The Year Before Tomorrow

Year III- Foster Locum

Chapter Sixteen- Year III- Foster Locum

The holding cell was at least clean and warm, which was a vast improvement over her cell in Azkaban. The lack of Dementors and the regular meals were pluses as well. Hermione hardly felt she could ask for more.

The books were the most important thing, though. The "library" that Midgeon had spoken about was more of a catalogue. Hermione decided that she hated this method of researching. How was she supposed to gauge how helpful any book would be if she couldn't hold it, check the table of contents, skim through it? She was glad that she was researching genealogy, a heavily-documented and very general subject.

She scribbled the titles down on a bit of parchment and showed it to her babysitter. "Would it be too much trouble to order me these?" she'd say, looking down at her feet.

At first, she wasn't allowed to take the books into her holding cell, but a chat with Midgeon cleared that up rather quickly. A bit of logic, deference, and sad eyes made him see her point of view. "I'm trying to find my family," she said, voice quivering just a little. "And there are so many families. I'd like to reunite with them as soon as possible."

Her next move was to convince him to allow her access to newspapers. As soon as he caved, Hermione could see why he'd hesitated. She was all over the front page for the first few days, and there were articles published nearly every day. Some painted her as a demon child, while others allowed some sympathy to slip through. Most were suspicious. All were curious.

Would it be a break in character to ignore these articles? She shouldn't lay it on too thick, though. Caricatures people may be, but they rarely liked to think of themselves that way.

"Could I possibly start looking through some foreign newspapers, sir? I don't think my family lives here; otherwise, I would be in the system and found already. Right?"

Midgeon hesitated but allowed it. "Just in Europe, understand?"

"Yes, sir! Thank you!"

It took weeks for her to find an opening. There was an article on the fourth page of La Voyante, which as far as Hermione could tell reported the murders of a nuclear family which belonged to a minor branch of the Selwyn clan. 36-year-old Ygraine and 42-year-old Uther were found burnt alive in their homes, while the body of their daughter, 15-year-old Genevieve, affectionately called Veva, was missing. Another hour or two of flipping through the Selwyn family tree revealed that not only was this branch so far removed as to barely respond to Selwyn blood magic, Genevieve also had brown hair and eyes. No portrait was provided and no details beyond that very basic description.

The story was beginning to come together.

Veva's family was visited by unknown ruffians (she would probably imply that they were Death Eaters, for the sake of simplicity) and Veva watched them be tortured and killed. When they turned to her, her fear overwhelmed her and her magic exploded, sending her to Azkaban for unknown reasons. Her clothes were probably already separated from her body, which would explain why she'd arrived completely nude. Her mind had short-circuited and wiped her memory, and her magic became entirely unstable.

All she had to do was fake a slow recovery of her mental faculties. Well, that and pretend to continue researching.

She shuffled that issue of La Voyante into her "to be read" pile.

The whole night Hermione struggled to create a false memory. It had been some time since she'd done it, and she feared her skills may be rusty. It wouldn't matter too much, she consoled herself, if the memory was fuzzy or if some details were misplaced. Trauma did that, sometimes.