Birthday Surprises Chapter 29

Usual disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue. Please. Wish it were mine though. Ah, if only… Lolly, xxx.

"Harry's a father? At seventeen?" Remus asked. He, like everyone else, was shocked. The Ministry had a lot to answer for. "And you have absolutely no idea who the mother is?"

"No."

"So that's where Tonks went for all that time - she was carrying Harry's children."

"Yes. She was in Hogsmeade, where we could make sure everything was all right with the children." Hermione came into the room.

"We're going to have to find out who their mother is." She said.

"How's Harry taking it?" Molly asked.

"He's head over heels in love with his children, but he can't understand the motivations of the Ministry." Hermione said.

"No, I don't think any of us understand the reasoning behind this."

"I still can't believe my best friend's a dad already." Ron muttered.

"It's a good job it was Harry, and not anyone else. I think anyone else would have flipped out a lot worse than he did." Ginny said quietly. She still looked kind of shell-shocked. "So, how are you going to find their mother?"

"Test Harry's compatibility to every girl at Hogwarts, if nothing turns up there, then I don't know. There might be test that you can do - the Muggle have them, only they're used to find out the father of a child, and plus for that to work there has to be a few candidates."

"Maybe St Mungo's has a test. We can look into it." Molly said, warming to her subject.

"There isn't a test." Dumbledore said quietly. "The only way to find out for sure is to ask the Ministry, and I don't think they'll be too happy to give out that information."

"Why not? It's not as if it makes any difference to them."

"No, but Cornelius is stubborn. He'll refuse to give it out simply because he has a grudge against Harry."

"What about files? Surely they have all the information there?"

"They would have destroyed the file. It's common practice with sensitive information."

"So there's only one person that knows who the mother is? And that's Fudge?"

"I'm afraid so. I believe he deliberately kept it from me." Dumbledore said sadly.

"That man has an awful lot to pay for." Hermione muttered angrily.

That night, Harry decided that he needed to speak to Tonks - she had carried his children for nine months, and he had to thank her for that. He wondered where she was. "Hey Hedwig?" He called, waking up the owl. "Could you find Tonks for me?" Hedwig blinked at him, and Harry took that as a yes. He scrawled a quick note to her, asking her to meet him at Florean Fortescue's in three days. He wondered if Molly would mind babysitting. He would ask her in the morning.

The next morning, Molly readily accepted to baby-sit, looking delighted that Harry wanted to thank Tonks for what she had done. "It's nice to see that you've accepted it." She said, giving him a motherly look of pride. Harry shrugged, the truth was that he had been very attached to the triplets since they had arrived, but until then, he hadn't really thought much about it. Hedwig returned after breakfast, and Tonks said that she'd be delighted to meet up with Harry. Hermione looked a little less than pleased that Harry was going to Diagon Alley on his own.

"Look, Death Eaters tried to attack me in Privet Drive - if I stopped doing things just because there was a little risk involved, I'd be dead." He pointed out. "I mean, nowhere is completely safe, but I promise that I will be incredibly careful - and no heroics."

"Good, because you have children now."

"Yes, Hermione, I'm aware of that." Harry said evenly, his smile widening slightly.