We Have to Keep Believing

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine

This fic is rated T for rape. If you don't like it, don't read it.

This story is AU-ish in the ways I explain on my author page.

And now, on to the story!

Prologue: Just Like Aida

"Miss? Could I speak to you for just a moment please?"

Fifteen-year-old Estella Black turned her head to see the unfamiliar woman behind her. "Go ahead."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to make this a private conversation."

"All right." The girl pulled open the door of an unused classroom and stepped inside.

The woman waited a long moment after they had both entered and her companion had closed the door behind them. "I - I've been trying to find you for the longest time."

"Who are you? What do you want with me?"

"My name is Leanne. Leanne Palmer. I'm your mother."

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"You're not my mother."

The woman took a deep breath. "I suppose this is hardly your fault. You must have been taken in by some family who decided it was in your best interest to hide the truth from you."

"You mean the fact that I was adopted? I know that, and I know that there's a reasonable chance you gave birth to me, but that does not make you my mother. You abandoned me on the doorstep of St. Mungo's, I almost froze to death before I was found. A mother doesn't do that."

"You have to understand the circumstances. I wasn't ready then, but now - "

"Is that what you think I am? A plaything? Something you can set aside when you don't want it, and then pick back up when you're ready? Well, I'm sorry, but I refuse to be manipulated in such a way. I'm happy where I am."

"Listen, winter holidays start in a week's time. I'll take you home until then, so you can get adjusted before the holiday starts -"

"I said no. I'm not interested in anything you have to offer me. I'm not going to leave the family that's taken care of me to stay with a mother who valued me so little that she left me on a doorstep in temperatures well below freezing without even a decent blanket."

"I wasn't asking your opinion," Leanne retorted sharply. "You will come with me."

"No. Absolutely not. I believe this discussion is over."

Estella turned and strode towards the door, clearly intending to leave the room and end the conversation. Unfortunately, she had underestimated the woman she was attempting to leave behind. As soon as the girl's back was turned, Leanne drew her wand and fired off a nonverbal Stunning Spell, striking her prey directly between the shoulderblades. Unable to react in time, Estella crumpled, unconscious, to the classroom floor.

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"She was stubborn, but I got her in the end."

These were the first words Estella registered as the blackness began to lift. Dimly, she identified the voice as Leanne Palmer's. Was Leanne talking about her?

"Well done, my darling." This voice was entirely unfamiliar.

Estella slowly opened her eyes. The first thing she registered was that she was most certainly not at Hogwarts. She was lying on a black marble floor in a dark room. Leanne was standing nearby, talking to a man with long white-blond hair. A man that Estella recognized, though she had never met him before. His picture had been in the Daily Prophet, he was a criminal who had escaped Azkaban. She remembered her father going pale, dropping the paper where she could clearly see it. And she remembered the name. Lucius Malfoy.

"She's awake." Leanne had noticed that her captive was coming to.

"Good." Malfoy knelt beside the girl, running his hand lightly over her face. "What's your name?"

Estella couldn't explain the feeling that came over her, but somehow she knew, just knew, that she couldn't tell him her real name. A false name was impractical; if she failed to answer to it, Malfoy would know she had lied. She came up with the only compromise she could think of.

"Ellie," she answered. "My name is Ellie."

It was a name she was used to answering to, but it wasn't a name with the same associations as her full name. The name Black would be easily recognized, and there was a chance Malfoy would be able to trace the name Estella back to her family; it wasn't that common.

The other two seemed satisfied. "Look at me, Ellie," he commanded, and she obeyed instinctively. "I began spending time with Leanne when my wife would not give me what I wanted. I would have married her the moment I could have safely done away with my weak, sniveling wife. But then a little brat got lucky and defeated my master, and I had to keep a low profile. I could only see Leanne in secret. And then my master rose again, and again I dreamed of a better future. When Leanne told me she was carrying our child, I couldn't have been happier. My first son had inherited too many of my wife's traits, he was unfit to be my heir. But then the brat got lucky again. My master died, and I was sent to Azkaban. My wife divorced me. But my dear Leanne remained faithful. She had to temporarily leave you, people would have asked questions, and she married so that no one would know of her loyalty. Just this summer, she made her move. She killed her husband and got me free, and then she found our child and brought you to me so I can make you my princess, like you should have been all those years ago."

"I don't want to be your princess. You served Voldemort. You disgust me. I have a father who cares. I don't need you."

"All you have to do is behave, and I'll give you anything you want. But if you're a bad girl, I'll have to punish you. For now, I'll start by putting you with the other girls, the Mudbloods. You're better than them, Ellie, don't think I don't know that, but you need to see what you could be, and then you'll appreciate what I'm offering you."

"Never," she said defiantly. "I'll never take what you offer."

"Guard!" A man rushed into the room on Malfoy's command. "Put her with the others."

"As you command, lord."

Estella was shoved into a dark, windowless cell. About fifteen girls, many of them apparently below Hogwarts age, already sat inside.

"Are you new?" one asked quietly.

"Yes," she answered.

"Your family must have turned down the school. You can't be younger than eleven," stated another.

"Turned down - you mean Hogwarts?"

"Every one of us," yet another girl explained, indicating her companions, "is a magical person from a non-magical family, except for Marissa," she indicated one girl who was about five or six, "and her family is outcast. The few here who are over eleven are students who didn't go to the school, like me. My family's Catholic, we don't believe in witchcraft."

"Mine either," said another, and there were murmurs of assent from all of the older girls.

"I do go to Hogwarts," Estella explained. "I was taken from there."

"Well you don't anymore," pointed out someone. "Once we're in here, we'll never get out. Lord Malfoy said as much."

"We'll get out," Estella countered firmly. "Just because Malfoy doesn't plan it that way doesn't mean it won't happen. We have to believe it will happen. It's just like Aida."

"Like what?" asked one of the younger girls.

"Aida. It's a story about a group of people in captivity, just like us."

"Can you tell it to us?"

Estella's first instinct was to say no; who would want to tell a story in such a place? But on second thought, a story might help to drive away the despair that seemed to hang over the girls.

"All right," she said finally. "This is the story of Aida."

This is my first fic. Please review. Pleeeeease.