Author's comment:

Dear readers,

another update for you to enjoy. I thought that I could pique your interest by posting the second chapter quickly . Your reviews are as always appreciated – including constructive criticism. Thanks for your support. Special thanks to Animalium, Green-Extreme-Ninjetti13, Rose-of-Death15, woofie17, H286 and FanofalmostEVERYTHING for adding my story to your favorites and/or story alert list. It really puts a smile on my face and motivates me to update sooner.

Best regards,

Vani12

P.S: I couldn't answer your reviews because I somehow can't read them at the moment. I hope that this technical issue will be fixed in the near future.

Chapter 1 – Freaking out isn't an option!

Bellatrix' En-suite Bathroom, Black Manor, Countryside near London, February 1978

Bellatrix awakened from her short slumber with a loud groan. Thankfully, her plush bathroom rug had cushioned her fall and she hadn't hit her head on anything. A little disorientated, she quickly cleared her mind, sat warily up and searched frantically for her wand. She scanned her cream tilted bathroom with her greyish blue Spinel eyes and could detect her Walnut wand lying one meter away from her on the cold floor. With a non-verbal, wandless Accio Bellatrix' wand, she summoned it into her outstretched right hand, felt a fresh wave of magic run through her veins and crawled gracelessly to her huge corner bathtub. She pulled herself up and sat down on the edge of her beloved bathtub. Merlin, she was utterly grateful that her parents weren't home today and nobody would disturb her in her rooms. She needed to be alone and process this shocking new discovery.

Looking down on herself, Bellatrix was glad, that she had opted to spend the day in her simple grey sweatpants and a dark purple jumper recovering from he supposedly stomach bug. If she wore a black tight corset dress - like she preferred to wear in public - today, she would have most likely passed out due to breathlessness and a sharp pain in her chest. Perhaps, her prolonged unconsciousness and panic attack would have even caused her to miscarry her baby and she could have moved on with her life as previously planned. But Bellatrix knew that this was only a delusional idea of her freaked out mind. If she had suffered a miscarriage, she couldn't have simply moved on with her life. She would undoubtedly have suffered unbelievable physical and psychologic pain. And she doubted that her emotional scars would have healed smoothly. Gently, Bellatrix caressed her still flat abdomen. She couldn't fathom that a tiny human being was growing there.

Although she never wanted to be a mother, she felt strangely protective of the embryo residing inside her belly. Sure, she realized that the relationship between a pregnant witch and her baby was unique due to their shared magical powers. Her mother had hammered in her lessons about magical culture into her head that the connection between a witch and her unborn baby was deep, dominated by feelings of protectiveness and love, and unbreakable, because her magic protected the embryo, helped it to develop its magical power and determined its magical abilities. Bellatrix had only rolled her eyes and scoffed about the pure, unconditional love her mother pictured for them because her mother had tyrannized, controlled and abused her daughters their whole lives.

It seemed like this unconditional love only existed for the time the baby was inside one's belly. Otherwise, she couldn't explain the cold and cruel rule her mother exercised over her sisters and her. Sure, it was understandable that she wanted her daughters to grow into respectable, charming young witches with a profound grasp of their heritage, the culture of Pure-bloods and the Dark Arts. But she condemned her methods of torturing them and controlling their lives. Her mother never once uttered the words "I love you", "I'm proud of you" or "I care about you" to any of her daughters. Instead, she punished them with cruel dark curses and curfew order whenever they had disappointed her or shamed the esteem of the House of Black.

Druella had her little spies – house-elves and her younger niece and nephew, Elena and Evan Rosier – in Hogwarts who had followed her daughters everywhere and reported every little escapade. Thence, she knew all about the Elf Herb smoking in a secluded alcove inside the Slytherin dungeons, the Fire Whisky drinking during party nights inside the Slytherin common room, the skipping of assigned homework in Potions, Transfiguration and Care for Magical Creatures and the exchanging of heated kisses inside a dark niche on the Astronomy tower with Marcellus Flint, Bellatrix got up to in her Hogwarts time. Thankfully, she hadn't a clue about her secret trysts with Timothy Nott or Stephen Travers in the Room of Requirements and her defloration by Benjamin Shafiq in the boys' dormitory of the Slytherin 7th Years in her 5th Year. Merlin, her mother probably thought that Rodolphus had deflowered her after their engagement party one year ago. She wasn't aware of his preference for the male sex and probably had already picked out names for her pure-blooded grand-children.

Well, this dream would crumble down. Until now, Druella only had a disowned two-years-old half-blooded granddaughter with the awful name Nymphadora Tonks and an embryonic half-blooded grandchild of unknown sex sired by a poor, arrogant Slytherin. "Let's hope, that Malfoy is up for the task of impregnating my dear sister Narcissa. Otherwise, the Black family motto Toujours Pur can go the hell!" Bellatrix thought chuckling darkly. She caressed her flat abdomen lovingly. How did she, the most loyal follower of the Dark Lord and pure-blooded maniac, ended up being impregnated by a sneering, rude Half-blood? Hell, he hadn't even finished his degree in Hogwarts yet, lived in a run-down hovel with his alcoholic parents and prided himself on his genius in Potions and the Dark Arts. What had compelled her to sleep with him not only once, but several times? And damn Mr. Mullpepper's Apothecary in Diagon Alley. They had assured her that their monthly Contraceptive Potions were of the highest quality without any chance of failure or interacting negatively with any other potions. She had bought them under a poly-juiced alias to guarantee her anonymity and the saleswomen had vowed for their failproof birth control.

Bellatrix was foaming with rage. She wanted to blast this woman into next week for making fake promises and selling ineffective potions to her. But she couldn't storm into the apothecary throwing around curses and verbally abusing some dumb, blonde saleswoman. She needed to keep her pregnancy secret in the public eye. The Daily Prophet would otherwise have a field day and produce headlines like "Black heiress impregnated by a schoolboy", "Black heiress caring the child of a Half-blood – To hell with Toujours Pur" or "Black heiress cheats on her wealthy, good-looking fiancé with a poor, ugly Half-blood – Who is her baby daddy?".

Bellatrix couldn't allow that the noble and ancient House of Black would be dragged through the mire thanks to her careless love affair with a Half-blood. Her mother would undoubtedly force her to abort the fetus, administer an illegal, dark Abortion Potion to her or cause her to miscarry her baby via a curse or accident if it weren't prohibited by Wizarding Law or condemned as an act against wizardkind by Merlin himself. A magical life was something sacred and pure that nobody could harm or kill without condemning one's life to utter despair and solitude. A witch could only abort her embryo if she had been raped, endangered her life with her pregnancy or would birth a highly disabled, unlivable child. Abortion Potions couldn't be purchased in apothecaries or brewed at home without facing a long stint in Azkaban. To abort a magical embryo without fitting under the exception provision was considered a serious crime and punished with ten years in Azkaban.

Besides that, it was almost impossible to abort a magical embryo without endangering the life of the mother or weakening her magical core because the maternal magic protected the embryo like a security barrier, fed it with positive magical vibes and became intervened with its magical circulation. Therefore, an abortion oftentimes resulted in the loss of one's magical abilities, the depletion of one's magical core, which most likely ended in a high fever, coma and/or death, or the disruption of one's magical powers, which very likely entailed mental illnesses like schizophrenia or manic depression as well as a lost of magical control. Basically, a witch wouldn't be able to control her magical powers anymore. She would be reduced to a crazed woman with accidental magical outbursts at best if she didn't die or lose her powers completely during her abortion. Thence, it wasn't an option for Bellatrix to get rid of her embryo without condemning herself to a dark fate.

Bellatrix huffed audibly, fiddled with her wand and stroked her belly gently. Although she had never wanted to have a child, she would have to go through with her pregnancy. Sure, she feared notorious nausea, weight gain, swollen ankles, and food cravings, but she couldn't change her life. She was a pregnant twenty-two-year-old young witch who would need to put her plans to destroy the Blood-traitors, Mudbloods, and Half-breeds on Dumbledore's side and seduce the Dark Lord on to hiatus. She doubted that he would bed a heavily-pregnant woman if he hadn't shown any interest in her prior to her pregnancy. And she couldn't engage in open fights with the Order or Aurors as well as torture Muggles into insanity in the following next months because the risks of being injured, killed or arrested were too high. She didn't want to birth her child in a filthy, cold Azkaban cell surrounded by soul-sucking Dementors or suffer a miscarriage at the hands of the goody-two-shoes from the Light Side.

She vowed to herself that she would keep her child save and protect it against everyone who wished it harm. Albeit Bellatrix didn't believe in the existence of love, a warm feeling spread through her body at the thought of a smiling little girl with raven black curls and obsidian eyes or a smirking little boy with straight raven black hair and greyish blue Spinel eyes. She would do anything in her power to guarantee that her child would grow up in a safe, stable home without punishments enacted by dark magical curses and insults thrown around the house like candy in a candy store. Sure, she would have to sacrifice a lot for her baby. Her engagement deal with Rodolphus would break up. For even he wouldn't be as kind as to raise a half-blooded bastard child and face the mocking of the yellow press for being cheated on by his fiancee with a mere Hogwarts schoolboy who, to top it all off, wasn't even a wealthy Pure-blood or upstart dark wizard. Naturally, he would risk a public outing as a homosexual wizard in the tabloid papers, if a noisy journalist started to dig for dirt on him and encountered an indiscreet scorned ex-lover to make their canceled engagement a huge deal, but he would undoubtedly take the risk and be finished with her.

Furthermore, the tabloid press would unquestionably sink their teeth into Bellatrix' whirlwind forbidden love affair. She knew that she could only hide her pregnancy for a few months from the public and her family. Her life would change considerably in the following weeks. She couldn't be branded with the Dark Mark while pregnant because the dark magic of the tattoo would harm the magical development of her baby. Her plans to be the mistress of the Dark Lord and his lieutenant would need to be put on hold. Although she doubted that he would ever want to have sex with a single mum of a half-blooded baby. Besides that, her family would disown her for trampling all over the Black family motto Toujours Pur by getting impregnated by a poor, socially awkward half-blooded Slytherin schoolboy and breaking off the engagement to Rodolphus Lestrange. Merlin, the eloping of her older sister Andromeda would look like a minor indiscretion in comparison to her stunt.

So, Bellatrix sat defeatedly on the edge of her luxury bathtub, tears threating to fall down her cheeks. She wouldn't cry like a miserable schoolgirl, reduced to bitter sobs or hysterical laughter. She wouldn't break down or freak out because these weren't any sane options. Despite facing disownment, being blasted off the Black family tree, life as a homeless single mum and being called an irresponsible, cheating slut in the tabloids, Bellatrix vowed to stay strong for her child. Caressing her belly gently, she thought about how to inform Severus Snape of his impending fatherhood. Life really could be a pain in her ass.