The Ancestry Offices, much like the other smaller offices of the Ministry (the ones deemed unimportant, by the big bosses), were rather cramped; squashed in together like sardines in a can. Amusedly, Jean noted that they were no bigger than a dentistry's waiting room, really; although without that clinical medical smell. As the pair of mages wandered into the offices and made their way over to one of the closest available desks, Jean was reminded of the ventures she'd taken with her father when they'd go to the travel agencies to book their annual flight to Vianden, Luxembourg.
Weaving their way through the maze of desks, Sirius & Jean eventually pulled to a stop in front of an unoccupied one where the mage on the other side looking both bored of the piles of paperwork surrounding them and glad to be doing something other than said paperwork. Plopping down into the chair next to Sirius, Jean sat primly in the wooden chair with her back straight and hands clasped in her lap, though her leg refused to stop jiggling in her nervousness. All of her planning & careful workarounds would be made all that much harder if she were to be adopted by the Potters. Not that she was against the idea, mind you, it was just all that more harder to sneak around when you had a legal guardian hovering over your shoulder and the Trace glued to your wand, tracking your every spell.
"…Name?" The mage asked.
Jean blinked herself out of her thoughts, caught off-guard by the two pairs of eyes expectantly watching her. "Pardon?"
"Your name, dear" She prompted again, looking just as tired as the feline sprawled across the tops of the filing cabinets beyond her shoulder.
"Oh, Jean Granger" Jean replied, flushing slightly in embarrassment as she resolutely did not look at Sirius.
"And which House and/or Name will you be testing for today?"
"Uh, the Dagworth-Granger House"
The Ancestry Witch paused at that, brow quirked in interest and quill frozen above the page. "The Dagworth-Grangers?"
"Yes, ma'am" Jean nodded.
"As in Hector Dagworth-Granger, the famous potioneer?"
Jean bit her lip as she sat on her hands. Here goes. "You know Honourable Grandfather?"
"Wait—" Sirius interjected, "You've met him? You've met Hector Dagworth-Granger?"
"I mean, we—Dad & I—used to visit the family home over holidays & stuff" Jean shrugged, not quite lying but not quite telling the truth either. "But Honourable Grandfather had a heart attack on the lavatory when I was six, so, I'm gonna go with no…?"
"So then, your House & Name both knows and has accepted you?"
"I mean—"
"—Well, that remains to be seen" The witch smoothly interject as she pushed a sheaf of papers in the child's direction. "Just fill out these forms and then we can get things under way"
APPLICATION FOR GENEALOGY CERTIFICATE
COMMEMORATIVE BIRTH CERTIFICATES may be released to:
You, if the record pertains to your own birth Parent(s) of a child Custodial Guardian(s) [A copy of guardianship papers must be attached] A person on the written consent of "One" or "Two" above.
BIRTH GENEALOGY CERTIFICATES (Certified Registration Copy for Genealogical Research) may be released to:
You, if the record pertains to your own birth Parent(s) of a child Custodial Guardian(s) [A copy of guardianship papers must be attached] Anyone, as long as the person has been dead for 20 years and proof of death is provided Anyone, if the record has been in existence for 120 years A relative of the person named on production of proof of death and relationship A person on the written consent of the eligible person
ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS are as follows (Proof of relationship MUST be provided):
Mother / Father / Son / Daughter / Sister / Brother / Grandparent / Grandchild
ACCEPTABLE PROOF OF RELATIONSHIP FOR A RELATIVE includes a photocopy of a certified birth registration, a parental certificate and/or associated marriage certificates.
Please indicate type and number of certificates required:
Birth Genealogy Certificates [Registration required] Commemorative Birth Certificates
GENEALOGY REGISTRATION
CONTACT PREFERENCE: Owl Post
POSTAL ZIP CODE: KW1 4YS
HOUSE RELATION (If known): Dagworth-Granger
SURNAME (At time of birth, adoption or legal name change): Granger
GIVEN NAME(S): Jean-Marie Jaques von Vianden de
SEX: Female
DATE OF BIRTH: 28 June 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH: Vianden, Luxembourg
STATUS: Alive
WAND: N/A
SCHOOLING: Homeschool
MARRIAGE: N/A
DEATH: N/A
SURNAME OF FATHER/PARENT: Granger
GIVEN NAME(S): Henry Benedict
BIRTHPLACE OF FATHER/PARENT: Vianden, Luxembourg
STATUS: Unknown
MAIDEN/BIRTH SURNAME OF MOTHER: Baker
GIVEN NAME(S): Agatha Charlotte
BIRTHPLACE OF MOTHER/PARENT: Devon, United Kingdom
STATUS: Deceased
ANCESTRY TEST: Yes
SIGNATURE: X Jean Granger
Filling out the appropriate paperwork was more of a mind-fuck than it should really have been, considering all of the mental gymnastics that Jean had to keep doing in order to write down the correct information pertaining to Jean Granger and not Hermione Granger, as her quill seemed to keep trying to do. Thankfully, Sirius had been more than willingly to explain what the forms meant as he took her hesitance as nervousness instead of the quiet frustration it really was.
But these forms were important and not just because they were legal documents. See, today's ancestry test was two fold: one, to see if she—a muggleborn—had any legitimate claim to a House or a Name. And two, if she did not, if she could be claimed by another willing House and/or Name. Essentially, this test would determine whether or not she would officially become a Dagworth-Granger or a Potter. Because muggleborn or not, the amnesty & protection of House would serve her well in her endeavours. Which was part of the reason why Jean had been so agreeable with testing her bloodline status.
Not that she would mind being a Potter—in fact, throughout their friendship, Harry & Hermione had often referred to each other as siblings—but she loved her family (even the God-fearing side) and for her plan to work, it was best that she remained a descendant of the Dagworth-Granger line. She could only cross her fingers and hope that it all worked out, though because, as she had come to learn over the years, no matter how much planning you do, someone's always gonna throw a spanner in the works. And as for bloodline tests, they couldn't be faked; not for all the magic in the world. Mostly because of the potion that was used; it tested both magical inheritance & DNA inheritance in one breath (but with two separate potions).
Twirling the reedy mouthpiece of the pewter's pipe around in her mouth, Jean's leg continued to bounce up & down as she read the labels on the filing cabinets in an effort to stave off both the boredom & anticipation that came with waiting for the test to be done. Her fingers tapped out a beat in tune to the clock in the corner that ticked loudly like the drums of war. She couldn't remember the last time she had been this bored, waiting for something to end; perhaps her years in the new technological age had made her far more impatient than she had originally been, or perhaps this was just part of her new childish nature that came with such a body.
So, instead she turned her thoughts to the instrument in her mouth. The medical instrument known as the pewter's pipe, was small & thin with a bulbous end and the cylindrical instrument was about the length of your average wand. Although Jean had first mistaken it as either a glass smoking pipe or an elongated thermometer when it had been brought out, covered in a thin film of dust. She cringed thinking about the layer of dust and the strangely sticky instrument she had been forced to suck on; it told her that it hadn't been cleaned in a long time even if the mouthpiece was fresh. She hated to think about when the last time it had been cleaned; probably that last time it was used if that dust & the Ancestry officer's expression had been anything to go by.
But Jean adamantly shook those thoughts off as she waited impatiently for the wait period to come to an end. Sucking on the thin end in her mouth, her gaze jumped from the filing cabinets to the bulbous end in front of her face; making herself go cross-eyed. According to the officer who had presented the instrument to her, the potion in the bulbous end would change colour depending on the results; like the magical equivalent of a litmus paper test. Blue for pureblood, yellow for muggleborn, green for halfblood and grey for squibs. It wasn't fool-proof, but's why there were other, more extensive, tests to follow.
For example, after your blood status was confirmed, the reedy mouthpiece was then removed from the instrument and then taken to be tested against other DNA examples that were already confirmed to be from the chosen bloodline. Both were then placed into another potion to reveal further, more detailed results. Tests using the Sanguis Potion [or Bloodline Potion] was an arduous task; especially if there was no known prior connection to said House or Name.
But if a portrait from that familial line was available, then they too, might give a more finite opinion on the matter. But portraits could be finicky; they could lie and claim falsehoods (mostly whenever illegitimate children tried to claim a Name or House in fear of shame being brought upon them). Besides, portraits were really only consulted on such things if the potion itself, did not expel the customary red smoke which decreed that a match was found.
Reclaiming her late aunt's name was a bit of a Hail Mary, in this case and she knew all about Hail Mary's thanks to her previous adventures with Harry & her mother's family. Her mother's family—the Johnsons—were good God-fearing people, which was all well & good until it turned out that you were the holder of latent magically-inherited powers. Then, not so much. Still, she loved her mother to some extent and her visits with her mother's parents had always been quaint, at least in her memories but maybe she was just misremembering them.
Soon thereafter, the egg timer went off, signalling the end of the wait period. Spitting out the pipe, Jean noted how the potion in the bulbous end had turned a nice sunny yellow, signalling her status as a muggleborn. And then, when instructed, she went about dislodging the spit-slathered mouthpiece from the pipe and dropped it into the awaiting potion flask. Now, all they had to do was wait some more, until the flask spat out a plume of red and possibly confer with a Dagworth-Granger portrait before they could move onto reviving the late Jean Granger.
It felt like an age before the Ancestry Officer returned to the offices with a thick and yellowed scroll in her hands. From what little Jean had been able to glimpse as she neared, it looked like a family tree of some kind; likely charmed like everything else in this building. "Jean Granger, did you say?" She quirked an inquisitive brow in the eleven year old's direction. "Born 28 June 1971?"
"Yes, ma'am" Jean replied as she swung her legs back around to the front so that they were no longer slung over the side of the chair's arms and the feathered quill she had been fiddling with was placed back on the desk. It was still weird to think that she would be changing her birthday to such a date, instead of the one in September she'd grown up with.
"Alright, well, we have just a few more questions to ask you, just to make sure"
"O-okay" She nodded shakily.
"And what are your parents' names?"
"Uh, Henry & Agatha Granger" Jean promptly replied, remembering to use her grandparents' names instead of her own parents'.
"Siblings?"
"Uh, an elder brother—Lawerence Granger"
"Let me see here…" Her gaze followed her finger down the yellowed page, "Ah, yes, here we are. It looks like the last known 'Jean Granger', sister to a 'Lawerence Granger' and daughter of 'Henry Granger' & 'Agatha Granger neé Johnson' was declared deceased in 24 July 1980, after a muggle car rear-ended the vehicle she was in. Does that sound about right?"
"Yes, ma'am"
"So, it looks like you're a match to the Granger line of the Dagworth-Grangers. Congratulations, Ms Granger" She looked up from the scroll, baring a smile at the younger witch. "And knowing that, the previous death certificate will have to be rectified and you'll want to add yourself to the family vaults in Gringotts"
"Yup, that's our next stop after this" Sirius nodded before sparing a cheeky grin at Jean. "Then I reckon your wand and some ice cream might be in order, don'tcha think?"
"Okay" Jean breathed, relieved that everything—so far—had gone to plan.
Sirius shifted in his seat, eager to be on his way to show Jean the more exciting side of Diagon Alley. "Well, is that it? Are we all squared away, here?"
"There's a few more bits of paperwork to work through" The officer replied, a knowing smirk on her lips. "And then you'll be…all squared away"
"All right" Jean sat up, "Where do we start?"
The Family Room of the Dagworth-Granger household was, as it always was, bare of any decoration save for the original family motto upon the doorway: Witzeg iwwer mooss [Wit beyond measure] and the family tree painted onto every wall & crevice that it could reach. The first room was dedicated to the Dagworth side of the family, the second to the Dagworth-Grangers who had resided in peace before the feud and the third, where the Granger side of the family sat.
It was there, beneath the big cursive letters which read: Hei läit dat Meescht Geschätzte an Antikt Haus vun Granger [Here lies the Most Esteemed and Ancient House of Granger] that something monumentous was occurring. Wherein there had once been the closed book a deceased child, lost far too soon, there now lay an open one. Upon the open pages, read the title card read: Jean Granger, 1971—
"Granny? Have you seen this?" Calloused fingers of a pianist traced the newly returned name.
"It seems that we have a grandchild returning to us" Gertrude Granger replied, her long skirts floating above the floor as a mysterious & confounding letter burnt a hole in her pocket and two of her youngest grandchildren slept in their bed. "Claudias? Fetch my owl, I think its time to talk with my dear grandchild"