Chapter 6 - 6: The Funeral

Hermione stood just outside the castle grounds. Rain pattered down around her and Dippet but did not touch them. The wind whipped around them, causing her hair to fly about, but she could not feel its cold sting.

"Would you like to say anything, dear?" Asked Dippet.

Hermione shook her head, tears streaming down her face. She knew that those that they had just buried were not her real parents but it still made her heart ache and yearn. Funerals were too sad for her to handle.

Dippet laid a comforting hand on her shoulder and led her back toward the castle. When the school came into sight, she let out a shaky sob that she didn't know she was holding.

"Let us go to my office," suggested Dippet, steadily leading her in that direction.

The halls were more or less empty. Those few students that were out and about paid the duo curious stares.

Once in the office, Hermione sunk down onto the chair across from Dippet's desk. She crossed her arms and tried to stop the tears now that they were no longer outside.

Dippet opened one of his desk drawers. "Here you are, my dear. I believe you need this more than me," said Dippet.

Hermione expected him to hand her a tissue but found him holding a picture instead. Hermione hesitantly reached for it, curious as to what it was. She turned it around so that it faced her and stopped. She was able to keep her mouth from dropping open but just barely. The picture was of a young girl wearing Hogwarts school robes with a Hufflepuff tie. She had long, straight brown hair that was thrown into a messy bun, and her doe-like brown eyes were staring straight at the person taking the picture. The picture moved to show the girl breaking out into a wide grin as a young Gryffindor girl fell into the scene.

"Your mother and her friend, Muriel, during their second year."

Hermione couldn't take her eyes off of the picture. The young girl could easily have been mistaken for her mum if her mum had attended Hogwarts and was born in the early nineteen hundreds.

"Keep it, it's yours," Dippet said when she tried to hand the picture back to him. "You remind me of her."

Hermione had questions, but she wasn't sure how to ask them without giving away her true identity, so she settled for, "She looks nothing like you."

Dippet grabbed his belly and laughed. "I suppose not." He settled back into his chair and dried the tears from his eyes. "I never had the chance to tell her." Hermione said nothing to this in the hopes that he would continue. Fortunately, she didn't have to wait long. "She was a muggle-born witch, one who showed potential for magic at an early age. Her muggle parents and I came to an agreement that I would raise her as a witch and she would be none-the-wiser."

"I thought you hated muggles," Hermione couldn't help the question from bursting out.

Dippet's look turned solemn. "During this time, I believed muggles to be farther down the chain than house elves. It wasn't until Maureen Married your father that I finally came to see the mistakes in my beliefs."

He folded his hands upon his desk. "I never had a thing against muggle-borns though. I believed them to be special."

"Some wizards believe that muggle-borns stole their magic from a witch or wizard."

Dippet shook his head. "Those who believe that will have a hard time accepting anything otherwise. They are hard set in the pureblood belief. No, muggle-borns are truly special; they have the potential to be far stronger than purebloods, and to simply be born from a family that has no connection to the wizarding world is simply marvelous." Dippet glanced at the large grand clock that sat near the door. "Oh, dear. It seems I have kept you way past curfew. Best be going."

Hermione nodded goodbye to him before getting up to leave. She held onto the picture with gentle fingers, afraid to put creases in it. It may very well be a picture of one of her relatives, the resemblance was just too uncanny.

. . . .

Tom walked down the long corridors, his mood unusually sour. First, he had the insolence of two of his followers then the memory of the screaming girl who was ready to curse him, and now he found no one misbehaving or out wandering the corridors past curfew.

The clicking of heels brought a smile to his face. Finally, someone he could punish.

His hope was squashed when a bushy-haired girl came around the corner. Her cheeks were stained with dried tears and her cheeks were flushed. She was looking down at something in her hand, not paying attention to her surroundings.

Tom cleared his throat. The girl kept on walking as if she had not heard him. He rolled his eyes in annoyance and cleared his throat even louder. He would not be ignored.

She looked up at him with unfocused eyes. He was starting to hate that look. "Oh, it's just you."

Just you. Just you! He had never met someone with the audacity to say something like that to him. "You are out past curfew," he just barely kept himself from hissing.

"Sorry." She kept on walking as if it was nothing to be caught breaking the rules by a prefect.

"Why are you out past curfew?" He should just take away house points already.

She looked up at him in confusion as if she had expected him to just punish her instead of trying to make polite conversation. "It was. . .Dippet and I. . .funeral."

He wanted to curse her for her incompetence. How hard was it to form a coherent sentence? She must have sensed his annoyance because she sighed. "I was at a funeral, okay?" Her voice sounded just as annoyed as he felt.

Funeral? Ah, yes. Dippet mentioned something about having a funeral for his daughter.

The Gryffindor, Miss Norris, tried to walk past him. "Who is Harry?" He asked as his curiosity got the better of him.

A small smile lifted half of her lips. "A friend, a brother. He was killed. . ."

Oh. He was starting to get the feeling that this girl had lost so much in the war with Grindelwald. Wait, why did he even care? Because she was the key to getting what he wanted. Her connections to the headmaster could secure him a spot as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in the future.

He forced a smile to his face. "I will allow you to break school rules just this once. Hurry along before I decide to take away house points." He stifled a laugh as her mouth dropped open in pure shock.