Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to My Queen JK Rowling. The OC, however, is my own.


I am Hermione Jean Granger.

My parents are Muggle Dentists David and Helen Granger.

I am a Mugglerborn.

It was a mantra Hermione adopted as she stood, her body quivering with fear, staring at the closed doors of her wardrobe. She couldn't bring herself to reach out and grasp the carved handle and tug it open to reveal the mirror nestled within. Hermione preferred, instead, to take in the details of the intricately carved piece of furniture, the doors a map of twisting vines, curling leaves, blossoming flowers, and a sprinkle of some berry that couldn't be identified without the color. It was polished but old (if the brass hinges were anything to go by) and it reminded her of the wardrobe in Beauty and the Beast, a movie her parents had taken her to see when she had been a little girl- the first time. Or perhaps the second time. Or… maybe she hadn't been tiny Hermione Granger at all but a stranger who saw through her eyes, piggy-backing on the life of someone yet-to-be-born. The fear made her lip twist into a scowling snarl. It was ridiculous, illogical. All of it was a farce, a sick, twisted little game that these people had concocted to make her reveal everything she knew about Harry Potter. Perhaps she had only dreamed of the Battle of Hogwarts. Maybe she was still captured by the Malfoys and they fed her some sort of mind-altering potion. She imagined they were all getting a good laugh at her expense.

I am Hermione Granger, she thought fiercely before, with an insurmountable amount of Gryffindor Courage, she ripped the doors open to be met with the gaze of Draco Malfoy. She had Malfoy's eyes- a chilling silver-grey that reminded her eerily of clouds gathering before a thunderstorm- and a thin pale face framed by waves of black hair, mussed by her earlier brawl with Bellatrix and her fitful sleep. Hermione bared her teeth, searching for the two oversized incisors that dominated her mouth when she was eleven. They weren't there. Instead, her gleaming teeth were perfectly straight and appropriately sized- something Hermione could only accomplish at the end of Madame Pomfrey's wand. She was a little girl, but she wasn't herself as a little girl. She had been short and a little round, with hair too bushy for her head and teeth too big for her mouth. Her nose had been round, not upturned, and her skin had been a healthy tan, not a colorless cream. This, most decidedly, was not Hermione Granger.

Appalled, Hermione slammed the door shut, the sound echoing about the room with an air of finality, but it didn't seem enough. She stalked over to the bed and yanked on the comforter, pulling it free of its immaculate, tucked state, and threw it over the top of the cabinet. Then, she turned her back to it and settled herself into a golden armchair pushed away in the corner of the room. There she sat, staring at the door leading out until, hours later, it opened.

Druella Black swept into the quarters, put together so that Hermione felt the urge to smooth her hair. Only it isn't my hair, she reminded herself. An older woman trailed behind Druella, clad from head to foot in the bright olive robes of a St. Mungo's healer, her pointed hat slightly askew and her eyes darting about as though she expected someone hiding behind the door waiting to give her a good scare. When the healer's dark eyes (made even more shadowy due to the deep grooves and folded skin about them) landed on Hermione, she drew up short, sweeping over the way the girl was curled into the chair, knees tucked against her thin chest.

"As you can see," began Druella, her nose (so similar to the one Hermione was currently sporting) turning toward the ceiling with a derisive sniff. "Pandora is feeling out of sorts. It's similar to her state just last year. I should expect a full physical- preferably one that ensures me she'll be fine to leave the manor- we're due for shopping next week and the Malfoys have a luncheon of sorts. I will be most displeased if she is unable to attend." At this, the matriarch glared at Hermione as though warning her she would be to blame if the results were not to Durella's liking. What. A. Cow. It wasn't as though Hermione wanted to be here, possibly held hostage by pureblood fanatics and in the body of what may or may not have been the fourth Black daughter of whom Hermione had never heard. A rage welled within the young girl and, had Hermione been in her own body, her face would have flushed with the intensity of it. Unbeknownst to her, however, Pandora's face didn't change color- most likely because she constantly balanced on the precipice of an ill disposition.

"Don't bother," she snapped to the Healer, unfurling from the chair and standing jerkily in her haste to voice her displeasure. "I'm not going to the damn luncheon, good health or not!" Druella drew back, aghast, as though Hermione had thrown something at the woman and she lifted her chin defiantly. She wished her voice had already passed the hurdle of puberty- it would make swearing so much more impressive (not that Hermione condoned such impolite behavior- but extenuating circumstances and all that). "And I don't want to go bloody shopping! I want to go home. Whatever trick you lot are playing isn't going to work. Honestly! You can't believe that I would fall for such an outrageous- such an implausible story-" Had she not been warming up in her Hermione-Esque tirade, perhaps she would have seen Bellatrix's mother advancing, but she was and she didn't. The slap was sharp and powerful, catching Hermione across the cavity of her ear and making her head ring. She gasped, cupping the flesh protectively and fighting back the swell of tears that threatened to overflow.

"Yourself or not," Druella hissed, hand still tossed over her body as though too enraged to put it to rights. "I won't condone that kind of language under my roof. You are a Pureblood young lady and you will act like it." Hermione was sure that telling Druella Black all the instances in which Pansy Parkinsons had not acted like a "Pureblood Lady" would, in the words of Barty Crouch Jr, curl her hair. However, her ear was still ringing and she had no intention of finding out if the second one would as well. It seemed that neither did Druella because she turned stiffly to the healer and snapped: "Fix her" before stomping from the room.

Hermione wondered if it were very lady-like to stomp.


The healer's check-up was swift- a mirage of twirling wands and under-the-breath muttering that, if Hermione cared about the state of this body, would have been rather worrying. The display of Druella Black had convinced Hermione of one thing: she wore the face of Pandora Black. The more pressing matter was whether Hermione, on the inside, was Pandora Black. She would like to think not, would prefer to believe that she found herself in an unexplainable situation where Hermione Granger's soul inhabited a body that was not her own. Still, all the obscure talk of the people around her made her uneasy. She thought herself a relatively intelligent person and if they were to be believed, Hermione knew one thing. Pandora had an extraordinary power. That, too, sounded like nonsense to her. After all, what sort of power allowed one to go and live the life of another in a span of a night and then come back entirely different once they awoke.

Further, shouldn't Pandora have woken up herself with an extensive amount of knowledge about someone to be born decades into the future. She wasn't exactly sure when Druella died, but Bellatrix looked rather young, had yet to marry Rodolphus Lestrange, and did not seem to be courting the wrong side of insanity. So, Hermione had to be in the past. Distant past- Bellatrix had said "the Prewitt chit," referring to Mrs. Weasley, who was not "Mrs. Weasley" yet. Hermione had no intention of saying anything more to affect the future. After all, Harry had won. Anything she said or did now might alter that course, especially if Voldemort used Pandora's… abilities to map out a winning path. But then, what sort of abilities were these anyway? Hermione did not do well with guesswork. She wondered quite extensively if the Blacks had a library and if Hermione would be allowed to peruse its contents.

It would kill two birds with one stone. Most Pureblood libraries had a Muggleborn protection jinx over it. If she were able to go inside, she would know for sure that the body was that of a pureblood girl and, if permitted entrance, would be able to do solid research that might lead her to the answers she desired. One thing was for certain as she recalled Cygnus' insistence in meeting Voldemort- she would reveal to him absolutely nothing.


It turned out there was a Black library and it also turned out that Hermione could go inside. The surmounting disappointment at that fact was dampened only by the massive collection of books inside the enormous circular room. It was nowhere near the grandeur of the Hogwarts Library, but the opulent marble walls and gleaming tile below her feet gave the impression that she might have been walking into Gringotts. It was much brighter than she expected. Perhaps the knowledge that dark tombs probably sat well-loved on the shelf gave her the impression the room would mirror that of a dan dungeon. In any case, it did not and was, instead, filled to the brim with overstuffed armchairs and antique side tables. The dark wood of the bookshelves contrasted nicely with the white surroundings and gave the viewer two contradicting impressions: "Come sit" and "Don't put your common little fingers on anything." Ever defiant, Hermione delved straight in, shooting through the shelves looking for anything to do with the magic Pandora possessed.

Few titles seemed a plausible pick. Still, she came away with three that were promising enough (The Magicks of the Master Soul, Possession: Knowing the Signs, and Soul Impressions- Are They Real?), as well as one not so good book(Seeing into the Future: How to Awaken Your Inner Eye). Hermione had just settled into a particularly fluffy green armchair, curling her feet under her, when the massive oak doors to the library swung open with a dramatic bang.

"Poppet!" Hermione wanted to groan or pull herself tighter into the chair, hoping she wouldn't be seen, but luck was not with her and Bellatrix spotted Hermione's- or Pandora's- lithe form with ease. She bounded over, the dark skirts of her robes billowing after her like a threatening cloud. It seemed even Young Bellatrix preferred black. "Nimmy said you were in here, but I wasn't sure, lying little beasts, aren't they?" Hermione sniffed, offended.

"They're actually quite spectacular- and they're not beasts," she snapped. "They're magical sentient beings just like you and I." Bellatrix drew up short, stopping just shy of the armchair and staring down hard at Hermione as though she sniffed something foul.

"Still not yourself, I see," she said slowly, eyeing the way that Hermione, still clad in her thin nightdress from the night before, perched stiffly in the chair like an animal waiting to scamper. Bellatrix shrugged dismissively and seated herself on the arm of the chair, ignoring the way that Hermione leaned away from her warily, eyeing the older girl with an immense amount of distrust. Had she not been through this before, Bellatrix would have been offended. She had been the very first time this had occurred.

"It's no matter, Love," she continued breezily. "The Dark Lord will be here later today- Father sent a letter- and you'll be right as rain." Bellatrix frowned then, glancing over at Hermione. "You should brush your hair, however. Making a new first impression is very important." Hermione pursed her lips, wanting to point out she'd prefer not to make an impression at all, but the healer had to fix her ear earlier and she had no intention of finding out if Bellatrix hit as hard at her mother. While Hermione bit her tongue to keep from snarking back at the Black, Bellatrix was glancing over the pile of books that sat on the little end table.

"What are you reading this rubbish for?" she asked, picking up Seeing Into the Future with a scoff. "You could write a book about this in a second and know if it will be worth anything." Hermione perked.

"So Pandora- I mean I- can see into the future?" she asked excitedly, unaware that she had begun to lean toward Bellatrix in anticipation of answers. Bellatrix shrugged.

"I'm not exactly sure how it works," she replied, opening the book and flipping through it in such a way that hinted she didn't particularly care much for books in general. Hermione tried not to wince when a page tore a little at an intensely flippant turn. Rubbish or not, a book was a book. "You go to sleep yourself and then you wake up… not." She shot Hermione a look at this. "You usually recover in about a week or so, save last time. It took you months to return to yourself. Father thinks the Dark Lord has a theory, but if he does, he hasn't shared it."

"What do you mean, 'wake up not'?" Hermione asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. Bellatrix rolled her eyes.

"I mean, you wake up just as you are- as whoever's future you're thrown into," she replied, snapping the book shut with one hand and tossing it on the table before leveling her gaze on the girl in the chair. "It's quite a hassle. Especially when you come back as nasty little mudbloods; mother and Cissy have had to teach you etiquette twice now- and I suppose this will be the third time if the way you've left your room is anything to go by." Being called a 'mudblood' when Hermione was younger would have brought her tears, but one had to grow a particularly thick skin going to school with Draco Malfoy. Hermione tugged self-consciously at the gown and said nothing. Bellatrix reached out and patted her shoulder, ignoring the way Hermione flinched.

"Don't worry, Poppet," she comforted, though Hermione didn't find it particularly comforting at all. "You'll be back to yourself in no time. Though, I do not envy you those lessons. They were hell going through one time- much less three." She glanced about the room and wrinkled her nose. "So were you a little swot this time around? I don't think you've been in this room once in your life." Hermione bristled, flooding her arms over her flat chest with no time to note how nice it was not to be hindered by breasts.

"It's not 'Swotty' to be knowledgable," she scowled, annoyed as this was a point she argued many times throughout her life. "Just because I like to learn doesn't mean I'm an 'insufferable little know-it-all' and I'll have you know that reading may very well save your life one day!" Bellatrix snorted, which only made Hermione's frown deepen.

"Yes," Bellatrix smirked. "When I encounter a Mudblood Magic Snatcher, I'll throw a heavy book at him and list all the uses for Bubotuber Pus. Maybe he'll get so bored, he'll fall asleep." Hermione stood sharply, uncaring that this woman, somewhere in the future, held her under the Cruciatus and carved hateful slurs into her arm.

"At least I'm not stupid," she hissed, stomping her foot in her wrath. "There's no such thing as 'Mudblood Magic Snatchers',Bellatrix Lestrange. If you paid even an ounce of attention, you would know it's impossible to steal another person's magic!"Bellatrix sobered instantly, the mirth dying in her eyes and bleeding away into a moroseness that took the girl off guard.

"It's true then?" she asked, and Hermione had, for a second, believed she might have convinced Voldemort's leading cheerleader that his Pureblood propaganda was a lie. "I'm to marry Rodulphus?" Hermione blinked, surprised that Bellatrix would ask that question and surprised more that out of everything she just said, that was what the Balck girl took away from it.

"I-," Hermione stuttered, thrown off at the self-pity swimming all over Bellatrix's face, where she had only scene mockery and mayhem. "I- that's- I mean to say, that's who you were when… when I knew you." Bellatrix dropped her head, studying the pale hands that had balled up in her lap.

"I had hoped... ," she began before shaking her wild head. "It doesn't matter- of course, he's too old for me… but then the elder Malfoy's wife is at least two decades his junior. I thought I had presented a good argument- it would be a beneficial pairing, however…" She seemed to be muttering to herself, convincing herself, and Hermione had to fight the wave of awkwardness that swept through her. Had Bellatrix been anyone else, Hermione would have given in to the urge to comfort her, but, as it stood, she doubted she could bring herself to touch the woman that would cost Neville his parents and who would hurt her so thoroughly- so gleefully.

Hermione was saved by the insistent crack of an apparating house elf, whose ears were recently bandaged. Nimmy bowed low until her nose brushed the glistening tile.

"Nimmy is to inform the young missy that the Dark Lord is here to see her," Nimmy squeaked, still bent at the middle. "Nimmy is to make sure the Young Miss is ready and then is to take the Young Miss to Master's study."


Oooh, Next Chapter we meet the Dark Lord! I was going to keep going as I have the story outlined to the end, but I felt you guys might like to see the next edition sooner rather than later. My intention is to post a chapter once a week! Did you like the strange interaction will Bellatrix?

As always, Follow, Favorite, and Review! It's my bread and butter!