Chapter Two
SEPTEMBER 19, 1996
She walked through those same hallways as if everything was fine.
Like everything was completely normal. Like she hadn't just woken up with a completely different face than the one she used to have before today; a face she was now coming to realize may have never been hers to have in the first place.
Like she didn't just wake up to her whole life changed forever, as if she hadn't just realized her whole life was one big fucking lie all along, and regardless of how hard she might try to revert it back to the way it used to be before, there was nothing she could do that could make anything better now.
She was Hope.
Hope with her long, fancy dark hair that would never look as if she had been through a terrible hurricane and even if she did go through a hurricane, she didn't doubt it would look quite attractive to some very hormonal teenagers.
Hope with her full, red lips that curled ever so slightly because she was overly anxious what everyone would say, what they would think of her now that everything in her life seemed to have turned the wrong way, the complicated way.
Hope with her mysterious parents whose names she didn't even know because someone there was being a complete wanker when really, he didn't have the right to treat her this way when he was the one who had gotten her in this fucking mess in the first place. Hope with the mysterious paternal grandmother who may or may not have wished her dead if she'd found out about her existence and, honestly speaking, what kind of person would wish for their own blood to die, whether she agreed with her father, or not?
But then again, the wizarding world was very different from the muggle one, and there were ways people could surprise her in a way she didn't find welcoming in the slightest.
Hope who at the moment really didn't know what she should do now that her whole life had became all too complicated and completely messed up, and truthfully speaking, she felt like she was about to curl on the floor, and break down in front of everyone in this room. And she wouldn't be able to live past that. Because showing such a weakness in front of anyone? It would be a complete social suicide.
Hermione took a deep, calming breath before she sat down next to Harry Potter, the one boy she would never be able to look in that one way people always tended to think she did.
"Excuse me, but I've saved up that seat for my best friend and I would be really grateful if you've found someplace to sit at. It's completely fine, if you don't, though. We can find someplace to sit and--have we ever meet before? Because I haven't seen you anywhere around here, and I am fairly certain I've met every Gryffindor there is to meet here."
"Harry."
Harry Potter was one of the few people she would never regret having met in her life regardless of how deeper into a trouble she had gotten because of him during the span of the time she had known him. He was someone who would never leave a helpless alone when he could have done something to help him, anything to help him. For, he was not only selfless and a good man and a wizard, but he also cared quite deeply for others more than she could ever imagine having to care. Even if his constant need to save those people have proved to be more than just troublesome quite number of times.
One simply cannot save everyone. Just as he could not mourn over everyone he failed to save. It was a sure path to the madness. One she really hoped Harry would learn sometime soon. Otherwise, she would have to fear losing her very best friend.
"Have you started on your Potions essay? We are supposed to have it done by the next Monday, you know. You won't be to finish it in the time unless you get started very soon." She bit her lips smilingly in an effort to resist the urge to burst out laughing at Harry's face, those astonished and completely confused look he was wearing on his face right now.
She had managed to leave Harry Potter completely dumbfounded. Who would have thought?
"Hermione?" He slowly gaped open at her with wide, bright-green eyes. "You really are Hermione?" She nodded her head in the agreement and proceeded to toss bread onto her mouth, the taste bland on her tongue. "How? Why? How?"
"I woke up like this today." She really was starving. She just hadn't realized exactly how much until she took the bite of French toast just now. Though, it did make sense she was hungry. She'd been through a lot the last hour, and today wasn't even close to over.
"I would explain, but I really am hungry right now. So, I have to eat something first before I collapse from the hunger. Besides, I don't even know everything. That devious old fucker was playing games with me. Saying how he would tell me the full story only after I manage to wring the information out of Professor Slughorn."
She should have known he wasn't someone to be trusted when he did that twinkling eyes of his for the first time when she was an eleven-year-old naïve little kid with an obsession for old, prized books. She should have known better. Never trust old men with deep secrets they don't wish to share with the world.
Besides, why can't he just defeat that noseless bastard if Albus Dumbledore is someone so powerful that he has everyone fear of his never-ending power and knowledge? Why make an orphaned poor boy go through that hell if he could simply do it himself? She really, really hated that guy.
Harry arched his eyebrows. "Professor Slughorn?" he asked. "What does Professor Slughorn have anything to do with the newest developments of your life?"
"Long story short; apparently, I am actually adopted and my parents were really good friends with the old man. Which is exactly why Dumbledore wants me to wring that information out of him. I don't really know if it's true, but he feels like I would have more success in getting him to open than you would."
"Did you just say you are adopted?" Ron Weasley strode in with an astonished look on his face, and upon seeing her face, frowned deeply to his brow. "Wait. You are not Hermione. Who the bloody hell are you?"
Now, Ronald Weasley was a different story.
He wasn't quite a brother, but he wasn't quite a lover either. Sometimes, those were those moments she had a feeling there was something quite special between them, but then he would go on and say something she didn't completely agree with, and they would go back to arguing back and forth. Shortly, it was really complicated story. One she didn't feel like dwelling on right now.
Hermione sighed deeply under her breath. "It's me, Ronald. Hermione. You know? Whose cat you so rudely had insulted when we were thirteen?" Ronald opened his mouth to defend himself, but she interrupted him by continuing in quite a story-telling voice. "Anyway, as I was saying before Ronald interrupted, I am adopted. Apparently, my parents were both members of Professor Slughorn's Slug Club back in the day."
"Which must mean your parents had been both wizards," Ronald commented, taking the news far more casually than she thought he would.
Hermione smiled slightly in the response, refraining from telling him it didn't take a genius to figure that one out. Because that would be very rude of her, not to say wrong and ever since the accident with her former muggle friend back home (except she didn't really have a home), she was trying to be nicer to the people who didn't match her IQ level. It was proving to be harder than she thought it would be.
"Don't interrupt."
Ronald sheepishly looked away. "Sorry." he said.
"Anyway, after something very dramatic and tragic happened to my parents, Albus Dumbledore had left me in an orphanage where Jonathan and Joyce adopted me soon after."
Quite unfortunately.
"So, you basically know nothing?"
"I know my father must have come from a very important family. Pureblood one, if I have to guess. And my mother must have been either muggle-born or half-blood, or even a pureblood witch that came from a family like the Weasleys and Potters. And I know my name is Hope; a name of English origin, which means a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen if one bothers to look the word up in the English dictionary."
She smiled swiftly at them and then looked at her clock, blinking her eyes somewhat in the panic at how much time she had wasted chatting up with them. "It's almost time for the next class. Come on, let's go! We cannot be late. Professor Snape would have our heads if we do."
And then, one by one, they stalked out of the door into the familiar hallway that led to the classroom where defense against the dark arts class was being taught at every morning. They turned the corner side by the side and stalked inside, where they found a seat to the left side of the classroom of the front row, much to Ronald's chagrin.
Not a minute after, Professor Snape strode in with a dramatic swift of his robes, and spoke in a low, growling voice. "Well then, shall we see what you bunch of fools are capable of today?" He sounded tired.
Well, more tired than the usual, anyway.
Beside her, Ronald groaned loudly under his breath, and fell on top of the desk exegerantly. "Great." He commented drily. "Just great. Another day of failing to cast a magic nonverbally."
"Come on, Ronald. It's not that bad. It's actually fairly educative."
Ronald glared. "You are only saying that because you are naturally gifted at those." He snapped moodily. "Which is completely unfair advantage, if you ask me. What about the rest of us who aren't as naturally gifted?"
Professor Snape interrupted before she could say anything, however. "Is there anything you wish to discuss with the class, Mr. Weasley?" He seemed unimpressed.
When Ronald didn't open his mouth to say anything to defend himself, Snape continued. "I thought so. Twenty Points from Gryffindor for uselessly wasting my time." He then stood in the middle of the classroom, and spoke in a hurried, tired voice. "Now, shall we begin?"
September 19, 1977
Hogwarts, Scotland
"Snape!" Severus Snape opened his eye wide at the sound of his name coming out of those awfully unfamiliar lips, out of someone he had never spoken a word with in all the time he had been studying here.
Severus Snape didn't know a lot about him other than the fact he was the younger of the Black brothers, and he could sometimes see his red-haired former friend exchanging secretive glances with him from across the Great Hall, as if they knew something the rest of them did not.
Regulus Black was exactly the type of a boy Lily Evans crushed on normally; tall, dark-haired Slytherin boy who could play Quidditch better than anyone else in the whole fucking school (much to Potter's chagrin, of course), who smiled like every day was full of sunshine and rainbows even though everyone knew otherwise was true, and his smiles were as genuine as his temporary friendship with Lestrange.
Regulus Black spelled a trouble.
And he did not think Lily needed more trouble in her life, but he wasn't in any position to say anything to her right now. Not when she looked at him as if he were some cursed memory of her past she wished to forget ever happened in the first fucking place.
Besides, Lily was dating Potter right now, trying to fool herself that her relationship with him actually made any sort of sense when the only reason she was dating him was only because everyone and their mother kept telling her they belonged together. So much he feared she actually started to believe their words.
"Could you throw the ball to me?"
It was only then he did see the ball that was laying on top of the grass by his feet, and Severus had never been the athletic type, had never been the one to spend all day fooling around the pitch like it meant something if they won the game. Therefore, what would he do if he somehow threw the ball the other way around? Or if he simply didn't have the strength to throw the damn ball that far enough? It would be a complete embarrassment.
"Come on, Snape. It's just a fucking ball. What are you stressing over?" Regulus Black sounded annoyed. But maybe that was only because Scamander was standing there by his side with quite a troubled expression on his face, as if he were afraid something very terrible was going to happen any minute now.
Severus took a deep breath and then kicked the ball to Black. Miraculously, it landed exactly where he had intended it to land. Black smiled genuinely at him for what must be for the first time, and turned to Scamander, eyeing him up suspiciously.
"Come on, Xander. Tell me what happened. Which one of them managed to wring their way out of the suitcase this time?"
And then there was a loud, panicked yelling to be heard. "A fucking dragon got out?" he asked. "How in the Salazar's name did a bloody dragon manage to get out of your fucking suitcase?"
Severus turned on his heel and walked away from them just in case they try to recruit him in their search for the missing dragon before the teachers found out what had transpired in the last hour when they weren't watching them properly.
Just another ordinary day at Hogwarts.
September 19, 1996
Hogwarts, Scotland
He knew there was a very good reason why those chocolate-like eyes looked so familiar to him that first time he had met her. Because with that snow-white skin and those fancy, dark hair that had always been the envy of the male population of Hogwarts, she looked exactly like her father. Always thinking he was better than everyone else just because he was more far more talented, far more intelligent than the most people.
So, dubiously arrogant. The one everybody and their mother adored with only few exceptions in the between. The one she had loved so much. Just like his troublesome daughter.
"That would be the end of the lesson for today. Now, go on to your class." He was getting more and more tired as the day went on, as the day dragged on like it always did. What with his godson's mission to finish the old Headmaster, and the stress that plagued him due to it all. It was only after they were gone out of the classroom, he did manage to get himself together.
SEPTEMBER 19, 1996
PROFESSOR SLUGHORN'S OFFICE
"Professor?"
Professor Slughorn turned to look at her with wide, astonished eyes. "Oh, my. Is that you? I've heard about your newest development from Albus, of course--but I never thought...oh, you look so much like him, my girl. And you don't even know him. Tragedy! Quite a tragedy indeed!"
"Like my father?"
So, he really did know them. She wasn't certain it was true before now. If he had lied about her identity, who knew what else he could have lied to her about?
"He was very brilliant. Very brilliant indeed. And quite hard-working too. Always loved his books more than people, he did. Always carrying those books around the castle halls like he feared something would happen to them if he did not." He then lifted his head at her, crystal-blue eyes meeting her own chocolate-brown ones. "We were all devastated to hear he had been declared dead." Hermione started in the surprise, eyes widening at this newest development.
Declared dead?
"So, you don't actually know if he is actually dead?"
Her father could be alive.
Professor Slughorn made a quick move with his head. "Well, when someone like Regulus doesn't come back home for months, you don't know what else to think of."
"Regulus?"
Slughorn looked at her oddly. "You don't know, my dear girl? Albus didn't tell you who your parents were?"
She shook his head. "He wanted something in the return." He must have wished for Slughorn to tell her then. If he didn't wish to let her know, she thought, he wouldn't have sent her his way. "An information."
"Tom Riddle?"
She nodded her head. "Would you please tell me?" she asked. "I've heard it's a very important."
"Don't trust him, Miss Black. You would come to regret later on if you do."
Of course she knew that. She wasn't a complete fool.
Hermione gaped at the older wizard in the pure disbelief. "Regulus Black?" She asked. "My father is Regulus Black?"
Her mouth felt dry all of a sudden.
She remembered the lone portrait of a beautiful young boy in the living room on top of the fireplace she had seen last year, a portrait she had dismissed for nothing more than one of the many of Sirius' relatives she couldn't have cared less about.
Her heart throbbed achingly in her chest right then.
That boy had been her father. He was quite important to her.
He could still be alive somewhere in the world.
"And my mother?" she asked. "Who was she?"
Once again, Professor Slughorn looked at her oddly, "Why, Lily Evans, of course." He smiled, as if he didn't understand how she couldn't have known this piece of an information. "Honestly, Albus really should have told you more - "
Suddenly, Hermione felt dizzy. She tripped over the floor, the room spinning around her. And then, she collapsed down the floor, her eyes closing shut into the darkness.