Chapter 8: Twa Corbies
(Bellatrix)
"We have a meeting tonight. You will be attending. But first we will be having a conversation," said Voldemort from across the breakfast table. Bellatrix kept on stirring brown sugar into her oatmeal without meeting his eyes. "Bella. Look at me," he said with a bit more force this time. She looked first at her right wrist, where that ominous blue line was starting to fade away, and then up at Voldemort.
"Finish your breakfast and then meet me in the statue garden," he said and then excused himself from the table without another word or even glance back in her direction...but Bellatrix didn't like the sound of his tone at all.
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(Voldemort)
While Bella was stirring her hot cereal around, Voldemort was pacing his study. Bellatrix was having his-their-child. Bellatrix was having his child. The more he said it over and over in his mind, the more unbelievable it sounded. But Bellatrix was also full of his magical power at the moment and he needed to find a way to get it back without killing her...at least not until the most powerful child to ever be conceived was safely out of her body.
No, until then, he needed to make sure she was comfortable.
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(Bellatrix)
The air was brisk around the grounds outside Slytherin Manor-autumn was definitely on the way-but for now the sun still shone brightly over everything, the roses were in full bloom around the statue garden and Salazar Slytherin's grave was coated so thickly in ivy that it looked like it had a sweater on.
"What happened last night?" asked Voldemort. He looked genuinely confused. Bellatrix swallowed nervously and took his hand in hers. He didn't pull away-this gave her courage.
"I...was worried."
"About?"
"I thought you would want me to get rid of the baby. I thought I wouldn't get a choice about it...and then I thought maybe I didn't want it after all…" Bellatrix looked down at the grass so she wouldn't have to look at Voldemort. It was still lush and green as she crushed it beneath the heels of her lace-up black boots. She felt Voldemort's hand twitch in her own, but he didn't seem angry.
"Go on."
"About?"
"There's more to this," he said in the same soft voice he used to taunt people before he killed them. Voldemort sat down on a the stone bench next to a statue of Merlin and a pillar with a large green crystal nestled on top of it. Bellatrix sat down on his other side, gathering the hems of her dress around her. She began watching the earthworm wriggling out of the earth in front of her, deciding whether or not she should stomp it flat.
"I just feel like if I was supposed to be a mother, it would have happened already," she began hesitantly, feeling Voldemort's eyes boring red and hot into the side of her face. "And besides, since it hasn't happened for me yet, I don't know that I want it to." Of course Bellatrix had thought of motherhood before-how could she not have, after both of her sisters went on to have children? She never knew Andromeda's daughter, and may have even been the one to kill her at the battle of Hogwarts, but for all she heard, Andromeda loved being a mother-and had even taken in her orphaned grandson to raise as her own. As for Narcissa, well she'd been so excited about Draco...even now, 18 years later, her son was still her whole world. But in that regard, Bellatrix had never felt like she was missing out on anything. Others did, of course, but with the first wizarding war starting up right around the time she was graduating from school and then being in azkaban for fourteen years, well there'd always been too many other things on her mind. And Voldemort...she loved him with an intensity that even she didn't understand, but the idea of Voldemort as a father was laughable...though she had to phrase that bit carefully. He didn't do well with hearing he might not be good at something.
"...and you, with the way that you...because you were...you didn't have...well, maybe you weren't supposed to be a parent, either…"
"Because I was raised in an orphanage? Because I didn't have parents? Is that what you truly think, Bellatrix?" She could feel ice radiating off of him as he stiffened beside her. The earthworm wriggled closer to the pointed toe of Bellatrix's left boot, closer to it's death.
"I don't know what I think."
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(Voldemort)
Voldemort sighed. Bellatrix stiffened like she was afraid he was going to punish her, and for a brief moment, he wanted to, but then something inside him changed. He lifted his left arm a little stiff and awkwardly and put it around Bella's shoulders. She shivered as if a small course of lightning had suddenly passed through her. What did it feel like to be her, he always wondered-to feel everything with such desperate intensity.
"My Lord-I'm sorry, I overstepped, I...please don't be angry with me," she whispered and he saw her eyes, so full of fire and earth and memories every time she looked at him.
"I'm not," said Voldemort and just as suddenly as if a veil were lifted, he felt Bellatrix lift the shroud around her mind and let her thoughts tumble into his own:I love you. I've always loved you. Even if that doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to me...it doesn't have to. Sometimes I think about you growing up feeling so unwanted and it makes me overwhelmingly sad...but you are a great wizard. And I am a great witch. We can do anything together, I know we can, but what if we are, neither of us, equipped for this particular thing? Memories of a young Bellatrix tossing away the baby dolls her sisters played with in favor of wands and swords and broomsticks, mingling with his own-of a young Voldemort who still shared the name of a weak nothing of a father who wanted nothing to do with him, isolated from other children his own age, reading all he can by the light of a moon who has become his greatest, truest friend.
"Do you want to keep the baby, Bella?" he asked. He felt her stiffen in surprise again.
"Is this a trick question?"
"Of course not. It's your body. It's your choice. But I would like to hear your thoughts...verbally. Not just in your mind." She was silent for a long while before she drew a slow breath and spoke.
"I think...I think that we are going to do so much good by this child, my Lord. I know we will...say what you will about love and about me, but I know you already care for this one and that is everything to me...And maybe I don't have to see a traditional mother to be an acceptable one...after all, this isn't just any traditional child. It's ours. Ours," she repeated, letting her lips linger over the word a little longer than she needed to.
"The heir to the darkness," said Voldemort. And then, without warning, Bellatrix grabbed his hand and clasped it over her lower abdomen, where, there was no mistaking it, Voldemort felt a movement like a spider over cold flesh.
"Is it supposed to do that?" he asked.
"Hell if I know. It can't be more than a couple of months old, but it's already so strong…"she trailed off.
His eyes followed hers to the ground, where an earthworm passed over her own foot and slithered back into the dirt.
"Not his time," she whispered and for the first time that day, she caught his eye and smiled.
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(Bellatrix)
"You're early, darling. Is everything alright?" Narcissa held open the front door to Malfoy Manor to allow Voldemort and Bellatrix passage inside.
"Yes, don't worry, the Dark Lord had a few things to put into place before the meeting and as for me, I wanted to talk to you…" Narcissa nodded, but still looked concerned as she took Bella by the arm and led her into her lavender sitting room.
"The Death Eaters have already taken up their drinking places in the main part of the house and I didn't want us to be overheard," she said.
"You're looking better," said Bellatrix as she hastened a glance over her little sister's appearance. Narcissa's long blonde hair was styled into a fancy updo and the pastel green dress she was wearing was a lot less modest than the style she normally went for. Her cheeks were tinged with healthy pink and her eyes sparkled like frosty blue stars such that she looked about ten years younger than she had when they'd last seen each other.
"I have been feeling a lot more like myself lately, funny you should ask...but this is about you. What did you want to talk to me about?"
"I...I wanted to say that...oh for merlin's sake I've got to just be out with it-Cissy, the Dark Lord and I are..expecting…" said Bellatrix, stammering to get the thought out.
"Expecting...expecting a child?!"
"No, we're expecting an unseasonably warm winter and-oh of course a child, I took the test and had the blue line and everything just like you did with Draco."
For a few minutes, neither sister spoke. Bellatrix knew Narcissa was inspecting her for signs of negative emotion. Fuck that, she thought.
"This is a good thing, you know," she said, only a little scathingly. Narcissa wrapped her fingers around a stray piece of hair and played nervously with it.
"Oh! Well of course, it's wonderful, it's just that-"
"You thought I wouldn't be pleased because I'm, well, me, is that it?"
"No, more so because Voldemort is Voldemort ."
On another day, Bellatrix might have confessed to her little sister her fears about everything. How she was worried she and Voldemort couldn't do this, or worse, that it would ruin them to do it. How she was terrified of losing herself to pregnancy and diapers and bedtime stories and toy wands, as her own identity slowly dissolved to be second entirely to that of her child. She was Bellatrix Black, the female warrior, queen of the Death Eaters, sexy and wild and free...and she hoped with ferocity that any innate mothering instinct she possessed would never be strong enough to override any of those qualities she valued in herself.
Then it occurred to her that never before had she heard Narcissa use the Dark Lord's name out loud and Bellatrix had the most distinct feeling that she was not alone in concealing things at the moment.
"Come on, dearest. It's time for the Death Eater meeting."
~As I was walking all alone,
I heard two ravens cry and moan;
One said to the other did say,
"Where shall we go and dine today?"
"Up behind that old high dyke,
I know there lies a murdered knight...
...You will sit on his white thigh,
And I'll peck out his bonny blue eye;
And with a lock of his golden hair
We'll fix our nest when it grows bare~