Chapter 11

The pair of them stood up from the ground and the Professor grabbed a hold of her arm. In the next second she was pressed through a tight tube, all of the air got pushed out of her lungs, and when she opened her eyes again she was standing with both feet on the pathway that led up to an enormous mansion.

Its white walls rose towards the sky, with deep green ivy climbing the façade and there were plenty of big, bay windows. It was not your typical restored English manor, and had she been a little girl she might have mistaken it for a castle. She found it hard to believe that this was the place where she would have grown up in, where she would have run around and played tag with her brother on the grounds and the place she would have called home.

She followed Snape as he began to walk up the pathway towards the massive double oak doors. The man didn't bother to knock and wait for someone to open them for them, he just walked straight in. She suddenly felt shy, it seemed like she was intruding on the residents of this big, big house whose corridors she was currently being lead down. They were all beautifully decorated with portraits and landscapes on the walls and rare, exotic flowers in vases on side tables. It was light and bright, not the dark dungeon she had found the Malfoy manor to be on her last visit, and it was so unlike the old British brownstone she had grown up in on the outskirts of London. There were so many different impressions to take in and she was too stunned to even try.

When they finally came to a stop after walking down several hallways, she was standing in front of the most beautiful parlour she had ever seen. The room was full of people. It looked warm an inviting with the sun shining in through the windows, but it was eerily quiet and tense.

The beautiful woman, who was also her mother, was standing by one of the big way windows and looked out distantly at the surroundings while the Malfoys, Blaise and Cassio were sitting on the sofas in front of the fireplace. No one spoke, everyone just stared around the room and avoided the big elephant in the room. The elephant being her.

Blaise was the first one to notice that they had entered the room and rose up from his seat.

"You came! You are here!" he exclaimed and caught everyone's attention. Their heads all turned towards her and her mother looked so hopeful standing over there by the window that it almost hurt Hermione to look at her.

"Obviously." Snape drawled and Hermione had to bite her tongue to not laugh out loud. It was just as amusing as she remembered. But then everyone's stares got to her again.

"Hi… ehm I am sorry for turning up like this, but I just- I wanted…" in no time Blaise was walking carefully towards her, in an attempt to not scare her away.

"You have nothing to apologise for and you are welcome here anytime you want!" he frowned slightly but he never lost his smile. "I hope you don't mind me asking but what made you come around?"

"Someone," she turned subtly towards the Headmaster. "helped me see that the situation wasn't all about me. It can't have been easy for you either, your lives are also different because of this, but it was just too much too soon and I needed to breath." she did her best to not look anyone in the eye as she confessed. "I'm sorry for that!"

"It's okay sweetheart. We understand."

"All I have wanted the last couple of months was to find my family and I don't know much about siblings, the closest I have gotten to have siblings are Harry and Ron, but I reckon having you as a brother can't be such a bad thing.

Blaise had her in his arms before she had even finished her sentence. He was squeezing her so tight she was finding it hard to breathe. But it felt nice. Hermione buried her nose into his neck and let his scent comfort her. It felt really nice. When they broke apart a few minutes later, Blaise grabbed her hand again and lead her over to the windows from where their mother watched them with tears in her eyes.

"Hermione, this is our mother Bianca." Blaise introduced.

The woman in front of her was crying earnestly now and kept mumbling things in Italian that Hermione could not understand. But her voice was tender and one of her hand was shakily making its way up to her face. Bianca stroked her knuckles softly over her cheek and Hermione just watched the woman with big and wide eyes. Hermione took in every detail of her mother's face with extreme fascination, she wanted to make sure she did not miss a thing.

"We have gotten permission to keep Blaise here over the weekend to celebrate your birthday, would you like to join us?"

Just when Hermione thought the woman could not be any more perfect or flawless, she was proved wrong. Her voice was so melodic. Hermione could only imagine how soothing that voice would be reading bedtime stories. It brought on a shockwave of emotions and the only thing she could manage was to nod her head as an affirmative. Maybe this would not be so bad after all.