Prelude
A sharp pain ripped through her body. "The time has come, my Lord," Bellatrix whispered, clutching her belly.
Voldemort turned around, scrutinising her. "You are excused from the fight. I'll see you when Potter is dead."
These were the last word her master and lover ever spoke to her.
She walked away from where the Dark Lord was waiting for Potter's arrival in the Forbidden Forrest. Occasionally she had to support herself on a tree branch when the cramps nearly forced her down on her knees.
The contractions were coming faster now.
She lay down on the mossy underground, casting a spell to sterilise the floor. She hoped that she was away far enough so her screams would be overheard by no-one.
The baby was a boy. Pale and smeared with blood. His eyes were of a dark brown like her own. His hair was black like his father's had been over a decade ago.
Bellatrix had been scared at first because the baby didn't make a sound. But when it screamed, forcing air into his tiny lungs, she sobbed with joy and relief.
She was weak, and she hated to be weak. She should be up at the castle, fighting among the other Death Eaters. It was her duty to do so.
Pain shot up through her abdomen when she pulled herself upright and staggered the first steps, the baby wrapped in one of her black underskirts, held tightly to her breast.
She hid the baby behind an overturned cupboard near the entrance of the Great Hall. Inside the Great Hall the fight was in full progress. Everyone fought for their lives. Spells filled the air, hitting their aim deadly or bouncing off the walls.
The baby would be safe here.
She had not yet had the chance to even think about a name for the boy. She had not yet been able to feed him for the first time. All of these things would have to wait till after the fight.
Stop being sentimental! Your duty is to fight!
If just the pain would go away...
Bellatrix could barely stand upright by now, but still she tried. I need to be strong for him. Then a realisation began to dawn on her. I need to be strong for both of them. His child needs me.
She was trying to catch her breath, leaning against a soot-smeared column. A red-haired girl ran past her, no doubt the Weasley girl.
Bella raised her wand.
The girl ducked away from her first spell. They duelled.
Bella felt blood running down her thighs, down her calves, soaking her stockings. It felt like someone had used a Cruciatus curse on her belly. The pain just wouldn't go away.
Her deflecting spells came too slowly, she stumbled, got nearly hit by a curse.
All of a sudden Mrs Weasley stood between her daughter and Bellatrix.
"Not my daughter, you bitch!"
The pain exploded inside her body, spread trough her limbs. Her feet were taken off the ground.
I'm floating. I'm floating to you, my love.
The pain was gone.
After the Fight
Hogwarts looked no longer like Hogwarts. It looked like Armageddon had dawned on this place. Some people were extinguishing little fires, some carried liveless bodies into the ruins of the Great Hall.
People were mourning and crying everywhere.
Harry let his tears run freely. If he'd touch his face now, he would only smear dirt into the scratches and his wounds would burn a little more.
He fell more than he actually sat down next to the Weasley family who were gathered around their dead son and brother Fred. Ginny moved to his side. He found the strength to put his arm around her shoulders and she cried against his chest.
Some time later, when he looked up, he saw Hermione and Ron sitting just like him and Ginny, and in the back of the Great Hall, the Malfoy family, somehow lost and at the same time grateful that they had survived.
He realised that he, Harry Potter, also had survived.
Unimaginable things were happening. Draco could no longer stand to be hugged by his crying parents. He could not even by glad that he was still alive. He felt that he would have deserved to die.
His eyes fell on Neville and Luna, both trying to rescue a body from under the stones of a collapsed column. He shook off his parents' hands and walked over to them.
Neville glared at him. Luna was just exhausted and didn't care why he wanted to help.
"Can you lift that stone?" She pointed at a larger one.
Draco nodded and lifted the stone, pushing it aside.
Luna whimpered and started to sob the name of the dead girl, pressing her hands on her mouth.
Neville started giving instructions how Draco was supposed to lift the body. He did what he was told. He had always been good at following instructions, he thought bitterly.
The little boy sreamed, out-raged and frightened. He had been left by his mother. He was hungry. He was cold. He screamed even louder, because he was just a baby, and all that a baby could do was scream.
"There's a baby crying." Molly Weasley pulled away from her grieving husband's arms.
Her children - her children who were still alive - and Harry and Hermione looked at her.
"Listen! It's crying again!" She started to walk in that direction.
Arthur asked: "A baby? Must be someone, but a baby?"
"Maybe someone who's been unconscious till now..." Ron got up and followed his mother. Hermione followed too. "How should a baby have come here?"
Molly turned around, slowing down for the moment. "I know when I hear a baby!"
The three of them followed Molly to the entrance of the Great Hall, climbing over stuff that blocked their way. In a corner of the entrance hall was a broken cupboard. Mrs Weasley walked towards it.
Too small for a grown person to be lying behind it, even too small for a child.
The screaming echoed from the walls.
Molly ran the last few steps. "I told you it's a baby!" She kneeled down and picked up the black bundle of cloth and the newborn inside it. The baby still cried on top of its lungs. "Shhhh, shhh, my love..." She started to cradle it in her arms.
"Merlin's beard...," muttered Arthur. "It's only hours old."
"There were no pregnant women in the Order, right?" Hermione was wondering.
"No, there weren't," confirmed Arthur.
"But whose baby is it?" Ron looked confused. "Don't tell me it's a Death Eater baby!"
Mrs Weasley had ordered Percy, Ginny and Harry to take George and his dead twin brother home to the Burrow. Bill and Fleur accompanied the bodies of Remus and Tonks. They disapparated.
Molly asked Neville and Luna if they had seen any dead woman who looked like she could have been pregnant. They shook their heads.
The news that a baby had been found spread in minutes.
Draco offered to ask his mother if she knew about pregnancy among the female Death Eaters. Molly looked at him for some seconds - how could he dare speak to her - but then she thought of the baby. "Go ask your mother, boy."
Draco came back none the wiser.
Meanwhile Molly cleaned the baby - she knew the right spells - and found out that the newborn was a boy. She then handed the baby to Hermione, because she wanted to take a closer look at some of the dead Death Eater women.
Hermione produced a bottle from her handbag that could be used as a baby bottle. Aberforth brought some fresh, warm milk from one of his goats and Hermione now was feeding the baby who was drinking greedily. Ron watched her and the baby with a strange look on his face.
Hours later the Weasleys, Harry, Hermione and the baby were in the Burrow's kitchen. Hermione held the sleeping baby in her arms and was humming a lullaby.
Molly arrived last.
Among all the Death Eater women who had still been identifiable none seemed to have been pregnant. Narcissa Malfoy had joined her in the search, looking for her missing sister Bellatrix. Of course Molly knew where Bellatrix's body was.
There had been some tough moments when Molly confessed having killed Bellatrix to save her own daughter's life.
Narcissa did not even look shocked. "So she got what she deserved. She was my sister, but she didn't care at all when she offered my son to the Dark Lord..."
Molly and Narcissa pulled Bellatrix out from under a stone pile. Narcissa started to cry when she saw the blood-soaked skirts of her dead sister.
"Not my daughter, you bitch...", mumbled Molly and then couldn't help crying.
Lucius, who had lingered closeby, said he would take his wife and her dead sister home.
That having happened, Molly returned to her home and her family.
No-one really knew what to say after she had finished the story.
Now they knew who the boy's mother was.
They couldn't be completely sure about the father, but all of them had a pretty good idea.
"The child's got nothing to do with the crimes of his parents," Harry said after a very long period of silence. "We can't put him in an orphanage..." He was looking at Mrs Weasley for support. "I mean, we all know what that did to his father..."
Molly wondered if Harry now would volunteer to take care of his deadly enemy's baby. What a brave young man Harry had become. "The boy can stay here in the Burrow, Harry. You are already Teddy's godfather..." She interrupted herself when she realised that Harry had not yet thought of that.
"Ron and I will take care of the boy," said Hermione.
"We will?" Ron looked at her bewildered.
Hermione blushed. "One child or two, where's the difference?" she asked timidly.
Ron's mouth fell open. "A-are you saying..."
"Yes, Ron. I'm pregnant."
It sounded like Ron was laughing and crying at the same time. Then he threw his arms around Hermione and hugged her.
"I've wanted to tell you, Ron, but..." Tears started to well up in Hermione's already puffy eyes. "B-but with all this... mess..." She sobbed. "It just didn't seem right to be happy."
Interlude
The black underskirt in which the baby had been wrapped had indeed belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange. Narcissa Malfoy had later helped to identify her sister's garment. She also had known about Bellatrix and the Dark Lord, but she had not known about the pregnancy.
Narcissa offered to take care of her sister's baby, but by then Hermione and Ron had completely fallen in love with the innocent child who knew nothing about the crimes of his parents.
Narcissa and Lucius seemed relieved they wouldn't have to take care of their former master's offspring.
They discussed what name the child should have.
Tom? Thomas? Like the father? They decided against it.
It was Hermione who came up with Sirius.
After all, Sirius Black had been the only relative of Bellatrix they had liked. A kind of compensation that the boy's mother had killed her own cousin. And a way to honour the memory of a man who had been so unlike his family.
A good omen that the boy would grow up to be the opposite of his biological parents.