Getting to France had been surprisingly easy considering that her mother just had a bewildered look upon her face the whole time. It was more than obvious that she had been blindsided with the sudden trip. It wasn't often that they went to France at the drop of a hat, there was usually planning involved so they could all be prepared. It was usually only certain important events or emergencies that they made trips like these.
The fact that her father hadn't told her mother anything about it, even during the plane ride, made her think it was something very serious. When she had asked all he had said was, "Not now."
Hermione felt a little guilty leaving her mother in the dark, but the majority of her knew it would be for the best. It would take about a day for her to calm down as she had already given her father a very brief informing on the way to the car.
"Just two male visitors for a decent stay, Daddy."
They way that she had said it was easy to misinterpret, allowing an eavesdropper to assume it was her best friends Harry and Ron.
Once they had arrived at the chateau it was clear that it was planned since it was aired out, cleaned, and stocked with food. It took her mother a moment to connect the dots, remembering that her daughter did not looked surprised at the sudden trip abroad.
"What in Hades is going on!?" Abagail faced her husband and daughter, with her hands on her hips.
Father and daughter looked at each other for a quick second before he stepped forward.
"Honey, this is something important to Hermione, she had sent a letter before she came home for the holiday. It has something to do with the magical world and she had asked to come here. She said she had a lot to explain to us, and asked to come here. So let's go sit in the parlour and talk."
Abagail pursed her lips before turning around and stalking off without another word to them in the direction of the parlour.
Father and daughter shared another look before following cautiously. Abagail was most definitely a spitfire, but was… weird concerning magic. She loved her daughter and tried, but sometimes it was obvious that she was dubious when it came to the magical world. She agreed and promised to not take Hermione out of the magical world, but it was obvious after the basilisk incident, she didn't like it.
They found Abagail sitting on her favorite grass green chaise lounge. Hermione sat in her favorite cream colored high backed chair while her father cozied in with his wife on the lounge.
They sat in silence while Hermione struggled with where she should begin. She nibbled on her bottom lip, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet under her.
Her parents were quite while they watched their daughter think about how to say what she felt she needed to say. A few seconds went by before she took a deep calming breath, she puffed out the next one and looked up at them after childishly scrunching her face up to the side.
"Well I guess we should start off easy. You remember the house-elves I was telling you about?" her voice was dry.
They nodded.
"Well apparently if they don't serve someone, they lose 'moons' off of their lifespan. So they can basically die from not serving. Which is awful if you ask me! But, they can. So Winky, is now Thimi, and she's my house-elf. S.P.E.W. was to promote elvish welfare, not kill them. So I did what I could so she wouldn't die. I have a house-elf, she belongs to the house of Granger, her name is Thimi. I'll introduce you later. I think you'll like her, I, for one, adore her."
Her mother's eyebrows furrowed into a line, indisputably perturbed.
"Thimi is a secret. As Winky, she's known as a bad house-elf because she was framed. Her crime was being in possession of a wand and using it. While house-elves and goblins have their own forms of magic, they're not allowed to have wands, they're not allowed to wield wands. It's considered illegal or at least highly frowned upon, I'll look more into that later so I can better describe it to you. I know that wizards are wand crafters, well wandmakers, would be the technical term. It's a close to vest secret and goblins are furious, and a whole bunch of other political distressing Gordian knots… and I'm moving away from the point," she sighed in frustration with herself, knowing that she was allowing her nerves to get the best of her.
"House-elves are subservient only because their magic and lives depend on it. However, what was once a mutual understanding between species for mutual benefits has become murky over the course of time. So many of the old houses that have house-elves, have had them for so long that wizards have forgotten why they have them. So because they have someone, something, as they consider house-elves, serving them, for as long as they have, they stopped paying attention to them as beings and consider them things. It's because of this that they are beneath most wizards' notice. They don't remember which house-elf is which and only know because they come with a name, they don't really remember their faces or anything of the like. So Winky is slowly being forgotten and will eventually be "replaced" with the existence of Thimi. She won't have the so-called grievous misdeed that lead to her being given clothes following her throughout the rest of her life."
She stopped, watching her parents absorb the easy part of their discussion. Her father she could see understood where she was coming from and appeared to have approved of her decisions, while her mother was obviously struggling with something she had said, but also understood, although was visibly annoyed.
"The next… not so easy predicament is… well…"
Leeroy noticed that his normally articulate daughter was struggling to tell them something that was obviously going to be very important. If her easy news so far was telling them that she had essentially obtained a house-elf, an entirely different being, into their life for what would seem to be the very very far future, whatever she was going to say was going to be hard to swallow. So something worse than owning someone…, his stomach dropped from the anticipation.
Hermione took a deep breath.
"You've always known that I've been more advance than my peers. You know that I'm technically an adult in the wizarding world. I've been taking private lessons in my Defense Against the Dark Arts class. They're also secret. Not because anything untoward is happening! It was because at first I wasn't able to… throw off a curse. It was cast on us with the headmaster's approval and permission as a demonstration so we would know what it felt like. It was one of the unforgivable curses, the Imperius curse. There are three unforgivable curses-"
"The Imperius, the Cruciatus, and the Killing curse," Abagail said softly. A gentle reminder that they had also done their reading so they could understand her world and her better.
"Yes," Hermione said softly.
"You have to have a strong amount of will to throw it off. A will stronger than the caster. I wasn't able to the first time, and I wasn't willing to accept that. I wanted to be able to throw it off in the case of any emergency that I would have need of it. You already know being a muggleborn, some of the purebloods see me as an animal and an extremist may… justify themselves in using it on me."
Both of her parents had a pained look in their eyes. As much as they wished such a prejudice did not exist in their daughter's world, the truth at the end of the day was that it did exist. To some pureblood wizards and witches she was seen as a mudblood; a magic thief, an animal, and a number of other things. Just existing, they knew she was at risk for hate crimes. They read about the most recent war and how muggleborns were killed in their homes. Muggleborns who were as old as them, and muggleborns as young as two or four or however old they were when they showed magic and became a blip on the magical community's radar. Just existing made Hermione a target for blood extremists.
Seeing that they understood the young witch continued, "So I went back for private lessons until I was able to throw it off completely. After that, I kept going to learn more advance defense work. I've already started working NEWT level," she said with a small smile at them.
"The reason why I'm bringing this up is because Defense professor and his… friend? At least I think they're friends. They want to train me. The Dark Lord is going to be resurrected, soon, and they want me prepared. I have to be able to protect myself and… and Harry. I'm closest to him besides Ronald, but also… I have to. I owe Harry a life debt. If there is some way in my power to repay the life debt, I have to do it, magic will force it to happen. If I don't, I die."
She waited as the horror grew in her mother's eyes before plowing on.
"So they'll be coming in two days to train me to the best of their abilities in a crash course sort of way. War is coming… and I won't be a civilian, I'll be a warrior. I'll be able to protect myself better than most witches and wizards can. I'll be able to protect you to the best of my abilities. I'll be prepared. I'm already a target just by existing, so…" she trailed off and shrugged, looking at the pattern in the carpet instead of their faces.
She already saw her mother cup her face and start to cry silently, her father had put an arm around the older woman in a solidary comforting manner.
It was harder and easier than she thought it would be to tell her parents that war was coming and she was going to be part of it. They already knew she would be the target of possible hate crimes, they obviously read about the first war with Voldemort, they knew what it would mean for the war to commence. There was no way they could tell her no or make illogical demands such as she pull herself out of the wizarding community. They knew there were whole families who were murdered in their homes, in their sleep, because they had a small magical child. Muggleborn witches and wizards who were barely old enough to walk, in families who knew nothing of the community, slaughtered like pigs, because their child existed.
They couldn't claim ignorance, but it wasn't any easier to stomach the acceptance of their daughter's words.
They had two days to fully assimilate the knowledge before hosting her professor and fellow… tutor? While they were unsure of the technical terms, they knew if their daughter could explain it better, she would have. So they knew she must have promised or made an oath of some sort that made her keep that specific knowledge a secret.
Abagail almost regretted demanding to be put in the know. Almost. At least with this, she would be able to prepare.
"So… so what do we do? How can we help?" her mother asked quietly.
"I'm… I'm not sure yet. We can ask them when they arrive. They might have a better idea than I do," she replied.
Her mother nodded in understanding while she leaned into the comforting arms of her husband, tears still leaking from her eyes.
Leeroy held his distraught wife offering comfort as much as he was taking it from her presence and the warmth she was exuding. As part of his lessons growing up, he was taught many things about war and leading it. It hurt to know that his daughter would be a warrior, a soldier. He hoped beyond all hope that she wouldn't be seen as a number or a disposable soldier.
His daughter was going to war.
No.
War was coming to her, to them, and his daughter was just as much as a spitfire as his wife, and hell would rain upon her enemies.
He knew his daughter, her personality, he knew that while she had a big heart, she also had a vicious vindictive side. If push came to shove in a life-death situation, he knew she would kill if she had to. It had only been unleashed once that he was aware of, and she was beautifully and terrifyingly fierce. He was glad at the time she was young enough that he was able to pick her up easily. He was upset and proud at the same time, she sported a deep black and blue on her face, her nose was bleeding heavily and coated her small chin, she had a broken rib, and she fought through the pain and gave the older kid such a walloping that he looked worse than she did. She would be a wonderful warrior, and he would support her in this too.
He hoped whoever their gods were, that they showed mercy upon them; because he knew without a doubt that his daughter would not.