Chapter Text
Chapter One
There Is Apparently Evidence in the Sock Drawer
Harry woke because somebody was stealing his sock.
Not both socks, which might at least have implied a coherent criminal objective, but one of them, slowly and with enough determination that the wool dragged against his heel beneath the blankets.
Harry remained perfectly still.
There was another tug.
He opened one eye.
Biscuit stood at the foot of the bed with the toe of Harry’s green sock clenched between his teeth.
For several seconds, they regarded one another.
Biscuit’s pupils widened.
Harry narrowed his eyes.
“Put it back.”
Biscuit tightened his jaw.
“That belongs to me.”
The kneazle’s ears tipped backwards, which Harry had learned meant I have heard your argument and rejected it on philosophical grounds.
“You have your own things.”
Biscuit did not appear moved.
“You have more possessions than I had until I was eleven.”
Still nothing.
“You have four beds.”
Biscuit began backing away.
Harry pushed himself onto one elbow.
“Don’t you dare.”
Biscuit dared.
The kneazle sprang backwards, dragging the sock cleanly from Harry’s foot before landing on the carpet and sprinting through the half-open bedroom door with his prize streaming behind him.
Harry lay there for a second, staring at the doorway.
Beside him, Tom continued sleeping.
Or pretending to sleep.
Harry knew because the corner of his mouth had moved.
“If you laugh, I’m putting Biscuit on your pillow tonight.”
Tom opened his eyes.
“I was nowhere near laughter.”
“You were considering it.”
“I was admiring his technique.”
“Of course you were.”
Harry shoved the blankets off and climbed out of bed. His shirt had twisted halfway around his torso during the night, his hair was doing something he could feel without needing the confirmation of a mirror, his tail had fluffed itself to approximately twice its normal size, and he was wearing exactly one sock.
Tom propped himself against the pillows and looked him over.
Harry pointed at him.
“Whatever thought just happened, keep it.”
“I was going to tell you that you look charming.”
“That was worse than what I imagined.”
Tom smiled.
Harry left before he could become more annoying.
Biscuit had disappeared into the corridor.
Harry followed the faint scent of his own soap, kneazle fur and stolen wool towards the library, where he stopped in the doorway so abruptly that Toast, who had been approaching from behind, walked into his ankle.
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake.”
The missing sock lay in the centre of the rug.
Unfortunately, it had company.
Six more socks had been arranged around it. Harry’s favourite Slytherin-green scarf lay along one edge. A tea towel had been pushed into the middle, beside one of Tom’s gloves, a pillowcase, two handkerchiefs, a knitted hat Harry had not seen since winter and what looked suspiciously like one of the soft shirts Tom preferred wearing at home.
Marmalade sat beside the collection.
Biscuit carefully deposited the newest sock.
Toast joined him.
The three kneazles turned towards Harry with the quiet satisfaction of creatures who had completed important work and expected admiration.
Harry stared at them.
“No.”
Biscuit sat down.
“I don’t know what this is, but no.”
Tom arrived behind him carrying Harry’s dressing gown.
“You forgot this.”
Harry accepted it without looking away from the rug.
“Why are they stealing our clothes?”
Tom’s gaze travelled over the pile.
One eyebrow rose.
“That appears to be a nest.”
Harry turned.
“I know what a nest looks like.”
“Then your question was misleading.”
“Why are they building one?”
“I assumed you knew.”
“Why would I know?”
“They are your kneazles.”
“They are Luna’s kneazles.”
Tom looked slowly towards the enormous structure occupying half the western wall of the library. It had four sleeping platforms, three private cubbies, a miniature staircase, a water fountain, warming charms and a portrait of Crookshanks which Harry still maintained Hermione had smuggled in while he was distracted.
Harry followed his gaze.
“That proves nothing.”
“Biscuit answers when you call him.”
“He also answers when Ron opens ham.”
“You named Toast.”
“He stole my toast.”
“And Marmalade?”
Harry folded his arms.
“He is orange. That one was hardly creative.”
Tom’s expression became unbearably mild.
Harry crouched beside the nest instead.
Biscuit immediately climbed onto his thighs, kneaded once against Harry’s dressing gown and curled into a purring black ball.
Harry’s tail wrapped around him before Harry had consciously authorised it.
Tom said nothing.
That was worse.
“I can feel you being smug.”
“I am standing several feet away.”
“You have an atmosphere.”
“An impressive skill.”
Harry scratched behind Biscuit’s ear. Toast, who usually worshipped Tom with a devotion bordering on embarrassing, approached cautiously.
Tom extended one hand.
Toast stopped.
His fur rose.
Tom frowned.
Toast hissed.
Harry looked up.
Tom looked personally offended.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Toast hissed again.
“That sounded specific.”
“I spent yesterday in London.”
“Perhaps he objects to your economic policy.”
“I am not debating fiscal reform with a kneazle.”
“Coward.”
Marmalade came to stand beside Toast.
Both stared at Tom.
Biscuit, meanwhile, burrowed more firmly into Harry.
Harry grinned.
“This is excellent.”
“They adored me two days ago.”
“Standards evolve.”
Tom reached towards Toast again.
The kneazle growled.
Harry started laughing.
Then Tom’s morning tea reached him.
It was Earl Grey.
Ordinarily, Harry liked Earl Grey. The smell reminded him of quiet mornings in the library and Tom reading correspondence while Harry sprawled somewhere he absolutely should not have been able to fit.
Today the scent struck the back of his throat and his stomach turned so violently that the laugh died.
Harry clamped a hand over his mouth.
The teacup vanished from Tom’s hand before Harry had taken one step.
“Harry?”
He held up a finger and ran.
He made it to the bathroom.
Barely.
By the time Tom followed, Harry was sitting on the floor with his back against the bath, staring darkly at the toilet as though it had personally betrayed him.
Tom crouched in front of him and handed over water.
Harry took it.
“Don’t.”
“I have not said anything.”
“You are about to suggest a healer.”
“I was going to ask whether you were dizzy.”
Harry paused.
“No.”
“Pain?”
“No.”
“Fever?”
“No.”
“Then I will postpone the healer for approximately two minutes.”
Harry drank.
“That is not postponing.”
“It is literally postponing.”
“I was ill three days ago. People become ill.”
“You blamed the porridge.”
“The porridge was appalling.”
“You have eaten that porridge every Wednesday for months.”
“Perhaps I finally developed self-respect.”
Tom did not smile.
That was when Harry realised he was genuinely worried.
The irritation in his chest softened despite himself.
“I’m all right.”
“You have also been sleeping more.”
“I’m tired.”
“You fell asleep during lunch on Sunday.”
“It was Sunday.”
“You were holding half a sandwich.”
Harry frowned.
“That is between me and the sandwich.”
“And yesterday you reorganised the pantry.”
Harry’s ears tipped backwards.
“It needed doing.”
“The pantry was already alphabetised.”
“It was alphabetised badly.”
Tom blinked.
Harry heard himself.
He looked towards the bathroom door.
Outside, Biscuit was dragging another sock along the corridor.
Harry slowly turned back.
Tom had acquired the expression he normally wore immediately before beginning research that would eventually involve footnotes.
“No.”
“You have not heard my conclusion.”
“I have lived with you long enough to recognise the preface.”
“I think Severus should examine you.”
“No.”
“Poppy, then.”
“Worse.”
“Harry.”
“I am not going to summon a medical professional because I disliked tea and moved some tins.”
“You vomited.”
“Twice.”
“Yes.”
“That is still a very small number.”
Tom looked unimpressed.
Harry stood.
The room tilted for half a second.
Tom’s hand came beneath his elbow.
Harry waited until the floor behaved.
Then sighed.
“Fine.”
Tom’s shoulders relaxed.
“But if Severus says I have indigestion, you are never allowed to summon him over vomiting again.”
“I accept.”
“And you tell him this was your idea.”
“Enthusiastically.”
“And I’m not drinking anything that tastes like boiled furniture.”
“I will add it to the message.”
Harry shoved him lightly.
Tom caught his hand and kissed the knuckles.
“You are very irritating.”
“I am aware.”
Severus arrived twenty-three minutes later carrying a medical bag and an expression suggesting he had spent the journey composing Harry’s obituary himself.
“If this is indigestion,” he said before the Floo had even finished releasing him, “I will personally ensure both of you develop a condition worth summoning me for.”
Harry, now dressed and sitting at the kitchen table with Biscuit occupying his lap, pointed at Tom.
“His fault.”
“I anticipated this betrayal.”
“You deserve it.”
Severus put the bag down.
Then stopped.
Harry noticed the change immediately.
Severus had been looking at him.
Now he was looking at the kneazles.
Biscuit lay against Harry’s stomach.
Toast sat beneath Harry’s chair.
Marmalade had dragged the scarf-nest into the kitchen and was rearranging it directly beside Harry’s feet.
The irritation disappeared from Severus’s face.
Harry disliked that considerably more.
“What?”
Severus said nothing.
“Why have you gone quiet?”
“I am thinking.”
“You normally think while insulting me.”
Severus’s eyes moved to Tom.
Tom had also gone still.
Harry looked between them.
“What?”
Severus pulled out his wand.
The kneazles immediately bristled.
“It is a diagnostic charm, you neurotic furballs.”
Toast growled.
“Harry,” Tom said quietly.
Harry stroked Biscuit once.
“It’s fine.”
The kneazles reluctantly settled.
Severus cast.
Gold magic travelled from Harry’s head to his feet.
A second layer appeared, green and familiar, tracing the kneazle inheritance that had been part of Harry for long enough that the sight no longer felt strange.
Then something else glowed.
Soft rose-gold light gathered low in Harry’s abdomen.
Severus froze.
Harry looked down.
The light pulsed once.
Then faded.
He raised his head.
“What was that?”
Severus cast again.
The result was identical.
Harry’s pulse began to climb.
“Severus.”
“When did your kneazle magic last cycle?”
Harry stared at him.
“My what?”
Tom inhaled.
Harry’s head snapped around.
“You know what he means.”
“I know what a magical cycle is.”
“Why?”
“I read about magical inheritances after yours activated.”
“Of course you did.”
Harry turned back.
“What magical cycle?”
Severus pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Dormant creature inheritances do not merely alter appearance. Once active, they can produce periodic changes in the bearer’s core—temperature, appetite, sensory sensitivity, territoriality and, in certain bloodlines, reproductive magic.”
Harry blinked.
He understood all the words individually.
Together, they seemed to have formed an alliance against him.
“Reproductive.”
“Yes.”
Harry stared.
Severus looked as though he would rather be treating dragon pox.
Tom’s fingers closed around the back of the chair.
Harry felt suddenly, impossibly cold.
“What did that spell show?”
Severus lowered the wand.
“Your core has entered a gestational state.”
Harry continued staring.
Nothing happened.
The sentence did not improve.
“A gestational state.”
“Yes.”
“As in gestation.”
Severus’s mouth tightened.
“Yes, Potter.”
Harry looked down at himself.
Then at Tom.
Then back at Severus.
“I’m a man.”
“A fact of which all three of us were previously aware.”
“Tom is also a man.”
Tom closed his eyes.
Severus looked tired.
“Yes.”
“So how exactly have two men accidentally produced a gestational state?”
“Magically.”
Harry’s tail lashed.
“That is not an explanation.”
“No. It is an invitation to allow me to finish one.”
Harry folded his arms.
“Fine.”
Severus cast a more complicated charm.
The rose-gold light returned, this time concentrating into one small, steady point.
Harry’s hand moved to his stomach before he had consciously decided to touch it.
“There are rare creature and familiar bloodlines capable of creating what older texts call an adaptive gestational matrix,” Severus said. “The magic does not require the bearer to possess ordinary female reproductive anatomy. It temporarily creates what is necessary when several conditions coincide.”
Harry swallowed.
“What conditions?”
“An active inherited magical trait. A highly compatible second core. A stable magical environment in which the inheritance recognises the bearer as secure enough to reproduce.”
Harry glanced instinctively around Hearth House.
The kitchen fire flickered.
The walls hummed softly.
Severus continued.
“And, in your case, the voluntary core-link you and Riddle retained after the Sanctuary Revelation was dismantled.”
That mattered.
Harry looked sharply at him.
“The old ritual isn’t doing this.”
“No. That magic is gone. Your connection remained because your cores chose to maintain it afterwards. It has changed over time, particularly since Riddle began living here.”
Tom finally spoke.
“So Harry’s inheritance interpreted our existing magic and Hearth House as suitable conditions.”
“Yes.”
Harry looked at him.
Tom looked as stunned as Harry felt.
“You didn’t know this could happen?”
“No.”
There was no hesitation.
“If I had discovered even a theoretical possibility that our magic could create a child, Harry, you would have received a research file substantial enough to injure Ron if dropped from a height.”
Harry considered that.
Unfortunately, it was convincing.
“How far?”
Severus ran another charm.
“Approximately seven weeks.”
Harry’s ears shot upright.
Seven weeks.
The arithmetic happened before he could prevent it.
He remembered exactly what they had been doing seven weeks ago.
Several times.
His face heated.
Tom became extraordinarily interested in a cupboard.
Severus watched both of them and looked ill.
“I do not require the historical reconstruction.”
“No one offered it.”
“Your expressions did.”
Harry almost laughed.
The sound came out shaky.
His hand remained over the light.
“A baby.”
“Yes.”
“An actual baby.”
“Yes.”
“Inside me.”
Severus’s eyes closed briefly.
“That is where I located it.”
Harry laughed then.
He could not help it.
It was either laugh or do something considerably less manageable, and the sheer absurdity had finally reached critical mass.
“I’m pregnant.”
Tom sat down.
Harry turned.
Tom had simply folded into the nearest chair.
The great Lord Voldemort, former terror of magical Britain, had apparently reached the end of his available processing power.
Harry’s laugh became helpless.
“You all right?”
Tom looked at his stomach.
Then at Harry’s face.
“Our child.”
The words were so quiet that Harry stopped laughing.
“Yes.”
Tom swallowed.
“With our magic.”
“Yes.”
“And you.”
“I am generally involved.”
Tom reached towards him, then hesitated only because Harry was sitting across the table.
Harry took the hand himself and placed it beneath his own.
Rose-gold light brightened around their fingers.
Tom’s breath caught.
Harry felt his own throat tighten.
There was a baby.
There was a completely impossible, apparently medically recognised, kneazle-magic baby.
Their baby.
He had not planned this.
He had never even known it was available to plan.
Some distant part of Harry still associated the idea of a future with a sort of vague astonishment. He had spent so many years expecting to die before adulthood that the fact he owned a house and argued with Tom about grocery lists already felt like cheating.
A child had never made it into the picture.
Not because Harry had not wanted one.
He had never let himself look far enough to know.
Now that possibility was sitting inside him, seven weeks old and glowing softly beneath Severus’s diagnostic magic.
“Is it all right?” Harry asked.
Tom’s hand tightened.
Severus immediately understood which it Harry meant.
“At present, everything is remarkably healthy. Your core is supporting the gestation without strain. The nausea and fatigue are expected. So is the nesting.”
Harry looked at the kneazles.
“That’s them.”
Severus looked at the pantry Harry had reorganised.
Harry followed his gaze.
“The pantry was wrong.”
“Of course.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know. That is what makes it diagnostically useful.”
Tom’s eyes remained on Harry’s stomach.
“Risk.”
Severus’s expression hardened before Tom could finish.
“All pregnancy carries some risk. At the moment I see nothing abnormal, and this particular type of gestation is generally well supported by creature magic once established. I want Poppy to examine Harry tomorrow. She has treated two similar cases.”
Harry blinked.
“Two?”
“Yes.”
“Why does everyone know men can become pregnant except me?”
“Because most people do not spend their adolescent years alternating between mortal danger and Quidditch.”
“That seems unfair.”
“It usually is.”
Biscuit climbed onto the chair beside Harry, crossed his thighs and settled himself directly over Harry’s abdomen.
Harry looked down.
The kneazle began purring.
Harry’s own purr answered automatically.
Tom made a small, strangled noise.
Harry looked up.
Tom’s eyes were wet.
Harry stared.
“Oh, no.”
Tom blinked.
A tear escaped anyway.
Harry’s mouth fell open.
“You’re crying.”
“I have received significant information.”
“You are absolutely crying.”
“I am aware.”
That was somehow worse.
Harry started laughing again, but this time his own eyes blurred halfway through.
Tom stood and came around the table.
Harry let himself be gathered close, one arm around Tom’s neck and the other still instinctively protecting his stomach.
Tom’s face disappeared into Harry’s hair.
“You’re happy?” Harry asked quietly.
Tom pulled back as though the question itself offended him.
“I am terrified.”
Harry’s stomach dipped.
Then Tom cupped his face.
“And happier than I have any language for.”
Harry’s eyes burned.
“That was disgustingly sincere.”
“I can retract it.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Harry kissed him.
Biscuit complained from between them.
Severus packed away his wand with unnecessary force.
“I am leaving before this becomes more emotional.”
Harry looked over Tom’s shoulder.
“You’re their healer now.”
Severus stopped.
Slowly turned.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You diagnosed them.”
“Potter.”
“You already know the magic.”
“Poppy exists.”
“She likes you.”
“That child does not yet possess opinions.”
Harry smiled.
“We’ll see.”
Severus looked towards the Floo with the hollow expression of a man contemplating escape from the country.
“I will return tomorrow morning.”
Harry waved.
“Bring the good anti-nausea potion.”
“I hate you.”
“That sounds like yes.”
The Floo swallowed him.
Harry remained in Tom’s arms.
Neither spoke for a while.
Then Hearth House chimed.
A door opened somewhere above them.
Harry looked towards the ceiling.
Tom did too.
“What did it do?”
They went upstairs.
The eastern spare room had changed.
Yesterday it had contained a desk, a wardrobe and several boxes Harry had not unpacked.
Now the walls were warm cream. Shelves had grown neatly from the plaster. A broad rug covered the floor, and beside the fireplace sat a rocking chair Harry had never seen before.
Beneath the window stood a cradle.
Harry stopped in the doorway.
Tom stopped behind him.
Biscuit marched between their legs, sprang into the cradle, turned twice and curled up.
Harry stared.
“Hearth.”
The house gave a pleased little chime.
“You knew.”
The nursery lamp blinked.
Once.
Then again.
Seven times.
Harry covered his face.
“The house has known for seven weeks.”
Tom’s arms came around him from behind.
Harry leaned back against his chest.
“I think we’re the least observant people in our own house.”
“Severus may agree.”
“Hearth was letting the kneazles steal my socks.”
“For nesting material.”
“Those were good socks.”
Tom kissed his temple.
Harry looked at the cradle.
There was a baby coming.
A baby who already had a room because apparently even the architecture had been better informed than Harry.
“We are completely unprepared.”
Tom was quiet for a moment.
Then, “I reorganised an entire wartime administration with less notice.”
Harry turned his head.
“This is a baby, Tom.”
“Yes.”
“You cannot manage it like a disputed territory.”
“I am already beginning to understand the distinction.”
Harry laughed softly.
The house chimed.
Above the nursery door, gold lettering appeared.
OCCUPIED.
Harry stared.
“Technically not yet.”
Hearth ignored him.
Biscuit purred from the cradle.
Harry put one hand over the still-flat place where their child was growing.
Tom covered it with his own.
For once, neither of them argued with the house.