Chapter 28: All New Beginnings
Hermione had never not wanted to go to school; she was enjoying her summer too much with her family. They had gone to Paris and Italy and spent a few days sightseeing and ate authentic meals, and Minerva and Albus had tagged along as well. They had celebrated Harry's birthday at Grimwald Place with the Weaselys, other random members of the Order and Sirius. It had been fun, Molly had made a giant cake large enough to feed the army, and she had been able to decorate it in the Gryffindor colors and mini brooms flew around the cake chasing snitches. Hermione had gotten Harry new gear for the quiddich games while Sirius got him the rest. The boys had gotten together and got him a book on quiddich stars.
Finally September 1st had rolled around a lot faster than anyone wanted but it had to be done, Hermione had gone with the usual group to Diagon Alley to get their school supplies and everyone had gotten everything new thanks to Ohmare's will. Now they were all on the train on their way to the school. Hermione was reading her book before she had to go to the prefect meeting required of all prefects. When she went with Draco and Ginny, they were surprised by who all was in the cabin, well not so much the who was there as whom they were sitting next to. Pansy was sitting next to Ron flirting ridiculously. Ginny grew red in the face and Draco had to put a hand on both girls shoulders to keep them from hexing the poor Slytherin girl, luckily for her, all four heads of house entered the cabin.
"Hello prefects, welcome back, now as you can see Ginny and Colin are our Gryffindor prefects, Chyanne and Mark are our Slytherin prefects, Holly and Shane are the Hufflepuff prefects and Luna and Patrick are our Ravenclaw prefects. Congratulations." Minerva said. The teachers continued to recall the rules that prefects are to follow and that there were to be no silly business under any circumstances. When the meeting was done, Hermione, Ginny and Draco were the last to leave; they watched Pansy leave while hanging all over Ron.
"I'm going to kill him."
"No you're not Gin," Hermione warned.
"No she should, I'm going to kill Pansy, I thought she was our friend." Draco said.
"Both of you .go." Hermione was just as upset as they were but she wasn't going to let their antics get to her. "Pansy is probably just doing it to make you jealous Draco, she bashed him with the rest of us, and do you think that I wasn't shocked."
"I suppose your right," Draco hung his head.
"Fine, I'll let it go, but don't think that just because I'm a prefect that I won't hex his balls off."
"Ginny!" Hermione exclaimed trying not to laugh. The group returned to the cabin where Harry, Blaise and surprisingly Neville and Luna were waiting for them.
"Hey how was the meeting?" Harry asked, the group relayed the meetings events and then the topic quickly turned to Harry's newest promotion to Gryffindor quiddich captain. He discussed that while he would obviously remain seeker, it would probably be a good idea if he had at least two backups just in case. Everyone soon forgot about Ron's newest 'accessory' and were merrily chatting again.
They arrived at the castle, sat through the sorting ceremony and then the students were dismissed with each student heading to their respected houses. They attended classes and ate meals as usual with very little interaction with either Ron or Pansy as much as possible. Hermione received letters from both the Malfoys and the Grangers like she usually did and she immediately wrote back.
On September 19th , Hermione awoke early like she always did and noticed that Ginny wasn't in her bed like she usually was, she ran over to the boys room and found that Harry and Neville were gone too, she went down to the lounge, there wasn't anyone there either. Now she was a bit worried, maybe this was a dream, she couldn't find her friends anywhere. She shook her head and then went and got ready for her day. After she was ready she headed down to the Great Hall where her friends were sitting quietly eating their breakfast.
"Hey, where have you all been all morning?"
"We had a meeting with Professor McGonagall, she's worried about you." Ginny said.
"And why didn't she just confront me about this?"
"She wanted more information about your behavior before she flat out confronted you." Neville said.
"Just to make sure that your odd behavior wasn't just in her class." Draco said.
"Snape and Flitwick were there too." Blaise said.
"I know I am a bit quieter but has my behavior been that off?" She asked.
"Yes." They all answered never looking up from their plates.
"Oh, well I suppose that I could try and notice it more by myself thanks. OH by the way, Happy Birthday Draco. I got you something," she pulled out a sketch she had done of Draco and his horse.
"Thanks." He said in a bored tone.
The group finished the group meal before heading to the library to do some more 'charms' research for the defeat of Voldemort. They went through their classes like it was no big deal and that nothing was special about her day at all. Snape had been snide as ever, Flitwick and Minerva actually deducted points for her 'day-dreaming' and Hagrid had completely ignored her. She wanted to go up to her room and cry, and as she reached her door, Ginny came up and grabbed her by the arm.
"Hermione," she breathed heavily catching her breath, "Professor Dumbledore wants to see you as soon as you get a moment."
"I assume this is about what you told Professor McGonagall this morning?" Hermione said a bit shortly.
"I'm sorry Mione, I am just the messenger."
"Fine, let's go now and get it over with."
"Are you Ok Hermione?"
"Well as a matter of a fact, no, this has been the worst birthday ever. I even made it a special thing to say 'Happy Birthday' to Draco and he said nothing!"
"Oh that's right, today was… Oh my I can't believe that I forgot, Let me make it up to you, let me take you out to Lunch when the…"
"Don't… Gin no offense but you are only going to make my day worse, even my own twin brother didn't wish me a happy birthday, let's go."
"Um… He just wanted to see you."
"Fine." She spun on her heal and stalked down the hall.
Hermione found the gargoyle and said, "Sugar Snaps." The gargoyle moved and she followed the spiral staircase up to her grandfather's office, she knocked and didn't hear a reply. He said as soon as I got a moment, I don't think that he'll mind if I just wait in his office, Hermione thought. She entered the office and found only Fawkes sitting on his perch, "Hey boy," she said as she approached the stand petting the phoenix on the head oh so gently, "Where's Grandpa?" The bird sang a beautiful song that caused Hermione to feel better about her day. "Thank you."
"SURPRISE!" came a group's shouts, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
Hermione turned around grasping her chest, she saw that her entire group of friends and family where there; her parents, Draco, Blaise, Harry, Sirius, Remus, Tonks, her grandparents, the entire Weasley clan, Severus and Hagrid. "Oh my gosh," She started to cry.
"You didn't honestly think that I, I mean we, forgot did you?" Draco asked.
"I did, I'm sorry,"
"Consider this my gift to you Mia, I didn't know what to get you since you own your own library, so I figured a party with a few surprises was perfect, as long as you don't mind sharing a cake and present time with me."
"I don't mind at all," She hugged her family and friends and was chatting up a storm on how they pulled it off and Ginny's plan to beat Hermione to the office when suddenly something caught her eye. She turned and looked, and found that her eyes weren't playing tricks on her.
"Mom, Dad!" she said surprised, she ran up and jumped into Mr. Granger's arms. He spun her around before setting her down on the ground and kissing her head.
"Happy Birthday Angel."
"Happy Birthday Princess." Mrs. Granger said pulling her daughter into a hug. Hermione cried happy tears onto her mother's shoulder before pulling away.
"Mom, Dad, come here there are a few people that I would like you to meet." She took them over to the Malfoys, "Mom, Dad, these are my biological parents and my brothers. My mother, Narcissa, my father, Lucius, my twin brother Draco and my godbrother Blaise. Of course you remember Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore. Mother, Daddy, boys, these are my other parents, Jane and Michel Granger."
"It's so nice to meet you." Narcissa said.
"Yes thank you so much for taking such good care of our little girl." Lucius said.
"Even if she grew up to be such a…." Blaise started, "Nerd," Draco said. Hermione elbowed him in the ribs before jumping out of his reach which bumped her right into George.
"Happy Birthday Beautiful," he said smiling at her.
"Thank you," he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips. When they parted they smiled at each other and pulled away to just holding hands. Others came and wished her and Draco a Happy Birthday as well before her grandfather demanded that they eat some cake and open her and Draco's gifts. Everyone laughed but agreed with the suggestion. They all sang Happy Birthday and dug into their cake chatting eagerly with the birthday kids. She soon couldn't take her brother's nagging anymore and decided that it was time to open gifts.
Her parents got her and Draco each a new owl, the Grangers got her a few new cloths that they thought she might like, Draco and Blaise got her a new saddle and bridle for her horse, Harry got them both an enchanted calendar that automatically updated when they made an appointment so that nothing was forgotten or overlapped again, it was already programmed with all of the important dates (like birthdays and anniversaries), Molly and Arthur got them each a new quill set, Ginny Luna and Neville gave them wand carriers that latched onto her belt, Remus and Tonks got her a book on advanced Magic History and Draco a book on advanced Charms, Fred got them some potions ingredients for both class and Hermione's extra studies, Severus got her a new potions kit and Draco a new Herbology kit, their grandparents got her a camera and scrapbook, Sirius got them each a defense book, and Hagrid got them each a horse toy that he found in a muggle store. George got Draco a free pass for a year to the Weasley Wizard's Joke Shop. There was one gift that she loved above all the rest, they were all delicately thought out and very appropriate but the one from George struck her heart; he pulled out a small jewelry box with a charm bracelet inside, George had already given her charms to be on it; an 'H', a Hogwarts crest, a Gryffindor crest, a troll, a cauldron, a wand, a cat, a snake, a lion, and a horse shoe and a BFF charm, each representing something special to her. He delicately placed it upon her wrist before kissing her cheek; she smiled at him and thanked everyone for joining in the celebration.
However it was a Thursday so the students had to hurry off to bed, Hermione and Draco quickly but politely saw off all of their guests, pausing ever so slightly at the Grangers, she hadn't realized that it had been over a year since she had seen them.
"Don't be strangers at the house now," Mr. Granger joked.
"We'll try not to Dad."
"We had better go, we have to open early tomorrow," Mrs. Granger said. Each kissed their daughter on the head before leaving. The family had mingled behind just momentarily chatting with Hermione.
"So I take it that seeing the Grangers was a nice surprise," Narcissa said.
"Yes it was really nice to see them, next time I will try not to let a full year go by before seeing them again." She smiled as she leaned on her mother for a hug.
"Yes well you can thank your father for that, it was his idea."
"Really?" Lucius nodded, she hugged him with all of her strength and then the group left and the students headed to their respectable common rooms.
Draco hugged his sister and wished her a final happy birthday before he and Blaise headed to the Slytherin common room.
"Did you really think that we would forget?" Harry asked.
"In all honesty yes, not one of you let on that you were planning that."
"Then we did our jobs," Harry said smiling.
"However, I didn't see Neville there," Hermione said.
"Oh, yeah, he got into it with Ron in the hall and Ron knocked him out, he was part of our little present," Ginny said.
"Oh, poor Neville, I hope he is ok, I'll have to thank him tomorrow."
"That would be sweet." Ginny said.
"Well, this is where we split," Harry said. He pulled Hermione into a hug and said, "I hope your birthday ended on a good note."
Hermione went to bed with a smile on her face and slept peacefully.