Sang Sacré

Chapter 2

April 15, 2000

The earliest portkey to the British Ministry of Magic wasn't until the following morning, so Hermione spent her last few hours for the foreseeable future in her flat, packing away all of her belongings into just her beaded bag and one trunk- both containing undetectable extension charms. Her landlord lived in the apartment above her, and she pushed a letter underneath the door apologizing for the late notice, thanking her for his hospitality, and notifying the man of her swift return to London in the morning.

Hermione did not sleep even a minute. She paced and paced around the now empty place, drank endless cups of tea, and tried to reason out possible answers to her many questions. She decided that she wouldn't be informing anyone of her return to London until she had more information to actually tell them. She just hoped the Leaky Cauldron still had a room available when she portkeyed back. If she spoke to Harry or the Weasley's, they'd be roping her into all of these social commitments and conversations she just simply did not have the emotional energy for at present.

When the time came, she caught her portkey and rented a room at the Leaky- luckily Hannah Abbott had found her a space and promised her discretion, which Hermione had no doubt was sincere. She was in and out of the room in under two minutes to drop off her things before she was heading back outside to the apparition point and on her way to her home.

Hermione was shaking when her trainers hit the grass in the back garden of her childhood home. She took a few steadying breaths before allowing herself to cross the garden and reach the back door. Portkey travel always had a way of disorienting her and it only got worse the farther the distance traveled. Sydney was far enough from London to almost make her vomit. She normally tried to eat something to settle her stomach before traveling, but she couldn't even imagine stomaching anything besides tea (or perhaps something stronger) at the moment. The back-to-back sensations of apparition and portkey had black outlining the edges of her vision. She took another deep breath, willing her body to cooperate as she flung open the back door.

For perhaps the thousandth time, Hermione reviewed the information she already knew. Half an hour had not been nearly enough time to have what was probably the most important conversation of her life. Her mother, too worked up from all of the excitement, had started panicking and regressing, which led to Hermione being unceremoniously dumped outside their room before they sedated her.

Before that happened, however, Hermione was able to get some answers. Her parents had faked the deaths of their family of three and fled from their estate somewhere in France a few weeks following Voldemort's first defeat- the night Harry's parents had died- and relocated to what they assumed would be a safe London. She was also able to deduce that due to the identity changes and lack of records, Hermione had been registered as a Muggle-born by the Ministry of Magic and subsequently Hogwarts when she showed up for her education.

Hermione snorted to herself as she let herself into the kitchen, steadily walking through the house to the stairway at the front. How ironic was it that the arguably most famous Muggle-born witch of all time wasn't even a Muggle-born at all? In fact, Hermione had been told by her parents that she was a Pureblood, and a member of the Sacred 28 at that.

Her father- who was actually named Richard Nott- was the younger brother of Tiberius, who she had seen in person only once from afar at King's Cross station during her fourth year. Tiberius was the father of her previous classmate Theodore, who was probably the only Slytherin she had ever remotely gotten along with. More recently, Hermione had seen Tiberius' face on the Daily Prophet following his trial.

While they were unable to talk much about her mother's family, she was told her name was Camille Grenier, which was a notable French Pureblood family. They had chosen "Granger" as their new surname to have some semblance of familiarity in their new identities.