Chapter Text
It was a bathroom. Again.
Quite an ordinary bathroom, if such a thing existed in Hogwarts. Not a highly frequented one, as it was located on the seventh floor, at the end of a long hall of empty classrooms. Not a very large one, either; he’d find no passageways to secret chambers in that one.
But a bathroom again, Harry noted with a certain resignation. Why did so many of his quests lead him to a place where people went to take care of private bodily functions?
He looked down at the Marauder’s Map in his hand. On second thought, maybe ‘quest’ wasn’t exactly the right word. Maybe obsessing over a particular dot’s location (“again, Harry, honestly”) wasn’t exactly what he should be doing, either. Maybe following someone around and poking his nose into their private business was not a healthy way of expressing… whatever. Maybe Hermione was right and he should give it a rest.
But. He’d checked the map five times in the last hour alone, and the dot hadn’t moved from its position in the stall closest to the window. Before that, it had hovered by the sinks for at least thirty minutes, circled the room once in a while, pausing by the wall only to return to the sinks. That wasn’t… normal. Even if the rest of the school hadn’t been in the Great Hall celebrating the first Christmas after the war, spending that long pacing a remote bathroom wasn’t a good sign.
Hermione’s face, concerned and oh-so-familiar, appeared before his mind’s eye.
Leave it, Harry. Really. Of course he’s keeping to himself. So would I, after… after everything. Do you really believe he’d dare put a toe out of line, with an official tracking charm on him? It’s ridiculous.
Ron’s face, angular in a way it hadn’t been before the war, joined hers.
Listen, mate. The ferret’s hiding because he’s terrified to show his pointy face in public, as well he should be. So what if he misses classes. It’s not your concern, is it?
It wasn’t. But. Why would anyone come back to Hogwarts – slink back, for lack of a better term, their head hung, never looking anyone in the eyes as they hurried down the corridors – only to be absent from classes? Why bother? And why spend so much time hiding in a bathroom? Hogwarts had better bolt holes to offer if one did not wish to be seen.
His own dot on the map was the only other presence in the vicinity. There was the mass of dots in the Great Hall, so many that it was nearly impossible to make out the overlapping names. There was Trelawney in her tower, doing Merlin-knew-what, and Mrs. Norris, stalking something on the third floor.
Other than that, it was only himself and Draco Malfoy. About to meet in a bathroom… again.
Thinking of their last encounter in such a place, Harry took a deep breath as he opened the door. No matter what, he wasn’t going to let himself be provoked into a fight. If Malfoy was up to no good, they’d deal with it somehow. And if he wasn’t, if he was hiding himself away, maybe they could… talk. Or something. Harry hadn’t exactly thought this through. All he knew was that Malfoy spent too much time in empty bathrooms these days, and he was going to find out why.
The place was dimly lit, with only a few lanterns flickering on the wall. Harry eyed the row of stalls until his gaze caught on a pair of feet on the tiled floor.
He was still processing what he was seeing when he heard a low, pain-filled groan. The feet moved a little, twitching spasmodically. Harry took two long strides into the room, then two more until he saw the pair of legs attached to the feet, the robes and the white-blond hair.
“What the hell!”
Malfoy was indeed on the floor next to the toilet, curled up with his arms wrapped around his midsection, his eyes clenched shut. A film of sweat gleamed on his forehead, making his hair stick to his face in clumps. And on the tiles next to him…
“Fuck, Malfoy, you’re bleeding!”
This was all too familiar, too much of a déjà vu. Only there had been no curses this time, and there would be no silently furious Snape to rectify the situation. There was only Harry, kneeling helplessly on the cold floor, and Malfoy, who had opened his eyes a sliver to glare at him.
“An… astute observation, P-potter. Ten points to Gryffindor. Now kindly piss off, w-would you?”
He groaned again, his eyes closing with another onslaught of pain. Harry stared at him, his hands hovering stupidly over Malfoy’s crumpled robes. Over the blood.
“Did you do something to yourself?”
Malfoy snorted – or sobbed; Harry couldn’t be quite sure. “P-piss off, Potter. I mean it. Go away.”
And Harry saw the trousers around Malfoy’s ankles, the bloodied pants. “Fuck, Malfoy, did someone… hurt you? You’ve got to get to the hospital wing. I’m going to get help.”
Malfoy’s hand shot forward and clamped around Harry’s wrist. His fingers dug in hard enough to hurt. “No! No help. It’s not… aaagh!”
Something made Malfoy curl in on himself and literally howl. His fingernails cut painfully into Harry’s skin.
“What is it?” Harry moved closer, desperate to do something. “Where does it hurt?”
Malfoy lifted his head at that, wet with sweat and tears and still as furious as Harry had ever seen him. “It h-hurts where the fucking baby is c-coming out, you fucking tosser!”
Harry stared at him. Malfoy was making no sense, was probably hallucinating, and yet…
Carefully, Harry reached for the robes that covered Malfoy’s legs and found them wet with… something, blood or another fluid that didn’t show on the dark fabric. He pulled them up, aware that he was doing an outrageous thing and Malfoy had every right to hex him into pieces for this.
“Oi!” Malfoy shrieked, and still, Harry moved the robes out of the way until he saw. Saw everything.
He would have been less shocked to find a girls’ bits down there. He knew about Hermione’s cousin, who’d started some sort of Muggle hormone therapy when they turned eighteen. He’d heard Uncle Vernon rant about ‘unnatural freaks’ after that documentary on TV, an insult he usually reserved for ‘Harry’s lot’.
But Malfoy had a bloke’s equipment, alright. All present and accounted for. And directly behind his balls, in a place where it certainly didn’t belong, there was a great bloody gaping hole.
Harry got only a glimpse before Malfoy clamped his legs shut and lashed out. If he’d been in possession of his full strength, he’d probably have given Harry a shiner. As it was, his fist glanced weakly off Harry’s cheekbone, knocking his glasses askew.
“Get your fucking hands off me, Potter, what the fuck!”
“Is that,” Harry said, feeling shaky and ill in a way that had nothing to do with Malfoy’s attempted punch. “Is that – are you – why are you – “
Before he could put his thoughts into some semblance of order, Malfoy screamed again and clutched at Harry’s arm. He curled in on himself and suddenly drew closer, his entire body trembling. “It hurts!”
He let go and began sobbing into his arm. “Oh Merlin, make it stop…”
Harry began to get to his feet. “I’m getting someone. Madam Pomfrey. You should be in the hospital wing. Why aren’t you in the hospital wing, are you mad?”
“NO!” Malfoy shrieked. “No, Potter, please, it’s – I’m – they don’t know, alright?”
“Who doesn’t know?”
“No one, okay? No one knows. I – I’m dealing with it.”
“Like fuck you are,” Harry said, unable to believe what he was hearing. What he was seeing. For some unfathomable, unholy reason, Draco Malfoy was… what? Giving birth on a bathroom floor? Harry still wouldn’t have believed it, if not for the small bump he’d seen between Malfoy’s hip bones when he’d pushed up the sopping wet robes. That, and what he’d seen in that… injury Malfoy had down there. His mind refused to categorize it as anything else. That glimpse of wet hair on a tiny head.
A great spasm went through Malfoy’s body and he grabbed onto Harry with both hands. “I’m DYING, Potter! Help me!”
Prompted by instinct and pure panic, Harry put his arms around the shaking body. “Y-you’re not though, right? You – you’ve got to – I don’t know – push?”
“I CAN’T!” Malfoy screamed, and a second later, Harry was screaming, too, for Malfoy had sunk his teeth deep into his forearm.
“AAH, Malfoy, fuck, let go!”
Malfoy did, only to sob and scream some more. Harry held on to him, ignoring the searing pain in his bleeding arm and the thrumming in his head. This was completely mad. This was-
Sobbing wildly, Malfoy hitched up his robes and pulled one leg towards his chest. There was so much blood, and for a moment, Harry’s vision began to swim as the room around them swayed dangerously.
“Don’t you fucking pass out on me, Potter!” Malfoy screeched, and just like that, the world slid back where it belonged.
There was a head coming out between Malfoy’s legs, and it was the scariest thing Harry had ever seen, Dementors and Dark Lords included. Malfoy’s fingers were digging into the place where he’d bitten Harry’s arm.
Another spasm shook his body. Malfoy groaned pitifully, arching his back, and with a wet noise Harry knew he was going to hear in his nightmares something slithered out and onto the tiled floor.
Something. A baby. It was incredibly tiny. It moved feebly, and Harry saw a blueish thing attached to it, an awful thing which hung out between Malfoy’s legs. Cord, he thought numbly. That’s the cord.
Malfoy was sobbing in great, heaving gasps. The… opening between his legs was bleeding, there was blood on the floor and on the baby and on Harry’s hands as he reached for it.
Because someone had to, right? They couldn’t just leave it on the floor. With trembling hands, Harry picked up the tiny body, which felt warm and solid and somewhat slimy from all the goo. He gathered it to his chest. It moved again as if in protest, and then Malfoy’s son opened his mouth and let out a thin, piercing wail.
Malfoy turned his head. His face was splotched, swollen and terrified. “Is… is it alive?”
Harry nodded carefully. “Yeah. Looks healthy enough.”
Tears ran down Malfoy’s cheeks. “P-potter, I…”
“Listen,” Harry said, eyeing the horrible cord thing and the blood on the floor, and panicking as quietly as he could manage under the circumstances. “Listen. Someone – someone has to cut that. And – you’re bleeding. I’m sending a Patronus to Madam Pomfrey. Now.”
He expected Malfoy to argue, but no protest was forthcoming. As the tiny boy in Harry’s arms began to wail louder, Malfoy had quietly passed out.
*
“Keep that poultice on your arm, Potter,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Best to let it soak for a while. Human bites can get nasty. You’ll want some more Wiggenweld on that before I apply the Dittany.”
Harry barely looked at the folded-up towel she handed him. The teeth marks on his forearm seemed so insignificant that he was almost annoyed with her for fussing over them. He wasn’t the one who’d been rushed into a private room, closely followed by the Healer and mediwizard who had flooed in from St. Mungo’s. He wasn’t the one bleeding everywhere as he was levitated through the corridors to the hospital wing.
So much blood. Could a person bleed to death in a matter of minutes? Had he, Harry, made it all worse by not sending a Patronus the second he found Malfoy on the bathroom floor? He should have, he knew. He’d been blindsided by what he’d seen, but that was no excuse. He might have killed Malfoy.
“Potter.”
He looked up to find Madam Pomfrey frowning at him. Her hand settled on his shoulder, a rare gesture coming from her.
“You did the right thing. Mr. Malfoy and the child are getting the help they need. It must have been rather a shock.”
Harry swallowed. “I don’t understand. How can he… you know. Have a baby?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m afraid it’s not the first time a student hid a pregnancy. I’ve been telling the school board for years that we need mandatory physicals at the beginning of term.”
“No, I mean…” Harry shook his head. Obviously, Madam Pomfrey was not treating Malfoy as a medical miracle, so… but it couldn’t be. He would have heard about something like this. Hermione would have told him… wouldn’t she? “How can he be pregnant? That’s not normal for wizards, is it?”
“For pureblood wizards, it can be,” Madam Pomfrey said. At least she didn’t seem to think he was an idiot for not knowing. “It’s partly why some of them are so set on marrying other purebloods. The ability for men to conceive by magic is linked to a certain set of magical chromosomes. They’re recessive, which means that Muggle or Muggleborn genes will often prevent their expression. An exceptionally powerful halfblood could impregnate a wizard regardless, but in most cases, non-pureblood genes prevent the pureblood wizard from conceiving. Which is as it should be,” she added rather harshly. “Wizard pregnancies tend to be unstable and drain the father of his magical energy. If they do happen, they should be monitored closely by a professional, especially if the wizard in question is a chronically anemic eighteen-year-old with as much common sense as a drunk mooncalf!”
She cleared her throat. “Sorry, Potter. I suppose Mr. Malfoy’s irresponsibility is hardly your fault.”
“Is he going to be alright?” Harry asked softly. “When the - the baby came… there was…”
He couldn’t quite explain just what he’d seen between Malfoy’s legs. It had looked like an open wound, jagged and bleeding and certainly not like anything that should be part of a natural – or magical – process.
Madam Pomfrey sighed. “That was the birth channel. Or what should have been one, had a Healer assisted Mr. Malfoy and directed his magic during labor. As it was, Mr. Malfoy’s magic acted on its own and… more or less forced its way through. He could easily have died in the process. He would have, if you hadn’t been there. You likely saved his life by walking into that bathroom when you did.” Her eyes lingered on his face. “You really didn’t know, did you?”
“No, I…” Harry trailed off at her expression; a careful, examining look. “Oh no. No, it – it’s not like that.”
“Of course it isn’t,” she said, frowning.
Harry was spared from answering when the door to the hospital wing opened and McGonagall came in, still in her official dress robes from the Christmas feast. She looked flustered, something Harry couldn’t remember seeing before on the usually austere woman.
“I got your Patronus, Poppy – what’s going on? Where is Malfoy?”
“Still with the Healer,” Pomfrey replied, back to her professional briskness. “He was critical when he was brought in, but they’d stabilized him when I checked ten minutes ago.”
“And the child?”
“Doing well,” Pomfrey said. “Mr. Malfoy and his son are lucky Mr. Potter happened to come by when he did.”
Harry, who had hoped to stay unnoticed, shrank back a little under McGonagall’s fierce gaze.
“Happened to come by, Potter?”
He winced. “I… may have seen Malfoy on my map…”
“The infamous map, yes,” McGonagall said, and he wasn’t at all surprised that she knew about it. “Go on.”
“I went to see what he was up to, hiding in the bathroom. I swear I had no idea he was… er. You know. I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“Well,” she said, “no matter your motives, Potter, it’s fortunate that you went after Malfoy. I suppose…” She hesitated for a mere second, then cleared her throat. “I suppose you were there when it happened?”
Harry nodded, trying very hard to ignore the images forming in his head. If anybody had offered to Obliviate him and erase those horrible endless minutes from his mind, he might have agreed. “I – yes. I was there.”
McGonagall sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Poppy, I – ”
She broke off when the door to the private room opened. Healer Oakbridge stepped out, followed by the mediwizard who was carrying a bundle of blankets in his arms.
“He’ll survive,” she said curtly. “I managed to repair the damage. He’ll need blood-replenishing potions and strict bed rest, of course. The wrist bracelet is a tracking charm, I suppose?”
McGonagall nodded. “Mr. Malfoy’s on probation after his trial.”
Oakbridge raised an eyebrow. “That’s what I assumed when I saw the Mark. You’ll have to notify the Ministry that his magic was nearly drained. It might interfere with the charm.”
“He’ll get it back though?” Harry asked, ignoring the openly curious look the mediwizard gave him, as well as the carefully assessing one from the Healer. “His magic?”
Oakbridge nodded. “In time, yes. A birth is no small feat to accomplish for anyone. And wizards do not have the stamina or the physiology that witches have. Mr. Malfoy took a great risk, trying to do this on his own.”
Which was strange, Harry thought. Malfoy had never been one to take risks, not willingly, anyway. He’d accepted a suicidal mission because he had to; because it was that or his own life, his entire family on the line. And still he’d failed, in that crucial moment when it was time to put aside his terror and act.
He wouldn’t have planned this, Harry realized. Malfoy hadn’t intended to hide in a bathroom and secretly give birth to a baby no one knew about. More likely than not, it had just… happened. Happened because Malfoy hadn’t known what else to do.
Harry wondered how desperate a person had to be to let it come to this. How lonely. Malfoy hadn’t spoken to anyone on his return to school; had kept his head down, sat at the back of the class and ate his meals alone at a corner of the Slytherin table. And no one made much of an effort to change that. The younger Slytherins gave him a wide berth, as did Nott and Zabini; only Goyle had sat with him once in a while, but Malfoy hadn’t spoken much to him, either. And the other Houses… well, there had been incidents. Hexes, tripping jinxes, the like. Harry had told a few Hufflepuff Sixth Years to give it a rest (Hufflepuffs! Hexing Malfoy! It was almost too absurd to consider if he hadn’t seen the evidence in front of him). Malfoy had gathered up his scattered school things and hurried off without a look back. The incident had occurred a month or so ago. Malfoy must have been… well, close to term. How did he hide it? How did no one – not a single person – notice something like this?
Of course, someone must know outside the school. Malfoy’s mum, surely. And the… the other parent. The other father, Harry supposed. But if Narcissa Malfoy knew, she wouldn’t have allowed Malfoy to come back, would she? She wouldn’t have let him hide his condition from everyone, to the point where he endangered his own life.
So, Narcissa might not have known, after all. And if Malfoy’s boyfriend had left him to do this on his own, he deserved to be hexed to pieces. Harry wasn’t quite sure why the thought enraged him so much. Of course, Malfoy would date exactly the kind of tosser who abandoned their partner at the first sign of trouble. Probably some smarmy pureblood git who’d buggered off to France or wherever the moment Malfoy told him.
If, in fact, that was what had happened.
Harry tossed the Wiggenweld poultice onto the bedside table, watching as Oakbridge handed Madam Pomfrey a number of potion flasks and told her to firecall St. Mungo’s immediately if Malfoy’s condition worsened. The mediwizard let Pomfrey take the bundle of blankets from his arms and followed the Healer outside, not without sneaking a final glance back at Harry.
McGonagall crossed her arms in front of her chest, emanating impatience. “A word, Poppy, please? In private.”
Pomfrey nodded. “Of course, Minerva. Let me just… ah, Potter won’t mind.”
Before Harry could utter a word of protest, she settled the bundle in his arms, briskly adjusting his hold so he was supporting the head.
“I’ll be in my office with the Headmistress, Potter. Look after him for a minute, would you?”
“But…”
“That’s a good lad, thank you.”
And they were gone, the door to Pomfrey’s office clicking shut behind them. Harry looked down at the child in his arms, the baby he was holding for the second time today. Before, it had been wet and slippery and rather like a strange little merbeing fished out of the Great Lake, including the unholy shrieks. Now, Harry could see that it was a real and actual human Malfoy had somehow brought into this world. He even spotted a certain resemblance to Malfoy in the baby’s squishy features. It figured, he supposed, that Malfoy’s son would be another pointy little ferret.
As if he had sensed Harry’s thoughts, the tiny boy opened his eyes and gave him the kind of soul-penetrating stare exclusive to cats and very young children. His eyes were light grey, their color darkening into a hazel-green ring around the iris.
This was Malfoy’s child, Harry thought. Obvious as it was, it was hard to wrap his mind around the idea. He’d literally witnessed this baby coming out of Malfoy (an experience he never ever wanted to repeat), but still, the idea of Malfoy as a father, someone’s dad, like Mr. Weasley… It kind of broke his brain to think about it.
“I’m sorry,” he told the baby, not sure if he was apologizing for thinking of pointy ferrets, for being utter rubbish as a midwizard or for the fact that he wasn’t Malfoy, the only person who really had a right to hold this tiny little human. Perhaps all of it.
Malfoy’s son hadn’t inherited his father’s irritable disposition, it seemed. Instead of screeching at Harry like Malfoy undoubtedly would have, the baby yawned and closed his eyes. A moment or two later, he was fast asleep again.
Harry held him until Madam Pomfrey returned, shrugging off her thanks. Minding Malfoy’s newborn son for a few minutes was certainly not the strangest thing he had ever done.