Title: Boy-Who-Lived: Father-To-Be

Author: SweetMercy

Rating: M

Warnings: mpreg, slash, may have small references to HBP, has naughty swear words!

Pairings: RL/HP

Chapter 22: Clever Cover Ups

In 24 hours the Minister for Magic would be arriving at Hogwarts.

In 24 hours Harry and Remus would be called into the Headmasters office and would be subjected to the Ministers questioning.

In 24 hours Harry would be forced to tell the truth.

In 24 hours Remus could be arrested.

Harry had hoped that Malfoy 'loosing' his memory would help them to convince the Minister that the whole event was just a load of, well, bullshit. He had hoped that if Malfoy wasn't able to confirm to the Minister that what he had said to the papers was true then they might be in with a chance of escaping punishment. But things still looked pretty awful.

"The Minister will recognise the symptoms straight away," said Hermione knowledgably, "He'll know that someone has wiped his memory of the whole thing and therefore will take that to mean that what he said previously was true."

"Well I think it's a good thing that Harry wiped his memory," said Ron. "He won't remember anything about it and can't cause any further harm."

"But there's still the question of what to do tomorrow," said Sirius.

"We need a plan of sorts," said Harry, trying to think, "Something to do with Malfoy – he's the one who told the papers so he'll have to be the one to…I dunno…untell them I guess."

"We could always put him under the Imperious curse, I suppose," said Ron.

"Ron, that's…"

"Illegal," he finished her sentence in a bored voice, "Yes, I know Hermione. You got any better ideas?"

"Well, if I had we wouldn't be sitting here talking about ideas, would we?" she snapped.

"Ok, ok," he muttered. There was stillness as they all sat around the living room, lost in thought. Harry sighed with frustration. Nothing they did seemed to work properly nowadays. It was impossible to just get on with ones life. Obliterating Malfoy of the whole event had only helped in the short term – he wasn't able to confirm his tale or tell anymore to anyone, but once the Minister realised the symptoms he would undoubtedly try and break through the memory spell, eager to hear what Malfoy had to say. There was no way on Earth they were going to think of a cover up story in less than 24 hours…

"I've got it!" squeaked Hermione and they all looked up expectantly. "A controlling potion!"

"Isn't that the same as the Imperious curse?" Harry frowned.

"Of course it isn't," she said with irritation, "Don't you listen in Potions?"

Harry looked at her blankly and she huffed in annoyance.

"You give the drinker instructions, a sort of story to say, and he has to do it," she explained. "The Imperious curse gets people to do anything, the controlling potion only gets people to confess – or, in most cases, to confess to things they haven't done. They have to say whatever the giver of the potion tells them to say."

"Well that's great," smiled Remus.

"But what happens when it wears off?" asked Sirius.

"The drinker doesn't remember having taken the potion. He'll just assume that whatever he said under the influence of the potion was actually true. You could tell him he was the King of England and he would believe it forever."

"It sounds perfect, where do we get one?"

"I still have mine from the other week," she smiled, "We were making them in Potions the day Harry went into labour, remember?"

"Oh yeah," said Harry, cheered by this news, but then he was struck by another thought. "Wait, how do we get Malfoy to drink it? We can't exactly force feed it him can we? That would be a tad suspicious."

"Maybe if you guys get to the Great Hall early tomorrow morning you could put it in his drink or something?" suggested Sirius.

"But what if someone else drinks it?" asked Remus, who, for now being, had put aside his differences with Sirius to concentrate on the situation at hand, "You can't be sure which is his drink."

"Maybe if we labelled the potion or something?" said Ron, scratching his head, "You know? Say it's from his mum or someone?"

"He'd know her handwriting though, wouldn't he?" Harry pointed out.

"Oh yeah…Hey, we could get Dean to forge it; he's great at forging signatures and stuff."

"But he doesn't know what her handwriting looks like," said Sirius. "But the forging someone's writing thing sounds good, we just need to think of someone who Malfoy trusts enough to drink a potion from."

"Crabbe? Or maybe Goyle?" Ron suggested but Hermione shook her head.

"Those two are way too thick to be able to make a potion."

"How about Snape?" said Harry. "He trusts him doesn't he?"

"Hey, that might work," smiled Ron, looking at Harry. "He could say it was for protection against the Dark Lord or something. I mean, I know Malfoy's probably on the Dark Side but everyone's scared of You-Know-Who aren't they? Especially the Death Eaters."

"And Dean could forge Snape's handwriting," said Remus.

"Right, that settles it then," said Hermione. "I'll go and get Dean, excuse me."

After swearing that he wouldn't tell anyone what they were up to, Dean wrote the note (as a sort of 'thank you' to Harry for not telling people what had happened between them) and Hermione stuck it on the side of the potion vial ready to be delivered to Malfoy. The plan was to get down to breakfast early and set it on the table in Malfoy's usual place. They had thought about posting it to him but as all the mail was still being checked, they were sure the potion would take a while to get through and would also raise dangerous questions as to why Snape was sending one of his students a controlling potion.

They had decided that it was best if one of them went down in the invisibility cloak and placed it on the table in case someone spotted them leaving the hall. They also needed to make sure that Malfoy stayed away from Snape and to do that they would have to cause a diversion down in the dungeons to stop Snape entering the Great Hall before the potion had been drunk.

Harry was far too aware that there were so many things that could go drastically wrong with this plan, but as it was their only hope he had no choice but to go along with it.

Harry awoke on Thursday morning with a horrible weight already formed in the pit of his stomach. At the end of school today, the Minister for Magic would be paying them a visit and if the plan failed then they were doomed.

He rolled out of bed and padded into the living room to find Remus sitting on the sofa and staring pensively into the fire. Despite the light hitting them, Remus' amber eyes were dull and the lines on his face were dark. Harry sighed and shuffled over to the sofa where he seated himself down.

"Did you get much sleep?" he asked him softly, taking in Remus' weary appearance. Remus grunted in a non-committed way.

"You alright?" Harry asked, reaching out a hand and stroking a lock of hair out of Remus' face. He knew it was a stupid question to ask as he was facing a possible jail sentence today but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Remus seemed to come out of a reverie and he looked at Harry as if he had only just noticed he was in the room.

"I'm fine," he said with a small smile, which Harry could tell was more or less forced.

"No you're not," said Harry quietly, "And I don't blame you; Azkaban is a scary place, with or without the Dementor's. But they can't punish us for being in love."

Remus swallowed and turned back to look at the glowing fire again and, once more, the light didn't meet his eyes.

"It'll be ok," said Harry, placing an arm on Remus' shoulder, "You'll see. Once all this is over we can get back to normal again."

He stood up and shuffled off to the kitchen to prepare the babies bottles and found that they were already laid out on the kitchen side.

"I wanted to do them," said Remus, still looking into the fire. "I've never done it before and I wanted to do it once before I…"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence Remus!" Harry warned. He knew Remus was nervous about what the day might hold for them but he couldn't deal with comforting him right now; he himself was nervous to and he didn't want anything to distract him from what he had to do at breakfast.

They were both silent as they went about their normal morning routine which gave Harry time to think the plan over once again. If they weren't able to stop Malfoy from talking to the Minister when called upon then they wouldn't be able to get out of the situation they had unfortunately found themselves in. And every time Harry thought of this he felt the now-familiar anger bubble violently inside him. Was he never going to have any peace? If the press kept up the way they were going, they were going to drive Harry into an early grave, never mind Voldemort.

As Voldemort entered his mind, his thoughts turned to the Dark Lord. Harry could just imagine him, sitting on a golden throne and reading the papers…I bet he's finding this hilarious, Harry thought miserably.

By the time Sirius arrived, Harry was more than ready to get things over and done with. Without a word to Remus, who was still sulking in front of the fire, he grabbed the potion vial off the side, threw on his invisibility cloak and departed.

"Did you do it?" Ron asked the moment he sat down to breakfast at the Gryffindor table, shortly followed by Hermione. Harry nodded slowly and he saw their eyes flicker over to the Slytherin table where a small vial stood at Malfoy's usual place. Harry chanced a look over his shoulder as well. The table was slowly filling up and the Slytherins were all casting looks at the potion but none were daring to go near it.

"Perfect," smiled Hermione, "They won't dare to touch it when they know it's for Malfoy." She turned back to her breakfast and scooped some sugar onto her cereals. "What about Snape?"

"Remus is working on that," Harry informed her.

"So all we need now is for the ferret boy to drink it," said Ron. The words were barely out of his mouth when Malfoy, followed by Crabbe and Goyle, swaggered into the Hall and seated himself down at his table. Harry didn't dare turn around to watch as it might give the whole thing away so he busied himself with pouring everyone a drink instead.

"He's reading the note," muttered Hermione from across the table.

"He's picking it up," said Ron, "I think he's going to drink…hang on, he's pulling out his wand!"

"Don't worry," said Hermione quickly, "I charmed it with disguising charms; he won't be able to tell what the potion really is and he won't be able to detect to charm I placed on it either, not if he doesn't do the proper spell anyway."

"And if he does?" asked Harry. "If he discovers that it was charmed?"

"Well it doesn't look like that's going to happen does it?" smiled Hermione triumphantly. "He's drank it."

"Gullible little sod that he is," muttered Ron. "I mean, who would drink a potion left out for them in a public place?"

"Someone who's desperate for protection?" offered Hermione. She went back to her breakfast as more students filed in and picked up the copy of the paper that the owls had brought in.

"Malfoy's such a weird person, don't you think?" said Ron, absently stirring the spoon in the sugar bowl."

"How so?" asked Hermione, eyes still fixed on the print in front of her.

"Well," he said, "I don't know exactly…I mean, I do, but I can't explain it…it's just, well, he acts all hard doesn't he, and gloats about you-know-who all the time? But now he's drinking things which will 'protect' him from him, you know? And we still don't know how he found out about Harry and Sirius yet do we? Or what he was really doing in Remus' office that time when he heard…well…"

"He has a point Hermione," said Harry, frowning slightly. "He's definitely up to something he shouldn't be."

"Well how do you suppose we find out?" she said, lowering the paper to cast a glare at Harry, "We can't exactly find out now that he's lost that bit of his memory, can we?"

"Will you stop going on about that? I thought we agreed it was a good thing I Obliviated him?"

"Yeah," said Ron, "Besides, even if Harry hadn't we still wouldn't be able to find out – in case you haven't noticed, none of us can to Legimency."

"Remus can," she pointed out with a smug smile.

"Even so," said Ron, "When would he ever get the chance to use it on him? And I'm sure Harry mentioned something about Malfoy having learnt Occlumency last year from Bellatrix."

"A strong Legimens would be able to break…"

"Will you two stop it?" Harry groaned, "Can you save this argument for another day? We've got more important things to worry about right now."

They both muttered a quiet apology to Harry and turned back to there breakfasts but Harry soon found he didn't like the silence – it gave him too much time to think and he didn't want to right now – so he was glad when Ron spoke up again.

"Not that this plan isn't brilliant or anything," he said, "But how are you going to get him alone to give him the orders?"

"I'll think of a way," said Hermione.

"Anything in there?" asked Harry, nodding towards the paper she was flicking through.

"Not really," she said, "Just a small piece telling everyone how the Minister is going to be coming here today to talk to you and Professor Lupin." She folded up the paper and placed it down on the table in front of the juice jug. "Don't worry," she smiled. "With this plan, nothing can go wrong. They can't prove a thing."

Harry spent the rest of the day constantly going over the plan in his head. Hermione had succeeded in cornering Malfoy and had given him instructions to tell the Minister (and everyone else) that he had made it all up; he had never heard Harry and Remus 'at it'. But Harry was still immensely nervous.

He had lost track of the amount of times he had gotten shouted at during the day for not paying attention in class. The last time it had happened he had caused Mcgonagall's hat fly off her head and to chase her around the classroom. Fortunately, she had taken pity on him and he had avoided detention.

Time went by way too fast for his liking. The moment he had gotten out of Herbology, where he had accidentally caused one of the Sleeping Sapling plants to explode, covering them all in green goo, Dumbledore's voice rang across the grounds requesting Harry and Remus' presence in his office. His friends wished him luck and he set off towards the castle.

He entered the office and slowly closed the door behind him before looking up. Dumbledore was sat behind his desk in his usual place beaming over at him; Mcgonagall was stood besides him and she briefly nodded at Harry before he let his eyes travel over the rest of the congregation which was made up of the Minister, who was looking smugly down at him, and Sirius, who was sat by the bookshelf. Before Harry had time to start panicking about the whereabouts of his children however, he spotted three baby baskets lying on the floor between Sirius and Mcgonagall.

"Good Afternoon Mr Potter," the Minister greeted him, although his eyes were anything but polite; he was hardly any different from Fudge. Harry didn't greet him back. He walked over to Dumbledore's desk and sat down, trying to forget his last meeting he had had with the Minister last Christmas.

"We'll just wait for Professor Lupin and then we shall begin," the Minister informed him and Harry could tell by the tone of his voice that he was itching to start throwing the familiar accusations left, right, and centre.

They sat in silence for some time, the rustle of the Ministers robes audible as he shuffled from one foot to the other from time to time. Harry could tell he was anxious to begin but was probably slightly nervous, what with the extra company they had and Harry had to wonder why Sirius and Mcgonagall were here with them. Dumbledore had obviously called them, but why? For moral support for Harry perhaps? And why were his children here?

The office door opened and Remus stepped in and smiled briefly at the Headmaster.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, coming in and taking his seat.

"Not a problem at all," he smiled. "Rufus, would you like a seat?"

"No thank you Albus," he said stiffly, "I don't intend to be here long. If these two don't wish to cooperate civilly then I'll just bring them in. I haven't got time to be here all day trying to get to the bottom of things."

"Then why are you here at all?" asked Mcgonagall. "Surely you can see that these allegations and just silly rumours thought up by your silly, little paper."

"But these 'silly rumours' have grown quite serious over the last couple of days and I'd sincerely like to know the meaning of all of this." He turned to look at Harry and Remus and continued. "Tell me, would one of you care to explain?"

"They're not true," said Harry. "It's just the stupid paper making up rubbish again."

"But we have eye witnesses," he said. "They saw you both walking the children together in these very grounds and sharing a hug."

"Because we're friends," said Remus simply.

"Harry kissed you," he insisted.

"On the cheek," said Harry. "Would you like one as well?"

Sirius snickered and Dumbledore grinned but the Minister ignored them all.

"But you were both seen at the Hospital with the children," he pressed on.

"Minister," said Harry, "I have three children. Do you seriously think that I can look after them all on my own? Why the hell would I go to the Hospital on my own when Voldemort's after me? Remus helps me – it's called being a friend."

"But what about what Mr Malfoy said?" he asked accusingly.

"Oh come on!" cried Remus, "You really think Malfoy would tell the truth about something like this?"

"Yes, actually, I do," he said. "The Malfoy's are a well-respected family."

"They're a bunch of Death Eaters!" cried Harry.

"But they have always been very generous towards the Ministry," he said.

"It's called a 'cover-up'," Remus pointed out.

"We have no reason to believe that young Mr Malfoy has followed in his father's footsteps."

"You're bloody delusional then," muttered Harry but thankfully the Minister chose to ignore it.

"Send for Draco Malfoy would you?" he said to Dumbledore who bowed his head politely before pulling a magical device towards him, which Harry presumed was the speaker.

"Why does he have to be here?" asked Harry disgustedly as Dumbledore spoke into the device and summoned Malfoy to his office.

"So I can ask him, in person, about his account of the whole incident," he replied with a smirk.

"I can't believe you're taking this seriously," muttered Remus. "Why would I sleep with a student?"

"You tell me," said the Minister. Remus ignored him and turned away. A tense silence followed. The babies seemed to be growing restless and Harry wasn't the only one to notice the little sobs they were beginning to make. Mcgonagall smiled fondly down at Leanna before looking to Harry for permission to pick her up, which Harry allowed.

The door to the office opened once more and Malfoy swaggered in. He looked slightly nervous as he was greeted by so many people. Harry prayed to Merlin that their plan would work. If they had made just the smallest mistake with the potion then Harry might as well say goodbye to Remus here and now.

"What's going on?" he asked the Minister innocently.

"I just wanted to ask you about what you told the papers, Draco," said the Minister kindly. "It was, of course, the truth?"

"Oh," said Malfoy and he looked down to avoid the Ministers eyes. "Well, you see, the thing is…"

"Yes?"

"Well, it's not really the entire truth…"

"What do you mean?" The Minister seemed slightly startled.

"Look, ok," said Malfoy looking up at the Minister again, "I don't like Potter so I wanted to get him into trouble, ok? He never slept with Lupin."

"You foolish boy!"

"Minister, please," said Mcgonagall sounding slightly scandalized, "Keep your voice down around the children."

The Minister gave her an annoyed look but lowered his voice to an acid whisper.

"Do you have any idea of what you have done?"

"Caused a world wide scandal?" Malfoy asked with a smile.

"Get out of my sight! Now!"

As Malfoy exited the room the Minister turned back to Harry and Remus.

"But the engagement ring!" he shouted. "You can't deny that! Lupin was seen looking at the rings! Why would he do that if not to propose?"

For the moment, the room was silent and Harry could have sworn that his frantic heart beat was giving him away. They had been too concerned about Malfoy and the potion to think about the excuse they had to give to wave away the ring incident. Harry looked to Dumbledore who looked back apologetically; he too hadn't thought of an excuse. Mcgonagall was looking somewhat offended at the Ministers loud tone of voice again but seemed to be suspicious of the guilty silence that surrounded them. The Ministers grin grew and his eyes brightened but before he could rejoice in the fact that he had caught them out, Sirius stepped forwards.

"The ring was for me," he said and everyone's heads snapped around to look at him. Harry tried to keep his face impassive.

"For you?" asked the Minister.

"Yes," he said. "Remus and I have been dating for quite some time now and we decided that the time had come for us to tie the knot. Isn't that right Rem?"

Everyone's heads swivelled round to look at Remus who managed to hide his confusion and shock just in time.

"Yes," he said automatically, "Yes, it is. The ring you saw me looking at was for Sirius. We weren't going to tell anyone yet though so…surprise."

"Congratulations!" Dumbledore smiled.

"I hope you two are very happy together," said Mcgonagall who, bless her, still looked like she had missed something crucial.

"Thank you," smiled Sirius and he placed an arm around Remus' waist. "We would have told you sooner but…what with everything going on…"

"Understandable," said Dumbledore kindly. "Well, this is a happy day. Harry and Remus are innocent and Remus and Sirius are getting married. This calls for a celebration. Rufus, would you care for a drink?"

"Er, no thank you Albus," he muttered, "I best be getting back. Er…sorry about the erm…"

"The accusations?" offered Harry. "So you should be."

"Right, well, I best be off."

A sigh of relief seemed to fill the room as soon as the Minister had closed the door and they all looked about one another.

"Well," said Dumbledore with a twinkle in his eye, "That was interesting."

"Very," said Mcgonagall looking over at Sirius and Remus who had let go of one another now that the Minister had gone. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you four were up to something."

"Nonsense Minerva," smiled Dumbledore, "This day is turning out to be as surprising for me as it is for you my dear. Sherbet Lemon anyone?"

"How did it go?" asked Hermione the moment they had all returned to Harry's rooms.

"Perfect," smiled Harry, sitting down on the sofa next to her, "It couldn't have gone any better. That potion worked like a dream."

"It saved my life Hermione," Remus smiled gratefully. "And you Sirius," he said, turning to face him, "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. Thank you."

"Don't mention it," he said. "It was the least I could do."

"But I've been so horrible to you lately. Why did you do that for me when you could have left me to go to Azkaban."

"No matter how mad I am at you, no one deserves that place," he said with a small smile. "And because, you know, you're still my best friend despite everything that's happened between us lately."

"What happened?" asked Ron as Remus got up and embraced Sirius in a hug.

"Sirius said that the engagement ring was for him," Harry informed them.

"So the Minister thinks Sirius and Remus are getting married now?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah," Harry nodded, "But I'd rather them all think that than have Remus locked up, wouldn't you?"

"So," said Sirius as they both pulled out of the hug, "Does this mean that you forgive me?"

"Only if you forgive me," he smiled.

"Of course I forgive you Rem," he smiled brightly, "You're my best friend, I'm not losing you again."

"Well," smiled Ron, "This is a happy day. Drinks all around."

A/N: I apologise for this chapter being a bit poo. I had to go over it a million and one times and I still didn't manage to get it how I wanted it to go. But I have now reached the end of all the chapters I had already typed up so inbetween updates I'm probably going to be typing the next chapter.

Updates might be a little longer than usual due to the fact that I'm SNOWED UNDER with coursework so I'm typign when I can now. But they shouldn't take longer than 2 weeks and once I have more written I can go back to doing a post every week again.

Anwyays, I seem to have written chapters all over the place. Currently, I have half of chapter 23 done, half of chapter 25 and 26, but no 24 because I seem to have developed writers block and Christmasy-type chapters, which is strange since it's almost Christmas time now and you'd think I'd be all inspired by that, but no. Oh well...

But I'm really enjoying writing chapters 25 and 26 - which were inspired by an idea Shadow Vampiress in her last review (so if you don't want spoilers then don't read her review!). I'd actually thought of doing something along the same lines before but now I really like the idea and (not that I'm gloating) I kind of like the way I've done it...but that's not for another 2 or 3 chapters yet.

Again, I apologise for such a crappy chapter and for a long authors note. And I promise the next chapters will be more entertaining. Well, I can't really say anything for chapters 23 and 24 since they don't really exist that much yet but...yeah...

Random Question: Does anyone watch Lost? If so, are America already on the second series? Coz we're still stuck on the first. I love that show. Sawyer rules!

And one last thing...EEK! The new Harry Potter film just advertised on TV! Can't wait 'til Friday! Does anyone have any idea just WHY Harry, Ron, and Hermione look like thy're sky diving in the trailer by the way? And is anyone still actually reading this A/N? If so, Congratulations for putting up with my rambling for so long!