Magical Miracle
by Teddylonglong
Please refer to chapter 1 for my disclaimer and warnings. Thank you.
During dinner, Bella once again visited Remus in the hospital wing, and a very happy boy told her everything about Sirius' visit.
"He even told me that he would try to become an Animagus, so that he could keep me company during the full moon," he told her in apparent excitement, causing Bella to smile. "Is that safe for him though? Won't I be able to harm him in his Animagus form?"
"It depends what his form is, but as Sirius is not exactly stupid, I'm sure that he won't choose the form of a mouse," Bella replied in a soothing voice, causing Remus to chuckle.
HP
After dinner, Bella had a conversation with Severus Snape, similar to her talk with Sirius. She was not even surprised, when Severus' reaction was not far from Sirius', even if the Slytherin seemed to be missing her cousin's humour.
"Is it really all right to be friends with Gryffindors?" he asked, timidly.
"Of course," Bella replied and told him how she and her roommates had been friends with a bunch of Gryffindors.
"Thank Merlin," Severus blurted out, before he admitted, "I've been friends with Lily since we were toddlers, and I'd like to continue being friends with her, but she's in Gryffindor."
Together, they walked to the hospital wing, and Bella left the two students to talk to each other.
Shortly before curfew, she sent a happy looking Severus back to Slytherin and accompanied a seemingly delighted Remus back to his dormitory in Gryffindor.
HP
During the following months, she observed how Remus became friends with Sirius, James, Peter as well as Severus and Lily.
On Sirius' request, the group of friends visited her every Sunday evening, so that she could teach them how to become an Animagus and supervise their practice. Bella did not mind the extra work at all. She felt happy that she had been able to help Sirius, Remus and Severus to gain good friends.
HP
Half-way through the Marauders' – as she called the friends who rivalled the Prewett twins in doing nonsense – second Hogwarts year, Arthur's second son was born – much to Bella's devastation.
'Do you really love Molly?' she thought to him, when he had informed her about Charlie's birth.
'I am not sure. I think I love you both,' he replied, seemingly pensive. 'I should have gotten together with you, but… Oh well, you had to marry your husband anyway.'
'Maybe at some time in the future, we can still get together,' Bella thought back, smiling. 'Don't give up hope, and at least we can be together at Hogwarts every day.'
'That's true,' Arthur replied, somehow sounding happier than before.
HP
A year later, Andromeda's and Ted's daughter Nymphadora Black-Tonks was born, and all the residents of Hogwarts fawned about the little girl, who turned out to be a Metamorphmagus and surprised them all, when she suddenly spiked pink hair at the age of six months. Bella felt incredibly proud and happy to become the godmother for her niece. 'Drommie and Ted should have consulted me about the name beforehand though,' she thought in annoyance. 'Something less antiquated might have been better.'
HP
The following months passed uneventfully. During their third year, each of the Marauders apart from Remus managed to become Animagi. While Sirius became a dog that looked like a grim and seemed extremely appropriate for the Black family, James became a stag, Lily a doe, Severus a magical chameleon and Peter a rat.
From that time onwards, they used to keep Remus company during the full moon – either in the Shrieking Shack or on the grounds. Bella, Andromeda and her husband Ted occasionally joined them in their own miniature dragon forms. After the first night on the grounds in her Animagus form, Bella had to admit to herself that it was great fun and that she looked forward to the next full moon.
It was shortly before the end of the Marauders' third year that Severus came to speak with her in private.
"Professor," he spoke up in a small voice, "is there any way to remain at Hogwarts during the summer holidays?"
Bella cast him a horrified look. From Lily, she had heard right at the beginning of their first Hogwarts year how Severus' father despised him for being magical.
"Does your father hurt you?" she asked, bluntly, however, in a soft voice.
"Ah no, but…" The third-year slowly trailed off, which was enough of a reply for Bella.
"You're extremely good at Potions, aren't you?" she asked in spite of being aware of the matter.
"I like brewing," Severus confirmed, casting her a small smile.
"I must confirm this with Professor Slughorn as the Potions professor, so I can't promise anything, but I have an idea," Bella replied, pensively. "Would you be willing to work on a research project and try to invent a cure for lycanthropy?" she then asked.
Severus' eyes lit in obvious delight. "I'd love that," he blurted out in uncharacteristic excitement, "even if I don't believe that I'll be able to find what hundreds of Potions Masters have ineffectively tried during the last few centuries."
"Well, I'll ask Professor Slughorn if he is willing to at least be present, so that you won't be alone in the lab or the classroom, and if he agrees, I'll ask permission from your father," Bella promised, causing Severus to thank her profusely.
"Since the headmaster probably won't allow you to remain in Slytherin during the summer, you will most likely have to live in my guest room during that time," Bella said, pensively, and the boy readily agreed.
HP
When the Marauders heard about Severus remaining at Hogwarts during the summer, Sirius immediately took Bella aside and enquired about the matter.
"Bellatrix, may I please remain here as well?" he begged. "I really don't want to return home."
Bella nodded in understanding, knowing that his parents, especially her aunt, were even worse than her own parents. "I need to ask your parents for permission," she said before asking, "What are you going to do though? Are you going to assist Severus in the lab?"
"I can do that," Sirius agreed, "provided that Severus is willing to work together with me. I don't exactly excel in Potions."
From that time onwards, Severus and Sirius spent all holidays together in her guest quarters using the Potions classroom to research a possible cure for lycanthropy.
HP
It was two years later that James managed to convince Lily to go out with him, and Bella noticed quickly that Severus was extremely depressed.
"How dare he take her from me?" he blurted out, when she cornered him.
"Excuse me?" Bella asked, even if she could very well understand his sentiments. "He did not take her from you, as you never asked her to become your girlfriend. James did and she agreed. However, you can still remain friends with both of them," she said in a firm yet soft voice. Seeing that he was listening, she told him her own story. "We're both now married to others, but we're still best friends," she said, smiling.
During the following weeks, she spent much time speaking with Severus, who had become something close to a son to her. She even managed to convince him to not join the Death Eaters, when he pondered to follow Lucius Malfoy's invitation to meet the Dark Lord. Making him swear a wizard's oath, she told him everything about the Dark Lord, the Dark Mark and spying on the Death Eaters for the Unspeakables.
"Thank you for preventing me from making a grave mistake," Severus finally told her, casting her a smile of acknowledgement.
HP
From her daily conversations with Arthur, sometimes face to face, most times through their friendship rings, she knew that his love for Molly somehow seemed to have cooled down, while he still appeared to be in love with her.
'Oh well, I am not in love with my husband and have never been,' she thought after a particularly long discussion with Arthur about his wife and her husband, letting out a deep sigh.
It was just a few days later, when Arthur seemed extremely upset, when he contacted her late in the evening.
'Bella,' he thought to her, and she could sense that he was crying.
'What's wrong?' she thought back, urgently.
'Today, our twins were born,' Arthur informed her; however, Bella did not even congratulate him, sensing that he was going to say more. 'When I visited them in the hospital together, while Muriel was watching Bill and Charlie, Molly admitted that she continuously doped me with a love potion from our sixth-year onwards. I never really loved her. It was only a love potion. I am so sorry, Bella. I was so stupid that I destroyed everything.'
'It's all right,' Bella replied. 'It's not your fault. You couldn't know.'
'I've told her that I'm going to separate from her,' Arthur continued. 'As soon as she'll be back from the hospital, which should be during the weekend, I'm going to move to Hogwarts.'
'I'll be happy to have you here,' Bella replied, while her thoughts went haywire.
HP
From the weekend onwards, Arthur was living at Hogwarts. His rooms were adjacent to Bella's, and every evening after curfew, he came to visit. Somehow, Bella felt happier than she had ever been before. 'I only wished I wasn't married,' she thought in annoyance. 'I don't love my husband. The only good thing is that I only have to see him during the weekends.'
HP
Two months after Arthur had moved to Hogwarts, the Marauders took their NEWTs and left Hogwarts – apart from Remus, who remained as the Ancient Runes professor, and Severus, who studied for his Potions Mastery under Horace Slughorn.
Sirius and James entered Auror training together with Alice and Frank Longbottom, while Lily studied at St. Mungo's to become a healer.
HP
Four months later, Bella suddenly decided to skip the charm that prevented her from becoming pregnant, which she always cast at herself before travelling to Lestrange Manor.
Therefore, she was not surprised, when Poppy told her shortly after Christmas that she was pregnant.
"Poppy," Bella said, beseechingly, "will you please cast some charm at me that prevents everyone from noticing my pregnancy?"
"Is it not your husband's?" Poppy enquired with a combination of understanding and concern.
"No, it's Arthur's," Bella admitted, smiling. "I never even slept with Rodolphus."
Poppy nodded and cast a series of charms at her, before she instructed her to come to see her once a week, so that she could make sure that everything was all right.
HP
Bella did not even inform Arthur about the matter. She only told Andromeda, as her sister was still her best and most trusted friend.
"Bella, what are you going to do with the baby, when it's born?" Andromeda asked in concern.
"I think I need to give her to someone," Bella replied, letting out a deep sigh, before she leaned into her sister's embrace, crying her eyes out.
"I'll speak with Ted if you don't mind. He has contacts in the muggle world," Andromeda suggested, and Bella quickly agreed. "You could still keep the guardianship over her in the magical world. Eventually, she'll come to Hogwarts and you can decide if you reveal the truth to her."
Trusting her sister to have her best interest in mind, Bella agreed, and when her daughter was born in September, Andromeda and Ted gave the baby to a muggle couple, who were not able to have children of their own.
Afterwards, Bella berated herself. While she had intended to not take as much as one look at the baby, she had not been able to resist, and from that time onwards, she was unable to wipe the image of her daughter from her mind.
'She'll only come to Hogwarts in eleven long years, almost twelve,' she thought in devastation, as she cried herself to sleep, glad that Poppy had told Arthur and her colleagues that she was in her care due to a bad case of the wizard's flu and that no one was allowed to visit her. Apart from the healer, Drommie and Ted were the only colleagues who knew the truth, and they simply puffed into her room to keep her company, whenever they could make time.
HP
Bella still felt down knowing that she had given up her only daughter to muggles, when Lily contacted her and asked her to become her baby's godmother together with Sirius, whom James wanted to make the godfather.
"Of course," Bella agreed, smiling at the girl, who had been one of her favourite students.
HP
Just a few months later, Bella's world was turned upside down again, when news spread around the Unspeakables' quarters of a prophecy that had been made about a child, who was going to be born at the end of July.
'I just hope that it won't apply to Lily's and James' boy,' she thought, still feeling bad about giving away her own baby.
While she inevitably attended all the Death Eater meetings to please her husband as well as the Dark Lord, she was unaware that the Dark Lord knew about the prophecy. 'I hope he doesn't know about it,' she thought, when she visited Lily and Baby Harry at St. Mungo's.
"He's so cute. Thanks, Lily, for making me his godmother," she said to the redhead, who cast her a broad smile.
"Thanks for agreeing to become his godmother," Lily replied. "You know, Sirius can be a bit reckless at times," she added as an afterthought, and Bella immediately agreed.
"Now I have a goddaughter and a godson," she replied, happily, only to add for herself, 'And a daughter, but no one must know about her.' Apart from Poppy, Andromeda and Ted, only the members of Team 5 knew about the girl, and every few days, Ra and Medusa apparated into the garden of the muggles' house and invisibly observed the baby and her foster parents.
'At least they treat her well,' she thought. 'Maybe one day, I'll be able to tell Arthur about her and take her in. Thank Merlin Ted has told the woman that the girl is magical and will be off to Hogwarts at the age of eleven.'
HP
In spite of intensely listening to the nonsense that the Dark Lord spiked during the Death Eater meetings, Bella did not get to know that he was aware of the prophecy. According to Ra, it could apply to either Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom. A possible plan to attack the Potters or the Longbottoms never became a topic during the meetings either.
She was attending the Halloween feast at Hogwarts together with everyone else, when all of a sudden, she received a message that Team 5 was to come to Godric's Hallow.
She unobtrusively informed the headmaster, glad that he knew about her activities, and left the Great Hall. Unfortunately, by the time she arrived in front of the Potter house, it had been turned into a ruin.
There were no Aurors, no Death Eaters present, only her colleagues Ra and Raros, who had recently joined their team in the form of her cousin Regulus Black, who had defied the Dark Lord and consecutively feigned his own death. However, due to the Fidelius charm that had been placed on the house, neither of them was able to enter the place – except for herself.
"I'll go and have a look," Bella said, transformed into her Animagus form and carefully stepped through the rubble. Just when she made her way to the upper floor, Sirius arrived as well, and Bella quickly transformed back.
"Peter the traitor," Sirius blurted out in a sudden bout of rage. "Take Harry with you, I'll go and get Peter."
"Be careful and don't kill him," Bella replied, before she gently lifted her crying godson out of his crib.
"It's all right, Harry, we'll see what we can do about your head wound," she said in a soothing voice, before she reached into the crib and pulled Harry's favourite teddy out to take it with them. "We'll take Tapp with us," she informed Harry, who nodded and nestled deep into her robes.
Suddenly, she heard heavy footsteps come up the stairs; however, she did not wait but quickly popped away, right into the Unspeakable quarters.
HP
By the time she returned to Hogwarts with Harry on time for breakfast the following morning, the Unspeakables had already removed the Horcrux from his head and had already filed her guardianship over Harry with the Ministry of Magic.
Dumbledore immediately took Harry out of her arms, much to the boy's displeasure.
"Bellatrix, it is important that he will be raised by his relatives," the headmaster informed her. "Petunia Dursley is Lily Potter's sister, and she will be able…"
"No!" Bella roared. "Through his grandmother Dorea Potter, who was the sister of my grandfather Arcturus Black, I am related to him as well. Moreover, Lily and James made me his godfather along with Sirius. Anyway, magic has already accepted me as his guardian, and Harry has as well," she added, as she took the crying boy back into her arms, where he calmed down immediately.
"Sirius will never be able to fulfil any duties as godfather," Dumbledore replied in a grave voice. "He did not only give the Potters away to Voldemort, but he killed Peter Pettigrew and thirteen muggles."
"I don't believe you," Bella replied in an upset voice. "First of all, he was not the Potters' Secret Keeper, and considering that it was you who cast the Fidelius charm, you should be aware that Peter was their Secret Keeper. Secondly, we'll see what his trial is going to reveal."
"He won't have a trial," Dumbledore informed her. "He has already been sent to Azkaban."
Casting a glare at the headmaster that should make him happy that simple glares could not kill, she gently pressed Harry into Andromeda's arm.
"Harry, you know Aunt Drommie and Granny Minerva, right?" she asked, pointing to Minerva who was sitting next to her sister. "Please stay with them for a moment. I will be back soon," she cooed to the child, noticing contentedly that Harry immediately accepted Drommie's and Minerva's fussing.
"Arthur, will you please take over my classes this morning?" she then asked her lover and colleague. "My lesson plans are where they always are."
"Of course, Bella. Take your time," Arthur replied, gently.
"Thanks," Bella replied and with a last glare at the headmaster popped away, right from where she was.
tbc ?
Thanks to the few kind readers for reviewing the previous chapter. Please share your thoughts about this story with me.
