55Chapter 15: ASTTWT 4: You're Me!
And so the Tables Were Turned …, part four: You're Me!
Draco stared at Piper in disbelief. What had just come out of her mouth? And then he looked at the black-haired man in front of them and realised that he had understood her perfectly well. They exchanged incomprehensible lines of nonsense sounds at a disturbing rate that made Draco dizzy. When no indication as to how they could communicate in this made-up language came, he started to get really annoyed. Ultimately, he stamped his foot down into the dirt twice and said: "What the Hell is going on here?!"
Piper stared back at him as if he had gone mad, then she turned back to the stranger. "Eigo wo hanasu koto dekimasu ka?" she seemed to ask him, and the man immediately began to nod his head vigorously. "Yes, yes," he said, and this Draco could understand.
He walked up to Piper. "Who the Hell is this? We don't have time for friendly conversations right now. After all, you were the one who dragged us here, so bloody come help us, then!"
"Sorry," Piper said. Turned to the black-haired stranger, she said: "What is your name, sir?"
"Sakanoue Yousuke," the man replied. "And you are …?"
"Piper Malfoy, but I should probably say Malfoy Piper so you get my names in the correct order, right?"
To Draco's great irritation, his sister and the stranger started to laugh. "What the bloody Hell is going on?" he demanded. "Piper, for fuck's sake! Explain yourself!"
Piper sighed. "This young man here is obviously Japanese, because he was cursing quite outspokenly in Japanese just a minute ago. Said things like 'bloody bastard' and 'sonofabitch'; you know how it goes better than anyone. So I asked him if he speaks English, and the rest you know."
Draco gaped. "You know Japanese? How can you know Japanese?"
The sister shrugged indifferently. "I took some classes a while back."
"Japanese classes? Why?"
"To impress you. I know you think I'm stupid and ignorant and all that, and I wanted to prove you wrong by learning something really difficult. I just wanted to show you that I can be smart, too."
Draco was moved that she would do such a thing for him. But shock still had the better of him. "Why did you go and choose Japanese? When are you ever going to get use for that?" He looked at the black-haired man. "I take that back. You are finding your language skills very useful right now. But still; why?"
"I made a list of all the things you would never even dream of doing, then I wrote them down on tiny pieces of parchment and put them all in a hat. The piece of paper I drew out of the hat said 'Japanese studies', so … that's pretty much it. And you know what? I discovered it was actually rather easy."
"Marufoi-san wa rikou desu ne?" the Japanese bloke said with a friendly smile.
"Hai, hai!" Piper replied, and laughed.
"What?" Draco said.
"He said, 'Miss Malfoy is accomplished, isn't she?' and I confirmed it," Piper explained. "So, tell me, Sakanoue-san, what are you doing here?"
He walked up to the shrubbery that Piper and Draco had left behind them, stopping next to Harry. "I am here to rescue someone."
"Oh. Are you a wiz—"
"Piper!" Draco hissed warningly, and stepped on her foot. He gave her a murderous look.
"Ow!" She scowled at him. "I just thought that since he can see the castle—"
"Shut up!"
Sakanoue turned to look at Harry and gasped. "The scar!" he hissed with awe. "You must be Harry Potter! It is such an honour to finally meet you, Potter-san."
Harry looked stricken when the energetic little Japanese man eagerly shook his hand. All he could think about was that this weird guy had pronounced his name 'Pottaa' instead of 'Potter'. "Er, nice to meet you, too, Saka … Saka … whatever your name was. Er, I take it you're a wizard, then ...?"
"Hai, hai! One of best wizards in Japan, at your service!"
"But what are you doing here, then?" Piper asked. "It's dangerous to walk around these grounds with Lord Pywercaseley invading Hogwarts and all …"
Sakanoue gave her a cold look. "That is why I have to go in. He has kidnap my sister, Magami. I know he keep her in that castle. I need to rescue."
Piper nodded solemnly. "Then we help."
She turned to Harry for a plan, which did not surprise Draco at all. Piper might be able to learn a foreign language, but she could not for the world think further than her stomach allowed.
It turned out that Harry had already worked out a plan, and unfortunately Draco starred in the lead role. He had to put on a Death Eater cape that his sister provided—probably one of their father's old capes kept for sentimental reasons, which made Draco sick—and hide his face beneath it. He and Harry would steal into the castle and try to stall Pywercaseley long enough for Piper and Sakanoue to collect his sister, whom was being held in the dungeons.
They studied the Marauder's Map very carefully before working out their strategy. Piper and Sakanoue were to wait outside one of the hidden entrances to the castle until Harry and Draco had given them a sign that it was safe to enter. They agreed on a brief, half-dimmed light in one of the windows in the north tower.
Harry made a quick trip home to fetch his Invisibility Cloak so he could accompany Draco into the castle without being seen by the Death Eaters. Although Draco disliked the idea of playing a Death Eater, he had to agree with the others when they argued that he was the person best suited for the role. He could sound really intimidating when he wanted to, and he had an authentic authority that was indisputable. It was all thanks to his Malfoy heritage.
As soon as Harry had swept the cloak around himself, they took off for the castle. Draco's stomach was turning inside out with nervousness and anxiety. He had a bad feeling about this, but he did not know if it was justified or if it was simply a result of his recurring nightmares and jittery nerves.
The Dark Lord had been thorough and placed six guards outside the main doors; they had decided that it was best to approach their adversaries directly instead of trying to sneak up on them. Better to be bold than yellow-bellied.
Draco walked straight up to the stairs with his usual self-confident stride, and feigned insult when he was stopped by two of the guards. "What do you mean by stopping me like this?" he bellowed furiously. "Can't you bloody see I am one of you?!"
The two Death Eaters seemed to relax a bit, but they did not let him pass. On the inside, Draco was swallowing hard, and he felt cold trickles of sweat run down his back. The taller of the guards said, "I'm sorry, but I can't let you pass. Boss's order."
Draco made an attempt to launch himself at them. "You ungrateful, dirty, arse-licking prats! I will give you for boss's order! Is that any way to treat your superior?! I have been bloody standing on guard—ME!—for two bloody hours and nearly frozen my bollocks off—and when I want to get back inside to warm myself, you won't even let me pass through the bloody door?! Move the Hell out of my way and don't you dare bloody touch me, you sorry imbeciles!"
He was really playing a hazardous game now, because he could not possibly know how they would react to him claiming to be their superior, he was merely allowing himself to go with the flow and making things up on the spot. In a weird sort of way, it felt incredibly good to be yelling such impolite insults straight to their faces.
The two Death Eaters backed away a few steps. "I am so sorry, Gumble, I didn't know it was you," the tall one said, and almost bowed before him. "I'll let you through now, sir, I'm awfully sorry for the inconvenience." They stepped away from the door.
Draco was momentarily paralysed by astonishment. They really had one of their superiors out on watch tonight?! He swiftly shook himself out of his state of shock. "You bloody bet you will!" he said, trying his best to keep up his act. "I will be sure to report this to the Dark Lord himself as soon as I see him, and it will not be pleasant for you lot!" With those words, he stalked past the two dazed Death Eaters and hoped to Merlin that Harry was following on his tail.
As soon as he was inside the castle and the big doors had been shut behind him, he looked around him, desperately trying to detect a flutter of the oily fabric of Harry's cloak; something that would indicate if his lover was there or not. Making sure that no-one was in sight, he dared to whisper, "Harry? Are you there?"
"Yes," came the raven-haired boy's voice from his left side, so close that he jumped in fright.
"Fuck, you scared me," he whispered back.
"We shouldn't be talking right now. Just do as planned and walk straight up to Pywercaseley's lair in Dumbledore's office."
"Okay. But how do I get in?"
"I know the password."
"You do?"
"Can't be anything else. 'I hate Weasleys.' Percy's nurtured his hatred for his family for quite some time now, and I think he'd be stupid enough to use that as a password. Easy for the other Death Eaters to remember, too."
"I hope you're right." Draco started towards the stairs. "You'll be there with me, won't you?"
"All the way, baby. I got your back."
Draco met many Death Eaters standing on guard on his way up to the Headmaster's tower office, and it unnerved him that they were so many. He had a great difficulty getting the privacy that he needed to send the signal to Piper and Japanese Dude. How were they ever going to get out of there alive?
Not only did they have the odds against them because they were outnumbered, but they had another crucial weakness: Draco's pregnancy. Pywercaseley and his weasels must know about that because of the bloody papers, and if they got to the child growing inside of him ... it might be the end of him and Harry.
Standing by the stone statue outside the Headmaster's office, Draco drew a deep breath and said, "I hate Weasleys." He had not expected anything to happen, so when the statue slipped aside and revealed the moving staircase he almost cried out.
Quickly, he stepped onto the top of the stairs and allowed himself to be moved right up to the top. There were guards outside the door to the office, too, but they willingly stepped aside when Draco told them he was Gumble, and he was able to walk into Lord Pywercaseley's midst without him even knowing it.
The Dark Lord stood by the desk, looking out of the windows with his back to Draco, but he turned around the moment he heard the door open and close. "Who are you, and how dare you disturb me?" he hissed intimidatingly.
Draco simply snorted and went straight up to him, circling him like a wild predator. "You really don't have any time for your sidekicks, do you, Pywercaseley? Maybe you should show them a little more appreciation and they'd be a little more loyal to you. Maybe then they wouldn't let someone like me into your inner sanctum," he said provokingly.
The Dark Lord did not like that commentary. His eyes narrowed into thin slits. "Who are you?" he repeated impatiently.
When Draco was in the position that he and Harry had agreed upon, he pulled the hood of the cloak up and revealed his face. He took enormous pleasure in the unmistakably horrified gasp that escaped Pywercaseley. He surely had not forgotten what had happened the last time he stumbled upon the blonde. "You ...!"
Draco sneered. "Yes, it's me all right. Whatchu going to do about it?"
A cold rage sprang up in Pywercaseley's face. "You wouldn't want to know, Malfoy. I can fuck you up so bad you won't even recognise yourself in the mirror, and I can do it only by a light twitch of my hand."
"Really? I'm not impressed. I know loads of people who can do better," Draco yawned.
"So you dare to challenge me? That is foolish, even for you. You think you can win over me? You think you can eliminate me from the face of the earth like you eliminated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and your parents?"
"Come on, you know it was a little bit more than that … Sixty-seven Death Eaters, taken out with four shots. And I must say I'm surprised that you of all people are afraid of speaking his name, even this long after his death."
Oh, how he loved teasing that fake Dark Lord, because he saw something that the Lord did not: Harry had removed his Invisibility Cloak and taken out his wand.
Pywercaseley laughed. "You think that will intimidate me? Make me whimper and beg for mercy? Come on, you don't even have me at a clear shot. You don't even have a wand!"
Draco gave him a dark smile. "No, but he does."
Pywercaseley knitted his brows and slowly began to turn around to see who Draco was talking about. All of a sudden, everything happened so fast. Harry uttered the death curse and the green light hit the Dark Lord in the chest and sent him flying through the air in an odd dance, and in the same second, the door to the office opened and the Death Eater guards outside stepped into the circular room, and they saw Harry curse Pywercaseley, so they raised their own wands and directed the very same curse at Harry. One of them missed, but the other hit him in the small of his back.
He fell forward on his hands and knees, but this time he did not even lose consciousness, did not even stay down for a fraction of a second, but instantly got back up and directed a few minor jinxes and hexes at the Death Eaters inside the door.
Fury was written all over his face. "Oh, give it a rest!" he was shouting, beside himself with wrath. "This is the third time in two bloody years, don't you ever tire?! It hurts, for fuck's sake! Can't I go anywhere without being cursed nowadays!?" He hit the Death Eaters with a few jinxes more. Draco simply stared at him in shocked silence.
Harry kicked the Death Eaters' shins. "Leave me the Hell alone!"
They both stared at him with a mixture of fright and awe in their dark, beady eyes. One of them actually managed to speak, which impressed Draco a little. "You ... you didn't die ..."
Harry kicked them again. "No, because I'm the bloody boy who lived three bloody times! You think I'm gonna die the fourth time?! Are you stupid, or what?"
To their utter surprise, both the Death Eaters bowed before Harry. It threw him off balance, and he stopped dead with his foot halfway to the smaller of them. "What the fuck are you doing?" he asked them as if they were his friends trying to pull a prank on him.
"Harry Potter, you succeeded both to assassinate our boss and to survive the death curse, and that means you're mightier than every other wizard on this planet. You must accept our offer to make you our new Dark Lord," the fatter of them said, and the little guy nodded in consent.
That was not exactly what Harry had expected—if he indeed had expected anything at all ... Draco certainly had not anticipated anything of the sort. And when he finally understood what their offer would mean, he looked at Harry. To give his lover support, he said, "Love to search for that scar later."
Harry laughed. He turned to the Death Eaters. "You don't actually think that I would become the Dark Lord of my own volition, do you? You'd have to kill me before that happens, and seeing as you've already failed four times … I don't see much of a threat in that." He turned to the blonde. "Draco, would you please put that cloak back on? You'll need it when we get out."
Draco nodded at the two men on the floor. "What about them?"
Harry shrugged. "I guess we'll knock them out and just leave them here."
"No!" the fat Death Eater exclaimed. "We cannot let you leave until you have agreed to be our leader."
"Then I guess we'll have to fight our way out," Harry said sombrely. He made to walk past them with his wand raised in front of him, but he was not ready when they launched themselves at him, and Draco could not stand just watching his lover being battered and beaten and cursed any longer; he swallowed hard and pulled out his own wand. Shaking with repentance, he yelled, "A-a-avada Kadavra!"
The round of green light went straight through the first Death Eater, leaving a hole as big as an apple in his abdomen, and hit the second one low in the chest. They fell like dominoes.
Harry looked up at him, panting. His green eyes were clouded by pain and fear. Something broke inside Draco at that moment; he hated seeing Harry like that, and it happened more often now than it ever had before. It was the same kind of look he had had when Sirius died, after the events in the Department of Mysteries … the same kind of look Draco imagined he must have had after watching Cedric die ... that same look that always came back to him when he was overcome by the tragedies of his life. And it went all the way back to the night Voldemort had killed his parents.
Draco wished he could do something to ease that pain …
"Thank you," Harry said. "We'd better get out of here before any more dickheads show up. Let's find out if Piper and Sacky succeeded to rescue his sister."
Draco still felt the pain in Harry's heart pouring into his body, forming a hard lump in his throat, making his eyes water. Yet, he nodded firmly and hid his face beneath the Death Eater cloak once more. Harry swept his Invisibility Cloak around himself, and they ran out together.
It was difficult to walk past all the guards stationed in various corners of the castle without running in a panic, difficult to act as if nothing had happened in the Headmaster's office, difficult to greet the Death Eaters as if they were his mates. But he did it. He did it for Harry. For their family. Were they ever to have a quiet life together, just him and Harry and the babies, they had to keep their heads cool and stay out of the Death Eaters' business.
It just unnerved him, the way those two thugs had immediately embraced Harry as their new leader merely because they failed to kill him ... What if they came after them? What if they refused to relent until he had agreed to lead them?
They met up with Piper and the Japanese guy where they had left them, and evidently their plan had worked, because they had someone with them. "Kore wa imouto desu," the Japanese bloke said to them when they joined them.
Draco raised his eyebrows in utter bewilderment. "Excuse me?"
Piper put an arm around his shoulders. "He said: 'This is my younger sister.' She doesn't know any English at all, so he must speak Japanese in order for her to understand. I will be your interpreter."
Draco squirmed at her touch. "Why do I have the feeling that I can't trust you to translate my words correctly?" he asked her.
Obviously, the three of them had been in such a hurry to get out of the castle unnoticed that they had had no time for introductions, for Piper turned to the young woman, bowed, and said, "Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Marufoi Paipaa to moushimasu."
The young Japanese girl smiled appreciatively, and replied, "Hajimemashite. Sakanoue Magami to moushimasu."
Piper turned to Draco and Harry. "I said: 'We meet for the first time. My name is Piper Malfoy.' It is tradition in their country to greet people in this fashion when you first meet them. Then she replied by saying the same thing, except 'My name is Magami Sakanoue' instead of 'Piper'. Now I will introduce you."
She turned back to Magami without waiting for her brother's reaction. She pointed at Draco. "Kore wa watashi no otouto no Marufoi Dorako to moushimasu." (This is my younger brother, Draco Malfoy.) Furthermore, she went on to pointing at Harry. "Otouto no koibito no Potaa Harii to moushimasu. Karera wa Nihongo wo hanasu koto dekimasen." (This is my brother's lover, Harry Potter. They don't speak Japanese.)
Magami's eyes widened with astonishment. "Koibito ka? Honto ni ano otoko no koibito ka? Potaa Harii-sama wa … otoko to …?" (Lover? Is he really this boy's lover? Harry Potter-sama has … a male …) she asked, staring at Harry in bafflement.
Piper bowed slightly. "Hai. Karera wa ai ni arimasu," (Yeah. They're in love.) she informed her.
Magami looked as if she was about to ask more questions, but Draco interrupted her; he did not care if it was perceived as impolite according to their custom. He grabbed his sister and forced her to look at him. "Hey! Sorry to barge in on your friendly chat like this, but could we please return to the interpretation now?!"
Piper blinked. "Oh. Of course. Certainly. I just thought it was fun to actually be speaking to someone in Japanese for a change. Sorry. Let's see now..." And she proceeded to translate to the young couple.
"Oh, great—now our personal life'll be all over Japanese media, too. Thanks."
Harry anxiously surveyed the area. "Hate to break it up, but we'd better go home before they discover we've killed the Dark Lord," he pointed out nervously.
Piper and Sacky stared at him, both completely taken aback. "You what?"
"Not here, we'll talk about it at home. Now, Piper, would you please take us out of here?"
Piper let hear a drawn out moan of exasperation that sounded more like a braying jackass in pain, but she at least did as told.
A month went by without any interruptions of their daily life. James stayed at the house, and it was a real joy having the boy around. He had begun to speak coherently and cleverly distinguished between his fathers by calling Harry 'Dada' and Draco 'Daddy.'
The baby inside Draco grew, and he went on his first ultrasound at St. Mungo's on the 13th of July. Harry was there by his side, even though men were not allowed in the maternity ward, and he held Draco's shaking hand when their baby appeared on the little screen and the midwife pointed out the tiny little beating heart to them. Draco cried that day. It was so beautiful.
That visit was so different from their first, when he had yelled at everyone present and completely humiliated himself; this time, he sat down in the waiting room and excitedly chatted with the women there. Harry was very surprised to see him discussing the pros and cons with being pregnant with strangers, because he had never heard Draco mentioning words like 'nipples,' 'peeing,' 'heartburn,' or 'vomiting' in the presence of others before. He could say them to Harry, yes, but when it came to other people, Draco was very careful to make himself sound as flawless and perfect as possible, and he always kept things like that private.
Something was happening at Malfoy Manor, and it had nothing to do with Draco's pregnancy. No, this concerned Piper and her newfound Japanese friend. They had agreed to call him Joe since both Draco and Harry found it impossible to pronounce his name correctly.
Harry recalled one occasion when Draco had tried his best to make it sound like 'Yousuke', but totally failed. All he had managed was: "You know, Yusacky, I was wondering … could you babysit James for us tonight? Harry and I are going out, and Piper's going to be away for work. He likes you."
Yousuke had lightened up like a light bulb in a deep, windowless cellar. "Certainly!" he said happily, and Harry had laughed on the inside at the fact that he pronounced it 'Saatanrii.'
Draco prepared to leave the room. "Great, Yusacky. Thanks."
"Yousuke."
"Huh?"
"My name is Yousuke, Draco-san."
"Oh, sorry. Yosucky, then."
"Yousuke."
"Yosackey?"
"No, Yousuke. Yo-oh-s'ke."
"You-oh-suck-ey?" Draco asked in confusion.
So after that, they pretty much decided that it was better for them to make up an English nickname for him, and they agreed on Joe.
They did not notice the change that was taking place between Piper and Joe at first, not for a long time actually, but eventually it became very obvious that there was something … different about them. They were all sitting in the parlour one day; Harry was reading the Prophet and Draco was lazily lying on his back on one of the couches, propped up by several small, soft cushions, watching Piper and Joe, whom were enjoying a wild discussion in Japanese. Draco listened almost fascinatedly to the weird words that meant nothing whatsoever to him. Then, out of the blue, he said, "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"
Harry looked up to see if he was speaking to him. Then he glanced at the others. "No, what?"
"Look closer," Draco instructed. "Don't they remind you of someone?"
Harry looked again. And they did in fact remind him of something. What came to mind was that night in their fifth year at Hogwarts when they had spent the night talking and laughing and teasing each other until they were so tired they both fell down on the huge cushions on the floor. The night they shared their first kiss. Suddenly, Harry understood where Draco was going. "No ... you don't think …"
"Yeah, I do. Looks like they're falling in love."
"I know, but Piper—in love?"
Draco laughed. "Yeah, I totally know what you mean. She's not the love type."
"No, she's more into torture!"
They laughed again. Although they were all in the same room, and Piper and her boyfriend-to-be were just seven feet from Harry and Draco, neither of them heard a word of the boys' conversation. Piper just laughed and said something that sounded like "Home to Vienna coat none done!" and Draco did not get it at all.
He shook his head and instead patted the vacant space beside him on the couch. "Come here!" he said to Harry.
Harry instantly got up from his armchair and lay down next to Draco on the couch.
Draco closed his eyes with a pleased, happy smile on his face and put his arms around Harry in a tender embrace. "Mmmm, I could lie like this forever …" he murmured against Harry's cheek.
Harry patted the blonde's stomach. "I could too, baby. I could too."
Joe gave Piper a flower.
The third month of Draco's pregnancy went by rather quickly, and the media still was not camping outside their doors to get the latest bit of news steaming hot and fresh; they always sent owl post first to ask their permission before they did a piece on them. Obviously, people in the magic community had great respect for the boy who had survived Voldemort and the boy who had killed him.
They never wrote a word about James, which both Harry and Draco appreciated a lot. And that was quite fortunate, for there were many people who could never know that James disappeared from the Manor on a regular basis. Only sixteen months old, he already seemed to be spending more time away from home than at home. And now he was gone again.
Harry and Draco had learnt that he came back sooner or later, and if he ever were in danger they would receive a message with a clue to where they might find him.
That was what happened that day.
Harry was going out to the kitchen to fetch a drink when he noticed the message on the refrigerator. A few months back, they had bought a couple of boxes of refrigerator poetry to amuse James with, and normally there would be a hundred different statements there, such as "Daddy is great" and "Give me milk or die", but not today. All the original sentences had been plucked down and replaced by one single message. Harry instantly knew that it must be about James.
disappeared boy saint mango
class reunion
a blond
A blond? A blond what? Or maybe it was not a blond something but a blond someone, and if that was the case, could it be a particular blonde?
Harry jerked involuntarily when he realised who it must be. The blond boy. The mysterious boy who repeatedly showed up when things were getting ugly, who did everything at 'her' beck and call. But he had never told Harry who 'she' was. This time, 'she' had apparently instructed him to leave the message without being seen.
But what did it mean? 'Disappeared boy', that was James, that one was easy, but 'saint' and 'mango' did not seem to have any meaning at all at first. What if it's replacements for other words he didn't find amongst those available to him? Harry thought, and began to try to figure out what the blonde might have meant. Then it hit him. Saint. St. And the mango was … Mungo. James was at St. Mungo's.
Harry took his cloak and left right away. He did not have to search long before he had found the boy. He was playing with the toys in the waiting room outside the children's ward. Harry gave him a smile and bent down to pick him up. "There you are, you little mischief-maker," he said. "Having fun, are you?"
James smiled happily. "Dada! Cars go zoom!"
"Yes, cars go zoom. Is that your car there? No, it's the hospital's car. We'll leave it here in case some other kid wants to play with it."
"Harry?"
Harry froze. That voice. He recognised it—it was very familiar—yet … No, could it really be …?
He slowly turned around. A young woman was looking at him with a slight frown on her face, looking rather insecure. But when she saw the scar on his forehead she recognised him right away. "It is you, Harry! Imagine seeing you here of all places!"
Harry stiffened. She was probably the last person he ever wanted to see again. He cleared his throat. "Cho. Nice to see you again."
She went straight up to him and began to play with James. "Is this boy your son? He's been playing here all day; I thought he'd been abandoned. Where were you? Why didn't you come pick him up?"
"Because I didn't know where he was," Harry said, feeling his face burning at her comment. "He likes to disappear sometimes. Drives us mad half of the time."
She gave him a meaning look. "So you finally met someone special, then?" she stated. "I'm glad you regained your senses and realised that your relationship with that Malfoy couldn't be of any good. So, tell me everything. Is she nice, your girlfriend? Or are you even married, perhaps? And when did you decide you wanted to have children? It seems so … unlike you, the way you were when I knew you."
"Funny thing to say, because I'm of the opinion that you didn't really know me at all," Harry pointed out harshly.
For a brief moment, Cho seemed hurt by his comment, but she recovered quickly. "I'm working here now, love children. Got off at four today, but I stayed behind to keep this little chap company. I'd love to meet your wife, Harry. Would it be too much of an intrusion if I came along with you?"
Suddenly Harry had an idea. "No, sure, why not?" he said. "I'd love for you to meet my … partner in life. I bet it'll be a nice reunion."
Her smile broadened. "Reunion? So it's someone I know, then? Oh, don't tell me it's Hermione! Ron'd get really devastated."
"He already is. Haven't you heard? Hermione was murdered two years ago."
Cho was silent for a long while. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know. Must've been hard on you. She was your best friend."
"Until she betrayed me, yes. But that's all in the past. A lot has happened since we graduated from Hogwarts. Now, would you like to meet the love of my life or not? I have to get back or I'll get a nasty ranting." Harry reached out his hand to her. Cho nodded and took a careful grip of his hand, and then they were off.
They Apparated into the dining room, because Harry knew that Draco would be preparing dinner by this time. "Honey, I'm home!" he called for Cho's sake. The thing about imminent dinner had probably been a correct guess, because Joe was just about to set the table.
He spent a lot of time in the Malfoy Manor since he had started dating Piper, but he was a true gentleman and never stayed past bedtime. He always brought gifts for Piper when he came to visit or to pick her up for one of their many dates at restaurants and movie theatres and suchlike.
"Hey there, Joe," Harry greeted the Japanese man, "how's it going? Getting everything set up for dinner, are you?"
Joe instantly turned around and bowed courteously when he heard Harry's voice. "Welcome home, Harry-san. I hope you had pleasant journey. Ah, I see you brought guest back. Maybe I should set other place for table, then?"
"Yes, please do," Harry said, and feeling rather stupid, he bowed back. He gave Cho an inquiring look. "You are staying for dinner, right?" he asked.
She laughed somewhat nervously. "Sure. Why not? So, where is this mystery lady?" She surveyed the big dining room. "Boy, you really live luxuriously, Harry. Did you marry royalty or something?"
Harry noticed that Joe was about to say something but gave him an urgent gesture and said the only couple of words that he had learnt in Japanese so far. "Joudan desu." It's a joke.
Joe smiled appreciatively. "Ah. Yoku yatta! Well done, Harry-san. You pronounced words correctly. You better than koibito-san." He probably used the word 'koibito' for Draco not to spoil Harry's joke, and he silently thanked the bloke for it.
Draco and he would have a good laugh when Cho saw the blonde walking in through the arc from the kitchen. Speaking of which ... "Honey, would you please come out here for a minute? There's someone here I'd like you to meet. It's a joudan!" The one Japanese word Draco understood.
Cho was impressed. "You speak Japanese, Harry?"
"Oh, well, just a word or two ..."
"That's impressive. Wish I knew my mother tongue better, but I was never any good at it so I stopped trying to learn. They say Chinese and Japanese are rather similar languages."
"That is myth," Joe said. "Japanese took Chinese signs and made them to fit with Japanese pronunciation. Now, Japanese and Chinese—very different." After sharing that piece of information with them, he returned to his chores.
Draco emerged from the kitchen, wearing emerald green cotton trousers and a plain, tight white T-shirt, this time not even bothering to hide the fact that he was swiftly getting fatter with child, holding a cloth in his left hand, and his shoulder length-blond hair was tousled after a long day of chores and another maternity ward appointment. They wanted to check up on him more often than they did with normal mothers since he was a man and things could easily go wrong.
He gave Harry an inquiring and somewhat stressed look. "What's with the 'Honey?' You've never called me that before. What happened to 'Baby' or just plain 'Dracums?'" he asked with suspicion. Then he noticed Cho standing beside and slightly behind Harry. "Er, hello. Harry, why didn't you tell me we were having a guest over? I would have made more for dinner … and maybe dessert."
Harry smiled amusedly at the sight of the cloth in Draco's hand. "What's with the cleaning equipment?" he asked. "You starting to use your hands now, Dracums?"
The mocking tone went straight past Draco. "See, there you have the 'Dracums!' What's with the 'Honey?' And who's she?" He waved his cloth at them. "I'm busy; I was just about to hex this into cleaning the kitchen counters for me. Would you please tell me what's going on now?"
Cho took a trembling step towards the blonde, her face pale with shock and disbelief. "No …," she whispered, "it can't be …"
Draco knitted his brows. "What? You've never seen a man clean before?"
Harry went over to him and gave him a tender kiss. Draco shut his eyes with euphoria for a second. "Hey, baby," Harry said, properly greeting his lover this time. "Rough day?"
"Oh, not so much. You find James? I saw the message on the fridge. Joseph was here earlier, wasn't he? Why doesn't he ever show himself to me? I'm supposed to be his father, aren't I? I think it's bloody impolite of him to avoid me like this."
Harry went down on his knees and kissed Draco's stomach and made the blonde giggle girlishly. "I bet he had his reasons," he murmured; kissed Draco's bellybutton anew. "Don't you, Joseph? You just want to tease your Daddy, don't you?"
During this display of love and affection, Cho stood silent in the middle of the floor, her entire body shivering visibly. When Harry rose from the floor and faced her, she looked at him with puzzlement, fright, and lack of understanding. She saw the unmistakable bump on Draco's stomach. With her voice trembling, she said, "Draco, you're … pregnant."
The blonde raised one eyebrow. "Er, duh … everyone knows that."
Harry laughed bitterly. "Boy, you really don't read the papers, do you?"
Cho gave him a confused look. "The papers? I don't understand …"
"It's been all over the news for the past three months," Harry went on, "everyone knows about us. 'The Boy Who Lived Thrice', 'The Boy Who's Pregnant', 'The Boy Who's Carrying the Child of the Boy Who Lived', 'The Boy Who Killed the Dark Lord' … Have you really not heard about any of that?"
Cho feverishly shook her head.
Draco turned to Harry again. "Who is she? And what is she doing here?"
"Believe it or not, but this is Cho Chang."
The blonde was silent for a long while. His expression changed from confused and somewhat irritated to hurt and disappointed. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. On his way out, he said, "I don't believe you, Harry."
Harry's heart stopped for a second. What had just happened? "Dracums!"
With a deep sigh, he realised that he had done something stupid—as always. Without looking at Cho, he told her to leave. "This is a bad time, we'll have to take a rain check on that dinner." He went after Draco, and found the blonde sitting bent over the round kitchen table, shaking with heart-breaking sobs. Harry hurried up to him, knelt beside him and comfortingly put his arm around his back. "Dracums, what's wrong? What did I do? What did I say? Dracums …"
The blonde's crying saddened him. It was such wretched, heartbroken crying …
"You … you have the nerve to … to bring your … your ex-girlfriend here … and you ask me what you've done? You ask me what you've done? Bastard …" He convulsed with another fit of violent sobbing.
Harry jerked. Oh no … "But, Dracums, Cho isn't my ex-girlfriend …"
Draco swirled around to face him, his eyes red with tears, his flushed face wet. "No? No? Then explain to me why you chose her for your sweetheart on Valentine's Day! Huh? You don't have any smart remark to that, do you, Harry? You're a bloody cheater, you are … bastard …"
Harry forced him into his arms, and the blonde reluctantly leant against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Dracums, I never meant to hurt you … I just ran into her at St. Mungo's when I was there picking up James. Turns out she's working there now. It was a pure coincidence, Dracums, I promise. And about her being my Valentine … that was over five years ago. I was insecure, I was changing … lots of things were changing inside of me that I couldn't control. Hormones, I guess.
"She stayed behind after one of my Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, one of the last we had … it was right before Christmas, and there was a mistletoe in there … She kissed me and I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I felt really stupid and nervous … and there was this other feeling that I didn't understand at all. I only understood it much later, when I … I was about to say 'when I met you', but that wouldn't be the right choice of words since I had already met you, but when I got to know you.
"I was trying so hard to fit in, what with the stereotypical view people have about love; I was trying so hard to be like everyone else and make someone respect and appreciate me, just the way I was, that I couldn't see the obvious. And that was that I had already chosen my sweetheart. I chose you, Draco. I chose you long before I actually realised that I had fallen for you, long before we even got on speaking terms with each other. Later, I realised that I had been watching you for several months, maybe even since our fourth year, and I had sort of been taking a perverse pleasure in every insulting and threatening word you said to me. Even though you called me all sorts of things, I loved every word of it. Because I loved you.
"I was never interested in Cho, I was merely trying to do what everyone else was expecting me to do because Harry Potter couldn't go against the crowd and announce that he was gay. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Eventually, of course, I realised that I couldn't keep fooling myself. That night in the secret room in the dungeons totally changed me … and I still consider it to be the best night of my life, because that's the night you became mine. That's the night you kissed me and told me you were falling in love with me. That's when I realised I loved you without even knowing it.
"Every day I thank you for making me see all that, because my life would be meaningless without you and our babies. You're my family, Dracums. I love you, and I wouldn't trade you for anything."
Draco had stopped sobbing when Harry reached the part about him choosing the blonde above everyone else, and when he talked about that special night in the dungeons, the blonde clasped his hands around the fabric of Harry's dark blue jumper. Now he buried his face deep in Harry's chest and breathed his lover's scents. "Do you mean that, Harry? You chose me over Cho?"
Harry laughed and kissed the top of Draco's head. "I chose you way before Cho forced me to ask her for that horrible date. I asked her just because she looked so hurt that I didn't ask her, and I regret it to this day. That was the worst day of my life!"
They laughed and just sat there for a while, holding each other, choosing each other.
The following morning, Draco was in a splendid mood, so Piper embraced the moment and asked him if it was okay that she practice a few spells while they had breakfast. "Sure," Draco said, and he only had eyes for Harry. Boy, they had been at it all night. Even Draco himself could not for his life understand where they found the energy for their non-stop love-making.
Delighted, Piper fetched her wand and started to try a few of her most recently written spells. She had gone three whole months without the practice she needed and was now eager to catch up.
"Just no explosions," Draco added as an afterthought. "One explosion and you're out of here, you hear me?"
"Yeah, yeah, I hear you." She clearly was not worried. And, well, he had not thrown her out when she made him pregnant, so … Besides, anyone could make mistakes …
"Wabbafunktany!" she said firmly, and made swishing movements with her wand. The spell created a glowing white ball of light with a diameter of 8 inches. She watched it with fascination. "Beautiful …"'
Next moment, it began to glow a bright orange-red, and it also started to shake and shimmer with large amounts of energy—and suddenly it exploded. A circle of energy went out from the nucleus of the light ball and enveloped Harry and Draco. They flew out of their chairs with two loud Bang!s. Terrified of getting hit herself, Piper shot out of her chair, but that had been an unnecessary reaction because the moment the energy wave had left the ball, it imploded and sucked in the air around it, like a vacuum.
Harry shot up from the floor and pointed an accusing finger at her. "What the Hell was that!?" he shouted, his face red with anger. "I told you—no explosions! Now look what you've done, you bloody imbecile for a bloody sister! You almost blew up the whole table! Do you wish to be thrown out on the street?! What do you think your boyfriend's gonna think of that? You really think a Japanese gentleman like Joe is going to date a fucking bum?! And don't give me that look! I told you I was gonna throw you out if you broke my rules, and I don't want you in my bloody house anymore so just get the Hell out of here before I seriously hurt you!"
Piper stared at him in shock. "Harry, calm down, it really wasn't that bad, my spell just went a little awry …"
"Why are you calling me—"
"Man, that was weird!" Draco hauled himself off the floor and supported himself on the edge of the table. "What happened?"
Piper frowned. Why was not he angry with her?
Harry grabbed her right arm. "What the fuck are you still standing around for?! I told you to get the bloody Hell out of here! Are you deaf, or are you just too fucking stupid to understand a simple command?!"
Draco shook his head gently. "Uuugh, I feel weird …" He bent forward and put a hand to his stomach. Suddenly, his grey eyes widened with fear. "What?" he whispered. "I'm … I'm … fat?" He was shaking bad and trying to make himself look down at his stomach, but could not.
Piper looked from Harry to Draco and back. "You guys are really confusing me. Stop that act right now—you're scaring me."
"What do you mean, we're scaring you?!" Harry hissed threateningly. "You are the one who bloody shot us with a bloody bolt of lightning!"
Piper was on the verge of tears. "Stop it, Harry. You've never talked to me like that before, you're hurting me … Why are you acting like Draco?"
On the other side of the table, Draco gave a shriek of surprised fright. "I'm fat! I'm fat! Look at me, I'm fat! Why the Hell am I fat?!"
Then it was as if Harry received some sort of weird insight, because a dark shadow travelled over the surfaces of his emerald eyes. He put his hands on his stomach and gasped. "My baby …" Only then did they turn to look at each other, and Piper watched the show with growing bewilderment. Harry put his hands down on the table surface and bent forward to have a closer look at Draco, and Draco stared back at him with wide-open eyes. "Why do you look like me?" they both yelled, and gasped anew.
"You're me!" Harry said.
"And you're me!" Draco exclaimed.
Finally, Piper was starting to understand the situation. "Oops …," she said. "Seems like I stumbled upon some sort of body-switch spell …"
They both turned to her with fury-black eyes and yelled: "What?"
"I think your souls have changed bodies somehow. When that light ball hit you, Draco's soul went into Harry's body and Harry's soul went into Draco's body. Wow! That is so cool!" She laughed and clapped her hands together like a little child.
"I'm not pregnant!" Draco yelled in Harry's body.
"I'm pregnant?!" Harry simultaneously yelled in Draco's body.
The despair on their faces perfectly matched one another.
"Yes, isn't it cool?" Piper said, beside herself with excitement.
Draco—no, Harry—made a grimace. "I think I'm gonna be sick …" He ran to the bathroom, holding his stomach as if he expected the baby to emerge from it any second.
Harry—no, Draco—numbly sank down into a chair. "This is insane. This is completely insane."
Piper patted his head. "It'll be all right," she promised. "You'll figure this out in no time. Man, the tables have really turned now!"
Her girlish laughter was the last thing Draco heard before he fainted.