“So we can tell them?”

Draco blurted the words out before he could stop himself. In the past two months he had exercised more self-control than he had ever thought possible. He could picture how excited Lily and Scorpius would be at the idea of a little brother or sister, and more than anything he wanted to share the joy he had been feeling all summer with them.

Ginny sighed, unzipping her dress and letting it fall to the floor. There was a tired sadness about her face, and Draco instantly regretted not being more sensitive.

“I’m sorry, Gin,” he said quickly.

“No, no, it’s all right,” she replied, sliding a fallen strap of her slip up her shoulder. He marveled at how quickly her body was changing. The swell of her stomach was prominent now—beneath something as formfitting as her slip, her pregnancy was blatantly obvious.

“We can tell them. We should tell them, I’m surprised they haven’t guessed already.” She laughed humorlessly, gesturing at her stomach.

“You’re sure he didn’t do anything to you?” Draco asked sharply. “He didn’t touch you?”

“No,” Ginny replied emphatically. “He was really fine. I think he’s just sad. I wouldn’t be surprised if he married Susan to stick something to us.”

Draco couldn’t help but feel that that wouldn’t be so bad—maybe then Potter’s presence in their lives wouldn’t be so pressing—but he knew Ginny wouldn’t see it that way so he kept his mouth shut.

He sat on the bed and looked at her hopefully. She turned her head and caught a glance of him and laughed, rolling her eyes.

“Yes, we can tell them,” she said, still laughing as she kissed his forehead. “Tomorrow morning at breakfast? Then Lily and I can tell James and Albus when we see them Friday. And they’ll all know before the boys go off to school next week.”

Draco grinned and launched himself onto the bed, burying his face in the pillow. His nightmares had been much fewer in the past two months—sleep came much easier now. But he knew tonight the anticipation of breakfast would keep him from sleeping at all.

Ginny slept beside him peacefully, lying on her side, cradling her belly. As he lay there awake, he couldn’t help but roll over onto his arm to look at her every few seconds. She was beautiful—just as beautiful as she had been ten years ago, sleeping in his bed in Paris.

He rose before the sun was up, showered, dressed and sat on the bed, foot jiggling against the floor as he waited for an hour appropriate enough to wake his family.

My family. Merlin, a year ago I had no one. The thought shook him a little. Twelve months ago he had been utterly alone with nothing to his name except a successful bar in Prague and a son he got to see once a year. Now he had a wife and two children who all lived under one roof, and a baby on the way. A child that he would get to name and raise and be a part of every milestone there was to come. It seemed surreal, even now, months later.

When the sun finally started to trickle into the room and creep across the bed, Ginny opened her eyes blearily and smirked at Draco.

“How long have you been dressed?”

“Not that long,” he insisted, standing up. “Come on, get dressed. I’m going to go make breakfast.”

“Ugh, just let me throw my robe on. We can tell them before breakfast. You look like you’re going to piss yourself,” she said irritably.

Draco huffed at her but went to wake Lily and Scorpius, who were even more distressed at the early hour. They both stumbled downstairs with mussed hair and rumpled pajamas.

“Dad, it’s early,” Scorpius whined, lowering his head to the table. “Why are we up so early?”

Lily gurgled something that might have been words from beside her brother.

“Your mother and I have something to tell you,” Draco told them, his voice wavering from trying to keep the excitement out of it.

“Well, where is she?” Lily murmured, rubbing her eyes.

“I’m here, I’m here.” Draco turned to see her walking into the kitchen, her hair pulled back into a ponytail and her face glowing. The thin cotton shirt she was wearing was stretched across her stomach, and Draco saw that she had no intention of hiding this anymore.

Lily and Scorpius were both staring at her, clearly not half-asleep any longer.

“Mum?” Lily said uncertainly.

“Draco, did you want to tell them?” Ginny said, smiling graciously.

“You lot are going to have a little brother or sister in a few months,” Draco revealed, and he felt instantly lighter as the words came out.

Lily squealed, jumping up from her seat to give Ginny a hug. Scorpius chuckled in his seat. “Oh great, another redhead to deal with,” he said—but he was beaming widely.

“Oh, come here, you,” Ginny giggled, hugging Lily tightly. Scorpius grinned as she pulled him into the hug. Draco couldn’t help but hang back and stare at them, the three—well, four, really—people he loved most in the entire world, locked in an embrace. Ginny looked up and caught his gaze from between the tangle of arms, and in an instant, Draco was wrapped up in the hug as well.

Saying goodbye to Scorpius turned out to be easier the second time around, especially with Ginny and Lily at his side. Cecilia kissed Scorpius goodbye further down the platform, oddly without a twenty-something boy on her arm.

“You’ll be gigantic the next time I see you,” Scorpius told Ginny, hugging her gently.

She gently smacked the back of his head and made a face. “Have a good term,” she said, smiling. “Don’t get into too much trouble!”

He winked at them as he climbed onto the train. “No promises.”

As he watched the train pull out, Draco couldn’t help but imagine sending Lily off along with Scorpius next year, and his heart wrenched a little.

The house was quieter without Scorpius, but things certainly didn’t slow down. Within two days of his departure, Lily and Ginny had started turning one of the spare bedrooms into a nursery. Draco went in every once in a while to laugh as they argued over paints and rocking chairs and stuffed animals. Occasionally one of them would ask his opinion to be the deciding factor in their argument, but he would just laugh and shake his head. He knew better than to give his opinion.

There were appointments at St. Mungo’s that filled him with both excitement and dread. Every visit taught him something new about their unborn child, but there was still the looming worry that something might go wrong.

Ginny seemed to move through the pregnancy with beauty and grace. If she was nervous about anything at all, she didn’t let it show. Perhaps to her it all felt routine, carrying her fourth child, but Draco couldn’t help but jump every time the baby kicked. Anxiety and elation and emotions he couldn’t even label welled in him as Ginny passed the six-month mark, and suddenly January didn’t seem so far away.

“Gin, we’re never going to agree on two names,” Draco sighed one afternoon after hours of looking through baby books.

“We’re not finding out the sex of the baby,” Ginny said firmly, swallowing a spoonful of her huge banana split.

They had just returned from her monthly appointment, and Draco found himself breathing easier. The Mediwitch had informed them that the baby was completely healthy and the right size. She had also said that Ginny was only pregnant with one baby, a fact that Draco noted with relief considering twins ran in the Weasley clan.

“But then we’d only have to decide on one name,” Draco whined, eying her ice cream with amazement. She was getting quite big frankly, which suited Draco just fine. He knew better than to ever let on that he was noticing her weight gain, however. Ginny had been getting more hormonal lately, and Draco did his best not to upset her—Ginny was fairly reactive even when she wasn’t incredibly emotional.

“We can’t even do that, considering your obsession with astronomy!” Ginny huffed.

“It’s a family tradition,” Draco grumbled in return.

“There are quite a few Malfoy traditions I don’t intend on upholding, thank you,” Ginny replied wryly.

Draco bit his tongue to keep from replying. Ginny had gone back to her sundae, and he took a deep breath before saying calmly, “There are some normal names. Leo isn’t so bad. Or Vela, for a girl. We could call her Ela.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Yes, but why only have a list of bizarre names to choose from when we could name our child anything?”

“Well, how about you pick one name and I pick the other?”

Ginny pausing, licking her spoon while staring at him thoughtfully. “All right,” she replied hesitantly. “But I have to approve your name choice.”

“That hardly seems fair,” Draco pointed out.

“Fair! You’re going to talk to me about fair?” Ginny all but bellowed. “Look at me! I’m barely into my seventh month, and I’m huge! Can you imagine what I’m going to look like in three months? When you want to take over and start carrying the baby, then you can start deciding what’s fair.”

She sucked in another breath, clearly planning to continue, but Draco quickly interjected, “Okay, okay! I’m sorry. You can approve my name.”

Her lower lip wobbled horribly for a moment before her whole face crumpled into a sob.

“Oh, no, Ginny. Ginny…” he soothed, getting up to rub her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry!” she wailed, wringing her hands in her lap. Well, she didn’t have much of a lap anymore, but her hands rested on her belly. “I know I’m being completely mad.”

Her face was splotchy, and her brows were tight over watery eyes. Draco smoothed the crease between her brows with his thumb tenderly. “I love you, Gin. You’re right, I’m not the one carrying the baby—you deserve to be as mad as you want.”

“Thank you,” she whispered quietly into his shoulder as he hugged her. As Draco pulled back she looked down at the nearly finished bowl of melted ice cream. “Ugh! I have to stop eating ice cream. Will you get some Pumpkin Pasties when you’re out?”

Most of their days followed a similar pattern. Ginny continued to grow, sometimes bursting into tears for no reason at all. Lily, who was bewildered at first, ended up being enormously helpful. Once she and Ginny had finished the nursery, she and Draco would often go shopping for both things they needed for the baby and Ginny’s erratic cravings.

“What are you and Mum going to name the baby?” she asked one afternoon while they were shopping for a hovering cradle. Ginny and Lily had bought a crib months ago for the nursery, but since Ginny had started reading the parenting section of Witch Weekly, she had discovered all sorts of new, magical contraptions for babies. Draco approved of her uncharacteristic extravagance—he wanted this baby to have the best of everything no matter how much it cost.

“I get to pick the name if you’re getting a sister, and your mum gets to pick it if you’re getting another brother,” Draco replied, walking down the aisle as Lily skipped ahead. “Do you want a brother or a sister?”

Lily looked back at him over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “I already have three brothers, Dad. Do you think I need another one?”

Draco chuckled. “So you’d be disappointed with a brother?”

Lily stopped in front of a cradle and examined it before turning to look at him thoughtfully. “No, I’ll be glad whatever it is. I’d just rather have a sister. What name do you have picked out?”

“Erm…Vela? Like the constellation. Maybe call her Ela for short?” Draco ventured tentatively.

“Oh,” she cooed, “that’s pretty. Do you know what Mum picked out?”

“Not yet.” He had been a little nervous about what Ginny would pick out himself lately; she was being very secretive about it.

Lily let out an impish little laugh, and Draco marveled for what felt like the millionth time over how incredible she was. He couldn’t believe that perfect little girl was his daughter.

He couldn’t believe Ginny was in her last month. Nearly everything made him nervous. When the baby kicked and she jumped, his head snapped up in a panic. When she tried to hoist herself up from a low chair, he immediately sprang to help her, scolding her for trying on her own.

Everything was completely prepared by December. The nursery was done, and Draco had to admit it was beautiful. On an early frosty morning, he stood in the doorway, admiring his wife and daughter’s handiwork.

They had painted the walls the palest of blues, with magical painted clouds swirling across the ceiling. At night, stars twinkled from above the crib. George’s wife Angelina had thrown Ginny a baby shower in November, and the bureau in the corner was filled with clothes she had received.

Angelina herself had given birth to her first child a week ago, and it was she and George who had drawn Ginny back into her family.

Well, more or less, Draco sighed to himself.

All of her siblings except the Weasel himself had been at Ginny’s shower, although Granger had showed. And Ginny still wasn’t on speaking terms with her mother. She had been so happy the day of her shower—absolutely glowing—but he could tell she had noticed their absence. It broke his heart.

He was proud of how far they’d come though. Ginny had reconnected with nearly everyone in her family, including her sons. At the start of the Christmas holidays, she took them shopping for gifts, no matter how strongly Draco had protested her going out.

And he couldn’t even object when she had invited them to dinner one night. It had impressed Draco how well the three boys had gotten along—almost unnerved him. But it seemed that all the children would do anything to keep from upsetting Ginny. She had put expanding charms on even her maternity clothing now, and some days it felt like she was perpetually on the verge of tears.

“I completely forgot how big pregnancy makes me!” she would howl as she tugged on a snug fitting sweater.

All Draco could do was weather her insecurities for another month; nothing he said ever helped. It drove him completely mad that Ginny brushed off his reassuring compliments like she did his suggestions that she not take the kids to a Quidditch match only three weeks before her due date. How was he supposed to keep her and the baby safe if she insisted on being so active, he would demand exasperatedly. But she would just laugh and kiss his cheek and tell him she was fine.

He settled himself in the parlor, absentmindedly reading a book until Ginny and Lily came home. Draco knew a Quidditch match would probably be a few hours, but after only forty-five minutes he caught himself checking the clock.

He had been about to completely give up the idea of reading when there was a knock at the door.

What is she doing? Draco wondered as he strode into the foyer and opened the door.

“Did you lose your k—?”

His words died in his throat. The woman in his doorway was not his wife, but her mother, bundled up in winter garments.

“Hello, Mr. Malfoy,” she said curtly, stepping past him into the foyer. For such a small woman, she certainly had presence.

“Mrs. Weasley, excuse me. What are you doing here?”

She removed her hat and scarf along with her coat and laid it on the table beneath the portrait of Lily and Scorpius Ginny had commissioned the previous summer.

“I haven’t seen you since you were a teenager,” she remarked, folding her arms across her chest and looking at him squarely. “You certainly look different.”

“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked stiffly.

Mrs. Weasley nodded. “Might we sit down?”

He wanted very much to tell her, no, they couldn’t sit down. She could tell him what she wanted and then she could bloody well leave. But curiosity got the best of him, so he nodded tersely and led her into the parlor.

She sat down on the sofa opposite his chair and straightened her collar. Draco could tell that beneath her domineering front that she was nervous. She was having difficulty swallowing, and when she finally spoke it was only after clearing her throat.

“You understand, don’t you, that you are the second husband of my only daughter—the man who tore apart the parents of my grandchildren and caused us all so much pain? I think I have every reason to hate you.”

She said this all quickly and clearly, as if she had rehearsed it in her head a time or two before.

Draco furrowed his eyebrows and rose to get a drink from his cart. “Well, then you understand that you crushed my wife and daughter and did your best to make them miserable for the past year because of their decision to be in my life. And I have every reason to hate you.”

He poured himself a club soda—he didn’t want alcohol for this, rather he needed something to do with his hands. When he had returned to his chair, she looked at him and said, “I can see this won’t be easy.”

“What exactly is it you’re here for?”

Molly Weasley sighed, patting her hair nervously. It was more gray than red now, and the lines ran deep in her face. “My only daughter—my baby girl—is about to have another child. And I cannot possibly imagine not being there for that.”

Draco sipped his soda, looking at her hard over the rim of his glass. “And I respect that, I really do. But all of those things you said to hurt Ginny are still there. I understand you want to know our baby, but unless the origin of your problems is resolved, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I won’t let our child be born into that conflict.”

“What do you want from me, Mr. Malfoy?” she demanded, her tone annoyed. “Do you want a public retraction and apology for the things I said to Ginny and the boys? That hardly helps anything.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Draco said coldly. “That won’t help anything either. No, I want to know that your intentions for entering back into this family are right. I’m not about to give you the opportunity to endorse Potter again just because you don’t want to be left out. This is our family, and it will stay that way. You have to accept that.”

Her eyes softened. They were Ginny’s eyes exactly—even the wrinkles at the corner were the same shape. “Draco,” she said gently. “That’s exactly why I’m here.”

He saw that she meant it. Draco felt his hatred for her slipping, and he made no effort to tighten his grasp on it. He resented her for what she had put his family through, but he could tell that her words were genuine.

And it dawned on him quite suddenly that their baby would be born into a whole family instead of a fragmented one. He could forgive Molly, just as she could forgive him, for the sake a beautiful redhead they both loved and of an unborn child, already uniting them all.

Author notes: Reviews, please!