The key part is while the query is active.

Also you are not doing hard deletes on the main table but only on the _A table. As you can always retrieve the main table values from the _A table (which only deletes records based on audit_date when they have aged out) and that is not something that the user or even any of the service accounts will have access to do. (Only a specialized clean up job on a restricted account would have delete permissions on the _A tables and access to nothing else)