Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you enjoy! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Updates every Saturday!
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A week passed by more quickly for Draco than Harriet. As the pregnant omega entered her third trimester, she noticed that her belly grew heavier and her body became more fatigued.
Draco was beside his mate morning, noon, and night. If Harriet was hungry, he had whatever she wanted to eat brought to her immediately. If Harriet was drowsy, Draco herded her back to her nest and allowed her to cuddle against him while she napped.
Anything that Harriet needed or wanted, Draco provided, and he did so with a pleased smirk.
There were few things that pleased an alpha in love more than caring for their omega and pups, even if the latter hadn't been born yet.
The morning of Harriet's ultrasound appointment, she and Draco woke, washed, and dressed before she apparated them to an alley behind the large complex that housed London's sprawling muggle hospital.
Harriet calmly led Draco out of the alley and past the span of buildings to enter the medical center.
She looked over and noticed the awed expression on Draco's face as he scanned over the buildings.
Harriet had forgotten he'd never seen a muggle hospital.
"Alright, Malfoy?" Harriet asked.
"I'm fine, Potter. It's just that St. Mungo's isn't this large." Draco remarked.
"Things are different in the muggle world, Draco. They have medications but the other treatments has to be performed by hand." Harriet explained.
Draco didn't say anything else but Harriet grinned when she glanced over at him and saw him wrinkle his nose in horror as he considered the graphic reality of what she had told him.
They made their way inside the hospital's double doors and as they stood in the sterile hallway, looking at the reception desk while people scurried about, Draco reached out and grabbed Harriet's hand so quickly that the action startled her.
Harriet looked over at him and mused over the worried scowl etched into his handsome face.
Draco didn't care for anything about the muggle world, but he was quite confident that the hospital was his least favorite.
The lights were too bright, the walls were too bland, and there were so many irritating beeping noises that he didn't know which way to look.
Draco took Harriet's hand out of instinct. He was trying to protect his omega from an environment which he deemed hostile and dangerous.
Fortunately, Harriet was aware that there was no threat to her or her baby in the medical facility.
Harriet calmly walked up to the reception desk with Draco and spoke to the woman sitting at a computer, which Draco stared at curiously.
"Hello." Harriet said politely, "I have an appointment in the imaging department this morning."
"Name?" The woman asked abruptly.
"Harriet Potter." Harriet replied.
Draco scowled as his guts twisted when he didn't hear "Malfoy" fall from his mate's lips.
"Down the hall, fourth floor, first door on the right." The woman replied with a heavy sigh.
"Thanks." Harriet nodded.
She took Draco's hand and led him away.
They followed the directions and walked down the hall until they came to the elevators. Harriet stepped inside and Draco closely followed her. The door closed and Harriet pushed the button to go to the fourth floor as she looked at Draco and warned him, "The motion in muggle elevators isn't quite as smooth as the ones in the Ministry, alright? Hold on."
"What do you mean not quite as-!" Draco was in mid sentence when the muggle elevator shifted underneath their feet and lifted the couple to the fourth floor.
She was right.
Wizarding elevators did provide a much gentler ride than those in the muggle world.
By the time they arrived at their destination, Harriet was laughing so hard that she had to hold her belly.
The elevator doors opened and Harriet stepped out, but behind her, Draco clutched onto the machine's walls with his arms spread and his grey eyes wide.
"Would you shut it, Potter?!" Draco hissed as Harriet continued to laugh, although his narrowed eyes softened when he saw the way that she cradled her belly.
"I can't help it! You look like a cat that's been thrown into water." Harriet chuckled as she wiped a hand over her face and tried to calm herself. Harriet pushed back another fit of giggles and looked at Draco seriously as the elevator chimed to announce its imminent departure, "You had better step out here if you don't want to go back down."
Draco scrambled out of the muggle elevator so quickly that Harriet couldn't resist the urge to laugh again.
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After their harrowing journey, Harriet and Draco found the imaging department, checked in, and followed a nurse down the hallway.
The exam room they were shown to didn't look all that different from one at St. Mungo's, though there were several pieces of bizarre-looking equipment that Draco had never seen before.
The nurse left them alone and Harriet laid down on the table in the room while Draco sat loyally at her side.
When she looked over at him, she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the look of grave concern on his face.
"Are they going to hurt you?" Draco asked as he looked at the strange medical equipment.
"No, it won't hurt at all, you'll see." Harriet reassured the troubled alpha.
A sharp knock on the door announced the arrival of the attending doctor and Harriet nodded at Draco while the woman entered the room.
"Relax." She whispered.
Draco frowned incredulously at Harriet.
Relax?
His omega was in a strange place, preparing to have something that he wasn't familiar with done to her, and she had given her consent so it would be difficult for him to intervene and try to protect her if she needed his help.
How was he supposed to relax?
"Good morning, Harriet. It's nice to meet you! My name is Dr. Krause, I'll be doing your ultrasound today." The physician smiled at her patient, glancing down at the omega's chart before her eyes moved to Draco, "I see you have a guest with you!"
Harriet nodded at the woman as she approached and turned on one of the machines that Draco was so suspicious of, "Hello, it's nice to meet you as well, Dr. Krause. This is my mate, Draco."
The Malfoy heir was stunned.
He threw Harriet a look of pure astonishment. She had spoken with such conviction that it seemed almost too easy, as if her and Draco being together were the most natural thing in the world.
Draco drew in a breath and looked down at Harriet, who gave him a shrug, and settled back as Dr. Krause discreetly pulled the omega's shirt up to expose her belly.
"If you're alright, Harriet, we'll go ahead and get started?" Dr. Krause asked with a kind smile.
"Um, sure.....yes, I'm fine." Harriet nodded.
The machine Dr. Krause had turned on began to beep and whir as it loaded the computer program she was going to use. Draco grabbed Harriet's hand again and in his seat, he crouched beside her as he watched Dr. Krause wash her hands and dispense some kind of clear fluid on a towel as she moved towards his mate.
"This is going to be a bit cold." Amelia warned her patient.
Harriet looked at the woman and nodded in understanding. Draco leaned over and squeezed Harriet's hand bracingly as he watched the muggle doctor coat Harriet's abdomen in......whatever that substance was.
Draco was frightened that "cold" may mean "unbearably cold". He was worried that Harriet would be uncomfortable or in pain, but his death grip of reassurance on her hand started to ease when he saw she was completely relaxed as the doctor finished.
"Right, then!" Dr. Krause said cheerily as she picked up a small device, which was connected to the machine by a grey, rope-looking object, "Let's have a look, shall we?"
Harriet nodded again and took a breath. Dr. Krause turned the screen of the machine towards the couple and as she moved forward to place the device in her hand on Harriet's belly, Draco narrowed his eyes to slits and hunched protectively over Harriet, terrified that she was going to be hurt.
When Harriet saw him staring at her though, she shook Draco's hand in hers and pointed towards the screen as she whispered, "Draco, I'm fine! Look!"
Draco's grey eyes were full of hurt and confusion but he obeyed his omega's wishes and turned his attention towards the screen.
As Dr. Krause gently ran the ultrasound wand over Harriet's bare belly, the screen began to turn and change.
Draco saw a shape.
He jumped as a loud noise rang out in the room and a blurry figure appeared on the screen.
The noise was loud and demanding and rhythmic.
"What is that?!" Draco demanded as he scowled at the muggle doctor.
Dr. Krause giggled at the ignorant alpha and looked up at Draco with a warm smile as she informed him, "That's your baby!"
Draco's mouth fell open and his face went slack.
He felt numbly amazed when he realized that the constant, beating rhythm of the noise in the room was......
Thump-Thump
Thump-Thump
Thump-Thump
.......that was a heartbeat.
That was the heartbeat of his son or daughter.
Harriet watched Draco stare reverently towards the screen and her grip tightened on his as she watched him gaze at it as if he were looking into the future itself.
Ultrasound technique wasn't terribly advanced in the late 1990s, but Draco still marveled at what he could see. He studied every line, every shading, every motion.
As the baby inside Harriet squirmed about, Draco's eyes closely followed the movement. Harriet laughed when she realized that in that moment, Draco may well have forgotten that she and everyone else in the world existed.
Dr. Krause smiled knowingly while she moved the wand around and finished Harriet's exam. She tried to take her time and let the awestruck alpha have a visit with his unborn child.
"Everything looks good and healthy." The muggle doctor announced to the couple once she was finished. Before she removed the wand from Harriet's abdomen though, she gave the couple an option.
Dr. Krause glanced between Draco and Harriet as she asked, "Would you two like me to tell you the gender?"
Draco sucked in a breath.
Muggles could determine a child's gender before birth?
There may have been a spell to find that out in the wizarding world, but if there was, he had never heard of it.
Draco didn't know how to answer the doctor's question and he looked over at Harriet to place the decision in her hands.
"That's alright." Harriet replied to the doctor, "We'll wait."
The doctor nodded, took the wand off of Harriet, cleaned her patient's belly, switched off the machine, and stood with a nod, "Give me a moment and I'll have your pictures ready."
"Pictures?" Draco asked.
"Of course, Mr. Potter!" Dr. Krause smiled at Draco, "You two get to keep the pictures, that's half the fun!"
Draco blinked as the doctor closed the door but when he felt Harriet squeeze his hand, he turned towards her.
She and Draco both had tears gather in their eyes as they gazed at each other.
They both sniffed as Draco closed the distance between them and captured Harriet's lips in a deep kiss. He melted against her when she wrapped her arms loosely around his shoulders.
Draco's hand wandered down to proudly splay over her belly as he thought.
The muggle doctor had been kind and she had taken good care of his mate and pup. Such good care in fact, that Draco could almost forgive her for her mistake......Dr. Krause had called him and Harriet by the wrong last name.
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The muggle doctor returned a few moments later and presented the couple with the first hazy images of their little one. Harriet looked over them with a soft smile but Draco stared at the pictures in genuine amazement.
Dr. Krause smiled at her patient and Draco as she spoke, "We'll send your results over, Harriet, but I didn't see any problems. I trust you two are getting ready to meet your new addition? The nursery's set up? You've signed up for classes?"
"We've bought everything for the nursery, we just need to place it." Harriet nodded.
"What classes?" Draco asked as he narrowed his eyes at the muggle doctor.
Harriet had heard about the educational programs the hospital offered for new and expecting parents, but she hadn't given them a second thought.
Harriet was finished with schooling.
People had birthed and patented children for millions of years.
Those classes would be nothing but a waste of her time.
Draco didn't appear to feel the same.
Dr. Krause opened a drawer under the exam counter that the computer sat on and handed Draco several brochures as she explained, "The hospital gives several free classes every week. You two should attend, most pregnant couples do."
Draco scanned over the pamphlets in his hand with scrutinizing eyes as he read their titles.
Alpha-Coached Childbirth
Caring for Your Newborn
Prenatal and Postpartum: What to Know
Harriet yawned nonchalantly as Draco scanned over the bullet points and information listed.
Harriet was known for being the Chosen One and for her obvious accomplishment of defeating Voldemort, but truthfully, in the classroom, Draco's marks had been better. Underneath the pompous, aristocratic exterior he always worked so hard to project, Draco actually valued and enjoyed education.
Harriet's eyes widened as her alpha looked at Dr. Krause and asked, with keen interest in his voice, "How do we enroll?"
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"Why do you even want to take those classes anyway?" Harriet fumed at Draco later that night while they readied for bed, "You know they're muggle classes, right?"
"I've never heard of anything like that, but I think it's a brilliant idea." Draco replied as he fastened the buttons on his green and black silk pajamas, "St. Mungo's doesn't offer those. Our family healer told me I won't be allowed in the room when the baby comes and I'm afraid that won't work, Potter. Apparently, it isn't a wizarding tradition for the father to be very hands-on. "
Harriet was embarrassed by the rush of happiness she felt knowing that her alpha wanted to be by her side and support her.
"You don't have to be so involved, Draco. I'll be fine on my own." Harriet bravely retorted.
Draco raised an eyebrow and stalked towards her, musing over how his Harriet laid in his bed.
His~.
"You're mine, Potter." Draco boldly declared as he crawled over Harriet and cupped her face in his hand.
"This is mine." Draco added as he held her belly in both his hands.
His heart pounded with the terror that Harriet would reject him yet again as he held her close and kissed her lips, whispering, "We're a family now~. Don't fight me, you know it's true."
Draco was seized by the mind-numbing fear that Harriet would slap him away or continue her protest, but his shoulders shuddered in relief when Harriet arched her back and pressed her belly into his hands as she lovingly returned his kiss.
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"I don't see it." Lucius murmured stiffly.
"It's right there." Narcissa replied irritably as she traced along the outline of the picture with the tip of her fingernail, "Look at that.....there's the head.....that must be an arm....."
Lucius sniffed and rolled back over in bed to continue reading the book in his hands, "Only muggles would attempt something like that. What if that's harmful to the child?"
"Draco reassured me it's perfectly safe. I wish we would have had something like this when he was born." Narcissa retorted as she laid against her pillows and placed the ultrasound picture on the heavy, ebony nightstand beside the damask, canopy bed she shared with Lucius.
Lucius Malfoy would never admit it, but he had seen the head and the arm of his grandchild as well as his wife.
Lucius Malfoy would never admit it, but secretly, he thought that whatever it was called.....
What was it?
"Ultrasound", is that what Draco had said?
Well, whatever it was, Lucius Malfoy secretly thought that it was rather clever.....for the muggle world, of course.