Baby you save me

I know I don't tell you nearly enough

That I couldn't live one day without your love

Adaline had had a good point. Which was… Annoying, honestly. She wanted him to go back to the Ministry. And he knew that it wasn’t the worst idea that she had ever had. The time that she had tried to ride her kiddie broom through the house, and ended up taking out three pictures, and a vase before she got to the bottom of the stairs was probably up there on the bad decisions list. He wasn’t sure that they had ever gotten the pictures on the wall to hang straight after that. And Harry knew that this time she was only trying to help.

She wasn’t the only one of his kids that had ever had bad ideas. Liam had ruined more than one of Mia’s bookshelves when he was little trying to climb them to get to the things at the top. And getting sticky, peanut butter fingerprints all over the polished wood. He was just glad that he hadn’t ruined any of the books. Or if he had, that Oralee had been able to restore them. Some of the things that his wife had collected over the years were antique in nature after all.

But this was not the time to think about all of the bad ideas that they had come up with. They had managed to come up with decent ones over the years too. And this one of Ads’ had merit. He knew that he had left the Ministry for a reason. And he knew that going back now wasn’t going to be easy. But she had a point. He had the training, and he was on the right side of all of this. And besides that, he had his magic. There were too many of them that didn’t right now, for him to be sitting behind a desk and not doing anything.

Not that the Project was nothing. But Harry thought that they could all do more good if he was in the Ministry where he had started out. And the Project could always be restarted, if they needed it again. Bu Harry had to hope that they weren’t going to. Hermione had started this change, and maybe it was time to follow her. He had never been good at sitting on the sidelines. And they had stayed out of this for a couple of years now. To make sure that they were doing what was best for their kids. But now they had another kid to think about.

And he thought that that meant that it was time that he took her spot. Just for now. She could go right back to changing the world when they were sure that the world was a little safer. But for now, he just wanted to protect her. And he wanted to protect Adaline. And he worried about her. In the Ministry every day, with little to no protection. Andromeda was busy, and while he knew that they didn’t really trust her, he had to have faith that she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt Adaline. For his own sanity, he had to believe that.

Dropping his jacket on the back of the chair, Harry headed for the library. If Mia was home already, that was where she would be. And he didn’t really know what she was doing all day. Other than eating the nastiest combinations of foods that he could think of. But that was just part of the deal when she was pregnant. And judging by what she was eating, Harry had a feeling that they would be welcoming a little girl in August. Kissing her on the cheek when he found her, he dropped down in the chair across from her with a smirk. “Guess what your daughter did today?”

Hermione Jean Potter • 629 • harry's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]It's hard lovin' a man,

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]that's got a gypsy soul

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]I don't know how you do it;[break]
I'm not sure how you know

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]It had been nothing short of a whirlwind since their return to London. That was really the only word that Hermione could even think to describe it. They had only been back for a couple of months, but it felt like so much had managed to happen in that time. It had started with her going into the Ministry that day in November, but so much more had happened than just that. Even putting that choice aside, there was plenty that had changed since they had made it back here.
[break][break]
Hermione had been glad to see everyone that they’d missed while they were gone. Oralee and Kingsley, Ron, Isobel and Michael, Ginny… she hadn’t realized how much she had missed their friends until they were back. But now, she couldn’t imagine leaving again.
[break][break]
But there was more to be done before it was fully safe to be here. Hermione knew that there was no returning to Mermaid Isle. She couldn’t ask that of Viktor even if she wanted to. They were back for good, but they needed to make more progress in the Ministry. Their first meeting had gone productively enough. Muggleborn students were officially back in Hogwarts and there were no Death Eaters in the school anymore—apart from her knowing that Malfoy was, but there were no dangerous Death Eaters left in the school.
[break][break]
Draco Malfoy wasn’t the type of person to hurt children. But the Headmaster had proven to be just that kind of man, and she hadn’t liked there being a Dolohov in the Ministry, for very personal reasons. He was not the man that had attacked her in the Ministry when she was young, wasn’t the man that had struck her with the same curse when Diagon Alley had been attacked, but he was still a Dolohov. She could rest easier knowing that Deacon was returning to the school with no professors that were going to be a threat to him.
[break][break]
He would be fine. She was sure of that. Hermione was far more worried about their middle child than she was about Deacon. Adaline had decided to get a job in the Ministry, after all. As much as she was proud of her for wanting to take a job that made an impact, she was wary of her daughter working for Andromeda. The woman might be cooperating with their meetings, might not have arrested her or had her killed, but she had proven where her loyalties lied.
[break][break]
Hermione didn’t think that Andromeda would let harm come to Adaline. She knew that she cared about her. But if it came down to it, Hermione knew who she would choose over her daughter, and that was what worried her. Her first loyalty would be to her Death Eater husband, and their children.
[break][break]
But she knew that Adaline was smart. She knew that she was observant and could take care of herself. If something wasn’t right in the Ministry, Hermione thought that she would be able to get herself out of there. And she would. She had to believe that she would.
[break][break]
Her mind was of better use thinking what their next move would be. Getting distracted worrying over Adaline wasn’t helpful and it wouldn’t change anything. Instead, she thought she’d spend some time reading in the library. She had already been through their shelves and shelves of books multiple times, trying to see if they had anything that could help her get some insight into Epidemic X. But there wasn’t, not really, and she wasn’t a healer. She knew that a cure would more likely be found by someone that had dedicated their lives to researching medicine, but that wasn’t going to stop her from looking into anything that she could. The book that she’d ended up finding had been of little interest, so she’d abandoned it in favor of a novel she’d forgotten their own. Even she could take a break every once in a while, couldn’t she? She had been well immersed in its pages when Harry’s lips found her cheek, and she glanced up in time to see him sitting down across from her. “Merlin. What? You know you can’t start a sentence like that anymore.”
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]703 ● @ husband ● outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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Baby you save me

I know I don't tell you nearly enough

That I couldn't live one day without your love

Going back to the Ministry was something that he hadn’t thought that he would ever have considered. When Durant and his cronies had taken over, Harry had felt the decline, and the shift, and going back now? Going back when the purebloods were in charge, when Andromeda Lestrange was the Minsiter for Magic? He didn’t think that he would have ever seen that one coming, but that didn’t change the fact that the idea had merit. Of course, he was going to have to convince Yaxley to take him, but his credentials were all there, he was Harry Potter, yes, but if you took that out of the picture, he was an auror, and he had the references, and the resources, and the training.

More than that, he had his magic.

Harry knew that they had gotten lucky, and that they hadn’t been hit by whatever it was that had swept the nation. That they were not amongst those that had lost their magic. But he thought that it was important that they knew that. That he went into the auror’s office with all of the cards on the table, and that was a card that he had to play. That was something that they had to take into consideration. They could hate him all they wanted, but he knew that they had to keep whomever they could that had magic.

And taking him back onto the force wouldn’t look too bad if they were really going to continue with the whole cooperation bit either. Andromeda hadn’t killed Hermione in any of their meetings just yet, and he knew that Kingsley was going to the Ministry and continuing to meet with her. Adaline was there every day. Taking far too much after her godmother for his liking, but he couldn’t really do anything to stop that. She was going to the Ministry, and she was going to be a healer, and he knew that there was a lot of similar interest there.

A lot of things that he would have rather put behind him if he could. He didn’t think that thinking about it was going to do him a whole lot of good. And if he was going to convince Mia that him going back to the Ministry, and her taking over the Foundation, was a good idea, then he was really going to have to be convincing. He was going to need an argument, and talking points, and he was half convinced that he needed a notecard with bullet points drawn out so he could stay on track.

There was more to it than just convincing her though. Because Hermione was pregnant, and that alone was a factor that they hadn’t considered before. That was a factor that had never been played into the equation before. She had always wanted another one, and he knew that they would have gotten here eventually, but having another kid now was just like they were asking for some obstacle to pop up that they were going to have to make another choice for. And he knew that he had done it. He had been the one that suggest that they have a baby now.

Part of him was hoping that the more babies that they had around, the more that they could make the changes that they were pushing for stick. There were going to be babies on their side. They were having one. The Shacklebolts were having another one. Penny and Percy Weasley were having one before anyone else. They were having more babies on their side, and he thought that that was good, considering all of the Death Eaters that he knew had little ones running around.

Shaking his head, he brushed her worries aside, “Nothing terrible. Just enough that she’s your daughter. That bull headedness of hers certainly comes from her mother.” There was a smirk on his lips as he reached for the evening edition of the paper. “She tried to convince me to go back to being an auror this morning.”

@ wife • 675 • harry's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

[attr="class","cbg"]

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[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]IT'S HARD LOVIN' A MAN,

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]that's got a gypsy soul

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT;[break]
I'M NOT SURE HOW YOU KNOW

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]She had wanted to wait for the right time to return to London. But after months and months, with very little change, she had realized that there was never going to be a right time. And once that was on her mind, she had known that she needed to tell Harry. She wasn’t in the habit of keeping things from him if she could help it—not that he could really say the same thing about her. He was the one that had been leaving the island to go back into London without telling them, after all. But when she was the one that wanted them to move back home, she had known that she needed to talk to him about it. Officially moving back as a lot different than slipping into the city when he thought that nobody was looking.
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There had been no way of knowing what was going to happen when they got back here. She had known that—Harry had known that, the kids had known that. She was still technically a fugitive. She could be arrested the first moment that the Ministry realized they had returned, but they had decided it was worth the risk… that calling Andromeda’s bluff was worth the risk. As much as she was married to a Death Eater, she had also thought that the woman wouldn’t arrest her. She didn’t really know why—it had just been a feeling.
[break][break]
Hermione knew that walking into the Ministry to meet with the woman and being allowed to walk back out again would call her beliefs into question with the purists. That was nearly what she had been hoping for, in all honesty, and she had gotten what she wanted out of that. She had been in and out of the Ministry on multiple occasions now and had still not been arrested. She had been out in London, out in Diagon Alley, and nothing bad had happened.
[break][break]
But it wasn’t enough. She knew that they needed to keep pushing for more change. It wasn’t fair that she was allowed to walk around free just because she was her, and she had called the Minister’s bluff, when there were hundreds and thousands of Muggleborns that were still without wands and without rights. They had to continue to do more, but that took time. It wasn’t something that was going to change overnight.
[break][break]
They had a lot to think about these days, there was no doubt about that. Adaline had decided to work for Andromeda, Liam had decided to go to University, Deacon was back at Hogwarts—and she was pregnant. They had been talking about having a baby for… years now, honestly, but the timing had always been wrong. There had always been unease, or danger, or something that had held them back. But they had realized that that worry was always going to be there, and Harry had suggested that they stopped waiting. Having a baby was yet another reason that she wanted to continue to push for change. She didn’t want them born into this—and she also knew that Harry would likely be less okay with her doing anything dangerous the further along she got.
[break][break]
And she would have to listen to him, because she didn’t want anything to happen to the baby either. She just didn’t want to be doing nothing while everyone else worked toward the change that they needed. It was something that she was going to have to figure out. “Oh, that’s up for debate. You know she takes after you.” In some ways, their daughter was like her, but she had always been much more like Harry, and that meant that her stubbornness definitely came from him. “She did, did she?” Hermione raised her eyebrows, as she closed the tome on her lap. “And what did you say?” Getting back into the Ministry wasn’t a bad idea, but the aurors’ office probably had more Death Eaters in it than any other office in the Ministry. She had very clearly noticed that when they had taken her there on her surprise visit to Andromeda.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]687 ● @ harry ● outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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Baby you save me

I know I don't tell you nearly enough

That I couldn't live one day without your love

Talking about going back to the Ministry, and actually going back to the Ministry were two very different things, and he knew that no matter how hard Adaline pushed, he had to talk to Hermione about it before he went any further. This was a decision to make together. They had a new baby coming. They had a world that they were going to try and save, and he knew that doing that from the belly of the beast wasn’t exactly the safest route. But he had magic. And there were plenty of them that did not. There were too many of them, really, that did not.

If they were going to actually have a police force, if the Aurors were going to be effective, they needed all of the help that they could get. Even if that meant that the Order and the Death Eaters had to work together. Even if it meant that they had to learn to fight side by side. There was more to worry about than just who was on what side of the fight. Harry had learned that. He had learned that when they had tried to do the right thing last time. He had learned that when Durant had thrown, he and Kingsley both out of the Ministry.

Of course, he had left willingly. He had allowed Durant to demote him, and then he had left on his own after a while. But he could see why the idea of going back was one of such high appeal. He could taste it, now that he had talked about it. And he knew that that was part of who he was. He had wanted to be an Auror for most of his life. And he had let a dead man take that away from him. He couldn’t say that the Wentzells had had the right idea when they had burned the man in the lobby because they hadn’t at all. But he thought that there was some merit in that man no longer breathing.

Killing was not a pretty thing. He didn’t like doing it. But he would if he had to. And if there was one lesson that he had learned from Albus Dumbledore, it was that for better or for worse, sometimes you had to do things for the Greater Good. It didn’t make them better than the other guys. It didn’t make them worse. They had all done terrible things. They had all done things for the people that they loved. And they had all done things in an effort to reach what they thought was going to be best for everyone. He had said it before, and he would say it again. Being against evil didn’t make him good.

He wasn’t a bad person, but he had done bad things. And he knew that. Everyone knew that. You couldn’t take a life, any life, and remain wholly good. It didn’t work like that. Taking lives changed you. And Harry had taken more than a few in his life. He didn’t know how many. He had no idea how many lives he was responsible for. But he knew that there were a fair few that he carried on his shoulders, and being a part of the Auror’s department… It had helped with that. If he could do good. If he could help others, instead of killing…

Harry knew that it coming from Adaline was ironic, but there was still an air of innocence about his daughter. She was only seventeen. And there was something to be said for wisdom from the mouth of babes. “That I had to talk to you.” If he was going to go back if this was something that he was going to pursue, he was going to make sure that Hermione was on board with it first. He was going to make sure that they were all going to do the right thing. That she wasn’t going to be angry or upset with him. Because this was something that they did have to discuss, but it was something that he had to do without her. She wasn’t an Auror, she never had been…

@ wife • 697 • harry's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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[attr="class","ctopline"]IT'S HARD LOVIN' A MAN,

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]that's got a gypsy soul

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT;[break]
I'M NOT SURE HOW YOU KNOW

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[attr="class","cbody"]Coming back to London had been a risk. Not just for the obvious reasons, but for the newer one. The risk of being a Muggleborn in a purist-run Ministry was something that they had known was going to be a challenge if they ever decided to come back. Even if Andromeda was not Wentzell, even if her motives and her loyalties might be a bit greyer than just black and white, that still had been a risk. She’d taken a chance based on the information that they had. Based on the fact that it didn’t seem like anybody had looked for them all that hard after they had gone into hiding. Sure, their house had been searched, but they could have kept looking. They could have questioned everyone they knew, could have followed all of them around to see if they would eventually lead them to wherever they were staying.
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But that hadn’t happened. She knew that it was public knowledge that they were close with the Krums, but they had never been bothered. She was incredibly thankful for that, but she still thought that it was relatively telling. They could have tried harder to find them. Hermione would have imagined she was high up on that fugitive list, being one of the more well-known Muggleborns in the United Kingdom. They had decided to come back on that assumption. They had hoped that would mean that it was safe, at least safer than it had been when Wentzell had been in power.
[break][break]
No, the risk that they had truly been taking had been the epidemic. There was no way of knowing if they were going to get sick. On Mermaid Isle, the epidemic had not hit them. There had been no way for it to. They didn’t get visitors apart from the Krums, and those visits were not ones that happened too often. Viktor had not gotten sick, but he had not visited while Desirae had been, or for a while after. Desirae hadn’t come at all after she’d gotten sick. They had undoubtedly been safe from the epidemic there. If they had ended up sick, it would have been because Harry had brought it back from London on one of his numerous secret trips. Those trips were not too long though, so she thought that if they had stayed there, they probably would have continued to remain safe from the epidemic.
[break][break]
Coming back to London definitely increased the odds of exposure. She thought that they all knew that. But it had been a choice that they’d still made. Since they had gotten back, none of them had gotten sick. There was no way of knowing exactly why that was. She didn’t know if they were among the few that were somehow immune—though it seemed improbable that they would all somehow have that immunity. She knew of families that had several members that had never gotten sick, but all of them? It just didn’t seem likely. There was a chance that they had missed the initial outbreak, where thousands of people had gotten sick and avoiding exposure was next to impossible, and that was why. Now there tended to be only sporadic outbreaks reported in the paper, most of which were in less populated areas and not London. It was possible that they still could get sick, and just hadn’t been around anyone still exposed.
[break][break]
She didn’t know. Not for sure. So, she knew that it was a risk, they all did, but they could be mindful, and they could be cautious. If they were lucky, maybe they’d get off unscathed. As far as the epidemic went, anyway. Working in the Ministry was another kind of risk. Of course, she had known that when she had waltzed in that first day, and again for that meeting. It would be hypocritical of her to be against Harry trying to get his job back, even if she didn’t love the idea of him going into the belly of the beast every day. Adaline already did, and she worried enough about that—just as she worried about her getting too close to Andromeda again. “Okay,” she shifted to set her novel on the end table. “So, talk.” Prompting him like that wasn’t likely to get too many answers out of him, so she continued. “You want to go back, then?” That much was obvious. If he hadn’t wanted to, his answer to Adaline would have been to tell her that himself. Not to tell their daughter that he needed to talk to her. Wanting to talk to her made it clear to her just what Harry wanted to do.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]777 ● @ harry ● outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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Baby you save me

I know I don't tell you nearly enough

That I couldn't live one day without your love

It wasn’t a discussion to have lightly. Actually, going back to the Ministry was something that he thought that he would ever do. That had been part of what had caused him to start the Project. It was some way of doing good that didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he wasn’t an auror anymore. It had been somewhere to focus his energy, and that had been good. That had been exactly what he needed. But he thought that the time for that was through. He would retain his position there. He would still be the Founder and the President of the Board, but he couldn’t do day to day anymore.

Not when he thought that Adaline might have been right. And he knew that he thought that, because he wouldn’t be here, he wouldn’t be bringing this up to Hermione at all, if he didn’t think that he might actually want to go back. And she was going to hate it. He knew that she was going to hate it. But there was the fact that he was actually talking to her before he did anything about it to consider. For him, that was an improvement. Harry had always been one to act first and think second. But this time around he was thinking.

He was thinking about her. And he was thinking about their kids. All of their kids. Because having a new baby changed things as well. It was something that they were going to have to try and think about in a way that just simply didn’t make all that much sense. They were going to have to think about it in a way that was open minded. That was going to be the key here. He was going to have to look at the good things, and not the very seriously frustrating bits of going back there.

Harry was well aware of who was in those halls. He knew that there were Death Eaters crawling all over the department that he was going to be walking back into. But that was who he was. He knew that he had been willing to sit the sidelines when they had first come back. But they weren’t going to get anything done by doing nothing. And this was something that he could do. This was the only thing that he had really wanted to do since he was a kid. He had been fifteen when he had first talked about being an auror, and he had done it.

He had gotten the marks that he had needed, he had pushed through the exams that he hadn’t really understood. He had been granted a diploma for ending a war. And he had gone to the Ministry. He was always supposed to have been there, he was always supposed to have been doing this. But he knew that going back was going to cause some tension. He knew that she wasn’t going to like it. But he thought that he had to make her see that this was the right choice. Even if it meant that he was just doing it to take care of Adaline.

And that was partially why he wanted to be there as well. He had his magic, and he knew that there were plenty of people in that building that did not. He knew that they were going to be up against challenges that they hadn’t seen coming, simply for that impediment. And he wanted there to be someone else in that building that was looking out for her. Because he trusted her judgement. But he also knew that he didn’t trust Andromeda Lestrange as far as he could throw her. “I think this is a good idea, Mia. It gives us one more foothold in that building. One more person on our side. One more person looking out for our kid.”

@ wife • 650 • harry's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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[attr="class","clyrics"]I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT;[break]
I'M NOT SURE HOW YOU KNOW

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[attr="class","cbody"]Hermione had not been sure what to think when Adaline had decided to take a job at the Ministry. Not just in the Ministry, but in the belly of the beast. In the Office of the Minister. Working for Andromeda. As far as bad ideas went, Hermione thought that was high up there. It was not a good idea. She was proud of her daughter wanting to help. She was even proud of her for wanting to go into the Ministry and see if she could do something to help the state of the wizarding world improve. All of that was good.
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But she thought that there were ways to do that that didn’t put her in the same room as Andromeda Lestrange day after day. She did not consider that to be a good or a smart idea. Not after the woman had proven where her loyalties were. She thought she knew exactly what was going to happen. It didn’t even need to happen yet. Hermione just also knew what was coming. Adaline was going to grow attached to her again. They had been close growing up. It would be easy for that dynamic to come back, for memories to pull her back in. She knew that Andromeda had a way of words. She had lied her entire life, of course she did. If she wanted Adaline back in her life, she would sweet-talk her way back into it, and she knew her well enough to do it. The woman knew the way to her heart, she knew what she loved and what she was passionate about. The woman had been family, once upon a time. It would be easy to go back to that.
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And she was sure that it would happen. Adaline would grow attached to her again. A woman that had married a Death Eater responsible for torturing and killing Muggleborns. A man that would have no problem shooting her dead on the street if he saw her. That was the type of man that Andromeda had married. She had married the late husband of her sister—the woman that had killed her daughter. That had killed her son-in-law. That had killed Sirius, and dozens if not hundreds more. She had married a murderer and she had taken over the Ministry and had let the injustices continue. That was the woman that Adaline was once again going to grow attached to, and Hermione knew that there was nothing that she could do about it.
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She just had to trust that her daughter would use her instincts. That she would be smart. That she would not let emotions or good feelings blind her if she got into a bad situation. It was all that she could hope for, honestly. Hermione knew that Adaline was not about to listen to her. She would listen to Harry, but she wasn’t going to listen to her. Her daughter had always been closer to her father. She was far more likely to listen to his advice than hers, and Harry was also statistically the more reckless one out of the pair of them.
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Not all of the time. She definitely had her reckless moments—she would never deny that. It would be absolutely ridiculous to. But generally speaking, she was the levelheaded one. She had been since they were eleven years old. She wasn’t infallible, but she was still sensible most of the time. And with Harry wanting to talk about going back to the aurors’ office, Hermione that she had to keep that level head. There were a dozen reasons that she wanted to get through as to why this was a bad idea, but if she got upset or they started to fight about it, she knew that it wasn’t going to get anywhere. It meant getting a handle on her emotions, which was not always to do when her hormones came into play.
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So, she took a breath before answering, gathering all of her thoughts to figure out what she wanted to say first. She didn’t have to like an idea to discuss it calmly. That was the hope, anyway. “I understand that. I don’t like her being in that office. Being in the Ministry is one thing but working for her is another. It would make me feel better knowing you were there.” That wasn’t a lie. Knowing that Adaline had someone around to watch her back would help. But he couldn’t watch her every second of the day—and it put him in danger being there too. “But… there are definitely things to consider. I mean, you know who is in charge of the aurors’ office. And you know who is in charge of that department.” She really wished that she had some tea. Tea always helped in situations like this one—and it gave her something to do with her hands. Something to slow her down, too, to stop her from seriously ranting. “The Department of Magical Law Enforcement probably has more Death Eaters in it than the rest of the departments combined,” she reminded him. Most of whom were some of their best fighters too, which was why they were in that department to begin with.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]872 ● @ harry ● outfit

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Baby you save me

I know I don't tell you nearly enough

That I couldn't live one day without your love

Harry had left for a reason, and he wanted to go back for a reason. He knew that Hermione likely wasn’t going to like this choice at all. That she was going to find something about it that she could latch on to, that he was going to have to agree was a bad idea. But there were no ideas that were inherently good, or bad. He had learned that a long time ago. And he had learned it in a way that he didn’t like. He had seen people die. He had killed people, that were so much like him. He had watched Crabbe die, and not been able to do anything about it.

But he had had to realize that being against evil, didn’t make him good. And being against what he considered good, didn’t make someone else evil. He didn’t have to like them. He most certainly didn’t have to trust them. But if they were going to move forward, if they were going to stop being so caught up in this same war that they had been fighting for nearly fifty years, then he was going to have to try and do something about it. They were all going to have to do something about it. They were going to have to try and make the changes stick.

And constantly fighting one another about it wasn’t going to do them any good. He thought that the truce had been a joke, when they had first said that they were going to propose it. But the longer that he thought about it, the more sense it made. He didn’t like it. He was pretty sure that he was never going to like it. His parents had died fighting this war. His godfather. His friends. He had lost mentors, and teachers, and classmates. He had lost people that he hadn’t even realized until after the fact. But they had all lost so much.

Moving forward was going to be a challenge. For everyone. Harry knew that Mia wasn’t going to like that she couldn’t do anything about it. That they were all going to have to face things that they didn’t want to face. That they were going to have to deal with people that they didn’t want to cooperate with. But if he thought that they were going to do better this time. If they were all really going to start over, if the world was going to be a better place for their daughter. For the Shacklebolts little kids. For all of the babies that had been born in the last few years. They had to try.

They had to do something. And he could do something. He could go back to doing what he had wanted to do all along. He could go back to being an auror, to trying to help people. Because that was what he was supposed to be doing. There weren’t a lot of times in his life when Harry really embraced that hero role. But he thought that he just might today. That there was always going to be that something that he could do. Something that he could believe in. And he wanted that. Selfish, maybe. Especially for someone that never liked being the hero. But he had always been an auror.

He had always been one to fight for the good. Or at least what he perceived to be the good. And he couldn’t just not do that now. He couldn’t miss this chance. She wasn’t going to like it, and he didn’t expect her to. But she had to see his side too. At least admitting that she understood him wanting to protect Adaline made him feel better. She wasn’t just saying no to this. She was thinking about it. She saw the good there too. “I know that. I’m not doing this blindly Hermione. I know the risks. I know that there are more Death Eaters that want to kill me in that department than there are anywhere else. But they won’t.” He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did. “If there was some way to tell you how I know that, I would. But I don’t. I just know that they won’t. If we’re going to move forward, if we’re going to make a better life for our kids, all of our kids. We have to start somewhere. Maybe I’m walking into a snake pit. But if I don’t, what are we even trying to fix?”

@ mia • 753 • harry's outfit

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[attr="class","clyrics"]I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT;[break]
I'M NOT SURE HOW YOU KNOW

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[attr="class","cbody"]There was no denying that Hermione wanted to be doing more. That she wished that she could be doing more. Hermione had known that it was going to be difficult coming back to the United Kingdom. She knew that she was at risk of getting arrested, that the Ministry could arrest all of them if they wanted to—her for being a fugitive, her family for helping to harbor one, and the Krums if they had figured out that they were involved. She had known that there were straightforward risks that they were walking into. That there was a good chance that something could go wrong, because there was so much that was up to chance. So much that they did not have control over.
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For the most part, their main concerns had been unwarranted. So far, anyway. She had not been arrested, neither had Harry, the kids, or the Krums. The epidemic had been a concern as well, but nobody had been infected by it yet. Hermione knew that there were a select few people that had been immune from the epidemic, but she also knew the odds of all of them being immune was incredibly slim. More likely than not, none of them were. Or maybe one of them, but certainly not all of them. It was far more likely that they hadn’t come in contact with anyone that currently carried the virus, and that could change any day. It was all a matter of chance. There was always going to be the risk of getting infected.
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It was something that she would obviously be mindful of, but it wasn’t something that she necessarily thought needed to be at the forefront of her mind at any given moment. So far, they were okay. So far, their return to London had not come with too many roadblocks. Everything had been all right, and she was glad for that. It wouldn’t stop her from worrying, but it was at least nice to know that, for now anyway, things were going okay.
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It made a little bit easier since there was so much more for her to worry about than just the epidemic, than just the odds of the aurors coming to arrest them. Adaline had gotten a job in the Ministry—that in and of itself was not a bad thing. Yes, she would worry about the enemies that they had in the Ministry, but wanting to get a job, wanting to do what she could to help, that was a good thing. Hermione was proud of her for wanting to make that kind of contribution, proud of her for wanting to do something good. But the choice to work directly for Andromeda was not something that she was overly happy about. She did not trust the woman as far as she could throw her, and she knew how important Andromeda had been to Adaline once upon a time. It would be easy to fall into old habits, something that she was relatively sure was going to happen eventually.
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But there was nothing that she could do about that. Nothing she could do but let Adaline make her own choices and her own mistakes. She was an adult now. Hermione could not protect her from everything though, admittedly, having Harry in the Ministry along with her would ease her mind slightly. It would at least make her feel like someone had her daughter’s back in there. Hermione knew that Kingsley did, that he was there too, but having Harry there was different. She knew that he would never let anything happen to Adaline.
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The idea of him going into the belly of the beast by rejoining the aurors’ office was still not something that she liked to think about, though. It might keep Adaline safe, him being there, but it certainly put him in more danger. He would be surrounding himself with more Death Eaters than he would have in any other department. It wasn’t something that she thought was overly safe, even with him having his magic. “You can’t just…” She sighed, pausing to try to arrange her thoughts cohesively. “You can’t just say that they won’t try to kill you, because you just know. You don’t know that. You have no idea what they might do.” Blind faith wasn’t going to do them any good either. She’d feel better if he at least went into this knowing that he could get partnered with a Death Eater on some case where they might not put a wand to his head themselves, but could lead him into a bad situation, leave him cornered and outnumbered, and it would just be a case that had gone wrong. He at least needed to be aware of that, and not just think that he knew they wouldn’t kill him.
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“I understand that. I do. I want to help too. It’s just… not something you can jump into. It’s…” Complicated, dangerous, filled with dozens of terrible scenarios where things went wrong. It was also frustrating to think of yet another person she cared about in the Ministry, when she couldn’t just waltz in there and find a way to help as easily.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]868 ● @ harry ● outfit

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