Harry came home late Monday night, just as Draco was putting the boys to bed. Draco slept in the nursery with Lilac, like Draco often did now that he was breast feeding the infant several times a night. Harry slept in their bedroom and wondered if Draco was mad at him and finding it odd that he didn't care more.
On Tuesday Harry went into work with Ron. Robards was pleased to have Harry back and let Harry sit in on the interview with Dax Flint. Interviewing Death Eaters made Harry feel happy again; not quite out of the cloud, but happy in the cloud. Harry began to think that maybe he wouldn't need the anti-depressant potion if he could interview Death Eaters all day and chase bad guys.
In the afternoon, when they were done interviewing Flint, Robards called Harry into the head Auror's office. Robards went over the dangers of being on anti-depressants on the job and informed Harry that he would have to work desk duty until he was off of it. But there was also good news, because the next Auror training session was due to start in August, a full month earlier than they normally do it. That meant that if he could get off the potion, he would have one less month to wait for training than he had expected. Training was required to get out in the field and normally required even for desk duty and to sit in on interviews; it was only his status as the Savior that meant he was allowed to file paperwork and sit in on interviews without it.
The August training session would be the third training session since the end of the war. Robards had made the decision to move the training session up due to ongoing influx of new recruits and rapid turnover, i.e. death, of existing Aurors in the aftermath of the war. Little Dennis Creevy had died being ambushed by one of Greyback's pack; Greyback had been captured and put down, but a few of his pack had escaped after the battle of Hogwarts. And that was just one example out of many; there were over a dozen casualties in the Auror department in the last year.
On Wednesday, Harry stopped taking his potion, going into work with an unusually clear head. He hadn't been able to think this clearly since Lilac was born. It was a good day, because using veritaserum, he was able to get information out of Dax Flint regarding a werewolf sighting Flint had had while on the run. It was a werewolf the Ministry hadn't heard of before, but Flint was certain said werewolf had been loyal to Greyback during the war, so the Aurors had a new lead to chase.
Draco had been worried that without the potion, Harry would come home depressed, but the opposite happened. He came home happier than Draco had seen him in months. It was fifteen minutes before dinner when Harry apparated into the Manor and the first thing he did was to take each of the babies into a big hug and shower them in kisses. Then Harry took Draco aside and showered Draco in kisses.
"Come away with me to the Villa real quick," Harry requested, in between pressing soft kisses to Draco's swollen red lips.
Draco was so relieved that Harry had come home and seemed back to Harry's normal self that Draco agreed. "Yeah, let's just help mother get the babies downstairs in the highchairs first," Draco said. He liked to eat dinner as a family, but Harry's recovery was a big enough occasion to warrant a special date.
Draco put Lilac in her stroller and while he was doing that, Scorp came over in his walker and asked, "Pro-ect Lie-lie?"
"Yeah Scorp, you can protect Lilac for me," Draco agreed, pulling Scorp out of the walker and putting Scorp into the toddler bench seat on the back of the stroller.
"What should I do?" Harry asked, looking around the room. Sev was building a tower of toys to climb to try to reach Merlin's portrait and Teddy was nowhere in sight.
"Find Edward," Draco requested, still strapping Scorp in.
Harry looked around the nursery, under the cribs, in the closet, and then he finally spotted Teddy under the spare bed. "Got him," Harry said, pulling the fourteen month old out by the ankles.
"Sorry, I just had to send that owl off real quick. What did I miss?" Narcissa asked, coming back into the nursery.
"Harry and I are going to have dinner at the Villa. Can you get Sev?" Draco asked.
Narcissa grabbed Sev and a house elf appeared to tear down Sev's pile of toys to put away.
They went downstairs then, with Draco pushing the stroller, Harry carrying Edward, and Narcissa supervising Sev as the toddler bounced down the stairs on his butt. The adults put the boys in the highchairs and Draco strapped Lilac into a spare bouncer that was on the table; it was Sev and Theo's old one and they kept it in the dining room to hold Lilac while they ate.
Andy arrived next, having just showered and changed her clothes after being peed on by Edward during a nappy change; Edward peed on them more than the other three babies combined. Andy and Narcissa took over baby duties, allowing Harry and Draco to apparate to the Villa.
The house elves hadn't cooked, because they hadn't known Harry and Draco were coming for dinner, but once they arrived, the house elves procured dinner from the Manor house elves. Harry and Draco had a romantic dinner, just the two of them, and then proceeded upstairs to shag.
"Here, I got you something," Draco said, pulling out a vial of thick green potion from his pocket.
Harry took it, held it up to the light, and asked, "What is it?"
"It's the same permanent contraceptive potion I took. If you take this, we'll never have to worry about either of us getting pregnant again," Draco said with a large smile.
"Are you sure you want that? This is a big step to say never again."
"I'm sure; four children are more than enough. With you being unable to breastfeed, we'd have to do it soon, while I'm still breastfeeding, or the baby will starve. And we absolutely cannot go through that again with you being pregnant and me still breastfeeding."
"Alright, yeah, that was bloody awful," Harry said before drinking the potion.
[insert sex scene]
After a few minutes to recover, Draco crawled out of bed and went to the loo. A minute later Harry followed Draco. They took a bath together. Then they got dressed and apparated back to the Manor.
By the time Draco and Harry came back home, the babies were already bathed and ready for bed. Draco nursed all four of them, two at a time, and Harry read bedtime stories. By the time they put Lilac, the last baby, down in the old Malfoy crib in the third bedroom, Harry was thinking that everything was back to normal between him and Draco. He thought Draco would follow Harry back to their bedroom and they would sleep together in the same bed for the first time since Lilac was born.
But then Draco started pulling his nightclothes out of one of Lilac's dresser drawers and it occurred to Harry that Draco was planning on sleeping in the third bedroom, like he always did.
"You're not coming to bed with me?" Harry asked.
Draco stood up and wrapped his arms around Harry, reaching a hand up to cup Harry's face. "Harry, Lilac is up two times during the night; sometimes it's just the once, but normally it's two. And the boys are all up once in the night; Sev and Edward can just be given a bottle, but Scorp still prefers to nurse from the source. It's easier to do all that if I sleep in here."
"Right. I'll help you then," Harry said determinedly. If Draco was up all night, every night, with four babies, then the least Harry could do was spend one night trying to help. "I can give Edward and Sev their bottles and get Scorp for you."
Draco accepted the offer, so Harry went to get ready for bed, before coming back and climbing into bed with Draco. They fell asleep that night in each other's arms. Unfortunately, they didn't stay asleep. Lilac woke up three hours later, needing to be fed. Draco got up with the baby and Harry didn't need to get up, but he was woken up by the noise anyway. Once Harry was up, he remembered his desire to help Draco with the babies for one night, so he stayed up.
Draco nursed Lilac and Harry changed her nappy and put her back to bed. Right when Harry was just falling asleep again, the monitoring charm in the other nursery went off. Harry followed Draco into the boys' nursery and found Scorp awake and Edward whining in his sleep. Draco picked Scorp up from the green crib and took the baby over to the spare bed to nurse and Harry got Edward for Draco. This time Harry fell asleep on the spare bed while he waited for Draco to nurse and Draco put the boys back to bed.
Draco went back to Lilac's nursery to sleep and got in a solid two hours, before Lilac was up again needing another feeding. Harry too was woken up around that time, because Sev woke up for a bottle. An elf provided the bottle and Harry sleepily handed it off to Sev, without taking the baby out of the crib. Then he stumbled still half asleep to his bedroom and went to sleep without Draco, leaving his husband to deal with this nightmarish routine.