Fluffy smut for your Monday
Harry made his way to the kitchen, yawning as he went. At an unhurried pace, he poured himself a cup of orange juice and sat down, enjoying the quiet of the morning. It wasn’t often that he was the one awake first, since Hermione was the morning person of the two of them, but this morning, Hermione was still sleeping and he wasn’t about to wake her, not when he knew what Hermione’s mornings were usually like these days.
It was a few minutes before he deemed himself awake enough and went to pick up the Daily Prophet from where it waited by the fireplace. He took another drink of juice as he opened the newspaper-- and then choked, narrowly escaping spewing juice all over the paper.
The banner headline, boldly across the top of the front page, read “Harry Potter Expecting First Child?” and was accompanied by a large picture of Hermione, in profile, as she browsed through a selection of books outside of Flourish & Blotts. On the picture, the Prophet had drawn a circle around Hermione’s stomach with an arrow pointing to it.
Harry grimaced as he quickly skimmed through the article that was mostly speculation about whether Hermione was, in fact, pregnant, given the just-perceptible bump of Hermione’s stomach, noticeable when the breeze flattened Hermione’s fairly loose shirt against her body. The article made much of the fact that Harry and Hermione had been married for more than four years now and it was clearly high time for them to be expecting their first child.
Blast the Daily Prophet anyway! And really, he thought sourly, it was incredible that the wizarding world apparently had nothing more news-worthy to write about than his own personal life. He could never, for the life of him, understand this perpetual fascination about him.
The only thing that somewhat mollified him at this point was that the media had, apparently, finally learned to respect his blanket ban on talking to the press about his personal life so they had not even bothered to contact either him or Hermione about this article before printing it.
From their bedroom, he heard the sounds of footsteps and Hermione using the loo.
He sighed a little. He really did not want to have to show Hermione the article but could hardly hide it from her. But even so, he made a point of folding the newspaper up so the article was hidden before he busied himself with frying some eggs for Hermione’s breakfast.
He was very glad that Hermione had finally stopped feeling sick every morning; he’d hated seeing how pale and wan she looked in the mornings and hated knowing she felt ill. But now that the morning sickness had passed, Hermione had begun to eat.
That was, he thought, one of the biggest changes in Hermione. Hermione’s usual breakfast was a cup of tea and the occasional slice of toast. These days, Hermione’s breakfast was eggs and toast and possibly some cereal too. More surprising was the way Hermione ate throughout the day-this, in the girl who had been known to forget about meals entirely if she got too caught up in her work. Now, however, Hermione never missed a meal and, in fact, ate in between meals too. He would never say it aloud-he liked having all his bits in one piece-but there were times she reminded him of a cow grazing, not eating a lot at each sitting necessarily but just nibbling steadily.
It was a few minutes before Hermione made her way into the kitchen where he had her cup of tea and a plate of fried eggs waiting for her.
She gave him a grateful smile. “Oh, thanks, Harry. I’m famished this morning.” There was a beat of silence and then she added, with a smile that was edging into a smirk, “It’s okay, Harry. You can say it. I’m always hungry these days.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Harry protested.
“You were thinking it.”
“No, I--” Harry began, an automatic denial on the tip of his tongue, before he gave in. This was Hermione, after all. He shot her a mock-exasperated look. “Do you ever get tired of being right?”
Hermione laughed as she buttered up a slice of toast. “You know I don’t.”
“Know-it-all,” was all he said, even as he opened the jar of jam and handed it to Hermione. He wondered, idly, just how many times he’d called her a know-it-all. Thousands, maybe millions, of times by now. So many times and it had become an endearment, a private thing just between them. And he loved it. Loved her and how well she knew him that at times, he could almost swear she was telepathic.
And looking at her now, watching her as she ate, he felt a surge of emotion fill his chest and he found himself wishing-not for the first time-that the rest of the world could just leave them be, that it could only be the two of them-the two of them and their baby. It was, he thought, all he wanted in the world.
It was a testament to how hungry and distracted by the food Hermione was that it took several minutes before she asked, “Harry, what’s happened?”
Wordlessly, he handed over the Daily Prophet, watching her face carefully and noting the surprise, displeasure, and finally resignation play across her face.
“You know, it was bound to come out some time, Harry,” she reasoned.
“I suppose but, really, don’t they have anything better to talk about?” he groused.
“You should know by now that people want to know everything about you, right up to your shoe size and if you wear boxers or briefs.”
Harry felt himself color. “Hermione!”
She gave him a look of exaggerated innocence that was belied by the slight quirk at the tip of her mouth. “What? You know it’s true.”
“Did you have to put it like that?”
“Anyway, I think a large reason for it is because people want to live vicariously through us-or through me, I should say, considering the way half the female population in the wizarding world went into mourning when we got married, officially taking you off the Most Eligible Bachelor lists.”
“For which I will be forever grateful,” Harry interjected.
Hermione gave him a teasing look. “You’re not so bad to have around so I think I’ll keep you to myself. I’m just selfish that way.”
He smiled as he knew she wanted him to but answered automatically-and entirely sincerely, “You’re the least selfish person I’ve ever met.”
Her expression softened into a smile, the sort of tender smile that, for once, showed all the depth of emotion that Hermione was capable of but that only he ever saw.
“Besides,” he added quietly, “you being pregnant has nothing to do with anyone except us. I wanted it to stay that way, just between us, for a little while longer.”
“We told Ron and the other Weasleys a couple weeks ago,” she reminded him mildly.
“I know, but still. This is our baby, no one else’s, and I wanted it to stay our secret.” He added, but only in thought, just in case anything happens, with the flicker of remembered pain and stab of fear that the thought always brought. And that was really the biggest reason, the reason he was so upset over the article. He was still, in some small corner of his heart, afraid, afraid of tempting the Fates that had never seemed inclined to be kind to him as it was. But he wouldn’t say it aloud, didn’t want to remind Hermione of their loss or upset her in any way.
He realized his mistake-his stupid mistake-when he looked back at her and saw the look in her eyes. She knew. Of course she knew; she knew him too well not to understand what he meant even when he didn’t say it. They had talked about it when she’d first found out she was pregnant-again-talked about their fears both with each other and with Abby. He had been tense for the next month and more until the day Hermione had said, “I’m past the first trimester and most accidents happen in the first trimester.” (She hadn’t said the word, miscarriage; it was the most obvious indication of her own nervousness since, as a rule, Hermione would have scorned such euphemisms, just as she had been among the first to call Voldemort by his name.)
“Oh, Hermione,” he breathed, getting up so he could touch her, cupping her cheek in his hand. “Don’t look like that, love.”
She blinked and two tears spilled over her lashes, sliding down her cheeks, even as she tried to give him a wobbly smile. “I know, I’m sorry, Harry.”
Even knowing that Hermione’s tears came much more frequently these days because of her pregnancy, his heart clenched at the sight. He never had been able to stand the sight of Hermione crying. He wiped her tears away gently before he wrapped his arms around her as she leaned into him.
“It’s going to be okay, you know,” he said softly, keeping his voice steady, confident. “You know that. The chances of anything happening now are slim and Abby says you’re doing just fine. There’s nothing to worry about and everything’s entirely normal, the way things should be at this stage.”
Hermione gave a somewhat shaky laugh. “You sound like a Healer.”
“I guess I must have learned something from all these years of being married to one,” he said with a slight smile.
“It’s nice to know you were listening.” The words were teasing but the smile and the look she gave him were soft, thanking him without words for comforting her.
He kissed her forehead briefly before he returned to his seat. “Anyway,” he said, resuming the earlier subject, “I don’t see what business it is of anyone else whether we’re expecting a baby.”
“You might not understand it but the general public still cares. I’ve actually been thinking that it might be better to make an announcement confirming that we’re expecting a baby.”
He gaped at her. “You can’t be serious. You know how hard I’ve tried never to talk about our private lives in public.”
“I know, Harry, and I wasn’t saying you should make the announcement or even that I would make it, but we could have Abby release a short statement through St. Mungo’s confirming my pregnancy. Otherwise, people will keep speculating and do you really think we’re going to be able to keep this a secret when I grow to be the size of the Knight Bus?”
“Well, I was planning on having you go around wearing a box so we could keep it hidden,” he deadpanned.
She laughed. “Wearing a box will probably attract more attention than just making an announcement would.”
“You’re right. Bugger, there goes my brilliant plan.”
“We can’t avoid the publicity forever, Harry,” she said reasonably. “But the excitement will die down eventually and we may as well get it over with now.”
“Fine,” he agreed with exaggerated resignation. “Tell Abby she can release a statement sometime this week.”
“Now that wasn’t so hard to say, was it?” Hermione teased.
He grimaced. “It hasn’t actually happened yet and that will be the painful part.”
She only laughed and he had to smile. After all, what did he care about the publicity as long as he could see Hermione smile, hear her laugh, every day?
~
Harry greeted Hermione with a smile as she opened the door of their flat. “Hi, how was your day?”
She gave him a quick smile of greeting before vanishing inside her study to deposit her bag in its usual spot, reappearing a moment later to sit down beside him on the couch, resting her head briefly on his shoulder. “Hi, Harry. It was fine. Thankfully, we didn’t get any new patients today.”
“Tired?”
She gave him a somewhat wan smile. “A little.”
He turned to drop a kiss on her hair. “Well, you can rest a little while I get dinner ready,” he suggested as he stood up.
“I need to read more of that treatise I started yesterday,” she demurred, straightening up.
“All right, I’ll leave you to it,” he agreed as he went into the kitchen.
Not quite an hour later, Harry set the table with a couple flicks of his wand and then returned to the living room to get Hermione. “Hermi-” He stopped abruptly, seeing that her head had fallen back to rest on the couch.
She had fallen asleep, he saw, as she tended to do these days. The treatise she’d been reading was lying open on the couch beside her, one hand resting on it.
He knelt in front of her silently, enjoying the opportunity of watching her sleep. He loved to see her sleep, loved the way her features relaxed. Her lips were slightly parted, her cheeks softly flushed. She was so lovely, he thought for perhaps the millionth time.
His gaze fell to focus on her stomach, as it always did these days. Sitting as she was, dressed as she was, the still-small bump that was their baby-their baby!-was barely visible but it didn’t matter. He stared at it anyway, for a long moment. And then, moving very slowly, very carefully, he bent forward and lightly pressed his lips to her stomach.
He drew back to rest on his haunches and looked up to realize that her eyes were open, looking at him with a soft expression, a look of so much tenderness it caught at his heart. He managed a small smile, knowing she could see his emotion in his eyes, before he pushed himself to his feet, bending to kiss her forehead lightly. “Dinner’s ready, love.”
Grasping both her hands in his, he tugged her gently to her feet, sliding his arm around her waist when she was standing. And they went into the kitchen together.
“I talked to Abby,” she mentioned as they were eating.
Harry nodded. “So when will she make the statement?”
“Probably in the next day or so. I told her to make it very brief, no more than a few sentences, to try to discourage any wildly sensational stories.”
He made a face. “Since when has that strategy worked when it comes to our personal lives?”
“It probably won’t,” Hermione conceded, “but I also didn’t want anything else to be included like when the baby is due.”
“Right,” Harry agreed. “The shorter the better, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I was thinking more about baby names earlier,” Hermione said after a moment, changing the subject. “I was looking through some past records and came across a file for a girl named Lacey. What do you think?”
“Lacey,” Harry repeated thoughtfully. “I’m not sure… It sounds like we’re talking about a dress, not a girl.”
She grinned. “We could just name her Silk or Satin,” she quipped.
“Satin Potter. It’s perfect,” Harry said with mock gravity.
She shook her head at him in exaggerated horror and he suppressed a smirk.
“What do you think of Helen?” Hermione suggested.
He wrinkled his nose a little. “Don’t you think a third H name in the family is a little much? Besides, if he’s a boy, what would that make him-Herman?”
She snorted a laugh. “Good lord, not that! Okay, no H names,” she agreed. “What other girl names do you like?”
“I don’t really know. The name, Hermione, has grown on me,” he teased. “If we stayed with a mythological theme for the name, we could name her something like Aphrodite or Artemis.”
It was Hermione’s turn to make a face. “Oh, no, please. I like more… normal names, names that are easy to pronounce and to spell. Don’t tell my parents I said so, but I never liked my name. Before Hogwarts, kids used to tease me about my name and I swear I don’t think anyone managed to pronounce my name correctly on the first try.”
“I can’t imagine why not, Hermy-own-ninny,” Harry quipped, exaggerating the mangling of her name.
She threw her napkin at him. “Honestly, Harry!” But then she gave in and laughed. “Poor Viktor. He never did manage to say my name right, even after I spent half an hour trying to tell him how to say it.”
“Well, when you’re busy snogging, I suppose it doesn’t matter what he calls you.”
She straightened and threw him a look. “Harry Potter! What are you talking about?”
“You and Viktor and the way you spent our fourth year snogging him.”
“What?” Hermione gave him a look that suggested she thought he had gone barking mad. “Viktor kissed me exactly twice, if I remember correctly, and neither of those times were what I would call a snog.”
He blinked, forgetting the subject of names entirely. “But Ginny said in 5th year that you had told her that you and Krum had snogged.”
She frowned. “I don’t remember…” She trailed off, paused, and then began, “No, wait, I do remember telling her that now. But really, Harry, you don’t need to sound so jealous. It’s ancient history.”
“I’m not jealous,” he denied automatically-and truthfully. He wasn’t jealous, per se; he’d be an idiot to be jealous, since he knew Hermione and trusted her too much to doubt her-and after all, they had been married now for more than four years. “I just don’t like to think of you snogging other fellows,” he explained rather lamely. “Nothing like the thought of it to turn me off from food for life,” he finished with manufactured lightness.
“Honestly, Harry, you silly idiot.” She shook her head but her tone and her expression were soft enough as to make the word ‘idiot’ sound almost like an endearment more than anything else. “If you must know, when I told Ginny that, I was lying.”
He stared. “But you never lie!” Or as close to never as made no difference. Hermione was the most straightforward and honest person he’d ever met.
“You and I both know that’s not exactly true. And in this case, I lied because, well, I was embarrassed.” Hermione flushed, looking rather sheepish. “Ginny had been talking about snogging Dean and I was embarrassed because a girl who was a year younger than me had more experience snogging than I did. It was silly of me but I didn’t want to admit it and so I told her that Viktor and I had snogged, but it wasn’t true.”
“You didn’t snog Viktor Krum,” he repeated slowly, and then began to laugh. “I wish I’d known this years ago! Poor Viktor.”
She gave him a bemused look, even as she was smiling. “What are you laughing about?”
“Do you have any idea how much I disliked Viktor Krum back then?”
“You didn’t. Ron did, but he was such a jealous prat that year, anyway.”
“Oh, I didn’t much like Krum either; I was just better at hiding it than Ron was,” he admitted. “In hindsight, I think I must have been jealous too; I just didn’t know it. I didn’t bother explaining to myself why I disliked Krum, only thought you deserved better than to snog some bloke who couldn’t even be bothered to say your name right.”
She laughed. “You really are a silly idiot, Harry, but a sweet one too. And why would you have been jealous back then when you spent 4th year fancying Cho?”
“It wasn’t jealousy because I fancied you like that,” he admitted candidly. “It was jealousy because I don’t think I liked that you were paying attention to some other fellow. I think… I had just gotten so used to the idea that Ron and I were the only fellows you ever really had any time for that I didn’t much like it when we suddenly had a rival for your attention.” He shrugged, looking a little sheepish. “What can I say, I’m a selfish prat when it comes to sharing your attention.”
”Very self-centered of you,” she agreed with teasing disapproval but the smile she gave him was indulgent, belying the words. “Anyway, just when did you think I’d have had time to snog Viktor in our fourth year when I spent most of that year trying to help you with the Tri-Wizard Tournament and even when I wasn’t helping you, I was worrying about you because of the Tournament?”
He blinked at her. “I-well, I guess I never thought of that.” He paused and then added, trying to sound lightly teasing, “Come to think of it, I guess I should have known that because Krum almost told me so.” It was ridiculous to feel so touched, now, at the thought of Hermione’s worrying over him then-she had shown the depths of her loyalty and her love so much more in the years since then-and yet, he really was touched. To think that even back then, before their friendship had been truly tested and strengthened during the War, she had cared so much… And he had barely noticed, had taken her so much for granted…
She looked confused. “What are you talking about now? What did Viktor say?”
“He asked me what was going on between us. I think he was a little jealous because, as he said, you talked about me so much. I should have realized that meant you weren’t busy snogging him since he would hardly have been jealous of me if you had been.”
She shook her head a little but her smile was indulgent. “Really, Harry, it was such ancient history. I can’t believe you still remember it, let alone care what might or might not have happened between me and Viktor then.”
“I care about everything that concerns you,” he said lightly. “It’s an obsession of mine.”
She was trying not to smile, he could see, but the corners of her lips twitched upwards, betraying her. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t suggest that we name our son Viktor then,” she finally quipped.
He gave her a look of exaggerated horror. “I would rather name our son Draco.”
She made a face at him and then they were both laughing.
“I know. We should name our son Wulfric!” she gasped in between chuckles.
“No, no. Regulus Potter has a much nicer ring to it,” he managed to choke out.
She snorted. “While we’re at it, what about Severus Potter?”
“Ron would have a fit! So would I, for that matter,” he added in a somewhat calmer tone.
She grinned at him. “How lucky for you that I’d never inflict that name on my son.”
“I’ve known for a long time that I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he responded, abruptly sober again.
Her expression softened. “And I’m the luckiest woman,” she said quietly, an unusually sentimental response for her.
He reached over to squeeze her hand lightly.
“Harry,” she began after a moment, her tone a little hesitant, “what about James or Lily? Do you want to name our baby after your parents?”
He stilled, staring at her. Another James Potter or another Lily Potter… Did he want that? “I don’t know,” he finally said, slowly. “I never thought…”
“Or do you want to name our son after Sirius or Remus or Headmaster Dumbledore?” she suggested, her gaze and her tone understanding. She, of all people, knew how much Harry had grieved for them, knew how much Harry still respected the memory of Headmaster Dumbledore.
Harry was silent for a long moment, his eyes unfocused as he gazed absently at the floor, the very mention of their names bringing with it a host of memories. Did he want to name his kids after them? But then he blinked and looked back at Hermione, meeting her eyes-and somehow, he knew what his answer was.
“No. I think…” he paused, trying to articulate his thoughts. “This baby is the future. I think the baby should have his or her own name. Our kids are going to be famous from the moment they’re born just because of who we are; it’ll be hard enough for them to be seen as themselves and not just as ‘Harry Potter’s Son’ or ‘Harry Potter’s Daughter’ without adding in any expectations or comparisons that will come from naming them after someone else.”
“I think you’re right,” was all she said, but the look in her eyes and her smile said volumes. It was a look of understanding, of approval, a look that filled his chest with warmth and also had him wanting to sit up a little straighter, stand a little taller. A look that made him feel like he could actually be the hero the rest of the world thought he was.
“Anyway,” he said in a tone of manufactured lightness, “can you imagine naming a baby Albus?”
She gave him a look of utter innocence. “We could shorten it to Albie or just Al.”
He snorted. “Al Potter is worse than Albus Potter would be.”
She grinned. “Well, we agree on that.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Al Potter sounds like a perfect name,” Hermione said, feigning seriousness.
“Actually, I was thinking of naming our son Bartemius Potter,” he deadpanned.
“Bartemius Potter it is,” she agreed with a straight face.
He gave her a look of such exaggerated horror that she burst out laughing and he joined in, before he cut off her laughter with a quick, firm kiss on her lips.
“Witch,” he accused her smilingly and his tone made the word a compliment.
She smiled into his eyes, giving him one of those looks that never failed to make his breath catch in his chest, and that was the end of any conversation about names-or of anything else-for a few minutes.
~To be continued in Part 2~
It was a few minutes before he deemed himself awake enough and went to pick up the Daily Prophet from where it waited by the fireplace. He took another drink of juice as he opened the newspaper-- and then choked, narrowly escaping spewing juice all over the paper.
The banner headline, boldly across the top of the front page, read “Harry Potter Expecting First Child?” and was accompanied by a large picture of Hermione, in profile, as she browsed through a selection of books outside of Flourish & Blotts. On the picture, the Prophet had drawn a circle around Hermione’s stomach with an arrow pointing to it.
Harry grimaced as he quickly skimmed through the article that was mostly speculation about whether Hermione was, in fact, pregnant, given the just-perceptible bump of Hermione’s stomach, noticeable when the breeze flattened Hermione’s fairly loose shirt against her body. The article made much of the fact that Harry and Hermione had been married for more than four years now and it was clearly high time for them to be expecting their first child.
Blast the Daily Prophet anyway! And really, he thought sourly, it was incredible that the wizarding world apparently had nothing more news-worthy to write about than his own personal life. He could never, for the life of him, understand this perpetual fascination about him.
The only thing that somewhat mollified him at this point was that the media had, apparently, finally learned to respect his blanket ban on talking to the press about his personal life so they had not even bothered to contact either him or Hermione about this article before printing it.
From their bedroom, he heard the sounds of footsteps and Hermione using the loo.
He sighed a little. He really did not want to have to show Hermione the article but could hardly hide it from her. But even so, he made a point of folding the newspaper up so the article was hidden before he busied himself with frying some eggs for Hermione’s breakfast.
He was very glad that Hermione had finally stopped feeling sick every morning; he’d hated seeing how pale and wan she looked in the mornings and hated knowing she felt ill. But now that the morning sickness had passed, Hermione had begun to eat.
That was, he thought, one of the biggest changes in Hermione. Hermione’s usual breakfast was a cup of tea and the occasional slice of toast. These days, Hermione’s breakfast was eggs and toast and possibly some cereal too. More surprising was the way Hermione ate throughout the day-this, in the girl who had been known to forget about meals entirely if she got too caught up in her work. Now, however, Hermione never missed a meal and, in fact, ate in between meals too. He would never say it aloud-he liked having all his bits in one piece-but there were times she reminded him of a cow grazing, not eating a lot at each sitting necessarily but just nibbling steadily.
It was a few minutes before Hermione made her way into the kitchen where he had her cup of tea and a plate of fried eggs waiting for her.
She gave him a grateful smile. “Oh, thanks, Harry. I’m famished this morning.” There was a beat of silence and then she added, with a smile that was edging into a smirk, “It’s okay, Harry. You can say it. I’m always hungry these days.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Harry protested.
“You were thinking it.”
“No, I--” Harry began, an automatic denial on the tip of his tongue, before he gave in. This was Hermione, after all. He shot her a mock-exasperated look. “Do you ever get tired of being right?”
Hermione laughed as she buttered up a slice of toast. “You know I don’t.”
“Know-it-all,” was all he said, even as he opened the jar of jam and handed it to Hermione. He wondered, idly, just how many times he’d called her a know-it-all. Thousands, maybe millions, of times by now. So many times and it had become an endearment, a private thing just between them. And he loved it. Loved her and how well she knew him that at times, he could almost swear she was telepathic.
And looking at her now, watching her as she ate, he felt a surge of emotion fill his chest and he found himself wishing-not for the first time-that the rest of the world could just leave them be, that it could only be the two of them-the two of them and their baby. It was, he thought, all he wanted in the world.
It was a testament to how hungry and distracted by the food Hermione was that it took several minutes before she asked, “Harry, what’s happened?”
Wordlessly, he handed over the Daily Prophet, watching her face carefully and noting the surprise, displeasure, and finally resignation play across her face.
“You know, it was bound to come out some time, Harry,” she reasoned.
“I suppose but, really, don’t they have anything better to talk about?” he groused.
“You should know by now that people want to know everything about you, right up to your shoe size and if you wear boxers or briefs.”
Harry felt himself color. “Hermione!”
She gave him a look of exaggerated innocence that was belied by the slight quirk at the tip of her mouth. “What? You know it’s true.”
“Did you have to put it like that?”
“Anyway, I think a large reason for it is because people want to live vicariously through us-or through me, I should say, considering the way half the female population in the wizarding world went into mourning when we got married, officially taking you off the Most Eligible Bachelor lists.”
“For which I will be forever grateful,” Harry interjected.
Hermione gave him a teasing look. “You’re not so bad to have around so I think I’ll keep you to myself. I’m just selfish that way.”
He smiled as he knew she wanted him to but answered automatically-and entirely sincerely, “You’re the least selfish person I’ve ever met.”
Her expression softened into a smile, the sort of tender smile that, for once, showed all the depth of emotion that Hermione was capable of but that only he ever saw.
“Besides,” he added quietly, “you being pregnant has nothing to do with anyone except us. I wanted it to stay that way, just between us, for a little while longer.”
“We told Ron and the other Weasleys a couple weeks ago,” she reminded him mildly.
“I know, but still. This is our baby, no one else’s, and I wanted it to stay our secret.” He added, but only in thought, just in case anything happens, with the flicker of remembered pain and stab of fear that the thought always brought. And that was really the biggest reason, the reason he was so upset over the article. He was still, in some small corner of his heart, afraid, afraid of tempting the Fates that had never seemed inclined to be kind to him as it was. But he wouldn’t say it aloud, didn’t want to remind Hermione of their loss or upset her in any way.
He realized his mistake-his stupid mistake-when he looked back at her and saw the look in her eyes. She knew. Of course she knew; she knew him too well not to understand what he meant even when he didn’t say it. They had talked about it when she’d first found out she was pregnant-again-talked about their fears both with each other and with Abby. He had been tense for the next month and more until the day Hermione had said, “I’m past the first trimester and most accidents happen in the first trimester.” (She hadn’t said the word, miscarriage; it was the most obvious indication of her own nervousness since, as a rule, Hermione would have scorned such euphemisms, just as she had been among the first to call Voldemort by his name.)
“Oh, Hermione,” he breathed, getting up so he could touch her, cupping her cheek in his hand. “Don’t look like that, love.”
She blinked and two tears spilled over her lashes, sliding down her cheeks, even as she tried to give him a wobbly smile. “I know, I’m sorry, Harry.”
Even knowing that Hermione’s tears came much more frequently these days because of her pregnancy, his heart clenched at the sight. He never had been able to stand the sight of Hermione crying. He wiped her tears away gently before he wrapped his arms around her as she leaned into him.
“It’s going to be okay, you know,” he said softly, keeping his voice steady, confident. “You know that. The chances of anything happening now are slim and Abby says you’re doing just fine. There’s nothing to worry about and everything’s entirely normal, the way things should be at this stage.”
Hermione gave a somewhat shaky laugh. “You sound like a Healer.”
“I guess I must have learned something from all these years of being married to one,” he said with a slight smile.
“It’s nice to know you were listening.” The words were teasing but the smile and the look she gave him were soft, thanking him without words for comforting her.
He kissed her forehead briefly before he returned to his seat. “Anyway,” he said, resuming the earlier subject, “I don’t see what business it is of anyone else whether we’re expecting a baby.”
“You might not understand it but the general public still cares. I’ve actually been thinking that it might be better to make an announcement confirming that we’re expecting a baby.”
He gaped at her. “You can’t be serious. You know how hard I’ve tried never to talk about our private lives in public.”
“I know, Harry, and I wasn’t saying you should make the announcement or even that I would make it, but we could have Abby release a short statement through St. Mungo’s confirming my pregnancy. Otherwise, people will keep speculating and do you really think we’re going to be able to keep this a secret when I grow to be the size of the Knight Bus?”
“Well, I was planning on having you go around wearing a box so we could keep it hidden,” he deadpanned.
She laughed. “Wearing a box will probably attract more attention than just making an announcement would.”
“You’re right. Bugger, there goes my brilliant plan.”
“We can’t avoid the publicity forever, Harry,” she said reasonably. “But the excitement will die down eventually and we may as well get it over with now.”
“Fine,” he agreed with exaggerated resignation. “Tell Abby she can release a statement sometime this week.”
“Now that wasn’t so hard to say, was it?” Hermione teased.
He grimaced. “It hasn’t actually happened yet and that will be the painful part.”
She only laughed and he had to smile. After all, what did he care about the publicity as long as he could see Hermione smile, hear her laugh, every day?
~
Harry greeted Hermione with a smile as she opened the door of their flat. “Hi, how was your day?”
She gave him a quick smile of greeting before vanishing inside her study to deposit her bag in its usual spot, reappearing a moment later to sit down beside him on the couch, resting her head briefly on his shoulder. “Hi, Harry. It was fine. Thankfully, we didn’t get any new patients today.”
“Tired?”
She gave him a somewhat wan smile. “A little.”
He turned to drop a kiss on her hair. “Well, you can rest a little while I get dinner ready,” he suggested as he stood up.
“I need to read more of that treatise I started yesterday,” she demurred, straightening up.
“All right, I’ll leave you to it,” he agreed as he went into the kitchen.
Not quite an hour later, Harry set the table with a couple flicks of his wand and then returned to the living room to get Hermione. “Hermi-” He stopped abruptly, seeing that her head had fallen back to rest on the couch.
She had fallen asleep, he saw, as she tended to do these days. The treatise she’d been reading was lying open on the couch beside her, one hand resting on it.
He knelt in front of her silently, enjoying the opportunity of watching her sleep. He loved to see her sleep, loved the way her features relaxed. Her lips were slightly parted, her cheeks softly flushed. She was so lovely, he thought for perhaps the millionth time.
His gaze fell to focus on her stomach, as it always did these days. Sitting as she was, dressed as she was, the still-small bump that was their baby-their baby!-was barely visible but it didn’t matter. He stared at it anyway, for a long moment. And then, moving very slowly, very carefully, he bent forward and lightly pressed his lips to her stomach.
He drew back to rest on his haunches and looked up to realize that her eyes were open, looking at him with a soft expression, a look of so much tenderness it caught at his heart. He managed a small smile, knowing she could see his emotion in his eyes, before he pushed himself to his feet, bending to kiss her forehead lightly. “Dinner’s ready, love.”
Grasping both her hands in his, he tugged her gently to her feet, sliding his arm around her waist when she was standing. And they went into the kitchen together.
“I talked to Abby,” she mentioned as they were eating.
Harry nodded. “So when will she make the statement?”
“Probably in the next day or so. I told her to make it very brief, no more than a few sentences, to try to discourage any wildly sensational stories.”
He made a face. “Since when has that strategy worked when it comes to our personal lives?”
“It probably won’t,” Hermione conceded, “but I also didn’t want anything else to be included like when the baby is due.”
“Right,” Harry agreed. “The shorter the better, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I was thinking more about baby names earlier,” Hermione said after a moment, changing the subject. “I was looking through some past records and came across a file for a girl named Lacey. What do you think?”
“Lacey,” Harry repeated thoughtfully. “I’m not sure… It sounds like we’re talking about a dress, not a girl.”
She grinned. “We could just name her Silk or Satin,” she quipped.
“Satin Potter. It’s perfect,” Harry said with mock gravity.
She shook her head at him in exaggerated horror and he suppressed a smirk.
“What do you think of Helen?” Hermione suggested.
He wrinkled his nose a little. “Don’t you think a third H name in the family is a little much? Besides, if he’s a boy, what would that make him-Herman?”
She snorted a laugh. “Good lord, not that! Okay, no H names,” she agreed. “What other girl names do you like?”
“I don’t really know. The name, Hermione, has grown on me,” he teased. “If we stayed with a mythological theme for the name, we could name her something like Aphrodite or Artemis.”
It was Hermione’s turn to make a face. “Oh, no, please. I like more… normal names, names that are easy to pronounce and to spell. Don’t tell my parents I said so, but I never liked my name. Before Hogwarts, kids used to tease me about my name and I swear I don’t think anyone managed to pronounce my name correctly on the first try.”
“I can’t imagine why not, Hermy-own-ninny,” Harry quipped, exaggerating the mangling of her name.
She threw her napkin at him. “Honestly, Harry!” But then she gave in and laughed. “Poor Viktor. He never did manage to say my name right, even after I spent half an hour trying to tell him how to say it.”
“Well, when you’re busy snogging, I suppose it doesn’t matter what he calls you.”
She straightened and threw him a look. “Harry Potter! What are you talking about?”
“You and Viktor and the way you spent our fourth year snogging him.”
“What?” Hermione gave him a look that suggested she thought he had gone barking mad. “Viktor kissed me exactly twice, if I remember correctly, and neither of those times were what I would call a snog.”
He blinked, forgetting the subject of names entirely. “But Ginny said in 5th year that you had told her that you and Krum had snogged.”
She frowned. “I don’t remember…” She trailed off, paused, and then began, “No, wait, I do remember telling her that now. But really, Harry, you don’t need to sound so jealous. It’s ancient history.”
“I’m not jealous,” he denied automatically-and truthfully. He wasn’t jealous, per se; he’d be an idiot to be jealous, since he knew Hermione and trusted her too much to doubt her-and after all, they had been married now for more than four years. “I just don’t like to think of you snogging other fellows,” he explained rather lamely. “Nothing like the thought of it to turn me off from food for life,” he finished with manufactured lightness.
“Honestly, Harry, you silly idiot.” She shook her head but her tone and her expression were soft enough as to make the word ‘idiot’ sound almost like an endearment more than anything else. “If you must know, when I told Ginny that, I was lying.”
He stared. “But you never lie!” Or as close to never as made no difference. Hermione was the most straightforward and honest person he’d ever met.
“You and I both know that’s not exactly true. And in this case, I lied because, well, I was embarrassed.” Hermione flushed, looking rather sheepish. “Ginny had been talking about snogging Dean and I was embarrassed because a girl who was a year younger than me had more experience snogging than I did. It was silly of me but I didn’t want to admit it and so I told her that Viktor and I had snogged, but it wasn’t true.”
“You didn’t snog Viktor Krum,” he repeated slowly, and then began to laugh. “I wish I’d known this years ago! Poor Viktor.”
She gave him a bemused look, even as she was smiling. “What are you laughing about?”
“Do you have any idea how much I disliked Viktor Krum back then?”
“You didn’t. Ron did, but he was such a jealous prat that year, anyway.”
“Oh, I didn’t much like Krum either; I was just better at hiding it than Ron was,” he admitted. “In hindsight, I think I must have been jealous too; I just didn’t know it. I didn’t bother explaining to myself why I disliked Krum, only thought you deserved better than to snog some bloke who couldn’t even be bothered to say your name right.”
She laughed. “You really are a silly idiot, Harry, but a sweet one too. And why would you have been jealous back then when you spent 4th year fancying Cho?”
“It wasn’t jealousy because I fancied you like that,” he admitted candidly. “It was jealousy because I don’t think I liked that you were paying attention to some other fellow. I think… I had just gotten so used to the idea that Ron and I were the only fellows you ever really had any time for that I didn’t much like it when we suddenly had a rival for your attention.” He shrugged, looking a little sheepish. “What can I say, I’m a selfish prat when it comes to sharing your attention.”
”Very self-centered of you,” she agreed with teasing disapproval but the smile she gave him was indulgent, belying the words. “Anyway, just when did you think I’d have had time to snog Viktor in our fourth year when I spent most of that year trying to help you with the Tri-Wizard Tournament and even when I wasn’t helping you, I was worrying about you because of the Tournament?”
He blinked at her. “I-well, I guess I never thought of that.” He paused and then added, trying to sound lightly teasing, “Come to think of it, I guess I should have known that because Krum almost told me so.” It was ridiculous to feel so touched, now, at the thought of Hermione’s worrying over him then-she had shown the depths of her loyalty and her love so much more in the years since then-and yet, he really was touched. To think that even back then, before their friendship had been truly tested and strengthened during the War, she had cared so much… And he had barely noticed, had taken her so much for granted…
She looked confused. “What are you talking about now? What did Viktor say?”
“He asked me what was going on between us. I think he was a little jealous because, as he said, you talked about me so much. I should have realized that meant you weren’t busy snogging him since he would hardly have been jealous of me if you had been.”
She shook her head a little but her smile was indulgent. “Really, Harry, it was such ancient history. I can’t believe you still remember it, let alone care what might or might not have happened between me and Viktor then.”
“I care about everything that concerns you,” he said lightly. “It’s an obsession of mine.”
She was trying not to smile, he could see, but the corners of her lips twitched upwards, betraying her. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t suggest that we name our son Viktor then,” she finally quipped.
He gave her a look of exaggerated horror. “I would rather name our son Draco.”
She made a face at him and then they were both laughing.
“I know. We should name our son Wulfric!” she gasped in between chuckles.
“No, no. Regulus Potter has a much nicer ring to it,” he managed to choke out.
She snorted. “While we’re at it, what about Severus Potter?”
“Ron would have a fit! So would I, for that matter,” he added in a somewhat calmer tone.
She grinned at him. “How lucky for you that I’d never inflict that name on my son.”
“I’ve known for a long time that I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he responded, abruptly sober again.
Her expression softened. “And I’m the luckiest woman,” she said quietly, an unusually sentimental response for her.
He reached over to squeeze her hand lightly.
“Harry,” she began after a moment, her tone a little hesitant, “what about James or Lily? Do you want to name our baby after your parents?”
He stilled, staring at her. Another James Potter or another Lily Potter… Did he want that? “I don’t know,” he finally said, slowly. “I never thought…”
“Or do you want to name our son after Sirius or Remus or Headmaster Dumbledore?” she suggested, her gaze and her tone understanding. She, of all people, knew how much Harry had grieved for them, knew how much Harry still respected the memory of Headmaster Dumbledore.
Harry was silent for a long moment, his eyes unfocused as he gazed absently at the floor, the very mention of their names bringing with it a host of memories. Did he want to name his kids after them? But then he blinked and looked back at Hermione, meeting her eyes-and somehow, he knew what his answer was.
“No. I think…” he paused, trying to articulate his thoughts. “This baby is the future. I think the baby should have his or her own name. Our kids are going to be famous from the moment they’re born just because of who we are; it’ll be hard enough for them to be seen as themselves and not just as ‘Harry Potter’s Son’ or ‘Harry Potter’s Daughter’ without adding in any expectations or comparisons that will come from naming them after someone else.”
“I think you’re right,” was all she said, but the look in her eyes and her smile said volumes. It was a look of understanding, of approval, a look that filled his chest with warmth and also had him wanting to sit up a little straighter, stand a little taller. A look that made him feel like he could actually be the hero the rest of the world thought he was.
“Anyway,” he said in a tone of manufactured lightness, “can you imagine naming a baby Albus?”
She gave him a look of utter innocence. “We could shorten it to Albie or just Al.”
He snorted. “Al Potter is worse than Albus Potter would be.”
She grinned. “Well, we agree on that.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Al Potter sounds like a perfect name,” Hermione said, feigning seriousness.
“Actually, I was thinking of naming our son Bartemius Potter,” he deadpanned.
“Bartemius Potter it is,” she agreed with a straight face.
He gave her a look of such exaggerated horror that she burst out laughing and he joined in, before he cut off her laughter with a quick, firm kiss on her lips.
“Witch,” he accused her smilingly and his tone made the word a compliment.
She smiled into his eyes, giving him one of those looks that never failed to make his breath catch in his chest, and that was the end of any conversation about names-or of anything else-for a few minutes.
~To be continued in Part 2~