Friday June 19th

"Potter," a gruff voice barked and he looked up to see Raeburns striding towards him with a note. "Draco Malfoy has sent another request to see you. I just got it from Robards who has cleared you for a trip to Azkaban today."

Harry took the note, frowning as he read the missive and pass for a Portkey to the prison. "What does he want?"

"Do I look like your ruddy errand boy?" Raeburn growled.

Harry glanced up at him concerned. Normally Raeburn was more cordial than this. "What's up with you?"

Raeburn glared at him before sighing and shaking his head. "Nothing to do with you; I've been up for almost two days and I'm not getting home for at least another four hours."

He saw the shadows under the man's eyes and nodded. "Sorry about that."

He shrugged it off and Harry knew he was hot on the trail of Nott Sr. who had been eluding him for weeks. "Part of the job; how's the wife?"

"Good," Harry said offhand as he stood up and put on his traveling cloak. "The morning sickness isn't as bad as it was."

"Good, good," Raeburn said and Harry could tell that he'd only asked out of politeness. Babies weren't a big topic of conversation in the Auror office. "I'll see you Monday, then."

Harry nodded and headed down to the Portkey Office.

When he arrived at the entrance of the fortress he was greeted by two Aurors and, after showing identification, was taken into the damp, drafty prison. Harry didn't say anything as their shoes clacked along the damp stone floor. The walls were also stone with moss growing in the cracks and it had the smell of an old church.

"This way," the taller Auror, Savage, told him. He'd met Savage and the other Auror, Collins, right after the battle, but the two had been sent to the prison at the beginning of June for their stint on guard duty.

Harry paused when he heard a scream and looked at them questioningly. "What was-"

"It's one of the Snatchers, Tom Pugsly," Collins told him, his voice soft and low as he shook his blond head. "He's totally gaga. We have no idea what happened to him, but he's gone completely round the twist and screams every few minutes. The Healers are saying it's in his head, but we can't move him to St. Mungo's. He keeps trying to kill us."

Harry nodded and followed them into an interrogation room. "We'll be back with Malfoy in a minute," Savage told him and he watched them walk out.

He stood off to the side, shivering slightly at the cold feeling the prison eked out of every nook. Minutes later they were back with a thin, dirty and rumpled Draco who none the less still had the same haughty look in his eyes as they sat him in one of the chairs and chained him there.

Harry didn't say anything until the other two had left. He walked slowly around and sat across from his former school mate, green eyes meeting gray. He waited.

Draco's face twisted and finally he glanced away. "I wanted to thank you for what you said at my mother's trial."

"It was the truth," Harry said honestly. This was not a surprise. He'd expected Draco to say something like this. "I wasn't going to lie."

Draco looked back at him, his eyes were narrowed slightly. His voice was measured, less his usualy contemptuous drawl. "No, I suppose not."

"Is that all you wanted?" Harry said, suddenly impatient. He didn't want to be here just for this.

"No," Draco retorted. "I know you were attacked at Snape's funeral."

Harry raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, waiting him out.

Draco shifted slightly, but the bounds that held him kept him from moving more than an inch. "Blood boiling hexes aren't something commonly used."

"No," Harry agreed. It was what the Muggleborn Auror Thomas Gregory, said was like shooting a rabbit with a howitzer. "Do you know who might have done it?"

"I thought they killed the man who cursed you," Draco replied carefully, almost testing.

"He was killed," Harry agreed and waited.

Draco let out a breath. "I owe you."

"No you don't," Harry said evenly.

"I do." Draco said, and it sounded like those two words were infinitely painful. "You saved my life more than once and your testimony helped keep my mother out of prison. I owe you and I'd rather pay that debt off."

"Your mother saved my life in the forest," Harry reminded him but when Draco just kept studying him he shrugged. "Okay, you owe me," he said evenly, again waiting, knowing somehow that he needed to wait Draco out and that if he did there might be something worth hearing.

Draco gave a little nod, as if coming to a conclusion. "When I was home last summer I overheard my Aunt Bellatrix talking to a woman in my father's office. They seemed to be friends and I thought I recognized the woman's voice, but I never found out who it was. Bellatrix saw me in the hall and shut the door in my face. They had been talking about a little known poison that kills very slowly, very painfully and that no Healer would know how to cure it. Bellatrix told her that the price for the recipe was that if she ever got the chance, she was to use it on you and the woman swore that she would. It is called Dolore Tardus."

His attention caught, Harry asked, "What does this have to do with me today?"

"How many people were at Snape's funeral? Not many, right?"

"No," Harry agreed. No one had wanted to go except Harry and they'd gone because of him. There was minimal security at the funeral because it had been a last minute decision to go.

Draco's eyes were calculating as he studied him. "I thought as much. No one was going to miss him and no one was going to mourn him. But you… you would go. It's something you would do, even though he hated you and you hated him. Anyone who heard you defend him at the last battle would know that you were going to go. It was the perfect chance to get to you, to poison you when security was likely to be negligible."

Harry just stared, trying to figure out how Draco could have worked that out from here in Azkaban. He tried to shoot a note of incredulity into his voice. "Excuse me? Do you know for sure that someone poisoned me?"

Draco shook his head. "No, but it seemed like such a pointless, random attack. The Snatchers all know that they have no protection and there is no money to be made from hurting you, so why would they do that? I also couldn't figure out why someone would curse you with what could have been a deadly curse when there was nothing to be gained from it politically or power-wise. Most of the Death Eaters are dead or in prison, but of course it could just be the work of a random psychopath."

Harry just waited.

Draco shook his head impatiently. "But the funerals had to be set for a specific time because of how unstable the Ministry was at the time. There was time to form a plan. Then I heard that the attacker went for the girl first and I know you and so does anyone else who has been paying attention. If the person made a show of attacking Weasley, there was every chance that you'd step in her way to take the curse and because a blood boiling hex is so widespread and difficult to aim properly, there was a reasonable chance you'd both land in St. Mungo's seriously injured, but alive. Knowing that detail, it started to fall into place that there was probably a greater scheme in all this, but I couldn't see what at first. There was no reason at all to attack her, so what was the point? I'm betting that they probably poisoned Weasley as well since she has been too ill to attend court hearings."

"You mean Ginny?" Harry asked him casually.

"Yes," he said, his eyes narrowing.

Harry waited another moment. "Well, we were poisoned," he confirmed. "We've been treated."

Draco looked unsurprised, but to Harry's shock not displeased. "You're married now."

"Yes," Harry said.

"You didn't get her pregnant," Draco drawled softly.

"Excuse me?" Harry blurted out stunned, this time he didn't have to fake his shock. "I'm most definitely the father."

Draco's eyes were level and a single strand of blond hair fell down by his eyes, but with his hands bound he couldn't push it away. "I know you, Potter. You wouldn't have done that to her."

Panic started to flood him, but he kept his gaze neutral. "You don't think I'd want to be with her?"

"No, I don't mean that," Draco said coolly. "I mean that I've seen how you look at her. You love her and you're too noble have done anything that might hurt her."

Hating that Draco knew him so well, he smiled and shrugged it off. "Things happen."

"No," Draco said more firmly. "You wouldn't have done that."

"So then how did Ginny get pregnant, hm?" Harry asked flippantly. "The stork?"

Draco waited a beat. "Someone impregnated her in St. Mungo's."

Surprise left him momentarily speechless and scrambling for something to say that wouldn't confirm that Draco was right; he went with what Neville had said, knowing that for the baby's sake he needed to keep it quiet. "No. It was a post battle celebration."

Draco shook his head. "I'm not saying this to be cruel, although I can imagine you would think that I would, but that is completely out of your character. Marrying her even when you didn't get her pregnant- that's something you would do."

Harry felt his heart slamming into his chest. "I love my wife."

"I believe you do love her," Draco agreed softly. "That's why I don't think you got her pregnant. I'd never do something like that to a girl. The shame would be there even after the marriage, but I wouldn't do it because it would bring shame on my family, not on the girl. You, however, would never be that careless with someone you care about because you care about how they feel. If I know anything about you it's that you'll die before you let your friends get hurt. You'd do much more for the woman you love."

"Why are you saying this?" Harry asked, trying to work out what Draco wanted and how this git had figured out what had happened.

"To make sure we're square," Draco said finally. "Even here I heard about the curse, how you two were in St. Mungo's and then just a few weeks later the rumors start flying through here that Weasley is pregnant and you're the father. There's a lot of time to think in here and no one to talk to. Doing the math I figured out that she must have gotten pregnant right around the time you were in St. Mungo's. If she'd been pregnant when she was cursed, the baby would have been killed immediately no matter how early on she was. So she had to get pregnant right after in order for the Ministry to find out when they did."

Harry stared at him, annoyed and puzzled that Draco was this clever. All of his deductions made sense and were close to the same that Harry had come to. It begged the question: did he think Draco was involved? The answer was no. Draco had been in Azkaban since the last battle and the one thing that Harry knew for certain was that because Harry had saved his life twice in the last battle that he'd want to repay it. Draco wasn't as stupid as Pettigrew. Another startling thought was that no one else had told him the hex would have caused a miscarriage. Maybe they didn't know. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Someone is after you and by the look on your face you already know it, so my information about the poison isn't useful. But I do have useful information." He gazed at Harry, studying him. "I didn't tell the Dark Lord how you felt about the girl. At the time I told myself that I didn't tell him because I wasn't completely sure that you did have feelings for her, but I knew. The real reason I didn't tell him was because there was every possibility that if she wasn't killed outright that she'd be pawned off to a pureblood wizard in marriage. That's happened more than once over the years, especially during the first war. I admit that I didn't want it to be me that ended up stuck with her. She's got quite a temper and the Dark Lord would have, uh, insisted that she be broken."

Harry had to swallow hard as the bile threatened to spew from him. "I appreciate you not telling him."

Nodding, Draco went on. "I'm also not going to tell anyone about how she got pregnant since you obviously don't want anyone to know," Draco said slowly. "That, I think, will make us even."

"Yes, that more than makes us even," he agreed. Harry appreciated what he'd said and he felt some of the tension leave him. Nodding once, Harry got up and walked to the door. He believed Draco wouldn't tell; that he'd want to feel like he owed Harry nothing.

"Potter," Draco said and Harry glanced over his shoulder to see Draco's expression calculating, but with a small smile. "I hope that the kid looks like Weasley. You're too ugly to replicate."

Fighting back an urge to laugh, and more than a little amazed that Draco had made a crack that he'd find funny, Harry walked out.

By the time Harry got home that night all he wanted was a shower and to spend the rest of the night holding Ginny in his arms. He walked in the door and heard laughter upstairs. He smiled, remembering that Luna was at the house today and the two were probably reading another one of those ridiculous novels. Hermione had gone to a used bookstore and come home with about a dozen by the same author. Harry had offered to read one to Ginny, but she'd told him that only Luna could do the novels justice.

Hanging his cloak on the new coat rack that had arrived the day before, along with a whole houseful of furniture that he, Ron and Hermione had spent hours arranging, he walked upstairs to find them reading.

"Hey, Luna," he said walking in to their bedroom and over to kiss Ginny. "Hi."

"Hello, Harry," Luna said serenely. "I'm going to head home now."

"Thanks," Harry told her as Ginny said goodbye and he watched her blonde head bob as she walked out the door.

Ginny's face had regained a lot of what she'd lost. She'd put on nearly twelve pounds in a week, putting her up a few pounds over what she'd started at and she was starting to look healthy and whole again. She would be eight weeks pregnant the next day. "How was your day?"

"Meetings," Harry grumbled and at least that part was true. "I hate meetings."

"I can imagine," Ginny said and he got up to pull off his tie and kick off his shoes. "Are you getting a shower?"

"Yeah, it's been a long day," he told her. "We had lots of training practice and I can still feel the grime of the training room floor on me."

"I want a shower," Ginny said firmly.

He quirked an eyebrow at her, "What did Martha say?"

"She said yes as long as we behave ourselves and you're there to make sure I don't fall," she informed him.

Sighing, Harry pulled off his shirt and dumped it in the hamper before going to sit on the bed. "It's the behaving ourselves bit that makes this more complicated."

"Yes, but you wouldn't do anything to hurt me or the baby," Ginny said confidently. "So I know we'll be good, even if neither of us wants to be good."

It was so close to what Draco had said that he had to shake his head. He was apparently very predictable. "Ginny…"

"I really want a shower," Ginny pleaded. "I've been so good and Martha said it was okay. Please?"

Sighing he nodded. "Okay, let's go get a shower."

Getting Ginny out of her shirt, around the bag, was always tricky. They'd put one of his large t-shirts on her so that the bag could be slid through the arm hole when she changed clothes. Finally undressed, she glanced at him a little shyly. "This is still a little weird."

"Can we make it a cold shower?" he asked, half serious, as he hung the feeding bag back on the pole which had been transfigured so it now had wheels and could be rolled around easier.

"No," Ginny told him as she held the pole and walked towards their bathroom.

Harry stripped and when he got to the bathroom he saw her staring at herself sideways in the mirror, completely transfixed. "What?" He asked.

"I…" she stopped and put her hand to her stomach. "My belly is sticking out."

Looking into the mirror he saw it. Ginny's normally flat stomach had a definite curve to it. Heart racing, his eyes flew up at her face and saw tears in her eyes. "Gin-"

She reached for him, and he caught her round the waist. "The baby is growing!" she sobbed and he could hear the relief in her voice.

Harry nodded, too choked up to speak. He knew that it was still a close thing and that their baby still might not live, but small seeds of hope began to plant within him and he couldn't help but think that maybe things would be okay.

"I'm sorry," she sniffed, pulling back to wipe her eyes. "I'm trying not to cry so much, but I just-"

He put a finger under her chin and lifted it to look into his eyes. "Stop. You can cry as much as you want."

"You hate crying," she reminded him.

"I don't hate it when you cry," Harry promised honestly then realizing how that sounded, he explained further. "You only cry when you really need to." He turned her around gently so that her back was too him and pulled her close so that he could rest his hands on her belly. "Wow." It was small, but definitely there. Then he looked back into the mirror and noticed something else.

Ginny apparently had too. "Oh, that's a nice benefit. I didn't know I was going to get bigger breasts this soon."

Carefully stepping back from her he closed his eyes and shook his head trying to clear it. "Cold shower."

"No."

A/N: Thank you to James and Arnel for your beta'ing help!