JK Rowling owns the multi billion dollar Potter industry.
This is gonna be the last chapter. I know I said the was gonna be three or four more, but I figured I'd put it all in one monumental huge ass chapter.
Bella awoke on a soft bed to numerous voices she didn't recognize talking and murmuring.
She opened her eyes and groaned, but almost as soon as she did, she was nearly blinded by flashes of lights and bombarded with voices rapidly asking questions.
"Mrs. Lestrange, were you working undercover all these years?" a voice she didn't recognize asked.
"Were you aiming for another person?" another voice asked equally excited.
"How did you do it? Why did you do it? Did you mean to do it?"
"Mrs. Lestrange, there are rumors that you and him were a romantic item, is there any truth to that?"
"Who were you wearing when you did it?"
Bella opened her eyes once more to find people she had never seen before with magical microphones and cameras shoved in her face, and Rita Skeeter in the back, her Quick-Notes Quill writing like mad.
"What's going on? How's Filia?" she asked, still somewhat out of it.
"She's just fine, Mrs. Lestrange," a soft voice said from the door way.
All the reporters turned to the doorway and parted ways as Albus Dumbledore walked towards the bed, his expression unreadable.
"Professor Dumbledore, did you-"
"I'm sure," Dumbledore interrupted turning around to face the reporters, a kind smile on his face. "That Mrs. Lestrange would like to get a few more hours of rest before she gives any interviews, if you don't all mind of course."
With annoyed yet agreeable mutterings, the reporters left the room, the last one shutting the door behind him.
"What do you-" Bella began, but Dumbledore put a finger to his lips and pointed his wand at the door, swishing it slightly.
"Don't want any accidental over hearence, do we?"
"You mean you want to protect your good name," Bella spat. "But why are you here? What do you want? Come to tell Filia more lies about me?"
Dumbledore chuckled before sitting down in the seat next to her bed. "You could be one of those reporters out there. But no, I'm here, to ask you your side of the story."
"What story?"
"Hermione told me everything. From you being tortured to saving her, from slitting his throat and using the killing curse on him. Mrs. Lestrange, you just killed a man thought unkillable, you proved a prophecy sixteen years in the making wrong, you who many thought was his most faithful killed a man responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people."
"Great," she muttered, "I'm a hero of Blood traitors and Mud bloods."
Dumbledore cocked his head in confusion. " I don't understand, you killed the biggest blood supremacist in the last century, one of the darkest wizard in history, the-"
"And if he wouldn't have threatened my daughter I would be fighting at his side this very moment!" she snapped.
"So... you put aside your convictions and radical beliefs to save your daughter?" Dumbledore smiled at her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Believe it or not, Bellatrix, that is not a bad thing."
"I killed the man I followed for the past twenty years. How can I feel good about that?"
Dumbledore let out a sad smile before continuing. "Hermione also told me," he added softly, "what happened to Rodolphus."
Bella turned her head to hide the tears that sprang up in her eyes.
"I'm sorry. I remember him from school, he was a good man, despite his radical beliefs."
Bella snapped her head towards him and shrugged his hand off his shoulder.
"Don't!" she yelled, "don't you dare talk about him! You didn't know him at all! He was just another death eater to you and your stooges!"
"You're right, I'm sorry." Dumbledore told her, tastefully ignoring the tears streaming down her face.
"You didn't know that his favorite color was dark red, or that he kept his hair shaggy because he said his mother made him keep it short all his childhood, or that he knew he was allergic to pecans but made a pecan pie for my birthday one year anyway because he knew I liked it. Or, or that he once almost died for me when we were attacked by a group of mud blood supremacists. You knew nothing about him, so don't say you did!"
Bella let out a sob, but this time she didn't even bother covering it up.
"My lord is dead, my husband is dead, my daughter hates me-"
"I don't hate you," Hermione's voice rang out. Bella snapped towards the door way and saw Hermione standing in the doorway, neither one of them had noticed the door opening.
Dumbledore stood up from the chair and offered his seat to Hermione who took it without looking at him.
"I hate your fanatic beliefs, and your past, but I don't hate you personally, not any more anyway."
"So um, how did you get past the vultures out there?"
Hermione pulled the black cloak out of her pocket and handed it to Bella. She shook her head however.
"It's yours, keep it."
"I couldn't!" Hermione exclaimed. "It's yours, and must be valuable and-"
"My father gave it to me when I did something he was proud of, and now I'm giving it to you."
Hermione looked down at the cloak for a moment before stuffing the cloak back in her pocket.
"Thank you."
"Just... just don't tell Longbottom or Potter about it, or that Weasly boy."
Hermione held back a sigh and an eye roll as she gave her a small grin.
"I won't, I promise."
Bella sighed in content before leaning back in the bed and resting her head on the pillow.
Hermione looked down at the cloak before looking back up at her.
"What was he like?"
"Who?"
"Your father. An, and your mother, and sisters, an, and your whole family."
"Well," Bella said slowly, carefully choosing her words. "My father wasn't, wasn't the most caring or loving man I ever met. He liked being in charge of things, and when something didn't go his way, he got angry. My mother, well, not much to say. She was what my father and society wanted her to be. A quiet, meek, wife who lived to serve her husband and produce male heirs. "
"Would you have raised me like that?" Hermione asked, acknowledging for the first time that she was indeed her daughter.
Bella shook her head.
"No. I would have taught you to there is more to life then serving a husband, and I would have made sure that you were intelligent enough to survive without one. Of course, you would of had respectable pure blooded boys by the dozens wanting to be with you, but-"
"What if I had rebelled? Like, what if I became like Sirius or Andromeda?" she muttered, looking down at her feet.
"That wouldn't have happened."
"But what if it did?"
Bella was silent for a moment, ignoring the stare Dumbledore was giving her, also wanting to know the answer to this.
"I would have gone on loving you no matter what, and I would have hated myself for not raising you in such a way that you would want to follow mine and his beliefs."
Hermione looked at her for a moment, before asking the one thing she wanted to know more then anything.
"Bellatrix, who's my father?"
"And I think it's time for us to be leaving," Dumbledore said rapidly, but Bella held up her hand, her eyes not leaving Hermione.
She knew she should tell her the truth, that her father was a murderer, a mad man, the man who had made her friends life hell. A week ago, she would have thought that any child, well, any proud pure blooded child, would have loved to have her master as a father. She knew better now, knew that Filia would be devastated to know she was Voldemorts heir.
"Mrs. Lestrange, please," Dumbledore pleaded, "she doesn't-"
"Your father is-" she said, ignoring his words.
"Mrs. Lestrange, I forbid you to tell-" Dumbledore began, yelling.
"Rodolphus."
Dumbledore stopped mid sentence, his mouth still agape at ordering her not to reveal what he knew Hermione would be devastated at.
Hermione nodded. "Why did he seem to really hate me then?"
"He didn't," Bella told her, looking her straight in the eyes. "He was just a little bitter about you not accepting the beliefs we would have installed in you," she finished convincingly. After all, being a high ranking death eater, she had to learn how to look innocent and sure of herself when telling a lie. Now she just hoped that Hermione didn't know how to read minds.
Hermione, who, thankfully, didn't know how to read minds accepted the fact, a tiny twinge of sadness in her heart.
"I'm sorry about him passing. It looked like you really loved each other."
Bella nodded
"We did," she managed to say before biting her bottom lip rather hard for fear of her shedding tears. "I loved him more then anyone."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dumbledore straighten up and stride over to her.
"Miss. Granger-"
"Black," Bella grumbled.
"Miss. Granger," Dumbledore said again, eyeing Bellatrix in surprise. "Would you be so kind as to leave us now for a moment?"
Hermione looked towards Bella for guidance. Bella nodded before Hermione threw on the cloak and left the room, shutting the door behind her.
"Thank you," Dumbledore said taking up the seat recently inhabited by Hermione. "I can't-"
"I didn't do it for you, I did it for her!" Bella snapped. "I knew she would hate to know that e was her father."
"I know you didn't do it for me. But you don't seem to know the full extent of damage you saved her from. If the world found out that Voldemort." Bella narrowed her eyes and growled at him menacingly, "had a daughter, she would be an outcast, no one would trust her, her friends would hate her, reporters would be banging down her doors... I know it means a lot to her, and I thank you for that."
Dumbledore smiled at her, and Bella narrowed her eyes at him.
"Why, now of all times, are you trying to act friendly towards me? You told my daughter I never wanted her, you told her I tried to kill her at birth, you took away sixteen almost seventeen, years of time I could have spent with her. Why the hell are you trying to act decent to me? I know its all a lie."
Dumbledores grin faltered and looked at her with an expression of one being at the deathbed of a friend.
"Because, Mrs. Lestrange. To a brilliant mind, it is easier to ask for forgiveness for cruelty they've done to others, then it is to accept for wrongs done against them. I'm afraid I'm not that brilliant as I seem to be. And I suppose that trying to act generous towards you for crimes I can't believe I committed against you long ago is my way of saying I am truly, truly sorry for everything I have done to you and everything I have told Hermione about you. "
With a bow of his head, he got up from the chair and walked to the door.
"And one more thing, Mrs. Lestrange," said Dumbledore turning back to a shocked Bella. "I am told that you are to be featured on the next Chocolate frog card. You have my sincere congratulations."
With a tip of his silver and blue hat, he opened the door and left the room.
Hermione walked back in to the room to find Bella in a state of shock.
"Are you alright."
Bella snapped out of her state of shock and smiled at her. "I'll be fine now." He reached out and took Hermione's hand. "I finally have you."
Hermione opened her mouth to say something before she heard a voice yelling down the hall.
"I'm sorry, Mam, but you're a muggle and we can not allow you past the waiting room or down these halls."
That psychotic bitch killed my daughter, and now she's missing! I'm gonna kill her!"
"Oh fuck," Bella groaned, recognizing the voice. And judging by the look of surprise on Hermione's voice, she knew who it was too.
With a slam, the door opened to reveal Amiella Granger accompanied by a member of the St Mungos staff.
"Get away from her!" Amiella roared before running into the room.
Bella jumped up from the bed and scrambled to grab her wand that was on the desk beside her.
"Stop or you die!" Bella yelled, her wand aimed directed at Amiellas heart.
"Ladies, please!" the receptionist pleaded, aiming his wand at Bella and Amiella, "will you please calm down."
"She kidnaped my daughter! She deserves to die!" Amiella shouted, but Bellas wand kept her at bay from making any other movement.
"Your daughter!" Bella screamed with laughter. "As if you could ever give birth to a witch as powerful as her, you filthy muggle!"
"You tried to kill her when she was first born! You didn't even want her!"
With a cry of fury, Bella lept at her and the two women were thrown to the ground.
Amiella yanked Bellas hair and Bella screamed and scratched her face with her long, razor sharp nails before grabbing onto her hair and yanking for all it was worth.
"Stop it!" Hermione cried desperately. "Both of you stop it!"
With a cry of effort, Amiella flipped Bella over and hit her hard across the face. Bellas hold on her wand slackened and Amiella yanked it out of her grip.
"I'm going to kill you for whatever you did to her," Amiella growled, aiming it at her throat.
Bella cackled loudly. "You?!" she screeched struggling beneath her, "a mere disgusting muggle, kill me, one of the most powerful witches to be alive, with my own wand?! Don't be stupid!"
Amiella took it and snapped the wand in half and held the jagged edge of the broken wand to her throat.
"I don't have to know magic to kill you."
Bella screamed. "You broke my wand, you muggle cunt!"
Bella tried to get out from under her, but Amiella held her down.
Hermione looked on in terror before going up to Amiella and snatching the pieces of the wand out of her hand.
"Hermione, wha-" Amiella began looking up at her,
"Get off of her," Hermione asked softly, aiming her own wand at Amiella.
"Hermione, this woman kidnaped you, almost killed me, and you want to aim your wand at me?"
"Please. I don't want to hurt you. Either of you."
Amiella looked at her for a moment, tears flooding her eyes before she got off of Bella.
"Stupid muggle bitch," Bella grumbled, eyeing her with hatred so intense, it was a miracle she didn't burst into flames.
Hermione walked up to Bella and handed the pieces of wand back to Bella who looked at it with tears in her eyes, a thin glint of red dragon heart string coming out from both ends.
"My wand," Bella whispered, biting her bottom lip.
"Maybe... maybe we can fix it," Hermione said doubtfully before taking the broken Walnut wand in her hand and pointing her own wand at it.
"Reparo."
Bellas wand did a sort of feeble jolt before lying still, still disconnected.
"You'll pay. I swear to god you'll pay!" Bella cried reaching in her robes and pulling out a short, gleaming silver knife.
"Don't!" Hermione pleaded stepping in front of Amiella. "We can get you a new wand!"
"I want my wand back! Do you know how much that wand has been through? What magic that wand has done? I served the dark lord with that, I did spells beyond most wizards and witches comprehension with that, I-"
"Then think of this as a way to start over. A new life. A new beginning."
Bella looked at Hermione for a moment before lowering the knife, and dropping the broken pieces of wand to the floor.
Hermione gave her an encouraging smile and Bella managed a weak smile back.
"What did you do to her," Amiella growled, tears leaking down her eyes. "What did you do to my daughter?"
"Your daughter?! I gave birth to her, I -"
"I raised her and cared for her, I fed her, I housed her, I loved her, I was there for everything!"
Bella raised the knife again and Amiella stepped back. terrorfied.
"Hold your tongue before I cut it out, filth!"
"Will you stop it!" Hermione yelled, startling both Amiella and Bella. "You're acting like a child and I'm sick of you fighting over me! know you hate her for some stupid racist reason, but she raised me, and loved me for my whole life, and I'm not gonna stand by and watch you threaten her! I'm sorry I was stolen from you and all that's happened to you, I really am. But it wasn't her fault. I'm sixteen years old, and I'm going to be of age in three months, and there's nothing you can do to get that time back so stop trying to act like you were my mother when she is, and you never will be! If it wasn't for the fact that you tried to kill my best friend and I tried to stop you, you never would have known, and you would have killed me without so much as blinking an eye, so don't try to pretend that you care about me! You're a murdering racist, and I would have hated myself if you had raised me!"
Bella dropped the knife and looked at Hermione in shock, who regretted shouting at her.
"Bellatrix I- I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
"Don't," Bella said, her voice cold, tears gathering in her black eyes. "People never say stuff they don't mean in the heat of the moment. You're right, you're not mine, I didn't raise you, and I'm not your mother and I never will be. And you're right. If I thought you were still a mudblood, I would consider you worthless. But once I found out you were my daughter, I saved you, I cared about you, I killed my lord for you! The man I followed for twenty years, just to save you. I was tortured for you, so do not insinuate that I don't care about you. And yes I may be a racist bitch, but that's how I was raised, that was what was drilled into my head for over forty years. And I believe every damn word of what I was taught and what I believe. Obviously, you no longer wish to associate with me, so I'll make this my final farewell. Goodbye, Fi- Hermione."
Picking up the broken pieces of her wand, she walked out of the room.
"Bellatrix wait," Hermione begged and began to follow before Amiella put a hand on her shoulder.
"She's right, Hermione," Amiella said softly. "You're mine, not hers. She's a murderer and a psychopath. She's not the motherly type."
"You're right. But she still gave birth to me and went through hell to save me. Plus she may not be the ideal mother, but there's something about her that just... I don't know. She's different, but in a good, kind of crazy way. I can't let her leave thinking I hate her."
Amiella had tears in her eyes. "Hermione, you're my daughter."
"I know. But she still cares about me, and I don't want to leave it like this."
Hermione ran out of the room, unsure of where to go.
"Bellatrix!" Hermione cried, desperate to find her before she disappeared.
She heard heels clicking on the hallway to the left of her, and Hermione dashed down the hall.
She saw Bella at the receptionist center, trying to disappeared, her wand mended with spellotape.
Remembering Rons experience with a broken wand mended with spellotape, she rushed towards her.
"Bellatrix wait!"Hermione yelled racing up to her. Bella turned to her and began to open her mouth to tell her to go away before Hermione ran up to her.
"Please don't leave! I'm sorry I insulted you like that. I was wrong about you!"
Bellas eyes began to flood with tears.
"I'm sorry too. But you were right.." Bella looked down at her, wiping away the tears that streamed down Hermione face.
"I'm not the motherly type, and you're all grown up now. I see now how much you love your.. your muggle care taker, and I can't take you away from that. I can't make another woman go through what I went through. I can't get those years back, no matter how hard I want it. And like you said earlier, you never would have adapted our beliefs. You're too much of a... a Gryffindor at heart. You would have hated us, just like Sirius."
"I never would have hated you, you're my mother."
Bella's eyes filled with emotion. "Filia-"
"Hermione!" they heard Amiella cry before seeing her run into the waiting area,. stopping dead a few feet away from them. Bella narrowed her eyes at her before turning her attention back to Hermione.
"Filia," she continued, "I can't do this. I can't have you so near me when you're being raised a muggle, even if..." She took a deep breath, as if the next words she spoke pained her beyond anything. "Even if she did do a good job raising you."
"Wha, what are you saying?" asked Hermione, heaviness in her heart.
"What I'm saying, is that I can't deal not being your mother while another is, and I can't deal with the fact that my daughter is being raised by a muggle. Every time I see you, all I think about is what could have been, or how I would have raised you, or how you would have turned out. I'm not going to torture myself like that, and it's not fair to her that she has to share you with me."
Bella looked over at Amiella and grimaced as Amiella smiled at her.
"Filthy muggle," Bella muttered sticking her tongue out at her before turning her attention back to Hermione. "I would have loved to have you as my daughter, but I can't have that, and I'm sorry."
Hermione nodded in understanding, before, surprising herself, she wrapped her arms around Bella,.
"I love you, mum," she whispered fondly, her tears streaming down her face.
Bella, hearing the words she had yearned to hear for almost seventeen years, let out a sob "I love you too, Filia."
They held on for a few moments longer before Bella forced herself to let go.
"I'll never forget you,"Hermione told her truthfully.
Bella laughed softly before stroking her cheek and gently pushing her hair behind her hair, smiling a true, genuine smile. "One of the most powerful witches alive, who served as the Dark lords most faithful before killing him? I don't think you'll get the chance to."
Bella raised her wand once more.
"I don't think you should use that wand to disappeared!" Hermione cried, seeing the sparks fly out of it.
Bella turned to her and scoffed before looking at her with the classic, Black look..
"I'm Bellatrix Marissa Black Lestrange. Do you truly think a little thing like a broken wand is going to stop me from getting where I want to go?"
In a flash of green light and a soft pop, she was gone.
Over the years, books by the hundreds were written about Bella and how she had killed the Dark Lord, and Hermione always had to laugh when they said they had an interview with her, knowing there was no way Bella would say some of the things they put in there. Especially the one where Rita Skeeter wrote a fake interview in which she had written that Bella had said that 'she had admired Harry, and that she was proud to have done the job Harry had tried to do for years.'
She was also sure that she never completely stayed away.
Once in a while she saw a flash of black, curly hair dodging behind a corner while she was shopping, or when she gave her Valedictorian speech at her graduation, she could have sworn the hooded woman in the back wasn't just a local from Hogsmeade, or on her wedding day, she knew that she was in the back looking on as she took the name Hermione Lestrange-Weasley.
Dumbledore and Fudge cleared her of all previous charges, despite Nevilles and Agustas pleas not to.
Hermione never told a soul of what happened the night Voldemort had died, nor had she disclosed who her real mother was except to her close family and friends, who swore never to tell.
Eleven years after that fateful day at the Black house, Hermione was sitting next to Neville at the sorting ceremony, drinking from her cup, wondering who she would get in her house this year, and if she add the history of Transfiguration into the first year curriculum this year instead of starting them out turning straw into needles.
"Jones, Christie," Flitwick read from the list, and a small blond girl walked up to the chair, shaking slightly as the hat was placed over her head.
It waited a moment before it shouted out, "Hufflepuff!"
Hermione clapped along with the rest of the staff as Christie, smiling, ran off towards the Hufflepuff table.
Flitwick turned his attention back to the list before looking up at the students before turning back to the list, in somewhat of surprise.
"Lestrange, Astoria."
Hermione almost choked on her drink before eagerly scanning the group of students, ignoring the loud murmurings from the other students and staff. She glanced over at Neville, who seemed to be the only staff member who didn't look surprised or happy, but instead looked murderous.
And she stepped forward. A tall, thin girl with brownish black curls rippling down her back, her eyes the color of black ember, just like Bellas.
She sat on the stool, looking confident, cool, calm, just Hermione had always imagined Bellatrix looked on her first day. The hat was barley on her head for a moment before, not to Hermione's surprise, it shouted out "Slytherin !" A loud roar of congratulations arose from the Slytherin table, cheering just as the Gryffindor table had when Harry had been sorted what felt like so long ago. Bounding off the stool with a large grin, Astoria walked to the Slytherin table, not being able to hide the grin on her lips.
Hermione watched her sit down and looked at her for a moment before Astoria caught her eye and waved happily.
Both pleased and surprised, Hermione gave a small wave back. Astoria gave her a grin before turning back to watch the rest of the sorting. Hermione continued to look at her for sometime after, but Astoria never looked back at her.
Hermione looked over at Neville who also was looking at Astoria, through his look was filled with hate instead of love, and she gave herself a mental note to talk to him later.
She turned back to Astoria who was talking to another student. She couldn't hear what they were talking about , but she looked happy and content.
Hermione was glad that Bella had the chance to raise a child, and she knew that she was a good mother to Astoria.
Content and happy with the way things had gone, Hermione turned back to watch the sorting, glad that the woman who had done more for her then she would ever know, had her chance at true happiness.
The End
First off, thanks to everyone who reviewed this, and who favorited this, and who put this on alert, and thank you all so much for read this story, and I hoped you enjoyed it.
And now... a preview to my next story in the HP fandom! Tis entitled... "Broken Hearts and Mended Souls." And it's just chock full of pairings of all kind, and it's a dramady romance. Be sure to be on the look for it.
"You have all been told," I said looking at the group of silent deatheaters, "that I can not love. That." I waited until it was quiet again, for a buzz of low muttering and murmerings have broken out amongst the table. "Is a lie cooked up by Dumbledore and his stooges. I assure you all, I can, and do love."
My eyes looked down at Bellatrix who was looking up at me, her eyes wide with hope, shock and happiness raditing off of her face like beams of bright light. I looked away from her, conceiling the cunnign grin on my face. "I do love someone. A woman whose loyalty to me has been proven time and again. A woman, whose beauty far out shines the stars, and who any man would be lucky to have on his arm, and this woman shall be mine. This lucky woman, who owns my heart, is-"
"Oh, my lord, I feel the same-" Bellatrix began happily, tears of joy constricting her voice.
"Narcissa Malfoy!" I finished, cutting off her words.
What happens after that? Well, you'll have to be on the look out and read "Broken hearts and mended souls," to find out.