random diclaimer: i had to accelerate the cannon timeline so i will finish this fic. i am so determined to finish it so i had to do it. im sorry if yall hate this know that it must be done.

JO FEELS AS IF THE FLOOR HAS FALLEN OUT FROM UNDER HER FEET. She stands in the middle of her dorm room, mouth slightly agape and not quite sure if she's breathing. Her head spins. "Pregnant?" she repeats back, voice sounded pitched up.

Alice, sitting upright at the edge of her bed, hands folded on her lap, bites down on her lip and gives Jo a quick nod. "Yes, pregnant."

She crumbles on her own bed, limbs going limp. Jo can't wrap her head around it. She sits there, eyes fixed on the floor, and tries to understand but her brain is sticky and slow, thoughts churning like cold molasses. Jo looks back up to Alice. "Like, with a person?"

"What, like I'd be pregnant with a Boggart?" she replies, a bit of nervous laughter laced into shaky breaths. She rubs her palms against the tops of her thighs. "Yes, Jo, I'm pregnant with a person. Few months along, actually."

Quickly, Jo tries to do the calculations in her head, but she is so deep into a fog she cannot even fathom what a number even is. She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Alice, I don't mean to be so," Jo stops, and inhales sharply. "It's just that, y'know, was not exactly expecting this."

Alice gives her a soft smile. "I know. I'm very good at hiding it."

Pregnant. That really can't be, Jo thinks. There's no way. But there Alice is, sitting still with a protruding belly that was not there before and Jo finds herself looking at everything but Alice's belly. For some reason the whole thing makes her a bit nauseous. But she swallows and forces herself to meet Alice's stare. "And, you're happy? You and Frank?"

Tears are starting to well up in Alice's eyes now, and Jo goes rigid, instantly panicking that she's said the wrong thing-like she always does at times like these. But Alice just chuckles. "Never been happier, honestly."

And Jo still thinks she might throw up, but she forces a smile. "Then I'm thrilled for the both of you. Really."

Alice's shoulders deflate at once, and she rushes over to Jo, arms flung over her shoulder. "Easy there, careful," Jo cautions, now thousands of times more concerned with Alice's physical well-being than she was just fifteen minutes ago. "Got yourself a little lad in there," Jo says, still somewhat not believing it.

"Actually, I'm hoping for a girl," Alice confesses, releasing Jo and sliding to sit in the spot next to her. "I told Frank I'm not partial to one or the other, but I think it'd be really lovely to have a girl."

Jo smiles for real this time. "If they're anything like you, Fortescue, they'll be lovely, boy or girl. And either way, you can name them after me."

The two of them sit there on Jo's bed for hours, and Jo asks a million questions. About when and how long she's known. About what it feels like. If Alice is scared. What does Frank think. What do her parents think. Who knows. It was Christmas. She's known since the middle of January. Sometimes it's horrible and sometimes it's wonderful. Sometimes she doesn't feel like it's real and others it's the best thing that's ever happened to her. She's always hungry. Everything hurts. Hiding it with spells and too-big robes is tedious but she doesn't want other students to know. She's terrified. Frank is over the moon, euphoric, so desperately in love with her and so eager to be a father he has started buying toys and setting up a room for them. Her parents are overjoyed, though they do wish she had at least waited until she was done with school. Her and Frank's family know. Jones and Vance and Meadowes all know. She wanted to tell Jo earlier, really, but it never really seemed like the right time. Not with what happened to Ivan. Jo understands.

Alice gushes about plans to marry after they're born. How the wedding will be, how the baby will be there, how they'll get to see their parents wedding and how it'll be so wonderful. Jo sits there and listens and hardly says a word until the sun has set and she has to sneak off to the Three Broomsticks. She tells Alice that she's happy for her, again, and that she loves her, that she can't wait to meet her child. And she walks off, feeling different.

James grins so widely that Jo thinks it has to be painful. His arms are outstretched and before Jo can even take her seat across from him, he exclaims, "Lily and I are having a baby!"

Jo freezes, the news is yet another voltage of shock and for a moment, she is paralyzed. Her mouth goes dry as her brother stares expectantly for a reaction. "Bloody hell, James," she grumbles, "you could let me sit down first."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Well, I had figured you'd leap out of your seat in excitement, so I might as well save you the trouble of sitting down," he says, examining her with narrowed eyes. "Though now that I think about it, that would be dreadfully out of character."

One after the other. It's giving Jo whiplash. She shakes her head and searches for something appropriate to say in a moment like this. At the very least, Jo's appreciative of the fact that she's practiced in this conversation now. Still, though, she says something stupid. "Lily's actually having a baby? Like she's pregnant?" Jo questions, still not sitting.

"Yeah, Josie, that is the word for it," James nods as he sits back down in the booth, and Jo follows suit, movements a bit mechanical. "You know, you could at least pretend to be happy for us."

Jo's not as afraid of offending her brother as she was with Alice. "Listen, I am happy for you lot, but it's a big thing to wrap your head around, especially when you're not expecting it and this is the second time I've had this conversation today."

James's eyes go wide, and Jo covers her mouth as the words escape her. She was not supposed to say that, she realizes. "The second time today?" he repeats back to her.

She points a stern finger at him. "I'm not supposed to have said anything. I'm not telling you, keep your mouth shut about it."

And James is only silent for a moment, with his mouth pursed and eyes hard on Jo before he says, "It's Fortescue, isn't it?"

Jo groans. "Fucking hell."

He gasps. "It is!"

"Don't say anything to anyone-"

James slumps, shoulders deflated as he slides down his seat in the booth. "I've got to say I'm gutted Josie, really. She stole my moment from me. Now I'm just the second person to tell you we're expecting. It's really quite rude of her, you know. What's next? Is she going to steal his birthday too?"

Jo quirks an eyebrow. "Hoping for a boy then, are you?"

"Suppose I'm afraid if it's a girl, it'll come out too much like you," James teases, grin unwavering and Jo resents the fact that he's too far out of her reach to whack him upside the head. "Just have a feeling, is all."

"Well, I'm happy for you," Jo says, trying to sound like she really means it. She thinks she does, but she's still having a bit of trouble wrapping her head around the word pregnant. "And for Lily. You'll be great parents, really."

That grin again. So wide and bright and so devastatingly sincere. That's just James, she figures.

It takes Jo a few days to really get a grasp on it. A few glances at Alice that last just a little too long, a few hours of procrastinating her essays and drifting off in classes and she's finally got it. Lily and Alice have life inside of them, and, in just a few months' time, that life will be something Jo can hold in her own arms. That life will be fragile and small and so, so reliant on protection, Jo is anxious at the thought of it.

And after those few days, Jo gets a horrible knot in her stomach that she can't seem to get rid of. Because when Jo is really able to grasp the concept, it seems so horribly cruel to bring in such a fragile and small and delicate life into a world like this one. Muggles and muggle-borns and so-called blood traitors murdered and disappearing and attacked and they want to raise a child in the midst of it all?

Jo tries to bite down on her tongue whenever Alice talks about it. When she gets letters from James about caring for a pregnant Lily and talking about his ideas for names, Jo is careful to censor her words in a way she's not really used to.

Still, it's a thought she can't get rid of.

She sits with her back against the wall at the top of the Astronomy Tower, studying the stars and how they twinkle above her. Regulus sits by her side, their shoulders pressed together, their legs tangled. "Do you ever want to have children?" Jo asks him, voice hushed, raspy and low.

Jo doesn't tear her gaze away from the sky, but she can feel his eyes shift to the side of her face. "Are you propositioning me?"

"Piss off," Jo rolls her eyes, gently pushing an elbow into his side.

He chuckles at first, but then he's silent for a moment. Jo looks at him then. The shine of the stars is reflected in his eyes and the moon has drained all the color from his face. "I don't know. I don't think I've ever really given it any thought.," he ponders, thumbs brushing against one another. Regulus shrugs. "I definitely don't think now's the right time. Not with the war."

"Yeah," Jo muses, fixing her attention on the stars once more, "that's what I thought."

"Hey," Regulus whispers, hand sliding to the top of her knee, "are you alright?"

Jo nods. "Yeah, course I am."

That's not entirely truthful. Jo doesn't know. She's not really sure what to make of anything anymore. Jo used to be filled with such conviction in everything she did, so headstrong and confident and with everything she learns, with every year she grows, that resolution is chipped away. The more Jo learns, the less she feels like she knows. She feels like she's too young to be surrounded with things like pregnancy and babies and wars and careers and it is moments like this she finds herself longing for a simpler, naïve version of herself.

Regulus sighs. "Of course, things can always change. We can always make things change," he tells her, thumb dragging back and forth along the fabric of her jeans. He's quieter when he asks, "Have you thought about it at all?"

"No," Jo responds, quick and sure and this time completely truthful. "No, I haven't thought about it at all."

His shoulders rise and fall. Jo squirms a little. She's not entirely sure what it is exactly that Regulus believes the two of them would ever be able to accomplish against You-Know-Who-Himself when Jo's not even entirely sure she'll be able to pass her bloody exams.

Horcruxes. It's absurd. Absurd that they exist and absurd that Regulus is somehow convinced that either one of them could do absolutely anything about them on their own. And he's not open to the idea of lopping anyone else in on his little plan. The less people that know, the better, he's told her dozens of times now.

"I wish you would," Regulus whispers. "I really wish you would think about it, at least."

"I wish you would ask for help," Jo replies, stare falling to the ground before them.

"I did ask for help. I asked you," he counters quickly.

Jo sighs. "That's not what I meant. I just mean maybe we could bring this to the attention of someone who could actually do something about it," she says, and before she can do anything about it, her throat constricts, and her eyes burn. "I'm useless for things like these, Reg. I can't do anything about it. I can't help you. The last time-" she starts, and then stops immediately when her voice starts to waver. Jo locks her jaw.

"Do you think," Regulus says carefully, "that I would ever ask you to do something if I didn't think you were capable of it? Do you think I'd ever ask you to put yourself in danger if I didn't think you could handle yourself?"

She shakes her head. "You're over-confident in me."

"No, I underestimated you. And I'm not going to make that mistake again."

Silence takes control for a moment. Jo sniffles. Regulus watches her, waiting for her response, for her reaction. She thinks about him in her dreams. Screaming. Pale. Bloodied. She thinks of Alice, her shy smile and a hand on her stomach and James and his big stupid grin and his list of names. She thinks of the tattoo that adorns Regulus's arm and the blood-stained snow that lay under a cold Ivan Reed.

This is all Jo has ever known. For as long as she can remember, there has been this figure, Death in a cloak with a name so horrible she's never heard it spoken aloud. Vitriol and bigotry spat at her friends and brawls in the corridors and the constant threat of everything getting worse. Never once had Jo imagined it actually getting better.

For a moment, Jo considers it. Her niece or nephew growing up without ever having to worry about their blood status. Never having to fear the disappearance of his mother. And then, just for a second, she thinks of her unopened letter from St. Mungo's, still unmentioned, sitting in the bottom of her bag under half-finished Charms assignments.

She shakes her head. "What would we even do with it, once we had it?" she asks.

"We destroy it. We destroy a part of him."

"How?" Jo presses.

Regulus opens his mouth to answer, but promptly shuts it when no such answer comes out. "That's secondary."

Jo rolls her eyes. Regulus lifts his arm and places it around her shoulders. "And there's nothing I can say to get you to stay? Nothing that would get you to abandon the whole idea and flee the country with me?"

He shakes his head. "I have to do this, Josephine. After everything my family's done, after everything I've watched him do, I don't have a choice."

There's nothing for her to be laughing about but regardless she can't stop herself from chuckling. "Thought you said you'd follow me anywhere?" Jo says, wry and sharp.

Regulus pauses. "Suppose I'm going to be selfish and ask you to follow me instead."

The stars are still bright above them. Jo feels safer under their light and thinks that it's so simple when Regulus says it like that. So easy. Because of course she'll follow him. Of course, she will. She smiles. "Alright then. Fine."

And that's it.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Jo couldn't be arsed about her schoolwork after that. Who could? Assignments are pointless and why would she worry about her exams? It's not like she's going to be a Healer. Not anymore.

Instead, Jo makes potions. She uses the map and the cloak, and she steals from Slughorn's supplies and she makes as many potions as she can think of. Antidotes, elixirs, poisonous ones, pick-me-ups. Jo makes double doses of every healing potion she can think of. She steals and she brews, and she thinks about writing to her brother and telling him everything, but she never does. Just makes more potions.

And Jo is quick to discover that she's learned more about healing in these few weeks of preparations than she did in her entire last year of school. Though, she does have to admit that might have something to do with her being rather distracted.

Dorcas and Alice are no longer surprised to walk in and see Jo chopping crocodile heart for her Calming Draught. They don't ask any questions, just watch in disgust as Jo, hair frizzy and eyes wild, mixes organs with lavender.

Whenever she is not on her almost obsessive quest to make every potion she can, she is with Regulus. They sit in the library, and he does his best to research Horcruxes and to pull every bit of detail he can get from Kreacher. He reads and rests a hand on the top of Jo's knee will she reads every Defense book she has ever purchased, doing her best to commit every spell and counter-spell to memory until it feels like her head might catch fire.

Sometimes, at night, she will drag Regulus into empty classrooms or out by the Quidditch pitch or the Room of Requirement and she will practice, making sure she's an expert at every spell, hex, jinx, and curse she can think of. She shows Regulus her Patronus. His eyes get watery at the sight of that Irish Wolfhound.

There is never a moment where Jo is not preparing, in some form or another. Even her sleep, her dreams get stronger, more vibrant. And now she's remembering more details. Smeared blood on cave walls. Something dripping down Regulus's chin, rolling down his neck, a shell in his hand. Pale hands that are almost animalistic. Jo recounts these details to Regulus each morning with bloodshot eyes.

Jo does not think about her life there at Hogwarts ending. It doesn't even really feel like it is. There has been no grand finale, nothing big or exciting. Quidditch was cancelled. No one wanted to play after what happened to Ivan. No large and grandiose pranks from James and his idiot friends. Ever since Jo broke Crouch's nose, he's been like a ghost, silent and distant. Jo flies through the last of her exams and does not care about her grades. Between the potions and the makeshift dueling with Regulus, it all flashes by her all too quickly, and before she even realizes it, it's almost over.

Jo never opens her letter from St. Mungo's. She can't. She thinks about throwing it away but that's not right to her either. So it just sits there as Jo tells herself that if she never knows what it says she can never be upset by it.

Alice's stomach grows larger, and it becomes more tedious for her to hide it. Dorcas starts talking about working for the Ministry as an archivist and living with Marlene and joining the Order and they both talk about how they're both so thrilled that they'll all be together still in this next chapter of their lives and Jo is too much of a coward to say anything to them. She just nods and smiles and agrees and the lies feel like poison on her tongue.

It's a week before they're set to leave, and Regulus has everything planned out to the minute. He'll go home and will gather everything he needs from there. He'll apparate to Jo's. She'll disappear in the night with him and not speak a word of it to her family and they will go and find a horcrux.

Regulus stands next to Jo on top of the Astronomy Tower. She's started to prefer it to the Room of Requirement in the last few months. The Room of Requirement just reeks of grief to her now. He holds her hand in his as Jo feels every emotion, she could ever fathom all at once. "Are you scared?" she asks him.

Regulus does not answer. He leans down and places a kiss to the crown of Jo's head. They stay there until the sun rises.