A/N: Sorry all for skipping a week, I had family stuff last weekend and then my week turned out to be too busy to finish sooner. I hope you enjoy :)


Sins of the Past

Chapter 8


Hermione blinked her eyes open groggily, and peered at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It showed 6.37 in venom green digital numbers. 'I guess that's a justifiable time to get up...' The last time she checked it was 5.12, meaning that she probably got a little more than an hour's worth of sleep. She hadn't bothered to close the curtains so she saw that the sky was a sickly grey that morning as if the weather itself chose to mirror Hermione's state of mind.

She willed her stone-like limbs to work and dragged her body from the bed which proved to be a far simpler task than to make her brain work again. For it was clearly broken, perpetually stuck in an endless loop of replaying those horrible minutes when she realized that she'd pulled her wand on Minerva. The hurt and shock in her lover's emerald green eyes before she morphed into a cat doused her anger like icy water, numbing and immobilizing her. No matter what she did, whether that be trying to contact the Animagus or caring for Rose, her mind constantly analysed and dissected those moments of inexplicable lapse in self-control. The only moment that even relatively compared was when she wanted to pull her wand on Ronald, the only hindrance being that Harry had been in possession of it. At that point she thought that she loved Ronald and the idiot had abandoned them. Threatening to hex him seemed at least somewhat justifiable. 'That and punching Malfoy... but that doesn't count. The git had it a long time coming.'

The brunette witch had been uncharacteristically inefficient since their fight two days ago. Caring for Rose was mercifully automatic for her but she barely got anything else done, including caring for herself. After several minutes of standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring blankly into space, she finally decided that perhaps putting the kettle on for some tea would be a safe way to start her day.

It had been two days since their fight and Hermione was slowly falling to pieces. She'd only stopped crying moments ago, having broken down again after she'd attempted to soothe a moody and displeased Rose with Minerva's lullaby. She'd automatically started singing the song to her daughter but midway through the first verse tears started pooling in her eyes and her voice broke over the refrain. By the time she finished the song tears were freely flowing down her reddened cheeks and only her cast iron will had prevented her from sobbing loudly. She did not want to agitate Rose again, who, while she didn't look particularly content, drifted off to sleep at last. However, her motherly instincts could only take her so far and her will gave out the moment she closed Rose's bedroom door.

She'd tried contacting Minerva several times but silence was her only answer. The Animagus refused to acknowledge owls, patronuses and fire-calls alike leaving the younger witch with no other option but to attempt to talk to the woman personally. Had she been thinking logically she would have realized that she was being treated to the same silence she treated Minerva with when she stepped out of line but in her current state she failed to connect the dots.


Two days ago...

Bright sunlight assaulted sensitive green eyes, forcing the Animagus to shield them with one hand as she squinted to identify her surroundings. She dearly wished that her beloved hat had been perched atop her head at that moment so that its brim might protect her eyes, but alas, muggle attire did not normally include wide brimmed, pointy hats. 'Or if only I had one of those... muggle sun protection glasses with me. I'm sure Hermione wouldn't have forgotten them...'

As soon as her lover entered her mind Minerva felt her heart drop into her stomach. Leaving Hermione standing there so crestfallen had been one of the hardest things the Scottish witch ever had to do. The moment the incident was over she could see in soulful brown eyes that Hermione was not only shocked at her own lack of self-control but also deeply regretted it. Yet she could not allow it to go unaddressed and forgiving her immediately would have been just that. She trusted Hermione beyond the shadow of a doubt that she'd never do anything of the sort to Rose but finding herself facing the business end of Hermione's wand was only slightly less terrifying.

The ebony haired witch shook her head slightly as if she could literally shake the gloomy thoughts from her mind. She was sure that at least one letter asking to be met for an apology would be on her desk by the time she returned to Hogwarts and she would help Hermione work through her issue but for the time being she had other pressing matters. And she was, after all, the Headmistress of Hogwarts, she had to be able to compartmentalize her feelings.

Her eyes having more or less adjusted to the bright light, she squinted at the address on her parchment again before she peered at the nearby street sign. The Animagus sighed in resignation when she realized that she had not managed to apparate to the correct street. Turning around to take in her surroundings she spotted a muggle tending to his garden and briskly walked towards him intent on asking directions.


Current time...

When Hermione stepped out of the fireplace she was mildly surprised to find Filius in Minerva's office but not Minerva herself.

"Good morning, Filius" she said.

The half-goblin deputy looked up at Hermione with surprise before he regained his composure. "And to you, Hermione. This is a surprise. What might I help you with?"

"I'm looking for Minerva. Have you seen her?" Hermione asked.

That was certainly not what the charms master had expected and he promptly put the stack of unanswered correspondence down before walking the short distance from the desk to the fireplace. All the while he studied the younger witch's face closely, noting the slightly red rims of her eyes and her general...discomposure.

"Excuse my asking, Hermione, but have you two had a fight?" he asked cautiously.

The brunette witch's brows furrowed in response at first then arched questioningly. "Since you asked I might as well answer. Yes we had a fight. But what made you ask in the first place? Did Minerva say anything?"

Filius gave Hermione a sad smile as he indicated for them to sit down on the sofa. It was slightly odd, offering Hermione a seat in an office that she was decidedly more familiar with due to her relationship with its current owner. Being the deputy head allowed him to enter the office and even to use it when he acted in the Headmistress' stead but he certainly never lorded over it in Minerva's absence.

"Two days ago Minerva requested that I fill in for her in the last minute preparations, assuring me that she would be back in time for the Start-of-Term Feast" Filius replied as they sat down. "She looked quite distressed and when I asked what the matter was she said she had some urgent family business to attend to. And now you are here asking if I know where Minerva is. An old Ravenclaw can put two and two together" the deputy head said and graciously neglected to mention the evidence of the younger witch's recent tears.

The news jolted the brunette witch from her numb state. 'Family business...what family business?'

"What else did she say?" she asked, not caring if she sounded as desperate as she felt. A vague feeling of dread crept up on her but she hoped that her sleep depraved mind was only jumping to conclusions.

The ageing charms professor kept his eyes steady on Hermione's increasingly distressed features, attempting to reassure her of his sympathy.

"That is all she said, Hermione" Filius said at first, but then remembered something else. "She did say she was in a hurry as she faced a rather long journey and that she didn't even know where to start but beyond this she didn't give me any details" Filius said. He felt sorry for the young woman and wished that he had more to share but there was nothing else he could offer as a means of comfort.

The brunette's mind suddenly raced with a speed it had not even come close to in the last forty-eight hours. 'God, what are you doing Minerva?' The Animagus' last words rang in Hermione's ears almost as if they were mocking her. 'They don't deserve to be cut from each others lives...' Hermione's eyes rounded in shock as a terrifying idea formed in her head. 'Merlin... she's trying to find my parents...'


Minerva tried to ignore the drop of sweat that had been tickling her furrowed brow for a while now, not daring to break her concentration for even a moment. The spell she was casting required very delicate wand movements, precisely turning her wrist up and down while drawing a figure eight and concentrating on what she was trying to conjure. Remembering Hermione as a wee lass and strictly excluding the now more familiar image of the stunning young woman she grew to be was an arduous task. The Animagus worked hard to remember the child, the young girl whose antics she was more than once exasperated with despite being immensely proud of her.

Her wand was trained on the blank features of her future in-laws who up until a few minutes ago believed themselves to be childless. Reversing a memory charm, particularly if you did not know which charm was used was extremely dangerous and required expertise in legilimency to help reinstate lost memories.

Minerva's parted lips trembled from fatigue but she pushed on, determined to finish until she had unlocked all of the Grangers' memories. Entering two minds at the same time, something akin to mass hypnosis, was extremely taxing to one's magical cores but the Scottish witch had no choice. After weighing her options she realized that she didn't have the time to go about this subtly so she simply entered the house uninvited when she saw that both of Hermione's parents were sitting on the sofa enjoying a cuppa.

When John Granger, at that point believing himself to be Wendell Wilkins, saw her he jumped up and was halfway through demanding an explanation when the Animagus' spell hit the both of them. Their eyes immediately unfocused as Minerva started showing them vaguely familiar images of a young child they felt they should know but couldn't quite place.

The dark haired witch envisioned their minds as a fountain-like Pensieve into which memories flooded like so many jets of water. She imagined that memories in their untampered form ought to be clear and pure whereas tampered memories would be clouded by falsely installed lies. When she entered their minds she noted with some surprise that while a great many of the memory jets were indeed clouded quite a few seemed to have been closed off altogether. In her mind she saw herself going about opening taps that were closed, grateful that she was so intimately familiar with Hermione's magical signature because it helped identify which taps were shut by Hermione and which were shut off naturally. Each bottled up image she unleashed bubbled into the vast ocean of memories. 'Just like transfiguration... it's easier to undo it because the transfigured object seeks to turn back into its natural form.' The moment the thought entered Minerva's head she realized what spell Hermione had used and marvelled at the young witch's magical knowledge and ability. It was not a memory charm she had used but an extremely old memory transfiguration spell.

Realizing that she was undoing a transfiguration spell helped the Animagus immensely, and after she slightly altered her technique she finished with relatively more ease. Granted, it was still a difficult task that required high skill, but her magical core was inherently predisposed towards transfiguration which helped relieve some of the burden.

"What...happened?" Jean Granger asked, shaking her head in confusion. When the spell was finished she felt like waking from a very realistic dream that left her feeling slightly bewildered, her mind trying to process the two identities within her. Her eyes then focused on the dishevelled woman heavily leaning against the wall before her, taking in the familiar face and stunning green eyes. The woman seemed perfectly normal apart from the fact that she looked on the verge of passing out yet something was off, as if she ought to look somewhat different. Then suddenly recognition dawned on her, realizing why the woman seemed so out of her element. "Professor McGonagall! What are you doing here? Is Hermione alright?"


Nausea. Hermione tried breathing evenly as her magic transported her across the globe but the nausea would not stop. She hated the reeling feeling of instability and sickness that long-distance apparition left her with but nothing was as fast as apparating. And what she needed was fast. Post-haste fast. 'God, Minerva, why are you doing this to me?'

The moment her feet reached solid ground Hermione collapsed, her nausea gone in a flash to be replaced by a blinding pain that jerked her body into spasmic fits. She tried moving, her first instinct was to curl into a ball, to put her hands over the painful area but her muscles protested fiercely and her spine arched violently as another bolt of pain thundered through her body, the intensity threatening to fry her brain. The blood curdling scream she wanted to let out froze on her lips, she did not have enough air in her lungs to expel a single sound. Her mouth opened and closed silently as hot white light danced in front of her tightly shut eyes, her hands helplessly scratched at the hard surface under her, breaking nails as she involuntarily gripped at anything her fingers could reach.


"No, Mrs. Granger, I can assure you, Hermione is quite..." Minerva began, intent on explaining the last five years to the Grangers but her monologue was cut short by a sudden lurch of dizzying nausea. She staggered backwards into the wall again, her left hand grabbing the front of her muggle shirt as she attempted to steady herself with the right.

"Professor McGonagall?" John Granger said in alarm, taking a step towards the visibly ill woman. "What's wrong?"

An image of blood and gore sliced through Minerva's mind, Hermione lying on concrete in a rapidly growing pool of her own blood. 'She splinched... Merlin, the bloody woman came here and splinched...' There was no doubt in the Animagus' mind that Hermione was in Australia. The talented young woman had proven on a number of occasions that she had no issue apparating anywhere within Britain and no other destination seemed logical outside the country.

Frightened green eyes met concerned brown, a mirror image of her Hermione's chocolate orbs. "Merlin... Hermione's hurt... I'll be back as soon as I can to explain." And with that cryptic revelation Minerva apparated, leaving her lover's bewildered and frightened parents on their own.


"I need more gauze, there's another chunk of missing flesh here!" The paramedic yelled to his colleagues while pressing down on a strongly bleeding wound on Hermione's thigh just above the knee. They'd already put rudimentary patches on most of her wounds but couldn't yet stabilize her condition. It was one of the nastiest incidents the young paramedic had seen during his career so far. A passer by called in, almost hysterical and certainly delusional from the shock, claiming that they heard a loud crack from the ally and when they went to investigate the girl was there, already wounded like that.


A loud crack announced the arrival of someone by apparition, which caused the inhabitants of the small room to whip their wands out in alarm. The Australian Magical Council was one of the most heavily warded buildings in the country, it should not have been possible for anyone to apparate inside apart from about a half a dozen prominent leaders. Wizards in venom green robes immediately fanned out in a protective circle around the High Councillor whom they had been debriefing to. She being one of the select few to be capable of apparating inside made them all the more wand happy because it either meant that someone was bringing news of great trouble or was bringing great trouble to their very doorstep.

The dark haired wizard closest to the door took a cautious step forward, intent on opening the door leading to the hallway but jumped backwards instantly as the door slammed open and a purposeful looking older witch in muggle clothes stormed in.

Taking in her surroundings, the Animagus' eyes focused on a woman with exceptionally long silver-gray hair with some surprise. She did not expect to see the High Councillor of Australia and wondered if she apparated into the wrong hallway. 'Merlin, that's one mess I do not need right now...'

"Headmistress McGonagall", the High Councillor acknowledged her presence unfazed before the other woman could formulate a single word. "At ease, gentlemen. I presume the Headmistress is here because of Hermione Granger?" She said without taking her eyes off of Minerva even as she addressed the wizards in the room, who, unsurprisingly, did as they were told, sheathing their wands.

"Where is she?" Minerva asked, not bothering to waste time with pleasantries or even figuring out how she knew about Hermione. There would be plenty of time for that later.

"In a muggle hospital, possibly undergoing some heinous muggle..." the High Councillor faltered, searching for the muggle word "remedy of sorts to treat her injuries", she eventually finished, not wasting more time to fish for words. "We've dispatched an Infiltration Unit along with Obliviators, they are entering the building to retrieve her as we speak."

Relief washed over the Animagus when she heard that Hermione was out of immediate danger. Her racing heart slowed to a relatively slower pace and she allowed herself the time to look around again. The door she almost shattered in her haste to enter was still open so she stepped further inside to be able to close it. The sign read 'Department of Magical Accidents'.

"Pardon my haste and lack of protocol, High Councillor. I'm sure you understand my need for urgency..." Minerva said in a politely formal manner, seeking out the other woman's eyes again. Although she had never met her in person, she had heard about the woman before. She had a reputation for being fair and level-headed. 'Merlin, I could use some of that right about now...'

Technically speaking she was not doing anything wrong. As Head of Hogwarts she was authorized to apparate into the building in case of an emergency. However, since she only expected to enter the country on a brief personal visit she neglected to announce her arrival on Australian land which could cause some trouble if anything went pear shaped.

"Indeed, I understand, Headmistress. What I don't understand is how Hermione Granger, lauded as the brightest witch of her age AND the Head of Magical Law Enforcement in Britain had failed to remember that she cannot just apparate into Australia at the snap of her fingers?"


TBC

And the plot thickens... Okay what do you think so far? Please let me know! :)