Promise to the Past | 🐾 ᴍᴀʀᴀᴜᴅᴇʀs ✓

Golden Era 04 | Resurfacing Truths

-- BLACK FAMILY CELESTIAL HALL

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed. Everyone in the room was looking at the Black matriarch with varying expressions of shock. Hermione's daughter stared at her in confusion. Nova's brothers stared at their mother in curiosity and awe. Sirius Black looked at his wife with a cautionary warning. Hermione Granger stared at her, ready to panic. 

"Excuse us, children," Sirius said hastily, pulling his wife aside. He put a muffling charm around them to keep their discussion private. "Are you sure this is the right call?" 

"I suppose we would've had to tell them eventually," Hermione admitted, though she certainly hadn't planned for this conversation quite so soon either. "Besides, Nova's clearly asking right now. If we wait to tell her and just feed her a lie, it'll only lead to resentment later." 

"But she's eleven!" 

Hermione smiled sadly. "Harry learned much more traumatic truths about himself at age eleven in my time." 

"What about mini-you? Is she ready for this? She's only thirteen." 

Hermione smirked this time. "When I was thirteen, I was already time traveling for my classes, and if I remember correctly, I saved a certain dog we both have in acquaintance. If she's anything like I was, she'll be able to handle it." 

Even Sirius knew when he had to admit defeat. "I suppose. I guess I just didn't anticipate telling them. Why put that burden on them?" 

"I thought the same thing about telling you the full extent of what happened when I first came back in time," Hermione pointed out. "That kind of high-handed call doesn't save anyone pain at the end of the day. It just causes miscommunication." 

"How could this possibly hurt them?" Sirius asked in confusion. 

"Other than the fact Nova already suspects something is off and denying it would destroy our trust? What if years from now, mini-me unsuspectingly falls in love with one of our children?" 

Sirius's face twisted in distaste. "Oh 'Mione," he groaned. "That's like her dating her own kid. That's gross!" 

"Exactly," she said pointedly. "Waiting to tell them means letting them form relationships on false premises which could come back to bite them in the arse." 

"Fine, but you're going to have to be the one to tell them, kitten. This one's not on me." 

"It's my story to tell," Hermione shrugged. 

»»———— ☽ ༓ ☾ ———-««

Hermione figured she'd start from the beginning. When she led the entire family to the sitting area nearby, her young boys ran over as well, excited to hear the story. If she had to start from the beginning, her beginning placed her at her birth in 1979 to two muggle parents. While her kids looked confused, Granger sat there rigidly as Hermione Black essentially recounted a childhood parallel to her own. The first change did not come until she began talking about her Hogwarts experience. 

"But mum," Nova interrupted in confusion. "There was never a troll break-in at Hogwarts- I think I'd hear about that!" 

"There isn't in this timeline," her mother agreed. "I'm talking about my own childhood, love."