A Virtue of Necessity

A Virtue of Necessity

Chapter Two

Odd Conversations

"I'm pregnant."

The words echoed in the small bathroom. My heartbeat thundered in my ears. How could I have been such an idiot?

Ron stared at me, shocked into silence. His mouth gaped open like that of a fish, and he looked from my face to my stomach and back again. I had the irrational urge to laugh hysterically, but managed to suppress it.

"Don't tell anyone," I said anxiously.

He looked puzzled. "What? Why not?" His brow cleared a bit in understanding. "Oh, so you're not keeping it."

I narrowed my eyes, hackles rising instinctively. "I am keeping him."

He blinked, incredulous. "But how - what are you going to do?"

I studied my fingernails, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart. "Nothing outrageous. When he's born, I'll raise him."

"But - but you can't have a child without being married! You'll be labelled a - a scarlet woman! No one will hire you!"

I raised an eyebrow. "A 'scarlet woman'? Is that what you think of me?"

"'Course not! Hermione would flay me!" He reddened at this admission. I hid my almost-smile behind my hand. He was too cute.

Sobering, I said, "Anyway, society's opinion of me is no reason to change my actions. That's no way to live life, ignoring your own beliefs to get approval from stuck-up establishment types."

"You mean like Percy?" he asked levelly, his ears red at the tips.

Bloody hell. I mentally revised my opinion of him - he was a nasty, sarcastic little bugger.

"I refuse to discuss Percy with you," I said coldly, and felt again the sudden wrenching loss, the shocking realization that my world no longer contained the insufferable prat.

Ron looked contrite now, and opened his mouth to say something, but I was in no mood to hear it. I held up my hand and turned away. "No. Please. I'm going home." I washed my face and smoothed my unruly hair, then pushed past him and down the stairs without giving him another glance. It was incredibly rude; somewhere inside me Proper Penelope was shrieking in horror, but at the moment I couldn't care less.

I made my excuses to rest of the family; I knew from the bathroom mirror that I looked pale and sickly, so I wasn't surprised when they made no protest. And honestly, I thought they were rather relieved to see me go.

Apparating back to my flat, I stripped to my underwear and crawled straight into bed, miserable and exhausted.

But sleep did not come easily, and when I finally succumbed, I tossed and turned until dawn, haunted by visions of my Percy dying in a million gruesome ways.

+

The next morning I remembered I had an appointment for my first prenatal check-up. I'd scheduled it a week previous, but now I dreaded going. It had been bad enough when I'd been pregnant, abandoned and heartbroken; now I was all that and moving through a thick sludge of grief.

The Obstetric Wing at St. Mungo's was rather quiet compared to the rest of the hospital; there were no curse victims running around with their heads on fire, or frantic families trying to find their ailing loved ones. Instead the waiting room was decorated in a suffocating muted pink, rosy-cheeked babies lolling sweetly in the various portraits on the walls, women in various stages of pregnancy and motherhood reclining on its surprisingly comfortable couches. Some of them had dragged their husbands along, and I suppressed a pang at the empty chair beside me. Magazines with titles like Little Wizards and Magical Baby Care littered the tables, each glossy cover sporting a gap-toothed, adorable toddler.

It all seemed so absurdly normal. But then, women have been becoming mothers since the beginning of time - it shouldn't have surprised me that at a time when I had been struck so hard by death, life was still being created; was, indeed, thriving. Even inside of me, surreal as that might seem.

"Clearwater," called the nurse. I blinked out of my reverie and stood to follow her into the back. She sat me down in a small room with a gurney and a desk in it, and I nervously gripped the sides of the hard plastic chair as I answered her routine questions - age, height, weight... marital status.

She gave me a toothy smile. "The Healer will be with you in a moment." With that characteristically vague assurance, she picked up my chart and left, shutting the door behind her. I made a face; in my experience, this was the one area Healers were exactly like their Muggle counterparts - making patients wait for interminable periods of time, both in the waiting room and the exam room.

I'd almost made up my mind to sod it and leave when then Healer came in. She was a tall, raw-boned witch with blonde hair in a neat bun, carrying herself in a dignified manner that gave her lime green robes surprising class.

"Hello, Ms. Clearwater. I'm Healer Stanwick. What can I do for you today?" She smiled, but not as unnervingly wide as her nurse. I gave her a nervous twitch of the lips back.

"Well, I just found out - well, three weeks ago, actually," I said, blushing guiltily and looking down, "that I'm pregnant."

"Congratulations," she said warmly. "Will this be your first?"

"Yes," I whispered, struck suddenly by how drastically my life was about to change.

She smiled, seeming to understand. "Well, the first thing we'll do is confirm the diagnosis, and then we'll determine how far along you are. Roll up your sleeve, please."

Once I had bared my arm, she took a slender wand from her pocket and pressed its tapered end on the vein at my inner elbow, murmuring a spell. I gasped - it was the oddest sensation, as if a bolt of magic had gone through my skin and into my vein, and just as quickly been sucked out, flashing a brilliant gold as it exited my arm.

Healer Stanwick smiled. "Well, you're definitely pregnant." Indeed. This was certainly a more dazzling way to find out than the piddling-in-a-cup routine.

She waved her wand in swift patterns over my abdomen, observing the intricate dance of coloured lights play over and under each other as they emerged from her wand. They must have been conveying some sort of information, because she was scribbling furiously (and illegibly) on my chart with her other hand. I hid my amusement at her stereotypically atrocious writing.

I was relieved when she finally put away her wand and looked at me; I'd begun to feel more like some laboratory animal than a person. "You're six weeks pregnant, approximately," she said crisply. "The child was conceived on June 17^th, 1996."

I blushed at the memories that date brought back, horrified that she could pinpoint the exact day we had - ! "How did you know that?" I squeaked.

Stanwick seemed startled for a moment before her expression cleared. "You must be Muggle-born." I was about to retort nastily that yes, I am, and do you have a problem with that? when I realized her face held no disdain. I nodded instead. "Muggle technology can only measure the age of a foetus by its size and stage of development; since all foetuses don't grow at the same rate, this is essentially an estimated measure. But with magic we can actually detect the life-force itself, and determine exactly how long it has been present. So, we can measure the exact age and date of conception. Pretty neat, eh?" She grinned. "I'm Muggle-born too."

By the end of the appointment I felt much more comfortable with Healer Stanwick; her friendly, capable and down-to-earth manner was very reassuring. She gave me all sorts of advice - what to watch out for, what to eat, what to avoid and what to expect; along with a prescription for a anti-emetic potion, for the morning sickness, which I could buy ready-made at the apothecary. She was winding down when I finally screwed up enough courage to ask the question I'd been bursting with from the start.

"Healer Stanwick?"

"Yes, Ms. Clearwater?"

I twisted my hands together. "You said that... that stress isn't good for my baby, but what if I can't avoid it? What kind of effects can it have on an unborn child?"

She furrowed her brow. "What do you mean, you can't avoid it? May I ask what exactly is causing you stress? Healer-patient confidentiality," she said with a grin.

I licked my lips nervously, hesitating, then plunged into my tale. I found myself telling her everything, about my argument with Percy and its fallout; the shocking blow of his death and the burden of having to tell his estranged family; the feeling that everything was slipping away from me, and the fear that I was in no way ready to care for the baby I already loved fiercely. I had been bottling all this up for so long, with no one to share it with - my parents were gone, my classmates drifted away since graduation and the start of the war. I no longer had any confidants; all of my friends from Hogwarts either couldn't stand Percy, or had disappeared in the frightened whirlwind which marked the beginning of the Second War. Now, I had found someone I knew instinctively I could trust, who would be an impartial audience, and it all came spilling from my mouth in a jumbled rush.

By the time I'd finished, my face was wet and Healer Stanwick was looking at me with sympathy. "You've just been dealt quite a few blows in a short space of time, and I won't lie to you - it's going to be difficult. But you're a strong woman, Ms. Clearwater, to have come through all this and be taking the harder road, deciding to have your child and raise it yourself. You will have to face devastating grief. I can't guarantee there will be no effect on the baby, but the situation is out of your control. What you can do, however, is to rest as much as possible, work fewer hours if you can afford it, and surround yourself with people who love you. The last is most important, Penelope. You need the support of your family right now - you shouldn't be alone."

I frowned into my lap. "But I don't have any family... or friends. My parents died two years ago, and since then Percy's been my only support." I shrugged helplessly, unable to meet her eyes after admitting to such a pathetic life.

There was a short silence from the Healer. Then she spoke, gently. "What about Percy's family? Do they know that you're expecting his child?" I shook my head, face burning. "Perhaps you should tell them, then," she said kindly. "Perhaps his mother needs this child as much as you do. Maybe concentrating on the lives Percy left behind will help her to deal with her grief at missing his life. It could be a healing for both of you."

I looked up, finally, and saw the face that had probably delivered a hundred babies, and counselled as many women sitting before her in this very office. I felt the confidence in her words slowly seep into me, strengthening my own will.

I smiled fully. "Thank you."

She seemed to understand everything I had tried to invest in those two words.

+

Dragging myself to work was an unanticipated ordeal. Added to the nausea and fatigue I had already been dealing with for three weeks was a new heaviness; the fog of grief hung dark and oppressive over everything I did, making the simplest tasks seem insurmountable. Every once in a while I would have debilitating fits of intense loss, during which I would hunch over and gasp for breath, understanding for the first time what was meant by pain in the soul.

I somehow dressed myself and Flooed to the Ministry, making my way from the Atrium to my office in the Department of Magical Transportation in a blur of multicoloured robes and chattering faces. It was more a cubicle than an office, actually, as I was as yet a very junior member of the staff - but it was better than being in the cramped and busy way-station termed the Hub, where a constant hubbub reigned. Wizards, witches and various other magical beings were coming and going at all hours with various gripes for the Department, the sub-departments of which were situated around the edges of the large room. As I passed through, a tall witch in chartreuse robe was shaking her fist at a cowed-looking Complaint Clerk, shrilly demanding that her broom be returned to her, and that she "nev'r drank a drop since last Thurday!"

I worked for Beatrix Ermtraud, head of the Floo Regulation Panel, whose desk sat in front of a massive map of Britain in a glassed-in office. The map showed the intricate Floo Network in vibrant green, lights constantly flashing in a firefly pattern over its surface as it monitored travel activity. It was fascinating.

I, however, usually was not at leisure to stare at it; my job was to evaluate Floo requisitions and connect fireplaces to the Network. Needless to say, it was highly repetitive work and dead boring. The girl who worked in the cubicle across from mine, Sarah Wheeling, worked for the Floo Network Authority, and had a far more exciting job. She monitored and maintained the Floo Netwrk along with two other people, and constantly had a rushed air about her. I supposed it was a difficult job, making sue the Network wasn't being used illegally or inappropriately. They had the ability to eavesdrop on Floo conversations too, the spell for which ability was a highly guarded secret unknown even to the rest of the DMT.

This particular morning, I had barely sat down at my desk when Sarah hurried over from her cubicle, hair flying. "Penelope! The Portkey Office needs our help, a group of baby mandrakes have been turned into Portkeys and it's chaos, everyone who hears them shriek gets knocked out and sent to Leicestershire!"

I blinked at her. She was generally excitable and scatterbrained, but this was a bit much even for her, and it took me a moment to process her dire pronouncements. "Good morning to you too, Sarah," I responded weakly.

She paused in her frantic wringing of hands and tipped her head to look at me. "I say, Penelope, are you feeling well?"

I swallowed hard and tried to look untroubled. "Oh, yes... same bug I've had for the last week, I think, haven't been able to shake it. I am feeling a bit better, though." I gave her a wan smile, hoping the excuse I had been using to explain my morning sickness would hold for one more day. "So, they need an extra hand for this mandrake crisis, eh? How can I help?"

This thankfully diverted her, and she was off with a fresh barrage of jumbled words explaining the situation. The next three hours passed in a pleasant blur of activity, a welcome change from the monotony of approving and facilitating new connections. The next time I looked at my watch it was quarter past twelve, and half of the Department had gone on its lunch break. The rest of us would take the second shift at one o'clock, in order to keep the offices staffed during the midday rush.

I realized, to my surprise, that I had been too busy to think about Percy all morning, and resolved to work twice as hard in future if it could give me some relief from the overwhelming shadow of my grief. That way I could pretend I had simply dumped him, and that yesterday morning with its fateful news had never happened. I was just filing some Floo requisition forms when a voice called my name.

I raised my head to see a large man standing before my desk. "Yes? How can I help you?"

He narrowed his eyes at my polite response. Smoothing his expensive-looking robes, the man said slowly, "Oh, well. I simply wanted to offer my condolences on your recent... loss." Something in the way he said it, low and almost sibilant at the end, made me push my chair back a bit on its silent wheels, though he had made no move to come closer. He spoke with surprising malevolence for a stranger, and I looked closely at him to make sure I hadn't met him before. He had smoothly combed black hair with distinguished-looking white streaks, sharp black eyes, a craggy face which could have been aged anywhere from forty to sixty, and a proud, hostile bearing.

More than the belligerence which was positively emanating from him, however, I found one thing extremely alarming: how did he know about Percy's death? After a lengthy pause, I extended my hand and said, "Thank you. I don't think I've had the pleasure of making your acquaintance."

He looked down at me with disdain, ruthlessly ignoring my gesture. "No, you have not. And nor will you. Good day." After spitting this insult at me, he turned on his (expensive) heel and swept out, leaving me gaping after him, my hand suspended uselessly in the air.

+

When I got home that afternoon I was so tired I fell into bed in my work clothes and slept hard for an hour. I'd been sleeping much more lately - it was as if the baby was sucking all my strength into my middle, leaving the rest of me in a drowsy stupor. I imagined my uterus as a glowing ball of energy, a new, delicate life blooming inside its protective halo. Remembering my father's medical texts, I wondered if the process of growth from embryo to foetus was any different in witches due to the faint pulse of magic in our every cell.

When I woke, having dreamed of pink baby skin, red hair and broken flowers, it took me a moment to realize that an owl was tapping on my window. I rose groggily and went to let it in, rubbing my eyes and yawning. The owl was a round, fluffy thing with bright eyes, and it nuzzled me as I untied the letter from its foot. The note itself wasted no words.

Dearest Penelope,

Will you come to the Burrow tonight for dinner? It would comfort me greatly to have you here, and there is something I would like to discuss with you. Be there at seven.

Love,

Molly

I swallowed. Something she wanted to discuss? That sounded rather ominous. For a moment I was certain that Ron had told his family my secret, and I stiffened with righteous anger. But then, I thought, taking a deep breath, he is the best friend of Harry Potter - and God only knows how many secrets those three have kept over the years. Perhaps he hadn't sold me out. I sighed and looked down at the parchment. I knew I'd have to go.

It was time to tell them the truth.