Chapter 4
The next morning Snape sat at the teacher's table reading and rereading the letter that his sister had sent him from the night before.
Dear Sev,
I should have told you this before but Esmeralda wasn't my first daughter. Before she was born I had another daughter. Before you ask no she's not Rabastan's daughter, she's Lupin's. Please don't be angry with me I couldn't help it I love him. I know you don't like him but… anyway her name is Hermione and she was adopted by a muggle family. Remus didn't know about her until yesterday. Please keep an eye on her and make sure Alastair doesn't kill her, he seemed upset over the summer. Thank you so much.
Lots of love,
Your sister
Sarai Snape
Snape looked around and saw his nephew sitting with his friends. Then he looked at his younger niece chatting animatedly with Cassara Malfoy and the other first year girls in Ravenclaw. Finally he looked over at the Gryffindor table and saw the insufferable Gryffindor trio, 'Why didn't Sarai tell me?' Snape thought.
That afternoon Snape had the seventh years for NEWT level potions. While the class was packing up at the end of class Snape called his nephew.
"Mr. Lestrange I would like a word with you." Alastair nodded and after the rest of the class had cleared out he approached the professor's desk.
"Alastair I received a letter from your mother last night informing me of-" Snape paused not sure how to phrase what he was going to say, "of your sister."
"I'm assuming we aren't talking about Esme."
"You would be correct." Alastair nodded, "Did your mother tell you who she was."
"She only said that she would be a fifth year and probably a mudblood" Snape looked at his nephew "Alastair you know that if any other professor heard you use that word you would have lost house points, possibly gotten a detention."
"Yes Uncle, are we finished here?" Snape nodded and Alastair left to find his friends.
That night in the Slytherin Common room Snape cornered Draco.
"Mister Malfoy can I see you in my office for a second?"
"Of course Professor." Draco said
"I believe you and Miss Granger have rounds together tonight?"
"Yes Sir but-"
"Listen I want you to… be amiable tonight. The last thing we need is to have two prefects causing trouble."
"Don't worry professor I won't do anything that would lose Slytherin House Points
"Good. Now hurry up or you'll be late."
"Yes sir."
"Hello Granger. You ready to get this started."
"Uh yeah." Hermione replied startled by the lack of animosity in his greeting. 'He's probably just trying to put me off guard.'
Almost two hours later the two were almost done when they thought they heard noise coming from down the hall. Peeves was torturing a group of first year Ravenclaws including Cassara and Esme.
"Why now… another two minutes and Alexia and Alastair would be the ones who had to deal with this." Draco complained "Peeves, bugger off!"
"OOOO it's the ickle prefects, come to save the firsties."
"We mean it Peeves! Stop it or we'll get the Bloody Barron." Hermione said "Draco you do realize that this is not something we are supposed to be dealing with?"
"That's my little sister, you don't have to but I do!"
"Alright. Just making sure. I'm going to go make sure he didn't do any real damage." Hermione started towards the cowering first years, but as soon as she turned her back Peeves through a wizard cracker at her.
"Hermione look out!" Esme squealed
Little bit of a cliff hager there. Next chapter should be up soon. I'm going through and trying to make sure that I don't move the story too fast. Check my profile for polls on this and other stories and please review, this chapter was rewriten a couple times and I'm still not sure I'm completely happy with it.