I've completed this story up through the first year at Hogwarts, though it takes the form more of a series of vignettes rather than a full narrative of the school year. I have outlines for the other six years of Hogwarts and might extend the story if readers are interested. Updates will hopefully be weekly, if work, other work, and further additional work allow me enough time to get everything edited and posted on schedule.

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and all of their characters belong to JK Rowling and the various companies to which they have been licensed. The author of this fiction derives no profit from their use.

When Hermione Granger received a letter from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she had-mistakenly- thought that it would be the best day of her life. Since she started school she had always felt different from her classmates- she had struggled to make friends, cut off from them by the fact that she had different interests. The fact that she was smarter. The fact that she didn't, quite, fit in. But now she knew that there was another world out there, a world for people like her, a world where she would belong. A place where she could excel. She had been thrilled to show her parents the letter.

Of course, at first Dan and Emma Granger had assumed that the letter was a joke. It was only when a stern Scottish lady who introduced herself as Professor Minerva McGonagall appeared on their doorstep that afternoon and promptly turned into a cat that the Grangers really took the letter seriously. And that was when the troubles began.

It had started with the sidelong glances, then a whispered conference between her parents in the kitchen. Hermione had not paid this a great deal of attention, as she was busy immersing herself in a fascinating new book- Hogwarts, a History- that Professor McGonagall had given her as an introduction to the world of magic. But even the thrill of the new book was not enough to distract her when her mother approached her with a very strained smile on her face.

"Hermione? I need you to run upstairs and pack your overnight bag. You can put, well, anything in it that you want to keep." Hermione stared at her mother for a second.

"My overnight bag? But why? Term doesn't start until September..." Her mother, she realized with a sinking feeling, was not quite looking at her, but rather looking fixedly at a spot over Hermione's shoulder.

"Do you remember Mother Tilda's sermon last week, Hermione?" Hermione blanched. Mother Tilda was a... well, Hermione didn't really have a good word to describe the strange old woman, but she ran a sort of church near their home that their neighbors had invited them to attend about a year before. Hermione had always felt uneasy in the services and missed the comfort and familiar ceremony of the church that they had attended when she was younger, but the adult Grangers had become quite enamored of the odd Mother Tilda. Enamored, in fact, to the point of donating a significant portion of their monthly paychecks to the strange woman, and adopting some of her more bizarre dietary rules (Hermione had searched three different translations of the Bible and even taken a look through a copy of the New Testament in the original Greek without finding any support for Mother Tilda's assertion that beans had been designed by Satan, or that eating pureed brown rice topped with ginger twice a day assured a quadruple-blessing of the Holy Spirit).

"I- perhaps you could remind me?" the girl stuttered. Her mother shook her head; it was a great disappointment to her that her bright daughter had paid so little attention to the sermons that they attended on a thrice-weekly basis.

"'Thou shalt not suffer the witch to live,'" her mother replied firmly, and Hermione's eyes widened in panic. "Oh, don't be so dramatic, dear. Mother Tilda doesn't think we should actually be killing witches. But anyone who practices things with crystals or spells or any of that- well, they have to be cut off from the faithful. I'm sorry, dear."

And just like that, Hermione's world shattered.

Bellatrix LeStrange entered the lobby of Gringotts trailed by an auror and three hit-wizards, all with their wands pointed directly at her back. A part of her felt somewhat insulted by the small size of the guard; in her prime- that is, before almost a decade in Azkaban had taken a bit of the edge off of her skill- taking down the four guards would have been child's play even without a wand. More of her mind, however, was focused on the incredible feeling of a being away from Azkaban, being away from the horrible, drafty, cramped cell and the soul-killing touch of the dementors. And even more of her mind was focusing on how she could extend that vacation by any means necessary. As proud as she was to have suffered prison on the Dark Lord's behalf, Bellatrix was no fool- freedom would offer her far better avenues for demonstrating her loyalty to her master than she could find sealed away in that wretched cell. Escape would be tricky- she had no wand, of course- but she had managed more than less in her days of service to the Dark Lord, and she was confident in her ability to improvise.

After a brief chat with a clerk Bellatrix found herself in the office of the LeStrange account manager, her guards reluctantly relegated to waiting outside. She took a seat across a large desk from a particularly old and battle-scarred goblin. Over his head hung a battleaxe that appeared to have seen a great deal of use in its time.

"Ms. LeStrange," he said after a brief pause. "My condolences."

"Congratulations would be more appropriate," she replied, leaning back in her seat. "The world will hardly miss my husband or my brother-in-law, and I can't say that I feel any differently on the issue." The goblin gave her a sharp look and then shrugged.

"There's a rumor that you might have caused their deaths..."

"Absolute nonsense," Bellatrix lied. The goblin stared at her again and then nodded.

"Just as well. That would... complicate the inheritance. Which, of course, is what you've been released for the day to straighten out." Bellatrix smirked. When her husband and brother-in-law had attacked her in her cell- she would never know if the two fools had simply been driven completely mad by the dementors or if there had been some motive to their actions- she had no idea that her self-defense slaying of the two brothers would result in her being released from Azkaban for a day in order to put the LeStrange affairs in order. If someone had told me about that particular law, I'd have been tempted to deal with those two years ago, she thought with dark amusement.

Just one day- just long enough to visit Gringotts, speak to a solicitor about various accounts, and appoint new trustees over the pureblood estate- but for Bellatrix, one day away from the dementors was paradise. Now she just needed to find out how to make it last.

The goblin passed her a thick stack of papers.

"These are the basic account summaries, Ms. LeStrange. The main issue that we'll have today will be designating a heir for the LeStrange name and properties. Unless I am gravely mistaken, there are no direct descendants?" Bellatrix managed to suppress a snort.

"My husband and I had no children," she responded succinctly. While Rodolphus had had his uses, he had not, in Bellatrix's opinion, been the type of person that you would want to have children with. He might have been a pureblood, but he was also a pure idiot, and Bellatrix had no interest in seeing that level of stupidity passed on to the next generation.

"And his brother..." Bellatrix shook her head.

"Hmm," the goblin grunted, glancing through a file. "A handful of relatives, all distantly related- Lucius Malfoy has already filed a claim for all the LeStrange money, though his connection is far too tenuous to be a legitimate claimant..." the goblin trailed off, shuffling papers for a moment. "Well, this is awkward. Six or seven claimants, none of them particularly close relatives- I imagine that the ICW's Standing Committee on Inheritance will have to sort things out." Bellatrix frowned.

"Can't I adopt a candidate?"

"Hmm. Ministry won't stand for it," the goblin replied thoughtfully. "Can't adopt someone while you're in Azkaban, you know."

"I'm not in Azkaban today," she replied. "If I filled out the paperwork, could I complete a formal adoption before I go back? That would give me a chance to chose one of the claimants as an heir. Probably save your office a lot of paperwork." The goblin chewed his lip for a moment.

"Did you have one in mind?"

"My nephew Draco," she said. "He's a distant cousin of the LeStranges and one of my closest blood relatives. I could adopt him and-"

"Absolutely not! Even if the law would allow you to adopt the Malfoy family heir- which it won't, by the way- the Ministry would never approve you adopting anyone younger than the age of seventeen."

"And why not?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Old loophole in the law. It was designed for the benefit of pureblood families, to make sure that their customs and such could be passed on properly," the goblin explained. "If a prisoner who represents the last line of a pureblood family, while on parole, is allowed to adopt a child to serve as that family's heir, then that prisoner must remain free to raise the child and train them in their responsibilities until the child is of age. The Ministry would never agree to letting you adopt a child because doing so would give you a free ticket out of Azkaban." The goblin turned in his desk to pull out another folder. "Now, I had some questions about a few of the investments the LeStrange family is holding-"

"Just a moment," Bellatrix interrupted smoothly. "Just for my own edification, am I to understand that if I were to go out now and adopt an infant, I would have until that child reached majority- seventeen years- free from Azkaban?"

"Oh, no," the goblin replied, searching through his file. "You can't adopt a child as heir to a noble family until they are at least eleven years of age- old enough to attend Hogwarts. Old law. Getting the Hogwarts letter proves that they aren't a squib, you see- enough magic to count as an heir in the eyes of the law. You could adopt an eleven-year-old and that would give you six years free of Azkaban. Well, unless you committed murder or used an Unforgiveable, in which case they'd probably throw you back regardless." Bellatrix nodded slowly, a grim smile forming on her face. Six years wasn't much compared to the seven consecutive life sentences she was currently serving, but she was confident that six years was more than enough time to find her master and restore him to power, which would render her sentence in Azkaban for serving him rather moot.

"Just one last question, I promise," she said brightly. "Goblins are magical creatures, right?" The goblin looked up for a moment, and gave a hesitant nod. "Good. I'm going to need one of your hairs."

The security detail assigned to Bellatrix was fairly good, but they had been completely unprepared when she had come out of the goblin's office with a wand. Well, wand might be a generous overstatement- the object in question was a chair leg, split in half and the two halves used to sandwich a core of goblin hair, the whole thing held together by some spellotape that Bellatrix had found in the goblin's desk. It was a miracle of the highest order that the thing worked at all, and it shattered completely the first time that Bella used it for a spell. But the spell that she used it for was "stupefy," which took out the auror and got her a real wand all in the same move. After that it only took a few seconds to dispatch the shocked hit wizards.

And then Bellatrix LeStrange was free.

Well, mostly free. She had to slip out of Gringotts itself, but that wasn't a problem- the goblins really didn't give a damn either way- and she knew that it would be a matter of minutes before teams of hit wizards led by the best aurors in the department would be breathing down her neck. Which meant that Bellatrix needed to find a magical orphanage, and she needed to find it fast. Fortunately for her, the Death Eaters had kept notes on such things- orphanages were great recruiting grounds for bitter half-bloods and pure-bloods whose families had fallen on hard times, and if one was lucky one might find some wretched blood traitor or mudblood spawn to terrorize.

It took her a few tries, but she was finally able to locate St. Clotilde's, a grim and run-down tenement house on the edge of Knockturn Alley. She swept through the doorway, "borrowed" wand in hand, and went straight to the administrator's office. A witch sitting in an outer office jumped up as Bellatrix approached and moved to stand in front of her.

"Miss, this is the Department of Magical Social Services! You can't just- squawk! squawk!"

Bellatrix left the surprised chicken clucking at its desk and entered the office marked with the word "Director." Inside a heavyset man with graying hair and grizzled muttonchops sat behind a rickety desk. He looked up, surprised.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Doris didn't say that anyone was coming in, Miss-?"

"LeStrange," she said. "And Dorris isn't quite herself." Bellatrix giggled at her own joke as she appropriated the best of the two rather questionable chairs that sat facing the director's desk. "Now, let's get directly to business, Mr. Director. I need an orphan, and I need it fast."

"I... I beg your pardon?"

"You have it. Just get me that orphan." The man gave Bellatrix a very baffled look.

"Ms. LeStrange, ah, we generally don't just hand orphans out, you know. We have an application and vetting process-"

"Does it take long?"

"Usually a few weeks," the director explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well, we've got about half an hour before the aurors get here, so I'll need you to expedite the process."

"A- aurors?! Ms. LeStrange, I demand to know what is going on!" Bellatrix sighed, ran her fingers through her tangled hair and leveled her wand in the man's face.

"Short version: I am a Death Eater sentenced to serve many life sentences in Azkaban, currently on the run, and in need of an orphan. Right. Now." A crackle of purplish sparks sizzled at the tip of her wand.

"I can't just give a child to an escaped prisoner-"

"And I can't really get in any more trouble than I'm already in if I kill you," Bellatrix responded with a smile. The man gulped nervously. "Now, time is wasting, so why don't you tell me what you have in stock?"

It turned out that what he had in stock was rather pitiful. Most of the children present were too old for her purposes- close to reaching seventeen, which wouldn't help her much. And the ones still here at that age were generally next best thing to squibs anyway. Others were too young- she had to find one that was at least eleven. Time was growing short when the director finally grabbed a file that was sitting on the edge of his desk.

"Wait, wait!" he said, eyeing Bellatrix's glowing wand nervously- she might have given him a mild hex or two to get him motivated. "Look, this one just came in! Just turned eleven this year, just got her Hogwarts letter today!" Bellatrix grabbed the file and opened it, glancing at a full-page picture of a small girl with bushy brown hair.

"Huh. Not very exciting," she muttered. "You seem enthusiastic about unloading this one compared to the last three we looked at. What's wrong with her? Kill her parents or something?"

"No, no! Nothing like that! We just got her, so no one's really attached. Don't know a thing about her, really." Bellatrix sighed. The girl didn't look like anything special, but if she had gotten her Hogwarts letter than at least she was a proper witch.

"All right," she said. "Show me this Hermione Granger."

Hermione felt an unpleasant sensation as if she were being squeezed through a very tight tube, and a second later she found herself somewhere very different than the orphanage office where she had been a moment before. She was on a narrow, tree-lined street, staring at a large Tudor-style house set far back from the road behind a high wrought-iron fence.

"Well, that's home. Come along," the woman beside her said crisply, tapping the gate impatiently with her wand and waiting for the house to admit her. Hermione stole a glance at the strange woman who had appeared out of nowhere to adopt her just minutes before. Wild, unkempt dark hair fell in long tangles down her back. The hair's uncared-for appearance was at sharp odds with woman's aristocratically beautiful face and proud, upright posture, but somehow perfectly matched the gleam of madness in the woman's eyes.

Bellatrix LeStrange. The name-and its owner- made Hermione shudder slightly, and it took her a moment to realize that the woman- her adopted mother- had entered the gate and was striding rapidly towards the main house. Hermione scurried forward to keep up. Soon Hermione found herself in a dark, gloomy hallway just inside the main door.

"Tipsy! Tipsy, where the devil are you?" LeStrange shouted into the empty house. A second later there was a popping sound and Hermione gasped as an odd creature appeared right in front of her. The creature, which seemed to mainly consist of comically-large eyes and floppy ears, bowed low.

"Missus is calling for Tipsy?"

"I have returned from my... confinement... and have brought this girl," Bellatrix said, gesturing at Hermione. "This is Hermione LeStrange, the new heir of the LeStrange family." The creature's eyes widened and it bowed once more, this time in Hermione's direction.

"Tipsy is being honored to serve a new generation of the LeStrange family, Missy Herm- Hermonany- Hermi... Missy Hermy." Bellatrix waved a hand dismissively.

"Yes, yes, a great honor. Now get my room cleaned, and prepare a room for Hermione. But before that, dinner." The creature bowed one more time and then disappeared with another loud pop. Hermione stared, blinking, at the place it had been.

"Wh- what on earth was that?" she finally managed. Bellatrix turned and gave Hermione an odd look.

"A house elf, of course. You've never seen one, then? Your family didn't have elves?" Hermione shook her head.

"I'm the first witch from my family," she explained. "I didn't even know that there was magic until I got my Hogwarts letter this morning-" Hermione shut her mouth with an audible snap at the look on Bellatrix's face, which started as shock before evolving first to disgust and then to an expression of absolute rage.

"You- you're a mudblood?" the woman shrieked.