AN: i'm attempting to turn this into a fully fledged story and would love a beta reader/sounding board for it.
Disclaimer: Do not own Reborn or Harry Potter.
Hayden groaned as she, Ron and Hermione opened yet another box of her parent's old stuff that had been stored in Grimwald house. Sirius and Remus had been stealthily bringing all of the Potters old things so that Hayden could go through it all and could forget about the nerve wreaking disaster that had been her trial.
"Wow!" Ron exclaimed after having opened one of the smaller boxes, "That is a lot of diaries!"
Hayden blinked, set aside some of her old baby clothes she had been riffling through, and scooted over to him.
She tilted her head curiously and picked one up to read.
"Huh, this one looks like a book of pranks dad, Sirius, and Remus made." She looked through the pages, amused to find that they had even added what pranks worked, failed, why and what would make them better.
"Wow, they approached pranks like you approach studying, Hermione." Ron said as he peered at the journal over Hayden's shoulder. Hermione sighed and put down one of Lily Potters old books from her days as an apprentice healer and joined them. Her eyebrows shot up and she snatched the book out of Hayden's hands in surprise as she started going over it, mumbling about this spell or that potion that they had created. Hayden and Ron shared a look before going back to the other journals.
They found four more pranking books, a pregnancy and baby album recording everything about Lily's pregnancy with her daughter as well as all of Hayden's milestones up until she was 15 months old, and finally several journals that Lily had written in all the way up to her death.
The three split the journals up and was lazily looking for them when the twins apparated into the room looking disgruntled.
"What's wrong?" Hayden asked.
"Mums what's wrong. She's breathing down our neck about our joke things." Fred grumbled. George nodded as he plopped down next to the open box and randomly grabbed a book.
"If you need to hide your stuff you can use my trunk, it has a few spells on it to make it bigger. I'm also sure Sirius can help you hide them." Hayden offered.
The twins smiled gratefully at her before George asked. "What's all this? Don't you get enough of cleaning every other day?" He asked.
"This is all my parents' old things that Sirius and Remus have been able to save over the last two years. I found a bunch of their old pranking journals you two would like, I figured you'd get more use out of them than I would and Sirius and Remus wouldn't mind I'm sure."
Fred took one of the books Hayden gestured to and joined them in the floor.
"You don't mind us looking?" George asked seriously.
Hayden just shrugged and shook her head. "Nah. I could use the help and the emotional support. Besides, think of the potential blackmail you can find on me. I already found a few hilarious pictures of the two of you with dad and Sirius when you were baby's."
The twins traded looks before digging into the books and other boxes. The five of them were silent for a while when George choked suddenly, looking alarmed and rather ill suddenly.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Hayden demanded as the other four crowded around him.
"Uh, dunno how to say this Hay, but you dads not your biological dad apparently."
The others all stared at him with their mouths open before Hayden lunged for the book to read what he did, and was equally parts horrified and grossed out, learning things about her parents sex lives she would have rather not known.
"What's it say?" Hermione asked, trying to read over the younger girls shoulder, but Hayden just snapped the book shut.
"Trust me, you don't want to read that. But the gist is that during my parents 1st anniversary, they went to Italy and met a man who they all mutually agreed to experiment with sexually and he got mum pregnant and they know it was him because apparently dad was infertile. However during the pregnancy they did some strange blood adoption ritual so dad is apparently still sorta my dad." She said quickly.
Fred, Ron, and Hermione stared at George and Hayden, speechless. They were all silent, trying to figure out what to think or say to that sudden revelation when Sirius came in, grumbling about Kreature under his breath until he saw the teen's faces and turned concerned.
"What is it?" He asked urgently, "What's wrong?"
The five traded looks before Hayden finally broke down and demanded, "Did you know that dad wasn't my biological dad?!"
Sirius's eyebrows shot up in surprise before he nodded cautiously. "I did. Lily and James didn't tell anyone else though for fear that the Death Eaters would find out and hunt Renato, that's your biological father, down. He was a muggle after all, or at least they assumed he was. They didn't do a whole lot of in depth conversation you know."
He laughed at the teens identical looks of disgust.
"No offense Hay, but that was way more than I needed to know about your parents" Ron said. Hayden nodded her agreement
"It's more than I wanted to know." She mumbled.
"What's this mean for Hayden then?" Hermione demanded, catching everyone's attention.
"What do you mean?" The twins asked.
"Well, if Hayden's father isn't really James Potter, then is she still the heiress to the Potter family? Or is all that no longer hers?" Hermione clarified.
"Don't worry about all that. James magically blood adopted her, it basically means he added some of his genetic code to her while she was still in the womb. Technically you could say that Hayden has three biological parents rather than two. From what little I was told about Renato, you have several of his traits, both in your looks and your personality that you certainly didn't get from Lily or James." Sirius told Hayden.
She bit her lip, looking down at the book with a conflicted face. "Do you think…." She trailed off, not wanting to voice her real question and instead asked. "What about me takes after who?"
Sirius smiled and joined them all on the floor. "As far as looks go, your face shape is his, Lily had a heart shaped face while James had a rounder face, but it's been a very long time since I've thought about him and I was told very little about him. I do know that you were supposed to go to him if your parents died and I was unavailable. But since no one knew about him and their will was sealed, no one learned about him." Sirius said, shrugging as he picked up one of the journals and flicked through it.
"Do you think he's still alive?" Fred wondered aloud, obviously having known what Hayden had been to afraid to.
"I don't doubt it." Sirius said as he started to rifle through the old baby clothes.
"Maybe next summer you could go find him Hayden!" Ron exclaimed, looking at her excitedly. Hayden bit her lip and looked at her feet uncertainly. Thoughts about whether or not he'd even want her and if he did would he still want her when he found out she's a witch.
"Stop it Hayden Aria!" Hermione suddenly demanded, startling everyone. Her eyes were narrowed on Hayden, "your thinking depressing thoughts again, stop it."
Hayden snorted and nodded. "Sorry, let's finish looking through these boxes." She said, grabbing a different box, fearing what other overly detailed things she'd find in the journal box. Everyone else followed suit. "Oh, and if we can keep the news about dad not being my dad quiet, I would appreciate it." She added, relieved when everyone agreed.
Soon, they were all laughing over pictures that the twins found, teasing Hayden or cooing at some of the cute photos of her and baby Neville they found. Hayden grabbed a few copies of those photos as well as the ones with Neville and his parents in them to give to him when they got back to school.
They all jumped when the door slammed open and Molly stood there looking suspiciously at them. "And what are you all doing hm?"
"We're going through my parents old things. We've found some really cute pictures of me as a baby." Hayden said, handing her a photo of Hayden taking a bubble bath that her mum was charming the bubbles to change colors for her.
Molly took the picture, her face softening as she watched the little moment.
"I was hoping that after dinner, instead of cleaning some more, maybe letting us kids go through all of this, I think Ginny would get a kick out of some of this stuff, and I found some of mums old clothes that I think she might like."
Molly looked uncertain. "Are you sure dear? This is your mothers things."
"of course! I know Hermione has already grabbed a few items she just loved, and I'm putting aside some of the things that I would like to keep, but it looks like mum kept her entire wardrobe from the time she was a kid." Hayden stated, motioning the many boxes. Sirius laughed at that.
"She did! Lily hated getting rid of anything, it drove James mad."
Finally Molly smiled and nodded. "Alright dear, tonight you kids can look through all of that. It should keep you out of trouble for awhile at least."
Hayden tried not to laugh when the twins both had to stifle their snorts.
"Anyways, I came to tell you all that dinner is ready." Molly finished before leaving.
Slowly, everyone put the things down.
"Are you going to tell Ginny?" Ron asked curiously.
Hayden thought about it for a moment before nodding. "Yes, I think I will. I also think I'll tell Neville when we get to school. But other than that, please don't talk about it. I don't want to think of what people would say about mum or I if they found out."
"Smart idea pup. Now let's go eat." Sirius said, cheerfully leading the way. Hayden was happy to see that he looked much happier than a few days ago.
After dinner, Hayden grabbed Ginny and whisked her back upstairs into the library where they had been and explained both what they were doing and about Hayden's actual roots.
Ginny hummed thoughtfully before shrugging. "Eh, your still you Hay, this doesn't change anything."
Hayden laughed and smiled gratefully at the younger girl. "Thanks, now, do you want any of these clothes? Hermione and I have been grabbing what we would like to keep, but I thought you might like some of these skirts. I prefer the pants, though obviously I can only fit in the smaller ones. I also set aside some tops you might like." Hayden said, pointing to a small pile that she had set aside for the other girl. Ginny gleefully looked through them.
"Wow, these are all in really good condition " she said. Hayden nodded and turned her attention to the two boxes of her fathers things.
"Do you"
"Mind if we"
"Keep these pranking journals?" The twins asked, pulling said books aside and riffling through them. Hayden laughed and nodded, pointing out that she already said they could then watched as they took the books onto one of the far couches and started pouring over them in hushed voices.
Ron groaned, "thanks a lot Hayden, it's not like they need help coming up with pranks or anything."
Everyone laughed and Hayden just shrugged, grinning mischievously.
"Well, I figured that they need all the help they can get if they want to open up a joke shop and do well."
They all spent the rest of the evening trying on clothes. Ron found a few of James clothes from when he was a bit older that fit him and Hayden let him have. She also laughed long and hard at the kilt she found that was McGonagall green. Remus, who had stopped by to check in them couldn't stop grinning as he explained that all the Marauders had gotten matching kilts to match the Gryffindor head of houses tartan one year and wore them on her birthday.
The twins liked the idea so much they were thinking of mimicking something like that.
By the time Molly came and sent them to bed, they had gone through all the boxes. Hayden had sorted what she wanted to keep but store for later, and what she wanted to get rid of completely. She had also grabbed some of her parents journals to read through each night, deciding to risk coming across something potentially traumatizing, in order to get to know her parents better.
To Hayden's surprise, there was a whole section of the journal that told about her being conceived by Renato, all about the man and what little they had learned about him. Apparently, unlike what Sirius had said, they did get to know him some before falling into bed with him. Hayden learned that as far as her parents knew, he was several years older than them (probably his mid twenties at the earliest), he knew four languages, English, Italian, Japanese, and French, that he valued family highly, and that he was extremely intelligent through hard work. She also learned that when he started to learn something, he learned it until he was better than everyone else, though he wasn't usually condescending about it.
After reading about him, Hayden decided that she was going to learn at least the languages mentioned, starting with Italian, and try to find him the next summer.