A/N:
Warning: fluff. Mega-fluff.
My family fosters babies from birth, so I've actually experienced a few of these 'firsts' and know exactly how lovely they can be.
Firsts
The 'firsts' are wonderful things for new parents. Precious moments that stay warm forever in memories, standing out like shining beacons amongst the already joyful memories of raising their child.
For parents, there is nothing in life so beautiful as seeing your beloved child become a person. Learning to express the personality they have had inside from the day they were born. Regardless of how grumpy they may be, how cheeky, how utterly demanding of attention, it is a part of who they are and who they will become and there is nothing you cannot love.
Mundungus Fletcher missed several of these firsts. By the time Harry came to him, he had long since cried his first cry, smiled his first smile and laughed his first laugh. He had learnt to hold his own head up, learnt to roll, to sit, to crawl, to walk. He was a fully functioning toddler who woke up at 6 in the morning terrified and confused, screaming his tiny little lungs out so his cries echoed off the walls of the strange new place he found himself in.
That was the first time Mundungus considered simply taking him to an orphanage.
The first smile Mundungus saw was around a fortnight later.
The first laugh took even longer, maybe as long as a month. Mundungus could never remember the exact dates, only that the sound made all his hard work seem suddenly worth it.
And then he began to make firsts which belonged entirely to him.
He woke up one morning to find Harry already stood in his cot waiting for him. He got up to pick him up, and Harry lifted his arms to be picked up, and spoke his first real, non-gibberish word.
"Daddy."
And suddenly it was all worth it.