Randominity

Title: Hexed! Chapter 4/9
Author: randominity
Pairing: Harry/Draco (HP FPS)
Rating: PG-13 this installment for language
Feedback: OMG please. I beg!
Disclaimer: All characters belong to one J.K. Rowling, who would find me far too poor to sue over this.
Author's Notes: Mucho gracias to misskittye and sydney_blue for their oh-so-generous beta work! Especially for Miss Kitty, as always, coming up with new ways to torture Draco. Oh yeah, and this is an MPREG. So, you know. Whatever.
Story thus far: Chapters 1//2//3//4//5//6//7//8//9





Harry and Malfoy chose to cultivate the rumour of their fictional relationship by meeting up during the next Hogsmeade weekend. They sat across from each other in Madame Puddifoot's and tried to keep the glaring to a minimum, checking out of the window from time to time to see if anyone might happen by.

"So," Harry began reluctantly after some time in silence, "how are you feeling?"

"Nauseous," Malfoy said slowly, "not that that's new." He gave Harry a look that clearly said and it's all your fault. "Granger hasn't come up with anything, has she?"

Harry shook his head. "She's collecting a list of ingredients she thinks she can use," he said, "but the difficult part will be testing it - even if she thinks she's got everything together, we'll never know if it works unless we try it out."

Malfoy nodded. "I suppose I'll have to risk it, then," he sighed, staring down at his glass of ice cream. It had melted into a pathetic sort of soup, but he hadn't eaten any.

"Malfoy, no," Harry frowned at him. "Hermione would never let you try anything if she thought it could make things worse -- this could kill you. She's going to have to find another way to test it."

"Everybody's so bloody concerned about my well-being all of a sudden," Malfoy snapped. "Before, people wanted to keep me safe because of my father. Now it's 'we can't put you at risk' and 'this child could be important' and nevermind what I want." He pointed at himself. "I'm the man of Malfoy Manor now," he said. "Why don't I have any say?"

"Oh, I don't know, Malfoy," Harry said, annoyed, "maybe because there are more people affected by this than just you!" He scrubbed at his forehead, both to itch and to tame the fringe of hair that tickled at his skin. When he looked out of the window, a couple of the younger students - probably third years; their names escaped him - were standing outside, staring. "What are you looking at?" he snarled. He assumed that they could either read lips, or were frightened by the fierce expression on his face, because they scurried off immediately.

At least now they had surely been seen, Harry thought grimly.

~*~

"Well, I can't say I agree with your methods," Hermione told Harry as they sat down to breakfast, "but whatever you and Malfoy did last week in Hogsmeade is working. Even this morning I heard two second-years talking about you outside the girls' lavatory."

"I have been getting some strange looks in the halls," Harry agreed.

"Who knows, maybe Professor Flitwick will offer to let you change seats to be closer to Malfoy," Ron joked, breaking a roll with his hands. "Besides," he added, deliberately loudly, "everybody knows you're madly in love or something." He snuck a look around at the few staring faces before beginning to eat.

"We are not," Harry said, playing along. The heads watching Ron swivelled his way. "It's not as if I like spying on Malfoy for the cause," he shrugged, "but somebody's got to do it. But listen," he added, dropping his voice to a dramatic whisper, "keep it quiet, okay, Ron?"

"Don't push it," Ron muttered, smirking, and shoved half of his roll into his mouth. He nudged Harry with his elbow suddenly. "Hey," he said, pointing. "Looks like Malfoy made it out this morning."

Across the hall, Malfoy was gesturing broadly, occasionally pointing, and a few of the Slytherins glanced over to the Gryffindor table. Harry pretended not to notice. Malfoy had insisted it would be unbelievable to the student body if he and Harry were dating without any ulterior motive, and Harry had agreed. If they each pretended to be spying on the other for their house, he figured, they could at least hope to hang on to their dignity.

"Also," Malfoy had said, "my father's friends might be less inclined to have me killed, if they think I'm trying to win you for the Dark Lord."

When the mail arrived Harry confirmed with the Muggle papers that no suspicious Muggle deaths had occurred, and was once again disappointed not to see any news from the Weasleys or Remus. Malfoy, on the other hand, received an owl that made his face go rather white - Harry could tell from across the hall, so that was saying something. He pushed at Crabbe and Goyle as he rose from the table and left quickly.

Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged glances. "Malfoy's not still sick, is he?" Hermione asked Harry, and Harry shook his head.

"Not if he felt well enough to come to breakfast," he said. "There must have been something in that letter." He stood. "We've got some time before Charms - I should see what happened--"

"No, Harry," Ron grabbed the sleeve of Harry's robes and held on. "Come on," he explained, "he's probably embarrassed about it or something." A disgusted look crossed Ron's face. "Wait a tick," he said, letting go of Harry. "What am I saying? Why should I care if he's embarrassed?"

"I'll be sure to tell him about your concern," Harry grinned, gathering his things quickly. "If anybody asks, I'm meeting him very secretly undercover!" He grabbed a buttered roll as he left.

~*~

Harry had never imagined, as he unfolded the Maurader's Map, that he'd one day be using it to find Malfoy, instead of avoiding him. The tiny Malfoy dot made its way back to the Slytherin dungeons, and Harry followed, keeping a respectable distance until he saw Malfoy approach the portrait hole that led to the Slytherin dorms.

"Are you going to tell me what that letter says?" he asked softly, and Malfoy spun, alarmed.

"Do you never get tired of following me?" he said, frustrated. "This doesn't concern you." He dropped his voice. "We had an agreement; you shouldn't even be here."

Harry shook his head. "I wouldn't be a good spy if I let you go off like that without even acting curious, would I? And everyone else is still at breakfast." He sighed. "Look, Malfoy - you seemed upset, so I just. Is it something about your father?" Malfoy scowled, and Harry quickly added, "I just want to know if you're in danger, all right?"

"I am not," Malfoy said, his teeth clenched, "in danger. It seems somebody has sent my mother an owl informing her of our so-called relationship, and she merely wrote to inquire about the situation." He raised a condescending eyebrow. "I left because I have some explaining to do, and because for once I'm not confined to the lavatory," he said. "Is that all right with you, Potter?"

Try to be helpful, Harry thought, and you just get trod on, when there's a Malfoy involved. "Fine," he muttered. "Go write your letter, Malfoy. I'm sorry I even bothered to ask." He strode off at a good pace, wondering how much time he had to make it to Charms without being too late.

"Thanks ever so much for the permission!" Malfoy called sarcastically after him.

~*~

Dumbledore wrote a very official letter to Narcissa Malfoy explaining that her son could not come home for the Christmas holiday because he needed to remain at Hogwarts to work on several class projects. He would be one of the only Slytherins to stay, which looked suspicious; but then again, he was still supposed to be dating Harry, who was also staying for the holidays, so the rumour mill was not satisfied so much as it was bewildered as the end of term grew near.

"You can sit with Ron and me during meals," Harry told Malfoy on the way to Transfiguration, "since hardly anybody's here over the holidays, so nobody will talk." The other students were still giving the two of them wide berth, so Harry had taken to letting Hermione and Ron go on ahead without him. He would still get to sit with his friends when he got to class, at least.

Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "What about Granger?" he asked, frowning.

Harry shrugged apologetically. "She's going home for the holidays," he said. "Sorry. I figure the rest of us can keep working on what she's left, until she comes back."

"I see," Malfoy sneered, "even you don't think we'll come up with anything until after she comes back." He sniffed in irritation. "That makes it at least four months, if we wait," he said. "This is ridiculous - I'm already starting to show, you know."

"You are? Already?" Harry swept his eyes over Malfoy's form looking for any odd shapes or anything weird sticking out. He'd thought he'd been very observant where that was concerned; he was half afraid Malfoy would pop up round and large one day without any warning. He supposed Malfoy's chin seemed slightly less pointy than it had been before, but otherwise Malfoy seemed as slender as ever and nothing was out of place. Then again, it had also occurred to Harry that the Hogwarts robes could hide things of this nature for a while.

"We're Seekers, Potter," Malfoy said. "Every little weight gain makes a difference." He sighed. "I expect I won't be able to play Quidditch anymore, after Christmas."

"Really? I mean, oh," Harry added, to mask his surprise. Strangely enough, it had seemed to Harry -- especially after Malfoy's earlier insistence to keep playing Quidditch -- that the Slytherin would find some way to work around his progressing condition.

"Well, I'll be even fatter and more pregnant by then, won't I?" Malfoy looked away, drawing his robes more closely around himself. "Anyway, I don't want to talk about it," he muttered.

That was a sentiment Harry understood. He hadn't imagined that Malfoy might love Quidditch as much as he did himself, but if what Malfoy felt was even a fraction of Harry's passion for the sport, Harry wouldn't want to talk about it, either. "Okay," he said simply. "Is your mother, you know--" he tried to think of the most diplomatic way to put it. "Was she satisfied with your explanation? About us, I mean."

Malfoy glared at him. "I don't want to talk about that, either," he said.

~*~

Hermione had handed an enormous stack of papers and books over to Harry and Ron before she left for the Christmas holidays. "If Malfoy wants to look it over," she had said, "that should be fine - the more heads the better - but don't let him make a mess of things, all right? We've all worked too hard on this to let it go now."

But Malfoy was right: Harry didn't have much confidence in their ability to find a counter-spell without Hermione's help. "You guys, we might have to come up with a way to explain this," he told Ron and Malfoy over the dinner table one evening, "in the worst case scenario."

"You mean, if I actually have to go through with this," Malfoy said, and Harry nodded.

"I don't suppose the truth would sound very good for either of you," Ron agreed. Harry cringed at the thought -- it would be embarrassing enough for Harry to have miscast the spell, but worlds worse for Malfoy to have been bested in a duel and have to admit to suffering these consequences.

"Well, I was thinking of telling everyone I have a stomach tumour," Malfoy said blandly.

"Yeah, but one that Madame Pomfrey couldn't heal?" Ron asked.

"And that gets worse in time?" Harry added.

"Look, it's a very serious condition," Malfoy said. "Of course it'll get worse!"

"You could say," Harry suggested, "that you're raising up an army for Voldemort. That way you can still save face with your Death Eater friends."

"Oh, that's good," Ron nodded in agreement.

Malfoy rolled his eyes, then turned to Harry. "Does he have to sit here?"

Harry shrugged. "He's my best friend," he said simply, smiling.

"No," Malfoy sighed at Ron, annoyed, "that's not good. That's stupid. The Dark Lord doesn't need to breed an army; he's got hundreds of willing foot-soldiers at his beck and call already, and he doesn't need to wait for them to grow up, either."

"Foot-soldiers like you, do you mean?" Ron asked darkly.

"I hadn't decided yet, for your information," Malfoy shot back. The use of the past tense in his statement gave Harry pause.

"So you've decided now?" he asked.

"Well, since I don't count on having your baby winning me any favours," Malfoy said sullenly, "I might as well take the path of self-preservation."

"You could," Ron suggested, "just not say anything."

Harry looked at him. "How do you mean?"

Ron shrugged. "Well, it's not really anyone's business, is it?" he said. "They're all going to talk about it whether you give an explanation or not. So," he went on, "why not just let them make up their own explanations?"

"Probably, because whatever they make up would probably be worse than anything we could make up," Harry said with a grimace.

"But that's the point, isn't it," Malfoy said suddenly, glancing at Ron. "If they're left guessing, no matter what they come up with, they know they haven't got the story. We keep it a secret, and they think we've got a plan. Like the two of us seeing each other."

Harry looked between Malfoy and Ron, puzzled by this rare and sudden agreement. "So we're not saying anything, then?"

"Exactly," Malfoy nodded. He frowned thoughtfully. "It might actally work," he murmured.

Ron looked just as surprised by this turn of events as Harry felt.

~*~

On Christmas Day, Harry woke to find that Ron had given him a box of Muggle chocolate ("my dad and I had loads of fun looking for it in Muggle London," Ron told him, beaming). Hermione had given him a private journal, complete with a lock that hissed and spat and bit you if you didn't know the password -- Harry was nipped a few times until he realized that Hermione had written the password on the back of her note. She wrote, "I thought you might need something like this in the coming months. You can document WHATEVER YOU LIKE."

Mrs. Weasley sent him and Ron the usual Christmas jumpers, and Remus sent Harry a book of Muggle literature that, when Harry opened it, turned out to be an instructional text on labour and delivery, cleverly repackaged so as to remove suspicion. "I thought an introduction to certain Muggle arts was in order," Remus wrote. "Please do give it a try; I've heard it makes things much easier."

Harry didn't have the heart to tell Remus that he had no intention of making use of the book. If everything went well, there wouldn't be any need. He wasn't ready yet to think about what they would do if everything did not go well.

~*~

Malfoy spent most of his time in the library over the holidays, trying to make sense of Hermione's research. "Does she always do this?" he asked Harry, gesturing to the rolls of parchment spread out before him.

Harry leaned over and followed the path of Malfoy's finger. "Do what?"

"All the little notes in the margins and everything." Malfoy rubbed at his eyes. "It's blinding, trying to find anything here. Did she have all the ingredients she thought we might need yet, when she left?"

"I don't think so," Harry replied. "You know, I've never had a problem understanding Hermione's notes," he added, feeling a bit defensive. "Let me have a look at them." He reached for the pages, and Malfoy reluctantly gave them over.

"The brat's going show up at Hogwarts to be Sorted before we come up with anything," Malfoy said. He paused, before adding, "I hate you, Potter."

"I know," Harry said absently, scanning Hermione's notes. He could read them just fine. He knew that Malfoy had been moody lately, but really, he was such a whiner.

"I know you know," Malfoy said, "but I haven't said it recently. Are you hot at all?" He gracefully pushed back a few errant strands of white-blond hair, and Harry noticed that there was a faint sheen of sweat over Malfoy's forehead. His cheeks were still very pink - more red now, really - but a healthy shade. He was becoming rosy in a way that reminded Harry of Mrs. Weasley. He was becoming, Harry realized in horror, somebody's mother.

"No," Harry admitted. "Do you--" he faltered. "Should I get you something?"

"Forget it; I can handle it," Malfoy said, getting his wand out. He cast a cooling charm on himself; rather, he attempted to cast a cooling charm. He uttered the proper incantation, and performed the proper wrist motion, but when he finished, an impressive pudding had appeared on the table before them. It had a strawberry on top.

"Well, shit," Malfoy said, looking at it in dismay.

"Magical Misplacement," Harry hurriedly explained, casting the charm for Malfoy. "It's a second trimester side-effect. Has this happened to you before?"

"You'll notice Professor Snape doesn't even let me near my cauldron anymore in Potions," Malfoy said, his expression glum. Snape was doing an awfully good job of covering for Malfoy, Harry realized. "And. thank you," Malfoy added, stiffly. "For the charm. Does this mean I'll need you hanging around me even more often, now?"

Harry bit his lip to prevent a smug smile from escaping. "Let's hope not," he said.

~*~

"Oh, Harry," Hermione said as soon as she returned from holidays, "I meant to owl you, but my parents and I were never in one place long enough - we toured Boston, you know, it was great - but I think I've realized something!" She clung to his robes breathlessly, so excited in her discovery that Harry pushed the stack of books and parchment into her hands just to keep her from squeezing him to death.

"That's great, Hermione," he said, overwhelmed by her enthusiasm. "What'd you find out?"

Hermione accepted her research gratefully. "Ron, you had it right all along," she admitted, smiling sheepishly at him.

Ron looked simultaneously surprised and amused. "What did I say?" Yeah, what did he say? Harry thought.

"You asked," Hermione explained, as they made their way to the library, "if there wasn't a gender-switching spell out there."

"Yeah, so?"

"So, what if the solution isn't to reverse all of the effects of the spell," Hermione suggested, "but to focus on the gender-switching aspects instead?" She set her books down at a table and smacked herself in the forehead. "Of course!" she muttered. "Of course, why didn't I think of this before? I've made this more complicated than I needed to!"

Harry and Ron exchanged relieved glances. "We really could have used you two weeks ago, Hermione," Ron told her happily, and Harry was glad to let Ron speak for both of them.


end chapter 4.