Chapter Text
Hermione had never seen such bullshit in her life.
The bullshit in question? It just so happened to be one of the most crazily loyal followers of Voldemort (that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named shit was getting on her nerves) was kneeling on the ground in front of her, hands raised with the tip of Hermione’s wand trained at her heart.
“What do you want from me?”
It hardly sounded like the question it was. Hermione’s tone was ice cold.
Bellatrix smiled, smiled, up at her, and sat further back on her heels.
“I want whatever you want.”
It sounded so simple. It sounded so easy-
-which could only mean that it was actually difficult and complicated or a trick.
Hermione felt her face twist into a small sneer as her eyes ran pointedly over Bellatrix's malnourished frame and tattered clothes hanging off of her.
She wasn't expecting a reaction, and if she was, it would have been for the Death Eater in front of her to burst out into crazed cackles or try and send a hex her way. Bellatrix reacted to her sneer, however imperceptible it was. Her head lowered, a curtain of jet-black curls draping themselves across her face. Her shoulders slumped slightly and her back bent forward as if she was trying to curl into herself, the ridges of her spine protruding from beneath her skin.
Hermione felt her throat dry a little bit as the obvious malnourishment became a large, brightly colored STOP sign in her vision.
The chocolate-haired witch was so concerned about examining the lengths of starvation that the older woman had experienced, she didn’t notice that Bellatrix’s lips were moving until she lifted her head, eyes glazing with tears.
Her voice was a short, quiet rasp of breath with no real sound or substance to it, so Hermione was reduced to watching her lips and piecing together the words ‘I’m sorry’ repeated in an infinite loop.
This entire situation reeked of a trap to the Muggleborn witch. Bellatrix Lestrange. The Bellatrix Lestrange, kneeling and apologizing to a Muggleborn? A cruel joke was being played on Hermione.
“Sorry for what exactly?”
The curls became a shield once again.
“For displeasing you, Mistress.”
Hermione felt her stomach churn as her mind did the same. Mistress. Was Bellatrix Lestrange indebted to her by magic somehow? Was it an Unbreakable Vow made years before? Hundreds of years before most likely, by both witches’ great (x12) grandfather.
Hermione shook her head a little and, seeing Bellatrix’s head drop farther down, hurried on with her sentence.
“How did you displease me?”
The older woman glanced up, then returned her gaze to whatever it was on the floor that was so much more interesting than Hermione’s face at that moment.
“My body….You studied it and….the corner of your lip curled…I- I will make myself suitable for you Mistress! I beg of you, tell me what you would like from me!”
“Woah- ok, first things first. We need to get you some food. That will help….your body..”
Bellatrix truly was crazy now. There’s no possible way she wasn’t. She would never care about what a Muggleborn thinks of her otherwise. Or maybe she had suffered some kind of head trauma. Something that might have changed her entire personality and way of thinking.
Hermione grabs the groveling woman’s bicep and hauls her to her feet.
Bellatrix almost immediately falls as if her feet were swept from under her and Hermione makes a noble effort to right, giving up halfway through and shouldering her weight.
Bellatrix took a weak step forward and Hermione followed, allowing the broken woman to have some sense of choice in her now quite strange life by choosing the pace of their shuffle.
There is a distant wonder in the back of Hermione’s mind as to what could have caused this state in the once powerful, mad witch so full of rage, her mind a shattered mirror, fragments of grief, rage, and loyalty refracting off each other.
“Sit on that chair. Right there.” Hermione orders, slowly lowering the frail skeleton carefully supported in her arms into the sturdy wood dining chair.
“What are you doing?”
“Cooking for you. You need food.”
“Why not have the house elves conjure food?”
Hermione scoffed, focusing some of her attention away from the food in the pan. “The house elves here are not to be servants, but fully paid workers with freedoms and rights. And sometimes, the food they conjure is a little stale with no flavor. You need proper food. Sometimes, it’s better to not ingest magic all the time.”
Hermione heard the sizzle of food on the pan for so long that she was about to look over her shoulder and make sure the Lestrange woman hadn’t gone into cardiac arrest when Bellatrix spoke up again.
“Why are you doing this for me? After….everything I’ve done to you. After….I took the blade….I don’t deserve to be saved. You should have let me rot on your floor.”
“What kind of person would I be if I let you rot on my floor?”
“A good one. A hero.”
“Heroes save people, heroes don’t kill.”
“You killed plenty in the war and you were hailed as a hero.”
“Yeah, well, everyone calling you a hero is different from feeling like a hero. ‘Hero’ is as fragile as ceramic when you have the blood of one person, let alone tens or hundreds on your hands.”
Hermione slid the omelet from the pan to a plate and pushed it into the waiting space in front of Bellatrix.
“Being called a hero does not make you a good person or a legend. Being a hero to others is worth as much as straw and mud if you don’t feel like a hero to yourself.”
Hermione set silverware next to the plate and rummaged around in the cupboards for a glass.
“Morals are set in stone.”
“Morals also change with the tides. They change states of matter as fluently as we change words to fit our stories.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A glass for you.”
“For what?”
“Well, I gave you food, so the next logical step has to be water.”
Hermione set the now-filled glass beside the plate of half-eaten omelet and turned toward the door.
“Hermione?”
“Yes, Lestrange?”
“I….truly am sorry…for what I’ve done to make you a broken hero. You were just a child. You deserved to be protected, not destroyed.”
Hermione gave no answer. And with that, she left the disturbing version of Bellatrix Lestrange in her kitchen.