CHAPTER 28

Returning to the dungeons after leaving Severus's chambers, I begin to find myself desperately wanting to see my father. Mostly, I want to talk to him about Bellatrix and see what he thinks about her regrowing affection for me despite her indifference toward my death over the Christmas holiday.

My real hope is that Rodolphus, of all people, will be able to explain Bellatrix to me better, that he'll paint her in a positive light so I don't feel guilty about my desire to grow closer to her despite everything she's done to me. My father knew her before they became Death Eaters. He likely saw a side of her that Narcissa didn't, and that's what I want to know about. What was she like when we all lived in the cottage together? What was she like at Hogwarts?

I don't want Severus to know how strongly my desire to speak to Rodolphus on this matter burns in me because I know what he'll say about it and about my mother, and none of it is good. Although fine with his dislike of Bellatrix most of the time, I feel sentimental these days and want to learn everything I can about my parents before Voldemort kills me.

I also can't tell Bellatrix that I want to see Rodolphus, that I miss him, because she'll undoubtedly tell the Dark Lord, which will give him more ammunition to use against me and in turn make my trips to the manor that much more unbearable.

As I start planning what to pack for the upcoming Easter holiday, my mind wanders to last Easter and the fun I shared with Zoe. If she had lived, would we be sharing this Easter together as well? Would I have found a way to avoid my mother and instead spend my break with Zoe? Or would I have been forced to spend the holiday with Bellatrix?

The possibilities of what life might have been like had Zoe lived still sometimes haunt me. Zoe deserved better. I know that, and I'm sure she knew that, too, and probably reconsidered her choice to be with me as Voldemort tortured her. What would she say to me now if she knew that I broke into Azkaban to save my father, that I want to have a relationship with my mother, that I am shagging Severus Snape? She surely would dislike that last bit more than the rest, but would she understand why I'm doing it?

Upon entering the dungeons, it becomes clear that most of my friends are still eating in the Great Hall, so I begin packing my things for the holiday. A short time later, my bag packed and ready to go, there comes a slight tap on the open door, and in walks Julia. "Hi," I greet her. "Where's everyone else?"

"They went outside for a while," she says as she takes a seat on my bed.

"Why didn't you go with them?"

"I wanted to come find you and tell you that we—all of us—we'll be here to help you in any way we can. You don't have to be ashamed to need help sometimes," she says. Then she stands and pats my shoulder twice before leaving the dormitory.

Later, I walk with Julia and Christopher down to the Hogwarts Express. The Carrows appear to have been informed of my departure this time, which regrettably means I have to leave the slow way rather than Apparating out of the castle, probably to help me look like the other students so as not to raise any unwanted questions.

Whatever all of my friends talked about that led Julia to speak with me earlier still hangs heavily in the air as the three of us sit in the compartment on the Hogwarts Express. Do they often talk about me, worry about me, when I'm not around?

Both second-years seem like they're waiting for me to fall over, my body wracked with sobs as grief tears its way through me, and I don't understand why. It gives me the chills, and I wish they'd stop. Are they acting this way because I passed out? Or has something else recently triggered this concern? They don't need to worry after me like this, but I keep that to myself and let them wonder about whatever might be bothering me, choosing to stay quiet as we ride away from Hogwarts.

Neither of them tries again to tell me that "they're here for me" or whatever during the trip back to Platform 9, for which I am grateful. The only thing that captures their interests is what they plan to do during the break. It almost soothes me to hear how much fun they're going to have.

At some point I doze off, slouched far into the seat, my head resting on Julia's shoulder.

Christopher nudges my leg to wake me up when we reach the platform, and I slide my bag onto my back and disembark the train with them. "All right," I say, "I guess I'll see you all in a few days."

They both say goodbye, and I turn to see Narcissa standing not too far away. A genuine smile comes to my face when I see her, and she looks shocked for a brief moment before coming toward me, smiling back. "It's nice to see you outside of our normal circumstances, Charlotte," she says when she reaches me.

I link my arm through hers. "It really, really is," I say, resting my head against her while we make our way to the Ministry car.

"Are you all right?" she asks once we're inside the car, my arm still twined with hers.

I look up at her. "Yes, just . . . feeling sentimental. My last year at Hogwarts is coming to an end, and I don't know what will happen after. I'm just . . . I'm grateful for you, Aunt Cissy. That's all." Are her eyes misty?

She rubs the back of my hand a couple times and changes the subject, asking mostly about my classes and how those are going. She's particularly interested in how Charms is going with Flitwick, and I'm happy to report that it is going just as well as Transfiguration. This sense of normalcy makes me appreciate her even more. When we arrive at the manor, Narcissa links her arm through mine again, walks me down to Bellatrix's basement room, and knocks on the door. My mother sits in front of her fireplace when we enter her room. She smiles at the two of us. "Aurelia."

"Mum." I pull my arm out of Narcissa's. "Thank you."

My aunt squeezes my shoulder gently, nods to Bellatrix, and leaves the room.

"How have you been?" Bellatrix asks.

I shrug. "I'm fine. Are we planning on spending the holiday here, at the manor?"

A faint smile. "No, not unless that's what you want."

"I'd rather not," I admit. "When I'm here . . . something feels wrong. Like at any moment something bad might happen to me."

"Very well." With a wave of her wand, a bag flies toward her. "Then let's go, shall we?" My mother takes a few steps toward me and gingerly reaches toward me. A smile breaks across my face as I willingly take her arm, growing suddenly excited about this Easter holiday. "To the cottage?" I nod, and she Disapparates with me. It's cold when we arrive, but the chilly air is welcome, appreciated even. "Unfortunately," she says, "I have been commanded to take your wand from you for the duration of your holiday. The Dark Lord still does not trust you." With good reason, of course, which again makes me wonder why no one was at the platform to escort me to the manor.

"It's been a while since I've been here," I say quietly, putting my bags down and not handing over my wand just yet.

"Last time didn't end so well. This time, we'll make things much more enjoyable."

"I think I have an idea of how to make that happen."

"What's that?" she asks.

I grin at her. "You could make some of those tarts."

She places her hand on my back and leads me into the kitchen. Already, I'm beginning to feel that this break with my mother will be much better than the last time. Hopefully I won't get too attached, but if that happens, I almost think I won't even care that much. Maybe I need her right now. I boost myself onto the counter and watch as Bellatrix begins taking the ingredients out of the cabinets and placing them next to me. "Why don't you just use magic? Wouldn't it be easier?"

"It would, but in this one thing, I can be in complete control." I involuntarily raise my eyebrows at her. "Don't read too much into that."

"Trying not to." I wave my wand and summon a glass of water to myself. "Did you bring any Chocolate Frogs this time?"

"I am making strawberry tarts," is her falsely annoyed-sounding answer as she opens the container of sugar. "And you're not supposed to have your wand."

"I don't believe that's the answer to the question I asked," I say, reluctantly surrendering my wand, knowing that to put up a fight would be pointless now that she's had to tell me twice to hand it over.

She half-smiles at me. "Of course I did. But you're not allowed to have any right now."

I laugh quietly.

"I'm serious."

My laughter dies down. "Really?"

"I'm making strawberry tarts. You can have chocolate later."

"Fine," I sigh dramatically.

To fill the following silence, I reach over and dip my finger into the sugar. Bellatrix quickly moves the container out of my reach. Before she can stop me, I stick my finger into my mouth, then shrug at her frustrated gaze. "Eat something good for you, not raw sugar." She waves her wand, which summons a green apple into the kitchen and into her hand, and she gives it to me. "And don't let it spoil your appetite."

"First of all, lately nothing has been ruining my appetite. Second of all, are you really pulling the 'don't spoil your dinner' card? Because that's the ultimate mum thing to say. You trying to be a somewhat normal mum?"

"I'm trying to," she says softly.

Against my better judgment, I reach out and take her hand in mine. "And I appreciate it. Really, I do." She squeezes my hand. "So, what's for lunch, besides strawberry tarts?"

"Oh, these aren't for lunch."

"Excuse me?"

She smiles at my frustration. "No, these are to go with dinner."

"So not only are you keeping Chocolate Frogs and the sugar from me, but now you're also keeping the tarts from me? Are you trying to starve me? Madam Pomfrey said I needed to eat."

"Madam Pomfrey?" The strawberry tarts now set aside, Bellatrix watches me carefully, her eyes searching my face. "The matron nurse? Why've you gone to see her?"

"I'm pretty sure Amycus purposefully tried to harm me in his class the other day."

"Amycus did what?" she asks, her arms crossed.

"Fiendfyre. It almost got me. Apparently, Theodore Nott saved me just in time. It brought up some . . . memories, and I passed out, it's no big deal. It's fine. Severus is going to make him regret it, I'm sure. He wasn't pleased when he found out."

Her voice is filled with concerned when she asks, "You passed out?" I nod. "Are you ill?" She puts her hands on my cheeks as if checking for some kind of fever. "Are you sure you're all right?" I nod again, trying to smile in a reassuring way. She takes a short breath and whispers, "Aurelia . . . has the Dark Lord succeeded?"

"No."

She almost looks the slightest bit relieved, which is almost impossible to process because she should be happy at the idea of me being pregnant. "Well"—she seems to be scrambling for the words—"it looks like you get to be a child for a bit longer."

"If I'm a child," I say, taking her hands away from my face and keeping them in mine, "am I entitled to eat like one?"

She smiles, genuinely smiles. "Of course. Cosmo brought lunch to me before we left the manor. You can have as much as you want as soon as I finish preparing the tarts."

"I'll stop distracting you then, shall I?"

Bellatrix returns to the tarts, and I watch her in wonder as I down a sandwich and the apple she gave me. Why did she seem relieved about me not being pregnant? Maybe she wasn't lying to me the last time she saw me. She actually doesn't want me to die for that man—that monster. I'll definitely need to talk someone about this. I need help to understand why she's acting this way. Maybe I should talk to Narcissa? She currently knows Bellatrix better than anyone.

Bellatrix slides the tarts into the oven, and I ask, "Are you ever going to teach me how to make those?"

"I'll teach you at some point this week, how about that?"

"Sounds excellent. Not as great as finishing this sandwich right now sounds though."

A few hours later, after dinner has been eaten, Bellatrix and I sit in the clearing she showed me during our happy Christmas together. Her telescope is set up, and she is directing it to different stars for me to gaze upon. "So tell me," I say as she steps away from the eyepiece, "how did you and . . . and Rodolphus start dating? I've heard his side of the story, of course, but it was when he thought I was Charlotte Rodgers so he didn't really tell me much about it."

She takes a swig of her firewhiskey as I step up to look out at the cosmos. "I am not nearly drunk enough to begin talking about that."

"Then drink up, because I'd like to hear it."

She huffs but starts talking anyway. "We were the same year at Hogwarts. Met on the Hogwarts Express, actually. I knew of his family. We were friendly enough, I guess, but the only time we ever spoke was in class and sometimes in the common room. At least until our third year, when our respective circles of friends mixed and became a larger circle." I glance back over at her to see her sitting on the blanket on the ground, staring up at the night sky. "He always treated me as an equal. Always." Bellatrix gulps down some more firewhiskey. "It wasn't until my sixth year that I realized . . . your father is attractive, Aurelia. I had always sort of known that he was interested in me, but I never gave him much thought romantically until Cissy convinced me to." Her gaze meets mine. "I did love him."

"But not anymore, right?" She looks away. "It's the Dark Lord, isn't it?"

She ignores me and instead continues with, "We were immensely happy for the first few years of our marriage. We were wealthy, young, respectable, and in love. We could go anywhere, do anything, be whatever we wanted to be."

"And you chose instead to be Death Eaters?"

"Yes," she whispers. "And though our marriage began failing pretty quickly after—"

"Because the Dark Lord is your true—"

"Although our marriage began failing," she says, her voice purposefully drowning mine out, "we remained friends and great allies. Even managed to create you and try to fix everything between us."

"Then what happened? You two hardly speak now."

"Your death. Then Azkaban."

Something in her tone suggests that this conversation is over. "Well," I say, walking back over to her and offering her my hand, "I think it's about time for strawberry tarts, don't you?"

She takes my hand and allows me to help her stand; she's a bit unsteady. "I think you might be right. Come along, my love."

Bellatrix slides her arm through mine and Apparates us back to the kitchen where those beloved tarts are hiding. "How often do you make these things now?"

"Really only when you're around to eat them." An emotion I can't seem to put my finger on swells inside me. "But I made some extra if you want to take it to Rodolphus."

"What? I—I don't know—"

"Don't lie to my face. I know you've seen him. Probably see him regularly considering how well you and Snape get on. He lets you leave, doesn't he? Don't answer that, actually." I open my mouth to try denying it, but she cuts me off. "I can't prove it, of course, but I believe he's hidden somewhere at the Lestrange Estate." I frown at her. "He was once my best friend. I know how his mind works."

Perhaps she wasn't lying when she told me how they once were happy.

"Now eat up."

I do not have to be told twice, and the two of us eat our tarts in silence, savoring that flavor only given to me once every few months. Once we finish our treat, she Apparates us back to the clearing, then Conjures a small sofa for us. She sits down, looks up at me, and whispers, "Let me hold you, Aurelia." My heart clenches, and I sit down next to her and lean against her, her arms wrapping around me to hold me closer. My head on her shoulder, her head resting on my head, our feet on a newly Conjured table in front of us, we sit there in silence, looking up at the clear night sky, the stars twinkling down upon us. And this companionable silence lasts for a few minutes before I feel her sob quietly and tighten her arms around me. "You were dead," she whispers.

"I'm not now."

"But you were," she says, her voice weak and shaky, "and I spent fifteen years in Azkaban believing you'd been killed because your father and I are Death Eaters."

I cover her hand with mine, slightly regretting letting her drink so heavily earlier. "But I'm here now."

"And I'll lose you again." A sob breaks through her. "That's how I didn't completely lose my mind. I had no happiness left for the Dementors to feed on because you were dead. And now—I won't be able to—losing you again . . ." She takes an unsteady breath. "It is an honor, I know, to give your life for the Dark Lord, and it is an honor for me to give my child for the cause, but you will never see it as an honor, and I don't think I can live with that." She rubs my arm. "If I lost you and you believed in the cause and died willingly, it would be easier to live with."

"But I can't see it as an honor, Mum."

Another quiet, suppressed sob.

"And even though you think it'd make it easier to lose me, I think you and I both know that it wouldn't." I take a breath. "Because then I wouldn't be true to myself when I die. And is that more important? That I'm true to myself? You didn't get to raise me, I didn't get to grow up with you by my side, but you'll get to see me die as the person I have become, the person who will never truly serve the Dark Lord."

"I don't want to lose you again."

"And I don't want to die."

Silence descends as my mother tries to stop crying. Then I say, even though I know it is not the best time to broach this subject, "Why do you hate Severus so much?"

She tenses. "I know you respect him, Aurelia, but that respect is misguided. I do not trust him. He was with Dumbledore too long. He was never punished for being one of us. He spent fifteen years valiantly serving that old half-blood while the rest of us rotted in Azkaban."

"But Lucius was kept out of Azkaban as well."

"For other reasons," she says, "not because he was Dumbledore's lapdog."

"But Snape killed Dumbledore. Is that not proof enough that he serves only the Dark Lord?"

"Not for me. In the moments following Dumbledore's death, I believed I could have been wrong about him. But—he too easily—he's just—he's untrustworthy. He's done too may questionable things."

Another silence comes. "Would you like some more firewhiskey?" I ask her, moving away from her to grab the bottle from where it lies on the blanketed ground. I take this opportunity to adjust on the sofa so that I can lie on my back with my head in her lap. She smiles down at me and begins running her fingers through my hair as she drinks from the bottle.

"Would you like some?"

I shake my head. "I'm comfortable, and it's hard to drink lying down."

She takes another swig. "Fiendfyre," my mother says. "Why don't you tell me what happened with that when you were a child?"

Feeling a certain type of sadness at the loss of the man who tried to save me, I recount what happened in that house so many years ago. When I finish the story, she says, "Could you describe them for me? The men in the house?"

"The one who tried helping me was dark with light eyes. He was bald and stocky. The other one, the one who tried killing me, was older. Pale, a weather-worn face, gray hair."

A few moments pass while she processes the information. Then she says, "I can't think of anyone who would match those descriptions."

"I think he was talking about the Malfoys," I whisper. "I wish I could've figured it out when I was younger. I believe I would have hunted for them. Or let myself be captured if I knew they were taking me to a family. That one man promised me a mum."

"Cissy would have perhaps figured out the truth much faster. She would have been so very pleased to have you, to raise you. She mourned you too."

I take a breath. "Do you think Dad"—her fingers stop combing through my hair—". . . Rodolphus will ever get to meet a child of mine?"

Her fingers start through my hair again. "I can't know for sure, but I doubt it." Tears spring in my eyes despite the fact that I pretty much knew this already. "He turned his back on the Dark Lord, so he cannot be rewarded by meeting our grandchild."

Their grandchild.

Once again there is silence.

"If I have the Dark Lord's child"—she frowns at me but quickly recovers—"do you think he'll let me name him?"

She meets my eyes. "I am not sure."

"Because I'm assuming certain names will be forbidden. For instance, 'Rodolphus' would most definitely not be allowed. Why would someone 'loyal' to the Dark Lord name her child after someone who is not?" She tenses again but does remove her fingers from my hair. "Part of me wants to follow the Black family tradition and name him for a star." I watch her carefully. "But I won't be able to do that, will I?"

"As much as I would love –"

"After I'm dead, do you think the Death Eaters will be allowed to know who I truly am?" I wring my hands together, trying not to think too much about leaving my child motherless and at the mercy of Death Eaters. "I mean, I . . . I'd like to be remembered . . . for who I really am, not some lie I've been living for basically my whole life. Because that's who 'Charlotte Rodgers' is, yeah? A lie I've been living for years. I'm really Aurelia Celaeno Lestrange. Your daughter."

Bellatrix takes my hand in hers. "You want to be known as the daughter of Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange, the Death Eaters who drove the Longbottoms to insanity with the Cruciatus Curse?"

"Yes, I would. When I'm dead, I want to be known as the daughter of Bellatrix and Rodolphus, not Charlotte Rodgers the orphan who was used by the Dark Lord for convenience. I want people to know who I am, and I want my child to be named like the rest of the Black family."

"It will have to be the Dark Lord's decision," she says softly.

Which means I will die as a murderous orphan chosen for reasons that can never be known. Not even in death will I truly escape Lord Voldemort.