I'll Be Home For Christmas

You all say I'm evil, but I'm feeling the looove! Thanks so much to ALL my reviewers!

Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. I inadvertently deleted this once, after I had proofed and edited and was happy with it, and so had to go back and re-write it again from memory. It's not all completely as originally written, and I cannot truthfully say I am completely satisfied with it, but answers all questions asked and is as close as I can possibly get to what I had originally written. Forgive me!

SickPuppy- *eep!* Right....erm.....here you "chuffin" go!
Qwerty- Good guess! But not 100%. About 75%. Close though!
Falcon- Sorry, no. But...hehehehe...that's a great idea for a fic!

Phoenix-forever, this one's for you.


Didn't Plan On It

"Maybe...maybe...if it's that bad...if he doesn't want it...maybe I shouldn't have it."



Severus felt a chill sweep through his body that had nothing to do with the temperature outside. He stood there frozen to the spot, unable to move, unable to believe what he'd just heard Harry say.


"You never answered him," a voice inside said. "You tried avoiding it."


Severus closed his eyes and tried swallowing, but his throat refused to work.


"He thinks you don't want the child. Your child. The child you made together." the voice said.


"Harry!" Ginny Weasley said,her voice aghast, "What are you saying?! You don't mean that! How can you say such a thing?!"


"He doesn't want it, Ginny!" Harry choked, "what kind of life is it for a kid who's unwanted?"


"You want your baby, and don't you dare lie and tell me you don't, Harry!," Ginny's fierce voice sounded, "I know better! You've always wanted a family...."


"Severus and I are a family, Ginny," Harry sniffed, "two people and an unwanted baby aren't!"


The girl gasped and then snapped angrily, "Harry James Potter, you listen to me right now! Of course Severus wants his baby, don't be ridiculous! He's just surprised, you said so yourself, and you just need to give him some time to get used to it! You just calm yourself down and stop spouting...bullshit... right now, or I swear, I'll take this broom and knock some sense into your head! What do you think Severus would say if he heard you talking like this?!"


"Probably nothing," Harry said dully, "like this morning. Doesn't matter anyway. I can go to Poppy and it'll be all over. I just found out myself, and it's not even three months along, so it'll be easy. I probably won't even have to stay in the infirmary."


"Stop it, Harry! Just stop it! Don't make me slap a pregnant...guy!" Ginny warned.


"That won't be necessary, Ginevra," a galvanised Severus said, striding through the brush. He grasped a startled Harry's arm, pulling him to his feet and against himself, told Ginny "give our apologies to Molly and Arthur, won't you" turned and apparated them both out of sight.


"Knock some sense into our boy, Sev," Ginny muttered with a smile, slung her broom over her shoulder and went to find her mother.


**********


Once they appeared in their own living room, Severus slid his arms up to grasp Harry's shoulders and made him look at him, growling, "I swear, if I ever hear you spout such idiotic nonsense again, I will turn you over my knee and give you the thrashing you should have had years ago!"


Harry stared at him, momentarily transported back to his school days at Hogwarts, and then wrenched himself loose as his own temper took over. "What were you doing? Listening in the shrubbery? Jealous again, Sev?" he sneered. Right now he didn't want the man to touch him.


"Luckily enough, yes," Severus snapped back, "and not because of Ginevra! I did not know you were there, much less with her, but again, luckily enough you were, seeing as she was trying to talk some sense into you! How could you even consider what you were proposing?!"


"What the hell else am I supposed to do?!" Harry shouted, "you certainly aren't happy about it! You hate kids, you've been making that crystal clear from the day I met you!"


"I do not hate children!," Severus growled.


"Oh yeah?" Harry shot back, "let's go ask some of your students, why don't we? Hell, ask me why don't you! And what do you care what I do with my baby anyway?! You don't ..."


"That baby is also my baby," Severus ground out through clenched teeth, fighting a losing battle with his temper, "and I care very much what you do with it!"


"Care?" Harry howled, "you don't even want it!"


"I never said I didn't want our baby!" Severus shouted.


"No! You didn't!," Harry screeched, "you never said anything at all!"


"I never had the chance!," Severus roared, "if your hormonal little mind will recall, your best mate Ronald interrupted us!" Severus felt the veins behind his eyes throbbing and took a deep, frustrated breath. Lowering his voice, he continued, "Of course I want our baby. Even if I didn't, I would not allow you to dispose of an innocent life. Haven't we both seen enough death in this world? Haven't we both been forced, through no choice of our own, to kill before? How could you choose to do it again? Even if I didn't want the baby, how could I allow you to make a choice you would regret for the rest of your life?"


"But...you..you do want the baby?" Harry asked in a small voice.


"Yes, I want the baby," Severus said with a sigh.


"Not just....because it's wrong to....not have it?" Harry asked in the same small voice.


Severus looked up into the emerald eyes he'd built his life around, and walked over to the boy, enveloping him in his arms, holding him close.


"No, Harry," his voice rough with feeling, "not just because it's wrong not to have it. Because it's right to have it. Because it's ours. Yours and mine together, and what we make together is the most important thing in the world to me."


**********


Later, after Severus had reaquainted Harry with his Christmas gift and they were lying in one another's arms amid the tangled sheets, Harry said, 'It was alright to do that, right?


"It certainly felt alright," Severus sighed contentedly. He was warm and comfortable in the afterglow, Harry wrapped around him, and he felt pleasantly sleepy.


Harry, however, was wide awake.


"You know what I mean," Harry insisted, "it can't hurt anything, right? I mean, ...you weren't like...poking the baby or anything, were you?"


Nothing like baby talk to kill a post-coital mood, Severus thought acidly.


With an exaggerated sigh of patience he replied, "I'm sure everything is fine."


"Well....it's still small. Tiny, I would imagine," Harry said. "I wonder what it is?"


"Probably another noisy Gryffindor," Severus said irritably, "it is half you after all."


"It's half you too," Harry snickered, "so it could turn out to be another snarky Slytherin. With a big nose."


"Then pray for a boy," Severus said drily, "a girl would never forgive us."


"Well, girl or boy, we can work on the opposite after," Harry said happily.


"Harry, please," Severus sighed, "let's just focus on getting through this one before we think about any others."


Harry was quiet for a few moments, and Severus had nearly drifted off, when he startled him awake again saying, "Hey! I just thought....you'll probably be teaching them Potions in a few years time! They'll be students in your class. That'll be weird, won't it? When they get their Hogwarts letters?"


"Enough, Harry!," Severus groaned and sighed, "I am still on holiday, and the last thing I wish to think about is Hogwarts and students, no matter who they belong to!"


The boy was silent then, and Severus wormed his way back into comfortableness, closing his eyes while his fingers idly stroked Harry's shoulder. He was just beginning to drift off again when he heard it.


"Sev?" Harry murmured against his chest.


"What is it, Harry?" he replied wearily.


"Are you happy about the baby?" Harry asked.


"I am not unhappy about it," Severus said evenly. "I want the baby, Harry. I told you that."


"Yeah, you did," Harry said a forlorn note in his voice that made Severus cringe inside. "You want it, but....are you happy about it?"


Resigning himself to wakefulness, Severus sighed and considered his words carefully before answering, "I am not unhappy about a baby, Harry, and I apologise for my earlier behaviour. I am still somewhat surprised at the news of the baby. That you are pregnant. That in six short months I am to become a father. Something I never, for various reasons, thought would happen."


"Because of my mum?" Harry asked.


Damnable brat! Severus thought furiously. Why did he do that?! How did he do that?! Always managing to zero in on the one topic Severus wished to avoid, no matter what that topic may be! He felt his body stiffen and clenched his teeth trying to check his temper and annoyance.


Turning to glare at his young lover, Severus saw Harry's large green eyes waiting warily for his answer, and his annoyance dissapated. They rarely spoke of Lily. It was difficult for Severus, even now, and Harry knew that, just as he knew that Severus had had his issues with Harry being Lily's son, although Harry seemed to have no such issues himself. Severus used to marvel at that, until he had realised that for Harry, Lily hardly seemed real. And he could hardly fault the boy for that. He knew she was his mother, but all Harry really had of Lily were the memories of other people. People that were all now, for the most part, as dead as she was. The only person left who had known Lily well enough to talk to Harry about her was the one person who avoided doing so. Himself. Although Harry knew Lily was his mother, he'd never know her as his mother, or indeed, at all, in any more than an abstract way. He had no real memory of her, unlike himself, and Severus knew, as Harry himself had said, Molly Weasley was his mother figure. She was the closest thing to a mother he'd ever had.


Sighing heavily, Severus rolled away from Harry and got out of bed. If he were going to speak about Lily, he certainly wasn't going to do it while lying naked in bed with her son. He pulled on pants, pajamas, slippers and dressing gown, shielding his nakedness as if armouring himself against her memory, tossed pajamas at Harry, motioning for him to do the same, and left the room. He went into the kitchen and spelled the kettle warm, making tea, and set it on the table for them just as Harry appeared with a faintly amused expression. One look at Severus's grim face cured that, and they both sat down.


In a voice as grim as his expression, Severus began. "In answer to your question...yes, because of Lily. Partly. You know the depth of the feelings I had for her. She was the one good thing in my life from the moment I met her and for a very long time afterward. She was all I wanted, and far beyond anything I had hoped for, though I knew it was unrequited, and that she saw us only as good, close friends. I secretly hoped that one day she would realise all I felt for her and discover that she too felt the same for me. Even after she was no longer speaking to me, and even though I had only myself to blame for that, it didn't change what I felt for her, I still clung to that hope right up until the day she married....your father."


Severus choked out that last, and in an effort to calm himself, took a gulp of his tea, promptly scalding his mouth. Furious with himself for not being able to control his own emotions as well as with the blasted tea for being too hot, he shot a warning glare across the table, and Harry bit back the snicker he'd been about to let loose, looking away as he sipped at his own tea.


When he was capable of speech again, having decided that bluntness was the course to follow, Severus scowled at his cup and and said, "When she married James I knew that I had lost her forever, and when she died what little light there was left in my life died with her. I didn't think I would ever again want the things I wanted with her...."


"You mean a home...a life....kids....," Harry said rather than asked.


"I did not think I would ever love again, even if I were lucky enough to find someone who would have me," Severus continued, " and....as a Death Eater...particularly after becoming a spy for the Order, I did not think I would live long enough to begin trying. I didn't want to..try. Even after Voldemort was gone and I was free, I had no hope left for a life, did not want to try. Until you came along again. You knew of my issues when we got together...."


"But....you got over them," Harry said, "I mean...here we are, together."


With another heavy sigh, Severus nodded and said "I reconsiled my issues, yes..my feelings for you, and you being Lily's son...by telling myself that she would be happy that her only child had found someone who was...." here he took a sip of his tea, bracing himself for the baring of his soul, "....utterly devoted to him. Who would never leave him. Who would die for him." There were several moments of silence, during which Severus stared down his tea cup, his heart pounding wildly.


"Wow, Sev..." Harry breathed, breaking the silence, "....I think I'm going to cry."


"Don't you dare," Severus said, not quite able to muster his usual menace.


Harry, knowing how difficult it was for the man to give voice to his feelings, sipped his tea and silently revelled in his lover's confession. He knew Severus loved him, it was because it was so difficult for him to say that it made Harry's heart sing when he did. He felt like reaching over and hugging Severus, but he knew this wasn't the moment.


"The news that you are pregnant, that I am indeed going to be a father....it just brought all that back to me," Severus sighed, "I just....simply never thought it would happen. I never gave a thought to children, but..."


"But if you're over it.....and you love me and live with me and sleep with me....even if you once loved her.....why can't you be happy about a baby?" Harry frowned, "I mean...I don't get it, Sev...if you're over it, what's Lily got to do with you and I having a baby?"


"I was supposed to give her children, not grandchildren, " Severus blurted in frustration, "much less with her son! I realise you never knew her, Harry, but I did. I grew up with her, went to school with her...knew her as a young woman."


"Oh," Harry said, surprised. Severus's issues seemed perfectly clear to him now. "Right....I....that would be kind of strange for you, wouldn't it? I...I mean, I know she's my mother, but I don't really think of her in that way, I guess...I never knew her, so...its really hard for me to make that connection."


"Harry," Severus said wearily, "I..."


"I guess I never really think of you as being old enough to be my father," Harry interruped blithely.


"Yes," Severus said sourly, "thank you for reminding me of that."


A thought occurred to Harry then and he asked, "Is that it then? You said Lily was only part of it. Is that it? You think you're too old to be a father?"


"It isn't that I think I am too old to be a father," Severus said somewhat defensively, "obviously I am not. As I've toId you, I simply didn't think I would ever have children of my own. Even after we were together, I did not think it would happen."


"Well if you knew I could get pregnant, that wizards can get pregnant, how could you not?" Harry said, "I mean...I gave it up to you, you're the only man I've ever been with, but... I'm not the only one you've ever been with, and unless you've secretly got a load of kids running around out there that you've conveniently forgotten about.....didn't you have to...use protection?"


"Don't be ridiculous," Severus scowled, "of course I do not have a secret load of my spawn running about. How could I possibly father children with any of them? They meant nothing to me other than sexual release."


"Well then you must have used something," Harry snapped with irritation, "because as far as I know, I'm pretty sure it was your "sexual release" that got me pregnant!"


Suddenly Severus was out of his chair and next to Harry, wrapping his arms about him and chuckling in his ear. "Oh Harry," he said affectionately, making Harry turn to frown at him.


"I sometimes forget that you do not know all the ways of our world," Severus said cryptically.


"What does that mean?" Harry asked suspiciously, "you know I was raised by Muggles."


"It means," Severus said, pulling Harry out of his chair, "that if I am to be completely truthful," he grabbed his wand and pulled Harry along to the living room, "underneath all my issues and, don't you dare tell anyone I said this, insecurities...." He waved his wand at the fireplace, conjuring a roaring fire, and settled them down on the ridiculous white rug, "I am indeed quite deliriously happy that we are going to have a baby."


Thoroughly confused at this sudden change of heart, Harry stared at his lover and said blankly, "What?"


Giving in to impulse and the lure of firelight reflecting in emerald green eyes, Severus kissed him before telling him, "While wizards can become pregnant, Harry, it is not a common occurance. Not all wizard couples can create a child, even if they are very much in love. It takes much more, a much deeper feeling than mere love alone. When two wizards have that, their magic combines, weaves together, and creates an unbreakable bond between them, and it is only then that a child can be created. It must come from both wizards, the bond will not be created otherwise, and niether can a child be created. That is why I couldn't possibly have fathered a child with any of my past encounters, and why contraceptives weren't necessary. Also why you may rest assured I have no secret progeny stashed anywhere."


"Wow," Harry said softly, and Severus held him closer. "I guess that'll shut up everyone who wonders what I see in you, won't it? When they find out I'm pregnant."


Exasperatedly, Severus said, "Yes, I suppose it will"


"Oh come on, Sev," Harry laughed, "we aren't exactly the likliest of couples, are we? After all, you're like, twenty years older than me and we used to hate each other."


"You always were a veritable master of subtlety, weren't you?" Severus said sarcastically.


"And you 've always been a grumpy old git, but I love you anyway," Harry replied, "and I'm glad we're talking about this and that you're feeling happier about the baby. And thanks for talking about Lily, Sev, I know it isn't easy for you, but it helped me understand how you were feeling. I mean, I never thought we'd have kids either. I didn't know we could, and knowing now how we did it just blows me away all over again and I think I'm even happier than I was before....I mean...even though things were looking pretty grim for a bit....I never really could have done....that. I'm sorry, Sev...I just.."


"We will speak no more of "that"," Severus said abruptly, "And I apologise to you, Harry. I was surprised, shocked even, and I let my own demons and past rule my behaviour, inexcusable, and I am truly sorry."


"Can we speak no more of that either then, and let the past just be past?" Harry asked.


"That would be agreeable," Severus agreed.


"Good," said Harry, "cause...you know..as happy as I am...it's still a bit scary and kind of...strange. I've never seen a pregnant man before. I can't imagine what it's going to be like. Poppy tried telling me about it, but I was so shocked myself I barely heard any of what she said, so she told me to come back to see her. Tomorrow, actually, and....erm... to bring you with me."


"Of course she did," Severus sighed.


"Well, you are the father," Harry said, "and..."


"Now what?" Severus couldn't help cringing slightly.


"We should probably go see Molly after and apologise in person for running out on dinner," Harry said reasonably.


Severus simply groaned.




**Again, not my original, but pretty close. Reviews are always appreciated. Let me know what you think please.**