Harry Potter & The Daughter of Malfoy

Chapter Four - Girly Bonding

"So this is your normal reaction, when you´ve been told that a complete stranger is carrying your baby?"

Lying on her stomach on the bed in the middle of the huge bedroom, Narcissa shrugged. "I wouldn´t know," she replied cheerfully, feet in the air, her ankles crossed daintily. "Its never happened to me before."

Harry looked around the enormous room he had been given, wondering if he should be suspicious of some kinds of torture devices, traps or other unpleasant things hidden in the walls and floor.

This, apparently, was Narcissa´s solution to the problem of having him in the house.

He had been given the largest guest room.

A huge bedroom that was easily a big as all of number four, Privet Drive, both floors included. The roof soared up into arched domes, from the centre of each was strung a glowing ball of crystal, issuing a pale, near-white light.

Many-paned windows lined all of one wall, stretching up towards the ceiling, with long, dark curtains hanging from brass rails to pool on the wooden floor.

Another wall was occupied by a massive granite fireplace engraved with miniature gargoyles to match those on the rooftop, which was opposite the enormous bed, upon which the gorgeous Mrs Malfoy was lying.

Harry was still trying to come to terms with the fact that she was a man.

"What am I going to do here?"

"What do you mean, sweetie?"

Harry shrugged, looking around the huge room, as he sat down on the edge of the bed next to her. "I´ve been told I have to stay here until I have the baby, since its your baby, so what do I do? Am I confined to this room or what?"

"I would have put you in the dungeon," Lucius Malfoy volunteered from the door. A glare was flashed at him by his...could she be called a wife? Malfoy immediately fell silent, his arms crossed over his chest petulantly.

"You´ll just have to ignore my husband, Harry, dear," Narcissa said, her crisp, hard tone warming as she turned back to Harry, smiling. "I sometimes forget that he´s an insensitive idiot."

"Excuse me!"

"You´re excused, Luce," Narcissa replied merrily, with a dismissive wave of her hand in her husband´s direction. "Now, dear, tell me, how have you been finding the sensation of being pregnant?"

This conversation was wrong on so many levels, Harry mused.

For one thing, Narcissa Malfoy - the creature known as an Ice Queen and diamond-hard bitch - was actually starting to remind him of Molly Weasley in the way she was talking to him like one of her own children.

And for another, he was comparing notes on being pregnant with a man.

"I-I´m not sure yet. I´m not used to the mood swings and all that."

Narcissa laughed. "Ah, yes, mood swings," she shook her head. "How I remember them and I´m sure Luce does to."

From his position on the bed, Harry saw Lucius Malfoy visibly shudder.

Apparently he did remember.

He had probably learned from the same error of judgement that certified that Draco Malfoy would never again annoy Harry Potter on account of him eating strange foods and taking offence when someone insulted his parents.

"Women are fickle enough as it is," Narcissa continued cheerfully. "And then you add the wonder of pregnancy-induced mood-swings and you have a walking, talking emotional time-bomb. You can get away with everything and claim you were just having a `mood swing´."

"You mean you were pretending?" Lucius demanded indignantly.

"You were taking too long in the bath, Luce," Narcissa retorted with a pout. "You wouldn´t even give me my rubber ducky so I could go and use the baths in one of the other bathrooms."

"Ciss!" the dangerous growl came from the doorway and Narcissa waved coyly over at her husband, a malicious twinkle in her eyes.

"You went and got someone else pregnant with my baby, Lucius," she called back to him. "Now, you´re just going to have tolerate me when I try and cheer myself up by humiliating you."

"As if being married to a trollop like you wasn´t enough," Malfoy glared at her and Narcissa released a very girly giggle.

Harry cleared his throat and cautiously asked, "Rubber...ducky?"

Leaning closer to Harry as the seething rage rippled outwards from Malfoy, Narcissa whispered. "Lucius can´t take a bath without one. Its the only thing that´ll make him give up his wand for five minutes."

Harry blinked, now cursed with the image of Lucius Malfoy, the fairly infamous and usually quite terrifying Dark Wizard, sitting in a bath and playing with a bright yellow rubber duck.

"Ciss, I hate you."

"I know, darling," Narcissa replied amiably, raising a hand to muss Harry´s wild hair, her other cupping her chin as she smiled sweetly across the room at Lucius. "But you´ll never have enough in your bank account to make me sign divorce papers."

Harry was trying desperately not to laugh.

"So, Harry, dear," Narcissa turned her attention back to the boy. "Had any kinds of problems? Pregnancy can be an awful thing and Lucius is known for producing creatures that are more worthy of being called spawn than children."

"Ciss, that was uncalled for."

"Luce, you know I love to the little brat, so stop complaining. Harry?"

"I don´t love Draco if that´s what you mean."

"Why am I not surprised?" Lucius muttered.

"And I don´t think he likes me very much."

"Again, an understatement, if ever I heard one."

"Lucius, would you please do the world a favour and never talk again. Ever."

Harry grinned at the scowl on Lucius´ face. "But he is right, Mrs Malfoy."

"Dear, call me Narcissa. Or Ciss." A snort from the door suggested that Malfoy thought them both mad. "And call the grumpy old git in the corner `grumpy old git´ with my permission."

"Narcissa!"

A perfectly manicured finger was pointed in Lucius´ direction. "Don´t you even think about trying to stop me doing anything, or I´ll have Snape make up some more of that potion with HIS genes in it and get you pregnant!"

A Snape-Malfoy hybrid.

Harry went rather green at the thought.

Malfoy apparently received the same mental image and his face rapidly shifted colour to match his robes.

Narcissa seemed quite satisfied and turned back to Harry. "So you were saying something about my little boy?"

"Well, the last time I saw him I dumped a bowl of yoghurt on his head..."

There was a choking sound from the door, which may have been smothered laughter from the boy´s father.

"A mood swing?"

"And he insulted my parents," Harry admitted. "And almost called me..." He was shocked when his mouth refused to say the word `fat´. It seemed to think that the three letter word was something of ultimate evil. "Well, it wasn't a good thing to say about my size..."

Which, he mused, his body seemed to agree with.

"Well, you are looking a little...round."

Harry blinked at Lucius Malfoy. "Round?" he echoed.

"Erm...why don´t you tell Ciss about your bladder trouble?"

Harry felt like he was swelling up as the anger flooded him. Oh good! An example of a classic mood swing! After all, he had been confined to a moving box all day and had kept his temper fairly well.

Now...now, he was going to enjoy this!

"Why don´t you explain what you meant when you said `round´?"

"He had to go to the toilet twenty times!" Malfoy hastily interceded, clearly tying to smother Harry´s anger.

"You stopped twenty times and still managed to get here in the usual time?"

"No," Harry scowled. Inside him, it felt like someone had turned a jacuzzi on full power and bubbles of anger were whooshing through him. Yes, it would have to be a rage-jacuzzi, but the analogy worked! "He didn´t pull over once!"

Narcissa clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a gasp of "Oh Merlin!"

"What?"

"You...he made you whizz out the window?"

"Um..."

When Malfoy had said that it was the only way he was going to be able to relieve himself on the journey, Harry had immediately been struck by the headlines that would no doubt hit the Daily Prophet pages the next morning: "Muggles struck by fountains of urine in thin air - missing Hogwarts pupil chief suspect".

Unfortunately, nature had called.

Several times.

Lucius had gleefully kept tabs on the number of people he had hit.

"Lucius!"

"I-I...was that wrong?" Harry inquired sheepishly.

Was peeing out of the window of a moving carriage onto unsuspecting muggle passers-by wrong?

Hmm.

Clearly the Malfoy code of (im)proper conduct was starting to brush off on the hero of the wizarding world.

"The carriage was invisible, correct?" Harry nodded, a little bemused by where this way going. "You didn´t know that when you stick something outside of the carriage, it immediately becomes visible!"

Harry blinked.

The Headlines of the Daily Prophet suddenly got even worse: "Disembodied willy seen flying through Oxford countryside".

He whimpered, suddenly hoping that there was no photographic evidence of this strange phenomenon, especially since it had really been rather chilly outside and he didn´t want any potential girlfriends put off by that fact!

"That wasn´t very nice of him..."

"No," Narcissa agreed. "Just like him saying you were round."

Malfoy´s eyes flicked from one to the other and Harry suddenly understood the expression `like a rabbit in the headlights´. Lucius looked ready to bolt out of the room, but Malfoy dignity prevailed and he settled for edging as rapidly as he could towards the door, without looking like he was fleeing.

"I merely say things as I see them."

"And what do you mean by that?" Whoohoo! Anger rising! Hands in fists. Breathing through clenched teeth. Eyes so wide he knew the whites must be showing (and drying out through lack of blinking, but if it looked scary, what did vision matter?!).

All in all, Harry knew he was probably posing a pretty terrifying sight, considering he was meant to be an all round (but not in a fat way! Really!) nice guy, who would never hurt a fly.

"I said that you are looking rather rotund."

Harry looked blank.

Nacrissa leaned closer. "It means fat," she said in a stage-whisper.

"So!" Harry pointed an accusing finger at Malfoy, who was glancing at the door, as if wondering if he would be able to leg-it without being noticed or caught out. "So you´re saying I-I´m...fat."

Oh crap!

He could feel his eyes start to prickle the moment the last word of the sentence changed from a nice, normal word to an utterly pitiful little whine.

"I don´t have to answer to you!" The sharp biting tone of the older man´s voice was the final straw and Harry felt the anger surging, but it was rapidly overtaken by another feeling.

Sinuses...burning.

Eyes...brimming.

Nose...prickling.

He wanted to hurl himself out the nearest window when he burst into floods of tears.

"That wasn´t nice!" he howled miserably.

Oh marvellous.

Not even just tears, but the full force, tidal wave tears.

Where was the bloody on-off switch?

Why didn´t he have a bloody tap to stop himself from bursting into tears and looking like a complete prat?

The anger was fading, overwritten by misery and despair at the fact he was looking so bloody stupid and he really didn´t want that, grabbing at the last strands of rage, before the sheer patheticness got too much.

Not that it wasn´t bad enough already.

Snot and tears were streaming down his face and Narcissa looked ready to charge her husband and beat him to a pulp.

Lucius, though, did the worst thing he could.

For a man bent on preserving his own skin, he really didn´t seem to be doing a very good job of it.

He smirked.

At Harry.

Which was apparently the anger on-off-mechanism.

And the rage returned full force.

"How dare you make me upset!" Harry wailed, but with the force of hysterical anger starting to override the tears. "You make me ride in a box and you don´t let me pee when I need to and mocked me and picked on me all the way here and never once apologised for putting me in this state, not one and now, you just keep on making me look like an idiot by crying!"

"And made you dangle your tackle out the carriage window for all to see," Narcissa supplied helpfully with a nasty grin in her husband´s direction.

"And that!" Harry yelled vehemently, wagging a finger angrily in Lucius´ direction, tears still pouring down his face by the bucketload.

All right, maybe the tears weren´t so bad, once you got used to them and they did make the angry voice sound so much more impressive.

Narcissa was on her feet, standing beside Harry. "You tell him, dear!"

"You´re mean! You´re rude! You´re derisive, whatever that means and I´m not sure, but I heard it and it sounds insulting so you´re it! You´re condescending! You´re an arrogant pig! You´re insulting! You´re such a...so...such..."

Harry trailed off uselessly, unable to find something vehement enough to emphasise his argument and Narcissa patted him comfortingly on the shoulder as he panted, still glaring at Lucius Malfoy, who was looking rather...stunned, like someone who had just stood through a tidal wave.

"Is he always so...?"

"Always," Narcissa confirmed with a sigh. She gave Harry an understanding smile and squeezed his shoulder. "Don´t worry. He´s just very insensitive about these things because he´s a man."

There was a silence.

Narcissa looked at Harry.

Harry looked at the woman commonly known as Bob.

"Ah..." Narcissa cleared her throat.

"Well..."Harry agreed, looking at his feet.

"And therein," Lucius added with a snicker. "Lies the stupidity of that argument."

Of course, he bolted as soon as the words left his mouth.

Unfortunately, he didn´t run nearly fast enough.