"She's dying! You have to help. You have to help us!"
"Mr Lestrange, we are doing everything we can. We are not certain why this is happening."
Bellatrix tried to open her eyes. She felt so weak she could hardly breathe. She'd spent ten hours solid vomiting. That's what they'd said. The Healers had never seen so much vomit come out of one human before. She had been injected with some kind of potion to regenerate the fluids inside of her, for she'd become terribly dehydrated.
Bellatrix was pregnant, and it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
She'd left school in June, and in July, she'd married Rodolphus, just like they'd promised their families they'd do. They'd had sex, just like they were meant to do, and by August, Bellatrix was pregnant. Now it was late September, a week after her nineteenth birthday, and she felt like she was dying.
It had begun with the vomiting. She'd actually discovered that she was pregnant because she thought she'd come down with a terrible illness. It was far beyond any semblance of normal morning sickness - she couldn't keep down so much as a tiny sip of water or a nibble of toast. For days on end, day after day after day, Bellatrix retched and heaved up every sip and every bite and then some. Eventually she began to faint over buckets, over toilets.
Then she began to feel completely weak, and her heart began to flutter strangely. Her mind began to feel like mush, and her limbs felt like they were made of lead. She was confined to a bed, relying on people holding charmed Bottomless Buckets for her in which to be sick. The fluids potions helped keep her alive, for the Healers said she would have died of dehydration otherwise.
"We have to terminate," the Healer in the dark blue bedroom said softly to Rodolphus, and Bellatrix tried to turn her head a little. Terminate? End the pregnancy? Somehow, she didn't care. She'd been unable to forge any semblance of a connection with whatever creature was growing inside of her, for that creature was what was causing her such unbearable misery. That creature was killing her.
"Get it out," she whispered, but no one heard her. Rodolphus said frantically to the aged, bearded Healer,
"We can't kill the baby!"
"Get it out!" Bellatrix said more loudly, and both men turned their faces to look at her, their eyes wide. Bellatrix coughed and spluttered, exhausted from the effort of speaking. She shut her eyes and begged, "Please make this stop. Please don't let me die."
"It is the only way, Mr Lestrange," said the Healer. There was a very long pause, and finally Rodolphus whispered,
"Fine."
"Bellatrix, you have a visitor."
"Is it my mother again, come to mourn the grandchild I murdered?" Bellatrix asked dully. She stared out the window at the sunny London street below. Rodolphus came to stand before her, his round face sorrowful. He was short and plump, not exactly a good-looking man, but a brave and dedicated Death Eater like Bellatrix. He shook his head and informed her,
"It's the Dark Lord."
"The Dark Lord?" Bellatrix sat up, forcing her hands to push her upward. She began to shake, staring down at herself, and she realised she was wearing only a thin nightgown. "Dolph, could you fetch me a dressing gown?"
"Of course." He went over to her wardrobe; there were two in their bedroom here in the London townhouse. He pulled out a black silk robe and brought it over, and he helped her slip it on and helped her tie it round the waist. Bellatrix whispered,
"He's going to be furious with us. Terminating a Pureblood pregnancy."
"He is not furious," Rodolphus assured her. "I've spoken with him. He would have been furious about losing one of his most dedicated servants. You were dying, Bella. We were losing you."
"I know." Her eyes watered, which hadn't been possible when she'd been ill. She'd been too dehydrated to cry. She stared at Rodolphus, at the pockmarks from acne and the pimples he still had. He still looked like such a boy, and she told him, "You're far too young to be a father."
He curled up his lips sadly and shook his head, cupping her jaw in his hand. "Don't worry. No one's angry. I'll send him in. He wants to talk to you alone."
"Does it smell of vomit in here?" Bellatrix asked worriedly, and Rodolphus assured her,
"You haven't been sick in almost two days, and Minky's been cleaning. It smells fine. Just the same… Airefresca."
He waved his wand through the air carefully, and Bellatrix nodded gratefully. Rodolphus rose from where he crouched and walked out of the bedroom. Bellatrix knitted her fingers together and anxiously breathed out through pinched lips. Finally, the bedroom door opened again, and Lord Voldemort came walking in.
He was a towering, imposing figure, tall and broad with flowing dark grey robes. His hair, thinning and greying, made him look older than Bellatrix knew him to be. His face, too, seemed chipped and worn. But he was still profoundly handsome. She'd always thought so. He was so much more handsome than her boyish, pimpled husband.
"Master," she said quietly, bowing her head and keeping it bowed. When she looked up, Voldemort was drawing lines in the air with his wand, and she frowned in confusion until she realised what he was doing. He was nonverbally Conjuring a chair for himself. It wasn't just any chair, either; it was an elegant rococo chair with brocade upholstery. Bellatrix marveled at his impressive magic as he arranged the chair beside the bed and sat. He nodded.
"Good to see you like this. The last time I saw you, they'd heavily sedated you. I don't think you knew I was here."
"Oh. No, I… I didn't know. I'm sorry," Bellatrix said. Then her eyes welled again, and she whispered once more, "I'm sorry. Master, I'm sorry."
"Stop that." He shook his head and sat up straighter. "You almost died."
"I know." Bellatrix used a knuckle to brush away her tears. "I begged them. I beseeched them to end it, to take the thing out of my body. Am I damned for it, My Lord?"
"No. You saved yourself, and in so doing, you rescued my greatest Death Eater for me. I shall always be grateful for that self-preservation."
Bellatrix's mouth fell open at that, for she was shocked to hear him speak of her in such a way. She nodded a little and told him resolutely,
"Well. Contraceptive charms aren't enough for me, My Lord. I don't trust them. I've already broken the news to Rodolphus. I'm to be celibate from now on."
"Celibate." Voldemort raised his eyebrows in alarm, and he informed her, "Your husband will run about on you, you realise."
"I don't care. I couldn't possibly care! Let him have all the girls in the world, but he won't have me. No man will touch me. I may be married, but I will be celibate. I've decided. I can never, ever risk this happening again, Master. Not ever!" Bellatrix exclaimed. She was clutching the blankets now, squeezing tightly at them, and Voldemort said patiently,
"There are ways… permanent sterilisation methods that -"
"I can't!" Bellatrix interrupted. "I'm too afraid."
Voldemort just nodded. "That can all be addressed much, much later. And, anyway, it's your business. Yours and your husband's."
"I apologise for bringing it up in front of you, My Lord," Bellatrix said, feeling ashamed. Her cheeks went hot, and Voldemort cleared his throat as he said carefully,
"I am only grateful to see you alive and… if not well, then… better. I genuinely thought we might lose you, Bellatrix, and I confess that facing your mortality put a spike of extreme discomfort through me. So I am happy now, to see you sitting up, to hear your voice speaking. You gave me quite a fright."
Bellatrix met his eyes, and for a long moment they just stared at one another. She'd been serving him for over a year now, and she'd had a crush on him all the while. They were so rarely alone. Now she could study the sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones, the dark colour of his eyes, and she murmured,
"Thank you for visiting me."
"My pleasure," he nodded seriously. He finally broke their shared stare, sighing as he turned his attention to the blankets on the blue bed. He scratched at his hair a little and said, "I'll let you rest. Be well, Bellatrix. I'll come again soon."
"You will?" she blurted, and he smirked as he stood slowly from the chair he'd Conjured. He nodded.
"Unless I'm not welcome."
"You're always welcome, Master," Bellatrix nodded frantically. He glanced at the table beside her and frowned, and he said,
"You ought to have water all the time, no? Here. Crystallum. Aguamenti." He dragged his wand through the air, Conjuring a perfect crystal glass and then filling it with water. He passed it to Bellatrix, who smiled gratefully, and he muttered, "I'll leave the chair. Goodbye, Bella."
"Goodbye, My Lord," she said quietly, and as he walked out of her room, she sipped a little at the water he'd given her.
Author's Note: Hello! Yes, it's me again. As you can plainly see, this one is much heavier than the last fic, but I tend to like to alternate. This will be a slower burn with lots of politics and personal machinations. As always, thank you so much for reading and please do leave a review if you get a quick moment.
