A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter fourteen and be on the lookout for chapter fifteen next week!
With the New Year properly rung in, the newest member of the Nott family could not wait any longer to enter the world. Hermione and Theo welcomed a son nearly three weeks before he was due to arrive, and they had promptly named him Arthur Theodore.
They hadn't agonized over the name. Everyone who Hermione might have liked to name her soon after would be too obvious, and apparently Notts always selected good, strong English names. Theo had offered Henry, who could go as Harry for a nickname, and while she had found the suggestion to be incredibly sweet, she knew it would have been too painful. Perhaps next time, if they had another son, she would reconsider.
Hermione had found the birth to be difficult, but manageable. It was painful, but she still remembered the intense pain from the Cruciatus curse that Bellatrix had given her and was surprised to find it more painful than childbirth. Besides, it wasn't as if she could stop labor once it started, so she knew she just had to work through it.
What was worse than the labor pains was the intense anxiety she felt once the baby was actually here. For the first time in her life, Hermione felt completely unprepared. She hadn't particularly felt maternal before having Arthur. She wanted kids, of course, but eventually. Not at the age of twenty. But now she was responsible for this tiny little perfect thing, who looked up at her with the brightest blue eyes.
Arthur gave a new purpose to their mission and what they were fighting for. They both wanted to give him a better future than the one that they had come from. It gave them endless giggles when they realized their son was actually several years older than his parents were, technically.
Theo was helpful, enjoying spending his afternoons with the baby. Even though Arthur couldn't understand a single word of it yet, Theo had made it a habit to read the Sunday paper aloud to the baby, pausing to listen to his coos and gurgles, before answering some imaginary question. Seeing him hold their child made Hermione's stomach do all sorts of silly flip flops. There was no doubting that Theo was truly happy with Arthur, a smile he only had for his son coming across his face whenever Arthur grabbed onto his fingers.
Hermione felt horribly guilty to admit it, but she didn't know how she would have managed without the nanny elf that they had gotten. Walburga has offered to sell them their old nanny elf, but Hermione had declined, thinking that it might be used to spy on them. Besides, after all the unfortunate conversations she'd had with Kreacher, Hermione did not really trust Walburga's treatment of her house elves.
In the end, they found a lovely elf named Dolly who adored Arthur just as much as Hermione and Theo did. Although Hermione could still not offer her time off or fair wages, as it would cause too many questions should anyone find out, she made Theo promise to treat Dolly just as he did Tilly.
Dolly tended to Arthur overnight, letting Hermione and Theo get adequate sleep together. It also let them continue their dangerous work spying on the Death Eaters and tracking down horcruxes.
MacMillian had, unfortunately, not taken Hermione's hastily scrawled advice and went to his lunch spot to meet with Dahlia and had ended up dead. It also marked the first time that the Dark Mark was used in the sky, and Hermione still remembered the dread she felt when reading about it in the Daily Prophet. The Minister said he was going to investigate thoroughly as to who the perpetrators were, despite failing to name the Death Eaters by name.
It had Hermione and Theo more on edge than usual. It was certainly the first time that the Death Eaters were so brazen as to kill someone as important as MacMillian, not to mention he was technically a member of the sacred twenty-eight.
The one blessing, Hermione supposed, was that no one had realized any property records had been stolen from the Ministry. MacMillian's files had been searched several times but nothing had come out of it, at least not publicly. And no one seemed to have anything to say about his missing secretary Dahlia Whimple. Perhaps it was believed that the muggleborn returned to the muggle world, fearing for her life after the attack on her boss.
Their affair seemed to be public knowledge, though Hermione still wanted to shout from the top of her lungs that there was no affair.
The property records that she had gotten seemed to contain a dearth of information, not only about the physical location of the Gaunt's ancestral home, but also some of the security measures and blood warding on the area. She could easily see why people would want it to remain secret.
But, the records had mostly sat under lock and key in the Notts' basement while Hermione had more important things to deal with. Raising Arthur was a full time job on its own, but then there was all sorts of little things that were expected of them.
For one, the trio had sat for their first portrait, which took a full week of putting on the same clothes and holding a wiggly and upset newborn. Their smiles became stiff as the days went by, but at the end of it; they had a massive family portrait to go above the mantle in their library. Hermione could admit that it did come out looking luxurious and gorgeous.
Theo, being an amateur painter himself, had also asked Hermione to sit with Arthur for a painting, with cheeks blushing bright red. It was nice to sit with Theo on the other side of the canvas because Hermione knew she could be herself, entertaining her son with baby talk and stories without growing embarrassed.
When it was done Theo almost wouldn't share his work, being too nervous for her reaction. But eventually after much pleading, Hermione convinced him to give her a look. It blew her away. Theo had managed to capture all the softness and domesticity off raising Arthur. She could clearly see the love she felt for her son reflected in her eyes. And she had looked beautiful. She wondered if that was how she looked in Theo's eyes.
Hermione had also been busy organizing the photographs that would be used in the Daily Prophet when they announced Arthur's birth to the world. She selected new robes for both her and Theo that complimented one another without matching. She knew that was a look, but she found it to be awkward and knew that Bellatrix would agree with her.
She also tracked down the tiny white robes that Arthur would wear for the photographs. She had poured over many a pureblood manual that instructed on the precise requirements for newborn etiquette and she just hoped that she'd done the right thing and not pulled anything that seemed too old fashioned. Though, she supposed if she had, she could just blame it on the culture of Hong Kong that she grew up in. But the aim was to blend in as much as possible.
Hermione was sitting in the parlor, watching Arthur play on the floor, his little arms and legs wiggling around, when Theo came in with the morning paper. He pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, before dropping the paper in her lap.
She was already peeking through the pages to get to the announcements when he joined her on the couch after scooping up the baby and resting him in his lap.
A smile came over her face when she saw the placement and sizing of their announcement, recognizing that the paper had considered their new addition of some interest. She was pleased to see that the picture had turned out wonderfully, the genuinely pleased smiles on both her and Theo's faces turning into something more serene when they looked at little Arthur in her arms.
"Well, I would call that a success," Hermione said, taking a deep breath of relief.
Theo nodded. "Yes, you did great," he complimented her. "You've pretty much managed to nail it without any of my help. I don't even think Narcissa Malfoy would think that you were born into a pureblood family. And the picture looks great."
Hermione blushed under his effusive praise. "Hopefully I don't have to do it again too soon," Hermione said, letting her head fall to Theo's shoulder. "It was a surprising amount of work, coordinating everything."
"I think we will be in the clear for a few years," he answered with a grin peeking on his face. "But if you ever held a ladies' luncheon or something like that, you'd be expected to make another announcement. No pictures, at least, but you know that they love to show everyone else that they were left out."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly, I wouldn't even know to check the announcements for that sort of thing. I don't think anyone has used the paper like that for forty years." So much of what the purebloods did was so firmly rooted in tradition, they liked to continue to do things the way that they always had, even if the rest of the Wizarding world had moved on.
Lifting the paper, Hermione looked on the rest of the page to see if there was anything interesting to add. Her eyes widened when she saw the scowling face of Alfred Nott staring back up at her from just below the fold.
"Is that your father?" The words squeaked out of her mouth, drawing Theo's attention to the page.
He took the paper from her, his eyes roving over the words to read what it said. "Fuck," he said quietly under his breath. "My father got married."
"Oh, well, that's surprising I guess. And fast," she added, remembering that he had not brought a date to the Malfoy wedding last August.
"We have a problem," Theo said, his eyes drawn to the picture once again. "A big problem."
"How is this a problem? Maybe he will be in a better mood now," Hermione dismissed his concern.
"Because he's married to someone who isn't my mother, Hermione," he said with a pained look on his face. "Fuck, this is going to ruin everything."
"Oh," she answered quietly, taking back Arthur who had begun to squirm when his father grew agitated.
"Right, oh," Theo said letting the anger get the better of him. "Now there is a very real possibility that I will simply cease to be. He must have grown so paranoid about us having Arthur that he rushed out and married the first witch who would agree to it."
Hermione frowned, realizing that he was right. Seeing her pregnant must have been what pushed him over the edge, along with Voldemort's constant ribbing. She swallowed thickly. "Well, we will just have to do something about it."
"Yes, we will have to orchestrate some way to break them up," Theo said, beginning to pace the floor while he thought about what he wanted to do. "Which will have to be quite extreme because as you might have realized, purebloods don't really do divorce."
Hermione remembered the poor security guard that they had killed to keep from getting caught at the Ministry and thought about having to do something similar with this witch. Hermione looked down at the paper to catch her name — Ursula, she saw with a frown. Did it really have to come to murder if they needed to break them up?
Yes, Hermione knew that was the answer. If it meant that Theo would be winked out of existence, she absolutely needed to kill Ursula. She couldn't do all of this without Theo's help, she knew this now. And she knew this is what Minerva had meant when she said they couldn't practice non violence.
"What are grounds for divorce?" she asked, finding her voice much more confident than she actually felt.
"Pretty much infidelity is the only thing," Theo explained, running a hand through his hair, making him look adorably disheveled, even though they were talking about murdering someone. "Or if we could prove she lied about who she was...misrepresented herself somehow. But I don't know if my father would break it off for something like that."
"So...maybe we try the infidelity angle first? I mean...your father isn't the most likable person and even then, she is young. We could probably pull her away with pretty things and dinners out," Hermione suggested, knowing that you could pull the eye of most pureblood witches this way. "And if that doesn't work then we can move on to plan B…"
She tried not to linger on the fact that plan b was murder. It didn't seem to bother her husband though.
"I suppose we have to try at least," Theo scowled. "But then, even if we manage to break them up we have to hope that my father will even entertain the idea of marrying again."
"I promise that we can figure out a way to make sure your parents end up together," Hermione promised, giving his hand a squeeze. "Even if we have to get him drunk and perform the ceremony ourselves."
Theo crumpled back against the couch with a frown. "Salazar, my poor mother," he said with a frown. "If there was one thing I could change it would be more saddling her with that monster, but I also know it's the one thing that I can't do."
Despite knowing a lot about Theo, Hermione realized when didn't actually know anything about his mother outside of the fact that she had died relatively young. When they'd practiced occlumency together, she had caught one or two glimpses of brown hair and pretty eyes, but nothing concrete. Godric, she didn't even know who she was. Had Hermione already met her?
"Theo...do you want to talk about her?" She asked, pressing a hand to his arm, wanting to be comforting. "You've never really told me anything about her."
He recoiled then, pulling his arm back from her, his face clouded with anger. "No," he said simply.
And then, Hermione was reminded that they were never really friends, even if they were on this mission together and even if they had a child together. They never would have been married if they hadn't gone back in time. She wasn't close to him like Draco or Blaise had been. Hell, Theo was so shy and so private, she wondered if they even knew what had happened to his mother.
"I...sorry I asked," Hermione said, unsure of what to say really, but feeling a little passive aggressive nonetheless. She was his wife, after all, couldn't he just tell her?
Theo shook his head once again, still not keen to expand on it any further. "We shouldn't even be talking this much about our pasts," he scolded once again. "It only brings memories to the forefront and makes us more likely to slip up."
"So what do you suggest we do?" Hermione asked. For the most part, it had been easy...to easy really...for her to forget the life that she had left behind, but she never forgot why she was doing the things that she was. This wasn't a life she would have picked had it not been for the circumstances.
"We just stop talking about it. No more calling Alfred my father — he is simply Alfred," Theo suggested.
"But...we need to break up him and Ursula because he's your father," Hermione hedged, unable to let this go.
Theo was growing frustrated with her, she knew. "Let's not think about it that way. Just view it as another way to get a horcrux, okay? If we break them up, we get another horcrux."
Knowing that she wasn't going to get any further with him on this topic when he was clearly so upset, Hermione agreed to it. "Understood," she said, trying not to let her emotions get the better of her. "I think that Arthur and I will just go for a quick walk," she told him.
Putting Arthur in the pram, Hermione was grateful for the shock of cool air as she tried to get over the hurt feeling of Theo not opening up to her still after nearly two years of marriage. She wanted to respect his wishes, even if she couldn't understand why he couldn't just tell her what he was feeling. She was his wife and could share some of the burdens he felt.
Hermione supposed that it would make it easier for him to do what he needed to do if he could compartmentalize things. She knew she would probably be frustrated if she had the chance to make life better for a loved one and she wasn't able to. Would any of this be worth it if she couldn't save Harry from being an orphan? Even if Lily and James Potter still had to die, she could at least guarantee that he could grow up in a loving home.
And Theo couldn't do that... not for his mother. So if he didn't have to think of her as his mother, it might be an easier potion to swallow. She could see the logic.
Shaking her head, Hermione knew that they needed to focus on the task at hand first. There was no need to worry about Theo's mother if they couldn't even break up Ursula and Alfred in the first place.
Salazar, Hermione hoped that Ursula would take the bait and just cheat on Alfred so she didn't have another death on her conscious. She knew that there was almost nothing likable about Alfred in the first place, but she supposed he might be some witch's type.
But she really didn't want to have to go to plan B.