A/N: Thank you all for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! Huge thank you to lanamarymack for alpha/beta reading this chapter, too :) You can find me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter fifty-nine and be on the lookout for chapter sixty soon!
Hermione had spent a lot of time pondering what, if anything, she should do about her muggle parents, who thought that she had died in an accident at the Ministry of Magic. As muggles, they weren't able to independently verify what Dumbledore had led them to believe, so she was sure that they hadn't dug into any further, and it made the guilt gnaw away at her stomach.
Sometimes, she felt utterly awful for how easily she was able to let them go. When she'd been unceremoniously dropped in the past, it was out of the question that she try to contact them, especially considering that she wasn't even born yet. They were both just starting out in their dental practice and she couldn't just go crashing into their young lives, no matter how much she missed them. They weren't her parents yet.
Not to mention that by the time they were the parents she did remember, she would have been in her thirties herself, so it wouldn't be fair to reach out to them, possibly damaging their minds with the knowledge that time travel was possible. She'd kept her time turner usage from them when she was at school, too.
As a result, she'd let them go back in 1977 and easily slipped into the new life of Hermione Black, daughter to Orion and Walburga.
But then Sirius had done what he had to return her and she now had a chance to be reunited with them. Hermione was almost a little ashamed that they hadn't been top of mind as soon as she realized when she was. That she hadn't even considered how her disappearance might have affected them. Just how little consideration she'd given her muggle parents once she was accepted into this magical world.
To hear that they thought she was dead made her stomach twist with shame. Maybe it was better to let them go and move on with their life. They had surely mourned for her and to just show back up would only make their lives more complicated. After all, it wasn't as if she could stay with them while Voldemort was at large.
There was another selfish part of her that didn't care about that. They were her parents and they would be so over the moon to hear that their daughter was actually alive that they wouldn't actually care that she was much older now. They wouldn't have questions about the different ways that she acted, dressed like. They wouldn't bat an eye that she was more witch than muggle at this point.
She dreamed about their reunion again and again until she couldn't let it go anymore. There was nothing else for it — she would have to go see them for herself and then she would decide what to do.
Hermione found Sirius in his room, seeing as it was midday on the weekend. She looked around, a smirk on her face, when she saw that he'd taken down the posters of muggle girls on motorcycles at some point and his room was now much more appropriate for a man in his 30s.
He brightened when he saw her. "Hermione," he greeted with a smile. "What's going on?"
"I was thinking that we might go on a little...adventure," she said, sounding more mischievous than she ever had.
"Where to?" he asked, his grey eyes narrowing it at her.
"It's a surprise," she countered, not wanting to tell him because he was certain to put up a big fight about it. "But it's in muggle London."
"Hm, I don't know if that's a great idea," he cautioned. "I don't think that Father would be thrilled to hear if I took you there, especially with Cygnus lurking around."
She snorted. "As if Cygnus would ever show his face in muggle London!" she said, throwing her hands up in the air. "And in any case, you are an Auror, Sirius. I trust you to keep me safe from danger."
"So there is a potential for danger?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't know if this is a good idea."
"Well, I am an adult and it's not like I actually need a chaperone, but I was just trying to play by your ridiculous rules," she said, not at all pleased with the resistance he was giving her at the moment. "If you don't fancy an adventure, I can just go by myself."
"Out of the question," he said, shaking his head. "I'll just grab my jacket and we can be on our way."
Hermione was pleased to see him pull his black leather jacket out and put it on. She wondered how often he got to wear it now that he was playing nice with Orion and Regulus, but it just felt right to see it on him. She did wave off his offer to take his motorbike (which she didn't even know he still had), knowing a good place that they could apparate to. Taking his larger hand, she side-alonged him to her old neighborhood.
"Come on, it's this way," Hermione said, leading him down the pavement towards her childhood home.
"Now that you've got me here, are you going to tell me where we are?" Sirius questioned.
"To my parents' house," she answered. "Well, my muggle parents I mean."
"Ah," he said, with a nod, before falling into step with her.
They walked quietly for a while, before they got to her house, one of many similar on the block, only to have the breath knocked out of her when she found the for sale sign up in the front garden. "What?" she asked, utterly confused. "They moved."
Sirius made a little noise. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "But, they did think you'd died. Maybe it was too much for them and they had to leave. If you give me some time, I can try to track them down."
She nibbled her lower lip for a moment, before shaking her head. "No, I know who will know where they are," she answered, grabbing his hand again. "Let's go."
In a blink, they were standing in front of the charming cottage her grandparents lived in after retirement. She didn't wait for Sirius before she marched up to the front door and knocked. It took a few moments, but eventually the door was swinging open, revealing her grandfather. He looked at her and then Sirius warily, but recognition quickly set in.
"Hello Grandpa Mark," Hermione greeted him. "Or should I say Grandpa Marius?"
The old man sighed heavily. "I suppose I'll put the kettle on," he answered, defeated that his secret had been discovered. "You can wait in the parlor."
She led Sirius into the room and sat down on the open settee, before using her wand to light the fire for a bit of warmth. They waited in silence, with Hermione looking around at the various pictures that were up around the room. There was no sign of her grandma tinkering away in the kitchen and she said as much when her grandfather returned, three cups of tea in hand.
"She's gone into the city to see a floral show," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "But I doubt you came here today to make small talk. And you certainly don't... look quite like the Hermione I remember."
"Yes," Hermione agreed, taking a sip of the near scalding liquid to get a wrap around all the thoughts swirling in her head. "I went to visit my parents today, but they had sold their house. Where did they go?"
Her grandfather looked at her curiously. "You know that that Ministry of yours told your parents that you had died," he said with a sneer. "It absolutely broke them. Their only daughter, taken away to a world that they could never understand, killed in some way those wizards couldn't explain. They agonized over it for weeks, until..."
"Until?" Hermione asked, looking at him expectantly.
"The Ministry of Magic offered them a service and they took them up on it," he continued, a dark look coming over his face. "Said they had magic to make them forget their pain around you. And when the pain became too great, they took the offer. They forgot that they ever had a child and decided it was time for some fresh scenery. Sold their house and the practice. They live in Australia now."
Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought of it. "They obliviated them?" she asked, looking to Sirius for some confirmation that the Ministry would actually do something like that.
"It is unfortunate now, seeing as you are not actually dead," her grandfather said, his mouth a hard line of disappointment. "What happened to you anyway?"
It took all she had not to sneer at her grandfather. "I'm sure you remember, from your time in the wizarding world, about the existence of time turners," Hermione explained. "Well, I had an unfortunate accident and ended up back in 1977, where the Black family made me aware of my true ancestry. Our true ancestry."
Marius cocked his head and really looked at her. "You look so much like Aunt Belvina, it's... off putting," he said, as if it was the first time that he was seeing her. "I suppose that explains this one. He's clearly a Black. Who does he belong to anyway?" he asked, gesturing to Sirius.
"I'm Sirius Black. I'm your cousin Arcturus's grandson," Sirius said, giving the old man a nervous smile. "Oh, and I suppose your brother Pollux's grandson, too."
"God bless them," he said with a laugh. "Marrying family members together. But then, I suppose they always took blood purity to heart."
Sirius shrugged his shoulders. "I understand that my parents were a love match," he said, not bothered by the judgement at all.
"Lord above, I don't know if that makes it worse or better," Marius quipped.
Hermione bristled. She didn't really like anyone talking about Orion and Walburga that way, even though the truth of the matter was that they were related. Instead, she turned her ire back to her grandfather. "How could you have never told me who I really was?" she demanded, so many questions pouring out of her after all this time. "You knew how distressed my parents were when I started having accidental magic! So many questions about what was happening to their only child and you just sat there silently."
"What did you want me to say?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You could have told them I was a witch many years before I was contacted by Hogwarts!" Hermione said, anger welling up inside her. "Not one of the four of you thought to tell them what you were — and I know that you must have all known that you were squibs. How else would you have found each other?"
She saw her grandfather flinch at the word squib, so much pain there even after so much time. "Telling them would have revealed the shame of where we came from," Marius hissed. "That our family line all saw fit to throw away children just because we didn't fit the perfect image of pureblood life. They didn't have to throw us away, but they still did!"
"But what about me? I was just a child! I was just as confused... just as othered as you were. A muggle child with magic?" Hermione asked. "You let me think that I was a muggleborn and if I hadn't gone to the past, I never would have learned the truth!"
"Oh, and what, you think that you are a pureblood now?" he asked, laughing at her. "I'm surprised that they accepted you at all."
Hermione felt her cheeks color. "I don't need a label, but our family has accepted me and helped me navigate my world," she defended them, thinking about how much had changed since they had taken her in. "Which is more than I can say of you. You could have helped a child understand who she was and decided not to. And for what reason?"
"Have they accepted you or have they used you?" he asked, eying the ring that she wore. "How long did it take them to try to sell you off to some other pureblood family, hmm? And now you wear their clothes and their jewelry, so happy to embrace the family that would sooner spit on you if you really were a muggleborn."
Her blush only intensified. She couldn't help herself from playing with the delicate L on the signet ring.
"It would have been better for you never to know," he continued. "I never would have done anything to send you to a family that threw me out on the street. I would never do anything to help make the Black family stronger."
She swallowed, feeling tears prickle at the back of her eyes. "It would have helped me and my parents," she said, leaning against Sirius's shoulder. "And now they are gone and I will never see them again. I hope that you can live with your decision to keep that information to yourself."
Sirius wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Come on, Hermione, let's get you home," he suggested softly, perhaps seeing that this conversation wasn't going anywhere but in circles. "He's obviously too bitter that you have magic and he doesn't, to actually care about the problems he is responsible for."
Hermione felt a tear slide down her cheek, but stood up from the settee, letting him lead her to the door. Her grandfather did not try to stop them or to challenge Sirius's assertion. And when they returned to the sunshine in the front garden, they disappeared into the air with a pop.