title: Family Trivia

author: lisa roquin

rating: PG/PG13

fandom: HP/AtS

series/sequel: *sigh* have no clue, don't count on it.

disclaimer: all copyrighted characters and their "universes" belong to their respective authors, writers, creators, production companies, producers and long lists of people that are so very much not me. Quite simply, if you recognize it, it isn't mine. No profit made, no harm intended, just having fun.

summary: Hermione is sent into hiding the summer before her seventh year at Hogwarts and discovers some interesting bits of family trivia from her cousin Wesley and a rather bizarre first day in Los Angeles.

timeline: Post OotP, Season 5 AU-ish Angel. They’re at W & H, Spike is back amongst the living-er, unliving. Fred has become Illyria.

author's note: lj wish list fic. Happy Holidays Laney!





Hermione looked around LAX trying to spot her cousin. It had been seven years since her cousin had moved to the states, and nearly thirteen years since she had last seen him--at her fourth birthday party, and the then twenty year old cousin bored and quietly arguing with mean old Uncle Roger had not been at all interesting. Not in the presence of such wonders as ice cream, cake, presents and a clown that had made Emily Hopkins scream in terror. Hermione had a better mental image of the clown from her fourth birthday than her cousin.

Her mother and Uncle Roger had gotten into a horrible row after the other children had gone home and the party was over. Hermione remembered being woken from where she'd fallen asleep on the sofa by the raised voices. Uncle Roger had stormed out with his wife and son behind him.

Dumbledore had contacted parents of the muggleborn students, offering safe havens as the events of the war with Voldemort were beginning to escalate. Other students, such as Susan Bones and Ron and Ginny and Harry and Neville, were also scattered in hiding places along with younger siblings if they had them.

Instead of some secret place under the Fidelius, Hermione had been shipped to Los Angeles to spend the summer with her cousin, whom she only remembered was very tall and stuttered when he became upset. Of course she'd also been four when she'd last seen him, and her mother, who stood all of five foot one had seemed very tall then.

Little Miss Mynee the sign read. Merlin! She'd almost been able to forget that nickname. Not entirely, because each year on her birthday a card and a book arrived for "Miss Mynee" from her cousin Wesley. He wrote her mother every now and again. Cards on birthdays and Christmas and the like.

The man holding the sign was tall with brown hair kept carefully short and tired hazel eyes. He had contacts now, she supposed, rather than the dreadful old-man glasses she remembered him having. They'd been as bad as Harry's or very nearly.

"Wesley?"

"Hermione? You look so much like Aunt Rachel."

She smiled. "I scarcely recognized you"

"Well, I don't suppose you go by Miss Mynee much anymore, but forgive me if a slip a time or two."

"I will, just please not in public," Hermione smiled.

"Right. Your luggage--" he trailed off as she shook her head.

"Er, just this bag actually, I don't have much that fits at the moment outside of school uniforms. Mum and Dad put some mad money and a bit for new clothes in an account and I have the check card to the account. This was all sort of...last minute. I haven't had time to get a few new things."

Wesley nodded, having spent most of his time at boarding school by the time summer came round he too had had precious little that he hadn't outgrown outside his school uniforms more than one year. First day home his mother had drug him to the tailors.

"Well, then we're off. We can stop for supper if you're not to tired from your flight."

"No actually, I'm fine. Dinner sounds lovely." Hermione agreed. After all how did she say she wasn't tired at all, she'd portkeyed into a storage closet, not spent the last how many hours on a plane. She caught sight of Tonks waving merrily just before the auror disappeared into the crowds, headed back to the storage closet to portkey to the Order's Headquarters.

Wesley began nervously suggesting restaurants. A peculiar and pained expression on his face as he named a "rather lovely Mexican restaurant" for some reason he stopped dead and was lost in thought.

"Your pocket's beeping" Hermione said.

"Wha--oh." Wesley murmured. "Damn." he hissed looking at the pager. "Oh, dear, sorry--"

"It's alright. Ron's got a foul mouth I'm quite used to it."

"Ron?" Wesley frowned. "Is that your--"

"Merlin, no!" Hermione choked. "Ron's one of my best friends. He and Harry are the brothers I never had, and wouldn't have wanted some days."

Wesley smiled weakly. "There's an emergency at work. Here's money for a cab. And here you can order take out. There's several menus by the phone. And some emergency cash in the drawer underneath it. Aunt Rachel told me about your school. Allow no one in the apartment. No one, and if there's even the least bit of hassle, hex first, questions much later. I'll deal with the authorities. Of course the American and Mexican Ministries are still bickering over Texas California and indeed the entire southwest, so there's still really no authority so like as not it'll not register with either group."

A cab was somehow quickly procured and Hermione bustled into it. Wesley giving the driver the directions and address. "I'm sorry, Mynee luv. I'll make it up to you tomorrow."

"It's alright" Hermione managed rather puzzled. "Duty calls"

The cabby somehow had decided Wesley was her father and tried to cheer her up, saying her dad looked right upset.

Hermione merely nodded and humored the cabby cheerfully agreeing that her father's work with a law firm was quite important. He couldn't help his hours sometimes. It was far simpler than correcting the man, and the way he kept tilting the mirror she truly didn't want to know what wrong assumption the man would jump to next.

The ride to Wesley's flat seemed unending.

~*~

"No bloody key," Hermione growled when she stood before her cousin's door. "Lovely, just lovely." She sighed and unzipped her large purse--specially transfigured and enchanted for the trip. She fished out her small zippered kit of lock-picking tools. The twins had taught Hermione and Ginny how to pick locks the muggle way the summer before at 12 Grimmauld Place.

Ten minutes later she had the apartment unlocked and two police officers coming up the hallway at her. Really, all she needed was for one of them to shout "Freeze!" like in the movies. This was most certainly not her day.

"Hello, officers, is there a problem?"

"Breaking and entering-"

"Only because my blasted cousin is a git! He picked me up at the airport." She reached in her bag. "I'm getting the ticket and my passport I'm not armed." She handed them over. "And here's my cousin's card. He works at Wolfram and Hart"

For some reason both officers paled.

"There was some emergency, so he stuck me in a cab and headed to work to take care of it. Without a key. My options were to sit in the hall until he arrived and have someone call you good gentlemen on me for loitering, or to let myself in. It's a simple misunderstanding--"

"Well you can wait down at the precinct..."

"Very well, at least let me lock back up. And can I set my duffle inside. You may check it if you wish. The most improper things in there are a brassiere and knickers set my friend Parvati gave me for Christmas--the girls in the dorm drew names for a secret santa thing. Parvati's taste is lurid but they were clean and I packed in a hurry."

The officers frowned, one took her duffle and thoroughly searched it.

They blinked as she managed to keep up the babble nattering on about how awful her flight supposedly was, tossed the bag and her purse into the apartment then relocked the locks with her lock picks, which were quickly put into her back pocket. She tested it, she hated leaving her wand behind, but thankfully the officers seemed too disbelieving to notice it in her bag and she didn't dare risk that along if she did get taken to a muggle police station. "There, cousin Wesley's place shan't get broken into, it's locked up proper. Mother will be pleased that he's got such good security in his building and his neighbors keep such a good look out. One always hears how the big cities are so cutthroat. Refreshing really. Ron, Harry and Ginny are never going to let me hear the end of this. Neville will probably faint. My rotten luck. Well, a ride in a police car shall be an adventure at least. My friends were rather jealous I got to come to America for the summer holidays. Ginny thought I might see a movie star or two. Shall we go, gentlemen?"

~*~

"Yo English! Your cousin was arrested for Breaking and Entering and they're holding her at the station house by your place."

Wesley looked up from the scroll Angel had paged him to come look at immediately. "Hermione was arrested?"

"For breaking into your apartment."

"Breaking into my apartment--Gunn, why would she do that, I gave her--"He reached in his pocked. "My key," He pulled out his key ring. "Bloody hell. Aunt Rachel is going to have a fit."

~*~

"Wesley, it's about time." Hermione glared. "Can we go?"

"Yes--your things?"

"I tossed them in the flat before I locked it back up. Lugged it all across the Atlantic, didn't care to lug them all across Los Angeles."

"They let you?"

"It was rather done before they realized."

"I really want to know what sort of friends you keep at school."

"Well, thus far Harry, Ron and I have managed not to get killed, or worse yet expelled. We aren't that bad."

"Good lord, I should tell Aunt Rachel you know how to pick locks--this Harry and Ron teach you?"

"No, Ron's brothers Fred and George, they're pranksters. Break into classrooms and toilet paper them or write rude things on the black board."

"Charming. One of the most exclusive boarding schools in Europe, with some of the strictest entrance requirements in the world and it's infested with garden variety hoodlums." Wesley frowned.

"I'm sure mother would love to hear all about how I had to break into your flat," Hermione huffed.

"On second thought, can we just--"

"Forget this, yes, I'd rather, thank you very much"

"You were less trouble when you were two, Mynee," Wesley sighed.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Sorry, not to call you Mynee in public. I'll try to remember." Wesley said drolly. "This is going to be a very long summer."

Hermione's eyes narrowed.

Wesley raised an eyebrow that simply dared her to make one more comment and turned to the officers assuring once again that he was free to take Hermione.

~*~

"Can I have the key this time?" Hermione asked as they pulled up in front of Wesley's building.

"Here you are, I'll walk you up though to make sure Mrs. Thane doesn't call the police again."

"That would be lovely, thanks," Hermione smiled.

"You'll be alright here?"

"I'll be perfectly fine." Hermione assured him.

~*~

Wesley frowned as he stumbled into his apartment yawning. Hermione was curled up on the sofa, the television still on softly. He'd caught a two hour nap on his office couch and had come home to shower and change and settle Hermione in.

Harmony had gone and made a key for Hermione. It had kept her out of everyone's hair during the nights research. Fred's presence sorely missed. He winced and shoved down the ache the thought of Fred caused.

"Mynee," Wesley said quietly shaking his young cousin's shoulder

"Expelliarmus!" Hermione sat bolt upright her wand arm going up, the spell hit Wesley in the chest and sent him flying backwards. "Oh Merlin, I'm sorry" Hermione gasped when she saw it was Wesley. "I can explain--"

"I told you. Your mother told me you'd gotten accepted to Hogwarts."

"And just like that you believed her..."

"I got a letter to Hogwarts, my father wouldn't let me attend though. Nonsense I wouldn't need." Wesley said tiredly. "I've encountered a few odd things."

"Untrained wizards often draw strange things to them or make things happen around them."

Wesley nodded, allowing her to think that he was untrained, and to her way of thinking he was. It would be a lot handier to have a wand and accomplish in a word or two with minimum effort what it took an elaborate spell, various herbs, insence, runes painted in various substances, blessed candles and other components. Certainly simpler and safer all around, she had no need to know much, but just in case. "Have you ever read anything about a Slayer?" He crossed to the bookshelves on the far wall, best try to find the volumes he needed to take with him back to the office first thing.

Hermione nodded. "Muggle myth--"

"Not a myth. My father belonged to the Watcher's Council. A group that seeks out and trains Slayers. I was part of the Council for a while as well, once I finished my schooling father didn't leave much a choice." Wesley answered not looking at her and pulled a book from the shelf.

"I remember Uncle Roger--"

Wesley nodded. "Your mother was a bit of a rebel. She wouldn't have anything to do with it. Though as father was the eldest, and the son, carrying on the tradition she had a bit more leeway I suppose. I've worked with two slayers before. And I've managed to learn a spell or two myself even without a proper wand. Wiccan magics, really.

Her mother's ease at accepting the existence of Hogwarts was now making sense. "Did my mother get a Hogwarts letter?"

Wesley nodded. "I think so. Father said grandfather was absolutely right in not letting Aunt Rachel go and he most certainly wasn't letting me. Of course she was the first female born to the Wyndham Pryce's since--well"

"Since--"

"Drusilla Wyndham Pryce was born in 1843. A seer and a witch. She met a rather bad end that likely would have been avoided entirely if she had gone to Hogwarts. What's curious is that her sisters were not recorded as having any magical ability. Rather have to wonder if they were actually Martin Wyndham Pryce's daughters. The Wyndham Pryce daughters tend to be witches, though in centuries past they also tended to be locked away on the family estate and die rather young."

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"I do believe your mother is the first to see her twentieth birthday in the six hundred years of family lore father drilled into me." Wesley said distractedly "Of course it's doubtful most of the daughters of the family line died natural deaths. Richard Wyndham Pryce had seventeen daughters in twenty two years by three wives, every last one died of supposed crib death in the 1750s and 1760s." Wesley also wondered about his own sister, Virginia, who had died of crib death at the age of six months. The very night after her favorite rattle floated across the room to her. Wesley had been seven then. "Ah here it is." Wesley grabbed a fourth book and put it on the small pile he'd gathered. "I need to shower and change. A colleague of mine is to be arriving shortly, he can help you get groceries or whatever you require. I usually eat out or at work. I daresay there isn't much more than tea in the kitchen--if there's even that. Spike--"

"Spike?" Hermione repeated incredulously. The fact that she wasn't entirely Muggleborn was not quite soaking into her mind. Her mother's family had had female Witches for centuries, though none trained until her, and the males in the family trained Slayers.

"Well, William actually but he goes by Spike. He's a bloody annoying pain in the arse and if you can tolerate him for the day I will be forever indebted to you. The research at the moment is very crucial and he has the attention span of a psychotic two-year-old on a sugar high. But he is a reasonably decent enough driver that he can take you where ever you want to go. He knows magic exists, though god help us all if he ever decided to try any of it. Actually, it took a good deal of magic so he could be out and about for the next ten hours in daylight. He's also rather handy to have about in a brawl, though rarely any other time."

Hermione raised an eyebrow, "Am I babysitting him or is he babysitting me?"

"You get chauffered out of the deal,"

"True," Hermione sighed. "I can't believe mother never told me any of this..."

"Hermione, not to sound egotistical but I do believe the only reason your mother had anything to do with my father after grandmother died was me. She'd just as soon forget it all. And none of it, other than being mildly interesting trivia really has any bearing on your life. Why scare a child with the skeletons in the family closet?"

Hermione supposed that was true enough. Her mother had precious little to say on the subject of Hermione's grandfather and her Uncle Roger.

"Did mother tell you about why I was sent here?"

Wesley shook his head. "Aunt Rachel merely asked if you could stay, I tried explaining that I might not have much time to keep an eye on you..my first thought that Aunt Rachel wanted an ocean between you and a boy-- she assured me it was nothing like that..I assumed perhaps she and Uncle Stephen weren't getting along or"

"Nothing like that either. Have you ever heard of the Dark Lord Voldemort?"

"He was defeated when you were a baby. By a boy--Potts or Potter..."

"Harry Potter"

"As in your friend Harry?"

Hermione nodded. "Voldemort is back. The students and families most likely to be targeted are going into hiding, those that can anyway. Muggleborn students and their families were offered havens. You get me. Mother wanted me out of Europe. I think she would be just as happy if I transferred to a magical school here in the states but I won't. I'm going back to Hogwarts in the fall."

"Well, European Purebloods, even the like of Voldemort's followers aren't likely to come here." Wesley nodded. "Could you possibly make some tea--providing there is any. And if Spike shows up let him in...er, blonde, cockney accent can alienate anyone in three sentences or less if he wishes."

"Lovely." Hermione muttered. "I'll see about the tea."

~*~

Wesley was still in the shower when the doorbell rang. Hermione looked out the peephole and blinked. The man standing there reminded her of some warped version of Draco Malfoy. White blonde hair and a sneer dressed in all black and just something not quite normal about him.

"Who is it?"

"Oy, you've got t' be Watcher's cousin. I'm Spike"

Cockney accent. Surreal.

"Have you ever heard the name Malfoy?" She couldn't help but ask.

"Bloody hell, yer a wandwaver, are ya?"

"Yes," Hermione said opening the door. "And the cleverest witch of my year at Hogwarts."

"Ravenclaw?" the blonde man asked hopefully.

"Gryffindor."

"Bloody hell, brains and balls. Why couldn't you be a Slytherin at least? Slytherins are predictable most of the time. The ones that aren't are hell to deal with but odds are they'll save their own arse first. Bloody Gryffindors go off half-cocked with grand delusions of nobility and the smart ones are even worse cause they do it sneaky like rather than barging in the front door!"

"I'm Muggleborn," Hermione said coolly.

The blonde man pouted. Then asked. "I suppose you're a bloody seer too."

Hermione snorted. "Not hardly." She had the sinking feeling her entire summer was going to go the way of the last twenty-four hours or so. If that was the case it was going to be a very long summer. A Malfoy vampire with a cockney accent and her cousin Wesley involved with Watchers and Slayers and Vampires even if he worked at a law firm. Well, at least she'd have something to distract her from worrying about Harry and Ron.