Chapter 15

Harry POV

"Oh, look, Hermione! They have a toddler snitch! It can't fly higher than a meter, just like those kids brooms. That way our child can learn to play Quidditch as soon as he or she is old enough to sit on a broom. We have to get it!"

Hermione laughed at Harry's childlike enthusiasm. "Harry, the baby isn't even born yet. Don't you think we should wait with buying Quidditch supplies until our child can walk?"

Harry looked as disappointed as a child who had been told that Christmas would be cancelled this year. The look on Harry's face nearly made Hermione cry, so she gave in instantly. Damn pregnancy hormones. They made her all sappy. This had to be the reason she simply couldn't say no to Harry, no matter how insane he behaved.

"Alright." She said with a little sigh. "But promise you won't put our child on that thing until it can properly sit."

Harry beamed and hugged his wife. "Thank you!"

Hermione gasped and Harry was afraid he'd hugged her too tight and hurt her. Before he could ask if she was okay, Hermione spoke excitedly.

"Harry! The baby moved! I felt it! it's the first time I felt it move!"

Harry looked at her with excitement. "Really?! Can I feel it?"

Hermione smiled and put Harry's hand on her already noticeably swollen tummy. She was in her fifths months now and Harry simply loved watching her belly grow. It was so exiting to know that his child was growing in there.

"I can't feel it," Harry said disappoint.

"Well, I only noticed it very faintly. The baby will probably need to grow more until you can feel it move."

"Oh," Harry said disappointed. "But it really moved, yes? Maybe it was glad to hear that we are getting him or her a broom."

Hermione laughed. "I don't think the baby can already hear, Harry. And if it can, it surely doesn't know what a broom is."

"Of course it does!" Harry argued. "It's my child after all. It has Quidditch in the blood!"

Hermione laughed and shook her head. "Don't you think you're exaggerating a little? A wallpaper with moving snitches, a snitch mobile, a toy broom and snitch, clothes with brooms and snitches on them…"

"I came to Hogwarts without having ever ridden a broom. I can't let that happen to my child, Hermione!"

His wife rolled his eyes. "Alright. Let's buy the broom and snitch, but then we'll go and get something to eat. I'm starving."

Initially, they had only intended to look for cribs, but somehow they had visited several Muggle and Wizarding baby stores and bought all furniture for the baby's room, clothes, a lot of toy's and a book on enchanted nursery wallpapers that came with a magical wallpaper roll that could be enchanted to show the various motives in the book. Harry admitted he had gone a little overboard with baby shopping.

Half an hour later they sat in a little Italian restaurant in Diagon alley and Harry tried not to show too much distaste looking at Hermione's pizza - mushrooms and pineapple with chocolate sauce. Her pregnancy cravings were really weird.

While eating his own pizza (bacon and onion) he skipped through the nursery wallpaper book. There were several landscape designs like a wood and an Under the Sea theme, a design with dragons and Hippogreifs Hagrid would love, one with instruments that could actually play music, one with meowing kittens chasing a mouse, one with Bertie Botts beans that could be tasted by licking the wallpaper and one with glittering Fairies. But Harry preferred the Quidditch themes. There was even one with two teams who played a never-ending Quidditch game ("We're not using that one. The baby will never sleep," Hermione had said). They had agreed on a fairly simply design in Gryffindor read, with brooms that were softly floating on the wallpaper and a moving snitch.

"Hey, look who's here," Hermione said, directing Harry's attention from the book to a familiar face. Draco Malfoy was here. He was alone, sitting at a table in the far end of the restaurant, drinking a glass of wine. He didn't look happy.

Draco POV

The last five months had been pretty eventful for Draco. He had learned that the Weasley temper got a lot worse during pregnancy. Ginny's mood swings were unpredictable. On some days she was positively giddy, smiling and joking with him. On others the littlest things could make her cry. And then there were the days when the hormones affected her libido so much that they barely made it out of their bed. Most often were days like today, when the tiniest reason could make her snap at him.

The day had started out alright. Draco and Ginny had spent a lazy morning in bed, Draco holding his wife in his arms and stroking her belly. It was a habit they had developed early in the pregnancy, when Ginny had suffered from morning sickness. Her mother had made a tea mixture for her that helped with the sickness. Each morning Draco got up before Ginny, made her a cup of her mother's tea and held her in his arms until the tea worked and Ginny felt better. Both of them enjoyed the intimacy of this ritual so much that they had kept it up although Ginny didn't suffer from morning sickness anymore.

So they had spent the morning like always, staying in bed, drinking tea and talking about nothing and everything. This morning it had been about how to decorate the nursery. Draco hadn't thought it would be a touchy subject, but apparently every topic was touchy when discussed with a moody pregnant woman.

"I think forest green would be a great color for the nursery. I've read that green has a calming effect. And maybe we could use a border with Fleur de Lis – stylized lilies, they were often used in coats of arms, especially in France," Draco suggested.

To his utter surprise Ginny made herself loose from his embrace and looked at him with a killer glance.

"Slytherin colours?! What do you want to say with that?! Will you only love our child when it gets sorted into Slytherin? You know, it's my child, too! And everybody in my family was in Gryffindor. There's a good chance that our kid will become a Gryffindor! What will you do to your son or daughter then? Disinherit them? Make them feel like they are a disappointment to you?" Ginny yelled.

Draco looked at his wife in shock, trying to understand how they had gone from cuddling to arguing within a minute. Also, he tried to progress the possibility that his child might become a Gryffindor. He hadn't even thought about that possibility.

Unfortunately, Ginny knew him quite well by know.

"You haven't even considered that your child could not be a Slytherin, right? That's so typical! Well, you should have thought about that before marrying a Gryffindor. If you don't want a Gryffindor child, then maybe you don't want your Gryffindor wife anymore either! Good, have it your way! I'm leaving!"

Without waiting for an answer from her husband, Ginny run down the stairs. Draco quickly followed her.

"Ginny, don't run so fast on the stairs! You're pregnant! What if you fall?!"

"I know damn well that I'm pregnant! Thanks to you!"

Relieved Draco noticed that Ginny had made it down the stairs unharmed.

"If I recall correctly you participated very willingly in the creation of our child. And where are you going anyway? You haven't packed anything and you're still in your nightgown! Stop acting like a three year old and come back, damn it!"

But Ginny simply ignored him, ran into the parlour, threw some floo powder in the fireplace and called "Burrow", before Draco could stop her.

For a moment, Draco thought about following her, but then he realized that he was still wearing his pajamas, too. And he knew from painful experience that it was no good idea to talk to Ginny when she was in such a mood. He had to give her some time to calm down. Draco decided that he needed to get out of the house for a while, so I got dressed and apparated to Diagon Alley, intending to have an early lunch and make some errands. He ordered a glass of wine in a little Italian restaurant and tried to concentrate on the menu, trying to decide what to eat. But his thoughts kept wandering to Ginny. Maybe he should get her present. But wouldn't that look like he was apologizing? And he didn't have anything to apologize for, damn it! He hadn't done anything. Ginny was just acting insane. When he was still thinking about the fight with his wife, Draco noticed two familiar voices. Looking up, he saw indeed Potter and his wife on a nearby table. Great. Just what he needed. Potter's gaze met his briefly and they exchanged a curt nod, before Draco directed his attention back to the menu and Potter started talking to his wife. He was showing her something in a book.

Draco tried to ignore their presence, not in the mood for another fight. But then he noticed a part of Potter's and former Granger's talk that peaked his interest.

"Oh, look, the animated owls are so cute! Maybe we could let them fly next to the brooms on the wallpaper. I'm sure the baby would love that," former Granger said.

"Yes, that's a good idea. Hey, do you think the owls would try to catch the snitch? That would be funny," Potter answered with a grin.

His wife laughed. "I don't think owls play Quidditch, Harry."

Draco watched the two together and sighed. They looked so happy together. Why couldn't he and Ginny be like that? Well, sometimes they were, but then, on days like today, he simply couldn't do anything right in Ginny's eyes.

"Is there a problem, Malfoy?" Potter asked. Shit. He had stared at Potter and his wife and Potter had noticed. Draco thought about saying something rude, maybe insulting Grangers look like he had in school. But somehow, he wasn't in the mood to be a total ass, today. But he couldn't say something friendly either. It was Potter after all!

"Just heard a bit from your talk. So, are you going to train your son early on, so he won't lose his Quidditch matches against mine?" Draco asked. If it is a son. And if he won't be sorted into Gryffindor. Draco shudder at the thought of his son becoming a Gryffindor.

Harry laughed. "Come on, Malfoy. You never won a single game against me in school. If your child inherits your talent and mine inherits mine, there is no training necessary at all."

Draco frowned at Harry. "Maybe they will inherit the Quidditch talent from their mothers. In this case, your child better doesn't go anywhere near a broom ever."

Harry looked a bit shocked and Draco smirked. Maybe the thought of his child being a looser at Quidditch shocked Potter as much as the thought of his child becoming a Gryffindor shocked Draco.

Draco stood up and walked over to Potter's table. "So you found a book on nursery designs? Can I have a look?" Draco asked, surprising not only Potter and Ex-Granger but himself. Whatever, Draco thought. Maybe he would find something in there he and Ginny could agree on.

"Sure," Hermione answered and gave him the book.

Draco flipped through it and smiled at some of the designs. He looked at the title before giving the book back. He would go and get his own copy. "From Flourish and Blotts?" Draco asked and Hermione nodded.

"We did a lot of baby shopping today. Have you started yet?" Hermione asked, seemingly trying to make polite conversation.

Draco nodded. "We ordered the furniture for the nursery and ordered a few gender neutral baby clothes for the first days. And Ginny's relatives keep sending toys."

Harry smiled. "Yes, the Weasley's have already sent tons of toys to us, too. We probably didn't need any more things, but I simply couldn't stop myself from buying a few things."

Draco noticed Hermione roll her eyes. "A few?! Look at all these bags! Harry even insisted on buying a toy broom already."

"Oh, we did, too! Actually Ginny was the one who ordered it. We agree that you can't start to early making your child see how great Quidditch is," Draco said.

"See!" Harry said triumphantly. "I'm not crazy."

Hermione looked from Harry to Draco with a shocked expression. "Did you two actually agree on something?" she asked bewildered.

Draco's face probably showed the same shocked expression as Potter's. She was right. He had just bonded with Potter over something. Great Merlin!