A/N: Vanessa's POV, this chapter is dedicated to reader/reviewer sarahmichellegellarfan1. I hope you all enjoy this chapter! I'm making good progress on writing part three, btw. I've nearly finished the third book's material.

-C

We were having a typical dinner party, Jack talking with his friends, me attempting to charm the guests' wives. Narcissa and I grew closer and closer every time we met, and we were standing near where Jack's circle was, sipping wine.

"How are you taking it?" Narcissa said softly.

I arched an eyebrow.

"Taking what?"

Her eyes widened slightly. She really had thought I would know whatever it was.

"Sirius and his wife have had their child," she said softly. "Lucius said the Death Eaters were discussing it the other day."

I frowned.

That was the sort of thing Peter should have told me. I was just about to wonder why he hadn't said when Jack and Lucius moved closer to us and Jack repeated what Narcissa had announced.

"I've asked Peter about it," Jack said in a low voice. "He's been on an Order mission. He's only just returned. He didn't know until an hour before I learned."

I nodded, looking around the room.

It was strange to think of Amy married, even stranger to think of her pregnant, but I tried to imagine what her child with Sirius would look like and it seemed impossible.

"Boy or girl?" I asked lazily. I could no longer remember.

"Girl," Narcissa said, smiling a little. "I know it's a bit silly of me, especially because Sirius is no longer part of the family, but I'm pleased…. And the child is a pureblood, after all."

"She has attractive parents," Jack replied reasonably, looking at his wine instead of me. My stomach turned to hear him talk about Sirius and Amy like that. "No doubt she will have excellent options, when the time comes."

I knew better. Her parents would not put her up for suitors to consider, and if they had their way she'd be married to some Muggle, or worse, a half-breed.

"Andromeda gave Narcissa a picture," Lucius said stiffly, "on the condition that we keep it from Bellatrix, of course. She is already a charming child."

I wanted to throw something, not stand there, listening to my set talking about how adorable and charming Amy's child was.

"I brought it, actually," Narcissa said, glancing around. "Did Bella leave?"

"Yes," Jack said, smirking.

If I had a child, I wouldn't want Bellatrix knowing either, but at least my child wouldn't be related to her. Well, no more than any other pureblooded child. I wouldn't put it past Bellatrix to murder Amy and Sirius to raise and twist the child to her own purposes.

"They named her Aludra," Narcissa said, pulling a small photograph out of her purse and handing it to me. Jack looked over my shoulder.

The baby was grinning, hair not dark enough to be like Sirius's, eyes already the same shade of green as her mother. She was going to look just like Amy someday, and I already knew that Sirius was going to spoil her rotten and be harshly overprotective, just as he had been with Amy from the very beginning.

"If you have a son," Lucius said with a smirk, "they could marry."

I shivered slightly and Jack put his hand on my shoulder to remind me not to say anything rash.

We'd been trying to get me pregnant for some time, to no avail. But that was not what I was upset about. I didn't want my child to marry Amy McAuley's daughter. I didn't want Amy McAuley to have a daughter.

In spite of my own relative success, Amy still had everything I wanted without trying. Even with Sirius being disowned, he'd gotten an annuity from his uncle and rumor had it he had a small one in Mr. Potter's will as well. Sirius Black was still the most eligible bachelor in Wizarding Britain before marrying Amy, and was still the most eligible bachelor in Wizarding Britain before marrying Amy, and with Regulus dead he was set to inherit everything when his mother died, anyway. He was the last surviving male heir, and if he had a son with Amy….

The line would be sealed in their blood traitor family.

I raised my eyebrows when I realized what Lucius was suggesting.

If one of us had a son, Narcissa or myself, and the Blacks were killed before they could, Bellatrix could take possession of the girl, or Narcissa if we were careful about it, and she would marry into either the Malfoy or Avery line, bringing the Black fortune with her.

It wasn't my favorite sort of plan. It really wasn't much of a plan at all until one of us had a son, but either way I wasn't particularly fond of the idea of orphaning a child.

Even Amy's child.

Maybe especially Amy's child. In spite of how things ended with us, we had spent so many years as friends that it was hard to wish her dead.

"One thing at a time, Lucius," I said as passively as I could manage, pressing my wine to my lips as I handed the photo to Jack. He took it, looking at it more closely.

"Merlin," he snorted. "If you watch at the right time you can see her parents playing footsy in the background."

I felt sick to my stomach, but Lucius just laughed and Narcissa sighed.

"Well, you know Sirius," she said. "No sense of propriety. He probably thought Andromeda would find it amusing."

"She has nice feet," Jack said as though commenting on the weather.

Any affection I had gathered for my husband throughout our time being married to each other went out in that moment and for the rest of the night I couldn't have been bothered if someone had killed Amy Black.

I wanted to kill her myself, not with magic, but with my bare hands.

Jack and I said nothing about Aludra Black after the Malfoys had left for the night, but he knew I was upset with him. I wasn't sure if he'd done it on purpose to get that result or if he hadn't thought about my feelings.

Either way, I was barely resisting the urge to claw his eyes out.

I met with Peter two days later for tea in my greenhouse, my own private section of the garden where no one was allowed without my invitation. I put up the wards as soon as he sat down and the poured tea.

"Jack said you saw a picture of her," Peter squeaked.

"The child?" I sneered. "Oh, yes. She'll look like her mother, no doubt."

"Yes," Peter said thoughtfully, fidgeting while I mixed in his sugar and cream. "Remus and Sirius are already devoted to her."

I snorted as I passed him his tea and turned to pouring and preparing my own.

Of course, how could they not be, what with Remus still being a little bit in love with Amy? From what he'd confessed to Peter, if anything ever happened to Sirius, he'd forget his guilt quickly and try to step in and have Amy for himself.

I didn't understand it. Amy was attractive, of course, but she was not me. She wasn't even as pretty as Lily Evans – Potter, but at least Amy did have superior breeding.

Still, she was not what I would have qualified as attractive enough to have so many men obsessing over her, especially not Sirius Black. And now my husband was starting to think her attractive. I shivered as I thought of what Death Eaters did. He didn't tell me everything, but I knew that it hardened them, and that it wouldn't be too long before I would no longer know whether or not he was the sort of man who would rape Amy if he killed Sirius, or even if he would rape and then kill her, or rape her and torture her, or….

I suppressed a shudder and forced a smile at Peter.

"So Jack tells me you missed the birth," I said sympathetically.

"D'you think they were in the room?" he asked softly. "D'you think Remus saw…?"

I wanted to roll my eyes at how ridiculous he was, but I tried to be understanding instead, at least on the surface.

"I doubt Amy would have wanted them there," I said slowly. "And I honestly don't think that Sirius would have let Remus in the room while she was in labor, especially if he even suspects that Remus has a crush on her still."

Peter looked thoughtful, but I couldn't see why he cared about Remus being there for the labor, anyway. I'd been present when one of my cousin's was born, and it was not sexual. You can't even think of sex when the woman's screaming like she's going to die and her stomach is the size of a planet. And then there's the baby coming out….

It's just wrong.

"He doesn't let anyone be there when she's breast-feeding," Peter said, a bit petulantly. "Not even Lily. Amy says she doesn't mind, but…"

Of course she didn't mind. It was just breast-feeding. Not that I would ever do something so sordid (who knows what a child would do to my breasts?), but it didn't surprise me that Amy did it, and I knew that avant-garde people like her even sometimes did it in public.

Sirius would likely never let her display her breast in public for any reason, and if he could figure out a way that he could breast-feed their child in her place to keep from making it an issue, he no doubt would do it without even considering.

I stifled a giggle at the thought, but then my stomach turned and the tea tasted sour in my mouth.

Jack would never do a thing like that for me, even though I didn't want him to. It was silly, really because I had thought most of my life that I had outgrown all the silly expectations of love and romance, that I was ready for a proper wizarding marriage and would have no regrets as long as I married decently.

But I was lying to myself, apparently, because the thought that Amy was loved so deeply and I didn't know if I was even loved at all made me more jealous than I wanted to admit even to myself.

"Does the child complicate our plans for you?" I asked him, putting down my tea. I didn't want it anymore, anyway. There was only one thing that could satisfy me, and it seemed that if I wanted it done my way, now, I would need Peter to be at my command. "Do you still want revenge, or have you decided not to tamper with their precious little family?"

Peter raised his eyebrow in a way that told me he'd both been around purebloods too much and not enough.

"Of course I still want revenge," he squeaked. "You know, Sirius still hasn't let me hold the child."

I couldn't blame Sirius on that one. If I had a baby, I wouldn't want Peter Pettigrew touching it, either. I could just picture him dropping a baby.

"That's rude of him," I sighed. "Have you tried going round when he's not there?"

"He's always there," Peter lamented. "And when he's not, I'm with him. There hasn't been any sort of chance for me to be around her without him. Maybe someday, when he gets a mission I don't get assigned to, but until then…"

"Then we will figure out something," I said sharply, setting down my tea with purpose. "As long as we're agreed that this is what we need to do, then I think there's no point not planning for that day, when it comes, when we have an opportunity."

Peter frowned, scratching his chin.

"Will we hurt the child?"

"No," I said slowly, feeling a stab of panic when he said the words.

I could never hurt a child.

"Good," Peter said with a sigh of relief. "I don't think I could do that."

Maybe Aludra Black would be married to a pureblood one day after all.

I went to my room that night with a lot on my mind, and I found Jack going through my old albums, the ones I kept to remind me what life was like when I was at Hogwarts, just in case I ever got so deep into my current life that I forgot. I shivered at the intensity with which he looked at the pages.

"Get in bed," he said darkly.

"Jack," I said slowly, but he put down the album, swallowed, and gave me his most dangerous look.

"Get in bed," he ordered.

I peeled off my clothes and did as I was bid. I didn't know what was going through his head, but I knew better than to argue with that tone of voice.

"Did your father have brothers?" he asked, running his fingers along my legs.

"Yes," I whispered. "Two."

He was thinking of Lucius's offer, of marrying off our son to Aludra Black after killing her parents. I shivered, wondering who would raise the child. It wouldn't be me, that was certain. Because once she was no longer a child, I would want her dead, and I didn't trust myself raising someone and wanting them dead.

"Good," he muttered, pulling off his briefs, which were all he had left on. He was already hard.

I shivered.

Was it Amy's legs he'd been looking at in those photos, or mine?

I closed my eyes as he kissed me, not wanting to think about how he was forcing my legs apart, the way he was kneading my breasts…

Jack Avery was my husband. It didn't matter if I loved him, or if he loved me, or even if he wanted someone else. He had to get me pregnant if we were going to continue his line.

And that was, after all, what people married for, wasn't it?

I kept my eyes closed as Jack thrust into me.

There wasn't an ounce of tenderness in the way he touched me. He was determined. He wanted a son. I knew he would want one sooner or later, anyway. It was his job, as the heir to the Avery line, to produce a son. Sooner or later he would expect it of me, and we'd already sort of started trying.

What I hadn't expected was for the birth of Amy's daughter to inspire such intent in him.

The sex was clinical at best. I had long since given up on the idea that he would care very much about my pleasure, but this time it was hard for me to think of my own pleasure, either. There were moments of it where I was simply trying not to cry.

He fell asleep on top of me, not crushing me exactly, but making it difficult for me to cry without waking him, so I choked back my tears, desperately trying to compose myself.

He wouldn't care if he did catch me crying. He would tell me I was being foolish.

Was I being foolish? I knew what I was getting when I married Jack, just as I knew there were risks in dating Sirius to get to James. I never made a move without calculating the risks. Of course, I had hoped that Amy wouldn't side against me so easily, but perhaps I should have known better. I had always underestimated Amy, never paid her the attention she obviously deserved. She'd never really been a threat, it was just easier letting her antagonize Lily Evans so I didn't have to. And there had been a time when Amy and I had actually been friends.

I opened my eyes and glanced over at the pictures. Were they pictures of me? Were they pictures of my friends? Why did it matter if my husband thought she was pretty? She was married to someone else, and I was married to Jack. It wasn't as if Jack and I had ever been in love, anyway.

But what if he fell in love with someone else?

I knew there was a possibility of such a thing. I knew how many pureblooded men had mistresses, lovers, even prostitutes they saw regularly. To expect him to be faithful to me would be naïve at best, foolish at worst. I did not want to be either of those things. I needed to prepare myself for the expectation that he would know at least one other woman in our time together, and as long as he was discrete about it and did not make a fool of me, I would be understanding, accommodating even, no matter how I actually felt about the matter. He could not expect me to give up my pride because he had urges, and I could not expect him to give up his urges for my pride.

I closed my eyes again, wondering if he would take a mistress so soon into our marriage. Perhaps when I got pregnant, it wouldn't bother me so much. Purebloods were often difficult about having sex while the woman is pregnant. Even though modern Healers said it was perfectly safe if precautions were taken, the stigma was still there. That was when most affairs happened, in cases where the wife wasn't hideous to start with. And I knew I wasn't hideous.

If he could stay faithful until I got pregnant, I wouldn't mind so much. I repeated it in my head like a mantra.

But then I opened my eyes again, glancing at the album and I realized that if he waited and then went off and found a way to have sex with Amy McAuley (Black, whatever her name was), I would never forgive him. It wasn't because she was my friend. I didn't have friends anymore.

No, it was the fact that he knew how much I despised her, how much I admittedly envied her, and it was a blow to my self-esteem that he would not only compliment her in front of me but allude to the fact that he might sleep with her.

I would never forgive him.