Tuesday morning Draco spent in the study reading his potions textbook and making plans for his next potion brewing session. He finished half an hour before lunch and went down to the dining room, where he found Harry feeding Scorp and Sev mashed apricots. Edwrad, who could no longer use the basinets or the cradles now that he could roll over, was strapped into a bouncer on top of the table.
"You know, Edward's three months old now; we can start him on cereal," Draco said, taking Sev's bowl from Harry, before beginning the arduous task of prying Sev's spoon from the baby's grasp.
"What are you talking about? Three month olds can't eat cereal. Sev can't even eat cereal," Harry replied, inserting another spoonful of apricots into Scorp's opened mouth.
"Baby cereal they can; they just don't like it. We only had a few boxes of it, so it ran out quickly. When we could buy things again, I didn't bother to get more of it, but we could get some when we go out today. We could put Edwrad's highchair together too."
"Yeah, alright." Harry noticed then that there was a spot of orange goo on Draco's face. "Um, I think some of Sev's apricots got on your face."
"Thanks," Draco said before casting a cleaning spell aimed at his face. "How was your morning? The boys didn't give you any trouble, did they?"
"Yeah, but Andy stayed with me until just now. Teddy peed on her when she was changing his nappy, so she went home to change and shower. She said she'd be back in time for us to leave for our appointment."
"Edward, it's impolite to piss on your grandmother," Draco scolded, turning from Sev to Edward.
Draco and Harry finished feeding the twins and then Harry got a bottle from the house elves for Sev.
Draco nursed first Scorp and then Edward while they ate. Narcissa came down for lunch and Andy was back by the end of it too. Then they took the boys upstairs for nappy changes and to play a bit before naptime. Once all three boys were down, Harry and Draco apparated to St. Mungo's, leaving Andy and Narcissa to watch the babies.
They were right on time for their appointment, but were made to wait. Harry was nervous as he sat in an overcrowded waiting room in a hard chair next to Draco. "It's gonna be fine," Draco assured Harry, wrapping an arm around his husband.
"And if it's not?" Harry asked.
"Then we'll be happy with the three wonderful children we already have," Draco reassured him.
Harry didn't want to be happy with the three children they already had. He wanted his little princess and he wanted to be pregnant already. They had been trying for two going on three months now. Next week would be the three month anniversary of the war and they had been having unprotected sex almost that entire time, but he still wasn't pregnant; not even after their anniversary trip to Hawaii. Draco had gotten pregnant the very first time. Every time was supposed to be fertile for a Peverell, but every week when Draco asked the elves if Harry smelled pregnant, they got the same negative response. And there was reason for Harry to worry, because he didn't fit the typical Peverell mold. His cock was regular sized and no one had suspected him of being a Peverell wizard until Draco discovered his cervix. What if the regular sized penis wasn't the only thing wrong with him? What if he couldn't get pregnant?
"Stop chewing on your nails," Draco said, pulling Harry's hand away from Harry's mouth. Then he cast a nail trimming spell on Harry's fingers, to even out the rough spots Harry had created.
Harry started tapping his knee nervously, but luckily they didn't have to wait much longer before they were called back. A male healer introduced himself as Healer Stevens. First up was a quick series of diagnostic spells to check both of their fertility and whether they were each already pregnant. Afterwards the healer concluded, "Well neither of you are currently pregnant, but the good news is that you are both fertile. Draco has taken a potion that limits his fertility as a carrier, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong, Harry, with your ability to be a carrier. And if a year passes without conception, we can reverse Draco's contraceptive potion."
"But I thought Draco's potion was permanent?" Harry asked.
"I followed the directions perfectly. The book said it was long term and irreversible, except under painful and often dangerous conditions. It didn't advise taking it for someone who might want to reverse it," Draco replied.
"That was likely an old book you got it from. Years ago that was true, but modern advances have led to a standardize procedure for reversing that particular potion; it's not nearly so painful and almost always nonfatal," Healer Stevens said.
"I don't like the sound of that," Draco replied.
"Well it's not to be tried if there is still a possibility that Harry will conceive if given more of a chance. If it does come to that, I would give you a pain potion along with the reversing potion, to counteract the pain," Healer Stevens replied.
"But why haven't we conceived yet? We've tried once a week every week for months now. We even did it every day for the week of our anniversary," Harry complained.
"You make it sound like such a hardship to be buggered by me," Draco replied.
"Sorry, I do love it, but I wanted to be pregnant already," Harry said.
"Well there are many reasons why you might not be conceiving a child that we have to consider. First of all is that fact that you are both wizards and are both producing gametes with both types of sex factors. If your gametes combine and form a zygote with two copies of the female determining factor, then you will produce a female child. If one gamete contains a female determining factor and the other a male, regardless of who contributed which factor, then the child will be a male. But if two male factors combine, the result is not to produce a super male; the result is embryonic lethality, meaning that the embryo dies before it can even implant into Harry's uterus. Therefore only three fourths of the time the result will be a viable pregnancy, under optimal conditions with an actual fertilization," Healer Stevens said.
"Alright, what's the next problem?" Draco asked. If three out of every four tries worked, Harry would be pregnant by now.
"Your scans reveal that you two have been using the Girls Only potion, so that only girls are conceived. Is that right?"
"Yes, we already have three boys and we only want a girl," Draco answered. "But I brewed that potion myself and I know it's good."
"I'm sure it is. But when you use that potion, all boy sex cells are killed. Both of you make boy and girl sex cells at approximately equal ratios, so half of all sex cells the two of you produce are killed. That means that half the time you two get busy, the sex cell in Harry's uterus is already dead, because it was male. That for starters decreases your fertility by half and then it's further reduced because half of Draco's sex cells are dead. It's not to say you shouldn't use that potion, because it is the only way to ensure a girl child is conceived, but it is one of the caveats one must expect when using it," Healer Stevens explained.
"Even so, we still should've been pregnant again if that was the only thing we're doing suboptimally," Draco replied.
"I think that an obvious candidate for your failure so far is stress. You've had a very stressful year, Harry, and stress can decrease conception rate. Do you think you could try eliminating stress from your life?" Healer Stevens asked.
"The only stress I have right now is dealing with our three babies. I'm not working, not going to school, and I rarely go out," Harry said.
"Having three babies at home is another factor. The body naturally paces itself so that it doesn't waist energy by producing more children than can be provided for at any one time. The more young children you have at home, especially highly dependent children under the age of one, the less fertile you can expect to be. That combined with the Girl Only potion could be the reason for your delayed conception," Healer Stevens said.
"Fuck," Harry replied.
"Harry, that doesn't mean it's impossible, it just means we need to keep trying," Draco said, holding Harry's hand.
"Alright, yeah," Harry said.
"Diet is also a factor. You need to eat healthy to maximize your chances. What do you typically eat?" Healer Stevens asked.
Harry generally ate rather healthy and he described his diet to the healer, who concluded that he was indeed eating right. Still, Harry was very slim and pregnancies required adequate calorie intake to sustain them, so Healer Stevens recommended Harry eat more.
"There is one more variable that is often the problem when it comes to conception with Peverell wizards. Now it's quite personal and isn't typically a problem once a couple has already managed to conceive once. We still need to cover it though, especially because it was Draco who carried the first pregnancy, but it is Harry who is trying to conceive this one," Healer Stevens said turning to a diagram posted on the back of the door. It showed the anatomy of a Peverell wizard. "Now when you release your ejaculate, Draco, which region inside of Harry, would you say you're depositing it in?"
"Um, towards the back of his colon," Draco answered, standing up and pointing to the end of the straight canal on the diagram.
"That is often the case with Peverell wizards who are having trouble conceiving. The rear region is near where the excrement vanishing charm is placed. If the ejaculate is shot up, passed the vanishing charm, the ejaculate will be vanished. If the ejaculate drips further up, because Harry is lying down, it can also cross into that region and vanish. The ejaculate needs to make it all of the way down here, where the cervix is, for fertilization to occur and even if the ejaculate doesn't vanish, it can lose its virility by the time it reaches the cervix. Try pulling at least halfway out when you're ejaculating," Healer Stevens said.
Draco turned from Healer Stevens to look at Harry, whose face was bright red in embarrassment. "Sorry, I didn't know. I'll knock you up next time for sure," he promised.
Harry just nodded, happy to know that there was nothing wrong with him. Draco pulled him in for a quick snog, to celebrate the good news.
"So, um, do you think you can get your mum to watch the boys tonight?" Harry asked.
"No, I want to wait until your birthday. It's only a few days away and I want to give you something good to remember your birthday with," Draco replied with a smirk. "Now off to that muggle store we went to last time?"
"For what?" Harry asked confused.
"For cereal for Edward. You don't want to get mobbed buying food in the wizarding world do you?"
"Yeah, alright," Harry agreed.
Harry and Draco apparated to a block away from the muggle store. Harry pulled his robes off, shrinking them, and put them in the small pocket of the bag with Draco's breast pump machine; Harry had a white muggle shirt and trousers underneath, which were much more appropriate for a muggle store. Draco couldn't take his robes off, because he had the breast pump machine on and no shirt underneath his robes.
They walked in the store and grabbed a couple boxes of baby cereal. While they waited at the checkout counter, Draco looked through the things on display by the check stand.
"Harry, what are water ball-loons?" Draco asked.
"Do you know what a balloon is?" Harry asked.
"Um, no."
"Well these are little rubber sacks that they fill with water and throw at people in a water balloon fight. It's like a snowball fight, but for summer. Kind of like the spoiled milk you threw at me that one time, but fun."
"Can we get some?"
"Yeah, alright," Harry replied, taking the item and adding it to the conveyer belt.
Harry paid and they apparated back to the Manor where they put Teddy's highchair together and added it to the dining room. When they went upstairs, Sev and Scorp were still asleep, but Teddy was awake and in Andy's arms. They took Teddy down to the dining room and Andy followed with the camera. Draco reclined the highchair and set Teddy in it, before asking Tea Cup to make them a small bowl of baby cereal.
"He won't know how to eat it at first, so it'll be messy, but it'll teach him how to do it for when he moves onto good tasting food," Draco said, putting a large bib on Teddy and then scooping up a small spoonful of the thick liquid.
"Can I taste it?" Harry asked, wondering how awful the stuff was and why they were feeding something so gross looking to their baby.
"If you want to you can, but it's made with my breast milk." Draco shrugged and brushed Edward's cheek with his finger to get the baby to open his mouth and then pushed the cereal into the little mouth.
"Uh, never mind." Part of Harry was curious, but a larger part thought it was perverted to try Draco's breast milk.
"You need to swallow it, Edward," Draco said, wiping the cereal off of Edward's chin with the spoon and pushing it back into the baby's mouth. "Basically you put it in and he spits in out and you put it back in and repeat until he's ready for a bath. Do you want to try?"
"Yeah, alright," Harry said taking the spoon and bowl from Draco and repeating the process.
By the end of it, Harry was fairly certain Teddy had gotten more of it on his neck than in his stomach, but it was only Teddy's first time trying it and Draco and Andy both said it was fine. Andy went off to develop the new photos of her precious grandson, Harry took Teddy upstairs for a bath, and Draco went into their bedroom, citing the need for a nap.
Once Draco was out of Harry's sight, he called Viper and ordered the elf to put the water balloons down in the cellar with all of the other supplies for Harry's birthday. He wasn't sure how they were going to fill them with water, but Harry and Hermione would be there and they would know.
After dinner Draco went into the third bedroom on the second floor and dug out all of the baby clothes that were the next size up for the boys. Edward and Sev's clothes were both getting tight and he figured he might as well get Scorp's next set of clothing ready too. For Sev, he pulled out half of the size nine months clothes that his mother had ordered from the catalogue. For Scorp, he pulled out the unused size six month clothes from the catalogue; he would add in some of Sev's old size six month clothes, but for now he left Scorp's pile on the spare bed. For Edward he gathered all of the size three month clothes they had been given at the baby shower; he would have to go through Sev and Scorp's old size three month clothes and add them later. He didn't finish that night, but he continued to work on the project throughout the week and got Harry to help him with it, so that they would stay so busy with baby clothes that Harry wouldn't even notice the birthday party being planned right under Harry's nose.
Author's Note: Draco is really going all out for Harry's birthday. Up next is the party!
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