Everyone saw. God, everyone saw! Everyone in the Great Hall, the professors, the students, the Slytherins, his friends, Ginny... they all saw him when it happened. When it comes to embarrassing situations, this one definitely took the strawberry treacle tart. In fact, it could take all the strawberry treacle tarts Ron could eat and it still wouldn't have made up for the embarrassment that flooded his face when Harry's spell wore off. Not that food could be compared to real life situations, even with one of Professor Trelawney's metaphors.
The chance of Harry having a normal life from then on out was shattered, as if being the Boy-Who-Lived and the Boy-Who-Kicked-The-Dark-Lord's-Arse (the latter being courtesy of Ron Weasley and being surprisingly popular among the enchanted 8th year students) wasn't enough already. When the Daily Prophet got a hold of the news, they made certain that every witch and wizard in the world knew that famous Harry Potter was with child.
No one seemed to understand that when Harry meant he was planning on keeping the whole thing to himself that it meant he wasn't going to tell a soul who the father was. Hermione and Neville had forced him to go to the Hospital Wing, even though he at knew for a fact that his child was healthy. Ron probably would have, too, if he hadn't fainted as soon as the spell broke. Harry guessed it probably wasn't the best way to tell your mate you're pregnant, but then again, what was?
One restless night and a check-up later, Harry was just about done with the poking and prodding and questions everyone was giving him. All he wanted to do was retire to the year eight dormitory, but before he knew it, classes had started. Of course, they more than likely would have allowed him to sleep, but he didn't want to be treated differently from the rest of the students just because of his name and his past. As far as Harry was concerned, he was just an average Hogwarts student who just happened to be up the duff at the same time.
September came and went with little much happening in terms of grandiose events. When Harry looked at his life at a whole, there was little significant at all about that month, save for that first day. Sure, there were the occasional letters from the presses, or the random first years who would come up and question him, but other than that, nothing out of the ordinary occurred. When it was mid-October, which had to have been his eighth month, Hermione sat him down to finally have that talk she had been threatening to give him as of late.
Everyone else was at the Halloween feast, and so the common room was as perfect a place as any other to have their sit-down. At first, it was a bit awkward, as they had never really sat down and talked about their feelings before. Hermione cleared her throat a couple of times, while Harry fidgeted right and left. They both seemed to have been ignoring the elephant in the room.
"So," Hermione started, a sweet and genuine smile covering her face.
Sighing, Harry put his head in his hand. "I told you, Hermione, I'm not telling anyone who the father is, and that includes you."
"No, no, I know. I wanted to talk to you about you and your child, not him. I want to know how you're doing and, more importantly, what your plan is."
Harry looked puzzled. "I don't really have any sort of plan."
The smile faded from her face. "You don't have any idea what you're doing, do you?"
"When do I ever?"
"Well, why don't you just start off by telling him that he's the father?"
"Because, Hermione, he's a twat and twats don't very much want to take care of their bastard children."
"What if Draco loves you? Do you think he'd still be the same?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah, even if he loves me, he'd still be the same." He hung his head as tears prickled his eyes. "God, what am I going to do, 'Mione?"
"Oh, Harry!" Hermione wrapped her arms around her best friend and cradled his head her neck as he sobbed. She rubbed his back in soothing circles and whispered comforting words into his hear.
"If anything, Ron and I will help you." She was right. Even if he didn't have Draco, or anyone else left, he still had Ron and Hermione, and they weren't going to leave him anytime soon.
"Thanks Hermione," Harry whispered as she brushed the tears from his face. "You're a better friend than I could ever hope for."
Only later did he realize that he never mentioned Draco by name.
It was in the middle of the night when he went into labour. Unfortunately, it was also the night he decided to stalk Draco out in the corridors, and so there was no one else around but the twat to help him to the hospital wing. If Harry had thought breaking the news to the populace by way of a broken spell was embarrassing, he had no words for what happened when his water broke. As he had been under the Invisibility Cloak, he then had to shout at Draco to ignore why he was out there in the first place and just help him get to where he needed to go.
Luckily, the matron from St. Mungo's was awake at that ungodly hour, and was able to get to work as soon as the pair stepped through the threshold. She motioned for Draco to set Harry down on the nearest cot and get him some water.
"I don't need your help, Malfoy," Harry spat as he hobbled his way to the bed. Damn his pride for not letting him accept help.
"Au contraire, Potter, if what I hear is true, than you need more than you're letting on." He smirked, and then grabbed a cup and his wand. "Aguamenti." Draco then handed the glass to Harry. "Drink up."
"Cheers," said Harry, even if he hardly meant it. Swallowing the entire thing in one large gulp, he placed the cup onto the table next to the bed. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
"I've heard what Granger has to say, although I don't believe her at all. She's daft. I mean, I can't possible be the father of your kid. There's just no way! Is there?" Uncertainty hung in his voice, and when Harry didn't respond, Draco knew his answer.
"You mean... the child is mine?" A wondrous look passed on his face for just a moment and Harry couldn't even imagine what was going through his mind.
"Yes," Harry said through gritted teeth. "You are the father." He tried to be mad, and he wanted to be upset; really, he did. But Harry couldn't put his heart into it. Not now, at least, and, perhaps, not ever again.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Draco was seething now as he spoke, his eyes narrowed. Anger radiated off of him and shook Harry to the bone, yet nothing but calm showed on the stoic Malfoy face. What had once given him such great delight now gave him the most horrible of feelings, almost akin to loosing someone. Perhaps it was because if he wasn't careful, he was going to lose someone. He couldn't lose Draco; if not for his sake, but for their child's.
"I was scared, trust me," pleaded Harry. Tears were threatening to fall. "You don't know how scary it is to go through something like this. I thought – well, I thought you'd hate me."
"Hate you? Harry, how could I ever hate you for carrying my child, especially when I loved you so much?" He used the past-tense. Harry gasped and started to shake as his face became quite wet.
"Draco, I – oh God!" The pain was horrid, and Harry wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and will it away. However, if what he had learnt meant anything at all, then doing that would be one of the worst things possible at the moment.
The matron noticed the most recent contraction, which was only a handful of moments away from the last one. She turned to Draco, and with a sharp-tongue, said, "Look, if you're going to make this worse, then get out, but if you are actually going to help, then at least get out of the way."
"Please don't leave me," Harry whispered, grasping Draco's hand firmly in his own and clamping down as if clinging onto the man for dear life. For a moment, he looked as if he were going to part regardless, but then a soft look passed through his eyes. Crouching down so that he was at eyelevel with Harry, Draco placed a kiss upon his temple and squeezed his hand back.
"Never," said Draco and Harry smiled, and then he succumbed to the hurt with a scream that scraped his throat raw. No longer were there any coherent thoughts, simply moans and grunts and cries of agony. There, too, was the desperate point at which Harry and Draco achieved unity, which he held onto with all his strength. Everything else ceased to exist for that hour-long event of torment.
At last, when the afterbirth had cleaned up and the pain long subsided, Harry came back to the world with his first sight being the babe in Draco's arms. A dreamy smile was upon the man's face and for a moment, Harry was speechless. "I was thinking of naming him Albus Sirius. What do you think?" Draco looked at him with curiosity.
"Albus Sirius?" Draco asked. "Isn't that a bit of an unusual name?" At this, Harry flushed, but he dare not turn away from the precious moment.
"Yes, well, you aren't one to talk Draco Lucius Malfoy." Draco raised an eyebrow but did not protest. Instead, he carefully handed the boy in his arms to Harry.
"Tell me: does he look like an Albus Sirius to you?" One look at the precious bundle and Harry's heart soared. In that instant, Harry knew what his name was.
"Welcome to the world, Albus Severus Malfoy."
A/N: I don't normally put author's notes, but it's been brought to my attention that I may not have been clear with what this piece was. This short story was supposed to be the most cliché I could possibly make it. Obviously, I haven't done as good of a job as I hoped I would have. Sorry about that.