"Who are you?" Bellatrix eyed the tiny child with something close to trepidation. She knew that she wasn't always the most sane, but surely she wasn't reduced to hallucinating children. Especially children who looked like they could belong to her.

"Don't know," the child replied with a whimper.

"How did you get here?"

"Don't know," it repeated, its lip wobbling as its eyes filled with tears.

Deciding not to second guess herself, Bellatrix stood from the bed and moved over to the child. It felt real. Solid. She'd never had a solid hallucination before. "Nyx." she hissed. The child jumped when an elf appeared next to it, it's eyes blowing wide with fright. "Get my sister. Now."

The elf nodded once and disappeared.

"What was that?"

"A house elf,'' Bella dismissed, waiting somewhat patiently for Narcissa to arrive, her wand in hand just in case. She didn't think Dumbledore was sending toddlers to hex unsuspecting witches but it seemed just as likely as a solid hallucination if she was honest. Best not to take any chances. Stranger things had happened after all.

"Bella?" Narcissa checked warily, hovering at the doorway. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Bellatrix realised that her sister looked ill. Gaunt. Dark-eyed. She'd come absurdly quickly given that it was the middle of the night and she should have been asleep. And the tiny part of her that remained Bellatrix Black knew that something was absurdly wrong, that it wasn't ok for her sister to look like that.

"Can you see that?"

"Can I see what, Bella?" Narcissa checked in that same wary tone, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness.

"Lumos," Bella murmured, gesturing her head towards the child. "That."

"Is that…sweet Salazar Bella is that a child?"

"So you can see it? I wasn't sure if I'd made it up." Bella turned away from her sister with a hum, remembering that she should have cast detection wards to check the curly haired being staring back at her with her husband's eyes. Really, she should have done that first. What if it had been a distraction sent by Dumbledore? The man wasn't much saner than she was after all. Waving her wand, she chanted the spells her parents had drilled into them all. Her father would be horrified she'd been so lax. Thankfully, all of them came up blank, she didn't fancy her father resurrecting himself in order to crucio her for her mistake.

"Bella!" Narcissa hissed, "Focus! Where did she come from!"

"She? It's a girl?" Narcissa's face showed her disbelief.

"The child has pigtails and a pink nightdress on, yes Bella, I assume she's a girl."

"Ah, regardless, it doesn't know," Bella mused, spotting the warning look that flashed over her sister's face and deciding to heed it. " She doesn't know her name either." she paused, surveying the child that was quite clearly not a hallucination and didn't seem to be here to murder her. "She looks like she could be mine though, doesn't she?"

Narcissa froze before slowly approaching the clearly frightened child, kneeling down in front of her. "So she does," she murmured softly. "We can check, no?"

"Or I could keep her."

Narcissa blinked, "You wish to keep her?"

"She looks like me. And Dolph I suppose. His eyes."

"Yes but Bella…you can't just keep a child."

She shrugged in response, ignoring her sister's incredulous look, "Why not? Who's going to stop me?"

"Bella!"

"I think I'll call her Aquila." Bella nodded, reaching for the child, feeling awkward as she hoisted her into her arms. "Aquila Bellatrix Lestrange."

Narcissa stared at her, completely unsure what to make of this utter madness, before she conceded defeat. She had far more to worry about than her sister's strange decisions. After all, as strange decisions went this wasn't the worst one Bella had had.

"Of course, Bella, I'll arrange for Nyx to prepare a nursery."

"Thank you,'' Bella nodded, her eyes going back to the child. "Now. Mummy needs sleep, we'll introduce you to Daddy in the morning. You can stay here tonight."

Aquila nodded slowly with a look that indicated she wasn't entirely sure what to make of this new situation. "OK Mummy," she agreed finally.