In mid-September Harry went to visit Neville. Since he was upset with Ron and with Hermione, Ginny, and Luna all back at Hogwarts, Neville was the only friend left to visit. Maybe he could've visited George, but George was keeping busy with the joke shop these days and he didn't want to get mobbed by showing his face in Diagon Alley.
Neville had built a greenhouse on his grandmother's property and was working on getting it established with magical plants. Harry helped water and then weed and while they worked, they talked. Neville relayed a very boring account of his time since the war, which had consisted mostly of visiting with Ginny and Luna, going to old people parties with his gran, dating Hannah Abbott, and working on this greenhouse. Harry told Neville about his sons and all of the things the babies did, from Sev making messes all over, to Scorp saying a new word, to Teddy getting up on all fours, like he was planning on crawling after Sev, but just hadn't figured out how to do it yet.
The visit wasn't horrible, but it wasn't nearly as fun as Harry's time with Ron used to be. But then Ron hadn't been as much fun ever since Harry had started dating Draco, because Ron still wouldn't accept that he was happy with Draco. Sure Ron had sent an owl apologizing for his behavior during Harry's recent visit to the Burrow, but it was Ron's typical half-arsed apology that reeked of Hermione. Obviously Ron had told Hermione what had happened and Hermione had instructed Ron to apologize and on what to put in the letter. Harry was growing sick of forgiving Ron when Ron didn't ever seem to learn from his mistakes, so he hadn't replied to Ron's owl. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, but he felt like holding a grudge.
Then Harry had managed to turn the tides on Draco, getting him to focus more on his own friends than on Harry's lack of friends. That discussion had triggered the arrival of a different one of Draco's friends every weekend. They never stayed more than a few hours, but every Saturday and Sunday since Harry's comment, another friend came over.
So far Harry had met Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, and Gregory Goyle. Theo Nott turned out to be a quiet bookworm, who reminded Harry of a stuck up male version of Hermione. Being around Pansy Parkinson was like nails on a chalkboard, because Harry couldn't stand her bloody sense of entitlement and obvious pureblood prejudices. Millicent Bulstrode was more tolerable, but rather boring, because all she did was gossip. Meeting Gregory Goyle was very awkward at first because of the whole room of hidden things debacle and nearly dying thing, and then later it was awkward because it was obvious that Goyle didn't have two brain cells to rub together and was just as stupid as they said.
Blaise Zabini was the only one of Draco's friends so far that Harry legitimately liked. Zabini was intelligent and witty, but also a fun person to be around. Zabini had Harry and Draco playing wizard chess and laughing at his funny stories. Most of the stories were about Zabini's mum and her many late husbands, but there were also stories about Draco and the other Slytherins and all of the things they had gotten up to both in school and before Hogwarts. He thought he might grow to like Zabini and since Draco had made the effort of befriending Hermione for him, he was going to make the effort to befriend one of Draco's friends.
The Monday after Zabini's second visit to the Manor was Harry's appointment with a healer at St. Mungo's. They scheduled the appointment for Mondays, because it was the one day during the week when Draco didn't floo to Hogwarts for a class. Tuesday and Thursday mornings he had transfigurations and Wednesday and Friday mornings was ancient runes. Draco was only gone two hours each morning, but he liked to do the homework and assignments he'd just been given while the material was still fresh in his mind.
Harry was looking forward to seeing how the unborn baby was doing; he was over two months pregnant now and eager to get his healer to perform the urine vanishing charm on him, so he could stop waking up three times a night, every night, just to go to the bathroom.
Narcissa and Andy were watching the babies while Harry and Draco apparated to St. Mungo's. Healer Stevens started off doing all of the routine diagnostic spells Narcissa and Professor Snape used to perform on Draco. Draco had seen these spells so many times now he recognized some of the results and was able to determine that everything was likely fine before the healer told them his findings.
"Everything looks good. I could check the sex of the baby now if you'd like to confirm that the Girls Only potion worked," Healer Stevens said.
"Yes please and can you also make sure it's not twins again," Draco answered. He definitely preferred just one baby, but if it was two he wanted to know as soon as possible.
"Alright," Healer Stevens answered, before performing the spell to determine how many embryos Harry was impregnated with.
The words, "One Embryo," appeared above Harry's stomach and both Harry and Draco let out sighs of relief. Then the healer cast the sex determining spell and the word, "Girl," appeared over Harry's stomach.
"Looks like just one little girl," Healer Stevens announced.
"That's wonderful news," Harry replied.
After that, Healer Stevens went over all of the pregnancy things they already knew, such as eating healthy, eliminating stress, and not lifting too much or getting hit with unforgivable curses; definitely no battling dark wizards either.
"Alright, that's everything. I want to see you back here every month, Harry," Healer Stevens concluded.
"Wait, I want you to perform the urine vanishing charm on me, like Draco has on him," Harry said.
The healer shot that request down flat, explaining that the spell was only used in hospital when patients can't get out of bed, for the same reason the excrement vanishing charm was only performed on Peverell wizards. Urine is an indicator of poor health, such as dehydration, kidney failure, and internal bleeding. Draco only had it done because he was on bed rest for a large part of his pregnancy and physically couldn't get up to go to the bathroom. And the fact that the charm was still in place masked his dehydration before he wound up in hospital. If his urine hadn't vanished automatically, he might have noticed there was too little of it and discovered the dehydration before he passed out. Harry was healthy and didn't need it, so no healer would perform it on him.
Then Draco remembered the vitamins the muggles had given him and decided to ask the healer if he knew anything about taking vitamins when pregnant or breast feeding.
"Sorry, I haven't heard of these vitamins. Are you sure they're safe?" Healer Stevens asked.
"Yes, quite sure. Professor Snape tested them and they make me feel better. Here, why don't I give you some and you can test them to make sure they're safe?" Draco asked pulling out bottles of multivitamin, calcium, and iron from his robes pocket and handing them to Healer Stevens. Getting a real healer to test the vitamins was a critical step in the plan for introducing vitamins to the wizarding world. Once the healer proved they were safe, Draco would announce that Harry was taking them for pregnancy and then witches and Peverell wizards everywhere would be buying the Malfoy imported muggle pills.
"Alright, but I wouldn't advise taking them before I get the results back," Healer Stevens replied, taking the pills.
The appointment over, they then apparated back to the Manor, where they shared their good news with the family.
"That's wonderful. Have you two thought of any names?" Narcissa asked.
Draco looked at Harry and remembered their disagreement on the subject back when they were considering what to name Teddy. "No, we haven't decided yet," Draco answered.
"Actually Draco, I was thinking of naming her Lilac; Lila for short. Do you like it?" Harry asked Draco. Lilac was a perfect compromise name, because it was a flower name and they both enjoyed lilacs. To Harry, the flower had become a symbol of their love and what more appropriate flower name was there to name a baby than the one which symbolized their love? This baby had even been conceived the day Neville had given Harry that lilac bush.
"I love it. When did you come up with it?" Draco asked.
"Back in August when I had the elves plant that lilac bush Neville gave me. She just seems like a Lilac."
"Lilac Malfoy. Now we just need a middle name," Draco replied. "Have you thought about middle names?"
"No, I figured that you'd want some constellation name."
"I do and I know you weren't thrilled about any of the celestial names I suggested before, so while we were in Hawaii I acquired a book on Hawaiian constellations. I was thinking 'A'a, which means brightest star or Aikikauelono, which means the small booby bird of Lono."
"The first one is all vowels and the second one is a mouthful. What made you like them?"
"The second one can be shortened to Aiki and they both are Hawaiian names for Sirius. I won't name a baby directly after your godfather, but I'd do 'A'a or Aiki."
Harry leaned in and shared a kiss with Draco then. He still didn't love the names, but he loved the effort Draco had gone to in order to please him.
"I'll take that as you like the names. Which one do you prefer?"
"Aiki. Lilac Aiki Malfoy," Harry replied, trying out the name. It was alright, he supposed. Mostly what he liked about it was the meaning.
Author's Note: So what do you think of the name? It's not set in stone, especially the middle name, which I don't like at all.
Up next Lucius will come under suspicion from the Ministry…
Each chapter I post I can't help but hope that the chapter editor is fixed, but yet again the formatting is broken :(