DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.
~ Late Night Disturbances ~
Teddy woke to the sound of cheeping and scrabbling claws outside his bedroom door. It was still dark outside. He glanced at the clock on his nightstand.
"Ugh," he groaned. "It's four in the bloody morning!"
He buried his face in his pillow and attempted to go back to sleep, but then he heard a distinctive series of thumps which indicated that the flock of hippogriff fledglings -which were the descendants of his third cousin Sirius's pet hippogriff, Buckbeak - were going down the stairs.
Teddy swore a blue streak as he threw off the covers and rushed to catch his wayward pets before they-
Too late. He was only halfway to the stairs himself when the shrieks of a certain portrait joined the general cacophony. He trudged the rest of the way down rather unenthusiastically, and shooed the hippogriff babies back upstairs toward their attic nest without too much fuss. The animals were overly excitable, yes, but generally obedient.
The portrait of Sirius's mother was another matter altogether. No one had ever managed to remove it from the wall, despite the fact that everyone from the infamous Weasley Twins to Dumbledore himself had tried to find a way to take it down. Well, it wasn't called a Permanent Sticking Charm for no reason, after all... There were also some kind of wards on the wall itself, so that the painting couldn't simply be removed by cutting out the bit of wall to which it was stuck.
Harry had left the house to Teddy in his will, and Teddy hadn't wanted it any more than Harry had wanted it when he'd inherited it from Sirius, but the property at 12 Grimmauld Place was exactly the kind of depressing fortress of solitude that Teddy found himself desiring to hide away in after his marriage had ended in a bitter divorce.
So now Teddy was stuck facing down the shrieking portrait of his long-dead fourth cousin in the middle of the night. Again. For the fourth time this week. And it was only Tuesday.
"BEASTS RUNNING THROUGH MY HOUSE AT ALL HOURS OF THE NIGHT," screeched the portrait of Walburga Black. "DISGUSTING! DISGRACEFUL!" She changed her tune when Teddy entered into her line of sight. "FILTHY SON OF A HALF-BLOOD AND A HALF-BREED, BESMIRCHING THE HOME OF MY ANCESTORS, BEFOULING THE HOUSE OF BLACK WITH YOUR MONGREL-"
"That's enough," Teddy snapped, banging his fist against the wall on which the portrait hung. The woman in the painting hadn't been able to hear his words over her own shouting, and although the violent impact rattled her frame, it caused her only the briefest of pauses before she continued her tirade.
This time Teddy punched the portrait itself, which caused a slightly more prolonged moment of silence before she was off again.
"HOW DARE YOU STRIKE ME, YOU INSOLENT LITTLE-"
Teddy cast a quick Silencing Charm, which he knew wouldn't last long against her, but it would perhaps give him enough time to get his point across.
"Perhaps I haven't made myself clear. This habit of yours is ridiculous, and I won't tolerate it in my home anymore. So. You shut up, or I'll have an artist come and add Sirius to this painting to torment you for the rest of your afterlife."
The charm failed then and he could see that she was gearing up to launch into another bout of screeching.
"Or perhaps I'll just do it myself right now," Teddy said, quirking one eyebrow at her.
"YOU WOULDN'T DARE-"
"Accio paintbrush."
He was not entirely surprised when she stayed silent after that.
~end~