The trigger warnings for this one are slightly challenging, and I'm not sure I've got them completely right. if you think there's something missing please let me know. If you have triggers surrounding fertility treatments, non-viable fetuses this might not be for you. There is also the mention of emotionally abusive parents and the effects that has on self worth.


The Unspeakable took a deep breath, repeating himself slowly. "You have a daughter, Sir."

Saul laughed, "Don't be absurd, Higgins! I think I'd know if I had a daughter! If nothing else it'd involve a massive shift in the biology of my partners or…me I suppose and I would definitely have noticed that!"

"Professor Croaker?" he voiced gently, cutting through Saul's laughter, "Do you remember those experiments we tried in the late 70's"

Saul paused, gaping at him as the colour drained from his face. "Well fuck." he muttered.

"She's…Minerva McGonagall requested a time-turner for her. You know we check heritage as standard amongst everything else, just to make sure someone's who they say they are. Turns out she's yours and ah….Regulus Blacks."

"Regulus Black?" he repeated as if the words didn't make sense.

"Yes, Orion offered him up, remember? Because they were worried about the Black line." Isaac Higgins paused a thoughtful look crossing his face. "To be fair they were right to be worried about that, she's the last of the direct line."

Saul made a slightly panicked noise at the back of his throat. "How….how did this get past us! We were only meant to see if the transfiguration was possible, we weren't meant to make an actual human!"

Higgins shrugged, "If it helps, Professor, Regulus was her mother."

It was then that Saul started laughing, a hysterical, loud and startling noise in the quiet of the room. "No! No Higgins it does not fucking help! This is…fucking hell. You expect strange things here but this might be the most fucking absurd thing I've ever heard! Does she know?"

"The girl? No. We ah…thought you might like to inform her yourself?"

Saul looked at him as if he was insane. "Why the fuck would I want to do that?" he demanded.

"Because by all accounts she's brilliant," Higgins replied gently, "Like, absurdly brilliant. Minerva McGonagall is advocating the witch be allowed a time-turner to take all the electives."

Saul frowned, "Well that's just stupid, are you sure she's brilliant and McGonagall's not just trying to murder her discreetly?"

Isaac snorted, "Perhaps," he allowed, "She's gotten up to more than a little mischief. Apparently, she, the youngest Weasley boy and Harry sodding Potter circumvented the protections Albus had put in place to guard the Philosopher's stone. Snape was said to be furious that a first year had worked out his riddle. And then last year, she was petrified for months but worked out what the monster in the chamber was and still managed to catch up enough with her classes that McGonnagal was willing to vouch for her this year."

Saul blinked. "What sodding Chamber? Why did Albus have Nicolas' stone in the school? And what were three first years doing near it?" he barked.

Higgins looked at him like he was losing his mind, before speaking slowly, "The Chamber of Secrets….it was opened last year. It was a basilisk, we got some of it to play with, remember?"

" That's where that came from?"

"Yes," Higgins frowned, "We did mention it."

"I don't think I was listening," Saul muttered petulantly.

"Yes. I think I gathered that" Issac murmured in response, trying not to roll his eyes at his boss.

Saul sighed, "Right. Well then. I ah…" he paused, "Do you think I should meet her?"

"Yes." Isaac nodded.

"Ah, right then….and…and I say what, exactly?"

Isaac closed his eyes as if praying for patience, Saul was normally cleverer than this. "How about the truth, Professor?" he suggested.

"Oh yes," Saul was back to sounding hysterical. "Miss…fuck. What is her name?"

"Granger, Professor. Hermione Granger."

"Really?" he wrinkled his nose. "Not what I would have chosen." Isaac rolled his eyes. "Yes, alright, not the point." Saul waved him off, "What am I meant to say? Miss Granger, I'm your father, your mother, one Regulus sodding Black, was only your mother because we were playing with fertility magic and turned a sperm into an ovum and grew you in a sodding dish. And by the way darling, you were meant to be destroyed after that and I'm not entirely sure how you ended up as an actual baby!"

Isaac winced, "Maybe not quite like that, Professor."

"Well, how else am I meant to describe it!" Saul demanded. "And how exactly did she end up as a bloody baby!"

"We're not quite sure, Professor." Higgins confessed, "She was adopted by muggles though, so whatever happened someone died or didn't want her."

Saul cast his mind back, "No one died in the late seventies from here."

"Ok, so… did they try growing an entire baby in a jar?" Isaac frowned.

"I…I don't know!" Saul howled, "Who was the head of that project?"

"Sofia Hush," Isaac replied promptly.

"Get her here!" Croaker demanded.

"Right then, Professor." Higgins nodded, bustling away in search of the witch as Saul dropped into a seat and contemplated what on Earth he was going to do now. He had a daughter, something he had never anticipated. Hell, something he'd never wanted. And now…now he had a bloody daughter and he was being expected to work something out. He wasn't entirely sure he knew what to do with one of those. At least she wasn't still a baby…or a toddler. Although what the fuck did he know about teenage girls?

Isaac interrupted his musings, bringing Sofia Hush with him. "You wanted to see me, Professor?" she asked, taking a seat delicately in front of him.

"Yes," he agreed, marshalling his thoughts, "I want to know what happened to the fertility experiments we conducted in the late seventies."

Sophia frowned, "The fertility experiments involving transfiguration?"

"Yes!"

"Well, we discontinued it because they didn't hold past eleven weeks post fertilisation."

"All of the experiments?" he pushed, watching her intently. She twitched. "Sofia," he growled.

"No, not all," she sighed, "Several embryos survived."

"How many?" Saul barked.

"Ah, past eleven weeks, around two hundred of the ten thousand we created."

"And further?"

"Twenty-eight made it to fourteen weeks."

"And then?"

"Three made it to viability," she whispered.

"What happened to them?" Saul barked.

"One, a girl, was adopted by muggles. Another girl was claimed by her biological father, her parents had struggled to conceive. The only boy was the same."

"Their names?"

"Oh, I have no idea about the one adopted, but the two claimed were Luna Lovegood and Theodore Nott."

"Why wasn't the girl claimed?" Saul demanded, internally cursing. They had grown fucking babies in a lab. Actual fucking babies. Mother of Merlin, how had he missed this?

"We couldn't get a reading on her father, so I assumed he was part of the department and had placed the standard anonymity clause on himself. Her mother…well, her other parent, was dead, the grandmother thought she was an abomination, and truthfully, the kid dodged a bullet there, Walburga Black was not entirely sane."

Saul winced, "You didn't think this was something I should have known?"

Sofia sighed, "We…knew you didn't entirely agree. But we truly thought we might be able to work out how they survived when so many didn't, it's why we kept going."

"Your conclusion?"

"Magic," she sighed, "Their readings were uncommonly high, we think that that's what saved them. The rest were low to average. We couldn't work out how to combine the DNA to ensure their strength. Magic as a tangible thing is still not something we can pin down. I have no idea how those three were strong enough to survive, what it was about their specific combination that allowed for it, especially as I know Regulus Black was part of more than one experiment."

Saul let out a long slow exhale. "I want a completed report on my desk by tomorrow," he demanded, dismissing her.

"What are you going to do, Professor?" Isaac ventured into the silence, eyeing his boss warily. "McGonagall needs an answer."

"I….I'm going to have to speak to the witch," Saul muttered, his thoughts spinning, "If nothing else I want to ensure she's alright. And…Gods Higgins, she's the fucking Black Heir. Or…is she Lady Black? Did Sirius Black lose his title?"

"I don't know," Higgins mused. "She can't be Lady Black until she's of age though, and she's only thirteen currently."

"Right…right. He… if this gets out he could attempt to hurt her though, couldn't he? If he's as insane as they say? If he knows about her and she's standing in his way?" Saul suddenly realised that that thought bothered him enough that he felt like he should do something about it himself. Passing on the information to someone else didn't quite seem enough.

"I don't know, Professor," Higgins frowned. "Maybe…maybe we need to request his trial transcripts, see what we're dealing with."

"Yes." Saul nodded distractedly, still wondering what to do with these feelings of responsibility he was experiencing. "Do that."

"Very well." he hesitated, "Do you…want me to come with you to meet the girl?"

"I ah…." Saul looked momentarily lost, "Fuck. Yes?"

"It'll be alright, Professor." Isacc soothed, hoping he wasn't lying.

"Will it?" he asked looking at him blankly, "Does…does she even know she's adopted?"

"Oh." Higgins faltered, "I ah…I think so? I'll check when I ask McGonagall for her address, shall I?"

"Yes," Saul sighed, feeling every one of his sixty years as he slumped in his seat before thumping his head onto his desk. What the fuck was he going to do now?


Two days later he found himself on the doorstep of a bland suburban house. It was nice enough, he supposed, but not entirely to his taste, too perfect, too uniform.

"Can I help you?" A man that had to have been around his own age asked, standing in the open door. He seemed pleasant enough, Saul mused.

"We're ah, Unspeakables Croaker and Higgins." Saul started, "We ah…wanted to speak to you about your daughter?"

"Oh. You're one of them?" the man's face changed instantly, making Saul discount his earlier impression.

Isaac bristled slightly, "If you mean are we wizards, yes."

"Very well," Mark Granger sighed, ushering them into a room with an overabundance of pastels.

"Jeanie, these are…sorry did you say Unspeakables?"

"Yes, our job role." Saul agreed, "Saul Croaker." He held out his hand to the woman who shook it watching him warily. She was clearly younger than her husband by at least a decade, like the house though, she was unnervingly perfect, nothing was out of place.

"Well, what did you want to say about Hermione?" Mark demanded, moving to sit beside his wife.

"Is she here?" Saul asked, looking around as if the child would materialise.

"Yes. Upstairs. What do you want with her? Is it not enough that you force us to send her to a boarding school for ten months of the year, now you're encroaching on our summer holidays?"

Saul winced, this was not going to go down well. "I wondered if you wanted information on Hermione's birth parents. We had…the information came to light recently."

"No." Mark Granger barked. "We discussed it and agreed we wouldn't allow her to seek them."

"You wouldn't allow her to look for them?" Higgins checked, clearly horrified.

"No. We are her parents. We already have to accept that she'll be gone for several years, that we can't discuss her education with our friends. But after that, enough is enough. She had such potential and I refuse to allow her to squander it longer than we're forced to."

"Enough is enough," Saul repeated faintly.

"Well yes, she'll have got the education that woman said was vital to keep her alive and in control but after that's done, she can come back and be normal. Live up to her promise. She used to be so clever."

"Mr Granger!" Saul protested, "Magic isn't something one can just…turn off."

The man rolled his eyes, "She won't need it." he repeated stubbornly. "We would never...if we had known before, when she was a baby, we would have made a different choice."

Saul and Isaac flinched, neither knowing how to address that. "Mr Granger, magic is as much a part of your daughter as her hair or her eye colour. You cannot ask her to ignore a fundamental part of herself." Isaac tried patiently.

"We're not asking," he growled. "We only agreed to that school because the teacher that came here said Hermione could end up hurting us if she didn't learn control. She's already taking muggle classes so that when the time comes, she'll go to university and then we can all put this madness behind her. She can live a normal life without her abnormality getting in the way."

"She is normal exactly how she is!" Saul growled.

"She waves a magic stick and learns how to fly a sodding broomstick. That's not normal. It's bloody absurd if you ask me! And if we hadn't been so scared she'd blow up the house, we'd never have allowed it." Mark retorted sharply, a dull flush creeping up his neck.

"How does Hermione feel about your plans for her?" Isaac cut in before Saul could continue.

"She understood the conditions when we agreed to the school." Jean Granger spoke for the first time, her mouth set in an unforgiving line.

"At eleven?"

Jean shrugged, "It's what we agreed. Now, what exactly is it you want?"

"To speak to your daughter," Saul growled, something taking root in his chest. He didn't like these muggles his daughter had ended up with.

"No. I told you, you don't get to encroach on summer holidays," Mark Granger reiterated. "That red headed idiot already tried, as if we're going to let Hermione spend more time around you people. Now get out. You can speak to her once she's back at that school. She has too much to do playing catch up with her normal school work, you can wait."

Stunned, Saul and Isaac found themselves back on the doorstep looking at a closed door.

"Well fuck." Isaac muttered.

"What are we going to do? She's not fucking staying there!" Saul muttered.

Issac hummed, his head swivelling when he caught movement out the side of his eye. A tiny girl with too much hair put her finger over her lips, dropping a note into one of the bushes and darting away. Silently, he summoned it.

"Come on, let's go and regroup," he murmured, dragging Saul back to the point they'd apparated to earlier.

"She left this," Isaac announced, waving the note at Saul once they were back in his office.

"When?" Saul asked, startled.

"Just before we left."

"Open it then man!"

If what you wish to speak to me about is important, my parents work from 8-6 Monday-Friday, and 8-1 on Saturdays.

HJG

"What the fuck was that man on about, encroaching in the holidays if he's at work all the damn time?" Saul exploded.

Higgins sighed, "I don't know." he admitted, still feeling unsettled after the visit, "Let's give it til Monday and go back. In the meantime, we'll have a look over Black's trial and work out a plan with that."

"I want to speak to Min." Saul groused, "I want to know if she knows about the Granger's views."

"We'll arrange that too then." Isaac soothed. "Go home, Saul. We'll speak to Amelia and McGonagall in the morning."

"Fine," he growled, storming out of the department.


Saul and Isaac found themselves in Amelia Bones' office the next morning, her face curiously blank as she surveyed them. "I don't think I understand what you're saying," Amelia murmured, looking at them as if she'd never seen them before..

"I don't know how else to explain it," Saul groused, ignoring Isaac's censoring look. Sometimes his deputy was an irritant.

"You….you played with peoples…." she started trailing off. "I mean…you transfigured peoples….You made impossible babies!"

"Yes." Saul agreed.

"And now one of them is the Heir presumptive to House Black. A girl who currently lives with muggles that you think are….concerning…is going to be the next Lady Black."

"That about sums it up." Saul agreed.

"And you want me to…what? Check Sirius Black's trial transcript to determine how much of a threat he is to this child?"

"Yes." Saul nodded.

"Why this child? Why now?"

Saul fidgeted, "Well…it would appear that….that is to say…."

Isaac rolled his eyes, "Saul is her father."

Amelia's jaw dropped, "Of fucking course he is." she muttered before standing abruptly, "Shacklebolt!"

"Yes Ma'am?" a man who Saul assumed was Shacklebolt appeared at Amelia's call. He was reassuringly calm sounding.

"Get me Sirius Black's trial transcript, please. Discretely. It appears we may have an unexpected new Heir."

Kingsley paused looking slightly stunned before nodding, "Of course, Ma'am."

"How long do things like this usually take?" Isaac asked into the silence.

"Oh, minutes. The archivists are good at what they do, I've never known one to not have what's been requested in anything more than ten minutes." Amelia reassured. "In the meantime, are there more babies we need to be worried about?"

"Luna Lovegood and Theodore Nott were also viable. Their fathers are clearly aware."

"Who were their other parents?" Amelia sighed.

Saul blinked, "I ah…didn't check."

"I did." Isaac announced, "Luna Lovegoods 'mother' was Cletus McClaggen. Theodore Notts was Rabastan Lestrange."

"Of fucking course," Amelia muttered. "And both parents were notified?"

Isaac winced, "Ah, not exactly. Because their fathers claimed them, we didn't notify the 'mother'. It was ah..thought that the heir should be with their patriarch. I believe they were subsequently blood adopted by the wives. "

Amelia's glare sent his heart rate skyrocketing. "You will remedy that. Immediately," she warned, her voice low. "Even if that means I have to authorise a fucking trip to Azkaban for you to inform Rabastan Lestrange personally. Heinous human being though he may be, he deserves to fucking know he fathered….mothered… produced a child! And more than that, the children deserve to know."

"Yes, Ma'am," Isaac muttered.

"Good. Next week. Monday."

"Not Monday," Isaac countered, "Tuesday. On Monday we need to go and speak to Saul's daughter. Her parents will be at work."

"I see," Amelia replied, clearly not seeing at all, "Explain to me why you have concerns."

"They expect her to give up magic as soon as she's done with Hogwarts. They have forbidden her to seek out her biological parents and they seem to be working under the illusion that she'll return to what they're terming normal!" Saul blurted. "They only allowed Hogwarts because they wanted her to learn to control her magic. Not because they agreed but because they were scared she'd blow up the house! They'd have refused otherwise. They admitted they'd never have adopted her if they'd known about magic. Add in that they're at work most of the week and are refusing to allow her to go to her friends? That they have her working on muggle courses, which I assume shouldn't be condensed into a summer. I…Gods, no wonder she's so bloody intelligent, she's probably too scared not to be! Her adoptive father in particular was concerned about her no longer living up to her potential but it appears Minerva considers her the best in her year, if her time turner application is anything to go on. They just don't count anything that's not muggle as being worthwhile."

Amelia froze. "I…Gods. Look, it's…not ideal but it's also not something we can step in on. They're not abusing her, Saul. They just…parent differently."

"No!" he howled, "What sort of childhood has she got! Months in the castle, and then all holidays catching up on Muggle courses. No time with her friends, being held to a ridiculous decision she made at eleven in order to be allowed to keep herself safe? She has magic, Amelia! She can't just pretend she doesn't and they're attempting to make her! And if they were willing to admit to me that they wouldn't have adopted her, what do they say to her? "

Amelia sighed, "And that is still their choice. You know as well as I do that the line muggleborns walk is a hard one. And hopefully, they were just...venting."

"She's not muggleborn though! She's a bloody pureblood and the next head of one of our oldest families!" he hissed.

"With muggle parents." Amelia reminded him calmly.

Saul growled in frustration. "There is nothing we can do?"

"No." she sighed, "Other than talk to the girl, remind her of her options. Once she's of age, she can make her own decisions."

"But will she?" he mumbled, sounding utterly defeated.

"I don't honestly know," Amelia admitted, privately acknowledging it was unlikely if her parents were as overbearing as Saul was implying, "All we can do is remind her that she can."

"Don't…don't I have rights?"

Amelia winced, "Is that really a road you want to go down, Saul? Because, yes, technically, you know that you do. You supersede them in this world but I need you to think, really, really think before you force the issue. Whatever you think of them, they are her parents. The ones who've been there for the last what? Thirteen years?"

"Yes," he sighed, "I don't fucking like it though. You didn't hear them, Amelia, they were so fucking dismissive. Laying down the law like she had no say in her own life and could just turn off part of herself because they didn't like it. It was fucking awful."

"I'm sure it was," Amelia agreed with a sympathetic smile, "But it's not grounds for removal. They're allowing her to go to Hogwarts, unless that changes there's nothing we can do."

"Fucking wonderful." Saul muttered petulantly, crossing his arms over his chest, unable to get the sneering face of Mark Granger out of his head.

Kingsley returned, interrupting the conversation and his musings, which was just as well given that he was contemplating what jinxes he'd get away with. "I ah..there might be a problem, Ma'am."

"Like what?" Amelia frowned.

"It would appear as if Sirius Black never got a trial."

"I'm sorry, Kingsley," Amelia replied with exaggerated calm, "I thought you just said Sirius Black never had a trial. I'm sure I must have been mistaken."

"No," Kingsley replied slowly, waiting for the outburst.

Amelia went silent, before she exploded, "What the actual fuck! Get me, Barty, now!"

"Yes, Ma'am!" As Kingsley beat a hasty retreat, Isaac's eyes followed him looking for all the world like he wished he could too.

"Amelia?" Saul ventured. "What…ah…what exactly does that mean?"

"It means Barty's arse will be on the line if it's true," she growled. "For all we know we locked an innocent man in sodding Azkaban for what…twelve years? Fuck!"

"Ah." Saul nodded, wisely closing his mouth.

They waited in painful silence until Kingsley knocked on the door, "Bartemus Crouch, Ma'am."

"Thank you, Kingsley, that will be all for now." Amelia sighed.

Barty's eyebrows rose, "Is everything alright, Amelia?"

"No," she growled, gesturing to a seat, "Explain to me why it looks like Sirius Black didn't receive a trial."

Barty flushed, "Well…he confessed."

"And that negates his right to a trial?" Amelia hissed, "What did he say? Exactly."

"He ah…Gods Amelia, it was twelve years ago! He…said something about him having killed them, it being his fault."

"And you took that as a confession?" Amelia demanded incredulously, "You didn't think to question exactly what he meant?"

"The Potters had just died! You-know-who had just been vanquished, and then there was the explosion that took out all those muggles and Peter Pettigrew! It was a busy time!" Barty protested.

"Not so busy that there shouldn't have been a fucking trial!" she shouted and he slumped.

"Perhaps," he allowed with a sigh, "We did what we thought was right at the time but perhaps."

"How are we going to fix this! We have to give him the chance to turn himself in and be allowed to defend himself."

"What?" Barty spluttered.

"You heard me! If he's innocent, he has the right to prove it!"

"And if he's not?"

"Well, he's not going to turn himself in then is he?" She retorted, "Do we still have his wand?"

"Yes." Barty sighed.

"And did we check last spells?"

"No," he muttered.

"Of fucking course we didn't. I'm going to have a very select team look at it, am I clear? And I'm going to have to take this to the Minister. For fucks sake, Barty!"

Barty winced, "I understand. I'll come with you to see Cornelius."

She nodded, "Saul, Isaac, I'll let you know if there's an update."

They both nodded, taking it for the dismissal it was.