Chapter Text
Harry thought back about the events as he sat in Dumbledore’s office waiting for him to appear. He, Hermione, Ron, and their friends had gone to the Hall of Prophecy in the Ministry to retrieve his prophecy before Voldemort did. He was also there to save Sirius from being killed.
Sirius wasn’t there then, but he did show up with the rest of the Order. Hermione had saved Sirius when Bellatrix cast the killing curse at him, and Hermione shoved him out of the way. The spell landed at their feet, and rocks and debris flew through the air, causing a dust cloud.
At first, he was infuriated, thinking that the spell had hit its mark, but so did Bellatrix. She moved around the room, slipping through the exit as mayhem was happening all around him. She was fucking singing that she just killed Sirius. He couldn’t let that stand. He needed his revenge.
Hermione coughed while she was on her hands and knees, and he looked back and saw her hovering over Sirius with a shield. He couldn’t tell if he were alive or dead, but it didn’t matter.
Bellatrix would die.
“Harry, you can’t. The Order is here. Let them handle it,” she cried out as she desperately hung onto his ankle. “Please, stay here!”
He didn’t listen. His adrenaline was too high, and so were his nerves right now. The prophecy had been destroyed, but he wasn’t worried about that. Hermione had perfect recall. She had heard it and could tell him later what it said.
He was surprised when Hermione had led Umbitch to the forest so they could come here. She wasn’t about breaking the rules. She didn’t wish to be expelled. Ron didn’t care; he just followed any idea that he had. Some days, he wanted Hermione to be more like Ron to save time and not bicker as much.
But he trusted her judgement. He had no choice but to come to the Ministry. He tried to give Professor Snape hints, but the greasy git just raised a brow at him after speaking to Umbitch, leaving with a swirl of robes. He didn’t even try to save them from her machinations. He wasn’t surprised. It was the fucking snakes that kept them hostage with Malfoy leading the charge with a smug look on his face.
He closed his eyes and swallowed the lump in his throat as he thought about what happened next. He had started to battle Bellatrix with another Death Eater as they shifted closer to the floo network. He wouldn’t let them escape. Hermione skidded to a halt next to him, raised her wand and put a shield around him. They were being separated and shoved back into a corner.
His back was to the wall, and he ducked as debris flew around them, as spell after spell ricocheted off the tile wall, raining down on them. Then he saw him. Voldemort.
He was battling Dumbledore in the middle of the Ministry. His heart leapt in his throat, thinking that their saviour had arrived. Still, anger crept into his heart, thinking how Dumbledore had abandoned them all and left them to be abused emotionally and physically by a mad woman who was most likely dead.
I must not tell lies.
Looking down at the scar on his hand, he clenched his hand and tried to stand, but Dumbledore flung a spell at him, pushing him further into the corner, leaving Hermione exposed and battling the two Death Eaters on her own.
Voldemort sent a rain of broken glass at Hermione, and she twirled where she stood and sent the glass back at him and Dumbledore. She had no love for Dumbledore anymore, and right now, it showed.
There was a moment when Harry looked at the glittering glass in the air as it shifted and whirled around in a stunning dance. His eyes only left Hermione momentarily when he heard her scream and booming laughter.
He tried to jump up to go to Hermione. She had crumbled onto the ground and clutched her chest. She let out a scream as she was yanked towards the man, and carried off, gone in a flash of green flames.
Soon after Voldemort and the few Death Eaters who managed to escape were gone, too. But, Hermione, his best friend, was gone.
The door opened, and Dumbledore came in with Professors Snape and McGonagall. They all looked grave, and he craned his neck to see them.
“Where’s Hermione? Do we know where she is? Is she here?”
Dumbledore raised his hand and shook his head as he rounded his desk and sat. “No news on Miss Granger, Harry,” he said. “Are you sure someone took her?”
He stood abruptly and clenched his fists, trying not to grab his wand and hex the man before him. “You were there! You saw her battling Bellatrix and another Death Eater. You did nothing to protect her. She was hit with a spell and then fell. When she did, they took her with them.”
“Mr Potter!” McGonagall chastised. “I’m sure Dumbledore tried to protect Miss Granger, too.”
“Just like he protected us this year from Umbridge?” he seethed. He didn’t want to hear anymore. He stalked out of the room and slammed the door. Hermione was right, Dumbledore couldn’t be trusted.
He would go to Sirius and see if he could help him get Hermione back. Sirius owed her a Life Debt, and he was calling it in.
.・。.・゜✭・..・。.・゜✭・.
“Can’t you just be normal for once?” Hermione’s father bellowed.
It was always the same when she was with her parents. She was never good enough, and her father took it out on her. She didn’t mind that so much, as long as he left her mother alone.
She fervently wished that she could find her biological parents. Her father always told her that he regretted taking her in. When she appeared on their doorstep, they thought it was a blessing since they couldn’t have children.
But then, her freak side showed up, and her father couldn’t let that stand. He tried to beat it out of her. The punches rained down on her, and she tried to curl into herself because the pain from being punched in the abdomen was just too much. It started to burn.
Did he break something this time? He never punched her in the face; he had a reputation to uphold. But her body was constantly battered, and it took weeks for them to heal when she went to Hogwarts. Maybe he took it too far this time and would kill her.
She cried out as the pain intensified and let out a scream that made her throat raw.
Hands grasped her arms, and a voice was telling her in an urgent whisper to hold still, but the pain was just too much.
“Miss Granger, you must hold still!” The voice said. “Miss Granger! Miss Granger! Hermione!”
Her eyes snapped open, and she wondered where the painful scream was coming from. It wasn’t until she took a shuddering breath that she realised it was her.
She panted as the pain increased; she just needed it to stop.
“Hush, the worst of it should pass soon.” Hands flexed on her arms, and she looked around the dark room for the voice.
Dim light from the sconces on the wall bathed the room in a soft glow. The harsh planes of her Professor’s face startled her. His greasy hair fell into his face as he hovered over her. Then, he let out a small huff, and she stopped thrashing.
The pain started to ebb away, but it was still there. A constant thrum inside of her. She expected to look down and see her entrails bursting from her body, but it was just her bloodied jumper.
“Professor,” she rasped. “Where am I?”
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes roaming her face as if he were trying to decide whether to tell her. He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. When he finally spoke, it was in a low whisper of a voice that she had a difficult time hearing.
“You’re at Malfoy Manor in the dungeons. You’ve been gravely injured, but you will heal. Before you ask, you’ve been here for a week, and I’ve been working on healing you.”
She mulled that over in her mind. “Why bother,” she said. “You know they’re just going to kill me.”
He was silent, and that spoke volumes to her. Did she wish to die?
No.
Did she have a fighting chance to escape?
Also no.
She remembered seeing faces pressed against the bars taunting her, calling her Mudblood with a cackle in their voice. They enjoyed seeing her in pain. From now on, she will do her best not to cry out in pain and give them satisfaction.
She flinched when footsteps stepped on the concrete steps, a shuffling and clicking sound as they descended to where she was being held.
Her Professor released her immediately and stepped across the room, his back to her. She grunted as she struggled to sit up. She had no wand and didn’t know wandless magic proficiently yet, but she would go down fighting. First, she needed to see where the exits were.
The footsteps got louder, and a manic face appeared. Bellatrix pressed her face against the bars, her wand tapping against the metal.
“Are you ready to play, Mudblood?” she cooed.
The man behind her shifted his position and made a guffawing laugh as he nudged Bellatrix in the arm. This was the same man she had battled in the Ministry and cursed her.
Bellatrix tapped her wand on the cell, and the doors swung open with ease. She stepped into the room. The low cot Hermione was sitting in didn’t offer her much protection, as she and the man hovered over her.
“Bella,” Professor Snape sighed as he turned to face them. “I just got her to wake up and heal her wounds. She is in no condition to play with you right now.”
“The Dark Lord grows impatient!” she seethed. “He wants to see her now. ”
Hermione tried to swallow her fear and be brave like Godric Gryffindor, but she shrank back against the wall as the man stepped forward with a collar and chain and handed it to Bellatrix.
“Come on, my little pretty, we don’t want to keep the Dark Lord waiting, do we?” he said as he pinned her head against the wall, grasping her matted curls and holding her still.
She kicked out, but Bellatrix and the man avoided her weak attempts. Bellatrix was fast to click the collar shut and yank on the chain, causing her to tumble on the hard, cement floor. Her teeth chattered together as she was jolted in place.
“Come, crawl to the Dark Lord,” Bellatrix said with a strange cackle and yanked the chain again. Not wanting to move, Hermione leaned back and tried to fight the pull. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She wanted to be back at Hogwarts, her home, in the safety of her friend’s embraces.
As the man grasped her hair tightly and yanked her forward, Hermione had no choice but to comply. She would crawl to her death, and there was nothing she could do about it.
.・。.・゜✭・..・。.・゜✭・.
The Dark Lord, or Voldemort as some called him, sat on his throne in the middle of Malfoy Manor’s Ball Room, feeling like a King. He looked down at his feet, and the Mudblood was curled in a ball, her small hand gripping the chain around her neck as Bellatrix used the Cruciatus curse on her.
He had to give it to the Mudblood. Her screams became muted when she lost her voice, and now, she was doing her best to hold still.
Still.
He had Harry Potter’s Mudblood and would find out all her secrets before the night was over, but he needed leverage against her. The file Lucius had so kindly retrieved from the Ministry was filled with her basic information, and she was adopted at a young age. Parents were muggles. But something was missing—the list of her family members.
When he tore through her mind, he saw how she loathed her father but cared for her mother. He sent some followers to retrieve them, but the neighbours said they were vacationing in Australia and would return next week.
With a sigh, he leaned back against his throne and raised his hand. Bellatrix looked up and cancelled the curse, patiently awaiting his next orders.
“Lucius,” he called. “Go and retrieve the legitimacy papers from the office. I wish to see if there is anyone else in her life we can use as leverage. A dog, perhaps?”
The gathering Death Eaters laughed, and a smirk curled his lips, and he stood and took a step down to look down at the girl. This Hermione Granger was Potter’s favourite, he knew. He was in the boy’s thoughts, and Potter thought highly of the girl, to the point of obsession.
He nudged her with his foot and furrowed his brows. Her hair went from sable brown to almost black curls. Bella had noticed she had been glamoured and stripped her of everything.
He nudged her until she unfurled herself and rolled onto her back. She blinked her eyes open and was unfocused as she tried to look around the room. Her grey eyes locked with his crimson ones, and he felt a moment of unease. This girl had the same colouring as Bellatrix. He had to know. She had been adopted. Was she a half-blood, or just a mere Mudblood?
Lucius returned to the Ball Room, and the Death Eaters parted for him. The clicking of his cane hitting the marble floor gave him away.
He snatched the pre-treated parchment and waved his hand, dismissing the useless Death Eater. He was glad he hadn’t been caught at the Ministry when his brethren did.
That was a problem for a different day.
He knelt next to the girl and snatched her wrist from her waist, where she grasped at the blood-coated jumper. He had heard that Doloholv cursed her, but felt nothing as he looked at her. No pity or sadness. She would die and be left at the gates of Hogwarts as a sign for Dumbledore, and to upset Potter.
Potter would make a mistake, and then he would finally have him.
Taking her wand from his robes, because he loved being so perverse, he sliced her wrist and let it drip onto the paper. The small, muted plinking sound reached his ears, and his greedy eyes looked at the lines that started to appear.
Tossing her hand away in disgust, he returned to his throne and waited for the lines to clear. He took longer than he would like to give the results he sought, but he was patient.
Bellatrix shuffled forward and looked down at the girl, nothing but hate and contempt in her eyes. “We’ll bring your parents here, girl. You’ll watch as I play with them, slicing them up into little pieces.”
The girl just blinked her eyes, but remained mute.
“Crucio!” Bellatrix snarled, kicking the girl in the ribs at the same time.
The muted, hoarse cries issued from her throat as she clawed at the floor. Her nails had been ripped out from trying to find purchase on the gleaming marble floor to no avail.
The girl twitched and vomited, bile coming from her throat. Drool slipped from her cracked and bloody lips as she tried to crawl away from the pain. It would do no good; Bella was always relentless. That is why she was his most favoured.
He waved his hand towards Severus, and he came forward on silent footsteps. He looked down at the girl, Dolohov and Yaxley were now torturing. He had told his Death Eaters they could play with her but not kill her; that was for his pleasure only.
She was barely alive, but it was enough that he could search her mind once more before he landed the final blow.
“Severus,” he said, tapping the paper that was warm to the touch. “Do you know anything about her family? She is adopted, yes?”
“Yes, My Lord,” he said with a bow of his head. “Albus said she was left on her parents’ doorstep in the early hours of November 1st, the year you fell,” he said. “Albus is quite fond of the Grangers, too.”
“Oh, is he?” he chuckled. “Maybe we should bring them here when they return from Australia and play with them in front of the girl to loosen her tongue, and then for Albus to find.”
It didn’t matter if this girl was a half-blood or even a Pureblood; she would die by his hands. He had no sympathy for her. She was just a tool to use to get to Potter.
The heat emanating from the paper flared with a bright light, and then pulsed. He looked at the girl one last time, who had her arm broken by Dolohov, who used it to slap the girl. It was perverse, but amusing at the same time. She had stopped crying out.
She had passed out again, as she had before. She was still alive; her raspy breathing was heard over the cacophony in the room.
“That’s enough,” he barked. “Let’s see where this girl comes from, shall we?”
Dolohov crawled off the girl and, for good measure, kicked her in her side before standing next to Bella, whose greedy eyes looked at him. She tapped her wand in her hand and cackled as he lifted the paper.
He sucked in a sharp breath and stood causing everyone to jump. “Everyone out!” he barked. “Bella, Severus, Lucius, and Narcissa come to me.”
Everyone was confused for a beat, looking around the room, shuffled out, and slammed the doors shut.
“What is it, my Lord?” Bella said as she stepped on the girl's hand with a twist of her heel and came to him.
Everyone waited for him to speak. He was furious right now, especially with Bella. She never told him. He had suspected it but didn’t push the issue.
“Your daughter,” he said, waving the paper at her. “Where is she?”
Bella shrank back and sucked in a breath of her own. “She’s not with us anymore,” she said. “Roddy and I were being chased, and I had to leave her in the woods. We were captured, and I didn’t tell them about her. I—she is surely dead, my Lord.”
“Whose child was she, Bella? You told me she was Rodulphus’, was that true?”
Bella paled and looked down. “Yes,” she rasped.
“Lies!” he hissed and, using his wand, cast the most vicious Crucio. His heart was full of hate and anger for the women before him. She had fucking lied to him, right to his face.
As she lay there screaming, he stepped down and stood over her. He released the spell. She had blood coming from her ears, and trickling from her mouth, but he didn’t fucking care.
“You lied to me,” he said. “This girl, this Hermione Granger , is your daughter…and mine.”
He tossed the paper at her, and it floated on the ground. Bella twitched as she reached for it, her hand curling around the paper.
Leaning up on one elbow, she swiped the blood from her mouth and looked down at the parchment. “NO!” she wailed and tried to crawl over to the girl.
He kicked her in the face, his long toenails scratching her. He leaned down and, with gentle care, he didn’t know he was capable of, picking his daughter up, releasing the chain, and walking away from the mad woman.
“The rest of you, follow me.”
His world just changed. He had suspected that Bella’s child was his, but never pushed the issue; they had been at war. Besides, he would have the child in his circle and eventually discover the truth.
But she lied. This girl in his arms was his, an extension of himself. He always cared for his things and people who were precious to him, which were few and far between.
As he walked up the grand staircase with the others following him, he looked down at his battered daughter, and anger rolled through him once again. He hadn’t known. He had torn through her mind, not caring about the mess he left behind. Her body was broken and bruised. Will she die?
Before, he didn’t care. Now, he would burn the world to ash to bring her back to him, to his side, where she belongs. She was his heir, something he had always wanted.
Placing her on the bed, he turned to Severus. “Heal her. If she dies, your life will be forfeited,” he hissed.
Now, it was time to talk to Lucius and Narcissa to see if they knew, if they, too, if they needed to be punished for keeping his child from him.