A/N: Love to reviewers and Countess Black

This story has taken some unusual turns, even for me. I was slightly shocked by this turn of events, and I suspect a lot of you will be, too. Some of you may not love it-this is a very fumble-able plotline, and I understand that.

I also have faith. I think this can work. If anyone wants to message me or leave feedback voicing concerns, I will do my best to address them. In the interest of allaying obvious fears, I have inserted an A/N which might spoil a bit but could help put some concerns to bed.

Bellatrix was showering, letting the water wash away the taint of the thing. Once she had thriven on this sensation, but now it seemed tawdry to her, vile. Beside her, Rodolphus was soaping himself, humming tunelessly.

'It's a start.'

He nodded. He was fully erect, and his hand started to stray to her breast before he checked himself. It was not a good idea, yielding to that urge, not here, not like this. She shocked herself by catching his hand for a second before she reached up to wash the soap from her hair.

'I'm sorry, Trixie.'

'Don't be. I feel it too, you know.'

'It would be dangerous.'

She nodded. 'It's how we got Hermione, Rodolphus. What are the odds lightening would strike twice?'

She didn't mean pregnancy; she meant the odds of them producing a child born of a union of Dark magic as strong as theirs, a child as normal as their daughter. If they ever had another child, the odds it would be deformed, or worse, were astronomical.

She stepped out and wrapped herself in one of Snape's yellowed, threadbare towels. Small as she was, it hardly fit round her. Rodolphus didn't even try. He towelled himself briskly and started to re-dress, raking his fingers through his hair.

'It's been a long time, hasn't it?'

He nodded. 'And it was-good. Did you find?'

It had been like climbing into a hot bath after spending hours in a cold, dark room, like her first meal after Azkaban. It had been so pleasurable it was almost repulsive.

Her maid appeared and held out her smalls. She stepped in and fastened her camisole. 'It was. Rodolphus, do you think she has it?'

'Hermione?'

'Yes.'

Rodolphus was letting his valet comb his hair. 'I don't know, Trixie. She's very good at offensive magic. That's supposed to be the first sign.'

Bellatrix wished she didn't agree. 'Yes. That could be training, though.'

'The firestorm?'

'I suppose. Still, that doesn't mean-do we talk to her about it?'

Rodolphus was dressed. 'Probably not a bad plan. She's so curious.'

'Talk to all of them, then. We'll ask Cissy, but I'm sure Malfoy will see the sense of it.'

'Do you suppose she'll think us hypocrites?'

Bellatrix considered, grimacing as her maid started combing snarls from her hair. 'Aren't we?'

'Generally speaking, no. In this, though...?'

'If anyone would understand, Rodolphus, it is the children.' She stood still whilst her elf tugged her dress over her head, and slid stocking on her, and then her boots. She didn't have any spare makeup here, more's the pity.

Still, she was Bellatrix Lestrange. No one, she mused, feels like a feared Death Eater whilst they're nude. Rodolphus was watching her appreciatively.

'You're a beautiful woman, Trixie.'

'And you're transparently obvious, but yes, tonight would be fine.'

He laughed. 'I love you.'

'Don't get too ambitious, Rodolphus. Once is plenty at our ages.'

Still laughing, he opened the door and let her proceed him to the parlour.

Cousin Sirius looked awful. He'd showered first, but even forty minutes after he'd left the attic, he was green-faced, shivering all over. Rabastan was next to him, talking softly to distract him.

Snape came in. 'It took you long enough.'

'Not all of us have your natural radiance, Snape.'

Snape's mouth twisted into a moue of dislike, or amusement. One could never quite tell with him. 'If I should find any untoward stains on my bedding, I will bill you directly, Bellatrix.'

Rab snorted and tried to make it a cough. Bellatrix shot him a stern look-don't encourage him, Rabastan!-and sat down on Sirius's other side.

'You've never encountered this, Sirius?'

He shook his head. 'Dumbledore would have sensed it on me. And Mad Eye.'

That was probably true. She patted his back gently. 'It gets easier, cousin.' Part of her wanted to shield the man she still thought of as her little cousin from the books and their knowledge, but realistically she couldn't, and he wanted to help. The children, at least, were another story entirely.

'Cissy and Malfoy will be here soon?'

'Quite.'

They'd decided that as few people as possible would help with this, to minimise the dangers of it, and to make sure that the vulnerable amongst them would be protected should the Ministry raid again.

The elf opened the door and Narcissa appeared. Lucius was right behind her, ashen. Cissy looked very little better. Bellatrix jumped up and went to her, flinging both arms about her.

'What's happened? The children?'

'They're fine.'

'What's happened?' The rest of the group moved subtly forward, clearly preparing for the worst.

'There's been an attack of some kind.'

'On whom?'

'We aren't sure. Just that it seems to have been bad.'

'Narcissa, just tell us.'

Malfoy coughed. 'Dementors.'

'What?'

'There was an attack on some town in the Orkneys. Dementors attacked them.'

'Did they drive them off?'

'They were muggles.'

The room was leaden. Cousin Sirius went even greener, and Bellatrix found she, too, was feeling a little sick. She had no love of muggles, to be sure, but to be set upon that way, not to even see them coming, those cold, cold hands clamped on faces that had no idea what was happening...

Snape cleared his throat. 'This proves that we were correct. He is growing madder with every passing day.'

They looked at him. 'What?'

'When I spoke with him yesterday, he hinted at wanting something that would cow the Bulgarians to prevent an invasion. I doubt the two are coincidentally related.'

'What you're suggesting is an abomination, Severus. Surely even he knows they'd be uncontrollable.'

'Does he care? He is well protected, as are those closest to him.'

The group was silent, contemplating how this changed the game. Finally Rodolphus spoke.

'Should we see about sending the children back, do you think? To Bulgaria? Not to mention Eugenia and Hetty?'

Snape shook his head. 'We mustn't tip our hand. Not to mention, there is a chance, however small, it's a coincidence. Stranger things have been known to happen.'

'Yes, because the-because he would make all sorts of coy hints about some grand secret weapon and Dementors would attack less than twenty four hours later in a purely random fashion, Snape.'

'You mean like how a girl presumed to be muggle-born could be discovered because she and her natural mother both happened to get injured within five minutes and come to the same person for treatment, whilst a werewolf just happened to be there to smell their shared blood?'

Bellatrix glowered but couldn't think of a decent rebuttal. Arse of a Halfblood, she thought sullenly. He was right, though.

'What shall we do, then?'

'Warn them. We can Portkey as many of them as possible, if things are dire.'

'Hetty, though...'

'Needs must is needs must.' Damn Snape, must he always make sense?

Bellatrix felt a sudden, painful wave of surreality wash over her. How had this happened? She was Bellatrix Black Lestrange, the Most Faithful.

Well, not anymore. She listened to what Snape had to say.

Rita Skeeter was at home when she got the owl from her editor. She lurched to her feet, hand to her mouth to keep from sicking up. Metellus, hearing the bird, had come out of the bedroom and hastened to her side, pulling her into himself.

'Ree? Darling, what's happened?'

She gasped, shaking her head. 'Metellus, something terrible has,,,oh, God.'

She handed him the letter and he read it. Then threw it in the fire, as though it were an advertisement from a store or some piece of hate-mail from an irate reader.

'Metellus?'

'Sweetheart, hush. They were only muggles.'

'Yes, but Dementors...oh, my God. Those poor people.'

'Rita, really. Do you think this wasn't planned for?'

Rita's world went cold and dead and sepia toned. 'What?'

Metellus coloured a little. 'I wanted to spare you, darling-and you mustn't ever let on you know-but this wasn't a spontaneous thing, precisely.'

Her mouth was filled with hot, heavy saliva. She was going to vomit. She turned, stumbled into the bathroom and sicked up in the tub. The tireless elf appeared to clean it as she brushed her teeth, tears running down her face.

'Rita?'

'I'm fine.' She swished her mouth with potion to make her breath sweet and then stepped out. She was a professional, damn it. If she couldn't pull one over on Travers, she might as well hang up her quill. She smiled shakily, still feeling like her insides were full of beetles.

'What was that, Rita?'

She thought as fast as she ever had. 'I've a horror of Dementors. Ever since I was a child. I used to have these nightmares, Metellus...' She lowered her eyes, not needing to feign the shudder that shook her.

Metellus hugged her again. 'There there, dear heart. Nothing can hurt you whilst I'm here.'

'I know. It made me think about that, was all.'

'Ah.' He was still holding her against him. If he asked her to oblige him she'd scream, she would.

'You never mentioned nightmares.'

'It's such a silly thing. You know how children are.'

'I do. And His Lordship has the situation well in hand. I've been monitoring things for months. It'll make Britain great again, you'll see.'

'They aren't tameable, are they? Dementors?'

He stroked her brow. 'Well, darling, they needn't be. We simply point them at the enemy and then pick up the pieces.'

'Suppose they should find some way to break free?'

He shook his head at once. 'They shan't, love. The Dark Lord has seen to it specially.'

She knew not to say anything else. Instead, she nodded. 'All right, then.'

'Will you have a nightmare tonight, do you think?'

'I shouldn't wonder.'

He made a sympathetic sound. 'We'll have some wine before bed. That might help you sleep more deeply.' He kissed her brow and stepped back, frowning.

'How did your friend find out so quickly?'

Rita forced herself to sound casual. 'He's a Scot, Nigel. His parents live up that way.'

'Goodness. I do hope they're all right.'

'He would have said if they weren't.'

Metellus nodded. 'All's well that ends well, eh?'

She nodded, smiling. 'Yes, of course.' Relief was like a splash of cold water on the hottest day in the Sahara; it brought her some small hope.

Some, but not much. She thought of those butchered muggles and made her choice. The odds she would survive such a thing were minimal. She was signing on for torture and death. If the aurors didn't come for her, Limpkin would, or Rice and his loop of cord, so hard for wizards to trace or explain.

Did it matter? Anything was better than the thought of Travers, sharing her bed with a man who'd helped unleash this horror, and serving the tyrant who'd ordered it. Rita was done with that. If nothing else, perhaps when she met those aurors she'd helped kill, they'd hear her out.

There was no public outcry about the Dementor attack. How could there be? The Dark Lord controlled the media, after all. Muggles believed the village had been attacked by 'radical foreign elements', and a spate of hate crimes directed at perceived likely offenders flared briefly and then burnt out. Such do these things go, more often than not.

When the denizens of Grimmauld Place found out, they couldn't react. Nagini was amongst them, snoozing on the divan. Strangely, aside from her sheer size, she was easy to miss. She had a habit of curling along ceiling beams, or other dark little niches. More worryingly, she had a habit of slithering into beds as the occupants slept, eager for the heat. It was probably innocent, was the consensus, but it's really very disquieting to wake up coiled in a giant, man-eating snake, inches from the fanged maw.

Hetty Gill Feathering would know. When she'd heard about Whitnell (which was the muggle village), she'd cried for an hour in the bathroom, sitting in the tub clutching her belly. She'd never even met a muggle, but the thought of those innocent families made her positively ill.

Now she was waking, and rolled to find herself eye to eye with a snake. Des was gone-he was a very early rise, Des, and often took a brisk walk, or did some exercises. Hetty quite approved of that in theory, but in practice like to laze about in the warm nest of their bed, luxuriating in thick, soft blankets and fluffy pillows, like clouds. To someone who grew up sharing a bed with three other girls, and thin blankets, it was heaven.

She felt herself coming slowly back to the world. There was a kind of low, pleasant hum in her ears, and she felt nicely held, relaxed and happy. Was Des humming? He had quite a pleasant baritone, she knew, but it wouldn't be like him to do that.

She tried to roil over and found she couldn't. It didn't bother her much. Whatever was holding her was warm and safe, and she half wanted to drift back off, snug in the...coils?

She opened her eyes, only to find Nagini's impassive visage was literally a few centimetres from hers. She made herself go limp, sensing it would a mistake to struggle, and then smiled brightly at the snake.

Nagini opened an eye the size of a grapefruit and regarded her with good natured interest. The snake let her slim tongue dart out and play on Hetty's cheek. Hetty giggled and reached slowly to caress the snake's nose.

/the female doesnt fear nagini good good/

/nagini would not hurt hetty/

/ no nagini found three rats in the house cave below the elf should fix hole rats will bite edric-young eat food for winter nagini ate them/

/good good/

Rats, she thought, grimacing with distaste. Hetty didn't mind a clean, friendly pet rat like Chum, but a filthy, nasty, dirty city rat, crawling with bugs? Nagini was right, they'd make Edric sick, or Cunegarde, or taint the food with their vile humours.

Hetty rubbed her eyes and abruptly realised she wasn't supposed to be able to speak to snakes. She gasped and sat up, sheet falling away. 'Dear God in Heaven.'

Nagini hissed amusement. /hetty-speaker does not know/

/no how is hetty doing this/

/some humans can do it some cant most cant/

/oh oh oh/

Hetty felt light-headed and then the snake flexed, bringing her body to support Hetty's. Hetty leant back into her, comfortably held by the strong snake. Then she realised what she'd done. How had this happened? What was she?

Nagini stretched her neck a bit. / there is young inside hetty-speaker/

/yes/

/good/

/hetty must get up/

/ the bed is warm/

/hetty makes water soon/

The snake obligingly loosened her coils, and Hetty rose, tugging her nightdress (she slept nude, typically) over her head on her way to the necessary. The house was awake, and she could hear Barty and Anu downstairs, practicing English by listening to Quidditch.

In the bathroom, Hetty climbed into the tub on rubbery, numb legs. She'd heard about Parselmouths, but they were Dark, and almost all gone. She, Hetty, was a perfectly competent witch but in no way Dark, or special enough to be anything like a Parselmouth. She'd only got five OWLS? Didn't that mean anything?

She let the elf wash her hair for her and came out of the tub pinky-clean and smelling of lavendar. Perhaps, she thought optimistically, the snake will have gone by the time I get back. It could have been a dream, or some sort of thing with my humours all unbalanced by the baby.

No such luck. The snake was still in the bed, seemingly waiting for her. Part of her wanted to scream, to tell it to go away. Hetty had a comfortable life now, a life where nothing about her attracted attention, a life of happy obscurity. Couldn't she have that? Couldn't she have the dignity of being average?

But she didn't. It felt right to her, like some dormant thing had woken in her heart. And, she told herself, Nagini just wanted to be friends. It would really be very cold and nasty of her to reject someone simply because they happen to be a giant snake. It would make her like those awful Slytherins that called her names in school for being an orphan.

The snake had squirmed mostly under the covers, and opened her eyes as Hetty came back in. Her tongue came out languidly, and Hetty extended a hand before she'd even thought to question why. The snake lapped her skin, tasting the soap and water, and made a disgusted noise. She seemed content to relax and watch.

Hetty's elf appeared and laid out her clothes, helping her into them. Nagini watched interestedly, sometimes tipping her head to get a better view.

/hetty goes down now/

/nagini sleeps and then comes to eating place hetty-speaker tells brood about speaking/

Hetty shook her head violently. /no no hetty waits/

/nagini tells master master will be pleased to know another speaker/

/no no hetty must protect young/

/master protects young/

/master is busy hetty and nagini mustnt bother master/

/hetty-speaker is afraid/

/hetty is small master is big/

/master will not eat hetty-speaker/

Hetty fought down a giggle that was as much hysteria as amusement. The snake was clearly eager for another person to spend time with.

/hetty knows but there is a threat hetty fixes it protects young/

/hetty tells master of the threat/

/when it is close it could be nothing/

/hetty-speaker watches hetty-speaker waits then tells when the attack is ready/

/yes yes yes/

/good good/

Hetty touched her belly on her way down the steps, knowing her baby was sleeping safely inside her. Would she be able to do it too? Hetty found herself hoping so without really realising it before she shoved the thought away.

Sheerly by coincidence, the first person Hetty ran into was her husband, who was staring at the window closest the landing. It was decorative stain glass, and perhaps a three year old might have been able to fit through it, assuming he was very dedicated and unusually determined to gain ingress (at least in three year old terms).

Desmond was glaring at it balefully, and Hetty, concerned, touched his arm. 'Des?'

'Morning, Hetty. I don't like the looks of that window.'

'Why ever not? It's pretty.'

'Yes, yes, but suppose it could be breached?'

'It's pretty small, Des. We'd see them before they got too far, and Kreacher's being extra vigilant about listening wires.'

'True.'

Des still looked grouchy about it, and Hetty found herself wishing his appetites were more in line with most men's. It would be so much easier to distract him that way, for all she ordinarily didn't mind his lack of interest much; she liked swieving as much as the next girl, but it was sort of nice that he touched her just because he wanted to please her, and not because he wanted to put his cock in her.

'It'll be all right, Des. We're doing everything we can to keep safe.'

He nodded reluctantly. 'True. How is the baby today?'

'She's well, I think. She wants to spend some time in the sunshine today.'

Desmond liked that answer. He was urging her to take gentle exercise, even as Snape was, and it seemed a good day for it, warmer than the last week had been. From the landing, she could see bright blue skies through the windows in the parlour.

'I thought I'd ask Gennie and Edric to take an airing with me. Malfoy Manor, maybe.' The gardens at Feathering were treacherous even for the non-pregnant, full of gopher holes and creeping vines. Narcissa had made it clear the family was welcome to use Malfoy Manor's manicured, level gardens whenever they liked.

'That's a good idea. Edric needs some sunshine.'

'He's awfully healthy though. Heavy as a sack of rocks.' She smiled, pleased to be able to say that.

'Quite.'

'Have you seen Snape, Desmond?'

'Talking with Hermione and Viktor, I think. Something the matter?'

'Not at all. Just curious about something.'

'Is it something I could help you with?'

She fought the urge to tell him about her strange discovery. 'I don't know.'

'What sort of thing is it?'

'Oh, just a silly question. I'll figure it out.'

He nodded and went back to staring intently at the windows. Hetty went to get breakfast.

After everyone had eaten, the two women, with Edric in tow, went to Malfoy Manor. To their surprise, Barty declined to join them. Rabastan had asked him to keep working with Tamm, he explained seriously, and so they were listening to more sports and working on lessons.

Nagini did join them, and spent the ride coiled about Hetty, Edric resting on her tail. The baby seemed to be excited to see his new friend, and crowed happily every few minutes before he dozed off in the warm sunshine.

'Eugenia?'

'Hmmm?'

Hetty looked round. Nagini had gone to look at the decorative carp in the reflecting pool and taken Edric with her. He was trying to catch butterflies, sometimes leaning over to give the snake a sloppy, open mouthed kiss on her spine.

'Hetty?'

'Yes, love?'

'Is something the matter?'

Hetty closed her eyes, feeling the sun in her hair and on her face. She was loved, and her baby, and she'd tell them eventually. But not today, with everything so nice.

The tip of Nagini's tail was lashing with contentment. She was making soft little hisses, drowsing in the sun as the baby hung in her coils, finger in his mouth.

'I don't want to talk about it right now, Gennie. Just that it's nothing that could hurt anyone.'

'Are you sure you're all right?'

'No. But I can't-not today. You know, I was-it's so good we can all be together.'

'It is, isn't it?'

Hetty touched her belly again. Her baby, floating in the darkness of her belly, deserved a fresh beginning. She deserved both parents. Would Des want a baby who could talk to snakes?

She didn't think he seemed the type. But then, neither had Lem, and he'd killed that auror, Gennie's auror, in front of poor Hermione. Showed what her judgement was worth, didn't it?

'Yes' she said decisively. 'It's a very good day.'

Spoiler A/N:

Firstly, no, Hetty is not related to the Dark Lord or Salazar Slytherin. I've always taken the position that Voldemort is auto-sexual-that he's so self-obsessed that he has no time or interest for anyone else, ever, except to further his ends. He never fathered children, married, etc.

The actual topic of how Hetty can do this is addressed in another chapter, but not in any depth. It's not of interest to us except in passing.