One Shot Hermione/Black Sisters

Hermione couldn’t believe her luck. First, she and Harry had so many detentions with the Pink Toad, Hermione was sure their hands were going to be permanently scared with their lines. No matter what either of them did, it seemed the Pink Toad was specifically out to get them. Nearly every night they had a detention with her to write lines; even when both of them kept their mouths shut, they still got in trouble. What really pissed Hermione off was when Ron would say something, he was usually given a warning before an actual detention. Since Ron had a hard time knowing when to keep his mouth shut, he almost had detention as often as Hermione and Harry did.

Second, while Harry was still obsessed with Draco and what the platinum blonde was up since ever since they followed him into Knockturn Alley, Hermione was becoming obsessed with the boys’ mother. Hermione hadn’t ever had much interaction with Lady Malfoy in the past, only really seeing her the previous year when they all were able to attend the quidditch match with the Weasley’s. The Malfoy matriarch was oddly… kind… to Hermione. While the woman practically looked down her nose at the Weasley’s and was very cold and dismissive, she seemed genuinely concerned with Hermione. She even offered to buy her some sweets and drinks!

She didn’t give the offer loud enough for the others to hear; which is why no matter how many times she insisted it happened no one believed her. The older woman had leaned down behind here while the Veela from the Irish team distracted practically everyone in the stadium and made her offer so softly if it wasn’t for Hermione feeling the woman’s breath on her cheek she wouldn’t have believed it was given. She had shaken her head in the negative, all too wary of the offer, and had thought it was the end of any interactions she would have with the woman.

But it wasn’t.

Throughout the summer she would receive a few owls from her. Usually once every other week, sometimes more. It was the oddest thing. She would only send a short note with just a few statements of how her day or week had been and ask a question or two of how Hermione was doing. It was the most peculiar thing.

Hermione didn’t respond to single one.

How could she? How could she bring herself to reply to letters from a Death Eater’s wife that was known to think people like her, muggleborns, were no better than the dirt on the bottom of their shoes? She had nothing to say to the woman who supports such hate. Plus, Hermione was more than sure it was just some sort of trap the woman was doing for whatever sort of amusement she was going for. Hermione wanted nothing to do with it.

When she arrived at the Phoenix’s headquarters, the letters stopped and so did her guilt of not answering them. While she knew it was smarter and safer to not respond, she still felt guilty for not answering. Without the letters arriving from the Lady Malfoy, Hermione was able to put her focus on what the boys were completely enthralled with: what the Order was doing. The Order were holding a lot of meetings with people both seemingly permanently moving in and others on rotation with coming in and out all the time. So, her letters may have stopped from Lady Malfoy, but her daily conversations with Andy started.

Tonks’ mom was Andromeda Black, apparently she divorced Tonks’ dad over a decade ago, was an important member of the Order. She was one of the members who had all but moved into the old manor; she was even given a room right next to Hermione and Ginny’s room. After the first week of being with everyone, Hermione was able to come up with a routine. What she hadn’t expected was with her routine, came someone else’s routine of always being around her when her friends weren’t around. It was almost eerie how well Andy was able to be in the same room with her when no one else was there.

They would have short chats about what Andy did for living (she was a potion master, studying and improving potions), what she had gotten into when she and her sisters were in school and, very surprisingly, a little about why she and her husband had broken up. Apparently, she knew the two of them just weren’t meant for the long haul, no matter how much they got along. Hermione truly didn’t really care to know, it wasn’t any of her business, but it was interesting to learn Andy wasn’t very heartbroken about the separation; she supposedly had known it was bound to happen eventually. Hermione thought it was kind of odd to get married when you knew the relationship was doomed to end.

But week after week, Hermione would talk with the older woman, learning she missed her sisters greatly and was confident she would be reunited with them soon. Hermione wasn’t sure what she thought about that; either it meant Andy would defect to their side or she somehow thought they would defect to their side. Regardless, Hermione didn’t believe her. She couldn’t imagine any of the sisters, especially after what happened in the first way between all of them, switching sides.

All too soon, summer was over, Harry was more paranoid and Ron was just as clueless. Days after the new term started, Harry and Hermione’s torture started. Her letter’s started up again from Lady Malfoy, this time she was also receiving letters from Andy as well. She still didn’t respond to the Malfoy matriarch, even if Draco gave her confused glances her way as the owl would drop off more letters for Hermione than it would for the woman’s own son. She did respond to Andy’s letter’s a couple times. She was a lot less hesitant to respond to her since the woman was at least on their side.

She had finally mentioned the letters Narcissa, the woman always mentioned in her small notes to call her Narcissa instead of Lady Malfoy. Andy didn’t seem concerned about it, only saying the youngest Black sister would do what she pleased regardless of what advice was given to the woman. Hermione had no idea what that meant, but if Andy didn’t think it was anything to be concerned about, then Hermione wouldn’t worry.

As time went on and the detentions continued, Hermione started to ask Andy, doing her best to not actually say what was going on because she was sure her letters were being read by the Pink Toad, what she would recommend they do about the detentions. She even finally sent a letter asking Narcissa as well, but that was when all the letters stopped.

Harry had started the DA, Hermione had done her research about the best, and safest, way to communicate the meetings. Quite frankly, she was very proud of herself for coming up with the coins and for them actually working. Everything was going okay, the detentions were really tiring especially since she still had to stay up so late to finish all of her work, but at least they had figured out a way to practice real defense spells instead of just read the theory of spells. Things were as good as they were going to get with Dumbledore out of the castle, thanks to the Toad, and with the Toad herself being in charge.

But good things don’t last long. At least as far as Hermione could tell, good things always ended quickly and with style.

When the Slytherin’s broke down the wall, Hermione was impressed they were able to get in, in the first place. The Room of Requirement was notoriously difficult to break in when there when the people were uninvited.

After the wall broke and everyone made a bolt for safety, it didn’t take long for Hermione to realize something bad was going to happen very soon.

As she lead the Toad and Harry into the forest, (how stupid could she be to believe Hermione was hiding something in the forest in the first place?), the feel of something eminent happening grew stronger. As she and her friends rode the thestrals, something Hermione couldn’t actually see, to the Ministry, the feeling was becoming suffocating. If it wasn’t for Harry’s insistence they had to help Sirius at the Ministry, she really didn’t believe there was any trouble and Voldemort was only luring Harry into a trap, she wouldn’t have gone. But she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t help her friends.

As they walked quickly row by row, looking for the one Harry saw in his vision, the feeling grew stronger and made it seem as if she was struggling to get any air in her lungs at all. When Lucious Malfoy walked out of the shadows, Hermione was sure she was seconds away from having a panic attack or feinting from the lack of air.

“I will give you one last chance Potter, give me the prophecy.” Malfoy demanded in an almost petulant tone.

“Not until you tell me where Sirius is.” Harry demanded.

Both boys were at a stalemate. Lucious wanted the prophecy and Harry wanted to know where he was keeping Sirius. Lucious had already said they didn’t have Harry’s Godfather, the boy falling for the trick Hermione knew was being played all along, and Harry simply didn’t believe him. Hermione was close to just shooting off a stupefy just to get them out of the loop they had seemed to have fallen into.

Apparently Lucious had a lot less control than Hermione had because eventually he raised his wand, not to Harry, but towards Hermione.

“If you will not hand over the prophecy, I will see to it your little mudblood pet is put in her place.” Lucious hissed, not even bothering to hide the derogatory words he would normally avoid using so no one could say they heard him use it. But his patience had run out and his temper was at an all time high.

Harry raised his wand to defend his friend, they all did as they didn’t want any of their friends hurt and Hermione herself didn’t want hurt, but before any one of them could say anything, a new voice intervened in the most pissed off tone Hermione had heard.

“You dare lay a finger on her and I will make sure Cissy won’t even have a finger to bury by the time I’m done with you.” Bellatrix Black said as she casually walked out of the shadows, her seemingly lose grip on her hand betrayed the control Hermione knew the witch was known for in duels.

The witch looked a lot healthier than she had in her prison photo. She looked a lot healthier. And it terrified Hermione. If the woman was in top shape, they were all in trouble.

“Are you really trying to defend a mudblood, Potters’ mudblood, of all things?” Lucious snapped, and that actually hurt Hermione; just a little though. She hadn’t ever been referred to as a thing before. She would have argued against it but she figured she and her friends were safer without the attention on them. She knew her friends felt the same when not even Harry or Neville, whose parents had been tortured by the woman, didn’t say anything.

“I defend what is mine and trust me, she is mine.” Bellatrix asserted, lazily pointing her wand at the blonde man.

Hermione couldn’t keep herself quiet anymore, not when she was being claimed by a madwoman for no reason.

“I belong to no one.” Hermione said, nearly wanting to stomp her foot to push her point.

The smirk she received from the eldest Black sister was unnerving to say the least. “You may say that now, but trust me pet, you are as much mine as you are my sister’s.” The feral grin Hermione had made her so nervous.

“Are you threatening her?” Ron shouted, coming to Hermione’s defense. Hermione hated to admit it, but she was actually worried to be on the dark witch’s radar.

Ron shook his wand out of anger as he pointed it towards Bellatrix and unfortunately that set off a series of events that led to Hermione shouting a bombarda maxima at the floor to avoid Bellatrix retaliating to Ron’s attack, an attack she had easily blocked. The students took off down where they had come from but more death eaters appeared from the shadows and they were forced to separate and race off in the wrong direction.

Eventually they piled into a room with a giant veil in the middle of the room with Death Eaters holding them hostage. Hermione couldn’t decide if she was thankful she didn’t have Bellatrix holding her hostage or not because the man that was holding her had ungodly breath and hadn’t seemed to learn to either brush his teeth or use a spell to keep his mouth clean. From the glare Bellatrix was sending their way, Hermione had to guess she wasn’t happy to not be holding Hermione hostage and that made the Gryffindor nervous.

When the Order members showed up to help them, Andy was front and center with getting Hermione into safety. What Hermione hadn’t expected was for her to take her to the opposite corner where her sister was quick to meet her.

“I swear to Morgana, these men are idiots.” Bellatrix growled.

“You chose your side Bella, a bit late to change your mind now.” Andy said with a smirk that looked eerily similar to her older sister’s.

“Andy?” Hermione asked, her wand pointed at the dark witch. Wasn’t Andy kicked out of the Black family for marrying a muggleborn and wasn’t Bellatrix proud to have kicked her out?

Andy put her hand on Hermione’s shoulder in an attempt to calm the younger witch, “Don’t worry Hermione. She’s on our side.” Andy said with a wink, “She’s a spy, just like Snape.” Andy revealed.

A wayward spell was sent in their direction. Before Hermione could form the words with her lips to defend them, Bellatrix had barely flicked her want and nullified whatever spell was sent their way.

“Guess our little girl chat is over.” Bellatrix said before starting to turn around to go back to the battle, “Make sure you keep our girl safe. If I hear anything more similar to what that little bitch Umbridge was done, I’ll raid the castle myself. Remember, she is ours and nothing and no one hurts what is mine.” Bellatrix growled.

“I do not belong to anyone!” Hermione shouted at the woman’s back, getting only more miffed when the woman cackled.

“We’ll see about that little witch.” She said before turning into the death eater signature black smoke and zoomed to the opposite side of the room.

“Before you even think about asking,” Andy said cutting off Hermione before the tirade of questions could begin, “I know you’re probably confused, but just know, we’ll tell you next year. Bellatrix will finagle her way into becoming the DADA professor and Cissy will likely come on board to assist Madame Pomphrey because of all the student’s being hurt this year, and I’m always in and out of the castle for meetings with Dumbledore. So, with all four of us there, someday, we’ll talk.” Andy promised, not at all helping to calm Hermione’s curiosity. “There’s a lot more at play here than just the Dark against the Light, there’s a lot of grey there too. So, be patient and next year, we will all talk. Until then, we’ll just keep doing our best to make you swoon in the best of ways.” Andy said as she took Hermione’s hand and apparated away.

When they appeared next just outside the gates of Hogwarts, Hermione didn’t find a moment to talk about what happened with Andy, she started receiving three different letters with longer messages in them and she was sure she had a permanent headache as she tried to figure out everything that was happening.

One thing was for sure, sixth year was sure to be another adventure; especially if all three Black sisters, two of them not being liked by the general public, were going to be there. Hopefully Hermione would get her answers sooner rather than later. She was sure there wasn’t anything else Voldemort could toss at them to distract them from living their lives as students so she would have to have time to interrogate the sisters.