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Late at night at 12 Grimmauld Place, the baby’s cry cut through the silence of half past two in the morning like a sharp knife.
Harry practically sprang out of bed by reflex. He didn’t even have time to put on his slippers; barefoot, he rushed across the cold wooden floor towards the nursery. As he passed the bed, he glanced back instinctively – Draco was lying on his side on the left, his long blonde hair spread across the pillow. Moonlight seeped through a gap in the curtains and fell on his slightly furrowed brow. Even in sleep, those pale eyebrows hadn’t fully relaxed.
Harry’s heart clenched.
Draco was utterly exhausted. In the six months since Scorpius was born, Draco had lost a shocking amount of weight; his originally pointed chin was now sharp enough to poke someone. Because he insisted on breastfeeding, he had to get up two or three times every night. The swelling and pain in his chest made even turning over an exercise in caution. More than once Harry had woken in the middle of the night to find Draco sitting on the edge of the bed, silently crying. When he asked what was wrong, Draco simply shook his head and said it was nothing, just the engorgement ache. Later, Harry read in that parenting book Hermione lent him that breastfeeding Omegas often experience recurring mammary engorgement and pain during lactation, and in severe cases it can even lead to inflammation and fever – and Draco had never once complained to him about it.
That was why Harry was absolutely determined tonight: no matter how much Scorpius fussed, he was going to handle it all by himself and let Draco get a proper full night’s sleep.
When he burst into the nursery, Scorpius was already howling his head off, tiny fists clenched, little face flushed crimson, tears plastering his fine pale-gold baby hair into messy strands. Harry expertly scooped his son out of the cot, jiggling and soothing, “Shh – Scorpius, Daddy’s here, Daddy’s here, no crying, no crying…”
Scorpius was having none of it. He wailed even louder.
Harry carried him swiftly out of the nursery, pulling the door shut behind him, terrified of waking Draco in the master bedroom. He half-ran to the kitchen, flipped open the formula tin one-handed, and used his elbow to press the dispense button on the constant-temperature water kettle. Shaking the bottle, he coaxed the little bundle in his arms, low and beseeching, “Good boy, how about some formula tonight? Daddy’s milk is really yummy, see? White and fragrant…”
He nudged the teat towards Scorpius’s mouth. The baby instinctively latched on and sucked once. Harry’s heart leaped – but before he could even feel relieved, Scorpius spat the milk out with a “pfft,” scrunched up his little face with an expression of outraged “you actually expect me to drink this stuff,” and once again exploded into ear-splitting cries.
His tiny hands pushed the bottle away furiously, his little head burrowed into Harry’s chest, mouth open and searching everywhere. The message in his movements was unmistakable – “No bottle, I want Mama!!”
“Scorpius, little ancestor, can’t you have a little pity on Mama, please?” Harry was on the verge of collapse, pacing frantic circles around the kitchen with the baby, jiggling and patting, singing every lullaby he knew. Scorpius ignored every single one; his cries rose wave after wave, a perfect little walking sonic bomb.
Just at that moment, a hoarse sigh came from the kitchen doorway.
“Harry, give him to me.”
Harry whipped his head around. Draco was leaning against the doorframe, the belt of his nightrobe tied loose and askew, hair a mess, the dark circles under his eyes as heavy and purple as bruises. His voice was so raspy it barely held its original clear timbre, exhaustion seeping from the very marrow of his bones.
“You’re awake?” Harry was flooded with guilt. “I-I wanted to let you sleep a bit more. I made formula but he won’t take it – ”
“I heard.” Draco walked over and, with practiced ease, took Scorpius from Harry’s arms. The moment the baby was enveloped in his mother’s scent, the crying miraculously dropped about eight notches in volume, from full-blown howls into aggrieved sobs. Scorpius’s tiny hand clutched the collar of Draco’s nightrobe in a death grip and wouldn’t let go.
Draco sat down on a kitchen chair with Scorpius, unfastened the buttons of his robe, glanced down, and drew in a soft, sharp breath, only then bringing the baby close. Scorpius latched on with desperate eagerness, and his little body fell silent in an instant, leaving only the sound of contented swallowing and the occasional sniffle of leftover sobs.
Harry stood watching from the side and noticed that Draco’s brow suddenly furrowed tight, his lips pressed into a thin white line, the hand supporting Scorpius trembling slightly.
“Does it hurt?” Harry crouched down, looking up at Draco’s face.
Draco kept his eyes lowered and didn’t speak. After several seconds he said quietly, “He’s teething lately.”
Harry gently placed his hand over Draco’s free one. The skin beneath his fingertips felt somewhat cool. Draco’s fingers curled in his palm for a moment, then he turned his hand over and gripped Harry’s, holding on tight.
The baby nursed for a while, and soon his eyelids began to droop, his little mouth still suckling mechanically, the rhythm slowing. Moonlight streamed in through the kitchen window, illuminating Draco’s lowered pale-gold lashes and Scorpius’s round little face. Their profiles, under the same light, showed a similar curve; even the line of their noses was exactly alike.
Watching this scene, a place somewhere inside Harry’s chest suddenly grew sore and full.
“Harry,” Draco spoke up abruptly, his voice as light as a sigh, “what are you thinking about?”
“That you’re beautiful,” Harry blurted out.
Draco raised his eyes to look at him. A familiar trace of sarcasm flickered through those grey irises, but his tone was so soft it carried no bite at all: “Are you blind? I can’t bear to look in the mirror these days.”
“Really beautiful.” Harry said it seriously, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of blonde hair behind Draco’s ear, his fingertip brushing across his cheekbone along the way. That spot had once been pale to the point of translucence; now it held a faint flush brought on by nursing, like the tip of a bud just emerging on a branch in early spring.
The tips of Draco’s ears reddened at a visible speed. He lowered his head, pretending to be absorbed in watching Scorpius, his voice muffled. “Shut up.”
Harry chuckled, stood up, and wrapped his arms around Draco from behind, resting his chin on the shoulder not occupied by Scorpius. From this angle he could see that Scorpius’s little hand had released the collar of the nightrobe and drifted unconsciously to rest on Draco’s chest. The five tiny fingers were plump and soft, the nails a pale pink.
“He’s full,” Draco whispered.
Scorpius was already completely asleep, his little mouth loose, a bit of drool still at the corner of his lips, his breathing steady and long. His hair was pale gold, like Draco’s, but that stubborn little tuft sticking up at the back of his head – that was like Harry. Half each; no denying either one.
Draco tried to shift him away from his chest, moving with the delicacy of someone disarming a bomb. Scorpius scrunched his little face in his sleep and gave a tiny whimper, but ultimately didn’t wake. Draco lifted him upright against his shoulder and patted his back gently until the baby let out a loud, milky burp; only then did he finally relax.
“Come on,” Harry took Scorpius, letting him rest against his broad shoulder, and reached out his other hand to pull Draco up. “Back to bed. He should sleep until morning now.”
Draco let himself be pulled to his feet, his steps a little unsteady. When they reached the foot of the staircase, Harry suddenly stopped and turned to look at Draco trailing behind him.
“Draco.”
“Hmm?”
“Tomorrow I’ll go to Diagon Alley and buy a few tins of formula; I heard it works better. And I’ll learn how to warm breastmilk. You pump during the day and store it in the fridge, I’ll do the nighttime feeds.”
Draco’s eyes widened slightly, a flicker of surprise passing through those grey irises.
“That way you can get at least four or five hours of uninterrupted sleep at night,” Harry said earnestly, his emerald eyes startlingly bright in the darkness. “You’re too tired, Draco. My rut isn’t for another two weeks, and it’ll be even harder on you then. You need to save up some strength now.”
Draco’s lips moved as if he wanted to say something but swallowed it back. After a moment, he lowered his head and murmured a sentence so quietly it was almost swallowed by the echo of the stairwell: “How do you have everything all figured out.”
Harry didn’t catch it and tilted his head. “What?”
“…Nothing.” Draco walked past him, his shoulder brushing Harry’s arm. He climbed two steps, then stopped without looking back. “Harry.”
“Yeah?”
“That formula,” the nape of Draco’s neck glowed with a faint flush in the moonlight, “remember to buy the goat’s milk recipe one. I’ve already looked it up – it’s the closest to breastmilk in composition. Scorpius might accept it better.”
Harry paused, then smiled. This was exactly who Draco was, he thought. Always doing all the homework in advance. Never used to admitting he was tired. Silently arranging everything perfectly in places no one noticed. Stubborn, sharp-tongued, never showing weakness – yet Scorpius, at six months old, had made him, through countless deep nights, bite back tears of pain rather than wake the Alpha beside him for help.
“Got it,” Harry stepped up and wrapped his arms around Draco from behind, bundling him together with the now-sleeping Scorpius still in his hold. The three of them squeezed together on the narrow staircase, as warm as an airtight cocoon. “Any other orders, Mrs Potter?”
The heat of Harry’s breath brushed the back of Draco’s neck, making him jolt all over. His ear tips reddened further, and he jabbed his elbow backward into Harry’s stomach with practiced discretion. “Piss off.”
Harry laughed and tightened his arms, pressing a kiss to the crown of Draco’s head.
Moonlight slanted in through the stairwell window, stretching the three figures’ shadows long, long, overlapping on the creaking wooden stairs of the old Grimmauld Place house. The air was tinged with the faint scent of baby powder, and the especially soft sweetness that clung to Draco from his nursing period, mingling with the warmth of burning pinewood from Harry’s pheromones – like a blanket airing by the fireplace in winter: dry, warm, and deeply reassuring.
In his sleep, Scorpius smacked his lips, dreaming of something unknown. His tiny fist clutched Draco’s collar, and his little leg kicked out, landing on Harry’s chin.
“This little rascal can’t even stay still in his sleep,” Harry chuckled under his breath.
Draco looked down at the little bundle in his arms, and the corner of his mouth finally curved into the faintest of smiles, like a flower quietly blooming in the moonlight.
“Just like you,” he said.
Harry thought about it, and didn’t argue.