The Girls

“...Are you ever going to...Y’know...Tell the fathers?” Vera asked her slowly. They, she and her dormmates and Tuney, had been ushered off by in-laws and spouses and Lily and Tuney’s parents to go have a proper girls night out. Tuney, over the years, had been told about Lily’s research and while she had some strong feelings about the ethics of it, she loved her sister and her nieces.

“Why should I, quoi?” she shrugged easily. “The girls are mine, the men were just sperm donors as far as I’m concerned.”

“Unwittingly. Lily, even if you can’t be touched legally, if the wrong one were to find out…” Alice frowned at her worriedly. “And with people like Black being head of his household with no spouse or heir in sight...And outside of the Pureblood aspect, I imagine Brown and Li would be heartbroken to know they had daughters and didn’t get to know about them. I don’t want to even imagine Potter’s reaction.” she winced. Alice and Crystal, living on the Isles, were unfortunately privy to the man’s string of well documented exes. And, knew better than to bring him up to Lily at all.

“Have the girls ever asked about the dad thing?” Crystal quickly rerouted, easily spotting the growing looks of annoyance on the green eyed sister’s faces.

“Nena has.” Lily answered thoughtfully. “The rest are too young I think to really give it much mind when they could be doing or playing with other things. But I think that has more to do with her friends in primary than anything and even that more about why she and her sisters are all so different.”

“They’re not...Being bullied or anything about it are they?”

“I don’t think Nena would let something like that slide.” Tuney snorted. “Vengeful little thing.” she smiled, “Besides, the children in their primary come from all sorts of households so even the little snots who parrot their guardians’ awful rhetoric aren’t much put up with.”

“Your children go to the same primary? Didn’t you say you’re normally living in La Grave?” Vera asked, glancing between the sisters.

“It’s a…” Lily hesitated.

“Suppose you’d call it mixed.” Tuney shared bluntly. “Some schools only accept witches and wizards right? Not theirs. Any place Luis couldn’t get into because of the Satyr in him, none of the other children were going to go to. I’m not separating my kids.” her jaw clamped. France really was far more free in terms of socially acceptable and far more inclusive laws, regulations and cultures in regards to beings but there were still definitely some schools that opted for more specified groups. The preschool the Malfois endorsed was inclusive but their primary wanted to focus more specifically on mostly human and human-passing beings, and the specific preparation for human wixen magic. It was a little different with other mixed race children. It wasn’t done with malicious or bigoted intentions but the denial of her oldest son for being Satyr had stirred up bad memories of when she and Lily were younger and she was denied the magical world for being muggle while it took Lily away. And, she didn’t want her children going to separate primaries over something like that.

Besides, Luis even with a few more Satyr specific characteristics and magics, Satyrs were perfectly capable of using a wand and the largely wand and foci-based magical education most large magical academic institutions favored was entirely accessible.

“Any place good enough for Tuney and Dauphine’s standards is somewhere I trust to treat my girls well.” Lily said easily and that got her sister to relax again, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly. Luca’s mother and Tuney got on like a house on fire. One would think Tuney was her child and Luca was the one marrying in.

“It’s…” Alice blinked, startled. Right, she had been stuck on Blighty the entire time. The concept was probably strange to her. “But…” she frowned and then paused. “You did say he got into Beauxbaton.” she murmured. “Is it- are the classes in Beauxbaton not separated then? Like the dorms maybe but for..?”

“No.” Petunia said curtly, unimpressed with the implication. “There are specialized courses but they are open to all students.”

“So,” Lily cut in, “Leaving all that behind,” she waved a hand freely, “Why don’t we catch up more career wise? Alice, you’re in pediatrics in St. Mungo’s but you were recently branching out a little more right?”

“Oh.” Alice blinked and smiled gratefully. “Yes. I love being in pediatrics but...I think it wouldn’t hurt to expand my skills at least a little. I’ve been shadowing the poison control unit.” she told them bashfully. “Frank’s mother still doesn’t approve of the idea but...Honestly when does she approve of anything? I’ve already passed first few classes and have started on the antivenom production.”

“Good on you, that old hag shouldn’t have a say in your profession anyways. I’ve been working as a potioneer in Bibi’s family business, I’ve told you all before of course.” Crystal waved off easily. “But I’ve been thinking of accepting a trainer position lately, y’know for a minor dueling organization on the side. Adult courses, you know how I am when I’m trying to teach someone something.” she flashed a sharp grin at them.

“Especially when it comes to dueling.” Vera snorted. “Tiff, what’ve you been up to? Still working as a caterer or have you finally gotten around to usurping your sister-in-law?”

“Not yet.” Tiffany sighed. “Egon keeps telling me to just go to his father’s wedding planning business but I am determined that I will make that woman trust me!” she narrowed hazel eyes.

“I thought the problem was that she liked you too much?” Alice asked and Crystal snorted into her glass.

“She doesn’t want me to do anything! Even most of the harder or more messy aspects of the catering portion of the business she delegates to others!” she told them, clearly frustrated. “I swear she only accepted me on to be eye-candy!” she grumbled then shook her head. “Enough about that, what about you Vera? You finished the newest in the Różowy series just recently right?”

“I’ve been as I’ve ever been.” she sighed dreamily. “Writing out all my sordid fantasies for money. Newest book has a little more adventure than my usual trash erotica but the fans have absolutely eaten it up.” she tapped long red nails against the table they were sat at. “Lily?”

“Research.” she said. “We’ve been working on stabilizing the potions for male impregnation still to better smooth the transfiguration process for those who don’t want to potentially change into a woman’s body and get stuck in it by the temporary sex change potion regimen.”

“Is that still a huge problem?” Alice asked.

“It’s pretty uncommon by the statistics but obviously it’s not ideal. On the other hand trying to pinpoint what part renders it a permanent change even after users stop taking the potion when it’s supposed to wear off has been an object of interest for the trans community. The usual rituals and transfiguration processes that those who want to fully physically transition are usually hugely costly and aren’t always applicable.” Lily huffed. “Right now we’re mostly just trying to streamline and neaten the processes we already have available before trying to move onto any other larger products. All the same, the researchers I get to work with nowadays have finally gotten around to sharing ideas without being afraid one of the others are going to make off with it after the Edmonde incident.” she shook her head.

“In case Lily forgot to mention in any of her letters, Edmonde was sentenced.” Tuney told the other women idly. “They caught up with her in Turkey.”

“Oops. I don’t think I did?” the redhead blinked and her friends sent her fond looks.

xXx

“Frank!” Peter greeted the other larger Auror. “How was your trip? Kids have fun?”

“Yeah.” the man smiled back. “Little Nev finally got to meet his godmother too. You remember Lily Evans?”

“Lily? Frank, mate, I don’t know if you remember but Jimbo- as in Jimbo who still almost exclusively dates redheads and who has been one of my bestmates since we were in nappies- still has a thing for Lily Evans.” the blond shook his head. “Is she doing alright? I know when she and a lot of the other muggleborns left things were pretty…” he made a face. Frank frowned a little, a strange look overcoming his face.

“Yeah. Yeah, she’s been doing pretty well. Has a whole study and published book about fertility charms and all. Has uh...Kids of her own now too.”

“That’s expected.” Peter nodded easily as they entered the lift together. “So she’s Nev’s godmother?”

“And Alice is godmother to one of her girls.” Frank nodded, another strange look passing his face. Peter’s brow puckered.

“Alright? Didn’t manage to catch a sickness on your hols did you?”

“No, no…It’s just uh...Lily has six kids!” he blurted out almost uncontrollably. Peter blinked up at him.

“Six of them? Got to be tough.” Peter said after a moment, trying to find something to respond with and Frank sighed, scrubbing at his face with a conflicted look.

“They’re all lovely little girls,” he went on, “But…”

“But?” Peter asked, really not sure why this was something that was bothering Frank. Unless… “Is...Alice contemplating having six kids now?” he tried and Frank’s face whipped towards him.

“What? No! Three is plenty for now.” Frank groaned. “Merlin, I can only imagine how mother would respond to six kids. She was already giving us the eye when we told we were expecting Norman.” he scrubbed a hand through dull brown hair. “No, that’s...Lily’s uh...The dads of her kids don’t uh...Know they exist. It just kinda left a bad taste a little bit.” he explained and Peter hummed.

“Maybe they’re deadbeats?” he contemplated. Frank snorted derisively.

“I’m sure one or two of them must be. But all six?”

“Wait, they all have different dads?” Peter gawked. “No, I mean- I don’t know the circumstances,” he shook his head. “Or was it like- I know the muggles have ‘sperm banks’, you know, where people go to have...Anonymous fathers I guess?” he postulated. “I’m not exactly...An expert in stuff like that.”

“It’s…” Frank looked at him for a long moment. “Listen Pete, you’re a good friend of mine.” he said seriously.

“You’re a good friend of mine too?”

“If I tell you something...A morally questionable thing that a very dear friend of my wife’s did, can I trust that you won’t go...Blubbering it all out? Because if I don’t tell someone it’s going to drive me mad, the entire thing’s a little bonkers.”

“If it’s not against the law…” he said slowly. “Not gonna lie Frank, starting to get pretty concerned here.”

xXx

“You alright Wormy?” Sirius elbowed the frowning man.

“Whuh? Yeah, yeah...Just something a coworker said.” he shook his head and gave his longtime friend (and distant cousin) a smile. “Nothing uh...Nothing much.”

“If you say so.” Sirius drawled. “Now c’mon, I need a wingman and girls in those kinds of dresses love a sweet face like yours.” he said with a salacious grin as he nodded over to a group of older women at the bar, one with ‘Divorcee’ on a sash she was wearing. Peter scoffed, reaching up to smack the back of his head and Sirius grinned more goofily at him. “There we are, not so broody now! What would Rosie say if you came home all in a funk?”

“Probably blame it on you using me to chase skirts.” Peter told him wryly.

“Nah, Rosie’d assume Prongs had himself another pity-party.” he waved off. “Speaking of…” he turned to the booth Remus was no doubt consoling their bespectacled friend. “I think she found the dirty pictures from his ex.” he leaned down to whisper.

“Did Jim actually keep those?” Peter asked incredulously and Sirius shrugged. “Ugh. I really thought this one was going to last. What about Carter?”

“Prongslet is staying with aunty Dori.” he said. “I’ll be honest, I really thought ol’ Jim learned after Tilly about where to store photos like those.”

“So did I.” Peter groaned. “Two and a half years! Should have known after the Ilya thing.” Peter scraped a hand through straw-blond hair. “It changed after that.” blue eyes strayed over to the dark shapes in their booth, one slumped over the table. “You know you can’t do the caricature joke stuff in the shop with Kara right? You barely managed to avoid the lawyers last time.”

“Yeah, we’ll keep anything like that personal.” Sirius winced. “Definitely learned that lesson. Ready to head back over and see if we can drag him home?”

“No.” Peter said plainly but started moving anyways.

“Good lad.” Sirius responded with a grimace of a smile. Of the four of them, Pete was the only one married.

James had been married. But the only good thing from that marriage was Sirius’s cute godson, Carter. James really, really, had trash taste in women.

...And the cheating didn’t help, the tallest Marauder thought to himself. At least Sirius never made any illusion that he was a playboy and wasn’t the type to settle down or commit. His whole image was based off that, but at least he was transparent.

Jimmy...He started relationships with the best intentions, honestly, but...Eventually his eye wanders and even if he doesn’t outright shag another bird, he pines. Dreadfully obviously. Impossible to ignore. A romantic at heart, but the kind that flits from whim to whim rather than a steady devotion.

To be honest Sirius had no clue how he still attracted women who thought it’d be different for them. Maybe because Jim was so lovey and attentive while they had his attention? Sirius loved his closest friends, two of whom he was related to mind, but…

If he’d had a sister, he’d have barred any interaction she had with him. Not that it would have meant much anyways, Jim had a thing for redheads.

Maybe it wasn’t as much that Jim had trash taste in women so much that those women had trash taste in men, he thought, just a little guiltily.

...Maybe he should start letting slip Uncle Cygnus’s policy of a fidelity Oath for any woman that managed to get far enough to consider marriage to Prongs.

xXx

Dorea eyed the letter again. Walburga was not by any stretch of the imagination her favorite niece (her brother Marius’s daughter Mira took that spot; being blasted off the tree, being a squib didn’t mean he stopped being her brother) for a multitude of reasons. But after what happened to young Reggie...Grief will do strange things to people like Walburga who was all bluster and pomp and whipped up self importance. Wallie never wanted to be a mother. Never wanted to marry and especially not to skirt-chaserOrion. She’d had no clue when it came to childrearing but refused to ask for help because ‘as a woman’ it should be ‘in her nature’. Her mother Irma’s family, the Crabbes, had those kinds of horrid beliefs and it had trickled down hardest to her only daughter. Orion like his father and, to be frank, most fathers in the Black family was distant and aloof to his children. hardly a father at all. In the torrid games with words like purity and family dignity and pride, it was always the children who suffered. Who either grew to resent everything they had been taught or merely continued the cycle because that’s just how it’s been.

Wallie never wanted children and she had no clue how to react or behave around them because Irma had been brought up to be silent and obedient to her husband and husband’s family. Wallie had been brought up as all Black daughters had; as fierce duelists who were sharp in tongue like a blade hidden in silk by the other surrounding Blacks since it was the mothers but also the rest of the Blacks that raised children, not their actual fathers. Deadbeats. Some more pointedly in that fashion, and some daughters who took a little less but nothing at all like meek Irma.

Wallie had no clue what to do with her sons but she had loved them. Not very well, and with great pressure because her sons were next in line to inherit the Marquis title and the House itself, but she did love her sons. It’s why she didn’t use old laws to confine Sirius back to Grimmauld and let him stay under Dorea’s care. The more dire ruthless portraits of Blacks past no doubt condemned her niece for giving Sirius so much freedom in the first place when he should have been staunchly stifled into becoming a ‘proper Black’.

Dorea still wasn’t sure why no one had burnt the old bastards in their frames. Or, well, figure out how to take the protection spells off the frames to do so anyways. Someone had to know the secret.

The issue with Sirius flouncing off and being blasted from the tree (a mercy more than punishment, she and Wallie, and every modern Black that’s been blasted knew even if Sirius didn’t yet understand) and Reggie presumed functionally dead was that now, the smaller branches would squabble among themselves over it. She knew already that Narcissa, far more her Rosier mother than any Black, was filling her husband’s ears with ideas.

For her part, Wallie’s favorite niece had been Bellatrix despite her being Dru’s daughter. Adept duelist, prime Black looks, intelligent, charismatic, outgoing. All Black, virtually no Rosier.

All of that went down the drain when Andromeda ran off, then more when Bella received the Mark, then more when Bella was married off to an English branch of the Lestranges. When her competitive nature twisted into something merciless and thuggish and her sharp, clever mind was ravaged by Dark Arts that even the Flints would have been weary going near.

The Dark Lord ruined many families he pretended to be champion of and Black was a prominent name among them. Between the blasts and deaths, the Blacks now would mostly only exist from a matrilineal view, a form of destruction all its own with the traditional male Marquis role.

Narcissa’s runt would only ever have the county her father Cygnus had, given neither of her sisters could inherit it and even then, he’d probably prefer to leave it to Andromeda rather than his youngest daughter. And that was if Sirius fully renounced his title and didn’t, say, take over the lordship and restore the blasted members and reappoint the counties under their power.

Had it been Dorea, it’s what she would have done. But she wasn’t the sort of shove her way of doing things down other people’s throats.

The Blacks, despite preferring to have a Lord as opposed to Lady, had always had an easier time producing girls rather than boys and it was mostly matriarchal anyways. It was uncommon here outside a very few families, but if one were to marry and the husband or wife and children take on her name instead…

It would at least be able to usher a revival to her family.

But the letter…

Sirius wanted no part of the Blacks.

A halfblooded child born out of wedlock? To a muggleborn woman?

...Well at this point, it might be what the Blacks needed most to turn not just their image but their whole decline around. Adapt and all that.

xXx

Reginald eyed the letter. The oriental cardamom with something more smoky and woody to it scent just slightly perfuming it magnified by enhanced senses. That and the customary Potter wax seal let him know that of course there was only one person who could have sent it.

Great-aunty Dori. The one who took in Siri. He frowned at it, turning it over. Mother must have told her but what did she want with him?

He’d nearly died. He did die. Were it not for the small doses of vampire blood and venom concoction Snape had come up with, he would have been outright dead and not undead. He’d left the life of Regulus Black behind, taking on a new name as Reginald Blanc, a Frenchman moved to Canada after the mess of the U.K. war spilled a little too much over. Nestled in a small community of almost-hermits and quietly living out his days in peace and leisure as a young vampire, painting landscapes and on occasion going to the theater to watch plays once or twice a year.

It was an odd thing to learn that he had a niece. Another odd thing to know that Mother would fully bestow the Black title to the girl who was not only born out of wedlock but born to a mudbl- muggleborn.

No, not odd. Practically inconceivable.

But Mother...Mother took his ‘death’ hard, took him leaving even harder. He was really all she had, and it had hurt her very deeply that he had been pushed to extremes just to try to survive. That he escaped under a false name after cutting off his own arm to try to get away from the Mark.

The Dark Lord wasn’t dead. Something might have happened to his body, of course. But gone? Truly dead?

Regulus knew what he did.

He shook his head. That didn’t matter, he was Reginald now, not Regulus.

This letter wasn’t only written by his great-aunty Dori though. His mother’s familiar loopy writing made his heart ache. She was too cautious to send anything to him herself, lest something follow it or find him so letters were...Scarce.

It was only when he paid actual attention to the words themselves that his brow raised.

It was unsurprising that Mother had a vial of untouched blood from him, free from the vampiric strain. A common enough Black practice for unfortunate situations if need be.

Unsurprising that ritualist great-aunty Dori knew a Black specialty ritual to shift parentage to bloodkin, which explained some of the trickier things he’d seen in his own family. Uncle Cygnus was queer to the point that he had no interest whatsoever in women yet any test put him as the father of Reg’s trio of cousins. Despite aunty Dru creeping around with Reggie’s father in a family-wide ‘secret’.

But what was surprising was their convoluted (in his opinion) scheme to put him as the father of the child because of the...Circumstances around his niece.

The question of time discrepancy was waved off with a few vague mentions of the mother being a Charms Mistress with a secret knowledge in those terms, neither his great-aunty or Mother wanting to fully disclose anything until the situation was less nebulous.

This was all to protect the validity of the child in question.

They wanted to turn the Black family into a matriarchy under a Halfblood to better survive in the future. Because the previous formula clearly didn’t work.

And for that to happen, they needed stronger foundations for the Black heiress so as not to be questioned. Already she wouldn’t be setting foot on the Isles until she was already graduated and grown. Presumably from Beauxbaton given Durmstrang didn’t allow Halfbloods or mud- muggleborns. And the other Russian magical school for Halfbloods and mudb- muggleborns didn’t have the sort of history and grand reputation as Durmstrang or Beauxbaton.

Most people didn’t even realize that Durmstrang had a sort of cousin-school to better aid and help Halfbloods and mu-ggleborn adapt and help ease them into the magical culture and different rules, laws and the like. Personally Regulus thought that it made more sense to have a Pureblood school and then a separate one for those who knew more about or were raised in the muggle world. The first time he’d had to properly navigate muggle London had been its own form of culture shock. Better to shuttle them to a school not only to teach them about proper magical cultures, history and the deeper nuances of their traditions than try to just mingle them all together and hope for the best.

Anyways...

Regulus Black had been secretly married to a mudblo- muggleborn before he died. His wife had the strange ability or knowledge to, he supposed, pause her pregnancy to a time that she felt it would be safer to have her child.

Regulus, after Sirius was blasted, had the Heir title moved to him (but not the Lordship so he wasn’t sure how they were planning on- no wait, Siri had rendered himself sterile hadn’t he? There was a loophole about that they were going to use wasn’t there?) and so, would then move to his child. The Tree, besides having the power to ‘blast’ members, could apparently be suitably manipulated in small ways to better make it seem as though this little story they’d come up with was valid should one think to look at the old family tree and presumably for cases where the bloodkin-ritual wasn’t applicable and they needed to correct after the birth.

There were no portraits in that room, the one with their family tree sprawled across the walls, and none of the portraits could see properly into it and human memory was fickle enough that it was perfectly feasible to have been there had mother had guests who had gone into the room.

But if he was going to have a secret mudb- muggleborn wife, he’d need to at least warn his only viable friend about it who could interrupt this terrible, terrible idea. Regulus hadn’t had many personal friends but of them, Snape was the only one whose voice would matter, being himself a Halfblood and not in Azkaban as a fellow Death Eater, given he’d seen the error and started working as a mole for Dumbledore. Though he wasn’t sure that part was really known to anyone, given that Dumbledore was probably well aware that the Dark Lord had made at least two horcruxes and would want to mostly hide that Snape was a spy for when he came back.

If they wanted to corroborate this daring tale of love and tragedy, even having Snape as someone close to Regulus to even just not oppose that idea would solidify its validity in the eyes of many who might have personally known Regulus.

xXx

“What?”

“We’re taking Vows about it.” Alice explained to her husband in a hushed tone. “You know it was Lady Potter who helped come up with it? It’ll protect Lily and the girls from those vultures anyways if they catch wind.”

“Is that- but doesn’t this seem a little...Strange?” he asked worriedly. “What exactly is the Vow for?”

“Secrecy, and a story to help cover all the gritty details of some of the parentage. Mallie, y’know the blonde? She’s easy enough to be sold as a Malfois or, Malveaux whatever.” she shook her head. “Might not even bother with the ritual for that one.”

“Ritual?” Frank asked in rising alarm.

“It’s nothing bad,” she assured her husband quickly. “Just, with Nena and Mimi’s fathers being what they are, who they are, it’ll be safer for them to...Not be their daughters. We have an answer for Mimi now but we’re going to brainstorm what we can come up with for the others. Flesh it out so if the worst should come we all have a story to fall back on that coordinates…” she shook her head again. “I’m sorry luv, but can you request the day off? Next week?”

“I...Alright. I’ll put in the request when I go in later.”

And later, during lunch break, he pulled Pete to the side to rave about this moralquandary, trusting his friend to keep quiet about his venting given he hadn’t had Black or Potter storming to him about illegitimate children.

“I’ve just no clue how Alice can just...Go along with it so easily. I can’t imagine having a child and just...Never getting to even know they even exist.”

“I mean,” Pete frowned, wiping crumbs from his mouth, “I...Think if Jim or Pads or Moony ever did something morally questionable,” he shared a pointed look with Frank, because of course they had. “I’d be full in yeah? No question. Or, probably questions but no hesitation?” he mused before shrugging. “Alice was always her bestmate yeah? Neville’s godmother despite not having actually seen Lily for years at that point.”

“Yeah, I...I guess it’s just a sort of odd situation.” Frank raked a hand through his beard worriedly. “I’m not sure how binding or tight the Vows are gonna be or anything.” he sighed next. “I...’Spose I know why they would be. Some of those men…Even if what Evans did was kinda...” he frowned, brow creasing. “It’s just hard to really see that much bad in a friend I guess.”

“Can understand that.” Pete sighed. “Either way, your, and by ‘your’ I mean Evans’s, secret is safe with me.”

xXx

“You know how Bibi and I were on the fence about where to send Isa?”

“Yes?”

“Well Pearl’s daughter is going to an all-girls in Belgium and now we’ve been looking there.” Crystal shared and Vera blinked, raising her brows as they enjoyed a nice cuppa together. It was just the two of them, like how Alice and Lily were closest to eachother and how Tiffany as social as she was tended to either lump with either duo more freely or was perfectly fine to spend some quality alone time back when they were students. Of them, Vera and Crystal stayed in touch the most probably, visiting eachother regularly through the years even after Crystal moved back to Blighty. “It’s not as popular as Beauxbaton or Durmstrang or anything but I mean…” she sighed. “Pearl has nothing but good things to say about it. Bibi’s older sister had gone there too when she didn’t pass the testing for Durmstrang. I guess with me and Pearl going to Hogwarts and Bibi having gone to Durmstrang we overlooked the smaller schools…”

“Which one is it?” Vera asked, “I’ve been looking around everywhere with the smaller schools too but in terms of an all-girls in Belgium the only one that come to mind is Hagzissa Das Dorf.”

“That’ll be the one.” she nodded. “So you’ve heard of it? What do you think?”

“Ah. Maja will probably end up attending Castelobruxo if they accept her but Hagzissa seems to have a history churning out exemplary duelists.” she mused. “Not...Really something I imagine my Maja is very interested in. Not to say they’re lacking elsewhere but…” she shrugged. “It’s just not for Maja.”

“Duelists. Did notice the excellent quality of the curriculum when we started really looking into it and Bibi’s sister is all for sending Isa there.” Crystal tapped her fingers on the table thoughtfully. “But you know, now that Isa is at that age to go off to boarding school Bibi has been hinting at having another kid.” she said wistfully.

“And?” Vera leaned forward and Crystal gave her a sly look.

“You know Lils work has inspired a whole new subset of fertility and pregnancy options and all? Bibi’s fine with being a man for a month to get a functioning sperm sample if I’m alright getting up the duff.”

“Are you?” her friend asked, brow furrowing. “I know you were always really unnerved with the hormonal and chemical changes and all.”

“Yeah but I’ve never been in the ‘no-pregs-ever’ camp.” she pointed out. “I think I’m at a point that if it’s Bibi and I, I know she’ll be there for me and she’ll help me through it all. She’s not gonna just leave if I start having doubts or get cold feet and can’t go through with it or, if something happens. I’ve told you about the trouble Pearl had with hers, the miscarriages. And y’know, Isa has been wanting to be a big sister ever since she saw the way Lily’s oldest can make all her sisters follow her like ducklings.” she snorted, breaking the more serious mood. “Merlin knows I can’t deny my girls anything.”

“Well.” Vera beamed. “Congratulations then! And of course, you can always call on any of us.”

xXx

“It’s not fair.” Nena scrubbed angry tears from her face. “Leni gets everything and maman never listens because I should just be nice to my little sisters! When Mallie is freezing my ears it’s always be nice, she’s your little sister! When Mimi chews up my favorite slippers it’s she’s your little sister! When Teary gets mad she ruins the weather and then none of us can play with maman! I wish Pea was my only sister!” she wailed unhappily and Petunia frowned over her head to her husband who was looking between she and her oldest niece worriedly. She discretely shooed him off to go let Lily know that Nena was with them before turning her attention to the upset girl.

Lily loved her girls, of course. But she was one woman with a busy career and six children who, more often than not, ended up at either their grand’s house or with Petunia and her family. What time Lily did spend with her daughters was always divided and even then, some of the girls needed more attention than the others.

Mimi’s habit of turning into a dog and running around had nearly gotten her accidentally kidnapped more than once and had begun to delight in changing her face and hair in ways to frighten or mock her sisters. Mallie still wasn’t very good at controlling her icy breath, even with some extra elemental-magics classes to help guide her and when she was upset tended to slip into using that or her hypnotic magic. Sometimes on purpose (which they needed to keep a sharp eye on) but just as often by accident. Peony, with powerful fire elemental abilities, had trouble noticing and being able to tell what was safe for her sisters or other people to touch but that didn’t hurt her and while most of the time her ability to freely conjure and endure fire was relatively contained, now that she was getting a little older she was growing to be sensitive. The problem being that getting upset tends to start fires. Silene had Seer trances and the medium she seemed most attracted to was wood, which Lily had apparently expected. Not the whole...Mosaic, intarsia part. It’d gotten to the point that one room in Lily’s excessively big mansion was full to the brim of different ‘samples’ of woods for when she would go into a trance because she would get very picky about the woods even while in a strange almost sleep-walking state. Teary...Was Lily’s miracle baby. Who could cause intense storms and talk to snakes. She was still attending regular check-ups, given the severity of the weather changing magic she had at her very tiny fingertips. There was concern her body might be too fragile to handle the powerful magic she could already use, nevermind about what it would mean for her as she got older.

Nena, the oldest, her ‘special’ bloodline wasn’t nearly so overt. And her father not nearly as distant to Lily as the others.

“If I could tell you how many times I heard be nice, she’s your little sister…” Petunia sighed herself, stroking red hair darker than her sister’s back from the little girl’s face. She’d gotten in the habit of tilting her chin down and making her hair hide her face, and it had made Lily give off a complicated face. Even Petunia remembered that specific move the girl’s father had been fond of.

Personally, Petunia had always known that awful boy was...Well, awful. Rude, constantly begging for Lily’s attention and sneering whenever her sister wasn’t looking. But because he was ‘oh, that poor boy’ in her parents’ eyes, they never stopped the friendship. He had been Lily’s first magical friend, and the one to tell her she had magic. And Lily, honestly, had been his only friend for the longest time.

Until she wasn’t. Until he found a new group of people to hang off of and that group didn’t like Lily because she didn’t have magical parents. Until she got a taste of his vicious tongue for once.

She remembered when the news that the older Snapes had been killed first spread around. How it was played off for the bad neighborhood and Mr. Snape having a debt to the wrong people.

Everyone knew Tobias Snape was a terrible man with bony fists he wasn’t afraid to swing around and constantly stank of booze. Knew Eileen Snape could scream a house down and had unusually accurate aim when she was throwing things. Knew the son, who’d always worn old clothes that never matched and were either too small or too big, left his parents behind but started hanging ‘with the wrong crowd’.

Petunia knew that it was that awful boy’s wrong crowd that killed them. That was when her parents finally started realizing that the magical, amazing place Lily went to with all their magic could really be dangerous. When they began to earnestly talk about maybe fleeing because if it happened so close, who was to say they were safe? As soon as Lily had graduated, they were packed up and gone.

The problem was that Lily, while she loved her daughter, did unintentionally get reminded of Snape. The shape and color of her eyes, the wan skin, the way her face was a little longer than their ‘long-ish’ faces were, the way her hair fell so straight and flat, the expressions she pulled and some of the mannerisms she sometimes used.

Lily didn’t mean to see those things, and didn’t mean to treat her differently.

But the reason she didn’t want Nena to go to Hogwarts was because she assumed that she would fall into the wrong crowd like her father, despite having been raised entirely differently. The way Lily frowned when Nena seemed especially interested in Potions because apparently that awful boy had been especially interested in Potions.

To some extent, she was seeing the fathers of her daughters in them more than she should. Mimi’s teasing and little pranks would be a little more harshly dealt with than if Pea or Leni said or did the same things. If someone said that Mallie had said something cruel or mean, Lily would believe them immediately over Mallie, even if her sisters vouched for her. Pea, in Lily’s eyes, shouldn’t ever be loud or shout like any regular child her age should and should only be soft and sweet. Leni should be more athletic, more extroverted. When the talk of Teary possibly needing spectacles when she was a little older came up, Lily had vehemently denied it and then, in the span of a month, furiously worked her team to create a more reliable correction potion for early childhood myopia. All because apparently her father had worn glasses and Lily had never liked the prat.

These expectations and views that just weren’t there but that Lily herself didn’t seem to realize she was overlapping her daughters with.

Bad enough that the girls didn’t get any individual time with her except Teary and that was purely on account of her living in the boudoir room and being the baby. The girls were getting older now, and they were noticing that their mother wasn’t actually around that often.

But Petunia had no idea how to bring it up to her sister. Maybe she should talk with Dauphine first, the stately spry woman always seemed to have some kind of advice.