Harry Potter - the mpreg H/D fic
They draw straws.
Harry loses.
He takes the potion at sundown. By morning his insides feel raw and abused.
"I feel like a piece of meat," Draco says, lying naked on his back.
Harry nearly says "fuck you," but thinks better of it. There is blood on his side of the bed; the potion always starts you off a virgin. Harry shoves his husband over and cuddles into his side, breathing hard.
*
"It's not working," Harry complains one morning.
"How do you know?"
"It's obvious--look at me! It'll never work!"
Draco moves to sit beside him. "It will," he says. "It will." They have tried five times, and five mornings after Harry woke up a man. Harry is beginning to resent his body. Draco hates those mornings when Harry locks himself in the bathroom and breaks things, or is so silent it makes Draco want to cry. Draco spends those mornings playing the optimist, sitting outside the bathroom door, waiting.
*
The morning Harry wakes up still a woman, he is so elated he forgets how strangely off he feels walking about with two lumps on his chest it ached to grow the night before; without the comfortable dangle between his legs.
He realizes shortly after bounding down the stairs, however, that more than just maternity clothes will be in order.
Harry has the house elf bring them breakfast in bed. Draco is still asleep. Harry wants to see the shock--and delight--on Draco's face when he opens his eyes to find muffins and scones served by a sexy wife.
*
Harry's emotions are haywire. His body is perpetually off-balance. He is always nauseated, like he's just stepped out of the floo. He spends most of his time in the bathroom. His new lover is made of white porcelain; their kisses are horks and dry heaves; their embraces are cool and bitter. When Harry isn't throwing up or sitting or eating, he is going to the bathroom to pee--for two.
"I wish she wouldn't kick so hard," he calls thickly from his latest turn in the bathroom.
"Can't be helped. At least she's healthy," Draco replies. He is turning down the sheets. "Want a massage?"
Harry's been complaining of back pain for the past few days. Draco--secretly, of course--ran to Pansy at the first opportunity. "What do I do? Is this normal?" he'd asked frantically.
"Don't you read the pregnancy pamphlets?"
Draco had sneered, but soon enough he nodded. "But Harry's pregnancy isn't like those. He's a bloke, really."
"Not right now he isn't," Pansy had said. "Here." She stood against him and put her arms behind her head and around his neck. "Now, put your hands--"
"--around my neck and...stand on the step there, you're too tall," Draco says. Harry does as he's told, mumbling questions all the while. The smile on his lips sags into a blissful expression as Draco's hands work wonders on his aching lower back.
"Ahhh..."
*
Harry doesn't want anesthetics or potions. He thinks his quidditch injuries have sufficiently prepared him for labor.
They haven't.
Knives plunge into his lower back. Everything is pain.
When the baby is born Harry is so relieved he doesn't ask to hold his daughter, just reaches out weakly and sobs and breathes.
"It really is a girl," Draco whispers, sliding an arm around Harry's trembling shoulders. The mediwitch hands Harry their child.
Harry thought he had felt love before he looked into baby Lily's eyes, squinted from crying and her shrill, healthy screams. Smiling down at her little face, Harry realizes he has only scratched the surface.