Many women don't like the way they look while pregnant (after all, their bellies are huge compared to normal so can you blame them?). But I personally thought I never looked more beautiful.

I was always so skinny. Boney and gaunt. Sure, my waist was noticeably tapered compared to my slightly widened hips, but my arms and legs were frail and shapeless. Not to mention my ghostly pale complexion (something in between bad genes and blood malediction induced anemia).

But now, I was filled out more, my arms and legs had some much needed weight to them. My skin took on a healthy peach color, my cheeks flushed and glowing. Despite the growing bump in my belly, I never felt prettier. I never felt happier. I never felt more tired.

By Merlin was I tired. I spent half the day dozing off, and half the night tossing and turning, unable to find a possible way to comfort. My stomach was enormous, and not well suited for laying down easily. However the morning sickness would always signal and end the restlessness of the night (at least sometimes it was morning sickness, other times the usual blood -- a fun surprise each time; not).

The summer's heat was particularly difficult to navigate during pregnancy. One late July afternoon, I sat Draco down, a quill and roll of parchment in hand.

"We need to think of names," I said, drawing a T-chart on the page, one side reading girl, the other, boy.

"You mean you need to think of names," he said, smirking. I looked at him quizzically, but he didn't elaborate, and said, relaxing his shoulders, still sporting a lofty smile, "Okay, okay. What'd you have in mind?"

"Well I think I have the middle names covered. If it's a girl, Daphne" -- I scribbled the name down on the parchment -- "a boy. . . Hyperion." I looked up at him, awaiting a sarcastic response to the name.

He was stifling a laugh. "Hyperion?"

I scrunched up my nose at him. "Yeah, it means the lights of heaven -- the Titan god of heavenly light." He was smirking, still holding in a laugh, and nodded.

"Oh, fine then, what'd you have in mind?"

"No, no, Hyperion, it's -- unique."

"Well, anyways, the first names are all open." I wrote Hyperion down on the boy's side.

I looked back up at him, his gaze expectant, as was mine. A pause. "Well?" he asked. I shrugged.

"I didn't think of any yet. I thought you might want to. . . ."

His entire expression changed, and he leaned over the table a little bit, a childlike giddiness in his eyes. "Really? Cause, well -- wait here." He stood up and dashed over to the book shelf in the sitting room. He came back, a book propped in his one hand, the other flitting through the pages.

"So there's this tradition in my mum's family which, well, I know it's probably not the best thing in the world to carry out Black family customs, but, here --" he sat down again.

"So there were two I really liked --" he was still shuffling through the pages when he found what he'd been searching for, turning the book to me.

"The Lyra constellation, it's supposed to be Orpheus's lyre, and I dunno, I thought it was a nice name. . . ." He was still flipping through the pages, eyes fixed on the book, and I couldn't help but smile, finding his sudden excitement adorable.

"Then, for a boy, I thought the name Scorpius was really interesting. . . ." The book plopped open to a page bearing a swirly sort of hooked constellation.

I smirked at him. "What?" He said.

I shook my head, my lips curling into a wider grin. "And you made fun of Hyperion."

"Yeah, but this one's really cool." He pointed at the page as he spoke.

"Scorpius. Hm, I like it." I smiled, and wrote it down, along with Lyra, on the parchment.

"Not that it matters anyway, it'll be Lyra Daphne for sure," he said smugly.

"You know, I was considering not even asking for girl's names because of how sure I am that it is in fact not a girl," I said, copying his cockiness and setting the quill down.

"Absolutely mental," he said, shaking his head with arrogant aloofness.

"Indeed you are." I grinned.

* * *

Draco made three clear knocks on the large doors of Malfoy Manor. " 'You ready for this?" he murmured. 

"No, no definitely not," I piped back.

He'd told his parents I was pregnant weeks ago (I'd told him to wait a while before we told anyone, simply out of superstition and not testing the fates), but Narcissa wanted to see me and, afterall, I couldn't doge these people forever -- they were his family.

Narcissa opened the door, the fine lines on her face deeper, her face paler, her eyes more tired since I'd last seen her. "Oh, there you are. Would you just look at you?!" She cooed, her hand over her heart, taking in the bump on my belly. I smiled, and she said, "Come in, come in."

"Lucius, they're here," she called.

"How've you been, Narcissa?" I asked, the politest tone I could manufacture.

"Ah, well, we've been --" But she was cut off when Lucius entered the foyer. I had to clench my jaw to hinder it from dropping, my eyes widening.

He was in a wheelchair, and he looked utterly dreadful. His eyes were drooping and bloodshot, his face unshaven and whiskery, his hair white-gray and frayed.

"Hello Draco. Astoria," he said in his grinding, low, scratchy tone (which sent a shiver down my spine and a twinge of irritation through my mind).

Draco said Father in unison with my Hello.

Silence. Horrible, dreadful, stifled, awkward silence. Thank Merlin Narcissa was there and she was, well, Narcissa, for she then said, "Come," and steered me by the shoulder to the wide sitting room.

We all sat, bar Lucius who was already sitting. It didn't make any sense -- he sat there, withered and aged as an old man, a sick man, yet no medical diagnosis nor age in years surmounted to what sat before me. I narrowed it down to two things. Stress, and alcoholism. Lame excuses for the dwindling man, but after all, working as You-Know-Who's puppet for years must take its toll on a person's soul.

More silence, Narcissa eagerly sitting up at the edge of her seat, a faltering smile on my lips. The rest of the evening consisted mainly of Naricssa's plethora of questions for me. I was grateful for this, something to fill the vacuum of resentment in the room.

She asked everything -- how I was feeling, name ideas, if I was tired, about when would the baby be due, about a hundred more, then, "Well, you three will be moving here, right?"

My eyes widened and my breath caught. I felt Draco stiffen beside me. Lucius choked (over dramatically) on his brandy.

"Narcissa!" he said in a sharp whisper. She shot him a glare.

"It was a simple question, Lucius." They were talking as though they were the only two in the room. Draco and I were silent, watching this unfold.

Moving there? Yeah, right, because Lucius and I under the same roof was a splendid idea. Over his dead body would he let me, a filthy blood traitor, live in his house.

I was surprised, however, to find Lucius' attitude toward me only hardly adjusted. I'd assumed the news of a baby would avert his attention from his initial issues with me and focus on the clearing of one; not having children.

I must say, he was noticeably, slightly less miserable. Just bored. I suppose that counted for something.

Narcissa and Lucius were staring each other down, and it was continuing for way too long to be considered anywhere near comfortable, or appropriate, or not excruciatingly, agonizingly, unbearably awkward.

Draco cleared his throat, glancing at the clock on the opposite wall. "Ah, yes, well, it is getting late, and we, we better be going."

I nodded, smiling (a real smile now), gathering my bag and brushing off my spotless shirt.

Narcissa looked up at us as if she hadn't just been giving her husband an excruciatingly long death glare, and said, "Oh, why, very well then. I'll see you out?" Her smile was innocent and doe eyed. I nodded, as we started for the door.

"Goodbye, Lucius," I'd said just before we left the room. He merely nodded, an artificial smile hinting at his lips.

"Do visit soon," Narcissa said as we made our way through the front door.

"Of course mother," Draco said calmly.

"Goodnight," I said, as she waved her small hand, shutting the door.

We stood on the steps for a moment, then looked at each other. "Well, it could've gone worse," I whispered, shrugging.