Walburga Black gave the midwife a suspicious look, but swallowed the potion. The woman said she was pure-blood, though Walburga doubted it. It had been hard enough to find a midwife who did not admit to being half-blood, or even Muggleborn - as if such people knew the first thing about Wizarding medicine.
She closed her eyes as the potion took effect on her exhausted body. The aches in her belly, between her legs, and in her swollen breasts eased, and she sighed with relief. By tomorrow, she would be back to normal. Tomorrow, there would be another potion which would permanently close down the operations of her womb. After that, she would no longer be subject to the more distasteful and undignified aspects of womanhood.
Walburga had done her duty, providing "an heir and a spare", as the expression went, for the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Her husband had kept to her bed for the agonisingly long time it had taken for her to conceive seven times, and birth two healthy male infants, though Orion Black had taken no joy in the task. Walburga had not minded the act of making heirs - the husband her parents had selected for her was a handsome man who treated her gently - but she knew he found little pleasure in the beds of women. Still, so long as he was discreet about his perversions, she could ignore them.
"Are you well, Mrs Black?" the midwife asked.
Walburga opened her eyes. "Tolerable. Let me see him. And then you may send the house-elf to summon Mr Black."
The girl sitting silently in the corner of the master bedroom uncurled from the armchair. Eyes downcast, she handed the bundle in her arms to Walburga. Walburga looked the girl over disdainfully. The disgraced daughter of a lesser house, she had barely sat her OWLs before some half-blood had fathered a child on her. Her parents had not permitted her to keep it. She would do well enough for a wet-nurse, Walburga supposed. They would find a more suitable nanny once the boy was weaned.
As she beheld the red face of her newborn son, a smile bloomed on Walburga's lips. Exhausted from the effort of birth, the baby slept. A shock of black hair stood up on the crown of his small head. She thought that he looked a bit like her.
With a soft tap at the door, her husband entered, carrying seventeen-month-old Sirius. The midwife and wet-nurse slipped quietly out into the hallway to give the family some privacy.
"Mu-ther," said the toddler, holding out his arms to her.
"Come see him," she said. "Come see your brother."
Orion deposited Sirius on the bed, and he crawled over, face screwed up in the frown he often wore when he was trying very hard to understand something. He reached out tentatively to touch the baby's tiny fingers, then looked up at his mother.
"See-wee-us bwuvver?" he asked, black-fringed grey eyes round. His father's eyes.
"His name is Regulus," said Orion. "Can you say that, Son?"
Sirius looked at the baby again. "Regs-us," he said. "Bwuvver."
A fierce glow of pride welled up in Walburga's chest. Her sons were perfect and beautiful - everything the heirs of an ancient pure-blood house should be. One day, they would be great men - leaders among wizards - a credit to their name. Until then, she would do everything in her power to give them the life and upbringing to which they were entitled by right of blood.