"Hello, Miss Weasley. Or perhaps it is Missus Potter now?" Draco simply asked, his normal callous tone absent from his voice.

"N-No not quite yet. No." Ginny said stumbling through her reply. She glanced over her shoulder towards the kitchen where not only her fiancé, but her closest brother barged in as soon as they heard Draco's voice. Ginny managed to keep all hell from breaking loose as she threw Draco another question, "Why are you here exactly?"

"My apologies, I'm here to see Miss Granger. She wasn't at her place of residence, and this was the only other place I knew she might be." Draco explained with a straight face. He had rationalized that it might not be the best idea to show up on the doorstep of the Family his had been persecuting for years, but this was more important than that.

Ginny was confused to say the least, though it didn't take too long for her to piece things together. Draco Malfoy, in lime green robes, here to see Hermione after she'd been to St. Mungo's? Wiping her hands on her shirt, Ginny spoke. "Sure. Come on in." She stepped back into the Burrow as Malfoy followed her. "Hermione?"

Hermione had been very determined to stare at her plate and push her food around with her fork as soon as Draco had mentioned her name. The idea of keeping their meeting under wraps burst into flames as Draco walked in. She moved her attention when Ginny called her name, only to try and hide from everyone's gaze.

She stood slowly, acutely aware at the confusion that hung think in the air as she walked into the front room. "Hello, Healer Malfoy."

"Hello, Miss Granger," Draco replied, shifting a few thick files from under his arm to bring them to Hermione's attention. "I spoke to my mentor after you left this morning, and I think I may be on to something concerning your condition," he explained, calm despite the open hostility towards him he could feel from Ron and Harry. "Though if you would prefer to arrange a better time to go over them–" He started to say.

"No, no, now's fine," Hermione insisted, looking back to her friends with a twinge of guilt. They were all here for her birthday, but surely they'd understand that she needed to know what was going on? "We can discuss things in the sitting room," she suggested.

Draco's eyes slid to the Weasley clan for a moment, but nodded without waiting for any sort of permission from them. "That will work," he agreed. As he moved in Hermione's direction he paused for a moment before speaking. "I trust none of you will try eavesdropping on this conversation, as it contains very sensitive healer-patient confidentiality information, and I don't fancy staying at Saint Mungo's until three in the morning doing paperwork."

Despite his thinly veiled warning, as soon as Hermione and himself were alone in the sitting room, he cast a muffliato charm, causing Hermione to shift uncomfortably on the couch. "I don't mind if they know what's going on," she pointed out, though Draco merely snorted in response.

"Whether you mind or don't, this is protocol, and it's not just your information we'll be going over. While I can share some of these details with you, as you are afflicted with a similar condition, the patients of these studies did not consent for non-afflicted persons to know details about their case," he explained, spreading a few of the files he was carrying across the coffee table

Hermione glanced towards the kitchen, where Harry, Ron and Ginny looked like they were pretending not to eavesdrop, but Hermione knew her friends better than that. Hopefully they'd be smart enough not to go about this in the wrong way. They should know well enough that she would tell them all she could after this meeting with Draco.

"There have been approximately fifty thousand reported cases of witches and wizards waking up on their twenty first birthday looking completely different than they had the rest of their lives," Draco began, opening the file of a Bartholomew Havens to show Hermione the before and after pictures of the patient in question. Hermione definitely wouldn't have pegged them as the same person.

"Only fifty thousand? That's less than one percent of the wizarding population of Great Britain!" Hermione groaned as she fell back against the couch. With such a minority, how were they ever to gain an accurate answer?

"Yes, but it is a sizable quantity none the less," Draco pointed out flipping through a few more files he had brought before opening that of one Meredith Jameson. "This one has the least drastic change that I could find, similar to yours. Facial features stay recognizably similar, but hair, eyes, and height completely changed."

"So what determines how drastically they change?" Hermione asked, looking over the two case files now opened before her. What linked these two anyway? What linked any of the victims?

"We're not sure yet, but the wizards studying this particular group of cases theorize it has to do with the strength of the wizard casting it," Draco explained. He laid opened several different files, enough to where even Hermione's mind was swimming with how much information was being put before her. "There's not much to go off of, even with all these studies. Really, there's only one thing we can find consistently similar across the board."

Hermione stared at Draco for a few moments, though he didn't meet her gaze. "Well? What is it?" she demanded.

Draco looked over to the witch beside him, and he knew she was taken aback by the regret in his eyes. "They're all adopted."

A gasp tore from Hermione's throat as she reached up to cover her mouth. He wasn't suggesting … was he? "That's impossible, I know I'm not adopted! My parents would have told me!"

Draco gave a noncommittal shrug as he returned his attention to the files. "Roughly a third of patients found their true identity, and out of those only around half found their birth parents. Most seem to have been adopted at a young age, the oldest reportedly having just turned eight, according to their adoptive parents.

"You're not listening to me!" Hermione interjected shifting on the couch to be looking at him directly. "I am not adopted. My parents wouldn't keep something like that away from me, they're very honest people!"

"And I'm sure they care about you very much," Draco said calmly, lifting his eyes to meet hers. "And as someone who cares for a child very much, let me tell you that it's not a conversation you would have lightly, lest you break that child's little heart."

Hermione was taken aback. "Draco … are you–"

"Let's leave my personal life out of this, shall we Miss Granger?" Draco suggested, breaking eye contact again as he moved to gather up his files. "I will leave you to do with this information as you wish. Feel free to schedule a follow up through Saint Mungo's if you wish to discuss the possibility of finding your true identity."

"Draco … "

"Good day, Miss Granger," Draco asserted as he stood and dispelled the muffliato charm. "Thank you for your hospitality, Mister and Missus Weasley," he vaguely called into the Burrow as he showed himself out.

Hermione sighed heavily and shook her head. Now she had even more questions and even fewer answers. And not all of them to do with her condition.

"Everything okay?" Ginny asked, poking her head into the sitting room.

"I'm not so sure," Hermione admitted. She stood and began to move back into the kitchen, where she knew the Weasley clan and Harry would be looking for answers. "Do you think my parents would have told me if I was adopted?"

"Adopted?" Harry asked, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion. He'd only met the Granger's a handful of times, but he'd never think for a moment they'd be hiding something that big, especially not from someone as intelligent as their daughter. "That doesn't seem right."

"It doesn't seem right to me either, but Draco said every case like mine happened with people who were adopted," Hermione explained.

"Forget what Malfoy said, he's probably just trying to mess with your head," Ron insisted, refusing to believe for a moment that Draco could have any good intentions in this situation.

"Ron, he's a healer, past mistakes or not. He wouldn't intentionally mislead a patient like that," Mrs. Weasley said, scolding her youngest son.

"Well, one thing's for certain," Hermione sighed, running a hand through her blackened hair. "I need to have a talk with my parents."


Hey guys, has it been two years already?

I am SO sorry it took me so long to get my act together! A lot has happened in two years! But throughout all this time i have been dedicated to bettering my writing, and I hope it shows as I get back into the swing of things! Please don't hurt me, I'm sorry ;u;

Edit: I have been informed it has in fact been over 3 years since I last updated this particular story. I'm so sorry guys ;n;