A Child's heartache
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Hermione panted, ducking out of the way if yet another hex aimed her way. Gritting her teeth against her annoyance when the dark man chuckled under his breath at her obvious fatigue and frustration. They had been training for the last week twice a day.
The Dark Lord had said it was important that she learn as much as she could as quickly as she could because he knew it wouldn't be long before the order retaliated in some way for her disappearance. He wanted her to be able to stand her own against whatever they would try to throw at her and she was glad to be finally learning at a pace that both thrilled and challenged her. The Dark Lord or Tom as he'd asked her to call him after the third day of training was a firm but fair teacher. Formidable and forgiving all at once and Hermione was truly flourishing under his tutelage.
The first day he had focused on all the basics, working her right through the current Hogwarts curriculum for Alpha and Beta students from first year right through to the seventh year. All of which Hermione had mastered easily thanks to her own private studying sessions the past year or so in the room of Requirement. Tom had been impressed not at her ability to perform each spell, hex, jinx and incantation but of her sheer magical knowledge. He had told her that not even he could claim to have such a sound understanding of magic when he was her age and he had spent the majority of his time in the library.
She found that the more she trained with him, the more she got to know him, the less she held any fear of him and he was gradually becoming not only her mentor but the father figure she had always longed for. Something he seemed to sense and welcome.
"Good my child, now stop a second, stretch out your muscles and collect your magic, let's see how you fair in non verbal casting" his tone was every bit commanding as it had ever been but she heard the concealed affection when he spoke to her.
"Okay Tom" she smiled slightly, standing up from where she had thrown herself away from one of his spells, not even realising that she had become so adept at duelling she was holding her own against him without really paying attention to the duel, casting and defending instinctively now and able to think about other things while she practiced. She hadn't noticed but the dark Lord and Hermione's unnoticed audience had. Though Tom wasn't going to draw attention to them just yet, unsure about how it would affect his youngest trainee.
Hermione stretched, breathing deeply as she worked to loosen her muscles and re-gather her magic in her core.
"I'm ready" she called as she strode back to the centre of the room and bowed to Tom as he bowed to her. Pacing ten steps back they began again. Tom throwing the first curse at her before they had even turned to face one another fully. Hermione cast a silent Protego, her speciality Tom had decided having heard Bellatrix brag about her ability to cast and hold a strong defensive shield for durations of time under heavy spell fire without her wand or speaking and something he had seen personally as he had began teaching her.
They continued that way, throwing curses and spells at one another, increasing in their complexity for the next hour until Hermione felt herself begin to tire. Her concentration slipped slightly and she knew that was a mistake when Tom grinned suddenly, disarming her with a quick outward motion of his hand as he simultaneously cast a full body bind on her. He held her there for a moment before releasing her. Letting her gather herself before striding over and passing her, her wand.
He smiled at her gently, with such a warm look in his eye it made Hermione preen slightly when he chuckled and ruffled her hair in the most fatherly gesture she had ever known.
"You did well today little witch, I am more than impressed with how quickly you are growing in terms of your spell casting. I will give you a break for the weekend as you have worked extremely hard this week. Next week we will start on the darker spells so if you have a moment browse the library." He praised and if anyone had seen him in that moment they would have thought him just an ordinary wizard and not the most powerful Dark wizard to have ever existed. Hermione had a hard time wrapping her head around just how kind and gentle he was with her. She knew it wasn't his norm, had seen that fact the very first time she had seen him when he faced off against Dumbledore and had seen it in his interactions with near enough everyone else.
Sure with Bellatrix, Alecto, even Narcissa and Andromeda he was softer somehow but not to this extent and she struggled to allow herself to trust it the first few interactions she had with him. Though he had quickly deduced why she was so fearful of him and had offered her an understanding smile as he promised what she saw with him is what he would always be with her because he knew that unlike the majority of his followers Hermione was part of his family and that made her different. Worth knowing. Though she didn't understand why or how he had come to think if her as his family so quickly but she wouldn't dare argue with the Dark Lord. If he wanted to claim her as family she knew she couldn't do anything about that and part of her didn't truly wish to either. It felt good to know she was included in a family.
She nodded in response, allowing him to wrap her in a gentle but brief hug before she turned as he apperated away and began to make her way towards the training room doors. Freezing in her tracks as she spotted not just her Alpha but her mother as well. Both standing by the door watching her. Sporting matching proud smiles as they waited for her.
She stilled, the same internal panic beginning to bubble up inside of her like it had the day she had found out who she truly was. Her eyes flashed to Bellatrix's, seeking the by now familiar dark brown of her Alpha's as she desperately hoped the dark witch would know just how much she wasn't ready for this moment. Though the slightly guilty expression the formidable witch wore let her know that she was perfectly aware of just how much this moment wasn't one she felt ready for.
As much as she knew she had to face her mother for her to move on she had hoped for a little more time. A few more days to wrap her head around everything she had learnt but apparently that moment had to be now.
Hermione let her irritation at her Alpha be known as she scowled at the woman before turning away and moving back towards the middle of the room. She heard the door open and close and a set of hesitant foot steps make their way slowly towards her.
She waited, not daring to turn round for fear of what she would see. She wasn't sure she could look at the love and longing that had been on her newly discovered mothers face the last time they were in the same room. She didn't know how to navigate any of the feelings that invoked in her.
"Hermione?" Her name was spoken softly and if the room wasn't deathly silently she knew she probably wouldn't have heard it.
"Hermione please mia cara" the plea in her mothers voice was painful to hear and had her tensing even further.
"I don't know what to say to you, I don't know how to process any of this" she began, her voice just as soft as her mothers. Even though she thought she'd not know what to say, her words were truth when she spoke them it seemed that the act of speaking them out loud, speaking directly to her mother opened up the flood gates.
She held up her hand, silencing her mother as she knew she was about to speak and right now she needed to get this out before she clammed up again.
"I've spent sixteen years in hell. Abused by my muggle parents, beaten, starved and locked in a basement the majority of my life until Hogwarts. Do you know that going there was supposed to be my chance. My chance to be free. To learn, to grow away from them. But that wasn't the case. I was reminded every day that my place was to serve, denied the classes of my peers for being an Omega, judged for my blood status, forced to serve the boy who should have died, tortured with the very magic I had hoped would save me. I don't know what it feels like to be loved. I didn't know what it felt like to feel safe even until Bellatrix and I'm scared. I'm so bloody scared. After everything" she paused to gulp in a breath having not realised she'd began to rant, her voice growing steadily as she spoke. Spoke of the pain and utter helplessness she had felt growing up.
"Merlin knows how I survived. If it weren't for McGonagall and later Umbridge I would have died at that school more than once I'm the past five years. But I faced it. I faced it all as bravely as I could, I didn't let any of them break me. I didn’t let any of them see me fall apart until you and that fucking scares me because with you, even the scent of you, the idea of you makes me want to fall apart, to crawl into your arms and hold on tightly, but that means being vulnerable, it means putting my trust in a stranger that the nature I was born with, ridiculed, abused and tortured for forces me to feel that way and still despite every bone in my body screaming out for you. For my mama, but my entire life has taught me that despite that I know that doesn't mean I'm safe, I know it doesn't mean I won't be hurt by you, I know you could still possibly reject me and I know that if that happened it would destroy me" she turned to face her mother now, swiping furiously at the tears that were streaming down her face relentlessly and somewhere in her mind she wondered when she had started crying.
"I'm scared, I'm so scared and I don't know how to deal with that" she sobbed out, now openly crying in front of the woman she knew to be her mother. Her real mother.
Her knees buckled as the weight of all the emotion she had held back her entire life burst forth. Every agonising moment of loneliness, anger, fear and longing she had concealed behind a stoic mask washing over her as she fell, unable to stand up in the face of it. Her mothers arms suddenly wrapped around her, pulling her body against the older witches and Hermione struggled, sobbing helplessly.
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Alecto stood as still as she could as she watched her little girl pace in front of her. Her daughter and Merlin it had taken her a minute to marvel at that revelation when it was discovered. Her very much alive daughter whom she had spent the past sixteen years mourning appearing back in her life after sixteen years of grieving the cruelty of the moment her baby daughter was ripped from her arms and she had been informed she was dead.
It was hard for her to remain still, to not give into the longing she felt just to pull her severely malnourished and distraught child into her arms and hold her tight. But she knew she couldn't. Not yet at least and as much as it pained her she didn't truly mind waiting, she had waited sixteen years already, the past week was nothing in comparison especially now she had the comfort of knowing her child was safe and being cared for, even if it wasn't her getting to do that.
She forced herself to stay still, even as her child began crying as she spoke. Her words invoking horror and anger within the older Omega like she had never experienced before. How DARE those vile muggles lay a finger on HER child, how DARE they even think of starving her or locking her up. They were dead when she got a hold of them. Because Morgana knew she would get a hold of them. She would find them, make them suffer, like they dad made her child suffer. HER baby. HERS.
She would already gunning for Dumbledore and numerous members of his bloody order. He would pay just as everyone, anyone who had ever harmed her baby would.
To know that her little girl had been put through so much devastated Alecto, she had yearned to be able to dote on her child, to love her and teach her the way any child should be loved. She had been denied that chance and she thought the agony she had felt had been too much for anyone but the pain her child had been through? That was surely too much for anyone to bear let alone a child.
Just the sight of those hazel eyes so filled with anguish, her thin frame shaking with emotion, though her control at holding back from her girl shattered when she saw her child begin to fall forward.
Alecto rushed towards her girl, covering the short distance between them in seconds as she stopped her baby from falling, pulling her into her arms, her daughters back against her front. She held her tightly, even as her child fought to free herself from her.
Alecto held on, refusing to let go. Grabbing her little girls wrists as she began to lash out in her distress. Pinning her child against her as she pumped out as much of her pheromones as possible in hopes of calming her child, though the way her girl had been able to withstand even their Lords pheromones she knew it was a female attempt on her part to use her own. Hermione would only respond to them if she wanted too.
Alecto stood, holding her child up as she continued to sob even as Hermione stopped thrashing against her, the once terrified girl attempting to flee from her mothers comfort now gripping Alecto's arms as if her mother were the only thing in this world holding her in place.
As she felt her child stop struggling and her sobbing slow down, she began humming, it was an old lullaby. The same one her grandmother had sung to her mother and then her mother had sung to her when she was small, keeping her voice gentle and quiet. A steady, soothing sound that she hoped would help ground her distraught daughter.
The older Omega couldn't accurately tell how long they stood there for, but she didn't mind. Glad to have her child relaxing slightly in her arms. As her child stopped crying, Alecto allowed her to pull away. Expecting her girl to re-establish her own personal space but was pleasantly surprised when instead of moving away Hermione turned around in her mothers arms, burying her face against her neck and scent gland. The young Omega's arms wrapping around Alecto's own taller, more muscular frame.
She breathed in deeply, her nosed pressed against the crown of her daughters hair and the scent of her daughter brought tears to her eyes. She smelled the same as she had when she had held her for the first time all those years ago before she was cruelly ripped from her arms. Her daughters scent was what she associated with home, with love, with happiness and she couldn’t get enough of it now that she finally had her baby in her arms.
"Do I get a chance to talk now piccolo amore?" She whispered when she felt the last of her daughters tense muscles relax against her. She smiled softly when Hermione nodded, not moving from her place tucked up into her.
"First thing Hermione, you are my child and I will never and I mean I will never abandon nor reject you. I have spent the past sixteen years entirely heartbroken at not having you in my arms and I will never let you go now that I have the chance to know you. Though I hear you. I understand why you fear this, fear me, I know we will not have the perfect relationship right away. You will not want to come to me as a daughter should, you will distrust me, question me, second guess your worth to me and I will never take that personally, what I can promise you though is that I'll work with you, every day at your own pace to eradicate each and every one of those fears and lastly baby, I am so sorry you have had to experience what you have, it infuriates and breaks my heart to know what you have experienced and I will make sure that all this echo have harmed you suffer at either my own, Bellatrix's or your own hands" she whispered, marvelling at the way her daughter seemed to be hanging on to her words, the girls head cocked slightly to the side, letting Alecto know that she was listening intently.
"Promise?" And Alecto's heart broke all over again at the uncertainty in her little girls voice.
"I promise neonata, I've got you now" she replied, her voice full of certainty.
"I'm sorry, for fighting this so hard" Hermione whispered back after a while of them standing together quietly. Alecto pulled back, tipping her daughters chin up to meet her own eyes as she smiled gently down at her girl.
"Do not apologise Hermione, as I said I understand why you fought this so hard but I promise you it's alright. I'm not going anywhere. Now why don't we go out and have some tea in the library otherwise I'm afraid your Alpha may just tare the place apart in her angst waiting for us"
Hermione nodded and Alecto squeezed her gently, pressing a tender kiss to her daughters forehead before releasing her and offering her hand instead for her daughter to take when she saw the small pout form on the younger Omega's face.
As Hermione took her hand, Alecto pulled her in beside her as she began guiding her out of the room. "Don't be too hard on her mia cara, she meant well" Alecto warned gently as they reached the library doors. Knowing her daughter would know she was talking about Bellatrix.
She herself could only be glad that her friend had forced Hermione into facing her, she hated the distance that tonight's conversation was slowly melting between them. It had been difficult to stay away all week, knowing her child wasn't read yet face her and now that she had she couldn't wait to begin to get to know her baby. Her little girl. More determined now than ever to ensure her daughter was loved beyond doubt and got the chance to blossom into whomever she desired to be.