Chapter 5

According to Draco's calculations it should have been a week before either Harry or the baby were affected. He had taken to sitting with Harry, Weasley, and Granger for breakfast, mostly because it was easier to slip Harry the herbs that way rather than having to get his hands on another stupid coke. Although, he had every intention of getting one by the end of the week; that orgasmic face had been far too... oh, god, had he just thought cute?

Putting his head in his hands, he ignored Professor Sinistra's glare at his inattention. So, he'd admitted that he liked Harry as family and, in fact, he thought that his feelings towards the Gryffindor were very similar to those he had for Professor Snape. He silently damned his father again, for telling him Malfoy's did not like people, let alone love them; they did like them, it was just that most were too ignorant to recognize it.

He shoved all thoughts of his father aside and bit back a grin as the first thing that came to mind was the cheekish guilt on Harry's face that morning at breakfast. In the last three days Harry had downed so much orange juice Draco was beginning to fear the house elves would run out of fruit to squeeze. His voiced concern had been rewarded with much blushing and many sharp elbows.

Due to the hours of frustrating calculations and research he had done regarding male pregnancy he was more than just a little shocked when Professor Snape showed up during his Arithmacy exam and requested to speak with outside. Harry had apparently collapsed during Divination.

Draco nodded, pretending to listen to his head of house while he turned the information over in his head. He could feel some disappointment, but wasn't sure if it was because he had miscalculated, or because it was done. The guilt that had been continually eating at him had suddenly gone numb. Could be good, could be bad, he wasn't really sure. There was relief that it was over, that it was done, no taking it back, no worrying about whether he should or shouldn't.

So, why didn't he feel particularly better?

Professor Snape touched his arm lightly and his head snapped up, his eyes focusing on the concerned face in front of him. "Mr. Malfoy, I believe it would be best if you went back to your dorm for the remainder of the evening. I'll speak with the other professors."

Draco nodded and began walking toward the dungeons. Professor Snape looked... well, there really wasn't a good way of describing it, he just looked different. Stiffer maybe, if that were possible, and his emotions were entirely unreadable. He didn't look his angry or annoyed, which were his two favorite expressions, he didn't even look guarded, just blank. Well, not entirely blank, if Draco didn't know better he'd say Snape was anxious about something. The professor had turned and walked away rather quickly, in opposite direction of the dungeons, towards the infirmary, without even one of his customary long glances.

Strange, but then the whole thing was strange. Sitting in his room, hours later, he glared wordlessly at his sheets. He hadn't gone down for lunch and dinner would be starting soon. What was wrong with him? He should have been ecstatic that the whole thing was over and done with; he should have been jumping for joy and laughing with his friends. The great trauma that had the potential to get him, and Harry as well, killed, was gone. It was no more.

All right, that was it. Jumping off his bed he made his way up the stairs and out of the commons room. As long as everyone was busy eating he might as well go and see Harry. Maybe that was what he was worried about, maybe some part of him wanted to cheer Harry up. It made sense, well, as much sense as any of his wayward emotions did nowadays.

Over all, Draco was getting really tired of emotions. It had started out really simply, just a need to vent, to not hold in everything the way every other Malfoy always did. Now he knew why they did that. You let out one and the rest come pouring down whether you want them to or not. Love, guilt, relief, anxiety, nerves, everything was piling up now that he couldn't talk to Harry and he wasn't sure how long he could hold it in, but then, it wasn't like he could tell anyone else, either.

Silently entering the infirmary, he looked around for Harry. The Gryffindor was laying in his usual bed, in the far left hand corner. He was curled onto his side, his fingers clutched around the blankets that he'd pulled against his face. Draco tried to snicker. It should have been amusing; he looked like a little child. Why didn't that help?

He had just turned around, deciding that waking Harry was probably not the best thing to do at the moment, when a barely audible whisper reached him, "Draco? That you?"

The words were slurred together, and despite the inexplicable urge to run, Draco walked over to the bed and sat down, eyeing the vials on the side table, "Yeah, it's me. They told me and..." Oh great, the guilt was back, and it felt like it had brought a few cousins. "Well, I just wanted to come and see if you were all right?"

Harry shook his head, his face remarkable lax, "Not really. I kind of think I had a nervous breakdown. Sssnape gave me something and I feel better now, though."

Draco smiled at the way Harry had scrunched his nose and drawn the S out in their professor's name, like it had felt funny on his tongue. "But you're better now?"

He shook his head, black hair falling in his face, "No, not really. It's gone. I'm not sure what... I... but its gone." It was quiet for some time after, Draco thought he might have fallen asleep when he suddenly spoke up again, "Hey, what'd they give me anyway? I can't read the labels, but this is some good shit."

Laughing softly, Draco picked up the two empty vials and his eyebrows shot up, "My god, Potter, this is good shit. This is one of the strongest calming potions there is. I think the only one stronger is used for the Cruciatus victims and only when their having a particularly bad night. And this other one is numbing potion, very strong as well."

Harry mumbled something of which Draco caught 'stupid greasy bastard' and chuckled. "Why, Potter, if he ever heard you say that."

"He'd not that bad."

Draco's eyes just about fell out as he staring at the overly serene face. "Not that bad? Maybe if you were a Slytherin, but even then; Potter, the man hates you."

"He doesn't." Harry shook his head duly and Draco absently brushed the stray hairs out of the unfocused green eyes, "He says I'm an insolent little prat, but he doesn't hate me, he only does it to turn me on." Harry's hands flew up to his mouth far faster than he should have been capable of.

For nearly a minute Draco's mind refused to process the information. He sat in the chair, staring down at Harry's face which was the oddest mix of relaxed shock. Draco stopped for a moment, his guilt ridden brain running things through the words once more, just to make sure, 'Wait a moment, he just said turn me on and he was talking about S..., "Wait, he what?!"

Harry shook his head emphatically, taking his hands carefully from his mouth, "He nothing. Absolutely nothing."

Squinting his eyes suspiciously at Harry, he leaned forward, "Potter, I just heard you say that Professor Snape, my head of house, the most unattractive man in Hogwarts..."

"He is not!" Draco raised an eyebrow at the defensive note in Harry's otherwise calm demeanor, "There's always Dumbledore. Or Flitwick. At least I'm not fucking Professor Flitwick."

The hands covered his mouth again, and Draco continued to stared, now open mouthed as well. That was in no way an obscure message. The other could have been passed off as their flirting with each other which, while disturbing, was not nearly as horrifying as the thought of them sleeping together. "Potter, while I do like to consider myself intelligent, or at least more so than you, would you mind telling me exactly what you meant by that? Only I thought I heard you insinuate you were having sex with Snape."

Harry gave a very uncharacteristic giggle and it occurred to Draco that while the conversation may be causing him permanent damage it was at least making Harry feel better. "I... am really not supposed to be telling you this, Draco, I mean really. But I suppose, at least now I know how Hagrid feels."

Draco forced himself ignored that Harry had used his given name, "I don't care how that oaf feels. I care how I feel and right now that's slightly nauseous. Potter, tell me you didn't. Tell me you're just, I don't know, momentarily out of your mind."

"Oh, that's easy. I am out of mind." The rush of adrenaline, or whatever it was, Harry had been feeling after his slip of the tongue was apparently wearing off. He smiled lazily, "But I wasn't when I was bent over your desk taking..."

"Potter!" Draco put his hands over his ears, telling his overtaxed brain that, no, this was not good, hearing Potter light hearted chuckle was not good if it meant sacrificing what little he'd eaten that morning. "Hold a moment, my desk?"

Harry grinned impishly, his eyes slightly misted, "Well, our desk really, but you're side, because it's closer to the isle and it gives Sev more room to..."

Draco grabbed the empty vial of calming potion off the side table and tipped the few left over drops that had pooled at the bottom into his own mouth, cringing at the taste and the way his tongue went momentarily numb before the cold of the calming potion swept through his body, leaving him slumped in his chair against Harry's bed. "Oh, that better." It wouldn't last long, maybe five minutes, maybe ten, but he figured when it wore off he could try and break into the reserve cabinet across the room.

"You, Potter, are going to tell me why."

Harry mischievous smile widened, and Draco immediately knew he wouldn't like what was about to come out of his friend's mouth, however, the potion prevented him from immediately feeling the panic he should have. "Well, I was being insolent again, and he got really mad this time and decided to spank me and it hurt, too, but it kind of turned me on and there wasn't really a bed handy. I suppose I could have walked through the dungeons back to his room with him, but I had a rather obvious hard on so he..."

His brain finally caught up with what he was hearing and groaned, "Harry! Not, why on the desk. Why Snape? When Snape? Was I so bad I put you off the human species?"

"Snape is human and it had nothing to do with you anyway, it started the end of last year."

Draco could feel curiosity tickling at him, despite his better judgement, and he laid his head next to Harry's, staring him in the eyes, "You were sleeping with him during sixth year?"

Shaking his head slowly, Harry lowered his voice slightly, as though there were someone around to hear. "No, we just started seeing each other and, before you ask, it's none of your business why."

Draco thought it through. Harry was right, it wasn't any of his business, but he figured he could get it out of him some other time. Some time when the Gryffindor wasn't on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The guilt cheered on the logical side of his brain and his stomach flipped a few times. Damnit, he would have preferred mindless disgust.

Neither said anything for a while, Draco wondered whether dinner was over, but figured Potters friends would be here as soon as it was. The potion was wearing off, but it was still enough of an influence to allow him to think properly. "Hey, Potter."

"Hm?"

"If you've been with Snape why did you want to have sex with me?"

Harry took a deep breath, in and out, before answering, "He... said something, it made me upset and I wanted to get even."

Looking up, Draco eyed Harry suspiciously, "What could he have said that would warrant me fucking you?"

"Attempting to fuck me." Harry chuckled hoarsely at the face Draco made, as though he'd eaten something extra sour. "He said he'd slept with Sirius and then he laughed at me when I got upset."

"He cheated on you?" Draco's voice was far calmer than he thought it ought to be. He should be feeling rather indignant. Someone had cheated on his first and, at the rate he was going, only friend. Damn calming potion, goes right ahead and quenched indignation and panic, but doesn't do a damn thing for guilt.

It didn't seem to matter, however, because Harry had shook his head, "No, no, back when they were in highschool, before the whole... thing happened."

"Thing?" Draco looked Harry in the eyes, "You know I'm beginning to think I may confide in you a lot more than you do in me. I mean, I told you I had slept with Parkinson and you can't even tell me my head of house is boffing you, or that he was boffing a convict before hand."

"Oh, about that, Sirius didn't do it. He's innocent. He gave me the firebolt. And Severus wasn't 'boffing' anything, Sirius was."

"I knew you weren't telling me... oh, oh now I have a mental image, Potter, and I did not need a mental image." He closed his eyes, but found that all it did was make the vision of his potions professor bent over double having sex with the man that he'd seen in the article their third year clearer. Logically, he knew they'd been younger and there was a chance, however minimal, that Snape and the shaggy convict had been somewhat attractive, but the logical side of his brain was refusing to have anything to do with him. He rather thought it had teamed up with the guilt.

Harry nodded, "See, that's what I said and he laughed at me."

"Potter, not to undermine what I'm sure was a painful experience, but why were you asking in the first place?"

"Stupid trust issues, that's why. He never talks, just sits there and scowls, or smirks, he's as good at it as you are. So, I told him he had to tell me something, something really personal and I don't think he liked that very much because what he told me was that he and Sirius had sex back when they were in school. To make it worse, he told me details and when I said I didn't need those mental images he told me I shouldn't have asked."

Harry's voice had slowly risen in pitch and he sighed deeply, "So I got upset." He sounded calmer, suddenly, and it unnerved Draco. What if the potion were wearing out? What if Harry started breaking down again before Snape got back, and where was Snape anyway? This was his (shudder) lover. Shouldn't he be at his side when he was hurt?

The raven haired boy's breathing evened, Draco hadn't even noticed it had been faster, and his voice lowered to a near whisper, "So, when you offered to help I just figured, hey, what better way to get even then have sex with someone he doesn't want to picture. You. He sees you like a son," he paused, "or a nephew. You know what, though, I only felt worse afterward, and not just physically either."

"Um, Harry, are you okay? Maybe I should..."

Harry didn't seem to hear him, though, he'd gone into a kind of trance and Draco felt the potion wearing completely off himself, he was feeling the panic that told him this was not good, something wasn't right. "I felt worse because I wasn't mad that he'd slept with Sirius, I wasn't even really mad that he'd laughed at me. I was just furious that he'd laughed. He never laughs. He chuckles, he smirks, he even gives the occasional wicked smile when he's in a very very good mood, but he never laughs, and when he finally does it's at my expense."

"So, I slept with you and then I told him, because Pomfrey couldn't keep her mouth shut, and he was okay with it; although, I did understand why he'd laughed. The way his nose got all scrunchy was priceless, like he'd swallowed something gone horrible wrong."

Draco looked around the room, nervously. Couldn't someone just come in? Harry was going to regret all this in the morning. He'd never been this free lipped. Not even drunk. He'd talked, but not like this. He'd talked about the Weasel or Granger or, on very rare occasions, the surface side of the Dursleys, but never anything really important.

He decided it was best to voice his opinions, at least this way he could tell Harry he'd tried to talk him out of it. "Harry, come on, you're really going to regret this; you never tell me important shite. Never."

Harry shook his head firmly and Draco noticed his pupils weren't as dilated. Great, the potion was definitely wearing off and where the hell was Snape? Maybe the lock on the cabinet wasn't too hard to break. "Draco, I am sick and tired of everyone telling me I can't trust you. I can, I know I can."

'No, no don't trust me'

"You aren't like they say you are, you aren't just another self serving Slytherin. That's all just made up words to group a bunch of people together and make it easier to identify them. He's brave, she's smart, he's tricky, she's loyal. It's all words, it doesn't mean anything."

'But it does mean something, I am like that, I've always been like that.' Draco tried to take back the thought, but it was there and, no matter how hard he tried to deny it, it was true. He was entirely self serving. He hadn't done this for Harry. Harry wanted it, Harry would have been fine. If Dumbledore could protect Harry and this entire school one small child wouldn't make much of a difference.

If that were true, though, then why had he done it? 'My father would have killed me.' Oh, fine, so he'd done to save his own ass. The guilt was doing a little victory dance and he fought the urge to run to the nearest toilet. He'd killed the baby and he'd hurt Harry and he'd done it for the sole purpose of not giving his father another reason to kill him,.

Harry reached out his hand and seized Draco's wrist, startling the Slytherin from his thoughts, "I trust you and you have a right to know, you always did." Before Draco could pull back, his hand was placed firmly on top of Harry's stomach and held there.

It was large, far larger than it should have been. Now that he looked he couldn't believe he hadn't noticed. It was like a small basketball was inside there. Feeling around it, Draco took several deep breaths, telling the guilt to stop dancing, it wasn't helping. "It grew so fast..."

"No, no it didn't. It's... well, it's six months along."

Staring at it dumbly, Draco gulped like a fish, "Six months? But we didn't.. Not six months ago, anyway."

Harry shook his head, "No, we didn't. But Sev and I did. One of the first few times we got drunk." Draco tried to breath. "He'd been so mad the first time I thought anything was better than him having to see me drunk again. So, I snuck in and took some myself. Thing is I have a tendency to pass out on the floor when I have a hang over, regardless of what I've actually taken. It never occurred to me it could have been the wrong thing."

It wasn't his. Harry was trying to tell him it wasn't his.

"We noticed I'd gained weight, and Sev even made jokes about being able to fuck me without worrying about my breaking, but it wasn't until we were doing inventory that it occurred to me."

He'd killed it and wasn't his. He'd thought it was his, but it wasn't.

"They said I could tell you after school let out. I started really showing almost as soon as we knew, so we needed a back up story, just in case someone noticed. Sev... well, we didn't want it getting out that it was his while there were still so many people in the school. 'Mione and Ron were gonna stay too, to help me tell you."

School was out in two weeks. Everyone would have gone home and he would have known.

"It's too big for my body to just, I dunno, absorb it. Pomfrey said she'll take it out tomorrow. I just can't help but think I did something wrong. She says it was something I ate, something with a bad potion ingredient in it, probably some time ago. I just can't help thinking it's my fault."

Harry had let go of his hand, but Draco couldn't take it away. It was so real all of a sudden. It hadn't been really real before, just a thing he couldn't see and if he couldn't see it then it was all right to get rid of it. But it was real, he could feel the bulge of it under his finger tips and against his palm and it was his fault it was dead. Who had he been to decide it was better off dead? That he was better off with it dead?

"Harry I..." He watched the green eyes focus on him, could see the guilt in the watery depths and the slightly pouted lip. "I'm sorry, Harry, I'm so sorry. I thought it was mine."