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The prawns were already in the pan before Kreacher appeared at Harry’s elbow.
“Master Harry is, as usual, moments away from utter catastrophe.”
Harry startled, nearly dropping the spatula. “Kreacher, I’ve told you not to—”
“Mistress Hermione is quite allergic to shellfish.” Kreacher stared into the pan like a general surveying a battlefield already lost. “Kreacher is astonished Master Harry wishes to recreate the Great Canapé Incident during the Christmas Party of 2003. Toothpicks. Screaming. Master Harry gaping like a fish while Mistress Hermione scourgified the pastry puffs.”
He shook his head.
“Kreacher will not relive it.”
Harry stared at the pan. Then at Kreacher. Then at the pan.
“Right.” He vanished the lot. “We don’t mention that to anyone.”
“Kreacher will mention it to no one,” Kreacher said, in a tone that suggested he absolutely would mention it to everyone.
“Kreacher is discretion itself.”
He inclined his head. “Master Harry is making steak as well?”
“Surf and turf.” Harry pulled the steaks from the refrigerator with considerably more confidence than he felt. “She loves a good steak.”
Kreacher tilted his head with the expression of one reviewing a will and finding it deeply disappointing.
“What?”
“Mistress Hermione has not been eating red meat lately.” A delicate pause. “Mistress Hermione has not been eating much of anything lately. Kreacher assumed Master Harry would notice. If belatedly.”
“Yes,” Harry said, already rummaging through the cupboard. “That’s rather the point, isn’t it? She’s not taking care of herself. So I’m taking care of her.”
He said it simply, the way one states an obvious fact about the weather.
Kreacher looked at him for a long moment. Something flickered in the old elf’s enormous eyes—something almost fond, though Harry knew he would have denied it vigorously under questioning.
Harry paused.
“Very good, Master Harry. Kreacher is certain Master’s plan will unfold beautifully. Master’s plans are famous for their elegance and lack of collateral damage.”
Kreacher sniffed.
The steaks went back in the refrigerator.
“Right then.” Harry pushed up his sleeves. “Chicken piccata. She loves that. Capers, lemon, the whole thing.” He was already pulling out the chicken, already reaching for the garlic. “She had it at that little place in Muggle London—what was it called—she talked about it for three weeks, Kreacher, three weeks—”
“Kreacher remembers the twenty-three minute monologue. Vividly.”
“So it’s perfect.” Harry was moving now, as determined to cook his wife a meal as he had been to avoid Percy Weasley at the Ministry all day. “She gets home, there’s a proper meal, she sits down and eats, and—”
The Floo roared.
Hermione stepped into the kitchen still in her Healer’s robes, her hair escaping its plait in approximately eleven different directions, her face the colour of old parchment.
She looked, Harry thought with a lurch of worry, like she hadn’t slept in several days, which he knew wasn’t entirely accurate, but come to think of it, she wasn’t in bed when he woke up this—
Hermione stopped.
Her hand came up to cover her mouth. Her eyes went very wide.
“Hermione—”
She turned, very quickly, and disappeared in the direction of the loo.
Harry followed immediately, spatula still in hand, and stood uselessly in the corridor trying the door periodically while she made heaving sounds that made his chest do something awful. Kreacher stood rigidly behind him, ears lowered, as though guarding the corridor itself from intrusion.
When they finally heard the lock click open, Harry crossed the room and sank down beside the toilet. He didn’t say anything clever, just put his arm around her.
“I’m fine,” she said, into his shoulder.
He pressed a kiss into her hair. “You’re not.”
“Harry—”
“You’re exhausted.” He pulled back just enough to look at her properly, which he immediately regretted because looking at her properly made it worse. “You’re pale, you can’t eat, you’re doing these shifts that are—you’re running yourself into the ground and I’m—” He stopped. Started again. “I’m very worried about you.”
She closed her eyes. “It will pass.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do know that.”
“Hermione.” He said her name the way he always had, like it meant, come back, be reasonable, talk to me. “You’re a Healer. You know better than anyone that you can’t just—you need to see someone. Let me take you to St. Mungo’s, or—not St. Mungo’s, somewhere else, somewhere you won’t have to be professional about it—”
“Harry.” Her voice was very quiet. “I’ve already been to the doctor.”
He blinked. “You—when?”
“A few days ago.” She looked up at him, and there was something in her expression he couldn’t quite read. Something that sat just behind her eyes like something that had gotten too big to hold. “It will pass. The tiredness, the nausea. It will pass.” A breath. “In about four more weeks. Give or take.”
“Four weeks.” He processed this. “Why four—”
“Or—” She watched him carefully. “Nine months.”
The room was very quiet. From somewhere in the hall, there was the soft sound of Kreacher pretending to reorganise something that did not need reorganising.
Harry looked at her.
Hermione took his hand. Slowly, deliberately, she placed it flat against her lower abdomen.
He felt the warmth of her through the fabric of her robes. He felt his own hand, completely still.
And then—
“Oh,” he said.
And then, softer: “Oh.”
And then he looked at her and something in him came entirely undone in the best possible way—something cracked open that had probably been waiting a long time to crack.
“Hermione.” His voice had gone strange. “Love—are you—really—”
“Yes.” She was smiling now, finally smiling, which was the best thing he’d seen in weeks. “Really.”
“A—we’re—” He laughed, slightly broken, slightly wet around the edges, and pressed his forehead to hers. “Hermione.”
“You’ve said my name four times in ten seconds.”
“I’m going to say it a hundred more.” He did, in fact, have tears on his face now, and found he was entirely unbothered by this. “We’re—Hermione—”
From the hallway, a sound. A dignified, pointed sound, somewhere between a sniff and a harrumph.
They both looked up.
Kreacher stood in the doorway with his arms folded, wearing the expression of an elf who has been right about something for quite some time and is experiencing this righteousness at full volume internally while maintaining a veneer of restraint.
“Kreacher,” said Harry, who had not let go of Hermione and had no intention of doing so, “did you—did you know?”
Kreacher sniffed.
“Kreacher,” the elf proclaimed with immense dignity, “noticed that Mistress Hermione refused the coffee. Two weeks ago.”
He drew himself up to his full height, which was not impressive but was being deployed to maximum effect.
“Mistress Hermione does not refuse coffee. Mistress Hermione has, in Kreacher’s long observation, treated coffee as a matter of some urgency.” A sniff. “Kreacher drew the appropriate conclusion and began…preparations.”
He folded his hands behind his back, chin lifting. “Kreacher further understood that Master would remain heroically oblivious until such time as Mistress was ready to speak.”
Harry laughed despite himself.
Hermione pressed her face against his shoulder, shaking with something that was either laughing or crying or both, which Harry thought was probably fair.
“Thank you, Kreacher,” she managed.
Kreacher bowed deeply. “Kreacher requires no thanks from Mistress. Kreacher attends.”
He turned toward the kitchen with great purpose.
“Kreacher has duties. Kreacher is not sentimental. Kreacher has certainly not been adjusting household menus, airing the rooms, and setting aside heirloom baby blankets for any particular reason.”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Harry agreed solemnly.
A smaller sniff this time. Almost fragile.
“The House of Black,” Kreacher muttered as he went, “must be properly fortified.”
He squared his shoulders.
“Kreacher shall make toast.”