Sometimes I dream of should-have-beens
— Of would-have, could-have, should-have-beens
Sometimes I dream of should-have-beens
— More now that you are gone…

He’d come as soon as she had called, or owled rather. Basil was still getting used to the shadowy tan blur of feathers and fluff. They’d always met in the park, every since that first terrifying encounter. Only never this late. Never so immediate. The night wind tugged at his hat and he buried his hands in coat pockets, safe from the last nips of winter. There was something wrong.

She met him at the third lamppost, in mismatched clothing and eyes red from crying. She was pacing and only slowed as he approached. Back and forth, back and forth. She’d already worn a rut in the frost-covered grass.

“I never meant for it to go this far.”

“What?” The last thing he’d expected was an apology.

“This,” she waved a hand that took in the park and the relationship in one fell swoop. “You’re a muggle.”

“And?” It wasn’t as if they hadn’t had this conversation before, only it hadn’t been at three in the morning. In the cold. He blew on his fingers, trying to escape the chill. “You knew I wasn’t a wizard when we started.” Memories of the trio of skull-faced wizards and her last minute rescue still sent shivers down his spine. “Did it ever occur to you that this isn’t easy on my end either?” He’d never had a clandestine romance before and after two years it was starting to get frustrating.

“So it won’t work, you see that.” Earnest blue eyes searched his, looking for reassurance.

“I didn’t say that,” he snapped back. “This will work. This has been working. Why now?” He was tired of the hiding. The secrecy. Calling him out in the middle of the night to tell him that he hadn’t tried hard enough. That he didn’t care deeply enough to make this work.

“I’m pregnant.” She stopped, facing away from him shoulders hunched against the cold.

Two words. Two simple words and the world had shifted somehow. Basil sank onto the snow-dusted bench. “But. I don’t– Why?”

“You know about the war.”

“Yes, but–”

“Mudbloods, that’s what they call them.” He had forgotten that side of her. The hardened edge to her voice when she talked about the darker elements of the wizarding world. “If they knew. If any of them knew, do you know what that would do to her?” Her voice hitched, dark with tears and anger. “I won’t let that happen. I won’t.”

“Her?” He was still in a daze and he clung to the one thing that made sense. He had a daughter. He had a daughter and she was going to take her away. “So you’re just leaving? Just like that?” Two steps and he was behind her. “What about me? What about her?”

She turned to face him, “I won’t let that happen.”

It never occurred to him to run. To fight. To knock aside the shaking wand held by a grief-stricken love.

“Obliviate.”