you say anything else, let me explain further, and then perhaps you will understand."

"Sixteen years ago, you were born to the parents of Mikhail and Isabel Griffin and named Alexia Hermione Griffin. When you were three months old, Mrs. Sybil Trelawney had a vision."

At this, Hermione gave a soft snort that only Snape heard. She briefly saw amusement in his eyes before returning her attention to Isabel.

 "This I will not get into right now, but this prophecy forced the three of us to leave the magic world behind, joining the Muggle world completely. We took our names and transferred them into names that would be less suspicious, yet similar to the ones we had grown with. We also took the last name of Granger, for Griffin is a well-known name in the wizarding community. No one knew of your middle name, so we started calling you Hermione instead of Alexia. We knew this would be hard enough on you when you learned of all this, and we wanted you to at least be called by a name that was actually yours."

With this, she stopped, and looked at her husband in desperation.

Quickly, he took over. "We also needed to change our appearances, for we knew that there would be many people searching for us. We placed you under a permanent Glamourie spell, then performed less temporary ones on ourselves, that would allow us to change back into our previous form."

At this statement, a gasp escaped from Hermione. Her face had blanched and she was gripping the table with white knuckles. "This is not happening," she whispered, more to herself than to those around her.

"NO!" she said louder. "I am Hermione Granger! I have bushy brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. That is what I look like, n-n-n-nothing else! I have lived here all my life, and my parents are-are-are dentists. I am the only witch in the family, for my parents are both M-M-Muggles. You have to be lying, or-or-or conspiring in some sick joke."

With the last statement, Hermione sprang out of her chair, her face becoming even paler than before.  "You-you all have to leave n-n-now….me, but no…I-I-I…oh my god...Snape….m-m-my uncle," she stuttered, before falling towards the floor.