and he courted her with diamonds and rings, but the other she loved above all things;

[scinlac]

The pregnancy itself had been a concern, but she couldn't quite avoid all limitations there – magic could only do so much. However, she had had very little patience with the idea that she would give birth naturally, only drawing out her body's recovery process, and likely not ever (or not quickly enough to satisfy her) return to her current peak. And so, she had opted to be present only in the barest of senses for the birth itself, and she had been assured that she would wake up as if she hadn't been pregnant at all.

Well.

She had still just undergone intensive magisurgery, so instead of waking up from something like a restful nap, she's not... really waking up much at all.

Fighting to open her eyes just a little, she spots a beetroot hovering above her. Red, wrinkly, very much a beetroot. It's noisy. She thinks it's mad at her. She can't quite tell what it shouts, but one of the words sounds a lot like 'whore', which seems pretty rich coming from a floating root vegetable. Two white, puffy things wander into her field of vision, determined to keep the beetroot away. "Your wife is just waking up," says one of the fluffy things. "This might not be the time –"

The beetroot screams, and he sounds rather a lot like her husband, now. "Cheating whore," is what the problem is. "The bastard is blond," apparently.

By the time she has come around fully, she has been introduced to her own child, and he is tiny and blond and... She feels an unexpected kind of happiness at the sight of him. So there's some mutually confused staring, and the vague idea that she needs to make sure that even if she fucked herself over here, it might be best if she can somehow help her kid out. "There is someone I need to contact," she tells one of the healers, who seems to agree. This, she reckons, will make headlines everywhere.

Her message to Lucius is simple. "He is platinum blond."

Comments

[malificence]

It was always a possibility in the back of his mind, throughout the entire nine months. It was a thought that came to him most especially during the moments where Bella was quietly huddled against him in his study because, well, living in Lestrange Manor is hardly the most relaxing of propositions even if one is at full power.

Rodolphus has arrived again when Lucius does, and is about to curse one of the healers to let him back into Bella's room in St. Mungo's maternity ward when something mysterious slams him against the wall. Lucius doesn't bother addressing his cousin, and the healer just waves him inside and shuts the door behind him.

"Well," he says into the silence, "if your husband doesn't get his temper in check, Our Lord may even have words for him about it."

[scinlac]

"Ah, I suspect He will leave this up for me to settle in private. Dolph wants a divorce." She can't blame him, not really, not with the relief she had felt when she had been told that the baby wasn't his at all. Her newborn son is quiet, apparently oblivious to all the drama his hair has caused, and he is holding onto one of his mother's fingers.

She hadn't thought his hands would be so tiny.

She clears her throat, and tries to assemble her features back into an expression that isn't... soft. "I suppose this shouldn't have come as a shock."

[malificence]

He's mostly seen babies when they're a couple months along. That's the stage where the parents have found some poorer pure witch to be the nanny, and when the mother has recovered enough to be relaced and repainted and will allow herself to be in the presence of the people who might whisper about cracks in the appearance. Bella is still pale, and she's not entirely her usual haughty self. She watches her son - their son, apparently - with confusion, as if she expected to want to throw him across the room.

She probably did expect that, he thinks as he steps close to the bed. She was hardly happy about being pregnant.

"I suppose we risked in on, ah, several occasions," he says as he leans over. He almost laughs as the baby pins him with a glare that's all Bella. His eyes are even blue, though he understands that might change.

[scinlac]

She recalls being in St. Mungo's when her youngest sister was born, just as distinctly as she recalls seeing the newborn baby and thinking to herself that it sure seems to be a lot of drama over something so noisy and overall non-interactive. A kitten, she had so wisely decided, would have been better.

So imagine her surprise now that she wouldn't trade this one for a cat.

Gently, she readjusts her hold on him, so Lucius can get a bit of a better look from her bedside. "I haven't named him yet." A pause. And a deep breath. "Are you going to acknowledge him as yours?"

[malificence]

He pauses a beat, but it's not uncertainty. It's surprise, even though he shouldn't be surprised by the question. It would be easy for him to say no and leave her dangling in the wind. But he has no desire to be that man. "Of course I am," he says. "And you both must come to Malfoy Manor, if Rodolphus is insisting upon a divorce."

The tone in his voice is very much aware that he thinks Rodolphus is an idiot, but that if he's going to let go of a woman who was always intellectually above him, he can go right ahead.

"I daresay we should keep your family naming convention in mind," he says. "But I draw the line at naming him after your father."

[scinlac]

"I would not fight him on the divorce. He is rather unfit to be around a child as it stands." Which is a fact they have tiptoed around for most of their affair, really, but she, too has met Desiderata Malfoy once upon a time. Neither of them has any delusions when it comes to the way the Lestranges treat one another.

Still, she exhales, and some of the tension leaves her. "Thank you." Words she all too rarely uses, but now, her relief is nearly tangible. "I wouldn't be opposed to naming him after yours, if you prefer. I daresay I would rather not name him after any of the men in my family."

Then, after a pause. "Would you like to hold him?"

[malificence]

The tension relaxes a little. It's not much, because they've managed to sidestep weighty moments, the two of them, and this one can't be sidestepped. Lucius sinks into the seat next to her and takes the baby. He holds him in a way that might make one believe he's afraid of breaking the baby, and that wouldn't entirely untrue.

"We tend to name our sons after emperors," Lucius says dryly as he reaches out to brush his fingers against his son's head. "Except my father, who managed to get himself named after Merlin's owl. I assume my grandmother was still under the influence of the potions when she picked that."

[scinlac]

There is just a bit of fuzzing from the baby, but altogether, he seems to prefer the presence of his father over that of Rodolphus, as far as he is capable of the sentiments. At any rate, he's – "Oh, careful, he is going for the hair."

He might be small, but he already has quite the grip to him.

"Would you like for him to keep your name as a middle name?" Merlin, this is odd. During her pregnancy, they had slipped into casual affection now and again, but she wasn't pregnant anymore and all of this is... just... a lot. And it doesn't help that her heart is feeling very, well, good, about seeing him hold their son.

[malificence]

Lucius winces a little, and then brushes his hair behind his shoulders and out of reach. "He's got a vicious streak," and this is something only they could be proud of, of course. "I'd like that," he says after a moment. "There's something a little too much about reusing the same names over and over."

Couldn't possibly be referring to Rodolphus and Rodolphinus by any means here.

"Caelum isn't a bad first name," he says out loud. "Caelum Lucius?"

[scinlac]

Her smile is just about the softest he has ever seen, safe for perhaps when she is in the depth of some dream or other. A little vicious child, who would have thought she could be so proud of someone who can't even say his own name yet?

"Caelum Lucius. Cael, for short." She sinks deeper into her pillows. "Yes, I think that would be perfect."

It does strike her as peaceful as this moment is, there is a lot to do. "They are going to keep me here tonight, but I should be back on top of my game tomorrow. By then, this will already have turned into a proper scandal."

[malificence]

He turns his head to watch her, and if one of the mediwitches poked their heads in at this moment, they'd be convinced of a true romance instead of merely a physical affair. All the healers and mediwitches are well occupied with dealing with a Lestrange in the hall, however, and no one sees the brief look. "Rumors are starting to swirl already," he says out loud. "I know you're not one for the early hours, but it might be best if we go to the Manor around dawn."

Of course, the reason Bella's not one for early hours is that she's barely slept by that point, but he suspects he can entice her with silk sheets and his cat. That thought makes him pause. "Would you like me to retrieve your Gremlin today?"

[scinlac]

She finally finds her wand on the nightstand and waves it in the direction of the door, muting the noise outside. "It will be best not to linger here any longer than necessary. I will require a mediwitch to keep track of Cael– as I understand it, a lot could... could go wrong, in the early days. But I still have access to my gold."

So special treatment won't be an issue.

Then, her eyes widen. "The sooner the better. Gremlin is bright enough to stay out of Dolph's path for now, but..." Her lips twist in displeasure. "He has never been fond."

Her body feels unusually heavy, this day has been a special kind of tiring. "We need a cradle and something to dress him in." Among a now nearly endless list of other things. She's gone from prepared to kicked out of her house in the last few hours.

[malificence]

"I'll bring him to the manor this afternoon," Lucius says, watching Cael as he starts to drift - just as his mother is. Soon, he'll need to call a mediwitch to take him, but for now, he holds his son while he contemplates the list of things a baby will need. A cradle, clothes, a changing table, bottles - what else? He has no idea.

He's going to need to send an owl to her sister, or ask one of the mediwitches here to give him a list.

"He can sleep in the same cradle my father and I did," he says out loud. "I'll set the elves on setting up the nursery again. There will be enough room there for a nanny. And I'll bring something to bring him home in, in the morning." Soon, Lucius is going to discover a whole world of whimsically printed wizarding baby world, and his head might explode before he acquires something in a manly shade printed with elephants or some such.

[scinlac]

"I think he would like that." The family cradle, that is. Dimply, she recalls seeing a picture of a small Lucius pushing himself up in it – Desiderata must have shown it to her, when she was still a child herself. She reaches out to Lucius – and Cael, by extension. "Can I hold him?"

There are more things to consider, but top priority definitely is to get him to his new home safe and warm. "We won't be able to apparate with him, sidealong could injure him. So could travelling via floo powder." Rodolphus was going to command a ministry vehicle, but Rodolphus is likely still raging outside, and she doubts he would cooperate. She's exhausted, she is... relieved, and in some odd way, she is happy at how this is starting to turn out. "Thank you. For being there for me. Us."

[malificence]

"Of course," Lucius says as he hands Cael back to his mother. It's not long before Bella's drifting off herself, and Lucius calls a mediwitch to take away the baby - and give him a vague idea of what he needs to have in place for a baby moving into the Manor. He slips out soon after. Rodolphus is gone by then but not, it seems, to go back to his own house, where Lucius makes quick work of rescuing Bella's tiny ball of white fluff before going on a shopping excursion of exhausting proportions.

When Bella receives an owl that evening, it's almost as brief as a mission report: Gremlin is at Malfoy Manor. Nursery is ready. I'll be at St. Mungo's with a vehicle and fresh clothes at six a.m.

[scinlac]

Why go back to his own home, Rodolphus must have thought, when he could show up at that of his soon-to-be former in-laws, to break the news of their eldest daughter's infidelity? Bella sleeps through the first wave of insanity, but wakes to more than one owl – so her first response is not to Lucius', the only message that had her feeling well, and instead, to one from her mother, to assure her that the child is both pure and acknowledged.

Even if she can't deny the future divorce.

After another check-up on Caelum, she requests some sleeping draught, and wakes at five sharp. The miracles of magic are what have her walking, taking a hot shower, and dressing in the simple, yet elegant black dress she had thankfully packed for herself, even as Cael must endure a little more hospital fashion. Both of them are ready when six strikes and Lucius arrives.

In fact, he might be walking in on a very distracted Bella, speaking in gentle French to her son – she knows it's a bit pointless, Cael is hardly capable of understanding yet, but there's something comforting in telling him that his father is about to arrive to pick them up and take them to their new home. Plus, it makes him laugh, which kind of gives her the same feeling of joy Gremlin does when he purrs.

[malificence]

Caelum is laughing when Lucius steps in the room; it's far too early for Bella's soon-to-be ex-husband to be out of his drunken stupor. Lucius, meanwhile, is as elegant as ever in head-to-toe black and his hair queued back. He looks tired, which will be a frequent expression for the next several years. They don't know that yet.

"I found something green," he says as he steps inside and shuts the door. He pulls a green and silver striped bodysuit out, suitable for a newborn future Slytherin going home for the first time. "It seemed suitable."

[scinlac]

With any other of her fellow Death Eaters, her reputation would be utterly ruined, but... she trusts Lucius to keep her expression at the sight of the bodysuit to himself. Or the gentle, affectionate way with which she navigates Caelum into it.

Soon, he is dressed in his very first Slytherin finest. "Cissa sent some... aid, last night," she says as she shows him a carrier basket. The cushioning has a print with small brooms on it.

There's a pause as she straps her boy in. "You didn't get a lot of sleep, did you?"

[malificence]

Honestly, they would both lose their reputations - from the gentle way she dresses Cael to the fond way Lucius looks at them to the admiring look at the carrier basket. These do not look like deadly warriors for a purer Britain but besotted parents, after all. Of course, they can be both.

"There was a lot to do before I slept," he says. "I also liberated your wardrobe while Rodolphus was off ranting." Likely at her parents. Of course, then Rodolphus was well aware who the father was. Their were wards to strengthen - and maybe one harmless little painful hex. oI did not quite imagine babies needed so many things."

He says this last as he offers her his arm and they step into the corridor. The hospital is never deserted, but its quiet at this hour. "Word will soon spread, I expect."

[scinlac]

"I spent months getting everything ready, only for, well..." She runs her hand through Cael's soft, platinum blond baby fuzz.

She does take his arm, holding onto Cael's basket with the other, and takes a bit of a deep breath as they walk down the hospital corridors, making it more and more official with every step. Someone is bound to snap a picture, someone is bound to see and go on whispering. With a sideglance at Lucius, she can't help but think that she won't mind those whispers.

"Mother has sent me a tear-stained letter already. Dose Abraxas already know?"

[malificence]

Lucius glances over at her, and his smile is a bit tight and a bit crooked. "He is disappointed in me," he says. The words are mild, but Abraxas Malfoy was the living nightmare of a Minister for Magic for years on end, so it's safe to say that Lucius isn't saying everything here. "But eager to meet his grandson. He's been pestering me since Hogwarts. He's still in Norway, of course."

Meaning, he thinks, that there will be one less visitor who knows his way around the wards, and he figures that can't be a bad thing in these early days. He takes the basket from Bella so she can enter the vehicle he's acquired somewhere, and hands their son back before getting in himself. "I imagine Rodolphus would be a father like his own," he says after they begin to move. "I shall try to be better."

[scinlac]

"I am sorry. I do understand that this is... not how you envisioned your forays into fatherhood." And she does. She suspects he intended to marry, for one, perhaps her younger sister as her own mother had envisioned. A respectable marriage, a son in due time.

His words do make her smile, and she leans back against the headrest. "There are no words for my relief, unfair as it is to you. Caelum will have a better life than he ever could have had with Rodolphus in the picture." In fact, he is making grabbing motions towards Lucius as she speaks. "I... had half-hoped, for this outcome."

During their affair.

[malificence]

He knows that there would probably be no relief if he were more like his cousin in a few ways - perhaps not in personality, but in likely action, at least. If Rodolphus had an affair with, say, Echo Greengrass, and that resulted in pregnancy, Echo would be flat out of luck. Her family would disappear her somewhere distant. A dank little house in Wales, perhaps, or all the way to Canada. Rodolphus would never acknowledge the boy.

But Lucius isn't his cousin; his mother would likely rise from her grave to smite him for anything that smacked of Lestrange men.

"I don't regret it, not really," he tells her as he offers Cael his finger to clutch. Perhaps the way in which it occurred. Perhaps he's considered, now and again, what might be if Bella hadn't been married off just after Hogwarts. "And my father will forgive my sins at the sight of the family hair, I expect."

[scinlac]

"I shall apologise to him as well. It will be in Caelum's best interest not to have any bad blood between his grandfather and myself." Ironically, their thoughts are quite intertwined, as she looks over at Lucius letting his son clutch his index finger. What would this be like without the politics left to navigate? If they had found their way into this affair first and gotten married after, if there had never been doubt involved in her pregnancy.

Though she is lucky, as it stands. If she hadn't been married, her parents would likely have pressured her into a visit with Erzebeth Rowle, who took care of these things though she was no healer, and whose services were coveted even though not every pureblood daughter in distress who comes to her makes it through the procedure alive. She suspects if Rodolphus had been so careless in an affair, this would have been his first suggestion as well.

"I... pondered a divorce for a while, especially as I rose higher in the ranks."

[malificence]

"He was never worthy of you, no matter how Pure he is." But of course, Lucius knows how the game is played. Bella and Rodolphus were the same age - so a perfect match in the eyes of her family, no doubt. Lucius was a bit younger, Andromeda's age, and so more appropriate for her younger sisters. In the end, though, those few years matter little between two adults.

"My mother didn't care for her brother," he adds after a moment. "We rarely visited, and almost never after she passed away." He doesn't need to mention the protective curse and hexes he was taught even before school, or why. Because Bella no doubt knows all too well. He clears his throat.

"I strengthened the wards at home," he says. "I expect we might like a day or two without visitors. I do wonder how many times Rita Skeeter will have to be physically thrown from the grounds before she gives up that tactic."

[scinlac]

"I can't say the same of my sister regarding you, of course." He would be an excellent match for Narcissa, in fact. "But I can't say I would have been any happier at that wedding than I was at my own."

Which is an admission in on itself. "It'll be unusual, to live in a place where I need not watch my back at all times." And that is just about as close as she has ever gotten to admit that being married to a Lestrange man was taxing, regardless of her skill level.

[malificence]

"But welcome, I hope," Lucius says as the car pulls down the long, tree-lined drive that leads to Malfoy Manor. The sun is barely beginning to rise over the trees when they come to a stop before the imposing black door. He leans down and traces a rune across Caelum's chest. It glows for a moment, and then disappears - but will be enough to protect him from the malediction that will repel almost everyone else. "You should give me your hand before we attempt to go inside," he says, and smiles.

It's a vicious sort. "I used almost every trick we know."

[scinlac]

"More than welcome," she agrees. Caelum giggles as the run glows and then vanishes – while he is still too fresh to showcase any proper underaged magic, such a reaction is already reassuring Bellatrix of the fact that he will.

There is no hesitation in taking his hand, no reluctance at all. "You sound like it would be deeply entertaining for the two of us if someone tried."

Malfoy Manor is a familiar haven, by now, and still, there is a special kind of relief in calling it 'home'. In fact, she is almost giddy as she spins in the entrance hall. "Do you reckon Gremlin is waiting somewhere?"

[malificence]

This hall might have been where Caelum was conceived, Lucius thinks, and he watches Bella spin in the hall as he sets Cael in his basket on a marble-topped table. "By now I expect Gremlin has either discovered the roaring fire in the great room, is trying to charm Juno, or a combination of both," he says. "As for the wards, I daresay we might enjoy the site of your husband flying backwards through the air while boils burst through the surface of his skin."

He was already mostly red, so there's not much magic can do there.

"Perhaps we ought to settle our son in his cradle before we go searching for the cats?"

[scinlac]

"There are some things I might enjoy more," and her tone suggests Lucius would play pivotal roles in all of those imageries, "but I can't say I would say no to dinner on a balcony as Rodolphus desperately calls for aid below." She stops her spinning for a moment, and walks over to take Caelum out of his basket.

Now, there's no need for that of course – she'd made quite sure, before his birth, to know that she never really needs to hold her child at all, save perhaps for an obligatory picture. And yet, now that he is born, with hair much like Lucius' own, she isn't so eager for the carrier basket. She doesn't mind at all to hold him close.

"I do think Caelum would be delighted to see his nursery, no?" Even she caught that. "Ah. And here I thought I would not be one to spout such nonsense."

[malificence]

Lucius' eyes kindle for a moment before Caelum begins to fuss, making his presence absolutely clear the way a Black and Malfoy son would, and then they stay warm as he watches Bella for a moment. "I daresay we'll find time to enjoy those other things, too," he says, and laughs a little as sets his hand against her back and leads her up the stairs - up and past where she had spent most of her time at the manor and down the hall. "It's smaller than ours, of course, but he's small yet."

Also, the nursery is still larger than some cottages that entire wizarding families live in, but Lucius possesses a particular perspective here. "I suspect we'll both be spouting nonsense in the next few weeks. The secret is not spouting it in front of others."

[scinlac]

It certainly isn't smaller than the nursery she and her sisters had taken a turn in, and Cealum already seems utterly fascinated by the magical display of circling stars on the ceiling. "Oh, would you look at that?" Ah, the nonsense, again, especially considering that Caelum isn't yet at a stage where he can hold his own head up. She places him in the cradle, quite carefully, so he can, uh, see. "Soon, you'll know just which one of these is your star."

"You must be right. I'll be sure to contain myself around most people." She frowns. "Perhaps not your father. He might appreciate it."

[malificence]

"I expect he will," Lucius says as he sets a cat stuffie in the cradle with Caelum. They stand and stare at the baby for a moment, even though the baby is much more interested in the sparkly mobile overhead. It takes a moment for it to become awkward.

"He was an affectionate father," he says to fill the silence. "A little more aloof in public, of course." It wouldn't due to get compared to a Weasley, after all. But he suspects that the Black way of parenting is a little...different. Perhaps not exactly like growing up as a Lestrange, but also more cold and distant than the Malfoys had been. "We'll need to start interviewing nannies soon, I expect."

He thinks now that he'd rather like to take care of their son themselves, but a week of three am wake up calls will probably cure him of that.

[scinlac]

"My own father was... thoroughly disappointed, to put it as mildly as possible. You have already beaten him by lengths and Caelum has not yet been part of this world for twenty-four hours."

She leans a bit against Lucius, which is something that feels right as Cael begins to drift of to sleep. "I do already have a list of potential nannies, and I do believe none of them will mind working for a Malfoy heir rather than a Lestrange one. I shall send out the owls this evening, if it suits you?"

[malificence]

He's not self-absorbed enough to not notice that girls are often a disappointment in families of their class, if only because continuing the name is so paramount. And the Blacks...well, they are the most elite and the most pure and therefore the most prone to that sort of thing. Lucius brushes his hair back. "With all due respect, I've no desire to be your father," he says with a smile.

"I do think it's best to get that matter settled as soon as possible." He's an only child, but his mother had carried one other pregnancy to term, even if it had not ended as one might wish. Desiderata had warned him that babies cried loudly and gustily in the middle of the night, and to make sure the silencing charm was always up. "Do you want tea? Or breakfast?" It's morning, he realizes, for all that it seems like night.