Moments

39. Love

(999 words)

I feel my heart swell as I look at the small bundle in my arms.

Love, I think.

Perhaps it heals.

For too long I have felt like I can't feel the warmth of the sun because I'm hollow; like I'm a man without a shadow. I know I need to move forward, but Fred has always been there and now he's not. It hurts still, even after all this time.

Love.

The baby wriggles feebly in his swaddling. 'Hector', Pansy's calling him. His blue eyes are unfocused, his newborn skin purple and wrinkly. That doesn't matter, that will change. What matters is new life; new life which needs loving and nurturing with all the goodness in our souls.

I look at Harry, as the mid-witch presents little Esther wrapped in a blanket to him. I see the same emotions. It is clear he will do anything for her.

Love.

I can feel my heart healing and my shadow returning. I smile at Pansy, brave wonderful Pansy, who, for own her crazy reasons, wanted all three of us in the operating theatre with her.  The Healers and Medi-witches accepted the request, probably because Harry is one of our odd group. She was always going to have a c-section, there were always complications, it just turned out to be four days earlier than planned.

'Er... the father?' the mid-witch had asked nervously, looking between us.

'ALL THREE!' Pansy screeched.

'Er...'

I'd laughed at the look on the mid-witch's face, the uncertainty of how she was going to explain the facts of life at this late stage. 'None of us,' I said. 'I'm Pansy's boss, Harry's her friend, Draco's her birthing partner.'

The mid-witch looked relieved and turned to Draco to start telling him about what they were going to do. Draco was in a hopeless state of panic, so I stepped forward as Harry calmed him.

'I WANT ALL THREE OF THEM,' Pansy screeched. 'I want Dray to suffer for his FUCKING incompetence. That means Potter will have to stay to look after him. George, you'll look after me, won't you?' She'd looked at me with pleading eyes and I knew she was scared as they prepped her for the epidural.

'Of course.'

I like Pansy. We've spent our evenings together, just talking about her future. I want her to stay on at the shop with me, but we need to work out how she'll have enough time and income to care for the twins. I like having her around, turns out I like her dry sense of humour and her cutting sarcasm. Very different from my jokey humour. But we work well together in the shop.

And some of her ideas!

I leave the Special Room to her, once or twice we've discussed things which have left me perturbed as to where she gets these ideas and more than a little aroused.

I smile.

Draco is caressing her hand as the caesarean wound is being carefully healed. Turns out he'd known what to do after all. There is a screen that separates us from seeing what's going on. Harry and I became spare parts until the mid-witch decided to hand us Hector and Esther.

I carefully wriggle my little finger into Hector's tiny wrinkly hand. He has tiny pink nails; he is so perfect. I want to cry.

Love.

I never did fall for that Slytherin divide-thing, Fred and I never saw the point. And it all seems so irrelevant now when I look at the little bundle in my arms. What matters is in our hearts. I know Fred will approve when I say I will protect Hector and Esther as long as this little family unit stick around, as long as they are staying in my flat, as long as Pansy is working for me, as long as my friend needs me until she finds someone who will love her and her babies as much as she deserves, if that's what she wants. And hopefully I'll be in their lives long beyond then too.

It's magical. How can someone grow something so perfect within them?

I can't wait to see these two settled into their nursery with their matching cots and different coloured bedding. I've helped her turn the flat's second bedroom into the nursery and I'm pleased for them that they are different genders, it gives them a head start, that people will treat them as individuals, won't mix them up, won't see them as one entity. All the factors that Fred and I grew up with. And although we played on it, we were still our own people and there were times when it got wearing that others didn't see that.

I feel little Hector clutch at my finger, his eyes roaming unseeingly.

Love.

It's powerful stuff.

I take little Hector to Pansy as they have finished and it's time for him to meet his mummy.

Pansy is watching me with wide eyes and lets go of Draco's hand to hold her son for the first time. Her eyes are brimming with tears of love. I sit down next to her and notice Draco is not looking. Instead he is watching Harry who has a soft smile on his face as Potter is absorbed in Esther.

Love.

That is the look on Draco's face. Not desire, even though I have seen that look of late. No. Love...

Draco has finally realised the true depth of his feelings. Something the rest of us have seen for so long.

Harry glances up and they catch eyes, smiling fondly at each other.

We just need Harry to realise too.

Soon, I think, for its clear he loves Draco, he just hasn't realised yet that he's allowed to.

Love.

It's a funny but powerful and wonderful thing: to think it can bridge the darkness these two held between them for so long; to think it can begin to heal the hole in my soul left by the loss of Fred.

*****