Darling, I'm Pregnant!

In the guise of Elena, I listened to the report of my werewolves. Another meeting with the Auror Office had ended unsuccessfully for the werewolves. The Aurors left without losses, but the werewolves were not so fortunate. A dozen werewolves in human form were lifting three wounded individuals onto operating tables, while two dead werewolves lay a little to the side. Using spells, I studied the wounded. Outwardly, they resembled ordinary people who had been beaten for a long time with something like a board with nails. Despite the tenacity of werewolves, the wounds showed no signs of healing. Interestingly, I did not feel that Dark Magic had been used.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be very difficult to find those willing to treat werewolves. Even the bribed healers from Mungo's refused. To be honest, I did not blame them; during my first operation, they had tried to bite me. Moreover, one of them was already under medication. But after I burned alive those who could not control their jaws, the attempts to harm me stopped. Now, I was casting scanning spells while listening to the report of their commander.

"We ran into Aurors during patrol," he said. "They worked with spells from a distance and apparated, using something new. Of course, I have more important things to do than take care of wounded werewolves, but this is a good way to raise my authority. In addition, this is training my skills in subtle medical manipulations and reducing irreversible losses among the werewolves, although we have no problems with their numbers. Other countries pretend not to see how werewolves flee to Magical England. We even have a few jaguar werewolves now; however, for them, we need to brew our own medicine, for which I do not have the ingredients."

Soon, the scanning spells revealed the diagnosis. It was very interesting; it would be more humane to just Avadit... I also needed to learn how to do that. I cast painkillers and sleeping spells on all three of them. "Show me your memories," I instructed the commander, aiming my wand at him. Legilimency worked flawlessly. I saw the memories of the battle: most of the magical protection from the artifacts had been removed from the werewolves by an attack from afar. A blow with magic—some accelerated objects and clots—and then an instant retreat. Afterward, the werewolves had collected the dead and wounded and retreated to the base.

"Poisoning with a silver solution," I said. "It's not a problem to pull out a piece of silver, but they dissolved the silver in a transfigured liquid. The poison entered the blood and infected the body. The disintegration of the transfigured substance, which was partially absorbed into the cells, aggravated the injury," I told him, speaking the pure truth. "This one is not long for this world," I pointed to the most wounded.

Honestly, he can still be saved. But it will have to be sorted out almost from scratch, which will take about ten hours. It is like a text covered with blots; you have to cut out the letters from the text one by one and wipe them off so that they can be pasted back onto the same page. At the same time, for the other two wounded, it will take a maximum of an hour to work—the poisoning is much weaker since they had taken fewer hits from transfigured projectiles.

"But these two can still be helped," I said, activating the scalpel charm and starting a blood transfusion. It will be more difficult with the internal organs, but I will give them a couple of potions. If they do not die immediately, they will recover. My answer was met with unkind looks.

"The wounded man you rejected is named Mark. And he is my friend," one of the werewolves told me. I should have cast Crucio, but there was no point. "You can try to save Mark yourself. I am not up to it; only the Dark Lord is omnipotent and immortal," I said, playing the role automatically while keeping an eye on my new subjects. In extreme cases, I have an emergency portkey and a phoenix. Blocking movements? At the Death Eaters' base? Yes, four of them held a wand in their hands before coming to us! And their level is a maximum of third year at Hogwarts.

"If the Dark Lord is all-powerful, what is the point of this war? Why do we have to die?" asked one of the werewolves.

"You say dangerous things," I replied, without looking up from my work, starting the propaganda. "Nothing comes for free; if you want to get something, you have to pay. You pay with your service. As for what this war is for... The Dark Lord's plans are unknown even to me. Until the government changes, you can't expect anything good. You have the same goals as the Dark Lord. I suppose Albus having the Elder Wand complicates things. Besides, it is not enough for the Lord to kill Dumbledore. It is not enough for him to defeat Dumbledore. He wants to make him suffer so that the old man's name is pronounced as a curse."

"This is not so. We must kill quickly—mocking the enemy is categorically unacceptable. An ambitious goal is to convince everyone that black is white. But we must try. From the outside, our black PR looks rather haphazard, but that's only for now... It's a pity that I won't see the fight between Albus and Aberforth, pumped up beyond the limit with necro energy, whose only memory is that Albus killed Ariana.

And then the old man will have to either lie or justify himself at the trial. A Light Mage who kills his relatives? Who are you after that, Albus? That's right—an orphan.

But let's not forget about constant vigilance. These werewolves seem to be more or less adequate; I send all the scumbags to Greyback, but you never know.

"If any of you want to help your people, so that you finally have magical support and not just artifacts, then you need volunteers capable of magic," I began to agitate. In the guise of Elena, I had participated in battle with werewolves a couple of times, which led to a slight increase in my popularity among the "furry guys." As a result, everyone except Snape stopped greeting Lily-Elena.

Yes, controlling werewolves through trusted persons is one thing, but going into battle with them? This is no good! Wizards are so short-sighted. They have a huge, obedient, intelligent army capable of instantly replenishing losses, unlike Dementors, who are self-sufficient, have no food supply, and can exist in peacetime. Yet, wizards still play at racism.

Of those present, two volunteers were found. Well, after the ritual is finalized, the Source of Princes will be waiting for you. The survivors will become powerful Dark Mages. True, this will not add any combat experience or increase the chances of hitting a target with a spell. But even if my experiment fails from a combat point of view, I should not forget about advertising and cleaning the Source.

Soon, I was already at another base, taking my usual male form and loading my brain with new work. At this new location, I was preparing for a special study. For my latest idea, I needed to scan in detail a wizard kissed by a Dementor and then check what possession entails. I had no time for this before, but while finalizing my ritual for gaining power, a question arose: how do I actually cast spells?

I mean, if I don't have Tom's soul, how am I capable of magic? The most obvious answer is that I am Tom Riddle, but I've completely lost my mind. In fact, this isn't the worst option—it would be much sadder if I imagined myself as a flobberworm. In principle, who I am is not critical; the main thing is what to do.

But now I am not driven by idle interest. The question is simple: what is responsible for magic? The body? The soul? Something else? If the body is the source, then it would be possible to stamp out wizards on an industrial scale, and it would be much easier with homunculi. Is it the soul? Very likely. My resurrected wizard with a Horcrux could do magic after resurrection, even though his body was different.

However, I have at least one counterargument to this theory. Tom Riddle created five Horcruxes and did magic, and he did not notice a loss of magical power. Insensitivity, inhumanity, and emotionlessness—yes; weakening of magic—no. I very much doubt that it is possible to perform magic normally after five consecutive divisions of the soul in half, resulting in one thirty-second of a soul.

Many pure-blood wizards believe that the souls of wizards and Muggles are different because the former can perform magic, while the latter cannot. Therefore, they consider Muggles to be animals and Squibs to be half-animals. I am not sure about this, because Dementors do not care who they kiss. Although there are no Muggle ghosts, I was able to summon both the Muggles and Squibs I killed with the Resurrection Stone.

Hence, a paradoxical hypothesis arises: the soul is not the main thing for witchcraft. The soul is more about personality and, probably, the afterlife. Now, I will check this: my resurrected wizard, who created a Horcrux from a copy of Slytherin's locket, will possess the body of a wizard from whom a Dementor has sucked the soul. After that, we will conduct similar experiments when possessing a Muggle body and check the differences. I will also check if he can do magic...

As far as I remember the Secrets of the Darkest Arts, if the possessed individual occupies a Muggle body, he cannot perform magic. Now we will begin experiments on a recently immortal wizard. The risk is minimal—there is multi-layered protection in place. If the subject escapes, I will simply take his Horcrux out of my new cache and destroy it. No one will access the cache, as it is protected by Fidelius, with me as the keeper.

The process of taking over the body lasted about half an hour. I watched through the triple barrier as the intruder tried to penetrate the unresisting body of the unconscious mage. When he got in, he began to attempt to break free, casting some senseless spell. Then he started to contort, and I noticed how his body began to change. It looked like unsuccessful Siamese twins, with another body beginning to form on one side.

Neither in normal vision nor in magical vision could the process be called interesting: just a grayish haze crawled into the body like it was slipping into a suit. Then the flesh began to change. The problem with all possessed people is that when they are possessed, the alien body is destroyed. Even if the body is in perfect condition, the owner does not mind, or the body is freed from the soul.

It was a mystery to me, but now, with the help of Pandora, I saw the answer. When a magician possessed someone, a conflict of two patterns began—one pattern belonged to the donor, and the second to the recipient. Watching how the object distorted, I was forced to admit that the life of this body would be very short. Clearly, the conflict of parts in "astral vision" destroys the body.

Once again, a new body will have to be created for the carrier of the Horcrux. Okay, this was the only option to check what possession entails. Now we will destroy the magician's body and offer the "gray haze" the body of a Muggle. If the gray haze does not want to enter the offered body, let's add our own spell against "ghosts." My spell can't destroy it, but it can easily injure it.

Starting to scream, the gray haze climbed into the offered body. The same thing happened in normal and magical vision: the same "tumors" and "Siamese twins." But in astral vision, there was something different—only I didn't understand what it was. It didn't look like a conflict of two patterns; it resembled... some kind of imprint.

"Pandora, describe what you see!" I ordered.

"Traces of wrinkle-horned snorklaks," they answered me. I felt that I was being told the truth. I wanted to cast the Cruciatus, but it was pointless; even under the truth serum, she said the same thing. However, there was a result. The magician who created the Horcrux that took over the Muggle's body could not cast magic! He could only take over the body and leave it, and that was all! If magic were tied only to the soul, this would be impossible.

It's funny that, according to the Secrets of the Darkest Arts, the bodies of some animals—especially magical snakes—when possessed, allow the ability to perform some magic. The simplest explanation is that a wizard consists of three parts: a body that can be easily killed physically, a soul that can be destroyed by Horcruxes, and an "astral part," which I will call the spirit for simplicity. I do not know how to destroy the spirit.

I began to develop a new theory about what happened on Samhain. Instead of Tom's soul, my soul is now present. But the body and "spirit" are still Tom's, which is why I can cast spells and all the "ghosts" recognized me as Tom when using the Resurrection Stone. The Dark Mark does not see the catch. If I am right, then fragments of Tom Riddle's relatives could be used in my author's Ritual.

However, Dark Magic involving necro energy and Horcruxes is tied to the soul, much like the Patronus, and this is confusing. What exactly happened last October 31 is not yet established, but I bet it had to do with too many Horcruxes, necro energy (Avada's murder of James overwhelmed the system), and the night of Samhain. After all, there is an elemental release of magic, and it was a spontaneous ritual.

I've never heard of anything like that, but you never know. I'm not omniscient, and sometimes things happen for the first time. It's a poor hypothesis, but let's leave it at that for now. That's enough for today. Time to take a break and focus on preserving the sample.

With a wave of my wand, the grayish haze was sucked into the spirit trap and then placed in an insulating container. I checked the lab's protection and headed for the exit.

Why is everything so complicated? My brain is tied in knots worse than the Marriage Bond when I try to figure it out! It seems that you have to be very careful when performing large-scale rituals on yourself. I must check everything again on a new level.

And I must not forget to think about the Deathly Hallows: "The last enemy that will be destroyed is death." What if each of the Deathly Hallows corresponds to one of the parts of the wizard? Is that nonsense? I feel like a schoolboy unable to figure out the Resurrection Stone!

If this is someone's prank, then that someone was incredibly powerful and skilled. The Deathly Hallows consist of the wand, stone, and robe. A wizard comprises the body, soul, and spirit. The Elder Wand is supposedly responsible for the body. What if collecting all three Deathly Hallows allows you to gain power over all three components of the wizard and not die?

This idea is a good alternative to Horcruxes, mainly because it does not require a sacrifice. It truly bothers me that Albus has at least one Deathly Hallow, maybe two. Even if I win, Dumbledore will be smart enough to laugh and break the Elder Wand, burn the remains, and then commit suicide.

So, there's no point in hoping for the other Deathly Hallows. For now, we'll limit our dreams to the Resurrection Stone. Too bad… Even using the Elder Wand as Salazar's wand, you can extract from it all the spells of many great wizards over the centuries.

How can I make the Resurrection Stone work? So far, this item looks like a powerful hallucinogen. I only have two ideas left: a ritual during the solstice or an attempt to separate the Horcrux from the Deathly Hallow itself. Although I have no idea how to do the latter.

Having loaded my Brains with work, I headed to the Lestrange house. I had barely entered my office when Bellatrix came to see me.

"My Lord, I am pregnant," Bellatrix said to me happily right from the doorway, as if she was afraid she would not have enough courage. She smiled as if she had just killed Albus.

Now I need to cheer her up and express my delight wildly… and discreetly send her to look for the books titled "Sex During Pregnancy."

"My joy knows no bounds," I said, copying her smile. "Have you chosen a name yet?"

"I just did an early magical diagnostic. Two weeks. The child is normal. It will be a girl."

I want to call her Delphi. A strange name, but I don't care. In my opinion, two weeks is not a child, but a zygote. And Bella seems tense. I pour her some wine and offer her a drink.

"Is something bothering you?" I asked.

"I won't drink," she answered. "It's bad for the child. What if… if…"

"Don't worry. I can protect you."

Rabastan has already finished building us a house; the Fidelius Keeper is Edward. I trust them completely.

"My Lord, I will not be a burden to you! We must deal with Slytherin's source before she gives birth or find another place to live. But I will think of something, and at the same time, I will collect statistics on connections to the source."

"Of course. I do not doubt your skills and strength. No one is going to limit your freedom of movement. But be careful. If they can't reach me, our enemies will try to reach you and the baby. And now you need to rest more often until I solve the problem with Slytherin's source."

I can even suggest that another woman carry the baby. And about her pregnancy... There are such rituals, not even Dark ones. Simply, a fertilized egg is surgically removed from the mother and placed in a female host. Moreover, a non-wizard woman can also be the host. If everything is done without mistakes, there are no consequences even for the host. In principle, you can make an artificial vessel for carrying the baby, but that is already more difficult.

"No. I want to carry the baby myself. But what if... Tell me already." I even tried Legilimency, but I only sense some kind of panic.

"What if I give birth to a Squib?" she exhaled, looking at the floor.

Strictly speaking, there is always a chance of giving birth to a Squib. With the right pairing, it is minimal. But we did not do any compatibility calculations. But I don't care whether she is a wizard or a Squib. I just need my own blood.

It's strange… She is a reasonable woman, but for some reason now I have the feeling that she has turned into a polyp, attached herself to a chair and is starting to process her brain.

"Bella, don't panic," I said, hugging her shoulders. "Look at yourself, look at me. What other Squib? I'm sure a wizard will be born. You are doing well with Neville; Delphi will definitely love you. And me."

So, judging by her condition, today is my day off. I need to hug her and tell her how everything will be fine. And looking at her, I understand that I will not have sex today. The only thing I need is Bellatrix with toxicosis! Isn't it too early? Or maybe she just wound herself up?

But Albus has no days off and no family. So, I need to use the Time-Turner and calm Bellatrix down while I do things from another time stream.

And the Lestranges need to be warned. Edward will be happy that the Lord will have an heir, and Rodolphus will also be aware that Bellatrix will finally get her child, and it was not in vain that he let her go.