A/N~ So, here’s the next brilliant chapter of my awesome fan fiction. Okay, okay, I was just kidding. But really, I really hope you enjoy it, and please review afterwards and tell me what you think of the chapter. By the way, if you’ve reviewed one of my past chapters, you might want to check it because I ALWAYS respond back. Okay, now you can read the chapter. ~
Harry and Sirius Apparated to Grimmauld Place with a loud “CRACK” (which just so happened to wake up the Dursleys, but Harry and Sirius had no way of knowing that). As they got there, Sirius remarked, “Home sweet home, eh?” Sirius looked around in disgust, remembering all of the bad memories his old house held. Then a thought occurred to him. “Hey, I just realized something, Harry. I’m not sure which one of us actually owns this place now. Technically, you do since I left it to you, but then again, I’m not dead so I don’t know if the will still counts. Funny how that works out, isn’t it?”
Harry looked around, thinking about what Sirius had said, and then remembered something very important. “Sirius, I said that the Order could still use this as headquarters. That means…” They both exchanged a fearful glance, and then looked around. Both were completely silent, listening ever so carefully for the slightest trace of movement.
“I think we’re safe for now Harry, but what are we going to do when they get here? There’s always someone from the Order here sometime during the day. Probably Remus,” Sirius added,” because he’s here almost all the time, or at least at night. Actually, maybe not since he might’ve been here all alone. I wouldn’t know,” Sirius said casually with a smile.
“I don’t know, but what am I going to tell them? Obviously, I’ll have to face whoever it is alone. I mean, you can’t just be here without warning. I’ll have to tell them that you’re back from the dead before they actually see you, or else they’ll think that they’re going insane. That’s what I thought anyways,” Harry said rather guiltily.
“Wow, that’ll be an interesting conversation,” Sirius remarked, finding the whole situation quite funny. “I might have to listen in from the pantry or something. I can just see you saying, ‘But Professor Lupin, he really is back! You have to believe me!’ And then Remus would say, ‘Harry, I think you need to get to bed. Lack of sleep must have gotten to you.’ They won’t think that they’re going insane, but they will think you are,” Sirius said, trying not to laugh as he pictured the conversation.
“Sirius, this is not funny. They really are going to think that I’m going insane! I had no problems believing it myself, so why should they?” Harry said exasperatedly.
“Come on Harry, they’re only going to think that you’re insane for a few minutes. Then I’ll just pop out of no where, and then they’ll have to believe you.”
Harry groaned. This was not going to be easy. Then he remembered that Sirius still hadn’t told him… “Sirius, you still haven’t told me how, well, how you’re not dead,” Harry said awkwardly.
“Oh yeah, very interesting actually, but we might want to do this little get-together upstairs. How about Buckbeak’s room? Oh my gosh!” Sirius added. “What happened to Buckbeak? Is he getting taken care of? Is he still here? Has he gotten food and water? Has he had exercise? Is he-’’
“SIRIUS!” Harry yelled, trying to stop the rambling on of questions. “Buckbeak is fine. He’s with Hagrid now. We changed his name of course. It’s, um,” Harry said, as he tried to remember. “Oh yeah, it’s Witherwings!”
“Oh, okay then,” Sirius said, becoming much calmer instantly. “Well anyways, we should go up to the room where I kept Buckbeak, er, Witherwings. We can hear what’s going on outside from there, so we’ll know if someone’s coming.”
“Okay,” Harry replied, getting anxious. He was very interested to hear how his godfather had miraculously returned from the dead.
The two climbed upstairs to room that had once been the home of a gigantic birdlike creature. There were bloodstains on the floor and walls from all the dead ferrets. They each went and sat in the only clean part of the room, which was where Sirius used to sit when he was up there with Buckbeak.
“Alright. Now you must first understand that I don’t know exactly why everything happened, but I’ve got pretty good guesses. I do know some things for sure though, so it won’t all be guesses.” Sirius paused to make sure Harry understood, and then went on, “Well, first, right after I fell through the veil, something very strange happened. I-“ Sirius stopped and perked his head up, much like a dog does (what a coincidence, eh?). He could hear something outside. Someone was coming.
* * *
Ginny was pacing up and down her room, trying to think of a plan. She knew she couldn’t just come out and say plain as day, “Oh, by the way, I’m going with you to Godric’s Hollow.” They weren’t going to be happy that and she knew it. She had to be secretive about it, and she had to think of something soon.
Then, as she was pacing along over and over again, there was a knock on her door. “Oh great,” she thought, “Mum’s coming to check on me.” She strode over to her door, but hesitated. Maybe if she was just very quiet and didn’t do anything, Mrs. Weasley would go away. She stood there, wondering if she should just open the door and get it over with, when the door was opened for her. She was surprised to find not Mrs. Weasley, but-
“Ron? I figured it was Mum coming to check on me.”
“Well, you were close enough. Mum sent me up here for her. But we’re the only two in the house right now. Mum left with Fleur (Ginny rolled her eyes), Charlie is at Fred and George’s shop, and obviously Dad’s at work. So, what’re you doing?” Ron asked looking around the room curiously, as if Ginny was doing dangerous experiments secretly like Fred and George used to do.
“Nothing,” Ginny replied innocently.
“Oh come on, you can’t be doing nothing. You’ve been up here all day. You just can’t do NOTHING for a whole day,” Ron said, looking at Ginny suspiciously.
“Yes you can, because I have been,” Ginny replied simply.
Ron narrowed his eyes at her, searching for a trace of guilt in her eyes. He found none, so he shrugged in defeat and he left her without another word. Ginny watched his retreating figure down the hall, then closed the door and sighed.
* * *
Ron walked up to his room, wondering what Ginny could possibly be doing in there. He hadn’t seen anything suspicious, and she didn’t look guilty. Then again, Ginny was very good at not looking guilty when she was up to something. Yes, Ginny was definitely up to something. That much Ron could tell, but he wanted to know what. That’s when he got an idea.
He ran to Fred and George’s old room, and started throwing things all over the place. He threw clothes, paper, remains of their old experiments, etcetera. He was looking for some long, peach-colored string. Some very special long, peach-colored string. And then he saw some. The Extendable Ears.
Ron grabbed the string and ran to insert it under Ginny’s door. It was long enough that he could reach it under the door, and then he could go back to his room. The Extendable Ears were the perfect thing to find out what Ginny was doing. If she was writing something, he would hear the scratching of the quill. If she was simply reading a book, he would hear the turning of pages. If she was talking to herself (which was very out-of-character for Ginny, so it would be a sure sign that something was wrong), he would hear what she was saying. Whatever she was doing, he would hear it.
Ron carefully and quietly slipped one end of the string under Ginny’s door, and then walked carefully and quietly back to his room. He sat on his bed, and listened, and waited for a few seconds, and then he heard something. It was …footsteps? Ginny was just walking? Then a thought came to Ron. She must have been reading something while she was walking! A letter would have fit nicely in the category of what she was reading. Yes, that was it, Ginny was reading a letter, Ron concluded in his mind.
Then another thought came to Ron (wow, two in a day, that’s a record). If Ginny was reading a letter, it had to be from someone. But who would send Ginny a letter? Ron’s eyebrows wrinkled in frustration. Why couldn’t Ginny just tell him what she was doing?
Then there was a knock on his door. He went over and opened it to find Ginny, looking concerned.
“There’s someone downstairs to see you. And he’s in a right state,” Ginny said.
“Who is it?” Ron asked, wondering who would be there to see him. Harry and Hermione weren’t coming until tomorrow, and there was no one else he could think of that would be there for him.
“You’ll see,” Ginny replied, again leaving Ron frustrated with her. Why didn’t she tell him anything anymore?
Ginny moved aside to let him pass, so he walked downstairs, feeling apprehensive for some reason. He heard Ginny close her door a floor above him. Ron walked into the kitchen to find… Neville Longbottom.
“Neville?” Ron asked incredulously. “What are you doing here?”
“Sorry, but I had to come because I thought at first to go to Harry’s house, but then I remembered that he lived with his aunt and uncle, and they’re muggles so they probably didn’t have the Flew Network and I don’t have my license to Apparate, so I couldn’t do that either, so then I thought of you and I came here and-“
“NEVILLE!” Ron yelled, making Neville go silent. “I’ll ask you again. What exactly are you doing here?” Then Ron went over to Neville (who was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table). As he sat down next to Neville, he could see that he was shaking. “Neville, has something happened?”
“Ron, my grandmother’s gone missing!” Neville exclaimed, turning ghostly white.
“She just went missing? Are you sure she didn’t leave you a note somewhere, or mention that she was going anywhere?” Ron asked, knowing Neville to forget things.
“No, she never said anything, and she would never just leave me a note because… she’d know I probably wouldn’t find it,” Neville said, blushing. Ron looked at Neville sadly. He knew that Neville’s parents were in St. Mungo’s, so he lived with his grandmother. What would Neville do without her there?
“Mum will let you stay here, Neville. Harry and Hermione are both coming here tomorrow, and we will all do something to find your grandma. Don’t worry, it’ll all be fine,” Ron said comfortingly to Neville. “Have you ever been here before?” he added, trying to change the subject.
“No,” Neville replied.
“C’mon, I’ll show you my room.” Neville followed Ron up the stairs, wondering what exactly tomorrow would bring.
* * *
Hermione watched the girl lying on her bed, waiting for her to wake up. Hermione sat at her desk, drumming her fingers impatiently. She found that staring at the girl could get quite dull, and watching Crookshanks play with his tail wasn’t as exciting as it sounds, so she decided to look out the window. It was a beautiful day, and sunshine was streaming into the room. Hermione saw a family of birds in a tree right outside her windowsill. There was a baby bird with its parent birds feeding it newfound worms. “That’s nice,” Hermione thought, “I wish life was that predictable.”
Just then, Crookshanks jumped up on the windowsill, and tried to jump at the glass. Obviously, he didn’t get through a solid material, but he scared the poor birds, who flew away from their supposedly-safe home. Hermione looked accusingly at Crookshanks, who had landed on the floor, and thought that life wasn’t always as it seemed after all.
Reluctantly, Hermione looked back over at the girl, and jumped about a foot in the air, literally. The girl was sitting up, gazing around at her surroundings. Her eyes rested on Hermione, and they just looked at each other, the same way they had looked at each other the first time they met; only this time there wasn’t nearly as much fear in either of their eyes.
Out of no where, the girl said happily, “Hello.”
“Um, hi,” Hermione said uncertainly. “And, um, who are you exactly?”
“Oh, my name is Ella, Ella Jerrica. Hermione, do you know who I am?”
“No,” Hermione replied with uncertainty in her voice again. “I don’t mean to be rude, but why in the world would I know who you are? And how do you know who I am?”
All of a sudden, the girl looked very sad for no reason whatsoever. “They haven’t told you, have they?” she asked.
Hermione went from looking confused to looking concerned. “Who? Who didn’t tell me what? Sorry if I’m being rude again, but YOU’RE MAKING ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!” Hermione screamed as she became frustrated. Her yelling brought Mr. and Mrs. Granger running into the room. They looked from the girl on the bed to their very red-in-the-face daughter.
“Hello,” Mrs. Granger said politely and rather more calmly than would have been expected. “I’m Mrs. Granger. What is your name dear, and where are you from?” she asked, as though the girl were a foreign exchange student.
The girl looked Mrs. Granger in the eye, and replied simply, “I’m Ella.” Mrs. Granger’s face went very, very white. She exchanged a fearful glance with her husband, who had gone stock-still.
“Ella?” Mrs. Granger asked as she began to cry. Whether it was tears of joy or tears of sadness, Hermione couldn’t tell. “Oh my gosh! How in the world did you find us?” Mrs. Granger added.
“I’ll tell you everything, but first I think we should tell Hermione who I am. Why didn’t you two ever tell her?” the girl named Ella asked.
Mr. and Mrs. Granger looked at each other. Mr. Granger answered, “We thought it would be safer if she never knew about you. If she went looking for you, something could have happened to her. And for all we had known, you might have been dead, so we just figured it was better for all of us if she never knew.”
“Well, it’s not better for her. She has a right to know everything. And I’m going to tell her. You’ve had your chances, so now it’s my turn,” Ella replied defiantly.
“Wait a second!” Hermione exclaimed. “You know her?” she shot at her parents. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew who it was when she was unconscious?”
“We didn’t know it was Ella because we haven’t seen her since she was a baby. We had absolutely no idea that it was her,” Mrs. Granger explained.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Hermione asked exasperatedly.
“I will,” Ella said. She took a deep breath, and said, “Hermione, you’re my sister. My twin sister.”
Hermione’s mouth fell to the floor, and her eyes bugged out. "What...she...you...but this...huh?” she managed to stutter. When Hermione stuttered, and it certainly wasn’t often, it was a sure sign of confusion.
“Hermione, we aren’t your real parents. You were adopted. Of course, we love you as if you were our own,” Mrs. Granger added quickly. “I couldn’t have children, so we decided to adopt a baby. We went to the orphanage, and we looked at all the poor little children there that had no family. We absolutely adored the both of you, but so did another family. We wanted both of you, and they wanted both of you, so we decided to each take one of you. We got you, Hermione, and they got Ella.”
“The people at the orphanage said that your parents had died mysteriously, and the doctors couldn’t find any trace of what had happened. They also said that the both of you were dropped off at the orphanage right before that happened. It was like your parents knew they were going to die, but they wanted you two to be safe. We were amazed at this information. This was all they had to say, so we took you home, and said a sad goodbye to Ella, thinking we would never see her again,” Mr. Granger said.
Mrs. Granger continued, “We raised you as if you were our own, and we never told you that you were adopted. Then, around your eleventh birthday, you got your Hogwarts letter. We found out about magic for the first time, and were amazed once again. We realized how special you really were, and why all the strange things happened to you when you were a baby. After a while, we realized how your parents had died. They were murdered by magic which left no trace. That’s why the doctors couldn’t find anything. That’s also why they must have known something bad was going to happen. They were working against, um, what’s his name again dear?” Mrs. Granger said, turning towards Hermione.
“Voldemort,” Ella said for her.
“Oh, yes, thank you. Lord Voldemort. They were working against him. So he must have killed them. It was all very sad when we realized what must have happened, but it was all the more reason not to tell you,” Mrs. Granger said sadly.
“Hermione, we weren’t muggle-born,” Ella said, and this hit Hermione hard (along with all of the other information she had just learned). If Hermione would have just thought about it, she would have realized that her parents would have to have been magic to be working against Voldemort. But since the ability to think seemed to have escaped Hermione at the moment, this thought never occurred to her. “We are the last of a long generation of witches and wizards. I learned all about our parents and who we are. My family told me because they thought the opposite of what you two thought,” Ella said to Mr. and Mrs. Granger. “They actually thought it was safer that I know who I am. Hermione, do you need some time alone to think this all out?” she added.
“Ella, you stay. We need to talk,” Hermione said.
“Before we go, I have one last question,” Mr. Granger said. “What happened to your family? Why are you here?”
Ella got the pained look that she had before she collapsed the first time. “They’re, they’re dead,” Ella said sadly, looking down at her feet. “He, and you know who I mean, found out who I am, and he killed them to try to get to me,” she said, sadness filling her voice. Mr. and Mrs. Granger looked at her sympathetically, and left the room as Hermione wished.
Hermione and Ella sat in silence for a minute, and then Hermione spoke. “This is unbelievable. Literally. I wouldn’t have believed you if my parents hadn’t gone along with it all.” She looked at Ella, and said, “This is really true? You really are my sister?”
Ella nodded, and Hermione flung her arms around Ella’s neck. “Ella, I’m so sorry that your family died. But why would Voldemort want to ‘get to you’? And how did you know where to find me?”
“I still don’t know how it all happened. It was a long, hard journey, but somehow I found you,” Ella said, ignoring the first question.
“Ella, I’ve never heard of the name Jerrica. I’ve read a lot of books, and I’m sure I would have found the name somewhere.”
“Well, not everything is in books you know. Like I said, we’re the last of our family, and our parents died seventeen years ago. There wouldn’t be a record of anything really, except their deaths,” Ella finished sadly.
“Why?” Hermione asked.
“Well, I guess they just didn’t feel the need to keep a record of everything,” Ella said smiling. “Oh, by the way, you don’t happen to be super-smart, do you?”
Hermione blushed, and said, “Well, I won’t say that, but I did get very good grades, and I got a fair bit of OWL’s, and-”
“Okay, yeah, you’re super-smart. That means our parents were right about us!”
“What do you mean?” Hermione asked confused.
“They gave you the name ‘Hermione’, which is a modification of the Greek god ‘Hermes’ who was the messenger of all the gods. Supposedly, he was super-smart. So anyways, they gave me the name ‘Ella’, which means ‘supernatural beauty’. I don’t mean to sound snotty like ‘Oh, I’m so perfect and beautiful’, because trust me, I’m not perfect at all. But I do have looks. No offense of course, because I think that you’re pretty too,” Ella said truthfully.
“Why thank you,” Hermione said. “Actually, I remember thinking that you were pretty when I first saw you. I loved your eyes,” Hermione said.
“Thank you,” Ella replied, smiling.
“Well, it’s true,” Hermione replied matter-of-factly.
“Well anyways, what’s it like?” Ella asked simply.
“What’s what like?” Hermione asked, confused for about the five hundredth time that day.
“Going to a huge, famous, magic school. I only went to a very small one that only had about fifty people,” Ella replied.
“Only fifty?” Hermione asked amazed. “But I thought that the only magic schools were Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beaubatons. Those are the only ones ever mentioned in books.”
“Those are the three major schools, but there are a bunch of really little ones,” Ella explained.
“Oh,” Hermione said simply.
“So, who are your best friends?” Ella asked conversationally.
“Well, Ron Weasley, but you wouldn’t know him. And my other best friend is Harry Potter-“
Ella gasped. “Harry Potter? No way, you are not seriously best friends with … Harry Potter! Oh, I’m so jealous! Oh my gosh! I have to meet him!”
“You can meet him tomorrow actually. I was going over to Ron’s house for the rest of the summer, and so is Harry. You can come with.”
“Oh yay!!!” Ella exclaimed very excitedly. She looked around Hermione’s room. “Well, I guess we’ll have to get packing then!” Ella bent down to pick up a book off the floor, but Hermione packed everything neatly in her trunk with a wave of the wand. Ella looked up at Hermione smiling and said, “Well, we’re done.”
Then Hermione gasped. “Oh, you must be positively starved!” she exclaimed.
Ella looked down at her stomach. “Yes, I am starved. And I just love food!” she added.
“Okay then. Let’s go downstairs and get you something to eat,” Hermione said, leading the way to the door. Both girls walked downstairs, chatting happily.
________________________________________________________________________
A/N ~So, how’d I do? I didn’t really leave any cliffies this time. Okay, yes I did, but not at the end. Please review!!!!!!!!! I might wait till I have a certain amount of reviews before submitting the next chapter, probably ten or something like that. SO THAT MEANS REVIEW! Oh yeah, I’m really sorry this took so long to get up, but things kept going wrong and it got rejected, so I’ll try and get the next chapter up quicker.~