It is 1901, and Hesper Black holds her son in her arms, swaddled in white to offset his ruddy red cheeks. He is an hour old, his eyes still closed, but his fingers curl around her pinkie like he is trying to hold a wand.
"A powerful wizard," she murmurs to herself, half-hope, half-premonition. Children of the Black family are rarely anything but. Hesper has worked hard for this moment, or her family has. She is seventeen years and ten months old, and she is tired of her life already. But her little boy is smiling, she thinks, and though her husband appeared in her room only to congratulate her on managing to have a son — not like his brother's wife, who had three triplet daughters last year, all of them useless, and apparently has no interest in any more children for the next five years — she is proud of herself. This is what she was born for, after all. She has succeeded. Perhaps now she can rest.
She cannot, of course. Little Arcturus — the name was her husband's choice — wakes up almost as soon as she sleeps, and though the wetnurse takes responsibility, Hesper frets for an hour afterward, wondering if he is well, if she did something wrong. The first few months are all worrying and wondering, hoping he will show signs of his magic even though such things are rare below the age of five.
As soon as the physician says it is safe, she and her husband return to the work of creating children. He does most of it; she lies there and pretends to enjoy it, as he seeks to create another life and she feels that she is losing hers. She is barely eighteen, but two years having since left the school run by the man who is now her father-in-law. She sees the wizards she shared classes with at Hogwarts graduating, finding lucrative careers with the grades they were allowed to pursue. She sees some witches, but not many, mostly the Muggleborns, trying to do the same. But of course the Muggleborns, who have the least societal expectation to marry, are the ones who society will work hardest to prevent from having any such freedom or lucrative careers as the purebloods they studied with, even the purebloods they surpassed.
The only free people, Hesper thinks, are rich pureblood wizards. What a good thing for her son, that he is all three. Perhaps one day he might put that status to better use than his ancestors; perhaps if she can keep his Uncle Phineas, increasingly on the outs, within their circle, Arcturus might learn to listen to a woman, where none of the other men of the family will.
Lycoris is her daughter, unwanted by the father, born three years after Arcturus. Hesper is twenty by then. It is easier, but the aftermath makes her weep. Her husband only ever wanted sons. "Oh well," he says when he hears the news, "perhaps we can marry her to a Rosier — they're doing well these days, you know."
Hesper holds Lycoris close and whispers, "Darling girl, I will not let you go."
Her son, the third child, is born two years after that. Another boy, at last. Her husband is satisfied as he pronounces him Regulus, and has the heir, Arcturus, learn how to spell the name beside his own.
Hesper can rest, at last.