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Chapter 6: The Eleven-Year-Old Fugitive
Watching Momo lying quietly on the hospital bed, Hydra felt a faint sense of unreality.
That very morning, she had still been sipping black tea, playing the role of a young lady of a noble house.
By nightfall, she had become homeless.
She had even ended up eating a free meal and staying the night in a hospital ward.
Shaking her head, Hydra stood up, walked to the bedside, and drew back the curtains.
The window had been magically sealed shut and could not be opened. Outside, London glittered with lights beneath a clear night sky—but Hydra knew it was an illusion crafted by magic. In reality, the city was being battered by a violent rainstorm.
She let the curtains fall shut again.
Something about tonight felt wrong.
Why had the Healer insisted she stay the night?
He was a complete stranger, and the patient she'd brought was merely a house-elf—creatures most wizards barely regarded as people. No matter how she looked at it, the situation reeked of suspicion.
Hydra quietly opened the door and tiptoed down the corridor toward the Healer's office.
She couldn't stay without understanding what was happening. If she could overhear something, perhaps she'd find her answer.
Suddenly, an inexplicable sense of danger surged in her chest.
It was the same intuition she had possessed since childhood—an instinct that had never once failed her.
Something terrible was about to happen.
Hydra immediately slipped into the nearest room.
Pressing her ear against the door, she heard hurried footsteps outside, followed by the Healer's anxious voice:
"Aurors—quickly! She's in that ward!"
Aurors?!
Hydra's heart sank.
Was she… wanted?
"Who are you?"
A young woman's voice sounded behind her.
Hydra stiffened.
Careless—someone was already in the room!
She turned around at once, her expression instantly shifting into one of harmless confusion and fragile innocence.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I think I went into the wrong room…"
"Hydra!"
The speaker was a pink-haired girl. The moment she saw Hydra, her face lit up, and she rushed forward, pulling the bewildered child into a fierce hug.
"N–Nymphadora… cousin?"
"I told you not to call me Nymphadora!"
This was Nymphadora Tonks.
Her mother, Andromeda, was Bellatrix's younger sister.
Which meant—unbelievably—that this girl really was Hydra's cousin.
Fate truly had a cruel sense of humour.
Tonks looked delighted.
Hydra was delighted too.
Because Tonks was a Metamorphmagus—a witch born with the ability to alter her appearance at will.
Just moments earlier, when they'd hugged cheek to cheek, Hydra had already grasped the underlying principles of a Metamorphmagus's magical constitution.
From this moment on…
So was she.
"All right, Cousin Tonks," Hydra said, smiling brightly.
Becoming a Metamorphmagus more than made up for the fact that Aurors were currently hunting her down.
"What are you doing here?" Hydra asked. "Hasn't term already started?"
Tonks was thirteen this year—a third-year at Hogwarts.
She glanced helplessly at the middle-aged man sleeping in the hospital bed.
"My dad's been suffering from… well, let's just say a very awkward magical ailment," she muttered, cheeks turning pink. "He's been stuck here for two days, but he's finally cured. Mum pulled two all-nighters and couldn't take it anymore, so she went home. I'm staying tonight and heading back to Hogwarts in the morning."
At that moment, Hydra heard voices drifting in from the corridor.
"The signal's still active—search the area!"
"She can't have gone far!"
"Be careful. The Grey family said that Dark Witch's methods are extremely unusual!"
Tonks blinked, puzzled.
Hydra's behaviour tonight was strange—why was she so focused on what was happening outside?
Wasn't meeting a cousin more exciting than anything else?
"Hydra, you—"
Hydra's expression changed instantly.
"Cousin Tonks," she said urgently, "I really have to go. We'll talk another time!"
Crack.
Hydra vanished.
Tonks stood frozen in shock.
St Mungo's was protected by an Anti-Apparition Jinx.
How had Hydra Apparated out?
No—more importantly—
How could an eleven-year-old Apparate at all?!
The next second, the ward door burst open.
Two Aurors stormed in and began searching the room without a word.
Tonks snapped out of it, fury blazing.
"Who do you think you are? Don't you dare disturb my father!"
"We are Aurors," one of them said coldly. "We're pursuing a fugitive."
Tonks froze.
Hydra's sudden disappearance replayed in her mind.
Fugitive?
Hydra… was a fugitive?
---
When Hydra reappeared, she was standing outside the Leaky Cauldron.
She let out a long sigh.
The first escape had cost her the life of a sheltered young lady.
The second had cost her almost all her wealth.
And now, with the third…
She had lost Momo.
She hadn't expected the Grey family to convince the Ministry to issue a warrant for her arrest.
At this point, it no longer mattered whether she'd been framed.
If she were caught, the Greys had countless ways to kill her without ever stepping into a courtroom.
…Wait.
Hadn't she heard someone say earlier that "the location is still here"?
Crack.
Crack.
Aurors Disapparated in from all directions, instantly surrounding her.
"Is the Anti-Apparition field active?"
"It is, Director!"
A sharply dressed man with neatly combed grey hair stepped forward.
"Hydra Lestrange," he announced coldly, "you are under arrest for the brutal murder of two members of the Grey family."
Hydra recognised him.
After her parents were sent to Azkaban, he had visited Lestrange Manor frequently.
Barty Crouch—Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
In his eyes, Hydra had always been the seed of a future Dark Witch.
And now, she was very likely the daughter of Lord Voldemort himself.
With such leverage in hand, how could he possibly let her go?
Hydra screamed inwardly.
She was eleven.
At eleven, she had begun a life on the run.
This was completely different from her plan!
No—this had to be fixed. She had to prove her innocence!
"Director," Hydra said quickly, spreading her hands to show she was unarmed, "I believe you know I never received a Hogwarts letter. I turned eleven back in April."
"And what exactly are you implying, Miss Lestrange?" Crouch asked coldly.
"I'm a Squib!" Hydra said urgently. "How could a Squib possibly murder two adult wizards?"
Crouch was unmoved.
"And how does a Squib Apparate, Miss Lestrange?"
That settled it.
This man had already decided her fate.
An eleven-year-old, not even admitted to Hogwarts yet—bound for Azkaban.
Who could accept something like that?
This was not her life.
Shaking her head, Hydra vanished with a sharp crack.
House-elf Apparition truly was infuriatingly effective.
So much for "unable to use magic".
Crouch turned livid.
"Didn't you say the Anti-Apparition field was active?!"
"It is, Director!" an Auror said desperately, showing the device.
Another Auror shouted, "I'll track her location immediately!"
A silvery image formed in the air.
It showed Hydra pulling Galleons from her sachet and throwing them onto the ground one by one, her face filled with despair.
"She's near the World War II Memorial!"
"She's discarding the Galleons with Homing Charms!"
"We need to get there before she finishes!"
"Why can't I Apparate?!"
"Same here!"
Veins bulged on Barty Crouch's forehead.
"Idiots! Turn off the Anti-Apparition field!"
But it was too late.
In the image, Hydra threw down the final Galleon—and vanished.
Crouch's face turned ashen.
A girl claiming to be a Squib who could Apparate through Anti-Apparition magic.
And possibly You-Know-Who's daughter.
Meanwhile, the Grey family—an obscure house once hidden beneath Lestrange glory—possessed the skill to place Homing Charms on entire batches of Galleons.
Neither side was simple.
Crouch felt a rare flicker of regret.
He should never have involved himself in this mess.
---
Hydra appeared in a narrow alley.
The rain had eased, droplets pattering softly against her skin, the cold seeping through her clothes and straight into her heart.
In this escape, she had lost everything.
Overwhelmed, she lifted her head and wailed—
"Waaah—!!"
She was truly miserable.
Sitting on the stone steps of a stranger's house, Hydra cried her heart out.
The door behind her suddenly opened.
A young man's magnetic voice spoke gently:
"Whose little girl are you—and why are you crying so sadly?"
Hydra's sobbing faltered.
The question forced her mind to work again.
As she cried, she quietly shifted her magical constitution, her eyes locking onto the Roman Holiday poster at the tram stop across the street.
A few seconds later, she turned her head.
The face looking back was that of a young Audrey Hepburn—tearful, delicate, heartbreakingly pitiful.
"I…" she said softly, voice trembling, "I don't have a home anymore."
"I have nothing left."
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