Hermione's eyes fluttered open, the faint light of morning casting long shadows across her dormitory. For a moment, she y still, the remnants of her thoughts from the previous night lingering in the quiet corners of her mind. She had drifted to sleep with the notion that none of her discoveries—prophecies, reflections, or leylines—changed anything tangible in her life. Now, in the crity of morning, the sentiment still held true. But it didn't diminish the importance of understanding what these revetions meant.

  Stretching slightly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and reached for her bag. The scroll from her Gringotts inheritance was tucked safely inside; its smooth, metallic parchment was a stark contrast to the coarse, ageing books she usually studied. Hermione retrieved it and made her way to the Room of Requirement, seeking solitude and focus.

  The Room of Requirement transformed itself into a quiet study, its walls lined with shelves of ancient tomes and charts of the night sky. Hermione unrolled the scroll on the central table, its faintly shimmering surface catching the light. The ancient runes and diagrams seemed to shift subtly when she wasn't looking directly at them, as if alive with some tent magic.

  Hermione had skimmed the scroll before, but only now did she feel prepared to tackle its mysteries. Her previous efforts had yielded fragments of understanding—a vague reference to "the heart of the line" and hints about celestial alignments. But with her newfound knowledge of anchor stones and magical leylines, the pieces were beginning to fit together.

  The scroll's centrepiece was a seven-pointed star, each tip connected to a rune; this was what had sparked her question about the importance of the number 7. Around the star, faint lines mirrored consteltions, their patterns yered and crisscrossed. Beneath the diagram, an inscription in a proto-Runic script read:

  "Bound in stone, the heart of the line waits. The star's path reveals the keeper's mark."

  Hermione traced the runes with her wand, her brow furrowed. "The heart of the line… an anchor stone, perhaps?" she murmured.

  The consteltions surrounding the star caught her attention. They weren't random; they aligned with stars visible during the winter solstice. As she cross-referenced the patterns with a magical star chart, she noticed faint numerical sequences etched along the edges of the diagram, almost invisible under normal light. They corresponded to the star positions, forming a cypher.

  Excitement sparked in Hermione's chest, and finally, a clue came from an area of study she hadn't paid much attention to. Using spare parchment, she copied the consteltions and began decoding the numbers. Each sequence aligned with a point on the map, slowly revealing a set of coordinates. The process was intricate, requiring her to overy star charts, transte runes, and consult ancient maps, as the nd's topography had changed over the centuries. Hours passed as the pieces fell into pce.

  At st, the coordinates emerged—a remote area in the countryside, far from Hogwarts and any wizarding settlement she knew of. Hermione leaned back, her heart pounding. "This must be it," she whispered. "It makes sense that they wouldn't just tell me where to go, what if this had been lost or fallen into the wrong hands after getting it out of Gringotts."

  But a stray thought lingered. Is that all there is to it? Why were the star charts specifically visible during the Autumn Equinox, between Samhain and the Winter Solstice, but there was a sentence that made little sense to her: '?????????? ???????? ?? ?? ?? ??????? ??? ??????? ????????' which loosely transted to 'When Fenrir attempts to eat the Goddess and signals Ragnarok' was this another clue or a miss transtion?

  She pulled out her book from the library at home she appropriated about Norse Mythology; she had taken it when she started learning Elder and Lesser Futhark, thinking it might help her with ambiguous phrasing or specific ritualistic entries. She found what she needed in the index section, Fenrir and Ragnarok. She thumbed her way to the specific entry, which talked about how it was believed that Fenrir would eat the Sun during Ragnarok. However, it didn't expin much more than that. This confirmed her transtion was correct at least, but there was a strange symbol etched in the middle of the 7-pointed star, with a blurry circle in the centre; she had at first thought it was just the deterioration of the parchment; however, upon closer inspection, it appeared deliberate.

  She was unsure what this meant, so she returned to the story of Ragnarok and kept reading. She got to an entry about Fenrir's children chasing the sun and moon, Sk?ll and Hati. The rest, however, was complete supposition; some researchers believed that the Nords believed an eclipse happened when either of Fenrir's children caught the sun or moon and would bang pots and pans made from Bronze to scare away the wolves as part of a ceremony/ritual.

  So, what did this mean? She had a location, a time of year and now something about eclipses? So, did she need to be there when one happened? She checked her star charts again and found that wasn't possible, as there's no possible way for a sor eclipse during the autumn equinox, or at least non-recorded. So, was her family history hidden behind an impossible puzzle? A smile formed on her face, reminiscent of her previous life "this is such a hold my beer moment, sigh no one around to hear me gloat though, so how do I get around this? How to create an artificial eclipse?" As if sensing her request, the room changed rather violently, and Hermione lost her footing and fell to the floor.

  The room had rearranged itself into a ritual room, and on the floor near the ritual mat, y a small book, covered in ash; she picked up the book and saw the clear patch of floor beneath it, the ash had not come from the book but from something near the book, what would have been near the book though.. a cold realisation hit her "A person would have been near the book". Had someone used this ritual room at Hogwarts and failed in the ritual, and the result had been they were set on fire and died in agony? She shivered at the thought.

  She studied the ritual in the book to see what was needed and baulked.

  That evening, Hermione contacted her parents through their enchanted mirror Hermione had picked up in France during their holidays. She wondered if the mirror the marauders had 'invented' was just a prank, and they'd bought them during the summer, seeing as they were readily avaible abroad. The Grangers appeared on the other side, their expressions curious as they listened to her expnation.

  "So you're saying our family has some… magical artifact hidden away?" her father, Dan, asked, his brow furrowed.

  "Not just an artifact," Hermione crified. "Every Pureblooded family has a family Grimoire, it's a book that holds family spells that technically anyone could use with access the knowledge, however this isn't that, this is something much more powerful, see a Family Grimoire is a list of all the spells the family has, but it doesn't grow or change the nature of the magic itself as it's all bound by the rules in what's known as an Anchor stone, what I'm searching for is our Family's Anchor Stone, one we guarded for thousands of years."

  Her mother, Emma, leaned closer. "And that's because by having access to it, you won't just be able to find spells but you'll be able to change the nature of the magic itself? Change the rules that govern it?"

  Hermione nodded, "Yes, that's the general idea, but it's also blood locked, so unlike grimoires which are magic spells built on the countries rules from their stones, this one we can change or add to the rules, which means we could change how it worked or was converted, for example. The Ministry has what's defined as Light and Dark Magic, and used their Anchor Stones to trace Dark Magic because it taps into their database, by having our own, we can not be tracked at all anymore as it would act as the primer for our magic and we can add rules, an example would be the Patronus charm, it only works with light magic which is why it['s defensive in nature, however we could add a rule though ours to allow dark magic to work on it, changing it from defensive, to offensive instead."

  Emma and Dan shared a look. Before Emma asked the question, they both asked, "Is this dangerous?"

  "I don't know yet," Hermione admitted. "But the winter solstice is the perfect time to investigate. The clues point to the Autumn period being when the stone is findable, although there's a clue I've not managed to fully decipher yet, plus we can go during the Winter Holidays, as we break up the Friday prior so we have the weekend to go there before the Monday."

  Emma exchanged another gnce with Dan. "So, you've confirmed it? We're both from Magical Families then?."

  Relief washed over Hermione. "Yes, Mum as you know you can understand Parseltongue, which should be impossible unless you had magic... which leads me to something I've hidden from you."

  Emma and Dan waited patiently, their expressions a mixture of concern and curiosity as Hermione hesitated. She wasn't sure how to frame this revetion without arming them, but it was essential they understood the full truth before proceeding.

  "Mum, Dad," she began cautiously, "during my inheritance ritual at Gringotts, I discovered something… deeply troubling. Your magical cores…" She swallowed, gncing at their reflections in the enchanted mirror. "They were deliberately damaged."

  The silence that followed was deafening. Emma's hand went to her mouth, and Dan's face darkened with confusion and anger.

  "Damaged? What does that mean?" Emma asked finally, her voice trembling.

  Hermione nodded, taking a steadying breath. "Your magical cores are still present, but they're fractured. Mum, yours was targeted by Tom Riddle—Voldemort—when you were younger. Dad, yours… it was…” She hesitated, the words thick in her throat. "It was Hector Dagworth-Granger. He wanted to ensure no competition from our family."

  Dan's hands clenched into fists. "That bastard…" he growled under his breath. "And here I thought he was just another eccentric ancestor."

  Emma's expression was more sombre. "So that expins why I could understand Angitia," she murmured. "I've always wondered about that. But it never made sense; I've never done anything magical."

  "It's because you're still connected to magic, Mum. Even with your damaged core," Hermione expined. "Parseltongue is inherited, so you must have magical ancestry. And Dad, your lineage… well, the Granger name wasn't always Muggle."

  Dan's face softened slightly, but he still looked troubled. "Is there anything that can be done about our cores?"

  "I don't know yet," Hermione admitted. "But if we can find our family's Anchor Stone, it might hold the key. Anchor Stones connect deeply to the family's magic. They're powerful enough to rewrite the magical rules within their influence. If it's intact, there's a chance it could help heal your cores or let you use magic in a different way, as you both have access to some of it."

  Emma pced a hand on Dan's arm. "We're going with you," she said firmly. "This isn't just your burden to bear, Hermione. It's our family's history."

  Hermione's chest tightened with emotion. "Thank you. I was hoping you'd come. The solstice is a powerful time for magical alignment, and I'm sure the location's defenses will require more than just one witch."

  "What's the next step?" Dan asked, his determination evident.

  "We'll need to prepare," Hermione replied. "The site is remote, and we'll likely encounter wards or protective enchantments that haven't been disturbed for centuries. I'll research possible countermeasures, but we'll also need supplies—potions, tools, and anything else that might help us break through magical barriers."

  Emma frowned thoughtfully. "And you said this scroll has more puzzles to solve?"

  "Yes," Hermione said, unfurling the scroll again. "There's a blurry symbol in the center of the star. I think it's meant to indicate something… maybe a hidden mechanism. And then there's the reference to an artificial eclipse. I've started deciphering how to replicate that using magical light manipution, but it's going to take time."

  Emma leaned closer to the scroll. "If anyone can figure this out, it's you, sweetheart. And we'll help however we can."

  Dan nodded. "We're with you, Hermione. All the way."

  Hermione's resolve solidified as she looked at her parents. For the first time, she felt a glimmer of hope that they could recim their family's legacy together. The winter solstice was fast approaching, and with it, the promise of answers—and perhaps, a chance to set things right.