Chapter 3: Sunday 30th May 2005
Chapter Text
Sunday 30th May 2005
When Harry awoke the following morning he found their bed was empty once again.
He sniffed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, unsure as to what had woke him from his sleep. Harry listened hard but he couldn't hear any murmurs or gurgles from Isadora's room either.
The thin light painting the ceiling told him that dawn had broken a little while before and a Tempus Spell confirmed his suspicions. It was 6.42 exactly when Harry heard the tiniest of groans emerging from their en-suite bathroom.
It seemed that today Draco hadn't risen early to spend time pruning and trimming in the garden. Instead, his husband was sat in a crumpled pile on the floor of their en-suite bathroom, shaky, trembling and wrapped in Harry's burgundy dressing gown.
Draco had drawn up his skinny knees up close to his torso and he was resting his tousled, sweaty blond head on top of them. He was taking slow, wobbly breaths and his face was as pale as parchment.
"Draco love," Harry said, sitting down on the floor beside him. He rested a gentle hand on Draco's shoulder and found the muscles tense under his touch. "What's wrong?"
"I feel as sick as a crup," Draco moaned, lifting his head to look at Harry. "I mean… I haven't actually been sick yet… I just feel so bloody rough, love. The bedroom was spinning as I lay there." His husband's eyes were red-rimmed and watery and Harry knew immediately what the matter was with him. This was a repeat of the morning sickness that had been the curse of Draco's first trimester the first time around.
Draco had often grumbled that morning sickness had been quite the fib, for nausea had troubled him at every hour of the day, often hanging around a while.
Harry carded a finger through Draco's hair, half-wondering if this was the time to discuss the probable cause of his beloved's poorly tum.
"I don't feel sick at all," Harry began, hoping Draco might start to wonder why he was the only one afflicted by this sudden sickness. "Fit as a ferret really, despite it being much too early to be out of bed."
Draco gave him a thin smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"It was that bloody Elven Cheesecake that Mother brought from the Manor," he replied, rocking slowly from side to side and taking shallow breaths. "I knew it tasted odd when I was eating it and now I know it was sour." He made an annoyed face but Harry thought Draco looked rather more pitiable than he did intimidating. "Those bloody Elves of hers need to be educated on the setting of stasis spells… If I didn't feel as rotten as I do then perhaps I'd send Mother a Howler," he managed, trying to sound grim but failing miserably. "I'm only glad Isa didn't eat any."
Harry knew that it wasn't cake of any kind ailing Draco but he decided that now wasn't the time to say anything. It was definitely better not to begin their journey towards life as a family of four whilst his husband felt this dreadful. Harry decided to wait.
"I expect you're correct," Harry replied. "I was too full up from lunch to have any. There was a bit left so I'll chuck it out… Do you want me to get you a Fizzy Pumpkin juice love? They always used to make you feel better-"
Draco gave Harry a curious look and Harry shut his mouth mid-sentence. Fizzy Pumpkin juice had always made Draco feel better but that'd been eighteen months previously when Draco had suffered from morning sickness and that was the only liquid that he could keep in his stomach. "Well. It might settle your tummy," Harry concluded in a firm voice.
"Alright then," Draco agreed, his voice closing his eyes against a second wave of sickness. "Please. I'm sorry Harry. You know I loathe looking this weak and pathetic," he continued in a wavering voice. "Especially as this is your Sunday and you get little enough time off with us both as it is-"
"Don't talk such nonsense," Harry lovingly chided, leaning over to give his love a quick peck on his head. "You don't look weak or pathetic. I'm your husband. My job is to love and look after you, remember? Sit tight. I'll get you that fizzy juice and then I'll wake up Isa. She won't settle for a nap this afternoon otherwise and I don't want her all grouchy and Malfoyish when our mates are around later."
Draco gave a nod and a groan and Harry stood up. He raced down the stairs to the kitchens and grabbed a Fizzy Pumpkin juice from the pantry, cooling it with a light chilling spell as he rushed it back up to Draco. He bounded back through into their en-suite and popped it into Draco's waiting hand.
"Take your time love," Harry assured his poorly husband. "There's no rush. I'll make you some plain toast. A little something to fill your tummy will do you the world of good with the… Well. It'll do you the world of good with this 'flu that you can't shake."
Draco liked to complain that Isadora was all her lazy Potter father when it came to waking and Harry secretly agreed. As he walked into his daughter's room her little face was still pressed into her mattress and her eyelashes fluttered delicately against her cheeks. Isadora was likely still dreaming and Harry hoped that every night of her life would be just as peaceful as this one had been.
Harry wanted nothing more than for Isadora to have a tranquil, happy life, devoid of the unhappiness and pressures that had haunted both Draco's and his own childhood. They'd both been stripped of their innocence by adults that should have known better and who should have cared more. Harry knew that he would lay down his life before he let anyone hurt or ruin Isadora like that.
"Isa-baby," Harry murmured, rolling up the blinds with a swirl of his wand, "It's time to get up sweetpea. Wakey wakey, little chick."
Harry lifted her out of her cot and Isa stirred at his touch, her tiny eyes flicking wide open. She stared at Harry with wide, cheerful eyes and she babbled a delightful jumble of sounds, as pleased as ever to face her new day. Isadora fit perfectly in his arms and Harry wrapped his arms around her, taking in a lungful of her clean baby scent.
"I'll let you into a secret," Harry murmured as he carried her through to their bedroom, "the new baby is making your other daddy feel a bit under the weather this morning, but I promise that it isn't them being naughty. It's actually a good sign to show that they are growing well. It might not feel like such a good thing to daddy, but you and I both know that it is."
Their little girl might have favoured both her parents equally in her appearance but Harry had to admit that she was unquestionably more like him in personality. Their little daughter relished nothing more than pleasing the people that she loved. Isa enjoyed dancing, music and was a lively, bubbly little soul who loved flitting between different activities and family members.
Maybe the baby currently making his husband feel so down in the dumps, would perhaps be more like Draco? Harry felt his imagination start to run away with him as he envisioned their new baby, imagined them thoughtful and incisive in a way that wasn't in his own DNA.
Maybe their new little one would have Draco's secret, generous heart or his questioning, placid nature. Harry very much hoped so. They were some of Draco's attributes that he most admired and ones that he had fallen hardest for.
Harry cared rather less about the gender of their new baby, much as he hadn't minded when they were having with Isadora.
Of course, Harry had heard all the comments in the Auror locker-rooms. He'd heard Ron and the others telling him how much easier boys were, and how you needed a boy to carry on your family name. None of that Pureblood nonsense had ever mattered to Harry or to Draco though.
They both knew that the gender a child was born with was only the first chapter in their story. It mattered even less to them what their children chose to do with their lives. He didn't care if Isadora decided to dance Muggle ballet or whether she followed him into the DMLE. As long as she lived her happiness then that was all that mattered to Harry.
"Daydreaming again, Potter?" Draco asked, ambling slowly out of the bathroom.
The Fizzy Pumpkin juice looked to have done Draco the world of good. He still looked drawn and pale, but his shaky demeanour seemed to have faded somewhat. Maybe the morning sickness wouldn't affect his husband quite as badly this time around, though it was still early days for that kind of prediction.
"You've got that sentimental, moony face on that always means some sort of trouble for me. I see you've got our little niffler up out of her bed," Draco smiled, pausing to tickle her under the chin, "and I must say, she does look extra especially beautiful today… Can you carry her downstairs for me though, love? I don't want to give her whatever-this-is."
"I'm allowed to have a sentimental, moony face," Harry smirked, looking back over his shoulder. He walked downstairs with Isa a lovely, solid presence safely held in his arms. Draco followed behind, the colour beginning to return to his cheeks. "I've got the best family in wizarding England, love. I can't help it if I feel a little chuffed sometimes."
Within minutes their breakfast was on its merry way. Isadora favoured a banana and cloudberry porridge that Harry thought looked revolting while Draco skinned a clementine. He popped the segments into his mouth, one piece at a time, before exclaiming that the fruit had looked too delicious to resist.
Harry had to bite back a laugh at that comment for Draco had enjoyed an irresistible yen for citrus fruits when he was pregnant before. Harry remembered one or two nights where he'd been sent to the local Muggle supermarket at nearly midnight in order to sate Draco's powerful cravings.
Harry filled the kettle and set it to boil with a tap of his wand and made marmalade on toast for himself. He earmarked two slices for Draco which he buttered, knowing they would make his beloved feel better.
The three of them talked and ate, and Draco fed Isadora with her broomstick patterned spoon. It was as lovely and as domestic as anything that Harry could have dreamt of. Back when he'd been a child, when he'd been locked in his cupboard and looked upon with barely concealed revulsion, Harry hadn't really understood what family meant.
Harry hadn't understood that family meant you were accepted and that you were acknowledged. Harry looked across at his husband and baby and realised that in less than nine months there'd be another baby sat beside them at their table. The thought made Harry feel a little emotional. It would be messy and it'd certainly be chaotic and noisy but none of that really mattered.
It would be the family that the short, skinny little boy in the cupboard had craved with every part of his being.
~*~*~
Sunday afternoon rolled around far quicker than Harry would have liked.
He could never understand how his days at work were so long yet the weekends spun by in the blink of an eye. He'd have put it down to magic, or some sort of charm but sadly his time only seemed to fly when he was beside his family.
Hermione, wise witch that she was, had told Harry that this was life as a parent. "Children are like living Time Turners," she had joked once, smiling but her voice still sincere. "They grow and change with every day that passes and you're left looking on with wonder, trying to figure out where the time went."
Toast and a cup of milky tea at breakfast had settled Draco's stomach but Harry had sent him back off up to bed anyway.
"You need to rest love," Harry had said as the three of them had sat at the table, the residue of their breakfast around them. "Go and sleep whatever this is off, and I'll get the place prepped for this afternoon? That is, if you still want to have company later? I can send a couple of owls and cancel if you like." Draco had lent back in his chair, and Harry had turned his body to face him. Harry lay a light hand on his husband's thigh, knowing how oversensitive Draco's skin felt whenever he was poorly like this.
"I'll take the nap," Draco had replied, "but please don't cancel, Potter. A couple of hours and I'm sure that I'll be as right as rain. You sure you're going to be okay with Isa too?" he asked, standing up with a yawn.
Harry stood too and he had pulled his beloved into a hug.
He let his hands drift over to Draco's belly, rubbing small circles over the soft rounded swell beneath his belly button under the pretence of taking away his husband's tummy ache. There wasn't much there yet, certainly nothing that couldn't be ascribed to an extra portion of pudding but Harry had felt his whole body bubble with excitement.
This was a tiny new life growing and, though it was likely his imagination, Harry had felt a frisson of magic beneath his fingers. Isadora had looked on, giggling and babbling. She always got excited at the sight of her two daddies kissing.
Draco's prediction had been right, of course. He'd emerged from their bedroom looking like a brand new wizard not ten minutes before Pansy and Theo had flooed into their fireplace.
Maeve, Pansy's little daughter was held tightly in Theo's arms. Their daughter was only two months older than Isadora and Harry had fond memories of Pansy and Draco lain together in the settee, fiercely competitive over their bumps, the severity of the symptoms and how dotingly marvellous their husbands were.
It had all been a bit of a race between Pansy and Draco when they'd been trying to get pregnant, each wanting to beat the other like the tricky Slytherins they both were.
As he watched his husband embrace his best-friend Harry wondered idly how it'd feel for Draco, being pregnant for a second time. Would he be less anxious? Less concerned with reading every baby book he could lay his fingers on and having everything just so?
Harry watched on as his husband knotted his fingers though Pansy's and led her through into their garden. Harry nodded hello to Theo and they followed their partners through the French doors into the afternoon sunshine, Isadora gurgling her own greetings to Maeve from where she sat upon Theo's hip.
"Darling," Pansy said, looking at Draco and adjusting her sunglasses as she arranged herself on a sun-lounger, "this garden of yours is looking superb. You have the greenest fingers of anyone I've ever met. It's only a pity you didn't let me copy your Herbology work at Hogwarts. I might have got a better OWL grade, sweetie."
Draco grinned as he lazed on the lounger beside Pansy.
"It's a labour of love," Draco replied, looking around at the manicured plants and orderly shrubs and plants. Harry knew that Draco had charmed all the dangerous fauna with notice-me-not spells so that their Muggle neighbours wouldn't see them but to the four wix the plants were visible and they shone with health and vigour. "Just a little way of keeping my hand in until I'm ready to go back to work."
Harry pricked up his ears from his crouched position beside the paddling pool. Draco hadn't mentioned his job as a Magi-Botanist for a few months, not since he'd gotten aggravated by a colleague's article in the Journal of Modern Herbology and thrown his copy of the periodical across the floor.
It wasn't like they needed the money from Draco's university role. Despite all of the post-War property seizures and reparations the Malfoy family were still very wealthy. It was more a point of pride for Draco that he'd always had a job, rather than live his life as a dissolute aristocrat like his father had before him.
"Are you planning on going back then?" Pansy asked, leaning over to take a glass of raspberry cordial from the garden table, "because you seemed very convinced otherwise when we were at the Green Toadstool baby group on Thursday. Said that you didn't want to miss a day with Isa." Pansy peered over the paddling pool where both babies were splashing cheerfully in half an inch of water. "But you could always hire an Elf-Nanny, or send her to a wizarding nursery-"
Draco pulled a face, furrowing his brow at Pansy's suggestions and Harry felt a knot of tension release that he hadn't even known he was carrying.
Draco had been rather ambitious and career-minded when the two of them had first begun to date and the wizard had been well on track to get a tenured position at the Morgante Magical College at Cambridge. Isadora had put paid to that plan, at least for a couple of years and the baby that Draco was carrying would only keep Draco's name and research out of the magic journals for even longer.
"It's difficult," Draco replied, taking a swallow of his own juice. "I mean, I miss College life but I don't miss a minute of the pressure of it." Harry looked up, his eyes finding Draco's own for a brief moment.
Harry thought Draco looked very handsome laying there. He could see the slight swell of his husband's tummy beneath his shirt and see Draco's hand resting on it lightly. Perhaps his beloved's unconscious mind was already aware of the little life growing there.
"Harry and I have made a good life for ourselves here," Draco continued, before breaking into a rueful smile, "if only I could get rid of this damned Muggle 'flu! I was as sick as a dying bloody threstral this morning Pans. It seems to have tucked itself away for now, thankfully-"
Harry had been listening in. As he heard Draco's words he swiped Isadora out of the water and speedily dried her over with a swipe of his wand.
The sudden movement caught Draco's eye and his words faltered, the whole of his attention moving over to his baby. Isadora giggled with pleasure at the sudden warmth of her daddy Harry's familiar magic over her skin and Draco grinned, holding out his arms for a cuddle.
Harry smiled to himself, pleased with his quick action. Pansy was a tricky witch and closer than any sister to his husband. If Harry, well known amongst their friends for his oblivious nature had noticed Draco was expecting, then he didn't doubt that Pans had known for much longer. The last thing that Harry wanted was Parkinson giving Draco his exciting news and stealing his thunder.
Theo took Harry's attention away from Draco then, repeating some well-known gossip about the Appleby Arrow's new Swedish Beater and the latest Ministry reforms.
Nott was a wily Cursebreaker that had aided the DMLE on several occasions. A friendship had sprung up between Harry and he, unexpected but rewarding. The Cursebreaker had a cynical sharp sense of humour about their joint employers that Harry couldn't help but appreciate. Out of the corner of his eye Harry could see Pansy and Draco transfiguring serviettes into little boats and setting them to float across the surface of the paddling pool.
Isa and Maeve were delighted with the game and Harry watched the babies bat them away, time and time again with not a hint of boredom. He wondered if he ought to start on the barbecue but Ron and Hermione were still due to arrive and they hadn't sent their owl to cancel. He knew he could stasis their hamburgers but that wasn't quite the same as freshly cooked.
Beside him, Theo took a long swallow of his Elderflower wine, his brown eyes following the line of Harry's gaze.
"They change your whole life," Nott commented softly, his words for Harry's ears only. "We'd like another, a brother or a sister for Maeve. I suppose it wouldn't really matter… We both come from big families, Pansy and I, and the comments have already started like you wouldn't believe. 'You don't want to leave it too long,' was my mum's opinion just last week." Theo paused, leaning forward in his deckchair. "What about you, Potter? You and Draco thinking about making it a party of four?"
This was all news to Harry. No one had made any snide comments to him or to Draco as far as he knew. Male pregnancies were slightly more complicated in comparison to female ones, since they were supported by magic, rather than a conventional menstrual cycle, so perhaps most people were expecting Draco and he to leave their family exactly as it was.
Harry decided to stick as close to the truth as he could without giving the game away. Theo was a friend but he was still Slytherin and if Harry said a word about the new baby then he had no doubt that Pansy would be told within the hour.
"Merlin. Haven't talked about it really," he replied, batting an invisible bug from his leg. "There's not much in the way of parents, left to give us pressure except Narcissa," he said. "That's never been her way though. She loves Isa with everything she's got though and I think if it another baby arrived then I know they'd be very welcome-"
Harry might have said more but that was the moment that Ron and Hermione arrived, with the sound of their floo chiming through into the garden.
Ron hadn't ever been one to stand on ceremony and within seconds his best-friend had marched through, and was throwing his arms around Harry and shaking Theo's hand.
"Sorry I'm late, Harry," he said while Rose, their three year old hid behind his jeans. He rolled his eyes. "Daughters. Seems like the older they get the more bloody time it takes to get them out of the door… I'm bloody starving, matey. Thought that you'd have got that barbecue fired up by now."
Harry let himself be carried away on a tide of convivial conversation. Rose quickly warmed up and emerged from behind her daddy's legs, soon becoming just talkative and as enthusiastic as her mum.
Theo's department had been involved with the raid on Friday morning and the discussion soon moved over to some of the more obscure curses that the potions smuggler had used.
"There was a lung liquefier," Ron said, scoffing in disgust at the trap that the criminal had set and spilling a couple of drops of his beer in the process. "Not to mention a right nasty one that was set to melt all the organs in your body if you had tripped over it… Gods, but the felon was a bit of a thickhead! The curses wouldn't have been easier to spot if the git had charmed a sodding parchment map to the door."
Hermione looked up from her seat where she had been coating Rose with a liberal layer of sunblock potion.
"Don't be so bloody self-assured." She shook her head at Ron's words and pursed her lips. "He's always the same when he gets an audience," Hermione continued, looking at Theo. "I read Harry's report about the raid yesterday and it was a true team effort, Nott. Despite what Ronald here might say, those Cursebreakers that went in first had to deal with some very slippery curses. I'm only glad that nobody was injured-"
Ron acknowledged her point with a grin before he leant over and gave his wife a kiss. "I'm sorry," he replied. "I know that you worry-"
"Mummy is worried because she has a baby in her tummy," Rose cut in loudly, stunning the adults all sat around the paddling pool into silence.
Even Pansy and Draco turned their heads to look in the small girl's direction. Rose stood there indignantly, her hands on her hips. Harry couldn't quite believe how much she looked like Hermione in the moment, defiant, confident and very pretty. "And you both said it was a secret, but you and daddy tell Uncle Harry everything and-"
Ron flushed red to the very roots of his hair.
"We weren't going to say anything yet," Ron muttered, squeezing an arm around Hermione's shoulder, "because it's still really early. It seems like Rosie here has missed the entire concept of a secret."
Hermione had to smile at that, although she looked equally as embarrassed as her husband. "And I wonder where she got that particular trait from," she said, folding her daughter into her arms.
The next few minutes were a flurry of excitement, congratulations and joy. Harry hurriedly placed his paper plate on the floor and pulled his best-friend into a massive hug, amazed and pleased at the turn of events. It seemed that Rosie had been dying to tell everybody that she was going to be a big sister and her grin was entirely infectious.
"Well, this definitely isn't enough of a celebration," Draco said, embracing Hermione and giving her a kiss. "We should have cake and Treacle Tart and-"
"Circe, no!" Pansy laughed, "haven't you forgotten how poorly sweet stuff made us both? Especially later on. Merlin, but I could hardly eat cake by the end, not the way it squashed my digestive system!"
"Luckily I'm not quite at that point yet," Hermione said, sipping her drink. She gave her still-flat tummy a little pat. "I've only known a few days. A couple of bouts of morning sickness and that's about it. I have to admit that it's all very unexpected. Two weeks ago I was still drinking wine at that Minister's dinner that we both attended, Harry. Do you remember?"
"Well, it'll be all fruit juices and Ginger Ale from now on," Draco said readily. "And Fizzy Pumpkin juice! I warn you, that'll be all you'll be able to stomach once the morning sickness really gets its claws into you."
"And lemons," Theo added with a snort of laughter. "I couldn't buy enough lemons for Pansy. Everyday I had to buy more… Pans ate them. Sucked them. Even bloody sniffed them! I was honestly worried that Maeve might have a slight yellow tinge the amount that she put away."
Hermione turned a little green at those suggestions. "With Rosie it was ice lollies," she smiled, carding her fingertips through Rosie's hair. "And ice chips. I spent half my time freezing glasses of water and breaking little bits off. I thought some of my Ministry colleagues thought I'd gone half-batty. I'm not looking forward to that part-"
"Or the hot flushes," Harry chimed in, grinning in delight at his best-friend's unanticipated news, "Draco here moaned about my warming spells for weeks. If he wasn't colder than an Azkaban dungeon then he was hotter than the midday sun-"
"I think I'm getting picked on a little unfairly here," Draco replied. He gathered Isadora into his lap and helped her with her bottle. With a tap of his wand it turned the right temperature and he guided the little rubber teat into his daughter's mouth.
"At least I wasn't like Pans here," he said, giving his best-friend a friendly poke with his spare hand. "She was the oddest creature of all when she was expecting. I caught her chewing raw dirigible plums! Straight from the bush! I'm surprised that your digestive system remained unscathed, Parkinson! Remember that I wanted to take you to St. Mungos?"
Everybody laughed at that, even Maeve and Isa, and the conversation quickly turned to some of the more ridiculous things that each wix had craved while they were pregnant.
Draco admitted how he'd taken to pulling the leaves from his Shrivelfig plant and chewing them when no one was looking. Ron confessed to Apparating to different brother's homes in the middle of the night and pinching as many Cauldron Cakes as he could carry in his pockets to satisfy Hermione's whims.
"It was 'Mione's idea," Ron said, chortling at the memory. "And she's up to her old tricks. That's the real reason we were so bloody late, Harry! We couldn't floo 'till Hermione here had drunk one of those foul mint teas that she loves so bloody much. Said the baby demanded it!"
The rest of their afternoon was spent celebrating Hermione's exciting news with plenty of non-alcoholic drinks, and all the ginger biscuits, lemons and ice-lollies that Harry could carry back from the Muggle corner shop on the corner of their street. Shrivilfig leaves and dirigible plums weren't a part of their feast.
This wasn't anything like the Potter-Malfoy barbecues of even two years before. In previous years, abundant measures of Firewhiskey had usually replaced the hot-dogs and burgers after a couple of hours had passed, and that was before everything got messy over a game of Gobstones.
Nowadays their afternoon was much more sedate and calm. There were babies to bath, and bedtime routines to follow, and unfortunately a dozen things that needed sorted before another week of work started the following morning.
By the time that six o'clock arrived around Maeve and Isa had both gotten grizzly with tiredness and their daughter's normally sweet face was red, wrinkled and annoyed. Rose was in tears with a tummy ache, having eaten far too many of Cauldron Cakes that Harry had found in their cupboard and gifted to Hermione.
"We'd better go," Ron said, shrugging on this coat and yawning widely. He looked over at Harry with a grin. "We've got that meeting with Robards first thing tomorrow and I expect you'll have to do most of the talking, matey. I haven't even thought about that Illegal Potions case since we flooed out on Friday. Merlin. Bloody midnight! I sincerely hope that we don't have any midnight finishes next week! I'm getting much too old for the late nights."
Harry gave his best-mate a hug. "Think you should have thought about the late nights before you made baby number two," he joked. If Harry were being even the slightest bit truthful, the smuggling case had been the last thing on his own mind too. Sitting in that overheated basement with Ron, collecting and cataloguing evidence had been only two days before but it felt like a lifetime ago.
As their closest friends manoeuvred their tired, whiny babies into their fireplace and disappeared into the sparkling green flames Harry let his arm drift around Draco's hips.
His husband held Isa in his arms and Harry decided that Draco looked rather pink around the ears. Despite napping for much of the day, Harry could see that his husband was getting tired once again. He pressed a single sweet kiss onto his lips, enjoying their daughter's delighted wriggles and the thought of their new baby steadily, secretly growing inside of his husband.
Perhaps, Harry decided, it was time to inform his oblivious husband of his similarly pregnant state. It seemed like the only fair thing to do. It was hard to credit that Draco hadn't already come to the same conclusion, considering all the discussions of cravings, sudden nausea and sleepiness that had occurred during the course of their afternoon.
"Draco love," Harry began, "I've been thinking. Do you reckon-"
"You're going to have to tell me in a minute," Draco said, placing Isadora in Harry's hands. "I have the most sudden, intense urge to wee, Harry… Whatever it is will have to wait. I'll start Isa's bath while I'm up there."
Harry watched his husband dart off up the stairs and he kissed his daughter's curly hair. "Maybe tomorrow," he said with a resigned sigh. "I'll try to tell your daddy then."
~*~*~