"How are you?"
One full month of walking about stuffed to the gullet with a horrendously huge load of guilt, angst and Sturm-und-Drang was fucking excruciatingly tedious, when it came down to it. Wearying, dull and insupportable to a man freshly delivered into the prime of his young life.
Draco was brilliantly bored, to the eyeteeth. Full of it: gills sopping.
And damn, but if Draco wasn't bloody sick of being cast as the one in the wrong. Wasn't he that'd been considering cheating. Wasn't he. Pity the Griffindorks didn't acknowledge that, but sod them; they didn't matter. Pity Potter (the git) wouldn't up and admit it, little arse.
"Go away." A deep inhale through flared nostrils and an Avada Kedavra green glow-light glare, dire and jade in the dapple of light that filtred dimly down: that was Potter. All effing chin and that stance of his, the little shit. "Go. Away."
"No." Draco had to consider this pithy utterance a breakthrough, of sorts. It was the first full sentence Harry had addressed to him directly in ages. "No, I need to know, Potter."
He'd been…odd, odd in his pregnancy, Harry had. Highly unusual.
Draco should know; he'd been watching the progress of it obsessively, comparing every miniscule change with every detail his mother recalled and recounted of Marc deLisle's time, and then those again to every scrap of minutiae contained in the Healer's tomes in the Hogwart's Library, Malfoy's own extensive collection and even St Mungo's Pædiatrics Research Section Reference Area (banned to the public generally, but Malfoy Galleons still greased locks, it seemed) held in their learned pages.
It was..fuck! It was all progressing far too fast, for one, at a pace double normal. But this was Potter, and Potter was like no one else, ever.
Potter. Bloody Potter.
Draco fretted. Headmistress had proved amenable to allowing his mother to forward Pomfrey the beneficial draught, though. All to the good; Potter required it. No Wizard bore a child without the full and willing support of the other father. Without Draco's compliance, the babe would've aborted naturally in time…and, even now, at the bitter edge of his personal hell, Draco couldn't bear the thought of that.
"No, really. How are you?" Draco repeated doggedly. "Tell me how you are. Harry."
Harry set his lips into a very thin line and dropped his obstinate chin, refusing to look up. Refusing to even see Draco. He closed his eyes, even; how childish!
"Harry?"
"Harry. Talk to me."
Not that Draco could be overlooked. Wasn't much about to cast one's eyes on, not this time. It was the corridor corner nearby Potions classroom, the same old shortcut they'd used to employ, once upon a time when Harry still could stand him about. And he'd caught Harry here alone sheerly via a diet of lurking and a steady observation of Potter's furtive ways. His ex-lover came this path when he was belated; not often, granted, but often enough for Draco to lay in wait and be pretty hopeful of a 'chance' meeting, in private. 'Chance'! Hah! That it had come down to scurrying about in the shadows irked Draco severely, but yet.
He hastened; there wasn't much time.
"Are you well? How's the pain been? Did the—did it improve, after the Potion Mother sent you? It was supposed to, it was meant to, but—Harry, I can change it up if it's wrong, if it's not working. Just…just talk to me please. The details, I need them. Tell me—tell me."
Thin lips, eyes shut tight against him; no openings available. Draco huffed, harassed.
He truly needed to know if it should adjusted, the draught. It was imperative. If there could be tiny changes made to the formula. And it was…it was highly personal. His fluids, his own, mixed in with any number of healing elixirs, and then strained, boiled, steamed and extracted down to a single clear solution. One drop per diem and Harry would feel ever so much better, as would the baby.
"Oh, come now. Don't be an arse."
Without it introduced into his compromised system, Harry might suffer. No, he would absolutely suffer, and Draco's heart sank even to think of such. The references had been quite clear on the physical ramifications of an unassisted male pregnancy. And…ah. His interest in Potter had escalated recently. Now it was not just his fine arse and his fly-by-night mode of attention, but also his whole wellbeing, apparently.
Draco fidgeted, frustrated.
"Harry, at least say. One way or the other; is it better or is it not, after my Potion? I can't do anything more to help if you don't say!"
One forced tear or a droplet of perspiration too many, one dram too many or too few of Malfoy semen, and it might be all wrong for Harry's plight; ineffective. He persisted.
"Harry? Let me help you. Don't be such a prick about this. I owe you—I owe it."
'It'…ah. The child. He needed to know, yes; it was why he was here, waiting. Pomfrey couldn't tell him, nor would she. He was, after all, still the party to blame for this debacle involving her favourite pupil. Madame could be a grudging old bat when she chose. And Potter was brilliant at playing the vague. He laughed, he smiled, he did all that was mostly normal for the version of 'Harry' he was now…but he gave nothing away. Nothing for free, no. Draco couldn't discern details from just simply watching him from a distance—no.
But…the little one. Theirs, his and Harry's. Surely, there must be some mutual concern there?
"For the baby, Harry. Our child."
It was low; he shouldn't. But, gods, fuck, but he needed this information; no, he required it. Obligation demanded it. The bond of fatherhood desired it, and Potter—stupid-head Potter!
"Harry, please." Draco decided to go with a promise he'd no intentions of keeping; any port in a storm, as they said. He blurted out everything, anything, that came to his head.
"I won't bother you again if you don't want, I won't follow after you and nag away, but this is your own physical health that's the main concern here. Your body, Harry; your Magic. I need to know; you have to tell me. How is—how is? The baby's…that baby in you is. Mine."
Draco swallowed.
"Mine."
He'd never wrapped his lips around the simple word 'please' quite this often. It wasn't so easy to do.
"So, you owe it me. Really. And it—and it's crucial, our child—to me, as well, Harry, as much as to you even if you don't believe me on that. I want that baby—our child. It needs to live; you need to live. So, please. Just consider it; I only ask that you consider. Talking to me sometimes, telling me, saying how you're feeling, alright? You can send me Owls if you want, that's alright too, but—but, please. Information's all I'm after, I promise. I'll go straight away if you'll cooperate, I swear—I will. Just, how are you faring—are you well now? The pain; I know there's pain involved, a great whopping lot of it, pain. Is it—it is improved?"
"I had said, once, recently," Harry's voice was low and gruff and he still refused to even glance at Draco, turning his chin obstinately away, his torso, too, "that I hated you. It stands, that. Yes, it's helping. Thank you for it. Now— go away."
"Harry!" Draco exclaimed, shrinking back; if voices could stab, he'd be a corpse already. "Harry, if you cou—fuck, I only meant to—oh, Harry, don't be like that. Be ration—"
"No!"
Potter wheeled about, eyes flaming, and with all his defenses up. A ghost from the past, all too recent. A memory.
…And Draco was treated to all the signals of the full-out Potter temper, the likes of which he'd not witnessed in ages, boiling out in waves of despising heat, searing him.
Full turn, a rise up on tiptoes and those green eyes flashing vitriol. A bulge at the flat belly, too—that was new, wasn't it?—and then a hand there, fingers wide and warm in an instant. Protecting it.
That was new and it meant something, it did. The harsh glare of Harry's scowl perversely left Draco feeling less frozen, abruptly.
"Go away, go away, go away! God damn you, Malfoy, why can you not just go away? Sod off!"
"N—!"
"Or I will!"
And Harry turned upon his heel and fled Draco's presence, as if all the demons from the Ninth Circle followed him, set to eat up his very entrails.
"Bloody! Why…why? Is it…so…?"
Draco sank down to his haunches upon the chilled flags beneath his boot soles and stared after Potter. Wide-eyed and dry-eyed, loose-limbed in shock, and wondered what had befallen his grand plan that this was his result, after.
…But this wasn't over. No, not by a long shot.