Apart from anything mentioned anything before the events at Malfoy Manor in the Deathly Hallows has happened, and I moved the Gringott's robbery of Bellatrix's vault to just before this instead of after.

Part I

Chapter I:

March 1998

Wild insanity dancing in her eyes, a witch with black hair more uncontrollable than Hermione's had ever been flounced into the room. On her face, she wore a gleeful grin and her sleeve was pulled up ready to press the mark on her arm, but when she spotted Hermione tied down to the chair, for some reason the expression slipped. She glided across the room and bent down, hands on the chair arms, her face pressed close to Hermione's, inspecting her. The teenager struggled not to scrunch up her eyes or lean away: not to show any sign of fear; but what she was most frightened of was screaming. Bellatrix Lestrange was mad. She hated Muggleborns. This was going to be hell. But she couldn't distract Harry and Ron down below in the basement of Malfoy Manor. If they heard her scream they would stop everything and panic, as would she if it were them. They had to be coming up with a plan- they were coming up with a plan. She just had to have faith. And stay quiet. Bellatrix pulled away, taking Narcissa's arm and yanking her to the other side of the room. The two sisters whispered in hushed tones as Hermione glanced at a stoic Malfoy in confusion. He'd refused to identify them. Maybe they were unwilling to call You-Know-Who without being certain. But surely Bellatrix could smell the mud she reeked of from miles off, or whatever it was these blinded-by-their-bigotry Purebloods said was wrong with her DNA. The blonde sent her sister out of the room and then approached Hermione herself. She gritted her teeth, ready for Crucio or Imperius but instead Narcissa whispered a spell she didn't know and, yanking up Hermione's sleeve, prodded the tip of her wand into the skin there. Hermione let out a, more surprised than pained, gasp before she could stop herself, watching the blood drip down her arm in the same spot she'd had jabs as a child. Except this time the nurse didn't cover the prick up with a plaster or offer her a biscuit and a glass of fruit juice to get her blood sugar back up. Bellatrix apparated back into the room, now holding a wooden box with intricate carvings. Handling it gently as though it were a precious child, the Azkaban escapee opened the lid and surveyed the contents, ultimately taking out what looked like a posy of hair, wrapped in a pink ribbon. She wasn't sure whether she was comforted or unnerved by the fact that Malfoy and his father seemed just as confused as her, although as the women worked with the blood and the hair a look of realisation seemed to dawn on the patriarch's face. At last, the blood was added to the potion and Narcissa whispered something under her breath. It glowed gold. Bellatrix let out a stunned, shaky breath, turning to Hermione once more. She raced across the room and this time Hermione couldn't stop herself cringing away from the anticipated physical and mental torture- which turned out to be an all-engulfing embrace.

"Oh my dear, oh my darling," whispered Bellatrix, her voice broken by tears, as she ran her fingers through a terrified Hermione's hair, burying her face momentarily in it before pulling back, vibrant hope bouncing around her eyes. Unable to look away until the spell was broken by Malfoy's protests of "Aunt Bella what are you doing?" Hermione then saw the smiling Malfoy couple over Bellatrix's shoulder. Narcissa nudged Lucius and he nodded, casting her one last look before leaving the room, pulling up his sleeve as he went. That was like a bucket of cold water over the head. She had to get out. Luckily, Bellatrix was fumbling over the knots tying her down, in her frenzied emotional state seemingly forgetting that she was a witch. Narcissa pointed her wand at them and they came away quickly. Hermione took a moment to consider if this was a trap, determined that of course it was a trap, but why couldn't it be an opportunity too? Unfortunately, all attention was currently on her, and the bewilderment flooding her mind was taking up all the space in there.

"What is going on?" She asked, praying that maybe if things were cleared up she'd be able to actually think and formulate a plan to get her and the boys out.

Bellatrix smiled, a real genuine smile not dripping with malice or dark glee but love. "Amara," she clutched Hermione's hand in a tight grip. "I'm your mother."

When Hermione came to she was lying on a fluffy mattress a million times more comfortable than the straight backed wooden chair, but as soon as her eyes flickered open she felt just as trapped. Hovering above her was the face of the woman she'd been sure would despise her, but instead claimed to be her closest relative. Bellatrix was pressing something damp onto her forehead, doing something under her breath- her lips were moving. "What are you doing?" Hermione questioned weakly, trying to squirm away.

Apparently glad that she was awake, Bellatrix smiled down benignly. "Singing the lullaby that would always calm you when you were a baby." She gestured to the bowl beside her that she was dipping the cloth into. "And this is a Black family remedy," she glanced back to her sister, who was quietly explaining to Malfoy, who looked even paler than Hermione felt. Isn't it Ciss-?"

"Stop it!" Hermione shrieked, finding her voice once again as she pushed the arm away from her and tried to get out of the layers and layers of duvet. "Get away from me you heinous bitch!" The sting seemed to send Bellatrix visibly rocking backwards. "We're not family. And you are certainly not my mother. My mother is Jean Granger, and my father is Richard Granger. I sent them away with new identities to protect them from the likes of you!" She was practically spitting with disgust, evoking more horror from the woman beside her bed than if she'd suddenly transformed into a two headed dog.

"Darling-" Bellatrix tried, but her sister put a hand on her shoulder, telling her to give the younger witch some time. She was left in the emptiness of the gorgeous, luxurious room. Voldemort's pet Death Eater's daughter... She shook her head. It was ridiculous. Bellatrix had probably been in the middle of some spell when she'd said she was singing. As if that monster knew how to calm children. She'd been in Bellatrix's skin when they'd gone to her vault. It had felt wrong. She refused to believe it.

Hermione edged out of the bed, pausing to peer inside the box Bellatrix had produced earlier. There was a pair of little shoes, a green rattle with a silver snake painted along the handle, a cuddly teddy bear, and a stack of magical moving photos, all frayed from a lot of handling. The one on top displayed Bellatrix in a bed holding a swaddle of blankets with a tiny face peering out. She looked as happy as she had earlier as she grinned up at the man sitting on the bed beside her, he smiling as his gaze flickered between her and the infant. Hermione flocked through the rest of the photos, pausing when she got to one of a toddler pulling on the man from the first photo's ears delightedly. That was absolutely and undeniably her. She'd never questioned why her photo albums back at home started from when she was two years old, it had genuinely never bothered her. Now though, alarm bells were ringing in her head.

"...want to see her..." she heard footsteps outside the door and froze. The footfall stopped as well, halted by Lucius's voice.

"Give her time," he advised. "She didn't even want to see Bella, there's no chance she'll be comfortable with you." The footsteps faded away as she hurried to the door, trying to keep hearing them. Who was that? Her hand rested on the ornate curling snake doorknob and with a sharp intake of breath she twisted it. And it opened. They hadn't locked her in. Okay, she needed to think. She didn't know her way around the manor- she'd been asleep when she'd been brought up here, but if she was careful and silent she could get down to the boys and the three of them could escape. Was that her father? No- Bellatrix wasn't even her mother. The Grangers were her family. But the facts pointed to the opposite, and she'd always been a follower of the facts. Her mind was too busy buzzing to plan an escape, and then it was too late.

"Having a fit Gra-Amara?" She glanced up to see Malfoy lounging in the door frame a few feet away. The names seamlessly faded together as if these two identities both fit her just as well as each other.

"That's not my name," she hissed.

He shrugged. "Technically it is, but whatever keeps your knickers untwisted." He eyed her pose, half in and half out the door. "Doing a runner?"

"If I am, am I supposed to believe you'd care?" Looking at this boy who'd taunted her for her so-called inferior status since they were eleven years old, the boy she'd slapped across the face third year for his childish malevolence, she chuckled with genuine amusement. "What, Malfoy, now that my blood is supposedly pure we're besties? Everything you ever said to me is void?"

"A) not at all. My reasons for hating you extended to your obnoxious smart-arse behaviour as well as your blood type, which I'm sure shall continue and so surely will my disdain," he assured her. "B) There's nothing 'supposed' about your blood type. The test proved it. And believe me, I'm the last person who wants to believe it's so, but you are their lost daughter." She was about to dispute it, but the evidence kept coming to her mind. Eyebrow raised, he gestured to the photo she hadn't realised she was still clutching. "Blood is thicker than water."

"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb," she corrected him immediately.

"Touché," was that an impressed look on his face? "But for us, the covenant is family."

She bit her lip. "Even if it is true, so what? They got tired of having a baby and threw me into the pile of used rubbish."

He scoffed. "You really know nothing." She'd been about to protest that this was fairly recent news to her so she couldn't be expected to know every aspect of what had happened before he continued, "your parents loved you. One night when you were a toddler there was an attack by the Order at their house. They were downstairs while you were in the nursery, so they raced to stop the attackers, but unbeknownst to them, the Order weren't there to kill them. They'd heard rumours about a baby, and a second group snuck upstairs. By the time they left and your parents went to check on you there was only an empty crib. They sobbed and they raged. Your mother, her husband, his brother and Barty Crouch Jr went to the home of one of the Order members who was at the forefront of the attack, so she naturally blamed him, although if she hadn't been caught I'm sure she would have made a stop at every last one of their residences. She Crucio'd him and his wife into literal insanity." Neville's parents. But they were members of the Light, not kidnappers. They'd been innocents, doomed to live out the rest of their days in St Mungo's, leaving their son an orphan with only his grandmother to care for him. Seeing her expression, Malfoy said, "Every story has two sides." Usually, so did every proverb, but she couldn't think of a witty retort to this one. He was right. "After my aunt and the others were imprisoned your father became even more enraged. His insider Pettigrew had spilled the Potters' secrets and, mind taken over by vengeance, he didn't think things through." Her heart froze in belated realisation. "He went there alone to pursue his own personal vendetta, to kill a child of the Light so they could feel what he did. But the martyrs were determined to die, practically killing the Dark Lord in the process, and worst of all, the target survived." No, no, no. Bellatrix, fine, she would admit that truth to herself, awful as it was. But this was too much. This was not true. This was-

The two teenagers both turned to face the tall, thin, chalk white skeletal figure in the dark cloak. His red eyes latched onto her just like Bellatrix's had and his skull like face seemed to soften, though it still seemed just as monstrous to Hermione. She looked down to the photo in her hand: her curly hair and nose; his dark eyes and eyebrows. Her grip laxed and the photo fell down to the floor in a swirling hurricane, landing at the same time that she was jolted into the realisation. This was true.

Let me know what you think! Guests, please leave a name so I can respond in my AN. This story will eventually be Dark Hermione and similarly it will take a few chapters but the pairing will be primarily Dramione with some other couples later on. Some might consider it incest so if you are uncomfortable with that I have a couple of other Dramione stories where they share no blood whatsoever so feel free to read them instead!