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“Sweetheart, don’t cry it’s - it’s okay,” Harry rubs Hermione’s back. “We’ve talked about this, this is the smart choice, it’s right for all of us -,”
They have a thirty-four month toddler sending their every day into a spin. They’ve always joked with friends who ask: are you kidding? Another? We’re barely surviving Teddy. They have been so careful. But here it is, a line on a stick, changing everything.
“Have you…” Harry asks hesitantly, “have you changed your mind, do you want to keep it?”
“No,” Hermione wipes her eyes noisily and looks up at him. “Are you insane? We can’t afford another baby, Harry, even with the legacy Andromeda left us -,”
“I could take more hours, if it’s what you want -“
“But it’s not,” Hermione sighs, leaning against the bath. “More hours than your seventy hour week? There’s no paid paternity leave at the Ministry, and how would we afford the childcare?”
“We could get a loan -,”
“I don’t want debt. I don’t want to never see you and feel exhausted all the time and start to - to resent everything, also, I don’t want to have a baby.” Hermione’s eyes fill with tears again. “I love Teddy, so much, and I love our family, but I don’t need more. I don’t want more.”
“So you … you still want to go ahead with it? The abortion?” Harry wipes her tears with the cuff of his jumper. “I’m just checking, because, y’know, and forgive me if this is one of those emotional range of a teaspoon moments, but generally you don’t cry about things you’re set on.”
Hermione laughs drily and sniffs, smiling at him, the man she has build a life she loves with out of chaos and pain and death.
“It is one of those moments,” Hermione smiles and takes his hand. “I want to go ahead, I need to go ahead, I just … I hate that I can’t get it in the Wixen world. I hate that if any of our pure blood friends find out I’ve had a muggle abortion they’ll judge me and if they find out I’ve gone to Knockturn Alley, they could report me to the Ministry -,”
“That’s why the muggle way is going to be better,” Harry rubs her arm with a frown. “They can’t put you in Azkaban for it.”
“But it’s still illegal, Harry, and,” Hermione’s voice becomes a trembling reed of fury and despair, “I know this sounds ironic, but I really really hate doing dangerous illegal shit!”
Harry stares at her. If he had to die for just for one person in the Forbidden Forest and not for them all, it would have been Hermione Granger. Sometimes, he thinks that he did.
“It’s not ironic,” Harry pulls her close and kisses the top of her head. “Getting arrested is kind of like grown up expelled, isn’t it? You’ve always been very opposed to that.”
“Unlike you, I have a healthy respect for boundaries and authority,” Hermione snorts. “Thank Merlin you’re not parenting Teddy alone, it would be a shit show.”
“It would be,” Harry brushes his lips across her curls. “Thanks for that and for, y’know, loving me.”
He kisses her, sweetly, and she leans against him with a sigh.
“You’re not going to get caught,” Harry says gently. “I won’t let them expel you.”
“What about everyone else?” Hermione mutters. “People who don’t have a literal saviour to support them? Or muggle parents to help them book a procedure on the NHS?”
Harry smiles and knows, whatever happens, it’s going to be okay, because Hermione is already thinking about how to change it. How to make it better.
“I guess we’ll have to do something,” Harry whispers. “Can’t leave a corner of the Wixen world unruffled, can we? New badges, maybe? Reproductive rights and House elf rights for all?”
“I had an abortion and that doesn’t make me a genocidal maniac, you wankers?” Hermione snorts.
“Bit long for a badge,” Harry smiles and kisses her cheek. “How about: I’ll stay out of your inbreeding if you stay out of my uterus? Just hand that one to Lucius Malfoy and see his head explode.”
Hermione giggles wetly.
“I had an abortion and I’m FINE,” Hermione whispers, leaning against him. “I had an abortion and I’m not a bad person, I’m just a person with a uterus trying to live my life. I’m better than fine. I had an abortion and I’m AMAZING thanks very much!”
Harry tilts her head up towards him and kisses her softly.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he whispers.