Hippocampus

Right, I’m not too sure which houses you’re in; but the points are as follows:



LaBib: 1000 points for a correct answer, and a very nice explanation of it too.



Crinna: 1001 points (the bit about your hubby made me giggle, so you get another point for that).



Calamine Horn: 1000 points, and I hadn’t thought about the brain references, I was purely aquatic in my notion.



900 points (for guessing the baby reference, but not the aquatic one) to: TashaRose, Megan, Claire1984, LadyBlueEyes, Heidi191976, Lovely_and_Cruel.



And 50 points to: AthenaMalfoy and LadyVoldemort87 for reviewing.



The spell: Hippocampus abdominalis is the name of the big-belly seahorse and its native to Australia. Sea horses are actually fish, and they are the slowest swimming species (though it’s hardly surprising, their tiny fins and upright position don’t do much for power and streamlining).



The female inserts the eggs into the male where he fertilises them and holds them until they are ready to be born.



***



“Oh, my back feels like a niffler is digging at it.” Lucius moaned from his position on the loveseat.



“Lovely – you’ve only got the one, Lucius!” Hermione groaned, trying to get comfortable. The latest look into their pregnancies had revealed the twins were already firm believers in sibling rivalry as they lay in Hermione’s cramped womb and poked each other in the face and aimed elbows at each other’s ribs.



“Yes, and I never, ever, EVER want to go through this again. I am going to cast a permanent contraceptive charm on the bedroom and then go and then sign myself up for am immediate magical vasectomy once they are born!” he rubbed as a knee, foot or elbow whacked his abdomen. “Three is quite enough, I think.”



“You changed your tune, what happened to wanting your own quidditch team?” Hermione griped, rubbing where she was caught in the crossfire of an elbow fight between the two.



“A man can change his mind, I have a sudden very huge respect for Madame Weasley… goodness knows how she managed seven! It is enough with one!” he hissed as he was kicked again.



“You think it’s bad now – Lucius, you’ve got to get the third Musketeer out of there yet!” she growled, glaring at her husband.



“And that is where the genius of Julius Caesar’s Mother’s physician comes into play…” Lucius grinned.



“Too posh to push, more like.” Hermione grumbled, managing to get to her feet and shuffle out of the room.



***



“I was voted as the most desirable wizard by Witch Weekly, Witch Today, Teen Witch, Professional Witch and Witches at Home Magazine.” Lucius said, noticing the free copies that had been owled to him, the financial times propped up on his protruding abdomen.



“That isn’t surprising – women have wanted to have men go through pregnancy and childbirth for millennia! You’re practically a God to all witches everywhere now you’re pregnant!” Hermione giggled, the twins were finally too big to struggle against each other, but that signified how close they were to their due date.



“It wasn’t a particularly complex spell…” he said, sighing as he lovingly stroked the baby. He was counting the days to the birth, but was actually quite sad to be parted to the little someone who had made his life Hell for the past seven months.



“No, the spell is the easy bit, the wizard has to be powerful enough to cope with having two magical signatures, and his internal organs rearranged to cater for a womb… the spell has only been performed successfully in a handful of occasions in the seven hundred years it has been around. The healers think you’re amazing, as well as every other woman in wizarding Great Britain.”



“And you, my wife, what do you think?” he purred, reaching for her hand.



“I think that you’re never going to have sex with me again, unless you’re magically sterilised first!” she growled.



They sat in silence, Hermoine reading through a book of baby names, Lucius’s nose back in the financial pages. Malfoy industries were doing exceptionally well, especially after Rita Skeeter announced the “abomination” that he was pregnant; the venomous reporter had expected outrage and outcry – she only received that from bachelors, and the complaints were outnumbered six to one by praise and congratulations from witches and married wizards.



“What if they don’t like me, love? What if I’m closer to this one than the other two? What if…” he said, close to tears. He couldn’t understand how Hermione kept these hormones in check (as the spell had copied her hormones and womb exactly before the transfer of the babe), and remained completely calm most of the time.



“Shhh… its alright. You’ll love all three because we agreed to birth them blindfolded so we couldn’t see whom was who – at the end of the day you won’t know which one you carried – you’ll love them all the same and unconditionally, regardless.” She soothed, cuddling him close.



“I’ll help as much as I can with feeding them, I know I can’t breastfeed – but maybe they wouldn’t notice a bottle was different?” he mused, getting hold of his emotions once more.



“Lucius, I think they might notice.” She laughed, shaking her head.



***



Only the four healers who performed the caesarean sections (it had been deemed safer for Hermione to follow her husband’s lead) knew which children came from the Mother’s abdomen, and which from the Father’s. The healers watched in amazement as Lucius’s internal organs instantly shifted back into their normal male fashion the moment the umbilical cord was cut. They oblivarated the knowledge from each other’s memories so the Malfoy family origins could be kept well and truly secret.



***



“Two girls and a boy. And none of them alike, love.” Lucius said, peering into the three cots between Hermione and his hospital beds.



One girl had little tufts of blonde hair sticking up beneath a pink hat, it looked like it would curl; she had brilliant blue eyes that looked at the candles in the room with avid curiosity. The other girl had slightly darker blonde hair beneath he bonnet, with darker eyes that the healers thought would turn brown like her Mother’s; she was content to grasp things close to her; she was the more vocal of the three and constantly squeaked and peeped. Their son had hair that was almost white with deep blue eyes, he was the quietest of the three and moved his head to follow the different voices in the room while he was awake.



“They still need names, Lucius.” Hermione said, wondering how two of the three huge babies had fit within her, she suspected magic may have been the answer, especially as all three were the same size. Lucius sat with the magical baby name dictionary, using the provided quill you could write the meaning of a name onto the front cover and tabs would grow from pages containing a name with that definition. Lucius had spent twenty minutes scribbling and flicking pages before deciding.



“Hmm… we agreed that if we had girls, I would name them; you would name a son.”



“Yes, that’s alright by me.” She said, looking as the boy squeaked a yawn before drifting into sleep.



“Photine Isabel, for the little one who has a love of staring at the light in the room.” He whispered, slowly standing and hissing at the soreness as he moved to Photine’s crib to take her tiny balled fist in his.



“Talitha Ligeia, for the little singer of the three.” He said, carefully bending down to listen to her gurgle at him.



Hermione had decided upon a boy’s name early on, and was quite pleased she had the opportunity to use it. “Aramis Reuben.” She said simply, smiling as all three drifted into sleep just as Draco, Harry and Ron tiptoed into the room.



“May I introduce: Photine, Talitha and Aramis Malfoy.” Lucius whispered, sitting gingerly on the end of Hermione’s bed, taking her hand, and smiling with pride at the three sleeping infants.



***









Photine: Derived from Greek φως (phos) meaning "light"



Isabel: Most likely a medieval Spanish form of Elizabeth, although some theories state that Isabel actually derives from an old Semitic name meaning "daughter of Ba'al".



I was aiming for a name meaning ‘light daughter’.







Talitha: Means "little girl" in Aramaic.



Ligeia: Derived from Greek λιγυς (ligys) meaning "clear-voiced”



I was aiming for ‘Singing daughter’, but it became ‘little girl with the clear voice’







Aramis: The surname of one of the musketeers in 'The Three Musketeers' by Alexandre Dumas. Dumas based the character on Henri d'Aramitz, whose surname was derived from the French village of Aramits.



Reuben: Means "behold, a son" in Hebrew.



I was aiming to include a ‘Three Musketeers’ reference and also a son reference.





I really do spend a lot of time researching character names, I find it fascinating how all names have a meaning. For example, I am ‘Torchlight Storm’ (And my middle name, Gail, was chosen for two reasons – one of them being the hideous weather outside! The other was because it was what my Mum would have shortened my name to had she called me Abigail, not Helen) and I was tempted to have it as my pen name, but I already used Utopia on another site and stuck with it.



I research all my names here: http://www.behindthename.com





I hope everyone had a good valentines, and if you didn’t have someone to be romantic with, then have a rose from me!



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