Harry was helping Ron cook
breakfast when the smell of crisp, perfect bacon filled the air. Harry choked
for a moment and fled the room.
“Are you alright?” Ron
asked, worried.
He found Harry in the next
room, holding onto the umbrella basket as if his life depended on it. His face
was a sickly shade of green.
“I’ll get Hermione,” Ron
said, slightly panicked. Harry nodded miserably.
Ron ran from the room, his
socks slipping on the hardwood floor.
Harry held onto the
umbrella basket, praying. The nausea began to subside and he loosened his grip
slightly.
He felt his fingers ache
and he looked down at his hands as if he didn’t believe they could grip
something that tightly. There were slight indentions in the thin metal where
his fingers had dug in.
“Good lord,” Harry
groaned. “Hermione did this how many times?”
Hermione slid down the
hall in her pink slippers and robe in her rush to get to Harry. Ron followed
her close behind.
Harry noticed she had a
small bottle in her hand.
“Drink this,” Hermione
said hurriedly and she shoved the bottle in Harry’s hands.
Harry downed the watery,
slightly sweet, potion Hermione had given him. His nausea was gone immediately,
although he still felt weak.
“Brilliant,” Harry croaked
weakly. Hermione nodded knowingly.
“What was that?” Ron asked
curiously.
“Morning sickness potion,”
Hermione said shaking her head at Harry. “I have to run a test to make sure.”
“I think you’d better,”
said Ron, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Please get Draco,” Harry
whimpered.
Ron nodded and padded back
down the hall. Hermione knelt next to Harry on the floor. “Are you OK?”
“I don’t feel like I’m
going to die anymore,” Harry groaned as Hermione helped him to his feet.
Hermione snickered. “Well,
don’t forget to take another one in an hour or you’ll feel worse. They have a
way of catching up with you.”
“Good lord,” Harry said as
he followed Hermione back into the kitchen.
He silently thanked God
Ron had gotten more responsible over the years and took the pans off the
burners before fleeing the kitchen. Breakfast was half cooked and cooling
quickly, but Hermione seemed to think it would be fine.
Draco and Ron crashed
around the corner, knocking a hat stand over in their rush. Hermione shook her
head.
“You know, the children
will never sleep through that racket.”
As if on cue, the baby
started crying.
“I’ll get him,” Ron said
as Hermione glared at him. He fled the kitchen.
“Bring the red bottle near
the diaper bag,” Hermione called after him. She glanced at Harry and smiled.
Draco had a hand on
Harry’s back and looked very concerned. Harry was shaking his head. “I’m OK.”
“Ron said you were an
awful site,” Draco murmured.
“I’m sure he’s fine if
that potion worked,” Hermione said sarcastically. “Don’t get silly.”
“Well, it’s not as if this
type of thing happens everyday,” Draco said defensively. “He could be worse
than anyone imagines.”
“Better survival rate than
females, remember,” Hermione said as she placed the food back on the burners.
“Much higher chances, actually. I’ll loan you the book. He’s acting positively
normal.”
Draco relaxed visibly and
gave Harry a gentle shove. “Whiner.”
“Bugger off,” Harry
grinned.
“What’s ‘bugger’ mean?”
Leo asked as he walked into the kitchen carefully carrying a red stoppered
bottle.
“It’s a very rude word
that nice people do not use in polite company,” Hermione said as she glared at
Harry. He pinked slightly.
That seemed to be enough
for Leo because he set the bottle on the kitchen table and sat patiently
waiting for food. Hermione waved her wand and an apple flew out of the ice box
and fell into pieces in front of Leo.
“Thank you,” he said and
waved a piece at Draco in offering.
“Thank you,” said Draco as
he shoved the piece of apple into Harry’s mouth. “Eat,” he said to Harry.
“For crying out loud,” Harry
mumbled around the apple.
“You should drink that
potion,” Hermione said. “Just to make sure.”
Harry took the small
bottle in his hands and loosened the stopper. Draco breathed in as Harry
swallowed the sweet potion.
“How long does it take?”
Draco asked.
“Not long,” Hermione said
as she turned around with a plate of bacon. “See.”
Draco looked startled as
Harry’s forehead started glowing with a reddish aura. “Oh my God.”
“What?” said Harry, trying
to look at his own forehead.
“A girl,” Draco whispered.
“We’re going to be parents. We have a daughter.”
“A girl?” Harry breathed.
“How do you know?”
“Boys are blue,” Leo piped
in a voice that insinuated Harry was stupid.
“Don’cha know?” Draco said
grinning.
“Well then,” Harry said, resting
a hand on his abdomen. “It doesn’t even seem like it’s real.”
Hermione hugged Harry
tightly. “You will have so much support in this. Don’t you worry at all. I know
it’s scary.”
“I don’t think I’ve been
pregnant long enough to be scared yet,” Harry laughed.
“Will Kelly have someone
to play with?” Leo asked as he reached for a piece of bacon.
“The baby won’t be here
for quite a while,” Hermione smiled. “Kelly will be running around with you by
then.”
“Does it really happen
that fast?” Draco asked as he helped Harry sit down.
“You don’t need to coddle
him, you know,” Hermione chortled. “It seems like it happens faster. One minute
they’re crying in the middle of the night and the next they’re trying to
catapult the cat across the yard.”
“What!” Draco laughed
trying to look horrified.
“Birds fly, don’t they?”
Leo protested.
“A better bird-catcher?”
Harry asked.
“We gave him a helmet,”
Leo said as his mother put a plate of scrambled eggs on the table. “He liked
it.”
Draco looked at Hermione.
“Crazy cat,” Hermione
muttered. “Belongs in this family, I swear.”
“One from Crookshanks and
that big black one that was hanging around your house?” Harry asked.
“The one that delivered
under the porch the day the twins were born?” Hermione chuckled. “Yea.”
“Well, there’s a sign,”
Draco said as the twins slid down the hall in their socks and narrowly missed
upsetting the hat rack.
“A girl!” The twins
squealed as they spotted Harry.
Ron walked into the
kitchen holding Kelly. “Congratulations are in order, I see.”
“Thanks,” said Harry
embarrassed.
“You might want to floo
your mum,” Draco suggested. “She’ll be upset if she doesn’t know right away.”
“You’ve got her pegged,”
Ron snorted and handed Hermione her youngest son. He walked to the stove and
served the fried potatoes in a big wooden bowl. “I’ll go.”
Hermione strapped Kelly in
his chair and put a few potatoes in front of him after blowing on them. He
didn’t seem interested after she handed him a small cup of milk, however.
Ron walked out of the room
and to Harry’s surprise, Draco followed him. Harry shook his head and began
loading up his plate.
“What are you going to
name your little girl?” Leo asked. The twins swiveled their heads and Harry
felt his cheeks turn red.
“I don’t know,” Harry
said. “We hadn’t given it much thought.”
“Heard you had a boy’s
name,” Hermione snorted.
“That was Draco being
stupid,” Harry waved her off and poured Leo some apple juice. “We didn’t have
anything picked out.”
“I like Tonks,” Leo said.
“I like her, too,” said
Hermione quickly. “But I think they want to pick out their own name.”
Leo seemed to mull this
over.
“Josephine?” William
suggested. Harry could tell them apart this morning because their pajamas had
their initials monogrammed on them.
“Dracaena?” Adam said
mischievously.
“Absolutely not,” Ron said
walking back into the kitchen. “Mum’s on her way. Draco’s talking to her.”
“We’ll need more food,”
sighed Hermione as she tried to rise from the table. Ron put a hand on each of
her shoulders and pushed her back down.
“Like mum didn’t have
breakfast ready at her house,” Ron snorted. “They’re just getting plates.”
Hermione looked relieved.
Arthur Weasley appeared in
the door of the kitchen with Draco behind him, his hair uncombed and his
pajamas rumpled. He shook his head at Harry, but was smiling. “Got yourself
knocked up, did you?”
Harry felt his cheeks burn
as Draco sat heavily beside him looking quite proud of himself.
“What’s ‘knocked up?’” Leo
asked excitedly.
“Something else rude!”
Hermione said quickly. “I swear, I should start using memory charms.”
Ron laughed heartily.
“You’d never!”
“You’re right,” Hermione
admitted. Arthur bent down and kissed her on the top of the head. Hermione
scowled.
“We do love you, you
know,” Harry snickered at her.
“You’re all plotting my
demise,” Hermione muttered as she speared a bit of potato on her fork.
“Muahahahaha,” the twins
chuckled in unison, rubbing their hands together.
“Dear Lord,” Molly said as
she walked into the kitchen stirring batter in a bowl. “I think I see what they
inherited from the Weasley side.”
“You have no idea,”
Hermione said wearily.
“Grandma!” Adam, William,
and Leo cried out.
“Hello, my loves,” Molly
said beaming at them. “We’ll have muffins, soon.”
“We already have food,”
Leo said sarcastically.
“We’ll see about that,”
said Draco, stealing some potatoes and a piece of bacon off Leo’s plate.
“Hey!” Leo protested.
“You need room for
grandma’s muffins,” said Ron. “Shush.”
Molly sat her bowl down
and waved her wand at it. As the muffins began to make themselves she swooped
down upon Harry and Draco, knocking their heads together soundly.
“Mum!” Ron shouted. “For
Merlin’s sake!”
“It’s just so exciting!”
Molly exclaimed, wiping a tear from her eye and giving both Harry and Draco a kiss
before swooping down on the little ones.
“More exciting than us?”
Adam asked.
“I don’t know about that,”
Hermione said exasperatedly.
“Somehow I doubt it,”
Arthur said smiling at them. They looked pleased.
“You two are positively
angels compared to your naughty uncles,” Molly said gently as she ruffled the
twins hair.
“We need to work on that,”
William remarked. Molly smacked him.
“I don’t think you need to
work on anything,” said Ron shaking his head. “I think you need to finish
eating and get dressed for the day.”
“Grandma’s muffins!” Adam
protested.
“Will probably be ready
and cooled by the time you get back down,” Arthur said. “You have plenty of
time. Go get your robes on.”
“Then Quidditch!” Leo
crowed hopping up from the table,
“Finish your plate,”
Hermione pointed to the last few bites on his plate.”
Leo grumbled, but picked
his fork back up. The twins inhaled their plates at an alarming speed before
leaping to their feet and sprinting from the room.
“Amazing,” Draco mused as
they crashed up the stairs.
Leo polished his plate and
cleaned what was left if Adam and William’s plates. He snatched a piece of
bacon back from Draco before sauntering upstairs after the twins.
“You should keep an eye on
that one,” Draco said seriously.
“Trust me, we do,” Hermione
said rolling her eyes.
Draco gave Harry a look.
“What do you mean?” Harry
said seriously. The Weasleys looked up.
“He’s a Slytherin through
and through,” Draco said, one eyebrow raised.
Molly shot him a look. Ron
chuckled. Hermione smacked Ron.
“Well, it’s true,” Draco
said as he turned his attention to his potatoes.
“He’s got a point,” Arthur
said reluctantly. “He’s even got the swagger down.”
“Well, not all of them
went bad,” Harry said, trying not to laugh.
“We’ll borrow the sorting
hat and put it on your bulging belly and see how you feel,” Hermione said
coolly.
“I don’t think it works
that way,” Arthur said patronizingly. “But Draco does have a point. Leo’s got
quite a talent for getting what he wants.”
Hermione snorted, but
looked at Draco warily. “As if one wasn’t bad enough.”
Draco made a face at her.
This was going far better
than planned.