"Well... that was awkward," Hermione said, finally breaking the strained silence that had prevailed after Ron's departure.

Draco smirked. "For him, perhaps," he commented.

"Draco..."

It was just his name, but Harry saying it like that made him regret his comment. "All right, Harry. He is your friend. I just find him so - juvenile."

Harry leaned over and gave him a gentle kiss. "I'm afraid I haven't been much better, luv," he said.

Draco sat up, staring at his husband. "What are you on about?"

"When we were up in the infirmary, it occurred to me that I'd been letting life just carry me along without planning for the future. I shouldn't have been doing that in the first place, given my circumstances. Although in my defence, with Voldemort after me, I didn't think I had much of a future. But then we were bonded, and I was still doing it. It's time I started taking life, and my place in it, more seriously."

"We're sixteen, Harry. You sound like we should act like we're over twenty," Draco objected. "And what of me?" Draco asked tensely.

"You're very smart, and have a deadly wit, luv. I'd love to see you put it to better use than you have in the past. I must admit, though, that you've not been too much of an arse to anyone, this year."

"And you can't say that Ron didn't deserve what Draco said, Harry," Hermione put in.

"No, you're right. Ron was being a complete and utter prat. No getting around it," Harry admitted ruefully.

Draco was looking askance at his husband. "So was I out of line?" he asked defensively.

Harry gave a little frown. "No," he finally decided. "You pushed a couple of times when I didn't think it was necessary, but it showed up Ron's true feelings, so maybe it was for the best. Are you angry with me?"

The blond studied his husband for a few seconds. "It's been a long day, Harry," he said, avoiding the question, "and we still have a lot to discuss."

"Are you angry with me?" Harry repeated.

"I'm not sure how I feel right now," Draco admitted. "I feel I should be angry with you, anyway."

"I guess I should go, as well," Hermione said, taking that as her cue. "I'm glad you're both all right."

"I'm sorry, 'Mione," Harry replied, looking guilty. "We just found out some rather unnerving news. It seems-"

Draco pinched him, making the Gryffindor yelp and look at him. The blond shook his head slightly, indicating he didn't want that news out, yet.

"Harry? Draco?" Hermione questioned. "Is there something wrong?"

"Um... No, 'Mione. Not really," Harry replied.

"Just a little condition that's going to take a while to work its way out. Nothing dangerous, though," Draco put in.

Harry choked. 'Work its way out?' He tried to stifle his laughter, but was only barely successful.

Looking at her long-time friend strangely, Hermione replied "Oh. Um... Well, I hope it goes away soon."

"It will be at least twelve years," Draco replied gravely, "but we expect it to show up for a few months every year for at least six more after that."

Harry lost it, laying back on the sofa and howling with laughter.

He was never sure, afterward, how Draco managed to put her off, but finally they were alone. Harry turned to his husband, and slapped his arm. "I said you had a deadly wit," he said, grinning. "You realize that 'Mione now thinks I'm officially a candidate for St. Mungo's mental ward?"

Draco smirked. "You mean she's finally realized the truth?"

The Gryffindor gaped open-mouthed at his husband, then attacked, tickling him unmercifully until Draco finally begged for mercy. They lay on the floor grinning at each other and gasping for breath for awhile, then as their breathing evened out, the blond's expression became serious. He cuddled up to Harry, laying his head on his shoulder.

"Harry?"

"Mm-hm?"

"I'm scared."

"We'll take care of your father, love," Harry reassured him.

Draco shook his head. "That's not what I was thinking of," he said, absently worrying at a bit of the Gryffindor's robes.

"Then what?"

Draco lifted his head and braced himself to look his husband in the eyes. "A lot of things really, but mostly that we're only sixteen, we're married, we're both boys, and I'm pregnant."

A small, worried frown creased Harry's brow. "Are you unhappy to be with me, or is it mostly the pregnancy?"

The blond laid his head back down on Harry's chest. "It was all rather fast, but no, I'm not unhappy being with you. Rather the opposite, really. I wish we could have waited to get married until I was at least sure you loved me... but a baby!" He again moved to look into his husband's eyes. "A baby, Harry! We're barely grown up ourselves. I'm a boy, and I'm pregnant!"

Harry's frown deepened. "I know. I didn't know wizards could get pregnant. Not that I'm unhappy about it, but I wish we could have finished growing up and finished our schooling before we had a child."

"I don't want to be pregnant, Harry," Draco said in a small voice, his head again on Harry's chest.

"What do you want to do about it?" Harry asked gently.

Draco just shook his head. He didn't have an answer to that.

"Do you want an abortion?"

Draco sat up quickly, shocked. "No!" he exclaimed fiercely, in reaction. Until that moment he wasn't sure about anything about this pregnancy, except that he didn't like being a part of it. But he'd been brought up to believe that family was the most important thing in the world (although his father seemed to have forgot that), so it was unthinkable that he'd abort his child. But with the question and his instinctive reaction to it, he fully accepted it. He still wasn't happy about being pregnant, but since he was, he was going to do it, and do it well. He was going to love his - their - child.

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath in relief. "Thank Merlin," he breathed. Smiling up at his husband, he gathered the somewhat reluctant blond to him. "I'm glad. I would have supported you if you did, though."

"Why?" Draco whispered, not knowing what to think of Harry's declaration. "It's your baby, too."

"It's not my body, Draco. You're the one who's going to have to carry it, and give birth to it. You're the one who's going to have to deal with everything that goes along with being pregnant."

"You'd best be waiting on me hand and foot, Harry," Draco threatened, as those images sank in.

Harry laughed. "I'm going to be there to help you and comfort you as much I can, but I'm not so sure of the 'hand and foot' part," he replied.

Draco looked a little miffed at that, and slapped Harry's arm. Harry ignored it.

"We're going to have to start thinking of names for it, you know," Harry continued, on a different tack.

"Him," Draco said softly.

"What?"

"Him. Wizarding genetics is a little different from Muggle genetics. Unless a specific potion or a spell is used to ensure differently, the offspring of two wizards is going to be a boy. Our baby is going to be a boy, so I'd appreciate it if you stopped calling him 'it'."

Harry suddenly rolled his spouse over so that he was looking down at him, into his partner's surprised, silvery-gray eyes. "Him," he said softly, running the back of an index finger softly along Draco's jawline, then leaned down and kissed him. It was a long, soft, gentle, loving kiss. Lifting his head, he saw the same hunger in those gray eyes that the kiss had kindled in him.

"Bed?" he whispered.

Draco nodded.

They got up and practically raced each other to the bedroom, where they tried to quickly undress each other. In their haste they kept getting in each other's way, but finally they fell onto the bed, clawing the last bits of cloth from each other.

Hands, lips, and mouths were almost frantically busy as they thrust at each other. Then Harry stopped, and waited for Draco to stop, too. Then he whispered into one delicate, pale ear,"I want you."

Draco hesitated, then whispered back, "Yes."

Up until now, their sexual explorations of each other after the bonding ritual had been limited to mutual masturbation, frottage and a little oral sex. Now Harry moved with new purpose, to arouse and ready his spouse for their second coupling; but only the first as a married couple, and with each knowing the other was doing it with love.

Harry got up and rested on his haunches, taking the opportunity to really study his spouse' body, ignoring the blond's wryly cocked eyebrow. Then he began to trace every angle, every contour, exploring every hollow and mound, bending down to kiss first one area, then another.

The sensuality of this treatment had Draco straining his body to meet his husband's touch, grasping his forearms, moaning his pleasure. This, he instinctively knew, was being made love to; not the sex acts, although those he'd experienced were pleasurable in the extreme. He gasped as Harry took a nipple in his mouth, rolling it about with his tongue, sucking on it, pinching it lightly with his teeth, then treating the other one the same way. The areas behind his ears came in for attention from that talented mouth, and his neck, the hollow of his throat. Then the Gryffindor experimented with other places; the inside of Draco's wrist and elbow, his ribs, navel, the insides of his thighs while stroking his legs...

Then the dark-haired young man came back to pay some attention to those perfectly formed egg shapes between his husband's legs. And after laving them and sucking on them, he moved up to licking and mouthing his co-husband's straining erection. The foreskin had slipped back, revealing the red, mushroom-shaped head of his penis, which was leaking generous amounts of pre-cum. On an impulse Harry took it in his mouth, causing his lover to utter an "Eep!" and jump wildly.

After less than a minute of the attention from his husband's mouth, the blond found himself nearing completion, but Harry chose that moment to stop.

"No lubrication!" Harry said, dismayed.

Draco had hoped that this day would come, so he had prevailed upon Professor Snape, while Harry was otherwise occupied, to procure a smallish bottle of mineral oil for him, on the pretext of maintaining his quidditch gear (although he didn't think the professor was fooled for an instant). "My bedside table drawer," he directed helpfully, voice strained with passion. "Bottle of oil."

Harry crawled up the bed, reaching for the drawer. Pulling it open, he found the bottle and pulled it out. Unbeknownst to him, however, this manoeuvre had brought his own erection within range of the blond's mouth, and Draco didn't even hesitate. Harry almost dropped the oil as Draco's hot mouth engulfed him. Setting it down, he brought that hand down and caressed his husband's face, then combed his fingers through the silver-blond hair before moving his hand to the back of the blond head and supporting it, because of the awkward position they were in. When he got close to spilling, Harry, with a great effort of will, pulled away, retrieving the oil at the same time.

Draco mewled his disappointment. "I still want you," Harry said softly while moving back down the bed. And, now in a position to be able to kiss his lover, he did so - thoroughly. Opening the oil, he drizzled a little out onto the fingers of his right hand. Draco raised his knees, exposing himself, and Harry carefully slipped one finger in and started moving it around, then went back to kissing, licking and suckling on his blond husband; anywhere and everywhere he could reach. When Draco's entrance relaxed, he slipped another finger in, causing the blond to instinctively tense up again. After some murmured reassurances and patient caressing, Draco relaxed again, and a minute later, Harry added a third finger. When Draco had fully adjusted to the new intrusion, he removed his fingers, rose, and drizzled some oil on his erection. Draco's hand was there before he'd put the oil down again, rubbing the oil in, making sure he was evenly coated, and then tugging the Gryffindor into position, guiding him in, and then grasping the raven-haired man's arms as he was penetrated.

Remembering their first time, Harry took it slowly, taking his cue from Draco. When he was fully seated he held his husband close, stroking his face and hair. "I know I've not said it in so many words before, pet, but I love you," he murmured in his husband's ear.

Immediately, Draco felt a hard lump form in his throat, and felt his eyes brim with tears. Harry had often called him 'love', but that could have been merely from casual affection. Hearing those three words now, with the young man he loved inside of him, meant the world to him. "I love you, too," he whispered, as a single tear slipped down his face, heading towards his ear. "Love me, Harry," he requested softly, gently thrusting his buttocks up at his husband to make his meaning clear.

Their love-making started off softly and gently, but escalated quickly with their passions until they were thrusting at each other almost violently. Nor were they quiet about it, offering encouragement, instruction, and endearments in almost equal measure, moaning and making other noises of pleasure, as well as the sound of flesh slapping on flesh, until they screamed each other's name, their seed exploding violently from them at almost the same instant.

Harry started to remove himself when they'd recovered somewhat, but Draco held him still, keeping him in place. They cuddled and kissed tiredly, their sweaty, sticky bodies gleaming in the candlelight. They fell asleep that way.