Harry, Draco, Hermione, and even Ron were awarded Order of Merlins, First Class, in early July. Hermione and Ron were shocked to be included, because they had assumed it would just be Harry getting the award. And then hardly anyone ever appreciated Ron's role in the war, but Kingsley was one of the few who did. It was Kingsley who insisted that all four be given the award, along with Headmaster Snape, post-humorously.
In Mid-July Mr. Charles Goyle's trial was held. All of the other trials had clear cut cases, one way or the other. His was the first case of someone who had committed plenty of crimes in the first war, but hardly any at all in the second. Draco, Harry, Lucius, Gregory Goyle, and Elizabeth Goyle all testified on his behalf. After a weeklong trial, he received two years in Azkaban, followed by in-house incarceration and community Service. It was certainly a more favorable outcome than life in Azkaban or the kiss, like the rest of the Death Eaters received.
In the days after Mr. Goyle's trial Hermione came over to the Manor and helped Harry with a little project. Harry was tired of having to hold Sev's glass bottle. Muggles used plastic bottles, which were lighter and softer, so the babies could hold them themselves. They didn't have plastic in the wizarding world, but Harry thought that it should be straightforward to modify the glass bottles to make them more like plastic ones and therefor safe for Sev to handle on his own. However, he was having trouble with the execution and Hermione agreed to come over to help.
"Where's Draco?" Hermione asked, helping Harry putting Sev, Scorp, and Teddy down for their naps.
"Downstairs in the potions lab; he's concentrating on history of magic and potions first," Harry explained, giving Teddy a soother.
"Oh I can't wait until school starts and I can do my NEWTs as well," Hermione said wistfully, clearly envious of Draco.
"One thing at a time, Hermione; you're supposed to be developing the perfect charmed bottle with me," Harry replied, casting a monitoring charm on the three babies.
"Not to worry; I'll call if the little ones get up to anything," Merlin said with a wink from the sofa in the field of wildflowers.
"Thanks Merlin," Harry replied, before leading Hermione into the study.
"So Merlin's working out alright in your nursery then?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, it seems he's really good with kids. He has this unicorn that he took from one of the paintings up in the attic and the boys just love it."
"That's great."
"Yeah. Okay, so here are all of the bottles we have and I was thinking that a cushioning charm, an antigravity charm, and a shatter prevention charm should do it, but when I tried casting all three together, the glass shattered," Harry said, before demonstrating the problem. Sure enough, when the third charm was cast, the bottle shattered.
"Hmmm… maybe those three spells don't combine well or it might be something about the order you're combining them. Do you have any material on those charms I could read?"
"Yeah, I've got the books open on this other desk." Harry indicated two thick tombs.
Hermione set to work reading the books for half an hour and then concluded that the problem was the order in which the charms were added, because the shatter prevention charm needed to be added first. She tried the new order of spells on a bottle and it didn't shatter, so she made another one just like it. Then she and Harry set about testing the bottles to make sure that they were perfectly safe for babies to hold. They dropped the bottles from great heights and flung them against the brick fireplace and they didn't shatter. Then they hit each other with the bottles and it felt like being hit with a pillow or a marshmallow, thanks to the cushioning charm. And the bottles were light enough for a baby to lift, thanks to the anti-gravity charm. Satisfied with their positive results, they charmed the rest of the bottles and then cleaned up the mess from the shattered ones.
Afterwards they went into the sitting room to talk. Hermione told Harry all about a recent romantic date Ron had arranged, which was bloody amazing, given that Ron had done it all.
Draco came into the room, finished with his potions work for the day, right when Hermione was telling Harry about the look Ron had gotten when her dad had mentioned marriage during the recent visit to her parents': flushed white as a ghost with his mouth hanging open.
Harry and Draco laughed and Draco said, "I think I might like your dad." Draco had never liked a muggle before, but he hadn't met one either. From his grandmother's children's stories he got the impression that muggles were horrible ogres who ate people. He knew that couldn't be right and Hermione was always talking about muggles as if they were normal people.
Then Harry told Draco about their success with the bottles and called Mipsy for a bottle to show him. Draco was a bit skeptical, but agreed to try them. And then the monitoring charm went off in the nursery and Merlin said, "Ahoy! Little Remmy is awake."
The three of them migrated into the nursery, where Harry picked up Teddy and changed his nappy. Then the baby was put on his stomach on a play mat with toys splayed out in front of him. Teddy was three months old now and getting bigger and stronger every day.
Sev and Scorp were up a few minutes later. Harry put Sev on the floor and handed the baby one of the newly charmed bottles filled with milk, while Draco took Scorp to the spare bed and nursed.
"I think Sev likes it," Harry said, watching Sev with the charmed bottle closely, in case something went wrong.
"He would; he's the one who thinks I can be replaced with a bit of glass and rubber," Draco replied. "Scorp on the other hand, knows I'm irreplaceable."
"That's something he gets from me," Harry said.
Sev finished the bottle without incident and proceeded to crawl around the nursery until he reached the toy box. He pulled himself up onto his knees and started pulling every single toy out. "Sev, do you have to make such a mess? How about you just play with one?" Harry asked, activating a toy in hopes that the lights and moving picture show would captivate Sev for a few minutes.
It worked; Sev grabbed the toy and sat back on his feet to play, a few feet away from Teddy. Teddy heard the noise from Sev's toy and lifted his head and chest up off of the floor, in order to get a better look. Teddy pushed harder with his right hand than his left and rolled over onto his back, which gave him a perfect view of Sev and the toy, so he laughed.
"Did you just see that?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah," Harry agreed.
"No," Draco answered. He was still on the bed, finishing nursing Scorp.
"Teddy just rolled over," Harry relayed.
"Great. Good job Edward," Draco said. "Why don't you trade me Scorp for Edward and I'll feed him before dinner?"
"Yeah, alright, and maybe I can teach Scorp to roll over," Harry said picking Teddy up. "It's about time Scorp learned, don't you think?" Harry handed Teddy to Draco and Draco handed Scorp over to Harry.
"No, I'm not sure his leg has made nearly enough improvement to allow him to roll over," Draco said, positioning Edward at his nipple to latch on.
"But even if his leg never improves, eventually he should gain enough strength in the rest of his body to compensate for his disability and allow him to roll over and even crawl on just the three limbs," Hermione said getting down onto the floor with Harry, who was positioning Scorp on his tummy on the play mat.
"Huh? Is this some muggle thing?" Draco asked, from the bed.
"Partly; in the muggle world crippled babies stay crippled and are given prostheses to enhance mobility," Hermione replied.
"Alright Scorp, Daddy wants you to roll over, like this," Harry said, helping the baby to roll over, before putting Scorp back on his stomach. "Now you try it."
Scorp lifted up his head, raised his chest off of the ground, and said, "No."
No was Scorp's new word. It almost always got him a response, so he had quickly started saying it to everything, except when Draco asked the baby if he wanted to nurse. Scorp had said no to that once and learned his lesson that no wasn't a word to be used with nursing.
"Yes Scorp, roll over," Harry encouraged and then showed the baby how to do it again, before putting Scorp back onto his tummy once more.
"Hi. Hi. Hi!" Scorp yelled, getting Sev's attention.
"Sssoor-ee-usss?" Sev asked, looking up from the toy he'd been playing with. Sev dropped the toy and crawled over to Scorp.
"Try to turn over Scorp," Harry repeated.
"Sssssooor-ee-usssss!" Sev repeated, before crying.
"Sev, give Scorp a chance," Harry said, picking Sev up.
Once Sev had been taken away, Scorp started crying.
"Just pick him up already; he can't do it," Draco said, hating to hear his baby crying.
"You have to leave him like that so that he can learn. If you don't make him try, he'll never get it," Hermione replied.
"Just exercise his leg and let him be for the day; he's not strong enough," Draco replied, standing up with Edward in one hand and the breast pump in the other. If Hermione and Harry didn't pick his baby up already, he was going to do it himself. But he never got that far, because there was a loud crack and Scorpius vanished and reappeared on his back, looking up, but still crying. "See what you did? And he hates apparating."
"Did he just apparate to flip over?" Hermione asked, while Harry put Sev down and picked Scorp up.
"Yeah, it looks that way," Harry replied, rubbing Scorp's back and bouncing the baby gently to try to sooth him.
"They do it every once in a while. There was one time I woke up with Scorp in bed with me when I know he wasn't in bed with me when I went to sleep," Draco replied, sitting back down with Edward.
"And there was that time last month I left Sev in his jumper and he got out when I wasn't looking," Harry said.
"Wow; I never would have thought that a baby would spontaneously apparate instead of just turning over," Hermione replied.
"Well maybe if it were physically possible they'd just turn over, but Scorp isn't there yet. Healer Pritchard said to keep him at ten reps twice a day," Draco said.
"I exercised his leg once already this morning," Harry replied, going over to the bin of soothers and getting one for Scorp. "Scorp, are you ready to do your leg exercises?"
"No," Scorp answered pulling out the soother in between quiet sobs, before sticking the soother back in.
"You've got him agitated. You should wait until after dinner to do it," Draco said.
"Alright. Do you want to swing Scorp?" Harry asked and Scorp nodded, so he put the baby in the swing.
"You know, you should really take him to a muggle doctor and see if there's anything they can do for that leg; muggle healing can complement magical healing," Hermione said.
"I already took him to a muggle healer and he said that they would put him in braces for years just to straighten the leg and that was all they could do," Draco replied.
"But that was months ago. Maybe now that the leg is straight there will be something else that can be done," Hermione insisted.
"How about we give healer Pritchard another year to build up strength in that leg, before going back to the muggles again?" Harry suggested, proposing a middle ground.
Draco and Hermione both agreed to that and Hermione had to get going, so she apparated back to the Burrow.
Author's Note: Up next Draco and Ron will finally have it out.
Please Review!