A/N: This chapter may be particularly triggering to some. All warnings listed on chapter 1.
Chapter Four: The Cold Red Dawn
.
Harry stepped into the flat, squinting against the early morning sunlight that flared in through the sitting room windows. He turned his face away as he stumbled out of his dusty shoes and, petting Snowy absentmindedly, made his way to the sofa and collapsed onto it wearily.
He didn't think he would ever get the sight of it all out of his mind. Not the heaps and heaps of rubble, piled so thick they had remapped the canvas of the floor. Not the way the building trembled around them, as if shaking with sobs, as they searched out and solidified its supports, lest it collapse. And especially not the bodies, lying broken and battered within the ruins, framed in shadowed pools of red. The ever-present scent of iron. The drawn faces of his colleagues as they stumbled through the wreckage, as if walking through some bizarre dream.
A nightmare. He wished that it were.
The sofa shuddered slightly as Snowy jumped up beside him, settling on his lap. A reassuring weight. Harry reached out, burying a hand in his coarse fur.
The families waiting outside the Ministry had been the worst. News of the explosion had spread through the wizarding community like wildfire. By the time he and an exhausted Tonks had clawed their way out of the wreckage of Mysteries in the early morning hours and gained the weak sunlight of the street above, the tiny alley had been flooded with dozens of Ministry families. They had pressed around Harry, demanding information, ignoring the harassed Magical Law Enforcement Officers and Obliviators, who were still trying to secure the street.
It was all plastered across his mind in sets of unconnected moments. Dust. Debris. Flashes of anxious faces drawing closer. The combined buzzing of a thousand mingled sobs lingered in his ears.
He dropped his face in his hands, pulling at the corners of his eyes beneath his glasses. But nothing could chase the memories away. With a weary sigh, he pulled himself to his feet, dislodging the cat, and stepped into the bedroom.
Empty.
Ella was still in Muggle London then. He was glad — she shouldn't have to walk into this with no warning. It was silly, perhaps, to want to protect her — the girl who was not afraid of anything; who had charged into battle with Voldemort once, her strength quite literally blazing through the dark — but ever since their many attempts at pregnancy had finally found purchase, he wanted nothing more than to paint her world in light. There was no escaping the shadows of the Ministry, however, so after a hurried shower, he collected his wand and Ella's pale blue Travel Stone and closed his eyes in concentration as he visualized Ella's parents' sitting room. Muggle London would be an escape, if but brief.
He felt the magical energy of the Stone, the same magical energy that he associated with Ella's touch, envelop him softly. It seeped in through his fingers, through his skin; flowed through his whole being. He could feel it augmenting his own power, directing it. He focused harder on the sitting room — it was so much easier than trying to choose a landing spot outside, and since his presence there wouldn't be unexpected, he didn't reckon he would startle them. A soft breath of wind grazed his face, the flat trembled, and then the floor abruptly fell out from underneath him.
Harry gasped, his eyes flying open, and stumbled down onto the shaggy rug of the Fosters' sitting room as if he had just missed a step going downstairs. His shin bumped into the coffee table with a loud thud, and he cursed, his hand automatically flying to his leg, before glancing around. It was still rather early and there was no one around. The kitchen stood empty, the counters glistening from last night's post-dinner wipedown. He hoped he hadn't woken Ella's family. He would really need to work with Ella on perfecting his landings so they were a little less jarring.
Letting go of his throbbing shin, he made his way toward the stairs as quietly as he could and climbed up to the second floor. Ella's old bedroom was empty, the bed still perfectly made. The duffel bag he had packed the previous day was laying atop it. This gave Harry pause, but only for a second. Perhaps Ella had simply fallen asleep in Eliza's room. They had probably talked late into the night and Ella, he knew, hated sleeping alone. When he was called away for Auror duty in the night, he often returned to find her nearly smothering a somewhat displeased but mostly-tolerant Snowy in her sleep.
Smiling slightly at the memory, he approached Eliza's door and paused outside it, hesitating for a heartbeat. He didn't want to simply waltz in and wake them up if they were still sleeping. But it was nearly nine in the morning, so he compromised with a soft knock, his knuckles brushing against the worn white wood. There was no response, so he quietly nudged open the door and peeked into the room.
Also empty.
Harry frowned, pushing the door open all the way and stepping inside. The bedcovers were rumpled, and Ella's sweatshirt was laying on the floor in a careless heap beside the bed. Had they perhaps woken early after all? Maybe gone out for breakfast?
He stepped over to the sweatshirt, bending down to pick it up, and froze, his fingers just brushing the damp fabric. Up close, he could see the dark stains spreading across it, smearing his fingertips. His breath caught in his throat as he lifted it slowly, the dark red standing out clearly in the early morning light, like a gaping shadow. Like the previous night playing on repeat.
His nose was filled with the smell of iron, either from his memories or not, he couldn't tell.
His eyes darted wildly around the room, spotting more red now, seeking it out. On the bends of the bedspread. Traces of it smeared on the floor. He dropped to his knees, his heart pounding wildly, examining the remnants, trying to find sense. His eyes alighted on the tip of something wooden. Something familiar.
With a sense of dread as heavy as a fallen Ministry, he grasped Ella's wand and pulled it out from under the bed. His fingers stained it with red.
"Merlin…" he whispered, turning it over in his hands. His mind was in disarray, his thoughts running wildly ahead to sketch scenarios of robbery, of kidnap, of murder. He staggered to his feet, his own wand in hand, and stole out into the hall.
A circuit of the house proved fruitless. They were nowhere to be found. Nothing appeared disturbed. He paced around the sitting room, anxiety sitting in his stomach like a stone. Was it Ella's blood on the sweatshirt? How badly hurt would she have to be, to leave so much of herself behind? The thought brought him up cold, froze his breath in his chest. She had left her wand…
He was on the verge of reaching for the Travel Stone, intent to seek out Ron or Hermione or anyone willing to tear Muggle London apart in hopes of finding her, when he heard the unmistakable creaking of the front door. Harry whirled and raised his wand again, aiming it at the door just as it inched open to reveal Eliza.
She gasped and stumbled back, momentarily gaping at Harry in shocked silence, and he hastily lowered his arm and stepped toward her.
"Harry," she said finally. "You're back…"
His eyes roamed across her face, taking in her haggard appearance, her weary voice; and the relief that had momentarily surged through him at the sight of her receded like a wave, vanishing back into the ocean of his doubts.
"What happened?" he said, his words coming out sharp, tinged in red echoes of fear. "Where's Ella?"
Eliza sighed, closing the door softly behind her as she stepped further into the house.
"She's all right," she said quietly, walking up to him. He could see the dark circles under her eyes, thrown into sharp relief by the early morning light. Her face seemed thinner, somehow, nearly translucent. "But, Harry…"
She paused, drawing in a breath as if steeling herself to continue. He found, suddenly, that he didn't want to hear whatever she had to say. He could sense the weight of her words, hanging between them. Unbearably heavy.
"Er—" she whispered, faltering over the words as they tumbled into the empty space between them, coming out in broken spurts. But once spoken, she could not make them untrue, could not take them back. He watched, not really seeing, the outline of her face. The way her mouth moved as it formed the sentences that would wrap around his heart and squeeze until it hurt so much that he wished he could forget how to feel.
He realized he was sitting. Somehow, she had led him to the sofa. He could not remember it happening.
"Just wait here, all right?" she said, peering down at him, pale-faced. He focused on her voice, let it overtake his whole being. Nothing else felt real. "I've gotta grab her some clothes, then we'll head over. OK?"
He nodded. He didn't quite trust himself to speak. Eliza left the room, and he remained, his head falling into the palms of his hands. Sorrow swaddled him, thick and heavy as a dementor's cloak.
Only one thought fought itself to the forefront of his mind. Finding her. Ella.
"Where?" he heard himself say, his voice disconnected, as if it were someone else speaking the words. "Where is she?"
"Charing Cross Hospital," Eliza said, reappearing in his field of vision. He barely registered the duffel bag hanging off her shoulder. "Do you know it?"
He did know. He remembered the long night. The sounds of car horns drifting in through the crack in the window. The childish drawings plastered across the ceiling.
The first time he had ever seen Ella smile.
He was only vaguely aware of grabbing Eliza's arm. Only vaguely aware of her protests as he turned on the spot, stepping into nothingness. Into darkness and uncertainty. He welcomed the pressure bearing down on him, giving weight to the emotions that were crushing him. Making them real.
"Harry!"
Eliza's reproach cut sharply across the disarrayed mess of his mind and he blinked, looking around. They were in a corner of a parking lot, in the shadow of a familiar building. He hadn't seen it since Daniyel's parents had led him to their car on that very first day, so many years ago. Thankfully, their appearance had gone unnoticed. He glanced at Eliza, who looked both slightly nauseous and mildly irritated.
"A little warning would've been nice," she said, taking a deep breath. "I was supposed to pick up the car, you know."
"I'm sorry," Harry mumbled, feeling, if possible, worse. "That was stupid, I just…"
Eliza shook her head. "It's fine, I get it. C'mon, I'll take you up. Have you got a hat or anything? They might freak out if they see you. Well, Dan, that is."
He didn't, but conjuring one up was as simple as breathing. He followed Eliza through the familiar hallways. How could it be that, twelve years later, he still remembered them all perfectly? He had found something here once in these antiseptic halls. The beginnings of a life with Ella. A life he had not expected and could never have imagined.
But maybe there was no place that existed with only happy moments within its walls.
Her eyes flickered open slowly. Softly. As if they carried the weight of the world.
It was bright. Daylight.
She saw him first. Harry. Sitting in a chair that seemed too small, too hard to hold the comforts he clearly needed. He was perched on the edge of it, hunched over, his face in his hands. Her eyes trailed over the cracks in the worn green vinyl of its arms, as if years of waiting, of grief, of long vigils by its many occupants had wrung it dry.
"Harry..."
His name on her lips was so soft, so broken, she wasn't sure he had heard her. But he raised his head abruptly, his eyes darting to hers, their many layers tinged with... grief, she thought. She bit her lip.
It was over, wasn't it?
Yes, she suspected it was all over.
She glanced away, stared around the bright room. So plain and ordinary, with its bland tiled floor and off-white walls. With weak lamps glowing palely in the daylight. Empty chairs and empty spaces.
It wasn't going to be easy after all. She should have known. Everything in her life had always come too easy before: the acting, the magic, even the fight with Voldemort... it was time to pay her dues. But why, why did Harry have to pay them with her?
God, that wasn't fair.
"El," he said softly. His eyes were shimmering; full of layers, each heavier than the next.
She could read it all there in his eyes; the words he couldn't say.
Humor, then. It had always served her well before.
"Well?" she managed. Her voice shook slightly, but she pushed through it. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't. "It seems our roles have reversed, haven't they? This is familiar."
Harry let out a soft breath, the corners of his mouth lifting into a tiny smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Yes," Ella continued, her voice growing slightly stronger. She glanced away, her eyes trailing across the room, landing on the one painting that hung on the opposite wall: a flower. Utterly inoffensive. She let her eyes get lost in its dark purple petals. "Last time it was you lying in a hospital bed, wasn't it? All confused, because you were in a new reality and you didn't know where you were. Remember?"
"I remember." His voice was barely more than a whisper.
"Yup," she said, the forced lightness lifting her voice. Carrying it. "That was pretty wild, huh? So..." She drew in a breath. He was still looking at her with a heaviness, seemingly hanging on the edge of a cliff. The room was too bright. The angles too sharp.
"Is there a baby in there, or what?"
She said it so lightly — pushed him off the edge with barely more than a whisper, her levity softer than a cloud.
"No." The word was ragged. Broken. He seemed to sag with it. "Ella, I'm so sorry. They said you were bleeding out. They had to do an emergency D&C. They... your parents thought they were going to lose you..."
She stared at him, her breath caught in her throat. Her heart was still, the world frozen.
She had expected it. Had been waiting for the confirmation.
It hurt anyway.
And then she felt it, the burning in her eyes.
"Fuck," she said, as the tears broke past her restraints and forced their way down her cheeks. In streams. In rivers. Fuck , she had promised herself she wouldn't cry. She was stronger than this.
God, it wasn't fair.
Why?
She felt his arms around her then, and she fell into them, forgot the world for a moment. She let him hold her, shield her from its cruelty. Her tears burned hot against his shoulder, and all she could hear was the sound of her sobs. And the steady beat of his heart.
She didn't let herself fall apart for long, though. Not in this cold and impersonal hospital room. No... she would save her grief for her private spaces.
She drew back, wiping her palms across her eyes, pushing the tears away, reaching for a tissue. Looking around the otherwise empty room.
None of it seemed to matter. The empty chairs. The tall window, through which sunlight streamed harshly. The Muggle machinery, beeping softly in the background. The clear tubing, jammed painfully into the crook of her elbow, chaining her to the bed. She stared through it all, unseeing. Insignificant details, really, compared to their loss. Her loss.
"We're in Muggle London, then?"
He nodded. "I'm so sorry, El. I shouldn't have left you here alone. If I hadn't run off, if we could have gotten to St. Mungo's, maybe—"
"Stop," she said quietly. What was the point, really, of looking back? And she needed him to be strong now. He couldn't fall apart on her, not when she was hanging on by a thread. "They needed you, didn't they? It's not your fault. We didn't know." How could they have? "I'm fine." She would be. "I'm alive. We can... try again, can't we?" Couldn't they?
He nodded again, his face still twisted in guilt. She had seen him wear it so often, she could hardly mistake it for anything else.
She sighed. She needed him to be strong. She didn't have the energy to shove his guilt away. Not on top of her grief.
"Where are my parents? Eliza?" She wasn't sure she cared very much, but it was something to say.
"The tea room," Harry said. "Eliza's just taken them, right before you came round."
"Oh."
She leaned into his side, letting her mind drift as he rested his chin on her head, holding her close. She wasn't sure how long they stayed like that — a minute? an hour? — while she let herself examine the painful details, sifting through like shards of broken glass. How much she and Harry had wanted the baby. How long they had tried. The excitement of seeing that positive in the wand diagnostic. And then the Muggle test, too. Because one test wasn't bloody enough, of course. The fleeting stab of happiness when she remembered how she felt when she saw it, and the sadness she felt now. She sighed.
Fuck.
The door opened, and Ella raised her head at the noise, glancing at the tall woman who stepped into the room. Short hair. White coat. That's all she would remember, later. No details. Not even her name.
The conversation, too, was a blur. She really remembered only how it began. Greetings. Condolences. Confirmations that Harry had already confirmed. No, she wasn't pregnant anymore. No, there would be no baby.
She wasn't a mum.
And then the moment, when the floor fell out from underneath her, and she realized that she had not hit rock bottom yet after all. That there was still so much further she could fall.
"The products of conception we removed from your uterus were abnormal in appearance," the doctor had said, her voice echoing jarringly through Ella's brain as she tried to process the medical terminology. What had they called her baby?
"Miss Foster, we ran your bloodwork through the lab, and your HCG came back at around 450,000… unusually high numbers for so early on in a pregnancy... have you been experiencing a lot of nausea? Any pain or discomfort?"
She remembered holding tightly on to Harry's hand as she nodded vaguely, dimly aware that she was losing her grip on the world, that it was spinning slowly out of her control.
"...we are sending the tissue to pathology for confirmation, but we suspect it may be a complete hydatidiform mole. That is, a molar pregnancy."
"What's that?" she remembered saying.
And then she remembered wishing she hadn't asked. That if she just hadn't asked , maybe the answer would have been different, somehow. Maybe it wouldn't have been real, if they just hadn't said it.
"It happens when an empty egg is fertilized by a sperm," the doctor had explained, shoving several pamphlets into her numb hands. She remembered the color purple. Everywhere. "It grows into a mass in the uterus rather than a fetus. It's usually benign. The only treatment needed in most cases is the D&C, the procedure you've just had done. We are actually one of the leading centers in the world in molar pregnancy research and treatment, so you're quite lucky you ended up here." She felt lucky. So lucky, she could hardly breathe. "We're going to want to follow up for six to twelve months, depending. Weekly blood work to make sure your numbers are going down. You won't be able to get pregnant during this time."
"I can't get pregnant for a year?" she had choked out, turning shocked eyes to Harry, who had squeezed her shoulder tightly, as if the touch would keep her safe.
It was the worst news, she thought. The worst news she could possibly get.
And then the doctor said it — the "c" word.
"In rare cases," the doctor had finished, "the mole can become persistent, and the D&C is not enough to remove it. Even more rarely, it can spread outside of the uterus and metastasize to other organs in the body. In these cases, it can be considered cancerous, and would require treatment with chemotherapy."
Ella sat there in silence, staring vacantly around the room, at the bright light shining in through the window. Too bright. It made her eyes swim.
"Pregnancy can give you cancer?" Harry had said numbly, staring at the doctor, his hand digging hard into Ella's shoulder. She barely felt it. "How is that possible?"
"It is possible, unfortunately," the doctor had said sympathetically. "However it's quite rare, and the prognosis with chemo is excellent, especially when caught early. That's why the bloodwork is so important, so make sure you come back for testing weekly. I'll have one of the nurses come by and set you up with a schedule."
Ella remembered nothing after that. Her eyes had grown so blurry she could no longer make out the room. And when the doctor left at last, the echo of her footsteps fading into the distance, she had dissolved, finally, into sobs.
What had she done to deserve this?
She was a failure.
Had she ever even been pregnant at all?
In the car, Ella gazed blankly out the window as the city slid past. People. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, carrying on with their lives, rushing around between moments. Their movements unhindered by the knowledge that weighed her down. She understood, finally, what it was to be marked. Most scars, after all, were invisible.
The streets seemed to bear some scars of their own, though. She saw broken windows, boarded over. An overly abundant police presence. She frowned, momentarily distracted from her own web of feelings.
"What happened?" she asked the car at large.
"The blackout," Eliza said, her expression shifting to one of incredulity. "It lasted like all day. Some idiots decided to take up looting. You'd think it was the end of the world — no electricity for a day." She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Ah," Ella said, turning back to the window. They were passing the Waterstones where, a lifetime ago, she had picked up her copy of Deathly Hallows, along with Daniyel and Robert. Her eyes trailed over its shattered windows, gaping like an open wound in the harsh morning light. It was a sad world indeed.
She leaned into Harry, closing her eyes to its cruelty.
The house felt somehow emptier when she stepped into the familiar foyer. Last time she was here — was it only two days ago? — the whole world had been brimming with promise, threatening to spill over and engulf everything. Now she saw only the looming shadows in every corner.
She trailed up the stairs to her old room and flopped down onto the bed, her eyes resolutely fixed on the ceiling. Harry sat down next to her in silence as her mind churned out one worst-case scenario after another, each getting progressively darker. It was possible she could never get pregnant again. Her numbers could refuse to go down. She could die. She could bloody fucking die from this. She groaned. It was too much. Too much.
Where could she even find the space to grieve for what they had lost?
She felt Harry's fingers thread through hers and squeeze them firmly, and she glanced over at him with burning eyes. His gaze was fixed on hers, and, as she looked on, he leaned down and folded his arms around her. The warmth of his embrace was almost more than she could stand. It seemed to draw all the tears from her eyes, as if the love was squeezing them out. She wiped them on his shoulder, cutting off the rest as best she could.
"When are we going home?" she asked softly.
"We don't have to go back if you're not ready."
"I'm fine. Aren't they waiting for you at the Ministry?"
"They'll be fine," Harry said. "They have plenty of other Aurors. I just want to make sure you're all right."
"I'm fine," she repeated. She wasn't sure if she had ever been less fine. "I want to see Rob, Harry… and… and Hannah." She had been thinking of little else the whole ride home. Ever since she had crawled out of her despair long enough to remember reason.
"Hannah," he repeated, as if chewing over the name. "You think she might have some way to treat this?" His voice seemed to swell with hope.
"Dunno," she said. "Maybe. Magic can fix broken bones, and cure colds, and close up wounds like it's nothing. Why not this?"
"You're right," he said. She could hear the smile breaking into his voice. "Of course! Maybe we won't even have to wait at all."
"Maybe," she said, tasting the word. She didn't let herself feel it too much — this taste of hope. She had learned already, how cruel hope could be.
It didn't take them long to collect their things, and before much time had passed, Ella and Harry stood in the sitting room, exchanging subdued goodbyes. Mark hugged her rather tightly, as if afraid to let her go.
"You'll check in often?" Annabel prompted, her hand lingering on Ella's arm.
Ella nodded, attempting a smile which felt more pained than anything. "We're going to see a Healer at St. Mungo's. Maybe they'll have some… better way to take care of this."
"Oh, that would be good," Annabel said. "That'd be really good. Do you think they might?"
"I dunno," Ella admitted. "We'll keep you updated though, we promise." She stepped into Eliza's hug, dropping her face into her hair. It was damp and smelled slightly citrusy. Ella smiled.
"Don't you dare disappear," Eliza said, squeezing her tightly. "Make me one of those Stones so we can talk, would you?"
"I'll try." She wasn't sure when she'd want to try to do anything anymore.
Their goodbyes complete, she turned to Harry and held out the Stone. He closed his hand over hers and, with a pulse of familiar magic, Muggle London was far behind them.
A/N: I feel this needs a note, just to be transparent with you guys. Ella is not a self-insert type of character, but this particular obstacle I have given her to navigate is inspired by my own personal experience. And while I have obviously taken liberties for things like magic and plot, and BPR on the whole is a pretty complicated story with multiple things going on, I just want you guys to know that this particular storyline is, at least partly, true. I'm sorry to Ella for saddling her with awful thing... but considering that TP is something I originally rewrote during my post-molar recovery to help me process and heal from that trauma, it feels only right that now I should finally explore it with these characters who helped me find my way out of the dark. That was partly what inspired this story in 2019 when I started writing it, and I'm so glad we've made it here. I'm excited to finally share this with all of you, emotionally savage you guys (sorry), and raise awareness for molar pregnancy while I'm at it. Let another family not be blindsided with this mess again. If I can do one thing, let it be that. Thanks for sticking around and navigating this with me, and Hella, who are in for a bit of a crapshow. And don't worry, the action plot is still strong in this one. :P