Familiar Face
Matters of Regeneration

"Daddy died?" Jules somehow picked up on the euphemism but didn't seem bothered like everyone else in the room, including their father, who stared at Jules in horror, meaning he was trying to use euphemisms to avoid saying certain things in front of Jules, or even Hermione, which made sense given her father being a horrible liar. Hermione looked at her youngest sister, who continued to watch the television. "That's okay because he came back to life."

"Regulus!" Sirius—

Hermione turned to look at him, expecting the same anger, yet she saw the color drained from his face, albeit the frustration was still there.

"And my daddy's name isn't Regulus," Jules said.

"Hermione…" Ron pointed at the television, not paying attention, or perhaps what was said went over his head. It might have gone over Harry's as well, now that Hermione thought of it, that maybe she'd imagined the looks of shock on their faces.

"It's Sebastian Cesario Granger?"

"What is this?" Ron asked.

"Really?" Sirius spoke in a manner that said he didn't believe Hermione's father was Sebastian Cesario Granger.

"Really," Jules said.

"You want to know as well, right Harry?" Ron turned to Harry, who nodded his head, although he also seemed interested in what was going on in the kitchen and what was happening on the television.

"Jules can explain it," Hermione blurted out. Ron looked at her horrified—Harry as well, though probably for different reasons.

"I can explain Doctor Who?" Jules perked up.

"Doctor What?" Ron asked.

"Doctor Who," Jules corrected.

"Who?" Ron asked.

"Doctor Who," Jules replied.

"Yeah. Go ahead," Hermione said. She watched Jules get off the chair and wander over to the television, tugging at both Harry and Ron's sleeves so that they were now focused on her.

Her father—he'd been staring off into space, shocked she guessed that Jules had supposed the euphemism that he'd used, though she wasn't surprised; her mother would likely tell him later he should have known better. His silver eyes blinked—

Which made her realize something, just as Harry looked at her. She wondered if he'd come to the same conclusion, or at the very least realized Sirius and her father knew each other, yet—given the black hair and grey eyes they shared as well as Sirius pointing out her father was a wizard, not to mention Jules also had black hair and grey eyes—

They were related.

Her father started moving again, ignoring Sirius. Sirius noticed and reached out for a sleeve that her father shrugged away. "Hey! Don't ignore me!"

"Sirius," Remus sighed, obviously not wanting things to escalate.

Her father—the one Sirius called Regulus, ignored Sirius. He instead grabbed a pad of paper and started scribbling down things onto a piece of paper. Sirius lifted his hands in frustration. "Are you serious?"

"I'm not Sirius—you are."

Suddenly, Hermione wanted to call her father out for his lousy sense of humor. "Dad. That joke about regenerating wasn 't funny."

He looked at her, almost as if he were still taking everything in, which meant he could still go into a mental breakdown on her, but the look in his eyes—

"Regulus!" Sirius muttered.

Her father continued to ignore Sirius, reaching for the jar they kept money in and fetching it, ripping off the piece of paper, headed to the door, and then yelled—he never cried. "Elizabeth!"

Jules was too distracted to notice him yelling, but he leaned further into the front room, calling out to the older of Hermione's younger sisters. There came a slam at the door as Jules continued gabbing Harry and Ron's ears off regarding everything and anything related to Doctor Who, with Ron seeming far more lost than Harry, who'd thankfully grown up among Muggles.

"What!" Her sister arrived, but—there was a look of horror on Sirius' face as he looked from Elizabeth to Jules to Hermione, something she didn't understand.

Her father held the piece of paper out to Elizabeth and the money. "I need you to go to the store."

He spoke firmly, something he—Elizabeth snapped. "Why?"

"Because we have guests."

"Guests mum doesn't even know about."

"Elizabeth. Please. Do as I say. There should be enough money there."

Elizabeth snatched the money, then glared at Hermione. The front door slammed, and Hermione flinched. Sirius turned to her father. "Why are you still acting like I'm not here?"

"Are you staying for dinner or not?" Her father finally turned to look Sirius in the eye, only—he flinched away, as if making eye contact was painful, which meant he'd not been ignoring Sirius and instead was attempting to avoid making eye contact.

"What?" Sirius looked at Regulus in bafflement.

"Well?" Her father glared at Sirius. "I planned dinner for five people, not nine."

"You—,"

Suddenly, Sirius grabbed onto her father and dragged her father to the front room. "Sirius! That hurts!"

"We need to talk."

Hermione swallowed, not liking what was going on just as the Dalek in the episode screamed, "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

She followed into the front room while Jules kept a good grip on both Harry and Ron, who looked as if they wanted to pursue, meaning telling Jules to tell them all about Doctor Who worked to her advantage. She walked into the room in time to see Sirius push her father slightly, so he stumbled, almost falling into the couch.

"Stop ignoring me already, Regulus. And tell me…."

She watched her father sit down, glaring at Sirius, not realizing Hermione was in the room, though eye contact didn't last long. "You've no business lecturing me about ignoring someone."

"Excuse me?" Sirius snapped.

"You heard me, and I know you know what I meant."

"You—," Sirius pointed at the wall. "You let me believe you were dead!"

Hermione felt a hand placed on her shoulder and looked up to see Remus, who cleared his throat. "Sirius."

"No! This bloody Death Eater—"

"What?" Hermione's eyes widened. "You—what?"

"Hermione." Now her father was looking at her, making eye contact, but she couldn't return said eye contact.

Instead, she hurried off to the bathroom, much as she had during the first year. She heard a knock on the door. "Hermione?"

"Go away!" Hermione responded to Harry, who'd gotten away from Jules.

"This was like when the troll got into the troll's bathroom," Ron said from the other side of the door.

"What troll?" That came from her father, which made her cry, even more, knowing full well it upset him, yet it also upset her that she cared about that when she'd just found out something horrible.

"My dad—my dad is—"

"A wizard? Sirius was right?" Harry asked.

"I don't know what the bloody problem is," Ron said before following up with. "At least her dad's not a Death Eater."

And then the tears poured out. "Go away! Just go away!"

"Let me talk to her." It was Sirius.

"No," her father said.

"Come on."

"You'll just mess—,"

"Anything you say will make things worse."

"And whose fault is that?"

"Mine. I'm admitting it's mine, so I should fix it, okay, Reg?"

"I don't trust you."

"That's rather obvious, but you also don't have any other options right now, do you?"

There came another moment of silence.

"Is there anything I can say that will get you to come out?" Hearing Sirius speak made Hermione think her father answered him with silence and glare, yet she saw how her father avoided eye contact.

There was one thing, and the tears slowed, hopeful as she was. "You could tell me it's not true." She waited, but no answer came meaning it was the answer, yet there was still the belief in her head that her mild-mannered father couldn't possibly be a Death Eater, only for her to remember how he'd acted around Sirius. " Is that how he is? "

"You don't know," Sirius muttered, his voice lowering at the end, as if there was something he wanted to tell her but was hesitant about.

"I don't know what?" Hermione snapped. "You can't possibly understand how awful finding out that he—he…."

She couldn't finish, trailing off. Sirius snapped back. "Well, you couldn't possibly understand what it was like—," He too trailed off, then said, "Be glad you've never met your grandmother. Or the rest of that lot."

The tears stopped, curiosity getting the better of her. She opened the door and looked out at a somewhat hopeful-looking Sirius. "You're my dad's brother?"

"Not that I was a perfect one." Sirius sighed. "Is there a place we can talk? I think we both don't want Harry and your other friend overhearing this."

"My room," Hermione muttered. "I guess my room would work." She brushed by him, heading to her room, wishing she had her trunk so she could start unpacking things. She stepped into the room, turning around to see Sirius looking around, frowning at the memorabilia scattered around the room. "What?"

"It's not exactly the kind of room I'd expect for a girl," Sirius muttered.

"How many have you been in?" Hermione quipped, displeased at him reacting the way he did to her room, not looking as he'd expect a typical girl's room to look. She sat down at her desk."

Sirius glared at her. "Why did you have to go there? Don't you think he's having a big enough fit learning about the troll in the bathroom?" He walked over and picked up a clay Dalek. "Your dad's influence?"

Hermione glanced away, biting her lip. "I was super into them when I was five, so he made me a set."

"Sounds like something Reg would do, though I didn't know he was the creative type. But then…" Sirius changed the subject. "He's really into this stuff. Obsessed, isn't he?"

"I was the one obsessed with the Dalek," Hermione corrected, looking away. "Which feels ironic given the fact Death Eaters like to exterminate Muggles like my mom," Sirius said nothing, so she changed the subject back to the topic Sirius had chosen. "Yes, my dad's super into sci-fi and fantasy, particularly Doctor Who. That's the name of the show he and Jules are watching, but also the name of the main character."

She watched his eyebrows shoot up as Sirius set the Dalek down. "It's nice seeing him obsessed with something other than…."

"Then dad was a Purebloodest?" Hermione felt her stomach lurch, her mind going back to how the Dalek screamed exterminate.

"Oh, he could spout the rhetoric. Probably still could, knowing his ability to memorize things, unless, of course, he wanted to forget them. Doesn't mean he at all understood it."

"You know that for a fact?" Hermione asked.

"No, but—Lily said so."

"Harry's mom?"

"Harry's mom. And Slughorn."

"Slughorn?"

"Previous head of Slytherin." Sirius jammed his hands into his pants pockets.

"Slytherin?" Hermione swallowed. "Isn't everyone in Slytherin—you know. Evil."

Sirius looked right at her. "I wouldn't use the word evil to describe your dad. Have I messed up in the head? Yes. Irritatingly so. And Slughorn, for all his flaws, was the one who approached me regarding the fact that bloody family of ours was holding a funeral not just for Reg, but our dad as well."

"You weren't invited?"

"Disowned. By choice. I shouldn't have left him, though. In that house, with our parents. So if you want someone to be angry at, don't be mad at Reg, your dad. Be mad at our parents, who pushed him to be a Death Eater, and blame me for being a lousy older brother. I mean, we're talking about Reg here, the bloody idiot who admitted to Slughorn he was a Death Eater."

"Wait. The head of Slytherin knew and didn't do anything?"

"As if there was anything he could do. I mean, what was he to do? Reg's only crime at the time was becoming a Death Eater, and from what Slughorn and Lily told me—well, neither one thought he knew what he was getting into, and that's what got him killed. He'd figured out what was going, and wanted nothing more to do with it. But, you don't leave the Death Eaters."

"He did."

"You heard him. That resurrection thing."

"Regeneration," Hermione corrected.

"Whatever. He admitted that he'd died and came back to life. I guess that bloody tricked the family tapestry into thinking he was dead. He's bloody lucky. I'm bloody lucky." Sirius paused. "Well, lucky that he's not dead. Could you possibly not tell him I was locked in Azkaban for a crime I didn't commit? He's a tendency to overreact, or at least that's what I remember."

"I can promise, but I can't speak for Harry or Ron," Hermione said. She watched Sirius look towards the door. There was also that thought in the back of her head, wondering how they would react if they knew her father was a Death Eater.

Sirius looked back at her, frowning. "If either of those two gives you trouble over Reg being a former Death Eater, tell them what I told you about Lily."

"He knew Harry's mom."

"And, that's another reason not to bring up my stay in Azkaban. He doesn't know James and Lily are dead, and he certainly doesn't need to know me. Thinking he's dead is what sent me over the deep end and made me trust Pettigrew instead of Remus. That…" Sirius paused. "Can this be all we say on this topic? Reg being a Death Eather…"

"You brought it up out there," Hermione muttered. "Ron and Harry could have heard."

"Yes, well, I'm allowed to be upset he became a Death Eater. I'm allowed to be upset. I thought he was dead, only to find out he's been alive this whole time."

"You don't have to take it out on him," Hermione started, noting how childish Sirius had acted. She wondered if it ran in the family, although she hoped it didn't.

"I didn't. He was the one who ignored me."

"After you cursed him out in French. And yes, I do know French, and Jules is learning," Hermione glared at him. "And what's this my dad said about not lecturing him about ignoring people?"

"I told you, I was a lousy older brother. I guess it was your dad's way of telling me I was. He could have still looked me in the eye and given me an explanation of some kind, as I did until a few minutes ago thought he was dead.

"About that," Hermione pushed her lips together. "Dad avoiding eye contact doesn't mean he's ignoring you. It means he finds the situation highly uncomfortable, particularly if he's unsure how the other person will react."

"That…" Sirius' eyes blinked, the ones that were gray like her father's. "Bloody hell. Had I known that growing up?"

"He also does it when he's not sure he's reacting to a situation in the socially appropriate manner."

Sirius stared, then said, "Are you telling me how to interact with my brother?"

"Yes, I am, given how it's already gone," Hermione replied.

"My, aren't you irritating," Sirius retorted.

Hermione frowned. "Says the man who's smiling."

"Because you're just like him, telling me off."

"That's not funny."

The smile left. "Do you think you're fine now? I mean, with finding out, I mean?"

"No. I'm not fine. I think my dad owes us both an explanation."

"Yes, he does," Sirius agreed. "Want to…"

"No, I don't want to pressure my dad into an explanation. That will just end badly," Hermione said. "But, I can go out there without crying now."

"Good. I guess."

"Plus, if I wait too long, Harry and Ron would be barging in here," Hermione stated, getting up from her desk while Sirius gave her a look which said he didn't like that particular idea. She walked past him and out to the front room where—

"What's that?" Sirius said.