Author's Note: I was just woken up in the middle of the night, by a phone call saying there is a two hour school delay, due to the snow. Why in Merlin's name do I need to be woken up early to be told to come in late? Me thinks someone is snorting the snow. Anyway, my sleepless morning is your benefit, giving me the time to get this up.

Draco and I had been together a month now, which meant it was time for another grand courting gift. I'd already gotten him the expensive incubator he wanted, not so much as a courting gift but as a gift to celebrate the fact that he was pregnant with my child. He was anxious about not being prepared for the delivery of our egg and given that we only had three short months to get ready for it, I thought we might as well start preparing. I got him the incubator mostly to stop him from worrying so much and from stressing out over it. And if he counted it as a two week courting gift, then that was fine by me.

Most of my courting gifts were egg related these days. We were still having dates every evening, so instead of flowers, I started bringing nesting materials. We'd gone on several trips to the forest and out on the grounds to collect twigs and feathers, which he used to build a nest large enough for a fully formed veela egg. But I could tell he wasn't happy with it and his mother had indicated that he didn't feel the nest was grand enough for the Malfoy heir. There was something about the simple nest that made him feel less human. I tried to make him feel better and I told him several times that I thought his nest was great.

One evening I noticed him adding trinkets to his nest and was reminded of the special twig from his grandfather's tree that had started it all. It was then that I decided to go a different route and help him make a nest he could be proud of. The trinkets he added weren't terribly expensive, but they were things that meant something to him. There was a leaf he picked up on one of our dates. There was a piece of yarn that had pulled free from my favorite Weasley sweater. There was a scrap of parchment upon which I had written him a message, letting him know that I was still coming, but running late. Then there were things that were his, like his own baby blanket from when he was little and a swatch of his favorite, but now ruined, sweater. There were even a few of his own wing feathers, which I only knew were his because they were too black to be from the albino peacocks and too long to be from any of the other birds around here. And finally there were photos of his grandparents, all of them, whether alive or merged with a tree, in the nest.

And so I got the idea to start bringing him things for the nest as my daily courting gifts. First I brought photos of my parents. Then it was a twig from my first broom, my Nimbus 2000. After that there was a run of handkerchiefs, each made out of a different type of fabric, so he could decide which type would be best to line the nest with. Hermione sent me a piece of the Whomping Willow from Hogwarts, which I presented to him. Then there was an assortment of twigs from various types of trees, so that he could decide which the best type to use for nest construction was.

I happened to be assigned to a case at work in which we confiscated a breeding pair of occamies and their three molting chicks; the chicks were shedding their newborn down, which was exceedingly soft and made of pure silver. I gathered up those feathers and brought them to Draco for the nest as well. He liked them better than the rest of the soft materials he had, so after that the cloth and peacock feathers were removed from the nest and replaced with the occamy feathers.

Fleur gave me a couple of twigs, sent to her by her grandmother, who she had told about us. The twigs were from a veela tree, which was some special hardwood variety cultivated by veela for thousands of years for use in their nests. They had a nice, fresh smell to them when I presented them to Draco. He immediately fell in love with the new twigs and demanded enough to build an entire nest out of them. Those twigs turned out to be hard to come by in Britain, but Fleur had relatives in France with trees in their yards. They let me floo over and harvest them for free, but each tree only had a few harvestable twigs, so I had to visit a dozen different relatives to get enough for one nest.

And so the nest was mostly veela twigs and occamy feathers now, although the trinkets and willow twigs had been retained. Draco was much happier with it, which was all that mattered to me. But the nest was pretty much built and I still needed courting gifts, especially for our one month anniversary. According to pureblood tradition, this was a big deal and should be commemorated with an extravagant gift, such as jewelry. Of course the gift suggestions were meant for a witch and I didn't think he'd much appreciate a pair of earrings, since he didn't even have pierced ears. Thus I was faced with the challenge of coming up with the perfect extravagant piece of jewelry.

Luckily I had help from Hermione, who after a bit of input from me, came up with the perfect idea. Draco's house arrest came with one major inconvenience for me: he wasn't allowed to communicate, not even with me. I had to rely on his guards to pass messages between us or I had to stop by in person. As an Auror, I often ran into his guards at work, but they didn't tend to happen to be at the Ministry when I needed a message sent to him. Sometimes it worked out, but most of the time it was a major inconvenience.

His communication ban wasn't just inconvenient though, it was downright dangerous. What if something went wrong with the pregnancy? What if he needed to be taken to hospital and his guards, for whatever reason, refused to take him? What if he went into labor? What if he was feeling rejected by his mate? There were a million things that could go wrong and as long as he couldn't call me for help, that was a problem. I wasn't one of his guards anymore, so I couldn't just sit around Malfoy Manor protecting him; I had to go to work.

When I wasn't with Draco, I worried about him, which is where Hermione's gift idea came in. She had been doing some research on amulets in the library when she happened across one type that sounded useful. This particular piece of jewelry was capable of transferring information from one pendant to its twin pendant. It could only relay three things, fear, distress, and life force, but those were three valuable pieces of information to me. If Draco was afraid or distressed in any way, I wanted to know. And if his life force was affected, I wanted to know that too. If he wore one pendant and I wore the twin, then I would always know how he was, even without him telling me, even when we were miles apart. It was perfect.

These charmed pendants were rare and expensive too, which made them perfect for courting gifts. There was a magical jewelry store in Diagon alley and the clerk was able to track down a dealer for me who had a pair of pendants charmed with this particular spell. The jewelry clerk arranged to take delivery of the pendants, for a fee, and transferred my payment to the dealer. I picked up the pendants the Saturday before our anniversary; our anniversary not being until that Thursday.

After the jewelry shop, I made a stop by Madam Malkin's to pick up the paternity robes I'd ordered. I still needed daily courting gifts and clothing was an acceptable gift. Plus with the way his waist was expanding, he really needed the robes. This wasn't a typical human pregnancy at all, because it was an egg growing inside of him and responsible for his bloated waistline. Eggs could grow much faster than babies and they would have to, given that an egg large enough to hold a fifteen month old fetus was to come out of him three months after conception. He was already putting on weight before the conception and now, just three weeks in, he had a small bump.

It was expected that he'd look full term in just another two months, which meant now was the time to purchase paternity clothes. He wouldn't need a ton of clothes, because it was only for a few months, nor would he need a full wardrobe, because of his house arrest. There were only six guards, his mother, and me who saw him regularly, and the elves cleaned his clothes every day, so he didn't need all that much. Thus I only ordered two sets of robes, two sets of pajamas, and a pack of briefs for him. The rest of his clothes, like socks and shoes, he didn't need to get larger. Well maybe he'd need a new sweater for our dates outside, but Molly was already almost done with one for him.

After Diagon Alley, I dropped my shopping off in my room at the Burrow. With me and Ron being the only children currently at home, I had my own room. Ron had offered to share with me, but it wasn't needed, because I'd been moved into Percy's old room. With the amount of courting gifts I went through, I had the gift bags and decorative ribbons permanently set up on my dresser.

Draco had been complaining about how uncomfortable his pajamas were to sleep in, so I chose a pair of the pajamas as today's gift. Once it was wrapped, I popped into the kitchen to let Molly know where I was going, and then apparated over to Malfoy Manor. When I got to the second floor, Draco and Jackson weren't in the parlor where they normally waited for me, so I knocked on Draco's bedroom door.

Jackson let me in and said, "He's in the loo; been in there for hours."

I thanked Jackson for the information and knocked on the bathroom door. "Draco, it's me. Is something wrong?" I asked.

"Harry?" Draco's voice called from the other side of the door.

While I was talking, Jackson ducked out of the room, probably relieved to have a break.

"Yes. Are you okay?" I asked.

"Could you, er, provide me with another…ah…sample?"

"A sample? As in an ejaculate sample?"

"Yes…"

"Why? I thought you said the first time took?" I was beginning to panic. I'd been thinking all this time that he was pregnant—he definitely seemed further along than what he'd been last time when he had the miscarriage—but why would he need my ejaculate if he was already pregnant? And why was he hiding in the bathroom? Was he starting to have a miscarriage and thought he could stop it with some more ejaculate? That didn't even make sense…

"It did."

"Then why do you need it?"

"I just do, alright?"

"No, it's not alright. If you're having a miscarriage I want you to tell me."

"I'm not."

"Then what is going on?"

He let the silence hang in the air for several minutes and I thought he wasn't going to answer me, but then he did. "I'm just needing my mate. These stupid urges will go away if you'll kindly provide me with another sample."

"Alright, I'll go make one, but it'll take me some time."

He said that was fine and then I went to the guest bathroom. Lacey provided me with the same cracked bowl I used last time and I repeated the process of ejaculating into a bowl. As soon as I was done and had cleaned up, I took the bowl to Draco, who was still in the loo. He cracked the door open and reached around for the bowl, but wouldn't let me come in. He asked me to wait out in the parlor while he did his business. I agreed and walked to the bedroom door, closing it loudly, but then tiptoed back to the bathroom door. I sat down on the floor and listened in.

Listening to a private moment like this was probably a violation of his privacy, but in my defense, if it wasn't me, it'd be Jackson. If I left the room, Jackson was supposed to come back in. Sure Jackson wasn't interested in Draco sexually and wouldn't have been listening at the bathroom door, but I didn't feel too bad about that, because Draco was pregnant with my baby; I had a right to know what was going on, didn't I? This was the second time I'd provided him with a semen sample and I was dying to know what he did with it.

Obviously he was applying it to his cloaca, but was he also masturbating with it? Was it enough to just slop it on? Was he putting it on and making himself cum? Or was it that there was a waiting period in which he had to leave it there, but that he wasn't actually masturbating with it? I really wanted to know. Last time he'd sent me home before he did it, so I had no clue how long it took, much less any of the other details. I was sure he'd never tell me, so this was my only chance to find out; thus the snooping.

Within a few minutes I started hearing noises from the other side of the door. It began with heavy breathing and then there was the wet sound of skin slipping across skin. It was really hot, even though I'd just came, so I stayed silent and continued to listen. It went on like that for a while, before there was a silent period in which I thought he might be done. I was edging towards the bedroom door, preparing to make it look like I'd just come back in, when the noises picked up again. There was moaning this time too, so I edged back towards the door to listen.

Veela masturbation apparently took longer than it took me to do it, because he was moaning behind that door for quite some time before I heard the clear signs of his orgasm. Once he went quiet again, I resumed my slow creeping towards the door. He didn't come out right away and I thought for sure that he would emerge any minute now, so I decided to act before I got caught.

I opened the bedroom door and called out, "Draco, Jackson said that you're taking too long and I'm to check on you. Is it alright if I come back in now?"

He called back his agreement through the bathroom door. I closed the bedroom door again and sat down in a chair that was on the other side of the room from the bathroom door and waited. It wasn't long before the sound of running water could be heard, indicating that he was washing up. He took forever in the bath, so I had time to think while I sat there. It occurred to me then that I still hadn't had a talk with him about sex. I'd told him how happy I was about the egg thing, but not the rest of it. For all he knew, I was going to make fun of him if he showed me his cloaca or I'd dump him when I found out we couldn't have real sex. I was going to have to change that and tell him how I really feel.

Half an hour later, he finally came out of the bathroom fully dressed. We went out to the parlor, because being alone with one's boyfriend in the bedroom was against pureblood protocol. He went straight to the gift bag with his pajamas that I'd left on the coffee table; he always liked to start the date with his present. His eyes lit up when he saw them, then he thanked me with a kiss on the lips.

"Do you want to go outside for a walk?" he asked, setting the pajamas back in the bag on the table.

I wouldn't mind going for a walk and we probably could have this little talk outside, but I knew I'd probably chicken out or get distracted if we did that. "Later. First there is something I want to talk to you about."

"Oh, what's that?"

"Sex."

"Look, I'm not a pervert. I've been having certain urges, which I've been ignoring like a proper pureblood. But I was reading last night that the female veela needs her mate present for a successful pregnancy. I'd read that before, of course, but I thought it just meant his presence, not sex. But the book I was reading last night said that the veela actually senses the father's presence through sex. I thought I could take care of the urges on my own, but that didn't-"

I decided then to cut him off. "It's okay. I don't think you're perverted."

"You don't?"
"No, I don't. If you need another bowl, then that's fine with me, really. I was only concerned that there was something wrong with the baby, otherwise I wouldn't have questioned you on it."

"Oh…good."

"But it did remind me that I wanted to talk to you about sex. I know that…um, our bits are…er not fully compatible…ah sexually. Whenever it comes up, you're always so…"

"Proper?" he supplied.

"Yes, er, proper…about it and I thought that maybe that that was why." I paused, hoping that he'd say something, but he remained silent and waited for me to continue. "I want you to know that I know things aren't going to work the same down there as with typical couples, but that's fine with me. I'm attracted to you, Draco Malfoy, the human and the veela, and if that means sex goes a bit differently, well then that's fine. It'll still be good, because it's you."

"So you don't mind that there won't be any penetration?"
"No, I don't," I said, but he still looked skeptical. "It's fine, really. I don't care that you don't have a penis; for me it's more that your body is shaped like a man's, your face is handsome, you're attractive, and you keep me on my toes." Being a virgin myself, I didn't have much experience with actual cock. The closest I'd gotten to another man's penis was dancing at a muggle night club; what that club called dancing was basically dry humping to music. I wouldn't miss what I'd never had, would I?

"Seriously? You don't mind not having sex at all?" he asked skeptically.

"No, because we'll be able to do, er…other stuff."

"Like what?"

I stared at him in surprise for a minute before I decided that this was a test. If I said anal penetration, he'd know I hadn't done my homework on veela. If I said oral sex, then that was rather presumptuous given his pureblood morals. I didn't know whether he was of the pureblood school that was pro oral sex or against, so I wasn't willing to risk it. Instead I stuck to the one thing I knew we could do. "Ah, our hands. We can use our hands to, er, pleasure each other," I finally answered.

That must've been an acceptable answer, because he nodded.

That concluded our sex talk and we went outside for a walk. It was a windy day. He mentioned a fondness for flying kites and revealed that there was a pair of magical kites in the broom shed, so that is what we did. We were still just as competitive as ever and with a pair of trick kites, it turned into a contest, which revived the old Gryffindor versus Slytherin rivalry until the chill of the wind forced us back inside.

Author's Notes: I was running out of activities for the two of them to do while stuck at Malfoy Manor; flying kites was the only thing left I could think of. I think this chapter, with the spying on the masturbation, is about as sexually explicit as this story gets. What rating to you think that qualifies as? Personally, I would say teen, but I've rated this story as mature so far, to be on the safe side. Should I lower it, or is mature the right rating?

Next chapter I will skip ahead to the egg-laying…