With you in my Arms

90. What does he eat?

The calm atmosphere in the kitchen of his house was something Harry couldn't share with too many people in the moment. Neither his best friends nor his fiancée had the same life they had a year ago. Then they had seen each other all the time. They had shared their meals, their spare time, everything. It had been hard to get away at times, but now... He was starting to wonder, if he should ask Mrs. Weasley, if it was okay that he moved into the Burrow. Just as long as Ginny was still at Hogwarts, and played for the Holyhead Harpies. He sighed.

"Harry? Is everything okay?"

He looked up and found Hermione still sitting opposite him. Lost in his thoughts he had forgotten that she was actually there, that for once he wasn't on his own.

"Can I ask you something?"

She knew that something serious was bugging him. He never sought her consent for awkward questions, if it wasn't really serious.

"Of course you can. You always can. You know that, don't you?"

He nodded, then took a deep breath.

"What is it like to life with him? What is it like to wake up in the morning and the first thing you see is the face of somebody most people wouldn't wonder, if you hexed him on sight? What is he like when he's with you?"

She just looked at her friend for a long moment before answering. Still wondering where he was going with these questions.

"Draco is trying his best to be there for me. He would give his life for his son..."

"...and for you."

"And for me, yes. He's changed. It would be a lie, if I'd say it was plain sailing all from the start, but somehow we both were given the time to get used to one another. We talked a lot at the beginning, asked each other questions. We shared our hopes and dreams. Becoming a father had him freaking out sometimes, but he tried his best to not let me know just how frazzled he actually was. I feel safe when I'm with him. Draco has always been a bit extreme. He still is, but in a more controlled way now. He can be very gentle..."

The smile playing with her lips made Harry want to look away. He still had issues with the implications of what she was obviously thinking about. Imagining his friend being intimate with... No, better not go there.

"Sometimes he still thinks he can commandeer everybody around, including me. Though the last time he tried that..." she giggled, "Let's just say, he didn't get very far."

"Didn't get very far... Right. I'm sure, I don't want to know any details. Thank you."

Hermione blushed suddenly. She had just realised what else had been happening at her Wedding Ball. Blaise had suddenly taken an interest in Ginny. Though at least she didn't need to worry about that one any longer. Harry had told her about the Valentine's Day surprise he had had for her. Spending the night on a broom and then having a picnic on some remote mountain top in the middle of the night could really only appeal to these two broom fanatics.

"When did you know that you loved him though?"

They looked at each other. She knew that Harry hadn't been the fastest car in the shed when it came to realise that a certain redhead had been in love with him for as long as she knew him. But at least they had managed the get together in the end. When did she know she loved Draco?

"I think that was when he looked at me."

"When he looked at you?"

"He was holding me... in our first night... afterwards..."

Whatever had happened between them in the past, Harry knew that whatever had happened in that night had changed everything. It had rendered all the name calling, all the pranks and all her hidden tears void. Somehow their encounter had changed both of them.

Had he had a moment like this in his relationship with Ginny? If at all it had been that afternoon he'd kissed her for the first time in the Griffindor common room, in front of their entire house. His life had never been the same again afterwards.

"I think, I know what you mean. When I kissed Ginny for the first time it was as if the scrambled pieces of a puzzle suddenly fell into place. It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time. I knew she was the one for me. I wouldn't have to wonder ever again, if I would have enough courage to ask a girl out. She would be there for me. Whatever happened, she would be waiting for me. It was a strange feeling."

"When Draco was getting close to me at Hogwarts, at the Graduation Party when he found me, he was so different. If I had closed my eyes I wouldn't have recognised him from his words or actions. The tenderness, the gentle consideration of what I wanted and what I was comfortable with was what I had hoped for when I was with Ron. Somehow I felt special from the moment Draco said "Hi." that night. It could have been all one last big prank though. That was why I left him before he woke up. That was why I was so freaked out when I discovered I was pregnant. At that moment my life seemed over for me. If it had been Ron it would still have been a shock, but him? Draco Malfoy fathering a child with a Muggle born? Impossible."

"But he ended up in St. Mungo's because he thought you had taken him for a ride."

Hermione nodded. She still couldn't understand why he had done what he did. Just because he had thought she hadn't been sincere?

"He must have already loved you when you two..."

"Yes. He had told me that he loved me before we left Hogwarts. It would be a bit of an understatement to say I was surprised, shocked more like."

"Where did you go?"

"Malfoy Manor."

"What! He took you to the Manor?" Harry was genuinely shocked.

"I didn't know that it was the Manor. I thought it was some upmarket countryside hotel. All I could see from the windows was the park surrounding the house. I never left the room we had been in together. Not before he didn't know that he was the father to my child and I had spend a bit of time with him."

She stroked the white blond hair of her son.

It had only been last June that all this had happened, but it seemed a lifetime away. Just like the war, Dumbledore's funeral or the death of Voldemort seemed somehow surreal now. The memories were still as vivid as ever, but they had lost their painful edge.

"What is it like to know you'll spend the rest of your life with Ginny?"

Harry wasn't sure how to answer this. He had recently been put on a roller coaster of emotions where his fiancée was concerned. The fact that there had been other boys in her life before she had become his girlfriend he could live with. He knew the guys and he was still friends with Dean regardless. Blaise Zabini had been different though. That hadn't been a teenage crush. It had been love and Harry knew the difference by now. He loved Ginny, but Ron had only ever been a crush of Hermione. Zabini loved Ginny just as much as Harry loved her. Luckily for Harry she had chosen him and not the dark skinned snake.

For a moment he frowned. Was that what had happened to Snape? Had he finally been defeated by another guy? His father James, a Griffindor. Or had Lily Evans never known about Severus being in love with her? Had she regarded him as just a friend? Too many questions for which there was nobody really left to answer them. Lupin, Sirius, Peter Pettigrew, Snape, Dumbledore and his parents were all dead. He sighed. This war had not only killed people it had also interrupted the stream of history that needed to be passed down. How much knowledge and experience had been lost due to the mindless slaughter of innocent witches and wizards!

Both friends were lost in their own thoughts for a long while. Revisiting happier times, recalling scary moments lived through and finding solace in the knowledge that their children one day would be following in their footsteps discovering Hogwarts and its many secrets, while being able to enjoy life without the permanent danger of a demented, evil wizard waging war on the entire wizarding population.

The baby started fuzzing. Harry looked up and the deep grey of the infant's eyes was as unsettling as it had been the last time he saw it. It was like looking at a younger version of the ferret. Well, that was more or less what this still nameless new life was. Draco Malfoy could have tried to deny the parentage of this child until he was blue in the face. Nobody would ever believe him not to be of Malfoy decent.

The baby was getting restless and Harry was wondering what was wrong. As if reading his mind Hermione smiled at him and said, "He's hungry."

"Oh."

A moment later a frown situated between puzzlement and apprehension spread over his face.

"I don't have anything to eat for him. What does he eat?" he asked.

The smile his friend gave him was a bit unsettling. It reminded him of school, where she had always been looking at him like this when she knew something he didn't. Or if he knew, he normally didn't realise it until she coaxed it out off him.

"Don't worry, but if you don't mind I'll go upstairs into the drawing room to feed him."

The look in her eyes told him not to ask any question. So he just nodded. As he followed her with his gaze as she left the kitchen a bit of information was pushing itself to the foreground of his thoughts. Hermione was the mother of the infant. She was a girl. She could feed him without any outside help... Harry blushed.