August 5 1982
A black car whipped through the streets of the City of Westminster, swerving to avoid hitting a newspaper box.
"Slow down Francis, you will get us in trouble with the Muggles authority," a woman sitting in the passenger seat, clutching her heavy stomach and gritting her teeth, said to the man on her right.
"Yes, yes, right you are darling," replied the driver despite not slowing down even a little.
"Whipped," came a juvenile voice from the back seat.
Francis's eyes darted to the rear-view mirror.
"What's that boy?"
"I said, do you think it will be a girl or a boy?"
Francis expertly ignored his son's question and said instead.
"I am certain that's not what you said."
"Perhaps you misheard," replied the boy sitting in the backseat.
Francis made eye contact with his son through the rear-view mirror.
"I am most certain I didn't."
" J'ai le personnes vieux perdent luer audition" said the boy to his father, looking him right in the eye.
"Old people! Who are you calling old? Let me tell you boy, I am still a young and virile -"
"Francis!" interrupted the woman from the passenger seat. "Stop your bickering and keep your eyes on the road."
"Yes, right you are dear," said the man as he heard giggling from the back seat.
"Also, it's J'ai lu que les personnes âgées perdent leur audition, which means 'I read that older people lose their hearing'," said the man, correcting and teaching the boy.
"Ohh okay," the boy nodded.
"Henry, stop distracting your dad while he is driving."
"Yes, mummy," voiced the boy with a practiced tone.
Francis looked at his son in the rear-view mirror and gave him a grin.
Henry frowned a little, seeing his father smile at him with a grin. He slowly looked at his mother in the passenger seat, then back at the mirror with a matching grin, the same as his father's.
"Mummy, what does virile mean?" said Henry slowly and softly, while looking at his father in the eyes, with a smirk.
Francis eyes widened in panic as he looked at his wife, fearing retribution.
"Francis! Stop teaching Henry coarse language," said Clare, gritting her teeth and now clutching her husband's arm, her voice breaking a little from the pain.
She raised the wand in her left hand and pointed it at her swollen belly.
"Sublevare Traiecto"
Clare POV
'Thank magic for numbing charms, ' she thought as she applied the charm periodically once the pain got over a certain threshold.
The variation she used was one of the few safe-to-use charms for a pregnant woman. She had learned it while she had been pregnant the first time with Henry.
The Muggle doctors had been quite shocked when she said she would prefer the delivery to be without any medicine.
She had already applied the charm two times since she had gotten in the passenger seat of their car. She and Francis had decided to have their second child in a Muggle hospital rather than going to St Mungo's. The first time she had delivered a child had been a fairly smooth process, which had emboldened them to the idea that a Muggle doctor could do the job just fine. Plus, they could always use magic in any dire situation. She had some healing potions ready, just in case, you could never ever be too careful.
They could have just gone to a magical hospital now that You-Know-Who was killed by the boy who lived, but then there would be a record of their second child's birth, which in her opinion, was an unnecessary risk they could avoid.
'Why give anyone a trail to follow to track them down?' she thought.
The record in the Muggle world wasn't any issue, as they could just do what they had done the first time, use confundus and other charms to bewitch and beguile the people involved, and make any records disappear.
Which is why Francis, Henry, and she were on their way to the Muggle hospital closest to them, St. Mary Hospital.
"How much longer?" she heard her baby boy ask.
"About 5 more minutes," Francis said.
He turned to her and asked, "You hanging in there, dear?"
She simply nodded. What she had really wanted to say was 'hurry up!' but Francis was already driving quickly, any more speed and it wouldn't be safe.
It was at a time like this that she wished someone had come up with a method of travel for pregnant ladies. It wasn't safe to apparate directly to the hospital while you were carrying a baby, nor was taking floo an option, for the same reason.
"Can you make the car fly so we can avoid traffic?" voiced her baby boy.
Apparently, he too had been thinking about other, quicker ways to get to the hospital.
'Like mother, like son,' she thought with pride.
Well, not completely, she hadn't been thinking about making the whole car fly, only transporting the person inside instead.
'Oh Merlin, why was levitation or flying the answer to everything for her baby boy?'
"If you enchant a car, it's defined as a Muggle Artefact misuse by the Registry of Proscribed Charmable Objects," said her husband.
"Who would even know?"
"I would!" she responded to her baby boy's outlaw talk.
Henry's casual disregard for the law was a worrying matter, but it wasn't something to bring up right now.
She looked over at her husband to see if he was worried about the same thing she was; instead, she saw his eyes twinkle as he looked at her.
She gave him a stern glance, clearly the next thing out of his mouth would be - "can we?"
'Boys,' she thought.
And then she said it out loud.
"Boys"
"Do you think it will be a girl or a boy?" she heard from the back seat.
"Hmmmm," she said as she looked out the window, watching as the streets passed by in a blur.
Seeing she wasn't going to respond, Francis gave his own two knuts.
"I think it will be a boy."
"I say a girl."
"Oh, why do you say that, Henry?" she asked, curious about why he thought it would be a girl.
"I just feel like it will be a girl, plus I would like a little sister."
'Just a feeling, huh?' she thought, thinking back on the little charm she had done to find the gender of the baby. She hadn't told Henry or Francis, because she didn't want to ruin the surprise.
The only reason she had to find out beforehand was that, in case she needed to use charms to help with the delivery, she would be ready with the correct gender variation.
There were unisex charms used for babies that didn't take into account whether the child was a boy or a girl. However, being extra prepared never hurts, plus the more you know and all.
Before she knew it, they had reached the hospital, all while her baby boy and her husband argued over who was right, as she listened to their conversation.