Chapter Text
Hermione only ever wanted to be loved. She had been abandoned on a doorstep at a year old and her adoptive parents took her in. They took care of her and cared, but she was only a replacement for the daughter they had lost. Their real daughter, Ella, was kidnapped and murdered on a family trip to New York City, America and when a little girl was left at their door, they wasted no time to have a birth certificate made, officially naming the girl Hermione. She had no idea what her real name was or why she was left with people who wanted to make her into a copy of their other daughter and felt incredibly out of place. Her dark blonde curls had been colored and permed to the point of a constant frizz, her eyebrows as well were dyed brown. Hermione had been taught that grades were everything and her parents were very hard and strict if she wasn’t perfect. If she ever made a wrong move or said the wrong thing it would always be ‘Ella wouldn’t this’ and ‘Ella would have’ that. She could never measure up to the girl they’d lost. Hermione was a sad girl, her friends had all but abandoned her after she had turned Ron down when he asked her out in the middle of the previous school year and she was completely and utterly alone.
Hermione had tried to be strong, telling herself that nothing was wrong with her or her life and that she was perfectly happy but, that was a lie. She lied to herself to try and ease the pain of never being good enough until she couldn’t do it anymore. She turned seventeen earlier than anyone of her friends and used her freedom from the trace to make a new look for herself. She bought herself new clothes that fit her better than the old ones did and had her nails done regularly. She had her belly button pierced to make her feel sexy and desirable and reimagined herself to please the only person that mattered, Hermione herself. Her parents were furious by her attempts to change and become her own person and punished her by beating her and ripping up her new clothes. They didn’t understand magic and were even more furious with her when she repaired them with her wand and wore them the next day. The truth was that Hermione felt out of place in everything in her life. She never knew what was missing but whatever it was, had left a giant hole in her.
One saturday morning led to a knock at the door at six am. Her father had wrenched open the door to find Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange standing on their doorstep and forcing their way in the house.
“Who are you? Get out of my house!” Hermione made her way down the stairs and watched as Bellatrix froze her father with the Petrificus Totalus spell and didn’t know whether to be scared by the intruders in her home or cheer them on for putting Edmund Granger in his place for the first time in his life, so she just stood there shocked and kept a hand on her wand pocket as she calmed her senses.
“Edmund? Who was it at the-- Oh my God!” Her mother came racing down the stairs when she saw her husband standing straight like a board. SHe pushed past Hermione, effectively shoving her the rest of the way down. Janine Granger ignored the strangers standing over her husband and glared at Hermione. “How dare you do this to my husband, you ungrateful brat! We should have never let a freak like you in our home. We should have left you in the cold to die!” Hermione felt tears pour over her eyes and down her cheeks as her mother raised her hand to slap her. She closed her eyes, waiting for the burning pain to come on her cheek, but it never did. She opened them to find her mother had fallen to the ground from some spell she could only assume was unsaid and shot at her.
“What do you want?” Hermione asked, not out of anger for her parents or concern for herself but fear of what they might do to her now that the only other people in the house had been immobilized.
“Hermione, my name is Rodolphus Lestrange and you know my wife Bellatrix. We haven’t come to hurt you, dear. We’ve come to save you and take you to your family.” Hermione's eyes became wide at hearing his kind but shocking words.
“My family? I have no family. I was left on a doorstep sixteen years ago.” Bellatrix stepped forward with an unusually sweet smile on her face. Hermione wasn’t sure what to do anymore.
“Please, it would be much easier for all of us if we sat down and talked about all of this. I’ve used a special charm on the muggles to not wake up until I’ve said the counter spell.” Hermione could sense how important whatever it was that they wanted to tell her and decided to trust them. ‘Might as well, I have no one else and if they end up killing me, at least it’ll be a small funeral’ she thought to herself and sighed.
“Okay. I’ll listen to what you have to say. Come this way.” She turned and led them into the den. Rodolphus and Bellatrix sat down opposite her and she waited to hear what they had to say.
“Seventeen years ago,” Rodolfus started. “You were born in a bedroom in a home with your Aunt and Uncles there to greet you into the world and you were everything to them. They loved you so much and so did your mother and father. They didn’t really want children before you were born but when you were conceived, they were so happy that they bought the property in the back of their house to make sure you had plenty of room to run and play and they doted on you day and night. On your first birthday, The Order Of The Phoenix barged into their home, took you away from your family and glamoured your looks so they could not find you before leaving you to the muggle world. The minister at the time and Headmaster Dumbledore decided to put a powerful charm on you to keep your family from ever finding you but the spell backfired. One of them said the incantation wrong and it left you with a shield charm that would last only as long as the trace.” Hermione felt something wet fall on her hands in her lap and saw that she was crying. She looked over at Bellatrix to find that she too was letting herself cry.
“Who is my real family?” She asked after clearing her throat in order to speak without her voice cracking. Bellatrix reached out a hand and settled it on Hermione's knee, something that shocked her even more than when they had first barged into her house.
“Hermione, I am your mother. Rodolfus is your father.” Hermione was stuck in time for a moment, processing the information.
“Are you serious?” She asked them in a small voice. Rodolphus had bleary eyes as he nodded. “Did you both really love me as you say?” Hermione asked in the same voice.
“We love you more than anything. You’re our daughter. We can’t even begin to describe how many nights we stayed awake thinking about you.” Hermione couldn’t help herself, she didn’t care if they were death eaters or crazy or anything, she just launched herself from her couch and on their couch, hugging them and sobbing. She finally found her family. Her real family.
“I love you guys so much... I needed you in my life. How could Dumbledore take me away from you and place me in this horrible home? I’ve always known there was something missing and now there isn’t anymore. I’ve found you. You’ve found me.” They both soothed their daughter.
“Would you like to know who the rest of your family is?” Hermione heard her real mum say.
“I have ideas, but please.”
“My sister Narcissa is your Aunt Cissa, when you could barely talk, you once called Lucius, Cius, so he is Uncle Cius. Your cousin is Draco.” Her mum recited. Hermione pulled away and looked at them.
“What is He to me?” Both her parents knew who she was referring to.
“The Dark Lord is your Godfather.” Hermione didn’t know how to react. Rodolfus stepped in to sooth his daughter of her worries.
“The Dark Lord cared for you deeply as a baby, he never cares about anyone, but you were his favorite. He was almost like another father to you when I wasn’t around or on a mission and you couldn’t go a week without seeing him. He’d let you sit on his lap in front of us and you had a special little seat right next to him during meetings. Let me explain to you what we really are for in this war. Dumbledore wants to make it so Muggles could enter our world and become companions to our world. This isn’t just parents of Muggleborns that he’s wanting, it’s the entire muggle world.”
“That is horrible! Muggles start war on a daily basis and would use us to fulfill their selfish needs and gains. Hey, you didn’t say Mudblood.” Hermione marveled.
“It really isn’t a slur as everyone makes it sound. It refers to pureness of magic. Purebloods are untainted by the muggle world and the effect it has on their magic. Half-Bloods are slightly worse because their magic had mingled with someone that is not part of our world, which has a negative effect on them. Mudbloods are children born into muggle families accidentally and their magic is so undetermined, it’s like it’s on a scale.” Hermione understood now. It referred to the low power of a muggleborn’s magic but was used as a slur by some who don’t understand where the word came from.
“What are His views on muggleborn rights?” She asked, a little afraid of the answer.
“He wants to test muggleborns and see if their magic levels are considerably better than a Squib and place them accordingly. Children who are very gifted will go to Hogwarts while those who can barely show accidental magic will either be left to the muggle world or be put in a small school that specialized in basic spells that help them protect or fight in emergencies.”
“That actually sounds rather fair.... but what about all the torturing and murdering?” Bellatrix let out a breath that she’d been holding.
“Lower end death eaters think that they can gain favor or move up in rank by murdering muggles and mu-other bloods.” Hermione saw the way her mum caught herself in saying the word for her sake.
“It’s okay to say it. It only ever affected me when I was young. Now that I know the real meaning behind it and not the slur people take it to be, it has even less personal meaning to me.”
“Hermione, we’d love it very much if you came home with us finally. But, you are so closely tied to The Order..” Hermione shook her head quickly.
“Potter and Weasley stopped talking to suddenly last year when I turned Weasley down and now that I have learned what The Order and Dumbledore did to your family all those years ago, I can’t bear to be within the same room as him, let alone be on the same side.”
“You mean..” Her mum started.
“Yes, I want to come home with you, my parents and be on your side. He has much better plans for this world than anything I’ve heard about on the other side. I just have one stipulation.”
“What is it dear?” Her mum asked her.
“I first have to ask what my real name is.” Hermione stated. It had been a question swimming in her thoughts but she couldn’t see a good opportunity to ask until now. Her dad smiled tearfully at her and took her hands in his own.
“Your name is Valissa Elianna Lestrange. You were born May 19th 1979 and we named you for the flower that bloomed outside the bedroom you were being born in the night you came into this world.” Hermione felt tears prickle her eyes at the way her father said it, like she was everything in his world.
“I--” She cleared her throat to clear the lump forming and bit back her tears. “I want Hermione Granger to be reported dead. She will be reported murdered by her parents viciously after years of being abused and beaten and her wand burned in the fireplace. These people who I was placed with abused me my whole life because I was not perfect and to tell you the truth, I was at my end. If you hadn’t shown up this morning and claimed me as your daughter, I would have gone through with killing myself tonight.” She heard them gasp. “Now I have everything I’ve ever wanted with you and the family I never had the chance to get to know. I have something to live for now.” Her mum, Bellatrix, came over to her couch and sat next to her, taking her daughter in her arms and holding her close.
“I promise you, we will make everyone who made you go through this pay dearly. Starting with these muggles. The penalty for muggles killing a witch or wizard is more lenient than what He will do. I promise you.”
“We need to get to work setting up the scene. Is there anything you would like to take with you before we leave?” Her dad asked her.
“The only thing I would take is my cat, but Crooks died from old age a few months ago.” Her parents nodded and began planning what to do. The decided that they would take a rock outside and transfigure it into Hermione and make sure it looked banged up and bloody. Then, they would stun the muggles and hide them, coming back to get them after Hermione, or rather Valissa now, had seen her family and then they would bring them to the manor and He would take care of the people who tortured their little girl all these years.
They set to work, making the house look bloody on the walls from where she would have being running and falling against and planted the knives the muggles would have used. After reminding her that this wasn’t her daughter lying there dead, Valissa’s mum had a bit more fun than she should have making it all seem real. Her father took the muggles and apparated away while her mum was finishing up and arrived back at the house empty handed.
“Where did you put them?” Valissa asked. Rodolfus gave a mischievous smile.
“Greyback is watching over them. I strictly told him to leave them unharmed because they are for our entertainment tonight.”
“Oh Rodo, he didn’t give you a hard time about that, did he?” Bellatrix asked her husband. He shook his head.
“Nah. Once he heard the words ‘entertainment’ and ‘tonight’ in the same sentence, he was gleeful to help out. I will send for them once our daughter has met her family.” He looked at Valissa with such powerful adoration in his eyes, it made her forget to breathe for a moment. No one had ever looked at her like how her parents did.
“Is everything done?” Valissa asked.
“Of course, darling. Shall we go?” Valissa nodded and took her parents offered hands. They apparated out of the house and Hermione Granger was officially no more.