Harry was entering week twelve, and that reminded him that this was the deadline to make a decision about a possible abortion. He had already decided he wouldn't go through with it, but that decision felt even more real on that Monday. Frighteningly real. Final. There was no going back, and as much as he had chosen, that didn't mean he wasn't terrified.
Another thing he had noticed was that his clothes were getting a bit tight, his trousers, specifically. His shirts were still Dudley's old ones. The fabric of the trousers was starting to bother his abdomen in an almost symbolic way. Everything seemed to be pressing in around him: the clothes, the world, the decisions.
He was sitting at the breakfast table, eating some scrambled eggs with toast, seriously considering going back to his room to grab an extra jacket, since the first class was Potions and it was held in the dungeons. The food went down like a stone. Not because it tasted bad, actually, it was quite good, but because the very idea of eating was almost always accompanied by an emotional nausea. Eating felt like a chore, a mechanical obligation, not a desire.
Hawthorne would be satisfied to see him at least trying. He didn't know exactly what was stopping him. It wasn't just the nausea, it was the feeling that it simply didn't seem right. As if there was something deeply wrong with the idea of taking care of his own body. Something learned far too early.
The owls came in, and he looked up to watch them, feeling his chest tighten as he remembered Hedwig. The memory of his owl hit him with the same force as always, a warm, cutting ache he had never quite been able to name. He saw an owl carrying a package flying toward the eighth-year table, and he startled when it dropped it, catching the package on reflex.
At least he still had the reflexes of a Seeker. If nothing else, his body still did that for him, it reacted quickly. Ironic, considering that keeping himself fed seemed to require a monumental effort.
He frowned, looking at the package in his hands, glancing at Ron and Hermione, thinking it might be for one of them, but Ron shrugged and Hermione shook her head, clearly curious.
The package had only a logo on the paper, and before he could open it, Hermione snatched it from his hand, casting a few safety spells before deciding it was safe and giving it back.
He began tearing the paper and saw fabric underneath, wool, unbelievably soft, in a cream shade. He pulled it completely from the package and saw that it was a coat. It wasn't long, probably just enough to cover his backside. He picked up the card that had fallen from the coat and read that it was a cardigan made of wool, cotton, and elastane, with permanent waterproofing and warming charms.
He felt his throat tighten. There was something intimate about that choice, not in the gesture itself, but in the practical care it carried. The kind of care he still didn't quite know how to accept.
His eyes automatically went to Malfoy, who was watching him. Malfoy gave only a small nod, and Harry knew it had been him who had sent it.
He stood just to take off his Gryffindor cloak and scarf, slipping on the coat and feeling that small, persistent chill he always carried disappear. It was strange… far too comfortable. As if, for a moment, he were in someone else's body, someone who deserved warmth.
He smiled, noticing how the sleeves covered half his hands, and then saw there was a small hole for his thumb to slip through, keeping his hands always covered yet functional, always warm.
It was silly, but it almost made him cry. For some reason, it felt like someone had truly thought of him, exactly as he was, in the way he needed. And that was rare. Extremely rare.
"It's beautiful, Harry," Hermione said, watching him.
He smiled, putting the cloak back on over the coat, not feeling the need to put on the scarf, so he shoved it into his bag.
"It's soft," he murmured, and Ron arched one eyebrow.
"Yes, Ron, it was him who sent it," he replied to the question he knew his friend was silently asking, and saw Ron nod.
He took a sip of his juice before swallowing the nutrient potion, tossing the vial into his bag to return to Madam Pomfrey.
It always made him feel guilty. Like admitting he wasn't doing it right. As if he depended on it too much. He sat back down, looking at the food on his plate.
His nausea had given him a break, according to Hawthorne, it wasn't supposed to come back.
But hunger… hunger still didn't seem to come naturally. It was a task. A mission. Eating enough for two when it was already hard to eat for himself alone.
He glanced at Malfoy, who was paying attention to something Bulstrode was saying. One hand went to where he knew the fetus was growing, and he forced himself to finish what was on his plate.
Not out of hunger. Not out of pleasure. But because there was something, someone, inside him who needed him to try. Even if he wasn't quite sure how.
Ron snatched his bag when they started walking toward the dungeons, and Harry just rolled his eyes, not in the mood to argue. Hermione was talking about something related to the potion they were supposedly going to work on that lesson.
Harry walked the whole way with his hand over his belly, it was comforting. He felt that, somehow, it helped keep his baby safe. From what Hermione had read, the baby should be between five and six centimeters now (approximately 2 inches). So big and so small at the same time.
He often wondered if the baby could feel when he did that, if that superficial touch could somehow convey safety. It was silly to think so, but it was also comforting. And comfort was scarce these days.
He entered the classroom calmly. Ron placed his bag on the floor and sat on his side of the desk, and Harry quickly took his own seat after grabbing the book for the lesson.
Professor Slughorn arrived, walking to his desk at an unhurried pace, settling in and scanning the room before lowering his eyes to the scrolls on his table.
"Mr. Weasley, switch places with Mr. Malfoy, please," he said without looking up, and Harry frowned.
Ron sighed, looking irritated, grabbing his own bag and getting up to sit beside Zabini.
"As if sharing a room wasn't enough," Harry heard Ron mutter, and he laughed as Malfoy settled beside him.
He was getting used to his presence, more than he would ever admit.
He rummaged through something in his bag and placed a bottle in front of him. It was completely white, with a few red details, and larger than the one with water in his own backpack. Harry's eyes went back to the taller boy, who was looking straight ahead, where Slughorn was writing something on the board.
"Try it and tell me what you think," he murmured quietly.
Harry shrugged, picking up the bottle and taking a sip. It was a little creamy, sweet but not too much, with something of vanilla in it, he was sure of that, but that was all he could identify. It was good.
It was so rare for something to go down his throat without causing nausea or guilt that he simply closed his eyes for a second and let the good feeling exist.
"I liked it," he said softly, catching the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the blond's lips.
He looked at the board, reading what they were supposed to do for that class, trying to focus and ignore the buzz of voices that seemed louder than usual, or maybe he was just short on patience for any noise today. He got distracted when Malfoy moved the small cauldron from the center of the desk to the far edge, away from him.
"You're not breathing those fumes," Malfoy murmured, jotting something down on a parchment, and once again Harry rolled his eyes, taking another sip of the drink before closing the bottle and slipping it into the bottle pocket of his backpack.
"At least let me get the ingredients," he muttered, glancing at the list on the board and standing up, walking to the cabinets at the back of the room, where a few other students were already gathered.
"Here." Parkinson stopped in front of him, handing him what seemed to be all the ingredients. Harry raised an eyebrow at her, and she replied with a fake smile and an equally irritating shrug.
Harry turned back, walking to his desk and placing the ingredients there, crossing his arms and turning to Malfoy without saying a word, just waiting for him to look his way.
"What?" he asked without looking at him, and Harry rolled his eyes.
"Who else did you tell?" he asked quietly, and Malfoy finally fixed his grey eyes on him. "Besides Zabini, Nott, and Greengrass," he murmured, naming the ones he already knew, and Malfoy sighed.
"My mother and Pansy," he replied simply, shrugging.
Harry sighed, nodding as he sat down. Damn, it wouldn't be long before people realized what was happening to him, it was just a matter of his belly starting to show, and that wouldn't take long.
Harry wasn't a tall man, he was 1,69 m (5′6″), though he liked to round it up to 1,70, slim, with a small build. Honestly, it was almost humiliating to compare the width of his shoulders to Ron's, even though his friend was just over 1,80 (6′0″). A belly would be easy to notice, and once his classmates noticed, the Prophet would notice, and then the entire wizarding community.
Wonderful. Just what he needed, another headache.
"We're going to have to tell the Prophet, aren't we?" he muttered, and Malfoy looked at him again, completely expressionless. "We could tell the Quibbler," he murmured, anything to annoy the Prophet was pleasant, plus it would help Luna.
"Whatever you think is best, as long as we're the ones telling it, so we don't hand the narrative over to some sadist," Malfoy said with a shrug, picking up the ingredients and examining them. "Could you chop this for me, please?" he asked, and Harry raised an eyebrow, finding it a bit amusing. "Yes, I'm trying to be polite, Potter," Malfoy rolled his eyes.
Harry gave a faint laugh, picking up a root of something he couldn't quite identify and starting to cut it according to the instructions on the board. The smell of the root didn't bother him, which was already a relief, and maybe that's why he managed to focus.
The chatter in the classroom seemed amplified, making him restless. He was on his second root when a thought came to him, and he looked at the blond, who was working with some liquid ingredients.
"What did your mother say?" he asked quietly, and the blond turned to him.
"She basically scolded me for the lack of protective spells, got in touch with the lawyers, and started looking for apartments, like you already know I have," he replied calmly.
Harry nodded, going back to what he was doing before. When he finished, he handed the materials to Malfoy and moved on to the next ingredients.
The rest of the lesson passed quietly, without further conversation. The potion was successful, they got an "O," something Harry hadn't received since the Half-Blood Prince's book, back when he still had Snape's notes. Ever since Slughorn had become his professor, he had been getting several "E"s, much like when Snape had taught him, only now it wasn't Snape doing the grading.
He packed up his things when they were dismissed and walked toward his friends, who were waiting for him in the corridor. He smiled at them, they had Charms next, just a few flights of stairs away. He was about to complain to them when his wrist was grabbed, and he found himself face-to-face with Malfoy.
"What is it?" he asked, confused, and his wrist was released.
"The cardigan, do you like it?" he asked, and then Harry remembered what had been keeping him warm. Almost without thinking, he ran his fingers over the fabric covering his hands.
"Quite a lot, actually," he murmured, feeling his cheeks warm.
"Okay," he replied simply, an almost imperceptible smile on his lips before turning and walking over to the Slytherins who were waiting for him. Harry watched for a moment, noting the confident way he walked away.
"What was that?" Ron asked, and Harry just shrugged.
"Ronald," he grumbled when his backpack was pulled off his shoulders, turning to his friend, who looked utterly unyielding. "We talked, if you can call it that," he said with another shrug, reaching into the bag for the bottle the blond had given him. He began walking toward Charms.
The weight of the bottle in his hand was comforting. It wasn't food, it didn't make him feel too full, and the taste… he really did like it. He took a sip, feeling the creamy liquid slide down his throat, and thought that if all "eating" felt like this, maybe it wouldn't feel so wrong.
"This is good," Hermione said, and Harry nodded before taking another drink from the bottle. He really did like it.
"Yeah," he shrugged. "He bought an apartment in London so that neither of us would have to set foot in the Manor," he told them, glancing at his friends.
Hermione looked pleasantly surprised, and Ron's eyes went wide.
"He bought an apartment just so you wouldn't have to go back to that Manor?" he asked, sounding incredulous.
"I told him I didn't want our… going into the Manor, that I didn't want to expose this, and he agreed, said he'd already gotten an apartment," he explained, avoiding the word "baby" in the crowded hallway with so many students around.
"I don't want to start feeling sympathy for Malfoy, stop talking about him being decent," Ron complained, and Harry laughed.
"Look, I can say I've got a mess of feelings about it too," he admitted, letting the taller boy drape an arm over his shoulders.
"It's good to know he's trying," Hermione said, glancing at the two of them, "that he's taking this seriously."
Harry nodded. "I was scared at first that he wouldn't take it seriously, but he is," he sighed, taking another sip from the bottle.
"You've got therapy today, don't you?" Hermione asked, and Harry sighed, nodding.
He'd started the previous week, it was the last slot on Mondays and Thursdays, in a free room near the Eighth Year dormitory. The therapist, Healer Elwood, was a Muggle-born woman, nearly forty, gentle, never scolding him when he got sarcastic or ironic, and she hadn't reprimanded him when he cried during the second session.
He actually liked the woman, and she'd even made an Unbreakable Vow with him never to disclose anything from his sessions or treatment, unless it was necessary to save Harry's own life. That had been one of the rare moments when he'd truly felt safe with an adult who wasn't Sirius or Professor Lupin.
They were working on the issue of food, because that was something urgent when it came to the baby. Consequently, they were talking about the Dursleys, which was good, because, as far as Harry hoped, it would help with his insecurities about his upbringing and about the baby.
Charms had been uneventful. Ginny was there, and it was comfortable to be near her, maybe a little too comfortable. Comfortable enough to make that knot in his stomach tighten even more. She still didn't know about his current situation, and he wanted to change that, but every time he thought about opening his mouth, the whole scene would play out in his head. The heavy silence, her expression, the exact moment the word "Malfoy" would drop into the conversation and change everything.
It was like carrying a bomb in his pocket, at any moment, through carelessness, he might drop it. The worst part was, he wasn't even sure what her reaction would be, anger, shock, disappointment, maybe all of them at once. And he didn't want to lose the little bit of normalcy he still had when they were together.
Maybe he could talk to Elwood about it before they dove, once again, into his bright and cheery childhood.
Class was wrapping up when Harry remembered he still had Transfiguration and DADA before lunch, which made him sigh with exhaustion. At least he'd have Care of Magical Creatures before therapy.
He saw Malfoy when they went to Transfiguration, they had that class together, but they were allowed to keep their usual partners. Harry figured Slughorn had only paired them in Potions because Malfoy was more skilled than Ron, and, as the baby's father, he wouldn't let Harry get hurt. Slughorn could sod right off.
Not that it had been bad, but honestly, he could take care of himself. Besides, he was Ron's partner in every class where he wasn't partnered with Hermione. The two almost never sat together because they argued too much when it came to schoolwork. Nothing had ever happened to him, Ron and Hermione would sooner hurt themselves than hurt him, and he knew it. He felt the same way about them.
The bottle Malfoy had given him was empty by the time they got to lunch. Harry made the same effort as before to eat, focusing more on the quality of what he put on his plate than the quantity.
Before heading back to class, he went up to his room, wanting to take off the coat he'd been given, he didn't want to get it dirty in his last lesson. But he stopped halfway when he saw several similar packages stacked on his bed, along with a bottle identical to the one Malfoy had given him earlier, except this one was black.
He went straight for the bottle, uncorking it and sniffing. The same scent. Out of habit, he cast the security spells before sitting down and staring at the bed, piled high, feeling a little lost. Then he picked up the first package, the smallest, and opened it.
It was a beanie, made of the same material and color as the coat he was wearing. The soft fabric made his fingers linger on it, a small smile escaping before he could stop it. The next package revealed a tracksuit, a deep, rich red, loose-fitting, with a note saying it only had the waterproofing charm, no warming spell. The thick fabric seemed to hug his fingers. It was very, very soft.
On the trousers, there was another note explaining they were magically adjustable at the hip. Just what he needed now that his trousers were starting to feel tight, now that his belly was beginning to show signs of growth.
He'd never seen wizards wearing tracksuits, though he liked them a lot, and it made him wonder if Malfoy had had these made especially for him. Those adjustable trousers probably could only exist if custom-made.
And then came the inevitable thought, how much had Malfoy spent on all of this?
The question left a strange weight in his chest. The only family who had ever truly given him gifts were the Weasleys, and always simple things, full of affection. The sweaters Molly knitted were worn with great pride. He had never minded the simplicity, value had never mattered.
But now, seeing that pile of clothes, each one newer and softer than the last, was almost suffocating. It wasn't that he didn't like them, Merlin, he did, there was even a strange warmth in his chest, but it was too much. Too much for someone who, until a few years ago, would count himself lucky to get second-hand socks for Christmas.
There was a brown sweater, made of the same material as the cardigan he was wearing. A quilted leather jacket, beautiful, and easy to imagine on himself. Another jacket, this time denim, lined with wool, according to the tag.
The next one made him smile for real, a plaid shirt, softer than his pajamas, without any enchantments, probably there just because Malfoy had noticed he wore them a lot.
He then found another beanie, this one white, a pair of cream-colored gloves, and an incredibly soft blanket that made him want to wrap himself in it and sleep, forgetting all about the classes he still had left.
It was strange, the whole pile screamed wealth, planning, and attention. And Harry didn't know if he wanted to sink into that feeling or run from it.
He smiled when he saw Neville, the gesture returned by his friend, and let him drape an arm around his shoulders. He huffed when his backpack was taken off his back, but if he spent energy fighting everyone who did that, he'd have no strength left for more than three classes.
"So, we haven't been alone since you told Ron and Hermione," Neville said, and Harry already knew what was coming. "Malfoy, huh?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Nott, huh?" Harry shot back without missing a beat, watching with some satisfaction as Neville's cheeks took on a reddish tint.
"How did that happen?" his friend pressed, curious, and Harry noticed that even the way Neville was looking at him now seemed different, more attentive.
"If I tell you, will you tell me what's going on with you?" he asked, and saw his friend let out a small laugh, nodding. "We were drunk. I don't even remember who kissed who. I don't even remember how I got to my bed afterward," he shrugged, noting from Neville's expression that the taller boy wasn't satisfied. "It was in the common room, on that piece of furniture the elves leave the water bottles on," he added.
Neville pulled back from the half-embrace, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. His genuine shock made Harry burst out laughing, feeling lighter for a few seconds.
"Harry," Neville said, incredulous.
"Tell me what's going on with you," Harry replied, smiling.
"There's nothing really going on," Neville said, pushing a door open so they could both pass through. "You know the Death Eaters liked to torture me because of my parents, right?" he murmured, and Harry held his hand.
"For that, and because you never bowed your head to them, you even tried to steal the Sword of Gryffindor from Snape's office. You were incredible here, Neville," he felt the need to say, and saw a smile bloom on his friend's face.
"You know Theodore's trans, right?" Neville asked, and Harry's eyes widened. "Mate, you were always following Malfoy around, you didn't notice when someone from his group stopped wearing the uniform skirts and braids and started wearing the boys' uniform after cutting their hair?"
"No," Harry shook his head, genuinely surprised.
"Mate, everyone talked about it for two straight weeks in third year."
"I was busy with the supposed serial killer who was supposedly responsible for my parents' deaths and who also happened to be my godfather," Harry reminded him, and Neville let out a small laugh.
"Okay, fair," he agreed, glancing down for a moment. "Not many Death Eaters had a problem with Theo, but some did. They didn't use Unforgivables, but he ended up with the same aftereffects I did," he explained, raising his hand to show the faint tremor. At the start of the year, it had been so bad Neville could barely hold his wand.
"Is he taking the same potions as you?" Harry asked, and Neville nodded.
"Yeah. We had to change where we kept them because in the bathroom we'd mix them up, and that's how we started talking," he said with a shrug, but Harry caught the different tone in his voice, as if hiding something softer.
"Mhm. And when did you fall in love with him?" Harry asked, and Neville flushed even deeper, his ears turning red.
"Fuck off," he said, laughing, and Harry laughed too.
Their laughter blended together, as if for a brief moment they'd gone back to a time when their biggest worries were overdue homework and Quidditch matches.
"You called him 'Theo,' Neville," Harry murmured, still smiling. "Not even a little kiss yet?" he asked, getting a light shove in response.
"You're the one who slept with someone and can't even say their first name," Neville shot back.
Harry stopped walking, lips parted in an expression of shock so exaggerated it could almost have been an act. Seeing his friend laugh only made his own fake incredulity grow. He stepped closer and shoved Neville back, not hard, but enough to make it clear he was joining in on the game.
"Fuck off," he said, laughing, and the sound of his own laughter mingled with Neville's, loud, carefree, filling the corridor with a warmth that had become rare lately.