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Chapter 13 - "I Was What?"

Harry and Healer Dumphries and RSM Moody sat stunned in the silence that followed the echoing slam of Marietta's exit.

She is special, she makes me feel like I can do what I have to. I don't think I can do this without her. I've got to find a way to fix this. How can I fix this?

"Harry?" Healer Dumphries had asked a question.

"I'm sorry, what again?"

"Harry, I know young men are often embarrassed to talk about their intimacies, but we really do need to know who the mother of your child is. Is it Yeoman Edgecombe?"

"Not unless you can get preggers in less than twelve hours, and don't all the female recruits take a potion or some such?"

"Yes, there is a long term contraceptive potion that lasts for the three months of basic auror training, but potions have been known to fail."

"Has it happened often?"

"No."

"Has it happened at all?"

"Not yet that we know of."

"It's not Marietta."

"Who then?"

"My dream girl, no, my dream woman."

"How's that?"

"Remember the dreams I told you about? There must have been someone, someone real."

"Any ideas?"

Harry put his face in his hands, "oh yes. . ."

"Who Harry?"

"I think its Bellatrix Lestrange."

The healer and the Regimental Sergeant Major both sat down on hearing that bit of news.

"How can I prove it?"

"You have the link."

"What link?"

"Your baby combines the both of you, you can feel what she feels and vice versa. You can also use the link to find her as what you're really finding is the child."

"Doc, how does this happen?"

"Sorry Harry, I forget you've spent most of your life as a muggle, I'm not a doctor, I'm a healer, and somehow 'Heal' doesn't have the same feel to it."

"Sorry Healer Dumphries."

"To answer your question 'it' happens the old fashioned way. Sperm meets egg, egg and sperm combine and nine months later viola, a brand new human."

"Could she have been artificially inseminated?"

"As I understand the practice you would have had to masturbate into a container and then the semen would have been injected into the one hoping to be the mother?"

"Kinda like that, yes."

"Harry, have you wanked into a cup lately?"

"Um, no."

"Either you went to her, not bloody likely in any event, or she came to you; which is more likely."

"I knew those dreams were too real to be just dreams."

"Weren't there wards around your house?"

"Several; and some were blood protection wards."

"They got by them somehow."

"If the wards were so easy to bypass, why didn't they just kill me in my sleep, you know they just want me dead, right?"

Moody began to chuckle, "S' thas' how they did it, too bloody clever if y' ask me."

Harry and the healer stared at Moody.

"Don' cha see?"

Harry shook his head but Hlr. Dumphries began to nod his.

"Of course," the healer started, "if no one magical could get through then Dumbledore or any other witch or wizard coming to call would have been repelled"

"Would one of you please explain it to the muggle raised one please?"

"The wording is everything; no one magical planning to harm you could get near the place, but they didn't mean you harm, so they just bloody walked in through the front door while everyone was asleep, including you."

"Harry," the healer placed a hand on his shoulder, "you were raped."

Harry was startled at the use of the word.

"You had non-consensual sex Harry, by definition you were raped."

"Didn't feel like what I would consider rape."

"Nonetheless, it's yet another crime to add to the long file of Bellatrix Lestrange."

"If that's true wouldn't it constitute 'harm' in the legal sense?"

"In the legal sense, yes, but remember magic is all about intent, she didn't intend harm. In many pureblood societies an older, experienced woman often initiates a young adolescent into the ways of intimacy, that way when his wedding night rolls around he won't be a fumbling incompetent. In the sense that she saw herself as your initiator she would see the act as a great service. It's a very old custom."

"Healer," Harry asked in a nervous voice, "why would she want to have sex with me?"

"I should think that was obvious, Harry, she wanted your baby. And now, it seems, she's got it."

"And why would she want my baby?"

"Lad," Moody started, "if Voldemort wants a child of yours there canna' be anything good about it."

Bellatrix held the scrap of parchment and knew her very life depended on her next words,
"Why were you in my rooms, nephew?" she demanded.

Draco looked confused, well, long term cruciatus exposure will do that.

"This was torn out of my journal, the part where I was investigating the wards around our base of operations here; I can show you my lord, where this came from if Draco hasn't taken that too."

Draco looked panicked, "no, it was, it was on the floor, on the floor of the cave, it was by the salt, the salt. . ."

"Draco," Bellatrix cooed, causing him to cringe even more, "tell the truth, it was on the floor because that's were it landed when you tore it from my journal. Isn't that right?"

"No, no, not on the floor, no, no, not on the book, not in the book, on the, on the floor, in there!" he screamed the last two words pointing in the direction of the corridor leading to the lower caverns. Unfortunately for him he was also pointing in the direction of Bellatrix's rooms.

"You see my lord; he is confused. Perhaps one or more of your followers was a little too enthusiastic while disciplining young Malfoy?"

"Perhaps" Voldemort seemed to be in agreement, "but I must ask you not to leave your rooms until all this is sorted out."

Bellatrix bowed, "as you say, my lord" then glided back toward her chambers.

Harry paced like a jungle cat in a zoo cage, "I have to find her, she's got something of mine and she can't have it."

"So you're going t' storm Voldemort's HQ and kidnap his most feared lieutenant then keep her in a cozy cell for nine months. ."

"More like eight months" the healer interjected.

". . . eight months until the baby is born and what, fight her for it. Harry, that baby is half Bellatrix Lestrange, are y' sure you can handle all the baggage involved here?"

"First, it's not baggage, it's a baby, second it's not his. . ." he looked at the healer questioningly.

"Too early to say."

". . . or her fault who his or her parents are, and third I want the next generation of Potter children to grow up knowing they're loved and cherished, not. ." tears filled both eyes and obscured his vision as he sat heavily on one of the infirmary beds.

". . . not locked away in tiny cupboards not hated and ignored not, not treated like, like. . ."

"Like you were Harry?" Marietta said from the open door.

"Marie?" he hiccupped and looked up.

"I dropped my memorandum book so I was going t' wait til you all left and get it back, but no one left and I was standin' outside the door all this time and I heard everything and oh Harry I'm so sorry I was as bad as the rest of em' jumping t' conclusions w'out knowin all the facts and you must hate me f'-"

Harry never knew what he was supposed to hate her for because he leapt to his feet and hugged her like a drowning man embraces a life preserver.

"You said it y' self lass," Moody chuckled, "Harry forgives, even when we don' forgive ourselves."