FIC: Stuck in the Middle (With You) (PG-13)

[mpreg_fest_mod]

Title: Stuck in the Middle (With You)
Author: lauren3210
Prompt: PROMPT #1.
Word Count: 12,000
Rating: PG-13
Contains (Highlight to view): *Stuff that happens with pregnancy; tooth-rotting fluff.*
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.
Epilogue compliant?: LOL nope.
Who is pregnant?: *Draco and one other FC. *
Notes: Pretty sure this is my first H/D fic with no smut, so er, sorry? I've written a few angsty things recently, and this was a perfect opportunity to just write some fluffy stuff all about babies, so I hope you'll forgive my self indulgence. Dear eidheann_writes, your prompt made me giggle the moment I read it, and I hope you enjoy what I did with it!. Huge thanks to indyonblue for looking through this so quickly for me, and hugs to the mods for such a great fest!
Summary: Harry had thought that it couldn’t get much worse than the synchronised vomiting that was morning sickness.




The leather of the armchair was sticky beneath Harry’s sweaty palms. He was uncomfortably hot, the semi-formal robes he’d been made to wear tight around his neck. He felt cool fingers trail across the skin of his wrist, and he turned his hand gratefully into it, desperate for some reassurance. It’s going to work, the hand squeezing his seemed to say. Harry wanted to believe it, but he’d been wishing for so long, and it hadn’t happened yet. He kind of felt like it would be tempting fate a little too much to be too hopeful at this point.

“There we are,” the soft voice of Healer Smethwyck intoned, and Harry jerked his head up.

To his left, the side of the room that Harry had studiously avoided looking at for the past hour, sat a padded hospital bed, surrounded by gleaming equipment trays and a rather terrifying steel contraption swinging from the ceiling above it. Healer Smethwyck stood facing the bed, leaning over the occupant as she swivelled her wand in the air.

“Conception has occurred,” she said, and stood up straight, directing her wand so that the hologram she was conjuring could be seen by everyone in the room.

There was a soft gasp to Harry’s right, and the hand holding his clenched tightly, but Harry couldn’t look away from the sight before him. An enlarged projection hovered in the air before him, yellow wisps of smoke curling protectively around a tiny blue dot right in the centre. As Harry watched, a thin line appeared down the centre of the dot, quickly followed by another line bisecting it across the middle. Harry could hardly breathe; it had worked.

“I take it that means I can put my clothes back on?”

The hologram disappeared as Healer Smethwyck turned to her patient upon the table. “You can, Miss Parkinson, although I would suggest moving slowly for a while; the magic can cause some dizziness in a handful of patients.”

Harry saw out of the corner of his eye as Pansy sat up and began fiddling with her clothes. “Well, if I do feel faint, I have two strapping young Quidditch players right here to catch me.”

Healer Smethwyck laughed a little. “That is very true, but still, don’t push yourself. Take your time.” She flicked her wand and a screen appeared, covering Pansy as she slid down from the bed and began to dress. “Now then, gentlemen, how do you feel?”

“Slightly sick,” Harry blurted out, because he was; all the adrenaline running through his veins with nowhere to go had left him feeling a bit queasy since the moment they’d all sat down.

“I should have thought that was my job,” Pansy said from behind the screen.

“Not for a few weeks, Miss Parkinson,” Healer Smethwyck replied. She sat down behind her desk. “I’m sure you’re all very nervous, especially after the past few years. But I can assure you that Miss Parkinson will be very well cared for over the next nine months.” She smiled at Harry. “You can relax now. It’s happening.”

Harry breathed out and nodded, swallowing down the urge to run. It had been so long, and they had lost so much, it was hard to believe that everything would truly be alright.

“Now, have you thought about living arrangements? Miss Parkinson will need a lot of care and attention, especially in the later months.”

The hand still holding Harry’s gave his a squeeze. “Pans will be moving in with us,” Draco said, leaning forward.

“Not yet I won’t.” Pansy walked out from behind the screen, adjusting her top so that it showed more cleavage. She looked down at herself consideringly. “If my boobs grow during all this, will they stay that way once it’s over?”

“It’s always possible, Miss Parkinson,” Smethwyck answered, amusement in her tone.

“Hmm.” Pansy jiggled her chest, then shrugged. “Anyway, I’m not going to need anything from either of you for the next eight weeks, so I’ll move in after then. Let me have my creature comforts for a little while longer, Draco, there’s a love.”

“We don’t exactly live in a hovel, woman!” Draco held out Pansy’s purse, smacking it into her hand with rather more force than really necessary.

“The house itself may be lovely, but you’re so far away from anything approaching civilisation you may as well declare yourselves hermits and have done with it.”

“How is Buckinghamshire not civilisation?” Harry asked.

Pansy sighed. “You don’t live in Buckinghamshire, Harry, you live in the middle of a field which just so happens to be in Buckinghamshire. There’s not a Thai or Sushi take away within fifty miles.”

“It’s a village, not a field,” Harry mumbled, not really complaining. He and Draco not living in the middle of heaving London was a fact that Pansy liked to bring up often.

“Regardless, I am going back to my lovely posh Kensington flat to have a nap on my beautiful Victorian era chaise longue, where I can then have green curry delivered directly to my door.” Pansy pulled on her cloak and leaned over to give them both a kiss on the cheek. “And you two are going to go home and have lots of loud, obnoxious sex while you still can, because pretty soon both of your lives are going to revolve completely around me.” She smiled, wide and shark-like. “Isn’t that wonderful?” And with a wave and a waft of expensive perfume, she was gone through the door.

Harry turned back to the healer. “Is there anything more we need to do?”

Smethwyck shook her head with a smile. “Only that I suggest the pair of you do as Miss Parkinson just advised. It might sound like a long time, but you’ll find that nine months passes remarkably quickly. Go home and relax, while you still have the chance. I’ll see you all again in eight weeks time.”



Harry sighed with relief as they Flooed back into their living room, grateful to be away from the sounds and smells of the hospital. He’d been in there too many times over the past two years for less than happy reasons, and he’d grown heartily sick of the place.

“I’ll put the kettle on, make us some tea,” Draco said, pressing a kiss to Harry’s temple as he passed.

Harry nodded and let himself fall back onto the sofa, thinking. Being back in the hospital always brought back the sad memories, and Harry let his hand run over his flat stomach. Three times it had happened. Three times he had fallen pregnant, only to lose the baby within the first trimester. The doctors had tried everything, switching up the doses for the male pregnancy potions, but nothing had worked. After seeing what it was doing to Harry, who had been so desperate to have a family, Draco had put his foot down and suggested that he take the potions instead. But after a year of trying, it became obvious that nothing was going to happen. Male pregnancy was rare, and even though Harry had defied expectations by falling pregnant three times in a year, carrying to full term had been beyond even his extraordinary magical abilities. Harry had been able to do nothing except watch his dreams of having a family of his own swirl down the drain.

And then Draco had come up with the idea of surrogacy. The two of them could make a baby between them easily enough, they just needed a little help afterwards. Harry had agreed, so they’d gone back to the Healers to see what could be done. Healer Smethwyck had been on call the first time Draco had rushed Harry into the emergency room, the cramping in his stomach robbing him of his ability to speak and tears running down his face, and she’d been with them ever since, through the potions changes and the subsequent miscarriages, through the endless disappointments as Draco’s body refused to fall pregnant. She’d happily helped them work through the idea of surrogacy, and today was just the first of hopefully many days of Pansy’s pregnancy to come.

Draco came back into the living room and handed Harry a mug of tea, sugary sweet and just a splash of milk, just how Harry liked it. Harry tried to smile as he took it, but he couldn’t stop his mind from cycling through all of the things that could go wrong. Draco sighed and sat down next to him, pulling Harry close and placing a kiss to the top of Harry’s head.

“It’s going to be fine, Harry, I promise.”

“You don’t know that. You can’t promise that.”

“No, I can’t.” Draco sighed into Harry’s hair, running his fingers up and down Harry’s arm. “But I do know that there’s no point in us worrying ourselves sick over things that might happen.”

Harry curled further into him and sipped at his tea, wishing he could stop thinking, just for a while.

“Pansy and Smethwyck were right; things are going to get hectic for us very soon,” Draco said, putting his feet up on the coffee table and relaxing into Harry. “You know how Pans is, she’s going to milk this for all it’s worth, have us fetching and carrying for her until we drop dead of exhaustion.”

Harry snorted, and Draco snuggled him closer.

“We have eight weeks to relax, before the entire world explodes.” He put his fingers under Harry’s chin, pulling him up to look at him. “How about a lazy afternoon in bed while we still can?”

Harry smiled and nodded. He stood up, pulling Draco behind him as they climbed the stairs to their bedroom. At the very least, an afternoon in bed with Draco will help to stop Harry from thinking, which was exactly what he needed right now. And if everything went right, this might be the last time that loud sex would be an option.

Harry liked it when Draco was loud. He liked it a lot.



Harry was in a much better mood the next time they all met up in Smethwyck’s office. Apart from daily fire-calls to Pansy to see how she was doing, he and Draco had spent most of the past two months holed up in their home, trying to get in as much time together as they could before their lives were forever changed.

They’d both given up their positions as Seekers on their respective teams, taking over as coaches for the year’s matches. Neither of them had wanted to risk getting injured while they were looking after Pansy and their baby currently growing inside of her, deciding that a year off from playing was well worth the sacrifice for what they were getting in return.

One would have thought that their marriage had been one of the most controversial things to have ever happened to the wizarding world, the way it had exploded. Harry Potter, Seeker for the Kestrels, proposing on pitch to Draco Malfoy, Seeker for their rival team, the Magpies, had had everyone talking about them for years afterwards. Their past at school had been dragged through the papers all over again, Draco and Harry stalked by the press everywhere they went, friends and family pressed for interviews, supposed ‘experts’ being consulted to determine if anyone had been Imperiused or had somehow had their mind tampered with. Harry and Draco, living together in a flat in London at the time, had had no choice but to pull up their roots and move somewhere else, so besieged were they by what seemed like the entire wizarding world camped out on their street.

It had been strange for Harry at first too, when their relationship had first began. Harry didn’t know who was more surprised, himself or Draco, when their after-match arguments had one day turned into a shared shower cubicle and mutual orgasms. But against all odds, they seemed to work together, moving seamlessly from the occasional post-match shag to pre-match blowjobs, to off-season drunken booty-Floos that became sober dates in Hyde Park and dinners out at restaurants, to Harry moving in with Draco. It had taken four years, but then Draco had mumbled in a post-orgasm daze about how they’d have to get a bigger flat for all the kids they were going to have, that Harry realised just how in love with his Slytherin he had fallen. He’d proposed in front of everyone at the end of their very next match against each other, and all of it had led them both here.

Harry held Pansy’s hand as he stared up at the slowly revolving hologram hovering in the air above her stomach. Readings were pouring out on a graph next to it, Healer Smethwyck flicking her wand as she concentrated on the results. Harry couldn’t take his eyes off the tiny little thing above them, and he knew that Draco was the same on his side of the bed. His arm was stretched along the back of Pansy’s neck, and every so often Harry would feel his fingers shift, sliding against Harry’s shoulder as though he was trying hard to sit still and wait. Harry understood, because it was so amazing, so awe-inspiring. That was their baby, or at least, it was going to be, in just a few short months. It didn’t look much like a baby at this point, Harry thought, screwing his eyes up and tilting his head to the side. It looked closer to a big prawn, or maybe a potato, than a human, but Harry already loved it. He hadn’t had a chance to see any of the others; each time he had miscarried it had been before the first scans. Healer Smethwyck had assured him that they hadn’t been real pregnancies, that his body had just started the process before realising that nothing was to come of it, but still, Harry felt their loss. It was hard not to remember each one keenly as he stared up at the mesmerising scan, but it was also hard not to feel the sheer joy that filled him up from head to toe. That was their baby, holy hell.

“Well, everything is progressing absolutely as it should, congratulations,” Healer Smethwyck said finally, letting the graphs fade out but keeping the hologram in its place for a few moments more. When it had finally disappeared, Harry turned to look at Draco, who was already gazing back at him with twinkling grey eyes.

“Salazar’s beard, do you both have to be so sappy all of the time?” Pansy complained, shoving them both away from the bed and conjuring the screen for herself. “The sight of you two constantly making moon eyes at each other would have me throwing up, if the morning sickness wasn’t already doing it for me.”

“Ahh yes, how is everything going?” Smethwyck asked, sitting back down at her desk. “Morning sickness not too bad?”

“It’s bloody awful,” Pansy replied from behind the screen. “But it’s only once a day, in the evenings. If it doesn’t get any worse I expect I’ll be able to bear it without too much complaining.”

Harry had to cover his mouth to hold back a snort at that. Pansy had moved in with them two weeks ago, after her first evening spent bent over the loo in her flat. She had decided that if she was going to suffer, then Harry and Draco would too, and she loudly complained about her experiences while Harry ran around after her, fetching her glasses of water and pressing cool flannels to the back of her neck. Draco had to give his sympathies from the safety of the living room; he’d apparently turned into a sympathetic vomiter, and even the sound of it had him running for his own bucket.

“Can we not talk about it?” Draco asked now. “Just discussing it makes me feel ill.”

“Oh yes, we mustn’t upset poor Draco’s sensibilities, must we? Never mind what it’s doing to me,” Pansy grumbled.

Draco waved his hand and sank down into one of the armchairs by the desk. He did look a bit green, Harry suddenly realised. “Draco, are you okay?”

“What did I say about your lives revolving around me?” Pansy screeched, but Harry ignored her. Draco was now leaning forward in his seat, lips pursed as he breathed heavily.

“Mr Potter-Malfoy? Have you been feeling like this for long?” Smethwyck got out of her chair and kneeled down next to Draco, flicking her wand in a series of diagnostic spells.

Draco waved her away, and Harry took the seat next to him, putting the back of his hand against Draco’s forehead. “You don’t feel warm or anything.” He looked worriedly at Smethwyck. “Do you think it’s a virus or something? What about the baby?”

Smethwyck laughed as Pansy cuffed Harry round the back of the head and Draco glared at him. “Calm down, Mr Potter-Malfoy, let me just check your husband out.”

“I thought we were meant to be here for me,” Pansy complained loudly, while Draco insisted that he was “absolutely fine, stop poking me!” Healer Smethwyck ignored them both and went through her litany of spells, and Harry’s heart dropped through the floor as he watched a small frown appear on her face. Oh God, what was wrong with Draco?

“Mr Potter-Malfoy, have you been feeling sick for some time?” Smethwyck asked slowly, looking at the line of green light that was emanating out from the end of her wand. Tiny little dots moved along the fine line at quick but regular intervals. “Or feeling faint, or tired at all?”

“You’d be feeling all of those things too if you had to share living space with a harpy,” Draco grumbled.

“Oi!” Pansy screeched.

“Just answer the question, Draco.” Harry felt rather sick himself, worry coursing through him and making his stomach turn over.

Draco sighed. “Fine. I’ve been feeling a bit sick in the mornings, and then again at night when Pansy begins retching up and describing it in far too much detail. And I may have nearly passed out on the pitch the other day,” he added, shooting a quick guilty look at Harry.

“Well, that would explain it,” Smethwyck mumbled, not looking away from her wand.

“What is it?” Harry blurted out, not able to stand not knowing for another second. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Smethwyck replied, a sudden wide smile on her face. “Except for the fact that Mr Potter-Malfoy seems to be pregnant.”

“What?”

“What?”

“What?”

All three of them stared at the Healer in shock for a long moment. Then it was broken by Draco suddenly lurching for the waste paper bin and bringing up his lunch.

“But, how?” Harry asked weakly, one hand rubbing Draco hunched back absently.

“Never mind that, what about me?” Pansy yelled, flopping down into the seat Draco had unceremoniously just vacated.

“Well, I’m assuming the last batch of fertility potions I supplied you with were still in effect.” Smethwyck conjured up their file, flipping through it. “Ah yes, the last dose was four months ago, and they’re supposed to be effective for up to eight weeks afterwards. You must have just got it in under the wire.”

“I’ll say you did,” Pansy said, giving Harry the evil eye.

“That’s impossible,” Draco said, sitting back and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I stopped taking the supplements as soon as we’d decided to go with Pansy as a surrogate, which was three months ago.”

“Unlikely, Mr Potter-Malfoy, but not impossible. The readings are very clear.”

“They’re also wrong. I’m not pregnant. We spent an entire year of me not getting pregnant, it’s impossible.” Draco looked from Smethwyck to Harry, his eyes wide with shock. Harry stood up and went to him, wrapping his arms around him.

“Well, there’s one way to know for sure,” Smethwyck said, pointing to the bed. “Undo your robes, Mr Potter-Malfoy, and hop on.”

Draco grumbled his way behind the screen, and then a moment later they were all gathered around the bed, staring up at yet another hologram of a prawn shaped potato, as Smethwyck checked the graphs.

“Holy fuck,” Draco said. “I’m pregnant.”

“By seven weeks and six days,” Smethwyck confirmed with a smile. “It must have occurred just after we completed Miss Parkinson’s insemination.”

“Oh, I might have known,” Pansy moaned, rolling her eyes. “I go back home to have a rest after the painful procedure I went through to help you have a baby, and you two go back home for a shag!”

“You told us to do that! And the procedure you went through was completely painless, you wench,” Harry said, unable to keep the big grin from stretching across his entire face. He reached out and touched Draco’s stomach. “Oh my God, we’re pregnant!”

“Excuse you, we already were.”

“Pansy shut up for a minute.” Draco grabbed Harry’s hand and looked up at Smethwyck with wary grey eyes. “Is everything okay with the baby?”

Smethwyck continued eyeing the information spitting out next to her for a few moments, and then cancelled them with a wave of her wand and a smile. “Everything is absolutely fine. Congratulations, gentlemen!”

“Is nobody else going to point out the obvious here?” Pansy pointed at Draco, and then at her own stomach. “What the bloody hell are we going to do?”

Harry grinned down at the slow smile beginning to show on Draco’s face, and he leaned down and kissed him.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to have twins.”



If Harry had had a moment to himself in the days after learning their unexpected news, he might have panicked slightly. Living with a Slytherin was difficult enough; Draco never said exactly what he meant, and although Harry had had four years of dating and three years of marriage to learn how to navigate the shark-infested waters that was life with a Slytherin, he still occasionally slipped up. He still put the empty milk carton back in the fridge sometimes, still put Draco’s silk socks in a general wash meant for cotton, still left his damp towel draped over the end of the bed, sometimes while Draco was still in it. They still had their arguments, even with their past at school and their respective Quidditch teams made taboo subjects under their roof, and Draco still made Harry want to pull his hair out and punch the idiot several times a week. And that was just as it should be, because they wouldn’t be Harry and Draco if they got on famously all the time.

Harry had had a brief moment, back when they had been trying to get pregnant with Draco on the fertility potions, to wonder what it would be like living with a pregnant Slytherin, but they’d never had the chance to find out. He’d known instinctively that having to share living space with Pansy would be worse than sharing a cage with a blast-ended skrewt, but he’d always thought he’d have Draco there to help him work through it. Harry had never once wondered what it might be like to live with two pregnant Slytherins.

By the twenty week mark, Harry was starting to seriously reconsider that cage with the blast-ended skrewt.

Harry had thought that it couldn’t get much worse than the synchronised vomiting that was morning sickness. Every evening, without fail, Pansy and Draco would shove the food that Harry had cooked down their mouths at almost terrifying speed. Pansy had to sit in the living room to eat, because the smell of food cooking made her feel sick quicker. Draco had to stand up to eat, because the growing tightness around his waist made it uncomfortable to sit, and yet he was still refusing to have his trousers altered. Harry would still be in the middle of washing up, when Pansy would make her first run to the downstairs loo, and within moments the sounds of her retching would send Draco running to the master bedroom, and Harry would almost break his legs falling down the stairs as he ran between them, offering cool glasses of water and flannels, rubbing Draco’s back and holding Pansy’s hair off her face.

The thanks he got came in the forms of slaps and death glares. Harry felt really appreciated.

The sickness calmed down a little after twelve weeks however, with Pansy only chucking up when she smelled something that turned her stomach, and Draco only when he heard Pansy emptying her stomach, and Harry stupidly thought the worst was over. It wasn’t, because then came the tiredness, as Pansy continued her job at the Ministry and Draco went off to coach his team at their training grounds, while all the time their bodies were using all of their energy trying to grow and protect a human child. Harry quickly found out that a tired Slytherin was a bitchy Slytherin, and he often knackered himself out running around after them in the evenings. Draco wanted a hot bath, and he wanted Harry there to knead his aching back muscles, while listening to him complain about how hard it was to sit astride a broom when his pelvis was stretching around trying to make room for a baby’s head. Pansy wanted Harry to rub her aching feet and legs and listen to her bitch about the idiots she had to work with at the Ministry. Harry did it all, wondering just when his life had spiralled so completely out of control, and with the vague thought of wondering what Draco and Pansy would do if he were to lock himself away in a kitchen cupboard for an hour, just to get some peace. But then he’d catch a glimpse of their gently swelling stomachs, and he’d remember that it was all absolutely worth it, and fall asleep with a huge smile on his face.

And then week eighteen happened, and Pansy collapsed in Harry’s arms.



“Help! I need help!”

Harry stood in the atrium of St Mungo’s, staggering under the weight of Pansy in his arms. A Healer came rushing over, flicking his wand over Pansy with one hand while gesturing for a stretcher with the other.

“She’s pregnant, take her to Natural Maladies on the fourth floor.” He looked up at Harry as they both guided her onto the floating stretcher. “How far along is she? Who’s her Healer?”

“Eighteen weeks, Healer Smethwyck is looking after us.” Harry ran his fingers through Pansy’s hair. “Is she alright? And the baby?”

“We’ll know more once we’ve run some diagnostics spells. Meet us up at the fourth floor.” The Healer ran after the stretcher, leaving Harry standing helplessly in the middle of reception.

Draco arrived a few minutes later, his Quidditch leathers still on his legs and his shirt half undone, the wings whipping behind him as he strode down the corridor towards Harry. “What happened? Is it the baby? Is Pansy alright?”

Harry hugged him close and shook his head, worry for both his friend and his child growing inside of her making his throat close up.

“Ah, Misters Potter-Malfoy, there you are.”

Both Harry and Draco turned at the sound of Smethwyck’s calm voice, and descended on her.

“Is Pansy alright?”

“What about the baby?”

“What happened?”

“Will they be okay?”

“Calm down, gentlemen. Both Miss Parkinson and your baby are absolutely fine.” Smethwyck steered them into the waiting room and sat them down. “Miss Parkinson suffered a small pulmonary embolism, but I assure you she’ll be right as rain in no time.”

“Oh, God,” Draco said, just as Harry asked, “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a blood clot in the lungs, Mr Potter-Malfoy, and although Miss Parkinson and the baby are both unscathed, it can be quite serious. Had the clot been any bigger, it could have cut off her breathing entirely. Had it been any smaller, it could have eventually travelled to the brain, which would have caused a lot of damage.”

Harry thought he was going to throw up. Draco looked exactly the same, his pale skin taking on a greenish tinge that Harry had become used to spotting over the last few months.

“But I promise you that they’re both fine. Miss Parkinson will have to take a potion twice daily until the birth, to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, and another for a cure once she has delivered, but other than that, there’s been no harm.” Smethwyck turned to Harry. “You did well getting her here on time, Mr Potter-Malfoy. You should feel proud of yourself.”

“I feel sick, actually,” Harry replied, and Draco gripped his hand tighter.

“Can we see her?”

Smethwyck nodded. “Of course. We’d like to keep her under the observation spells for a few more hours, just to make sure, but then you’ll be free to take her home.”

“So apparently I sit around far too much,” Pansy said, once Draco and Harry had been led into her room. She looked much better; the deathly pale colour of her face that had scared Harry so much having given way to a much healthier pink glow on her cheeks.

“I could have told you that,” Draco smirked, then kissed her hand.

“Shut up, fatty.” Pansy smacked Draco round the ear, and then looked up at Harry. “All those times I made you massage my legs. Sitting behind a desk all day made the clots form in my calves, and then the massages moved them.” She looked down at the sheet covering her. “I’m so sorry.”

Harry kissed her forehead and sat down, sliding his fingers through hers. “No, we’re sorry. I don’t think we realised just how much we’d be putting you through when we asked you to do this for us.”

“I’m not stupid, Harry. I knew exactly how difficult pregnancy can be. But I wanted to do it, it’s why I offered in the first place.”

Harry frowned. “I thought Draco went to you?”

“He did,” Pansy replied, while Draco studied the wall in front of him. “But I came up with the surrogacy idea when he wouldn’t stop moaning about not being pregnant yet.” She glared at Draco. “Did you make it sound like it was all your own idea?”

Draco scoffed, preening himself. “Obviously. I am a Slytherin.”

“Bloody typical.” She smacked him again and then settled back into her pillows. “Anyway, quite apart from the vile potion I’m going to have to take twice a day, apparently I also have to do some exercise. I’ll have to walk around that field you call a village once a day, get some fresh air, Smethwyck said. I don’t know what she’s talking about; the air in Claridges is perfectly fresh.”

Harry coughed to hide a laugh, imagining Pansy in a pair of wellies and walking down to their local post office and back. Their poor neighbours were going to be in for a bit of a surprise.



If Harry had thought that things would slow down once they hit the second trimester, then he would have been very, very wrong. After the morning sickness had died down - and really, Harry thought, why was it called that when it hit at any point in the day or night? - other things began to pop up in its place. Molly Weasley had told Harry that nesting was a phase that happened towards the end of pregnancy, but apparently Slytherins worked to a completely different timetable than everyone else. Pansy had completely taken over the living room, ordering Harry to move the sofa and the coffee table to her liking, constantly rearranging the books on the shelves when she became restless in the evenings. She forced Harry to accompany her on her daily walks into town, and Harry would have to go into the post office and buy the sourest sweets he could get his hands on. Pansy would make pained grimaces as she sucked on them, complaining that they made her tongue sore even as she reached in the bag for another one.

Draco had taken over the decoration of the nursery, by ordering Harry to paint and then repaint the walls, first in a pale yellow, and then in a mint green. And then back to yellow, because Draco said he preferred it that colour, although Harry suspected he just really liked the smell of the paint fumes. Draco had finally, amid much grumbling, allowed himself to admit that his Quidditch leathers were no longer able to fit him, and so he’d grounded himself at work as a safety precaution. He came home every evening with a sore throat from yelling up at the players all day and forgetting to use a Sonorus, and for some reason the only thing that would soothe the ache was pickles. It didn’t seem to matter what type of pickles, and so their kitchen had become filled with jars of pickled eggs, gherkins, onions, and beetroot.

And fresh pineapple, because Pansy liked to eat that until the juices made her chin raw. Harry had been led to believe that pregnant people craved things such as late night ice cream, and instead he was surrounded by things he wouldn’t want near his own mouth. The movies had lied to him.

On the plus side, for Harry at least, the pregnancy hormones had turned Draco very horny, and Harry kept being jumped on at the most unexpected moments, like when he was doing the laundry, or when he was covered in paint - yet again - from the nursery. After two years of having sex just to get pregnant, it felt to Harry like they’d been transported back to the days when they shagged each other senseless just because they could, and it was fantastic. What wasn’t so fantastic was when they forgot to put up a Muffliato and Pansy screeched at them to knock it the fuck off, there are some people here who aren’t actually getting any, from her place on the sofa.

But then came the arrival of the babies moving, and Harry forgot almost everything else. It was weird to watch, the way tiny ripples would move across the gentle swells of their stomachs. It was always quick, and most of the time Harry would get there too late to press his hand against the area and feel it for himself. It made Harry feel a bit jealous, especially on the nights when he came home from work to find Draco and Pansy curled up together on the sofa, their heads bent over their rapidly growing bellies, complaining with soft smiles on their faces how it felt to have a small human using their bladders as trampolines. It felt a little bit like there was no room for Harry, who couldn’t commiserate over the need to use the loo every five minutes, or the irritation over having a tiny foot wedged beneath his ribs. Harry sometimes wondered if his babies didn’t actually like him all that much, what with how often they quieted down as soon as he tried to feel for them himself. He wondered that even more when one of them started kicking him in the back when Draco spooned up behind him at night.

Of course, the arrival of movement, brought its own share of worries. Like the time Draco woke Harry up in the middle of the night, in a full scale meltdown over the fact that he hadn’t felt the baby move all day.



“Harry? Harry.”

The insistent elbow digging into his side jabbed in again harder, and Harry groaned. “I’m knackered, Draco. We’ll have sex in the morning instead. Promise,” he mumbled, trying to snuggle further into his pillow.

The elbow jabbed him again, catching his ribs painfully. “I don’t want bloody sex, Harry! Something is wrong with the baby!”

“What? What is it?” Harry jack-knifed up in the bed, his heart in his mouth and his hands scrabbling for both his wand and his glasses. “Are you in pain? Are you cramping?”

“No! I just haven’t felt it move, all day.”

Harry turned the lights on with a murmured Lumos and knelt up in the bed. Draco was cradling his rounded stomach, fingers digging into the bump as though he could poke the baby hard enough to get it to respond. His grey eyes sparked with panic in the dim bedside lights, and he was breathing in short, panicked breaths.

“Okay, it’s okay,” Harry soothed, brushing his hand through Draco’s hair as he moved off the bed, searching for his jeans. “The baby’s probably just asleep, but we’ll go to the hospital just so they can make sure.”

“But he’s always awake at this time! He always starts kicking just as I start to fall asleep.” Draco was sitting up in bed now, his hands clutching at his nightshirt in panic.

Harry pulled on his trainers and knelt down beside the bed. “Draco, sweetheart, it’s okay, the baby’s going to be okay.” He pulled at Draco’s wrist, pressing a kiss to his pulse point before motioning him out of bed. “Put some clothes and shoes on, I’m just going to tell Pansy where we’re going.” He stood up and left their bedroom, grabbing a discarded t shirt on his way out of the door.

He didn’t know how he was keeping the panic from showing in his voice, especially when Pansy answered the knock on her door and went deathly pale as she heard what was going on. He waved away her offer to come with them - there was no need for them all to go - and ran back down the hall to Draco, who was standing in the middle of their room holding his robes in one limp hand, a lost expression on his face.

“Harry, what if-”

”Nothing is going to happen, Draco, do you hear me?” Harry held Draco’s face in his hands and gently kissed his lips. “I’ve got you. I’ve got both of you, I promise.”

Draco heaved in one big shuddering breath and then nodded, the old Malfoy mask slipping into place as he steeled himself. As much as Harry hated to see its reappearance, he didn’t begrudge Draco using whatever defences he had. Harry wished he had some of his own, really, but he’d always been far too quick with his emotions.

“Come on, let's go.”

Harry had never really appreciated being a war hero until he Flooed into St Mungo’s reception, a shaking Draco in his arms. Within seconds they had a flock of nurses and healers all around them, taking Draco into a private room while Smethwyck was sent an emergency call. She came striding into the room moments later, her usually shiny and perfect hair standing in frizzy curls straight out from her head. She also had fuzzy pink rabbit slippers on her feet and an eye mask wrapped around her neck.

“Okay, Mr Potter-Malfoy, can you tell me the last time you felt your baby move?” She flicked her wand over Draco, the usual charts sliding into view and scrolling far too quickly for anyone but her to read.

“Last night, at bedtime,” Draco said. Harry gripped his hand tight.

“Hmm.” Smethwyck squinted at the readings. “Heart rate is a little slow, but not too much to worry about. Mr Potter-Malfoy, have you taken any pain potions within the last twenty four hours?”

“Only a mild one, yesterday morning. My back was aching.” Draco frowned. “You told me it was safe to take those.”

“And it is. Here, drink this.” She shoved a glass at him of what looked like water, full to the brim with duck-shaped ice cubes.

Draco stared suspiciously at the glass but took it, sniffing it once before downing as much of it as he could in one go. “C-cold!” He gasped out.

“Wait for it,” Smethwyck said, her eyes still on the graphs hanging in mid-air in front of her.

The entire room went completely silent for a long minute, and then Draco gasped out an oof! and his hand flew to cup his stomach.

“And there we go,” Smethwyck said, rather smugly in Harry’s opinion, but he was too busy staring down in relief at Draco’s bump. “Ice cold water. Gets them moving every time.”

A quick flash of movement made Draco’s hand jump where it rested against his skin, and then a very clear outline of a foot - or maybe a hand, but definitely some kind of appendage - appeared, just below his ribs. Harry slumped over, all of the adrenaline rushing out of him and leaving him shaky and winded, as though he’d just run a marathon.

“Pain potions can sometimes leave the foetus feeling a little sleepy, that’s all,” Smethwyck said above them, and Harry let out a slightly manic laugh.

“It might have been nice to have been warned about that part.” Harry buried his face into Draco’s shoulder, letting his fingers tangle with his husband’s as they both felt their baby moving beneath their hands.

“Harry, are you crying?”

“No,” Harry sniffed. “I was just a bit scared, that’s all.”

“Typical.” Draco rolled his eyes and butted his head into Harry’s. “I knew I should have married Hermione, she always said you were absolutely bloody useless in a crisis.”

Which was both patently untrue and completely unfair to boot, but Harry was too happy to complain right at that moment.



“What are we going to call them?” Draco asked, one afternoon when they were both resting in bed.

“I haven’t really thought about it.” Harry yawned and settled himself further into the pillows. He was tired; Pansy had had him walking up to the village shop and back twice a few hours earlier, once so that she could get out of the house, and then a second time because he apparently hadn’t bought enough of those stupid sour sweets she liked so much.

“How about star constellations? The Black family has being doing that for generations.”

“Sure. We could call them Milky Way and Mars. Those sound good.”

“Neither of those are constellations.”

“No, but they are chocolate bars.”

“Harry, you’re not taking this seriously!”

Harry opened his eyes, and nearly kicked himself when he saw how worked up Draco was. The pregnancy hormones were getting to him, making him prone to crying fits rather than his usual sneering and smirking self.

“I’m sorry, you’re right, we should be thinking about this.” He reached out a hand and stroked Draco’s straining belly. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Yes, star constellations, do keep up.”

“Well, you’d be better at those than me, I wasn’t paying much attention during Astronomy.” Harry cocked his head to the side. “Although, to be fair, a lot of that was McGonagall’s fault, what with her deciding to take on a bunch of ministry workers during the exam.”

“Oh yes, blame everyone else for your ineptitude.” And there was the snippy side. Harry grinned and poked Draco’s belly. Their baby poked him back. “Anyway, I was thinking, Cassiopeia.”

“For a girl, you mean?” Harry asked, because they didn’t yet know the sex of either baby. They had decided to wait until the birth to find out. “We could shorten it to Cassie or Cass. I like it.”

“Me too. What about boys names?”

“No idea.”

“Me neither.”

Draco looked so put out by the fact that Harry had to hide a smile. He snuggled closer, resting his arm lightly over Draco’s stomach. “We’ll figure it out, don’t worry. Maybe when they get here they’ll have their names already tattooed on their foreheads or something.”

“That’s really not how it works.”

“No, I know.” Harry smothered a yawn in Draco’s shoulder and let his eyes fall closed again. “But maybe we’ll see them and just know, you know?”

“Hmm,” Draco said, and Harry felt him relax against him. They both fell asleep, the occasional indignant kick to Harry’s arm a soothing reminder of what would soon be coming.



The last ten weeks passed both interminably slowly and incredibly quickly for Harry. It was slow, because Harry had to sit and listen to Pansy’s complaints about her swollen ankles every single bloody day, and as Draco was laid up on bedrest for most of the time, it meant that he had to suffer alone. Both his Slytherins complained of being too hot, despite it being the middle of winter, and refused to let Harry build a fire, so he had to spend his evenings shivering while wrapped up in an afghan blanket, as Pansy and Draco sat on the sofa together and compared war wounds (otherwise known as stretch marks).

The worst days were Sundays, when Pansy insisted that Harry paint her toenails, as she could no longer reach, and spent the entire time berating him for not getting the lines smooth enough.

The nesting period had truly set in by this point, and Harry was forced to arrange and then rearrange (and rearrange) the furniture in the nursery, while Draco sat in the rocking chair and dictated to him. Pansy, who had nothing to nest and yet still had the urge, had insisted that Harry Floo her back to her flat, so that she could sit on her precious chaise longue while he sorted out her cupboards for her. Harry had seen far more feminine hygiene products than he had ever wished to see. There’d been boxes full of things with strings attached to them, and he had had to force himself to wipe them from his memory before he started wondering exactly what they were for.

Male pregnancy got harder as the baby got bigger, and so Draco had been forced to spend most of his time either sitting in the living room, or lounging in bed. And as much as he loved being coddled in general, Draco was actually not a huge fan of being idle. So of course, he took out his ire on Harry, sending him off on errands and then complaining that he hadn’t done it right once he returned.

It all added up to time moving incredibly slowly for Harry, who started to think that his own personal hell was going to be having to wait on two very irate Slytherins for all eternity, and that this was just a glimpse he was being given.

But at the same time, it seemed as though the days just flew past. It seemed like no time at all had passed since Pansy had moved in and they’d discovered that Draco was pregnant, and suddenly they had a fully decked out nursery, complete with two fully erected cribs (that Harry had slaved over building, and secretly thought that they were a test - if you couldn’t fit the pieces of wood together properly, then you obviously weren’t fit to be a parent. Harry had almost given up twice, sitting on the floor with his head in his hands in utter despair), chests of drawers filled with tiny babygros and even tinier socks, and hats that wouldn’t even fit an orange, brightly coloured mobiles dangling from the ceiling and a gorgeous blue and grey dragon on the wall that Dean had painted and Luna had charmed to move around firing puffs of white smoke.

And then their bags were packed, waiting by the Floo just in case. Smethwyck had informed them early on that Draco would be going in to have the baby two weeks before his due date - males had no way of birthing any babies they carried and they couldn’t risk him going into labour early and putting both himself and the child at risk. Pansy however, had no such specific birth date planned out, and she hit thirty-seven weeks with all the grace of a lion with a thorn in its paw, snarling at everyone who came close and yelling loudly at the baby bump to get the fuck out, already! despite the number of times that both Harry and Draco kindly - and not a little warily - asked her not to shout at their baby.

By the time Draco’s date at the hospital came around, Pansy was in a foul mood, and neither Draco nor Harry dared to suggest that she stay behind and wait for them to Floo her. So she stood next to them by the Floo, glaring at Harry until he sighed and picked up her emergency hospital bag and promised her on pain of death that he would come back for her as soon as he had Draco ensconced in his room.

Harry wondered how he was going to survive the day.



Harry remembered the rushing around that had happened when Hermione had given birth to Rose a year ago, so he was somewhat surprised by how calm and sedate everyone was. He’d expected more excitement, with Draco trying to break his hand as he held onto him, Harry running around panicking like Ron had been, and the entire waiting room crammed full with Weasleys and other friends and family, all waiting to hear how it was going. But apparently, a scheduled birth was very different.

A nurse had greeted them in reception and escorted them to Draco’s room, where she had then set about getting Draco ready for surgery. He’d been dressed in a hospital gown with an opening down the front and settled into bed, where he would have to wait while the potions he had been given began to take effect. Harry had just kind of followed along in a daze, Pansy hanging onto his arm as she complained bitterly about the ache in her lower back. And then all they had to do was sit and wait, until Healer Smethwyck was ready to come along and get the baby out. In less than an hour, they were going to be able to actually hold their baby.

Harry felt a little light headed.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Draco said loudly, drowning out Pansy’s grumbling. “Take her for a walk or something, will you? She’s driving me fucking insane.”

“Yes, well it’s alright for you, isn’t it? You’re not going to have to carry around all that extra weight for much longer.” Pansy glared down at her huge belly. “Merlin knows when this little ingrate is going to finally make an appearance.”

“Pansy, stop calling our baby names, how many times do we have to ask you,” Harry said long-sufferingly.

Draco reached out and grabbed Harry by the collar. “I mean it Harry. I’m about to have my stomach cut open and I’m wearing clothes made out of polyester. Get her out of here before I hex her into a million pieces.”

His eyes were narrowed in irritation, but there was a fine tremor in his fingers that told Harry that Draco was nervous more than angry. Harry nodded and leaned forward to give him a reassuring kiss.

“Come on, Pansy. Let’s go for a walk down to the cafeteria. I’ll by you a cup of tea.”

Pansy snorted. “The swill they serve here isn’t tea; it’s hot water that’s been shown a tea bag.” But she hauled herself up out of her seat, using Harry’s arm as leverage.

Harry gave Draco’s hand a quick squeeze, promising that they’d be back soon, and led Pansy on a slow walk towards the canteen. They’d got about halfway there when Pansy suddenly stopped, blood drained almost entirely from her face. “Harry,” she began, but that was as far as she got before letting out a quiet little oof! and suddenly Harry’s shoes were soaking wet.

“Pansy, what..?”

“My water just broke! Oh fuck, my water just broke!” Pansy started hyperventilating, staring down in horror at the liquid soaking through her robes and dripping steadily into a pool at her feet.

And there was the panic Harry had been expecting to feel all morning. He grabbed Pansy’s arm, pulling her over to some chairs and forcing her down into one of them. “Is it coming? Is the baby coming now?” He crouched down, arms spread out before him.

“You’re not going to have to catch it, it’s not a Quaffle for fuck’s sake,” Pansy said shrilly. “Oh, Merlin, I’m disgusting!”

“We need to find Healer Smethwyck,” Harry decided, his heart in his throat and his pulse threatening to deafen him. “Come on, let’s go back to the room.”

He half-dragged, half-carried Pansy back down the hallways, her moans about how gross she was and how much she hated the both of them for letting her do this for them a constant hissing in his ear. When they arrived back in Draco’s room, Smethwyck was already there, doing her usual spell-graphs and squinting at them scrolling through the air in front of her.

“Oh, bloody brilliant,” Draco said, as soon as he clapped eyes on Pansy. “You would steal my thunder.”

“You stole mine first!”

“Her water just broke, out in the hallway,” Harry explained to Smethwyck, who immediately left Draco’s side and came over to examine Pansy. “Is she in labour? Is the baby coming?”

“Yes, it is,” Smethwyck replied tersely. She stood up and conjured another bed next to Draco’s. Harry had a sudden feeling of foreboding.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, and Draco whipped his head up, staring at Pansy in concern.

“Nothing’s wrong, exactly,” Smethwyck said, helping Pansy into bed and casting more of her diagnostics spells. “It’s just that the baby’s head hasn’t engaged.”

“What does that mean?” Both Draco and Pansy were looking panicked, and Harry didn’t know who to go to first.

“Normally, it wouldn’t mean anything much, we’d just manipulate the baby a little, and try and make them slide down before the cord can get in the way.”

“So what’s not normal about Pansy?” Draco asked, his hand stretched out between the beds, as though he wanted to comfort his friend. Harry stepped up next to him, grabbing his hand and reaching out for Pansy’s, connecting them in a little circle.

“With Miss Parkinson’s blood-clotting issue, I’m loathe to try manipulation,” Smethwyck admitted.

“So what does that mean?” Harry felt as though he’d asked that question a hundred times.

“It means that it looks like I’ll be performing two c-sections today,” Smethwyck replied. She patted Pansy’s shoulder. “Just try to breathe evenly, Miss Parkinson, and I’ll be back in a moment.”

She left the room, and Harry was frozen in place, holding onto Draco and Pansy as though he could make sure everything would be alright as long as he held them all together tight enough. There was a long moment of silence, and then suddenly the room exploded, people in surgical gowns and gloves pouring in through the door, all talking at each other a mile a minute, about absolutely nothing that Harry could understand.

They swarmed around the two beds, and Harry was forced to let go of Draco and Pansy and back up against the wall, as the beds were lowered and screens were conjured and instructions were shouted out all around him. Smethwyck stood between the beds and cleared her throat for quiet.

“Okay, people! Mr Potter-Malfoy’s potions are in full effect, so we now have less than thirty minutes to get the baby out and Mr Potter-Malfoy put back together again before they wear off. Miss Parkinson has just been given the dosage of her potions, so I need someone to hold the cord in place until they start to set in. It’s going to have to be a quick turn-around, so that we can get to Miss Parkinson and her baby before the potions wear off, so as soon as we’re done with Mr Potter-Malfoy, you’re to re-gown and glove and move to the second patient. Except for you two,” she indicated a couple of nurses standing on Draco’s other side, “You’re to stay with Mr Potter-Malfoy until I am free to see to his post-op. Ready? Let’s get moving.”

The screens had been placed strategically enough, so that all Harry could see of Draco was his head, and his wide, grey eyes. They’d been through the procedure with Smethwyck before, so they both knew what would happen, but it was very different now that they were actually experiencing it. Logically, Harry knew that Draco would feel no pain, that the potions he had been given would numb his body from the waist downwards, as they worked to move his organs safely out of the way and made his skin temporarily thinner, so that they could get to the baby more easily. But Smethwyck was still going to have to cut into him, open him up so that she could remove the baby safely, but Harry realised that he’d never really thought of what that meant until now. Oh God,, they were going to cut Draco open. Harry inched forwards and put a shaky hand on Draco’s shoulder, thumb resting on his pulse point. He could feel it pounding fast and urgent, and it calmed Harry somewhat.

Draco turned to look at him, offering a nervous but excited smile. “Is Pansy alright?”

Harry felt a wave of guilt for momentarily forgetting, and he looked over his shoulder. A nurse was standing over her, wand held out as she kept the cord in place as directed. Pansy was flushed and sweaty, her lips pursed as she breathed through a contraction. “Pansy? Do you need anything?”

“Yes,” she said irritably, glowering at the nurse as the woman placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from squirming. “I need everyone to hurry up and get this thing out of me, because this really fucking hurts!”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, Miss Parkinson,” Smethwyck said in her usual soothing voice. “Mr Potter-Malfoy? Are you ready?”

Draco nodded, a high-pitched noise somewhere between a laugh and a whimper coming out. Harry tightened his grip.

“Let me know if you feel anything at all,” Smethwyck said, and Harry watched her lower her wand towards Draco’s bump.

Harry didn’t know where to look. He could hear Pansy’s laboured breathing, accompanied by the occasional swear word. He could see Smethwyck’s elbow moving below the sheet covering Draco’s lower half. He could feel Draco’s fast heartbeat beneath his fingers. Any moment now, they were going to become parents, and Harry thought he was going to either pass out on top of Draco or vomit on his own shoes over the enormity of what was about to happen.

“There you are,” Smethwyck murmured, and Harry craned his neck to try and see. A nurse bent down over Draco’s legs and then stood up, a tiny bundle wrapped in a towel. Harry looked down at Draco, and saw that his eyes were fixed on the man’s tiny parcel as he moved to one of the two small beds standing beside the far wall.

“Is he, or is she... Is the baby okay?” Draco asked, trying to lift his head from the pillow to see.

“Just give me a moment to close you up, Mr Potter-Malfoy, and then you can hold her,” Smethwyck said, her arms still busy at Draco’s stomach.

“It’s a she?” Draco turned shining eyes on Harry. “We have a daughter.”

“Yes, bloody congratulations, now tell me it’s my turn now,” Pansy almost shrieked from behind them.

Harry ignored her; he was too busy staring down at the tiny pink bundle he’d just been passed.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, looking down into the folds of the blanket. The little face staring back up at him was wrinkled and pink, the tiny eyebrows screwed up as the blue eyes blinked open and shut, as though confused as to how she got here. Her lips were pursed, the colour of the roses in their front garden that Narcissa had insisted they plant. Her head was covered in fuzzy dark hair, already sticking out from her scalp in a tiny imitation of Harry’s own, and one tiny pale hand was in view, teeny perfect fingers opening and closing, grasping on to nothing, until Harry slid one of his own between them. The little hand squeezed, and Harry felt his entire world shift on its axis.

“Oh thank fuck, the pain’s gone.”

“I think that means you’re ready for us, Miss Parkinson.”

“One of you bastards had better get over here and hold my hand, I’m not doing this for my own health, you know,” Pansy screeched.

Harry rolled his eyes and slowly bent down, letting Draco have his first look at their daughter. “Remind me to ban her filthy mouth from our house when we get out of here,” he murmured, gently passing the tiny bundle to his husband’s waiting arms.

“Good luck with that,” Draco whispered, but his attention had already shifted, and Harry took a moment to watch Draco have his life similarly rearranged, before giving in to Pansy’s increasingly loud shouts. It was only the thought that in a few minutes, he’d get to experience it all over again that made him turn his head away from the perfect tableau in the bed before him and focus on anything else in the room.

The screens were up by the time Harry reached Pansy’s side, Smethwyck already leaning over her bloated stomach with her wand hand steady. Harry let Pansy wrapped her perfectly manicured hand around his and he rubbed her shoulder. She was scared, Harry knew, could tell by the almost constant stream of swearwords slipping through her lips, her face screwed up and braced against the pain that she’d already been magically numbed against. He gripped her hand tighter, his thumb smoothing across her wrist as a thank you, as a promise that everything would be alright.

And then suddenly it was, because Smethwyck was pulling away and handing off another tiny bundle to a waiting nurse, and then leaning back over Pansy. Harry could just make out the sound of tiny, frail cries over the loud rushing of blood in his ears, and he felt Pansy shoving weakly at his arm.

“Oh, get over there, you’re absolutely useless at this,” she said, her tone an even mix of irritated and amused.

Harry bent down and kissed her cheek. “Thank you,” he said fervently, squeezing her shoulders tightly.

“I expect to be rewarded with lots and lots of galleons,” she replied haughtily, but she gave him a genuine smile and patted his hand. “Go and meet your son.”

“It’s a boy?”

“It’s a boy?”

Harry looked at Draco, who was craning his neck to try and see, arms still wrapped securely around their little girl.

“Yes, it’s a boy. Congratulations,” the nurse said, and Harry felt his heart thump wildly in his chest.

A boy. A son, to go with their daughter. The family that Harry had been dreaming of since before he’d truly known what family meant.

The nurse handed Harry the tightly wrapped bundle of blankets, and Harry sat down numbly on the side of Draco’s bed. Time slowed down around them as they stared down at their babies. The medical team slowly trickled out the door, Pansy was moved to her own recovery room, tiny cots were brought in and placed on either side of the bed, nurses came in and out to check on Draco and their new arrivals, and neither Draco nor Harry acknowledged any of it. Their world had reduced down to the two brand new human beings in their arms.

Harry pressed a kiss to Draco’s temple and snuggled in closer to him, the twins braced across both their legs. Nothing would ever be the same again, Harry could feel it. And he couldn’t wait to see it.



One year later...

“Right, where’s my darling little angel?”

Harry sighed as he heard Pansy calling from the hallway; he was beginning to fear that he would never be about to train her out of the favourites habit. “You’re going to give Leo a complex if you keep saying things like that,” he called back, coming out of the kitchen to meet her in the living room.

Pansy ignored him, unsurprisingly, and went straight over to the playpen, where Leo and his sister Cassie had just woken up and were trying to use each other to climb out. “It serves him right for kicking me for nine months,” she said, leaning over to give both the kids a kiss on the tops of their heads.

Pansy often said things like that, complaining to Leo how he made her have to go to the loo every five minutes, as she bounced him up and down on her knee. Despite the words, her tone was fond, and both the babies absolutely adored her. Harry thought it had to be because they’d just got used to her voice being around all the time, because he couldn’t really understand it otherwise. Or maybe they were both going to grow up to be Slytherins, and bitchiness was just something they innately responded to. Either way, as soon as Pansy showed up in their home, both of the youngest Potter-Malfoys always immediately jumped to attention, each desperate to be the first to get their hands on their Aunt Pansy.

Harry finished drying his hands on the tea towel draped over his shoulder and whacked Pansy with it. “If you’re going to keep being mean to my son, I’m going to put you to work in the kitchen.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Pansy picked Leo up, holding him in front of her like a shield.

“I assure you, he would,” Draco drawled from behind them. He walked over and kissed Pnasy on the cheek, accepting Leo from her as she bent down to pick up Cassie, Leo staring at his sister triumphantly. “It’s become his favourite punishment recently.”

“Only because you refuse to load the dishwasher.”

“I don’t like touching dirty things with my clean hands.”

“Now that’s just blatantly untrue,” Harry said with a smirk, and Draco blushed.

Pansy groaned. “Please, I’ve heard enough about your sex life to last me forever.” She bounced Cassie on her hip and walked towards the kitchen. “This is supposed to be a birthday party for your children, you gross people.”

“You do know that sex is how they got here, right?” Draco shouted after her.

“Only one of them, darling,” she said over her shoulder. “The other was a miracle supplied by me.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “As if you’d ever let us forget.”

Draco tangled his fingers with Harry’s and pulled him through the kitchen towards the back garden, where the rest of their family were already situated. As soon as Leo saw everyone, he started banging his little fists against Draco’s shoulder. “Da! Da da da da!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll put you down,” Draco mumbled, deftly avoided the tiny swinging hands and legs and depositing Leo down on the grass. He let out a happy squeal and began crawling off immediately towards his sister, who Pansy had placed at the feet of the elder Weasleys and was now being thoroughly spoiled with attention.

“They get that from you, you know,” Harry said, watching as Leo crawled right up to Cassie and tried to push her away, determined to get all the attention for himself.

“You keep telling yourself that, Mr On-the-cover-of-the-Prophet-once-a-week.”

Harry elbowed him in the ribs, smiling as Draco slid his arm around his waist. Together they stood by their open back door and looked out on the garden of their family home. Teddy was down by the swing set, his hair a bright turquoise as he pushed Victoire back and forth. Andromeda and Narcissa stood nearby, watching with indulgent smiles. Charlie and George were arguing over the barbeque, while Hermione scolded Ron for letting Rose eat too many crisps before tea. Pansy had fallen to the floor next to Blaise and Theo, and was trying to goad Blaise into giving her a foot rub. The rest of the Weasleys and their friends were scattered about, keeping lazy eyes on the rest of the children as they ran about the grass and flower beds, drinking butterbeer and gathering around the bluebell flames as they chatted, despite the temperature charm Draco had put over the entire garden earlier to make it seem like late summer. And over on Arthur and Molly’s laps, two babies bounced happily, gurgling and dribbling and giggling as they were tickled and pinched and kissed all over. Harry rested his head against Draco’s shoulder and looked at them, at Cassie’s dark hair and Leo’s blond head, the way their blue eyes shone with the kind of innocent happiness only babies could really have. Neither of them had shown any sign of the colour changing, although Draco had told Harry that his eyes had been blue until he was almost five. But Harry didn’t mind; he didn’t need matching eye colour to be able to see that his babies belonged to both him and Draco. They both had Draco’s perfectly shaped nose and Harry’s cheekbones. Their smiles looked just like Harry’s, but their devious grins were all Draco.

They were beautiful.

“Happy?” Draco asked, pressing his nose against Harry’s temple.

Harry let out a deep sigh. “Yeah,” he said. “I am.”





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