Chapter Text
“Are you sure you want to do this,” Harry asked for the third time. His voice was still hoarse from the flames. “No one will think less of you if you don’t want to go through with this. It was a stupid idea.”
“No,” Hermione shook her head. “It’s the only way. I’ll be fine.”
“Take care,” Ron raised his arms as if to hug her, then dropped them back to his sides.
She could still see the burns on his skin. The reminders of their very, very close escape.
Even now, miles and miles from Gringotts and the Death Eaters, Hermione still felt hunted. They were after them, searching all over the country for them. Voldemort knew. He had surely figured out by now why they had been in the vault of his Lieutenant.
Harry winced, his eyes squeezed shut as he endured another wave of Voldemort’s fury seeping through his scar. It pained Hermione to see her friend like this. She’d take his burden from him in an instant, if she could. - And she could; Their plan was mad. Desperate. But it was a chance for her to free her friends. It was a chance to make their lives safe again.
Hermione nodded grimly, pinching her nose shut while she took a big sip from the glass of shimmering dark potion in her hand. It looked kind of beautiful, albeit in an eerie, foreboding way.
Almost immediately, she felt the burning evidence of the potion working its magic. She kept her eyes closed, breathing harshly through her mouth while she waited for the agonizing transformation to be complete. The cold wind whipped through her hair as it grew longer, smoother, darker.
“Blimey,” Ron exclaimed. “I didn’t realize-...”
“I know,” murmured Harry, and when Hermione opened her eyes to look at her reflection in the mirror Harry was holding up for her, she understood what they were talking about.
Bellatrix Lestrange had been pretty before Azkaban. Very pretty. Beautiful even.
Still, being in that horrible witch’s skin - again - felt as wrong as it had the first time.
And suddenly, having transformed into the person she had agreed to portray, her decision became frighteningly real. This wasn’t a predictable little break-in where she could be certain that her friends had her back. This was something much more dangerous. Much more desperate.
They had been lucky to make it out of Gringotts alive after the Death Eaters had shown up. Hermione was almost certain she wouldn’t be so lucky this time, on her own. But what did it matter, if she brought down Voldemort in the process. She’d rather go down fighting against him than continue being hunted by his Death Eaters and dying a slow and painful death at their hands when they caught them eventually.
She was about to walk right into the height of Voldemort’s power and leave her friends behind in what was about to become the future. She was going to be all alone. In a situation she was going to know almost nothing about. And no one knew how to pull her back. She’d be left in the past forever, living out her life in hiding. This was the end.
“You can still change your mind, Hermione,” Harry whispered. “It’s not too late.”
Hermione shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me.”
Thankfully, Harry didn’t ask again. He looked grim when he nodded, accepting her decision. And Hermione felt grateful. She didn’t know if her resolve would have held, should he have asked a third time.
“Remember, take out the real Bellatrix first,” Harry reminded her, now focusing completely on the war at hand, pushing aside all sentiments the way Hermione knew she would have to learn to imitate.
This was it. The last few moments she had with her friends.
“They’ll expose you in an instant if the real Lestrange shows up where you are,” Harry continued.
“I know,” Hermione said, her voice sounding distorted by a stranger’s vocal chords. “I’ll take her out, just like Crouch did with Moody, and then I’ll set up my supply of polyjuice potion. Only then will I try to find Voldemort.”
They all looked at each other, a heavy silence settling over them. The magnitude of what she was about to do loomed just within reach, and if she weren’t doing everything she could not to think about it, she would surely lose her nerves.
“Good luck, Hermione,” Ron said again, swallowing limply. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too,” she whispered, tears stinging in her eyes while she hugged her friends one final time. She could feel them tensing, perhaps subconsciously. None of them wanted to hug Bellatrix Lestrange.
“Goodbye,” she murmured, and without another look at everything she was leaving behind, she spun the time turner and disappeared.
Traveling through time was uncomfortable for the shortest length of time. Traveling across decades, the way she did now, was near unbearable agony. Humans weren’t made for traversing time.
She retched, gasping for breath when she arrived, the earth spinning beneath her feet.
Slowly, the white spots disappeared from her vision and she looked around. She was still on the same hill she had departed from twenty years earlier. She was still wearing the body of a young Bellatrix Lestrange.
Now her work began. There wasn’t time to miss her friends, to lament the life she had chosen to forsake. Desperate times called for desperate measures, after all.
Hunting down the real Bellatrix Lestrange proved to be easier than Hermione had anticipated, and yet even when surprised in the middle of the night, the young Bellatrix was a formidable enemy. If she hadn’t been roused from sleep, if she hadn’t been the tiniest bit sluggish while grabbing her wand to defend herself, Hermione certainly would have lost the fight, failing her mission before it had even begun. But through sheer dumb luck, Hermione managed to stun the witch, bind her and secure her.
Thankfully, the Lestranges kept their own potions laboratory, whose stocks were surprisingly well-stocked for a private laboratory. Then again, they were purebloods, fanatics of the Dark Arts. Of course they would keep all manner of restricted ingredients, simply because they could.
With the polyjuice potion bubbling away, Hermione allowed herself to sort through the neatly labeled potions stacked on one of the shelves, just waiting to be consumed. Like with the ingredients, the Lestranges appeared to simply not care about ministry regulations, keeping an impressive collection of forbidden potions ready. - Even - Hermione could not believe her luck once again - Polyjuice Potion. Which meant she wouldn’t have to wait until her own potion was ready to commence her real mission. She wouldn’t have to waste weeks just because her potion needed time. She could start right away. - If she dared. Secretly, she had hoped for some time to catch her breath in the new timeline before having to face Voldemort. Every day she didn’t spend in his presence, yet, she could spend preparing for it. Resarching. Becoming Bellatrix. But alas.
She had no idea how often Voldemort met his Death Eaters face to face. She had no idea if he would have missed his Lieutenant if she hadn’t shown up for weeks (because she was locked up and her impostor hadn’t finished the potion). She had no idea if he’d even care if that were the case.
Aside from Voldemort, however, another person would no doubt grow suspicious if Bellatrix simply disappeared for weeks. Her husband. Rodolphus Lestrange. Harry, Ron and Hermione hadn’t really spared a second thought concerning Rodolphus. An oversight Hermione already regretted.
She needn’t have bothered, though. Rodolphus was nowhere to be found in the large mansion the Lestranges inhabited. He didn’t show up for days, and Hermione began to wonder if the Lestranges even lived together. There weren’t a lot of pictures around to make her think the Lestranges were happy together. There weren’t a lot of pictures around their house, period. The house appeared spotless, tastefully decorated, but impersonal. Like something you would see in a magazine. The only personal touches were a collection of artifacts Hermione could only assume were as forbidden and dangerous as they looked.
Initially, Hermione had thought she would feel bad for keeping the real Bellatrix imprisoned. She was a human being, deprived of her freedom, after all. But she was surprised to notice her own apathy. She took care of the unconscious body like one would take care of an elderly pet. It was a chore, but it wasn’t terrible, and it was over quickly, leaving her to attend to her daily business. Perhaps it helped to have her hostage unconscious. Perhaps it also helped to have been tortured by her hostage.
After Hermione had studied Bellatrix’ life in the past as best she could for about a week, Rodolphus returned home. He’d been gone on a ‘mission’, about which he assumed Bellatrix knew all about. Hermione only nodded along while he boasted of his success. Her stomach churned uneasily. It only took this one conversation for her to realize how much they had underestimated Bellatrix’ husband in their plans. He wasn’t just an afterthought. He appeared to be a formidable Death Eater in his own right, as violent as his wife, from what Hermione gathered from his tale.
Now, he frowned.
“What’s up with you today?” he demanded, brows furrowed.
“Nothing,” Hermione replied, perhaps a tad too quickly. Her throat was tight from fear.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m simply not interested in your boasting,” replied Hermione, in as haughty a tone as she could manage, dearly hoping she hadn’t read the lack of romantic memorabilia around the house wrongly. Dearly hoping Rodolphus wasn’t one of those husbands.
“I see,” Rodolphus said, his voice turning icy. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
And with that, he turned on his heels and left the room, his traveling cloak billowing around him.
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Her first encounter with someone who knew Bellatrix and she had survived. So far so good.