Dear readers and reviewers! Although the first two parts were rather short, there are 38 people on story alert, so thanks for following the story!
From now on, chapters will be longer.
Enjoy!
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Part 3: Surprise
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Draco still felt a little ashamed when he got home a while later; he was not normally someone to wear his heart on his sleeve, even with Hermione, who had managed to break down all his walls within months after Harry and he had gotten together.
He had been very cautious around Harry´s friends at first, considering their mutual prehistory and the animosity which it had resulted in, and didn´t expect them to be more than civil. Hermione however had made an effort to get to know him, evidence of her big heart; Draco had not known what to make of it at first, and had accepted her offer of friendship rather hesitantly and more for Harry´s sake than for his own.
Then one day they had all been attending Padma Patil´s wedding, which, despite a rather fancy decorum and beautiful setting on a beach, had had the worst wizarding band ever, and dancing was a rather horrid affair.
While poor Harry and Ron had been cornered by the –former- Patil twins, who delighted in telling everyone within reach about their desastrous attendance of the Yule Ball during their fourth year at Hogwarts, Hermione and Draco had ended up at the bar, glad to escape.
They celebrated it with Moriarty´s Finest Tentacled Tequila, taking a bottle down to the water and sitting in the sand.
"´Mynee," Draco said after a while, "I jus´, I jus´ wan´ t´say I´m sorry- for, y´know, callin´ you names..."
"´s all right," hiccuped Hermione, "you were young an´... an´... - an´stup´d."
"Whadds stuped."
"Not stuped. Stu-pidd!"
"Oh. Righ´..."
That had been the turning point, once the world had stopped spinning. Getting drunk together did a lot for bonding, if only for the shared monstrous hangover on the following day, Draco mused.
Oh, and the expression on Ron´s face had been priceless, of course.
-
Harry sighed impatiently, giving the stack of papers in front of him a frustated shove; he just couldn´t concentrate, which absolutely didn´t help. He had just come back from a meeting with the Minister and would have loved nothing more than to floo straight home, yet the monthly reports had to be finished first.
He had just dipped his quill into the ink when the Notification Globe on his desk began to glow, and a moment later his assistant´s head appeared: "You have a visitor, Sir," she announced. "It´s Mrs Weasley."
For one moment, Harry thought she was talking about Ron´s mother, but it was Hermione who walked into his office. Harry inwardly smacked himself; he doubted he would ever get used to her "new" surname.
"Coming to save me from paperwork?" he asked hopefully, rising to greet her.
As expected, she gave him a quizzical look, but then smiled: "No, I actually wanted to talk to you about something."
Harry couldn´t hide a frown as he motioned her to sit down: "Everything all right?"
"Yes. I just... I´m a little concerned about Draco."
"Why, what´s wrong with him?" Harry immediately tensed. "What happened?"
"Calm down, nothing happened," Hermione quickly replied. "But I saw him today, and I have the impression that he´s a little overwhelmed by things right now."
"The pregnancy, you mean? But he is doing much better now, isn´t he? Apart from the weird eating."
Hermione smiled once more: "Yes, he´s doing better since the constant nausea has stopped. And all in all he´s feeling well, I´d say, but he´s afraid that something might happen to the baby. The realization of all the new responsibility is crashing down on him right now, I´d say."
"Why didn´t he tell me?"
"He probably doesn´t want to bother you."
"It´s not me who´s delicate right now, is it?" Harry said a little disgruntledly. "He can bother me with anything! We´re in this together, after all!"
Hermione regarded him patiently: "He knows he can, yet I don´t think he´d want to. You know him- he doesn´t want to appear weak, and he´s terribly concerned about how you´d take it if something went wrong."
Harry snorted; this sounded exactly like Draco. He´d rather work it out by himself than bothering his boyfriend.
"What does he think I´d do?" he asked, baffled that he hadn´t noticed.
"Isn´t it obvious?" Hermione asked in a low voice. "He´s afraid that you might leave him."
Harry gave a short, exasperated laugh: "I don´t believe it! We´ve talked about the possibility that something might go wrong before we decided to do this, but Draco never once expressed these concerns."
"That´s because at that time he wasn´t pregnant yet," Hermione pointed out. "It´s messing him about!"
Harry stared at her: "Did you... I mean, when you were expecting, did you feel the same?" he asked her after a moment´s silent contemplation.
"I did. With both kids." Hermione raised her hands in a helpless gesture: "Those darn hormones render you completely vulnerable, and the sudden realization that you actually carry another life inside you doesn´t help with that."
Harry nodded absently: "I see... I should have paid more attention to him, then I´d had noticed."
"I think this is quite new," she said softly. "I know that he´s very happy with you, Harry, and he´s also happy about the baby. Just try and make him feel as secure as possible. Show him that you love him first of all."
-
Her words were still ringing through Harry´s mind when he got ready to floo home three hours later. He had hastily done the paperwork after his friend had left, and had then sat at his desk for a while, thinking and wondering what could have transpired since the morning that could have shaken Draco like that.
It had been him who had quite recently told Harry to stop worrying, after all.
He found his lover in the living room when he got home; Draco was sitting on the rug in front of the fireplace, rummaging through a box of photos.
He smiled when he saw Harry, nothing indicated that something might be wrong. The Auror bent down for a kiss: "What are you doing?"
"Looking for a picture of us," Draco replied. "For the journal."
Harry shrugged out of his cloak, threw it onto the couch and held out his hands; when Draco took them, Harry pulled him up into his arms: "Hey you," he murmured, smiling affectionately, and rubbed his nose against Draco´s.
The blond sighed as Harry gently tightened his grip around him, melting into the embrace: "Feels good," he murmured with his lips against Harry´s. They tenderly and unhurriedly kissed, letting the other´s taste and feel wash over themselves.
"I love you, Draco," Harry murmured. "I love you so much..."
Draco closed his eyes as Harry caressed the fine strands of his hair at his neck; this was about the two of them, he told himself, only his lover and him, right?
-
Molly Weasley did not intend to make a lot of fuss over her 60th birthday; ever since the latest war and Voldemort´s ultimate defeat most people seized every opportunity to celebrate and enjoy themselves, but Molly had never gotten over the loss of her son and good friends.
She did not usually show her grief, or how much it distraught her to watch George suffer from the loss of his twin, but she had changed significantly during the past few years; she had lost a great deal of weight along with her former habit of bustling about.
The motherly figure Harry had come to know during his school years still existed, but she seemed to find it more difficult to handle every-day life; she did not knit anymore for example, as it required too much energy.
Mr Weasley, who had been hit equally hard by Fred´s death, at least had his work to occupy and distract himself with, and he was coping much better.
The arrival of their first grandchild had been an obvious blessing; ever since Victoire, Bill and Fleur´s first daughter, had been born, both of them had perked up considerably.
-
Hermione was determined not to simply let the birthday pass, thus she had organized a surprise party for Molly, under the pretence of inviting her in-laws to dinner. She had started to plan the event months in advance, seeing as it was on the day before Halloween, and had engaged Mr Weasley as an ally.
Harry and Draco arrived quite late, as Harry had not managed to come home earlier, and Hermione shooed them into the living room, where the complete Weasley family, Hermione´s parents and several other familiar faces were gathered already, most of them grinning and nodding in greeting.
"Have your wands ready," Hermione instructed them. "When they come in, we´ll lighten the tips and shout ´Surprise´. They´ll be here any minute now."
They nodded, drawing their wands.
For some reason, Draco felt his heart hammering in his chest as he was standing next to Harry in the dark, even though he had no reason to be nervous. His talk with Hermione had reassured him that his anxiety was a normal hormonal reaction, and he had managed to be calm and composed during the days ever since, but it didn´t relieve the pressure which he was feeling subjected to all of a sudden.
After Harry had gone to sleep that night, Draco had lain awake, worrying: the baby was such a big part of their lives already. What if he was attacked while out shopping, as had happened a number of times in the past, or what if he did something wrong?
He couldn´t let any harm befall the precious little being that was growing inside him. Just how to protect it he did not know.
Every single sound seemed to reverberate through the darkness unnaturally loud, and Draco´s hands felt clammy. Maybe he should not be here, he thought. Maybe he should have stayed at home. There was no way to flee now, however; the Healer has strictly forbidden him to Apparate during the pregnancy, and the fireplace was blocked by party-guests.
The sound of approaching footsteps and a puzzled voice cut through these considerations anyway, and a moment later, the door opened.
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To Be Continued
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