Draco and Hermione's move to Malfoy Manor was met by excitement by Narcissa and indifference by Lucius. Narcissa was thrilled to have her son, daughter-in-law and future grandchild at the Manor and did everything she could to help the young couple settle in. Lucius meanwhile kept his distance and only showed his face at meal times.
Hermione and Draco had settled in Draco's old room and they were turning the room next to that into a nursery. Draco had brought over practically the entire nursery and they had recreated the room at the Manor. Hermione hadn't wanted to transfer all the nursery, but she agreed when Draco pointed out things would take longer than expected to fix the house.
Draco had hired a builder to look at the house and the prognosis was worse than they initially feared. As well as the caved-in ceiling upstairs there was the downstairs ceiling to sort. Apparently the whole thing could collapse at any time so it needed to be reinforced. Apart from the ceilings there was also the ruined spare room, Draco's office, the front room and kitchen to fix, not to mention the lesser damage in the front hall and bottom of stairs.
With the house being such a big job to fix Draco had decided that they should move everything out of house, until it was sorted and decorated. Despite not wanting the upheaval of moving, Hermione agreed it was the sensible thing to do. So for the last fortnight they had been packing everything up and moving it to the Manor. While the bedroom and nursery were easy to sort the rest of the house was proving more difficult and time consuming as they had to work out what was salvageable.
Hermione was currently sitting on the floor sorting baby clothes in the nursery at the Manor, while Draco was off at their house trying to sort out the mess that was his office. Looking around the room, Hermione felt a pang of homesickness. While the Manor was lovely and both the bedroom she and Draco were using and the nursery were bigger than the rooms at home, they just didn't feel like theirs. In every room at home Hermione felt like she belonged but at the Manor she just felt like a guest, and when Lucius was around she felt like an unwelcome one.
A quiet knocking disturbed Hermione from her thoughts and when she looked up she found Narcissa standing in the doorway, holding a box.
"Can I come in?" Narcissa asked.
"Of course." Hermione nodded. "Just don't expect me to get up. It took me ten minutes to get down here."
"You don't need to get up." Narcissa chuckled as she joined Hermione on the floor. Once upon a time Hermione would have laughed at the idea of Narcissa sitting on the floor, but she'd discovered that the witch was a lot more down to earth than people realised.
"Could you pass me that pile of baby-grows?" Hermione asked, pointing to a messy pile of clothing that was sitting on a nearby rocking chair.
Narcissa passed Hermione the pile and the two witches began to neatly fold the clothes, before Hermione packed them in the chest of drawers she was sitting beside. She'd actually sorted the drawer's weeks ago and everything had been neatly packed away, but during the move Draco had forgotten to put a spell on the contents to keep them neat and when Hermione had opened the drawers she found the clothes were a mess.
"Have you not been tempted to find out the sex of the baby?" Narcissa asked as they folded the clothes. With Hermione and Draco not knowing the sex of the baby all the baby clothes, toys and nursery decorations were neutral.
"A few times actually, but I decided to wait until he or she was born." Hermione replied.
"Did Draco not want to know the sex of the baby?" Narcissa asked.
"He wasn't sure, so he left the decision up to me." Hermione said. "I was originally going to find out but then I got wondering if the answer would disappoint Draco."
"Why would Draco be disappointed in the answer?" Narcissa frowned, hoping her son hadn't pinned his hopes on one sex and kept calling the baby a he or a she.
"I just thought that he might like a son to carry on the family name." Hermione admitted. "He hasn't said as much, but I get the impression that he wants a little boy. I don't want to disappoint him, so I figured if I have the baby and it's a girl he would see her and not be disappointed."
"I'm sure he'll not be disappointed either way." Narcissa reassured her daughter-in-law. "You should talk to him about it, just to put your mind at rest."
Hermione nodded, deciding she would talk to Draco when he returned. "How about you? Did you know Draco was going to be a boy before you had him?" She asked.
"Yes, we knew we were having a boy." Narcissa nodded, a sad look on her face. "We actually weren't going to find out, but I had to undergo certain tests to check everything was okay and we found out he was a boy during those."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to stir up bad memories." Hermione said, noticing that Narcissa seemed sad. She was guessing her pregnancy was a tough one, hence the reason for her extra tests.
"It's okay, it was a long time ago." Narcissa smiled reassuringly at Hermione, letting her know she hadn't upset her. "Before I was pregnant with Draco, I was expecting another child, a little girl."
"I didn't know." Hermione said quietly, wondering what had happened.
"Not many people do, we don't talk about it." Narcissa replied. "I don't even think Draco knows about her."
"What happened? I mean if you don't mind me asking. I'll understand if you don't want to talk about it."
"It's fine." Narcissa said. "Shortly after Lucius and I got married I found out I was pregnant. We were both thrilled and during one of our appointments with the healer we found out we were expecting a girl. I was so worried that Lucius would be disappointed, but he wasn't."
"He was pleased you were having a girl?" Hermione asked, slightly surprised as she'd always figured that Lucius had wanted a son to carry on the family name.
"He was thrilled at the prospect." Narcissa smiled fondly as she recalled her husband's joy. "But our happiness didn't last," She added sadly. "About five months into my pregnancy I started feeling really unwell and when we went to the hospital we discovered the baby had died."
"Oh Narcissa, I'm so sorry." Hermione felt tears welling up in her eyes as she comforted the older witch.
"Thank you." Narcissa squeezed Hermione's hand, before she carried on talking. "Losing her almost destroyed our marriage but Lucius and I survived and a few years later we had Draco. When I was pregnant with Draco the healers carried out extra tests and kept a careful eye on me to make sure I didn't lose a second baby. We nearly lost him twice and when he was born the Healers made it clear I wouldn't be able to carry another baby."
"I'm sorry, Narcissa." Hermione said gently. "I can't imagine what you went through."
"Hopefully it's something you'll never have to experience." Narcissa replied. "But despite everything she's still a part of my life, there's an enchanted rose bush in the garden that's dedicated to her. We might never have gotten to hold our daughter, be we'll always remember her."
"Why doesn't Draco know about her?" Hermione asked.
"It's just never really come up." Narcissa answered. "We didn't want to tell him when he was younger and as he grew up it just never seemed appropriate to mention it."
Hermione nodded, understanding why Draco's parents had been reluctant to talk about such a hard period of their life.
"I'll show you her bush sometime, if you want." Narcissa offered.
"I'd like that." Hermione smiled.
Narcissa smiled back at Hermione, before shaking her head to dislodge her sad thoughts. Reaching behind her she pulled the box she entered the room with in between them.
"What's that?" Hermione asked as Narcissa began to lift the lid.
"It's a box of Draco's old baby stuff. I found it a few weeks ago and was going to bring it over to you, I just never got a chance before the burst pipe." Narcissa answered. "I'll understand if you don't want any of it."
"I think that's a lovely idea, Narcissa." Hermione said, smiling at her mother-in-law. She knew that Narcissa would have kept the stuff to pass onto Draco since she hadn't been able to have any more children and she wasn't going to turn down such a sweet offer. "What's in here?"
"I have no idea." Narcissa shrugged. "I knew it was Draco's baby stuff, so I didn't go through it. I thought we could do that together."
Hermione agreed it was a nice idea and the two women delved into the box. The first things they produced were a pile of old clothes. Some were for a new-born baby, while others were for a slightly older child. Just looking at the outfits Hermione could tell they were expensive, it would seem that even as a baby Draco had been immaculately dressed.
"Oh, it's his Quidditch jersey." Narcissa cooed, pulling a green and silver jersey from the pile of clothes.
Hermione laughed at the prefect replica of the Slytherin Quidditch jersey, it even had Malfoy written on the back. "You got him one in Slytherin colours? You were confident he was going to be a Slytherin weren't you?"
"Actually Lucius got him it." Narcissa answered. "He was convinced Draco was going to be a Slytherin, and as it turned out he was right. I've probably got a few pictures of Draco wearing this, I'll have to dig them out."
"Yes please, I'd love to see them." Hermione said, folding the Quidditch jersey and placing it at the top of the drawer. As soon as their child was big enough they were wearing that jersey, it was just so cute.
Delving back into the box, Narcissa pulled out a selection of stuffed toys. Unlike the muggle soft toys Hermione had dotted around the baby's room, these ones were all magical creatures. Among them were a griffin, a unicorn and several dragons. Hermione wasn't the slightest bit surprised when Narcissa told her that the dragons were Draco's favourites. Draco was surprisingly a big animal person, and he had an affinity for the dangerous creatures he shared a name with.
Using her wand Hermione placed the toys with the others and returned her attention to the box. This time Narcissa produced a selection of wizarding children's books. Hermione looked through them and found they were perfect for reading to really young children as they featured none of the grisly stuff that was often present in older children's books. Pleased with her latest additions to her unborn child's reading collection, Hermione once again used magic to place the books on the bookshelves in the corner.
"Draco's mobile." Narcissa announced, pulling a delicate looking baby mobile from the box.
The mobile was made from some sort of dark wood and instead of the little objects that normally hung from the strings, there were crystals. While Hermione thought it would look pretty hanging on the ceiling she failed to see why you would hang it over a baby's crib. Hermione had already bought two mobiles and both had little figurines to stimulate the baby.
"You look confused." Narcissa laughed.
"I am." Hermione said, reaching out and touching one of the crystals. "Why does it just have crystals?"
"It's enchanted." Narcissa explained. "You can either charm it so it looks like something, Lucius used to charm it to look like Quidditch players and stuff like that, or you can leave it as it is and it magically changes depending on what's in the baby's head. I used to like to leave it as it was, that way when I checked on Draco I could be sure his dreams were all nice ones."
"And what did the mobile usually look like?" Hermione questioned. She rather like the idea of letting the design be influenced by the child it was hanging over.
"It all depended, dragons and mythical creatures featured pretty heavily as did Quidditch when he'd been spending time with Lucius." Narcissa replied. "In fact animals were the most common thing to find on his mobile."
"I think it's great." Hermione said, placing the mobile to one side. "I'll definitely be trying it."
Narcissa smiled as the two women unpacked the remaining few bits and pieces from the box. Once they were finished Narcissa helped Hermione to her feet and the two women headed downstairs. Settling down in the front room Narcissa summoned her old photo albums and began showing Hermione the old baby pictures of Draco.