Author's Note: okay, fifth chapter! keeps the reveiws coming!

okay, i'm really hyper, just sharing.

Chapter V - Bonding with Mum

"Amelia?"

Hermione burrowed deeper and deeper into the covers. Who was the Amelia that annoying voice was talking about?

"Amelia?"

It was the voice's dulcet tones that really got to Hermione's attention, didn't she know someone who sounded like that?

She was half awake and everything that had happened the previous day came crashing down upon her.

Amelia. that's right, me... sort of.

She moaned loudly and sat up in bed to see Mercedes sitting in an arm chair next to her. She was holding a steaming mug of hot chocolate and next to her on an elegant side table was another mug, presumably for Hermione. It was dark out and Hermione could hear the evidence of a thunderstorm, she could hear rain pattering on the roof. Even here in her warm bed, Hermione felt the chill in the air, hot chocolate was jus the thing to remedy that, how had mercedes known?

"Good morning." Mercedes said smiliing.

"Morning," Hermione replied.

Mercedes handed her the mug of hot chocolate, it even had marshmallows in it.

"I figured you'd still be a little hesitant to face Phillipe and I." She said graciously. "I'm sure you still aren't completely comfortable around us, but, well, my own mother used to bring me hot chocolate in the morning when it rained and I thought maybe you would enjoy it too, and I'm quite sure an intelligent witch like you would have questions."

Hermione sipped the drink. It was delicious.

"I guess I do have some."

Mercedes grinned.

"Fire away."

Hermione marveled at how Mercedes managed to look elegant even when she was sharing hot chocolate with her daughter in a nightgown and an elegant over robe. She doubted the finery of her clothing had anything to do with it.

"This whole royalty thing," She began hesitantly. Mercedes nodded for her to continue. "I mean, I'm really going to be a princess? and rule France?"

Mercedes nodded.

"Indeed you will, but don't worry about it." She said. "You will have help."

Hermione nodded.

"Oh, yes, I forgot I have the great and all-powerful Malfoy by my side." she said, it came out more bitter than she expected. She searched Mercedes's face. After all, she did not have the right to complain about that.

To her surprise her birth-mother just shook her head, she was also grinning in amusement.

"No, you won't only have Draco, courtiers, an enitre panel of royal counsels." Mercedes answered. "but you won't have to worry about that for quite a while, yet, I'm still a princess, you're Grandmother and Granfather are still running France and they will until they die or abdicate, then and only then will your father and I ascend the throne. You have a ways to go yet, Amelia."

Hermione nodded.

"Uhm, Mercedes, could you possibly not, not call me Amelia?" She asked. She hoped Mercedes would not be disappointed but the woman looked rather embarassed.

"Why yes, of course!" She cried. "how utterely embarrassing! I'm so sorry, dear I should have asked you if you were comfortable being refered to as Amelia. I so suppose I could call you Hermione if that would make you more comfortable."

Feeling as though a great weight had been lifted of her shoulders, Hermione shook her head.

"I don't think I am Hermione Granger anymore." she admitted quietly. "I'm not sure who i am anymore."

Mercedes nodded, she wanted to tell her daughter that she understood, that she did not mind that Amel-Hermione was not yet ready to embrace this whole thing. She wanted to tell her daughter that she understood that she was going to need sometime. But somehow, she sensed that the younger girl in front of her already knew. She had asked a subtle question when she had asked not to be called Amelia.

"What shall I call you then?" Mercedes asked.

Hermione thought for a moment. It was the last thing she had that connected her to her old life. She realized now that going back wasn't an option and clinging to her old life with all her might would not bring it back. She wasn't even sure that she would, anymore.

She was no longer sure she could stand her parent's normalcy.

She mentally snorted. Just day in this splendor, one single day, and she did not wish to return to being plain old Hermione. After everything she had learned in the last twenty four hours, she didn't feel like the same Hermione anymore.

Like she had grown out of that skin.

Now, for the final thing to shut the door on her previous existence.

Her name.

Maya? Mione? Herm? Hemi? too much Hermione... she was not that girl anymore. Amelia? Antoinette? Antonia? Toinette? too much of Amelia Antoinette Ruseux, someone Hermione was not sure she was yet. A part of her still clung to Hermione no matter how hard the rest of her wanted to shake it off. Mia? a little bit of Hermione, but not too much to stop her from becoming Amelia.

"Mia." She said finally.

Mercedes nodded, curling up in the arm chair with her hot chocolate getting more comfortable.

"Mia." she said testing it out. "Well, I like it, and I'm sure Phillipe will like it, and if he dosen't well, he will just have to deal won't he?"

Hermione, now christened Mia, joined her birth mother in quiet laughter. The air in the room changed, it was still cold and wet and rainy out side, but inside this room, it had just become a little warmer.

Author's note: I apologise in advance if any of my chapters are confusing because of Hermione's new name, Mercedes, Phillipe and the Malfoy's and Zambini's exclusing Blaise and Draco all call her Mia. The ominicient narrator calls her Hermione unless otherwise mentioned.

also any resemblance of the name Mia from Amelia to the girl in The Princess Diaries (which also does not belong to me but to Meg Cabot. by the way) is not intended, I just like the name.

so anyway, i'll update as soon as i can.