Black Rose - Severus Snape x Bellatrix Black

Chapter 1 - Freaking out isn't an option!

Bellatrix' En-suite Bathroom, Black Manor, Countryside near London, February 1978

Bellatrix awakened from her short slumber with a loud groan. Thankfully, her plush bathroom rug had cushioned her fall and she hadn't hit her head on anything. A little disorientated, she quickly cleared her mind, sat warily up and searched frantically for her wand. She scanned her cream tilted bathroom with her greyish-blue Spinel eyes and could detect her Walnut wand lying one meter away from her on the cold floor. With a non-verbal, wandless Accio Bellatrix' wand, she summoned it into her outstretched right hand, felt a fresh wave of magic run through her veins and crawled gracelessly to her huge corner bathtub. She pulled herself up and sat down on the edge of her beloved bathtub. Merlin, she was utterly grateful that her parents weren't home today and nobody would disturb her in her rooms. She needed to be alone and process this shocking new discovery.

Looking down on herself, Bellatrix was glad, that she had opted to spend the day in her simple grey sweatpants and a dark purple jumper recovering from her supposedly stomach bug. If she wore a tight black corset dress - like she preferred to wear in public - today, she would have most likely passed out due to breathlessness and a sharp pain in her chest. Perhaps, her prolonged unconsciousness and panic attack would have even caused her to miscarry her baby and she could have moved on with her life as previously planned. But Bellatrix knew that this was only a delusional idea of her freaked out mind. If she had suffered a miscarriage, she couldn't have simply moved on with her life. She would undoubtedly have suffered unbelievable physical and psychological pain. And she doubted that her emotional scars would have healed smoothly. Gently, Bellatrix caressed her still flat abdomen. She couldn't fathom that a tiny human being was growing there.

Although she never wanted to be a mother, she felt strangely protective of the embryo residing inside her belly. Sure, she realized that the relationship between a pregnant witch and her baby was unique due to their shared magical powers. Her mother had hammered in her lessons about magical culture into her head that the connection between a witch and her unborn baby was deep, dominated by feelings of protectiveness and love, and unbreakable, because her magic protected the embryo, helped it to develop its magical power and determined its magical abilities. Bellatrix had only rolled her eyes and scoffed about the pure, unconditional love her mother pictured for them because her mother had tyrannized, controlled and abused her daughters their whole lives.

It seemed like this unconditional love only existed for the time the baby was inside one's womb. Otherwise, she couldn't explain the cold and cruel rule her mother exercised over her sisters and her. Sure, it was understandable that she wanted her daughters to grow into respectable, charming young witches with a profound grasp of their heritage, the culture of Pure-bloods and the Dark Arts. But she condemned her methods of torturing them and controlling their lives. Her mother never once uttered the words "I love you", "I'm proud of you" or "I care about you" to any of her daughters. Instead, she punished them with cruel dark curses and curfew order whenever they had disappointed her or shamed the esteem of the House of Black.

Druella had her little spies – house-elves and her younger niece and nephew, Elena and Evan Rosier – in Hogwarts who had followed her daughters everywhere and reported every little escapade. Thence, she knew all about the Elf Herb smoking in a secluded alcove inside the Slytherin dungeons, the Fire Whisky drinking during party nights inside the Slytherin common room, the skipping of assigned homework in Potions, Transfiguration and Care for Magical Creatures and the exchanging of heated kisses inside a dark niche on the Astronomy tower with Marcellus Flint, Bellatrix had gotten up to in her Hogwarts time. Thankfully, she hadn't a clue about her secret trysts with Timothy Nott or Stephen Travers in the Room of Requirements and her defloration by Benjamin Shafiq in the boys' dormitory of the Slytherin 7th Years in her 5th Year. Merlin, her mother probably thought that Rodolphur deflowered her after their engagement party one year ago. She wasn't aware of his preference for the male sex and probably had already picked out names for her pure-blooded grand-children.