THE DARK LORD'S DAUGHTER

Or, the Corruption of Hermione Granger

17 years ago, Bellatrix Lestrange gave birth to a baby girl on the floor of her cell in Azkaban. Shortly thereafter, she was told the baby didn't make it. It ignited in her grief she'll never get over.

Three months ago, Hermione Granger was abducted during a skirmish in the Department of Mysteries that left Sirius Black dead and Harry Potter emotionally destroyed. She was taken back to Malfoy Manor to be questioned and, most probably, killed, but when Bellatrix realizes there's something familiar about her, she convinces the Dark Lord to spare the girl.

"Please, Master," she said, down on her knees, tears in her eyes. "Please, Master. You cannot kill your own daughter!"

In THE DARK LORD'S DAUGHTER, or, the Corruption of Hermione Granger, Bellatrix is determined to turn her long-lost daughter into the person she was always meant to be, but after a lifetime with a loving Muggle family and as the best friend of Harry Potter, could it already be too late?

Rated: M

Trigger Warning: violence, death, sex, general adult content

PROLOGUE

September 1979

(17 years ago)

She labored for hours.

Quietly.

As close to silently as she could manage.

It took all of her mental might to remain not only conscious, but in control. It would not do to fall apart now. Not when the task at hand was so critical. She refused to break down. She refused to cry. Above all else, she refused to beg for help.

It was not easy. Giving birth in shackles, in a rundown prison in the middle of a sea, surrounded by those soul-sucking thieves of joy, starving, cold. There was a window in her cell, one with bars, overlooking the grounds. They'd selected this one for her on purpose, to torment her. To let her see where she'd never again go: outside.

Those who knew her secret had done so well to keep her hidden. Months she was under house-arrest in Malfoy Manor, the home of her newlywed sister. Their parents knew where she was, of course, as did her in-laws, and the Dark Lord had been the one to place her there, but aside from the immediate Black and Malfoy families and their leader, it was kept completely confidential.

As was her condition.

"Pregnant?" Her mother had been delighted... at first. "A grandchild! You've reconciled? Is Rodolphus excited? I thought the two of you were..."

She didn't want to say it. Estranged. Separated. Not speaking.

"But I am happy for you both!" Mother had finished.

"It isn't his," Bella had whispered, uncharacteristically ashamed of herself. She knew her mother's eyes would show disgust and disappointment and so she avoided them, staring intently down at the ornate Oriental rug instead. They were seated in the parlor of their country house, where Bella had been living since the dissolution of her marriage.

Her husband, though he would never divorce her for it, was unhappy about her acceptance into the Dark Lord's inner circle.

And more upset about her acceptance into the Dark Lord's bed.

"It's not...?" her mother started, but she broke off with a shudder. It was too horrible to consider. While her parents, Cygnus and Druella, were staunch, longtime supports of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, to think of their daughter, their eldest, their beautiful, brilliant, young-

"It is."

"Oh, Bella."

To her surprise - and to her emotional destruction - her mother wrapped her in a hug, holding her head to her chest, her ear to her heartbeat the way she had when Bella was small. The twenty-seven-year-old began to cry as she hadn't in over a decade, great wracking sobs that shook her shoulder and exercised her core. The tears were hot and salty and they stung and she choked a little, and through it her mother rocked her and held her and waited until she could speak again.

"I'm sorry, Mother."

"Has he hurt you?" Druella stroked her daughter's thick, wild hair, and fought back tears. No sense in both of them crying. "The Dark Lord. Did he force you?"

"No. He... he values me. As his soldier."

"As his whore."

"Are you disgusted by me, Mother?" Bellatrix fought to meet her mother's eye. She had never been a weak person, the type to seek reassurance or approval. She'd been an academic overachiever in school but badly behaved, breaking rules as she saw fit, and occasionally disrespecting authority simply to remind them she could. She came from wealth and privilege and she exercised both, unwilling to be treated like the Mudbloods and blood traitors and poverty stricken peons who surrounded her in the castle. She didn't care what anyone thought of her because she thought quite highly of herself, and that was what mattered. But she loved no one more than her mother (save, perhaps, for HIM) and it wounded her deeply to think she might have lost the respect and adoration of the woman who bore her.

"I want only the best for you, my Bella." Her mother had kissed her temple and cradled her face and forced eye contact. "Please, please tell me he doesn't hurt you."

"He doesn't hurt me," lied Bellatrix, an Occlumens. "He says I am his most loyal, devout, and faithful follower." That part was true, as were her next words. "He said he thought he was both above and beyond needing a woman in a... in a carnal way... before... before me." Her cheeks flushed. "Mother? He says I'm special. Different. He tells me I'm his. I belong to him."

Her mother inhaled deeply, her eyes closed, processing this. "Does he know of this baby?"

"He does."

"And he... he wants you to keep it?"

"No." Bellatrix bowed her head, letting the mix of tangles and ringlets fall across her face, curtaining her from her mother. "But I begged him to let me keep it. I promised to raise it in service to him. I vowed it would not lessen my contributions as a solider, that it would only make me more devoted, that it would be an inspiration to serve him more fully and not a distraction. I also had to swear I'd never tell a soul - save for you - that the child is his. And no one outside the immediate family is to know I'm expecting. He will ensure secrecy from Rodolphus by way of the Unbreakable Vow, and he expects the same of you and Daddy and Cissy."

"You can trust us." Her mother cradled her face. "For how long have you been his... mistress?"

"Longer than I'd care for you to know." Bellatrix pulled away and wiped her eyes and cheeks with her sleeves. "Do you still love me?"

"Of course, my Bella. Nothing you could ever do would stop me from loving you."

But Bellatrix knew that wasn't true.

Mother and Daddy had stopped loving Andromeda after she ran off to marry that Muggleborn. They were deeply ashamed of her decision and made it abundantly clear to anyone who dare to enquire about the middle Black daughter that she had been disowned and they were subsequently moving on with life as if she'd never existed. Andromeda had had a child, a girl, by that Muggleborn, and though her parents read about its birth in the Prophet, they made no mention of their first grandchild. Now Bella would be having one by Lord Voldemort.

That was months ago.

Before the raid on Malfoy Manor.

Before her arrest.

She couldn't apparate away, couldn't fight - not well, in any case. She could hardly move. She was huge, swollen with child, and sick - it had been a difficult pregnancy - when Aurors descended upon the property of Abraxas and Claudia Malfoy, the home they shared with their only son, Lucius, their daughter-in-law, Narcissa, and their daughter, Aurora, age twelve. It was also the temporary home of Bellatix and the current headquarters of the Dark Lord, who was, most unfortunately, away when it happened.

Aurors took both Abraxas and Bellatrix into custody, but as they had nothing of substance on the patriarch, he was released shortly thereafter. Bella, on the other hand, was held pending trial. The fact that she'd been arrested was public knowledge. Her condition was not.

"Don't want people feeling sympathy for you, now do we?" goaded the Azkaban guard on night duty. He loved to tease Bella through the bars, knowing there was nothing she could do to retaliate. The difficult pregnancy only worsened with her new situation. Prior to the arrest, she'd nearly lost the baby once and had been on bed rest ever since. Post-arrest, she was just as bedridden, but also denied the good food and basic comforts she'd had at home. Here, if she cried, no one cared.

Her one saving grace was that her wand had been turned over to her next of kin, her mother, as it would have killed her to learn it had been destroyed. Thankfully, even when you're accused of torture, galleons talk.

The first week, she hadn't lamented her situation... much. She was confident the Dark Lord would return from his mysterious trip and break her out and kill both the Aurors who arrested her and the guard who tormented her each night.

But he didn't come.

And so she spent the last month of her pregnancy imprisoned and went into labor a little earlier than she thought she would.

"Breathe, Bella," she whispered to herself. "Breathe. Breathe." She knew little of what to expect, except that there would be pain. She remembered being in the room when her mother birthed Narcissa. She'd held Mummy's hand while the midwife did all the work. But that was a long time ago.

Bellatrix struggled out of her knickers, dingy under the prison-issued gray and white striped cotton gown. She couldn't get them completely off without tearing the fabric on account of the leg shackles, so tearing the fabric is what she did. Her wrists were bound to each other, too, and a chain from the cuffs went to the one connecting her ankles. She tried to find a comfortable position but there wasn't one. And fuck, it hurt. More than the Cruciatus, it hurt. More than facing the wrath of her lover and Lord, it hurt.

But she managed. She bore down. She pushed. She tried not to scream, but in that place, what was one more anguished wail reverberating off the stone walls?

She felt the head slip out and fought to expel the rest. She cut the cord with the sharpened rock that broke off the windowsill weeks ago, the one she'd been using to carve ticks in the wall to keep track of the days, though to say "cut" the cord wasn't exactly accurate. She hacked away at it until it was severed. She flipped the baby and patted her back until she coughed and cried, though baby didn't cry long. She opened her eyes and stared curiously up at Bella. Could she see her mother? Did she know who she was looking at?

She.

It was a girl.

She was lovely, the loveliest baby ever to live, though Bella objectively knew she was also imperfect.

She had a birthmark that stretched from her back down her leg, a purple, jagged-edged one, perhaps a port wine stain. It was raised but not hot or rough or overly tender to the touch, merely discolored.

"Your witch's mark," said Bella, her voice hoarse even though she'd hardly screamed. "It's beautiful. You are everything I didn't know I wanted."

She did her best to clean off the fluids, wiping the baby's face and neck with her gown. She kissed her bloody, goopy head, and looked over every inch of her, counting fingers and toes, even checking her gums for teeth because she'd heard some babies are born with them. This one was not.

The baby's nose was small and button-like and her eyes were wide. She looked alert. Was that normal? Her head was covered with dark hair and her face had a bit of peach fuzz, soft and temporary, and there were a few little pink spots on her cheeks. Popped blood vessels, maybe? Her cheeks were soft, her fingers delicate. Bella lightly pinched her tiny thigh and kissed her forehead. She held her, rocking, whispering the only lullaby she knew.

Hush little pureblood

Don't say a word

Mummy's gonna buy you a thunderbird

And if that thunderbird won't storm

Mummy's gonna catch you a flobberworm

And if that flobberworm's too drab

Mummy's gonna give you a fire crab...

Around verse eight, "And if that hippogriff shows scorn, Mummy's gonna find you a unicorn," the baby started to cry again. Instinct told her to bring her daughter to her breast, to nurse her. Cradling her was near-impossible with her wrists bound by the chain but somehow, she managed.

And though the circumstances were anything but idyllic, she fell in love while feeding her daughter, and in that moment she'd never felt happier.

But the joy was short-lived.

The night guard came on. He intended to taunt her, as usual.

He saw the baby.

He took the baby away.

Literally tore the baby from her arms, locking her in the thigh when she refused to relinquish her, laughing all the while. She shouted threats and pleas for what felt like hours, and finally he returned, no baby in his arms.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Lestrange," he said, sounding not at all sorry. "During the examination, the baby stopped breathing. She's dead."

"What?" Bellatrix's heart constricted in her chest. It stopped beating. It broke.

"We'll bury her here, on the grounds, same as any other prisoner."

"No!"

"You may even be able to see her plot from your window."

"NO!"

"It happens." He was smiling. "People are born, and they die. No one is immortal. Nothing is forever."

"My baby?"

"But the good news is, once you've stopped bleeding..." He glanced disdainfully down at the rust-colored stain on the floor. "You'll be fit to stand trial."

"Please, let me see her! Let me see my baby's body. I've never begged for anything, but you have to-"

"I don't have to do anything for you." His smile grew to a full-on grin. "Goodnight, Mrs. Lestrange."

Three days later, the Dark Lord himself made an appearance at the Ministry for Magic, where he killed four Aurors, wrapped his arm around the waist of the woman being interrogated on the dais, and apparated away before a single member of the Wizengamot managed to draw their wand.