Events Unfolding
The next few days went by in a blur of happiness for Ginny, Draco, Ron and Samantha.
Ginny had gone out to dinner at a restaurant with Draco and there, for the first time, people saw that Draco Malfoy was going to be a father. In addition to the many "thanks" he received for helping capture the Death Eaters, he and Ginny received "congratulations" on the impending birth. They had met up with Narcissa at Florean's…where Ginny had first met her almost two years prior and was showered with baby gifts ranging from rattles to adorable pink dresses that left Draco wondering how on earth you get a newborn into a pair of tights. Ginny was so happy to be out, she wore the hair clip that Narcissa had given her months ago for her 18th birthday.
During dessert, Narcissa had broached the subject of a wedding. Being prepared for this question Draco had an answer.
"I think we are going to wait until after she is born. Give it a month or two, then have a proper wedding and honeymoon if we can get child care lined up," he said, casually, knowing his mother would jump at the chance to watch her first grandchild. And indeed she did, offering her assistance in anyway possible. Ginny could see how excited her future mother in law was and wondered if she was like this when she was pregnant with Draco. She was sure Lucius wasn't even half as interested as Draco was in their own pregnancy. He had poured over the books she had finished reading and commented on her diet and vitamins. Ginny took it in stride, knowing how he liked to be in control of things and let him make suggestions usually just nodding along with him as he talked.
As they left Florean's to a snow shower, Narcissa hugged them each goodbye and apparated back to her house, eager
to get on with her life in her own home.
Draco and Ginny walked carefully through the snow and as Ginny looked in a store window she saw a familiar face.
"Damn," Ginny mumbled as she heard the door to the store open.
"What?" Draco stopped and turned towards her.
"Hello, Draco," a voice came from beside them and Draco turned seeing Pansy standing there with her hands inside her winter cloak watching them evenly.
"Pansy," he said back to her, an arm automatically going around Ginny's waist.
She looked at him for a moment then to Ginny, down to her stomach and back up again.
Ginny smiled serenely.
"Oh, yes Pansy…he does go "THERE"," she reminded the dark haired Slytherin, pulling up memories from her sixth year when Pansy had made that comment to Ginny (after running into her after lunch with Narcissa).
Pansy smirked at her while rolling her eyes.
"I'm sure you'll be very happy together then, now that he helped save the world and all," she tugged her hat over her ears as a gust of wind blew up the street.
"Quite," Ginny retorted, snaking her arm through Draco's. Pansy's dark eyes moved from Draco to Ginny and back again and Ginny swore she saw something like envy flicker behind her eyes. Not wanting to get into any more confrontations, Ginny squeezed Draco's arm in a silent gesture meaning she was ready to leave.
"Nice seeing you, but we need to go."
Draco looked at Pansy for a moment, turned and followed Ginny.
"She just seems to pop up out of nowhere doesn't she?" Ginny said and Draco gave a small nod knowing she was on a roll. "I mean, every chance she gets she has to make remarks…what is up with her? I hope she moves to Australia and marries Nott. They deserve each other," Ginny fumed.
Draco was now seeing the full extent of hormones in a pregnant woman and was smart enough to just nod and make a non
committal "hmm" in the back of his throat.
Ginny changed subject just as suddenly as she went off.
"We need to get Luna and Neville a gift. They're getting married at the end of January."
"I thought they got married this past summer?"
"They postponed it with the Death Eaters and all."
"Really, well that makes sense I guess. What do you want to get them?" Draco asked trying to imagine the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor married and not being able to. He kicked at some snow that was piled on the sidewalk and held onto Ginny tightly as she walked over it.
"No idea. They are both so strange…," Ginny slowed down and Draco stopped.
"Borgin and Burkes?" he suggested and she stared at him.
"Do you really think we should buy them some Dark Arts "toy"?" Ginny asked her hands on her hips blinking as snow flew down in front of her eyes. Draco smiled at her then laughed at the vision of one of them blowing the other up.
"No, I suppose not," Draco grinned. "Come on, it's freezing let's go back to the flat and warm up. We can figure out something from there," he kissed her cheek and she leaned into him as they walked the short distance to the apparition point so they could get back to their flat.
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Monday dawned cold but clear and it was the first day back to work for Draco. Ginny had already left for St. Mungo's, having re-arranged her hours so she could be home the same time as Draco. As Draco headed down to his classroom, Professor Dumbledore caught up with him and walked down to the dungeons' with him, asking about his time away and showing a genuine interest in how he was doing and how Ginny was. It was after his inquiries that he told Draco he had received word late last night that Harry's uncle had passed away and he was going to be gone, leaving that afternoon.
"I didn't hear that," Draco had said lightly, now knowing why he didn't see Potter leaving his flat as the same time he left. Every Monday they ran into each other in the hall, both having early morning classes to teach.
"He just found out late last night and he and Hermione are packing up to be gone for two days, which leaves me to ask you if you could cover his OWL and NEWT level classes? The other levels I have asked Professor Snape to come fill in for…considering that is what he wanted to teach anyway. But, I would prefer if you would do the two levels I mentioned."
Draco quickly ran through the schedule in his head. It wouldn't mean he would be home any later or have to leave any earlier, but it did take any free time he had between classes away.
"I can teach those, Professor. This afternoon for OWL and tomorrow for NEWTs, correct?" Draco pulled out his notes and book, waved his wand at the blackboard and today's lesson wrote itself in Draco's handwriting across the board.
"That's right. I appreciate it and I know Harry does too," Professor Dumbledore responded, then bid him goodbye as the first tired looking second year stumbled into class. She seemed surprised to see Draco standing there and for a moment thought she was in the wrong class.
"Who are you?" she asked, not knowing if she should sit down.
"I'm your original Potions teacher. Who are you?" Draco asked just as pointedly and she looked at him suspiciously.
"Mackenzie Peters," she said cautiously. Draco waved her to her seat.
"Professor Malfoy, Miss Peters. And since you are here first you can do the honors of passing out twenty of these potion bottles," Draco pointed to the table in front of him and she looked at him for a minute.
"You're the one who went to capture the Death Eaters…with Harry Potter and a bunch of other people," Mackenzie carefully balanced the tray and put one bottle at each seat.
"Yes."
"Are you glad to be back?" she asked, her back to him as she passed out bottles to the last row and looked up briefly as a second year boy came in.
"I am. Now, when you're finished you can start copying the notes on the board down," Draco accepted the tray from her and saw other students begin filing in. He could hear her telling the boy who came in who he was and heard her say something about how Dennis Creevy could take his picture. Inwardly Draco groaned. He had forgotten about Colin's younger brother, taking the place of resident photographer. He made a mental note to check his sixth year list to see if he was indeed in his class this year. This was all he needed his first day back was someone tagging along behind him…and he was bound to have a "shadow" after the students found out about Harry's Uncle Vernon.
Later that evening Draco returned home to find Ginny asleep on the sofa, a pillow tucked under her stomach for support. He didn't want to disturb her so he quietly walked into the bedroom to change, spotting a note on his dresser. From Ginny: it told him the time of Vernon's funeral the next day---which she planned on attending but knew he was teaching. Draco was actually teaching Harry's class at that time and figured he would much rather do that than attend a funeral of someone he never knew and that no one really liked.
Buttoning up his shirt and tucking it into his jeans he padded barefoot out to the kitchen to see what he could make for dinner. It was hard for him to believe that four days ago he was sitting in a barn, eating a sandwich that Ron had scared up from someone, and now here he was staring at a stocked refrigerator. He pulled out the Shepherd Pie and went about heating it up magically as to not make any noise.
Leaving the pie in the container to stay warm he walked over to Ginny who was beginning to move slightly. He crouched down in front of her and brushed her long hair away from her face, then let his hand run down the length of her arm and settle on the side of her stomach. Now he understood why she was moving, he could feel the baby moving around under his hand and found it fascinating. When he looked up at her face again her eyes were open and she was watching him.
"I think she's playing Quidditch in there," Ginny yawned, covering her mouth then sat up with Draco's help.
"I don't have any problems with that," he said settling next to her and pulling her head to his shoulder.
"How was the hospital?" he asked.
"Busy. We actually spent the day in your wing; looking at the methods they use on the premature babies. I did learn that the healers can't use magic on an unborn baby, or even one that is just born until they determine if it is a witch or wizard."
"Why can't they use it on unborn babies?" he asked, interested.
"Well, apparently the mother's body puts up all kinds of defenses. So, other than basic check ups and taking the baby's information that can be read…magic can't penetrate into the mother. They can treat the mother if her blood pressure goes to high, or if she starts bleeding, but if the baby gets a cord wrapped around his neck and stops the circulation…there isn't anything they can do. Just like Muggle Pregnancies," Ginny moved a bit and pressed a hand to her back. "Also, certain types of magic won't work on babies that are born without magic…so it wouldn't help those babies anyway."
"That's something I never knew," he admitted thinking it made sense but felt it was still odd that even magic couldn't save an unborn baby.
"The wing is awesome, Draco. You and your mom did something extraordinary. There were four mothers in there with preemies and I could hear them talk about how nice the rooms were, how fantastic the birthing facilities were and how helpful everyone was," Ginny looked at him proudly and he smiled at her, not really knowing how to respond.
"Do you want something to eat?" he asked changing the subject and she nodded enthusiastically.
After dinner, Draco went into his office to catch up on some work since he missed his free time at school and Ginny went to study in the bedroom, saying it was more comfortable in there than anywhere else for her.
But, as she sat there and doodled on the side of her parchment she kept thinking about names for the baby. She had three months left, less than that actually and they hadn't even started on making the spare bedroom into a nursery. She had talked with him briefly about having the baby sleep in their room until she was a few months old and he seemed fine with that. She truly wondered if he knew how little babies slept at night. He wasn't around Brian much when he was a newborn and now at seven months old he was finally sleeping through the night.
She started jotting down names she liked, wanting to use her name as the middle name to carry on tradition on her side
of the family.
But what about a first name?
She threw out plain names like Sara or Jane thinking that it just didn't seem like something Draco would like.
'Well, I'll ask him when he's done,' she thought to herself.
She played around with names, combining names and then crossing ones out that sounded horrible. She left two names on her parchment and stared at them. Half an hour had passed since she started playing around with them and now she was thirsty. Deciding some juice would taste good she walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, pouring two glasses then walking into Draco's office with one. He looked up from his papers and smiled seeing the glass in her hand.
"How's it going?" she asked and he shrugged, accepting the glass from her.
"Fine. Not too many papers to look at today. How's studying?"
"Hasn't happened yet," Ginny admitted leaning against his desk and looking down at him. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"I was preoccupied," she smiled and took a sip of her juice.
"With what? Or don't I want to know?" he pushed himself back and bit and rested his hands on his legs, his juice in one hand balanced on his knee.
"Well, names for the baby actually. Just playing around with them…," she trailed off and took another drink.
"I know you said you wanted to use Ginevra as a middle name. Is that still something you want to do?"
Ginny nodded. "I was thinking of first names…and it's not easy with your side of the family and these powerful sounding names."
Draco stayed silent knowing she was right. He had no idea what name would sound good for a baby girl Malfoy.
A few minutes passed as Ginny looked around his office then back at him. He was still watching her with interest
knowing she had some names.
"Did you come up with any good first names?"
"Well, I finally found two that I liked, but I want your input too," she said setting down her empty glass behind her.
Draco shrugged again, " I am rubbish at that kind of stuff. I have never thought of naming my children or…anything like that until a few days ago. So, show me what you have."
"Well, I thought if we could combine my mothers and your mother's first names we might be able to come up with something interesting. I came up with two, one sounding more Malfoy than the other."
"What are they?" he asked trying to think of names that would work by combining their mother's names.
"Combining Molly and Narcissa I came up with "Melissa" and "Marissa"…with one or two "s's" on either of them," she said watching him for a reaction. His eyes flicked towards the ceiling…something he did when he was thinking something over.
"Well…both are nice but I have to agree that "Marissa" is more Malfoy sounding," he had read her mind on that point and saw her nod. He smiled and reached out and touched her knee. "I like it though. Do you?"
She nodded her heart racing as a major decision was just reached. Ginny reached out and took his hand. "Marissa Ginevra Malfoy it is…do you think we should tell everyone?"
Draco laced his fingers through hers and brought his chair closer to her knees. She was perched on his desk now and his face was pretty much level with her stomach. He set his glass on the desk and laid his hands on her stomach, thinking.
Ginny could feel him moving his hands slowly from the top to the sides of her stomach. But, the baby was still…only
Ginny could feel the tiny fluttering of a foot moving or the slight hiccup.
"I think we should keep it to ourselves…unless everyone drives you crazy. Then by all means tell them; we don't need anyone telling us what THEY think we should name OUR baby," he murmured, resting his hands on her legs and looking up at her. Leaning over best she could, she kissed the top of his head.
"Okay," she said extremely happy that he was so interested in the pregnancy.
Hermione said Harry had been the same way, but she had heard stories of father's getting a bit freaked out by their wife's changing body and not taking much of an interest in the whole pregnancy. Her brother was in the middle, still adjusting to the fact that his wife was pregnant and he was going to have to be responsible for a small human being in another three months. When they had dinner at The Burrow Ginny had seen how Ron was questioning Charlie about his nieces from how long they slept at night to how much they cried. He was clearly nervous about the whole ordeal. The only thing he and Samantha had discussed were names and they had decided on James, in honor of his best friend, Steven (Samantha's father's middle name)….so James Steven Weasley was to be the first Weasley grandson.
Promising to study, Ginny slid off his desk feeling Draco slap her backside lightly. She promised he would pay later and he just smirked at her, a gleam in his eye daring her to try.