Happy Christmas, Family Malfoy

Happy Christmas, Family Malfoy

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Chapter 2

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Dinnertime came, but Severus hadn't returned yet. Lucius tried not to worry -- after all, why should he have done that? Severus had every right to go out of the Manor for a while. So, he concentrated on scolding Sirius and Remus, who kept playing with their food, and trying to get Juliah's food go to the girl's mouth instead of all over her. After the children had been more or less fed, he told them to go to play for a while before they had to go to sleep. Needless to say, they were rather eager to do that.

So, after a moment, he sat in the master sitting room with Juliah while the rest of his offsprings were doing a fairly good job at wrecking the Manor in whole. His youngest daughter, who was still too young to properly appreciate the art of mischief-making, was happily sitting on the floor and playing with her favourite stuffed unicorn. Lucius himself, however, was far from calm or happy. Instead, he was scared, and worried out of his usually so calm and controlled mind.

Of course he kept telling himself that even if Severus was pregnant, everything would still go just right. Remus would take care of that, if nobody else. Their werewolf friend had helped Severus through his last six pregnancies, and become a rather good "midhusband," like Sirius sometimes teasingly called him. However, like an annoying voice in the back of his mind kept telling him, not even Remus could do everything. Each of Severus's pregnancies had been more difficult than the previous one. With Juliah, it had been pure hell -- just how bad could it be this time?

So, he was torn between relieved and terrified as the flames in the fireplace flared high and then the dark form of his husband stepped out. Lucius rose up to greet his husband. However, as he took a closer look at Severus, he froze. True, Severus rarely looked too happy right after finding out about yet another baby being on the way, but never before had he seen this look of utter mortification on his husband's face. Severus looked scared. The only times Lucius had seen the darkhaired wizard scared before had been the few times they had almost lost one of their precious children. And not any of those could match this horror.

"Severus?" he asked, immediately concerned. "Love, what is wrong? What has happened?"

Now, the jet-black eyes were shot to him, and he saw the horror there. "Lucius, I'm pregnant," he said quietly, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "I just found out about it."

"Well, I figured out as much as Janus said you'd gone to see Poppy," Lucius said calmly. "But being pregnant has never scared you like this before. What exactly is wrong, Severus dear?"

"I'm two months pregnant," Severus whispered, "and there are already some complications." Now, Lucius shot him an alarmed look. This did not sound good. However, just as the blond opened his mouth to talk, Severus raised a hand to silence him. "That's not all," he said quietly. "Lucius... I'm having triplets."

For a moment, Lucius just stared at him, the words not sinking in. Then he finally started to understand the full implications of this news. After Janus, every pregnancy Severus had experienced had at some point or another threatened to take his life. Their two sets of twins had been the hardest on Severus, who had enough problems with a single child, leave alone two.

In fact, with Remus and Sirius, they had for a moment thought that he was already lost. That had definitely been the most terrifying moment in Lucius's life. He'd been pacing in the next room, having been driven there by Remus and a mediwitch from St. Mungo's. And then Remus had come, tears streaming down his pale face, and said that it was very probable that neither Severus nor the babies would live. But with some miracle that nobody had been able to explain to that day, Severus had survived. So had the babies, although they wouldn't have if Remus hadn't given some of his own life power to them. Little Remus had been then named after his saviour, and his twin had been named Sirius. Sometimes Lucius said that he had given the beginning to the twins, Severus had given birth to them, and Remus had given life to them.

But death had been indeed near to Severus that one time. With Juliah, it had been only slightly better. What could happen now, when there were three babies? And if he already had complications...

Just as Lucius opened his mouth to call out the inevitable, however, Severus raised again a hand to silence him. As Lucius closed his mouth again, not saying a word, Severus said sharply, "I will not abort them. No matter what you say, Lucius, I will not abort my babies." He wrapped his arms around his stomach.

"But you might die, Severus," Lucius said softly. "I couldn't live with myself if you died because of this. And, considering the medical history of our family, those babies won't survive anyway."

Now, his husband gave him a sharp glare. "Either way," he said, "at least it won't be me who kills them."

Now, the blond just sighed, and then drew the shorter man into his arms. "I don't want anything to happen to you, Severus, for any reason," he said softly. "I love you far too much to lose you."

And then it was Severus's turn to sigh. "I know, Lucius," he said softly. "Believe me, I know." After they had stayed like that for some time, Severus tightly held in Lucius's arms, the darkhaired wizard then decided to speak up. "You did make sure the kids did their homework, didn't you?"

At this, Lucius couldn't help but laugh a bit. "Well, you certainly do know how to kill the mood," he said teasingly. "Yes, I did make sure about that. Everybody has done their homework -- even Draconah."

Five of the Malfoy children, Hannah, Janus, Draconah, Lucius, and Marius, attended to the Hogsmeade Pre-Wizarding School. Needless to say, their parents were the founders of the school. As most of Severus's time was spent either pregnant or recovering from his last pregnancy, he couldn't look after their ever-growing herd and take care of their pre-Hogwarts education. However, they didn't want to let somebody else to do that. Therefore, Lucius had decided to found a new school that all Wizarding children could attend to before Hogwarts instead of being taught home or attending to a Muggle school. So, from age four and up, the Hogsmeade Pre-Wizarding School nowadays held most of the Wizarding children in the country as its pupils. The building was large -- nowhere near Hogwarts, of course, but certainly big enough to hold all the thousand or so children inside. Even the Malfoy kids could be kept inside, although they were doing a fairly good job at bringing the school down.

Of course, the teachers had soon come to notice that the Malfoy children were not that easy to deal with. Well, Hannah wasn't that bad, and Janus certainly didn't cause any problems, but the rest were like little whirlwinds. Lucius suspected, however, that the teachers would stop calling his other children wild the very moment Remus and Sirius set a foot into the school, which wasn't even a year afar.

Now, Severus raised an eyebrow. "There was a mood to be ruined?" he asked. "I didn't notice." Then, seeing Lucius's expression, he smirked, and then sighed a bit tiredly. "See, Lucius, I only want to rest now," he said. "Like I said, Poppy noticed some complications that caused me to be ill more frequently and violently than usually. She did give me a potion against that, but it makes me sleepy."

Of course, Lucius was unable to resist this request. So, he picked up Juliah and led his husband to their bedroom. After seeing that Severus was resting in a comfortable position in their bed, he then went to usher the children back to their beds as well.

All the time, however, he kept thinking about Severus and their future triplets. If everything went well, of course. But everything would, wouldn't it?

Well, he did hope that with everything he had.

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