(Chapter contains sex and dark themes.)
She stood across the street, the rain beating down on her like the patter of silver bullets. Her messy and unkempt hair stuck to her stinging face and shoulders, though her entire body was sore from the trauma of childbirth. The bloody bundle in her arms cried and cried, and she held back the urge to throw it into the dumpster that she passed a few minutes ago. She couldn't keep it. She couldn't raise it. She couldn't deal with it. It brought up too many memories. Painful memories. The memories that lead to the scars on her thighs that were now dirtied with dried blood.
She stared at the house. It was a modest home, but a much better one than she could ever provide. Better than he could ever provide. She may have lost four other babies to him and his horrible ways, but not this one. This time she was going to do the right thing. This one was going to survive. And hopefully learn how to be a person, not a beast like its terrible father. No, that wasn't the right word. Before she could come up with the right word she felt the eyes on her. Burning into her back and right through her, into the tightly wrapped bundle.
She took that as her cue to get this over with, and scurried across the street with the bundle held to her soaked bosom. She hushed it, stroked its back, and froze when she got to the driveway. The house was suddenly horrifying her now that she was closer. But she swallowed the bile in her throat and sprinted up the steps. She put the bundle down as if it was a parasite but made sure it wouldn't fall off the porch, out of the rain. She didn't even bother to look under the bundle to see the gender, just scribbled the first name that came to mind onto the note before tucking it into the soaked blanket.
She rang the doorbell three times, then sprinted away as fast as her legs could carry her.
She heard the snarl behind her, the thunderous pounding of feet matching her speed, and she finally let her tears fall. She sobbed and wailed as she ran away, cutting across streets and around blocks, not even sure where she was running to but knowing that the farther she got away the safer the bundle on that doorstep would be. She pretended she was still carrying it, that she hadn't dropped it onto that porch before bolting.
She barely made it across the next street before her foot hit a curb. She went down easily and heard the crunch as her ankle turned. Her scream caught in her throat as her head collided harshly with the pavement. She could feel the fresh blood running down her face and into her eye, stars dancing across her vision with the intensity of a masquerade ball. She watched the cotton wool spots fade in and out of her vision, the ringing in her ears overpowering the steps as they closed in on her.
The hands grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back up onto her feet despite her broken ankle, which caved in immediately and caused her even more agony than she was already in. The growl in her face was also muted in comparison.
"Where is it?"
Oh... there was her hearing. It found her again and she blinked, vision still falling in and out of blurred and clear.
"I said, where is it?"
Huh... Where was what... Oh, they must mean "it"...
"Answer me, bitch!"
Ouch, that's the hardest she's ever been hit. It turned her head around and jammed her lip into her teeth. She tasted copper.
"Tell me where the fuck it is!"
She felt herself getting taller. Oh, wait... he just grabbed her collar. She could swing her feet.
She coughed up some blood that dribbled down her throat. He angrily threw her back down onto the ground.
"You threw it away, didn't you?"
She felt her mind clear a little after her stomach contents emptied themselves, and she looked up at him through a busted lip and split hairline.
"..." She nodded. "I did... it's dead..."
He'd never howled so loudly in his time with her. It was almost mournful, heart tugging, but it ended with a furious snarl. She felt the muscular hands on her throat so many times before, but this time the pressure was so great that no matter of screaming helped. He squeezed and crushed her windpipe, eyes full of pure hatred as he strangled the life out of her.
"Burn in hell, you used up bitch!"
Bitch... that's right, she remembered before darkness enveloped her. She was his alpha bitch. Was, at least.
Once her body stopped flailing he officially needed a new one.
By the time he let go and back traced her scent to the neighborhood, the bloody parcel was nowhere to be found, the scent now washed away by the rain. He growled furiously and disappeared into the darkness.
(End of Darkness)
Meanwhile...
"Ah... Draco!"
"Nnngh... call my name again, Potter."
"Draco, the doorbell again."
"You're good and tight..."
"Dra...Ahhh..."
"That's it, Potter.. again..."
"Draco, get the bloody door!"
Said wizard looked down at his husband, a look of disbelief on his usually smug face. Harry stared back, his hands against Draco's pectorals as he waited for him to get up and answer the door. Draco pouted in his expert way and instead gave another sharp thrust against his love's sweet spot. Harry moaned but cut himself off, scowling.
"Hey!"
"Hey." Draco smirked.
"I said go get the door."
"I know."
"So go get the door!"
"Why? Wouldn't you rather I just stay right here and fuck my husband some more?"
"No- well, yes, but it might be important."
"What could possibly be more important than this?" He thrust again.
"..ahh- Draco!"
"What!"
"Door!"
"Fine!"
The blonde pulled out of the brunette with a grunt and grabbed his bathrobe, tying it around himself and making sure his erect cock was out of sight in case someone was on his doorstep. He left the bedroom and walked irritably down the stairs, grumbling about the nerve of some people to knock on their door at the late hour that it was. He heard Harry following him down and made his way to the front door.
Draco tightened the robe and grumpily reached for the doorknob.
When he opened the door his gaze found nothing ahead of him. Nor to the left or right, the sidewalk or across the street. He went to step forward but his husband grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.
"Draco!"
"What!"
Harry, dressed in only his boxers, stepped to the right of their doormat and bent down to pick something up. Draco only then noticed the whines and quiet cries of the thing in the bloody blanket.
"You almost stepped on it," Harry said with a worried look as he examined the stained and soaked blanket.
"What is it?" Draco grimaced at the dirty thing.
Harry didn't answer him and took the bundle inside, walking to the bathroom. Draco closed the door and followed him. Harry unraveled the blanket and his eyes went wide at what he found inside it.
A... A baby. A small one, most likely premature, with too much blood on its body to tell anything more discernable. He dropped the gross rag and traded it for a towel, using a washcloth and warm water to clean away the blood.
With the crimson fluid washed away he could see slightly tanned skin, a very light curl against the baby's forehead and flat, thin ears. The baby had long feet and fingers, its limbs pulled into its chest. The cord had been cut a tad long, as if in a hurry. A note was plastered to the infant's stomach, which he peeled off and held in his hand for later.
"What is it?" Draco repeated impatiently.
"A baby," Harry replied.
"What?" The blonde spat out, eyes narrowing in a grimace.
"A baby. What did you think, a pigeon?" Harry sarcastically responded, getting the newborn cleaned up entirely and wrapping it in the fresh towel.
"Someone left a baby on our doorstep?" Draco said with disbelief, leaning on a wall while Harry bounced the fussy infant.
"Wow, did you just now figure that out?" Harry rolled his eyes.
The brunette wizard noticed how cold the baby was and reasoned that he better warm it up before it catches cold from the rain. He transferred the baby into a clean and soft blanket and wrapped it up, holding it to his warm chest. He wondered who left the poor infant and why they would have done such a thing, wondered if it was for the same reason that he was storked with his terrible aunt and uncle.
Soon the baby quieted down and he found himself cooing at it soothingly, stroking the soft hair and murmuring that everything was okay into the tiny ear closest to him.
"Don't just stand there, call the authorities and report it in." Draco said.
"Wait a minute, Love. The poor thing's been through a lot and it's shaking," Harry called back, "let me comfort it a little."
"Whatever." Draco walked over and sat behind Harry in the living room, arms around his waist and chin on his shoulder.
A while passed while Harry studied and hypothesized about the baby. Was it a wizard? A muggle? Had the parents been killed like his own? Who left it for them? Had it been left with them specifically? Or randomly?
He remembered the note that was folded in his hand and unraveled it after carefully setting the baby down on the carpet.
The note was revealed to be a letter, and he began to read it aloud.
"Dear stranger,
If you are reading this you have found the note I left. I'm sorry for this but I need you to take in my baby and raise it as your own, please do not turn it away. Its parents made horrible decisions and my baby should not be punished for them. If you call the authorities I understand, but please, find the compassion in your heart that the parents could not. I am begging you.
-Lidia"
Harry finished reading the note and looked back down at the baby, who was seemingly asleep. The baby was left with them... because the parents "made horrible decisions"? What did "Lidia" mean by that? It sounded like she needed them to protect the newborn against something. That reminded Harry of his own troublesome "protection" against he-who-must-not-be-named, and he felt his heart go out to the baby.
When he turned over the note he found a crudely scribbled word on the paper.
"MAC".
Lidia had avoided pronouns in the note, but Mac was a masculine name. He then realized that he neglected to check the baby's gender. He unwrapped the blanket and lifted a delicate leg to see the baby's tiny genitals.
"Its a boy." Harry told his husband, wrapping the baby back up.
"At least its not a pigeon." Draco joked smugly, glancing down at the tiny human or wizard. At least he hoped it was a wizard.
Harry sat there thinking for a long while. He studied the baby, remembered a few things, thought about some more things and studied the baby boy again. The paper had small dots of liquid in various places, but not big or consistent enough to have been from the rain. Lidia had been crying as she wrote this, and he could feel her emotion through just the writing. She was scared- no, she seemed terrified, he figured, for the future of her son.
"Mac" squirmed a bit and started to cry again, still quietly, and Harry scooped him up and comforted him. He cooed and patted Mac's back, thinking more and more until he looked back at Draco, whom was still clasped around his middle.
"...I think we should keep him." He said seriously.
"Have you taken leave of your senses?" Draco recoiled and asked with that skeptical grimace, "We can't just keep a baby that someone abandoned on our porch."
"Why not?" Harry challenged. "He needs us, his mother left him for a reason, Draco."
"A baby is not like a pet, that's why," Draco scowled, "they cry and shit and eat, that's all."
"Same as you or me!" Harry argued. "C'mon love, what if he gets tossed around from house to house until he ends up somewhere awful? What if the people he eventually ends up with are cruel and uncaring, what if they make him sleep in a closet and wallow to himself because he was denied a better opportunity?"
He didn't realize the self insert until he said it, and his cheeks flushed a tad.
Draco stubbornly argued with him and Harry argued back, until Harry got fed up and plopped Mac right into his husband's arms. Draco made another face and held the baby away from himself on instinct, demanding Harry take it back, but the brunette crossed his arms and watched in silence.
Draco glanced back down at the infant, who was looking back up at him with faded blue eyes. Those eyes... something about them. He felt something in his heart sway, though he had no idea what. Was he ill? There's no way they could...
"...Please, love." Harry pleaded with him, touching his shoulder. "We can't have our own children and we can't afford adoption. I know that we could be good parents and use our one upbringings as references. Please."
Draco bit his lip and sighed out after holding his breath.
"...Fine." He spat out. "Fine. What's his name?"
Harry smiled and gently traced a finger on the baby's cheek.
"Mac. Mac Potter-Malfoy."
(Hey guys. Sorry that this may be a bit rushed, but I wanted to get out of dark dreary territory and get onto the fun, cute stuff that I have planned. Sorry about that depressing beginning, but I assure you that from here on it will be fluff and growing up drabbles. I'm suffering a terrible writer's block with my ROTG story, so I am taking a break to write on this instead. Thank you.)