Of course Ted wouldn’t tell Frank, if she didn’t want him to. He was a good person. And of course it would hurt him keeping that secret from his friend. He was a good person. And Alice…well, she tried to do good. She’d never been under the illusion that she was as kind as Frank, but she believed there were different ways to actually do good in the world, and throwing yourself like a shield between innocents and the darkness that wanted to hurt them was a good way to do good without actually having to be particularly nice. It had always worked before, but…but that was before she was lying to Frank about something she knew would hurt him.
That was before she’d started cutting her husband out of her life so as to avoid having to admit to him that she’d done something she knew would break his heart.
Ted mentioned advice and Alice couldn’t stop herself turning to look up at him, eyes probably as wide and pleading as a sodding first year caught out after curfew by a prefect who now dangled the possibility of getting off with a warning over their head if only… Ted wasn’t the sort to play those games, of course; probably hadn’t been even at school. But Alice couldn’t help feeling like she was twisting under the gaze of one of the sods who had, like she was some scared idiot kid again hoping for leniency. She wasn’t hoping for leniency: she was looking for a solution. For salvation. She drank in his words to that effect and her heart sank as he spoke about his and Andromeda’s marriage; about honesty.
Ted was a good person and he was right, so double-fuck to that.
Alice groaned. “I know,” she said, “I fucked up. I fucked up so badly, Ted. I don’t know why I didn’t tell Frank right off—No,” she interrupted herself with a sigh, finally shoving herself off her knees only so she could flop back, head sagging, against the back of the bench. “I know exactly why I didn’t tell Frank right off,” she corrected. “Because I knew how fucking excited he would be to be a dad, and I couldn’t face being a mum. Couldn’t face leaving the fight in order to be one, I mean. I just…” Alice sighed, shook her head without lifting it off the back of the bench, and looked sideways at Frank. “How could I have let all our friends, let Frank, walk into danger while I sat at home and…and knitted booties or something for five months?
“And then what about after?” she continued bleakly. “Kids don’t just open their eyes and start taking care of themselves. You know that better than me. So, what—either Frank or I stay home with the baby for…what, ten years until it goes off to Hogwarts? Hand it to Augusta to look after while we run around dueling Death Eaters?” Alice grimaced. “You can imagine how that would go over. No, we couldn’t have taken the time for a kid. I knew that…but I don’t know that Frank did. And I couldn’t turn my back on the war, on Voldemort, and live with myself. I couldn’t stop fighting the war we have to win to save the world in order to have a kid who’s supposed to live in that world.”
It had been different for Ted and Andromeda, of course; they’d been courting the wrath of the Blacks by just being together. The war hadn’t started yet when Nymphadora was born. They hadn’t been part of the fight because there hadn’t been a fight. For them, having Nymphadora had been an act of bravery and defiance. But Alice and Frank had been Aurors and Order members, and they didn’t have relatives like Andromeda’s to contend with. For them—for her—stepping back from the war to have a baby would have felt like surrender. Like complacency. Like letting the Death Eaters run unchecked out of selfishness. “War first, then a family,” Alice said firmly. “Make a safe world first. That was the plan. But…” She hesitated, then decided that at this point there was no point not being completely honest, was there? “But I was afraid Frank wouldn’t see it that way,” Alice whispered.
Tears brimmed in her eyes but didn’t fall. Not yet, anyway. “And I was afraid that if I told him, he’d want to keep the baby. Would say that it would all turn out for the best, or something. I was afraid that he’d…that I’d let him convince me to drop out of the fight so we could keep it. And afraid that I’d hate him for that. Or he wouldn’t be able to convince me, and he’d never be able to look at me the same again after I got rid of it. Or even leave. Or…” Her voice fell to a murmur, but it felt to Alice like the words were pounding in her ears like gongs. “Or worst of all, that I’d lose him, because I wouldn’t be out there to protect him. And I’d hate him, me, and the baby then.”
She finally met Ted’s eyes properly. “I knew even as I was drinking the potion that I shouldn’t do it without telling him. I still know that. It eats me up inside every day. But, Ted…how?” The question wasn’t a defensive one; it was a plea. Alice wasn’t trying to explain herself, to justify; she was begging for an answer. A solution. “How could I have? How can I? Please. If you’ve any idea…please, tell me how.”
Alice finally looked at him as he spoke and his own gaze shifted between her and the air around them, watching the people traveling to and from work as they moved swiftly through their busy days. He spoke of honest in a, well, honest way. It was all he knew and she seemed to understand it.
She denied not knowing why she’d done what she’d done at first and Ted let her, not interrupting. She would get there eventually and, rather quickly, she was spouting truth just as he’d been a moment before. She hadn’t told Frank because she knew her choice would hurt him - and her choice was one that felt necessary to her in war. Her view of motherhood was skewed, but that was not surprising with Alice, who was a rather all or nothing kind of person.
Of course she would believe there would be absolutely no place for her outside of raising the child because that was how she was raised. That was what she would’ve been expected to do, as both a pureblooded woman and the daughter in law of one Augusta Longbottom. He would push back on that - later. There was more to being a mother than just being a mother. He could prove that with his own wife. But he could also acknowledge wanting to wait. Would he have chosen Dora in a war? He couldn’t know for certain, as his life had been different and now, he couldn’t imagine a life without her at all.
But he could, at the very least, understand Alice’s choice.
The war, for so many people, needed to come first. For Ted, it had edged his way into importance in a way he’d never wanted, though knew would happen the moment Andromeda had informed him of her wayward decision to pull them into it.
Ted waited for a long moment after her confession and then, quietly, he said, “You’re very likely right about that.” Frank wouldn’t have understood. For as long as Ted knew him, his best friend had wanted to be a father. He looked at Ted’s own daughter - Ted’s life - with a gaze clouded in envy. “And I can’t say I disagree with your choice, Alice. Raising a child in the midst of war has been hard for us... and it would be even harder now, with the danger being what it is.”
He looked at her softly. “But I hope you also know that being a mother doesn’t mean you can’t also be other things. It’s more than just... just staying home and knitting booties, as you put it.” He smiled kindly, a barely-there turn up of his lips. “Especially with your privilege,” he added gently. Not just of Alice and Frank’s blood status - their child would be pureblooded and therefore less tainted in the eyes of those wishing to kill the Order - but also because of their status, their money, their house elf.
“But I do understand you wishing to stay home, to be with a child during those early years rather than letting them be raised by someone else - or a house elf. I just think... I think your relationship is strong, but strength can only be real if it stands the test of all truths.” He couldn’t help but think of his wife and her own secrets. That love she still kept in her heart for her sisters, while keeping that knowledge from him. Did she not trust him with that information or was it herself she was keeping it hidden from?
Alice pleaded with him to give her ideas and he looked at her regretfully. “I wish I could give you the words, but they’re not mine to decide. But Alice - “ He turned fully towards her now, reached out a hand to touch hers gently. “ - what you just said... it was the truth, right? My advice would be to start there. And soon. It’s not fair to keep it from him much longer.”