As she walked up the small steps to the door, she looked at the house. It obviously belonged to an old family with a lot of roots. She didn't know too many who put too much stock into the pure-blooded thing, except for the Malfoys.
She knocked the big brass handle twice against the well used spot, and the door was answered almost immediately by a house elf.
"Would you be Miss Hermione?" the small creature asked.
"Yes." She fondly remembered her school days with S.P.E.W.
"The master and mistress are expecting you." He walked off and she followed.
Since her days at Hogwarts, her hair had thankfully become darker and softer, and no longer had the color and texture of a bird's nest. Her green eyes had also become darker, and richer, so that she was often told they reminded people of the darkest emerald they had ever seen. She hadn't known what exactly to wear on her first meeting with her parents, but finally decided on a simple and pretty dark red blouse and black dress pants. She had styled her hair sleekly, into a bun that let some of it down like a ponytail. Her nails were painted the same dark shade of her blouse, and she had painstakingly applied her makeup twenty times more carefully than usual – garnet eyeshadow to match her clothes and offset her eyes all at once, an intense but not too dark lipcolor to also match her blouse, and a light blush to match her fair skin tones.
"Announcing Miss Hermione," the house elf said through a door, poking its head through a small dog-door. A melodious voice answered out.
"Please send her in." Hermione's breath caught. Was that the voice of the mother she'd never known?
She walked into the room. "Good morning," she said politely to the man and woman. She had the dark eyes of the man, but instead of his black hair, she had inherited her mother's chestnut shade.
"I am Natalie Drake," she said. "This is my husband, Adam Drake. We… meant to name you Lauren, but Hermione is just as beautiful and fitting." Tears were brimming in her eyes, and her husband placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Please excuse her. We're only overjoyed to see you."
"What happened to the girl you believed I was?"
"She was killed in a car accident this spring."
"I'm so sorry. Is that why you asked me here?"
"Not quite. A few months before she died, an old friend of mine reminded me of an old promise we had made when our children were young. They were to marry when they both became twenty-one. Unfortunately, after she died, we were informed that she was not our daughter. Something to do with forensics, or something or other. We had a wizard do a test, and it proved true. She was a Muggle. We had believed she was a Squib. We contacted my friend, and he told me that we must find the real daughter, for that was who his son was promised to."
"Arranged marriages are quite archaic."
He nodded. "We older families keep with older traditions. I realize this may come as a shock to you, but we would like it if you stayed here with us for a while. You are our daughter, and we would very much like to get to know you."
"I do have a home, but I could move. I could also help you explain to your friend that I do not intend to marry a stranger."
"He might not take it well, but he did promise to come with his son and wife later this week. We had planned on talking it out to some mutual agreement of some other way, but perhaps if you met them, you either may change his mind or your own."
"Alright." Although I will never marry someone I do not love. "I would be happy to move in within a few days… I just have to notify some people, gather my belongings, and somehow get them here. Through either magic or Muggle ways," she added.
"We will be waiting," he said with a twinkle in his eyes, "daughter."
By then, Natalie's tears had long since dried. "I do hope you will like it here. We'll gladly begin decorating your suite while you are preparing."
"Thank you so much," Hermione said. She thought to her flat's decoration. "I'll let you choose, and I must tell you… I only own a chest. My current home was furnished by the landlord, and it was my first since leaving Hogwarts."
Adam seemed to remember something then. "So you did attend Hogwarts. Well, I dare say you've most likely met the young man to whom you are supposedly to marry."
"Maybe." Hermione sounded thoughtful. I liked almost all of my fellow students at Hogwarts… I wonder who it is. Suddenly, she remembered the conversation with her "parents". They want you to meet your brother… Damn had she heard them wrong. They had said betrothed.
"You were adopted?"
Harry's tone was as shocked as hers had been.
"Yes, I was. My birth parents have told me I should move in with them. I will."
"Sure." He nodded, still a little confused. "Sure. Seems perfectly logical."
"Oh, and there's something else."
"Really? What?" He hoped it would be "normal" news.
"According to my father, I'm supposed to marry someone we went to school with."
"How? Why? Who?"
"Arranged marriage when we were extremely young; because they are pure-blooded old wizarding families; I have no idea. I didn't think to ask."
"How wonderful. I'm going to go talk to Ron." The dark-haired friend she had known for about a decade now Apparated to her other friend's house. She did the same… to another acquaintance's home.
"You're adopted and getting married?"
"Calm down, Lavender. I'm not getting married."
"But… you said…" She sighed. "Hermione, I'm going to kill you if you don't tell me the truth!"
"I said my birth parents had arranged for me to be married when I was very young. I never said I was going along with it."
"Well, who is it not then?"
"I have no idea. I didn't ask my father, who made the arrangement with a friend of his. I'm meeting them Friday… after I move in."
"Alright. But if you are getting married, I want the exclusive. People will also be curious as to why one of the best in the Ministry up and quit her promising job at 20 and disappears from public. I want the adoption story, too, okay?"
"If it gets put out by the press, I promise to let you write it. And interview all sides."
"MUM!" Ron Weasley yelled to his mother, as he popped into his old home. "MUM!"
"Yes, dear?" The plump and pleasant Mrs. Weasley looked through the doorway at her grown youngest son, with her grown daughter in tow.
"Hermione isn't Muggle-born, she's adopted, and she just found out she's supposed to be married to some other pure-blood."
Ginny's mouth opened wide and her eyes did the same. Mrs. Weasley merely stared at her son. Ginny let out a small noise that could have become a shriek of surprise if she wasn't so shocked.
"She's adamant that she will not marry him, though. Especially since she has no idea who he is."