Disclaimer: Not mine, of course!
Thank-yous: Kristen, who beta-d this for me.
A/N: Bellatrix doesn't have children. I thought about what might happen if she couldn't have children, so I used that as a basis for her insanity. I hope you like it. Reviews rock my socks, so if you can spare one it'd be awesome!
She doesn't cry. Oh no. She doesn't cry. No tears - that would be weakness. But she feels something brimming up inside her, threatening her masquerade, that stark mask.
Isn't he beautiful? Her nephew.
Isn't he simply marvelous? Her nephew.
There is no beauty in childhood. It makes her feel fucking sick. She has to spend every waking bloody moment listening to the screams of her sister's darling little Draco. Because, fuck, doesn't that brat ever shut up? Screaming all the time. No longer is the mansion graced with her Dark Lord because of that fucking child.
'Don't you want one of your own?' Narcissa asks sympathetically. A screaming brat, smelling of sick and taking up time that could be spent in a multitude of better ways (She can think of several off the top of her head.)
They sigh. They try to make her happy. They fucking pity her.
She doesn't want anything. She doesn't want their pity. She doesn't want to be hugged by her sister. She doesn't want a gentle, compassionatefuck with Rodulphus. And she most certainly doesn't want a child. Why the fuck would she want that? To lose her figure, and to lose the respect and admiration (she knows it's there. She knows it) of her Dark Lord.
She is trusted and knowledgeable, and she knows of the prophecy. A child, with a Mudblood mother, no less, to remove Him. It makes her blood boil. But they will be taken care of, the Potters. And the world will be rid of one more screaming baby. Polluting them all with its innocence. She can't get rid of all the babies, but she had, in a good deed for the world, removed the Bones and all their delightful, darling children. (She doesn't want a child. She most definitely doesn't want to know about any other children either, especially of those, those blood traitors.)
There is another child, sharing a birthday with the Potter brat. Neville Longbottom. Which meant that the quiet, awkward Longbottom boy she remembers briefly from Hogwarts (and that had been a joketoo) had finally managed to find the balls to shag that half-blood bint of his. Alice. She feels like spitting of the name as she thinks of it. Thinks of her. She'd been possessed by the girl in Hogwarts, not love or like, a strange, secret obsession. She'd hated her too.
And now she has a child. A darling baby boy. Well fan-fucking-tastic for her. Mrs. Longbottom would have been full of pity for her, full of pity for her childless situation, but why the hell would she want pity from her? She doesn't want anything from her. Blood traitor.
And yet…
No. Yet nothing. They all try to offer her pity but she doesn't bloody want pity. There's nothing they can do. (Nothing, and there's nothing she can do. Nothing in her imagination to improve the situation.)
Nothing. As long as she doesn't have to see them, hear of them, be around them. She starts with the Bones brats, the Potter child and avoids darling Draco (so like his father, they all say, one day he'll be a wonder. For now he's still just another fucking brat.)
Every word, every pointless piece of gossip is discussing, speculating, wondering about babies. She can't escape. She can't do it. She wants to forget about motherhood. She'll never be a mother. Never.
She ignores the twist of something, the painful ache as she knows her womb will always be fruitless. The ache leaves her with her as the power she desires takes over her soul. (A soul is just some Muggle bullshit, something Muggles fool themselves with. She has no doubt that she has no soul. A small voice inside tells her that a mother must have a soul, but she kills the voice. Stone dead.)
Every waking second, every single moment, is consumed with the knowledge that there is still the Longbottom baby, threatening her and threatening her Dark Lord. Threatening everything. All the walls she has built for herself, the reputation. She can feel the first few bricks crumbling. They are threatening to fall. (One step, two step. We all fall down.)
Her blood boils, her eyes narrow and her ever empty womb ceases to ache as she receives the permission she needed and the praise she craved (something to fulfill her again, if only a little) to lead some Death Eaters to the Longbottoms' charming family home.
A week later, a week of pure, wonderful excitement, and she is on the doorstep, teeth bared in a grin so dreadful it strikes fear into the hearts of most who see it. Her hair is flying so wildly. She grasps her wand a little tighter, feeling the power coursing through her body.
(It is a thrill to feel anything racing through her body. The adrenaline makes her traumatized, black heart beat and she no longer cares about anything. She is feeling. She is above the feelings of women; she has the feelings of those who need no love. And she doesn't have to tell herself twice that it feels fucking perfect.)
The few other Death Eaters (lowly ones, who want nothing more than to be around someone with influence, though she is not flattered by them) loll on the sofas, destroying (on Bellatrix's cold orders) the lovely pictures of family, friends, and other worthless things.
She casts curse after curse. Their insanity is her insanity, but they deserve it. Flaunting their child. Meaningless, inconsequential fucking blood-traitors. They don't deserve to have a child. They don't. They don't. They don't.
She thinks of all the things they would teach their child. All the things they'd do. The more she thinks, the more intense her spells become. When they are reduced to nothing more than hollow shells of people (still more than they deserve, actually, she thinks she's been rather kind) she alone ascends to the nursery - yellow walled and happy. The child is asleep. And looking just like the mother she has just destroyed. (It fucking kills her that she'll never see herself in a child. She never acknowledges it. Never.)
Her wand points into face, almost touching his fat body. Some sensation beats in her wand hand, threatening (always threatening) to take over her. Something disgusting. Something foul. Something almost maternal. But not maternal. She fucking hates children. Hates them. She stuns the child, silences him and leaves. This is the beginning. (And the end.)