CW: Infertility, miscarriage
As promised, representatives from the coven went to meet with Daphne's mother that Tuesday to discuss what ritual magic might be able to do to help her. Both Evelyn and Rowan Greengrass were present, as were Hermione, Susan, and Luna. Given the delicate nature of the matter, the girls had opted to leave the boys behind for this one until they were needed.
They met with the Greengrasses, where Evelyn played the perfect hostess – serving them a fancy tea and biscuits, inquiring about their schooling, and making small talk until enough time had elapsed to bring up the difficult topic at hand.
And once she started talking, the whole thing came pouring out.
"It's just—we've been trying for so long," Evelyn said, her eyes watering. "We were blessed with Daphne and Astoria, but we haven't been blessed again. Though we keep trying."
"I see my wife mourn another lost child at least once a year," Rowan said. He moved his hand over his wife's to hold. "I would give anything for her to successfully have a child once again."
Evelyn's pain was raw and brutal, though she tried to keep it contained as she silently wept. The amount of grief and sadness contained in just one woman seemed impossibly immense. Her despair felt like a separate entity present in the room with them, pressing them all into a somber sadness.
"I'm so sorry," Susan told Evelyn, empathetic. "This must be so painful for you."
Hermione hid in her cup of raspberry tea. She didn't know what to say in this situation. It all just seemed so awkward.
And how was Hermione supposed to ask questions of her? She wanted clarification – when did they pass? How far along was she each time? What was different when she had Daphne? What was different when she had Astoria? Had her own mother had similar struggles with fertility? But she couldn't ask those questions right now, not really – not when the poor woman was already in tears.
"Have the healers found anything wrong?" Luna asked gently. "Any possible cause…?"
"Nothing," Rowan said, shaking his head. "I wish they would. But… she just loses them in the first month or two. No explanation. Just… they pass."
Evelyn sat quietly, tears streaking down her face.
"I know I can carry a child successfully," she said quietly, viciously. "I know I can. I have two beautiful daughters to prove it. But for some reason, they just won't stick anymore."
"Can your ritual magic help?" Rowan asked. His eyes were intense, pleading. "We know you have powerful options open to you that most people don't."
"We will research and see," Susan told them gently. "We'll get back to you shortly. We'll need to look up what we can use to help you specifically, okay?"
Susan performed the niceties of societal goodbyes, and they finally left. They Floo'd to Diagon Alley, where the three girls went to Florean Fortesque's for some ice cream, all needing to decompress from the amount of emotion they'd just had dumped upon them.
"So…" Susan said, toying with her spoon. "What do you think?"
"Honestly? That she needs a medical workup," Hermione said, stabbing her own ice cream viciously. "If they're conceiving successfully, I don't know how much more we can do. If she's miscarrying, there's got to be a reason."
"Saint Mungo's said nothing was wrong with her," Luna reminded her. "Neither of them."
"Then something has to be happening," Hermione argued. "They've been trying for over a decade. There's no way all of those would have chromosomal abnormalities and pass naturally. The odds are just against it."
"Then what?" Susan asked, shrugging. "Do you think a bloodline jinx could cause this?"
Hermione shuddered. "No idea. I don't know much about those."
"They aren't the only ones with this difficulty, are they?" Luna mused. "Others seem to also have some troubles, whereas some people have none. The Weasleys certainly don't have any problems, do they?"
Hermione paused.
"…that's entirely backwards," she said, blinking. "You'd think the poorest people would have the least access to health care and medical support for pregnancy. For muggles, they're the ones who tend to have the worst outcomes."
"The Weasleys aren't as inbred as most pureblood families," Luna pointed out. "Maybe they brought it on themselves."
"They why did they not have any trouble before?" Hermione wanted to know. "There's a lot of purebloods in our year and the years above us. Below us, though, there's way fewer – many more halfbloods and Muggleborns. What changed?"
"You mean besides the war ending?" Susan snorted. "That was kind of a big thing."
Hermione stared into her ice cream, her mind whirring.
"Maybe it's an environmental factor," she said, brainstorming aloud. "Either that, or it's some sort of curse. Maybe being around Dark magic causes infertility."
"Not all the purebloods supported You-Know-Who," Susan said dryly.
"I didn't say they did," Hermione argued. "But if they were in a war, it stands to reason they might have been hit with a curse or two."
"You don't think a ritual would help her?" Luna asked, and Hermione sighed.
"No," she admitted. "No, not really. Not right now, at least. We could help her conceive, but she doesn't really need any help with that, does she? I don't know of a ritual for 'make a pregnancy stick'."
"That could also be really dangerous," Susan said, toying with her spoon. "If it's supposed to pass, there's usually a good reason, isn't there? Forcing one to stick when there could be something wrong with it… that seems like a bad idea."
Hermione sighed.
"Here's what we'll tell them," she decided. "We'll tell them we're looking into what rituals we can craft for them, but any successful fertility ritual needs done on Imbolc, Ostara, or Beltane. That gives us a little over half a year to figure something out."
Susan looked at Hermione sideways. "You think we'll really be able to figure something out?"
"Yes," said Luna. Both Susan's and Hermione's eyes flew to Luna, but she didn't elaborate any further.
"Well, then," Susan said. "I'll go back and relay that message, then. You two can head back and brief Harry and Blaise on what we've learned."
Hermione gave Susan a look of gratitude. "Thanks."
"I saw how well you were dealing with her feelings," Susan quipped, lips quirked. "I'll spare you enduring it again."
Luna laughed, and Hermione grinned sheepishly.
"Fair enough," she admitted. "I'm not great with the empathetic listening sometimes. I'm much better on the 'what are we going to do about it' side."
Hermione's summer, to her surprise, seemed more peaceful than the previous had been. Last summer, she'd been running around, testifying at trials and running for office. By contrast, a summer of playing in a tree house while having the goblins buy a business seemed tame in comparison. She had two months before school would resume, and she didn't want to just spend them doing ritual magic with her coven. There had to be other things they could do.
She started a brainstorming list on one of the whiteboards in the coven house entitled 'Possible Summer Adventures'. She added 'Visit muggle fortuneteller' and 'find Blackwell school' to the list. A day later, she saw Harry had added 'hunt for horcruxes', while Luna had added 'Plan surprise party for Harry', which made Hermione laugh.
To Hermione's immense disappointment, she would not be able to visit Fleur this year. She'd hoped she might visit just for a week or so, with passage on the Chunnel finally being opened to France, but Fleur had written back regretfully.
I am coming of age this summer, and my mother is very concerned. She is taking me to L'Île-d'Yeu for my birthday, for when I come of age. The Veela there will help me transition into an adult. There is some worry about what may happen when I come into my adult powers. As I am only a quarter Veela, they are unsure of what will or will not manifest, and it is best to be prepared.
If I return in a timely manner, I will write you immediately, I assure you, but my mother has warned me that it may take me the full month before school resumes to learn to control whatever new abilities I will be given.
The idea of having a magical heritage that activated when you came of age was fascinating to Hermione. All she'd known was it was when your magical core stopped growing and you reached magical maturity. She'd never heard the idea that it could trigger things.
She brought it up casually to her coven at one point, only to have Susan and Luna dissolve into laughter and Blaise roll his eyes with a loud, exasperated sigh.
"What? What?" Hermione wanted to know. "What did I say?"
Harry also looked entirely befuddled.
"Well, we know what you've been reading," Susan giggled.
"What?" Hermione demanded. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Blaise sighed, very put-upon.
"The idea that different aspects 'trigger' when you come of age is very common in wizarding romances," he said. He raised an eyebrow. "There are books about werewolves who can finally find their mate, books about people with vampire parents who suddenly get new powers at 17—"
"Does any of it have any basis in fact?" Hermione wanted to know, ignoring Susan's teasing remarks from the side. "Do most people have anything change?"
"No," Blaise said. "It's all made up, romantic garbage—"
"Blaise is right," Susan agreed, her giggles finally quieting. "It's a lot of 'what if' fluff from an alternate universe. A common one is you get the name of your soul mate written on your wrist when you turn 17."
"Or the first words they'll say to you," Luna agreed, blue eyes dancing. "Lots of 'mating' books, too, though those ones are more explicit."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Explicit?"
"Because mates mate," Luna said helpfully. "I read one where the premise was the male lead was actually a golden dragon in human form. When he found his 'mate', he fell deeply in love with her to the point of obsession, and she fell in love with him. There was a lot of sex in the book." She paused. "I don't think I finished it. I was worried the woman would end up laying eggs for her dragon husband, and that seemed like kind of a lot."
Hermione's eyes went very wide.
"But—is that a real thing?" she asked, glancing around them. "Do magical creatures actually have a 'mate'?"
Susan shrugged.
"Your guess is as good as anyone's," she said. "Most magical creatures don't talk much about their culture or ways, if they can talk at all. I'm guessing it's similar to unmagical creatures, though –some birds mate for life, while others pick a new mate every spring."
Hermione was confused and intrigued enough to write back to Fleur, expressing her disappointment in not getting to see her but wishing her well in her adult transition. She delicately inquired about what all that might entail, but apparently, Fleur could see right through her carefully-worded queries.
Veela transform fully into bird form the first time when they come of age, Fleur wrote back. There is sometimes difficulty in transforming back, and then learning how to control the transformation entirely. My mother thinks my allure may enhance as well and wishes for me to learn to control it consciously as much as I can. If she is correct, I very much want to learn control over it as well – boys already stare in the halls when I pass. I would hate for them to start leaving puddles of drool as well.
There is nothing romantic about Veela coming of age excepting that they are then able to enter a marriage contract, the same as any witch or wizard. As Veela secrets are not widely known, though, some people enjoy writing lurid fantasies about the topic, Fleur wrote slyly. I have included an example of one of these fictional depictions as an example for you. But this does not happen in reality.
The book was a sapphic romance between a Veela and a witch, and Fleur had charmed the cover to ensure that the figures on the cover looked very familiar to Hermione. When she opened the book to see the main character was named 'Harmonie' and the Veela love interest 'Flora', Hermione threw the book across the room, her face burning red, and she refused to look at it again all day.
Late the next evening, Hermione, embarrassed at herself but her curiosity burning, picked the book back up, lit her wand, and read late into the night. Under the covers, no one could see what she was reading, or how hot her face burned at the more explicit scenes between the two characters on the page.
Hermione hadn't been reading what Susan had accused her of, but if she was going to get that assumption put upon her, she figured she might as well earn it.
