Draco decided he had never been happier in his life. He stood in the doorway watching his very pregnant wife and his also very pregnant friend drinking tea and quietly conversing in parseltongue. Oma and Harry were wild creatures at heart, he thought, who had deigned to allow humanity to share their lives. Both of them glowed with their pregnancies – Harry's belly even more distended than his sister's for all that she was a month further along.
Sev had been unable to get any readings on either of the babies with his diagnostic spells, nor had Poppy. The healer had resorted to physical checkups which Harry and Oma strenuously objected to. Even these methods, when they could get the pair to submit to them, were inconclusive which worried Tom and Draco both to no end. Poppy and, oddly, Celeste assured them all that the children were fine and healthy or else the 'mothers' wouldn't be so obviously thriving. Draco sometimes thought that Celeste knew more than she was letting on.
He pulled his eyes away from the pair to admire the new addition Tom had built for the Syrens. It was based on a Japanese tea room, but a bit more practical. Cushions served for chairs and the few tables were very low. There was a massive wooden daybed-sofa, an obvious antique, also low to the floor and covered with a multitude of pillows and fur throws. The floors themselves were a light hardwood, highly polished, with a fire pit cut into the center.
"Hello Draco," Oma greeted in heavily accented English.
The younger Malfoy smiled and sauntered across the room.
"Hello, My Love. Don't let me interrupt; I just wanted to check in on you."
He bent low and kissed Oma lightly on the lips. He still couldn't believe this beautiful creature was his. Turning, he greeted Harry as well.
"Hi D-Draco."
Harry, for some reason, was having a much harder time than Oma learning English.
"I'll see you at dinner Darling," Draco murmured to his wife before quietly slipping out of the room.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harry watched Draco with his sister and smiled. Oma had found herself a fine mate. To an outsider the younger Malfoy's visit may have seemed odd but it was a matter of course in Riddle Manor. Tom made sure that either himself or one of his most trusted followers laid eyes on Harry at least once an hour. Someone else may have found it stifling but to the young brunette, it was an affirmation of his safety.
"Where is Ginny this day," Oma hissed in parseltongue after Draco left.
"She and Dynah have gone to meet another family. They apparently have a very young son who was bitten by a werewolf and they want nothing to do with him. Our wolves will most likely come home with a new addition to our family.
The girl smiled.
"That should please you, Brother. The boy can play with our hatchlings later."
Harry returned the smile and took a sip of his tea, his thoughts turned somber.
"I am worried thought."
Oma waited for him to continue.
"Tom says that Dumbledore is too quiet. He has done nothing since Bizby five months ago and that is apparently rather unusual."
"Perhaps he is planning to do something about the Lovegoods?"
"Perhaps," the young Wizard murmured into his tea.
It was true that the Lovegoods had been causing quite a stir in the Magical Community. Mr. Lovegood was apparently a secret supporter of Tom and together they were using Dumbledore's own tricks against him. Mr. Lovegood ran a small newspaper called the Quibbler and while it was not a very prestigious piece of journalism, enough people read it to take notice of some very interesting articles that had started running after the destruction of the werewolf commune.
Every week the front page was dedicated solely to a victim of the massacre – pictures, history, quotes from friends, relatives and co-workers. While this might have served to make Tom look even worse than he already did, the paper was also running a column on page two of the paper called "Diary of Death Eater."
Tom had kept a journal up until Dumbledore's spell had taken full affect and now, once a week, he owled an entry to the paper. The entries were actually spelled to be unreadable until placed into print – a fascinating piece of spell work, that! - in order to give Mr. Lovegood 'plausible deniability' from the fall out of some of those entries. Tom had interacted with many of the Wizarding World's most popular personalities in his early days and his journal recorded sides of these people that the public had never even dreamed existed.
Mr. Lovegood had been questioned intensely – interrogated really – but no wrong doing could be proved thanks to careful planning. While the people in the entries were recognizable, their names were edited in the classic Victorian manner; for example, Dumbledore appeared only a D-.
Tom had even gone so far as to damage the Quibbler's offices and cast the Dark Mark over them the week the Ministry shut the paper down. Lovegood swore that his family was in danger if he did not run the entries.
So while the Ministry and Dumbledore did not like it, there was not a whole lot they could do; especially if they wanted to avoid any negative publicity.
"Haarrrryyyy," his sister called as she slithered up to him.
He still couldn't figure out how she did that in human form. He was constantly tripping over himself, even before he had gotten pregnant.
"Are you still in there?" she teased.
He gave a small smile.
"I am sorry, My Oma, I was thinking."
"Well you know that rots your brain, right?"
Harry laughed outright at that.
"Why don't you show me this new trick you were telling Mother and I about?"
The dark headed boy smiled again and drew the wand sheathed on his left forearm. He actually had two wands, one on each arm. The one he was using now he had gotten from Ollivander's Wand Shop in Diagon alley a month ago. Tom, Severus and Lucius had taken him there, heavily cloaked, and it turned out that this wand was the brother to Tom's own. Needless to say his mate had been very pleased.
Ollivander, however, had noticed Celeste coiled around Harry's neck and shoulders and had immediately recognized her for what she was. After twenty minutes of being regaled about the use of Syren scales and feathers in wand making, Tom decided to commission a second wand for his mate. The core of that wand was made up of a wing feather each from Celeste, Oma and Harry himself. A branch from the tree sheltering the Syren nest in Blackstone Forest had provided the wood casing.
With this second wand he could cast spells in parseltongue and the magic was much stronger. While Harry was perfectly content to never learn the Wizard's tongue and only use the snake language, Tom had been adamant, even going so far as to threaten the loss of the wand if Harry didn't apply himself. So the young Wizard was learning English and Latin – slowly.
"Wingarium Leviosa," he entoned carefully, flicking his wand at his empty tea cup and levitating the delicate porcelain high into the air.
Oma clapped her hands in delight and laughed, "Excellent Harry!"
Smiling again he gently lowered the cup back to the table.
"I can do a few more spells with my other wand, but My Tom won't let me. He says my 'progress must be kept even' or some such."
The blonde girl gave him an almost annoyed look.
"Your mate wants you to learn the Wizard's tongue Harry and restricting your other wand is the only way he can seem to motivate you to do that."
"Hrumph. Sex would work to."
"Really?" Tom questioned from the doorway. "I'll have to figure out a way to use that little nugget of information." He nodded to his sister-in-law before kissing his mate's forehead.
"It is time for your nap, Luv, and I thought I might join you today."
Harry frowned slightly but nodded.
Oma, bracing herself on the low table, slowly rose to her feet.
"I suppose I'll go rescue Sev from our mother then. Between her and Sirius hounding him, it's a wonder he hasn't hexed them both."
Both men grinned and Tom said, "I think it is good for him – Sev has been alone too long as it is. And besides, I think he likes it."
Oma laughed as she left the room.
"Is everything all right Tom?"
"Yes Luv. It is annoying how tiring it is to wait. But from what the men tell me; our publicity campaign is starting to work. People are starting to pay attention to the actions of Dumbledore and the Ministry."
Tom helped Harry to his feet and together they curled up on the daybed.
"Mr. Lovegood tells me that an anonymous party asked to reprint my journal entries and they've started their own newsletter featuring them and the memories of others from that time period. I hear they even have a section called 'Howlers for Hogwarts' where old students of the school are listing abuses they suffered there. It seems that the Wizarding World is finally starting to wake up."