Chapter Eight

She didn't understand what was happening, she couldn't understand. All her normal logic reasoning went out the window the minute she saw the reflection in the mirror. It seemed like everyone else's had done the same. They were all taken aback by the transformation and kept trying to out voice each other, they were so busy trying to come to terms with it that no one seemed to notice that she was on the verge of a break down or that Draco and Blaise had come running into the room.

She found it hard to stand up straight because she was shaking so badly. All that she could focus on was this out-of-body experience and what it could mean. At any other time, she would normally have come up with over a hundred different possibilities and on her way to the library to come up with a hundred more. But everything was a blur and deep down she knew what was happening even though she did not want to admit it. The changes in her appearance, her adoption and her birthday. It was all connected somehow but for once she couldn't find the final missing puzzle piece.

"Aria!" a voice from the other side of the room broke through her friends' incessant chatter and caught her attention. Blaise was standing there and looked at her with an awed expression, but he didn't look surprised, he looked happy.

"What is happening to me?" she cried out and looked pleadingly at her friends, begging them to tell her this was just one of Fred and George's pranks.

When she didn't get an answer and Blaise kept looking at her the way he was, she could feel how the ground disappeared from underneath her. She was inches away from the hitting the ground when two arms caught her around the middle and pulled her upright. Someone lead her over to one of the sofas and when she came back to it, Blaise was kneeling in front of her and held her face in between his hands as he tried to talk to her.

"Look at me! Everything is going to be alright, just breathe." she tried to do as he said and calm her raising heart, it felt as if it was beating out of her chest.

One of Blaise's hands found hers and slowly stroked across her knuckles with his thumb. He let her know that he was there and slowly her breathing started to slow down. When she became aware of her surroundings again, she gathered up her courage and looked at Blaise for the first time that morning. He was looking at her with so much warmth that she couldn't help but feel comforted. He seemed so calm and understanding, and it was exactly what she needed at the moment.

"What is happening to me Blaise?" she pleaded. "Why did you call me Aria?"

He looked at her sympathetically and moved a little closer to her, but just as he opened his mouth to say something he was interrupted by Draco as he busted into the room with Professor McGonagall and Headmaster Snape in tow.

Minerva was immediately at her side and lay a supporting hand on her shoulder. The old witch could barely believe her eyes, if Draco and Severus had not filled her in on the way over here she would not have recognised the girl she had come to care so much for over the years. It was hard for her to phantom what was happening and she had seen a lot during her many years in the magical world, so the old professor could only imagen how hard it must be for the girl to wrap her head around it. Her whole life was turning upside down, had the girl not suffered enough already?

Headmaster Snape on the other hand froze the moment he stepped into the room and caught sight of the girl. In front of him was the girl he had willingly risked his life for over and over again. He might have seen her almost every day for the past seven years, but finally after 19 years he got to see the real her and she was beautiful, he could feel how his stone-cold heart started to warm up.

As he woke up from his stupor he walked over to the sofa where the girl was sitting and sat down next to her. He wanted to the same thing as Minerva and Blaise, he wanted to hold her or touch her in some way to comfort her. He wanted to take away a little of the pain he knew she must be feeling at the moment, but he also knew that his comfort might not exactly be welcome at the moment so he kept his hands to himself.

"Hermione?" he coaxed gently to catch the girl's attention. It was clear that his use of her first name had startled her, it wasn't very often that addressed a student by their first name. "Do you understand what has just happened to you?"

"No." she shook her and looked to be close to tears again. "Or maybe. I'm not sure."

"Are you aware that you were adopted when you were younger?" he hoped that he didn't come with more distress and shocking surprises to the girl.

"Yes. My parents told me years ago."

"Good. Now I am going to tell you a story from my past and I need you to let me finish. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

Severus took a deep breath and prepared himself mentally to tell a story he had not thought off for several years because it was too painful. Everyone in the room took a seat and held their breath as they waited for the man to begin.

"As you might already know, I have known the Malfoy family and the Zabini family for a very long time. They are my family. I went to school with Lucius and Cassio and I am Godfather to both Draco and Blaise. When my best friends came to me and said that they needed my help to protect their children I happily went along. We went to Dumbledore and did whatever we could to help bring down the Dark Lord." everyone could hear the clear distain in the man's voice as he spoke about his old master. How he had ever willingly gone with that man, Severus could no longer understand. "Then came the day when Bianca, Blaise's mom and Cassio's wife, went into labour. Blaise was born, but what we did not know back than was that there were two. Bianca was pregnant with twins. Five minutes after Blaise a baby girl was born and the magic surrounding the little girl was… astonishing. Twins are a very rare commodity in the wizarding world and are therefore also more powerful, but we all knew that the magic that little girl held was even more powerful and if Voldemort ever found out he would want to use it for his own gain. We all fell in love with her the moment we saw her and realised we had to do everything we could to keep her out of harm's way. Lucius got the task of taking you to safety, after he put a glamour charm on the baby he left her on the doorstep of a muggle orphanage." the man could hear how the girl caught her breath at the mention of that last detail. "I later got the task of keeping watch over her over the years to come. That little girl was you Hermione."

She sat stunned on the sofa and stared blankly at her professor. It was a wonder that her mouth was not agape. The fact that she had always known that she was adopted did absolutely nothing to help her deal with what was in front of her now. Nothing could have possibly prepared her for this. It did not matter how much she had longed to find a family where she belonged, it didn't make it any easier to phantom that her brother was sitting in front of her at this very moment. She had no idea what she had expected, she just knew that this was not it.

Never in a million years did she think that she was the long-lost twin sister of Blaise Zabini, pureblood and proud Slytherin. It had always been there back in her head that she might be a pureblood, but it was such a far cry from her normal life that it had seemed very unlikely.

But here she was, and it was all hitting her hard that all of this was very real. The Hermione Granger she knew an hour ago, was no more.