Draco woke early in the morning, stomach growling with hunger and the pain coming back. He looked around the room and saw all of the evidence of the births, but no people. He then looked down at his stomach to see that it was already much smaller than it had been. It wasn't back to normal yet, but it was definitely flattening out and the second cervix was finally gone. Plus he didn't feel nearly as tired as he normally did. He still ached and was somewhat drowsy, but he was awake enough to call a house elf and request breakfast.
When he was almost done with his meal, Draco heard crying from the other room. Professor Snape came in moments later with his first baby and handed his baby over for the first time.
"He's hungry and needs to eat," Severus said.
"Um, just how do I do that?" Draco asked, staring at his son's tiny face in awe; the face was scrunched up and wailing, but also chubby, wrinkled, and topped with tuffs of blond hair.
Severus helped Draco position the baby and then helped the baby latch onto Draco's elongated nipples. Then he sat back in a nearby chair and watched as the baby fed.
The baby suckled on Draco's nipples and it felt weird. He looked down and was horrified to see what his chest had become. He was somewhat grateful for the fact that he had been too busy sleeping through these last few months to notice the change, but he was still shocked by it nonetheless. He didn't have boobs, thank Merlin, but his pecks were swollen; he looked like one of those men who worked out way too much. He reached down and pushed on his free peck, thinking that it'd feel like muscle, but it had too much give; it was hard and hurt when he pushed, but not in the way muscle was hard. "Ow," he said, pulling his finger away.
"Does the other breast hurt?" Severus asked concerned.
"Yeah, when I poke it."
"That's because you only have the one baby here and your body is making enough milk for two babies. It will only get worse if we don't start pumping the extra milk."
"What is the other baby eating?"
"The muggles are feeding him in the hospital, but I don't know what."
"Well if I pump this bloody milk, can't my mother and father take it to the hospital for him?" Draco made the word pump sound like it was a dirty word.
"Yes, would you like me to get the pump set up?"
"Yeah, I guess," Draco said, not that he had a choice. The unused side was only hurting worse as they continued talking, probably because he was thinking about it now. And he didn't want his other baby drinking muggle milk; who knows what they put in it or where they got it from.
Severus went to the storeroom and found the box with the magical breast pump for Peverell males along with a box filled with glass baby bottles, all of which he brought back to Draco's bedroom. He set up the contraption and bottles and brought it over to Draco, who was burping the blond baby, and waited adoringly for Draco to finish. Then he took the baby from Draco and laid him down in the basinet, before going back to Draco's side and hooking the two pumps up to Draco's elongated nipples.
Draco watched Severus in horror. If his pecks being all poofed out and engorged with milk wasn't bad enough, he was just noticing how long his nipples were. They must be over an inch long and looked like teats! And his old head of house was maneuvering the teats into the holes of the pumping things. The pumps stayed in the proper position with magic and then Professor Snape spelled the machine to start suctioning out the milk from his body; the left side, where the baby had just pulled milk from, was spurting out a thin stream of white milk, while the right side was gushing forth with a very thick stream of milk. He could see the milk trickling down into a bottle on the left and the milk pouring down in a torrent into the bottle on the right.
Draco felt rather grossed out by the process and pulled up his sheet to cover himself so that he didn't have to see it. Severus had retrieved the baby from the basinet and was now holding him in the chair next to Draco's bed.
"Is this the first time he's eaten?" Draco asked, just now realizing how long it had been since the birth and knowing that babies this little were supposed to eat every two hours.
"No, this is the second. He woke up two hours ago and two hours before that, you gave birth to him; he hasn't missed a feeding."
"Oh good," Draco said relieved. "But I don't remember feeding him before."
"You were still asleep. I held him up to you and helped him latch on, without waking you up."
"Oh, wow, thanks! Um, you seem to really like him," Draco said, noticing how unusual the normally stoic professor was behaving.
"We have taken a liking to each other, I suppose. He reminds me of my best friend Lily."
"Lily Potter?"
"No, Lily Evans. We were friends before she married that blasted Potter."
"So he looks like Harry's mother then?"
"Yes, he has her cheeks, chin, and even her forehead. And his eyes aren't green yet, but I'm sure they will be."
The thought that his baby resembled a muggle-born flashed through his mind for a moment, but Draco quickly shook it off. "What about the other baby? He looked like me, didn't he?" Draco asked, trying to remember what his second baby looked like, but he had only gotten a glimpse. He'd been kind of out of it on pain potions at the time and he couldn't remember much besides black hair and the vague recollection of pointy features.
"Oh yes, the second boy was the spitting image of a Malfoy if ever I saw one. Are you going to keep referring to them as the first and second baby, or do you have names in mind?"
"Well I do have some names in mind, but only one first name. And I want to see them before I decide."
"That's understandable," Severus said before checking the progress of the breast pumps. The milk in the right bottle was nearing the top. He put the baby down and changed it out and while he was doing so Lucius walked in and picked the baby up.
"Morning, Draco, Severus," Lucius said, before looking back to his precious grandson who he held in his arms.
"Morning Father. How is the other baby? You were with Mother, weren't you?" Draco asked concerned, trying to ignore what Professor Snape was doing to his chest.
"Yes, I went with your mother and I'll be going back there in a minute, after I eat. The muggles got the little Malfoy breathing and have him hooked up to some muggle breathing machine. It's the oddest contraption and they have him inside a glass box on top of a rolling cart with all these wires and tubes and machines with buttons and lights. They said that it'll probably take a week before he starts breathing on his own and they release him."
"I wish I could see him and hold him," Draco admitted.
"Well the muggles did say that they would like you to stop by with the other baby to get checked out, so if you really want to see him, we could arrange that. But it'd be safer if you didn't leave the villa and at the very least we should wait until you've had a chance to recover," Lucius said.
"Perhaps it would be best to take a camera with you, Lucius, and bring back a photo of your other grandson. Muggles have cameras, I believe," Severus said, finished with Draco's pump. He capped the bottle full of breast milk, cast a stasis charm on it, and set it on the desk.
"Yes, I'll do that," Lucius said. "I better eat quickly and get going; I'm sure your mother is exhausted by now." He had only slept for two hours himself, but it was two hours more than his wife had gotten.
Severus took the baby back from Lucius and said, "Take the bottle of milk and get the muggles to feed it to the other baby."
"Alright, I will," Lucius said, grabbing the bottle and going downstairs to the dining room. He quickly ate, before finding their camera and apparating to the hospital.
Lucius found his wife and handed the bottle of milk over to the muggle-nurse, asking her to feed it to the baby. She agreed and quickly went to switch out the formula they had been giving the baby for the real breast milk. She even took the baby out of the glass box so that he could take a picture. He kissed his wife and handed her the camera, before telling her to go home and get some sleep.
Having been up all night, Narcissa agreed and said she would come back to relieve him. The muggle-nurse tried to tell them that it was alright to leave and assured them that the baby would be fine in her care, but the last thing they wanted to do was leave their grandson in the care of a muggle unsupervised; who knew what weird muggle things she might do to him while they were gone! Lucius stayed and Narcissa promised to come back when she woke up.
Narcissa went home and checked on Draco, who was asleep in his bedroom. She left the camera on Draco's desk and went in search of Severus and her other grandson. She found Severus asleep in the spare bed in the nursery with the blond baby sleeping in his arms, instead of the crib that was only feet away. She gently picked the little guy up and placed him in the blue and silver crib, because it was closest to Severus. Then she went downstairs and ate quickly, before going to her room and sleeping for four hours.
While Narcissa was asleep, the blond baby woke up again and Severus took him over to Draco's room for a feed. Draco woke up and held his son and Severus set up the breast pump on his other side.
While Severus was at work, Draco spotted the camera and asked, "Professor Snape, would you take a picture of this baby and then develop the pictures for me?"
Professor Snape agreed and snapped a shot of Draco feeding the baby. Then he went in search of the darkroom. He called a house elf, who told him about the shed out back where Abraxas Malfoy developed photos. He went to work sorting through the various chemicals and looking for photo quality parchment.
Draco finished feeding and burping the baby and put him down on the bed by his side, putting a pillow between the baby and the edge of the bed, so that he wouldn't fall off; it was a giant bed, so there was plenty of room. Then he reached for the instruction booklet for the breast pump and set about figuring out how to stop and unhook the contraption. Once he had that done and the full bottle of fresh milk under a stasis charm, he went back to his bed and curled up with his first born son, while missing his second born.
After a few minutes, Draco began to wish he could talk to Harry right now. It was dangerous to communicate with Harry, who could be intercepted by Death Eaters or the Dark Lord at any time and whose occlumency skills sucked, but he was alone and he really needed someone to talk to, so he decided to do it. He pulled out his parchment with the Protean charm on it from his nightstand drawer, where he had left it right next to his galleons charmed to communicate with Harry and Hermione.
The parchment was the same one he had used to leave Harry that first message, after their wedding and Dumbledore's death. He had left a blank parchment, the other half to this one, on Harry's bed. When he was safe at the villa, he wrote on his charmed copy, which transferred his message to Harry's parchment. Draco had seen the message Harry had sent after reading Draco's message, but he didn't want to encourage Harry to communicate with him while they were in hiding, so he hadn't written back.
Draco wrote: "I had the babies during the night. The first one was healthy. Mother took the second one to a muggle hospital; I haven't seen him since and I didn't even get to hold him. I'm alone and I'm scared." He didn't write names or sign it, in case it was intercepted.
Fifteen minutes passed without a response from Harry, so he pulled his charmed coin out of the nightstand and tapped it with his wand, making the words, "Look at your parchment," appear on it. Five minutes later the coin heated up and changed to read, "What's wrong with him?"
Harry must not have known that messages could be sent back, despite his earlier successful use of the parchment. Thus Draco picked up his quill and wrote, "He wasn't breathing. You can write messages back to me on the parchment and I'll get them."
It was another several minutes before he got a reply back, this time on his parchment. It read, "Sorry, I had to find a quill and ink. Is the baby alright now? Did the muggles get him breathing? I love you and I miss you and I want to be there with you."
Draco wrote back, "The muggles have him on some sort of breathing machine. They said they would need to keep him on it for a week. I'm not sure of all of the details; I wasn't there."
"I'm sure he'll be alright; muggles have gotten really good at taking care of babies. What do they look like? What did you name them?"
"The first one has blond hair. Mother told me she thinks he looks like your mother and will most likely have green eyes," Draco wrote, switching out the mention of Professor Snape for his mother, because Harry didn't know Professor Snape was with him. "The second one had black hair and looked more like me, but I only saw him for a second. I haven't named them yet. I haven't had a chance to find a decent Potter name."
"They sound wonderful. I can't wait to meet them and tell them I love them. And I found a name I thought you might like. Well, Hermione helped me find it, and it's not astrological per se, but I thought you might like it."
"What is it?"
"Hyperion. It's Greek—Hermione says he's one of the Titans and the father of the sun, the moon, and the dawn—and it was the name of a Potter who lived hundreds of years ago."
"It's perfect. How did you find it?"
"I didn't have that book you have, but Hermione found an ancient book on the pureblood lines at headquarters. Even hundreds of years ago they had horrible taste in names, but I liked Hyperion. Can I come over and keep you company? I'm not doing anything here; we're out of leads."
While Draco was writing, Druella came into the room, having just finished breakfast. She picked up the baby and went to sit in the chair next to Draco's bed. Then she asked, "What are you doing, Dragon?"
"I'm writing to Harry," Draco replied and wrote, "No, you can't come. I'm not even the secret keeper, so I couldn't tell you it if I wanted to. I'll be alright; my grandmother just walked in. Got to go. I love you."
Druella replied, "You best be careful what you write now."
Harry wrote back, "Don't go. I love you too. Please keep writing to me."
Draco tucked the parchment away in his drawer and put the lid back on his bottle of ink, before looking up at his grandmother and saying, "I didn't tell him much; just that the babies were born."
"Good. Have you eaten yet? You need to keep up your strength now that you're breast feeding."
"Yeah, I ate."
"You need to drink sixteen ounces of water every time you breast feed, so that you don't get dehydrated. Have you drunk that much?"
"No Grandmother, I'll drink some more now," Draco said grabbing the empty glass off of his nightstand and filling it with water. He drank it and then started on a second glass.
Draco was still drinking his water when Professor Snape came back with two photos, one of Draco and the blond baby and the other one of the raven haired baby with tubes sticking down his throat and taped in place to his face. Draco put the glass down and picked the pictures up, caressing the tiny face in the photo as the little boy's chest moved up and down, indicating that he was breathing. He was so much smaller than the first baby, but he definitely had the Malfoy facial features.
"This one is Scorpius Abraxas Malfoy," Draco said, still glued to the picture of his second son. He had been planning on naming the one with the most Malfoy features Scorpius and the raven haired baby was it. "And Hyperion Draco Malfoy for the other one." He liked the name Hyperion and he especially liked that Harry had gone through the trouble of looking up a name that he would find suitable. He had just been too ill during the pregnancy to research names and he didn't have the time now.
"That is a good name for such a precious being. He is the most wonderful person I've seen since Lily died," Severus replied.
"Alright, Hyperion Draco it is," Draco confirmed with a smile.
By this point Severus was dead on his feet; Druella noticed and ordered, "Off to bed with you now Severus! I'll watch my grandson and great grandson while you rest."
Severus agreed, but asked Druella to come get him if they needed anything and assured them that he was just going to lie down in the spare bed in the nursery. A few minutes after Severus left, Draco started yawning, so Druella sent him off to sleep as well. She took Baby Hyperion, a basinet, and a nappy bag down the hall to her own room, so that Draco could sleep peacefully.
Druella only woke Draco two hours later, because it was time to feed Hyperion again. And while he was awake, he might as well pump milk for Scorpius, so he hooked up the breast pump to the other side. The breast pump held itself and he held Hyperion with his left arm, leaving his right hand free for his grandmother to push a glass of water into. He got the hint and drank his two glasses of water while he waited for Hyperion to finish feeding.
By this time Druella, having been up half the night, was tired herself and Draco was feeling a bit more rested after his nap. Thus Druella went off to bed and Draco stayed up with the baby. Hyperion spent most of the time sleeping, but the baby also made a very foul mess in his nappy that Draco had to clean. He changed the nappy and while he was at it, he changed the baby's clothes and trimmed his finger nails. He even got little Hyperion's dark grey eyes to open, which was the first time he had ever seen them. At that point he grabbed the camera, which Professor Snape had left lying on the desk, and snapped a photo.
Hyperion fell asleep just before lunch time, so Draco put the baby in the remaining basinet and crawled into bed, before requesting that a house elf bring him lunch in bed. He was itching to get out of his room, but he was wary of going down the flight of stairs holding the baby when he was still recovering from the births. Thus he ate in bed and then banished the tray to the kitchens for the house elves to clean. Then he went into the en suite bathroom to see about brushing his teeth and fixing his hair.
Draco's usual grooming spell was not working, because his hair had grown too long during the pregnancy. He went through his books until he found the one of grooming charms and was just reading through the directions on cutting hair, when Hyperion started crying softly. He put down the book and rushed back into the bedroom to get his baby. He fed Hyperion and expressed milk from the other side. Hyperion fell back asleep while he was burping the baby, so Draco laid Hyperion down in the basinet and returned to the bathroom to cut his hair.
The blond hair wasn't cut as perfectly as when his mother did it, but it was better than it was before. Draco recast his grooming charm, leaving the mess for the house elves. He couldn't remember the last time he had taken a bath, so he took one now and spent a long time lying back relaxing in the tub. Then he got out, dressed in trousers instead of pajama bottoms for a change, and went back over to the basinet to check on the baby.
Hyperion needed another nappy change and woke up when Draco went to change it. He wanted the baby to sleep tonight, so he made an effort to talk to Hyperion and try to get him to stay awake for a bit.
Narcissa, having just woken up, went straight to Draco's room to check on him and the baby. She entered the room and found her son rubbing the little blond baby on the back.
Draco looked up at his mother and said, "Hello mother."
"Hello Draco; I'm glad to see you're feeling better. How is my little grandson doing today?"
"Hyperion is doing fine. Can you tell me more about how Scorpius is?" Draco asked hopefully.
"You decided to name them Hyperion and Scorpius then?" Narcissa asked with approval.
"Yes, but please tell me about Scorpius."
"Alright, but let me take my lunch in here with you then," Narcissa said, before calling a house elf to bring her some lunch.
Narcissa sat at the desk with a bowl of tomato and cream soup and a cheese sandwich while she told Draco all about the muggle hospital and the machines they had Scorpius hooked up to. She told him about the nurses and healers and what they said about the baby's prognosis for release and about the birth defects. Draco laughed when he heard what the muggles thought of the Peverell penis, but he blanched in horror as his mother told him about Scorpius' bowed leg and turned in foot.
"It's nothing St. Mungo's can't fix," Narcissa assured her son.
Draco tried not to get too upset about the malformed leg, given that there was nothing he could do about it right now. Instead he told his mother to tell Scorpius that he loved him, before Narcissa left, heading off to the hospital.
Harry and Hermione were eating a meager breakfast alone in their tent now that Ron had abandoned them, when, for the first time since before Dumbledore's death, Harry felt his coin burning in the pouch he kept around his neck. He threw down his spoon and quickly read Draco's message, glad that he still kept the coin on him every day; he liked to send Draco little messages, even if Draco never replied.
"My parchment, Hermione! Get your bag, I need the parchment Draco left me," Harry exclaimed. He had considered keeping his parchment in the pouch around his neck, but he had been worried the snitch from Dumbledore would crumple it and the pouch wasn't wide enough to fit the parchment, unless he folded it and he hadn't wanted to crease it, because it had been from Draco. Thus he had stored it in Hermione's handbag with all his other things.
Hermione jumped up and Harry followed. It took several minutes for them to find the handbag and retrieve the parchment, but then they had and Harry was reading it. "He had the babies, Hermione!"
"That's great, Harry!" Hermione replied.
Harry's excitement quickly turned to dread as he read the rest of the short message. "Narcissa left him alone and took the second baby to a muggle-hospital."
"What happened?"
"I don't know."
"Well get your coin and ask him!" Hermione replied, feeling frantic over the news and knowing that there was nothing she could do to help from this far away. They didn't even know where Draco was.
Harry ran back to the breakfast table, grabbed his coin from where he'd left it, and tapped it, making it ask what was wrong with the baby.
The message that appeared on the parchment next made Harry feel like his heart was being ripped out and stomped on by angry trolls. "He wasn't breathing Hermione! And I need a bottle of ink and a quill!"
"He wasn't breathing? Is he breathing now? Is he going to be okay? Merlin help him," Hermione replied frantically, while Harry ran back to the side of the tent with Hermione's bag and began searching through it for ink and a quill.
"I won't know until I get a quill," Harry said, pulling out half a bottle of ink and going back in for a quill.
"Yes, a quill. We need a quill, Harry!" Hermione shouted uselessly.
Harry pulled out a quill, but it was broken and he had to go back in for another. "Calm down Hermione! We need to stay calm and find out what happened. We can't know what we can do to help if I can't find a quill," Harry said while he searched for a quill. "Just sit down and breathe, will you?"
"Yes, sit and breathe," Hermione repeated, doing as instructed.
Harry finally found a functioning quill and ran back over to the kitchen table. He fumbled the lid of the ink, due to his nerves. His hand shook as he wrote his reply asking for more information. He paused for a minute, absentmindedly pressing his quill to his lip and creating an ink stain, before adding that he loved and missed Draco and wanted to be there with Draco, hoping that Draco might just let him. He and Hermione could pack up the tent and apparate over to the continent and then be wherever Draco was by dinner time at the latest; Hermione couldn't apparate anywhere she hadn't been before, but she had been to France. They could find a train to take them closer and maybe even a muggle taxi. He wanted to be there to comfort Draco and see his son and maybe he and Hermione could help Narcissa with the muggle doctors.
The words Harry wrote on the parchment disappeared moments after he had written them as the parchment blanked itself and another moment later Draco's message appeared.
"He's on a muggle breathing machine and the muggles need to keep him for a week," Harry told Hermione, even though Hermione was right there looking over his shoulder and probably reading Draco's messages first hand.
"Muggle technology for treating premature babies has gotten really good, Harry. Muggles are beginning to save babies born up to three months early. Draco was almost full term, so the baby wasn't nearly that early; they'll probably have no problems healing him," Hermione said, trying to concentrate on the facts instead of freaking out again.
Harry murmured some reassurance to Hermione and then wrote a short sentence of reassurance back to Draco, citing what Hermione had just told him. Then he asked about what the babies looked like and were named.
"One has blond hair and looks like my mother and the other has black hair and looks like Draco. No names yet," Harry said out loud for Hermione.
"That's great! Really brilliant," Hermione said, attempting to stay calm, but she could just imagine a little raven haired Malfoy baby hooked up to machines in a muggle-hospital.
"I wonder how Narcissa knows what my mum looked like. Do you think she knew my mum?" Harry asked, thinking back to the time he had shown Narcissa and Draco his family photo album. Narcissa hadn't mentioned knowing his mum then. "I showed her pictures of my parents; do you think she could possibly remember my mum's features that well from a photo?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe Narcissa just assumed that he looks like your mum, because he doesn't look like anyone else? If he looked like your dad, well they would just say he looked like you, because you look like your dad. So if he doesn't look like the Malfoys and doesn't look like you, then it's pretty easy to conclude that he must look like your mum," Hermione replied.
"Yeah, maybe. But what if Narcissa did know my mum? The Malfoys aren't that much older than my parents; Narcissa was probably still at Hogwarts when my parents started there. Narcissa really is nothing like Lucius, so maybe she remembered her…my mum, I mean." Harry liked to think that the polite woman he'd spent time with in the room of requirement was the only side to Narcissa Malfoy. All of the blood purity Death Eater nonsense, would then have had to come from Lucius and Narcissa had only gone along with her husband and not actively participated in it.
"It's a possibility, Harry. You better write him something back."
"Yeah, you're right," Harry said before writing his reply to Draco and mentioning the name he had found.
There had been a lot of clear misses when it came to wizarding genealogy books and potential names when Harry was looking through the library at Grimmauld Place. He had found a particularly horrid book of all of the dark accomplishments of the Black family in the sixteenth century. After mistakenly reading a disgusting bit about muggle torture, Hermione had stepped in and found a proper book with decent wizards. There were only a few Potters mentioned in it, but among them was Hyperion Potter. Hyperion had invented a potion to ameliorate the common cold back in the thirteen hundreds; the potion was long since out dated, ever since the much better pepper up potion was invented, but his name was forever recorded in one dust covered and heavily aged book at Grimmauld Place.
Harry liked the name Hyperion and thought it had a nice ring to it, plus it had come from a decent wizard who had helped alleviate suffering. The meaning behind the name was also nice, given that Hyperion was the father of the sun, the moon, and the dawn. His sons and Draco were everything to him and represented the sun, the moon, and the stars, as the muggles say; replace stars for dawn and it was pretty much the same thing. And given the complete dearth of alternative acceptable Potter names, it really was a no brainer.
Harry leapt out of his seat half a foot as he read that Draco liked the name. Then he sat back down to fulfill Draco's request for more information, before asking again if they could come over. "It really wouldn't hurt us to spend a couple of days with them. I could keep Draco company and you could go with Narcissa to the muggle-hospital. Maybe we could even brainstorm with Narcissa and get another idea about where we can search for the next horcrux."
"At the very least, we know You-Know-Who has been to their house and they might have a portrait we can interrogate for information," Hermione suggested. "Say if Lucius' father had a portrait at Malfoy Manor, which I'm sure he does, and another one wherever they're staying now, then just maybe he might be able to help us."
"Yeah, that's brilliant Hermione!" Harry replied enthusiastically. Right now they were plum out of leads and anything sounded brilliant; it didn't even matter that Lucius' father was probably a racist Death Eater supporter and would be disinclined to give them helpful information. For a second he thought that a Malfoy portrait would be more likely to send them on a wild goose trail and report their presence at Draco and Narcissa's hideout to Voldemort. But with the news of his son's medical problems and their setbacks in the horcrux hunt, he couldn't think about any more depressing thoughts or he was going to break down. Instead, he tried to stay hopeful.
But then Draco's reply had appeared declining his request to come over, explaining that it was an impossibility because Draco wasn't the secret keeper, and then mentioning that Draco's grandmother was there. "His grandmum? I forgot about her. Do you think she's been there all along? Do you think maybe they're at her house? Where does she even live?" Harry asked. He didn't really expect Hermione to have all the answers, but maybe she had an idea of where they could get the answers from.
"Is this Narcissa's or Lucius' mum?" Hermione asked, already going back for her handbag.
"Narcissa's mum, I believe," Harry said, remembering that Draco had told him that only Narcissa' mum was still alive.
"Well if that's the case, Draco probably took her in to get her away from Bellatrix. With Narcissa in hiding and Tonks' mum disowned, Bellatrix would be the only one looking after the old woman," Hermione said, coming back over with her arm deep inside her handbag as she searched for something. "But maybe we can interrogate Phineas Nigellus Black's portrait."
"Yeah, just let me write back to Draco," Harry said, thinking about what to write, even though Draco had already said he had to go and he wasn't sure the message would be seen.
"Don't go. Who is your secret keeper? Is it your grandmum?" Harry wrote, before looking up and nodding at Hermione that he was ready for the portrait.
Hermione had the portrait out and said portrait was covered in a black cloth, so that Phineas Nigellus Black couldn't report any information on them back to Snape, who had access to Phineas' other portrait in the headmaster's office.
"Professor Black!" Hermione called.
"Yes? Who is it? What do you want?" the portrait asked.
"Where does Narcissa Malfoy's mum live?" Hermione asked.
"Why should I tell you? What do you want? You still haven't told me who you are."
"Just answer the question. Does she live in Britain?"
"Yes, of course she lives in Britain! Or at least she did before she went missing last year."
"She's missing?" This was a good sign.
"Yes. First Narcissa disappeared and then her mother went too."
"Do you have any idea where they could've gone?"
"No and if I did I wouldn't tell you! I don't even know who you are!"
At that Hermione shoved the portrait back into her handbag. There were muffled shouts of complaint from the portrait, but they were cut off when Hermione snapped the bag closed. Harry looked back at his parchment, which was now blank; he was disappointed that Draco hadn't written him back, but he decided he would keep the parchment out in case Draco wrote again later.
"Well that answers that: Narcissa's mum is with them, but we still have no idea where they could be," Hermione said.
"At least we know Draco isn't completely alone with the first baby when Narcissa is out checking on the second," Harry conceded. "Merlin, I hope she doesn't get caught leaving the safe house."
"She won't get caught as long as she stays in the muggle world."
"Going to a muggle-hospital was shear brilliance."
"I'm a bit surprised that a Malfoy would've thought of that, with all their blood purity tripe. Can you picture a stuffy pureblood walking into a muggle establishment and asking for help?" Hermione asked, stifling a laugh.
"No," Harry agreed and laughed, mostly because they really needed to relieve some tension right now and humor was one way of going about it. "I bet the Malfoys don't even bother taking muggle studies."
"Probably not. She probably showed up in her robes and didn't even know how muggles were lighting the ceiling, not to mention all of the electronic equipment."
"Yeah, I bet she was horrified to see what the muggles did to my son; they probably have him on an IV and some huge machine to breath for him," Harry said suddenly turning sullen as he thought about the critical situation his son was currently in and how there was nothing he could do to help.
"Oh Harry, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean…"
"It's okay Hermione, I know. But just think what would've happened if Narcissa hadn't thought to take him to the muggles for help? My son would be dead right now," Harry said with a sob as the tears started leaking from his eyes.
"I know; it's so unbearably awful," Hermione agreed, throwing her arms around Harry and hugging him.
Author's Note: So now Harry knows and the babies have names. Next chapter Draco will be contacting Harry again…
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