dream
The little girl runs down the hallway, further and further away from the Dark Lord Voldemort follows her frantically, uncertain why catching up to her is so important to him. She wears a red dress, with a mutilated doll in her hands. Her ebony hair billows behind her, a girl of seven or younger, as she races through the gilded, glittering hallways.
He calls for her, but doesn't comprehend his words.
Suddenly, there is a revelation, that she is his daughter. He doesn't know how he knows it, or why, but he knows it thoroughly and completely.
His daughter runs through a gigantic door, and is taken into someone else's arms. Inexplicable relief. He looks at the woman holding her, shocked to see that it is none other than Bellatrix Lestrange.
He wakes beside her, Bella fast asleep beside him. The Dark Lord runs his fingers along her arm and she wakes slowly, turning to face him.
She's beautiful, a natural born psychopath, the most talented witch he has ever met, and would do anything for him. Perhaps... perhaps the dream meant more than one would attribute to it.
"My lord," she murmurs, turning towards him.
"I have to ask you for something."
patricide
"I don't want to be like my mother," Bellatrix says softly, her head resting on her master.
He weaves his fingers in her sleek black hair, sticky with her blood.
"Why not?" he asks, though he already knows.
"She never loved me or my sisters. She downs a bottle of vermouth a day and never cared to be there," Bellatrix breathes, touching her lips to his clavicle. "I never loved her either, so I guess it doesn't matter."
The Dark Lord is silent, clearly thinking. Bellatrix is enchanted by his vast intelligence, and desires nothing more than to know the inner workings of his mind. But no one understands the Dark Lord. No one is allowed to understand the Dark Lord. His thoughts completed, he kisses her cheek.
"I killed my father," the Dark Lord whispers in her ear, his breath tickling her slender neck. "I suppose I don't want to be like him either."
conception
Bellatrix never imagined that she would be happy she became pregnant. The thought of it disgusted her, and she always knew that she would never be able to keep the baby. But with the Dark Lord's trust in her to do this, she is excited. She is happy that she has a child inside of her, growing. A glorified parasite, but a piece of her true love all the same.
When she tells him, he is more than pleased. She has never seem him so happy about something before, and it makes her shiver.
She is his most faithful.
daughter
"I hope she looks like you."
"She? How are you certain?"
"It will be a girl."
"I'd like that, Bella."
miscarriage
` Bellatrix starts bleeding less than three months into her pregnancy. She feels sick, dizzy and vomits up blood. Lestrange holds onto her, laying her down on the sofa and sending for a healer. When the healer comes, it is already too late. The baby is dead, and Bellatrix feels hollow. When the Dark Lord comes, he destroys a room as she lies in the parlor.
She will try again.
But the next pregnancy is as unfortunate as the first. The same thing happens again. Baby number one didn't effect her too much, but the second leaves her sobbing in her master's arms. They feel broken, but nothing will stop them.
Nothing can prevent their daughter from being conceived and born.
success
With the help of ten potions a day, Bellatrix makes it past three months into her pregnancy. She feels sick in mornings, and can barely keep the potions down, but it is going so well. It seems more than likely that her baby will be born. She can't fathom how glad she is.
The Dark Lord is certain it will go well. He always gets what he wants, after all.
life
Bellatrix lies on the sofa, her hand resting on the small baby bump. She just got back from masquerade, and the soothing sound of screams echoes in her head. A faint smirk decorates her beautiful face.
Suddenly, the strangest thing happens. A movement in her lower abdomen, like a struggle, but gentler. Her baby. She sits straight up, startled and, oddly, glowing.
It all rushes over her. She has always put immense value on destroying life, and always will. It is the true mark of dignity and power. But creating life. That now has immeasurable value.
The Dark Lord shows up at the Lestrange manor in the dead of night, inviting himself in and walking to his most faithful.
She moves towards him and wraps herself around her master. He breathes her in.
"Something happened, my lord," she whispers, suppressing an uncharacteristic grin.
"What?" He seems concerned.
"It's like she came to life," Bellatrix breathes, seizing his cold hand and setting it over her abdomen. The baby hasn't stopped moving in an hour, but it feels like the opposite of a miscarriage, like the last two pregnancies.
Breathless waiting.
The baby moves and an expression crosses the Dark Lord's face that Bellatrix has never seen. He looks... overjoyed. She relishes in it, the two of them closer than master and servant should be.
They've gone a step further than destroying life; they have created it.
adder
"Bella, get up!" She wakes to Lestrange grabbing her arm. "There's something in the bed!"
Bellatrix leaps to her feet, standing at his side. She reaches into the blankets, searching for what he is talking about. Finally, she touches something smooth and scaly with the feeling of a tensed muscle. Out from the sheets she withdraws a common adder, that she vaguely recalls curling up on her leg while she was in between dreams.
"How peculiar," she says casually, her tone haughty.
"How dangerous," Lestrange says, reaching for the snake. It hisses, prepared to strike, before he retreats and the adder recoils into Bellatrix's hand. "Obviously it was looking for you."
"How did it find its way into our home?" Bellatrix inquires, before catching the cracked open patio door.
"I went outside for a smoke and probably left it open," Lestrange comments, sighing.
Bellatrix takes the adder in her hands and walks out of the door. She sets it down in the grass and it turns to her for a brief moment, yellow eyes locking with dark, heavily lidded ones. And then, it is gone, slithering away into the night.
She returns inside and shuts the door with a click, lying down on her bed.
uncharted waters
Bellatrix has no clue what she is doing. She is sailing out into the ocean with no map of where she is going. Tonight, she sits on the Dark Lord's sofa, craving the wine that he sips. They talk quietly, conversation before they fall into each others arms. Her fingertips rest on the small baby bump, and she isn't sure if he notices or not.
"My lord," she says softly as he finishes speaking. "Can I tell you something?"
"Anything," he replies, though is tone is bored. He does know that she has a much better grasp on what is happening to his child, his current important desire, and collecting the information from her is vital.
Even if he finds her emotions grating.
"I'm scared. I've never been this scared in my life. I'm carrying the most important child ever born and every day I feel like something is going to go wrong. I'm horrified," she says, her words running into each other and her tongue stumbling.
The Dark Lord is silent for a moment. He toys with his glass, staring at her. She feels scrutinized and invaded.
"It will all be okay, Bellatrix," he says softly, leaning towards her. He has that serpentine look about him, a look that he uses the moment when he says those words to a prisoner he is about to murder.
The Dark Lord Voldemort does not console anyone, unless he is just trying to make them comfortable before he rips them to shreds without a change of expression.
So, she doesn't believe him.
name
"What do you want to name her?" Bellatrix asks softly, stroking the side of her master's face. "It's your choice, of course, my lord."
It amuses The Dark Lord Voldemort that she actually thinks that this is a dual partnership, that this baby belongs to both of them. He finds it funny that she does not realize that she is nothing more than a vessel, a means to an ends.
Therefore, of course he had already decided a name. "Ambrosia."
And, even though she is foolish enough to think she really matters to him in the slightest, she whispers, "That's a beautiful name."
sick
Bellatrix gets sicker and sicker as days pass. When she is seven months in, she can barely get out of bed. She vomits until she is shaking with dehydration, and is so thin you can see her bones, save for the strong child. Lestrange tries to convince her to stop. Narcissa screams at her, lecturing on the dangers of self sacrifice. But Bellatrix is okay with dying. She has come to terms with it.
Nothing stops her from lying to the Dark Lord every time he asks about her. Sometimes she sees a flicker of doubt in his dark eyes, but he believes the lie that he wants to believe. He will regret teaching her occlumency when he loses his most faithful servant.
She keeps going, lying in bed for hours, barely able to move her fingers. It's horrible, but a necessary evil for the birth of the most important child who will ever live.
Ambrosia is the face of things to come, the product of the reign of the Dark Lord.
She will not be sacrificed for Bellatrix's suffering.
terror
The Dark Lord comes into Bellatrix's room one night, takes out his wand and starts packing a suitcase full of her things. She sits up, leaning against the headboard.
"My lord?" she breathes, but he doesn't respond.
Suitcase packed, he seizes her, pulls her into his arms and disapparates. They arrive in his home, the most safeguarded location in the world. He sets her on the sofa and stands back. It is only then that Bellatrix sees how livid he is. She recoils.
He looks at her and says, "You've been lying to me."
"My lord..." She is incapable of further speech.
"You've been lying to me." He raises his wand and shatters a whole row of glass bottles. She shrieks, sliding back into the sofa. He continues to destroy the room, not filling her in on anything else but his rage. She is petrified, clinging to herself.
Suddenly, there's a movement inside of her, stronger than anything she has ever felt. Ambrosia has gone mad, moving rapidly. She feels a surge of pain and gasps, more horrified for her child than for her life. The Dark Lord stops and walks to her, touching her arm.
"Bellatrix, what is it?" He still sounds angry.
"She's... something's wrong. Something's wrong," Bellatrix repeats as his fingers dig into her shoulder. He grabs her and disapparates again, ordering her to lie down. She does as she is told.
He sends for a healer and she arrives, only to tell them that Bellatrix has gone into early labor, and it should be okay. Only minutes into the examination, she sighs. The Dark Lord tenses. Bella tries not to cry.
"It's a choice. It's between the baby and her..."
loss
He doesn't know what to do. The healer leaves them alone and he sits on the bed, knowing that his rage was such a mistake. Could one of his very few flaws be the end of his dream? He has wanted a child for so long.
However, the choice is not difficult. The Dark Lord Voldemort is a man of logic, and not sentimentality. He will keep what it most useful to him, and sacrifice what benefits him less than the other.
"Let me die," Bellatrix whispers, taking his hand. "Please. I'll die and she can live. Please, my lord."
But he can't. That isn't the choice he is going to make. As much as he desires and cares for his unborn daughter, he thinks he values Bellatrix more. It's sickening, but, there's no other option.
"Okay," he says, attempting a smile.
"I love you," Bellatrix says urgently, digging her fingers into his wrist. "If you can, I want to hold her."
"You will." He lies, deciding to seal her cooperation by kissing her forehead and walking outside to tell the healer what to do.
awakening
Bellatrix wakes up.
That's the oddest sentence in the world. She thought she was dead. She thought for certain she was dead.
Her hands race to her abdomen, which is now taut and flat, but scarred. She sits straight up and is met by a surge of dizziness.
Narcissa is here. She races to Bellatrix's side.
"How long have I been out? Where's the Dark Lord? Where's Ambrosia?"
Narcissa bites her lip. The answers are all terrible, Bellatrix knows it. But perhaps, perhaps there is hope.
"You've been out for four days. The Dark Lord left and told everyone not to disturb him at all costs. Ambrosia... she's... Bella... She's been dead for four days."
No.
Bellatrix stands up, stumbling, and grabs her sister's wand. Narcissa leaps up and runs after her, but Bellatrix makes her way to the nursery, having to grab onto the walls to support herself. She steps inside, seeing it destitute, and raises her wand. She burns it, breaks it, destroys it, her sore body racked with sobs. She curls up on the floor, crying and clinging.
No.
eternal
One night, shortly after Draco's task has been assigned, Bellatrix wakes up screaming. The Dark Lord recognizes the name, Ambrosia. He takes her shoulder and draws her close to him. She was crying in her sleep. He has been livid with her for two months after the fiasco at the Ministry, but, suddenly, all of that fades.
"I miss her," Bellatrix whispers, burying her head in his cold chest.
"I miss her too."
nightmare
The little girl runs down the hallway, further and further away from the Dark Lord Voldemort follows her frantically, uncertain why catching up to her is so important to him. She wears a red dress, with a mutilated doll in her hands. Her ebony hair billows behind her, a girl of seven or younger, as she races through the gilded, glittering hallways.
He calls for her, but doesn't comprehend his words.
Suddenly, there is a revelation, that she is his daughter. He doesn't know how he knows it, or why, but he knows it thoroughly and completely.
His daughter runs through a gigantic door, and is taken into someone else's arms. Inexplicable horror. He looks at the woman holding her, shocked to see that it is none other than Bellatrix Lestrange.
Ambrosia falls out of Bellatrix's arms and runs away, into blinding light. Bellatrix steps back.
The golden door shuts.