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[alt_hydra]

Oh bloody buggery I just passed Lana S-P on my way to the library after supper and she was thinking about eye colour and about how mine are blue and my father's are grey and then she began wondering

She's pregnant. With my father's child.

I don't know for certain but I think they might have planned it together?

Comments

[alt_pansy]

Really?

Well. That's interesting.

[alt_pansy]

That must be a bit of a shock, Hydra.

D'you think we could use it to get to Bellatrix somehow?

Would Lana even be a match for her? Perhaps Lana and your father together might have a chance...

It'd save us a load of trouble.

[alt_hydra]

I'm not sure. Draco's right. Under normal circumstances, impregnating Lana would make her vulnerable to Mummy's rages. Daddy would know that better than anyone else.

But Mummy isn't possessive about Daddy's affections. She shuns them. She might even think that Lana has taken a burden off her hands.

I don't know how she'd feel about him having a baby with another woman, though.

[alt_daphne]

What? But he's so much olde he's married! To your mother!

[alt_hydra]

Legally married, yes. They basically live apart and lead separate lives, except when it comes to family events, Protectorate affairs, and such.

He doesn't know that I know this, but he more or less agreed to stop interfering in my upbringing in exchange for being able to see Lana.

[alt_draco]

Bloody nightshade. You'd said they were having it on the side but actually planning a pregnancy behind both Ned and Bellatrix's back?

What could your father be thinking? I mean, he must believe that Bellatrix won't care, and has convinced Lana of the same - otherwise, I can't see how they'd risk such a thing.

[alt_hydra]

Well you know he has that preoccupation with the Lestrange bloodline. I think it's increased as of late, and that's why he bothered to dig up the truth about Daphne being Raz's daughter. Maybe that got him thinking about having more children of his own. Mummy's definitely done with that, and she's nearly too old, besides.

[alt_daphne]

That's right, he quite went on at me about the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and how many of the pureblood lines had recently gone extinct, or soon would. I almost got the impression that he wanted the Lestrange line to be the last and strongest bloodline standing, or something. Perhaps on account of them nearly squibbing out a few generations back.

Oh, and he's very prone to boasting about fact that his children have rare and remarkable magic.

[alt_hydra]

Yes. I think we're part of his dark artefact collection.

Which isn't to say that he hasn't been kind and good and loving to me at times. He has. But not when it really mattered.

[alt_hermione]

Do you think his interest in Lana is really only to get himself another Lestrange, then?

[alt_hydra]

I don't think it's just that. I think perhaps he may love her. But for someone he loves, he's also complicating her life quite a bit.

Maybe he thinks this is the only way he can really have her. I don't know.

[alt_justin]

Hydra,

I say, are you all right? As Pansy says, it's obviously a shock.

What do you suppose Pennifold might do, if he found out?

-Justin

[alt_hydra]

I suppose I'm fine. If surprised. I always thought my father took his wedding vows quite seriously, despite the difficulties in their marriage. I'm fairly certain he never stepped out on my mother until Lana.

Maybe he really loves her.

What do you think a husband would do, if he found out his wife was pregnant with another man's child? And willingly, at that.

[alt_justin]

Well, as you say, I think it would depend on how he felt about his wife. Or whether he's the jealous type, what.

Though there is quite a lot to be said about breaking one's marriage vows.

-Justin

[alt_hydra]

I can't say at all how Ned feels about his wife. Though I think she's probably the one who "runs" the marriage, so to speak.

[alt_ron]

Well, that's--

Can you even imagine her being a mother?

[alt_hydra]

My mother is a mother.

Private Message to Hydra

[alt_ron]

Point.

L S-P's hardly your mother. Thank Merlin. But she's horrendous with little kids. Makes ickle Gryffindors cry every day. And the students she's got in lessons, too.

Maybe she'll be different with her own. D'you think?

Yeah, I don't, either.

What's your father see in them? Sorry. That's not fair to ask.

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

It probably depends on whether the child decides to hold her in awe or not. Honoria doesn't, and so Lana rejects her. But if Honoria tagged after Lana and tried to be just like her, Lana would probably love it. Just like she loved Padma tagging after her.

What did you write and cross out? I don't mind.

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_ron]

I was wondering what your father sees in women like that. That's all.

I mean, they're both fit. But they're also both manipulative and cruel.

I guess that's the least of it with your mum, but I don't really know, do I?

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

I suppose if you become special to someone manipulative and cruel, it might make you feel quite extraordinary?

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

I always thought women were more prone to that sort of thinking than men, though.

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_ron]

Hm.

Maybe if you fall in love with someone like that you sort of don't see what they're like to other people? I mean, you might look away from it if they're not cruel to you.

Re: Private Message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

Right. Mummy is quite awful to Daddy but she wasn't always so bad, I don't think. And I'm sure that Lana isn't awful to him at all.

[alt_hermione]

Well, and Sandoval's sort of... your mother but without the maniacal intensity.

She did idolise her when she was student, after all, and Bellatrix was the reason she wanted to be an Auror.

So maybe if your father does feel affection for her, it's because he sees Bella when she was younger?

[alt_hydra]

Yes, that could be why. She's like my mother but doesn't have legilimency to leverage against him. And he has the authority of age and experience over her, as well.

[alt_sally_anne]

I can see where that would be extremely appealing to your father.

Who do you think ought to find out? Hard to know what your mother would do, if anything. Ned would be furious, humiliated, and thoroughly distracted, but he's rather less our problem than Lana is. And I don't think he'd murder Lana over it, because for one thing, she could take him. (I'm not sure he would? I mean, adultery is SO common in that set, surely he wasn't really expecting...but a pregnancy! Passed off as his! I don't know.)

[alt_hydra]

I'm not sure, only it did cross my mind that the information might be used to blackmail her into not being such a monster toward the Gryffindors and the younger students.

Only, then she'll wonder how the blackmailer found out she was pregnant with my father's child, and she'll probably make the connection that I read her thoughts.

Private message to Hydra

[alt_luna]

ARE you all right, really? If your mother doesn't discover it, and your father doesn't admit it to you, it might be rather awkward for you to see Lana Sandoval-Pennifold with the baby and act as if you don't have any idea it's your half-brother or sister.

[alt_luna]

I wonder whether there might be another possibility....

Maybe Ned and Lana have been TRYING to get pregnant. And well, they've done some investigation and found out that Ned can't, or at least that his chances are low. That happens in some purebred families, doesn't it? So maybe Lana thinks he'll be so happy they're having a baby that he either won't guess or care that it's, uh, a cuckoo in the nest.

I can't imagine what would keep Hydra's mum from finding out the same way Hyda did, though. And if she finds out, and she's angry about it, well, she might--

oh, dear.