Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…

Placing:Afterthesecond war.

Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt: (event) family dinner. 1863 words. Gryffindor, Hogwarts.

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CONFESSION TIME

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Just a few weeks after they finally won the battle against Voldemort, Hermione had found another kind of trouble.

"Ron," she said slowly to her boyfriend.

"Yes, dear?" He asked her distractedly while he tried to beat Neville in chess – that boy was surprisingly good and Ron had a hard time winning.

Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Ron," she said again, hesitatingly.

This time her boyfriend stopped to concentrate on his chess game to turn and look at her.

"What's troubling you, Hermione?" He asked confused. Then his face changed into concerned. "Did you have a flash-back, dear?"

"No, I didn't," Hermione assured her boyfriend.

It was worse.

"Then why are you… acting like that?" Ron asked confused while gesturing at her.

Hermione knew immediately what he meant.

Nervous, hesitating and something akin to afraid.

"I… I have to confess something," she finally blurted out and her boyfriend's frown deepened.

"Confess?" he asked frowning.

"I… my parents…" Hermione stuttered.

"Oh," Ron said, sounding as if he had an epiphany. "That's about wanting to go to Australia and find your parents."

"Er… not exactly," Hermione mumbled. "But… well… it's…"

She took another deep breath.

Like a band-aid, Hermione, she told herself. Just like a band-aid.

"My parents invited us to a family dinner," she blurted out in the end.

This time, Ron's confusion was even greater than before.

"I thought you oblivated them," he said slowly.

Hermione winced.

"I… might have lied about that," she confessed. "I asked them to leave for a while, but I didn't oblivate them…"

Ron frowned.

"Then why did you tell us that you oblivated them?" He asked confused and Hermione winced again.

"Misdirection," she confessed. "What you didn't know you couldn't tell."

Ron blinked.

"That's logical," Neville pointed out, understanding in his voice. "You wanted to keep them safe – telling everybody you oblivated them would have kept them safe because even if the Death Eaters heard they would have thought that finding your parents after you changed their memories was going way too far for that time of the war."

Hermione sighed and inclined her head.

"That was basically my thought as well," she confessed. "Of course they hid – but somewhere absolutely different than I said."

"But why did you lie to us?" Ron asked confused and Hermione winced again.

Oddly, it was Harry who had been cuddling with Ginny on one of the sofas in the common room who spoke up next, understanding in his voice.

"She didn't tell because she knew I had a direct, unexplained connection to Voldemort and didn't want him to find out the truth," he said and Hermione winced again.

"I'm sorry," she offered, but Harry waved it off.

"Nah," he said. "It's understandable – and I'm definitely not cross with you for not telling me."

"Or Ron," Hermione added shamefaced.

"Or Ron," Harry nodded. "You didn't want to force Ron to keep it a secret from me – like I said, understandable."

And Hermione smiled.

Ron frowned but clearly thought through her reasoning before even thinking about saying something.

"Alright," he said in the end. "I guess I can understand it. I don't truly like it, but I understand it."

Hermione sighed in relief.

Then Ron's frown deepened again.

"But that doesn't explain why you act like the world is ending just because you're invited to a family dinner," he said a bit confused.

"We're," Hermione corrected him. "We're invited – me and my boyfriend, meaning you!"

Ron looked at her with no understanding in his eyes.

"So what?" he asked confused. "You're afraid that your father'll kill me because I'm going out with you?"

Hermione winced again.

"Er… no," she said slowly. "Not my father."

Ron raised an eyebrow while Neville snickered.

"You fear your mother will kill him?" He asked amused.

Hermione winced again.

"No," she said. "My parents are harmless."

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance.

"Then why are you so nervous?" Ron asked now a bit nervous himself.

Hermione winced again.

"I'm," she gulped. "I'm not an only child."

"WHAT?" This time four people stared at her as if she had told them she was a house-elf-hybrid.

Hermione blushed.

"What do you mean 'you're not an only child'?" Ron asked confused. "I mean… you never said anything at all about siblings until now and we've known you since you were eleven! Don't you think something of that magnitude should have been said years ago? I mean – I've been dating you for months now and you never –"

Hermione winced before interrupting her boyfriend with the facts about her family.

"I'm the youngest," she told them truthfully. "And I'm the youngest by much. Also, my siblings… well, they're half-siblings. My parents… Mummy was widowed a few years before meeting Daddy and Daddy was divorced for over a year when they met and fell in love."

"Oh," the others said unison.

Hermione tried a brittle smile.

"Daddy married when he was twenty for the first time. He had his first son about two years later," she explained. "Mummy on the other hand married even younger. She had her first child when she was nearly nineteen. Since she's a bit younger than Daddy my oldest brothers are solely a year apart."

"Alright," Ron said slowly. "So you have older siblings."

Hermione nodded.

"Much older siblings," she said. "Mummy was in her forties when I was born. She met Daddy when she was thirty-nine and I wasn't actually planned, you know? Not that they don't love me – but Mummy was quite old to be a mum again and there was a bit of a risk, you know?"

Ron blinked confused, but Harry nodded.

"I know," he said before turning to Ron. "I think Hermione is talking about her mother having a high-risk pregnancy. It's often considered like that when muggle women are above forty."

"Or –"

"I don't think that Ron needs to know the other reasons," Harry interrupted Hermione gently.

Hermione blushed but conceded that point.

"Anyway," she said. "That means that my siblings are all quite a lot older than me. They all have their own lives already. I guess that I simply forgot to tell you about them considering that they don't live at home anymore."

Ron blinked.

"How can you forget to mention that you have siblings?" He asked confused. "Even I spoke about Charlie and Bill within the first three months of knowing you – but you never said anything at all!"

Hermione winced again.

"Half of them don't even consider Britain their home country anymore," she defended herself. "And from the others that do, half of them you can meet everywhere else on the world but in Britain! Not one of them is magical – so why should I have had reason to mention them? It's not as if either of you have ever come home to me before now!"

Ron and Harry looked at each other guiltily.

"I actually didn't accuse you of anything," Harry finally said. "It's not as if I talk about the Dursleys."

Hermione nodded even if she winced again hearing that.

"Yeah," she said. "But I don't think that my siblings are anything like the Dursleys."

Harry grinned at her.

"I never thought they were," he said before leaning forward, dislodging Ginny a bit who grumbled to herself a bit over that little fact. "But tell, 'Mione, what are they like? 'Not anything like the Dursleys' is not a good description, you know?"

Hermione thought about that answer a bit.

"My siblings on Daddy's side are – for the most parts – adrenalin junkies," she finally settled on. Ron frowned at that.

"Adrenalin junkies?" He repeated a bit nervously.

Hermione shrugged.

"Jumping from skyscrapers or into ovens, confronting villains, blowing up buildings kind of 'adrenalin junkies'," she clarified unconcerned. "When Mummy heard I confronted a troll she told Daddy that it's all his fault. She said it's obviously in his genes that his children take insane risks."

"Wait," Ron said with huge eyes. "Your parents know about the troll?"

Hermione nodded.

"And the basilisk, Quirrell, Professor Lupin, Sirius – everything," she said. "One of my brothers helped me with my aim after my first year and another started me on self-defence a year later."

"And your parents agreed for you to come back?" Neville asked incredulously.

Hermione shrugged.

"My brothers never went to Hogwarts and managed to get into plenty of danger without it as well," she said unconcerned. "Daddy argued that Hogwarts or not – the moment my danger gene woke up danger would find me wherever I was."

Neville snickered and Harry grinned at that. Ron on the other hand looked a little bit pale. Hermione guessed that he feared confronting her father's children. She decided to reassure him.

"Don't worry," she said. "It's unlikely that you meet them at the family dinner. Most of them are always anywhere but in London, after all."

Ron nodded, looking a little bit more relaxed now.

"What about your mum's children? What are they like and how likely is it for Ron to meet them?" Harry asked interestedly and Hermione winced again.

"They're…" Hermione hesitate for a moment before finding the right description. "They share the genius side of me. They're all very intelligent and mostly interested in very specific kind of things."

"Oh," Ron said. "That doesn't sound too bad."

Hermione supressed a flinch.

"No," she said slowly. "It doesn't. And if you're lucky, you won't meet them either. The most of them are always working."

At least she hoped that Ron wouldn't meet them.

She remembered some of her brothers' threats when they heard about Ron's behaviour at the Yule Ball all too well…

"Oh," Ron said. "Alright."

Then he frowned.

"Then why are you scared?"

Hermione just forced herself to smile at her boyfriend. She wouldn't tell him that she had cried all over her over-protective oldest brother after his treatment of her at the Yule Ball. She knew that her other brothers were furious as well – but her oldest at least semi-regularly came by her parents' home…

But then, with the Statue of Security and the whole wizarding war and its aftermath spilling into the muggle world he should be busy enough to not come to the family dinner.

With that thought, she felt it safe to lie a bit to her boyfriend.

"They're just a bit… much," she said slowly. "If you have to be around them all – not that I ever was. I'm still fairly sure that some of them have no idea that they are related to some of the others by marriage. I'm quite sure that they were never all together in one room before."

"So… family dinner?" Ron asked and Hermione took another deep breath.

"Nothing to worry about," she said.

Two weeks later the door to her parents' home opened to reveal the form of her oldest brother.

He was clad in an expensive suite and leaned forward on his umbrella, his gaze assessing Ron within a second. There was not the slightest bit approval in his eyes.

"Ah," he said slowly. "Mr… Weasley. Please come in. Sherlock and John are already waiting."

Correction.

Ron was dead.

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Just a little idea... (Inspired by Paintmesilver's Hermione's insane family series: 'Uncle', 'Cousins' etc.)

I hope you like Hermione's brothers (those you met, that is xDDD (except you can guess the others. I left a clue or two, but mostly I decided to keep it vague... xDD))!

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