A Forbidden Birthright

Chapter Twenty

A thick series of files sat stacked in the drawer. Hermione lifted them out and cut the stack in half, handing it to Malfoy, while she flipped through her half. Old parchments mixed in with newer pages, making it hard to differentiate the years they were recorded. She then cast the same spell she used in the Hogwarts library and the pages ruffled, separating themselves by decade. 

"You'd think they'd have this a little more organized," Hermione muttered. 

Malfoy laughed softly beside her as he peered down at his stack, rifling through them. "Have you found anything yet?" He asked. 

"I've only just started looking," she huffed, shuffling through the pages, casting another spell on them to search for Caspian's name. The spell settled somewhere inside the stack of pages and glowed softly. She thumbed through them until she found it and slid it from the stack, setting it atop the rest. 

Malfoy was still looking through his own half, giving one page a cursory glance and then shuffling it to the back when it didn't have anything that caught his attention. He skimmed over another page briefly before deciding it useless and then went on to the next. 

Hermione began to read her own page. "He was telling the truth," she said. "His father is Scottish and his mother was from Japan." She went to the following page. "It seems his mother was born in Japan but neither of her parents were Japanese. It's just where they lived." She scanned farther down the page. "Delvaux is his mother's maiden name, as we know, but it was her father's last name." 

"Fucking hell," Malfoy breathed, engrossed in whatever it was he had found. 

Hermione peered over at his paper. "What is it?" 

"Look at this. This is one of the earliest records of the Delvaux name," he said. "Apparently a Francois Delvaux worked here in France but moved to Denmark to establish a new branch for the French Ministry. He was a pureblood." 

Hermione frowned as she read ahead of him. "He only had a daughter. His name should have died out with her. What does it say her name is?" 

"Wendlyn Delvaux," Draco replied. "She had a son. He must have been a bastard and she gave him her name. His name was Adrastus Theon Delvaux." 

"Why is that important?" Hermione asked, scrunching her face together as she tried fitting the pieces she had together. 

Draco looked up at her and said, "Because it also says Peverell." 

Hermione froze, eyes widening. "What? I don't understand. Let me see." She leaned forward and read over where he had been looking. His name had been scrawled in faded handwriting at the bottom of the aged parchment for a second time. "Adrastus Theon Delvaux Peverell,"  she read aloud in disbelief. "Who was his father?" 

Draco shook his head. "It doesn't say." He trailed off. "So he was a bastard. A Peverell bastard." 

"Are you certain?" 

"It says it right here, Granger. How more certain do you want to be?" 

"Well, what's the date?" She asked, fingering her wand nervously. 

His eyes rose to the top corner of the page. "Mid 1200's. Same time the Peverell brother's were alive. It's plausible." 

"But which brother?" 

They stared at each other for several silent seconds, digesting what they had just found. 

Hermione's face brightened. "I read in a book today that it was rumored Antioch Peverell had a bastard child." 

Before Malfoy could reply, the sound of a door opening could be heard and Hermione scrambled for all the pages, shoving them back into the drawer and closing it as soundlessly as she could.