Chapter 804 - An Unusual Circumstance Ⅳ (1/2)
The living room is filled with a heavy silence with the ticking of the clock as the only source of the sound. ”Rodolphus,” Andromeda quietly said breaking the silence, ”why have you come to request such a thing from me? I know who it is that you follow, and I will not be siding with your Dark Lord.” She paused as her gray eyes coldly ȧssessing him. ”And yet, you are sincere in your request. So, I must ask is a war on the horizon?”
”War comes,” Rodolphus matter-of-factly answered.
Andromeda slowly nods her head in understanding. ”Then we will be on opposite sides of the war,” she plainly stated. ”Yet despite knowing this, you have still come to humbly make such a request of me?”
”Yes,” Rodolphus replied as his icy dark eyes shone with blunt honesty. ”The Dark Lord has requested that I take a wife from those that follow him or sire a child with one of them. I have no intentions to do so.”
Rodolphus paused knowing full well that he had already ensured his own sterility. No child would ever be born from any forced union. Never. And if it did, well, that child was certainly not his. He'd rather be a cuckold and have it known than bear the gossip or the responsibility for a spawn that had not been sired by him.
”I must be seen as obeying,” Rodolphus finally admitted to the amazement of Andromeda and the suspicion of Ted.
Andromeda narrows her gray eyes at her brother-in-law for a long time, before sitting back in her seat. ”Presuming, I accept, Rodolphus what are the terms?”
Ted gasps and moves to speak, but Andromeda holds up her hand shushing her husband. She stares at him with grave gray eyes that cause Ted to unwillingly sit still for the time being. He would obey and hear out his so-called brother-in-law's words.
The faintest tinge of relief can be seen in the depths of Rodolophus Lestrange's eyes that evaporate instantly like water underneath the hot sun. ”Male or female, the child will be named, Delphini Lestrange,” he quietly declared.
”Delphini?” Andromeda said out loud in surprise before her eyes soften with nostalgia and a hint of sadness. ”Bellatrix always was fond of that name since we were mere girls. She wanted to name her daughter or son after the oracle of Delphi. The old Greek tales were always her favorite childhood tales.”
Andromeda falls silent with a pained expression. For all the differences that she and Bellatrix shared between them, Andromeda had cared for her older sister. Before the topic of blood purity became the source of a divide between the two of them. For in their childhood, they always took such pride in their pureblood lineage. Of the great witches and wizards, who were the Black and Rosier Ancestors. It seemed so long ago, but Bellatrix and she had once been as close as two peas in a pod with Narcissa often being left out since she was the youngest of the three sisters. Bellatrix's loss still stung even now, but there was no turning time back. Bellatrix was gone.
Seated at her side, Ted looks at his wife's sad expression and reaches over to gently squeeze her hand. He did not know why his Dromeda was even considering the offer, but he understood a little after his wife's last statement. It was a way to preserve the little of Bellatrix's memory left even if it was through Bellatrix's husband.
”Well, answer my wife's question, brother-in-law,” Ted loudly said with a bit of a defiant tone of voice.
Rodolphus's expression does not change at the barbered jab. ”The entirety of the Lestrange vaults and properties will be handed over upon the child coming of age,” he explained. ”Gringotts will ensure the funds and properties are properly administrated until that time. In addition, separate vaults have been set up to cover schooling and the cost of raising the child itself. A monthly stipend will be sent which will be reassessed each year to cover the necessities of the growing child.”
Andromeda nods her head in understanding, before quietly asking, ”Will you have any contact with the child, Rodolphus?”