Chapter 4
Truth Be Told
Hermione stared at her little sister laying agape on the bed. It’s not that she was planning on keeping this a secret from Minnie forever. Logically, she would have found out eventually, when Hermione restored her parents’ memories. She just had hoped to do it with a little more tact, sensitivity, and grace.
To say the little girl’s current state of shock was understandable was certainly an understatement. Hermione could recall how utterly shocked she had been when the woman she would come to know as Professor McGonagall came to her door with her Hogwarts letter and her tales of the wizarding world; Hermione had not been able to make herself calm for more than a week after that. Combining that with Minnie so suddenly learning of the blood relation they shared, it was a miracle the girl hadn’t fainted! Hermione had known of the girl’s existence for more than ten years, and she was still having difficulty seeing her as her sister.
Hermione had been able to easily find the house that her parents had called home since they had arrived in Australia, and she had still been able to recognize her parents, even with the extra grey hairs and wrinkles. And they, in turn, recognized Hermione in an instant, though not as their firstborn daughter, as Hermione had hoped. They had, however, invited Hermione to stay at their home the way they had when she had last come ten years ago, so at least it was a start. It would be that much easier to lay the groundwork for restoring their memories.
But having her little sister be in on the secret was certainly going to gum up the works.
It certainly wasn’t as though Hermione had forgotten that she had a little sister. She spent much of the very necessary time the plane ride had given her preparing herself for that fact. Despite all this, it was still somewhat of a shock to have Hermione Wilkins go from being an infant to a ten-year-old child in her mind’s eye.
Now all that was left was how Minnie would come to view Hermione.
Slowly, cautiously, the younger girl pushed herself up into a seated position. “Y-you,” she stammered, “a-are my sister?” Minnie stared up at Hermione in the manner of someone eyeing a poisonous snake.
“Yes, Minnie,” Hermione remarked a bit too snidely. “That’s generally what the English language calls two girls who share the same parents.”
Caution ended, and Minnie practically leapt to her feet, still standing on the covers, her quilt rumpled around her.
“Then how come I’ve never heard of you?” the girl demanded. “And why would Mum and Dad name me Hermione if they already had a daughter named that? If Hermione is your real name!”
Oh, yes; this was where things were going to start getting truly complicated.
“Our parents don’t remember me because I cast a spell to make sure they wouldn’t,” Hermione tried to explain. “It was a long time ago, and the reason why is far too complicated to go into right now, but I can assure you, I am telling the truth. Your parents used to be called John and Jean Granger, and I am their daughter, Hermione Granger.”
“A likely story!” Minnie jumped from the bed down to the floor and began pacing in front of Hermione. Hermione’s eyes went wide after blinking back surprise. The girl had just learned of the existence of magic, and this was what she was suspicious of?
Of course, Hermione wondered if her sister was still somewhat indoctrinated by the image that children’s fairy tales put forth about witches. Even though Hermione didn’t have the classic green skin or hooked nose, it was easy to see how Minnie still might think witches were not to be trusted, if she even believed in witches at all.
On some level, though, Hermione had been preparing herself for this possible conversation, and she went into it knowing exactly what to use as evidence.
“Dad has more than likely seen a friend of yours with a loose tooth, and tried to yank it out himself so he wouldn’t have to deal with it at work,” Hermione contemplated the details of her parents’ lives. “Mum has bad knees, but she refuses to go on arthritis medication. She takes herbal supplements, but they don’t work.”
But this was still not enough to bring Minnie to believe her. “You’re friends with them,” she spat. “The fact that you know that doesn’t prove anything!”
But Hermione had a fair amount of evidence in her possession that might help to convince her sister otherwise. Striding over to her suitcase stashed in the corner, she retrieved a parcel hidden within the folds of a few of her warmer articles of clothing. It was a small album; old, and certainly worn. Before even returning to show it to Minnie, Hermione opened the album herself, brushing her fingertips over the old photographs. The page she had opened to showed a collection of photographs from the first days of school from her primary school years; her parents each standing by her side in all of them. Despite being quite younger, there was no denying that the couple smiling beside a small Hermione were the same couple now known as Wendell and Monica Wilkins.
Finally, Hermione made her way over to the younger girl at the side of the bed, flipping the album back to the front page before handing it over to the little girl. Carefully, Minnie took the album from Hermione’s hands and held it up close to her face. A surprised expression showed that the girl did indeed recognize the younger versions of her parents. She began to flip through the rest of the book, becoming more and more frantic as she progressed. Every now and then, she would shift her gaze back up to Hermione with a critical expression, as though trying to make out the most miniscule details of Hermione’s face to see if they match the little girl seen photographed with her parents. Each time Minnie did so, however, she only seemed to be faced with more and more proof that what Hermione was saying was true.
At long last, Minnie closed the album carefully and set it on the covers of the bed behind her, and then looked back up to meet Hermione’s gaze. With the revealed secret, Minnie’s eyes had grown quite wide. There was no way that Hermione could have faked such old-looking photographs, especially the smaller Polaroid pictures. Minnie was finally convinced.
She swayed back and forth on her feet, as though not quite sure whether to back away against the bed, or come closer. “So,” Minnie said slowly, “you’re really my sister?”
Hermione nodded. The ten-year-old in front of her shifted nervously from side to side, but truth be told, Hermione felt quite uncomfortable in the current situation herself, despite the fact the truth was finally off her chest.
Finally, curiosity gave in, and Minnie stepped closer, standing on her tiptoes to look Hermione in the eyes, although the little girl seemed somewhat guarded. “But…you’re so old.”
Hermione couldn’t help but scowl at the remark. She wasn’t that old; not to the point where she would imagine lying about her age, but she could understand what Minnie was trying to say. The two of them being nearly twenty years apart in age, it was hard to conceive of them being born from the same parents (that was a horribly unintentional pun!)
“So are our parents,” Hermione replied. “Surely you’ve notice that they’re a lot older than the parents of most of you friends.”
Minnie chewed on her bottom lip, but nodded softly, acknowledging that she knew that Hermione was right.
“So…how come I’ve never heard of you?” the little girl ventured. “And what’s this about a spell?”
Hermione breathed a small sigh of relief for one small victory tonight. At the very least, it seemed like the girl believed her at least somewhat when it came to the truth about magic. Of course, now that her younger sister finally did believe that magic existed, there was the matter of telling her a very long, very complicated, and very bloody story.
There was something unsettling about telling such a small child about such a horrific time in history, but still, there was no way Hermione would be able to explain their current circumstances without telling her sister the full story. She, Harry, and all the others had gone through the exact same thing with Teddy years before, when he had begun asking why he didn’t have a Mummy and Daddy like all his friends. Teddy was her best friend’s godson, but telling this to her own sister was far more different, despite the fact on an emotional level, she still didn’t quite feel that the two of them were sisters.
As Hermione began the story, Minnie leaned back against the bed, thoughtful eyes taking in every detail of the story her older sister told her.
“So many of my friends had the Death Eaters…the bad guys,” Hermione clarified, “going after their parents as a way of getting to people. I was so afraid they would do the same to my parents, and I was willing to do anything to keep them safe.”
Hermione found herself looking down and fidgeting with her fingers, in the manner of a guilty child, as she moved on to tell the next part of the story.
“So, about a month before my eighteenth birthday, I went to my”our”parents home; I cast an Memory Charm on them, and planted new memories into their minds. Memories that told them they were Wendell and Monica Wilkins, it was their life’s dream to move to Australia, and, most importantly, that they didn’t have any children. It was the best way I knew to keep them out of the grasps of war, and how I knew they would be safe.
“But as soon as the war was over, I was determined to get my family back. I went straight to Australia; I was fully intent on lifting the spell, but by then, nearly a year had past and our parents were more than settled here in Victoria. And, of course…” Hermione hesitated with her next words, “our mother was pregnant with you.”
Hermione could see that the little girl in front of her had become slightly more interested in the story now that she herself was being mentioned in it.
“I did everything I could to make them remember me,” Hermione went off again. “I couldn’t very well cast any spells on my mother while she was pregnant. Any witch or wizard could tell that any spell cast on a pregnant woman could have horrendous effects on the infant. So, I sought out other means of recovering their memories. Everything I had read and everything I had been told by St. Mungo’s Healers said that if I kept reminding them about details of their former lives, recreate scenarios that had happened in my childhood, eventually the constant assault on their consciousness would trigger their suppressed memories and the wards on the spell would eventually shatter.”
“It’s taken you that long?” Minnie remarked with a raised eyebrow. “You’re not a very good witch, are you?”
“I happen to be a highly skilled witch!” Hermione exclaimed, this time being genuinely insulted. “I originally cast this spell so that if anything were to happen to me in all the conflict, my parents would never even remember that they had a daughter! That is exactly why it is such a difficult spell to break!”
Minnie huffed under her breath, clearly unconvinced. Despite the slight blow to her ego, Hermione did her best to continue on with her story as calmly and collected as she could.
“Nothing I tried seemed to work. Eventually, I knew I was in over my head and I went back to England. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life trying to break such a powerful spell with only the meager understanding I had of how to break a Memory Charm. So, as I built a life for myself, I continued my study of Memory Charms, reading everything I could get my hands on, listening to anyone who would stand still long enough.”
Hermione’s longwinded story might have gone on further if Minnie hadn’t seemed to come into a very confrontational mood and rush up and stand on her tiptoes to look her dead in the eyes.
“You must not have missed them that much,” the little girl snapped loudly, accusingly, “if you took such sweet time to come back for them!”
Hermione found herself taking a few unintentional steps back towards the wall, confused. First, Minnie was afraid of Hermione, and now she was angry at her. Did this little girl need to be put on some sort of medication?
But for as startled as Hermione was by the sudden change in emotion, she was also quite angry. Had this girl even been listening when Hermione had told her that she had done what she did to keep their parents safe? That is, if Hermione had not cast this spell, there was a good chance that their parents would have been killed and that Minnie herself would not exist? Hermione had tried to do her best to keep the even temper in this conversation, but now she was quickly losing that battle.
“The fact that you came along most certainly didn’t help anything!” she shouted suddenly. “Even if I did stay and continued to fight a futile battle. Even if by some miracle I had been able to make them remember me just after you were born, what good would it have done? A new baby, along with all these sudden recovered memories? I would be surprised if the pure shock of it all didn’t drive them mad! And so I left, because I knew that if I waited until you were older and didn’t need Mummy and Daddy for every little thing, it would all be easier for everyone.”
“Who knows? Maybe if you hadn’t been born at all, what I came here knowing about lifting memory spells might have done something if I had been able to work at it a bit longer!”
Minnie’s previous brazen attitude all but disappeared as she shrunk back from the shrieking woman, creating a picture so pitiful that anyone who walked into the room at that moment would have known in an instant whose side to take. And Hermione felt an instant rush of guilt. Minnie cringed back as though she was afraid she might get hit, fist clenched underneath her chin, shuffling back towards a corner of the room. All of a sudden, the little girl seemed so much smaller and more vulnerable than the bold little creature and who went chasing after sharks who had been screaming in Hermione’s face just moments ago.
“Minnie, I’m sorry,” Hermione apologized, her hand to her forehead. “I just”emotions are running a bit high right now, for the both of us.”
Minnie nodded, conveying that she understood, but her bottom lip was trembling slightly, betraying the fact that she was still somewhat troubled by her older sister’s outburst.
“Come.” Hermione walked past Minnie and took a seat on the bed, patting the area beside her. “Sit down. We’ll talk.”
Despite the fact that the little girl was still clearly unsure of her motive, she made her way to the bed and took a seat beside her sister. Although, she kept her gaze directly in front of her, not making eye contact with Hermione.
“This is a bit strange for you and me both,” Hermione told her, keeping in mind to keep their physical contact to a minimum, at least for now. “I know the idea of getting back a family that’s so different from the one I grew up with is overwhelming for me, and I’ve had ten years to get used to the idea.”
Hermione giggled slightly, but she was alone in this. Although, Minnie did finally look up to make eye contact with her sister.
“Big brothers and sisters always have a hard time dealing with the fact that they’re parents have a new baby. And I tell you, it is much worse to deal with at my age!”
This time, Minnie joined in the laughing too. She even leaned over to rest her head on Hermione’s shoulder.
“I suppose it will take both of us time to get used to this,” Hermione admitted, subconsciously reaching over to smooth the little girl’s hair. “But I’ve met a lot of children who are much more horrific than you turned out to be. I suppose I got off easy in that facet.
Now, Minnie appeared much more at ease, relaxing completely against her sister’s side.
“So, what did you learn in ten years that’s going to help you this time?” she asked suddenly.
“A great deal,” Hermione told her, “but it’s mostly just a lot of different versions of what I knew about Memory Charms when I first came here. I am hoping, though, if I just keep at it even more vigorously this time, it will work.”
“Will you need my help?”
Hermione looked down at her little sister. “Hmm?”
Minnie explained, “Two people working at lifting a spell instead of one is certainly more vigorous. And what you tried before doesn’t really seem like it used a lot of magic, so I think I could be more than able to help Mum and Dad remember you.”
Hermione looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully as she considered the younger girl’s offer, tapping her fingers against her shoulders.
“I suppose you could be right,” Hermione admitted. “There are tactics I’ve been considering that don’t require magic. You could certainly help with those.”
A smile spread across Minnie’s face as soon as she got her answer, then she turned her gaze back up towards Hermione.
“Alright,” Minnie agreed, “but you also have to do something for me. I have terms.”
Hermione blinked back surprise, amazed that the ‘sweet’ child that had just been beside her had disappeared so fast. “You have terms?”
Minnie smirked as she swayed from side to side. “Yes, terms.”
Hermione scooted away, slightly nervous about just what it was that Minnie was hoping to get out of her assistance. It would certainly be nice to have the girl’s help, but it wasn’t as though she weren’t expendable!
“What might these terms be?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Minnie answered slyly, twirling a strand of loose hair. “I’ll have to think about it. It’s not as though I’ve already decided what I might want.”
Hermione held her shoulders slightly stiffed and made sure there was now a good amount of distance between them. Suddenly, however, Minnie pushed herself off the bed as though she were content to leave the conversation right where it was.
“Where are you going exactly?”
“I’m going to go sleep in the living room,” Minnie said. “I don’t need to be falling through anymore ceilings!” And with that, Minnie pranced out of the guestroom, slamming the door shut behind her. With all the noise that had occurred that night, it was a miracle that their parents had not been awoken.
Devious little bugger, Hermione thought to herself as she smoothed the rumpled covers of her bed. She could hardly believe she had actually considered the little monster to be ‘cute’ just a few moments ago.
The next morning, Hermione woke up feeling oddly light, as though a weight had been lifted off her back. As she sat on her bedside, stretching her arms and arching her back, she couldn’t help but think it might be because she had finally let her younger sister in on the family secret. Even though there was truthfully very little that Minnie could do to help with lifting the spell, there was something relieving about her allowing her sister to know the truth.
Once dressed, Hermione made her way out into the extremely still home. The house was quiet; her parents must have already left for work. Throughout the home, she could see familiar traces that showed links to her mother and father’s former selves. She recognized a few pieces of furniture from her childhood home that had managed to survive the test of time. Her parents’ sense of decorating style echoed through this new home as well, in the coloring, the woods, and even the pattern and placement of the family’s framed photographs. Something Hermione did take note of, though, was that there were absolutely no photographs of her parents taken before they had come to Australia. She wondered if her parents had ever even noticed this.
A small and muffled moan soon distracted Hermione from her own thoughts, and she wandered over to find the source. On the couch, sure enough, there was Minnie, sprawled out and limbs dangling, though appearing completely comfortable. But asleep like this, the little girl seemed so much smaller and more innocent, almost sweet. All thoughts of any malicious undertones Minnie might have had seemed to completely disappear in Hermione’s mind.
Once again, Hermione found her hand unconsciously reaching for the little girl’s hair, brushing a tickling strand away from her nose. Hermione wondered to herself if it weren’t for the spell, all the conflict, if she and Minnie could have had a normal sisterly relationship. Then again, if it weren’t for the spell and all the conflict, Minnie probably wouldn’t even exist; and she certainly wouldn’t share her older sister’s name.
Eventually, Hermione wandered away, allowing her younger sister to sleep. With all the thoughts that must have been racing through her head when she left the guest room last night, not to mention full access to the television, there was no telling what time Minnie had actually gone to bed. She made her way into the kitchen, craving breakfast, but not sure what exactly it was she wanted. She circled over the linoleum floor in her bare feet, which were growing colder and colder as more time passed.
“Hermione?”
In the doorway stood Minnie, still in her pajamas and her sleep-rumpled hair. The last night’s anger that had been traced across her face was completely absent, her expression was now one of quiet thoughtfulness. Maybe it was possible that Minnie felt bad about her own behavior last night as well.
“Do you want breakfast?” she offered, making her way into the kitchen. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to make coffee.”
“I do,” Hermione assured her. “Growing up in a world with no Muggle devices, I still know how to brew a cup of coffee.”
“Muggle?” Minnie repeated, confused, as she made her way to the pantry.
“It’s a word meaning someone without magic,” Hermione told her, remembering how naïve her younger sister still was in terms of the Wizarding world. “Not a witch or wizard.”
Minnie looked thoughtful as she reached up for a bowl, the cereal box tucked under her arm. “Like Mum and Dad?”
“But not you,” Hermione reminded her, eyes shifting back up to the ceiling, like the one that her little sister had fallen through just last night. “And not me either.”
For the briefest of moments, Hermione was allowed a bit of silence as she watched her coffee brew. Minnie was already sitting at the table, pouring first her corn flakes, and then her milk. She took a seat in her chair, but she didn’t move to touch her breakfast. It took Hermione a moment to realize her little sister was waiting for her to sit down as well before she began eating.
Minnie pointed vaguely with her spoon, not really at anything in particular. “And, that wood thing I saw in your suitcase?”
“My wand,” Hermione told her. “It’s what I use to do magic.”
Minnie began scooping spoonfuls of fake sugar onto her cereal from a sugar bowl that was already resting on the table. Hermione peered into the bowl. Everyone in the world claimed it was impossible to tell the difference, but maybe growing up as the daughter of dentists forever made Hermione astute in telling the difference between real sugar and artificial sweetener.
“Mum and Dad still refuse to buy real sugar, huh?” Hermione stirred the idle spoon through the shimmering white mixture.
Minnie giggled nervously, setting the cover back on the bowl. “I tell them it causes cancer. Where do you get a wand? Can I have one?”
Hermione soon also found herself giggling slightly at what seemed to be her little sister’s highly distractible mind.
“I got my wand at a shop in London called Ollivanders,” she told her. “But I imagine you will get yours from a wandsmith here in Australia. Though, you probably won’t be able to buy one until the summer, I suppose, before you start attending school.”
“And I’ll be going to a wizard school that’s in Australia too?” Minnie ventured to guess. “What’s it called?”
Hermione exhaled deeply. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Come to think of it, I’m not quite sure who you would get a wand from, or even where the Wizarding market is in this country.”
Minnie nodded thoughtfully. “Well, how do I find out?”
“You have me,” Hermione assured her. “I’ll be able to find all these out in plenty of time before you need to go.”
Minnie began stirring and playing with her cereal, but not yet beginning to eat. She was starring over at her sister as though something new was now on her mind. “You’re not really a barrister, are you?”
Hermione shook her head, though the answer wasn’t really a true and complete no. “I work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the Ministry of Magic. I supposed the work I do for them could be considered a barrister in the Wizarding world.”
“Is you husband a wizard too?” Minnie finally started in on her cereal. “What does he do?”
“He’s an Auror,” Hermione told her before remembering the necessity of needing to explain things further to her Muggle-born little sister. “A Dark wizard catcher. It’s somewhat like a special sort of police officer.”
“Dark wizards?” Minnie asked with her mouth full. Hermione had to stop herself from lecturing the girl about her table manners.
“Well, Minnie,” Hermione took a deep breath as she tried to explain, “just like with Muggles, there are good wizards and there are bad wizards. And with the bad wizards, specially trained wizards are needed to catch them.”
Minnie swallowed and nodded rapidly, showing that she understood. “Like police officers with drug dealers and murderers!”
Hermione nodded, but felt herself become stiff and edgy once again. There was just something slightly unnerving about her younger sibling using the word ‘drug dealer’. Maybe Minnie wasn’t quite so ‘innocent’ as she had seemed before.
“So what do we need to do?” Minnie piped up suddenly, confusing Hermione with yet another abrupt change in topic.
“What do you mean?”
Minnie elaborated, “How exactly are we going to break this spell you put on our parents?” she explained. “I mean, all I really have to go on is fairy tales and Disney movies, which probably isn’t terribly useful.”
“I do have a plan for how to do that,” Hermione said. “But first, I think there’s something we need to discuss. We never really did talk about these ‘terms’ of yours.”
Minnie’s eyes went slightly wider and her lips tightened into a tight little ‘o’, finally remembering her own words from last night.
“Well, I did have time to think about what I wanted,” Minnie told her, “and I think I finally know what it is.”
Hermione felt everything clench as she waited to hear what it was that her little sister wanted from her. As Minnie had said, all she had to go on for knowing about magic were from fairy tales and fantasy movies. Who knew what those sources might have told her magic was capable of.
“I want help.”
Looking up from her hands, where they had been momentarily resting, Hermione gazed over at her little sister, who was staring right back, perfectly serious about what she had requested. “What?” she had to ask anyway.
Minnie shrugged her shoulders as she swallowed her cereal. “I don’t know the first thing about being a witch, or about wands, or wizard schools, or anything like that. But you do.”
Minnie stirred her spoon around in the off-color milk, looking for any fragments of cereal that might have been hiding. “What I want is for you to tell me everything I need to know about being a witch.”
Well, while it certainly wasn’t what Hermione had been expecting the younger girl to come up with, it certainly wasn’t as horrific as what the little children in storybooks might have asked of a witch. “I think I can accommodate that.” Truth be told, there was some part of Hermione’s innermost instincts that wanted to do that for her little sister regardless.
“I’m not done,” Minnie stopped her quickly before continuing her list. “I want to go to England.”
And there was the large sort of favor Hermione had been expecting.
“And not just one of those ‘someday’ promises! You have to take me before I actually go off to this wizard school.”
Hermione sighed deeply, seeing that there was absolutely no way that Minnie could be talked out of this one condition. “Why, in Merlin’s name, would you want to go to England? You do know that it’s a cold and snowy mess there this time of year, don’t you?”
Minnie giggled once again at the expression on her sister’s face, and then began spooning up the rest of her sugary milk. “You’re my family, so that makes your family my family too,” she reasoned, between bites of cereal. “Besides, I remember that photograph you showed Mum and Dad of your kids. I have a niece and nephew who I’ve never even met!”
Minnie gulped the last bit of milk straight out of the bowl and wiped her mouth on her pajama sleeve before looking up at her sister, smiling sweetly. “You would really deprive them of meeting their Auntie Minnie?” The little girl batted her eyelids, trying to appear too cute to say no to.
Hermione ground her teeth. It would have been difficult to take Minnie back to England with her, not just because of all the inconveniences of travel, but more so because her husband, Harry, and no one else in her family even knew that Hermione Wilkins existed. She had never told any of them. She could scarcely believe the fact that Minnie existed when she had heard of her just the one time at the hospital. The thought of having to tell this story over and over again seemed like pure torture, so Hermione just never did. And so, while she was in Britain, she was able to at least pretend her family in Australia at least resembled something normal.
“Fair enough,” Hermione finally relented. “I’ll take you to England.”
“Great!” Minnie smiled broadly. “Can I try some of your coffee?”
Minnie rushed for the coffee pot before Hermione could answer her, pouring a cup far larger than the little girl would have been able to finish. It was all so strange; going from fearing one, to being angry, and then laughing together. Maybe the frantic, shifting emotions were not the result of any instability on Minnie’s part or Hermione’s. Maybe it was just typical of the relationship between any other two sisters in the world.
Hermione by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: Hermione finally tells Minnie the truth and the whole truth when she just cannot keep it from her any longer.
Thanks are a must for Riham and Lydia for all their help!