Long A/N: Apologies on a few counts. First, I'm not a particularly good writer, especially for Harry Potter even though this was my first fanfiction fandom. Second, I'm a terrible self-editor. Third, Bellatrix will be OOC in probably an 'unusual' way, though I think it's done often. I'll be making Bella less "crazy" though possibly a bit more sadistic - without JK Rowling doing another book possible pre-HP set in the same world about the Pure Blood family and how they got to be that way (come on, with Sirius, Snape, Bella, the Malfoys? It'd be EPIC!) I don't know exactly how sadistic Bella is.
I do, however, think Bellatrix was more of a sociopath pre-Azkaban than a Psychopath, but that's probably me trying to justify my attraction. Sociopaths are pretty much what the a-typical, cliché Slytherin is and to me, it's kinda sexy in the same way that a lot of people have pretty extreme fantasies in their heads that they never, ever want to experience in real life (which is okay, that's what fan fiction is for!)
Anyway, my inspiration for this piece was originally for a Denna/Cara AU fic (Legend of the Seeker) that I was going to write, however recently I rekindled my Bellatrix love, and have discovered some fantastic Bellamione fics. Upon working out why I liked the pairing so much (Hermione is pretty much the only woman stubborn enough to get Bellatrix to see, which is a common fanfic theme) I decided to write this.
So I would also like to point out that this may (accidentally as I am more likely to ask permission first!) contain themes, areas, plot devices etc from other fics. It may also contain triggers so I'll do my best to state the big ones, but that's just a warning.
The biggest inspiration that probably lead the trail of though to the original idea of this fic are from a much larger Once Upon a Time fic entitled Paint it Black on Archive of Our Own which I suggest reading (And noting that it's hardcore dubcon but just barely [dark side of the spectrum] at first and very, very dark but extremely sexy).
I'd also like to give kudos to the Mord'Sith [Legend of the Seeker/Sword of Truth] particular from season 1 episode 8 [entitled Denna] and round of thanks LittleWoobie116 who explained to me why the Mord'Sith are so loyal, also she is 60% of the reason why I got into Bellamione (but don't tell her!) you all should also check out her ('ye olde') Fluer/Hermione fic and push her to re-edit like she's promised.
Onwards!
1.
Capture
Faults were hard to place. It was easy to blame Bellatrix who stole her away from Hogwarts but the blame didn't end there. It was only in the loom of night, when pale moonlight would slip through the bars, that Hermione admitted she too was at fault.
She had been the one who was walking around at night, she had also been the one to investigate the noise and it was she who stumbled into Bellatrix. The woman had only been surprised before a mask slid over face, quickly that too was replaced by a smile so cruel that the younger witch had frozen.
It was only as the woman mutter a string of insults at Hermione, fumbling with shock as the woman's laugh echoed through the vacant halls, she had reached for wand, but time wasn't there. Before she could even think about should haves or could haves a curse was thrown and Hermione became immobilized.
With little thought to the rest of the evening or her own plan, Bella had taken her away from Hogwarts. Why? Hermione didn't know, wasn't even sure. Easily, she conceived that the dark witch would reply, "Why not?" if she ever found the courage to ask.
Hermione wasn't truly sure that she'd even receive the chance to ask why. She believed that she was hidden in the depths of Bellatrix Lestrange's house, and although she'd seen the woman briefly once when she'd first been remobilized, she hadn't since. She hadn't seen anyone.
It'd been a three days and the house had been quiet. In the basement, that sat with a good foot and a half of ceiling above ground - because how else would the moonlight seep through the barred window - Hermione had waited. Not even a sound could be heard from above. Even the birds seem to hold their breaths and only sing in the far distance. The only sound she heard creep into the house, was the thunderstorm on her first night.
Hermione shivered at the cold before she ran her eyes around the area.
There'd been water placed for her in a small bucket. A larger bucket had also been sat in the further corner from her, as her toilet that Hermione begrudgingly used only when absolutely necessary. Her area was bare after that. No food had appeared yet and Hermione erroneously satiated her hunger with the endless bucket of water.
She didn't have the full area of the basement to wonder. Her cage had bars that sprung from the ceiling down into the cold, hard ground, laid out a small two by one area towards the furthest wall from the stairs. There was no area to stalk and cabin fever had begun to set in hard for the young witch. She'd already known that her skull would never be able to fit through the bars no matter how thin the rest of her became.
She also knew that the bars would probably remain strong even if the rest of the house were to fall down around it. She was trapped. Worse, she was trapped and waiting for it to begin.
The fear and anticipation of torture had kept her awake past exhaustion until she'd finally given in, almost wishing for death.
She felt like a caged dog. Her prison small enough to drive her insane but large enough to stretch, almost as though she should feel lucky to have received this much at all.
She heard steps. Hermione rose, fingers gripping the bar as the door suddenly opened. Blinded by the light, Hermione fell back into the wall, covering her eyes until they adjusted to the intensity of the light. A savage cackle fell down from the stairs and Hermione almost dropped to her knees immediately as she recognized Bellatrix's laugh moments before the woman spoke. "It stinks of your muddy blood down here." Hermione bit back her reply, requesting better facilities would probably result in worse.
Her silhouette elegantly stepped down the stairs until it was stone that the heels clicked onto. The clicks of heels taunted her and Hermione forced her body to remain still as she tried her best to not press further against the wall as the woman's raven curls, then her face came into sight.
"Ooh," the dark witch cooed mockingly, "is the mudblood afraid?" Hermione didn't reply. Her lips pressed tight as she stared into the black eyes. "Answer," Bellatrix demanded, her voice though, never rose. Fear rippled over the young witch's skin.
"Yes," she breathed out honestly.
"Good," Bellatrix replied. Her eyes ran over the length of Hermione before eyeing the cage. "Do you like it? I made it especially for you," she taunted. Hermione watched the fingers delicately touch the edges of the metal and run up the length of a single bar as she spoke.
"Why did you bring me here?" Hermione dared to ask, ignoring the rhetorical question. The dark witch seemed to think for a moment, wether it was for an appropriate retort or if she wanted reply, Hermione didn't know. But the woman had cocked her hip and ran her fingers over the pendant on her neck as she thought over the young witch's words.
"Because," she finally replied, "I have a plan."
"A plan?" Hermione echoed, sitting up with curiosity at the woman's words. What possible reason would Bellatrix have with her? She had been at Hogwarts, Harry would have easily been within reach if the dark witch wanted him...and yet, Why? "What happened at Hogwarts?" she asked, and then continued as her thoughts began to bubble over, she'd only meant for one question but three days worth of over-thinking everything spilled from her lips, "Why were you there...how did you even get in?"
"Too many questions." Hermione didn't get a chance to apologize or beg. Too late, the wand was pointed at her. Taking a gasp of air, Hermione fell just back as Bellatrix spoke, "Crucio."
There was nothing for a second, then the flash of light hit her. Pain convulsed the young witch's body, her body fell to the floor with a crack and twisted almost impossibly as her scream cried out. She could hear it piercing the walls just as the curse pierced her skin and burn through layers of flesh. Snakes wormed through her veins, hissing in her ears. The pain rose and rose and-
Stopped. The curse was lifted almost as quickly as it had arrived.
Hermione shrank back into the cage. Nausea threatened her stomach, but nothing remained in there any more. She ached, her whole body sagged and her lungs threatened to combust as she dragged in breaths that rubbed rawly down her throat.
She heard the sound of wood against metal and watched as Bellatrix lazily hit her wand against the bars. The dull sounds echoed until the dark witch pulled away and looked down at Hermione. "Draco got us in." Bellatrix smirked at the memory before her expression shifted to mild disgust. Flicking her wand, Hermione noted that her toilet disappeared. Dread filled her stomach at the idea of what would happen next.
"Oh, I'm not that cruel," Bellatrix said before smirking almost proudly, "well I am. However, the smell offended me; it'll be cleaned and replaced after I leave."
"Thank-you," Hermione replied. Bellatrix eyed her oddly at the word before haughtily looking away. "Why…" she trailed off as the dark witch's eyes flicked back to her at the sound.
"Finish you sentence." Again, it was a command as though Hermione was her trained dog.
The young witch felt her heart beat strongly beneath her chest as she swallowed and asked, "Why me?" Bellatrix arched an eyebrow as if the answer was obvious. "I mean, couldn't you have grabbed someone else?"
"Yes, I could have killed you and grabbed someone else." Bellatrix shook her head. "I didn't plan for this at first, but when I recognized you, an idea formed; there wasn't time to hope that I could happen across someone else and you...you are quite the prize. Potter's very own mudblood." She chuckled lowly and gripped the bars as she lent in close to whisper: "My dear, I am going to have so much fun breaking you."
Hermione visibly shook from her corner, "B-breaking me?"
Bellatrix tilted her head, her wand pointing at Hermione in a vague threat. "Don't worry," she cooed, "your mind will remain reasonably intact after I'm done with you."
"You don't have to this," she pleaded desperately, "you could send me back or you could-"
"Crucio!" Through the pain and her own screams, she could hear Bellatrix's wanton laughs. It wasn't until the ridiculing died down did the spell lift and Hermione gasp for a breath. Her body fell slack against the floor, too sore as she painfully inhaled. Anger twisted inside of her, but the woman was too far for her to grab or kick or anything that Hermione felt her body painfully desire.
You're sick," she vexed instead. Before the rest of the insults could be hissed from her, she rolled over onto her side, her body jerking violently with coughs. Bile was involuntarily spat onto the floor, and through her blurring vision she forced herself up onto all fours. Somehow she held back the tears, she refused refusing to give Bellatrix the satisfaction as she achingly sat up, her body shaking with the pain. "Vile," she continued, her voice going hoarse, "twisted."
"I know, isn't it delicious?"
Hermione glared, "How in the world did you get this way?" It was rhetorical but Bellatrix's expression, still smiling down at Hermione, became notably stilted to the young witch.
"I think we're done for the evening," she said as she pulled away from the bars, her voice was schooled and void of all emotions. Hermione didn't smile at the small victory, if it could even be called that. Her own words echoed in her head, adhered with Bellatrix's expression as she wondered what exactly pressed the witch to become so closed-up at her question.
Bellatrix turned and began walking up the stairs before Hermione even realized. With a cry of protest, Hermione begged, "What about food? I'll starve before your plan can even begin!" Bellatrix, with no reaction apart from the briest pause to listen to the young witch, continued to climb the stairs, the door shutting behind with a sharp click.
Hermione waited in a quiet pause until the heels faded away on the ground floor above her, before she broke down crying. Her throat was raw and it felt more painful to cry than it would to bottle the emotions back up. But Hermione couldn't stop once she began. Instead, she felt herself crawl into a small ball against the cold draft that seeped through the window, and allowed all the pain from that day to run down her face.
Some small, tiny voice that Hermione rarely heard, had the insult to point out that she was probably not a pretty crier. The voice was squashed instantly. Hermione didn't care what she looked like, she didn't even care how she smelt. No, Hermione would give anything, even her own magic, to be back home and never return to the wizarding world.
Time past long enough that the crying stopped. Hermione didn't go to sleep, her eyes remained open in the inky darkness as she waited. She was afraid that the moment she allowed herself to sleep, either the nightmares would plague her or its incarnate form: Bellatrix would. The dark witch would inevitably appear, it was just a matter of if she'd take form in Hermione's nightmares, or reality.
Her mind barely wandered far from escape. She thought of people who would have immediately known she wasn't there, and many of those right now would be searching for her relentlessly. Eventually they would find her, wouldn't they? Or was Bellatrix's house protected by the same wards as Grimmauld Place?
A small pop! disrupted her thoughts.
For the briefest second Hermione looked up expecting an Order of the Phoenix member to be staring down at her with sympathy and understanding as they held out a hand for her to take. Instead, a house elf appeared and looked down at Hermione with large, sparkling green eyes and a curious expression.
The elf in question had a startling resemblance to that of a gremlin with a small flat nose and large, bat-like ears. Turning to fully face Hermione, the house elf tugged at the pillow case, and dishwashing towel it wore around its timid waist.
"Mistress Black wished for Wanda to give Miss Granger this," she offered with a small squeak. A small, white bowl was placed down in front of her. Hermione stared at the bowl, its smell wafting delicious to her as she gracious smiled down at it. It was only at the scuffing of small feet did the witch manage to look up from the bowl and back to its giver.
The house elf almost smiled at her and made a move to leave; quickly, Hermione managed a weak but sincere, "Thank you," before the elf left with a snap of her fingers.
It took a moment of her staring at the empty space the elf had been before she realized that her toilet, too, had been replaced. She could have laughed if her eyes hadn't stared back down, so hesitantly at the bowl in front of her body. Slowly she sat up. The sounds of material scratching on the stone ground could be heard echoing as Hermione rose onto her knees and lifted the cold bowl onto her legs.
Was it laced with poison? Or another potion? She looked over it curiously, searching for any signs of obvious tampering. Nothing. She gave a small sniff. Nothing unusual.
Hermione didn't trust it.
The food could bare be called scraps, even (muggle) prisoners received more than this! Her stomach turned uncomfortably as she looked at it. Anything could have been done to it, she realized. Eventually she pushed the fears down as her stomach knotted painfully with hunger. She had to eat. She'd die if she didn't eat or Bellatrix would somehow make her eat in possibly the most humiliating fashion.
Tentatively, she reached out and ate. Most of the scraps were fat or gristle from some sort of meat. There was also over-boiled pieces of vegetables; the bad or damaged edges of beans, a potato barely larger than her thumbnail and something she assumed was a mushroom, but honestly could have been anything. Like the rest of the food, the vegetables was tasteless and probably boiled of most of its nutrients.
But her stomach stopped hurting. It was nowhere near full and just as she finished, she wanted more. She filled the remained hunger by scooping the bowl and replenishing it with water that Hermione, for the first time, greedily drank down.
She refilled the bowl again, this time to wash her hands and clean her nails as best she could before she placed the bowl down and crawled back into the corner. Her back pressed against the wall as she brought her knees up to her chin and set down her head upon it.
She was alone and she knew the Order wouldn't find her. She was humoring herself if she believed that they'd find out where she was. It was even more ridiculous if she tried to fool herself into believing that there'd be a chance or a moment for her to escape.
No, she was stuck here until Bellatrix was done with her. Wether the older witch would lose her patience and kill her before she'd finished what she wanted or she actually progressed through the 'plan' she had for Hermione, was still up in the air. Hermione betted on the former happening, after all, the 'plan' was spur of the moment and Bellatrix didn't seem the kind to be patient.
The woman, however, had been more lucid than the brief encounters Hermione remembered. Though the Ministry event had only been fleeting moments with the woman and re-telling of biased views, Hermione had the impression that the woman was more insane than her brief experience.
She was sadistic, but she was also...something else, something that pained Hermione the more she tried to think about it.
Shutting her eyes, the young witch listened for any sounds above. Ambient winds broke coldly through the thin layers of her materials and echoed Hermione's previous cries. There were little clouds looming over the night sky that Hermione could see from the distant window, just as there was little noise above her.
She could hear the odd creak of a floorboard as weight was placed onto it, but nothing suggesting that sans Wanda and Bellatrix, anyone currently resided in the house.
It was a small comfort and enough for Hermione to tuck herself deeper into her robes and shut her eyes as she listened. With her ear pressed against the floor, Hermione foolishly believed that maybe she'd hear the woman arrive the next time the mood struck her.
It was only as her exhausted thoughts became clouded and images spun in front of her eyes like spider's web, that Hermione realized the woman had slipped into her mind without her even being aware of it.
It'd been so brief and barely digging into any of Hermione's barriers, that she hadn't even noticed the dark witch sneak in. Her eyes snapping open to the darkness, Hermione wondered how far the woman had ventured into her mind and just what she'd seen. There were thoughts, private thoughts and memories that Hermione rarely ventured on unless a particular mood struck. The last thing she needed was the humiliation of the woman knowing those thoughts.
She'd be teased mercilessly, tortured with those thoughts and fantasies.
Hermione already felt violated and the woman had probably only barely peeked inside with legilimency to see what her direct thoughts had been.
"I hate you," she whispered to the cold night. She almost expected a laugh to erupt from the stairs.