Work Text:
“Have I ever told you,” Harry said, placing a cup of tea in Draco’s waiting hand, “how much I love you?”
Plonking himself on the opposite end of the settee, Harry surveyed the detritus of Draco’s twenty-third birthday party.
There was the partly-eaten Appleby Arrows cake that sat in the middle of their dining table. Scraps of snitch covered wrapping paper lay on the carpet. It had held Molly’s gift of a quilted blanket. A forlorn Muggle balloon was abandoned by the base of the curtain.
It had been a sweet family get-together, and though their last guest had departed over half an hour before, Harry had declared that the tidying could wait until tomorrow. That had suited Draco very well. He wanted nothing more than a lazy birthday evening.
Draco smiled and sipped his tea. “Oh, you might have said it a few times,” he answered. “Not that I’ve ever minded hearing it said again.”
Pacing the mug on the floor, Draco shuffled inelegantly across the seat so that Harry and he were sat beside each other. He was currently eight-and-a-few weeks pregnant, so his belly was far too big to do anything with grace. Not that Harry minded Draco’s gravid state. The other wizard turned, and instinctively curled his hands around Draco’s middle.
"Well, that’s good,” Harry answered, “because I do. I was thinking, whilst I made the tea, that perhaps I didn't tell you enough.”
“You tell me plenty,” Draco said, bemused. “You told me while we were cutting the cake. Remember, you mentioned how I always manage to steal the biggest slice? You said that was one of the many things you loved about me.”
“That was a lame joke,” Harry answered, leaning over to brush a quick kiss over Draco’s cheek, his lips warm and familiar. “I suppose that what I’m trying to say is I’m happy. When I was a kid, long before I ever knew I was a wizard, I never for a second believed I’d have a life like this one. A husband to throw birthday parties for. A baby on the way. I’m a lucky man,” Harry explained. “Sometimes I still can’t quite believe this is all real.”
Draco lent over, laying his head on Harry’s shoulder. Harry didn’t need to tell Draco that he was loved.
Harry showed him, every single day.
Harry ran him baths, full of bubbles, whenever Draco had endured a tiring day at the Ministry. He left little notes in Draco’s lunch box, full of silly jokes. Harry was endlessly kind to Mother, even though she could be standoffish sometimes. Harry was patient with him too, whenever a Muggle contraption confounded him. Harry listened, really listened, when Draco had anxieties and Harry encouraged him, more than any other person in his life ever had.
When Draco had told Harry he was pregnant, Harry had wept unashamedly. He had said that being a father was the most important job in the world.
“It’s real,” Draco replied, entwining his fingers with Harry’s. He brought up his husband’s hand to kiss. “For all the lives we could, or might possibly have lived, there isn’t another existence that I’d swap mine with.”