Hermione and the FBI Agent

Hermione knocked on the door of the house that was owned by a distant uncle of hers. The man's name was Aaron Hotchner, and he worked in the FBI in America. She was incredibly nervous about meeting him, but then who wouldn't be? She had been doing research into her family tree for the last year and tracking down any family she had. Her and her parents had always been alone when it came to family, as both sets of grandparents had died some years ago and neither one of her parents had any siblings. The relative she had found in England had wanted nothing to do with her at all as they had their own lives and didn't care to try to get to know some distant relative. Finally, she had tracked down this uncle who lived in America and it turned out that the Hotchner line had split from the Granger one several centuries ago, when one of the daughters had married a man from America and they had moved there. The name had then changed several times over the last 500 or so years until it became what it was today. Family had become even more important to Hermione ever since her parents had died in a car crash right after the end of the war with Voldemort about seven years ago now. She had her three best friends support, which she was grateful for and they were like her family and while they were important to her, she had still started research into her family tree over the internet.

Hermione heard the door opening and she prepared herself for the questions she knew would be coming. Hermione truly hoped, that this Aaron Hotchner wasn't going to tell her to go away like all the others she had contacted in England had. It wasn't that she needed his support financially since she made quite a good salary and she also had the money her parents had left her, but family had become very important to her ever since her parents deaths and especially after the birth of her twins sons.

"Can I help you miss?" asked a tall darkly handsome man who opened the door and looked down at her since she was considerably shorter then he was.

"Are you Aaron Hotchner?" asked Hermione

"Yes, I am, miss and you are?" Hotch answered looking curious as to what this young woman who could be no more than 25 or 6 was doing at his door, especially one with a British accent.

"Hermione Granger," Hermione introduced herself.

"What can I do for you Miss Granger?" asked Hotch with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, sir, I was doing some research into my family tree…" Hermione begin to explain.

"So you're saying we are related?" asked Hotch with a raised eyebrow, catching on immediately.

"Very distantly, yes," Hermione told him.

"Why don't you come in and you can continue to explain how you believe we are related."

"Thank you," Hermione said entering Hotch's apartment as he shut the door behind her.

Hotch led the young woman to his living room and as soon as they were settled, Hermione took the bag that she had been carrying off her shoulder.

"As I was explaining a minute ago I've been doing some research into my family tree on the internet. Family has become important to me ever since my parents died in a car crash when I was just 18."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Hotch told her genuinely sympathetic.

"Thank you," Hermione told him with a sad smile, "I never would've gotten through it if I hadn't had some good friends to help me."

"No family?" asked Hotch in surprise.

"No it was just my parents and me," Hermione explained. "I have no siblings and neither one of my parents had any either."

"No, grandparents?" asked Hotch and Hermione shook her head.

"They died when I was little in one case and the other set before I was born. Now I'm sure you can see why I started to research my family tree every time I had a few spare minutes from my job or hanging out with my friends," Hermione said and Hotch nodded. "It took me months to trace my family back, but then, I've always been particularly gifted when it comes to research, and I discovered that the Grangers had more family then we knew, ones that had split from the main family line by moving to America about five hundred years ago by getting married. It took me several more months to finally track you down, but I did it."

Hotch who had been watching Hermione carefully using his trained profiler senses, to determine if she was speaking the truth realized that this young woman who could be more than 24 or 25 had been totally honest with him up to this point.

"Can I see this research you've done?" asked Hotch and Hermione nodded.

"Of course, that's why I brought most of it with me as I knew you would likely ask," Hermione said.

Hermione opened the bag that she had taken off her shoulder a few minutes ago and started to spread tons of papers all over the coffee table. "Most of this stuff is printed off from the internet sites I found it on."

Hotch looked over the papers that Hermione had presented to him in very neat, chronological order. Hotch could indeed see, how Miss Granger had traced her whole family backwards about 500 years. He saw his mother's and father's name on one sheet, and then his own and his brother's and finally Haley's and his son's.

Hotch knew quite a bit about his family and there was his Uncle Steve and his wife and so on. "You did a good job with this," Hotch told her after he had studied all the papers that Hermione had laid out for him.

"Thank you," Hermione told him with a smile, "but as I told you I've always been particularly gifted when it comes to research."

"Do you have a place to stay while you are here?" asked Hotch.

"I have a hotel room," Hermione told him with a smile. "It's just fine for my needs."

"Hotel room are expensive to stay in for any length of time," Hotch said. "If you like you can stay in the guest room while you are here."

"Why would you offer a stranger a room in your home?" asked Hermione in surprise genuinely touched at the offer, but also utterly flabbergasted that Aaron Hotchner would be willing to let her stay in his home, when he knew next to nothing about her, well except her name.

"I'm a profiler, Miss Granger," Hotch told her quite seriously, but with a small smile, "what that means is I'm good at reading body language and behavior and I would know if you were being dishonest with me. I'm going to be totally honest with and tell you by telling you that I am going to have friend of mine do a background check on you unless you object."

"Go right ahead," Hermione told Hotch with a smile. "I have nothing to hide." Except for the fact that I'm a witch and went to Hogwarts instead of the normal school and I sincerely hope he doesn't ask me about that at least not until we get to know each other. Unfortunately, for me he's the type that isn't likely to believe that magic is real, unless given a practical demonstration.

"So how long are you on the side of the ocean for?" asked Hotch.

"I don't really know how long I'm going to stay," Hermione admitted. "My visa good for a year so I could always come back within that timeframe. I'm not really here on a permanent basis as I have a life and friends, ones who are really like family back in England. Also I have twin sons who are staying with their maternal grandparents while I am here."

"Married?" asked Hotch and Hermione shook her head.

"No, I'm afraid not. Let's just say that the father was a good friend of mine and still is, but he's not mature enough to get married at this point and that was my mistake. I thought at one point that I loved him, but we all make mistakes when we are young and I was only 21 when I had them so that would make them almost 5 years old as I'm 26. His parents have been nothing, but supportive of me, although the mother is very old-fashioned and believes that her son Ron should marry me and I nixed that idea in the bud, because I wasn't about to put up with his immaturity. He's still a good friend, and his mother has finally given up the idea of us getting together in that way, but it took several long talks by her husband Arthur, who is a little bit more laid back, in order to get her to stop planning a wedding. I have to say that Ron is one of those people that might never grow up. I don't consider my sons a mistake even if their father is an immature prat. Ron, is happy working at his brothers joke shop and living with his parents. He's lazy and I was the one that made the mistake thinking I could change him."

"Everybody makes mistakes," Hotch told her, "I've made quite a few of my own."

"I know," Hermione answered calmly. "In any case Molly, their grandmother adores them and loves children so she doesn't mind looking after them, especially since she's been going through what is known as the empty nest syndrome all her children being grown and out on their own, well except for Ron."

"Do you have a picture?" asked Hotch and Hermione nodded as she rummaged in her purse and took out a wallet in which there was a small photo. This was a Muggle photograph that had been taken with a normal camera instead of a wizarding one so she gave the photo too Hotch to look at without worrying about the pictures moving.

Hotch took the photo and studied the picture of twin boys with Hermione's curly brown hair with hints of red, which he assumed came from the father. They had her eyes and her basic facial features, but some of their father was present as well.

"They are adorable," Hotch said and Hermione nodded in agreement. "So what are their names?"

"Harold and Hugo," Hermione answered with a beaming smile. "Harold is after my other good friend Harry Potter, but we call him by his full name because my friend blushes every time we call him Harry as he's the very modest type and he doesn't like to be reminded that my oldest son is named after him. Harry tried his best to talk me out of naming one of my sons after him, but I can be very stubborn when I want to be, so he eventually had to give in. We've known each other for almost 15 years as we went to the same school together and he knows me well enough to know that once I make up my mind I rarely change it. In fact, he and his wife Ginny are my sons godparents."

"And Hugo?" asked Hotch curiously.

Now Hermione blushed and admitted, "Named after the American book awards. You'll find that I read a lot, just about anything really. I thought it was a good name."

Hotch smirked at that thinking of how Reid might like to meet Hermione as they seemed to share a love of books and come to think of it they were around the same age with only a year or so between them.

"I know that you and Spencer Reid would get along famously," Hotch said.

Hermione raised an eyebrow asking silently who Spencer Reid was.

"He's part of the BAU team," Hotch explained calmly. "He's a certified genius and has several degrees. He has an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory. Like you he reads just about anything, although as far as I know he reads mostly nonfiction, although I do know he likes sci-fi."

"You're right sounds like we'd get along famously," Hermione said, "Since I mostly read nonfiction too, although I do enjoy a good thriller now and then."

The two of them were silent for a few minutes lost in their own thoughts and then Hermione said tentatively, "You're accepting what I told you very well."

"I'm still pretty shocked at the news that I had relatives that I never knew about," Hotch admitted. "I'm just better at concealing my emotions than most people that's all. I knew quite a bit about my family tree for the last 200 years or so, but not so far back."

"Well, records do tend to be lost over time for a lot of reasons," Hermione admitted. "It took some doing to trace my family back so far. It helped that I know where my family originated from, which is Scotland. Some of them immigrated to England about 700 years ago, which is a long time I know. I couldn't discover why they emigrated to England and was lucky to just find a few scraps of parchment as they had all, but disintegrated. The church I found them in kept good records and a lot of them were scanned into the computer to preserve them and from there put onto the Internet but not everything, because a lot of the old paper it was on had turned to dust long ago. Some of it was so old that it was on vellum instead of actual paper."

"It sounds like a treasure hunt except you were searching for old records instead of gold," Hotch suggested with a little smile beginning to like his very distant niece a great deal. She seemed to be very intelligent, much like Reid was, but also seemed to have more confidence in herself then he did in certain areas. Hotch could very well guess why that was because from what he could tell from Hermione had said was that she had come from a happy well-adjusted childhood while Reid's was the opposite, with an absentee father and a schizophrenic mother, so that he'd had to raise himself and look after his mother instead of the other way around. Still, Hotch expected the two of them to hit it off if they ever did meet and become friends at the very least.

"So why don't you tell me more about yourself?" Hotch suggested.

"Well, I grew up a pretty normal child, except I didn't have any friends because I was way too intelligent for my own good and we both know that kids can be cruel. I'm sure you can guess that I was bullied in elementary school because of that intelligence. I spent most of my free time by myself reading books who became my only friends. My parents, they loved me, but they didn't know what to do, so I spent a great deal of time by myself while they worked. I'm afraid I was a bit of a know-it-all when I was younger and had a thirst to prove myself, which drove Ron and Harry crazy sometimes. When I was 11 I went to a special school for the gifted that's in Scotland. It's a boarding school that's year around except for Christmas and the summer. There of course, I excelled in my studies, but for the first time I had friends, real friends, people who accepted me for my intelligence, although it also drove them crazy. That's where I met Ron Weasley and Harry Potter the two best friends a girl could ever ask for. As you can tell it was a coed school, although there was separate dormitories for boys and girls. A year later Ginny, Ron's sister also started at the school and we became the best of friends. She was the first friend I'd ever had that was a girl. Somebody I could talk to about girl things that Ron or Harry wouldn't understand or I would be embarrassed to tell them.

"I spent at least a couple of weeks in the summer with Ron and his family except the first year. The Weasleys really are one of the closest families I've ever known and the children, who are now all grown up, know that if they do something wrong that their family will still love them unlike some families that I've met over the last few years. I've seen families abandon their children without a second thought if they do something that their parents disapprove of, and the Weasleys are the exact opposite. A lot of us English tend to be rather stuffy and traditional and only have children in order to carry on the family name not because they want them."

Hotch nodded in agreement for he had know some people like that over the years.

"In a lot of ways the Weasleys became like a second family to me as they welcomed both me and Harry into their home. For Harry in particular this was very important and made him the man he is today."

"Why was it important for your friend?" asked Hotch with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, because he's an orphan and his aunt and uncle were absolutely horrible to him," Hermione explained. "I don't know all the details because he refuses to talk about it, even with his two best friends, but I suspect there was some physical abuse along with mental and emotional. Why he was placed there is beyond me as there would've been plenty of families happy enough to take him in as he really is a very sweet and modest guy. You tend to pick up certain aspects of a person's personality when you've known them for a long time and yes, everybody has their hangups but Harry has more than most."

"Yes, from what you've told me it sounds like your friend was indeed abused and unfortunately I've seen a lot of that kind of crap in my line of work. A lot of times abuse, especially in childhood, is what turns someone who could have been a decent person into a killer, although that's not always the case, like with your friend."

"Yes, Harry really is one of the nicest people I've ever met, but he tends to brood a lot over things he could have supposedly changed, even when there was nothing he could've done. He's lost several people besides his parents that were important to him and he feels that those loses were his fault."

Which I blame entirely on Dumbledore, Hermione added in her thoughts, if he hadn't left Harry with his blasted relatives or at least checked up on him maybe he would be a happier more content person who wasn't the broody type or the kind to hang the world on his shoulders. Of course, he's a lot happier now that Voldemort is dead and he doesn't brood as much, but still I believe a lot of his hangups are Dumbledore's fault for placing him in an environment where he was mercilessly abused, so it's a good thing he's dead or I'd give him a piece of my mind. I'm no longer the person that follows the rules unless the make sense or think that the adults are always right just because they have more experience as I've learned that they can make mistakes just like anybody else and Dumbledore made a ton of them, especially where it concerns Harry.

"He blames himself for things he can't control and that goes directly back to the fact that his relatives didn't give a damn about him at all. They let their overgrown son bully him among other things."

Hermione changed the subject and talked some about the school she had attended, but Hotch noticed that she didn't mention the name of the classes she took and he wondered why. Now was not the time to question her about it, Hotch decided as he knew that they needed to build up some trust between them first and then maybe Hermione would tell him more about her life.

"I'm sure you're tired, so why don't you go freshen up, unpack and I'll start on dinner," Hotch suggested.

"That would be good, but I need to go pick up my things from the hotel," Hermione said. "I didn't bring much, just your basic traveling supplies, but still, why pay for a hotel room when you've been kind enough to offer me your guestroom, which you didn't have to do."

"No I didn't," Hotch admitted, "but I would like to get to know you better however long you intend to stay. I warn you though I likely won't be here great deal of the time as I travel a lot for work."

"I know," Hermione told him with a smile, "I did some research on the BAU. You'll find that I like to know things, and not just for classwork."

"I know you and Spencer will hit it off," Hotch said with a chuckle, "you're sounding more and more like him the more I get to know about you. He reads a great deal when he's on his own time, but unlike you he doesn't have a lot of outside interests as he's not very social. Occasionally Morgan will convince him to go to a bar for a drink, but mostly he's likes his own company. Spencer is a great guy, and I know the reason he isn't very comfortable in social situations, especially with women is he's always so awkward if you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I do," Hermione admitted. "I used to be like that when I was younger, but I improved thanks mostly to my friends and my parents. I don't believe I was ever as awkward as your Dr. Reid sounds but that doesn't mean I wasn't uncomfortable in certain situations."

"You had a stable home life or at least that's my impression from what you've told me, but trust me Reid didn't. I won't give you any details as that would be breaking Reid's trust by giving you private information and I won't do that. If he wants to tell you he can."

The two of them chatted for a few more minutes and then Hotch showed his niece to the guestroom which was beside Jack's room and left her to get settled.

~~~Spencer and Hermione~~~