Author's Note:

I'm getting stuck in a chapter I'm currently writing (still significantly ahead of the next one), and life is currently throwing me more balls to juggle. (Need to pick up a new programming language and stuff). Between my review/comment replies slowing down and my update speed slowing down, I'm sure most readers would choose the first, so I'll just give this public service announcement here.

'-

34 Histories Unexpected

Some people are knocking on the Ravenclaw Tower. Documents and reports are delivered. Hermione meets Vespasian Starkey. In which Hermione unexpectedly finds out more about herself—and more than she bargained for. Pendleton and Starkey did a bit of genealogy.

'-

Hermione was asked to come down from her dorm by a first-year that Daedalus Bones randomly picked out of the common room crowd. She didn't expect to be asked to come down for 'Something a bit important, Mr. Bones said. Don't know what. He tells me nothing.' Or so the petulant young witch passed the message to her before flouncing down the stairs again. It was unusual enough to pique Hermione's curiosity.

Sure enough, Daedalus was leaning against the wall next to the stairs as if he had nowhere else he'd rather relax at. The seventh-year pulled himself up to his impressive height as he noticed her arrival, some of his dirty-blond hair falling in front of his eyes. He made no move to shake it aside.

"Ah. Good to see you're down quick. Eugenie won't even let me interfere," he said this with the mildness of someone who wasn't the least bit surprised. "Even if it would've been faster if I was the one to give them the boot."

"Them?"

"Well, one of them is a pain. Pendleton's a nice chap." Daedalus corrected himself.

She would've been as relaxed as he was if her ears hadn't picked up the argument.

"…well, lookit 'ere, there's a puzzle on the wall and I solves it. Then the wall isn't there anymore. So, that just means I gets to walk in, yeah?" A baritone voice said.

"You don't just barge into someone else's common room! You're no better than a-a-a burglar!" Eugenie berated. Even from this position, Hermione could see her standing straight and confident, long golden hair cascading down her back as she barred whoever it was at the door from proceeding further. Add some sword and mail, and she could pass for a Valkyrie.

The unseen wizard sounded exasperated. "What do your place 'ave that we don't, anyway? Nothin'. Just walkin' in here ain't that grand a prize, luv."

"So, it isn't, is it?" Hermione almost winced at the frostiness in her tone. "Please walk away, then. Apparently, there is nothing to lose for you for doing that, is there?"

"Now, now, I can't do that. Got a message to pass on—"

"I can pass it on for you—"

"Ah, ah, no. Not even someone as sweet as you is going to distract me—"

She heard frustrated curse from…Eugenie? Really? Alright, it was French, but still…

"Curie. I apologise for disturbing you this afternoon, but we really do have something to pass on." Hermione had only noticed Pendleton when he stepped into her view (and where had he been just before that, really?) He sent one sardonic glance towards the doorway before continuing with the same even tone he'd used before.

"I was thinking that we could impose on the hospitality of the Ravens for a while before leaving promptly like all sensible people. Unfortunately, the wizard entrusted to write the report is…" The blond Slytherin paused, thinking.

"An idiot," Daedalus casually supplied the answer.

Pendleton had the faintest of smiles. "I'm afraid that would not be correct. An idiot, after all, is unaware of what he is doing wrong and cannot make a well-reasoned argument. While Starkey, on the other hand, is just reckless instincts given human form."

Hermione was interested as to what made him more talkative than he'd been in ADADA class.

"Oy, Pendleton! You've been talking to the Lady for a while now without tellin' me! That's not exactly Queensberry of you!" the other Slytherin sounded indignant.

"Stay right there," Eugenie snapped.

The wizard, Hermione noticed, had a newsboy cap on his head, his dark hair a contrast to Pendleton's pale one. He walked with the fluid swagger of someone who wasn't afraid to get into fisticuffs—and indeed, perhaps he'd even started a few himself. He didn't get far with Eugenie moving quickly, this time actually with her wand out. This was when the brunette realised that Eugenie was chosen to be a prefect for a good reason, regardless of her mostly-harmless appearance—she wasn't the slightest bit intimidated and was dedicated to keeping order.

"I am sorry, but I'm afraid Starkey was raised by wolves." Pendleton said dryly.

"Hey! My mother was a nice lady! Take that back!" Starkey seemed genuinely mad at it.

"Watch it," Eugenie warned Starkey when he moved.

"Oh, yes, indeed." Pendleton replied with a knowing expression. "That's why I didn't say you gained your manners from her. That would be an insult to her good name."

"Oh well, carry on, then." Starkey visibly relaxed, both of his hands casually stuffed into the pockets of his trousers again as he leaned back on his feet.

Hermione snorted her laughter while Daedalus just made one of those long, tired sighs.

"Eugenie, please calm down. Starkey isn't going anywhere now that we're all here," Daedalus said. "Hermione, this is Vespasian Starkey, who usually goes by Ves to his friends. He's…"

"Slytherin's thug," Eugenie added sweetly with a smile. Starkey snorted.

"Now that's exaggerating. We already have Mulciber for Merlin's sake."

"He's special," Daedalus finally decided. "Very special. He's like the lovechild between the hottest of Fiendfyres and a parliament full of gunpowder."

Hermione bit the inside of her cheeks and held her breath. She was sure she heard Eugenie fake several coughs at that, and she saw Starkey's complicated expression as he tried to decide whether he was insulted or not. She didn't know how Pendleton kept his neutral expression when she saw a glimmer of something in his pale eyes.

Vespasian narrowed his eyes at Daedalus. "Isn't that what almost happened in the fifth of November? Wot with Guy Fawkes trying to blow up the parliament?"

She was impressed that he knew some non-magical history. Of course, she'd only realised then that the gunpowder plot happened before the wizarding world's seclusion from the muggle one. She mentally facepalmed. That only happened in the reign of William and Mary, Hermione, remember?

"I meant to illustrate a revolution, Vespasian. You do feel like you could be a one-man revolution if necessary, aren't you? All fire and vim? And lots and lots of explosions?" Daedalus shrewdly asked. His eyes weren't always visible under his blond bangs.

Starkey was not entirely sure, "Well, yes…"

"Then it's settled. You're special." The Ravenclaw prefect promptly replied.

Hermione heard Pendleton taking a sharp breath while Eugenie was fake-coughing again. She herself was biting her lower lip rather hard.

"Vespasian," Daedalus turned, ignoring the Slytherin's protest at the use of his entire first name, and how it reminded him too much of formal dinners and his grandmother, "this is Hermione Curie, Ravenclaw's most recent transfer and House member. She's a very accomplished young lady whose near-impossible class load I'm sure you've already heard. I thought they might even give her a time-turner for her almost complete doubling of the feasible class load, but I was overly optimistic and I lost that bet. Never mind, it was long odds anyway. Still would be nice if I get all the galleons of a longshot bet, though."

Ah, so she wasn't the only one to think that handing a time machine to student so casually was weird.

"You might have also heard her latest title as Nightingale of Hogwarts. Everyone I met from ADADA class has assured me that she deserved that title when she helps with the post-duel healing."

Hermione sniffed. "It was only minor healing, really—"

Daedalus patiently turned to her, his voice still determinedly friendly. "Hermione, can you please accept the compliment gracefully and not make us feel more useless that our healing skills are pathetic, inexcusable and we should be very sorry about ourselves for not being up to your level?"

"Oh!" Her hands flew to her mouth. "I'm sorry. Yes, thank you for the appreciation, though I still think the praise is a tad excessive."

The seventh-year clapped his hands. His grin was a little too wide.

"Great! Where were we? Ah, introductions. Yes, I've covered most of the grounds. I'm sure you would have no trouble filling in the rest of the details. One final warning to Vespasian, though—don't try to walk into the Ravenclaw common room on your own again even if you can answer the puzzles. You would not want to find out what happens when we turn on the second layer of defence." His smile was still nice, if you didn't look too closely at his eyes.

'There's a second layer of defence?' Eugenie murmured to herself, in disbelief.

"So, Eugenie, I heard that you were going to your potions study group in the library? I'm sure you don't want to be late. Hermione, Pendleton, Vespasian. I'm sure you can all talk about the report the two of you carried in one of the study carrells in the library or the Hogwarts grounds by the lake. It's easy to see that the weather is still lovely this time of the year." Daedalus took a deep breath.

"Now, please get out of my peaceful common room."

He didn't even raise his voice, but none of them dallied for long before they were metaphorically turfed out of the Ravenclaw common room. Eugenie had picked up her bag before she accepted the situation and walked out, presumably to the library. The blonde was satisfied enough that Starkey wasn't going a step further into the Tower. The two Slytherins waited outside while Hermione assured Daedalus that yes, she'd be out as soon as possible—she just needed to retrieve her bag.

"Right," Hermione muttered as they stood outside the Ravenclaw tower. She had decided to start walking in the general direction of the library and exit to Hogwarts ground than to loiter around. Pendleton kept pace with her to her right and Starkey walked at her left.

Hermione turned to her right. "What's the explanation this time? Pendleton?"

"I was supposed to deliver some files for you."

"One of which is a report written by me." Starkey insisted. "Well, a big chunk of it, at least."

"Starkey," Pendleton patiently began. "Were you the one entrusted to inform Curie about it?"

He didn't say anything else, only waited for the other wizard to answer. His pale grey eyes were truly mirrorlike—the silver surface told nothing of what was behind it and merely reflected the observer's gaze back. Starkey huffed and grumbled from Hermione's other side but conceded his point.

"Oh, alright. I'll shut up right now. Go and be officious about it, you lummock."

"Are we truly heading to the library or to the grounds?" The pale Slytherin asked Hermione.

"The grounds, I think. Much more conducive to talk at." She said. He nodded.

"Well, then let us hurry there. I do not exactly trust myself to speak without adequate privacy."

'-

On their way there, Pendleton did not exactly stop talking and freeze her out in awkwardness. He was solicitous enough to find a different topic. He actually started talking about their ADADA class and going through the steps of their last duel, which made apparently made Starkey green with envy.

"I should've been there and duellin' you too!"

She frowned in thought. "Where were you, by the way? I didn't think I saw you at all."

"He was banned for one practice day for using a spell he didn't quite have good control over on Thursday. Hence why he's not duelling in class today." Pendleton calmly answered. She vaguely remembered some commotion at the other end of the class on Thursday, back when she was only starting to lightly duel people.

"'Twas workin' fine." He insisted.

"Yes, but friendly duels aren't supposed to send two of your opponents to the infirmary. This was before we figured out that you don't mind healing people in class, Curie, so the professor came over and wasn't well pleased at what happened."

"The spell worked exactly as it should." Starkey defended himself.

"You couldn't control the power." Pendleton stated. Hermione couldn't help asking.

"What spell was it?"

"Apis," Starkey answered. "Bees. You can dodge one bee, but you can't dodge a whole swarm. It's hard to make a full swarm, though, you have to be able to focus on all of them somehow."

She grimaced. Bee stings weren't pleasant, even if they were of the magical kind. It took a while to get the swelling down. It might sound rather trivial, but one needed a rather strong potion for it.

"They're constructs?" Hermione asked.

"Considerin' that it was based on Avis, of course they're constructs." He answered.

"It began as a mispronunciation, wasn't it?" Hermione pointedly asked.

There was a two-second pause before Starkey's shoulder drooped slightly. "That's how I discovered it. The wand movements aren't actually that identical, though. Had to look it up."

"Which is why it's a wonder you've managed to accidentally cast it the first time around, isn't it? That was sometime last month." Pendleton asked.

"Sheer willpower under duress can collect a surprising amount of magic to perform any spell." He replied quickly.

"Or, the first time you made the construct, they were some Frankenstein hybrid of birds and bees." Hermione commented as she tried to reconstruct the event in her mind. The way he didn't answer her immediately was already an answer. When he did reply, it was unspecific.

"They were bees. Just, large bees."

"Large bees?" She asked.

"With beaks," Pendleton helpfully clarified. "And feathers."

"Technically, a bee's body is covered in very fine 'airs. They're just not obvious when they're small, so you might think it's a mite strange to see 'airs on a larger bee, but they're completely natural."

That was when she noticed that Starkey's rougher accent got smoother around the edges as he got carried away explaining. Not exactly as vulgar as he presents himself, Hermione mused. Interesting.

Of course, the fact that he was one of the students that Tom entrusted to do the research and come up with something coherent in a few days was probably clue enough.

"Do bees also have tiny, unseen claws at the end of their three pairs of feet? Claws that becomes obvious when they're larger?" Pendleton asked with a deadpan voice.

"Oh, like you know what they're supposed to look like. Never looked at them that closely before then either, did you?" He defended himself.

"Back when it happened, I noticed that the people screaming in class weren't just witches." Pendleton casually informed Hermione.

"It must have been interesting," Hermione mused aloud, thinking about the classes that already took place before she joined them. The blond nodded sagely.

"Oh yes. Five people were stung or pecked and one of them ended up in the infirmary. That was why Professor Merrythought asked Starkey not to use it again until he'd had better control of it."

"I did. At least until Delagardie sent a small dust storm to my face." Starkey explained. "Not exactly unexpected if I lose control then, eh? All's fair in love and war."

The pale Slytherin looked entirely unconvinced by the explanation. He turned to Hermione.

"As you can see, Miss Curie, Starkey is…very special."

"Screw you and the horse you rode in on, Pendleton."

'-

They were not far from the lake and the wind was cool on her face.

The sky was slightly overcast, but there were still the echoes of warmth from before. Hermione dropped herself on the grass without warning and she watched as Starkey made himself at home on the ground not far from her. He would've straight out laid himself down, probably with his head pillowed on his arms. But his friend was staring at him with an unreadable look that carried a hundred and one meanings. Pendleton watched the two of them in confusion, with just a dash of consternation.

"Well? No one is clearly close enough to eavesdrop here. I think this is just as good a spot as any." Hermione said.

The pale Slytherin did sit down at the end, though with far more care than his two companions had shown before. He retrieved two scrolls and handed them to Hermione, of which one was noticeably thicker than the other.

"It would be more helpful to open the thinner one first. That is a copy of your official records that managed to reach Hogwarts. As you'll see, there are some water damage, but it's not enough to make it unreadable."

She raised her eyebrows. "And the reason I need this is…?"

"The other report would've made more sense." This time, it was Starkey that answered. "Pardon our snooping, but I was thinkin' that it's going to be necessary sooner or later, anyway."

"Yet considering that Walburga Black have been in touch with her cousin Lucretia for a while…" Pendleton started.

"Then, this needs to be done fast." Starkey tapped at the thicker scroll. "Tom made a good point and I'm certainly not arguin' with him on that. Even if it did take up a few nights."

"A few evenings, I'll say," Pendleton corrected. "It did not warrant burning the midnight oil. You still arrived at your dorm sometime around twelve."

"Well, dodging the caretaker from the library ain't my idea of a fun night, Pendleton. You just 'ave to put a few snoopin' in and your work is done." He groused.

"Yet I ended up doing the majority of the writing." The blond said without losing a beat, "and having to make sense of the chicken scratch you call handwriting."

"Your report." Hermione said.

"Yes." Starkey nodded for both of them, "the family report."

Hermione stared at the two of them quizzically. She could keep asking them, but it would probably be faster if she just sat down and read it. It wasn't as if they wouldn't be here when she finished. Starkey had decided that this meant he could simply lay down and start cloud-gazing. Pendleton carried some reading material of his own—he was reading a different scroll.

The thin scroll was actually made of several layers. Unbinding it loosened them. The first page was her OWL-equivalent test results. At first, she was wondering whether she'd be able to read all of the subject names, considering that she couldn't actually read Bokmål. Fortunately, it was done in both Norwegian and English, probably because they were aware that she needed it to transfer to Hogwarts.

Her family name, as Dippet had made it clear at the beginning was unreadable on that page. Echoes of water stains dribbled through the names of several subjects, but it wasn't hard to guess the subjects involved—the copying charm was faithful to the accuracy of the document, including the damages.

Test taken in Lillehammer, Proctors… she skipped over that part since she didn't exactly recognise the names. Half of them were noticeably English in their names, though. Subjects tested: Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions, Transfigurations, she read to herself. Ten OWLs. It would be an outstanding achievement for a fifth-year to have achieved all that (with all Outstandings, no less), but it only brought an ironic smile on her face. After all, she wasn't exactly a regular fifth-year, was she?

On the other hand, it did answer the question as to whether she was here by accident or not. If there were documents made for her to enter Hogwarts, it spoke of planning.

Who planned it? Herself? Why didn't she have any memory of it? Oh, never mind, she thought again. Even if I did, I'd have no way to know—it's probably a lost memory. Amnesia has never worked the way it conveniently did in soap operas. It's not an all-or-nothing switch that, after it's switched off and you forget all of your personal knowledge, it can easily be switched on again later on by a convenient bump to the head or something similar. It was possible to lose only parts of your memory.

It was also common not to have them back at all if they hadn't returned within the first month. Most patients simply had to deal with it and moved on with their life. C'est la vie.

Why am I here?

Well, at the very least, I can share that anxiety with millions of other human beings asking the exact same question about their existence at around this same time, she thought with an absurd sense of humour.

She could continue being torn up about it or she could just pick the pieces of her life that she still had and move on. It wasn't as if her documents didn't conveniently carve out a spot for her in Hogwarts. It wasn't as if she was lacking in her post-Hogwarts skills (though if she'd actually lost most of it, it's not as if she'd even notice). She was even granted youth once more. She was a talented witch who still had her whole (second) life ahead of her.

(It did make her wonder whether Malina had actually succeeded with her potion of youth project. It would still be something significant, even if it had limitations. Perhaps its toxicity meant no one can drink it more than once, or that its ingredients were very rare and/or expensive. She hoped her housemate and fellow Unspeakable had, though she felt sad that she forgot the celebration party that would ensue if that was true).

Hermione set the copy of the Norwegian equivalent of OWL tests aside to read the next document. These pages, it would seem, were tied together by one red ribbon across its middle. Affixed to it was a note saying that they all came two weeks after she'd arrived, unlike her OWL tests.

The first was a copy of the birth certificate of Hermione Sophia Curie, born to Martin Curie and Bridget Curie in 1926. If there was anything that could bring home the reality of her current life, it would be her being a few years older than her own grandmother. The last name clearly printed her was also another shock.

Curie.

What began as a guess and improvisation turned out to be the truth. The odds of that being a coincidence was so small that it did not bear mentioning.

I must have planned this somehow, she thought desperately.

It was too uncanny otherwise. Besides, who else but her would've chosen Curie as a last name? She supposed Harry knew about it, as did a few other friends, but not many. Not to mention that even her middle name here meant something. Sophia was…Sophia was a grandaunt of hers who'd served in the war as a mathematician of some sorts (she had wryly said that she was a human computer).

There was a…copy of her parents' marriage certificate. Why was this here?

It was the copy of the certificate of one Martin Lansdowne Curie and Bridget Jane Granger.

Lansdowne, Lansdowne…where have I heard it before?

It took her a while, trying to follow the immediate image of her taking a meal with her parents to find where the familiarity came from. During that time, Starkey had picked himself up and started collecting smooth stones from around them. His friend watched him for some time before he finally said something.

"What are you doing with those?" Pendleton asked.

"To skip them across the lake. 'Tis too obvious, Pendleton." His tone was a mix of disbelief and condescension.

Pendleton didn't bother to dignify that with a reply.

Hermione could vaguely recall the memory of seeing the name Lansdowne before on the family tree her father found in her grandparents' attic. There was something unsettling about the level of detail in these papers. Sure, she might have given 'Granger' as a surname for her mother's in fake records if she has to come up with a different name for herself, just for sentimental reasons. Yet she didn't think she'd come up with Lansdowne as her father's middle name because it really wasn't the sort of thing that would easily come to mind. It was too obscure even for her.

"Curie?"

Pendleton's voice pulled her out of her thoughts. "You've been staring at that page for ten minutes."

"Just thinking," she said vaguely, lacking a better answer herself. "Go on?"

"I hope I can expedite some of that process for you, then. Starkey's report mostly tried to trace either the Curie, Lansdowne or Granger families for squibs."

"Squibs?"

"Your parents name came up in the Hogwarts Registry, but it's clear they were from non-magical families from what we can glean from the yearbooks bound at their graduation years. If you'd allow me…" she handed the papers she was holding to his outstretched hand and he flipped through them quickly. Hogwarts Registry? Wasn't that the great book running on ancient magics writing down the names of magical children as they were born in Britain?

"Here, I managed to copy these pages from the Registry for reference—"

"—while I played distraction," Starkey cut in, tossing the pebbles in his hands.

"While Starkey played distraction." Pendleton easily agreed. "The few pages behind that was were copies from different pages even further back, in an effort in tracking people with the same family name. And these are everything else after that. We can't exactly go beyond the 1700s, though, since that meant going through the old and retired Registry ledgers. To do that would require checking the dusty corners of the stored archives and getting access to that may take a week or two while Tom asked us to have the preliminary report by this weekend."

In the first two pages he handed over, there were two names, underlined separately.

Martin Lansdowne Curie, born, 1899.

Bridget Jane Granger, born, 1901.

Her parents here were not merely names on papers, fakes created there to provide an imitation of life. They were people. Flesh and blood people who had lived, and she assumed, loved and died. Her throat closed up as the thought brought a fresh shard of pain through her.

She skimmed the papers, saw the copies of the pages from the yearbooks, and saw Martin Curie with a Ravenclaw tie and a prefect badge in one picture, next to a softly smiling Bridget with her Gryffindor tie. There were the activities both of them did, the student societies they were involved in—I didn't even know that Hogwarts had societies. Had they turned extinct over time? With a pang, she realised that yes, her first time going through Hogwarts seemed to have less students in the castle than Hogwarts had in her current now. The Hogwarts of 1940s was filled to the brim with laughter and raucous activity, with less dusty corridors or unused classes.

The conclusion she could take from it was too painful to take that she pushed it away from her mind.

(The rise of Voldemort was truly a civil war in the extent and reach of the damages.)

She didn't really read much on the notes other than the final point: Observe that they did not have many known pureblood associates. The probability that either of them is of English pureblood descent is very slim.

Her eyes were drawn to the pictures immediately once she noticed them.

Bridget could have been her mother's twin, a dead ringer to Jean Alexandra Granger, the only notable difference between them was in eye colour. Hermione rubbed her eyes with her hands, taking careful breaths. Martin Curie was less similar to her father, but they could easily be cousins or brothers. He had the same thick head of curly brown hair, his goofy smile was practically the same expression she'd seen often enough on her father's, on James Granger's face.

When she didn't find anything else that was interesting, she opened Starkey and Pendleton's report.

…Another Lansdowne is found in the Registry, born in 1753 and another in 1825. The latter Lansdowne, which was Jasper Lansdowne, was presumed to have left England because none with his family name showed up in the Registry until Martin Curie. Since Lansdowne is not an old wizarding name, any efforts to track possible genealogy on his mother's side may require finding muggle records. This is near impossible.

…There are no traces for the name Curie in the Registry. I encountered Auguste Murat at the library and he has observed that it is a French surname. The lack of records in Britain, then, should not be a surprise. Odds are, one would need to look at Beauxbatons records for more. On this side of the Channel, the track has run cold.

…The Grangers is the lead that has been the most fruitful. The Dagworth-Grangers are a renowned family among potion circles. Before the Grangers married into the Dagworths, there have been several recorded squibs in their family tree, and presumably there might even be more that had gone unrecorded. A hypothetical family tree can be constructed, the first of the few of them has been detailed here…

Hermione almost dropped the report.

This was…it couldn't possibly be.

This wasn't merely her, thrown or sent back in time with papers to forge her way into the current wizarding world. This was…this Hermione had a family, though she doubted whether they were living considering that no one had tried to contact her since her arrival at Hogwarts. She had to take deep careful breaths as she tried not to crease the parchment or let it slip from her hands.

Who was she?

Was she Hermione Granger or Hermione Curie?

Or both? And how?

"I'm bored. This is boring," Starkey moaned.

Starkey had rolled over some distance on the grass, his newsboy cap having fallen off his head. He'd complained of boredom a few times now, which was ignored by a too-focused Hermione and a placidly uninterested Pendleton who merely kept reading and annotating whatever it was the scroll was about. His dark curls were dotted with grass. He was trying to juggle the stones he had collected and failing.

"Someone, say something," Starkey said.

"Something," Pendleton absently replied.

Then, he went on to ignore any further complaints from his belligerent housemate.

Hermione was still lost in thought. Was she really someone who'd come from the future? What do her memories represent, then? But Hermione remembered her childhood in the 80s, her time in Hogwarts in the 90s, compared to the absolute nothing of any memory from the 30s. There was no way a memory can be scoured that perfectly short of a very strong Obliviation Charm (or one that exploded horribly, as Lockhart experienced firsthand).

Yet even the use of an Obliviation Charm was very specific. The best obliviators usually have some skills as a legilimens, and it is in knowing how minds work that they know how memories are usually stored and connected to other memories. Most wizards and witches, she had noticed, tend to obliviate memory of specific events, but was not always thorough about the events leading up to that event. Or of checking whether there are any objects that can function as reminders left in the target's home. This was fine for routine obliviation of accidental sightings of magic, but not so much when one is trying to erase the evidence of a crime.

(Cases like these merely get the Aurors assigned to the case very, very pissed off at the criminal—as they'd still find out in the end, only with at least twice as much legwork to be done. The magical legal counsel taking the position as the crown prosecutor would make sure they'd pay an arm and a leg for it).

"Is this going to take long? I'm getting hungry." Starkey complained.

Pendleton took one long look at his housemate before he opened his bag and passed on a brown paper bag that was apparently filled with sandwiches.

"Thanks!"

He merely shrugged, but there was a distinct air of forbearance about him.

"This is why you're a great chum, Pendleton. Always thoughtful. Can't really rely that level of thinking from the likes of Parkinson the Younger." Starkey commented.

"I simply prefer to be prepared."

"You'd be a good caretaker, Pendleton," he said again with a laugh. "Whichever witch you marry is going to be able to be the next Minister for Magic. She wouldn't have to worry about domestic tasks at all with you around!"

The blond shook his head. "I don't know about that. What I do know is that you can't walk a dog without carrying a doggie bag with you."

"Oy!"

It got him a swarm of swallows sent in his direction. Pendleton ducked that well and raised his shields promptly before calling his own flock of birds—crows, in his case. He stood up with an air of studied casualness, one hand in his pocket. And was that humming? Oh, he was, he was humming. It was a song she'd gotten familiar with because she'd heard Maggie singing it in the infirmary, Vera Lynn's When They Sound the Last All Clear.

All this only riled Starkey as he leapt up, wand at hand. Hermione wasn't paying much attention to the two Slytherin wizards even as they started an impromptu fight.

That song was the perfect example of another type of blow to the obliviation theory.

She absently shook her head. No. No part of me, of my memories, is Hermione Curie.

Even if her memories of her life in the 1930s was erased somehow, by someone, they'd usually leave everything else behind—the mundane details of life. She would've recognised the songs on the radio that had been playing a while. When she'd read the muggle newspaper Maggie Edelstein occasionally follows, she wouldn't be surprised to see Winston Churchill as Prime Minister instead of always expecting to see the lacklustre John Major instead. She would've at least recognised Haakon VII, the King of Norway currently exiled in London—his face would have come up in publications in Norway and no obliviator from this time would even care about erasing such mundane detail.

But there was just…nothing.

If there had been various odds and ends she could recall from the 90s and 00s, the crumbs of the life of one Hermione Granger, there wasn't any from the 30s. For example, she couldn't begin to imagine the public transport she'd have to take to get around in London right now, other than the London Underground that was guaranteed to have remained mostly the same. Even then, she couldn't start guessing which lines have yet to be built. But buses? She had no idea.

She was completely, had been entirely, Hermione Jean Granger, best friend of Harry Potter and Unspeakable. None of her fragments of memories was of a child from this century. She knew no popular songs from the 1930s or 1940s—other than the ones she'd began to listen to from the times Maggie played the wizarding wireless when she woke up in the Hogwarts infirmary for the first time.

It was not hard to conclude that she had never been Hermione Sophia Curie until that fateful day she first woke up in the Forbidden Forest in 1942.

There was barely any doubt about who she was. Perhaps it was more of a question of what.

What am I?

Why was she an actual person here instead of someone who came out of thin air, in 1942?

Why was she a real person with her own history and family; real parents who were real Hogwarts alumni? How did she become a person that she was sure had not actually attended Hogwarts in her future's history? Again, she could not imagine Dumbledore would fail to see the similarities between the two students who were both named Hermione if he did, he would've mentioned it to her or leave some special message if he suspected that she would one day time travel. This was all very convenient for her current presence in 1942, yes, but it raised ten times the number of new questions for each one that was answered.

Compared to the questions the copies of her legal documents triggered, Starkey and Pendleton's intricate hypothesis of her descent from a squib line of the Grangers of Cumbria (a hypothesis that even had a mild possibility of being true, perhaps around 2.5%), was barely shocking.

How does this relate to Everett's interpretation of quantum mechanics? The arithmancer part of her seriously reminded herself that she needed to get charting and checking the contours of space-time's currents that she's presently in.

Does it matter? Do you have to know about it immediately? She asked herself. You don't have enough memory about the sort of future you left behind—is it a hell hole? Is the world falling down? It's certainly not a good idea to attempt to leap forward alone. You already know you're more-or-less stuck here—and by staying here, you might even have a chance to improve the future.

Odds are, this is your life now. Any further knowledge from this point on is just a bonus to help with your rationalisation but not exactly necessary.

Hermione rolled up the scrolls with a sigh, sealing them with a tap of her wand. Then, she accepted the probability that she would have to separate the two wizards, either by simply calling them out or using her magic.

'-

"What's this worry about Walburga Black being in close contact with Lucretia?" Hermione asked as the three of them were walking by Hogwarts' lake.

"Clearly, she will be immensely curious about your genealogy." Pendleton replied.

"The information we passed on would've been useful to stave 'er off." Starkey said. "And once you staved 'er off, other purebloods got less excuses to complain about, y'see? Her Royal Gossipiness is still the fount of self-important news for more than half of Hogwarts nosey parkers."

That was when she realised what the weirdness that had been bothering her from the beginning was about. Pendleton had been nothing but helpful and Starkey was also eager to help, even if he was more of a bull in a china shop in his approach. She took turns to glance at both of them.

"You're both aware that I'm muggleborn, right?" Her parents here might have been a wizard and a witch, but they were clearly muggleborn. By default, it made her one too.

"Shhh! Don't say that loudly in Hogwarts!" Starkey shushed her with a concerned expression.

Pendleton nodded. "It is no surprise that we know—even if we hadn't, we would have found out all the same once we were trying to find out your forefathers further."

Hermione was sceptical. "And what, you're fine with it?"

The pale blond to her right sent a glance to Starkey. The other wizard nodded before turning to her.

"You're a witch, right? What's so bad, about it? You can do magic and from what I heard, yer bloody good at it. You've got a right to be damned proud of that. If the purebloods and halfbloods make trouble for you, then I say they should be ashamed. They should be trying to show they're really better! Not bellyachin' just because you beat them. That just shows how weak they are, innit?"

"Huh. Really?" She asked, surprised.

Starkey snorted. "My family don't sit and whinge all day. We've got potioneers and stargazers up and down the family line, what with us being very talented and actually working at it. We're not dying out in mediocrity."

"And if there's a muggleborn you can't defeat, you get them to join you," Pendleton perceptively added. It piqued Hermione's curiosity.

"Join?"

"Ah, well, talented apprentices have been marrying their teacher's sons or daughters from ancient times. Nothing new there," Starkey shrugged it away without a concern.

That took Hermione by surprise. She'd thought that the pureblood agenda was a rather universal one among Tom's Knights. It turned out that there were differences of opinion among them too.

"Even if they're muggleborn?" She asked.

Starkey lowered his voice after he glanced around a little. "Well, it's not somethin' anyone says aloud these days, innit? But why would a Potions Master or a Master Astronomer care about where their apprentices came from as long as they're brilliant?"

"Hence the decision to exclude the Starkeys from the Sacred 28, or whatever number it would have been if all the other old families were in it." Pendleton clarified. Starkey frowned,

"Not like you can jabber on about that either Pendleton. That prat what made the list didn't much care for the Pendletons already practicin' magic in the English royal court for the House of Wessex, did 'e? That was, what, at least a century afore the Malfoys came o'er with William o' Normandy?" Starkey asked.

"Technically, two centuries before William the Bastard landed," Pendleton said. "While your family fort had been in the family even through two name changes, wasn't it? The truly old families aren't so blind to only rely on that list."

"It was name modifications. And name shifts happened all the time before the high middle ages because the spelling isn't standardised. We only really changed once." Starkey insisted.

"So, you don't really have a problem with muggleborns and muggles?" Hermione asked. She was getting a better idea as to why Tom had entrusted the two of them with the task of chasing down her ancestry and constructing a respectable, quasi family tree for her on a short notice.

Starkey snorted, still walking with the same confident swagger as he did before.

"Wizards and witches are only different based on our abilities. Cream rises to the top! That's bleeding obvious. Now, muggles, on the other hand, is a different thing. We're talking of judging people based on their abilities, yeah? Now, if there's a whole people who can't even do magic, how capable can you expect them to be? Not much. And that didn't even stop them from being warlike! They'd probably be better off if we were to rule over them."

Hermione sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Hello, colonialism 2.0. I didn't expect to see you here at all. I absolutely didn't miss your death and disappearance in the 21st century.

Her gaze met Pendleton's by accident, and he gave her a knowing smile as Starkey was continuing his rant on muggles.

"You do know that he's far from the worst in Hogwarts, don't you?" Pendleton asked in a soft voice.

Hermione winced and nodded. "Oh, I'm quite aware, Pendleton. Please, don't remind me."

Hogwarts and the wizarding world of this era had a long, long way to go.

'-

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End Notes:

So, this is the first and last time I'll address the question of Hermione's past and identity in a long while. Why? Because it's not immediately relevant in just getting through the day-to-day life in Hogwarts and going through her current life. I don't know whether I'll even have time to get back to it when I'm just focusing on finishing their current academic year. That's all I have to say for now.

The Malfoys can't have arrived in England earlier than William of Normandy—their last name is French for goodness' sakes, instead of having a Germanic root. At the oldest, it's French Norman.

'-

List of Stuff One Might Try to Look Up:

Queensberry, Queensberry Rules: (History, Boxing) Generally accepted rules in boxing (the sport), written by a Welshman named John Graham Chambers and endorsed by John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (we can see here that celebrity endorsement has a long history of effectiveness). The code that modern boxing is based is developed from Queensberry Rules. It has also become a term in which one refers to fairness or sportsmanlike behaviour.

William of Normandy, William the Bastard: (History) Norman King of England of House Normandy. More famously known as William the Conqueror, he ruled from 1066 to his death in 1087. He became the contender to the throne of England when the then-king, Edward the Confessor of House Wessex, died without issue. As William was a cousin of Edward, he certainly could use his claim. The current royal family of Britain (House of Windsor, or House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, if you want to be pedantic) traces their lineage up to him.

As the tongue of his court is Norman French, he carried it over to England as well, alongside his court. He's one of the major contributing factor to the evolution of Middle English, as Old English absorbed a lot of vocabulary from the Romance languages and ended up diverging farther from their Germanic brethren.

'-

Additional Notes:

John Major is indeed the Prime Minister that would have been in office when Hermione was in canon fifth year. I'd know—I was still living in the UK back then.

'-

Vespasian Starkey (OC): Ves Starkey is a fifth-year Slytherin and member of the Knights of Walpurgis. He came from an old family that's not part of the Sacred 28. He shares classes A. Potions, ADADA and A. Astronomy with Tom Riddle. Ves is the oldest grandchild of the Starkey family and heir. A curly-haired wizard with an easy grin, he can banter easily with his House members that he's considered 'a swell guy' and someone other people enjoy hanging out with. His first name 'Vespasian', came from the Roman cognomen derived from 'vesper', which meant 'west' or 'evening'.

His name is actually thematically in line with Hesper Starkey (canon character, the witch who found out about the effect of the phases of the moon on potions). Here, she is his grandmother and current matriarch of the Starkey clan. She didn't marry into the Starkey family, as it was hers in the first place.

Some Notes on Wizarding Culture: As for readers wondering how Hesper Starkey, a female, can keep and maintain the family name, I'll refer back to the fact I've raised before in Ch 16's end notes that we have clear evidence that the wizarding world is less sexist than the non-magical one. Also, Salic inheritance laws is developed in France in the latter middle ages, while I'm rooting the current magical society to be continuous from even before the arrival of William the Conqueror, and Custumal of Kent (that records events from pre-Norman invasion times) has examples of daughters inheriting and dividing the estate in the absence of male heirs. It must also be noted that a 'custumal' is a written record of customs, meaning that there was more flexibility back then than there would be with outright laws.

'-