A/N: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!

xx-Kitten.

Tender and Mild

By Kittenshift17

"Americans are all mad," Draco Malfoy declared, hurrying into the room of their Chicago hotel and stomping snow from his dragon-hide boots.

"I'm sure they're not, Draco," Hermione Granger replied, slipping a stitch across her knitting needles and clicking away once more, all without looking up at her husband.

"They are," he maintained. "It's bloody ridiculous out there. I swear it's colder than it ever got at Hogwarts in the dungeons, even in the dead of winter and yet they're dashing about throwing snowballs in the street. One little brat lobbed one right at me, the little shit!."

"They don't call it the windy city for nothing, love. And I'm certain that you need a good pelting with snowballs at least once a year to keep you from turning into a complete ponce," Hermione said absently, smiling a little when he crossed the room and smooth a gloved hand through her loose curls.

"Arranged to have them attack me like wild animals, did you? And what are you doing? I thought you were going to get dressed so that we can go and deal with this… why have you dragged me here, again?" Draco asked, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"We have to handle the estate affairs of my late aunt, Draco. I told you that."

"And you're sitting in your knickers, knitting, rather than doing that because it's so utterly boring that we should blow it off and make a snow-man in the middle of central park, instead?" Draco suggested.

"I'm certain you're thinking of New York, darling," Hermione replied. "And I'm knitting because I want to get this finished."

"You won't even tell me what you're making," Draco pouted when he tried to fiddle with the incomplete knitting project.

"It's a surprise," Hermione told him.

"You're not knitting me another hat, are you?" Draco asked. "I swear I've got enough that our great-great-great-grandchildren will all be able to inherit one."

"It's not a hat," she told him. "It's not even for you."

"How's it a surprise for me if it's not for me?" he wanted to know. "Let me see it!"

Hermione hissed at him when the pompous twat of a wizard snatched the project out of her hands and danced away across the room, spreading the knitted parts out on the dining table. Hermione chased him, trying to snatch it back and thinking seriously about hexing him.

"What is this?" Draco asked, frowning as he stretched out the wool on the table and tried to figure out what she was attempting to make.

"Give it back, Draco," Hermione demanded. "I don't want you to see it, yet."

Draco wasn't listening. He was standing frozen, his hands spreading out the shape of the tiny, knitted blue jumper panel she'd been carefully weaving into existence.

"Hermione…" he said quietly, glancing up at her briefly before looking back at the baby-sized jumper and then back at her, once more. "Is this… what I think it is?"

"It's not a hat," she said, trying to throw him off the scent, not wanting to ruin the surprise, just yet.

"It's a jumper, right?" he asked, though how he recognized that when all she'd knitted was the cute picture of a baby dragon in bright gold wool amid the soft blue of the front panel for the project was beyond her.

"Jumpers have sleeves, love," she pointed out, raising her eyebrows.

"Yesterday you knitted two weird shapes that could be stitched into sleeves," he pointed out, proving that despite the moaning he'd done on their trip over, he'd been paying attention.

"And you just assume it's a jumper?" Hermione put her hands on her hips.

Draco met her gaze. "A child-sized jumper with a baby dragon in it," he pointed out.

Hermione watched the way his eyes traced over her body – clad as she was in only her knickers, her thick bed-socks, and one of the jumpers she'd pinched from him. His eyes lingered on her stomach, hidden as it was beneath her jumper. Hermione did her level best to keep from tenderly cupping the ever so slightly protruding little bump she'd been dressing around all week, not wanting to ruin the surprise even though Draco, wretch that he was, seemed intent on spoiling things yet again.

"Are you…?" he asked, not daring to say the word, lest it somehow jinx their luck.

Hermione tried to look stern. She tried to hide the wide, jubilant smile that crawled across her face and pulled her lips up at the corners. She tried to contain the excitement that had been coursing through her since she'd first missed her period three months earlier. She'd wanted so badly to surprise Draco with the news on Christmas morning, but the infernal urge to knit had overtaken her and now it was ruined, but she was too excited to mind so very much.

Pressing her lips to try and hide her grin, Hermione nodded her head.

"You're sure?" Draco asked, his voice going tight and his body quivering with barely restrained emotion.

"I'm sure, darling," she nodded. "I've been seeing the Healers in secret; everything's perfect and there've been no complications and this one might actually stick, love. And I'm furious with you for ruining the surprise."

"You're pregnant?" he breathed, his eyes wide.

Hermione nodded.

"I'm pregnant. Fourteen weeks, to be exact," she said, knowing that he'd know that meant they were most likely out of the woods and unlikely to lose this one.

He gave a yell of joy, closing the distance between the two of them, wrapping her into his embrace and kissing her soundly. Hermione giggled, kissing him back and threading her fingers through his silky blond hair. His tongue swept into her mouth, bringing the taste of hot chocolate, and Hermione leaned into him hungrily, molding herself to his lithe form and snogging him until she was breathless.

"We're pregnant," Draco said, pulling back to rest his forehead against hers, cuddling her close.

"We are," Hermione agreed. "You're going to be a Dad. Happy Christmas, Draco."

He kissed her again, his hands sliding over the familiar planes of her body and coming to rest on the tiny bump hidden beneath her jumper.

"I love you," he whispered. "I love you more than everything, Hermione."

"I love you too, Draco," Hermione said.

"Everything's fine, right?" he asked. "He's doing well? You haven't been getting dizzy or spotting or getting pains?"

Hermione's heart clenched at the love and tenderness in his tone, and she smiled brilliantly.

"None of those things. I haven't even really had any morning sickness. The healers say everything is going well, and there've been no complications. I wanted to surprise you with it for Christmas, but as usual, you had to be a nosey git and ruin it."

"Can I see?" he asked hopefully, lifting the hem of her jumper slowly.

Hermione smiled, lifting the hem and watching him drop to his knees before her. His hands were warm as he slid them over the faint bump protruding low on her abdomen, carefully caressing her skin before leaning in and kissing her belly softly. When he glanced up at her from where he knelt, his eyes glistened with love and happiness and such excitement that Hermione's eyes prickled.

"Fourteen weeks, you said?" he asked.

Hermione nodded.

"A boy?" he guessed, basing it on the color of the jumper she'd been knitting.

"I think so," Hermione nodded. "The healers can't confirm it yet, of course, but I'm hoping for a boy, just like you."

Draco smirked at her. "If your twelve-year-old self could see you now," he teased.

"She'd be horrified, I'm sure," Hermione grinned.

"And your twenty-three-year-old self?" Draco asked.

"Excited," Hermione admitted. "Nervous. Scared we might lose him. Worried that I'll be a horrible mother. Annoyed with you for ruining my Christmas surprise."

"Happy?" he wanted to know, pepping her belly with tender kisses that made her weak in the knees.

"Overjoyed," Hermione admitted. "And you?"

Draco's lips pulled into a genuine smile of adoration and love. "I feel like my heart might burst," he admitted softly, never one for openly discussing emotions so freely, but unable to contain himself. "I might've ruined the surprise for Christmas, but I think Chicago just became my favorite city."

Hermione laughed.

"I love you, you know?" she said, carding her fingers through his hair affectionately. "Happy Christmas, I suppose, even if it is early."

"Christmas has come early," he smirked, smoothing his fingers over her belly and then lower, snagging them in the waistband of her knickers and beginning to work them down her legs gently. "Perhaps you'd like to, as well?"

Hermione giggled at him for the positively cheesy line but nodded her head.

"Gods, I thought you'd never ask," she teased.

"Don't try and pretend I don't keep you well-ravished, love," Draco laughed, guiding her backward to sit on the edge of the bed. "You wouldn't be in your current condition if I didn't."

Hermione sighed as he trailed a line of kisses down her belly, heading south from her navel while his fingers trailed up her thighs, encouraging her to part them as he insinuated himself between them.

"Eager, Granger?" he taunted when she whined as he trailed his fingers down her sex slowly, teasing her like the wretched torment he was.

"I'm not above using my pregnancy hormones against you, Draco Malfoy," she warned him. "You have no idea how difficult it's been to keep from jumping you since my bump began to show."

"No wonder you've been insisting on it from behind," Draco smirked at her over the rim of her pubic bone as he blew a cool stream of air over her already thrumming core. "I know you prefer to be on top."

"Would've ruined the surprise… oh, gods!" Hermione's sentence ended on a low moan when he leaned in, licking her aching core expertly and making her writhe as he suckled the little bundle of nerves at the top of her slit.

His chuckle was pure sin as he began to torment her, his fingers and his tongue working into tandem. The sensations drove her wild and Hermione writhed, desperate for more and so in love with him that she was already seeing stars. Threading her fingers into his hair, Hermione rocked into every stroke of his tongue and his wicked fingers.

Relentless and thorough, as he always was, Hermione reached for him needily and she smiled when he slid one hand over the tiny bump of her belly, interlacing their fingers and pressing their palms flat against the tiny bulge of the life they'd created. Though it was too early, Hermione would swear that as the pressure and pleasure built within her before snapping free, she felt the first, faint stirrings of their baby moving within her and she sobbed with joy.