CHAPTER ONE

19 September, 1996

(the present)

Hermione Granger awoke in the cellar dungeon of Malfoy Manor, as she had every morning for the last three months.

This morning, however, was not quite like other mornings.

This morning, it was her birthday.

She opened her eyes and focused her gaze on the stone ceiling above. She could feel someone staring at her, which made the hair on her arms stand on end. She did not move, scarcely breathed, and fought the urge to shiver, hoping it was HER and not HIM.

"Good, you're awake!"

It was HER.

"Come now, sit up, I've been waiting hours for you to open your eyes!" The woman plopped down on the edge of her bed and patted her arm. "Look alive, love! You have presents!"

Hermione pulled herself into a seated position. She glanced around her cell. Over these last three months, it had gone from looking like a prison to looking damn near homey. Had there not been bars in place of a fourth wall and an enchanted window in place of a real one, it could almost pass for a real bedroom. Her cot had been replaced by a twin bed, her chamber pot by an attached loo with running water, and the crate on which she kept her meagre possessions was now a tall antique wooden wardrobe with double doors and several drawers.

They were trusting her, a little more each day. The more they trusted her, the less she trusted herself.

She was losing herself.

"Smile, Hermione!" the woman commanded, hugging her around the shoulders. "I've wanted to celebrate your birthday with you since... since…" Her voice cracked and the end of the sentence died. Hermione wondered if she might cry. She'd seen the woman cry only twice thus far, but often felt she was on the verge. It was... unnerving. All things considered.

The woman placed several wrapped packages on Hermione's lap. She tapped the biggest, in shimmery gold paper with a silver bow. "That's from me. Open it first."

Hermione's hands were steadier than she might have expected as she pulled back the paper, wondering whether she'd like what was inside. This wasn't the way her birthday was supposed to be. She was seventeen today, of age. An adult in the wizarding world. She should be celebrating with Harry and Ron, and maybe Ginny and Neville and Luna, perhaps with bottles of butterbeer and Chocolate Frogs. She might have been reading a letter from her proud parents, Muggle dentists, and would certainly have been attending classes as usual. She felt a pang in her chest, literal heartache, over her current predicament, for as well as she was being treated these days, she'd give almost anything for her old life back.

"Don't be sad, love." The woman stroked Hermione's tangled hair and kissed her temple. "If you want butterbeer and Chocolate Frogs, I'll send a house-elf for butterbeer and Chocolate Frogs."

The woman was a Legilimens.

Hermione had only learned about Legilimens over the last school year, when Harry was learning Occlumency from Professor Snape. Hermione knew nothing of the practical use of Occlumency, but tried to remember to think positive thoughts whenever the woman was around. It was the best way to avoid disappointing her, and, more importantly, of avoiding the wrath of HIM.

"Open it, open it!" prompted the woman, her wild eyes regarding Hermione with impatience. With one long fingernail, painted black, she tapped the box. Hermione lifted the top off and pulled out her present.

It was a dress.

A gown, really.

Ornate and beautiful, glimmering silver, with thin straps, a fitted bodice, and a little flare in the skirt, with diamond chips along the scooped neckline. It caught the dim light of a candle in one of the wall sconces and shimmered pink and purple. Was this fabric somehow enchanted? Made with magic threads? She'd never seen anything like it.

"Sacred Salazar!" Hermione breathed, borrowing a phrase she'd only ever heard from the lips of the woman without recognizing it had become part of her daily diction, too. "It's stunning!"

"I know!" The woman jumped up, clapping her hands together. She looked much less fearsome like this, when smiling with both her lips and eyes, despite the bad lighting casting shadows across her face and the bars providing a backdrop. Hermione thought she must have been breathtaking when she was younger, before Azkaban. Now, she was too thin, emaciated almost, and that made her deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes look much too large, and she was pale, and some of her teeth were broken, but she maintained a certain haughtiness and an air of dignity that made it easy for Hermione to envision her as a young woman, with perfect bone structure, clear skin, a trim but curved figure... a classic beauty.

"My two front teeth were much too large when I was little," the woman told her once, months ago, while examining her closely. "They stuck out and I hated them. Mother and Daddy took me to a Healer to have them fixed before I left for Hogwarts. They were worried I'd be teased. But you, you have nice teeth. Straight. The right size."

"Madam Pomfrey fixed them for me," Hermione had confessed. "They used to be too large... and they stuck out. The front ones, I mean."

That came as quite a thrill for the woman, who rejoiced over their every similarity, no matter how small.

"You'll wear the gown tonight, for dinner!" The woman said, grinning down at Hermione, her eyes glistening. "You're of age! It's an exciting day in the life of a young witch. When I turned seventeen, my parents hosted a magnificent gala, and HE came, the Dark Lord. It was the night we met. I loved him from first sight."

"Oh?" Hermione tried to picture her at seventeen, falling for a monster of a man with red-slitted eyes, no defined nose, and long, tapered fingers, dingy nails, hairless, terrifying…

"He was handsome, then," said the woman wistfully. "If I only had a photograph… or a Pensieve… I could show you. He had eyes and hair the same color as yours, and he could tan in the summer, as you do. I go from white to red, but he…" She took Hermione's chin between her thumb and forefinger. "He is not a monster."

"I'm sorry," whispered Hermione. "You know he frightens me."

The woman opened her mouth and began to speak, but hesitated, ended eye contact, and forced on a smile. "This evening, we're having a formal meal in the dining room. Dancing may follow. It's been such a long time since we last… I've been in Azkaban, remember? Until January. I haven't attended a ball or dinner party since 1979, and I could not enjoy it then. I'd just learned I was expecting, thus I had to abstain from alcohol, and I attended alone because my husband…" She cleared her throat. "No matter. Regarding tonight, we will dine with my sister, her sister-in-law, my father, Snape, a few select invited guests..." With a bit of nervousness creeping into her voice, she added, "And the Dark Lord will be present. You must therefore be on your best behavior. Remember last time?"

Hermione winced and rubbed at the burn scar on her forearm. She did indeed remember last time. She'd been permitted out of this dungeon only once since her arrival. It hadn't gone well, to put it mildly.

"Let's put these other gifts aside for now." With a wave of her wand, they disappeared from Hermione's lap and reappeared on a small round table in the corner. That table was new. "Breakfast?" Without awaiting an answer, she snapped her fingers for a house-elf.

Hermione, despite her difficulties with the free labor of house-elves, was hungry and had learned she didn't eat if she didn't allow them to feed her, gave her order. The woman did the same.

"I want the Dark Lord to be impressed by you this evening, Hermione. I need him to see you as I do." The woman returned to her spot on the edge of the bed. She stroked Hermione's hair. "If he believes you're still loyal to that Muggle-loving old fool Dumbledore, he'll sooner kill you than let you leave this cell again. We can't have that, now, can we, my lovely little pureblood princess?"

Hermione shook her head. She would be on her best behavior, she wasn't stupid. But she also wasn't sure she'd ever get used to being called the woman's 'lovely little pureblood princess.' She'd spent too many years as the Mudblood.

"That's a good girl. While we wait for our food, how about another present?" She summoned one over. "This is from your Auntie Narcissa..."

-0-0-0-

18 June, 1996

(three months ago)

"Yes... yes... oh... oh... yes... please..."

Since his 'reincarnation' and her release, she and the Dark Lord had engaged in much less sex than she'd been accustomed to prior to his fall, and if she was being honest, he wasn't as good as he'd been before either. But she loved every moment they were together nonetheless.

She had one arm bent up above her head, flat on the mattress, and his opposite hand clutched her wrist, keeping it there. Her other hand was on his hip, encouraging him, as her pelvis lifted to meet him thrust-for-thrust. Her hair was spread out below her head and to the sides, like a black pillow that smelled of coconut, her nipples were taut and aching for his attention, and her eyelids fluttered involuntarily as he hit a certain spot inside her that nearly put her over the edge.

"Tonight," he hissed into her ear. "Tonight, we get the Prophecy."

"Yes… yes, my Lord… ohh… ohhhh…" She was close, so close. She needed him to keep at it right there, right at this angle, but to her disappointment he shifted slightly, lifting his body further off hers. Not that she was complaining. She'd take what she could get. They'd been together in this way only five times in the six months since her escape from Azkaban, twice of which had been on that first night of freedom when he was celebrating having liberated ten of his top followers, thus she savored each and every time.

He had always been a somewhat selfish lover, but even more so since their post-prison reunion. He didn't kiss her lips or hold her anymore, or whisper in her ear all the reasons she was perfect for him, and only once had he made any attempt to bring her pleasure orally. But she reminded herself that he was a different person now… hardly a person at all, it seemed. He was more of an entity now, a god, so far above and beyond anything she could ever be it was almost difficult to remember that he'd once been a young, handsome, virile man, with a little gray at his temples and eyes that smiled when pleased, a man who'd let her drift off to sleep with her head on his chest, a man who'd relish in bringing her to orgasm multiple times before he did, as he once saw his ability to do so as a source of pride.

This change did not dim her love for him, nor did it make her want to please him any less than she ever had, and so she made it clear she was available to him whenever he demanded, even though she fell asleep in a cold bed beside her husband most nights, feeling unfulfilled and woefully alone.

"When Potter is dead, I'll take the Ministry." He pumped harder, spurred on by the notion of ruling over all, of eliminating that dreadful boy whose continued existence served only to humiliate him. "He will hand it to you, Bella."

"Yes… yes, my Lord…" They'd been through the plan numerous times. She and a contingency of other top Death Eaters would be waiting in the Department of Mysteries for Potter to come and retrieve the Prophecy with his name on it. They would demand he hand it over and he would, because surely he wasn't so stupid as to deny them. They wouldn't kill him – that was an order – but she was granted special permission to have a little fun with him should he give them any trouble, so long as no harm came to the glass orb in which the Prophecy was contained. She was to hold onto it – her, and no one else, not Malfoy, not Dolohov, just her – and she would keep it safe until she handed it to him.

She reached a hand between them, playing with the slick nub between her lips, desperate to bring herself to orgasm as it was clear he wouldn't be doing so. He was… distracted. His mind was entirely on the task at hand, and she was aware he was only fucking her because he needed the release; had another women been available in the middle of the night at Malfoy Manor, he'd be contentedly buried in her instead. But since his options were a willing and familiar Bellatrix versus veritable ice princess (and occasional emotional basket-case) Narcissa, it made sense he sent for the mistress he'd taken to bed countless times before.

Unexpectedly, he released her wrist and grabbed for the back of her thigh, bringing her leg up until her knee was brushing against the outside of her left breast, causing an aching twinge in her hip. Though she was thin, she was out of shape, having spent fourteen years steadily starving and forgoing physical activity of any kind. She moaned from the pain, which he mistook for pleasure.

"Yes, Bella," he hissed, thrusting harder, digging his sharp nails into her flesh, hurting her. "You like this, don't you?"

"Yes, my Lord," she answered obediently.

"You'll get me that Prophecy, won't you?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"Yes… yes, you will. And then, we'll kill him. We'll kill Potter!" Two more jerks and he spilled himself into her, then abruptly pulled out and rolled off. She hadn't finished. He didn't seem to care… or notice.

"You may go."

"My Lord?" She was still on her back, breathing hard, with sweat beaded on her forehead and a sore spot on the side of her neck, right over her Azkaban number tattoo, where he'd bitten her.

"I've finished with you."

She blinked back tears. "With all due respect, my Lord, you used to let me… stay. Remember?"

"That was before."

She nodded and extricated herself from the bed, looking around for her nightdress, which he'd torn off and tossed aside. She did not bother with trying to retrieve her knickers, as he'd ripped them too and she was rubbish with clothing repair spells. Her dressing gown was on the floor in front of the door with the slippers she'd borrowed from Narcissa. Most of her clothing was borrowed from Narcissa, thus it was ill-fitting and not to her taste. She hadn't been permitted out shopping, obviously, since her escape, and she had no desire to ever wear her prison garb again, so she wore whatever she was given without much complaint. She did have one dress, though, that she liked – the one she'd been wearing when arrested, which had been returned to her next-of-kin along with her wand and a few other personal artifacts. Narcissa had kept her confiscated property in a box all these years, and though she needed the corset tighter now than she had in 1981, she liked the way it fit on her. She would wear it tonight, to the Ministry, for her first mission in over fourteen years. She was looking forward to it.

She was looking forward to pleasing the Dark Lord.

She wanted back in his good graces. She wanted what they'd had before.

She wanted him to let her stay the night.

"Goodnight, Bellatrix," he said. He leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes, the blanket pulled up to mid-chest, looking more at peace than she'd seen him since January. He waved a hand dismissively.

She nodded even though he couldn't see her.

"Yes, my Lord. Goodnight."

A/N:

Thank you so, so very much to everyone who decided to follow this fic, add it to favorites, and/or left a review! The response was overwhelming and I can't say how much I appreciate it. To answer a couple of Qs from either here or the FB page, but skip if you don't want to know. (No major spoilers.)

I will typically update on Tuesdays and Thursdays, though I'm doing it today (Sunday) because I initially posted on Wednesday. From now on, though, expect Tues and Thurs evenings (NYC time)

Yes, this will be a Snape/Hermione fic, but not yet as these things take time. It is also a Bellatrix/Voldemort fic with lemons (actual ones, not like the above) ahead for both couples. The primary focus is on Bellatrix and Hermione, their relationship as mother/daughter, and their respective relationships so most scenes will follow them and their points of view.

I will do my best to keep characters in-character and also to keep close to canon, though obviously it goes AU from the end of the Department of Mysteries excursion on. So expect Hermione to change, becoming darker over time, but not to become a totally AU version of the character (she's still Hermione). Same with Bellatrix, Voldemort, Snape, and the Malfoys. I always keep as in-character as I can considering the plot, and not try to make any deviations without reason.

Thank you! As I said, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the response (happily!) and I hope not to disappoint. Thanks for reading!

-AL