Chapter 14
“I’ve just gotten some rather interesting news,” James said as he entered Malfoy Manor through the garden doors. He found everyone gathered together in the kitchen; along with Lucius and Narcissa were Harry, Draco, Marvolo and Phacelia. Riddle had come upon Laurence Parkinson beating his wife to a pulp for daring to give the Minister a birthday present, and, needless to say, the Parkinson family was minus one patriarch. After the case was investigated and Riddle cleared due to ‘self defense’, Marvolo asked the woman if she would accompany him to dinner. One thing led to another and they were wed four years ago. They had two more children, a boy and a girl, and both parents doted on the kids. Pansy's absence was keenly felt by Phacelia, and Tom did what he could to mitigate that grief as much as possible. It was yet one more thing to hang on Albus Dumbledore and his Order of the Dragon, that they would slaughter an entire year of children, just for the crest upon their robes. It was also a clear message to the Potters and Malfoys: you're next.
“Sirius Black made an appearance at the Ministry, complaining about someone poisoning him,” Snape-Potter continued with a grin. “Apparently, he’s been vomiting up everything he eats, and has become a ghost of the man he once was. They shipped him to St. Mungo's right away and put him in cuffs for his disappearing act that resulted in someone else heading the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office. Hopefully, it’ll come out real soon that he was the one who caused the biggest problems for that department, once I point out the sheer number of complaints that occurred during his tenure. If the investigators use their brains, they'll see that the incidents of illegal charming of muggle items had ceased, once Black had disappeared for those two years. It boggles the mind that he’d never been caught charming yo-yos, hula-hoops, water wiggles, crazy daisies and slip & slides to attack the children as they played.
“The muggle hospitals quickly filled up with parents reporting that their kids were being choked by the wiggling sprinkler toys, or wrapped up in the slip & slides. The yo-yos would snap back too hard and knocked teeth out of the kids’ mouths, and the hula-hoops spent more time around the children’s necks than they did their waists. He thought it was ‘all in good fun’ and that it didn’t really matter because ‘they’re just muggles’. Some of our people in the muggle manufacturing companies have discreetly compensated the injured parties after investigations led to evidence that the items had been charmed to react to certain sounds or words. Fortunately, these incidents, though few, were in fairly remote areas where the income was near poverty level and state insurance only covered so much. It kept most of the issues Black caused out of the mainstream news media, which in turn kept the magical world protected from discovery.”
“I’ll steer some of our investigators toward those incidents, and have them dig up whatever they can to prove that Sirius Black had endangered muggle children for shites and giggles,” Tom told everyone quietly. “Meanwhile, I’ll make sure that he’s monitored closely whilst in hospital, and maybe we can figure out if there’s anyone attempting to assassinate him. No doubt Dumbledore will see this as an attack on his organization and, by association, himself, so expect to see him grandstanding in the media to keep sympathies on his side.”
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“When do you want to have our first child?” Harry queried several days later. Now that Draco and he were married, the raven haired teen wanted to start establishing a strong family unit.
“Don’t you think we should wait a little while?” the blond asked his spouse curiously. “We have all the time in the world to have kids.”
“Well,” Harcourt said hesitantly, not looking at his husband, “I...I found out that I’m a natural carrier and...and...I’m pregnant.”
“You’re pregnant,” Draco deadpanned, staring at the brunet as if he’d grown two heads. “Pregnant,” the blond repeated, unable to take his eyes off of his mate. Harry flushed and shifted from foot to foot, growing more and more frightened the longer it took for Draco to say anything. Finally, the Malfoy heir exploded into action, wrapping his mate up in a smothering hug and squealing in a most unmanly way. “Oh, love, you couldn’t have given me a more spectacular gift. You’re pregnant! With my baby!”
“Well, yeah,” the emerald eyed teen snarked, voice trembling from the overwhelming happiness he felt. “If it was anyone else’s, I’m sure that your family and mine would have strung me up from the nearest tree.”
“How far along are you? Did you tell our parents yet? Did you decide on a name for the baby? Do you know the gender?” The questions were shot at him rapid fire and he barely had time to comprehend what Draco was asking before the next query came tumbling out of the blond’s mouth.
“Am I allowed to answer?” the brunet asked archly when Draco had to stop to take a breath. Smiling sheepishly, his husband nodded and pinched his lips closed. “I’m about six weeks along and no, you were the first one I wanted to tell. You had the right to know before anyone else. Since it’s too early to have a gender reveal, no I don’t know if its going to be a boy or a girl. I was thinking of names, and for a boy, I’d like Caelum Auriga Potter-Malfoy or Cygnus Ophiuchus Potter-Malfoy. For a girl, either Alyssum Forsythia Potter-Malfoy or Delphinium Helenium Potter-Malfoy.”
“You wish to honor the Malfoy tradition?” the blond asked as he backed his husband up to a waist-high credenza, leaning against the brunet’s lithe body and pressing him back onto the sideboard, effectively trapping him. Draco ground his growing erection against his mate’s pelvis, indicating to the younger teen exactly how excited and pleased he was with the news.
“Y-yes,” Harcourt whimpered softly, panting slightly in arousal as his own cock started to come to attention. “W-we did say that the Malfoy family would be the first heirs.”
Draco spun his husband around and bent him over the cellarette, hands fumbling at the placket of Harry’s trousers. A fine, long fingered hand dove into the opening in the brunet’s slacks and a high-pitched moan erupted as those dexterous digits wrapped around the shorter teen’s leaking member. Panting gasps were the only sounds as Draco began to stroke his husband to orgasm, and they were completely unaware of their company until they heard an exclamation of, “Dear sweet Merlin,” sounding remarkably like Lily’s voice. With an unmanly squeak of terror, Draco withdrew his hand so fast that he’d left friction burns, and Harry turned away from his and Draco’s parents, standing in the doorway, to tuck himself away and close his jeans.
“You know,” Draco growled huskily as he tried to get his rampaging hormones back under control, “as much as we love you, and we do, please do us the courtesy of sending a patronus if you plan on visiting.”
“We’re sorry, darlings,” Narcissa was the only one brave enough to speak, and she giggled uncontrollably as she said, “I believe a few of us have forgotten what it was like to be newly married. We stopped by to see how you both were, and to ask if those night terrors have recurred since your marriage.”
“We’re fine, Mother,” Harry responded, face flushed with embarrassment. “Won’t you come in and make yourselves comfortable?” Still giggling and snickering, the parents found seats on some couches, whilst Harry and Draco cuddled up together on a loveseat. “I have some news, if you can get yourselves under control enough to hear it.” After a few failed efforts, the men and women finally stopped laughing at their children and put attentive looks on their faces. “I’m pregnant,” the raven haired young man continued, counting down, in his head, to the explosion. He wasn’t disappointed.
“What?” Lily shrieked first, emerald eyes wide with wonder. “My baby is having a baby?”
“You’re a carrier,” Lucius murmured in awe. “Do you know how powerful you have to be to be a carrier? There’ve only been twenty wizards in recorded magical history that were natural carriers. No wonder Dumbledore is so terrified of you.”
“When’s the baby due?” Narcissa queried, eyes narrowed suspiciously on the pair.
“Next June sometime,” Draco replied reassuringly. “Believe me, both Harry and I abstained; we wanted to wait until our wedding night to take advantage of the extra magical strength we’d receive in giving our virginity to each other. This is forever, and we didn’t want to spoil it by having sex before our soul bond.”
“That’s how it was for your mother and I,” Lucius told the pair with a fond smile. “That powerful coupling gave us you, Draco.”
“We did the same,” Severus said for the three of them. “That’s why you’re as magically strong as you are, Harcourt. You did just the right thing in completing your soul bond in that way.”
“Sex magic has its perks,” Lily murmured quietly, but not quietly enough that she wasn’t heard. At the loud snorts of amusement, she turned beet red and hid her face in her hands, trying not to moan in mortification.
“So have you decided on names?” James asked curiously.
“Well, to honor the Malfoy family tradition, I thought Caelum Auriga Potter-Malfoy or Cygnus Ophiuchus Potter-Malfoy if it was a boy; to honor the Evans family tradition, Alyssum Forsythia Potter-Malfoy or Delphinium Helenium Potter-Malfoy if it was a girl,” Harry told them proudly.
“Fine, strong names for the Malfoy heirs, and beautifully floral feminine names for the Evans heirs,” Lucius remarked, a catch in his voice. His grey eyes shimmered with an abundance of love and pride for his sons, and Harry blushed, eyes on his hands as he fought the urge to glomp the older man. So he was understandably startled when he was yanked from his seat and wrapped in the strong arms of his father-in-law, the other man whispering his pride, honor and love into the brunet’s ear. Harcourt’s own arms wrapped around the Malfoy patriarch, and he gave as good as he got.
“We’ll set up a shower and celebration as soon as Dumbledore and his criminals are eliminated,” James told his sons softly. “Right now, let’s plan out how we’ll set up the nursery.”
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November 12, 1998
The Daily Prophet
TRAGEDY STRIKES THE BLACK FAMILY ONCE AGAIN!
Lord Black succumbs to mysterious illness
JJ Hunsecker, reporter
It is this reporter’s very sad duty to announce the death of Lord Sirius Orion Black this morning at 5:38 a.m. He had come into St. Mungo's the first of this month, complaining about not being able to eat; that everything he consumed invariably came right back up. He’d thrown out an accusation of being poisoned, but with the number of enemies he’d made since before he graduated from Hogwarts, it’s safe to say that if he was murdered, the culprit will most likely never be found.
Sirius Black was part of Albus Dumbledore’s Order of the Dragon; a terrorist group that had attempted through the years to incite civil unrest that very nearly plunged our magical nation into war. His unreasonable and illogical vendetta against Lord Thomas Marvolo Riddle and the Potter family had become something of a legend, which cost him the positions of Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and title of Headmaster of Hogwarts. His first brush with the law occurred when he and a bunch of his followers attacked Harcourt James Severus Snape-Potter and his family during his third birthday party, on the strength of an alleged prophecy spoken by our resident drunk and crackhead, Sybill Trelawney.
He, of course, couldn’t be arrested for the attack, as witnesses to the confrontation don’t remember seeing him or his sycophants there. There have been rumors through the years that Dumbledore was always rather free with the memory charms. With no corroborating testimony, the case was dismissed. When Heir Snape-Potter spent time in Hogwarts as a child, visiting with his father, Severus Potter-Snape, the old man would confront the child, trying to intimidate and coerce the boy to visit with him in the headmaster’s office. The child, having been told to stay away from the old man, invariably escaped the sticky situations. It wasn’t until some failed attempts at physical capture came to light that Severus Tobias Potter-Snape tendered his resignation and went to work at Durmstrang, where his son, as well as Draco Malfoy, attended school to get their magical education.
Black was a devoted follower of Dumbledore, and had, during his own tenure as student, tried to use his best friend, werewolf Remus Lupin, as a murder weapon against Severus Snape. Up until that point, Black was good friends with James Potter and Peter Pettigrew, but that fell to the wayside when Potter learned of the set-up and saved his future spouse from certain death. The rift between the canine duo and the rest of the group was never repaired, and they worked from opposite sides of the divide to protect their world to the best of their abilities. This reporter can’t help but feel, with the sudden spate of deaths in Dumbledore’s camp, that perhaps Lady Magic is demanding payment due for all of the old man’s sins against magic.