Cemetery Drive | A Draco Malfoy Fanfiction | Sequel to Bulletproof Heart

Chapter 29

Elisa had almost killed me when I told her what had happened on my birthday and the days prior. Not because it happened but because I had taken a month and a half to tell her. Deciding to wait until my best friend's birthday to tell her that Draco and I had stopped using the contraceptive charm was a risky decision but I knew that she'd get over it in favour of having a girly discussion about every single detail anyway. I felt slightly guilty that the focus of Elisa's birthday had been drawn away and she was now focused on me but at the same time I was fully aware that my best friend was incredibly proud of me and was showing me so through the fact that we had regressed to being the teenagers we once were.
"Do you feel pregnant?" Elisa asked, a glint of pride in her eyes.
My hand fluttered to my stomach and rested there as I glanced down at it. Elisa's question had been soaring around my mind since my birthday anyway but with somebody else asking the same question it somehow made it more real.
"I... I think so," I confessed, my hand still holding my stomach protectively as if there really was something growing inside of me.
Elisa and I were wandering around muggle London after she had collected me from the apothecary. We wanted to spend some girly time together on Elisa's birthday and we knew that London would be the perfect place to do so. As we rounded the corner, chatting and laughing as if we were young again, I caught sight of a vintage book shop peering out at us from between two bustling boutique clothes shops.
"Shall we?" I asked with a grin and the two of us sprinted towards the store front, chaotic glints in both our eyes. This was going to be expensive.

As we emerged from the bookshop, heavy bags weighing us both down, I squinted against the summer sun. It had taken the two of us a long while to get out of the bookshop as Elisa had taken a lot of convincing to allow me to pay for all of the books she wanted but finally she broke. I glanced down the street and grinned when I noticed a niche pub on the corner of the road. Pointing it out to Elisa, the two of us headed down the road towards the sweet pub.
        Once we were sat down at a table beneath a slightly peeling window, a waitress came and handed us some menus. As we perused the menus and later ordered our food, Elisa and I began chatting about the march that Elisa was planning to protest against the abandonment of children, both at her hospital and across the country. I shook my head in disgust just as the waitress delivered out meals.
"The fact that this march is even necessary is just... just entirely vile!" I expressed when the waitress had left.
Since losing my baby all those years ago, the thought of somebody abandoning a sweet, helpless child just because it didn't fit the societal norm or would require a little more effort and involvement on their part was disgusting. Elisa clearly agreed.
"The fact that Kingsley doesn't even think this is something worth his time is in some ways worse," Elisa concluded, taking another bite of her meal.
I nodded, swallowing. We spoke about the issue for a long while before my best friend brought up the case she had been working at Hogwarts around the time of my stillborn and I suddenly understood why she hadn't told me at the time.
"They... they forced her to have an abortion, leading to internal and external bleeding and infection," Elisa sighed. "I had to take the poor girl's uterus out."
I gasped, my hand fluttering absentmindedly to my stomach.
"And then there's Ingrid, left on a doorstep in below freezing levels at four years old."
         The mood had lightened slightly since Elisa and I were talking about her march and the two of us had wolfed down deserts like we hadn't been fed in weeks, when Elisa smiled cheekily at me.
"So, I've had an idea," she began and I pulled a face at her teasingly. "I know you're supposed to be planning today but I've wanted this for a while."
I gestured for her to continue when she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and set it down before me. In the scrawl of my best friend was the name of a muggle tattoo parlour. I looked up at her and grinned.
"Well, happy birthday, El."

-

"Happy birthday to yooouuuuuu!" Joshua and Juliet trailed off together as Dorian blew out the candles of his fifth birthday cake.
Draco and I had taken our own son out for a meal, bring Joshua and Juliet along with us. As the children giggled and smiled with each other, I loved down at the tattoo above my elbow that I had got on Elisa's birthday. It depicted a beautiful dove, grasping a rose in its beak - in memory of the baby girl we had lost. Draco ran his finger gently over the surface of the bird and smiled sorrowfully. The diner around us hummed with soft music and deep laughs that could coax a smile out of anyone. As a waitress brought over our drinks, I flashed a smiled at her and drew my chocolate milkshake towards me. Taking a sip through the tick straw I groaned in pleasure before looking over at Draco.
"It's good but... the Malfoy-Avondale recipe is better." I winked and Draco laughed, pointing over at the kids.
"I think Dorian's itching to open presents now."
"Go on then, baby," I encouraged and watched on with a smile as Juliet and Joshua placed their gifts before my son.
Both of the seven year old twins had purchased Dorian gifts from their very own money and had been ever so proud of this fact. They had even wrapped them themselves as well.
"Auntie Lee, can we do mummy and daddy's first, please?" Juliet asked eagerly and I nodded, pulling the present that Ron and Elisa had bought out from the bag under the table.
Handing it to my son, I couldn't seem to wipe the enormous smile from my face as I watched him rip into the paper around his gift. A red and blue backpack was poking through the paper and I watched as Dorian smiled widely. 
"Mummy! It's a bag for school!" he said excitedly and I nodded.
"You're right, it is!"
Draco helped Dorian slipped the backpack over his shoulders as Joshua pushed his gift towards them, insisting Dorian do his next. Excitably, Dorian pulled Joshua's gift towards him and tore into it with the same eagerness as his first present. Inside the wrapping paper, sat a plush dinosaur, identical to one I had seen Joshua carrying before. 
"Mummy got me one but then I wanted to get you one too so mummy taked me to the shop and helped!" Joshua exclaimed and Draco and I made a fuss of him, telling him how kind and caring that was.
Dorian squeezed the dinosaur tight to his chest and cuddled it for a second before Juliet insisted he know open hers. Juliet's gift was thin and rectangular and Dorian turned it over a few times in his small hands, trying to find where he could open it from. Finally finding a piece of tape, Dorian pulled back the paper to reveal a 'Winnie-The-Pooh' book. Juliet had a bright smiled on her face as she pointed to it.
"Because they'll teach you to read at school, Dory!"
My son immediately opened the book and begin trying to read the first few words, Joshua and Juliet moving around to stand behind his chair in order to help him. My heart warmed at the sight and I couldn't quite believe my son was going to be starting primary school in two days time.

-

Dorian starting school was scary for all of us. Ron, Elisa and the twins walked with us down the road to the primary school, Joshua and Juliet ahead with Dorian between them, the three holding hands. When we made it to the gates, I had expected Dorian to put up more of a fight about leaving me but he simply turned and hugged me, letting me know just how excited he was for the day ahead of him before doing the same to Draco and allowing Joshua and Juliet to lead him to his classroom. We watched as Juliet introduced Dorian to the tall, red-headed, kind looking lady that would be his teacher. The twins had been taught by her before and every day when they came home they would tell Ron and Elisa just how amazing she was. I hoped Dorian would like her as much as they did.

"Mummy, mummy, mummy, guess what I did today!" Dorian was so excitable when he came running out of his classroom door six hours later.
"What did you do, baby?" I asked, offering to take my son's bag from him but he insisted on carrying it as we headed down the road back home, Ron and the twins following us.
Dorian was going into immense detail as he told me everything he had done that day and I was taking every word of it in. Sneaking a quick grin at Ron, I turned all of my attention back to Dorian as we turned into an alleyway that would take us to a portkey Ron and I had set up to get here. I sincerely hoped that Dorian's eagerness and willingness to tell me all about his school days would grow with him, perhaps even extending into his time at Hogwarts. Shaking the thoughts of Hogwarts from my head, I gripped my son's hand as we all placed a hand on the portkey. My son was growing up so fast but instead of dwelling on the time that was soaring past, I was simply going to cherish every moment I had with him.

- 

James and Madeleine's house was lovely. Big enough for the two of them and for any others that may possibly come along but not so big that you lost track of rooms and staircases and where everything was. There were a few people at my siblings' birthday gathering that I recognised and knew by name from my time at Hogwarts but a large majority of the guests I had never met before. Through milling around and chatting to James's family, I learnt that he had two older brothers and a younger sister. Francis and Alfred, the two brothers, were both Gryffindors and were 3 and 2 years older than me, respectively. James has been the year below me, also a Gryffindor, whereas his younger sister Kiara had been the year below Madeleine and Edward and was a Hufflepuff. As I finished up a conversation with, Kiara, I saw Madeleine and Elisa slip back into the room together. If I was entirely honest, I hadn't even noticed them leave. My younger sister made a beeline for me and Kiara moved away to talk to her eldest brother, Francis.
"Everything alright?" I asked her and she nodded, smiling at me softly.
"There's something I wanted to talk to you about." Waving James over, Madeleine took my hand in hers, just as her boyfriend stopped beside us. "Ophelia, I'm... we're pregnant, about 2 months."
My jaw dropped as I stared at them both. Tears filled my eyes as I took them both in. My sister, my baby sister was having her own children. Merlin, I couldn't wait to be an auntie.