DISCLAIMER: That part of this world and those characters you've seen before belong to their Creator: JKR. The rest is mine - although I cannot quit my day job as I make no $$$ from this…
A/N: The great thing as a fanfic author is JKR only showed us what Harry knew. Oh, such fertile ground. I would like to think this next bit is plausible, given what Harry knew and why he did not know this.
We now move into the AU…
AND NO! HARRY AND HERMIONE ARE NOT RELATED!! That's just … wrong!
I am SO shocked! I left your with a cliffhanger and many though I would not update promptly? Not my style. So here it is: resolutions of said Cliffie. And we now move into a new realm...
CHAPTER TWELVE: HERITAGE
SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1988 - ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, LONDON, U.K.
"M-my parents?" Hermione asked confused.
"Yes dear," Rose said. "You see, when I was a little girl I loved riding horses. My Daddy had a few at our place in the country. Mine was a lovely mare I named Shadow. I rode her every chance I could.
"When I was sixteen, a friend and I went out riding. It was such a lovely spring day, I remember. I was enjoying the view and was not really paying attention to my horse, which was a mistake. I might have seen what spooked it and avoided the problem had I been paying closer attention. I certainly would have been ready for her reaction. She reared up suddenly and threw me off. I was impaled on a metal stake that was sticking up at the side of the trail.
"I almost bled to death. At the hospital, I had to undergo several operations to repair the damage and to remove organs that were damaged beyond repair. I lost my spleen, my left kidney and my uterus."
Hermione gasped.
"What's that?" Harry asked.
"It's where babies come from," Hermione said. "But that means, Mummy…"
"I could not have a baby after that riding accident."
"But that means your not my Mummy!"
"I did not give birth to you, Hermione, But I've raised you since you were a week old. You are my child and I do love you very much."
"I'm adopted?"
"Yes."
Hermione looked horrified. "Why didn't you tell me about this? Who were my real parents and why didn't they love me?"
"Hermione," McGonagall said, "there were reasons we waited to tell you. Reasons having to do with magic. Until you were told about magic, we could not tell you who your real parents were. I knew your real parents, as did your adoptive parents. Your real parents loved you very much. But they were young - too young to have a baby, and then there was the war. They believed you would be in great danger, just as they were. For your safety, they let the Grangers adopt you and raise you as their own. In turn, the Grangers let them remain a part of your life. They would have been here with us on the day we told you, but they were killed in the war, two weeks after your second birthday."
"What do you mean they were a part of my life?"
"You may be too young to remember them, Sweetie," Rose said, "but you knew them as 'Annarin' and 'Uncare', which was how you said Aunt Erin and Uncle Eric. We named them as your godparents and they visited you as often as they could."
"Who were they," Hermione asked. She was crying now and trying to bury herself into Harry who was sitting next to her on his bed.
"You birth father was Eric Puckle," Minerva said. "He was a Muggle Born wizard - a very good one in every sense of the word. He met your birth mother at Hogwarts. You know what Muggle Born means?"
Hermione nodded. "No magical parents."
"Do you know what Pureblood means?"
Hermione nodded.
"Your mother was Erin Ryan. She was from a very old magical family, although not strictly a Pureblood. Her father was David Ryan, another Muggle Born Wizard. Her mother was Miranda McGonagall - my daughter."
There were two gasps: Hermione and Sensei.
"So I'm - I'm your Great-Granddaughter?" Hermione asked.
McGonagall nodded.
"Why was I put up for adoption then?"
"I could not raise you. I was and am Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts. There really is little precedent for raising children at the school. I had three children of my own, they all had children too. Your mother was the youngest of three children. However, when you were born, your mother was the only one of my children or grandchildren who was still alive. She was the youngest of all of them and was still in school, safe for the most part from the ravages of the war. All the others had been killed by then.
"Your mother and father were sixteen when you were born. They were given a choice in regards to you. They could either quit school to raise you or, given that there were no relatives to take you in, put you up for adoption. They were exceptional students and did not want to skip their last two years at school so they agreed to an adoption provided they could still play at least some part in your life. They asked me to arrange it and, before you were born, I met the Grangers. They knew about magic and I knew of them through a friend - including that they could not have a child of their own and were looking to adopt.
"Eric and Erin really hoped the Grangers would take you. They were Muggles, thus you would not be living in the magical world and therefore you might be safe from the war which we were losing at the time. They also knew about magic and as we all knew you would be magical, we wanted a family that would not think ill of you because of your gifts."
"How did my parents die?" Hermione asked.
"It was a few months after they had finished Hogwarts," McGonagall said. "They married the weekend after they finished and joined the Auror Corps to fight He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his Death Eaters."
"Who?"
"Voldemort," Sensei said.
"Voldemort," Hermione parroted surprised that McGonagall gasped.
"We normally do not say his name," McGonagall said.
"Why not?"
"I really don't know. We just don't."
"That's silly. It's just a name."
McGonagall nodded. "I suppose. Anyway, your birth parents joined the Auror Corps. One thing that was being done at that time was that when you joined up, the Ministry for Magic checked your heritage. We now know that the head genealogist and several of his clerks were in league with the enemy. The enemy was seeking to wipe out certain bloodlines - certain very old blood lines. You and Harry were the last of two of those bloodlines, Hermione. We think that's why they killed Harry's entire family and ultimately tried to kill him as well.
"What bloodlines?"
"Have you been told about the founders of Hogwarts?"
Hermione nodded.
"You are the last magical heir of one of the founders, Hermione. Your honored ancestor was Rowena Ravenclaw."
"Bloody hell," Sensei said.
"You did not know that?" Harry and Hermione asked.
"Hermione never told me," he said. "Then again, maybe she never knew."
"Why not?"
"Ask them when they planned on telling you this, Hermione."
She did.
"Our plan was to tell you after you finished Hogwarts," Rose said. "We all agreed on that. You father and I, Minerva, your birthparents. Unless there was a reason to do so much earlier, we would wait."
"And I was not to tell her without the others," McGonagall said. "That was the agreement."
"Why wait?" Hermione asked.
"We felt it would be awkward if it were known that you were my Great-granddaughter while you were at school or that you were the heir to one of the founders."
"That explains it," Sensei said.
"How?"
"In my timeline, there came a time when My Hermione, a friend, and I had to go off on a long mission. My Hermione knew her parents were in grave danger at that point. Before we left, she modified their memories and sent them away to Australia under new names for the duration of the War. She didn't know much about memory magic and botched the job. Her parents remembered her when she found them after the war, but little else about their life before she was born. I guess they had no memory of her true past.
"My Hermione believed she was Muggle Born her whole life. I don't think the truth would have changed her. She was a champion of equal rights from a young age and I think that had everything to do with the Grangers."
"The more you tell me about this magical world, Sensei," Hermione began, "the more I believe it needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world. Purebloods - bah!"
"I agree," Harry said.
"And that is something to strive for," Sensei said. "Now, why not one of you ask Ms. McGonagall why she knows that Hermione here is a magical heir of one of the founders?"
Hermione asked.
"Magical heirs differ from property heirs," McGongall said. "Property passes from one generation to another by will - a document made by the parent that assigns his property to his family upon his death. If the parents dies without a will, property passes to the children in equal amounts.
"Magical heirs do not work that way. The magical heir of a witch must be a witch and the magical heir of a wizard must be a wizard. The magical heir is the oldest born witch of the witch mother or oldest born wizard of the wizard father. It then passes that way down the generations unless the entire line dies out - which has happened.
"But what if the witch has nothing but sons?" Hermione asked.
"The right of heirloom is held by the oldest son. Should he have a daughter, she becomes the heir at birth. When there is no living heir, but there is a living custodian of the right, the line is said to be magically dormant. This was the case many times for the line of Ravenclaw. I was the first heir in 200 years. My oldest daughter Augusta was heir apparent as was her oldest daughter Penelope. When they were killed, the heir apparent became my daughter Miranda then to her daughter Erin and upon her murder, it passed to her only daughter you, Hermione. As I am now too old to give birth to a new heir, the bloodline resides in you. Hence, you are now and have been since you were two years old, the magical heir of Rowena Ravenclaw. They killed my entire family except you. I had three children, eight grand-children and six great-grandchildren including you. You're the only one left and were the only one left aside from your mother when you were born.
"This was a major reason why you were set up for adoption. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was out to destroy any magical heirs of the other founders. From birth, you became a target for him. As you were adopted under non-magical law, there was no record of it for his followers to find and, therefore, no way for them to find you."
"So they wanted to kill me?" Hermione asked.
"Yes."
"Even though I was only a baby?"
"That never stopped them."
"So, in many ways, Harry and I am alike then? I mean we really are both orphans. Our parents were killed because of who we are. Our true natures were hidden from us because you adults either did not want to tell us or were afraid to, right?"
"That's a fair assessment."
"Except," Harry said, "your adoptive parents obviously love and care about you. The same cannot have been said for my relatives."
"Until you, Harry, I never had a friend."
"You're my first real friend too. My relations would not let me have friends."
"In my case, I either scared them with accidental magic, or they just didn't like me 'cause I was smarter than they were."
"I like it that you're smart, Hermione."
"Thanks Harry."
"I guess that even though we did not know much of anything about each other, we saw each other differently than any others we knew."
"You may be right, Harry. It's worth thinking about."
"Which leads us back, I hope, to the fact that Hermione here is a magical heir of a founder," Sensei said. As much as watching the growing friendship between the two young people pleased him, he could not maintain his visible self forever. Sensei heard a gasp and turned and saw McGonogall staring at him.
"I take it you can now hear and see me, Professor?" he asked.
She nodded. "You're real?"
Sensei laughed. "I guess that would depend upon your definition of real. I have no physical being, but I do believe I exist - as do some others in this room, am I right?"
"Yes Sensei," Harry and Hermione replied.
"You are far more real than Father Christmas," Hermione added. "Sorry Harry."
"For what? I never got presents so why would I believe in him?"
"You never got presents?" McGonagall asked.
Harry shook his head.
"Well, don't be surprised if you do from now on!" she declared.
"So," Sensei said, "we now know Hermione is the Heir of Ravenclaw."
"Yes," McGonagall said. "Last of her line, it would seem."
"So keeping her secret is important, yes?"
"It is."
"And Harry? What do you know about him?"
"That there was some prophecy that set Voldemort against him."
"Indeed," Sensei said. "But I have told Harry and Hermione that prophecy and we will discuss it further today. Suffices to say for now, that prophecy applied to two boys, not just Harry. No. Harry was target number one for Voldemort because he would have seen to it that Harry died anyway. He knew Harry was an heir of a Founder - specifically one Godric Gryffindor."
"Really?" Harry and Hermione both asked.
"Truly," Sensei replied. "He saw to it that the entire Potter line was wiped out - but messed up not killing you, Harry. The assaults on your grandparents, and your father's younger brother and sister which led to their deaths were an attempt to eliminate the Gryffindor line. He did not kill them, but his Death Eaters did. Of the two boys to whom the prophecy he places so much weight in, he went after you first because you were already on his list.
"What he didn't know and does not know, is that you're not just the magical heir of one founder but two. One of the projects I will set the two of you on starting this summer is to trace the lines of all four founders to the present day bearing in mind the rules of magical inheritance. Few have done it properly. If anyone had, then they would know that you are also the magical heir - the true heir of Salazar Slytherin."
"What?" McGonagall said. "But that cannot be true!"
"Why not? He lived over a thousand years ago."
"Because everyone knows that he and his descendants were Dark!"
"That's a lie," Sensei said, "a myth perpetuated in Pureblood legend and in the minds of those who consider themselves light. Slytherin was not a Dark Wizard - grey for certain, but not black. Then again, all of the Founders were grey - neither dark nor light. The distinction is a fabrication designed by both sides of this puzzle to prove their case, but each is entirely without evidence…"
"And their claims then are without any merit," Hermione offered.
"Precisely! Salazar Slytherin left Hogwarts why?"
"His wife died in childbirth," Harry said. "His heart was broken."
"Exactly. The legend is he left after a fight about whether they should teach magic to Muggle Borns. Lies! Pureblood lies!
"Now, Salazar had two sons, his two oldest children. His oldest was Edmund and Harry is the direct descendant of said Edmund. His second son was Harold, who would become Dark. Voldemort is his direct descendant."
"Then why does he think he's Slytherin's heir?" McGonagall asked.
"Because he believes the Pureblood lies," Sensei replied. "Edmund's line went dormant right from the first. He only had one daughter who bore children. She only had daughters and for almost twelve generations, there were nothing but daughters in the line. More over, each generation married a Muggle or Muggle Born. Purebloods believe the magical line dies if it is dormant for more than seven generations or if it sullies itself with Muggles for more than seven generations. Both are lies. Based upon those lies, however, Voldemort is right. His lineage only has one Muggle or Muggle Born in the line - his father. His line never went dormant for more than two generations. Still, his line is not the heir. Harry's is."
"How do you know this?" McGonagall asked.
"It was one of My Hermione's pet projects. Took her years, but she finally proved that all four founders had a magical heir at least in 1981. She proved I was the heir of two houses. She found that your granddaughter Erin was an heir when she passed away. My Hermione never learned that Erin had a daughter, never learned she was Erin's daughter. The Ravenclaw and Gryffindor lines were well known. They are well known, I should say. Slytherin's was not. It was a well kept secret, enough so that Voldemort could make a case that he was the true heir when he was not. Hufflepuff was thought to have died out, but that's not true at all."
"So there is a fourth heir?" McGonagall asked.
"Indeed! Her line was dormant for over ten generations. Nothing but boys for almost three hundred years. She was born before Voldemort disappeared. She was and is the first girl in her family in centuries. She lives in thankful obscurity. She is…"
"Ginerva Weasley," McGonagall said.
"That is a good guess, but no. If it was, things may have worked out differently for me and everything. Ginny is six years old now. In my timeline, I made the huge mistake of marrying her. She never really loved me, she just loved my money and my fame. She was not a faithful wife and I cannot be sure if any of our children were mine. It's a real pity. She is or can be a decent person. But she set her sights on me and I fell for it…"
"Why did you marry her?" Hermione asked.
"I thought she loved me and that I loved her. I was wrong on both counts. It was only later, after she was killed in Voldemort's second return, that I realized I had married the wrong woman. The right one had been with me as a friend all along. I told you two to be totally honest with each other…"
"Wait," Hermione said, "you mean…"
"I don't know, Hermione," Sensei replied. "But yes, it's probable."
"What?" Harry asked.
"That you and I are supposed to one day…" Hermione began.
"You've got years to figure that one out," Sensei said. "All I am saying is that friends can be more than that one day. If you do develop deeper feelings for each other, do not fear for your friendship. By then, it can probably survive anything, okay?"
"Okay," the two children said. They then glanced at each other and smiled and blushed furiously, a reaction that did not go unnoticed by the adults.
"Are you sure about this?" McGonagall asked. "All four founders heirs?"
Sensei nodded. "I was and still may have Harry and Hermione spend the next several months engaged in a history project - reconstructing the lineages. I am certain of the results, however."
"You do realize what this means?"
Sensei nodded. "If the four founders heirs arrive at Hogwarts and unite, I am quite aware at what can happen. Problem is Hufflepuff's heir. In my timeline, she and I and Hermione for that matter could have become friends, thus fulfilling the - er - reuniting of the founders lines. I liked her in a way. Hermione tolerated her and grew to respect her. She saw us as her friends, the first people to treat her as such after she came to Hogwarts.
"But a certain young witch prevented that friendship from truly blossoming. Odd, really, as young children they had been playmates. But Ginny Weasley wanted me as her husband and no woman would be allowed to stand in her way. She kept me - and Hermione for that matter - from allowing our friendship to grow with the final heir. From a very young age, she had been convinced that I was to be her husband. Her mother, a woman I considered as a mother to me, had convinced her that I and I alone was the only husband she should have. Any other girl - especially later when we were older - any other girl had to be discouraged from taking an interest in me in any way. My Hermione and I were dosed with love potions so we would fall in love with the people that would ensure that Ginny married me and no other. That was her mother's idea. Her mother is even now grooming her to be Mrs. Harry Potter. Dumbledore made some kind of promise to said Mrs. Weasley, and no I don't know what it was. That cycle must be broken for the four heirs to unite. Ginny cannot be the disruption she became."
"Do you have any idea how?"
"No."
"Why is this important?" Harry asked. "Why separate the mother from her daughter?"
"The mother loves the daughter, she really does. The daughter adores her mother. But the mother is a Pureblood and the daughter is not born to wealth so an arranged marriage to a wealthy Pureblood is not an option. She sees Harry Potter as a mark. She knows he is ignorant of his wealth and she is a close personal friend - or so she believes - of Harry's supposed magical guardian: Albus Dumbledore. Albus has blessed the supposed union as he considers the Weasley's a family of the Light, and therefore not likely to allow our Harry to go dark or develop a spine as either would deny Dumbledore what he believes is Harry's destiny."
"And that is?" McGonagall asked.
"Dumbledore believes Harry must die a martyr's death."
"But that's…"
"Outrageous? Insane? Pick a bad word for it and it probably is not evil enough. Dumbledore has misread everything when it comes to Harry here. Harry, in Dumbledore's mind, must suffer. Had Dumbledore really understood the truth, Harry would never have been sent to be tortured - and he was - by his own relations. While Harry's lot in life will not be easy, he's not destined to die as Dumbledore believes is necessary. And Dumbledore does not accept counsel. His mind is made up, he believes the path is set and control of Harry is the key.
"But tables have turned on him, haven't they. By now, the whole of the wizarding world believes Harry is dead, do they not?"
McGonagall nodded.
"And you understand why it may be a good idea for that to remain the case, at least until Harry arrives at Hogwarts in three years?"
McGonagall nodded. "But surely there is more? You must be aware how persuasive Dumbledore is, especially with the young? And what about the Weasley girl?"
"I and maybe some others will prepare Harry and Hermione so that they will be ready for whatever awaits them when they start Hogwarts. As for Ms. Weasley, with Harry here officially dead, her Mum now has to set her sights on another target for her daughter."
"So you're saying we should stay away from this Dumbledore and those Weasleys?" Harry asked.
"I can see how I left you with that impression," Sensei replied. "That was not my intent. The Weasleys are, by and large, some of the nicest and most caring people you can hope to meet and are fun to be around. The youngest two had issues in my timeline. Near as I can figure, those issues began to develop when their mother became overly interested in trying to land me as a future son-in-law, a process that began only within the last year or less. Her constant jabber about the famous Harry Potter and oh, what a poor lad he was and such was largely ignored by the older children. The daughter became enamored with the legend and the son intimidated by and, ultimately, jealous of it.
"But for those traits, Ron and Ginny Weasley would have grown to be quite decent people. Because of those traits, they grew to be miserable, petty and unhappy. It took years of their mother's talk to change their lives for the worse. For Ginny, years of her Mum's quite vocal daydreams of the day her daughter married the rich and famous lad. For Ron, years of constant comparison to the aforementioned lad in which Ron would believe he always came up short."
"That's terrible!" Hermione said.
"It would have been far worse if it was intentional on the mother's part. Near as I could tell, it was not. Just a quirk, not malice.
"As to Dumbledore, given a chance, he will try and control and mold Harry's future to fit his preconceived notions. He is secretive, prefers to know more than those around him, is certain of his vision and, as I said, does not truly listen to those around him who are in disagreement. In short, he is old and set in his ways. Deep down, he is not an evil or malicious man and, properly led, can be quite useful. Just beware that he has an agenda for Harry and, despite his beliefs, that agenda is not in Harry's best interest although he believes it is.
"The purpose of my planned training for Harry and Hermione is to develop the skill sets necessary so that they do not have to rely upon Dumbledore as I did and to learn to think for themselves such that they do not have to follow his lead blindly as I did. It was my faith in Dumbledore and his plan and in his being right that, more than anything, led to the future I am now here to try and prevent."
"I take it you grew to mistrust Dumbledore?" McGonagall asked.
"No, not so much. Certainly not when he was alive. Years after his death, as the world began to spin out of control, I began to truly understand his faults and how they had led me to where I was. His faults were largely philosophical in nature and I was not surprised to learn he had never studied that topic in any detail."
"What do you mean?"
"First off, he could not envision any situation that justified killing another person. He seemed to hold to the common misconception that many of the faithful have that killing a person is a mortal sin. In English, one of the Ten Commandments in the Bible is 'Thou shalt not kill.' That misconception is derived from a mistranslation of the original Hebrew by the Greeks and carried through in Latin and later English. The Hebrew word was not 'kill,' it was 'murder,' the unlawful and unjustified taking of life. Big difference. The ancient Greek did not distinguish between those two words. Despite being thrown into two major wars with Voldemort, Dumbledore refused to kill or allow any of his followers to do so. Noble, indeed, but neither pragmatic nor realistic when your enemy is trying to kill you. War is about killing and the only trustworthy enemy in war is a dead one.
"Secondly, he was a firm believer in redemption, again noble. But he never met a man no matter how evil whom he thought could not be redeemed. That is foolish. Should we give others a second chance? Indeed we should. But there comes a point when the person has had too many second chances and continues to do what they will rather than what they should. There is an old expression he never understood - fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! There comes a point when a person cannot and should not be forgiven.
"Third, he had no vision for a future beyond Voldemort, or if he did, he never showed anyone that vision. Giving him the benefit of the doubt tells me he did, but I doubt it. He made no suggestions for any changes in society in the post-Voldemort world. The conditions that led to Voldemort's rise remained unchanged: the Pureblood elitism, the outright discrimination based upon heritage, the fear and loathing of the rest of mankind, the rampant corruption throughout the magical government, the flagrant injustice. To avoid the terrible future, the Wizarding World could not return to the status quo ante, it had to cease to exist in its old form altogether. There had to be a revolution of ideas leading to an egalitarian society wherein such ideas as blood purity could find no acceptance or purchase. Concepts such as arranged marriage should have been outlawed. Promotion and success should have been based upon what you did, not who your parents were or how big a bribe you could pay. Basically, the post-Voldemort wizarding world had to become something totally unrecognizable from any magical society that had preceded it.
"Finally and most significantly insofar as Harry is concerned, very late in his life he developed a surprising interest in an area of magical study he had neither studied nor ever had any use for before: divination."
"What?" McGonagall asked in disbelief. "That subject is useless! He knows it is."
"What is Divination?" Harry asked.
"Fortune telling," Sensei replied. "It is the false belief that one can predict the unpredictable - that being the future. Do you recall our discussion on Chaos Theory the day we first met, Harry?"
Harry nodded. "I recall you saying that a butterfly flapping its wings might lead to rain far away or something like that."
"And what does that mean?"
"A small event that no one would notice can lead to something major in the future."
"Exactly! By my delaying you from leaving the library, who knows how big a change to the timeline has occurred! I had no idea what would happen, I just hoped you would be found and cared for. Sure enough, you were! I would never have guessed you would meet Hermione and become friends three years before I did in my timeline. I wish I could tell you where this will lead, but I cannot. Divination by its very nature cannot take into account the infinite interactions that lead from the present to some future event. Hence, it is useless in reality.
"Yet Dumbledore hear the prophecy I mentioned last week and believes it as the truth."
"A prophecy?" McGongall asked, clearly shocked. "Those are wholly unreliable!"
"I agree."
"What was this prophecy?"
"Harry? Did you and Hermione do the homework I assigned to you?"
"Yes Sensei."
"Then tell us the prophecy!"