Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR, of course. Just puttering about in her world.
A/N: Adding a third (and likely final) POV to the story. The three adults of the core little family each deserve their own time in the limelight. ;-)
Draco was nibbling disinterestedly at a piece of toast while watching Luna happily eating a mixture of eggs, chopped up sausage, and two kinds of jam. He didn't find the combination appealing, but somehow the contented sounds she made for each bite seemed fascinating. The baby sat on the table just in front of them, swaddled snuggly in a blanket and tucked into a carrying basket. He was awake but quiet, although the blond knew from the past two days spent at the house that it probably wouldn't last much longer.
Harry was rummaging through cabinets, calling out instructions to the house-elf. As far as Draco could tell, he was taking some sort of inventory, since periodically household items would be pitched into a bin that the elf vanished when it filled up. With any luck, he was planning on sending the elf for supplies, because their current diet of breakfast foods and sandwiches was getting a bit old. None of them really dared show up in public right now, and Harry had only grabbed the basics on his one trip out to a Muggle supermarket he knew well enough to apparate to.
The sound of the floo chiming from the first floor drawing room made them all startle a little. Harry cast a cleaning charm on himself. "I'll go see who it is. Remember our safety plan."
Draco stood and put himself between the table and doorway, wand at ready, as Kreacher stepped up to place one hand on the baby's basket and another on Luna's thin wrist. Harry had tightened the security wards on the place as best he could, but short of recasting a fidelius charm, there were still too many who knew where the house was and might be able to overpower the wards.
He felt himself relax somewhat when Harry called down the stairs that they had a welcome visitor, but he didn't lower the wand completely until Harry entered the kitchen with Narcissa Malfoy trailing behind him. He noted that the house-elf hadn't yet stepped away from his charges.
"Mother? Why are you here?" he asked. She'd sent him to Grimmauld Place with Harry when they'd returned to the Great Hall after destroying the Shrieking Shack. She'd felt being in the Savior's home would much improve his chances against being arrested in the first place.
"Your father decided it was better politics for me to be here as well." She offered a bulky letter carrying the Malfoy seal to Harry. "He wishes to rescind our marital contract."
"What?" The startled exclamations from both young men caused the baby to begin crying, and Luna gently shook loose Kreacher's hold to pick up the baby and settle him to nurse.
"Simple politics, my dragon." The elegant blond woman took a seat across from Luna at the table, studying the baby for a moment before continuing. "Harry's the Head of House Black now. If he agrees to rescind the marital contract, it means that legally neither of us was ever a Malfoy."
Draco nodded slowly, starting to see his father's plan. "And it would make us direct members of Harry's family, instead of cousins of sorts."
Harry looked puzzled, but broke open the seal on the letter and began scanning it. "I assume a closer relationship to me means the Aurors are less likely to arrest you two?"
"Precisely, Mr. Potter. The Malfoy matriarch and the heir might fall prey to nasty politics, no matter how much testimony you give for us. But taking away the Chosen One's Black relatives is a bit more problematic. It also gives the Wizengamot a loophole to save face."
Draco sat down next to Luna with a sigh, watching as Harry frowned over some aspect of the letter and its enclosed contract dissolution. He decided to add to his mother's explanation. "It also means that any assets Mother took into the marriage return to the Black family. It should list that out in there somewhere."
Nodding, the dark-haired wizard held out a piece of parchment to Narcissa. "Can you review this, Mrs. Malfoy, and tell me if it's everything you're entitled to have? I don't know where to find the Black originals quickly to compare, although I can't see him cheating you out of anything if he's taking steps this drastic to protect you."
"Call me Narcissa, Harry. It seems Malfoy isn't mine to claim any longer, and the world would see it as strange if you called me Miss Black." She took the parchment and scanned it, although Draco would bet what little he had to call his own that she knew everything that should be on the list by heart. "It's all here. A quarter of a million galleons for dowry and the property in Ireland, plus numerous items of furniture and jewelry as listed. Of the two house-elves I took with me, one has died of old age, but the other has borne an elfling that is mine by right of the mother."
"What about the elfling's father?" Harry asked, and Draco almost smiled. It was so like him to think of the child elf above the money and property that would essentially be his if he ratified the contract he held.
Narcissa smiled a little wanly. "Her father was that elf you helped free."
Draco was uncertain why Harry looked suddenly stricken, but before he could ask, the other man was back to the contract's terms. "This says that because he's dissolving the contract, he has to double your dowry on return and to provide an equal amount for any offspring now part of the Black family."
"Black marital contracts have always been very rough on any family repudiating them," Narcissa explained.
"Will he even be able to cover these amounts?"
"Easily, even after the Dark Lord ravaged the fortune. It would have been higher if he'd married into the direct line, but I was the youngest daughter of a younger son."
Harry snorted. "Not sure I want to know what these amounts would be if you'd been Sirius' sister instead of his cousin then." He sat down and summoned a quill and inkwell. "I should probably get this sorted before the Ministry decides to start freezing Death Eater assets, right?"
Both Malfoys nodded, although Draco was surprised to see Luna nod as well. She smiled gently at them all. "It's easier on the goblins if you sign before. They'd manage to honor the contract even afterward, but the red tape required would make them very cranky," she explained.
With a sigh, Harry signed his name and titles and seemed startled when the parchments magically duplicated and one copy instantly disappeared. Narcissa took a deep breath and removed her wedding bands with a less than steady hand, the only sign of emotion Draco had seen his mother show since she'd arrived. He'd never seen her without the two rings, and by right she'd get to keep them, but he figured the politics of the matter made it smarter to tuck the jewelry away for now.
"My elves have packed everything listed in my dowry as well as all personal items belonging to Draco and me. If I may be permitted to call them?" she asked. Harry nodded, and she called out decisively. "Lannie! Netta!"
Two small house-elves popped into the kitchen, each carrying a small, lumpy bag Draco knew carried the shrunken belongings his mother had had them pack before flooing over. The older elf, Lannie, was starting to be elderly for an elf. She'd been his mother's nanny elf and Draco's as well. Spotting the baby, her big eyes lit up, but her attention went to her mistress for instructions. When Narcissa looked to Harry instead, the elves did as well. Draco felt it would take some getting used to, seeing his mother defer to Harry instead of his father.
Since Harry was looking a bit puzzled by the attention, Draco prompted him. "Where do you want them to unpack or store what they've brought?"
Looking sheepish, the other wizard ran a hand through his messy hair. "The house is still quite a mess, Narcissa. You've a choice of bedrooms. I've got the first floor one." Draco remembered him insisting that he take that one as the first line of defense against intruders who came in via floo or the front door. "Luna and the baby are staying in the nursery on the second floor and Draco's up on the fourth in Regulus' old room."
Draco hadn't told his mother anything about the baby's parentage, but caught the small arch of an eyebrow when Harry described Luna as sleeping in the nursery. He really shouldn't be so far away from Luna but he'd felt it was more proper than staying on the same floor. Something about his Slytherin cousin's old room had appealed, so when Harry seemed amused by the idea, he'd chosen it despite the number of stairs between him and the living areas of the house.
"I'll settle on the second floor as well. We ladies should stick close together in a house full of males," Narcissa said after appearing to think the matter over. "Do you mind if I send Netta back to the Manor for a quick trip, Harry? I didn't have them pack Draco's baby things, but those might see some use here rather than getting swept into Ministry confiscation."
"That'd be wonderful," Harry said. Draco knew his grateful smile wasn't feigned. Since they'd arrived in the grubby house, they'd merely transfigured the existing furniture into baby things. All the nappies and tiny gowns the baby wore were similarly transfigured, mostly since none of them were entirely sure of what needed purchasing even if Harry slipped out to shop in a Muggle area. Narcissa quietly ordered Lannie to turn over her bag to Netta and to retrieve the needed items from the Manor attics. The house-elf popped away instantly.
"I'll show you the way, Mother," Draco started, before shaking his head ruefully. "I don't suppose you really need an escort in this house, do you?"
She actually smiled. "Not likely, my dragon. I'll get things settled and be back down." With that, she swept out of the room, Netta trailing behind her.
"Mother? Is something wrong?" With Harry back to his inventory and cleaning out and Luna immersed in something she was writing now that the baby was asleep again, Draco was the first to notice Narcissa had returned downstairs.
"Perhaps." Her gaze went from Harry, who'd stopped his task at the sound of Draco's voice, to Luna to the baby. "I think I need to know a little more about our family situation before the Ministry comes trying to verify our status here."
Draco was surprised when both Harry and Luna looked to him. Taking that as an unofficial election as spokesperson, he made a calculated decision that his mother needed to know the unvarnished truth. If she'd thrown her lot back in as a Black, she'd protect the little family at all costs, and truthfully, they needed the depth of knowledge she had to ensure everything was legal. So he explained what had been set in motion by Luna and by the time his tale was done, she had stepped forward to trace the tiny features of the newborn.
"What color are his eyes?" she asked at last.
"They turned like mine when we did the paternity part of the adoption," Harry said.
Narcissa nodded slightly. "I'll miss those dark eyes of his, but I think he'd have liked having the same eyes your mother had." She raised her gaze to study the three teenagers long enough even Luna began to squirm a bit. "You've skipped an important step to him being truly accepted though."
"What?" Harry sounded a bit panicked at the thought of missing out, but Draco thought he knew what they'd missed out on.
"Unwed parents aren't very common in the wizarding world," he said, a bit upset with himself for not thinking of that sooner. "Granted, you're Harry Potter and that'll go a long way, but there will be some who will bully him for his parents not being married."
Harry sputtered. "I can't just make Luna marry me for the sake of making other people happy."
"I wouldn't mind being married, Harry, especially if it makes our family safer and happier." Luna's sweet smile directed at Harry made Draco feel a twinge of unwelcome jealousy.
"Are you certain?" he asked, coming to settle in the chair next to Luna and taking one of her hands in both of his. She nodded and Harry turned to Narcissa and Draco. "But wouldn't getting married after the fact be a problem too?"
Draco shook his head. "It's not unusual for babies to arrive before the formal wedding, especially for betrothed couples. It provides proof the marriage will provide heirs as needed."
Luna hummed happily. "We'll need an official to marry us. Narcissa and Draco can be our witnesses."
Looking a big stunned by her easy acceptance, Harry looked thoughtful. "Kingsley's acting minister. If he would do it, no one would really question it, right?"
At the nods from the trio of blondes in his kitchen, Harry stood. "Alright. I'll send word to Kingsley and we'll work on getting the house presentable."
Still a bit bemused that Harry had accepted the idea about marrying Luna without much of an argument, Draco volunteered to take Netta and work on the ground floor. If they were having a wedding, he didn't want it to happen in a house looking only a step or two better than the abandoned Shrieking Shack had. His father had tried to make up for all his mistakes by protecting Draco and his mother at all costs, and he wasn't about to reject Lucius' sacrifice of having his own family by letting this one start off on bad footing.
A/N:
L: I'm glad you're finding this scenario to save Severus enjoyable and that you like the other stories as well. I couldn't leave Draco out of the family, not when Severus went to such lengths to save him. It just seemed fitting to work him in. So much so that he wormed his way in to demand his own POV as well, instead of just Harry and Luna getting the POV duties. ;-)
asyuraniel : Thanks! Glad you're still enjoying it.