DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER OR ANY CANNON CHARACTERS, I CAN ONLY CLAIM THE PLOT AND ANY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS PRESENT
The only test Hermione Granger ever failed.
Chapter2: What's up cuz?
Previously
I was being picked up tomorrow, and brought somewhere safe to Harry and Ron. I also have some serious questions to ask Sirius… (A/N: Ha-ha, get it?)
I finally got home around half seven. I didn't really feel like eating. I think I was still in shock form earlier; I mean it's not every day that you find out your dad is fucking Voldemort! I just went straight up to my room and collapsed onto my bed, and soon everything went black.
I woke up the following morning to excessive banging on my bedroom window, wait any banging on my bedroom window was excessive. I looked up towards the window and saw a midnight black owl sitting there glaring at me. I got up and opened the window and it flew down onto my bed, dropped the letter it was carrying and flew back out the window. I looked at the handwriting on the envelope. It was familiar but I couldn't place where I'd seen it before. Before I could open it though; Pigwidgeon cam zooming in through the open window, and fell straight onto my bed beside the first letter. I took the letter off his leg and he zoomed out the window. I opened pig's letter first. It was in Sirius's handwriting, short, simple, and to the point.
Hermione,
One o'clock. Be ready.
Snuffles
I looked over at the alarm clock beside my bed, half past eleven. I had plenty of time. I turned my attention to the second letter. I wondered who it could be from. If it was Harry, he would have sent Hedwig and Pig just came with Sirius's note. I opened it and started to read…
My dearest Hermione,
With any luck this letter will reach you some time after your sixteenth birthday. If not please don't read on until Gringotts have contacted you.
Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to assume you're as stubborn as me and dislike taking orders as much as your father. And that even though I told you not to in my last letter you took the inheritance test anyway. I just hope that you never have to meet my family, trust me Hermione they're not nice people except for Sirius and Andromeda.
I hope for both your and my sake that you have absolutely no idea who the name Bellatrix Lestrange belongs to. Just understand Hermione that I have done some things I'm not proud of; I hid you away because I started to see that Sirius and Andromeda were right most of our family is evil, I was blinded by love for your father, and an arranged marriage to another man. You deserved better than I could give you and I'm sorry
I doubt we will ever see each other, and if we do I'll probably be in a box. Just know my baby, that I have always loved you.
Your loving mother,
Trixie
I stared at the letter for several minutes, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out my real mother was in Azkaban. So she was probably a death eater. Wonderful, I'm the spawn of Voldemort and one of his death eaters! I quickly got dressed and put my copy of the inheritance test results and the two letters from Bellatrix in my trunk and started dragging it down the stairs, but then I remembered what Ragnok had said about my emancipation and how I could do magic outside of school now. "Wingardium Leviosa" I said quietly with the obligatory swish and flick of my wand and my trunk started floating down the stairs. After my trunk was down beside the front door, I went into the kitchen and got myself some porridge for breakfast and went and set down at the table and started reading 'How to become an Animagus for dummies' It was actually quite interesting, although I'd have to wait until I went back to Hogwarts because I couldn't do the human transfiguration and the other first step was a potion, I could always tell Snape I wanted to do it for extra credit, despite the fact it was an above NEWT level potion, he'd probably think I was just being an insufferable know it all in her quest for knowledge. I was really getting into the book when I felt something on my arm; I jumped up and screamed like a little girl. I looked down at the table and saw Balthazar lying there looking up at me head tilted to the side "What's wrong ssspeaker?" He asked his black mouth gleaming, "Yesss I am fine, you just ssstartled me… I had forgotten you were there." I paused for a minute to look at the clock, Five to one. "Shit. Zar go back into a tattoo now, othersss will be here ssssoon." I commanded as he made a hissing noise the sounded like a child grumbling when it doesn't want to do something and just as he sunk into my skin I heard a 'CRACK' from outside. Shit they were here. I stowed the animagus book in my trunk as they rang the doorbell. I opened the door to see who Dumbledore had sent to pick me up. Standing at the door was a tall woman, dressed in a trench coat and combat boots and had bubble gum pink hair. The other one was a tall scarred man in old tatty robes and he had cold, pained eyes.
"Hello Professor Lupin. And who's this?" I asked gesturing towards his pink haired companion. "Ah Hermione, it's good to see you, and I'm not a professor anymore though, as for your other question; Hermione Granger meet Nyphadora Tonks, Tonks mee…" The rest of his introduction was cut short by the aforementioned Nyphadora "I TOLD YOU DON'T CALL ME NYMPHADORA!" She shouted. I could already tell I was going to like this girl. Wait a second Nymphadora, Shit! she's my cousin! We walked into the sitting room. And sat down for a minute, then Remus seemed to tense up. He got up and pointed his wand at me and asked; "When did Hermione Granger first suspect that I was a Werewolf?" His face was pale and he looked kind of angry. "After Professor Snape set us an essay about werewolves out of the blue in the middle of third year, but I knew for sure when we were all in the shrieking shack with Sirius and the rat, then I hexed Snape and you transformed as soon as we got outside." I replied calmly as he lowered his wand.
"I'm sorry about that Hermione, but there's residual magic in the air as well as some glamour charms. We can't be too careful now that Voldemort's back." I nodded "Shall we go then?" he nodded "Where's your trunk?" Tonks asked, she seemed a bit too happy… "It's over by the front door" I replied and she left the room. "`Remus, have you heard from Sirius; is he alright?" He seemed to brighten a bit. "Well you'll see for yourself in a minute." He said smiling I was about to ask him what he meant when Tonks came bounding back into the room. "Alright ready to go, Hermione take my arm." She said looking at me expectantly; I looked to Remus who just nodded. So I took hold of her arm and suddenly I felt a jerk and then I felt like I was being squeezed down a long, thin, rubber tube. A second later me, Remus and Tonks were standing in a square surrounded by old Georgian houses. Remus handed me a piece of paper that read 'Number 12 Grimauld Place' I turned to him a confused look on my face. "Just think about exactly what it says and look around you." He said quietly looking around; I looked at the paper and looked around the houses. There was no number 12 Grimauld place, but just as I thought that it began to slide out from between numbers 10 and 11. Quickly Remus and Tonks led me up the steps and through the front door.
The house was extremely dark. I followed Remus down the hall when I heard a 'clunk' behind me. Tonks had fallen over what looked like a troll foot umbrella stand that was just barbaric. Then beside me some curtains flew open and all I heard was this awful screeching…
"DIRTY FILTHY MUDBLOODS AND BLOOD TRAITORS SULLING THE HOUSE OF BLACK! I…" Suddenly Sirius came into the hallway. "NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU, YOU OLD BAT! REMUS HELP ME!" and then they yanked both the curtains shut. Everyone caught their breath for a moment and Tonks muttered a 'sorry'. Sirius turned away from the now covered painting. "Well Hermione I see you've met my good old mum" he said embracing me in a warm hug. All I could think of was I'm related to that. After I said my hellos to everyone else and was assaulted with hugs by Molly Weasley; I went down to the kitchen looking for Sirius. He was sitting with Remus and Arthur by the fire and Tonks was sitting at the table talking to Ginny.
"Sirius, Remus, Tonks. Can I talk to you for a minute…? In private?" as I said this I caught the suspicious look on Molly's face. There was a chorus of 'sure' and 'yes'. I walked up the stairs and went into the tapestry room; it had the entire family tree stitched into the walls. I conjured four armchairs and a table, as soon as we were all in the room I pointed my wand at the door "Clauditis ostium…muffiliato" the three others shared a confused look as they sat down.
"Now I guess you're all wondering why I wanted to talk to you. Well in your case Remus I didn't but you nearly caught me earlier when you questioning me. Now Sirius, Dora (I got a strong death glare) what do you too have in common apart from your sense of humour?" I asked they looked at each other, clearly confused. It was Remus who answered the question "They're related. Tonks's Mum is Sirius's cousin." He said pointing at the two burn out parts of the tapestry where Sirius and Andromeda used to be. They looked at me dumbfounded "But Hermione, you only met Tonks today, how did you know we were related?" Sirius asked.
"Right, well I better start at the beginning, instead of skipping back and forth…and if you interrupt me I'll hex you." They all nodded cautiously. "Alright, two days ago I was in my villa in France with my parents when a Gringotts owl came swooping down and gave me a letter, telling me that me and my parents were expected in Gringotts London the following day and to use the attached portkey. We went to the meeting and this is where you start to pay attention. I went to the meeting with my parents, and as a passing comment Ragnok asked if I was related to a Hector Dagworth-Granger, the founder of the extraordinary society for potioneers. I said that I didn't know and then we got onto the matter at hand… I'm adopted. After he told me that he showed me the adoption certificate and a letter from my birth mother. Then despite my birth mothers wishes I took the Inheritance test…"
Remus was the first to interrupt; "But what I don't see is how this connects to the two of them, or what I came across for that matter, all I said was about the residual magic and the…*gulps* glamour charms." I glared at him "Yes Remus I was getting to that. My birth mother magically emancipated me when I knew of the adoption. The inheritance test went fine until I got to the living relatives section, as I only recognised the name of one of my birth parents and really they're better off dead." I took my copy of the test results out of my pocket and unfolded them. "Ah, here we are. Other living relatives; Sirius Black (cousin and godfather), Nyphadora Tonks (cousin-disowned),
Andromeda Tonks née Black (aunt and godmother-disowned) Now, Sirius is the tapestry magical or are people added manually?" Sirius looked at me he may not be the smartest academically, but he could figure out that I wasn't Narcissa's daughter. "Can I please see that Hermione?" He asked pointing at the result I nodded and handed it to him. He and Tonks started reading through it from the top, while Remus took the shorter route and stood, drawing his wand and broke the glamour charm, just as the other two were getting to the parents part of the test.
Remus and Sirius were the first to see it "Bellatrix" they both said at once. Sirius took the parchment off Tonks and went over to part of the tapestry and started muttering in Latin. I looked back at Tonks "Well what do you say cuz? Family?" I asked, but before I could get another word out I was being hugged to death. "Dora…need...to…breathe…" She let go and her hair turned bright red. "Sorry Hermione. It's just I've wanted a girl in the family for ever, well as long as it wasn't a Malfoy!" She was about to start a fresh assault of hugs, Sirius interrupted; "Sorry to break up the family bonding Hermione, But I was editing the tapestry while I was looking over your test; and it says your dad died on the 31st of October 1981… It isn't Him is it? He looked nervous he was probably focusing on my red eyes. "Yes Sirius but, I don't really want to talk about it…" I really didn't think I was really ready to come to terms with the fact that my dad is Voldemort. "Yeah sure Hermione, but you're going to have to talk to Dumbledore about it…here come look at this." I went over to the point of the tapestry that Sirius was standing at.
There on the wall was Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange, however on Bellatrix's other side there was a very handsome young man whose eyes seemed to draw you in even in a picture, and I looked at the name Tom Riddle. Underneath both of them thought was a picture of me in my real un glamour charmed face and it read Hermione Black.
A/N That's chapter 2 folks emm as always review and tell me what you thought new chapter soon.