"And you're sure?" asked Draco, as he tried his hardest to keep his voice calm and collected, when inside there was a raging storm.
"I don't know what more proof I could provide you with, Malfoy," snapped Hermione angrily as she gestured wildly to the mixture of both muggle and wizarding pregnancy tests littering the table before them.
"It was only one time," he muttered quietly under his breath, though not quietly enough when he heard Hermione scoff.
"One time is all it takes, especially when you're stupid and drunk enough to forget a few charms."
"Don't you dare blame this on me!" he shouted, his calm and collected composure diminishing in an instant. "It takes two to fucking tango, I don't remember you bothering with a charm as we ripped each other's clothes off!"
Hermione closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "You're right. I'm sorry. It's just, this is really something I wasn't expecting for a long time," she said sincerely, her eyes opening and meeting with his for the first time since she told him their news.
Draco gave a quick sharp nod and turned to take a seat at the table, his eyes continuously wandering over the range of confirmation's telling them that, yes, they were expecting a baby. He picked up one of the muggle devices and looked at the two bright pink lines glaring at him from the window. "How do these even work?" he asked curiously as he turned it over in his hands.
"You wee on them," with the speed at which Draco let go of the pregnancy stick Hermione couldn't help but laugh at his expense.
"And you let me touch it! You are barbaric!" he exclaimed in horror.
"I didn't go all over it, you idiot," she replied with a roll of her eyes.
Silence fell over the two of them again, Hermione shuffling uncomfortably on the spot something obviously plaguing her mind, irritating Draco.
"You know," she hesitantly began, "there is a way that we can end this, muggles have a way to finish a-"
"Don't you even dare think about it!" he growled angrily, furious that she would even suggest such a thing.
"I don't want that, but if you had -"
"No," he said firmly. "That's my child in there, whatever the circumstances," he stated and Hermione nodded in understanding.
Draco sat calmly and quietly as his father paced the room, every now and then sending Draco a look of loathing, as his mother twiddled her thumbs uncharacteristically in her lap. Neither one of them had uttered a word to him once he had shared the news. Both clearly less than pleased by what had occurred.
He wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to take this silence though, it was near suffocating, even in the vast room they had gathered in.
"It would be you, wouldn't it?" he father finally snarled. "It would be you to sully the Malfoy name with a half-blood bastard-"
"Lucius!" scolded Narcissa, her voice edge with warning at she glowered at her husband. Lucius fell silent but his stern look of disapproval remained in place upon his face.
"Do you plan to do right by this child?" asked his mother and he turned to meet her questioning gaze.
"If we chose to allow the pregnancy to progress, then yes," he said cautiously, hoping that his words would have the desired effect.
Lucius marched over towards Draco his eyes alight with a fire Draco hadn't seen since the days of the Dark Lord. "You dared to even think about ending this life?" he asked, his voice holding a tone of disbelief amongst the anger. "You have dared to even consider such muggle atrocities!"
"Father, not a moment ago, you had been disgusted by the thought of a bastard half-blood in this family," Draco met his father's eyes strongly, fearlessly, knowing now from Lucius' reaction that this was going the way he had wanted.
"Bastard half-blood or not," snarled Lucius, "it is Malfoy blood that runs through its veins. You dare to utter such vile thoughts again, and I shall see to it that you will regret such things." With that last sentence Lucius left the room in a swirl of raging robes, leaving both Draco and his mother alone with nothing but the sound of the crackling fire.
The moment he knew his father was clear from the room Draco let out a shuddering breath. "It worked," he said with disbelief as he looked at his mother.
Narcissa moved herself to settle next to her son, taking his hands in hers and giving his a reassuring squeeze. "You doubted my plan, son?" she asked with a soft smile.
"I doubted father's family morals," he replied quietly.
"Family is everything to your father. The conditions of this new addition may not be something he is pleased about, but they shall still be family," she confirmed.
Draco cast a glance around the clean white waiting room, his nose turned up slightly at the smell of what Hermione had told his was a disinfectant, posters of women holding babies, encouraging breastfeeding and all other maternal jargon.
He had never felt more uncomfortable anywhere, at any time, than he did compared to his moment in time. "Explain again why we can't just go to St. Mungos?" he mumbled quietly into her ear.
"Because, despite all that the wizarding world can do, they can't do this," she replied, not looking up from where she was looking through her maternity notes.
"And what is this?" he asked with a sneer, unconvinced that these Doctors as Hermione had called them, would be able to do anything more than the Healers they had already seen.
"You'll see," she said with a smug smile that made the Draco grit his teeth together. He didn't like not knowing things. And even worse, he didn't like when Hermione so obviously did.
The two sat for a moment longer in uncomfortable silence until a warm looking woman entered the room. "Miss Granger?" she called out, and Hermione smiled at the woman, gathered her bag and gestured for Draco to follow her.
Draco of course followed cautiously into the room the woman retreated into. He took Hermione's bag from her, though not of choice as she thrusted it into his arms and settled herself onto what Draco could only presume was a bed of sorts, though it looked nowhere near as comfortable as the ones at the Manor.
"Dad, I presume?" asked the plump woman with a warm smile and Draco simply nodded in confirmation. "Please take a seat," she said as she gestured toward the plastic looking chair next to the bed.
He did as was suggested, his hands still clinging to Hermione's bag tightly. "Now, my name is Nurse Hill. We excited to see baby today?" Draco's stomach sunk. See baby? What? It was too soon, she was only 12 weeks, baby couldn't come now.
He tried his hardest to stay calm, to will the colour back to his face, he cast a sly glance towards Hermione who was smiling excitedly, eagerly nodding her head. How could she be so calm about this?
"Well, Miss Granger. If you could lift your shirt up for me and undo your trousers, pull them as low as possible on your hips," Hermione did as she was told and Draco sat silently as he watched. He was sure that his confusion was clearly showing on his face, but for once he didn't care as he watched the Nurse tuck in what looked like blue tissue down into the front of Hermione's knickers so that it covered her jeans.
"Don't want to get this stuff on your clothes," she said cheerfully as she lifted a bottle and brought it towards Hermione, giving it a shake in the process. "It shouldn't be as cold as usual, I keep it next to the monitor to warm it up," Draco had no idea what she meant, but Hermione seemed to, so he relaxed a little and watched as the woman squirted a gloopy looking gel onto the lower part of Hermione's stomach.
He watch thoughtfully as Nurse Hill reached out and flicked off the lights, darkening the room and motioning for them to both look at the large screen mounted on the wall in front of them. His eyes never left as she reached out for some device and proceed to glide it over Hermione's stomach. Pressing, in his opinion, what looked to be far too hard.
"Ok, so eyes up there for me and in a moment, yep, there they are," said the nurse as she hovered over one part of Hermione's stomach. Draco frowned at the screen in confusion, confused as to what it was he was supposed to be looking at, and casting another quick look at Hermione, who seemed to have tears in her eyes as she looked at the screen in awe.
"There's who?" he eventually asked when he struggled to see what it was that had moved Hermione to such tears.
Nurse Hill smiled warmly at Draco and Hermione let out a watery chuckle "Your baby, my dear. See here," she said pointing towards her own smaller screen. "This here is their head and their body. These little bits there are their legs and did you see that?" she asked as something moved towards the head, "one of their little arms moving."
Draco stared in awe, unable to tear his gaze away from what he could now clearly see was his child. Its other arms seemed to move and then he watched with a smile as the small baby wiggled and moved completely into another position.
"Got a wiggler here haven't we," said Nurse Hill with a laugh. "Right, let me take some measurements, make sure everything is all good and then we'll see if we can get some good photos for you both to take home."
Draco tore his gaze away from the screen and looked at Hermione, her own attention fixed on their baby, her smile infectious as he caught himself doing the same. Draco leant forward unable to resist and kissed Hermione's cheek.
"Thank you," he whispered into her ear, and when she turned to look at him confused he continued, "for this. Thank you for this." His reply was cut short as he continued glancing back at the screen.
Draco walked as confidently as he could manage into his father's office later that day, knowing he was welcome by the fact the door was ajar. "Father?" he asked as he saw the older Malfoy bet over his desk in deep concentration.
"Hmm," was his response.
"I have something to show you, something I thought you might like to see," he continued as he stood before Lucius' desk and waited for him to finish whatever it was he was doing.
"Yes?" asked Lucius as he placed his quill on the table and steepled his fingers.
"Here," said Draco, placing a copy of one of the photos they had been given earlier on to his desk. "This is a photo of your grandchild," he continued as confidently as he could as he pointed out the little ones head and body, as well as the clear shot of the little ones hand held up.
Lucius didn't say anything to Draco as he stared at the photo, and he wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. Almost too worried to find out Draco reach to retrieve the photo, only to have Lucius stop him. "You may leave," he said with a nod towards the door.
Not one to argue with his father, Draco left the photo where it lay and with a sharp nod once at his father, left the room, only turning once as he went to close the door and smiling when he saw his father running his fingers over the photo.
"Again! Of course it would be you to produce female offspring. Not a female born into the Malfoy line in over 200 years and you do it!" shouted Lucius as he stormed from the room leaving Draco behind as Narcissa followed.
He sighed tiredly into his hands, before reaching forward and gathering the most recent photo of his child, his daughter and looking it over once more.
When he had found out that they could learn the sex of their child, Draco couldn't wait. He needed to know and fought tooth and nail with Hermione to get her to agree, the Nurse, a Miss Powel this time, had found the whole thing rather amusing. Eventually Hermione had agreed when Draco made a point about her then being able to be as organised as could be.
Did he mind that it was a daughter? Not at all. He didn't care in the slightest and didn't care about what his father thought either. His mother was thrilled and Hermione was thrilled and that was all that mattered to him. He wouldn't admit it at all to Hermione of course, but over the past 20 weeks he had grown more and more fond of the witch, enjoying the time they had recently been spending together. In fact, he couldn't wait till their shopping trip in the upcoming weeks. He didn't care if she would scold him for spending too much, he couldn't wait to spoil his little lady, both of his ladies.
His father would come round, hopefully.
They had been home for 12 hours now, and not once had his father come to visit him, Hermione or baby Elara, and it surprisingly hurt.
Draco was grateful that Hermione had agreed to return to the Manor with him, their relationship was still new and he understood her reasons for being so reluctant, but having them both here with him was all he could ask for.
He looked down at his sleeping daughter, in awe of her beauty as he took in all her features, her soft blonde tuffs of hair, her delicate little lashes spread across her cheeks. He didn't think he had ever seen anything so beautiful other than her mother in all his life.
"I'll be right back, I'm just checking on your mother," he whispered to the sleeping babe, before leaving the room.
He walked down the corridor towards the bathroom and knocked gently on the door. "Are you ok?" he asked through it.
"Yes, feeling much more human," he heard Hermione reply, and couldn't help smile at her words. "I won't be much longer."
"Would you like something to eat when you get out?"
"Please."
"I'll see -" his words were cut off when he heard the faint sound of his daughter crying, turning and making his way back into the direction his came, hoping that he would be able to calm her down until her mother was out of the bath and able to feed her.
He was not far from the room when the crying suddenly stopped. Draco increased his pace and halted abruptly when he made it to the entrance of the doorway. He said nothing as he watched his father cradle the small tot in his arms, swaying her gently from side to side, his finger running down the length of the tiny nose.
"She is as attention seeking as you were, already," said Lucius as he turned towards his son, though his gaze never moved from his granddaughter.
"We must get that trait from you, then, father," said Draco, smiling as Lucius shot him an unimpressed look.
"I must say, she is quite perfect," he heard Lucius whispered towards Elara, and Draco smiled proudly. "Just like her Grandfather," he continued, looking up at Draco with a proud smile of his own as Draco laughed and rolled his eyes.