Little Moonfoot

Harry

Hermione's resolution to talk to professor Lupin the next day did not hold. She wanted to know everything but she was afraid of what that would mean. Knowing the truth about her parents was more stressful than she had anticipated and Hermione needed a moment to gather herself. Especially with the heavy load of classes that she was taking.

Hermione was smart enough to know that it was taking a toll on her but stubborn enough to deny that it had been a bad idea. She knew that as soon as she learnt her parents' names, she would go digging in the library and find out every piece of information available about them. Now that Ron thought that she might have been from a pureblood family and might have a huge inheritance, she was even more anxious. What if she is related to Malfoy or something?

So in the end, she decided that she would talk to him later and her priority was to talk to Harry about it.

--------

Harry entered the common room that night wielding the firebolt that he had finally gotten back. Everyone flocked around him to have a look at it and Hermione stayed in her armchair by the fire waiting for them to come to her.

"I got it back," said Harry, grinning at her and holding up the Firebolt.

"See, Hermione? There wasn't anything wrong with it!" said Ron.

"Well — there might have been!" said Hermione. "I mean, at least you know now that it's safe!"

"Yeah, I suppose so," said Harry. "I'd better put it upstairs."

"But come back there is something that I want to talk about."

"Ok" he said and left with the firebolt.

"What's up?" Ron asked.

"Well I'm going to tell him about all the stuff. Can you help me out?"

"Sure"

"How are you getting through all this stuff?" Harry asked, sitting on the couch beside her.

"Oh, well — you know — working hard," said Hermione.

"Why don't you just drop a couple of subjects?" Harry asked

"I couldn't do that!" said Hermione, scandalized.

"Arithmancy looks terrible," said Harry, picking up a number chart.

"Oh no, it's wonderful!" said Hermione earnestly. "It's my favorite subject! Well anyway, there is something else that I wanted to talk to you about."

"What?"

"So err I'm not a muggleborn."

"What?"

"Yeah. crazy right." said Ron.

"You knew about this."

"Harry, I just got to know myself. My mum told me that I was adopted when I got my Hogwarts letter. Professor Lupin was the one who told me a few days back that I was really a pureblood and that he knew my mum."

"What happened to your real parents?"

"Died fighting the war. I don't know who they were yet. I want to ask professor Lupin about it later, he was friends with my mum."

"Both our parents were killed by Voldemort."

"Yeah"

"But you ended up with decent patents and I got the Dursleys"

"You both would have had proper wizarding childhoods if not for him." said Ron.

"Yeah we might have even been friends, since our parents were in the war together, they might have been friends before it, also, they were both friends with professor lupin," said harry.

"Well at least we are friends now."

"Yeah that's what's important."

---------------

The following few days were not great for Hermione. She had thought that she had finally made up with Ron but he now claimed that Crookshanks was responsible for the disappearance of his rat. Scabbers was already half dead anyway and he might have just crawled into some hole and died peacefully. Hermione had no idea why Ron cared so much about the rat anyways.

Most of the house was singing praises of the firebolt and the next Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match was highly anticipated. Her study schedule seemed to be never decreasing and she was literally drowning in homework. She had yet to approach professor Lupin about all of this but she decided to do it after the match.

Her mother had written back saying she was skeptical about the whole thing and wanted to know what proof there is that Remus really knew her parents. She thought that he could be lying for some reason as he didn't even tell her the names.

Hermione had written back saying that there was no reason why her professor may be lying to her. She also told her about him taking care of her for a while before the end of the war.

Her mother had not written back but some of her suspicion seemed to have transferred into Hermione. She wondered if professor Lupin was in fact hiding something and if so, what it was.

Gryffindor had won the match and this put the whole house in a jolly good mood. She was disgusted by the cheap trick that Malfoy had tried to use to sabotage harry and was glad that he was able to produce a Patronus in time. She hoped that Ron might apologize to her but she had no time to join in on the festivities.

She was sitting in a corner, attempting to read an enormous book entitled Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles. Harry broke away from the table where Fred and George had started juggling butterbeer bottles and came over to her.

"Did you even come to the match?" he asked her.

"Of course I did," she said, not looking up.

"And I'm very glad we won, and I think you did really well, but I need to read this by Monday."

"Come on, Hermione, come and have some food," Harry said, looking over at Ron.

"I can't, Harry. I've still got four hundred and twenty-two pages to read!" said Hermione. "Anyway..." She glanced over at Ron too. "He doesn't want me to join in."

Ron chose that moment to say loudly, "If Scabbers hadn't just been eaten, he could have had some of those Fudge Flies. He used to really like them —"

Hermione burst into tears. Before Harry could say or do anything, she tucked the enormous book under her arm, and, still sobbing, ran toward the staircase to the girls' dormitories and out of sight.