Fic: The Silent World Within You (HP, Harry/Draco, NC-17) 3/4

[femme]

Title: The Silent World Within You 3/4
Authors: femmequixotic and noeon
Summary: Harry only wanted Malfoy for one night, one birthday. It wasn’t meant to be anything more.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s): Mpreg
Word Count: ~96,000
Written for: The 2011 harrydracompreg fest for nursedarry's prompt of a one-off (or very rare and on/off, in-denial-about-it-relationship at school (AU 7th or EWE 8th year) results in one (or both!) of them pregnant. How do they each find out? How do the teachers find out? Their friends, the other students? I would like this all about how they come to terms with the situation and less about their changing body(ies) and how they'll cope in the future.
Author's Notes: We owe a huge debt of gratitude to absynthedrinker and wemyss for being fantastic betas, willing to tackle this monster, not to mention how thankful we are to the mods for their forbearance and patience as we broke deadline after deadline, realising that we weren’t done yet. Also, halfway through writing this fic, we discovered another Harry/Draco that also began with Draco serving a probation with Hagrid post-war. All similarities are completely unintentional, but we loved oldenuf2nb's fic so much that we’d like to make sure everyone goes and reads it too: you can find Rising from The Ashes on The Hex Files or on Livejournal.

To Part Two

3. Winter

It’s the second week of December when the inevitable happens.

Draco supposes he should have expected it. They’re both eighteen, for Merlin’s sake, and male to boot. Wanking’s been a fact of life for years.

Witnessing it, however, is an entirely different matter.

He comes back to their rooms early one afternoon. He’s made plans to meet Blaise in Hogsmeade for dinner, mostly at Pansy’s insistence.

“You have to tell him about the baby at some time, darling,” she’d said over a flickering Floo call late one night. “If you wait until the brat’s born, he’ll never forgive you.” She’d paused and eyed him. “That goes for your mother as well.”

He’d just shushed her as Potter had walked through the sitting room on his way to the loo, but he’d known she was right. And so now he’s racing through the halls to get back to his room in time for a quick shower and a change of clothes. And that’s when it happens.

It’s not as if Draco doesn’t register that Potter’s bedroom door was open, but he doesn’t think anything of it as he grabs his shower bucket and clean clothes and heads for the bath. He barely dunks himself and lathers up before rinsing off and hopping out to towel himself dry. Fresh clothes, and then he’s running back to the rooms to drop off his dirty ones and cast a drying charm on his hair.

“Malfoy.”

He hears it the moment he walks back in. Potter’s voice, quiet but tight, and his heart catches for a moment because it sounds as if Potter’s in pain.

Of course he goes to the door. He’s not a monster, and Potter’s carrying his child. If something was wrong....

But it isn’t.

Instead, Potter’s sprawled across his rumpled bed, his glasses askew and fogged, his shirt open and hanging off his shoulders, his trousers and pants crumpled on the floor beside those horrible trainers.

The first thing Draco registers is that this means Potter’s naked. The second is that the swell of Potter’s stomach is noticeable now. It’s rounded above his hips, a definite bump that both horrifies and intrigues Draco. He wants to run his hands over it.

The third thing that Draco registers is that Potter’s hand is on his cock, pulling it hard as he arches his shoulders against the bed. Potter’s skin is taut and flushed, and his brown nipples are hard.

“Malfoy,” he says again, this time with a groan that Draco knows isn’t from pain, and Draco makes a soft sound, his fingernails digging into his palm.

Potter’s eyes fly open. “Oh,” he says, and he looks at Draco, but his body’s shaking already, and he digs his foot into the mattress, his hand twisting over the dark head of his swollen cock.

Draco presses his knuckles to his mouth, unable to take his eyes off Potter. “I...” he chokes out, but he can’t form the words to tell Potter to finish.

He doesn’t need to. Potter’s hips jerk, lifting from the twisted blue sheets, and his fingers tighten on his slick prick. Draco breathes in sharply. He’s seen plenty of boys masturbate. He’d lived in Slytherin, after all. But this....God. He’s never seen anything that made his cock ache as much as Harry Potter, five months pregnant with his child, wanking about him. He bites his fist, willing himself not to rip open his flies and join Potter on the bed.

“Oh,” Potter says again, his thighs tensing as he pushes himself up off the bed, and then he cries out, spunk spattering over his tight fist, dripping onto his swollen belly.

Draco, like a fool, runs.***

“You’re an idiot,” Blaise says, rather remarkably blasé for what he’s just heard, Draco thinks, and he orders Draco a firewhisky.

They’re at the Hogs Head this time, and Aberforth Dumbledore scowls at Draco as he pushes the half-full glass across the bar to him. Draco picks it up and carries it over to a more secluded table. He can feel Aberforth’s glare between his shoulder blades, although he doesn’t blame him in a way. He had tried to kill his brother, after all. And, well, everyone else as well, he supposes.

He sits down. Blaise takes the seat across from him, and Draco heaves a small sigh. He sips the steaming firewhisky. Snow falls outside the window, thick fluffy white flakes that glitter in the lamplight. Draco can see his reflection in the dark panes. His face is an elongated pale smudge on the glass; he hadn’t even taken the time to comb his hair, and it takes all he has not to reach up and attempt to smooth it down.

Blaise watches him over the rim of his whisky. He looks perfectly put together, of course. As always. His green wool robe may not be current season, but it’s neatly pressed. His fingernails are clipped and manicured, and his black curls are close cropped, a perfect frame for his high cheekbones and imperiously long nose.

“So,” Blaise says finally, setting his glass down. “Are you going to explain how you managed to get into Gryffindor Tower to see this charming--” His mouth twists mockingly. “--display of Potter’s lust for you?”

It’s only then Draco remembers that Blaise doesn’t know anything about any of this. Well. Not that he’d forgotten that fact. It’d just slipped his mind when he’d walked into the pub, his mind swimming with the image of Potter stretched out, nearly naked, his hand wrapped tight around his prick. Blaise had said Hello, you look a bit unsettled, and all he could choke out was I just saw Potter wanking whilst saying my name.

Draco lifts his firewhisky to his mouth and downs half of it in one quick gulp. It burns his throat, but he doesn’t care. Warmth seeps through his numb body, filling him with a modicum of courage, false though it might be. When he sets the glass back down, Blaise quirks an eyebrow.

“Impressive.”

Draco closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. “He wasn’t in Gryffindor Tower. McGonagall moved us into a shared suite of rooms almost six weeks ago.”

When he opens his eyes, Blaise is staring at him, his glass halfway to his mouth. “McGonagall,” Blaise says. At Draco’s nod, Blaise’s glass thumps against the battered tabletop. A splash of firewhisky lands on the wood, sizzling softly until it sinks into the scarred grain. “Why on earth would she do that? Does she think you need special supervision by the Gryffingit?”

“Because,” Draco says, and he’s relieved that his voice doesn’t shake. He twists his glass between his hands, then glances around. There’s no one around them, but he lowers his voice anyway. “Potter’s pregnant.” He looks up at Blaise. “With my child.”

For the first time in eight years, Draco sees Blaise utterly speechless.

Blaise sits back in his chair, a stunned expression on his face. It lasts for several moments. “You’re not serious,” he says finally, peering over Draco’s shoulder. “Where’s Pansy? Come on out, darling. You’ve had your joke.”

“It’s not a joke.” Draco casts a quick Muffliato, and Blaise’s eyes narrow.

“That’s your wand.” He leans forward and grabs Draco’s wrist. “Your actual wand, not the Ministry--”

Draco pulls away and slides his wand back into his robe. “Potter gave it back to me.”

“Before or after you supposedly got him up the duff?” Blaise’s mouth is one tight line, and his dark eyes regard Draco coolly.

“After.” Draco rests his elbows on the table. It bows slightly beneath his weight. “But before we knew.” He hesitates. “About the baby.” The words still sound odd to him.

Blaise swears and runs a hand over his face. “You’re not joking. Circe, Draco, what have you got yourself into now?”

Draco shakes his head. He doesn’t think Blaise will take this as well as Pansy did.

“It’s not possible.” Blaise drops his hands and reaches for his firewhisky. “Men can’t bear children,” he says after downing the rest in one long swallow. “It’s a law of nature. We haven’t the proper bits.”

“Evidently it’s possible with Potter,” Draco says. There’s a bitter tinge to his voice he can’t help. “Of course.”

“He’s having you on. It has to be.”

Draco finishes his firewhisky and sets the glass back down. “Then he’s having his friends, McGonagall, Pomfrey, and half of St Mungo’s on as well.” He glances up at Blaise. “You know as well as I do that Potter’s not that sort. He’s pregnant, and the baby’s mine.”

They’re silent, looking at each other, until the bells on the pub door jingle as a couple walks in, arm-in-arm.

“I need a good deal more alcohol for this conversation,” Blaise says, and he pushes his chair back. Draco watches him walk to the bar, absently noting that his arse is still too perfect for a straight boy’s. Draco turns back to stare out the window. The cobblestone streets of Hogsmeade are nearly covered with snow now. A wizard stands beneath one of the iron lampposts, charming an evergreen garland to twist up it. Christmas hols are only a week and a half away, Draco realises with surprise. Potter’d been spending quite a bit of time in the library lately, but it hadn’t quite occurred to Draco that the end of the term was that close on them. It’s been an odd year, he thinks.

Blaise sets a bottle of Blishen’s on the table and sits back down. He pours them both two fingers of the glowing amber whisky, pushing one across the table to Draco and draining his own before refilling it again. He looks over at Draco. “I’ll admit to a great sense of relief that I never allowed your cock anywhere near inside of me, if this is what happens.”

Draco rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his firewhisky. “The rate you go through girls it surprises me you haven’t ended up with a mistake or two.”

“If I had, I’d have had the good sense to make certain the problem was dealt with before it became an issue,” Blaise says with a pointed scowl. “Literally and figuratively. By-blows complicate inheritance laws.”

“And sometimes they solve them.” Draco rubs his thumb over the cuff of his sleeve. “I have an heir now.”

Blaise shrugs. “If it’s a boy. Unless your ancestors were so progressive as to adopt aînesse intégrale.” His expression clearly conveys his doubt at this possibility.

Draco gives him a baleful glare. “There are provisions in place for a female heir.” He lifts his glass to his mouth. “If she retains the Malfoy name.” He doesn’t tell Blaise this step had been taken by his Grandfather upon his mother’s first pregnancy. His older sister had been miscarried in the seventh month.

“Do your parents know?” Blaise asks after a moment. “About Potter’s... delicate condition.”

“No.” Draco shakes his head. “And I’ve no intention of telling them until I’ve safely left the country.”

Blaise snorts. “Good luck with that.” He turns his glass in his hand. Whisky sloshes up the sides. “Pansy knows.”

“Yes.”

“She’s been hinting I should talk to you.” Blaise drains his glass and pours more. “She’s fucking Tony Goldstein, you know.” His mouth twists. “Not that she’s admitted it, but gossip gets around the Ministry. Theo’s seen them snogging in the corridors.”

Draco takes that in. Even he knows that Anthony Goldstein was taken on as a junior clerk in the office of the Chief Warlock. If the Wizengamot thought one of their subordinates was associating with an accused Death Eater sympathiser, Community Order or not... “It’s dangerous for both of them.”

Blaise lifts one shoulder. “Her funeral, not mine.” Draco can hear the wounded pride in his voice. “We’re all keeping our secrets, aren’t we? Pansy and Goldstein. You and Potter. Me and...” He trails off, staring down into his glass. “Well. At least I’ll never be playing happy little fucked up families.” He lifts his glass to his mouth again.

“Blaise.” Draco lays his hand over Blaise’s. His skin is warm and soft, and when Blaise turns his hand beneath Draco’s, threading their fingers together, Draco doesn’t pull away.

“Are you still hard?” Blaise murmurs. “Still thinking about Potter?” His fingertips brush Draco’s palm lightly, and Draco shivers. Blaise lowers his voice. “Take me back to your rooms, and I’ll suck you off whilst you tell me how you fucked him. When was it?”

Draco’s throat is dry. “This summer.” Blaise has always been able to do this to him, to make him want him badly enough to go against all his common sense.

Blaise’s thumb sweeps across Draco’s wrist. Draco knows he can feel the unsteady pulse of blood beneath his hot skin. “Just imagine him lying there hearing us...”

The spell’s broken. Draco pulls his hand back. “I can’t,” he whispers, and he knows it’s true. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want Blaise’s hands on him. He doesn’t want Blaise’s mouth. The realisation of whom he wants instead floods through him and takes his breath away.

Blaise purses his mouth, his face shuttered. “I see.”

Draco knows this has to be difficult for him. First Pansy. Now him. “Blaise,” he says, and he wants to reach back out to him, but he doesn’t trust himself.

“You’re in love with Potter,” Blaise says flatly. The words slam into Draco, and he shakes his head violently.

“I’m not.” The very thought’s ridiculous. Potter’s pregnant, and Draco’s sense of familial duty’s rearing its ugly head again. That’s all this is.

Blaise gives him a pitying look. “You’ve never known your own self, Draco, and yet the rest of us can see you so clearly.” He stands up. “I’ve got to go.”

Draco catches his arm. “There’s a Fidelius on the castle,” he says, and when Blaise’s face closes, Draco knows he’s said the wrong thing. He was supposed to stop Blaise from leaving. Instead it’s about Potter. Again. They still, the both of them, a frozen tableau of fractured friendship. Draco can’t drop his hand. He’s too afraid to let Blaise go. “On the students, really. To keep them from talking. McGonagall says Potter and I are exempt since it’s our secret.”

“I’ll keep it to myself,” Blaise says after a moment. He looks tired and worn, his facade of disdainful distance slipping. “You’ve been my friend since we were eleven. You should know I’d never tell.” A bitter smile twists his mouth to one side. “Didn’t Snape drum into us that there’s honour even among serpents?”

“Thank you,” Draco whispers. He doesn’t know why he’s so protective of Potter and the baby, but he is. He chews on his lip. “Not even Greg or Theo.”

Blaise nods, then pulls away. “Good night, Draco,” he says quietly. With a heavy heart, Draco watches him walk away.

The bell on the door clangs softly behind him.

Draco reaches for the bottle of Blishen’s.***

When Draco stumbles back into their rooms, Potter’s sitting in the dark, waiting for him like the bloody stubborn Gryffindor he is.

Draco leans against the doorway. His head swims, and he lifts the nearly empty bottle of firewhisky to his mouth, taking one last swig. “You’re awake,” he says, and his voice slurs slightly.

“And you’re pissed. Did you walk through the corridors like that?” Potter pushes himself out of the chair. His feet are bare, and his shirt is untucked. Draco stares at the small swell beneath it.

“What does it feel like?” he asks. “The baby.”

Potter smoothes his hand over his shirt. “Strange.” He makes a face. “A bit like bad gas.”

Draco doesn’t even chastise him for his vulgarity. He sets the bottle on a side table. It falls off, crashing against the floor. Glass goes everywhere, bringing Draco to his senses--or what little of them were cognisant at the moment. “Don’t move,” he says to Potter, and he bends down to sweep his wand across the broken shards.

“Lumos,” Potter says, and the sconces on the wall flame.

The flare of light startles Draco. He loses his balance and pitches forward. A shard of glass slices across his outstretched palm, and he swears as blood wells over his skin.

“Idiot,” Potter says, but Draco doesn’t think it sounds as harsh as Potter’s invectives usually do. Potter Vanishes the broken glass, then kneels next to Draco and reaches for his hand. “Let me see.”

Draco sits on the floor, his back against an armchair. His palm stings and aches. Potter frowns down at it before he clambers up.

“Wait here,” he says. Draco thinks it’s ridiculous of Potter to say that. His blood’s pooling on the floor; where the hell is he going?

He stares up at the sconces on the wall. The golden light warms the bookshelves that are set between them and flickers across the gilt-trimmed spines of the books themselves. There’s a space in one shelf, between Elementa Chymia and Diaries of a Mad Witch. Draco frowns.

“You’ve been reading,” he says loudly.

Potter comes back into the room with a flannel and a bowl of water and a tub of salve. “I do know how to, you realise.”

“One wonders at times.” Draco’s head feels enormous. He turns it and winces as Potter kneels down next to him. “You’re not known for your intellectual capabilities.”

Warm water drips onto his palm. Draco flinches as Potter dabs the flannel at the cut. He studies Potter’s face, the smooth skin of his cheek, the darkly stubbled angle of his jaw, the brush of his impossibly long eyelashes as he frowns down at Draco’s hand.

Draco barely notices when Potter rubs the salve into his skin. It’s only when the cut tightens as the wound heals over that he glances down. There’s a dark pink line against his palm and then it’s gone. He can smell the familiar scent of dittany. “Thank you,” he says.

“You reek of whisky,” Potter says.

“Blaise insisted on buying a bottle.” Draco waves his hand at the place where the shards had been.

Potter hmms.

“I told him about you.” Draco’s fingers brush the front of Harry’s shirt. “About us.”

“I see.” Potter’s mouth tightens. “And what did he say?”

Draco touches Potter’s cuff. It’s frayed slightly. He resolves to teach him mending charms soon--or insist the house-elves do. “I think he disapproves.”

“Of us?” Potter’s voice is quiet.

“Of everything.” Draco wants to touch the swell of Potter’s belly. His fingers hover over it. “Can I?”

The question seems to take Potter by surprise. He nods, slowly, and his hand catches Draco’s, pulling it closer until Draco’s fingers rest against the cloth of his shirt. His fingers spread out and curve slightly across the rounded surface. It’s warm; he’s surprised how warm. Potter’s breath stutters, and his hand settles over Draco’s, heavy and soft.

Draco looks up at him. His eyes are closed, his head is tilted back, his mouth open slightly.

“It just moved,” Potter says. He presses Draco’s hand a bit more firmly into his stomach and Draco can feel a slight hardness shifting beneath the skin. He’s at a loss for words.

Potter’s eyes flutter open. He looks at Draco. “It’s been happening a lot this week.”

Draco can’t breathe. He feels simultaneously completely sober and as drunk as he’s ever been. “Unbelievable,” he manages to say.

“Yeah.” Potter’s lips quirk in a small smile.

It happens before Draco can stop himself. A dangerously slow movement, his eyes fixed on Potter’s mouth, and then his lips are brushing against Potter’s, almost hesitant.

The hand on top of Draco’s drops. Coming to his senses briefly, Draco pulls back and scans Potter’s face. His eyes are shining and then his fingers are tangling in the long hair at the nape of Draco’s neck and he’s pulling Draco back for another, longer, more desperate and gasping kiss.

“Did you kiss Zabini?” Potter asks, his lips on Draco’s.

“No.” Draco tries to kiss Potter but he leans back slightly.

“Did you fuck him?” Potter’s eyes are dark, dark green. Draco’s never seen anything quite that colour.

“He asked me to. He offered to come back with me and suck me off.” Draco can’t keep himself from tracing Potter’s jaw with his fingertips. “I said no.”

Potter turns his head and his lips brush Draco’s knuckles. “Why?”

“I’m almost a father, aren’t I?” The smile Draco gives Potter is lazy and languid. Whisky makes it so much easier to talk. “Doesn’t seem right to be a complete whore.”

Potter’s breath catches. “I don’t know. Being a complete whore sounds pretty good to me right now.”

“With someone else, I mean.“ Draco fingers the buttons on Potter’s shirt. He slips one through its buttonhole and traces the exposed patch of skin with his thumb. He pauses. “What were you thinking?”

Potter watches him through half-lowered lashes. “That I’m randy as fuck.” He smiles. “Hormones.”

“Me too,” Draco whispers. “Whisky.” He leans closer, and his lips brush Potter’s again. “And maybe hormones too.”

Draco fumbles another button loose and then another. Potter’s breath speeds up and his shirt drapes open. Draco catches a glimpse of pale skin. He brushes his thumb across Potter’s exposed nipple and Potter moans, arching into his touch. Draco is immediately rock hard.

“Holy fuck. Please.” Potter’s eyes are screwed shut and he’s biting his lip.

Draco lowers his mouth to suck, and Potter keens wildly, his fingers grasping at Draco’s jumper, twisting in the wool, pulling Draco closer. Draco keeps sucking, his tongue licking wet circles across Potter’s chest.

Potter’s hands slide up Draco’s arms, down his back, tugging at Draco’s jumper until he can touch bare skin. He jerks against Draco, his breath ragged, the side of his rounded belly pressing against Draco’s hips. “Fuck,” he says. “That feels--” He breaks off into a groan and another muffled fuck into Draco’s hair.

They tumble sideways to lie on the floor. Draco tries to find a way to get his hips into contact with Potter’s properly but gives up after a few awkward and ineffectual thrusts. The position is too difficult: he’s never had to work around a bump before. Potter’s lying spread out and wanton beneath him, moaning. Draco settles back on his knees and rips Potter’s trousers open.

Potter groans and his hips buck up. “Please. Yes, oh fuck, please.”

It only takes a moment for Draco to get Potter’s cock free. The moment his mouth closes around the tip, Potter positively howls, his hands grasping at Draco’s hair.

For a moment, Draco’s vision blurs and he’s afraid he’s going to come in his own trousers. Instead, his fingers clutch Potter’s hips, holding him still as he sinks his mouth further down Potter’s prick.

Potter tastes bitter and salty and a bit muskier than Draco remembers. He presses his tongue against the length of him, and Potter jerks, his fingers tugging Draco’s hair painfully. He swears again.

Draco opens his mouth to complain and, as Potter thrusts down his throat again, his mouth is flooded with metallic spunk. He swallows reflexively around Potter’s cock, almost choking, and Potter’s hands slip away from his hair as his arms drop to the floor. His breath comes in short, sharp gasps.

“Fuck,” Potter murmurs. His face is flushed, his glasses tilted to one side.

Draco wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and rolls to sit up. A hand grabs his arm.

“Wait,” Potter says, and Draco does. He lets Potter push him back down to the floor, and Potter shifts next him, rolling over onto his side. His fingers fumble with the buttons on Draco’s trousers, and Draco helps him, pulling the thick wool aside as Potter shoves his hand between his flies, under the silk of Draco’s pants. He grasps Draco’s cock firmly.

“God,” Draco chokes out, and then Potter’s stroking him hard and fast, smearing slickness from the head of his prick down his shaft.

Draco’s eyes roll back in his head, and he groans, pressing his hips up into Potter’s tight fist. Why have they waited to do this again, he wonders, when it feels so bloody fantastic?

“Harder,” he says, his lip caught between his teeth, and Potter complies, squeezing Draco’s cock as he pulls the length of it. Draco can see the wet red head sliding between Potter’s fingers, through his gaping trousers, and nothing he has ever done has looked that hot.

Draco grabs Potter’s shoulder, arching towards him. He pulls him into a rough kiss; his tongue slips against Potter’s. He’s close, so close, and Potter’s hand feels so good on him.

“Fuck Zabini,” Harry says against Draco’s mouth, gripping Draco’s cock tightly.

Draco’s entire body writhes. His feet slide against the floor. “Potter,” he pleads, and Potter’s hand moves even faster across his heated skin.

It’s more than Draco can take. With a sharp cry, he arches his back, banging his head against the floor in the process. “Fuck,” he groans, and then he’s coming, spunk splattering through Potter’s fingers and across Draco’s jumper.

He collapses, tremors still wracking his body. His fingers are tense, and he realises he’s clenched them somehow in the sleeve of Potter’s shirt.

Potter leans in to kiss his jaw, and Draco shivers.

“We might need another flannel,” Potter says, surveying the mess on their clothes and on the floor.

Draco nods. “Yeah.” His body feels boneless. Limp and floating. “Can you...”

“I can manage.” Potter rolls up, wincing slightly. “At least for now.” He looks down at Draco. “Another month or so though...”

Draco settles back against the floor and closes his eyes. The world doesn’t spin too much. “Better make yourself useful then.” He smiles.

The sound of Potter’s laughter echoes from the other room.***

The next morning, Harry is about to leave for breakfast when he glances over to the far side of the sitting room and is surprised to see that Malfoy’s door is still ajar. He thinks for a moment. Perhaps Malfoy merely forgot to close his door this morning. With a sigh, he sets his satchel down and walks over to check.

When Harry peeks into the room, Malfoy is lying on his back with his hand over his eyes, breathing deeply. Harry watches him for a moment, enjoying the rare chance to observe Malfoy without artifice. Malfoy’s lovely pink mouth is open and Harry thinks he sees a crust near his mouth that indicates drooling whilst sleeping. Malfoy would be horrified, but Harry finds it charming. Harry thinks about what that mouth was doing late last night and closes his eyes. He sighs. The sight of Malfoy’s lean body tangled in his rumpled white sheets is making Harry uncomfortably hard and he really needs to get to breakfast.

“Er, Malfoy.” Harry leans over and gently shakes Malfoy by the shoulder. “Malfoy!”

Malfoy’s arm swings in an arc and connects with Harry’s eye in the process. Pain radiates across Harry’s face and he grunts.

“What the hell--” Malfoy starts up in bed, clutching the sheets around him.“Oh Merlin, my head.” He slumps down against his pillows, one hand pressed to his forehead, his eyes squeezed shut.

Harry covers his eye with his hand. “That really hurt!”

“Potter, what are you doing here? And why are you shouting?” Malfoy squints in Harry’s direction.

“It’s already half-seven and you just hit me in the eye.” After he rubs it for a moment, it stops stinging as much.

Malfoy pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m sure you deserved it.” Early morning sunshine streams through the window, glinting on Malfoy’s rumpled hair.

Harry looks around. The room’s smaller than his, but it’s cosy and comfortable. Malfoy’s clothes are strewn across the floor, and one low chest is covered with photographs of Malfoy’s family and friends. Harry finds it oddly disconcerting to see Lucius Malfoy glowering out at him from a simple but clearly antique silver frame.

“You need to get up,” Harry says, glancing back at Malfoy. “You’re going to be late.”

Malfoy groans, and then he rolls out of bed.

Completely starkers.

Harry gapes, taking in the long legs, flat stomach, and wiry muscles of Malfoy’s arms and shoulders. He’s utterly gorgeous, if completely hung over. He’s also sporting an impressive morning erection.

Malfoy turns at Harry’s soft stutter. “What?” he asks, distracted. “Do you have any pain potion, or will Pomfrey not let you take it?”

“I...” Harry wraps his school robe around him. He’s grateful for its spacious folds. “Yeah, sorry. She keeps me away from it.” This isn’t entirely true. Guhathakurta has a special variant he can take. He just never does.

Malfoy stretches. Harry wants to reach out towards him, to touch his smooth skin and jutting hipbones, to lick the hollow of his long throat. Instead he clenches his fists at his side.

“Maybe you should put on some clothes,” Harry says sharply, and Malfoy blinks in surprise.

“Oh. Sorry.” Malfoy pulls the sheet from the bed and wraps it around his hips. A faint blush stains his cheeks.

“That’s okay.” Harry says. His chest is tight and he’s uncomfortable with the entire situation. He has to say something to Malfoy now, but he’s not sure where to begin. Part of his brain is focusing on how hot Malfoy looks and part of it is urging him to flee.“I mean, last night was brilliant and everything. It’s just--”

“Weird,” Malfoy says, rubbing his brow and shading his eyes from the sunlight.

Harry nods. “Yeah. I think we should just, you know...”

“Pretend it didn’t happen,” Malfoy suggests.

“Yeah.” Harry can’t tell if he’s disappointed or relieved. Or a combination of the two. He can’t take his eyes from Malfoy’s broad chest and the still-pink scars criss-crossing his skin, so much paler than it had been in summer. “I think that’s best.”

“Whatever you like.” Malfoy turns away, throwing open his wardrobe. He pulls a pair of pants from a drawer and drops his sheet. It puddles on the floor at his feet. “Are we done?”

Harry stands at the door for a moment, not sure he’s done the right thing, or indeed if there is any right thing to be done.

“I will need some privacy for dressing,” Malfoy calls without looking back.

“Oh, right. Sorry.” Harry reluctantly casts another look at the soft curve of Malfoy’s arse. It’s high and perfect and firm, and as much as Harry wants to drop to his knees and run his tongue along the crease just above Malfoy’s muscular thigh, he knows he can’t. He has to leave now or he won’t leave at all.

He closes the door behind him and leans against the wall for a moment, listening to the rustle of fabric on the other side. He draws in a shaky breath, and his hand settles on his stomach.

“It’s better this way,” he murmurs, his fingers stroking across the swell. For a moment, he wonders if the baby understands, then he shakes himself. “Don’t be an idiot, Potter.”

He walks across the room, picks up his satchel, and leaves.***

A week later, Draco’s buttering his toast and trying to ignore the gaggle of first year girls who’ve managed to get seats at the head of Slytherin table even though he can see two Ravenclaws and a Gryffindor in their midst. It’s only three days until the end of term and the excitement at the impending hols is palpable. Students are talking animatedly as a light snow falls outside, augmenting the air of holiday excitement.

Draco recognises his mother’s eagle owl immediately as it swoops down from the rafters. He sets his toast down and unties the rolled message from Heloise’s foot. He unrolls it and reads it as she pecks at his toast.

He reads it twice and then rolls the parchment tightly, tucking it into his stable jacket. When he looks up, Hagrid is feeding Heloise an enormous bit of kipper. She swallows it with enjoyment, making clicking noises and letting Hagrid smooth her neck feathers.

“All right there?” Hagrid eyes him.

Draco stands up and pushes his chair back. “I’m going to go down to the Porlocks now. l want to check on their bedding again.”

Hagrid nods, stroking Heloise under her beak. “I’ll meet yeh down there soon enough. Maybe we should look in on the Thestrals today.”

Draco strides out of the hall and walks at a quick clip towards the courtyard.

“Malfoy.” An all too familiar voice stops him and he turns around.

“What, Potter?” Draco’s voice is weary. He’s not in the mood to see anyone right now. Not after that letter.

Potter walks towards him, the hem of his robe sweeping across the stone floor. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Right.” Potter doesn’t look convinced. “It’s just you seemed a bit upset when the post arrived.”

Draco’s lips compress. Of course he wouldn’t be able to get out of this, would he? Not with Potter. He pulls the roll of parchment from his pocket and shoves it at Potter. “It’s from my mother. It’s our appointment to visit my father in Azkaban for Christmas.”

“Oh.” Potter doesn’t take the letter. Draco lets his arm drop. He looks away. “I’m sorry,” Potter says after a moment. “That must be terrible.”

Rage flares up in Draco. “No, you’re not.” His stomach knots. “You hate my father, so don’t even try to pretend you give a damn if he’s in Azkaban.”

“I don’t,” Potter says quietly. “He deserves to be in there.”

Draco grows very still. He has the urge to strike Potter, but knows he can’t. “He’s my father, Potter. And the grandfather of our child. You know. That monstrous Malfoy everyone’s horrified you’re carrying.”

Potter doesn’t flinch. “It’s you I give a damn about.” He hesitates. “And your mother.”

“No,” Draco says thickly. “You don’t.” He starts to turn away. Potter catches his arm.

“Hey.” Potter turns Draco towards him. “I know you don’t want to go.” His hands curl around Draco’s wrists, pulling him closer. “And I know you don’t want to forgive him.”

Draco can’t look at Potter. “I’m not going to let my mother go to that hellhole alone.”

“I know.” Potter reaches up carefully and touches Draco’s cheek. Draco doesn’t know why he lets him, but he finds it almost soothing. “It’s a pretty shit Christmas.”

“Yeah.” Draco leans against Potter. His fingers clutch at Potter’s robe. “I’m worried about her,” he whispers. “Whether she’s going to be okay.” He licks his lip and turns his face against Potter’s shoulder. “After. You should have seen her when Father first went in.” He shudders, remembering how shattered she’d been after their visits that summer, how she’d said nothing afterwards but had gone into her darkened bedroom with a gin and tonic and stayed there the rest of the evening. He hadn’t been much better. Just an hour among the Dementors had left his heart cold and aching.

“I’m sorry.” Potter strokes Draco’s hair. “When do you have to go?”

Draco sighs. “Solstice.” He fingers the clasp of Potter’s robe. “Father prefers it to Christmas. Mother’s always hated Yule.” There’d been arguments throughout his childhood and the occasional thrown vase, but Father’d always accompanied them to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, even if he’d mocked the vicar throughout the service.

“You’ll be staying after?” Potter sounds almost wistful.

“Probably.” Draco closes his eyes and breathes in. His heart skips a beat. He can smell Potter, soapy fresh and musky all mixed together. He’s afraid Blaise might have been dangerously close to the truth of him and Potter. Or him, at least. “What are you doing for hols?” he mumbles. They live together, and he doesn’t even know the smallest things about Potter’s life.

“I’m going to be alone here, I think,” Potter says. “Or at least with Flitwick and Binns and the other ghosts.” His fingers still smooth over Draco’s hair, tucking it back behind his ear. “You’re welcome to stop by for pudding. The elves always make too much food.”

Draco pulls back. “I would have thought the Weasels would have invited you home.”

Potter shrugs. “They did. I decided not to go.” At Draco’s frown, he sighs. “Ginny. It’d be too awkward.”

“You could consider it a chance to rekindle your romance.” Draco doesn’t know why he says it.

Potter’s laugh surprises him. “She’d have to be very tolerant to take back a boyfriend who’s five months pregnant with another man’s child.”

Draco’s hand settles on Potter’s waist. His fingers stroke the side of his swollen belly. “Or desperate.”

“Jealous?” Potter asks lightly, but his eyes are fixed on Draco’s.

“Terribly,” Draco says, and, in a moment of weakness, his lips brush Potter’s jaw. Potter shivers, and he turns his head.

“Don’t be.” His breath is a warm huff against Draco’s lips. His hand rests on Draco’s shoulder, his thumb tracing small circles on Draco’s collarbone.

Draco wonders what McGonagall would say if she came out to find him shagging Harry Potter in the Entrance Hall. He inhales slowly. “Potter...”

Potter’s mouth is gentle against his. It surprises Draco, after Potter’s protestations the week before, but he doesn’t pull away. He can’t. Instead, he leans in, letting his body settle against Potter’s.

Draco doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to this, to the shocking burn of Potter’s lips, to the flare of desire that spirals through his whole body, to the wave of possessiveness that threatens to overwhelm him every time he touches Potter. Their lips meet again, and Draco’s hand slips to Potter’s, twining their fingers together.

It’s a soft kiss, broken by the sound of contented sighs from the far end of the corridor. Potter pulls back. “I think we have an audience,” he murmurs.

Draco peers over Potter’s shoulder. He catches a glimpse of Perdita and Agnes ducking behind a suit of armour.

“You’re going to tell me not to hex them, aren’t you? he asks grimly.

Potter’s laugh is muffled against Draco’s hair. He presses his lips just beneath Draco’s earlobe, and Draco’s knees go weak. “You cannot hex the first years, Malfoy,” he whispers into Draco’s ear. “At least not yet.”

Draco doesn’t bother to argue. He pulls away reluctantly. “They’ll be coming out soon,” he says, nodding towards the Great Hall. “And I’ve Porlocks to check on.”

Potter steps back, his fingers slowly slipping from Draco’s. “Yeah.”

There’s a cough from the wall behind Draco. He turns.“Mr Malfoy,” Severus says, his voice frosty. “Minerva McGonagall is about to step through that door.” He studies his fingernails. “Not that you seem to care.”

Potter grins up at Severus’s portrait. “Thanks.”

Severus harrumphs. “You don’t have to listen to her after she’s upbraided you.”

Draco touches the portrait frame. “Thank you, sir,” he says to his godfather. He receives a snort in return.

The last thing he sees as he walks through the door into bright sunlight is Potter in the hallway, talking to Severus’s portrait. He smiles.

It’s curiously comforting.***

 

Narcissa empties one snifter of brandy and motions for another before speaking. Draco pours it for her, then tops off his own. She leans back on the chaise in her sitting room, looking out of the tall paned windows onto the gardens below. Grey clouds hang low over the row of ancient oaks that edge the centre avenue, and the beds, bursting with colour in the summers, are piled high with a dark mulch that Draco knows from recent experience with the Hogwarts grounds took hours to fill in.

“That wasn’t too awful, I suppose,” Narcissa says finally, but her lips are quivering, and her fingers are white against the curve of her glass.“Your father looks better than last time.”

Draco perches on the edge of a spindly-legged chair his great-great-grandmother had ordered from Paris. It’s as uncomfortable as it’s been since he was five and he’d sat in it, legs swinging above the floor, while he watched his mother dress for dinner. He sips his brandy. “I suppose.”

Narcissa glances sharply at him. “Draco.”

His mother needs to believe this, Draco knows. It doesn’t matter that in actuality his father looked gaunt and wild-eyed, his prisoner code tattooed in ugly grey ink across the back of one shaking hand. It doesn’t matter that his long hair hung filthy against his face, that his beard was matted, that his striped shirt hung off his bony shoulders, that spittle had flown across the table as he’d shouted at them to get him out, to get him out now.

“Lucius,” his mother had said, her voice breaking, and his father had turned to him instead.

Draco’d sat there silently. When his father reached towards him, Draco’d pulled back. “Don’t.”

Their eyes had met for a long moment, and then his father had leaned across the table and slapped him, the crack of flesh striking flesh echoing in the silent room, a rush of pain flooding Draco’s cheek as his father’s jagged, filthy nails raked across his skin. The guards had grabbed his father, pulling him out of his chair as he’d struggled in desperation, kicking out at them.

He touches his cheek now. It still stings, despite the salve his mother had put on it the moment they returned home. The words his father had screamed at him as they dragged him out of the room still ring in his ears. Coward. Failure.

When he looks up, his mother is watching him. She turns away, back to the sober grey gardens. Her hand trembles as she lifts the brandy sifter to her lips again. “He’s not himself, Draco,” she whispers.

“I know.”

And he does. The man he’d seen today was nothing like his father had been. This man was broken. Tormented. Barely sane.

Draco knows he might have shared the same fate, if it wasn’t for the Acting Minister’s leniency. Shacklebolt wasn’t a monster. He turns his glass between his fingers, then sips the brandy. Rumour had it the man was even angling to have the Dementors removed from Azkaban again, though he was facing stiff opposition from the Wizengamot.

Bastards.

He sets his glass aside. “Are you all right?” he asks his mother.

She doesn’t answer for a moment, then she sighs. “As well as possible.”

“I don’t like your being in this house alone,” Draco says. It doesn’t matter that Narcissa has abandoned the Manor’s ostentatious common rooms, the ones that still hold memories from those awful months, and confined herself to the smaller, cosier rooms of the east wing his grandfather had once used for guests.

Narcissa sets her brandy snifter on the floor and reaches out for him, clasping his hand. Her long fingers are cool and soft; the ring his father gave her all those years past on their betrothal has turned to the inside and the diamond scrapes across his palm. “I have the elves,” she says, “and Andromeda brings little Teddy by frequently.”

She’s been making her peace with her sister now. They’re the only two Blacks left, and they’ve both lost so much in the war.

“Still,” Draco says, but his mother squeezes his fingers. She gives him a small smile and pulls her hand back. She smoothes the skirt of her grey silk robe. It’s embroidered with a thickly leaved vine that curls along the hem and up the front along the long line of tiny jet buttons. It’s the robe his father had always liked on her. Draco can remember him coming up behind her in happier days, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing the side of her neck as he told her how beautiful she looked. A lump forms in his throat. He misses that Lucius.

Badly.

His mother touches his face. “I’m fine, darling. And I’ve you for the holidays now.” She picks up her brandy and leans back against the sofa arm.

Draco blurts, even without realising what he’s about to say, “I’d like to have someone join us for Christmas.” He bites his lip. He supposes he’s been considering it for the past three days. It’s foolish of him, he knows, but this time of year makes him stupidly sentimental.

Narcissa regards him for a moment, her snifter delicately suspended in the air. “Really.”

“Yes,” Draco says, suddenly afraid. He’s seen that curiously calculating look on his mother’s face before.

“May I ask whom?” Narcissa takes a small sip. “Is Mrs Zabini perhaps otherwise occupied this year?”

“No.” Draco swallows, and it’s the hardest thing he has ever said. “Harry Potter actually.”

Narcissa almost drops the glass but, to her credit, manages to save it at the last minute. A single splash of brandy falls to the floor, staining the pale blue Savonnerie. She looks at her son, her beautifully arched eyebrows close to her hairline. “Isn’t it a bit late to be making these arrangements, Draco? I know that it’s important to be politically advantageous, but really.”

“He’s alone over Christmas,” Draco says, his stomach fluttering. “And he’s pregnant with my child.”

Narcissa freezes, her shallow breaths the only movement for several long moments. Draco clenches inwardly, waiting for her reaction with something approaching abject terror. The clock on the chimneypiece ticks loudly and their silence hangs heavy in the air. Draco wishes that he could have left the country, hidden himself away, anything instead of confessing this to her. And yet, he knows he must. No matter what his father thinks of him, he can’t be a coward now.

“You are perfectly certain of this fact?” Her voice is absolutely steely, almost without colour. He notices she doesn’t ask if it’s possible, doesn’t claim he must be lying.

Draco nods, his throat tight. “Yes. It was confirmed by a specialist at St Mungo’s. Several, actually.”

“I see.” His mother’s blue eyes don’t even widen.

“You’re not surprised,” Draco says.

His mother sets her glass on the floor and sits up, swinging her legs off the sofa. She stands and walks to another set of floor-length windows, pushing aside the brocade draperies as she looks out. “Oh, I am,” she says finally. “On several different levels. But if you’re referring to the concept of a male bearing a child, no. It’s highly unusual, but not unheard of in certain pureblood families.” The navy fringe of the draperies brushes against her pale hair. “Particularly when wizards are of a certain...” She hesitates. “Persuasion.”

“I haven’t tried to hide who I am.” Draco watches her, studying the set of her shoulders and the straight line of her spine.

“No.” Narcissa looks back over her shoulder at him. “Your father and I have long suspected.” She turns. “We assumed at some point you would recognise your familial duty.” Her fingers are twined together, a sure sign she’s upset. “We hadn’t anticipated it would be in this manner, however.”

Draco drains his brandy.

Narcissa walks back to the sofa and sits on the edge. “You’re eighteen.”

“Everyone seems to feel it necessary to point this out,” Draco says dryly. “Yes. We are. And a hundred years ago that wouldn’t have been surprising.”

“It’s not the nineteenth century any longer, Draco.” Narcissa frowns. “You’re too young--”

“Don’t, Mother.” Draco’s tired of this argument. “It doesn’t matter. Potter’s up the duff, and it’s my fault. He’s chosen not to terminate the pregnancy, so there’s nothing to be done for it.”

Narcissa regards Draco levelly. “And how long have you known?”

“A few weeks,” Draco says. He hopes she can’t tell from his face that it’s been close to eight, but she does have a mother’s sixth sense.

His mother’s eyes narrow. “Well.” She’s silent for a moment. A ghost of a smile flits across her face. “It’s been some time since I’ve worried about you finding yourself in this predicament.”

Draco’s mouth quirks slightly. “Was I that obvious?”

That earns him a long look. “Darling.”

A flush warms Draco’s face. “It’s not something one wants to discuss with one’s parents.”

“Severus suspected first.” Narcissa leans back and crosses one leg over the other. Her black buckled heels peek out from beneath her robe. “Your father was furious when he came to us. I believe Severus left with a rather nasty hex burn.” She sighs. “He eventually came to terms with it.”

Draco doesn’t say anything. He twists the sleeve of his robe around his fingertips. He hadn’t realised his father knew. He’d never said anything to Draco, other than his usual assumptions that Pansy would be marrying into the family at some point.

“But, Potter?” His mother rubs at her temples. “Really, dear, you don’t make things simple, do you? Although I suppose it’s not shocking. Lucius was a bit concerned about your obsession with the boy.”

“I wasn’t obsessed,” Draco snaps. Honestly. He doesn’t know how anyone could take the burning hatred he’d felt for Potter for years and twist it into that. He hadn’t even cared that Potter was fit until recently. Well, maybe sixth year. But that still wasn’t an obsession. Merlin.

Narcissa’s eyebrow arches elegantly. “Of course not, darling.”

Draco scowls at her.

“Oh, don’t.” His mother’s amusement is obvious. “You’ll end up with wrinkles.”

“I’m eighteen,” Draco says through clenched teeth, but his brow relaxes. One doesn’t want to tempt fate, after all.

Narcissa reaches up to tug the tasselled rope that hangs from the high ceiling. “As for your young man-”

Draco grits his teeth. “Mother. Potter’s not my young man.”

“Well, I don’t know what else you’d call him, Draco.” His mother gives him an even look. “He’s bearing your child.”

Draco looks away. His stomach flutters slightly at the thought of Potter being his somehow. He doesn’t know what to think about that.

Narcissa stands and walks to Draco. Her hand settles on his shoulder. “In any case, I insist that he be invited for Christmas.”

Gratitude washes over Draco, coupled with awe at his mother’s resolve in the face of anything life can throw at her. “Thank you, Mother.”

A house-elf enters, bobbing her head. Her ears flop forward. “Miss Cissy is being ringing?”

“Yes, Essie.” Narcissa’s voice is gentle. Even the elves have been scarred by His Lordship’s occupation of the Manor. “Will you bring my formal stationery? And my seal? I’ve an invitation to write.”

With a nod and a snap of her long fingers, the elf disappears. His mother looks back at him.

“Draco, have you considered Mr Potter might not wish to come?” Narcissa purses her mouth. “After all, he has less reason than we do to have pleasant associations with the Manor. And it’s been difficult enough for us.”

“I know.” Draco chews his lip. He remembers all too well the night Potter stumbled into the Manor, his face swollen and puffy. Draco had lied for him, lied because he’d known even then that only Potter could end the nightmare the Dark Lord was dragging them all into. He looks up at his mother. “But I don’t want him to be alone on Christmas.”

Narcissa nods and holds out her hand. He takes it. “Then we’ll make certain he isn’t.” She smiles. “I’ve been waiting for a grandchild,” she says. “Andromeda will be thrilled. She’s been wishing Teddy could find a playmate.”

At that moment, Draco realises his entire life has shifted, and something entirely new is going to take the place of the old.

He’s terribly afraid he likes it.***

The nearly empty Great Hall looks impossibly cheerful, Harry thinks, looking around him.

After the students had left, Flitwick had decided that Harry should be learning more ornamental charms, it being Christmas and all, so he pulled out extra resources from the library and they’d been casting for days. Harry’s entire body aches from the effort, but other than a few fiery explosions when his magic had gone a bit wonky, it’d gone rather well. He’s discovering he likes charms, which surprises him given how average he’d been at it through the years.

“It comes that way sometimes,” Flitwick had said, happily casting a charm that had sent a thick garland of evergreen boughs cascading along the front of the staff table. He’d eyed with approval the shimmering glass globes Harry’d tucked between the leaves. “Charms work is quite frequently more of an art than a science, and I do believe you’ve quite an artist’s touch there, my boy. Lovely work. Lovely.”

And now a miniature Father Christmas with a sleigh and reindeer circles over Harry’s head and weaves through the antique silver-topped candles, a charm Flitwick had taught Harry to cast from a crumbling German book. Delicate crystalline stars gleam in the tall windows, lending a soft glow to the empty tables, and swags of greenery hang from the rafters, dotted with fairy lights in the shapes of tiny silver flowers and large globes in which snow is falling on tiny magical scenes.

Fairies dance in the air, following the sleigh and sometimes riding the reindeer. A Quidditch team wearing Santa hats circles the enormous and heavily laden tree, interweaving with a chain of brightly coloured Hippogriffs. A warm fire blazes in the hearth, and the Yule log burns white and gold with flames that form gleaming lions, snakes, badgers, and ravens and sparks in the shape of Hs.

Harry and Hermione sit at the empty Gryffindor table, wrapping presents, while Ron reads a copy of Quidditch Weekly, a look of complete absorption on his face. They’d finished dinner over an hour ago but they like spreading their tasks out on the table, lingering alone amidst the quiet and light of the Great Hall before going back to Harry’s sitting room.

Also, and more importantly, Harry thinks, they’d all eaten so much chocolate and cloudberry trifle, they don’t feel like moving.

“Harry, can you hand me the scarlet ribbon?” Hermione finishes wrapping a book for George and looks at the package critically. “Should I add holly or a spray of golden bells to this one?”

Harry tilts his head. “I don’t know. Bells, maybe.”

With a wave of Hermione’s wand, the ribbon wraps around the package. A second spell attaches the miniature golden bells to the bottom of the scarlet bow. They jingle softly.

“Lovely.” Hermione puts it on the large pile next to her, which groans as it shifts.

“I can’t believe Krum is going to be leaving Bulgaria.” Ron says, his voice muffled by the paper in front of his face. “How much do you think the Águilas de Madrid paid for him?”

“Loads,” Harry said. He reaches for a sheet of wrapping paper. It sticks to his fingers, and he frowns as he shakes it free. “Wasn’t there some talk of his playing in the States?”

“Yeah.” Ron turns a page in the paper. The Pudd United players on the front page tumble across each other, their brooms falling to the edge of the photograph. “And the Wimbourne Wasps wanted him, but Madrid outbid everyone.”

Harry whistles. “That must be a good contract then.”

Hermione finished affixing a tiny white flower spray to a small dark blue box. Harry knows it’s a bracelet for Ginny and he feels bad that he hasn’t bought her anything. He’s sending along presents for the family, and he’ll give Ron and Hermione their gifts before they leave on Christmas Eve, but it’s strange to send nothing for Ginny. He wishes he could make it all right. Maybe next year.

“Are you sure you won’t come?” Hermione asks in a casual tone, setting the present atop the tilting pile. “You know everyone wants to see you.”

Ron looks up from his paper. “Yeah, mate. I know it’s strange, but, well, frankly, it’s been a strange year and all.”

Harry nods and looks down at the length of ribbon remaining in his hands. He coils it carefully. “I’m sure.”

Hermione starts to speak, then stops.

Ron gives her a look. He folds his paper and sets it aside. “We’ll be back before New Year’s. And you can always come after Christmas if that’s easier. But we’ll be back soon.”

“Thanks,” Harry says. “I’m really okay. I don’t mind the time by myself right now.” In truth, he almost welcomes a week or so on his own. Or as much so as he can be in a castle filled with elves and the handful of staff and students who are staying over the holidays. He doesn’t particularly want to be alone on Christmas, but it would be far worse to cause trouble. If he has the choice, solitude looks a lot better. Besides, he’s used to holidays at Hogwarts. He likes the quiet of the castle when the students are away. He ignores the niggle deep inside that wishes Malfoy could be here with him.

Hermione frowns. “Harry--”

Harry shakes his head. “Make sure Molly and Arthur know that I want to see them. And I’ll come to visit soon.”

Ron looks down at Harry’s swelling belly. It’s pressed firmly against the edge of the table. The baby likes the pressure, Harry thinks. Or something. All he knows is that it stops moving so much when he sits like this, which is a welcome respite for him.

“Maybe it’s better this way,” Ron says, finally.

Harry nods. He sets the coiled ribbon down. “Yeah, I think so right now. Don’t want too many surprises for the holidays.” He tries to laugh, but it won’t quite come out right.

“What’s that owl doing up there?” Hermione looks up at the bird resting on the rafters, looking perplexed as an amassed group of fairies dances around the candles and the sleigh circles the far end of the room.

“I don’t know.” Harry waves his wand, and a gentle wind disperses the group of fairies. The long silver-topped candles flicker and the huge eagle owl sights him and swoops down to the table.

Harry takes the heavy parchment roll tied with a blue ribbon and sealed with an M in thick black wax. “Do we have anything for the owl, Hermione?”

“No,” she says. “I’ll ask the elves if they have owl treats.”

Harry cracks the heavy seal with a butter knife and unrolls the parchment. It’s thicker and softer than anything he’s ever received.

“Who is it from?” Ron asks.

Harry looks up and he’s sure his eyes are wide. His stomach’s just dropped about a mile. He can only choke one word out. “Malfoy.”

“Really,” Hermione says, returning with the treats and feeding one to the owl perched on the back of the chair next to her. “But he just left.”

Harry swallows and shakes his head. “No. Narcissa Malfoy.”

Ron and Hermione both gape at him. Hermione curses as the owl pecks at her finger, then she sets the treats down on the table. The owl greedily settles on the table and begins snuffling among them.

“What does she want?” Ron asks.

“She wants me to come for Christmas.” Harry smoothes the parchment out on the table and stares down at the neatly written lines. There’s not a single stray drop of ink. “To Malfoy Manor.”

“But, that’s--She can’t think--” Hermione puts a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Harry.”

Harry’s mouth is dry. “She’s invited me for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”

Ron gives a low whistle. “Draco must’ve told her.”

“He’s the only one who could’ve,” Harry says. He looks back down at the parchment. Narcissa’s signature curls across the bottom. “Everyone else is barred by Fidelius.”

“That’s actually very brave of her.” Hermione drops a few more of the treats in front of the owl.

“Brave?” Harry and Ron ask the question simultaneously.

“She must know you’ll refuse.” Hermione glances up at them. The owl steals a treat from her palm, nipping her as she does. Hermione jerks her hand away. “She’s asked you anyway. I think that’s brave.”

“That’s mental, is what that is.” Ron shakes his head. His red hair falls into his eyes and he brushes it back again. “Mental. Why would you go back there?”

Harry shrugs. He drops his hands to his belly and rubs lightly. The baby shifts at his touch. Guhathakurta’d warned him in his check-up two days ago that it’d start pummelling him soon. Malfoy had just laughed and said that would come from his side of the family. Harry can still feel the warmth of Malfoy’s gaze. “I suppose because that’s where they’re spending Christmas.”

“But you’re going to say no, aren’t you?” Ron asks, worried. He leans across the table. “I mean, it’s better to be alone than to be there. Right?”

Harry hesitates. But Malfoy’s at the Manor, he thinks, and then he’s horrified that the thought’s even crossed his mind. It’d only been this past Easter that he’d been dragged into the Manor by Greyback’s Snatchers. Hermione looks away, and Harry knows she’s thinking of it too, remembering Bellatrix Lestrange holding her down, torturing her with the Cruciatus Curse.

He shudders at the memory of her screams echoing through the Malfoy dungeon. “I think Mrs Malfoy was trying to be kind,” he says finally. “But I can’t go and I don’t know what to say.”

Hermione gives him a firm look. “We’ll owl her back and send your thanks. Then we’ll tell her that you’ve made other arrangements. Should we write this in the sitting room?”

The owl swoops back to the chair back and starts grooming its feathers.

“Here,” Harry says. He wants to get this over with as soon as possible.

Ron pushes a parchment pad and a self-inking quill across the table. “Use this.”

Harry rips the first sheet off and wads it up. He tosses it across the room and the owl dives after it. Malfoy’s going to kill him for this, he knows. But he can’t.

He picks up the quill and sighs.***

Draco walks up the winding path to the castle from Hogsmeade, his boots crunching through the thin crust of snow on the hard ground. He supposes he could’ve Floo’d directly into the staffroom, but he’d wanted some time to think. His heavy charcoal wool cloak swirls around his legs as he walks. He remembers this path being interminably long when he was younger, but now it seems he’s scarcely through the gates and then he’s arriving at the side door in the courtyard.

He doesn’t want to go through the front door right now.

“Go to him,” Narcissa had said to Draco an hour ago as he fidgeted over breakfast, barely eating. He’d bought presents for Potter, and he kept looking at them lying under the little tree in the converted sitting room. “If you’re this concerned, then go to him. Perhaps it will be easier for both of you to say things in person.”

Draco knows his mother is right, but still, he doesn’t know why he’s come. It’s probably useless. Potter’d sent his refusal back almost immediately, polite enough that Draco was certain Granger must have drafted it. His mother had read the ink-smudged parchment carefully, not even giving a sign past a small nostril flare at how middle class she found the phrasing. She’d merely announced that Mr Potter wouldn’t be joining them after all, then asked Draco if he would like to see the letter.

Stung by Potter’s assumed diffidence, he’d refused. Narcissa had frowned, but she’d folded the parchment neatly and left it on the side table. She’d known perfectly well that he’d pick it up the moment she left the room.

He had.

Now, as he pushes the heavy oak and metal door open and his steps ring through the empty stone hallway, Draco knows how difficult it was for Potter to be invited. Even Draco, with his happier memories of the Manor in his childhood, finds it hard to walk through the long corridors, remembering how terrified he was that Yaxley would turn the corner, or Greyback, or--the greatest fear of all--that he’d hear the soft sweep of scales against stone that would warn him that His Lordship was passing, Nagini at his side.

Still. Potter shouldn’t be alone for Christmas. Maybe he will come if Draco asks him personally, tells him it’s all right. Maybe it will matter when he sees how much Draco wants him to be there.

Maybe.

Draco gapes when he enters the empty Great Hall. Although there are no candles and the grey light outside of the windows is faint, the room glows with all manner of decoration and ornaments. It looks like a charms book exploded, and Draco can’t help but smile. He can see Potter’s handiwork across the room. He’s certainly improving, Draco thinks. These charms are far more sophisticated than what he’d been doing two weeks ago.

A sleigh circles above his head, and he swears softly as he walks into a chair while looking up at it. Snow drifts down to the tables, disappearing the moment each flake strikes the worn wood. A handful of fairies flit behind him--a few brave ones even risk playing with his hair. He shoos them away gently and smoothes it back into place as he leaves the Great Hall and ducks down a narrow hall towards the staircase to their rooms.

When Draco reaches the small familiar corridor and sees the arched door, even though he’s just left a few days ago, his heart jumps into his throat. He must be mad. He considers turning back. Potter will mock him. And not just Potter - he hears Granger’s voice and then Weasley’s muffled through the thick wood of the door.

“Draco.”

He turns at the voice. Albus Dumbledore regards him from a portrait frame across the hall. The old friar who usually snoozes in the painted armchair is gone, and Dumbledore’s feet are propped up on his overstuffed ottoman. His garish orange and yellow striped socks nearly blind Draco.

“Sir.” Draco keeps his voice even. He doesn’t like Dumbledore. He never has. But Potter respects the man--God only knows why--and Draco’d rather avoid that particular argument if he can.

“Happy Christmas,” Dumbledore says and he settles his hands on his stomach, over his long beard. The gesture reminds Draco of Potter, and something deep inside him twinges.

He nods. “And yourself.” He puts his hand on the door handle.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on him.”

At that, Draco turns. Dumbledore’s watching him carefully. “Have you?”

“Magic exists, Draco, that you’ve not yet encountered,” Dumbledore says cryptically.

Draco scowls at him. He’s always hated it when the old bastard goes off on some idiotically barmy and generally useless tangent. Even in oils the Headmaster is irritating. “I’m not terribly surprised.”

Dumbledore yawns and scratches at his arm. “There’ll be a day when you are. I certainly hope you’re prepared for it.”

“That makes entirely no sense,” Draco protests, but the Headmaster’s nodded off, or at least is pretending that he has.

With a huff of annoyance, Draco turns back to the door. “Potter stinks,” he says--he’d been the one to win this month’s Knut toss over the password, much to Potter’s dismay--and the handle shifts beneath his fingers.

The scene that meets him on the other side is so comical, he would laugh if he weren’t so nervous. Instead he just stands in the doorway and looks at Harry, who’s wearing a dark blue dressing gown over a truly hideous jumper of gold and scarlet, a pair of blue striped pyjama pants, and--dear God--fuzzy slippers in the shape of Norwegian Ridgebacks. His mouth is open in a small o, and his glasses are threatening to slide off the end of his nose. Draco glances instinctively down and wonders that Potter’s bump is really that big already.

“Draco,” Granger says, setting down the lumpy bag she’s carrying on the small table next to the sofa. “You’re back.”

He nods. Weasley eyes him from the ottoman, where he has his wand pointed at the biggest pile of chocolate frogs spread across the floor that Draco’s ever seen.

“Hungry?” Draco asks, trying to be amusing. No one laughs.

“They’re getting ready to go to the Burrow,” Potter explains, drawing his dressing gown more tightly around him. He twists the end of the belt around his fingers, then looks at Draco with impassive green eyes. “We’re just finishing packing everything.”

A flush rises on Draco’s face. “Can I- Can we talk alone for a moment?”

Potter shrugs, and he glances over at his friends.

Weasley frowns. “Harry,” he says, but Potter holds up a hand. He looks back at Draco.

“About what?”

Draco shifts, clenching the cuffs of his robe in his fingers. “What do you think?” he asks acerbically. Honestly, Potter’s not that stupid.

Potter eyes him for a moment. “All right,” he says, and he walks into his bedroom. Draco follows. He doesn’t bother to close the door; he knows Granger and Weasley will be listening.

“It’s not about you,” Potter says, turning towards him. The bed behind him is unmade, and clothes are strewn across the floor.

Draco steps over a pair of jeans. “I know.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “It’s about the Manor.”

“Yeah.” Potter’s hair sticks up wildly. Draco’s fairly certain he hasn’t even combed it today. “It’s...” He trails off and sits down on the edge of the bed. The swell of his belly is obvious beneath the knot of his dressing gown belt. Draco can’t take his eyes off it.

He walks over to Potter, stopping in front of him. He touches Potter’s cheek, and his fingers drift over Potter’s stubbled jaw. “I want you for Christmas,” he says quietly, and then his face heats when he realises what he’s said. He doesn’t correct himself though. It’s true.

Potter looks up at him. “Malfoy.”

“It scares me too,” Draco admits. His heart thuds against his chest at the look in Potter’s eyes. He squats in front of him, his palms on Potter’s thighs. “I woke up last night screaming--”

Potter’s hands catch Draco’s face. His fingers are wide and thick, and when his thumb sweeps across Draco’s bottom lip, Draco can’t stop his soft sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Potter says.

Draco can barely breathe as Potter’s hand cups his jaw. “Unless you’ve a nasty snake as a familiar, Potter, it’s not your fault.” Potter’s dressing gown scrunches beneath his fingers. “I want you at the Manor for Christmas. You shouldn’t be alone.” His whole body aches for Potter to kiss him.

Potter does.

His lips are rough and dry, and when Draco’s tongue flicks against them, they open just enough. Draco lurches forward, his body sliding between Potter’s thighs, his hands gripping Potter’s hips. The kiss is slow and lingering, and Draco finally pulls away, he’s flushed and trembling.

“Come home with me,” he whispers.

When Potter nods, Draco slumps against him in relief, his cheek resting against Potter’s bump. Potter’s hand settles on Draco’s head, stroking softly. Neither of them speak.

“Harry,” Weasley says from the doorway, and Draco starts to pull away. Potter holds him still. Weasley hesitates for the briefest moment before he continues. “Hermione and I are off to the Burrow. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Potter’s voice is raw and rough. His fingers trace the curve of Draco’s ear. “I’m going to the Manor for Christmas.”

Weasley’s silent.

“I’ll be okay, Ron,” Potter says.

“We’ll Floo you then.” Weasley’s voice is tight. Potter just nods. His fingers keep moving across Draco’s hair. Draco closes his eyes.

After what seems like an eternity, the door snicks shut.

“Happy Christmas,” Potter murmurs.

Draco thinks perhaps it might be.***

The Manor is dark and cold.

Harry steps out of the Floo, slightly breathless. To Guhathakurta’s delight, his magic has stabilised over the past few months, enough so that the rush of Floo travel doesn’t leave him disoriented and gasping, but it’s uncomfortable enough.

Malfoy steadies him, his fingers gripping Harry’s elbow. “You’re all right?”

“Yeah.” Harry’s hand settles on his bump. The baby expresses its displeasure with a foot in his bladder, and Harry winces. Brat, he thinks affectionately. Take after your father, do you?

He looks around as Malfoy picks up the small bag he’s packed and hefts it over his shoulder. Harry recognises the hall. Scabior and Greyback had dragged them through the front door, into this long, stone corridor lined with Malfoy portraits. His fingers brush his jaw, remembering how swollen it’d been, how his skin had stung so fiercely, stretched pink and shiny across his face.

And Narcissa Malfoy had stood in front of him, studying his distorted face, her blue eyes blank and icy before she’d led him in to a brightly lit room, all purple and gilt.

They say they’ve got Potter...

Harry closes his eyes. He can see it all, feel it all. His heart pounding, the tang of fear in the back of his throat. Lucius touching him, his finger hovering over his distended scar. Malfoy’s terrified face as he looked away, refusing to confirm Harry’s identity. The sharp shriek of Bellatrix Lestrange’s laughter, the echo of her slap on Ron’s face as he begged her to take him instead of Hermione. The dankness of the dungeons. The touch of Luna’s hand on his arm as she cut through the ropes on his and Ron’s wrists. How his scar had burned, hot and fierce. Hermione’s screams as each Crucio wracked her body. Ron’s desperation to get to her. The tightness of Wormtail’s silver hand, crushing the breath from him. The glitter of Bellatrix’s knife against Hermione’s throat. The brush of Harry’s fingers against Malfoy’s as he jerks the three wands from his grasp.

Dobby’s limp body in his arms afterwards, blood staining Harry’s shirt as he held the tiny elf to him and sobbed.

Harry trembles. Why is he here? Why had he agreed to come back--

“Potter,” Malfoy says softly. He turns Harry to face him. “Look at me.”

Harry can’t.

Malfoy’s hands rest on Harry’s hips. “Potter.” His forehead presses against Harry’s; Harry can feel the warmth of Malfoy’s breath and the soft stroke of his thumbs against the wool of Harry’s robe.

Harry takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. He sees Malfoy. Just Malfoy. Not the Manor. Not the corridor. Not the portraits. He huffs a bit self-consciously, but he doesn’t pull away. The roundness of his bump presses against Malfoy’s flat stomach. Somehow it makes him feel...not better, but not as unsettled as a moment before. “Sorry.”

Malfoy snorts, but he gives Harry a faint smile. “We can go back to Hogwarts if you’d like.”

Harry can see the worry in his eyes. He shakes his head. He’d made it through the memories of Hogwarts this summer. He can do it here. Maybe.

Still, he doesn’t object when Malfoy takes his hand. They look at each other for a long moment, and Harry knows Malfoy’s also thinking of their last encounter here eight months ago. “It’s weird,” Harry says, “how much can change so quickly.”

Malfoy just nods as he leads Harry down the cold corridor. “This isn’t what I would have expected a year ago.” The murmurs from the portraits echo their surprise. Malfoy frowns at them and steps closer to Harry.

“I don’t think anyone would have, really,” Harry says wryly. He eyes the portrait of a scowling old woman, her entire body dwarfed by the enormous feathered turban perched on her silver curls. He’s afraid if she moves her head it’ll go sailing off. Judging by her stiff posture, he thinks she is as well. “We should be the poster boys for St Mungo’s next safe sex campaign.”

“Don’t give Guhathkurta the idea.” Malfoy starts up the enormous curved marble staircase.

Harry follows him. “It’s cold in here.”

“We’re only using one wing,” Malfoy says over his shoulder. “Neither Mother nor I care to be in these rooms.” He sounds grim. “Too many memories.”

Harry thinks he hears a scurrying noise in the shadows. It unsettles him.

Two more darkened hallways, their chests and chairs and tables draped with heavy white canvas, then another, thankfully shorter flight of stairs, and Malfoy pushes open a tall black door, ornately carved and gleaming. The corridor beyond is lit by enormous wall sconces that cast a bright glow over the polished wood floor. More portraits line the walls, but these look friendlier, Harry thinks, or perhaps that’s just misplaced optimism.

Malfoy points a few out as they pass: Great-great-aunt Leda who’d had twins she’d named Castor and Pollux (“That branch of the family was always so predictable,” Malfoy says with a curl of his lip); Great-great-great-great-grandfather Hector (“Who was as frightfully dull as his name sounds--don’t get into a conversation with him unless you’re dying to discuss sheep breeding in the early nineteenth century.”); Cousin (“God only knows how many times removed, though I’m sure Father could tell you”) Reuben, a charming rake whom Malfoy had been forbidden to talk to as a child (“Of course I did--he told the best stories about Dashwood’s Hellfire Club, though I was twelve before I realised what exactly the Monks of Medmenham were up to. To be honest, for the longest time, I thought it was a pub frequented by rather a lot of clergy.” )

Reuben winks at Harry and raises a small crystal goblet filled with a dark red wine. “He wasn’t far off,” he calls out as they pass.

They stop in front of a tall, broad shouldered man with piercing grey eyes and a short shock of blond hair that falls across his forehead. He’s barely older than the two of them, Harry thinks, and while his jaw isn’t as pointed or his body as wiry thin, he’s obviously a direct relative to the boy standing next to Harry.

“Grandfather Abraxas,” Malfoy says quietly, and the portrait scowls down from his perch on the pale green brocade wall.

“I see you’re back.” Abraxas Malfoy’s voice is higher than Harry expected. He clutches the lapels of his robe with both hands, and the look on his face makes clear his opinion of this.

Malfoy shrugs. “I’m sure you’re pleased.” Grandfather and grandson eye each other with disdain until Abraxas drops down into his painted chair. He crosses one booted leg over his knee.

“Go on then,” Abraxas says. “Your mother’s been in a tizzy all morning. Ordering the elves about. Honestly, that woman. Never did understand what Lucius saw in her. Flighty chit. No appreciation of family values, letting that Muggle-loving sister of hers visit with that wolf’s boy. Wouldn’t have allowed it in my day, and that cow damned well knows it. Now her sister Bellatrix, on the other hand...there was a fine gel.” He nods approvingly. “Spirit and propriety, that’s the ticket.”

Malfoy turns his back on his grandfather. “Potter,” he says, but Harry just looks at Abraxas, appalled.

“You’re an arse,” he says after a moment.

Abraxas’s eyes narrow. He leans forward in his chair. “And if I’m not mistaken...” His eyes drop down to the swell of Harry’s belly under his robe. “You’re the aberration what’s ruined my grandson’s reputation.” His gaze flicks over to Malfoy, and his thin lip curls in distaste. “Not that he had much of one to begin with, given his proclivities.”

“Leave him alone.” Reuben sticks his head into Abraxas’s portrait. “You need a good shag yourself, Abbie. Do you a world of good.”

Before Abraxas can reply, a door opens.

“Draco.”

Narcissa Malfoy steps into the corridor. She’s thinner than Harry remembers--too thin, he thinks--but her Alice blue robe is perfectly tailored to her tall frame and her pale hair is twisted into a neat chignon at the nape of her neck.

Malfoy crosses to her and kisses her cheek. “I’ve brought him,” he whispers, and a small smile curves Narcissa’s pink lips.

“I see.” She turns a cool gaze on Harry.

For a moment, fear spikes in Harry. Perhaps this is a mistake. Perhaps they’ve brought him here to punish him, to lock him in the dungeon like they had with Ollivander and Dean and Luna, for Christ’s sake--she was their family, what would stop them from doing that to him?

And then Narcissa steps towards him. “Mr Potter,” she says warmly, and Harry finds his hands caught between hers, her skin surprisingly soft. “I’m so glad you could join us. I’ve tea waiting.”

“Thank you.” Harry says. He’d like to say he’s glad to be here but he’s still not entirely sure. Malfoy is watching them nervously, his gaze flickering between his face and his mother’s.

Narcissa regards Harry with sharp eyes. “Draco, darling,” she says. “Take Mr Potter’s bag to your room, please. I’ve had the elves prepare it.”

Malfoy blinks. “My room. Not the blue room?” He hesitates. “Have you moved me into there?”

“No.” His mother doesn’t look away from Harry. “It seemed appropriate that you both share.”

Harry feels a flush creep up his neck. “It’s not necessary,” he protests. “I’m sure the blue room is fine.”

“Nonsense.” Narcissa glances back at Malfoy, one eyebrow arching. “Darling, if you please? I’d like a moment with Mr Potter.”

Malfoy gives Potter a look both surprised and concerned. “Is that all right with you?”

It’s not, but Harry’s not about to admit that under the circumstances. “Sure.”

Narcissa purses her lips and observes. She’s obviously not used to being questioned. Malfoy glances between them again, then hefts Harry’s bag back over his shoulder. He starts down the hall.

“Come in, please,” Narcissa says, stepping back through the door. Harry follows her slowly, trying not to be caught out looking for unexpected hazards.

The room is small, at least compared to the rooms downstairs. A fire crackles in the hearth, and a gilt-framed mirror hangs above the chimneypiece. Harry catches a glimpse of his own pale face and Floo-rumpled hair. He tries to smooth it down, but it’s been nearly impossible to keep it neat the past month or two. His unruly magic makes it spring right back up again, especially since the baby’s been growing. He lays a hand on his chest for a moment, touching the Resurrection Stone through the cloth of his shirt. He’s been wearing it on a chain almost constantly since late November, only taking it off at night. Not even Ron or Hermione knows. He’s certain they’d be horrified, but the gentle thrum of magic is soothing.

“Please sit,” Narcissa says politely, gesturing to a pale wood and brocade armchair. She settles on the sofa and reaches for the teapot. “Draco tells me you prefer your tea black and sweet.”

Harry nods. He sits in the armchair, surprised that Malfoy’s remembered something like that. He’s no idea how Malfoy takes his. He rubs his hand over his bump absently, until he realizes the flutter in his stomach isn’t coming from the baby but rather from his own nerves. He looks up to find Narcissa watching him, a curious expression on her face.

“When is the baby due?” she asks.

“Early April.” Harry takes the cup of tea she hands him. “My Healer’s scheduled a Cæsarean during Easter hols.”

“A spring baby.” Narcissa smiles. “You’re fortunate. Draco was born in early June, and the last two weeks I carried him were unseasonably warm. I swore if he was late I’d...” She laughs softly. “Well, pregnancy can be frustrating at times, as I’m afraid poor Lucius discovered.”

Poor Lucius indeed, Harry thinks. He hides his frown behind the rim of his teacup, but a cool awkwardness falls between them.

Narcissa looks down at her tea. “I realise there are...difficulties between you and our family.”

“Like your husband spending the past few years trying to kill me,” Harry says flatly. If she’s going to bring it up, he’s not going to ignore it.

“Yes,” she says. “That would be one source of contention certainly.”

“And your son breaking my nose, working for Voldemort--” He doesn’t care that she flinches. “--and in general going out of his way to make my life miserable.”

Narcissa lifts her teacup to her mouth and takes a delicate sip. “And yet, you let him close enough for this to happen now. So perhaps things are changing.”

Harry has to admit she has a point.

“I protected you,” she says after a moment.

“To get to Draco.”

Narcissa inclines her head. “Yes.” With a tap of her wand against the saucer, her teacup hovers beside her. “And yet I’ll continue to protect you.” She picks up a small glass paperweight from the table next to the sofa. “Whether or not you like it, Mr Potter, you’re a Malfoy.” She smiles faintly. “It’s a disconcerting realisation, I’m aware.”

Harry looks away. He hadn’t considered that. “But we’re not married. I don’t really think--”

The paperweight hurtles through the air, dispatched from Narcissa’s hand. Before Harry can duck, it hits something invisible a foot away from him and falls to the floor, shattering into several large pieces. Harry stares at the jagged chunks of glass on the rug. They disappear, sinking into the thick wool pile.

When he looks up again, Narcissa’s on the floor, slumped beside the sofa. He leaps out of his chair and kneels beside her. “What the hell--”

Narcissa’s breath is ragged, and a lock of her hair has slipped free from the chignon to brush against her clammy cheek. Still, she smiles up at him. “You can’t be harmed here, Harry. Not while you’re carrying a Malfoy heir. My parents insisted on that particular protective spell when I married Lucius. It’s bound into the wards.” She winces as Harry helps her back to the sofa. “You’ve met Abraxas.”

“He’s charming,” Harry says dryly. He sits down next to her. “You’re hurt.”

“The spell ricochets back on the person wishing to cause harm.” Narcissa tucks her hair back behind her ear and leans into the corner of the sofa. “It incapacitates them and is proportionate to the level of harm intended.”

“Why did you do that if you knew it would hurt you?” Harry asks. He wonders if he’ll ever understand Narcissa Malfoy.

She lifts a hand to touch his cheek. “I wanted you to know you are safe. And I didn’t know how else to show you.”

Harry just looks at her, at this woman who’d saved his life once already, if only for her family’s sake. “This baby means that much to you.”

“My son means that much to me,” Narcissa says quietly. Her hand drops to Harry’s bump, and the baby moves. Not much, but enough for Harry to feel it. “And this baby means something to him.”

“He wanted me to abort it, you know,” Harry says. He’s unsettled. A year ago, he never would have let Narcissa Malfoy touch him. Then again, a year ago, he never would have thought his knees would go weak from the faintest brush of Malfoy’s lips against his.

Narcissa regards him levelly. She moves her hand and reaches for her teacup, taking a sip before she answers. “He must have been very confused at first, as I’m sure you were. He must have also feared for your safety. I don’t think there can be any doubt now whether he wants the child.”

“I suppose not.” Harry remembers how agonising that time of decision was and how simple the choice seems now that it’s been made. “I’m sure he’d rather he wasn’t stuck with me, of course.”

”I wouldn’t be too sure,” Narcissa says calmly, settling her teacup back into its saucer with a barely audible clink.

“Sure of what?” Malfoy walks back into the room from the hall and stops a few paces from the sofa, hand on his lean hips and inquisitive look in his eye.

The baby kicks at the sound of his voice. Harry sits up. “Whose side the kid’ll take after,” he says quickly.

Narcissa gives her son a bland smile. “Was everything set up appropriately? I know it’s been a bit difficult for the elves to adjust to using this wing again.”

“I think my bed’s bigger.” Malfoy drops into the chair Harry’s vacated. He eyes his mother with suspicion, and Harry ducks his head, hiding a grin as Narcissa shrugs with almost Gallic aplomb.

“One never knows what sort of nonsense they’ll take into their heads, darling. They’re elves, after all.” She pours Malfoy a cup of tea, and, taking it, he sighs.

Harry knows exactly how he feels.***

Drowsy with wine and pleasantly full, Draco watches his mother and Potter laughing at the other side of the table and is shocked by how normal it seems. They’re all three making an effort to make this work out, and it hasn’t been easy entirely - earlier in the evening, Potter had looked surprised that they attended midnight mass at Saint Ætheldreda’s, but he’d dressed in the dark red dress robe Draco had made him pack and gone with them without complaint.

The sitting room is now adorned with enough greenery for a room twice its size. When Potter’d cast the small stars on the windows just after they’d returned from church, Draco had seen tears in his mother’s eyes.

“Where did you learn that charm, Mr Potter?” she’d asked softly.

“From Professor Flitwick,” Harry said, finishing the fixing process with another swish of his wand.

He hadn’t turned around to see Narcissa crying. Draco’d touched his mother’s arm, but she’d waved him away and gently wiped the dampness from her eyes. “I haven’t seen those since I was a little girl,” she’d said. “My grandmother used to put them up every Christmas.”

Potter’d looked over his shoulder then and smiled. “I’m glad you like them. They came from an old German collection of charms that Professor Flitwick brought out for the holidays.”

“Can you do the winter candles perhaps?” his mother had asked almost casually, but her fingertips had brushed the hollow of her throat, catching the string of pearls she’s had since she was sixteen and threading them through her fingers. “The Yule ones? Grandmother wouldn’t serve dinner on Christmas Day without them.” She smiles faintly. “There was quite a row the year she fell ill. None of the rest of us knew the charm.”

With another flick of Potter’s wand a string of silver-topped candles hovered above the dinner table. Narcissa had looked up, eyes wide, and for a moment, Draco caught a glimpse of the young girl she’d once been. At dinner, she’d told stories about her grandparents he’d never heard. It was magic, but of an inexplicable sort.

Now the fruit and the cheese and the wine from the midnight meal are still on the table, and they’ve mostly stopped nibbling, full from the delicacies of the past courses. Potter finishes a clementine. Draco watches the last succulent segment leave his strong, solid hand. Juice drips done one finger, and Potter licks it away. His breath catching, Draco stares down at the remnants of Stilton smeared with pear preserves on his plate. When he glances up, Potter catches him looking and smiles shyly. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes bright behind his round glasses.

They don’t look away.

Narcissa coughs delicately, and Draco turns to his mother, almost grateful for the distraction. “Are you all right?” he asks.

“I’m fine, darling.” She hides a small smile behind her napkin as she glances over at the delicate porcelain clock perched on the chimneypiece. One of his many-greats had commissioned it from John Arnold himself in 1774. “It’s almost two. Perhaps we should retire.” She summons the elves to clean everything and kisses Draco on the cheek, then grasps Potter’s hand for a moment. He looks surprised, but he doesn’t pull away. “You both go ahead. I want to make sure everything on the tree is settled for the night.”

“I can help,” Potter volunteers, missing the cues that are obvious to Draco. There’s a reason his mother put them in the same room. He’s quite aware of that. He narrows his eyes at her; she ignores him utterly.

“No need,” Narcissa says to Potter, “but thank you.” She turns to her son. “I think we should sleep in. I’ll tell the elves not to have breakfast ready before half ten.”

Draco nods, a faint blush tingeing his face as he contemplates sleeping in a bed with Potter. They haven’t ever done that, unless one counts a pile of moss and leaves to be a suitable mattress, which Draco most certainly does not. His mother smiles indulgently, her sharp eyes missing nothing.

“Good night,” Potter says as Draco takes his hand and leads him out of the room. Narcissa waves them on as she cautions one of the elves to be careful with the crystal.

“Was it me or was your mother trying to get us to go to bed?” Harry asks after they’ve walked a few paces down the hall.

“Don’t be crass, Potter,” Draco says, “but yes, of course.”

Potter only laughs. They walk down the long hallway to the large corner room with the massive four-poster bed--nearly twice as large as it’d been the night before when Draco slept in it alone--and the view of the lawns and the Italian fountain, now dry for the winter. It’s cold, but the fire in the grate cuts the chill once they step nearer and the elves will have warmed the bed, Draco knows.

Draco waits while Potter washes up first. His belly is bigger, Draco thinks when Potter reemerges from the bath. He’s changed into an old pair of pyjamas and a faded black Weird Sisters t-shirt, the one they’d been selling two years ago in Diagon Alley, the one with Kirley Duke’s profile in grey. Seeing it stretched tightly across Potter’s stomach confirms Draco’s suspicion. Potter’s getting larger by the day now, and he appears to be walking a little more slowly.

“All yours,” Potter says, and he sits on the edge of the bed, looking around the room. Narcissa had moved up some of Draco’s things from his old room: books, clothing, his Firebolt, his photographs of Slytherin House, of Greg and Vince, Pansy and Blaise, of his parents standing beside him. Potter picks one up and peers down at it before he turns it to show Draco, his eyebrows rising. “Snape?”

Draco’s two or three in the photograph, all plump legs and wind-ruffled blond hair, and he’s hanging over the arm of a bench in the garden, pestering Severus whose attention is firmly caught by the Journal of Potionbrewing he’s reading--or seemingly is until Severus scoops Draco up and sets him on the bench beside him, one hand on Draco’s shoulder, holding him still.

Draco takes the photograph. Severus looks so young in it, and Draco realises he could only have been a few years older than he is right now.

“He was my godfather,” Draco says finally, and he sets the frame back down among the others.

“Oh.” Potter looks uncomfortable. “I didn’t know.”

“Most people didn’t.” Severus had insisted upon that before Draco came to Hogwarts. In private he was Severus his godfather. In public he was Professor Snape. Always.

Draco goes into the bath and changes into his own heavy cotton pyjamas and cleans his teeth. He looks at himself in the mirror reflexively and realises he cares how he appears to Potter. Which is silly given the situation and the fact that he’s already had his mouth on Potter’s cock twice now, but still.

They’ve been shy around each other all evening, particularly in the presence of his mother. During the service, Potter had laid a hand on Draco’s thigh and Draco had covered it with his own for a few moments. That was the most physical contact they’d had, although their eyes had seemed to keep searching the other’s out.

“That was the first time I’ve ever been in a church,” Potter says as Draco is turning down the coverlet on his side of the bed. Potter is sitting cross-legged, propped up against a stack of pillows. “It was interesting. Nicer than I thought.”

Draco pauses, his hand on the heavy ivory brocade. “Really?” he looks at Potter’s face. “Never?”

“Never,” Potter confirms. “The Dursleys--my aunt and uncle--they didn’t attend church. And they probably wouldn’t have brought me if they had.”

Draco frowns. This is the first time Potter has told him anything about his family. “We mostly go at Christmas and Easter. Mother insists. The Blacks always were strictly C of E. My father--” There’s a lump in his throat suddenly. “My father didn’t like church.”

“Why?” Harry shifts, turning to look at Draco.

“He thought it all poppycock.” Draco crawls onto the bed. “He wasn’t exactly fond of being told what to do.”

“Ironic,” Potter murmurs.

Draco sighs. “Well. Unless he thought it would advance him.” He leans back against his pillow--only one, as Potter’s stolen the others. He thinks about complaining, but from the way Potter’s sitting Draco suspects his back is hurting.

The sheets are warm and crisp, and Draco pulls them up to his chin. They smell faintly like the cedar and lavender his mother insists the elves keep in the linen closets year-round.

He’s nearly drifted to sleep when the mattress shifts on Potter’s side. Draco rolls over. Potter’s squatting next to the bed, digging into his bag. “Are you okay?”

Potter’s glasses have slipped to the end of his nose. When he looks up, Draco notices they’re smudged on one lens. “I’m fine,” he says, and he holds the edge of the mattress as he stands up. There’s a wrapped present in his hand.

“I was going to give this when you woke up,” he says, “but...”

Draco sits up and he’s sure his face displays his eagerness. He’s always loved presents. “It’s Christmas.”

A small smile curves Harry’s mouth. “It is.” He slides back onto the bed, setting the present in Draco’s lap. “Go on then.”

It’s a book. And it’s terribly heavy. That much surprises Draco. “Granger helped you?”

Potter’s smile widens. “Your godfather.”

Draco raises an eyebrow as he pulls the remainder of the paper from the book. He stares down at it.

Historia thestralium by Konradt Geissner.

His fingers trace the worn gilt lettering on the cover. It’s in surprisingly good condition. “Oh.”

“Snape said you were interested in studying them,” Potter says quickly. His brow furrows. “And you spend so much time with Druella...”

Draco swallows. He hadn’t even realised that Severus had paid that much attention to his ramblings about the Thestrals in their conversations over the past few months. Usually he’d cut Draco off halfway through. And Potter almost always fell asleep if he brought the subject up in the evenings. “It’s wonderful.”

Potter looks relieved. “I sent off for it,” he says. “Supposedly it’s the best book on them. It’s Latin, but there’s a translation charm--”

“I won’t need it.” Draco keeps stroking the cover, stunned. The book’s impossible to find. Or impossible if you’re not Harry Potter. Not to mention what it must have cost. Draco’s read Geissner’s abridged version, Thestralbuch, stumbling through the German translation charms, and he despises the accompanying English condensation by Overby, Historie of thestrales which excised most of Geissner’s more fascinating observations of the creatures. He’s been wanting to get his hands the original since he’d discovered its existence two months ago, just to compare it to Thestralbuch. “Snape tutored me in Latin.”

“Of course he did.” Potter rolls his eyes, but he leans forward, touching the back of Draco’s hand. “It’s okay then?”

Draco nods and catches Potter’s hand, squeezing it before letting it go. “More than. We don’t even have it in the Hogwarts Library. Pince was going to track down a copy for me.”

“Now she doesn’t have to.”

Draco looks up at him. “Thanks.”

They smile at each other. Draco glances back at the book. He’s itching to delve into it now. Instead, he sets it aside, carefully, trying not to bend the corners, and slides off the bed. He walks over to his wardrobe and opens a drawer, pulling out a small bag.

“I wasn’t going to give you these,” he says as he turns around. “I’ve better things under the tree. But...”

He hands the bag to Potter as he crawls back onto the bed, and he watches in trepidation as Potter pulls out the scraps of grey and red wool.

“Hagrid helped me,” Draco says. Potter turns them over in his hands. “They’re--”

“Gloves.” Potter slides them on. The fingers are too small and the palms too large, and Draco sighs. He knew it was a ridiculously, stupidly, inanely sentimental idea that was destined for failure. Potter, on the other hand, beams at him. “They’re great.”

“You’re an idiot.” Draco tugs at one of the glove’s knitted cuff. It’s an inch higher than the other one. “I’m pants at this.”

Potter falls back against his pillows, his hands stretched out in front of him. “No one except Molly’s ever made me anything.”

“Great.” Draco makes a face. “I’m on the level of a Weasley.”

Potter rolls to his side, his gloved hand settling on Draco’s cheek. The wool is soft against Draco’s skin. “You’re on your own level, Malfoy.” His eyes are dark behind his glasses, and Draco reaches out to brush Potter’s fringe back. Potter turns his head and presses his mouth against Draco’s wrist.

Draco stills. “Are you tired?”

“Not really.” Potter reaches out and laces his fingers between Draco’s, pulling him closer. “You?”

“Some,” Draco says. He’s lying. His entire body is awake, lying here next to Potter, their bodies touching. He pulls the gloves off Potter’s hands slowly, one finger at a time. Potter just watches him.

Draco sets them aside, then settles next to Potter, his head on Potter’s chest. He can hear the steady thud of Potter’s heart. He lays his hand over Potter’s t-shirt, then frowns.

“What’s this?” Draco tugs at a chain around Potter’s neck. There’s a ring attached to it, and Draco has a flare of jealousy. “The Weaslette’s?”

Potter shakes his head. “It’s...” He hesitates. “An old family heirloom, I guess.”

Draco turns the ring between his fingers. The gold setting’s battered and scarred, but the grey-black stone still gleams. If he twists it one way he can catch a glimpse of something etched deep inside. A triangle and a circle and a straight line, all of which look oddly familiar. He frowns.

“The baby likes it.” Potter takes the ring from Draco, pulling the chain over his messy hair. He sets the whole thing aside.

Draco eyes him. “The baby.”

Potter shrugs. “It calms her. Or him.” He rubs his stomach. “Wee ickle beastie.”

“I’ll thank you not to call our child a beast.” Draco’s hand settles over Potter’s. “It sets a bad precedent.”

“Does it?” Potter leans in and drags the tip of his tongue across Draco’s upper lip.

“And how can that thing calm him?”

“Don’t know.” Potter’s tongue flicks at the corner of Draco’s mouth. “It just does.” His hand settles on Draco’s hip, his fingertips slipping beneath the waist of Draco’s pyjama bottoms.

With a sharp breath, Draco murmurs, “You’re trying to distract me.”

“Is it working?” Potter looks Draco in the eye. Draco holds his gaze. He strokes Potter’s soft mouth with his thumb, and Potter bites it delicately.

His skin prickles with desire as his lips meet Potter’s. “Perhaps.” He puts an arm around Potter’s shoulder and pulls him closer, swallowing the gasp from Potter’s lips as his hand strokes down Potter’s spine. Potter rocks his hips forward, pressing his belly against Draco’s as he buries his mouth against the curve of Potter’s throat, sucking hard enough to leave bruises.

“Fuck,” Potter says as he arches his neck.

Draco is torn between protectiveness and consuming desire. He pulls his mouth away from a lurid pink mark on Potter’s neck. “Did that hurt?” He strokes it with his thumb. Potter’s eyelids are lowered.

“Not nearly enough.”

“You idiot,” Draco says affectionately, “I can’t fill your neck with love bites. My mother will notice. And besides...” His hand drifts down to the growing bump between them.

Potter looks up at him then, his glasses tilted just slightly on his nose. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he says in irritation. “I’m pregnant, not made of glass. And you can heal them.” He slides a leg between Draco’s thighs, and, fingers tangling in Draco’s hair, draws Draco’s head back down to his throat. “Besides, it feels good.”

“Bloody vampire,” Draco says with a laugh against Potter’s warm skin. He plucks Potter’s glasses from his nose and leans over him to set them on the side table, beneath the lamp.

“I think I’m just a fetishist.” Potter’s hands slide over Draco’s back, beneath his pyjama top. Draco can’t stop the shiver that ripples through him, and Potter smiles against Draco’s jaw.

“Shut it, Potter,” Draco growls, and he rolls Potter onto his back, leaning in to kiss him as he presses him into the mattress.

Potter’s teeth nip at Draco’s lip. “Make me?”

Draco can’t suppress another laugh. “Wretch.”

When his mouth trails down Potter’s jaw, sucking and biting, Potter squirms against him, breathing hard. He licks Potter’s collarbones and shivers when Potter moans. Loudly.

Draco pauses to cast a Muffliato on the bed, although he suspects his mother has already done the same so she can sleep without concern.

Potter looks up at him through thick, dark lashes. He smiles in that slow, easy way that makes Draco’s toes curl. “Think I’ll get too loud?”

“I’m rather counting on it,” Draco says, and he pushes Potter’s t-shirt up. Kirley Duke wrinkles up over Potter’s swollen belly, and Potter sits forward, helping Draco to pull the t-shirt over his head. Draco pushes him back onto the pillows and leans over him. He licks one of Potter’s nipples, looking up at him.

“Draco,” Potter breathes, and his head falls back against the headboard.

This appears to be a good sign, Draco thinks. He sucks Potter’s nipple into his mouth, flicking his tongue against the hard nub as his cheek presses against Potter’s skin. He can feel the groan deep within Potter’s chest when it comes, and Draco’s fingers fumble with the buttons of his pyjama top until it hangs open.

He pulls away to slide it off his shoulders, and Potter’s watching him, biting his lip in an effort to keep quiet.

“I think I was an idiot.” Potter says finally, and Draco leans in and kisses him hard, his hand resting on the swell of Potter’s stomach.

“You’re always an idiot.”

Potter pushes him back so he can look him in the eyes. “I mean it.” Potter’s hands slip down Draco’s chest, his fingers light on Draco’s skin. “That day I told you we should pretend we never....” He licks his swollen bottom lip, leaving it wet and pink. “I’ve wanted you to fuck me every day since.”

A sharp tingle of desire twists through Draco’s body. Looking at his hand, he traces circles on Potter’s abdomen, his fingers slipping beneath the stretchy waist of Potter’s pyjamas. His skin heats when he realises Potter’s not wearing pants. “Really.”

“Yeah.” Potter’s hand settles over his.” Really.” He leans in and kisses him, nipping at his lip. “Do you want to....” He trails off, looking at Draco.

Draco blinks. “My mother is down the hall...” Potter just looks at him, and Draco knows that’s not an excuse. Narcissa had practically thrown them together all evening. She didn’t seem too flustered by the idea that her son might be shagging the father of his child senseless tonight. Arousal flares through Draco again at the thought. Still he hesitates. “Aren’t you a little far along for that to be safe? I mean, the baby--”

“No.” Potter says calmly. “Guhathakurta suggested I couldn’t have that sort of sex past seven and a half months, but right now is still fine.”

“Oh.” Draco says. He’s a little taken aback. It’s been six months since they did this last--he doesn’t count sucking Potter off a few weeks ago, though he knows Pansy would mock him--and he wasn’t expecting it tonight. “You talked about this with him?”

Potter looks embarrassed. “Not so much talked as was told. He assumes....” Potter’s cheeks pink. “Well.”

“Of course he does.” Draco sighs. He’s heard the rumours that are floating around Hogwarts. Just because they’re sharing rooms, everyone thinks he and Potter must be shagging every night. He scowls. Perverts.

“So.” Potter’s fingertips brush Draco’s nipple. “Do you want to fuck me?”

Draco thinks he might come just from that. His breath taken away, all he can do is nod.

They’re silent for a moment, a sudden shy awkwardness falling between them. This is the first time he’s contemplated this without the assistance of alcohol, Draco realises. He has a moment’s panic that he might not actually be able to go through with it without a bottle or two of Dutch courage.

“Do you have lube?” Potter asks finally. “I didn’t have any left.”

“Yeah.” Draco gets off the bed, his legs shaking, and goes to the chest of drawers. He opens a heavy warded box and pulls out a phial of lube.

“If I’m good, will you show me what’s in that box?” Potter scoots to the edge of the bed, watching Draco curiously.

Draco glances down at the phials of lube, the beads and the anal plugs, and the collection of dildos he’s used to fuck himself since he was fifteen. “Perhaps.” He hopes the look he gives Potter is wickedly seductive and not completely pathetic. “But only if you’re very, very good.”

“Something to work up to then,” Potter says with a sideways quirk of his mouth.

“One must have one’s goals.” Draco crawls back onto the bed, phial clenched in one hand, and reaches for Potter with the other. His fingers trace the swell of Potter’s bump. “How do we do this?”

Potter flushes. “Guhathakurta says I have to be on top or on my hands and knees.”

“You actually had this conversation with him.” Draco rolls onto his back and covers his face. “Oh, my God.”

“Look, at least it wasn’t Pomfrey,” Potter says. He pulls Draco’s hands away from his face and peers down at him indignantly. “And you weren’t the one who had to suffer through it.”

Draco glares up at him. “My sex life is now a matter of record at St Mungo’s.”

Potter kisses him. Roughly. When he pulls back, Draco’s breathless. “Our sex life,” Potter points out. “Our up until now non-existent sex life.”

“Is it going to come into existence then?” Draco’s thumb strokes the corner of Potter’s mouth.

“Rather.” Potter’s eyes are dark as he leans in to brush his lips against Draco’s. “If you think you’d like to fuck my arse again, that is.”

Draco wonders if it’s possible for a cock to rip through cotton pyjama trousers. His hand settles on Potter’s full belly, stroking lightly. He wants to be inside of him. Now. “Which do you prefer then?” he asks, his mouth dry. “Riding me or hands and knees?”

Potter smiles and turns over, wriggling his hips as he slips out of his pyjamas. He kicks them off onto the floor, then lifts his arse in the air.

“Fuck,” Draco whispers.

“I think that’s the point.” Potter looks back, balancing on his elbows. Draco can’t tear his eyes away from Potter’s perfect arse, pale and flat and begging to be pounded. Hard.

With a groan Draco pulls down his pyjama trousers, fisting his cock as he uncaps the phial of lube. It’s wet and cool against his skin, but when he slips a finger inside of Potter, it grows warm and slick.

Potter gasps. “Christ. That feels--” He shifts against Draco’s hand. “It’s too good almost.”

He’s open and relaxed, and Draco has two fingers inside of him easily. Potter looks amazing like this, his cock and belly hanging between his legs, his back arched, his arse open and ready. Everything about his pliant posture begs to be fucked.

Draco’s more than ready to do so. He presses another finger into Potter, his other hand grasping his cock tightly. Potter groans as Draco fucks him slowly, his fingers twisting with each careful thrust. A flush rises across Potter’s arse, and Draco presses his mouth to the small dip in Potter’s back.

“That’s enough.” Potter’s voice is rough and strained. His arse tightens around Draco’s fingers, and Draco can feel the tremble that goes through him.

Draco stills. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Potter says, panting hard. His fingers grip the coverlet. He rocks forward, and Draco can see the swollen head of Potter’s cock between Potter’s thighs as it rubs against the brocade. “I’m just afraid I’ll come, and I want you to fuck me properly.”

Draco groans and slowly pulls his fingers out. Potter is rutting slowly against the bed, almost as if he’s unaware of what he’s doing, and Draco doesn’t know how long he’ll last either. “All right. You have to let me know you’re okay though. I’m still worried about hurting you.” His hands settle on Potter’s hips.

Potter nods, breathing hard.

With another dip of his fingers in the phial, Draco slicks his cock, which is hard and already dripping, and positions himself on the bed between Potter’s thighs. He can’t believe he’s about to do this. Again. His breath comes in sharp, ragged gasps as he guides himself to Potter’s arsehole and gently presses the head of his cock against it. It slips against Potter’s crease, once, twice, and Potter moans and pushes his hips back. His arse opens easily to Draco, and when Draco’s cock slides inside of him, Potter arches his back and groans.

“Fuck. Malfoy.” His voice is raw. “I want you so much.”

Draco’s fingers dig into Potter’s skin, and he moves as slowly as he can make himself, further and further into the wet heat. Potter is moaning and so open, it’s surprising to Draco. And then Draco is inside of him all of the way, his balls flush against Potter’s arse.

“Is--” Draco closes his eyes for a second, his body shaking with the need for release. He takes a deep breath. “Is that okay?”

“More than,” Potter says with a soft gasp. “It’s amazing.” He takes Draco’s hand from his hip and puts it on his swollen abdomen.

His hand cupping Potter’s belly, Draco moves, balancing on his knees as his hips pump into Potter in small strokes and the rounded swell of skin and strange hardness moves beneath his hands. “You have to let me know if anything hurts,” he says breathlessly, but he’s not really thinking at this point.

“It’s all right, Malfoy. Just move.” Potter shifts, pushing his hands up to brace himself against the headboard and spreading his knees to let Draco go deeper.

“Oh, Merlin,” Draco chokes out, and he leans over Potter’s back. When he grabs one of Potter’s nipples, Potter keens softly and Draco’s hips undulate against Potter’s arse.

It’s difficult to keep his balance, though, and Draco is at an alarming risk of pitching forward. “Maybe we should try this with you on top?” he suggests, leaning back for balance.

“Okay.” Potter’s breath is ragged.

They pull away from each other. Potter’s face is stained with a red flush, and the look he gives Draco is completely wanton. It makes Draco’s prick ache.

Draco lies on his back and holds Potter steady as he kneels over Draco, facing away from him. He licks his lip, his eyes fixed on Potter’s arsehole, slick and open. “Why don’t you take it at your own pace?”

“It can’t go fast enough, from my end.” Potter positions himself carefully, one hand reaching behind him to grasp Draco’s cock as sinks down onto it.

Draco bites back a moan as his fingers grip Potter’s hips tightly.

“Wow,” Potter says. His breath hitches and he slides down further, his thighs spreading wider. His arse clenches around Draco’s cock and it takes everything Draco has not to slam up into him. Potter’s groan is soft. “Yeah. You feel fantastic.”

Draco tries to stay still to let Potter get his balance, and then he thrusts shallowly to meet Potter as they establish a rhythm. It doesn’t take long. Potter’s knees dig into the mattress; Draco’s hips buck up harder against Potter’s arse. Their gasps and groans echo around them: Potter begs Draco to fuck him harder, and Draco responds by telling Potter how fucking good his arse feels on his prick. The bed bounces beneath them. The headboard slams loudly against the wall. Draco doesn’t care. The whole fucking Manor could hear them at this point and he wouldn’t give a damn.

With a moan, Potter twists his nipples between his fingers as he fucks himself roughly on Draco’s cock. The sight is bloody amazing and Draco could come just from watching Potter get himself off, but he wants to touch him, wants to make Potter cry out his name as his spunk spurts across Draco’s bed.

Draco leaves a hand on Potter’s hip and slips another around to pull at Potter’s prick. Draco sits up a little, and Potter leans forward, his arse slapping hard against Draco hips and his cock thrusting into Draco’s hand. “More,” Potter demands, his voice thick.

Sweat curls the ends of Potter’s hair, makes Potter’s flushed back gleam in the lamplight. Draco can’t resist pressing his open mouth against Potter’s slick skin, his tongue tracing along the salty knobs of Potter’s spine. His fingers tighten on Potter’s cock.

Potter groans. He grabs Draco’s hand again, moving it from his hip to his belly. Draco’s fingers splay across the rounded swell, and Draco doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything as erotic as Potter’s body beneath his hand as Potter rides his prick. They rock back and forth, Potter’s belly swinging with them, adding to the motion of their bodies and the bed.

And then Potter shudders against Draco. “Oh, God, Malfoy,” he chokes out. “Now.”

Draco clenches his fist around Potter’s cock, and he pulls Potter back against him, his hand tight on Potter’s stomach. Potter’s knees slide wider on the bed, and he shouts as he comes, his arse clenching around Draco’s cock.

Spunk spatters across them both.

In one fluid motion, Draco shifts, pushing Potter forward onto his hands and knees as he thrusts into him, his hand splayed across Potter’s bump as he thinks that all of this, them, is not just two of them, but three. He strokes Potter’s sides and then lower, pumping his hips wildly, breath coming in gasps. His body contracts, tight, taut, tense--oh, God--and then explodes. He comes hard inside Potter, arched over Potter’s back, his hand cradling the rounded curve of their child and his cock buried deep in Potter’s arse.

They collapse sideways together, breathing hard.

“Draco,” Potter says finally and it’s muffled against the coverlet.

It takes a moment for Draco to realise he’s speaking to him. He makes a sound--he’s not certain what--and Potter shifts beneath him with a grunt.

“Baby.” Still muffled.

Draco blinks slowly. His body feels limp. Loose. He’s not certain he’s ever come that hard before in his life. “Mmm?”

“No,” Potter says and he shifts again. “The baby--”

It sinks in then, and Draco moves, sliding out of Potter’s body. “Did I hurt--”

Potter laughs and rolls over onto his back, and Draco’s breath catches at the sight of him sprawled naked across his bed. He’s been wanking to this for weeks now and he can’t believe he actually has Harry in front of him. “The baby kicked.”

“What?” Draco suspects he must have lost brain function in that orgasm. He feels as thick as a Hufflepuff.

“It kicked. Hard.” Potter grabs Draco’s hand and presses it to his belly. “I’m not sure if it liked that or not.”

Draco looks at him. They lie still for a moment, waiting, and then he feels it. The smallest push of a tiny foot against his palm. “Oh my God,” Draco whispers.

Potter grins. “It’s been doing that for days now. Moving mostly, and sometimes I thought it kicked. Never that hard though.”

“Oh my God.” Draco stares down at his hand. “It’s real.”

“Yeah.” Potter’s hand settles over Draco’s. “Scares the shit out of you, doesn’t it?”

Draco nods. “In a manner of speaking.” He doesn’t move his hand. “Do you think it knows what we’re doing?”

“I’m fairly certain it doesn’t have any idea what sex is.” Potter kisses him. “I, on the other hand...”

Draco nips Potter’s bottom lip. “Are you going to be insatiable now?”

“Perhaps,” Potter says with a sparkle in his eye. He reaches for Draco. “Would you care?”

Whatever mad protest Draco might possibly have made is cut off by another kiss, long and slow and lingering.

Draco finds he doesn’t quite mind.***

Harry owls Ron and Hermione on Boxing Day to tell them he’s spending New Year’s with Draco and not to worry, but they’d rather not have company. Hermione owls back and insists on a Floo call to confirm--honestly, Harry, they could have Imperiused you over Christmas dinner for all we know, she writes--and despite Malfoy’s grumblings about idiot Gryffindors and their prejudices, Harry dutifully calls the Burrow from Malfoy’s fireplace, kneeling before the grate in the soft bottle-green wool robe Malfoy had given him to replace his own ragged bathrobe.

“You’re certain you’re fine?” Hermione asks, her brow furrowed with worry. The green flames flicker and dance around her messy curls. Harry can hear the others behind her, and Hermione turns and whispers, “Shush, Ron,” rather crossly.

“I’m fine.” Harry smiles at her. “I promise. No Imperius, no potions--”

“Other than lube,” Malfoy murmurs from the bed. He turns another page in Historia thestralium, and Harry gives him a reproving look.

He turns back to Hermione. “You don’t have to come check on me. We’re going back to Hogwarts tomorrow, and I’ll Floo you again--”

“Maybe we should come through.” Hermione chews her lip. “Just to make sure.”

“You don’t want to do that,” Harry says calmly.

“Why not?” Ron’s face appears in the flames beside Hermione’s.

Harry sighs. “Because right now, Ron, I’m absolutely starkers beneath my robe, and I’m about ready to shuck it off and crawl back into bed with Malfoy, so I rather think your popping over would be quite inconvenient.”

If it’s possible to turn greener in Floo fire, Ron manages it. “Yeah,” he says. “Didn’t need to know that--in fact, I think none of us needed to know that--”

“Right in one,” Bill shouts from the background, and Harry can hear Ginny’s pealing laughter.

Charlie’s face pops over Ron’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t mind knowing more,” he says, giving Harry a good-natured leer that makes Malfoy shut his book with a thump, and tell Harry sharply that he’s wanted now, thank you very much.

“Oh, for goodness--” Hermione pushes them all away, flustered. “We’ll Floo your rooms tomorrow then, Harry. If you don’t answer, I’m coming through.” She lifts her chin. “Whatever I might find.”

The Floo clangs shut, and Malfoy snorts.

“Gryffindors,” he says, as Harry slips out of his robe and slips beneath the coverlet, and Harry hushes him with a kiss.

When they arrive back at Hogwarts, there’s a basket sitting in front of their door. They eye it suspiciously, and Malfoy nudges it with his boot. It doesn’t explode, at least, although Harry’s not entirely certain that’s a comfort.

“Were you expecting a present?” Malfoy asks.

Harry shakes his head, and Malfoy bends down to pick the basket up. He hands it to Harry; it’s surprisingly light. He opens it as Malfoy unwards the door.

“Oh,” Harry says, and he pulls out a giant stuffed squid. It’s an atrocious shade of lavender and its tentacles wriggle and curl around Harry’s wrist.

Malfoy looks back at him. “That can’t be safe.”

“No.” Harry steps into their suite. “There’s more.” He sets the basket on the sofa and digs deeper into it.

“Should I be afraid?” Malfoy asks lightly.

Harry pulls out an enormous glittery pink hand mirror. “Probably.”

Malfoy wrinkles his nose. “As if our child won’t be bent as it is.”

“Don’t stereotype,” Harry says absently, as he lifts out a giant mobile that’s been obviously made by hand. Charmed bits of coloured wood hang off the bright teal arms: merpeople and fish and sea monsters and eels.

“I think there’s a theme.” Malfoy touches a merman, who waves a tiny golden trident at him. Harry’s doesn’t really think it’s meant to be a friendly gesture.

“There’s also a note,” Harry says, and he unfolds a piece of pink parchment. He hands it to Malfoy. “First years.”

Malfoy skims the note. “We’ve really got to do something about their taste,” he murmurs. “No one should use a Glitter Quill past the age of seven.”

With a laugh, Harry grabs Malfoy’s hand and pulls him towards his bedroom.***

They spend the next few days exploring each other’s bodies, wrapped in a world of skin and warmth and discovery. Malfoy moves into Harry’s room--“It’s bigger, you twat,” he says with a smile, and Harry just pulls him down onto the bed to kiss him senseless--and Harry pretends not to notice when Malfoy sets the photo of his toddler self and his godfather on the chimneypiece beside the photo of Harry and his parents, but he does catch Snape’s eyes drifting towards Lily Potter as she spins Harry around, laughing all the while.

In bed with Malfoy, Harry learns technique and skill and tempo and that pleasure is wanting as well as having, and when Malfoy slips from beneath the covers their first night and pads naked over to the bag he’s brought from the Manor, Harry sits up, curious. Malfoy pulls a familiar warded box from his bag and opens it.

“Here’s something I’ve always wanted to try on someone,” Malfoy says, turning around with a short string of beads looped over his fingertips. A half-hour later, Harry flops on the bed, panting and flushed across their widened bed, looking up at Malfoy with wide eyes and spunk spattered across the underside of his belly.

Malfoy leans in and trails his fingers through the mess. “I’d say that’s a successful experiment,” he murmurs, and he slides down to suck the sticky head of Harry’s cock.

Harry would have to agree.

They convince the elves to bring food to their quarters, so they don’t have to dress for the Great Hall, and they sprawl naked together, feeding each other between bouts of sleep and sex and showers together. Two days before New Year’s, Draco finally rolls out of bed to help Hagrid with the Porlocks, but returns twenty minutes later, stripping off his jumper and reporting that he’d been told he should “spend time with ‘arry while he can.”

Neither of them complain.

And Malfoy calls him “Harry” now, too, and Harry calls him “Draco.” It seems silly to continue with the custom of last names when they are twined around each other for hours on end.

New Year’s Eve is spent in bed. The round turret room is filled with ivory candles of every shape and size--a present Harry sets up for Draco while he’s off in the loo. The look on Draco’s face when he walks back in to find Harry waiting for him, his skin warmed by the flickering light of a hundred candles, makes Harry’s struggle with the charm worth it. They lie for hours in the candlelight and talk about their futures and their pasts, in between bouts of furious shagging.

Harry doesn’t remember if he’s ever felt so alive and so weightless before.

Their friends reassert their presence as term gets under way again, and though Harry’s glad that Hermione and Ron come to his rooms as if nothing has happened to talk about assignments and NEWT revisions, he misses the time alone he had with Draco.

And then something strange happens: Ron challenges Draco to a chess game that doesn’t end in hexes and bloodshed and then Hermione asks Draco for his advice on potions ingredients related to magical creatures. But Harry’s most surprised when Draco comes in one night after supper and doesn’t sit in his armchair, immersing himself immediately in Historia thestralium but rather takes a seat on the sofa next to Harry, their hands touching, and listens to his conversation with Ron and Hermione without rolling his eyes or snorting--well, only once--and, in fact, offering his opinion on the Cannons’ chances against the Harpies in their next match.

Harry’s particularly shocked when Ron agrees. He and Hermione exchange a long glance, then Hermione shrugs. Stranger things, she mouths.

He supposes she’s right.

The next week Hermione shows up with a battered copy of Encyclopaedia equorum alitium she’s ordered from Flourish and Blotts’ secondhand room, and Draco accepts it gracefully. More than, actually, as Harry can’t even persuade him to go to bed with him after Ron and Hermione leave. Instead Draco stays up until early in the morning, turning fragile pages in the book.

And that’s how they come to this, a late January blustery Saturday when rain lashes the windows and inside is snug and warm with a roaring fire. An improvised rack is hung thick with cloaks: Blaise’s pale grey with black piping, Pansy’s green with a giant jet brooch, Luna’s uneven, aethereal handspun that is lined with some odd animal fiber and would look at home as a tent in a high mountain climate.

Draco sits on the sofa, knitting once again, and Harry’s stretched out beside him, his head on Draco’s thigh, the soft yarn brushing against his forehead.

“Should I put more water on?” Hermione asks from the back of the room, standing at the table next to the sink where the kettle and tea are arranged haphazardly, a tin of Wizard’s Best Keemun open and a spoon next to it lying in a scatter of loose black leaves.

“Not yet, I don’t think.” Draco says, eyeing everyone’s cups, then turning his attention back to his knitting. A blue and white blob is emerging under the steady click of his needles. “And I have it on a replenish charm, so we should be all right for a bit.”

Ron’s sitting on the floor, his back against the sofa. He holds up the Quibbler so Harry can read it. “Erumpents on the loose in London, Luna?”

Luna looks up from the pages of the Historia thestralium, which she has perched on her knees. She’s sitting against the wall; her knee-length stockings are luridly pink and green and white with radishes embroidered on them. “Rollicking in St Paul’s no less.”

“This is lovely,” Parkinson says in a brittle voice, perched on the edge of a chair and clearly ill at ease. She and Zabini had shown up unexpectedly, at least to Harry: Draco had greeted them calmly, without flying into a tizzy about there not being enough cups or raspberry jam for the scones. Slytherins.

Zabini pours another cup of tea from the pot that steams on the floating tray beside him. He adds a splash of whisky to it and hands it over to Parkinson. “You look like you need it.”

“How’s Astoria?” Draco asks him, as he frowns down at his needles, untangling the yarn. “Fuck it.” Harry looks up at him and he sighs. “Dropped a sodding stitch.” He taps his wand against the needle.

“She’s Astoria,” Zabini says, watching him. “Dim as Greg’s Lumos and a hellcat in bed. Honestly, Draco, this whole knitting thing is ridiculous. You’re not a bored housewife.”

That earns him a glare from both Parkinson and Hermione. “Don’t be such a sexist pig, Blaise,” Parkinson says over the rim of her teacup. “If Draco wants to knit, then it’s...charming.” She doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

“It’s calming,” Draco says, turning his knitting needles. “Which I need around Harry, to be honest.”

“Pass the scones, would you Hermione?” Ron asks, his nose buried in an article about zombie vegetation at Hadrian’s wall and Roman burial practices. “So how exactly can a plant be a zombie?”

“Oh, I’ll get them.” Harry waves his wand to summon the plate and a sconce on the wall explodes. He feels the giddy rush of magic, followed by a hollow feeling in his stomach. “Oops.”

Zabini and Parkinson spring out of their seats, spilling tea as they try to hold their cups and draw their wands at the same time. Harry resists the urge to laugh. He knows they must be frightened, but they look so comical with their elegantly cut clothing and casual disdain when they lose their composure and start acting like five-year-olds with a boggart. He’s particularly pleased to see Zabini with jam on his trousers. Wanker.

“See what I mean?” Draco says calmly. “Knitting.” He holds the blob of yarn up.

“It’s rather a question of what can’t be a zombie, Ronald.” Luna sets the book aside. “But it’s hard to explain. I’d leave it up to my father if you really want to understand the theory. Basically the turnips over the Roman graves were uprooting themselves and moving about, eating other, smaller plants. We think it has something to do with Atlantis.”

Hermione sits on the arm of the sofa next to Draco. “What are you making?” she asks.

“Baby blanket.” Draco sounds obscenely proud of himself. “Although it might be more of a parallelogram than a rectangle.”

“The baby’d better grow sideways to match,” Ron says, mouth full of scone and jam. Wet crumbs spray everywhere. Parkinson looks disgusted. Harry can’t entirely blame her. He smacks the back of Ron’s head, and Ron yelps, sending more crumbs flying across the room. Zabini brushes them off his robe with a scowl. Harry doesn’t bother to hide his grin. His dislike of Zabini’s personal now that he knows Draco fucked him. Or blew him at least. He glares at him. Whatever. The carpet beneath Zabini’s Italian boot begins to smoke, and Harry hastily looks away before Draco catches him.

“Are you working on the zombie Atlantean root vegetables still, Luna?” Hermione asks politely while Parkinson’s eyes grow as large as saucers.

“Oh no,” Luna says. “Although I may go visit Germany because I hear they’re having similar trouble with pumpkins. Right now I’m working on the plague of flying worricows that is afflicting Scotland and the Ministry efforts to pretend they’re migrating geese.”

Pansy coughs loudly and sips quickly at her tea.

“The scones are rather dry,” Draco drawls. “Do you care for more tea?”

The baby kicks, hard, and Harry grunts, his hand flying to his stomach.

“Harry?” Hermione asks worriedly, and he waves her off.

He lifts up his jumper, and the baby kicks again, its foot pressing Harry’s skin out. “Just the brat being a perfect little Malfoy.”

Zabini stares in horror. “I think that’s the strangest thing I’ve seen so far. And today, that’s saying a lot.” Parkinson elbows him and he shoots her a vicious look.

Draco leans a bit and his hand settles on Harry’s stomach, rubbing lightly over the spot where the baby kicked. His fingers are warm and soft, and at his touch, the baby settles back down, although it sends one final kick into Harry’s kidney. He winces.

“So, speaking of Erumpents, have you seen the Erumpent in the Ministry yet, Pansy? I’ve heard it’s running wild,” Luna says. “I certainly hope no one ends up like Wilfred Elphick.”

“Not yet,” Parkinson answers, and Harry’s surprised at how pleasant she sounds. “Although some of the Ministry officials have pretty poor manners and I wouldn’t mind if they found a sticky end.”

“Our Pans, the marauding heroine of the teacart,” Zabini deadpans.

“Like you’re doing so much better, Ghoul Boy,” Draco retorts. Zabini flicks two fingers his way.

Hermione gives Parkinson a thoughtful look. “You could always run over their toes.”

“Believe me, it takes all the restraint I have not to sometimes.” Parkinson grins and gives Hermione a conspiratorial look.

“Wicked!” Ron exclaims, and they all turn towards him. “The Keeper for the Welsh national team’s a werewolf?”

“Oh, Ron,” Hermione says with a sigh. “You can’t believe everything you read.”

Luna looks up. “But that’s what books are for, Hermione.”

“She has a point,” Ron says, and Hermione rolls her eyes. Parkinson laughs, a surprisingly melodic sound.

“Speaking of, has anyone seen my needle?” Draco asks. “I think I’ve managed to drop it.”

As everyone looks under the sofa and tables, Harry realises he might be forming a strange sort of family already. He touches the suddenly warm Resurrection Stone, well-hidden on its chain beneath his jumper. It’s a curious mix, he thinks, but, in its own bizarre way, oddly perfect.

The baby kicks again, and Harry smiles.***

By mid-February, Draco is half-certain he’s about to smother Harry in his sleep, except he’s hard to catch because he’s always getting up to piss now. Draco hasn’t slept through the night for two weeks; Harry’s constantly rolling out of bed with a groan, shifting the weight of the mattress, and Draco has to wait for him to come back to know he’s all right. And he’s not even going to consider how many times he’s woken to an elbow in his side and Harry leaning over him, informing him he’s famished and can Draco please go down to the kitchens and bring him a sandwich--or ten--and Draco’s found himself more than once blearily surrounded by elves who insist upon packing up an entire basket for “Mr Harry Potter, sir, and the baby.” Judging by the amount of food Harry’s consuming, Draco’s starting to wonder if the baby’s secretly some sort of Vanishing Charm.

Worst of all--and much to Draco’s dismay--their nascent sex life has gradually been tapering off as well. Harry’s still randy, but he’s complaining more and more about tenderness and not being able to move or get comfortable. And when the baby starts to pummel Harry’s lower intestines every time they get anywhere close to fucking each other senseless, making Harry wince and reluctantly push Draco away, Draco starts to wonder if the wretched little bastard has an evil plan for its other father: death by blue balls. Harry just laughs and assures Draco that their child hasn’t any murderous intentions--which Draco is highly sceptical of--as he pulls Draco into another kiss and slips his hand into Draco’s pants. A rushed hand job before Harry falls asleep isn’t exactly Draco’s idea of a highly eroticised night in bed, but, then again, he’s not stupid enough to look a gift orgasm in the mouth.

The snow is heavy and thick on the frozen ground, and on Guhathakurta’s orders, Harry’s confined to the castle, a fact which thrills the first-years who now dog his steps, insisting on carrying his books or fussing over his lack of a proper scarf or bringing him food and pumpkin juice nicked from the kitchens. Draco’s decided not to fight against the adoring hydra and instead has enlisted the entire lot of them to keep an eye on Harry during the hours Draco’s forced to make his rounds outdoors with Hagrid.

Perdita and Agnes in particular have taken to their new roles with great delight, waiting on the steps every evening before dinner, wrapped in their cloaks, woollen hats pulled down over their foreheads and thick scarves nearly covering their noses, just to give him their daily report on Harry’s comings and goings. Agnes somehow has managed to obtain a tattered, terribly out-of-date copy of What Every Witch Should Know About Childbirth, and she quotes from it constantly. Draco puts his foot down, however, when she informs him brightly that sexual intercourse can trigger premature labour, and has he considered that fact?

Draco grabs the book from her gloved fingers and closes it with a sharp snap. “Enough, Agnes.”

She frowns up at him and the tip of her nose is pink with cold. “But it says--”

“And there are some things that even a Ravenclaw shouldn’t know at your age.” Draco tucks the book in his jacket pocket as he stomps up the steps. When he opens the door, the heat of the hallway is a welcome relief. His warming charms have improved over the winter, but by late afternoon he’s so cold that they barely linger more than a few minutes before he has to recast them. Just today he’d spent fifteen minutes longer than necessary checking on the Thestrals because Druella’s mane had warmed his frozen fingers.

“I’m twelve,” Agnes says, pursing her mouth, and Draco thinks it’s sad that they’ve all been in such a hurry to grow up. He remembers thinking it would take an eternity until he could leave Hogwarts. Now he’d give anything to go back to the comfortable ignorance of his first year. “And everyone knows you do things like that with Harry. Orla Quirke said that Khalid Saleh said that Simon Moll said he went up to the Owlery last month to post a letter home to his mum in Sheffield and he saw you and Harry snogging and Harry was making certain noises, except she wouldn’t tell us what kind because she said we’d find out when we were old enough, and really I’m awfully tired of people telling me I’m too little--”

Draco covers her mouth with his gloved fingers and pulls her up against his side. Her screech is muffled against the wool. “Orla Quirke’s a horrible liar,” he says, even though he knows exactly what Simon Moll must have seen--and he’s incredibly grateful that the dark folds of Harry’s student robe cover a multitude of sins.

“She’s not!” Agnes protests when Draco drops his hand. “She wants to be a journalist someday. Like Rita Skeeter!”

“And I rest my case.” Draco wonders sometimes why he puts up with the first year girls. They’re exhausting.

Perdita just pokes Agnes. “I told you not to ask him.” She eyes Draco as she flips her golden curls back over one shoulder, and Draco feels suddenly disconcerted. “Besides, it’s all different with Harry.” She lowers her voice. “He’s got boy bits.”

“Indeed he does,” Draco says dryly, “and I’ll thank you to keep your wicked little noses out of that particular subject.”

“What subject?” The Weasel’s behind them all of a sudden, his robe half hanging off his shoulder.

“Fuck off, Weasel,” Draco says, but somehow in the past few weeks the insult’s turned into a greeting between the two.

“You too, Ferret.” The Weasel catches up, drawing even to Draco’s gait. “So, again I ask, what subject?”

Draco snorts. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.” He brushes the last traces of snow from his shoulders as they turn towards the Great Hall.

“Draco having sex with Harry,” Agnes pipes up, and the Weasel eyes her sideways. Draco gives him a look that clearly says see? “Even though he’s with child.”

“Right. Different subject.” With a shudder, the Weasel shifts his satchel to his other shoulder and frowns. He glances at Draco. “We’re still on for chess tonight?”

“If you really want me to wipe the floor with you again.” Draco peers down the hall past him, ignoring the avid looks Perdita and Agnes are giving them both. NEWT Charms has just let out. “Where’s Harry?”

“Supper already,” the Weasel says. “Flitwick let him leave early. He said the baby wants brussel sprouts tonight.”

All four of them grimace. Draco sighs. “He’ll be up all night with gas.” Perdita and Agnes ewww in unison.

The Weasel holds up his hands. “Your problem, not mine.” He hesitates. “On second thought, maybe that chess rematch can wait another day or two.”

“Coward,” Draco says spitefully, and the Weasel just grins.

When they enter the Great Hall, Draco sends Perdita and Agnes to the Ravenclaw table, threatening to take enough points from them to make their House standing sink dramatically if they keep following him. They skulk away reluctantly, casting sullen glances back his way.

The Weasel gives him an amused look. “You enjoyed that entirely too much.”

Draco just quirks an eyebrow at him. “Not as much as I enjoyed taking them from you and Harry as a Prefect.”

“Valid point,” the Weasel concedes.

Harry sits at the Gryffindor table, a plateful of food in front of him. He looks up when Draco sits next to him, his back against the edge of the table. Not all of the students have wandered in yet; Draco likes having this moment with Harry before he has to take his seat at the head table.

“Hi,” Draco says with a smile, and he leans in to kiss Harry’s cheek. Harry’s breath smells like butter and brussel sprouts. “Cruciferous vegetables again? The baby’s going to turn into a cabbage.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

Harry turns on him, a fierce glint in his eye. “And it’s inside of me, thanks ever so much, so frankly, I’ll eat what I damn well please.” He raises his fork. “And the first comment you make again about me being fat--”

“I didn’t mean it,” Draco protests. He knew he shouldn’t have said that this morning as he helped with Harry’s tailoring charms. Harry hadn’t taken it well.

“Oh, Draco, you didn’t.” Hermione looks appalled.

Draco sighs in exasperation. “I was joking--”

“You compared me to a Hippogryff,” Harry says hotly.

A hush falls over the table. Even the Weaselette gives him a disappointed glare. Harry pops a brussel sprout into his mouth and chews.

“Arsehole,” he mutters.

Draco runs a hand over his face.

“Anyway,” the Weasel says, “at least the Ferret didn’t imply you were an Erumpent.” He pauses and considers Harry thoughtfully. “Yet.”

Harry throws a brussel sprout across the table at him and scowls. “You are way too obsessed with Erumpents, mate.”

“Oi.” The Weasel ducks and grins. “Do you know what they do with those horns during mating season?”

Somebody titters and the normal noise of the Great Hall at mealtime starts up again. As Harry turns back to his plate, Draco realises that he’d better do something and fast: Harry’s going a bit round the bend with being trapped in the castle. Draco frowns.

An owl to his mother is definitely necessary.***

Three days later, Draco walks into the suite with a smile on his face. “I have a surprise.”

Harry looks up from the Charms textbook he’s practicing with. The glass vase he’s been conjuring falls from mid-air as his focus breaks. It disappears into a whiff of smoke just before it hits the floor. “I don’t want any more chocolate. The last bar you gave me had me up all night with heartburn.”

“Not that sort of surprise, you prat.” Draco rolls his eyes. He’d been up as well with him, spending hours rubbing Harry’s belly as he groaned. Harry never seems to remember that. “Come with me.”

Harry looks perplexed as Draco offers him his arm and helps him stand up. “And bring your cloak,” Draco adds.

They Floo from Minerva’s office to the Manor. His mother meets them in the hall. She greets them both with a kiss.

“Should we--” Draco starts, but he’s cut off by a whoosh of the Floo and a burst of green flames as his cousin steps out of the hearth. She’s breathless and her blonde curls bounce around her pink cheeks.

“So terribly sorry I’m late,” Luna says. “Father just needed my help with a story for the next issue and I lost track of time.” She slips out of her cloak, draping it over her arm, and Draco’s surprised to see her wearing two summer dresses in floral patterns that seem as if they’d never match but somehow don’t look completely terrible. Her tights are a bright grassy green and he’s fairly certain the tiny fairies that dangle from her earlobes are carved out of rhubarb.

But Draco’s entirely flabbergasted when his mother takes Luna’s arm and smiles at her. “Welcome back to the Manor, my dear. I hope this visit is much more pleasant than your last.”

Luna smiles shyly back at her. “I’m quite certain it will be, Aunt Narcissa.” Her voice is light and sweet. “Far fewer wrackspurts floating around and fuzzying things up.”

“Quite,” Narcissa says. Her hand covers Luna’s. “We should have you and your father over for dinner one night, don’t you think?” She looks at Draco and he nods, helplessly. He can only imagine what his father would say. He’d made his opinion on his Lovegood cousins completely clear in the past.

“I didn’t realise Luna would be joining us,” he manages to get out.

His mother gives him an even look. “I thought Harry might like to have a friend,” she says. “And given the garden is for Malfoys only--”

Harry interrupts before Draco can discreetly complain. “Does this surprise involve food?” he asks. “Because I’m a bit hungry.”

“You’re always--” Draco yelps when Harry steps on his foot. Hard. He gives Harry a sour look.

Narcissa shakes her head at them both and hands Luna a large iron key. “It’s better if it’s opened by a witch of the family,” she says.

Luna nods dreamily and traces the scrollwork on the key. “It’s very old. No wonder it disturbs the wrackspurts. They hate iron.”

His mother just nods and points them to the staircase.

They take a shortcut, but they still have to go through the darker, more haunted parts of the Manor. Each of the three of them has their own ghosts here, Draco knows. Harry clenches Draco’s hand and Luna stays very close to them both. Draco swallows and focuses on protecting his lover and his cousin, driving his own fear away with responsibility. Perhaps this is how his father did it, he wonders, but he knows his father had been crippled by fear at the end and useless against anything.

They find the small door in the wall, just where Draco remembers it, smaller than a normal door and tucked away in the curve under a stairwell. Draco had panicked for a moment, worried he wouldn’t find it, worried they would get lost, but there it is, the simple smooth wood appearing out of the shadows.

Luna steps forward and sets the key to the lock. “Unbind the door and open true,” she intones in a sing-song cadence.

The door swings forward, and it’s almost like stepping into another time. The small courtyard is shielded against the elements and crocuses are blooming in carpets, wild and colorful. White anemones drift across the yellowed grass. A few purple hyacinths are even starting to open, their fragrance rich and spicy in the mild air.

Harry is wide-eyed with wonder.

“This will be the baby’s garden,” Luna says, leaning down to look into a crocus throat. “Aunt Narcissa said so.” When she looks up, she has bright orange pollen on her nose. Draco resists the urge to laugh, motioning instead to her nose. She smiles and wipes it off.

Harry looks over to Draco. “There’s a garden just for the baby?”

Draco nods. “I grew up here. It was supposed to go to my sister, and my mother had it closed until my birth.”

“But this seems too nice to be a Malfoy tradition,” Harry blurts out. Draco and Luna laugh.

“There are many strange things in every line,” Luna says. “For example, Uncle Lucius’s mother was a mermaid.”

“Really?” Harry gapes, imagining the baby with fused legs and gills. “I would think your grandfather would have been better tempered then.”

Draco rolls his eyes. “No she wasn’t.”

“But she could swim awfully well.” Luna says. Draco crosses his arms and purses his lips.

“Is that a picnic?” Harry asks, staring at the checked blue cloth, a hopeful expression on his face.

“Yes,” Draco says. He tries to hide his smile and fails utterly. “Mother had the elves prepare something nice for us.”

Luna’s already kneeling beside it, unpacking dishes of warm chicken and bottles of cold ginger beer and plates of shortbread and tiny strawberries for afters. Even Draco feels his stomach rumble as they sit down on the cloth. He transfigures a small rock into a huge, firm cushion for Harry to rest against as he balances a china plate on one knee.

The sun is warm, and it doesn’t take long after they eat for Draco and Harry to shed their robes and jumpers, sprawling on the grass in their trousers and shirts, their feet bare. Draco doesn’t even worry about grass stains as he lies on his stomach beside Harry, his cousin sitting cross-legged on Harry’s other side, a pile of flowers in her lap that she’s stringing together with a spell. A pink butterfly dances around Luna’s shoulders before it settles in her hair.

Harry laughs. “It suits you.” He tugs at the chain around his neck, twisting it between his fingers. The ring on the chain slides from beneath his collar and swings free.

“What’s that?” Luna asks curiously, and Harry freezes. Draco frowns down at him, puzzled by his reaction. The butterfly takes off from Luna’s hair, flying over the hyacinths.

“A Potter family heirloom.” Draco keeps his voice dry. “Or so he tells me. It’s awfully battered.”

Luna catches the ring between her long fingers and turns it. “Oh.”

“It’s nothing,” Harry says, but he’s watching her intently.

Luna traces a fingertip against the stone. “The Deathly Hallows,” she says. “Father has a necklace with this symbol.” She lets the ring drop back against Harry’s chest, giving him a long look. “I didn’t realise you were a Peverell, Harry.”

Draco laughs, trying to diffuse the strange discomfort that’s risen just beneath the surface. “The fairytale brothers? I always preferred The Wizard and the Hopping Pot.” He frowns. “Father once shouted at Mother for reading me The Fountain of Fair Fortune, though. He never cared for Sir Luckless.”

“Babbitty Rabbitty was my favourite,” Luna says. She’s still looking at Harry. “But the three brothers always fascinated me. Terrible thing, really, trying to be more clever than Death. It never goes well, does it? He just keeps searching.”

They’re all silent for a moment, then a Great Tit dips past in a flash of yellow and black. With a laugh, Luna claps her hands, and a throng of butterflies rise up from the flowers, circling around them before they disappear into the sky.

Harry looks up in delight, and Draco wants to remember the expression on his face forever.

With a flick of her wand and a small smile, Luna drapes the chain of flowers around Harry’s belly. “The baby’s happy.”

“Yeah.” Harry’s fingers brush his swollen bump. His white shirt is untucked, and Draco’s surprised at how attractive he finds Harry like this, disheveled and heavily pregnant with his baby. His hand covers Harry’s, and when Harry turns his wide smile on Draco, Draco’s stomach flips and shivers.

Looking away, Draco sits up. He picks up a piece of shortbread from the plate beside him and hands it to Harry, then takes a strawberry for himself. When he bites into it, he nearly closes his eyes at the succulent sweet-sourness of it.

“Happy?” Harry asks with a laugh, and Draco nods, finishing off the strawberry. He drops the stem into the bowl.

“Mother adores strawberries,” Draco confides. “She took lessons for a few months with a weathermancer just to learn how to extend her growing season into February.”

“Maybe she learned how to manipulate time,” Luna says. “She could have made a portal and stolen then from June.”

Draco doesn’t even seem to want to argue. He smiles and leans back on his elbows, watching Harry eat his shortbread. Harry catches Draco looking and beams at him, only a few crumbs falling onto his shirt. He dusts them off.

Luna jumps up. “Oooh. Pictures. I brought the portable photo apparatus.”

Harry groans. “I hate pictures. Not like this.”

“Yes like this,” Luna says. “They’re for the baby album I’m making.”

Both Draco and Harry stare. “The what?”

“The baby album.” Luna speaks to them as if they’re thick. “Every baby needs an album of pictures that they can look back on when they’re adults. How else are you supposed to remember the first things you see?”

“I don’t really think the baby can see anything right now, Luna.” Harry struggles to sit up. Draco helps him, pulling Harry up against his side. His hand settles on the swell of Harry’s belly.

Luna lifts her camera and peers through it. It clicks when she pushes the button, and a second later a nearly blinding flash goes off. Luna wrinkles her nose. “Wrong setting, sorry. I forgot I was photographing worricows last time.” She twists a few knobs and dials. “And, really, Harry, the baby can see a great deal more than you think.” She looks up at him. “Not everything we see is with our eyes, you know.”

Harry huffs and looks at Draco.

Draco shrugs. “You might as well let her.” He pops a strawberry into Harry’s mouth to stop his protest, then leans in and kisses the red juice away.

“Manipulative Slytherin,” Harry murmurs, but he takes another bite of strawberry.

Draco laughs and kisses him again. A butterfly flutters over them.

Luna snaps away.***

“Where’s Potter?” Pansy settles into the huge armchair in the corner that Harry usually favours. She kicks off her shoes and rubs her feet. A teacup hovers beside her, steam twisting in elaborate curliques around her hair.

“Off with the other good Gryffindors. Revising.” Draco sips his tea. He stretches his stockinged feet out towards the fire. He’d been caught in a torrential downpour on his way back from feeding the Thestrals. “They do have NEWTs coming soon.”

“At least he’s getting a chance to take his tests.” Pansy’s mouth twists. Her fingers work across the arch of her foot, and she winces. “I need a desk job.”

Draco sighs and sets his cup down. The NEWTs issue is problematic. It’s something he doesn’t discuss with Harry; he’s not entirely certain Harry even knows he hasn’t earned his NEWTs yet. “At least we’re not forced to be Hogwarts students any longer. Think of it that way.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Pansy sits up and lets her feet drop to the floor. She flexes her bare toes. “Everyone else had a chance to take their NEWTs at Christmas, but we’re stuck with the Ministry’s alternate certification route.” She laughs bitterly. “Community Order as certification. What a joke.”

“No, actually,” Draco says. It’s something he’s been thinking about a lot, watching Harry revise. “I know what I want to do, and I don’t care how I have to do it.”

Pansy eyes him curiously. “Since when? Last I heard your life goal was to--how did you put it? Live hard and die young?”

Draco grins. “I’m still hard and young.” He easily ducks the cushion she tosses his way. “And I’ve decided to do magizoology.”

“Oh, dear God.” Pansy stares at him. “The giant’s got to you, hasn’t he?” She reaches out and feels Draco’s forehead. “Is it contagious?”

Draco knocks her hand away. “Not terribly. And neither is Goldstein’s cock, I assume. I’ve no idea if the Ministry will give you a certificate in that, but they should.”

Pansy picks up her teacup primly. “I really wouldn’t know what you’re on about.”

Draco pours another cup from the serviceable porcelain pot--he eyes the fuschia cosy Mother Weasel had given Harry for Christmas balefully and determines to find something significantly less pink to use--and he doses the tea liberally with brandy. “Pans. I think everyone outside of Idgie and Peter knows you’re shagging him rotten.” Pansy flushes at the mention of her parents. She hasn’t spoken to them in almost a year. Not since they’d slipped away to the Continent the day after the battle, leaving their only daughter behind. “And Goldstein’s broken off his engagement.”

It’d been the talk of society in January. Even Narcissa had mentioned it in one of her owls. The Goldsteins had been appalled. Mostly due to the amount they’d had to pay the MacDougals in betrothal fees. Frankly, Draco thought that was their own damned fault. They ought to have gone for a modern contract, not one of those ancient Scottish bindings that call for the monetary equivalent of a homestead, two acres of land and fifty sheep as a bride-price.

His nostrils flare. It was practically medieval. If Harry’s carrying a girl, he decides, there’ll be none of that for her.

“Please.” Pansy holds her cup out and Draco pours a dash of brandy in it for her. “Morag MacDougal’s a complete whore. She wears python boots, for Christ’s sake. Completely outré, and really, he’s better off without her.” She sips her tea. “ Not to mention she didn’t like sucking cock, can you believe that?”

“No,” Draco says truthfully. The idea’s entirely foreign to him. “Goldstein must think he’s died and gone to heaven.”

Pansy beams. “I am rather good with my tongue.”

“Saucy minx.” Draco settles back against the sofa. His eyes drift towards the clock and he wonders how late Harry will stay at the library tonight. Draco finds himself missing the prat. “Does he give as good as he gets?”

“Darling, the last time I mentioned my vagina in a conversation with you, you nearly had a fit of vapours.” Pansy blows across her tea, her scarlet mouth pursed.

“And now I deal with pregnancy on a daily basis.” Draco ponders how strange his life has become. “How do you feel about being pregnant, by the by?”

Pansy pales. “I think God created contraceptive charms for a reason.”

Draco arches an eyebrow and finishes off his tea, setting the cup aside. “I don’t know how much God had to do with them. I missed that part of Genesis.”

“In the beginning there was cock, darling.” Pansy crosses her legs and takes a sip of tea. “ It’s an ancient translation.”

Draco laughs. “Then we’re both fervently religious.” He’s missed these conversations with Pans. He wishes he could see her more often, but with his schedule and Harry only six weeks from the Caesarean, it’s impossible. That thought makes him pick up his knitting, whether to distract himself from the thought or out of sheer panic of finishing the blanket on time, he’s not certain, but he’ll be damned if he asks Hagrid to help him. He’s seen the hideous afghan on the man’s bed. “So, when did you fall in love with Tony?”

Pansy nearly drops her teacup. “What?”

“You know you are, Pans. Don’t be coy.” Draco studies her for a moment before realisation hits. “Oh, shit. You didn’t know. How interesting.”

Pansy stands up and walks over to the window, staring out at the grounds. “I’m not.”

Draco watches her. The snow outside’s beginning to melt. Slowly. At this rate it’ll be June before the grass is visible again. “I know. ‘Parkinsons don’t fall in love.’ Well, and men don’t end up preggers, do they?”

“No.” Pansy wraps her arms around herself. She doesn’t look back.

“So it’s happened, then. But the question is, what will you do now?” Draco knows he’s being a bit hard on her, but better it come from him than someone else. He wonders what Blaise will think when he finds out. It’ll crush him, Draco expects, but he doubts Blaise will admit to that. Or do anything other than brush it off and bury his woes, and other bits, between Astoria Greengrass’s legs.

He sincerely hopes the bastard’s using proper charms.

Pansy doesn’t say anything, she just turns and leans against the window, looking at him.

“Pans, you know if I could do anything, I would. I’d force him to make you an honest slag. Do you think he feels the same about you?” Draco examines his knitting, finds the dropped stitch, picks up back up, and continues.

“He certainly doesn’t look at me the way Potter looks at you,” she retorts waspishly.

Draco stops knitting and sets the blue and white blanket down on the sofa. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Besides, Harry’s eight months pregnant and more than a little out of his gourd now on the best of days.”

“Draco. Darling. If any man looked at me the way Potter looks at you, I’d...” Pansy rubs at the large opal on her finger. Her grandmother had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday. It’s a Parkinson family heirloom, which means it’s only two centuries old. New money, after all. She glances over at him. “Well, I’d tell him how I felt.”

Draco swallows and looks down at the blanket beside him. He fingers the edge. It’s soft and warm. “I would if I knew, Pans. But I don’t. It’s all so confused.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is gentle. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do when the baby comes?”

“A little.” A flutter of anxiety rises in Draco’s stomach. They haven’t talked about what’s coming next. At all. He has no idea what’ll happen once Harry leaves Hogwarts in June, taking their baby with him. Draco bites his lip. “I think I’ll do my best to be there for Potter and for the baby. I want to be a part of their lives.” If Harry lets him, that is.

Pansy just studies him. “Potter’s keeping the baby then. You’re not...taking it.”

“No!” Draco has a visceral reaction to the words. He knows his father would insist on a Malfoy heir being raised at the Manor, but Harry would never allow it and Draco has no desire to make a claim on custody. Not after watching Harry these past five months. Not after seeing him talk to the swell in his belly, not after seeing him sing to it off-key. Not after watching Harry’s eyes light up every time the baby kicks, even when he’s swearing at it. He shakes his head. “I can’t imagine...It doesn’t seem right at all.”

Pansy’s quiet for a very long time, then she sighs. “Oh, darling.” She sits on the sofa next to Draco and reaches for his hand. “You’re entirely arse over tit for him, aren’t you?” She hesitates, then squeezes his fingers. “Take it from one in the same condition.”

Draco leans his head on her shoulder and she strokes his forelock out of his eyes. “We’re fucked, aren’t we Pans? The world doesn’t want us to live happily ever after.”

“Maybe old Trelawney was right. Maybe we were born under cursed stars.” Pansy nudges him with her shoulder. “Unlucky in love and life.”

“We make our own stars. Didn’t we decide that sixth year?” He nudges back. A dark night on the Astronomy Tower with a bottle of wine nicked from Severus’s office. He remembers it well.

Pansy looks away. She reaches for the brandy and drinks straight from the bottle. “I don’t think I can make my own anything any longer, ducks.”

Draco watches her. She looks devastated. “I don’t believe you. You’re just afraid.” He takes the bottle from her--there’s only a few fingers left--and downs a good swallow of it. It burns his throat going down.

“I’m a good shag and a laugh or two, Draco.” Pansy gives him an earnest look and motions for the bottle. “My father was Marked. I’m not the sort for Tony.”

Draco understands. He knows how that feels. “Harry has to look at my Mark every day.” He looks down at his forearm, at the long sleeved shirt he wears to hide the black stain on his skin. It doesn’t seem to bother Harry, and Draco’s not certain why. Harry’d once told him the Mark doesn’t make the man, but Draco doesn’t believe him.

He knows better.

“I can’t imagine explaining to a child what it means,” Draco says slowly. “Its father. Grandfather...” He trails off.

“It means we were incredibly stupid. And naive. And we believed everything our parents said because they were our parents and we loved them.” Pansy says bitterly. “Sometimes I think people forget that.”

“Yes.” Draco says quietly. He looks at her, his throat tight. “We lied and we did everything to please them while the world fell apart.” He’d never ask that of his child. Ever.

“Fuck them,” Pansy says succinctly. She takes another drink from the bottle. “They ran to Greece and left me here.” Her mouth twists to one side. Draco wonders if she’s given up on hearing from her parents, or if she even cares. He’s afraid to ask.

He sighs.

“And now we have our own lives to fuck up.” Draco thinks about the baby. He wonders what it’ll think of him in eighteen years. If it’ll hate him as much as he hates his own father. If he’ll even know his child then. An ache blossoms deep inside of him. “It’s much harder, isn’t it?”

“Infinitely.” Pansy passes him the bottle and he finishes it.***

“You’re pissed.”

As the voice floats into his consciousness, Draco squints up at the portrait looming over the sofa. There’s a blanket draped over him and his head aches. He can vaguely recall opening another bottle of brandy with Pansy as they both of commiserated over their pathetic lives.

“And you look horrible against that shade of brocade,” he says to Severus as he sits up. “Where’s Pans?”

“Asleep in the bedroom you no longer occupy,” Severus says dryly. He leans against the side of the portrait frame, his arms crossed over his chest. He truly does look terrible against the yellow brocade drapery of the background. Draco wonders where he dispatched the charming Sir Perkin. “And Potter is in the other.” He eyes Draco. “Only you could end up with two lovers sleeping in the same suite.”

Draco leans against the arm of the sofa, pulling his knees to his chest. That explains the blanket then. It’s much more Harry’s style. He rubs at his eyes. “Pansy’s not my lover and you know it.”

Severus sniffs. “Not for want of trying on her part your fifth year.”

“True.” Draco pushes his hair back from his face. He feels filthy, and judging from the faint grey light filtering through the row of windows across from him, he suspects it’s not long before he’ll have to roll out of bed anyway.

The fire cracks as a log settles in the hearth. The elves must have stoked it, Draco thinks, and he’s glad for the warmth in the early morning chill. He wraps his blanket tighter around himself. “Why are you lurking?” he asks, and the words are jumbled by a wide yawn.

It doesn’t matter; Severus understands enough of it. He scowls. “Attempting to have a word with you without Potter or one of that bizarre entourage you’ve collected lately hanging about.” His mouth thins. “It’s rather difficult.”

“You might have tried the loo.” Draco yawns again.

Severus is not amused. “Gryffindor vulgarity does not suit you, Draco.”

Draco doesn’t bother to point out that he’d heard worse in Slytherin common room. “So now you have me all to your self, you wicked professor. Should I faint or shout?”

That earns him a glare. “Your imagination always was a bit overactive.” Severus settles in Sir Perkin’s uncomfortably carved wooden chair. “You’ve seen the ring Potter wears around his neck.”

“The family heirloom?” Draco reaches to tuck the blanket over his cold toes. “What of it?”

Severus sighs. “It’s not an heirloom.” He hesitates. “Per se.”

Draco wonders if he can just drop back off to sleep for a few minutes. He’s horribly tired. He leans his head against the back of the sofa. “Severus, please...”

“It’s a Resurrection Stone.”

Silence stretches out between them, then Draco laughs. “Like the fairy tale. Have you been talking to Luna, Severus? Really I’d thought better of you--”

“It’s dangerous, Draco.” Severus’s voice is low. Sober.

Draco looks at him sharply. “Dark?” His head swims.

“Not in and of itself,” Severus admits. “But His Lordship once owned it, and Potter used it when he first faced him down.”

Uncertainty slithers through Draco’s mind. “How did Harry get it?”

“Albus.”

They look at each other. Draco doesn’t know what to think. “Harry’s not Dark,” he says slowly.

Severus sighs again. “No.”

“And the ring’s not Dark.”

“No.”

Draco sits silently, his thoughts tumbling together. “Why are you telling me this, Severus?”

“Because someone needs to keep an eye on the foolish brat,” Severus snaps. “I wasted enough of my life attempting to, and frankly, I’m tired. He’s your responsibility now, Draco. I’ve paid my debt.”

“What do you want me to do?” Draco asks after a moment. “Take it away from him?”

“No.” Severus runs a hand over his face, pushing his hair back out of his eyes. Draco wonders if it’s as thick and lank in paint as it had been in reality. “Albus says it’s connected to the baby.”

Draco’s brow furrows. “What?”

A faint flush rises on Severus’s sallow cheeks. “Somehow Potter used it in the brat’s conception. Or it played some sort of role.” His nostrils flare. “I didn’t care to ask for details.”

“Oh.” Draco settles into the corner of the sofa. He blinks. “Harry did this on purpose?” His fingers pick at the blanket. “The baby?”

Severus snorts. “It’s far more likely that he is a complete idiot, utterly unaware of his own power.” He looks away. “Albus thinks there may be leftover...business.” Severus sighs. “From Potter’s not-quite-death.” He scowls again. He still holds a modicum of bitterness at being dead while Harry’s alive, Draco knows.

“Of course.” Draco doesn’t quite understand, but he’s not going to press Severus, not with that particular expression on his face, and not on any matter that involves Dumbledore. That subject’s still sore for them, even nearly two years after the fact. He doesn’t think Severus will ever entirely forgive him for putting him in the position to murder his mentor. “So I...what? Watch?”

“Are you a Slytherin?” Severus asks.

Well. It was a stupid question, Draco supposes. He bites his lip. “Is it going to hurt him?” Or the baby, he thinks, but he can’t seem to voice that thought.

Severus gives him a long look. “Probably not.”

“Probably?” Draco’s voice rises. “What does that mean?”

“It means you may have to make a choice one day,” Severus says quietly. “And I hope you know how.”

Draco stares at him, horribly unsettled, until there’s a noise from his bedroom, followed by Pansy’s muffled curse.

When he looks back at the portrait frame, Severus is gone.

He doesn’t know what to think.

To Part Four