Harry and Draco continued to have couples therapy once a week. In addition, Draco continued to have weekly individual sessions. The sessions were going well and Harry found it much easier to work through their problems with Madam Harris there to moderate. She was able to take Harry's jumbled words and figure out what it was he meant and wanted to say, when he didn't know the words to say. She also understood Draco in a way Harry didn't and was helping Harry to understand him too.
So when Eiona's birthday came around, things were looking up for their marriage. They were getting along and there was a sense of starting over and hope for their future together. Harry was getting up the courage to ask Draco to spend more time together. He wanted to go on another date, but he also wanted more time like this, where they spent the day together doing normal couple stuff.
With Draco seven months pregnant, Harry thought of a number of things he could suggest. He'd already insisted on being allowed along for Draco's healer appointments, as part of his taking an interest in Draco's health initiative. That had been rather dull, with little chance to get more than handholding and a kiss on the cheek out of it, but he had hope still. He'd already gotten himself invited to the baby shower in a few weeks and he thought that they could arrange a few shopping trips to get everything else their son would need.
"Draco, perhaps we can go shopping next weekend. You know, start preparing for the baby," Harry suggested as they sat in their theater seats with Eiona in between them, waiting for the puppet show to start.
"But the baby shower isn't until the weekend after next. I won't know what we need until then," Draco replied, handing Eiona back an ant head that she'd accidentally flung in his direction. Harry's ants had indeed been her favorite Christmas present and she insisted on taking them with her everywhere.
"Well we can still look and pick up a few things, like clothes and nappies. It never hurts to have extra undershirts, receiving blankets, and nappies," Harry reasoned and Draco agreed.
Harry was about to continue on with the arrangements for next weekend's trip, but was soon hushed by the raising of the black curtains that covered the stage from view. Red curtains were then revealed, which draped across the lower half of the stage to cover the puppeteers. A pair of puppets emerged and began a very annoying children's show complete with overly cheerful signing.
Instead of paying attention to the show, Harry thought about what was left to do in Eiona's two rooms. The elves had already switched the Malfoy nursery set out for the Malfoy toddler set in her room in Malfoy Manor; during the early days of the divorce, they had switched out the Malfoy nursery set at Grimmauld Place for a standard store bought set, so that Draco could have the Malfoy set back at Malfoy Manor. Eiona's room at Grimmauld Place, however, was still set up for a baby, because Harry hadn't had time to work on it. The crib would be moved to the nursery for their son, which meant that the new toddler bed would have to be assembled soon. Maybe Hissy would be able to do it for him; Kreacher was certainly far too old.
Harry was startled from his musing as he finally processed the content of the singing, "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go and eat worms." Draco and Eiona were merrily singing along to the puppets, both worm and wizard, on stage.
"Draco, this doesn't sound particularly like a good children's song. And the wizard eats the worm?" Harry asked, leaning over towards Draco so that Draco would hear in the den.
"Relax; just watch the show. It's fine," Draco reassured.
And so Harry sat back to watch the show. The wizard never did eat the worm, his friends coming over and making up from the earlier fight. It was all rather childish and annoying, but Eiona seemed to enjoy it. He was only too happy when it ended and they went to the park.
The children's park they went to wasn't just a park. It had rides and carts with treats to buy that were there year round, like a permanent fair. It also had a large stretch of open grass and a playground, which were free, but the rides and treats cost. Harry purchased a bundle of tickets and led his family over to the carousel.
Eiona, like most toddlers, enjoyed the roundabout, wanting to ride her unicorn multiple times. She was less fond of the Ferris wheel, which was rather slow, but loved the swings. Harry bought them candyfloss and a few pasties, which she loved. She had a blast, running circles around them, hopped up on sugar, as they walked throughout the park.
They didn't stay all day and went home after a few hours, because Draco still tired easily in his state.
The small tea was the next day and Harry was bound and determined to be the ideal host, even to Draco's friends and family. Mostly they were only inviting those with young children Eiona's age, which included Dromeda and Teddy, as well as two of Draco's relatives, and one of Harry's friends from work. But Harry had also wanted Hermione and Ron to come, which meant Draco had invited Pansy and Blaise, to keep it even. Cissy had to be there, because she was Draco's mother, so Harry invited Molly as his mother figure. He wanted Arthur as well, but since Lucius couldn't come and the house was already getting crowded, Arthur had agreed to stay home.
Hissy, Kreacher, and Dobby were in charge of decorations and did a bang-up job with streamers and balloons. The elves gutted the drawing room, pushing all of the chairs and sofas to the sides and moving coffee and end tables out of the room, to make more room for the party games. There weren't enough seats for the adults, so an extra sofa had been transfigured for the day. And essential for the games, was a small wizard wireless in the room.
They had six young children in total for the party. Eiona and Teddy of course, but their usual third, Victoire, was not invited. The other children included two of Draco's relatives and two children whose father, Auror Franklin Jones, joined the Aurors the same time as Harry and Ron. Jones brought his wife, so there were two children and two adults from Draco's side and an equal number from Harry's side, keeping everything fair and even.
Frankie, as the boys called him, and his wife Blythe had an eighteen month old son named Dace and a daughter named Daisy, who was almost three. With two young children instead of one, he was promoted over his fellow Aurors on Harry's list. Plus he got on well with Harry and Ron at work and they had occasionally worked together. He was a cheerful bloke who wasn't a bad mate to have to hang around the water cooler with, which was the other half of why Harry picked him and his family to invite.
Harry had met Fonda and her three-year-old son Edsel at the Malfoy family dinner a few months ago. She was a Rosier by birth and related on Draco's mother's side. He'd found that despite the fact that she had married a Death Eater and was now widowed by said Death Eater, she was actually pleasant and seemed decent. More importantly, she was committed to teaching her son Edsel a more pro-muggleborn version of pureblood beliefs.
Harry had seen Draco's other second cousin with a young child, Heather, at that family dinner as well, but he'd known only that she was of Smith stalk and was the first cousin of Zacharias Smith. Out of all of the women with young children, she'd been sat furthest away, so he hadn't had a chance to find out that her married last name was Macmillan or that she was the widow of Edgar Macmillan, Ernie's brother. Edgar had died fighting alongside the Order of the Phoenix, on Harry's side of the war. Thus not all of Draco's relatives supported the Death Eaters and Heather Macmillan had a two year old daughter, Sybil, who was almost the same age as Eiona.
The six children age three and under gathered in the drawing room with the twelve adults. Draco and Pansy, each being heavily pregnant, sat on the side and watched while the other adults helped the children play the games correctly. With such young children, they were always breaking away from the games and being easily distracted by the balloons and streamers.
They played pass the parcel, in which Molly and Hermione were in charge of the music and made sure each child had at least one chance to unwrap a layer of the parcel and win a small trinket. Then they played musical chairs, which Harry was in charge of, having picked the easiest of the games to supervise himself; he settled disputes on who got to the chair first and handed out a small stuffed bear to the winner.
Then they played musical bumps, led by Cissy, Heather, and Fonda. They got the children dancing and when the music stopped, they had to rush to be the first to sit down on the floor. The adults joined in on that last game, all except Draco and Pansy, who were laughing quite hard at the other adults by the end of it.
After the games, they took the children down to the kitchen. There they sang happy birthday and had cake, made by Molly, and elf-made ice cream. The children got filthy with melted ice cream and icing and went from rowdy to hyper-active with the sugar, but they had fun. Even Harry was exhausted running around after the little ones by the end and happy to see the guests out the floo.
After the dinner, Harry escorted Draco, Eiona, and Cissy back to Malfoy Manor. He could've kept Eiona there at Grimmauld with him for a few more hours, but he wanted to see Draco home and spend a few minutes more together.
"Mother, would you mind giving Eiona a bath?" Draco asked as soon as she stepped out of the floo, the last to arrive. Eiona was clean now, after a cleaning spell, but she still needed the real thing.
Cissy complied and took her granddaughter off to bathe. Harry was then free to follow Draco to Draco's sitting room, hoping for a goodnight kiss, since he knew Draco was tired. He was stopped at the door to Draco's room.
"Today was nice Harry. Thank you for making Eiona's birthday special. You know, for arranging all of that," Draco said.
"You're very welcome. I just can't believe you were hiding such a pro-muggle relative."
"Every family has their black sheep. We have Aunt Dromeda too," Draco said playfully.
"Well I'm glad we got to know her and her daughter. Fonda is nice too; we should do more things with them. You know, arrange playdates and such."
"Fonda was suggesting we take them to a children's museum, but I'm too pregnant for all of that walking. Maybe after this baby is born."
"Maybe. That would be nice." Harry thought for a moment that he could potentially take Eiona without Draco, but then thought better of it, because Draco might feel left out if he did. Heather and Fonda were after all Draco's second cousins, not his and the idea of going without Draco was just weird.
Then Draco leaned in and gave Harry a soft kiss on the cheek. He pulled back and said, "Shopping next weekend then."
"Yes, next weekend," Harry confirmed.
Draco turned and went to bed, while Harry went off in the other direction to find their daughter.
Author's Note: Now that Eiona's special day is over, it's time for Harry and Draco to start concentrating on the new arrival. It's going to be a boy, but what should he be named? The last name will be Malfoy, since Eiona was a Potter. And I'm thinking Orion as a first name, because it's Sirius' father's name and if his mother followed the tradition of giving the first born son the father's middle name, then it would be Sirius' middle name too. And Orion satisfies the Black family tradition of using astrological names. What do you think? And which middle name would you put with it? There are so many choices…