Sylvia Lestrange was an enigma. Sylvia had been perfectly kind when Hermione had worked at the publisher's, and she'd seemed to enjoy winding up her mother Phaedra when Hermione had been over just before the holidays, so Hermione had had a good impression of her in general. But now, with the weird implications of her words, Hermione wasn't so sure. Sylvia had mentioned she worked in the Department of Mysteries at one point, Hermione recalled - maybe her odd words were a warning to be more careful, that people were starting to monitor the leylines. Or maybe they were the beginning of a recruitment drive - the Department of Mysteries certainly wouldn't approach candidates normally, would they?
Whatever the case, Hermione was happy to leave Sylvia Lestrange and her weird unsaid threats behind as she left King's Cross.
Hermione's parents were both glad to see her, though still somewhat surprised. Her father helped her load her trunks into the car, and Hermione settled into the car for the ride home, her mother explaining the letter they'd gotten told them she'd be home for the next fortnight while "unforeseen support issues" were resolved – i.e., while labor negotiations were conducted, Hermione figured.
"You'll be able to keep yourself busy, won't you?" Hermione's mother worried. "We weren't expecting you, and we don't—"
"It's fine, Mum," Hermione assured her. "I've got plans and a bunch of things to do."
"Already?" Her father laughed. "You didn't know you were getting a sudden break, and already you have grand plans for the next two weeks?"
"Well, I had plans for Easter break already from before," Hermione defended. "I just have more time now, so I can spread things out a bit."
"What all do you have planned?" her mother asked. "No swords this time, right?"
Hermione laughed. "No swords. Maybe a fancy shield, though." She met her father's sparkling eyes in the review mirror and grinned. "I'm mostly going to go around and visit and help my friends, I think," she said. "I'm going to help some of my friends put up silver wards around their homes to protect from werewolves."
"That's very thoughtful," her mother praised.
"Always important to protect from werewolves," her father said solemnly, and Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Werewolves are a real thing in the wizarding world, and they can present a real threat when they go rogue," Hermione informed her father, who was grinning. "One rogue werewolf can decimate a community if they don't—"
"What else do you have planned?" her mother hastily cut in.
"Umm, building a tree house," Hermione said, thinking. "Visiting Draco at his house. Visiting Tracey and Millie, I think. Going to the bank. Looking up pureblood birth announcement traditions."
"Birth announcement traditions?" her mother said, surprised. "They have traditions about that sort of thing?"
"I have no idea," Hermione said patiently. "That's why I want to look it up."
"They seem so medieval, I'd have thought they might wait until a child's first birthday to bother naming it, to see if it survives," her father said. "To make sure the kid doesn't blow itself up with its magic or something else horrible."
"Your magic protects you," Hermione said emphatically. "It doesn't attack inward unless you suppress it. Anyway, I want to help Jade and Milan with their birth announcement. Depending how they do it—"
"Wait, I'm sorry," Hermione's mother interrupted. "Did you say Jade?"
Hermione blinked. "Um. Yes…?"
"Jade, as in Jade Rince, your Head Girl?" her mother clarified. "From your letters?"
"Yes…?"
"And she's pregnant?" her mother stressed. "The Head Girl, who everyone looks up to, is pregnant at seventeen?"
"Oh! No, no," Hermione hastily clarified. "She's not pregnant anymore—"
Both her parents seemed to simultaneously relax with a sigh.
"—her girlfriend Milan is."
"Wait, what?" Her father whipped around in his seat. "Hermione!"
"What? What did I say?" Hermione wanted to know. "You asked…"
"Please explain what exactly you mean and what is going on," her father said, voice curt. "Why is it you want a birth announcement for your Head Girl and her girlfriend?"
"Um," Hermione said. "Because they're having a baby?"
Her father raised an eyebrow.
"They're both women?" he said. "With female parts and wombs and the like?"
"Yes…"
"And how is that possible?" her father asked conversationally. "How did two teenage girls manage to cause a pregnancy?"
"I want to know why one was pregnant and now isn't, but her girlfriend still is," her mother said. "Why didn't her girlfriend follow suit?"
"Is this something we need to be aware of?" her father asked Hermione, serious. "Does pregnancy just spontaneously happen sometimes? A manifestation of magic somehow? Is there a 'get pregnant' spell?"
"Oh! Oh, no," Hermione hurriedly reassured them. "It doesn't happen by accident. With Jade and Milan, we had to do an extensive ritual—"
"We?"
"—and it went a bit sideways, and Jade got pregnant, instead of Milan, like we planned," Hermione went on. "So then we had to do another ritual, so Milan could 'steal' the baby and we could transfer the fetus so she could be pregnant instead—"
"She stole the fetus?!"
"—and it all worked out fine, so it's all perfectly okay and good now," Hermione finished. "Jade and Milan are expecting, Milan's the one pregnant now, and she's at about eleven weeks now, I think?" She scrunched her face up. "I think you're supposed to count from the last period, but we had to cause ovulation for it to work, so if I kind of default that to two weeks prior to that date…"
She trailed off, mentally doing the math, only to stop when she realized her Dad was staring at her, aghast.
"Hermione Jean Granger," he said sternly. "Are you telling me that you helped two teenage girls get pregnant on purpose?"
"Um," Hermione said, not following. "Yes?"
Her father threw his hands up in astonishment, her mother shaking her head even as she merged into traffic.
"I can't believe you would do such a thing," her father ranted. "Hermione, I know we raised you better than that. What possessed you to do something so monumentally foolish?"
"We researched the ritual, and it all turned out fine!" Hermione protested. "It wasn't foolish at all!"
"Not the ritual," her father said, exasperated. "Hermione, you helped your classmates get pregnant."
"Yes?" Hermione wasn't seeing the problem. "That was the whole point."
"They're seventeen!" her father exclaimed. "Hermione, they haven't even graduated! They're not even legally adults! And they're going to have a child right out of school?" He gave her a sharp look. "Hermione, that's irresponsible. Granted, it's better than having a child during high school, but right out of it isn't much better—"
Comprehension came to Hermione in a flash.
"It isn't like that," Hermione quickly stressed. "Mum, Dad, it isn't like that. Teenage pregnancy and dropping out isn't really a thing, really. Jade and Milan wouldn't have done this if there was another way for them to stay together."
"A child is not a good way to repair a relationship so people stay together," her mother said sharply.
"No! It's not like that!" Hermione protested.
"Then why don't you pause and tell us what it is like," her father suggested. His voice was curt. "From the beginning."
Hesitantly, Hermione began spilling the story: how Jade had a secret-but-not-so-secret girlfriend, how it was expected she'd give Milan up to settle down and marry shortly after graduating Hogwarts, how running off would cause her to be shunned, and how because having an heir was the core issue at hand, and how having an heir with her girlfriend would settle the whole thing positively.
"—so they won't make her marry and have an heir if she already has one," Hermione finished. "She and Milan get to stay together, Jade doesn't get disowned, and they have a new baby. It's a win/win for everyone. Right?" Hermione watched as her parents exchanged a heavy look. "Right?"
"It's barbaric that these people match teenagers together to produce heirs," her father said, disgusted. "I thought we'd collectively progressed past this sort of nonsense as a society."
"Hermione, I understand you were only trying to help," her mother said gently, "but don't you see where this might go horribly wrong? What if your two friends break up? They'll have a child together. That's a lifelong commitment."
"They intend on getting married," Hermione said stubbornly. "That's a lifelong commitment too. They just have to wait for Jade to get permission, after they reveal the baby."
"They're teenagers," her father stressed. "Teenagers, Hermione."
"Do all witches and wizards settle down so quickly?" her mother asked instead, phrasing it differently. "It's just—seventeen or eighteen is an absurdly young age to get married nowadays."
"Oh. Um. Maybe?" Hermione said, thinking. "It's—it's different, there. There are ways to kind of tell if you'll be good with someone in advance, so there's less chance of breaking up and more compatibility. You can feel if your magic matches someone else's."
"And wizards rely on this?" her father asked, raising his eyebrow. "They blindly trust their magic to pick their mate?"
"Not entirely," Hermione protested. "I mean, they pick someone to date, and then on the date they can feel if their magic can mesh or not, and if it doesn't then they don't go out again, but if it does, and they do date for a while…"
Her mother sighed deeply.
"It just seems awfully fast, dear," she told Hermione. "Getting married at seventeen…"
"And it seems so unnecessary," her father stressed. "Your headmaster is what, a hundred?"
"A hundred thirteen," Hermione corrected. "He was born in 1881."
Her father paused to boggle for a moment, before continuing. "A hundred thirteen, then, and he's still going strong. If magical people live so long as it is, why rush everything? Why get married so soon?"
Hermione bit her lip.
"I don't know," she admitted finally. "It's just… it seems to be the thing to do?"
Her parents exchanged a wary look.
"I don't intend on it," Hermione said, attempting to reassure them. "It's just a cultural thing with purebloods, I think. The others don't seem to worry as much about it – half-bloods and Muggleborns and the like…"
"But it's the purebloods you're trying to fit in with, dear, isn't it?" her mother chimed.
Hermione paused, before falling silent.
"I don't like it," her father said grimly. "I understand why they did it, and why you helped, but Hermione, I don't like the idea of child marriage and pregnancy being normalized."
"They're not children," Hermione protested. "They're seventeen! Eighteen, even, probably. They're both of age, legally adults…"
"Hermione," her father sighed. "When you are my age, you will be able to look at a teenager, and you will realize just how much of a child a person of seventeen still is."