Summary: Lots of soap-opera-esque twists, so prepare yourself. Draco's first night with Diana, Harry's nightmares, a hint at smut, a surprise, and a demand.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Ever.
Warning: Mpreg, Slash, you know the drill...
&--&--&
A cry rang out in the silence, and Harry sat bolt upright. He realized, after a moment of heavy breathing, that the cry had been his. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow, shoving the sweltering covers down. He was both freezing and on fire, and his hands shook lightly.
Not even Hermione knew he still had these nightmares. Harry kept them under wraps, to keep his friends from worrying. The last thing they needed on their minds was worrying because he still dreamt of Voldemort.
The dream, nightmare, more accurately, was always the same. He would be in the clearing in the forest, going to his death, only when he got there, Voldemort did not immediately kill him. Instead, he tortured him and told him his friends were dead, and brought Ginny out and cut her open inch by inch until finally... He woke up.
It wasn't a foretelling dream. It didn't mean anything, just that he was still haunted by his memory. He didn't see the point in telling them if it didn't mean anything.
He snapped his fingers, and the lamp on the nightstand flickered on. He slid out of bed slowly, trying to regulate his breathing and padding softly down the hallway. He crept downstairs, keeping quiet though there was no one to wake up at that hour, on that night. He went into the kitchen and set a pot of tea on, and glanced out the window and down the street.
A light was on in Draco's house, on the second floor. He watched, curious, for a moment, and saw a Draco-shaped shadow slide over the window slowly. Diana was probably up and crying.
When the water boiled, he fixed his tea and pulled a chair over the window. He sat down and watched the shadow, hands still shaking ever so slightly.
&--&--&
Draco wondered if Harry had deliberately not told him about this.
Or perhaps it was just that she wasn't familiar with her surroundings. Draco didn't know. But the fact was that she was awake, and she was crying, and Draco was extremely tired.
He wasn't crying, though, which he supposed was a plus. He was pacing back and forth in the nursery, hoping the motion would sooth Diana and maybe quell her cries. So far, no such luck.
He adjusted her again, whispering soft endearments to her and swaying side to side slowly. She was held against his chest in an almost upright position, wailing and wriggling in his grip. She'd been at it for an hour already, and Draco was close to firecalling his mother or going and waking up Harry.
Another wave of drowsiness washed over him, almost causing him to fall. He cursed mentally, struggling against it and winning. But that didn't mean he always would win out, and he knew that. He grabbed a blanket from Diana's crib and left the room, going downstairs and into the living room. He adjusted Diana into one arm better, and moved the coffee table to the wall. He spread Diana's blanket on the floor and barricaded the edges with pillows, casting a charm that would alert him if she was suffocating in one of them.
He lay her down in the center, sitting down on the sofa and watching her cry. He hoped that maybe this room, which looked more like Harry's home than any other in the house, would comfort her and lull her to sleep. I occurred to him then that he could have moved the table and the blanket by magic, but he was too tired to care. And what did it matter anyway?
Her cries, instead of tapering, crescendoed and Draco sighed. He picked her back up off the floor and cradled her to his chest. He'd already tried all the simple lullabies he thought Harry might have sung to her, but he wasn't about to give up. He wracked his mind for the song he used to sing to her, a muggle song he'd heard once in muggle London while he was pregnant with her. The lyrics came to him suddenly and he cleared his throat.
"Baby, now that I've found you, I won't let you go... I built my world around you, I need you so, baby even though you don't need me now... " He repeated the same stanza, remembering the nights he'd spent singing to her to calm her. This had become her lullaby. He continued on with the song, though the lyrics had been edited to suit the situation.
Her cries softened and were reduced to whimpers. Draco stroked her hair gently, rocking her back and forth slightly in time with her lullaby. In only a few minutes, she lay sleeping against him. He slowly stopped rocking and stood, careful not to wake her. He treated up the stairs and into her room, and, taking nearly ten minutes to do so without waking her, lay her in her crib. He flipped off the lights, sighing happily when she stayed sleeping.
He glanced out the window and saw a light on in Harry's house, and a figure laying slumped against the windowsill. It occurred to him briefly that Harry must be more nightmare plagued then he seemed, but quickly dismissed the thought in favor of going to bed.
&--&--&
Harry awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright and spilling cold tea down himself. The bird that had awoken him by flying into the glass slid down the window, and dropped to the ground. For a moment he wondered if it was dead, but it flew away.
He fetched a towel and dried off the chair and windowsill, washed out his cup, and went to change. Ginny was going to be over in twenty minutes, if he remembered correctly. He hadn't told her about the agreement he had with Draco, and that she was with him for the next week. He had figured it would be better to tell her when they were alone, instead of with Ron.
Sure enough, she flooed into his living room a short while later and kissed him good morning. She glanced around.
"Where's Diana?" She asked, laying he coat over the back of the loveseat. Suddenly, Harry didn't want to tell her. It really wasn't her business, he reasoned to himself.
"With a sitter," He lied blatantly, and she smiled seductively at him.
"Well, isn't that convenient..." She pressed a hot kiss to his mouth, entwining her arms around his neck. Harry responded, though it didn't hold that much pleasure for him. He let her push herself against him, and she pulled at the hem of his shirt.
He'd never considered doing anything like this with Ginny. He'd never even been with a girl before... But Ginny pushed him towards the door, down the hall and into his bedroom. He wasn't sure if he should stop or let her have her way. If he stopped, she'd probably fly off the handle and accuse him of some ridiculous plot to get rid of her, and he wasn't really up to dealing with that.
He surrendered and pulled her shirt over her head, willing himself to forget just how strange it was.
&--&--&
Draco awoke, surprisingly hours later, when Diana's charm went off and alerted him that she was awake. He pulled himself out of bed, checked the clock and saw it was around noon, and went to Diana's room.
She was sitting up and holding the bars of her crib, but when she saw him she reached for him in a gesture to be picked up. He chuckled and plucked her into his arms, reveling at the feeling of her weight there on his hip. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Draco had never felt like parenting would ever be something he really wanted. But the moment she was placed in his arms... He realized then that she would be the center of his life, until the day he died and beyond. Most things about mothering her had just come to him, naturally through human instinct. His mother told him she'd been the same way with him. And again he realized just how young he was, and the task he was taking on.
Looking into her eyes, there could be no doubt he loved her more than anything. More than he loved his parents, and more than he'd ever loved Harry. It felt like she was the meaning of life at times, like life had had no purpose before her and he couldn't imagine life after her. If he were ever to lose her...
He was taking Diana to his parent's home that day, for their first reunion since the day she was taken away. He hoped she would recognize them, or it would hurt Narcissa's feelings. Diana reached her hands up and pulled on his nose, turning his face to hers. She put her little chubby toddler hands on his cheeks and looked at him, smiling and giggling a little.
"Da," She cooed, and a brilliant smile spread over Draco's face.
&--&--&
Two weeks passed, and Diana cycled back to Draco's care. Harry had found it almost a relief to go a while without her, but after about four days he grew bored and missed her. She'd only been with Draco a day, but he was bored enough that he'd invited Ginny over for a while.
Her first words to him were asking about Diana, looking around for her curiously. Ginny and Diana had grown mildly attached, but Harry still hadn't told her about his deal with Draco. He knew it was time to, but he wasn't sure how she'd react. He sat down and gestured for her to join him, and she did so.
"Are you gonna tell me? Is she with the sitter again?" She asked, an eyebrow raising seductively.
"Oh, um, no. I mean, she's not exactly with a sitter. Kinda similar, but not a sitter," He said, scratching the back of his neck. "Well... I decided I shouldn't keep her from seeing Draco, so I met with him a few weeks ago and we worked something out. He has her right now," He said slowly, avoiding her gaze. He looked up to check her expression, and it was blank and a little surprised.
"And... you didn't tell me?" She asked, looking confused and a little hurt now.
"Well, I didn't want to let you know until I knew it was going to work out, and I didn't want you to be worried or anything-" She cut him off, her face hardening.
"You didn't even think to consult me? Even though I'm an important role in Diana's life, too?" She asked, and Harry began to take the defensive side.
"Gin, she's not your daughter. And in a few months, you might not be as involved with her at all," She looked offended at his words, and he wondered if it might have been the wrong thing to say.
"Oh, I will be!" She said, surprising Harry with her abrupt and assuming words. "I thought we had a plan, Harry! We were going to raise her together, no Malfoy involved! She would have grown up like a normal little kid!" She said, trying to push Harry into feeling it was better for her if she didn't see Draco. Harry wasn't quite stupid enough to fall for it.
"I never agreed to any of that! I love you, Gin, but there's no guarantee that we'll last like that. We're teenagers, and as we've seen, teenagers split up all the time," He argued. "You know what? Maybe we should just take a break for a while, see how we feel in a few months-" Ginny almost panicked.
"No, no, we don't have to do that. I just don't like this," She stopped, trying to find the right words. "I don't like her being with Malfoy. It's already strange to me that they're even related, now she has to spend half her time with him? What's that about?" She asked, and Harry scoffed.
"Oh, I dunno, maybe it's because he's her father? He has a right to see her, more than you do, anyway! To you she's just a cute little baby, you've never actually stayed over and helped me take care of her! He raised her until she was eight months old, not to mention he was the one who carried and gave birth to her!" He stopped, catching his breath. "You haven't seen them together. They're natural, they just work... To him, parenting is as easy as breathing and depriving him of that is just cruel. And keeping her away from her father is wrong," He said.
"I thought you didn't care about him. And Diana would have a mother if she just stayed here, none of that two dads stuff. I could fill that role," She said, pleading a case she'd already lost.
"Gin, it's already done, okay? And maybe this isn't working out," He stood up, stepping away from the sofa. She rose with him. "Look, we'll just take a few months off and see how we feel after. We're young, we don't know what we want, we should see if there's anyone else we like better-" He said, talking more to himself than Ginny. She cut him off, and he missed her frantic expression.
"Harry, I'm pregnant," Harry froze. That definitely wasn't what he expected...
&--&--&
Draco looked up at the knock on his front door, wiping his hands on a towel and lifting Diana out of her chair. He left the kitchen and opened the door with one hand, surprised to fin Harry standing there.
Harry looked flustered and troubled, and somewhat sickened. Draco stepped back to let him in, and Harry did so, reaching for Diana. Draco passed her to him without objection, concerned when Harry still said nothing and clutched Diana to him as though she were his lifeline.
"What's wrong?" He asked. "Did something happen?" He tried, and Harry finally turned his gaze on him as he shut the door behind him. Harry took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye, which he'd never been able to resist.
"Tell me everything," He said firmly. "I want to know everything. From the day you found out about her till the day I took her," Draco wondered briefly what had brought that on...
&--&--&
Author's Notice: Sorry it took so long. I kind of lost interest in this a little, but don't worry- I got over it. It's shorter than normal, but I hope it fulfilled everyone's soap-opera cravings. I still can't believe Ginny's pregnant... I mean, really, who expected that? Next chapter I'm thinking I'll do first person Draco's POV for the explanation. Reviews are welcome, please don't flame!