'Little one, you are safe, I promise you, no one here is going to hurt you. Hush Hermione no more tears the four of us in this room are going to do everything in our power to protect you.' Severus held his new daughter so tightly hoping to show her how much love he was feeling. As she began to settle, she was trying more peek through Severus cloak to look at the three other men in the room but as soon as she made eye contact with them she would shy back in Severus' chest.

'As much as I love an improv game of hide and seek princess we should maybe introduce ourselves, the three of us are your Daddy's brothers, I am your Uncle Regulus, next to me is Antonin and the giant at the end is Thorfinn. I know we all look terrifying, but I promise that none of us will ever do anything to harm you.' Regulus knew that he had to break the shy game of hide and seek, the three of them needed to ensure their new niece and goddaughter knew who they were and began to feel comfortable with them.

'Yes little one, lets meet your uncles and godfathers, they are all incredibly excited to meet you, as I explained earlier we need to perform an adoption ritual and part of that is selecting godparents for you, the four of us have all blood adopted one and other and I could think of no other men then these to be your protectors and guides in this world.' Severus could feel Hermione finally turn in his arms to look at his family.

'W…. what do I call all of you professor?' Hermione stuttered unsure of herself, she did not feel unsafe in any of their presences, but she could not tell if it was the soothing magic, they all projected at her or the presence of her new found protector.

'Well kotyonok, I think we can shorten our names for you a little, how does Uncles, Reggie, Thor and Ant sound just for you? I'm sure when you feel more comfortable Sev would love to be called Dad or what ever you want to call him.' Antonin smiled at the small girl; he knew that they had their work cut out for them how did Severus manage to pick such a tiny child.

'Exactly sæta, call us whatever you like, if your annoyed us and its impolite perhaps do not say it to our faces.' Thorfinn winked at his niece who turned an embarrassed shade of red.

'I hate to break us this great family moment, but we need to perform the ritual now.' Albus appeared at the door ushering all the men out of the room, Severus was still carrying Hermione, as the entered the room the women had set the place up perfectly for the ritual, their was a piece of parchment on the table, each member of the family would have to make a small cut on their palm and let it flow onto the parchment, first the parents followed by the godparents and finally Severus would use a healers spell to remove a sample of Hermione's blood to complete the ritual. The final step was to write the final stage was to write the child's adopted name on the parchment to seal the deal, unfortunately it was custom for the men in pureblood families to name the child, in this case Severus wanted Hermione's first name to remain the same, however each of his brothers asked if they could have the honour of choosing a middle name each and thus Hermione's new name was born as Hermione Ara Carina Cassiopeia Snape, it would take her a great deal of time to write out her name from now one but it was a name fitting the beautiful young girl that was now theirs.

The ritual was a quick and pleasant affair, Hermione's hair did indeed turn midnight black, her eye colour changed very little they merely darkened in colour and richness to now be a chocolate or hazel brown. Bellatrix and Andromeda decided it was for the best to prepare Hermione for bed, by taking her to get washed up whilst the men went into Severus' study to indulge in a glass of fire whiskey so that Severus could tell them exactly what happened with Hermione and how they now had a brand new family member who was now a member of four houses who were all members of the sacred 28, she was official a black three times over between Regulus, Bella and Andromeda. She was classed as pureblood royalty and she had no idea.

'I would appreciate it brothers if you allowed me to tell the whole story prior to adding questions or statements please it is not a pretty story and it is taking rather a lot of energy not to breakdown. Believe it or not Hermione's previous experience at Hogwarts was nothing out of the ordinary other than getting involved in Potters hairbrained schemes. She was a headstrong and rather strong-willed child not unlike Bella. This year however she appeared withdrawn and was showing concerning behaviour, she once argued with me for 45 minutes about why her detention was unfair and unjust and I was merely letting my hatred of her house overrule my common sense. Whereas when Bella issued her with detention she merely agreed and ran away, I know my wife can appear scary but for the child to argue with me but run from me just does not make sense. Furthermore, when we asked her what was wrong she tried to explain it away as if it was nothing it was not until I threatened to contact her parents did she tell us that they had died. We had absolutely no idea, it was not even an option which crossed my mind, they died two years ago during her Christmas break and she said nothing she just returned and pretended all was ok. We tried to comfort her and that's when we noticed the blood dripping down her back, it was like something from the Salem Witch trials, she had wipe marks, brands, burns, cuts and bruises covering her body Albus and I managed to heal the majority of it but she has some nasty scaring which we can do nothing about. They scream the bible at her, starved her and treated her worst than dirt and all she could do was plot to run away and self-harm, I noticed scars on her arms and lower legs which were self-inflicted. She had no plan to tell any of us in fact she did not trust us not to send her back to them.' At the moment Antonin's glass hit the wall by the fireplace, no child should suffer or be terrified in their own home it was a basic human right and he would not stand for it.

'How was this not noticed! Sæta must have shown pain surely, she is not that good of an actress, what of her friends, certainly, they would notice! I demand to know where these people are and how they are going to be punished. Furthermore I want you to petition the school board to change the policies any chid being raised in the muggle world must be allocated a wizard family as a magical representative to ensure this never happens again and our girl needs resorted immediately into Slytherin to ensure she has a house that will look out for her.' From the corner of his eye he noticed an incredibly shy looking child watching the adults in the room looking as though she was coming to seek out comfort.

I am incredibly sorry I have taken so long to update this story, I have not forgotten about it I have just been really ill and it is taking me a while to update but please stay with me I really appreciate you all.

Thanks

Nat x