Chapter 11

"Oof!" Hermione grunted, a hand on her very round belly. "Damn."

"What is it?" Draco asked, at her side in a moment. He put his hand over hers and then below it, feeling the tight skin ripple. "Is it time?"

From his vantage point on the sitting room sofa, Lucius arched an eyebrow over the morning edition of the financial section. "She still has a few weeks, Draco. Don't give the baby any ideas."

Lucius and Hermione had been very careful about keeping the baby's sex a secret, and Draco knew it was killing them. Part of him wanted to give in and let them tell him, but he'd come this far. He didn't want to ruin it for himself.

"Just a hard kick," Hermione said with a patient smile. She carded her fingers through Draco's hair in a way that made his heart swell. Instead of returning to his own armchair, he continued to kneel with his cheek pressed against her swollen abdomen.

Moments like these, when the three of them had the time, inclination, and wherewithal to take a moment's respite and enjoy some time together, were rather rare these days. Once the baby came, Draco knew they would be even more so, so he planned on relishing it while he could.

They all turned their heads when Percy poked his head in through the door and announced that there was a certain stubborn Mr. Mackison on the telephone, who refused to speak to anyone but Draco.

With a sigh, his reprieve broken much too quickly, Draco rose to take the call.

Mackison was a werewolf who Draco'd sent to Thello for the Wolfsbane. Werewolves with a lot of money were rare due to that fact that finding employment was so problematic, but Mackison was all old money and new ideas and was a very important client.

At the end of the conversation that dealt with how Mackison wanted his generous donation allotted, he commented on how the Ministry had just passed a law that permitted willing donations of blood to vampires. Draco'd heard about the motion when it'd still been in the stages of drafting; he was surprised to hear it had actually gone through. Mackison informed him that the Ministry not only supported people consensually giving blood specifically for the purpose of nourishing vampires, but the donations and consequent feedings would take place in the Ministry, once a week.

After Draco got off the phone and then repeated the news to Lucius and Hermione, Lucius said, "And that is what we like to call precedent."

Hermione was squirming in her seat. "It wouldn't be a far cry at all to demand that the Ministry provide the same essential service to werewolves!"

Draco frowned. "But the Ministry isn't paying for the blood... They're just providing a location for the transfer to take place, really," Draco reasoned, seeing that glint in Hermione's eyes. She'd found a new purpose.

"No, it's more than that," Hermione said. She tried to lean forward in earnest, but ended up huffing and sitting back, glaring at her belly before rubbing it apologetically. "They made legal the thing that keeps vampires from becoming monsters, from potentially killing people in their hunger. The law against willingly giving blood was barbaric in the first place. The Ministry is finally changing for the better, realising that magical creatures and beings need support, too!"

"Or maybe perhaps that they have the ability to vote in upcoming elections," Lucius said wryly.

Draco looked between his father and Hermione, anticipating what she'd say next.

"No matter!" Hermione cried, a smile breaking out on her face. "We'll use that. The Ministry can't do something like that for vampires and not werewolves...there would be an uproar. And Wolfsbane is legal already, so the only thing the Ministry can do is pay for it. My god, think of it...Ministry-sanctioned Wolfsbane. If we play our cards right, Michael and Thello could get funding to become the main or even the only supplier of Wolfsbane in the country!"

Seeing that Hermione was working herself up into something potentially labour-inducing, Draco called Percy into the room. With Percy there to take notes, make suggestions, and claim contacts, Hermione didn't have to do anything more than make excited exclamations.

Percy had just proved his worth. Draco decided a raise was in order.

*

It didn't take long at all for the Ministry to kowtow to their proposal; not with Percy Weasley, former Ministry sycophant and knower of altogether too many secrets, Draco Malfoy, fervent and relentless Slytherin, Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age and dangerously pregnant, and Lucius Malfoy, serpent-tongued smooth talker, all working together.

Two days before Hermione went into labour, the Ministry of Magic accepted the proposal to pay for the Wolfsbane potion (so long as it was brewed to Ministry standards by none other than Thello and his newly appointed team of apprentices), asking in return only that werewolves sign in when they take the Wolfsbane. The Ministry insisted this was because they needed to know, should anything unfortunate happen, whether the werewolf in question was of sound mind or not, but Hermione, Draco, and Lucius all knew it was just a way of keeping tabs on the creatures against which the discrimination wasn't even close to ending. Still, it was a start.

"Feels good to actually get something done," Hermione said once they'd returned from their final meeting at the Ministry. Removing her cloak, she pressed her hands into her back and groaned.

Draco had to agree, though he knew Outreach was important and did good work; it was nice to see real, substantial and tangible change. He suspected the Ministry had rushed the decision due to Hermione's state, not that he'd dare suggest such a thing. She was close enough to her due date to make people nervous around her, and that anxious energy had been sweltering in the Ministry conference room. Men in austere black robes casting sidelong stares at her belly as if the baby would jump right out and onto the table... Lucius had finally got fed up with the way people were treating Hermione, and his understated pressure had pushed the committee in the right direction just in time to get Hermione home for her banana and cereal sandwich.

"You already do too much," Lucius said, but it wasn't an admonishment; he sounded proud. He placed his hand on her lower back as he guided her up the stairs to their bedroom.

"It's just enough if it makes the lives of a few people that much easier." Hermione held her hand out for Draco, which he took, lacing their fingers together.

A few people was a massive understatement. The amount of werewolves who couldn't afford the Wolfsbane had been overwhelming. Now, with the payment coming from Ministry coffers, hundreds, if not thousands of werewolves would never have to suffer through the uncertainty, the pain, and the powerlessness that came with a transformation without the potion.

Just as Draco had always known would happen, Hermione had changed the world.

The three were now lying on their massive, shared bed. Hermione had taken to sleeping with them again in the last few weeks, and Draco couldn't be more grateful. The very idea that she could go into labour without him being there...

Draco, facing Hermione, caressed her belly. He never would have believed she'd be able to get so big. Every now and then he'd give a soft push, and the baby would push back, making him smile. He couldn't wait to meet his child.

Draco's breath caught as a flare of magic from Hermione...from the baby...rolled over him. It was like stepping from a shadow into the warm sun, all over his body and even inside his mind. The magic continued to throb and swell, pouring out with an identity of its own, a personality so clear, so strong that Draco couldn't believe he hadn't felt it before.

"It's a boy," he breathed, eyes wide. He looked up at Hermione to see her beaming at him, and Lucius sitting up behind her, looking almost as shocked as Draco felt.

"Yes," Hermione whispered, her hand on Draco's cheek. "You could feel him?"

"He is so strong," Lucius said, awed. "He will be formidable."

"Now you know what I've been feeling for months now." Hermione chuckled and tucked her hand under her cheek on the pillow. "He's been constantly barraging me with his magic."

"I've never felt it before," Draco said.

"No, it's never been so..." She paused, seeming to search for words. "External. I can usually feel it in my heart, in my mind, even if my blood. Little surges of power that let me know what he wants or needs, what he likes or doesn't."

Suddenly apprehensive, Draco said, "Does he like me?"

Hermione laughed but seemed to realise he was serious and stopped. "He loves you, Draco. And he loves you, Lucius," she adding, looking over her shoulder at Lucius. "His love is so strong and so... endless."

"I can't wait to meet you... Son." Draco didn't bother hiding the wetness in his eyes. He glanced at his own father, who looked so unbearably proud that Draco had to look away.

"He can't wait to meet you, either," Hermione whispered, a secret smile on her lips.

Draco swallowed. "You can... tell that?"

"It's more of a feeling. He's almost ready."

"Tell him we think it's time as well," Lucius said, his long, slender fingers joining Draco's and Hermione's on her belly.

Another pulse of magic washed over them; it felt contented.

Draco couldn't wait.

*

It was three o'clock in the morning two days later when Draco was brought from sleep by a small, "Oh."

"Wha...?" he said sleepily, blinking the tiredness away as he tried to place the sound.

"Draco, are you awake?"

Turning toward Hermione's tight voice, Draco said, "Yeah. Yes. Are you okay?"

"My water just broke."

Draco's heart stopped...but that simply wasn't acceptable, so he mentally berated it into starting again. He was about to meet his son! Nothing, not even death, would stop that.

"Are you... do you need... should we..." Draco took a deep breath. "I'll wake my father."

Draco reached behind himself and shook Lucius awake so hard that on any other occasion he would have been afraid of the consequences.

Lucius woke up with more grace that Draco did. "Hermione?" he asked, alert and wandlessly lighting the room.

"Her water broke," Draco said. "We have to go."

"Draco, just because..." But Hermione's words broke off into a moan.

"What? What's happening?" Draco was frozen; he needed to know what to do.

"Draco, relax. Go get Hermione's overnight bag and put it by the Floo. Get the house-elves to pack food...we're not eating that hospital dreck. There is still plenty of time before we actually need to go in."

Plenty of time turned out to be four hours. The baby let Hermione know when it was time, though her contractions were five minutes apart by the time the wave of magic told them their son was almost ready.

Hermione was the picture of stoical calm. She and Lucius breathed together; he wiped the dampness from her forehead and soothed her, and she reassured him with comments on how the baby was doing.

Draco knew he wasn't being any help; he knew Lucius was sending him from the room with busywork so he would stay out of the way, but he couldn't seem to calm down, couldn't seem to get a hold of himself. This was his baby, his child, his son! He wasn't ready. There was still so much to do. The nursery was set up but Draco suddenly hated the sage green walls and cherry wood furniture. Hermione's bag was packed as it had been for weeks, but he switched out the clothes...they'd be wrinkled and maybe even smelly from being packed away in her questionable luggage.

Finally, after a few moments trying to get himself together in the nursery, Draco returned to the bedroom where Hermione was on her hands and knees on the bed with Lucius rubbing and pressing her lower back.

He was about to demand, for the eighth time, that they get to St. Mungo's already, when a burst of calm stole over him, settling like a hat over his head and spreading throughout his body like spring water. His son's magic. He realised, just as if the baby himself had told him, that everything was okay.

He told Hermione and Lucius as much, but they only seemed amused, though Hermione's smile was a little strained.

"Time to go," Lucius said finally. Despite the sense of calm the baby was lending Draco, he was ready and anxious to get her to a hospital where people knew what they were doing.

"Can you walk? Should she walk?" Draco looked between Hermione and his father, unable to hide the panic he knew was written across his face.

"I might kill him," Hermione said through her teeth, letting Lucius manoeuvre her out of the bed.

"Draco, help or shut up."

It was the first time Draco'd ever heard his father use that particular expression, and it sobered him enough to make him realise that he really was able to offer assistance.

Together, Lucius and Draco guided Hermione down the long hallway, stopping occasionally to wait out contractions. Her belly was tight and hard, and Draco found he didn't like touching it as much as he used to.

The stairs were tricky, but finally they were in front of the Floo. "I'm going through with her," Lucius said, his voice stern, making Draco instinctively straighten and take note. "You're going to follow with the bag and the food."

Draco pressed a kiss to Hermione's lips, ignoring the sweat. She didn't return it, but squeezed his hand. He kissed his father as well, and Lucius seemed to try to send his calmness to Draco through the touch.

He nodded, letting Lucius know he was all right, that he could handle the instructions. A knot formed in his stomach as they disappeared from his sight. He'd been just about to follow them through when he realised he had to tell everyone. He couldn't count on the hospital Floo to get the missives across; he had to do it himself. He scrounged up a few leafs of paper, wrote the news, and sent them to the Burrow and to Michael and Thello. He hoped that only Harry and his wife would show up, but he was prepared to face the fact that their hospital room was likely to be an ocean of feckless freckled folk.

Grabbing up Hermione's bag and the package of food, Draco called his location and stepped through the Floo.

St. Mungo's was, as always, bustling to the point of absurdity. He scanned the crowd for his father's telltale hair and finally spotted it just as it turned a corner. Draco hustled after it, catching up to them and grabbing his father's hand.

Lucius turned and gave him a tight smile. Hermione was seated in a wheelchair being pushed by a mediwizard, who steered her into a semiprivate room and helped her onto the bed.

"Is everything all right?" Draco asked, feeling breathless.

"We just have some concerns about the baby's heart rate," the mediwizard said brightly as if nothing at all was amiss.

"What do you mean?" Draco looked to Hermione. "Is something wrong?"

She only shook her head. "I don't know... everything's so... confusing for him."

"I'll be back in moment with the Healer," said the mediwizard, who'd cast a strange look at Hermione for her comment, unaware that she could sense the baby.

Draco tried to see if he could feel the baby, wanting more of that calming sensation, or just anything to tell him his son was all right.

Lucius and Draco both stood by Hermione. Draco knew he had to remain calm, that Hermione needed him to be a rock. He had to be strong for her and not let his fear and nervousness take over. It was difficult...impossible, really.

"He'll be fine," Lucius said, a reassuring hand on her belly. His cool voice relaxed them both.

"All right, what do we have here?" The Healer strode into the room, wand at the ready, flanked by two mediwitches.

"That mediwizard said the heart rate was a concern," Lucius said, his tone simultaneously dismissing the comment and demanding that the Healer do something about it.

"Let's just have a look..." The Healer cast a complicated spell, and a projection of Hermione's insides appeared in the air above her belly.

If Draco hadn't already known the sex, he would have now. The child's tiny penis was clearly visible in its slightly stretched position.

"Oh, my," Lucius said, the closest he'd come to affected since Draco had woken him.

"Holy shit," Draco said less eloquently but more succinctly. "My son."

"You're the father, then?" the Healer asked, frowning at the image and shooting a glance to Draco.

Draco wanted to strangle him for daring to frown at his child. "We both are."

The Healer looked over, seeming to take in Draco's comment. He nodded after a moment but said, "Well, unfortunately, we have a bit of a problem. The umbilical cord is wrapped around the child's neck. It doesn't appear to be causing him distress right now, but it will significantly impede birth."

"But you can do a c-section or something, right? He'll be okay?" Hermione's voice was strained and she had tears on her cheeks.

Draco wiped them away as he awaited the Healer's response. He wouldn't let anything happen to his family. He saw his father had the same determination.

To Draco's relief, the Healer smiled. "I'd forgotten you're a Muggle-born." Evidently the Healer knew who they were; but who didn't those days? Before any of them could snarl at him, he quickly added, "We have a more advanced method of extracting the baby. It's sort of a focused Apparition but much less disconcerting. In any case, we spell the baby asleep so he won't be disturbed by it. The baby comes out, everything is fine."

"Then why wouldn't every witch do it that way?" Hermione demanded, her hands resting protectively over her stomach.

"There is some risk of... Splinching," the Healer replied soberly.

"What!" Draco shouted, then lowered his voice at Hermione's flinch. "Sorry, love." To the Healer, he growled, "You might Splinch our child?"

"Like I said, the infant is in some danger if things progress. We can wait to see if he turns enough to unwrap himself, but with that comes the danger that it might get worse."

Everyone turned to look at Hermione, whose eyes were closed and face focused. Draco knew she was communicating with the baby as best she could through the light it gave off inside her head.

"We'll do the Apparition," Hermione said, then promptly burst into tears. She was then wracked by another intense contraction. Lucius comforted her.

"That would be my recommendation," the Healer said. He nodded to his minions and they approached the bed.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked of them, guarding his wife.

"We need to move her to a sterile environment for the procedure," said one of the mediwitches, looking nervous.

He glanced back to see Hermione nod at him and give him a weak, wet smile. He moved aside, glaring at them as if they'd caused his child to be in danger. They helped Hermione back onto the wheelchair and took her from the room...she whimpered and cast a look over her shoulder, and Lucius and Draco both began to follow.

The Healer raised his hands. "I'm sorry. Only the father may accompany her."

"You have got to be kidding me," Draco snarled, beginning to lift his hand to cast a nasty hex.

The Healer was unmoved, and Lucius grabbed Draco's hand to steady him.

"I'm sorry; those are the rules."

"Change them!" Draco shouted, frustrated and afraid. He hated the tears on his cheeks but a part of him hoped the Healer would take pity on his pathetic form.

The Healer only shook his head. "A mediwitch will be back shortly to bring you in." He left the room.

Draco turned to his father, mouth open and eyes wide. He shook his head in denial. Lucius reached out and pulled him hard into his embrace.

"Father, no, I can't... She needs you, not me. I'm horrible at this, and it isn't fair." He sobbed into Lucius' robes, clutching at his chest like he was seven years old again.

"It has to be you, Draco. She needs you...our baby needs you. I know you can do this. Don't let me down."

"I want you there," he whispered brokenly. "For our son, to see him born."

"I'll be right outside the door every moment," Lucius said, his voice low and rough. "Draco, I love you."

Draco forced himself, again, to calm. Taking comfort in Lucius' solidity, he breathed and straightened. "You are his father."

"I know that. The baby will know that. And when Hermione's recovered, we'll make sure the entire world knows it. We'll change the law. Make things better."

"No one will ever act like I'm more of a father than you to our son," Draco said, nodding. They could do it, too. They'd changed the world before.

"Go," Lucius urged, and with a final, desperate kiss, Draco left with the mediwitch who'd been waiting. Draco found he didn't even care if their kiss made it to the front page of the Daily Prophet.

He forced himself not to look back at Lucius, alone in the room. It was so fucking unfair. Who could decide who was a parent and who wasn't? Draco might be the biological father, but Lucius had blood in common with his son as well, and he would be doing the same amount of work as Draco would be. He certainly had more experience being a parent. And he was Hermione's husband! How could that count for nothing?

Deciding it was a battle for another day...this day, his son was being born...Draco let the mediwitch cast spells to make sure he wasn't bringing in any outside contaminants. When he approached Hermione's hospital bed, he saw she was drawn and pale, but there was still a look of such hope in her eyes that he couldn't help but be pulled into them.

"Where's Lucius?" she asked, her brown eyes wide and worried.

"He... they..."

"They wouldn't let him in," she answered for him. Rage, brief but fierce, flashed across her face before she settled. Draco could feel the baby's magic warming him, so he knew it was doing the same for her, calming her.

"We're ready," the Healer said. A bassinette was waiting to the side of the bed, manned by a competent looking mediwitch.

"How long will it take?" Hermione asked. Her sweaty hand reached out to grip Draco's, and he squeezed it reassuringly, feeling an answering magical caress from the baby.

"It's the work of a moment," the Healer assured them.

"And if you Splinch my son?"

"Draco," Hermione said, her tone admonishing. "He won't."

Draco gave the Healer a look that said, 'Don't make my wife a liar,' and the Healer showed his first sign of being cowed by Draco's anger. He gave a brief nod and told Hermione to relax, to clear her mind as much as possible, think of nothing.

Draco could see Hermione was in significant pain, but her features smoothed out nonetheless. A tear trickled down her temple into the mass of frizzy brown curls. Draco held his breath.

There was a whispered spell and then a great commotion. Hermione gasped and tried to move, but she was held down by a mediwitch who said, "The sensation will fade. It's just from being so suddenly empty; we've removed the placenta as well."

Draco tried to see his son, tried to understand if the swarm of people around the bassinette was a good thing or a bad thing, but he couldn't hear anything but a buzz of voices until...

A cry.

A strong, strident wail from lungs as powerful as the baby's magic.

Draco let out a sharp exhale, his knees threatening to buckle. Hermione cried into her hands before wiping away the tears and saying, "Is he okay? Is everything all right with him?"

"He's fine," the Healer said quickly, looking relieved, himself. "There was no Splinching whatsoever."

"Give him to me," Hermione demanded, her voice thick with tears.

"We just have to perform the diagnostic spells..."

"Perform them while he's in my arms, then!"

Draco took a step forward, knowing he was menacing the Healer and not caring. With satisfying haste, the Healer placed their son in Hermione's arms.

"Oh, he's so perfect," Hermione said, breath hitching on a sob.

Draco finally got a look at his son. His wife was right: he was absolutely perfect.

"I want my other husband in here," Hermione declared. She looked up to make sure her demand was heard and looked pleased when one of the mediwitches left.

The baby was still squalling, but it was so easy to look past it when everything else was so beautiful. Perfect, tiny fingers clenching around his, stronger than a baby should be. At first Draco thought the baby was bald, but when he got closer he saw there was a shock of white-blond hair, so fine it was almost invisible. The baby's eyes were closed, but they had the shape of Hermione's. Her heart-shaped face, as well, with none of Draco's rather sharp features. A perfect Cupid's-bow mouth, opening and closing with his wails. Tiny toes. A very red face.

Lucius' arms came up around him from behind, holding him tight against his broader body. "Our son," he whispered, kissing Draco's ear.

Draco moved aside and let Lucius closer. Lucius leant in and kissed the baby on his chubby cheek, and they all smiled when he quieted down a little.

"I think we know who the calming influence will be," Hermione said. She sounded tired and strained but the pride was obvious.

"Excuse me," the Healer said, stepping in and doing the tests. They all watched, awaiting the result with anxiety heavy between them.

After a moment, the Healer said, "Everything is fine. Perfectly healthy."

Draco smiled arrogantly. "Of course he's perfect." It was obvious to anyone who looked.

One of the mediwitches said, "You have a number of guests waiting to hear the news."

Hermione looked confused. "How did they know?"

"I told everyone just before I got here," Draco said. "I knew you'd want them here."

When Hermione's smile turned watery, Lucius offered to take their son. Hermione took a deep breath and handed him over. Draco was able to see him even closer now, and he saw the white eyelashes and rounded little nose. Gods, he was so in love.

"Shall we introduce him to the world?" Lucius asked.

"Yes," Hermione said. The Healer saw she meant to get up and urged her to lay back while he performed both healing and diagnostic spells on her. She looked a little less pained when he was finished. Draco helped her onto the wheelchair very slowly and pushed her into the room they'd first been taken to, with Lucius following close behind.

Inside the room, as Draco had feared but was secretly glad of, were Weasleys galore. Thello and Michael stood to one side, looking a little overwhelmed. Michael was obviously excited and Thello hid his emotions but couldn't help the way his eyes brightened when they entered the room.

Arthur and Molly Weasley were at the forefront, and they rushed Hermione. Harry and Ginny were holding hands and Harry's lower lip looked bitten through. George Weasley was standing with Percy, who looked awkward but proud, as if he'd had a hand in things. Bill Weasley and his veela wife were there. There was only one Weasley missing...the dragon wrangler.

And standing in the far corner was Hermione's former love and best friend. Ronald Weasley was twisting his hands together, his eyes darting between Hermione and the baby and back. Draco watched Hermione give him a brilliant smile, and he calmed, smiling back nervously.

"Everyone," Lucius said, bringing the baby into everyone's sight. "May I present our son, Altais Harold Granger Malfoy."

Draco grinned at Harry, who gave into his obvious urge and let his tears go.

As everyone crowded around the baby, exclaiming over him and his name, Altais opened his perfect little mouth...

...And roared.

*Altais is a star near Draco, and it is a corruption of an Arabic word that means serpent...though it might be wishful thinking that a son of Hermione Granger ends up in Slytherin. :D

This is the second-last chapter, folks. I know some people were hoping for more time with the baby, but the main points of the story, the incest angle, the furtherment of Outreach, and Lucius quitting his job, have all been addressed. If there's anything you would absolutely love/need to see in the epilogue, let me know. It promises to be quite long.

Be sure to check out my new (though I wrote it many months ago, so forgive the adverb abuse...I've moved past that, I swear) Harry/Hermione fic. And don't forget that once the epilogue for this is posted, my Snape/Hermione chaptered fic will begin!

Huge thanks to Krystle Lynne and my anonymous friend for the amazing beta work. :D