Severus cast the excrement vanishing charm on Hyperion Tuesday evening. Druella went off to bed and Draco and Severus covered the night shift at the villa. Lucius covered the night shift at the hospital with Scorpius. Narcissa slept. Wednesday morning Narcissa went to the hospital and Lucius came home with news: the muggles wanted Draco and Hyperion to come to the hospital today for examination and questioning.
Lucius was exhausted, so he went off to sleep, and Severus and Draco started going over their story to tell the muggles. Severus had the story all worked out, having discussed it with Narcissa months ago. All Severus had to do was get Draco to the point where Draco knew the story inside and out. But by this point Draco was absolutely sick of being cooped up in his room, so he decided that they could do this just as easily outside. Severus was agreeable to the small delay, so they set to work moving their conversation downstairs.
Draco went to the nursery and packed a nappy bag full of everything he could possibly need to care for a newborn and sent Severus to the baby storeroom to find the stroller and the baby carrier that went on top. It was a floating twin stroller with a gold and silver turtle print on top of indigo fabric. Since there was only one baby, Severus only unpacked one of the infant carseats that went on top; the carseats took a lot of work adjusting the buckles, so Severus only bothered doing the one.
Draco put little Hyperion in the one carseat and hooked the nappy bag over the handle bar. He was just strapping Hyperion in when his nipples started leaking. "Merlin!" he exclaimed as he looked down his robes and saw the wet marks.
"Perhaps you should take the breast pump with you as well," Severus said, noticing the problem.
Draco peeled off his robes, grateful for the fact that he had trousers on underneath. He had specifically put trousers on underneath, because he was breast feeding and had to frequently expose his chest. "But I just fed Hyperion and I pumped for Scorpius while I did it," he complained, pushing the stroller back into his room to get the breast pump and spare bottles.
"The greatest period for milk production is in the days following the birth. Your body doesn't know exactly how much milk to produce and sometimes it overshoots," Severus said, following Draco.
"But didn't that book I read say that the milk was on a feedback loop, so if I make more than I use, my body will make less?" Draco asked, sitting down on his bed as he attached the breast pumps to each nipple, because they were both leaking.
"Unfortunately the feedback loop doesn't always work perfectly. If you don't use the milk, your body may overcorrect and stop making enough milk. And in addition, the milk buildup is painful, so it is best to pump the extra and store it. If worse comes to worse and you consistently make too much and you build up a large supply of excess milk, you can store it and use it after you stop breast feeding. With two babies, it is unlikely that you'll always have enough milk for both of them, so in all likelihood, the excess milk will get used up."
"Yeah, I guess. Is there any way we can still go downstairs while I'm pumping?" Draco asked.
"Certainly. The pumping machine is portable and the pumps themselves will hold themselves in place, even with movement. If you go slowly and carefully, I see no reason why we can't sit out on the heated patio," Severus replied.
"Can you get the baby then?" Draco asked as he grabbed the strap of the pumping machine and slung it over his shoulder.
"Yes and I'll just put the case of extra bottles in the basket on the carriage, so that we won't have to come back for more bottles," Severus said and he did.
Severus pushed the stroller down the stairs, and since it was a magical floating stroller, it had no difficulty staying level as he went, floating smoothly along in front of them. Draco brought up the rear, with the breast pumps on his chest and carrying the pumping machine by the strap on his shoulder.
Being the dead of winter, Severus stopped when they reached the sliding glass door to the patio and cast a warming charm on himself and the baby.
"What are you doing? Isn't the patio continuously warmed?" Draco asked.
"Yes, the patio is heated, but it's winter, Hyperion is a newborn baby, and the one heating charm will only heat the patio so much. I think a second heating charm should be sufficient," Severus said.
Draco agreed and then let Severus cast a heating charm specifically on Draco; not because he thought it would be too cold, but because he wasn't wearing his robes, due to the breast pumps. Then the three of them went outside and Draco and Severus sat at the table on the already heated patio; Hyperion's stroller rested by the side of the table where they both could easily reach it.
"How much of the cover story do you remember?" Severus began.
"Well I know that muggle men don't give birth. I remember that the plan was to say I had a girlfriend who gave birth at home and refused to come in."
"Sometimes muggles steal babies, so muggles always check out the story when someone shows up with a baby and no mother. That's why your parents are guarding Scorpius, so that no muggle tries to still him, and also why we must be so meticulous with our story. Sure we can confound one or two when it comes time to take Scorpius home, but the more we confound the larger the trace will be that we leave behind. There are a lot of muggles we will run into at the muggle-hospital and we cannot confound them all; we must convince the majority of them that things are as they seem."
"Alright. So what else have my parents told the muggles that I need to know?"
"They gave specific names that you need to memorize, but it's not just that: you need to know the cover story of your entire fake life. Where you were born. Where you live. Where you went to school. Where you met your girlfriend. What did you do on your first date. How did you fall in love. Why won't she come in. Where is she. Who is she. You need to know the story of your lives."
"Alright, so tell me."
"Your name is Drake Malcolm. Your parents are Nancy and Lawrence Malcolm. You were born and raised in Wiltshire, but your family recently moved into the guesthouse that is associated with this property, which is not under the fidelius charm. You went to a boarding school in Scotland named Loretto. There are two schools there, a Junior school and a Senior school. You and your girlfriend both attended the Senior school together since the age of twelve. You did not attend the Junior school, because for that you went to a small private school in Wiltshire. Your girlfriend's name is Hermione Granger."
"What!?" Draco asked, waking the baby.
Severus picked Hyperion up and the baby quieted down, but remained awake. Hyperion didn't open his eyes for more than a second at a time, but he did flail his little arms around and kick at the nightgown he was wearing. It was one of those nightgowns that folded over at the hands to form built in little mittens. These mitten flaps were pulled down, to protect the newborn from his own hands, even though Draco had already trimmed the nails. It was a blue nightgown with a golden snitch print and Hyperion looked very regal in it, at least Severus thought so.
"The muggles are sure to check the story on the mother and if she's not a real person, they'll be suspicious sooner, rather than later. With Ms. Granger, we know the story fits and it might take them a week or more to check out our story," Severus said, cuddling the baby to his chest.
"And how exactly does Hermione fit?" Draco asked.
"She is a real person and muggles will have records of her. She went away to boarding school with you. She is the same age as you. She is in hiding and her parents will not have seen or heard from her in months; not since right around the time when the pregnancy became impossible to hide. She has real parents who can be questioned and who will verify that their daughter is missing. She had muggle neighbors who can also be questioned. It fits."
"Fine, assuming I would go out with a mudblood girl, what's the rest of the story?" Draco asked. He didn't like it, but Professor Snape had a point and he couldn't think of any better choices.
"We haven't decided on the details of your dating history. Perhaps you can make the details similar to the details of yours and Potter's relationship."
"Our first date was dinner in the room of requirement, looking out at the Pacific Ocean."
"So make that a picnic by the lake of your boarding school."
Draco and Severus spent the next hour going over the details of his supposed relationship with his girlfriend. Then Hyperion started fussing, so Draco took off one of the breast pumps to feed him and changed the glass collection bottles while he was at it. It was uncomfortable sitting up so straight while trying to breast feed, so they moved inside and he lounged on the sofa in the drawing room, while Severus pulled up an armchair. The baby fell asleep on his teat, so Draco handed Hyperion over to Severus to burp, while he reattached the breast pump.
The hour of pumping didn't seem to have helped, because if anything, Draco was producing more milk now. It was gushing out of him in torrents and his pecks felt just as achingly full as before. "Isn't there a faster setting on this thing?" he asked, indicating the breast pump.
There was a higher setting. Severus summoned the instruction booklet, before turning it up and making the milk flow even faster. And since Draco was losing so much fluid, Severus made Draco drink several glasses of water and eat some ice cream, to keep his fluid and calorie intakes up. While Draco was eating and drinking, Severus noticed that Hyperion needed a nappy change and Draco was a bit shocked to see the professor changing a nappy; Severus didn't appear to be efficient at it, but he was at least proficient. And then the glass bottles on the breast pump were full and had to be changed, so that too was handled before they could resume their discussion of their cover story.
Since Severus was already holding Hyperion, he didn't bother putting the sleeping baby down in the stroller. He held Hyperion closely as he went over the details about why the alleged mother, Hermione Granger, would refuse to go to the hospital to have the babies. She didn't want them, didn't want her parents to know, and she was hoping that it would all just go away if she gave the babies to Draco and his parents to raise. She would go back to her parents and pretend she was never pregnant and had never had premarital sex. It was all for religious reasons.
Draco followed Professor Snape that far, but he had no knowledge regarding muggle religions or their inane morals. Thus the professor spent a great deal of time telling him about the religious beliefs of the Church of England and their imaginary deity, which for some reason he didn't quite understand, ordered all of the children to be virgins until marriage. Sex before marriage and pregnancy outside of wedlock being frowned upon he could understand, because the same was true in pureblood culture, but why some old guy in the sky was involved…well he just hoped the muggles wouldn't ask him that one, because he didn't get it.
Long before Severus was done with the lecture on muggle religion, the flow of milk leaving Draco's chest thankfully slowed down to only a trickle. Draco gratefully removed the contraption and sat back on the sofa, pulling an afghan over him to cover up, all the while he kept listening to Severus speak about muggles and their silly religion.
It was lunch time when Draco finally had a handle on muggle religion and for the first time in months, he took lunch in the dining room. Druella came down and ate with him, as did Severus, who conceded to putting the baby in the stroller.
While they ate, Severus went over muggle facts, such as they used the type of electricity found in lightning bolts to power muggles machines that did everything for them that magic did for wizards. They had electric lamps in the ceiling providing bright white light even in the dead of night. They had electric felly-tones to transmit the sound of their voice so that they could carry conversations over a wide range. They had electronic picture boxes to entertain them and perform calculations for them. And almost every other type of machine imaginable was powered by electricity instead of magic in the muggle world.
Draco was inordinately pleased to be eating at a proper table and he didn't even mind that Professor Snape was giving him a crash course in muggle studies or that he was eating the same yogurt, cheese sandwich, and glass of milk that he had been given sooo many times before. At least the butternut squash and rich cream soup was almost new. Draco looked around the table to see that no one else had nearly as much food on their plate. Neither his grandmother nor his old professor had the bowl of yogurt on the side and he began to wonder why that was.
"I'm not pregnant anymore; why are the elves still trying to fatten me up?" Draco asked, interrupting Professor Snape's lecture on how muggles made parchment out of trees. He still had a bulging belly, although it was quickly receding and he certainly felt fat enough.
"You are consuming a great number of calories when you express milk. You need to keep your food intake correspondingly high," Severus said.
"And you need to eat lots of nourishing food so your milk will have lots of nourishment for the babies too," Druella added.
Draco sighed and went back to eating his large meal and Professor Snape went back to his lecturing. Draco was just finishing off the last of his yogurt when Hyperion woke up crying. Draco took the baby back into the drawing room to feed again and he attached the breast pump to the other side while he was at it. He put the thing on the higher setting, so that he wouldn't be there all day and was horrified to find that his milk was once again gushing forth from his body. Hyperion mustn't have drunk enough again, because his pecks were still engorged when he was done. He handed the baby off to Severus, attached the other side of the pump, and changed the bottle from the side Hyperion hadn't drunk from while he was at it.
Severus burped and changed Hyperion, but he had been up with Draco and the baby several times during the night and he was now feeling it. He blinked his weary eyes and stifled a yawn. He looked over to Draco and found that the boy was reclining on the sofa with his eyes closed. Minutes later Draco started snoring, proving that he had indeed fallen asleep while pumping breast milk. The milk was still flowing and the bottles were still fairly empty, so Severus decided to leave him be.
Taking the hint that it was nap time, Severus put a sleeping Hyperion into the stroller and strapped him in, before passing the stroller over to Druella and asking the old woman to watch her great grandson. Druella agreed and Severus went up to the nursery to take his nap in the spare bed.
Lucius woke up around three thirty in the afternoon and was back at the muggle-hospital by four. When he made it to the NHDU, Narcissa took him down the hall and into a waiting room for the use of muggle families.
"The muggle-Aurors have gotten more impatient. I had one who called himself an inspector question me. He said he wants to see Drake and the other baby today and preferably the mother too, or he's going out to our residence to speak to them. A muggle-healer was with him and said that he really does need to examine the other baby today. I had to agree to get them when you came back," Narcissa told him.
"Alright, we can handle this. Do you think they'll follow me? Is it that bad yet?" Lucius asked.
"No, not yet. They haven't even stopped by the guesthouse. We should probably make it look like it's been lived in lately in case they do stop by. And add some dirty nappies and baby blankets."
"Yes, alright, someone can work on that after we get this interview over with. I'll go back and get Draco and Hyperion. I'll have Severus help me side along them here."
"We don't want more people involved than the minimum."
"Yes, I'll send Severus back home. Maybe he can work on preparing the guesthouse."
"Yes, that should work," Narcissa agreed.
And so Narcissa went back into the NHDU to sit with her grandson. "My husband is going back home to get our son and the first baby," Narcissa told the nurse in French. The nurse told the muggle-healer, who called the muggle-Auror, the one who called himself an inspector, who passed the message back that he'd be right over.
Lucius went back to the villa and informed his family of the plan. Draco, having been woken up from his afternoon nap by Hyperion an hour earlier, was just finishing up breast pumping and his milk was thankfully drying up a bit. Severus changed Hyperion into an overly large muggle cloth nappy and packed a nappy bag with only muggle-appropriate things, while Lucius helped Draco get dressed in muggle-appropriate clothes for the trip and gave Draco a muggle identification card with the name Drake Malcolm.
Severus took Hyperion to their usual apparition point down the street from the muggle-hospital via side along and Lucius took Draco. Severus handed Hyperion over to Draco and went back to the guesthouse, as planned. Lucius walked into the hospital and led his family into the NHDU, where Narcissa and Scorpius were waiting.
Narcissa hugged Draco and introduced him in French to Scorpius' nurse and explained to the nurse that Drake didn't speak good French.
"Hello ma'am, can I hold Scorpius?" in English, was the first thing out of Draco's mouth. Sure he had been to France dozens of times, but always to his family's villa and never out and about with muggles. His parents had encouraged him to learn French, but he had always been fascinated with Hawaiian and more exotic sounding languages; French just sounded like the speaker had a nasal infection. Thus Draco's French was very limited and he didn't bother trying.
Narcissa translated and the nurse agreed. Narcissa took Hyperion, and Draco was sent to get changed into muggle-healer clothes, with Lucius' assistance. While Draco and Lucius were gone, a muggle-healer came over to Narcissa and Hyperion and asked to examine the baby. Narcissa agreed and Hyperion was moved over to an opened top glass muggle-box on a cart. Narcissa stood back as the muggle-healer removed Hyperion's clothes and nappy and examined the baby. Then he took a few measurements along with the weight, which he recorded in a muggle-folder. He seemed especially interested in measuring the penis and as he did it, he explained in French, "He seems to have the same penile defect as the other baby. I just want to take measurements of it to put in his chart. He isn't but a few inches longer than Scorpius, but he has already grown into his penis a bit more than the other baby."
"I don't believe it to be a problem; it'll sort itself out eventually," Narcissa insisted, also in French.
When the muggle-healer was done, he stood back and said, "Other than the one birth defect, this little guy seems to be in excellent health; you really lucked out with this one, it would seem. I'm just going to take a pinprick of blood to send off for testing and then you can dress him and take him home."
"Why do you need to draw blood? There's nothing wrong with him." Narcissa didn't want her grandson to suffer through an unnecessary muggle test.
"It's standard procedure; we test all newborn babies for a common genetic disease that can be easily treated with a change of diet. If he has it, it's best to know right away."
In that case Narcissa didn't think she could get Hyperion out of the test without arousing more suspicion and the whole point of this visit was to diminish muggle-suspicion. Thus she agreed, Hyperion was pricked with a pin and started screaming. She picked him up to comfort him.
Draco heard his baby screaming and ran out of the changing room without the hat of the muggle-outfit tied on. The hat fell off, but Lucius picked it up and followed after Draco.
"What happened mother? Why was he screaming like that?" Draco asked in English, taking Hyperion from Narcissa and comforting the baby who was already quieting down.
"It was a small pinprick test that the healer here insisted needed to be done. It's over and he's fine; I'm sure he's already forgotten about it," Narcissa said and indeed, Hyperion was already quiet again.
"Well I wish you would've waited for me, Mother," Draco said, upset that the muggle-healer had hurt his baby.
"Alright, I'll wait for you next time. Now why don't you give me Hyperion back to dress and you can go hold Scorpius?" Narcissa asked.
Hearing the promise of the one thing he had come for, Draco handed Hyperion back over to his mother and allowed Lucius to lead him across the room to the glass box where his other son was waiting. Lucius tied the muggle-hat onto Draco's head and the muggle-nurse gave Draco a pair of weird muggle-gloves to put on. And then Draco sat in the chair his mother had been in. The muggle-nurse removed a very tiny black haired baby from the glass box and placed him into Draco's arms.
Scorpius was much smaller than Hyperion and he had tubes shoved down his throat, obscuring his face. Draco looked around the tubes and observed a very Malfoy-esque set of features, from the little black eyebrows, to the fine cheeks, to the pointy chin, the entire face looked like a smaller version of his own newborn pictures.
"He's beautiful," Draco said and at the sound of his voice, a pair of light grey eyes opened up and looked in his direction. "Hello Scorpius, I'm your father and I love you very much. I hope you're not in much pain with that tube down your throat, but unfortunately I'm told that you need it."
The muggle-nurse said something in French and Lucius repeated it in English for Draco. "She said the larger tube is the respirator and it forces air into his lungs, helping him to breathe. The smaller tube is delivering the breast milk directly to his stomach. Then she said that he's an adorable baby, which is obviously true; even a muggle could see that."
"Thank you," Draco replied and continued to hold his baby. His father didn't need to translate that, because the muggle knew enough English to understand.
Scorpius was naked except for an overly large cloth nappy and he had some sort of patch on his chest that was connected to wires. "What's this for?" Draco asked.
Lucius translated the question and the muggle replied back in French, which Lucius then translated to English. "That's to measure his heart rate. It connects to that machine over there and displays his heart rate here. An alarm will go off if it peaks or crashes."
"Alright," Draco replied and let his eyes travel lower, taking in the sight of the malformed left leg for the first time. It was as long as the right one and it was obviously a bit thinner, but not horribly thin and he didn't really see how it was bowed, although he could see that the foot was indeed turned in. He silently promised his son that he was going to kill Ronald Weasley for doing this to him.
Draco got to hold his baby for half an hour and was even permitted to change Scorpius' nappy. It was more difficult than changing Hyperion's nappy, because the muggles didn't have nappies with wizard-space charms on them and were instead using giant cloth nappies and folding the extra fabric to cover the little, or abnormally large, as the muggles would call it, penis. Scorpius certainly didn't take after Harry in that department.
But then a muggle-Auror came in with the muggle-Inspector and they asked Draco in English to come into a private room down the hall to meet with them alone. Draco went, leaving Scorpius in the care of the muggle-nurse and Hyperion with his mother. The room was an empty patient room with a bed and a couple of armchairs. Draco sat in one of the armchairs and the muggle-Auror and the muggle-Inspector stood. The muggles asked to see his identification card, which Draco showed them. They looked at it for several minutes, copying down all of the information into their notepad, before quizzing Draco on the details of Drake Malcolm's life that could be garnered from the card, such as when his birth date was. Then the muggles asked him all of the same questions he had gone over earlier with Professor Snape and some trivial ones they hadn't. Draco tried to repeat all of the answers as perfectly as he could and he was pretty good at making up lies on the spot, which helped him with the questions he wasn't familiar with. And if he needed more time, he just pretended to have trouble with understanding the French accents.
Draco began to wonder if the muggle-Aurors were very stupid, because they kept asking him the same questions over and over again. Or at the very least, they weren't as proficient in the English language as they claimed. The most often repeated question was, "Why won't ze mother come in for ze ex-zaminatión?" It didn't seem to matter how many times Draco said she didn't want anyone to know she had given birth or had even been pregnant, because they would just ask him again, only changing the infliction or switching the words around.
But what really made the muggles sound stupid was when they asked him, "Where did oo get ze babiez from, Mr. Malcolm?"
"My girlfriend gave birth to them! Where else would babies come from? If you don't believe me, why don't you go in that big room and take a look at Scorpius; he looks just like me," Draco insisted, wondering where muggles thought babies came from.
"Features are difficult oo distinguish wiz young babeez. What we'd like to do, if you'll let uz, iz a DNA test to determine paternity," the muggle-Inspector said.
"A what?" Draco asked confused.
"A DNA paternity test."
"What's that?"
"It iz a test where we take a sample of your DNA and a zample from each babee and we zee if zey match. If zey match, oo are ze father. If oo are ze father, zey'll match."
"What's dee-in-ea?" Draco asked.
"DNA iz a molecule in your body zat instructs your body on 'ow to make oo. Sperm contain the father'z DNA and deliver it to ze egg during conceptión. Ze baby will alwayz have ze father's DNA az well az the mother'z. Understand?"
"Um, sort of. How will you collect this dee-in-ea?" Draco asked.
"Well zat'z ze problem with Scorpius, iz it not?" the muggle-Inspector asked and Draco nodded. "Scorpius iz too lettle to test. But we can test ze other one and we can certainly test oo. If your DNA matches ze other baby's DNA, zen we'll know oo are ze father of zat baby and probably ze father of Scorpius too."
"And that would be good enough?" Draco wondered.
"Well zat and ze doctor informed us zat Scorpius 'az a birth defect zat your parentz claim runz in ze family. If oo can demonstrate to ze doctor zat you 'ave ze same birth defect and oo zubmit DNA from yourzelf and from ze other baby, we will let oo and the other baby go. We'll take ze zamplez back to ze lab and test zem. If zey match, we won't bother oo again. If zey don't match, we'll come looking for oo and both babiez."
"Alright, but you still haven't told me how you get dee-in-ea. If it's inside our bodies, how are you going to get it outside our bodies without hurting Hyperion?"
"It iz a zimple blood test. Oo give a zample of your blood and ze doctor will take a zample from, what did oo call him?"
"Hyperion."
"Can I just call 'im Ryan? Your British Zifi namez are a bit 'ard for an old French man."
Draco didn't understand what the muggle was talking about, but he figured it was a muggle thing and therefore best to pretend like he did understand. In the end he agreed because it was the easiest course of action. He let the muggle-Aurors call his first born son Ryan and he agreed to give blood and submit his "birth defect" for examination. When they were finished with him, he would let them draw a sample of blood from Hyperion.
Author's Note: Next chapter will contain a lot of drama. Draco will have to reveal a full sized Peverell penis to a muggle and get his blood drawn. And if there is a problem, they can't run, because Scorpius is still on that respirator.
BTW, I recently heard that Jo Rowling is writing another book and movie deal based on Newt Scarmander's life in the 1920s. I'm so excited!
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