Coffee Like Acid
“Wow! Harry look, look, those are your babies!”
Harry smiles at Teddy’s exclamation, rubbing the boys back. Teddy was leaning heavily against his legs. The boy was so amazed he’d slipped from his usual Harry-look-alike to his natural appearance, brown eyed and so much like Remus.
“Congratulations Mr. Potter, two very healthy girls. They are right on track for development.” The matron hands him a few cuttings with the girls on it. They were pretty close together, Harry imagined it felt much like going through a floo.
“Thank you, Madame Roxbury.”
The woman smiled and cleared his belly, allowing him to sit further up. He gave Teddy a picture and sat the boy on his lap.
“Now, given the nature of your pregnancy I insist you are not on your feet a lot, and if you start experiencing rough pelvic cramps I want you to come back. Male pregnancies are extremely fragile, Mister Potter, sometime in the next three months you will be going on bedrest.” The woman sternly told him as she begin to clear the area. “Be careful. It was lovely to see you.”
The matron left the room, the door shutting behind her.
Harry sighed and stood. He sat Teddy on the white covered bed and pulled up his pants. He grunted and shifted, pushing downwards in an attempt to button them. It would the fourth pair he stretched, and despite that the effect wasn’t permanent, none of his pants were ever the same. He should’ve just did laundry, he grumbled to himself.
Harry sighs and waves his hand, stretching the pants around his bump.
Teddy giggled. Harry growled playfully at the boy and tickled him.
“Alright, ready to see your cousin Draco?” Harry asked the seven year old, lifting him onto his hip. Teddy nodded and held on as Harry left the room, entering the pregnancy-friendly travel tube.
He was spit out on the reservation a few minutes later and Teddy dropped from his hip, running ahead of him. Harry—practically—waddled after the boy, arms framing his belly.
“Teddy, Merlin, slow down kid.”
Harry laughed as he followed the boy into Draco and Charlie's.
“Cousin Draco!” Teddy screeched, running over to Draco. His hair remained curly but switched to Draco’s silvery blonde as Teddy sat on Draco’s lap.
“Shh, Ted. Scorpius is asleep,” Draco quieted him, accepting the hug offered to him.
Harry smiled and leaned against the doorway. He was panting slightly and wondering exactly how the months had flown—when during them had he lost his energy?
“Sorry, Dray. When he wakes up can I hold ‘em?” Teddy pulled back, looking at Draco.
Draco snorted and gently pushed Teddy on the seat beside him. He wrapped an arm around the boy and blew a raspberry against his cheek.
Teddy shrieked and pushed Draco away before grabbing him and doing the same to his cheek.
Harry waddled over to the arm chair and sat, watching the duo.
Teddy started a long, energetic dialogue about his day at muggle school.
Draco, as usual, then complained about the lack of education that was offered to young wizards.
“Maybe you should do something about that,” Harry said with an eye roll.
Draco hummed. “That might be the brightest idea you’ve ever had, Potter.”
Harry rolled his eyes, but before he could respond there was a loud cry.
Draco groaned, causing Teddy to giggle. As Draco passed Harry threw him a smirk.
“Oh shush, Harry. Soon you’ve double the trouble,” Draco snipped.
Teddy laughed and he went about getting his favorite toys out. As usual he also got a piece of parchment, and a book from Draco’s stack.
“I’ll be back soon to get you, okay?” Harry said, standing, then waddled over to plant a kiss on the boys head.
Teddy nodded, making the plastic toy dinosaur roar.
Harry smiled and walked down the wall. Draco sat beside Scorpius’ crib, rocking him back and forth.
“I have to head in.”
“No you don’t, but ye will continue.”
“You’ve got to stop watching those muggle documentaries,” Harry informed him with feigned exasperation.
Draco simply smirked. Harry’s eyes dropped to the bundle in the pale skinned blokes arms.
“How is it?”
Draco’s smirk drops into a smile, his eyes captured by the red-headed baby.
“Perfect. It’s everything. The beginning to the end.” Draco’s eyes meet Harry’s with a smirk. “Very beautiful, very painful. It’s all worth it.”
Harry nods, simply thinking. He stares for a moment before snapping out of the trance.
“Right. Right. Okay, Teddy’s in the front. I’ve got to go,” he said with one final smile before he turned.
He waved bye to Teddy one last time and made his way out of the house to the reservation offices. He walked into his own and stared at the paperwork.
With a sigh he got on it.
“You’re so close, Harry,” Draco is screaming beside him.
His hand is clutched in the blondes, veins bursting out of his forehead. Harry screams as a terrible horrible pain spreads through his lower body.
“I see the head of baby A, Mister Potter, just a little more!”
Harry drops against the bed. He can feel everything. It all hurts. He’s ripping apart.
“I can’t!” He whines. “Draco I can’t,” he sobs.
“Harry James Potter, I’ve waited years for you to say that.” Draco grabbed his arm. “But you never have. Cause you can. You always can, you did. Come on, Potter. If I did it, so can you!”
Harry gripped Draco’s arm and shied himself up, letting out a blood curling scream.
He was instantly all out of breath as the healers turned. A few seconds passed and there were two identical cries, one after another.
“Baby A didn’t want to come out with her sister,” the matron said. She placed both babies on his chest.
Harry let out a sob as he took in his daughters. They looked so gross, covered in amniotic fluid and a bloody substance, but they were gorgeous. His world. Everything.
He carefully held them close and shut his eyes, breathing them in.
Draco squeezed his arm and he laughed.
Severus laughed, hand on Harry’s head. His fingers buried in Harry’s thick hair...
Harry closed his eyes and remembered the bliss from the memory, wishing that Severus was with him then, hand in his hair.
Severus drunk from his coffee with a scowl on his face.
Everyone around him was buzzing with conversation, excited about something that surely didn't affect Severus.
“Severus, my, you’re in a mood this morning,” McGonagall said as she rounded the corner of the table.
She took a seat beside him and fluffed up her paper.
“Minerva!”
Pomfrey hurried to the table, her eyes wide.
“Have you heard the news?”
“News?” McGonagall asked, eyebrow raised. “What news, Poppy?”
Minerva leaned forward and Severus found himself leaning with her. He might hate the gossip but he, too, was becoming curious.
“It’s Harry! It seems he’s had twin girls! It’s buzzing all over the Prophet!”
“Oh dear, I must send him a gift. Twins! Godric.” Minerva leaned back, and her eyes shifted to Severus. “What a miracle.”
Severus swallowed his next sip of coffee and tasted nothing but acid.