HD INSPIRATION FOR DACRO
Author: ravenpan
Recipient: Dacro
Title: To Create A Life (Part 1 of 2)
Pairing(s): H/D
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry’s never been good about listening when someone tells him ‘no’.
Warnings (if any): some PTSD, mpreg
Total word count: 10357
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author’s notes: This story was really fun to write, and though I couldn’t get in all the things I’d wanted to, I do hope you’ll enjoy it! Many thanks to both my betas and the anonymous beta that went over this before it was posted to the comm, as well! :)
Betas: todd-fan & bluemchenblatt
To Create A Life (Part 1 of 2)
---
25 August 2007
---
I did Confund him.... So that’s little Scorpius.... I can’t give a professor love!.... You said they were invisible!.... What if I’m in Slytherin?.... Why are they all staring?.... I’m extremely famous.... He’ll be all right.... I know he-
The shrill whistle of a train had Harry Potter falling out of his bed in the modest room he had taken in the Leaky Cauldron, once again. Ironically enough, it was the same room that had housed him prior to his third year at Hogwarts.
Not that it mattered. What mattered was that his heart was racing and he could barely breathe. It was the matter of a few minutes work to get him untangled from the winding sheets, finally kicked off and leaving him cold on the wood floor, still startled enough from the dream to not have the strength to stand.
Or, perhaps, it was the massive hangover that was shattering his skull.
The whistle sounded again, and everything started to snap back into focus - more or less. The train. That wasn’t real, it couldn’t be.
....Right?
If there was one thing Harry’d learned at the end of the war, it was that there were times that everything seemed to be one way, when in fact it often was quite another.
He had to find out for sure.
Harry grabbed the packet of international Floo powder (for emergencies, really) from the bed stand and crawled over to the fireplace, tossing it in. “Amour-Hotel-Residence-Prague-Suite-Eleventy-One!” He shouted in a rush before he stuck his head into the blue-green flames. Which really wasn’t one of his better ideas, as the spinning sensation only made his headache worse, and he would never hear the end of it if he threw up at the other side.
When he finally opened his eyes on the other end (one of the handful of wizarding-only rooms in the converted Grömling Palace) it was to see... well, only the dim flames of his appeared head flickering in the darkened room, and one pale arm flung over the side of the bed. “Are you awake? You should be awake. WAKE UP!”
There was a sleepy groan and a ruffled blond head raised up from where it had been (nearly) face-down on the bed. “Bwah... Potter?”
“Yes, It’s me! Are you awake now?”
Grey eyes blinked blearily. “‘Zit an’mergency?” One hand pawed at the nightstand to retrieve the fob watch sitting there, but when it fell to the floor he stopped his attempts to get it, laying back down. “It’s bloody early o’clock, what kind of ‘mergencies ‘appen tha’ early?”
“I had a dream, I... had to make sure it wasn’t true.”
The blond seemed finally to admit to himself that he was not going to get back to sleep any time soon, not with his bull-headed husband in the Floo. “Your dreams stopped making sense,” he said, turning on his side so he could see him but not have to get out from under the wonderful duck-down coverlet, “about ten years ago.... Why are you waking me up at Too Bloody Early O’clock?”
“It was that one again.”
“You already know it’s not real, now go back to sleep, I’m tired.”
Harry watched him huddle more beneath his covers. “It was different.”
“Please tell me Mrs. Weasel managed NOT to give her son a ridiculous name this time.”
“Well... no, but you were balding!”
“See?” he yawned, “An absolute nightmare. As though I’d ever allow myself to go balding.”
“Draco!”
“Mpfh. Can we go over this when I’m conscious?”
“You’re conscious now, and I’m hung over, now’s the perfect time to go over this - are you seeing some woman who’s blond and snooty looking out there in Prague?”
“No, I’m seeing my husband with a nightmare complex about perfectly normal, if repulsive, lives - who’s got messy hair, and is Keeping Me Awake,” Draco whined, grabbing a pillow and covering his head.
“DRACO!”
“GO TO SLEEP HARRY!” Draco threw the pillow toward the fireplace, but missed it by inches.
“Why are you in Prague?”
...
“Draco?”
...
“DRACO!”
“GAH! WHAT NOW?!”
“Why are you in Prague?”
He ran his hand down his face and covered his mouth as he yawned before answering. “Looking into reports that some of the artifacts in the Jewish Museum are actually Kabbalistic texts with a masking charm to look like Holy Scriptures - or some such nonsense.” He yawned again then looked at Harry, “Remember? ‘Muggles shouldn’t play with these things’? All we need is some curious Muggle-born child on a school trip seeing them for what they are, and - I don’t know - blow the place up like Finnigan’s Demolitions or something when they try to sound out what it says.”
“That wouldn’t happen,” Harry protested.
“No probably not, but I’m supposed to look and make sure it’s just people being idiots again, and not actually real. Can I go to sleep now?” Draco whined.
“When are you coming home again?”
“I told you when I found out I was going. And whilst I was packing. And as I left.”
“I know,” Harry sneezed and the flames brightened a moment, “I just want to make sure what I remember and what’s real is the same thing.”
“Are you still on about that rubbish dream?”
“Please, Draco.”
“By Friday at the latest.”
Harry sighed in relief. Okay, perhaps the dream wasn’t real, or going to become real, or anything like that. “I love you.”
“Goodnight.” Draco flopped down on his stomach again, sprawling.
“Goodnight,” Harry sighed and started to leave the Floo-call, but just before he completely disappeared from his head in Prague and his body in London, he heard Draco’s reply.
“I love you, too.”
---
1 September 2007
---
“I’m home!” Draco called as he entered Grimmauld Place, setting his cloak on the hall tree and leaving his trunk for Kreacher to take care of. “POTTER!”
With no reply, he frowned. He was only a day late, surely he wasn’t in that much trouble. Granted, his husband had been acting rather more squirrelly than usual lately - but it came and went. Harry always had been just slightly off since the war - but it was incredibly endearing and quite probably a good amount of the reason they ended up together (finally) in the first place.
That was neither here nor there, however, as apparently there was absolutely No One at home. Not even Kreacher. Which was very wrong. Draco frowned and began searching the house - perhaps Harry was asleep somewhere? - but came up with nothing... until he made his way down to the kitchen and found a note, written on a scrap of parchment, sitting atop the table.
31 August
Draco, where were you?
Can’t stay and wait - will be home soon.
I think.
~Harry
The handwriting was messier than usual, and the note was dated the day before. Draco frowned and stuffed the note in his pocket, turning on his heel and throwing powder into the fireplace. “MINISTRY” he shouted, stepping in and whirling away.
Once he arrived, Draco quickly had his wand weighed before stalking up to the Auror Department. “WEASLEY!” He shouted as he made his way to the shared head office.
The door opened once he reached it, and Draco pushed through, slamming it shut behind him and glaring at Ron Weasley, co-head-Auror, who was still sitting at his desk and pretending to ignore him.
Draco cleared his throat.
“What do you want?” Ron asked, not looking up and turning another page in the file he was going over.
“Where’s Potter?”
“How about you tell me why you still call him that?”
“I have my reasons.”
“You’ve been married for several years.”
“Where is he, or I swear to Merlin, I will skin you alive,” Draco ground out.
“Someone’s taken his Drama Draught today,” Ron replied, looking up. The second he heard Malfoy bellowing, he’d taking a calming potion - it wouldn’t do to get into a big fight at work. “I don’t know where Harry is, he Owled me yesterday saying something’d come up, and would I cover his shift this weekend.”
“He gave no clue to where he was going?”
“None.”
“Are you lying?” Draco asked, scowling.
Ron did look up then, setting down the parchments. “Listen. I can’t stand you, you can’t stand me - it’s been going on for almost twenty years and it’s not going to change any time soon. However-” he held up a hand to stop Draco from interrupting, then continued, “However, for some reason unknown even to centaurs, Harry loves you - so I’ll do what I can not to piss him off; which unfortunately includes being civil to you.”
Draco crossed his arms and grumbled assent.
“So. Go home and wait for him to show up, okay? Okay, goodbye Malfoy.”
“If you hear from him, you will contact me immediately.”
“May I remind you who’s the boss here?”
“Just do it!” Draco turned and left, slamming the door behind himself as he stalked back out of the Ministry (gathering up his wand on the way), and Floo’d home.
---
“That isn’t possible.”
“I am afraid it is very well possible, Mister Potter - surely you believe, if you have come so very far to verify a rumour?”
Harry was up and pacing at that point. “Let’s pretend I actually do believe the rumour, and what you’ve told me - how would I go about doing this... impossible thing.”
“The one who is to bear, is to take this potion,” one gnarled hand set a ceramic jar on the table, “and speak this spell,” a sheet of parchment was set beside it.
Harry almost pounced on the parchment, eyes skimming across the letters. “This is gibberish.”
“No, it is Parseltongue.”
Harry’s face fell, “I... can’t speak that anymore, I don’t understand it.”
“One does not need to understand things, in order to imitate sounds and syllables. It is not only the charmers who can use this.”
“And... if I drink the potion and say what you’ve got written here, I’ll get-”
“Precisely. The result will last for a month. That will be twenty-six Galleons.”
“If this doesn’t work, I’m going to get my money back, right?”
“Certainly, Affendi.”
“But why is it in Parseltongue?” Harry asked, running a hand through his hair, even as he folded the parchment and put it in his pocket.
“Sibilant language is far more... encouraging of the process.”
Harry nodded sharply, threw twenty-six gold coins onto the table, and took the ceramic flask with him as he Apparated to the international Floo-house.
---
There was the sound of a crack of Apparition on the doorstep, and Draco practically threw the door off the hinges as he pulled it open.
Harry looked up with a befuddled smile. “Oh, you’re home!”
“OF COURSE I’M HOME!” Draco yelled at him, before pulling him inside and slamming the door shut, then Harry up against it. “Where. Were. You.” It wasn’t a question, it was a demand for answers.
“Out?”
“You don’t sound very sure of that.”
Harry chewed on his lip, and Draco couldn’t help the bit of melting feeling he got at that. “I... was out.”
“Out where?”
“...Of the country.”
“WHY!?!” Draco shouted at him. “You could have been anywhere, you could be lying dead in an alley and we wouldn’t know the first place to look for you because you didn’t even bother telling anyone WHERE you were GOING!” As he spoke, Draco’s hands kept grasping Harry’s shoulders, then running along his cheeks before up into the messy dark hair before falling to his shoulders and repeating the process, making sure he was home. Alive. Harry opened his mouth, surely to give an excuse, and Draco went on. “No, a hastily scribbled note is NOT telling me where you’d gone!”
“You were late.”
“I had trouble at Customs, I was only off by half a day!”
“So, what do you think about kids?”
That derailed him. Draco blinked at his husband as though he’d grown another head, which he may well have done. “What? What do children have to do with your-”
“I was in Kashmir, actually.”
“Kashmir.”
“Seeing an old witch there.”
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose then dropped his hands to Harry’s arms and his forehead against the scarred one before him. “Harry... whatever possessed you to go to Kashmir to see some old crone?” he asked quietly.
“Well, you know those nightmares I’ve been hav-”
“Not that again, I told you they’re just weird dreams built by your considerably addled subconscious.” Draco pulled away and pulled Harry’s cloak off his shoulders, tossing it onto a hook and dragging him further into the house. “I’m not going to go bald, and you’re not going to have a million children with the She-Weasel, can we just NOT talk about that stupid dream for ONE DAY?”
“But, well, it got me to thinking.”
“Always incredibly dangerous.”
“Shuttup,” Harry replied, pushing Draco down into his chair then slipping into his lap in that infuriating way that was usually a precursor to wanting something. “As I was saying, before you interrupted me, that nightmare got me to thinking.”
Harry set his glasses on the side-table and... there it was, Harry’s head on his shoulder, forcing Draco to look at him from close quarters and absolutely drowning him in open hopeful green. “About what?” Draco asked, wetting his lower lip with the tip of his tongue.
“Children....”
“No,” Draco said bluntly. “We can’t adopt, Harry - you KNOW this.”
“Why not?” Harry didn’t raise his voice, but softened his tone further, forcing Draco to listen closely if he wanted to hear what was being said. Except he didn’t. “We could... I don’t know, adopt or... something.”
“Harry, we can’t adopt. We spend little enough time home as it is, with your Auroring and my work with the Department for the Preservation of Magical Artifacts, there’s no way we could raise any children. Besides, I like things as they are. Just you. And Me. And being able to shag wherever we want, whenever we want.”
“Provided we’re both home,” Harry sighed.
“Provided we’re both home,” Draco agreed. “All those adoptable orphans you seem to be thinking about will find nice homes with good steady families, hm? Now stop this children nonsense, okay?”
Draco didn’t notice the mischievous sparkle in Harry’s eye. If he did, he likely attributed it to the seduction that followed almost immediately.
---
21 September 2007
---
It was Friday, and Draco wasn’t home. Again. This time, apparently, there was an urn from the ancient Persian kingdom that had apparently belonged to a water Mage. In the wrong hands the Middle East could be flooded.... or become more of a desert than parts of it already were.
At least, that’s what Draco told him. As far as Harry knew, Draco was off knocking back Seabreezes with Zabini in Madrid.
His husband being away on business again wasn’t so horrible a thing, however. Not long after he’d gotten home, Harry’d hidden the ceramic jar in a corner of the cellar (warning Kreacher not to touch it) and the parchment of Parseltongue-spell hidden between the pages seven seventy-seven and seven seventy-eight of Hogwarts, A History, which sat still dusty on the top shelf in a far and mostly unused part of the library at Grimmauld Place.
He’d checked on them daily - either while Draco was showering or still asleep - going over again in his mind the reasons he might want to try this fool’s errand. It likely wouldn’t work anyhow - the best he could hope for was not to be poisoned or grow a set of horns - but still....
With Draco gone and not likely to return until late, and it was only mid morning, Harry’d taken both out and sat them on the table down in the kitchen. He sat before them, arms crossed on the table and chin rested upon them, staring at them both. Whether he was psyching himself up, or trying to talk himself out of a decision already made a few weeks ago, he didn’t know.
Neither did Kreacher. “Does Master need something from Kreacher, sir? Kreacher can make you some nice stew.”
“No thanks, busy having an empty stomach,” he replied, glancing at the elf before looking at the jar again.
“If Kreacher might be so bold... might Master perhaps tell Kreacher what he is doing? Kreacher can sense strong magic in that jar. Magic Master probably ought not be playing with.”
Harry’s head shot off his folded arms. “You can sense magic in the jar?” he asked.
“Yes, strong magics, Master. Magics what can change things. Master should not be playing with changing magics.”
“Can you tell what sort of changing magics they are?” Harry asked earnestly. “Please, Kreacher, I need to know.”
The house-elf shook his head, ears flopping. “Kreacher does not know what kind of changings the magics want to make. Only that they want to change things that ought never be changed, Master. Let Kreacher take it away.”
When he reached for the urn, Harry batted the gnarled long-fingered hands away from it. “Don’t touch it, Kreacher.”
The elf looked at Harry with huge, sad eyes. “Master is wanting the changing magics?” he wrung his hands. “But Master should not use changing magics. Not foreign strange strong changing magics.”
Harry’s mind was made up, however. If what Kreacher sensed was true, then perhaps it really might do what the old crone had said it would? It was more than worth the chance. He needed to take that chance. There was a desperation in his heart for a family. A real family - something he’d never had. Sure, the Weasleys had all but adopted him, even after he and Ginny had broken up, and Draco was definitely a lot of family all on his own - but....
To have a child. One that was not only his own, but Draco’s as well - something unequivocally tying them together. Someone they created together - whom they could love and raise the way they each wish they’d been. To give him or her the childhood neither was able to have.
Well worth the chance.
“Kreacher, you will not speak of this jar or parchment. I want your word that you won’t tell anyone, especially Draco, about their existence, about what you felt in the magics, and that I’ve done what I’m about to do.”
“But Master-”
“Swear it!”
Kreacher tugged on his ears hard.
“Swear it to me, Kreacher!”
The house-elf moaned and banged his head into the table once. “Kreacher promises,” he said.
“Thank you,” Harry said, ignoring the elf as he hovered, grasping the jar and wrenching out the tightly-stoppered lid.
A deep blood-coloured mist rose out from it, curling in the air then falling back into the jar before curling upward again. Harry looked at it mesmerised for a moment. It was like... it was almost like watching blood turn to steam then change its mind all over again. He shook that thought from his head. Why shouldn’t it remind him of blood? It was a potion designed to do... something that would allow him to have a child of his own. To carry on his and Draco’s dying bloodlines and entwine them.
“Cheers,” he said, his eyes as intense with purpose as they had been so many years ago as he walked into the Forbidden Forest, his family at his side.
Kreacher whimpered as Harry drank the whole thing down without pause then set the jar down with trembling hands and reaching for the parchment. Squinting, Harry read the transliteration of the spell to activate the potion. There was no going back now.
“Saiahasashee Saiaheth sashethai saeyihen sashethay sashethay yatheshas nehiyeas iatheshas thehaias eeshasahaias. Thuathasashee.”
Harry waited for something to happen, but nothing seemed to. He sighed, setting down the parchment. “Ah well. Kreacher, if you could get rid of these for me?”
“Yes, Master,” Kreacher said, snapping his fingers and disappearing to dispose of spell and tainted jar.
Harry pushed away from the table and headed toward the door. His heart felt heavy with defeat - his one chance ended up being nothing but--
Torturous pain. Cruciatus had nothing on this! He fell screaming to the floor, feeling as though a Thestral was making a meal of his stomach, rooting around inside to get every last scrap of entrails with its meat. He curled around his stomach and sobbed in the bare moment he had before it began again. He could feel long-fingered cold hands touching his face as he screamed... before everything went black.
---
When Draco arrived home late that night, it was to a dimmed, sleepy house. The lamps were dimmed, leading a path upstairs to the bedroom he shared with his husband. Kreacher appeared briefly to take his coat and said nothing, like a good house-elf should, before disappearing with his bag as well, taking it to the laundry.
He was exhausted, every step made his legs feel as though giving out was a very real (and preferable) option. He leaned heavily on the rail as he reached the first landing, stretching his back a bit before plodding gracefully (he was a Malfoy, after all) up to the second floor.
When he entered the bedroom, he turned up the light enough to see a bit better by, to undress and climb into bed. He’d already gotten down to his shorts, and was pulling off his socks, when he looked to the bed itself. In it lay Harry, who seemed a bit pale and sweaty, fast asleep. Draco frowned and moved to sit on the edge of the bed, pressing the back of his hand against his husband’s forehead.
It was a bit warmer than normal, but nothing to worry about. He smiled tiredly, pushing Harry’s hair back out of his eyes.
Which opened as Harry gave a sleepy smile. “Welcome home.”
Draco chuckled and leaned down to kiss him hello. “You’re dead tired, aren’t you?”
“Mmm yes, feel like I got trampled by a herd of Thestrals.”
“Poor baby,” Draco rolled his eyes. “I’m exhausted and feel like I was attacked by a herd of Thestrals AND a flock of hippogriffs.”
“You and hippogriffs,” Harry chuckled, letting a pained sound pass his lips as he yawned, pushing himself to sit up. He watched him let his eyes travel over his tired self. “Change your name to John recently?”
“Pardon?” Draco’s eyebrows shot up. “Why would I change my name to something so plebeian?”
“One sock off and one sock on, deedle deedle dumpling, my son John,” Harry yawned and grinned sleepily. “Muggle rhyme.”
“Ridiculous,” Draco said. “Budge over, you’re on my side of the bed.”
Once Harry’d done so enough that Draco could get in and snuggle up, the lights went out.
“Glad you’re home.”
“Me too.”
Neither were quite sure who’d said which.
---
22 September 2007
---
Dawn wasn’t even a twinkle in the sky’s eye when a pale, long-fingered hand stroked lightly muscled back. Harry lay prone and turned his head to the side, opening one eye to peer through a messy fringe at the owner of that hand, and yawned.
“Oh, now that’s romantic,” Draco quipped, running that oh so comfy hand down his back again. Harry still ached like he’d gotten into a wrestling match with a dragon and sank further into the bed and closed his eyes, squirming.
“Just keep doing that... ‘specially my lower back?”
“I’m the one who’s been away at work all week, and you’re the one who gets the massage?” Draco asked, spelling the fire to burn higher, filling the room with warmth as he pulled down the covers and straddled Harry’s hips, fingers now dancing up his sides.
Harry squirmed, muffling a laugh into his pillow, “stop, that tickles.”
“Make up your mind,” Draco said, leaning forward and swatting Harry’s hair, and making Harry very suddenly aware of how naked they both were. “‘Just keep doing that’, ‘stop, that tickles’ - if I’d wanted an indecisive woman, I’d have married Pansy.” It was an old comment between them, and Harry couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t tell me I’m tickling you again, Potter,” Draco said, rubbing out the knot of muscle he found.
The only coherent response he could make was a low groan.
---
Draco smiled as he worked the tense knots out of Harry’s back, satisfied that the other man became nearly boneless as he did so. It was one of his favourite things about him, how he simply melted at his touch. It made Draco feel in control, something he was always desperate for. He knew Harry was as well, but perhaps in this they’d developed an unspoken agreement (after years of loudly spoken disagreements) that he could be in as much control as he liked... in the bedroom.
Harry said once that it was the one place he felt comfortable enough to let go.
He shifted to sit on the back of Harry’s thighs, his hands working on the once-Gryffindor’s lower back, straying down to the swell of his arse on occasion.
“Tease.”
Draco chuckled, slapping his arse gently, “You know you love it.”
“Love you,” Harry groaned, shifting a little.
Draco’s hands wandered over the light dimples of Harry’s arse, stroking along it before slipping his thumb along the crack. He smiled at the groan that got and slowly shifted off Harry, turning him over and kissing him languidly.
Harry arched into him, his blunt fingers grasping into his hair, and Draco ran his hand along his body in response. Their tongues tangled slowly, unheeding of morning breath as they gave themselves over to sensual passion.
Draco loved the way Harry would respond to him. The soft moans and whimpers that left his husband’s throat as he trailed his tongue over his body, searching out secret places to lick, and suck, and nibble. The soft gasp he could always coax from his throat as he breached him first with tongue, then finger, then....
He loved the way Harry would arch, messy hair on the pillow beneath him, tossing his head slightly as he lifted his hips to meet him fully on that first thrust; eyes closed and mouth open in bliss as he bared his throat with a sigh that went straight to Draco’s heart.
He loved the play of muscle beneath his skin, stroking his fingers along any he could reach. He well knew he was married to the most gorgeous man in existence, the most maddeningly layered, complicated, amazing man alive.
It wasn’t about reaching completion anymore; though that heart skipping, breath stopping bliss was always beyond amazing. It was about the sounds he could coax from Harry, the movements, the erasure of worry from the lines around his eyes when they were closed, and the devotion they turned on him when they opened at that last moment.
Drowning him with intent green as surely as they drowned in each other in rapture.
And Love.
---
30 October 2007
---
“So... how did you know when, erm, you were pregnant. With Rosie?” Harry asked, motioning to the baby just fallen asleep on his best friend’s shoulder.
“Oh, Harry,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “That’s an awfully odd question to be asking. Any reason?”
“Well, erm... No reason, just,” Harry coughed and re-crossed his legs, “curious?”
“You don’t know whether you’re curious or not?”
“I, erm, I mean-”
“Right,” Hermione got her ‘teaching’ face on. “Harry, I’m sure you know that Girls, every month, bl-”
“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THAT!!!”
She laughed, “You asked about that.”
“I did not!” he replied quickly. “I just... I wanted to know how you knew you were pregnant! Isn’t there-” Harry waved a hand expressively, “some other way you knew. That doesn’t involve blood?!” When Hermione was too busy laughing, stifling it so as not to wake her daughter, he folded his arms and glared.
A few more minutes passed before she was able to calm herself. “Oh... You,” she shook her head, “you’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Well spotted.”
“Oh Harry,” she shook her head. “You didn’t....”
“NO!”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Erm... I just- I was curious.”
“There must be a reason.”
“It’s a secret reason?” Harry tried.
“Harry.”
“Please, Hermione - just... are there ways other than that, that no blood thing, to tell if someone’s pregnant?”
“It depends on how far along they are. Right away there’s a little fever, not much, but the temperature’s higher than normal - and erm... well, if it’s further along, there’s morning sickness, and showing and kicking-”
“I don’t think they’re that far along yet. Maybe only, like, a month or something.”
“Okay, since you’re being all ‘Secret Agent Man’ about this, Harry - I can only help you so much. Do you know when they had the sex that might have gotten them pregnant?”
“September twenty-first... or second.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, “They’d only be about six or seven weeks along, then - there’s not much other than the temperature thing. Morning sickness will probably kick in soon, but not all women get it. Harry, if you’ve done something, you really need to talk to Draco and tell him. The longer you keep something like this a secret... Harry, it could ruin your marriage.”
“I’m not ruining any marriage!”
“If you’ve gotten someone pregnant-”
“I DIDN’T GET ANYONE PREGNANT!” Harry shouted.
“Good to know, mate - don’t fancy seeing Malfoy with a bun in, he’d be impossible.”
“What?” Harry looked at Ron, who was standing in the doorway munching on a sticky bun, like he’d grown another head. “How the hell would I get Malfoy pregnant? He’s a man, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Ferret,” Ron muttered.
“And he has a penis. People can’t get pregnant when they’ve got a penis, Ron,” Hermione chided.
Ron sniggered.
“Stop laughing,” Harry sat up and looked at his other best friend closely. “You know something, don’t you?”
“Ron?” Hermione just looked at him. “What is it?”
“Sometimes I still forget you two grew up Muggles,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Wizards can get pregnant. Takes some magic, and they don’t really do that here anymore, but there’s some other countries they still do occasionally - keep up the population and all that, especially if there aren’t enough witches around.”
“So it’s a pure-blood thing?” Hermione asked frowning.
“Yeah - Most anyone who’s not a pure-blood, or doesn’t have a pure-blood parent, won’t have heard of it. It’s really risky - not banned here, but might as well be. I think if a man showed up pregnant, there’d be a definite uproar. So, whatever you’re thinking,” he looked at Harry, his blue gaze piercing for the moment, “Don’t. You get Malfoy pregnant, and there’ll be hell to pay. That branch of pure-bloods-” he stopped and shook his head.
“What. What do you mean, that branch. Malfoy? Black? What, Ron?” Harry asked intently.
Ron just shook his head again and left the room.
There was silence for several minutes, contemplative silence, before Hermione spoke. “Well, I guess you still learn something new every day.”
“What did he mean by what he was saying, Hermione.”
“I’m not a mind reader - but I’d listen to him. I know how much you want a family, Harry - but don’t go to one of those undeveloped countries to get some odd man-pregnancy-mojo. It’s too dangerous.”
---
When Harry returned from visiting the Weasels, Draco was sure there was something wrong. For one thing, he never looked this pensive. For another, he hadn’t called that he was home, nor did he look up as he put his cloak on a hook in the hallway.
Nor did he see him. That would not do. Draco cleared his throat and waited for Harry to acknowledge him.
That was new. The green eyes that were turned on him were filled with both hope and fear.
“What did you do?” Draco asked, holding an arm out for Harry to come to him.
“Did... you know it was possible for male wizards to get pregnant?” Harry asked as he entwined his fingers with the ones stretched toward him.
Draco closed his eyes and sighed, clasping the hand entangled with his and pulling Harry forward. “It’s incredibly dangerous, and done next-to-never anymore. There’s no need to, not really. No Harry.”
“I didn’t even ask anything!”
“I know what you were going to ask, and the answer is no. I don’t know who told you this, you shouldn’t know, you’re only a half-blood-”
Harry tore himself away and Draco was faced with two furious green eyes. “Only a half-blood?” Harry asked. “Is that what you think of me? Even after all this time?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You’re the one who said it!”
“Then stop taking things out of context. What I meant was that it’s a pure-blood secret.”
“Oh, well that’s alright then,” Harry waved his hand, “Don’t mind me, I’m not pedigree!”
Draco pushed Harry up against the wall and proceeded to snog the ire right out of him. Thankfully it worked. He knew the moment it had, because Harry’s flailing hands were now firmly grasped in his hair, and he was making those wonderful little sounds that always sent Draco’s blood rushing.
Part 2
Recipient: Dacro
Title: To Create A Life (Part 1 of 2)
Pairing(s): H/D
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry’s never been good about listening when someone tells him ‘no’.
Warnings (if any): some PTSD, mpreg
Total word count: 10357
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author’s notes: This story was really fun to write, and though I couldn’t get in all the things I’d wanted to, I do hope you’ll enjoy it! Many thanks to both my betas and the anonymous beta that went over this before it was posted to the comm, as well! :)
Betas: todd-fan & bluemchenblatt
To Create A Life (Part 1 of 2)
---
25 August 2007
---
I did Confund him.... So that’s little Scorpius.... I can’t give a professor love!.... You said they were invisible!.... What if I’m in Slytherin?.... Why are they all staring?.... I’m extremely famous.... He’ll be all right.... I know he-
The shrill whistle of a train had Harry Potter falling out of his bed in the modest room he had taken in the Leaky Cauldron, once again. Ironically enough, it was the same room that had housed him prior to his third year at Hogwarts.
Not that it mattered. What mattered was that his heart was racing and he could barely breathe. It was the matter of a few minutes work to get him untangled from the winding sheets, finally kicked off and leaving him cold on the wood floor, still startled enough from the dream to not have the strength to stand.
Or, perhaps, it was the massive hangover that was shattering his skull.
The whistle sounded again, and everything started to snap back into focus - more or less. The train. That wasn’t real, it couldn’t be.
....Right?
If there was one thing Harry’d learned at the end of the war, it was that there were times that everything seemed to be one way, when in fact it often was quite another.
He had to find out for sure.
Harry grabbed the packet of international Floo powder (for emergencies, really) from the bed stand and crawled over to the fireplace, tossing it in. “Amour-Hotel-Residence-Prague-Suite-Eleventy-One!” He shouted in a rush before he stuck his head into the blue-green flames. Which really wasn’t one of his better ideas, as the spinning sensation only made his headache worse, and he would never hear the end of it if he threw up at the other side.
When he finally opened his eyes on the other end (one of the handful of wizarding-only rooms in the converted Grömling Palace) it was to see... well, only the dim flames of his appeared head flickering in the darkened room, and one pale arm flung over the side of the bed. “Are you awake? You should be awake. WAKE UP!”
There was a sleepy groan and a ruffled blond head raised up from where it had been (nearly) face-down on the bed. “Bwah... Potter?”
“Yes, It’s me! Are you awake now?”
Grey eyes blinked blearily. “‘Zit an’mergency?” One hand pawed at the nightstand to retrieve the fob watch sitting there, but when it fell to the floor he stopped his attempts to get it, laying back down. “It’s bloody early o’clock, what kind of ‘mergencies ‘appen tha’ early?”
“I had a dream, I... had to make sure it wasn’t true.”
The blond seemed finally to admit to himself that he was not going to get back to sleep any time soon, not with his bull-headed husband in the Floo. “Your dreams stopped making sense,” he said, turning on his side so he could see him but not have to get out from under the wonderful duck-down coverlet, “about ten years ago.... Why are you waking me up at Too Bloody Early O’clock?”
“It was that one again.”
“You already know it’s not real, now go back to sleep, I’m tired.”
Harry watched him huddle more beneath his covers. “It was different.”
“Please tell me Mrs. Weasel managed NOT to give her son a ridiculous name this time.”
“Well... no, but you were balding!”
“See?” he yawned, “An absolute nightmare. As though I’d ever allow myself to go balding.”
“Draco!”
“Mpfh. Can we go over this when I’m conscious?”
“You’re conscious now, and I’m hung over, now’s the perfect time to go over this - are you seeing some woman who’s blond and snooty looking out there in Prague?”
“No, I’m seeing my husband with a nightmare complex about perfectly normal, if repulsive, lives - who’s got messy hair, and is Keeping Me Awake,” Draco whined, grabbing a pillow and covering his head.
“DRACO!”
“GO TO SLEEP HARRY!” Draco threw the pillow toward the fireplace, but missed it by inches.
“Why are you in Prague?”
...
“Draco?”
...
“DRACO!”
“GAH! WHAT NOW?!”
“Why are you in Prague?”
He ran his hand down his face and covered his mouth as he yawned before answering. “Looking into reports that some of the artifacts in the Jewish Museum are actually Kabbalistic texts with a masking charm to look like Holy Scriptures - or some such nonsense.” He yawned again then looked at Harry, “Remember? ‘Muggles shouldn’t play with these things’? All we need is some curious Muggle-born child on a school trip seeing them for what they are, and - I don’t know - blow the place up like Finnigan’s Demolitions or something when they try to sound out what it says.”
“That wouldn’t happen,” Harry protested.
“No probably not, but I’m supposed to look and make sure it’s just people being idiots again, and not actually real. Can I go to sleep now?” Draco whined.
“When are you coming home again?”
“I told you when I found out I was going. And whilst I was packing. And as I left.”
“I know,” Harry sneezed and the flames brightened a moment, “I just want to make sure what I remember and what’s real is the same thing.”
“Are you still on about that rubbish dream?”
“Please, Draco.”
“By Friday at the latest.”
Harry sighed in relief. Okay, perhaps the dream wasn’t real, or going to become real, or anything like that. “I love you.”
“Goodnight.” Draco flopped down on his stomach again, sprawling.
“Goodnight,” Harry sighed and started to leave the Floo-call, but just before he completely disappeared from his head in Prague and his body in London, he heard Draco’s reply.
“I love you, too.”
---
1 September 2007
---
“I’m home!” Draco called as he entered Grimmauld Place, setting his cloak on the hall tree and leaving his trunk for Kreacher to take care of. “POTTER!”
With no reply, he frowned. He was only a day late, surely he wasn’t in that much trouble. Granted, his husband had been acting rather more squirrelly than usual lately - but it came and went. Harry always had been just slightly off since the war - but it was incredibly endearing and quite probably a good amount of the reason they ended up together (finally) in the first place.
That was neither here nor there, however, as apparently there was absolutely No One at home. Not even Kreacher. Which was very wrong. Draco frowned and began searching the house - perhaps Harry was asleep somewhere? - but came up with nothing... until he made his way down to the kitchen and found a note, written on a scrap of parchment, sitting atop the table.
31 August
Draco, where were you?
Can’t stay and wait - will be home soon.
I think.
~Harry
The handwriting was messier than usual, and the note was dated the day before. Draco frowned and stuffed the note in his pocket, turning on his heel and throwing powder into the fireplace. “MINISTRY” he shouted, stepping in and whirling away.
Once he arrived, Draco quickly had his wand weighed before stalking up to the Auror Department. “WEASLEY!” He shouted as he made his way to the shared head office.
The door opened once he reached it, and Draco pushed through, slamming it shut behind him and glaring at Ron Weasley, co-head-Auror, who was still sitting at his desk and pretending to ignore him.
Draco cleared his throat.
“What do you want?” Ron asked, not looking up and turning another page in the file he was going over.
“Where’s Potter?”
“How about you tell me why you still call him that?”
“I have my reasons.”
“You’ve been married for several years.”
“Where is he, or I swear to Merlin, I will skin you alive,” Draco ground out.
“Someone’s taken his Drama Draught today,” Ron replied, looking up. The second he heard Malfoy bellowing, he’d taking a calming potion - it wouldn’t do to get into a big fight at work. “I don’t know where Harry is, he Owled me yesterday saying something’d come up, and would I cover his shift this weekend.”
“He gave no clue to where he was going?”
“None.”
“Are you lying?” Draco asked, scowling.
Ron did look up then, setting down the parchments. “Listen. I can’t stand you, you can’t stand me - it’s been going on for almost twenty years and it’s not going to change any time soon. However-” he held up a hand to stop Draco from interrupting, then continued, “However, for some reason unknown even to centaurs, Harry loves you - so I’ll do what I can not to piss him off; which unfortunately includes being civil to you.”
Draco crossed his arms and grumbled assent.
“So. Go home and wait for him to show up, okay? Okay, goodbye Malfoy.”
“If you hear from him, you will contact me immediately.”
“May I remind you who’s the boss here?”
“Just do it!” Draco turned and left, slamming the door behind himself as he stalked back out of the Ministry (gathering up his wand on the way), and Floo’d home.
---
“That isn’t possible.”
“I am afraid it is very well possible, Mister Potter - surely you believe, if you have come so very far to verify a rumour?”
Harry was up and pacing at that point. “Let’s pretend I actually do believe the rumour, and what you’ve told me - how would I go about doing this... impossible thing.”
“The one who is to bear, is to take this potion,” one gnarled hand set a ceramic jar on the table, “and speak this spell,” a sheet of parchment was set beside it.
Harry almost pounced on the parchment, eyes skimming across the letters. “This is gibberish.”
“No, it is Parseltongue.”
Harry’s face fell, “I... can’t speak that anymore, I don’t understand it.”
“One does not need to understand things, in order to imitate sounds and syllables. It is not only the charmers who can use this.”
“And... if I drink the potion and say what you’ve got written here, I’ll get-”
“Precisely. The result will last for a month. That will be twenty-six Galleons.”
“If this doesn’t work, I’m going to get my money back, right?”
“Certainly, Affendi.”
“But why is it in Parseltongue?” Harry asked, running a hand through his hair, even as he folded the parchment and put it in his pocket.
“Sibilant language is far more... encouraging of the process.”
Harry nodded sharply, threw twenty-six gold coins onto the table, and took the ceramic flask with him as he Apparated to the international Floo-house.
---
There was the sound of a crack of Apparition on the doorstep, and Draco practically threw the door off the hinges as he pulled it open.
Harry looked up with a befuddled smile. “Oh, you’re home!”
“OF COURSE I’M HOME!” Draco yelled at him, before pulling him inside and slamming the door shut, then Harry up against it. “Where. Were. You.” It wasn’t a question, it was a demand for answers.
“Out?”
“You don’t sound very sure of that.”
Harry chewed on his lip, and Draco couldn’t help the bit of melting feeling he got at that. “I... was out.”
“Out where?”
“...Of the country.”
“WHY!?!” Draco shouted at him. “You could have been anywhere, you could be lying dead in an alley and we wouldn’t know the first place to look for you because you didn’t even bother telling anyone WHERE you were GOING!” As he spoke, Draco’s hands kept grasping Harry’s shoulders, then running along his cheeks before up into the messy dark hair before falling to his shoulders and repeating the process, making sure he was home. Alive. Harry opened his mouth, surely to give an excuse, and Draco went on. “No, a hastily scribbled note is NOT telling me where you’d gone!”
“You were late.”
“I had trouble at Customs, I was only off by half a day!”
“So, what do you think about kids?”
That derailed him. Draco blinked at his husband as though he’d grown another head, which he may well have done. “What? What do children have to do with your-”
“I was in Kashmir, actually.”
“Kashmir.”
“Seeing an old witch there.”
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose then dropped his hands to Harry’s arms and his forehead against the scarred one before him. “Harry... whatever possessed you to go to Kashmir to see some old crone?” he asked quietly.
“Well, you know those nightmares I’ve been hav-”
“Not that again, I told you they’re just weird dreams built by your considerably addled subconscious.” Draco pulled away and pulled Harry’s cloak off his shoulders, tossing it onto a hook and dragging him further into the house. “I’m not going to go bald, and you’re not going to have a million children with the She-Weasel, can we just NOT talk about that stupid dream for ONE DAY?”
“But, well, it got me to thinking.”
“Always incredibly dangerous.”
“Shuttup,” Harry replied, pushing Draco down into his chair then slipping into his lap in that infuriating way that was usually a precursor to wanting something. “As I was saying, before you interrupted me, that nightmare got me to thinking.”
Harry set his glasses on the side-table and... there it was, Harry’s head on his shoulder, forcing Draco to look at him from close quarters and absolutely drowning him in open hopeful green. “About what?” Draco asked, wetting his lower lip with the tip of his tongue.
“Children....”
“No,” Draco said bluntly. “We can’t adopt, Harry - you KNOW this.”
“Why not?” Harry didn’t raise his voice, but softened his tone further, forcing Draco to listen closely if he wanted to hear what was being said. Except he didn’t. “We could... I don’t know, adopt or... something.”
“Harry, we can’t adopt. We spend little enough time home as it is, with your Auroring and my work with the Department for the Preservation of Magical Artifacts, there’s no way we could raise any children. Besides, I like things as they are. Just you. And Me. And being able to shag wherever we want, whenever we want.”
“Provided we’re both home,” Harry sighed.
“Provided we’re both home,” Draco agreed. “All those adoptable orphans you seem to be thinking about will find nice homes with good steady families, hm? Now stop this children nonsense, okay?”
Draco didn’t notice the mischievous sparkle in Harry’s eye. If he did, he likely attributed it to the seduction that followed almost immediately.
---
21 September 2007
---
It was Friday, and Draco wasn’t home. Again. This time, apparently, there was an urn from the ancient Persian kingdom that had apparently belonged to a water Mage. In the wrong hands the Middle East could be flooded.... or become more of a desert than parts of it already were.
At least, that’s what Draco told him. As far as Harry knew, Draco was off knocking back Seabreezes with Zabini in Madrid.
His husband being away on business again wasn’t so horrible a thing, however. Not long after he’d gotten home, Harry’d hidden the ceramic jar in a corner of the cellar (warning Kreacher not to touch it) and the parchment of Parseltongue-spell hidden between the pages seven seventy-seven and seven seventy-eight of Hogwarts, A History, which sat still dusty on the top shelf in a far and mostly unused part of the library at Grimmauld Place.
He’d checked on them daily - either while Draco was showering or still asleep - going over again in his mind the reasons he might want to try this fool’s errand. It likely wouldn’t work anyhow - the best he could hope for was not to be poisoned or grow a set of horns - but still....
With Draco gone and not likely to return until late, and it was only mid morning, Harry’d taken both out and sat them on the table down in the kitchen. He sat before them, arms crossed on the table and chin rested upon them, staring at them both. Whether he was psyching himself up, or trying to talk himself out of a decision already made a few weeks ago, he didn’t know.
Neither did Kreacher. “Does Master need something from Kreacher, sir? Kreacher can make you some nice stew.”
“No thanks, busy having an empty stomach,” he replied, glancing at the elf before looking at the jar again.
“If Kreacher might be so bold... might Master perhaps tell Kreacher what he is doing? Kreacher can sense strong magic in that jar. Magic Master probably ought not be playing with.”
Harry’s head shot off his folded arms. “You can sense magic in the jar?” he asked.
“Yes, strong magics, Master. Magics what can change things. Master should not be playing with changing magics.”
“Can you tell what sort of changing magics they are?” Harry asked earnestly. “Please, Kreacher, I need to know.”
The house-elf shook his head, ears flopping. “Kreacher does not know what kind of changings the magics want to make. Only that they want to change things that ought never be changed, Master. Let Kreacher take it away.”
When he reached for the urn, Harry batted the gnarled long-fingered hands away from it. “Don’t touch it, Kreacher.”
The elf looked at Harry with huge, sad eyes. “Master is wanting the changing magics?” he wrung his hands. “But Master should not use changing magics. Not foreign strange strong changing magics.”
Harry’s mind was made up, however. If what Kreacher sensed was true, then perhaps it really might do what the old crone had said it would? It was more than worth the chance. He needed to take that chance. There was a desperation in his heart for a family. A real family - something he’d never had. Sure, the Weasleys had all but adopted him, even after he and Ginny had broken up, and Draco was definitely a lot of family all on his own - but....
To have a child. One that was not only his own, but Draco’s as well - something unequivocally tying them together. Someone they created together - whom they could love and raise the way they each wish they’d been. To give him or her the childhood neither was able to have.
Well worth the chance.
“Kreacher, you will not speak of this jar or parchment. I want your word that you won’t tell anyone, especially Draco, about their existence, about what you felt in the magics, and that I’ve done what I’m about to do.”
“But Master-”
“Swear it!”
Kreacher tugged on his ears hard.
“Swear it to me, Kreacher!”
The house-elf moaned and banged his head into the table once. “Kreacher promises,” he said.
“Thank you,” Harry said, ignoring the elf as he hovered, grasping the jar and wrenching out the tightly-stoppered lid.
A deep blood-coloured mist rose out from it, curling in the air then falling back into the jar before curling upward again. Harry looked at it mesmerised for a moment. It was like... it was almost like watching blood turn to steam then change its mind all over again. He shook that thought from his head. Why shouldn’t it remind him of blood? It was a potion designed to do... something that would allow him to have a child of his own. To carry on his and Draco’s dying bloodlines and entwine them.
“Cheers,” he said, his eyes as intense with purpose as they had been so many years ago as he walked into the Forbidden Forest, his family at his side.
Kreacher whimpered as Harry drank the whole thing down without pause then set the jar down with trembling hands and reaching for the parchment. Squinting, Harry read the transliteration of the spell to activate the potion. There was no going back now.
“Saiahasashee Saiaheth sashethai saeyihen sashethay sashethay yatheshas nehiyeas iatheshas thehaias eeshasahaias. Thuathasashee.”
Harry waited for something to happen, but nothing seemed to. He sighed, setting down the parchment. “Ah well. Kreacher, if you could get rid of these for me?”
“Yes, Master,” Kreacher said, snapping his fingers and disappearing to dispose of spell and tainted jar.
Harry pushed away from the table and headed toward the door. His heart felt heavy with defeat - his one chance ended up being nothing but--
Torturous pain. Cruciatus had nothing on this! He fell screaming to the floor, feeling as though a Thestral was making a meal of his stomach, rooting around inside to get every last scrap of entrails with its meat. He curled around his stomach and sobbed in the bare moment he had before it began again. He could feel long-fingered cold hands touching his face as he screamed... before everything went black.
---
When Draco arrived home late that night, it was to a dimmed, sleepy house. The lamps were dimmed, leading a path upstairs to the bedroom he shared with his husband. Kreacher appeared briefly to take his coat and said nothing, like a good house-elf should, before disappearing with his bag as well, taking it to the laundry.
He was exhausted, every step made his legs feel as though giving out was a very real (and preferable) option. He leaned heavily on the rail as he reached the first landing, stretching his back a bit before plodding gracefully (he was a Malfoy, after all) up to the second floor.
When he entered the bedroom, he turned up the light enough to see a bit better by, to undress and climb into bed. He’d already gotten down to his shorts, and was pulling off his socks, when he looked to the bed itself. In it lay Harry, who seemed a bit pale and sweaty, fast asleep. Draco frowned and moved to sit on the edge of the bed, pressing the back of his hand against his husband’s forehead.
It was a bit warmer than normal, but nothing to worry about. He smiled tiredly, pushing Harry’s hair back out of his eyes.
Which opened as Harry gave a sleepy smile. “Welcome home.”
Draco chuckled and leaned down to kiss him hello. “You’re dead tired, aren’t you?”
“Mmm yes, feel like I got trampled by a herd of Thestrals.”
“Poor baby,” Draco rolled his eyes. “I’m exhausted and feel like I was attacked by a herd of Thestrals AND a flock of hippogriffs.”
“You and hippogriffs,” Harry chuckled, letting a pained sound pass his lips as he yawned, pushing himself to sit up. He watched him let his eyes travel over his tired self. “Change your name to John recently?”
“Pardon?” Draco’s eyebrows shot up. “Why would I change my name to something so plebeian?”
“One sock off and one sock on, deedle deedle dumpling, my son John,” Harry yawned and grinned sleepily. “Muggle rhyme.”
“Ridiculous,” Draco said. “Budge over, you’re on my side of the bed.”
Once Harry’d done so enough that Draco could get in and snuggle up, the lights went out.
“Glad you’re home.”
“Me too.”
Neither were quite sure who’d said which.
---
22 September 2007
---
Dawn wasn’t even a twinkle in the sky’s eye when a pale, long-fingered hand stroked lightly muscled back. Harry lay prone and turned his head to the side, opening one eye to peer through a messy fringe at the owner of that hand, and yawned.
“Oh, now that’s romantic,” Draco quipped, running that oh so comfy hand down his back again. Harry still ached like he’d gotten into a wrestling match with a dragon and sank further into the bed and closed his eyes, squirming.
“Just keep doing that... ‘specially my lower back?”
“I’m the one who’s been away at work all week, and you’re the one who gets the massage?” Draco asked, spelling the fire to burn higher, filling the room with warmth as he pulled down the covers and straddled Harry’s hips, fingers now dancing up his sides.
Harry squirmed, muffling a laugh into his pillow, “stop, that tickles.”
“Make up your mind,” Draco said, leaning forward and swatting Harry’s hair, and making Harry very suddenly aware of how naked they both were. “‘Just keep doing that’, ‘stop, that tickles’ - if I’d wanted an indecisive woman, I’d have married Pansy.” It was an old comment between them, and Harry couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t tell me I’m tickling you again, Potter,” Draco said, rubbing out the knot of muscle he found.
The only coherent response he could make was a low groan.
---
Draco smiled as he worked the tense knots out of Harry’s back, satisfied that the other man became nearly boneless as he did so. It was one of his favourite things about him, how he simply melted at his touch. It made Draco feel in control, something he was always desperate for. He knew Harry was as well, but perhaps in this they’d developed an unspoken agreement (after years of loudly spoken disagreements) that he could be in as much control as he liked... in the bedroom.
Harry said once that it was the one place he felt comfortable enough to let go.
He shifted to sit on the back of Harry’s thighs, his hands working on the once-Gryffindor’s lower back, straying down to the swell of his arse on occasion.
“Tease.”
Draco chuckled, slapping his arse gently, “You know you love it.”
“Love you,” Harry groaned, shifting a little.
Draco’s hands wandered over the light dimples of Harry’s arse, stroking along it before slipping his thumb along the crack. He smiled at the groan that got and slowly shifted off Harry, turning him over and kissing him languidly.
Harry arched into him, his blunt fingers grasping into his hair, and Draco ran his hand along his body in response. Their tongues tangled slowly, unheeding of morning breath as they gave themselves over to sensual passion.
Draco loved the way Harry would respond to him. The soft moans and whimpers that left his husband’s throat as he trailed his tongue over his body, searching out secret places to lick, and suck, and nibble. The soft gasp he could always coax from his throat as he breached him first with tongue, then finger, then....
He loved the way Harry would arch, messy hair on the pillow beneath him, tossing his head slightly as he lifted his hips to meet him fully on that first thrust; eyes closed and mouth open in bliss as he bared his throat with a sigh that went straight to Draco’s heart.
He loved the play of muscle beneath his skin, stroking his fingers along any he could reach. He well knew he was married to the most gorgeous man in existence, the most maddeningly layered, complicated, amazing man alive.
It wasn’t about reaching completion anymore; though that heart skipping, breath stopping bliss was always beyond amazing. It was about the sounds he could coax from Harry, the movements, the erasure of worry from the lines around his eyes when they were closed, and the devotion they turned on him when they opened at that last moment.
Drowning him with intent green as surely as they drowned in each other in rapture.
And Love.
---
30 October 2007
---
“So... how did you know when, erm, you were pregnant. With Rosie?” Harry asked, motioning to the baby just fallen asleep on his best friend’s shoulder.
“Oh, Harry,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “That’s an awfully odd question to be asking. Any reason?”
“Well, erm... No reason, just,” Harry coughed and re-crossed his legs, “curious?”
“You don’t know whether you’re curious or not?”
“I, erm, I mean-”
“Right,” Hermione got her ‘teaching’ face on. “Harry, I’m sure you know that Girls, every month, bl-”
“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THAT!!!”
She laughed, “You asked about that.”
“I did not!” he replied quickly. “I just... I wanted to know how you knew you were pregnant! Isn’t there-” Harry waved a hand expressively, “some other way you knew. That doesn’t involve blood?!” When Hermione was too busy laughing, stifling it so as not to wake her daughter, he folded his arms and glared.
A few more minutes passed before she was able to calm herself. “Oh... You,” she shook her head, “you’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Well spotted.”
“Oh Harry,” she shook her head. “You didn’t....”
“NO!”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Erm... I just- I was curious.”
“There must be a reason.”
“It’s a secret reason?” Harry tried.
“Harry.”
“Please, Hermione - just... are there ways other than that, that no blood thing, to tell if someone’s pregnant?”
“It depends on how far along they are. Right away there’s a little fever, not much, but the temperature’s higher than normal - and erm... well, if it’s further along, there’s morning sickness, and showing and kicking-”
“I don’t think they’re that far along yet. Maybe only, like, a month or something.”
“Okay, since you’re being all ‘Secret Agent Man’ about this, Harry - I can only help you so much. Do you know when they had the sex that might have gotten them pregnant?”
“September twenty-first... or second.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, “They’d only be about six or seven weeks along, then - there’s not much other than the temperature thing. Morning sickness will probably kick in soon, but not all women get it. Harry, if you’ve done something, you really need to talk to Draco and tell him. The longer you keep something like this a secret... Harry, it could ruin your marriage.”
“I’m not ruining any marriage!”
“If you’ve gotten someone pregnant-”
“I DIDN’T GET ANYONE PREGNANT!” Harry shouted.
“Good to know, mate - don’t fancy seeing Malfoy with a bun in, he’d be impossible.”
“What?” Harry looked at Ron, who was standing in the doorway munching on a sticky bun, like he’d grown another head. “How the hell would I get Malfoy pregnant? He’s a man, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Ferret,” Ron muttered.
“And he has a penis. People can’t get pregnant when they’ve got a penis, Ron,” Hermione chided.
Ron sniggered.
“Stop laughing,” Harry sat up and looked at his other best friend closely. “You know something, don’t you?”
“Ron?” Hermione just looked at him. “What is it?”
“Sometimes I still forget you two grew up Muggles,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Wizards can get pregnant. Takes some magic, and they don’t really do that here anymore, but there’s some other countries they still do occasionally - keep up the population and all that, especially if there aren’t enough witches around.”
“So it’s a pure-blood thing?” Hermione asked frowning.
“Yeah - Most anyone who’s not a pure-blood, or doesn’t have a pure-blood parent, won’t have heard of it. It’s really risky - not banned here, but might as well be. I think if a man showed up pregnant, there’d be a definite uproar. So, whatever you’re thinking,” he looked at Harry, his blue gaze piercing for the moment, “Don’t. You get Malfoy pregnant, and there’ll be hell to pay. That branch of pure-bloods-” he stopped and shook his head.
“What. What do you mean, that branch. Malfoy? Black? What, Ron?” Harry asked intently.
Ron just shook his head again and left the room.
There was silence for several minutes, contemplative silence, before Hermione spoke. “Well, I guess you still learn something new every day.”
“What did he mean by what he was saying, Hermione.”
“I’m not a mind reader - but I’d listen to him. I know how much you want a family, Harry - but don’t go to one of those undeveloped countries to get some odd man-pregnancy-mojo. It’s too dangerous.”
---
When Harry returned from visiting the Weasels, Draco was sure there was something wrong. For one thing, he never looked this pensive. For another, he hadn’t called that he was home, nor did he look up as he put his cloak on a hook in the hallway.
Nor did he see him. That would not do. Draco cleared his throat and waited for Harry to acknowledge him.
That was new. The green eyes that were turned on him were filled with both hope and fear.
“What did you do?” Draco asked, holding an arm out for Harry to come to him.
“Did... you know it was possible for male wizards to get pregnant?” Harry asked as he entwined his fingers with the ones stretched toward him.
Draco closed his eyes and sighed, clasping the hand entangled with his and pulling Harry forward. “It’s incredibly dangerous, and done next-to-never anymore. There’s no need to, not really. No Harry.”
“I didn’t even ask anything!”
“I know what you were going to ask, and the answer is no. I don’t know who told you this, you shouldn’t know, you’re only a half-blood-”
Harry tore himself away and Draco was faced with two furious green eyes. “Only a half-blood?” Harry asked. “Is that what you think of me? Even after all this time?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You’re the one who said it!”
“Then stop taking things out of context. What I meant was that it’s a pure-blood secret.”
“Oh, well that’s alright then,” Harry waved his hand, “Don’t mind me, I’m not pedigree!”
Draco pushed Harry up against the wall and proceeded to snog the ire right out of him. Thankfully it worked. He knew the moment it had, because Harry’s flailing hands were now firmly grasped in his hair, and he was making those wonderful little sounds that always sent Draco’s blood rushing.
Part 2