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A/N: I'm not very creative, am I? Well, I don't own HP. So there.
The Founder's Adoption
Chapter 5
Harry looked at himself long and hard in the mirror, one last time.
"Are you sure this is what you want, Harry?" Rowena came up behind him, smiling softly.
"Of course, Mum, why wouldn't I?" Harry replied, slightly surprised.
"I thought that maybe, well, umm," Rowena was at a loss for words, not sure how she should explain this to him.
Harry chuckled softly. "Mum, I love you and Dad, not the Potters. I know that you might think that I want a connection to them somehow, but appearance just makes it hurt a bit more."
"This means so much to us, honey," Rowena wrapped him in a soft hug.
~RoseWind~
Hermione sat cross-legged in front of the mirror, analyzing every detail about her self that she wanted to remember.
"You're positive, darling?" Helga came up and sat next to her, looking into her eyes through the mirror.
"I know that I don't have the same issue that Harry does with his appearance, but I guess, well,"
"You want to feel a bit more like family?" Helga guessed.
"Yeah," Hermione sighed. "But Mum," Helga turned to look at her daughter directly. "Will it hurt? Will Ragnok be there? Does the potion taste bad at all? Will Harry and I be in the same room? Does someone need to-" she rattled off.
"Hermione!" Helga exclaimed, easily cutting her off. Hermione blushed pink after realizing that she had been rambling again.
"So how do you think I'll look?"she asked after a moment.
"Well, I think that you'll get...
~RoseWind~
Harry and Hermione clung together, shifting nervously. They wanted the blood adoption, but that doesn't mean that they weren't allowed to be nervous.
"Hello Lady Ravenclaw, Ragnok can't come in today, unfortunately, he had a manditory meeting with the other Gringotts' branches heads today. Annual meeting, and everything," the goblin at the desk, Sharptooth, said.
"Oh, I know, Sharptooth, we just need the appropriate documents and potions, then we can proceed. It really wasn't necessary that he was here."
"Easily done, now Lord Gryffindor and Lady Hufflepuff, if you'll just follow Lady Ravenclaw and the children to room 28B, Shiftpin should be there waiting for you." He pointed them down the hall to a far room on the left, and they thanked him and left.
"You're alright with this, right Harry?" Godric asked, one more time before they began the ritual.
"Yes," Harry said, more confident now that he was there.
Shiftpin held out a murky blue potion to Godric, who silently cut his palm and let a few drops of blood slide into it. He handed the vial to Rowena, who gave Harry an appraising look before doing the same.
Harry wordlessly took the vial from her, and without pausing to look at it, for fear that it would repulse him from going through with it, Harry tipped his head back and swallowed. At first, nothing happened but him scrunching up his nose in revulsion to the taste, but then an uncomfortable tingle started in his toes, and began to run over his body. The uncomfortable tingle turned into unbearable pain, and Harry sank to the ground, immersed in a hazy sheet of red surrounding his vision. He might've heard someone calling out his name, but his hearing was too muffled to comprehend anything. Rowena and Godric, my real mum and dad, Harry thought, before his world turned black.
Hermione stared, horrified at the display of pain that Harry had just seemed to go through. Her mother looked at her tentatively, wordlessly telling her that she didn't have to do this.
"I still want to. Harry can do it, so can I," Hermione said defiantly. Helga sighed, and slit her palm, letting a few drops of blood ooze into the handed Hermione the potion.
Hermione braced herself as soon as she swallowed, and, like Harry, immediately scrunched her nose at the taste. Then moments later she dropped to the floor, unconcious.
~RoseWind~
Harry woke up in what looked like Helga's hospital bed in the tower. He was quite familiar with it, and hated it with all the passion in his heart. Well, maybe it was just all the whit surrounding it, but still...
Anyway, as Harry looked around, he quickly realized that this wasn't Helga's hospital room, and the walls weren't white. Most of all, he noticed that his parents were looking at him, worried, and Hermione was in the bed next to him, with Helga at her side.
"Oh! You're up!" Rowena exclaimed, immediately cradling him in a big hug.
"Oi! Mum, I need to breath!" Harry laughed as his Mum backed up, looking a bit sheepish.
"I'm sorry, I've been so worried! I mean, you were out for four hours, and Shiftpin said that-"
"Mum! I'm fine!"Harry exclaimed ,effectively cutting her off. Rowena huffed but didn't say anything else.
"Hey kiddo, Row was really worried though, she's been soooo much more mother hennish since you came around, you know. It didn't help that Shiftpin said you're not supposed to be out this long," Godric chipped in.
'Sorry Mum. Hey, can I have a mirror now?"Harry said hurriedly.
"Where'd this sudden vanity come from?" Godric teased. Harry blushed as his father handed him one.
"Whoa!" he gasped. "I look so different!" Harry examined himself while Godric pointed out his various aspects.
"See, you've got my bronze hair, and it's a lot longer, and Row's old eyes, they used to be deep blue before they turned gold, though, and you're scar's pretty much gone. You look a bit stronger too, but I'm not surprised, scrawniness seems to run in the Potter family," he rambled.
"I know you don't like you're scar, so we can use some muggle make-up to cover it up. That'll be better that an illusion that can easily be Finited off," Rowena explained.
Harry looked at his mother for real right then. She was truly beautiful, (A/N: I'm NOT trying to make Harry sound like a complete perv here!) just like he always thought, but he studied her closely to see what other traits he had picked up. Rowena had thick, long, caramel colored hair that she usually kept half up in a braided crown, the rest over her hair cascading down her back in soft curls. She ad golden eyes from immortality, but he knew that her eyes used to be a dark blue like his now were. He had her slight nose, and a sprinkle of freckles crossed over the bridge of it, just like her.
He turned to his father, and definitely saw the resemblance in his long bronze windswept hair; in his mind he was jumping for joy that he would no longer have the untamable Potter hair. His father also had golden eyes from immortality, but from a painting he knew that they used to be a dark brown. He had his mouth, and there was an overall handsome aura that emanated off of both of them.
"How's Hermione?" He asked suddenly, wanting to know how his best friend had fared.
"Oh, she just woke up while you were admiring yourself in the mirror," Rowena teased. Harry blushed again, and he grew a brilliant red as his parents and Aunt Helga all stood up and said that they would leave them alone for a bit.
"Hey Harry," Hermione said shyly, keeping her eyes downcast. She tentatively raised them to meet his, and he definitely saw his Aunt Helga's traits prominently portrayed in her. She had her mid-back length soft honey blond curls, her old deep violet eyes, a more slender figure, an full soft pink lips. She also looked a bit smaller, but his Aunt Helga was pixie-like, so that was no surprise. She positively glowed in his eyes.
As they studied each other, they unnoticingly wandered closer to each other, and when their eyes met again they blushed brilliantly once again.
"Wow Harry. You look really different," Hermione said quietly. "I-I mean good different, not bad different, you look really handsome actually, and-oh!" she skittered back a few steps after realizing what she said.
"Thanks 'Mione," he smiled warmly at her, telling her that it was okay. "You look really beautiful too. Well, not like you didn't before, but- oh this is really awkward now," he said, chuckling and looking around the room, waiting for the parents to return. He glanced at the shackles bolted to the wall, which looked extremely out of place compared to the row of hospital beds and welcoming light green walls. "Inviting place they have here, isn't it."
Hermione followed his gaze, and giggled nervously when she saw what he was looking at.
"Harry," she said after a minute's long comfortable silence.
"Yeah, 'Mione?"
"You know how, when we were five and we came here to get something resolved, i forget what now, but I do remember this: Aunt Row, Uncle Drick and Mum were talking about a soul bond. Between us, I mean."
"Yeah...?"
"Well, I researched them, and I found out that there was another way to create the bond other than a ritual. I think that our parents meant for it to only start as a friendship bond, but..."
"'Mione, you don't have to say it if you don't want to. I know about it too, I overheard Mum and Dad talking about it a few weeks ago. I think that they want to set it up before we go to Hogwarts, but not too soon. Did you mean that..."
Hermione blushed. "Not yet, I mean, I just wanted to tell you. I don't think I'm ready for that either."
Another long minute of silence came upon them, until Harry broke it. "They're taking an awful long time to come back in here, do you think that they want us to start snogging or something?" he teased, giving Hermione a sidelong glance.
"Harry James-! er, I don't know know what to call you. Well that kind of ruined it. But don't even say something like that!" she chuffed him on the back of the head when he chuckled. "Prat!"
"If we have the alone time, we might as well begin planning the revenge on Dad..." Harry handed her a crumpled up piece of paper that he had in his pocket from earlier (thankfully the goblins didn't bother to put them in hospital gowns) but quickly retracted it as said man walked in with his two best friends.
"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, not expecting Harry to move so quickly. "Hi Uncle Drick! Er, well I was trying to tell Harry here off for something he said, but I didn't know what to call him. What should I be yelling when he becomes a prat again?"
"Do I even want to know?" Helga moaned, rolling her eyes skyward.
"A., I heard that, and b., probably not," Harry grinned cheekily. "But I was actually wondering the same thing. Merlin knows I won't go more than a week without Mum finding some reason to badger me!"
"You'll have to ask her then, you know by now that any paperwork I try to do mysteriously bursts into flames," Godric smirked.
"Yes, and you're never holding your wand when you do that, oh no, not at all!" Rowena teased. Then she looked at Harry a bit more seriously. "You don't have a surname right now. The only options the goblins have available is Gryffindor, Ravenclaw or Potter, and for some reason I doubt the first two would blow over well, and you've already adamantly refused the third. Godric likes to look at this as one big mysterious prank on the entire British wizarding nation, but it really is more for your safety. You'll be going to Hogwarts without one, unless you come up with another option."
"What about me?" Hermione inquired.
"You don't have one either, darling. More or less for the same reasons as Harry, but we don't really want anyone looking up 'Hermione Granger' in the muggle records and find out that she disappeared almost ten years ago, only to turn up at Hogwarts. You'd be brought in, questions, and possibly removed from us, even if we could get you back undoubtedly, but we'd really like to avoid that," Helga told her gently.
"That's alright, but won't it seem like we're brother and sister when we go to Hogwarts, instead of us having a soul bond?" Hermione covered her mouth as soon as she said the last part.
"How do you know about that?" Rowena asked, an eyebrow raised. Hermione could tell she wasn't angry, but she still shrank back behind Harry.
Sensing her distress, Harry answered for her. "She actually remembers from when we were five, Merlin knows I wouldn't, but I overheard Aunt Helga and you, Mum, talking about it about a month ago."
"And what do you think about it?" Godric asked, sitting down on a couch nest to the bed Harry and Hermione were sitting on.
Harry shrugged. "We both decided that we aren't quite ready for it, and realize that you likely want to set it up before we leave for the main building."
Helga's eyebrows shot up. "You sound like you've been talking this over for a while."
"You left the room, we were bored and someone had to bring something up. You all know how 'Mione here reacts to long awkward silences," Harry grinned at the blushing Hermione, who ducked behind his back again.
"I guess personalities don't change with the potion," Godric deducted.
"We can see about the more physical aspects back home though," Harry raised his eyebrows.
Hermione, Helga and Rowena groaned. "No more brooms! I get nauseous from just watching, and I've seen Aunt Row and Mum nearly catch heart attacks seeing you flip and dive around!" Hermione yelled.
"All the more reason to do so! It makes your day that much more exciting!" Harry grinned.
"I do believe that this day had been exciting enough, thank you very much, Harry," Helga said sternly.
"Aw, c'mon Helga, let us have a bit of our fun!" Godric whined.
"No is no, Gryffindor, I will be confiscating both of your brooms as soon as we get back to the tower," Rowena told them.
"Not if we beat you there!" Harry yelled, running toward the fireplace, Godric hot on his tail. They were through before The girls had even registered what he meant by that.
"Harry James-!" Rowena began, standing up. She paused as she realized she didn't know what to say next."He was right, Hel, but now I really need to figure out what to yell, Harry James doesn't sound nearly as threatening," she complained as she and Helga walked through the floo. They and Hermione came out to see the boys running out the door, brooms secured firmly in their grasp.
"Not nearly as threatening!"
Sososososo sorry about the wait, guys! I really don't have much of an excuse, I'd be a hypocrite if I did... Anyway, I decided to give you a longer chapter to make up for a little bit. (I know, I know, it doesn't work, but still!) Tell me how you like it! Oh, I tallied up all your votes and suggestions, and here are the standings:
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You actually thought that I was going to tell you? Are you THAT gullible? No, I'm not stupid, you get to learn as the story progresses. And for those of you who think that they're all smart and are going to go tally it up in the reviews. I say Pbthththth! to that! I got plenty of PMs, so that could throw you totally out of whack! Ha!
Anyway, flames accepted, I like constructive criticism, as long as you don't start swearing or anything...
~Tilaliastorm