A rattling cry jerks me from my light slumber. I roll over automatically, swinging myself out of bed. Draco. He's hungry. And if there's one thing my little boy can't bear, it's to be hungry. If I don't get to him soon, he'll start throwing a full-on fit.
As I stand, I hear the grandfather clock on the landing chime the third quarter. Despite myself, I close my eyes briefly. Quarter to two. I can only have been asleep for forty minutes, if that. Flavia didn't go down again until nearly one. She does so struggle to bring up wind sometimes.
Still, hopefully, if I can get to Draco in time, he won't wake his sister this time around. Of the two of them, she's definitely the harder to settle. Already a pampered little thing, and the twins are scarcely four months old.
I am halfway out of my bedroom door, tying the belt of my dressing gown, when a second cry joins the first. Drat. Flavia is awake too. And by the sound of that demanding cry, extraordinarily upset about something.
Honestly. It's bad enough that, no matter what I do to try to encourage them, the twins won't feed at the same time, that I have to be up every hour with one or the other of them. It's even worse when the one I am not feeding doesn't sleep through between feeds. Then I have to split my attention between them, which just distresses us all.
If I was lucky, Lucius would be home tonight, and could help, but he's in France for the week, seeing to our business interests there. And I won't entrust either of my babies to the house elves. Not when they're this young. The different magic might hurt them, interfere with their own.
I push the nursery door open, heart clenching at the ragged cries issuing from both cribs, "Lumos!" I whisper, lighting my wand rather than the nursery. The darker I keep the room, the easier the twins will be to settle back to sleep. I've made that mistake before. Only once. Never again.
I scan the room quickly, assessing both babies at a glance. Draco's cry is quieter than his sister's, but he is also often the easiest to settle. Deciding to pick my battles, I go to him first.
"Hush, little dragon, hush," I murmur, as I lift him into my arms, "Mama's here, Mama's here."
I hear the pleading note in my voice and hate myself for it, but I know there's no way I can stop it. If only the babies would feed together rather than in shifts, I wouldn't be so tired all the time…
Still, Draco calms as I let him nestle into me, rooting softly, so that's something. At least all he seems to want at the moment is food.
Carrying him in the crook of my arm, I cross the room to Flavia's crib and scoop her up too, balancing them both expertly, even as my daughter flails tearily.
"There, there, Flavia, hush now, hush now."
I keep my voice calm, determined not to show the babies how tired I truly am. We cross the room to the rocking chair and I seat myself in it before wrestling my dressing gown open and letting Draco duck his head to suckle.
He latches at once, cooing contently as he begins to gulp. My lips twitch up in to a half-smile and I pet his downy hair with two fingers.
"That's it. That's better, isn't it? Good boy, dragon, good boy."
With Draco quiet, I can turn my full attention to his sister for a moment. Now that I can hear her cries fully, I know what the matter is at once.
My heart sinks. Flavia is grunting and straining like the hounds of the Morrigan themselves are after her. She desperately wants to empty her bowels, but she can't.
This is no new phenomenon in our nursery. At four months old, Flavia has never seemed to grasp the dual need to both strain and relax when passing a stool, although Merlin knows her older brother learnt it quickly enough. As such, although I have to change one of Draco's messy nappies at least twice a day, Flavia's are far rarer, and something more of an ordeal when they do come.
Quite apart from the fact that my little girl only seems to want to move her bowels in the depths of the early hours, it often takes several minutes of bouncing her and rubbing her tummy to help move things along before she'll finally reward us both with a large pile of, well…
Quickly stopping that train of thought before it can go any further, I cuddle my screaming little girl closer and try to offer her my free breast. Sometimes, if I can persuade her to take some milk, that too helps ease her tummy troubles.
"Hush, Flavia, hush, look."
I brush her lips with my nipple, hoping against hope she will latch. If nothing else, feeding her now would help bring her on to the same schedule as her brother for a change.
Nothing doing. Flavia arches her head back, writhing away from me as best she can. By now, she is puce in the face. Her screams have risen in volume until I think one must be able to hear them all over the manor.
I sigh, "If you two would only learn to coordinate, life would be a lot easier."
Flavia ignores me. Kicking and grunting, she writhes on my lap, her every inch the very picture of fury. Her little feet drum angrily against the side of the rocking chair, lending audible depth to the measure of her distress.
I groan inwardly. Helping Flavia empty her bowels is the only thing that might even hope to calm her now. But to do that, I'd have to bounce her and rock her and that would disturb Draco, who is nowhere near sated yet. I have broken off Draco's feed only once before. Merlin help me, I thought my ears would ring for weeks.
Desperate to find a compromise that might at least half-pacify both my little ones, I attempt to rub Flavia's back at the base of her spine, hard enough to ease some of the ache she must be feeling.
"Oh, Flavia, I'm sorry, darling, I'm sorry. Shh, shh, it'll be over soon."
So painful and swollen is Flavia's stomach, however, that she doesn't even want me touching her. She jerks away from my hands, shrieking as though she is auditioning for a part in that band my cousin Sirius used to like. I never could remember its' name.
I toss it up in my head for another minute or so.
Damn it. Flavia is obviously in agony with her stomach ache and Draco is the easier of the two to settle, once he's been given what he wants. He is going to have to sacrifice his food just this once.
"I'm sorry, dragon, I'm sorry. I'll come back to you as soon as I can," I murmur into his downy hair, tears of exhaustion pricking at my eyes, before pushing him lightly into me so that he has no choice but to unlatch lest he choke himself.
Draco is too startled to cry at first, but as soon as I put him down in his crib, he realises what's happening and begins to scream blue murder.
My heart hurts to leave him in such distress, but with Flavia squirming in my arms as though her very life depends upon it, I have no choice.
I pace the room with my daughter, bouncing her lightly in my arms, using one hand to massage her taut little tummy.
"Shh, shh, shh," I murmur, using the first words that come to mind. I don't have the energy to think this over any more than that, "It'll be over soon, I promise. Just let go, darling, just let go."
I lose count of the number of turns I do around the nursery, Flavia grunting in my arms like a piglet and Draco's furious yells our background music. My legs are on autopilot, moving without my brain consciously telling them to do so. All the same, I know I hear the grandfather clock strike a quarter past two before Flavia finally goes limp in my arms, her fluffy white nappy suddenly heavy and sagging against my bare chest. I feel an overwhelming sense of relief, one I never imagined I'd feel in my life before I became a parent. For the first time in four or five days, my little girl has passed a stool.
I have no time to savour the feeling, however. I ought to change her, but Draco has been waiting long enough. It can be Flavia's turn to cry.
Some mothers would scorn me for deliberately leaving a baby in a messy nappy, I know, but then, I doubt any of them have had twins, and twins who won't feed at the same time for love nor money at that. It won't be for long, and anyway, Draco has been so good, waiting so long to be fed when he's so hungry.
I shake my head slightly, as much to try to clear my own sleepy fog as to amuse my pouty little girl, "Why do you always have to need to go in the early hours of the morning, you little vixen? Come on, I'd better feed your brother before I change you or he'll have a right royal tantrum."
Flavia snuffles at me slightly, but I don't give her time to fuss properly before I put her down and pick up her brother.
She squawks angrily as she lands in her own mess, and I would usually be more sympathetic, but desperation born of sleeplessness is acting as a very effective form of catnip tonight.
"Not now, Princess. You've had your turn. I need to see to Draco now," I say sternly, taking Draco to the rocking chair.
For a few blessed moments, it seems as though my little girl has understood what I am telling her, but it is only a short reprieve. Long before her brother is anywhere close to full, Flavia is roaring in distress, demanding I come to help her NOW!
Her tears pull at my heart strings, but I force myself to ignore them, even as I feel my eyes begin to fill with tears again. I ignored Draco for a full twenty minutes, for Merlin's sake. Why is it so much harder to ignore Flavia? Is she just so much more strong-willed than her brother, that much more demanding?
Quarter of an hour later, Draco has finally eaten his fill and I begin to burp him, knowing that if I don't get the wind up, he won't have a hope of settling back to sleep.
Wind isn't the only thing he brings up, mind. His bladder empties at the same time as his lungs, soaking the nappy he wears.
"Oh! Oh dear, little dragon. Someone's got themselves in a mess, haven't they? Don't worry, Mama's here. Mama will fix it."
I cradle my whimpering son and make quick work of changing him. Thank Merlin he doesn't wriggle on the changing table nearly as much as Flavia does, and is much easier to calm now that he is fed and dry. He's exhausted, bless him. His little grey eyes have flickered shut before I've even got him back into his crib.
Not so his younger sister. Scarlet with anger, Flavia is like a coiled spring when I lift her. She thrashes in my arms as I carry her to the changing table, letting me know in no uncertain terms how much she hates me for having abandoned her like that.
As I stare down at her, eyes glazing over with sleep, making it hard to focus on what I ought to be doing, I feel a yawn coming on. I know I should try to cover my mouth, but my hands are full and, besides, I'm far too tired to care what is ladylike and what is not.
The yawn comes with surprising ferocity, even given how tired I know I am. It feels as though it almost rips my face in two.
It dies away and, to my shock, I hear a sound I very rarely hear at this hour of the morning. Flavia's high, soft giggle. I blink down at her.
"Oh, you think that's funny, do you, Flavia? Well, young lady, it wouldn't happen if you and Draco would only be nice and let Mama sleep, you know."
Seizing on the fact that my daughter, for once, isn't screeching fit to wake the dead, I blow a raspberry on her plump little tummy and quickly sponge her down, dry her and change her before she can remember how much she generally fusses during nappy changes.
Once she is clean and dry, I carry her over to the rocking chair, talking to her in a whisper all the while.
Shall we see if you can eat something now, hmm? You've probably worked up a hunger with all that crying. And you'll only be up again before too long if I don't feed you now."
Even as I say it, I know my attempts are probably fruitless. Flavia is a darling girl, but she will only do things on her own terms. She will feed when she wants to and not a moment before, no matter how much help it would be to me, her poor exhausted Mama.
Sure enough, though Flavia gurgles at me as I carry her, when I finally sit down and offer her the breast, she whines and arches away from me, wiggling fretfully in my hold. She is not crying loudly enough to wake her brother, thank heavens, but still, it is blatantly clear that she won't entertain food now.
I can't help but groan. It's been well over two hours since Flavia last ate. If I can't get her to take the nipple now, I will get an hour's sleep out of her, if that, before she wakes screaming to be fed. "Flavia, please! I need to sleep too!"
I brush her little mouth with my nipple again, pleadingly, and for a moment, I think I have won, for the little vixen latches on.
Two sucks later, however, she seems to realise what she is doing and screws up her face. She spits the nipple out, this time shrieking, a short, sharp blast of noise that makes her feelings on the matter only too clear. No matter how much I want her to, she will not feed until she is good and ready to do so.
I freeze, praying under my breath. "Don't wake Draco now. I've only just got him off. Please don't wake Draco now. Please."
To my intense gratitude, however, the older of my twins stays asleep, even if he does snuffle in his sleep a bit.
I groan again and force myself to my feet. Why won't the babies just learn to feed at the same time?! Is that really so hard?!
"Very well, little madam. If you must," I whisper heavily, crossing the room again, back to Flavia's padded crib.
Flavia whines as I shift under her and I almost want to snap at her. You're getting what you want, you little madam, why are you whining now?!
I don't, of course. Instead, I simply rock her for a few moments longer, swaying on autopilot as my daughter whimpers – more out of principle than any real need, it seems to me - until she is almost completely asleep, close enough to said state for me to be able to place her back in her cot and creep from the room.
My bed welcomes me back eagerly and I sink into its softness greedily. My head has scarcely hit the pillow….
When I am dragged rudely awake by a screeching banshee of a cry.
Flavia.
By the sound of it she is starving and doesn't care who knows it.
I bolt to my feet. If I can only stop her from waking Draco…
Again, I am too late. By the time I charge into the nursery, flushed and panting with agitation, both my children are wailing fretfully.
Deciding to tackle the more urgent problem first this time, I catch Flavia up in my arms, crooning to her desperately. "Oh, Flavia, shh, shh. It's all right, it's all right."
As though in answer, my daughter turns her head into my chest, rooting with such strength I am almost astonished she doesn't knock me over. Clearly, she will accept no delayed gratification this time around. Indeed, she doesn't stop thrashing or screaming, even to take a breath, until I have opened my night gown and let her loose on my breast.
She clamps on, suckling greedily. I would normally sit in the rocking chair to feed her, but not this instant. My son has been startled awake and he needs me to reassure him now.
Putting my free hand into his crib, I pat Draco's tummy gently, singing him soft lullabies until he settles. It takes a little while – he is only too happy to prove his frustration at having had his lovely sleep disturbed – but we get there eventually.
At last he drifts off again, and I can sink into the rocking chair to finish Flavia's feed. As I do so, I hear the grandfather clock striking half past three. It's barely been an hour since I was last in this room. Barely an hour.
I look down at my suddenly cherubic daughter, shaking my head at her.
"You and Draco might be the light of my life, but I swear to Merlin, you're going to be the death of me one day."
Flavia only snuffles and continues to feed. I scoff at myself. Did I really expect an answer from her, for Heaven's sake? She's only four months old. All she cares about is being full, warm and comfortable. And, like any true Malfoy, as Lucius would point out, were he here, she doesn't care about who or what she puts out of joint to get what she wants.
I feel my eyes drifting shut as Flavia pulls rhythmically at my nipple and, for once, I don't try to fight it. My mother would scold me if she knew – it is far beneath any Lady of the House of Black to fall asleep anywhere but a bed or perhaps, in an emergency a chaise longue – but just now, I find I don't care what my mother thinks. It's been a horrendous night, and no doubt there are more fun and games around the corner. Given the circumstances, I have no doubt Draco will soon feel his younger sister has had quite enough of the attention, thank you very much, and want cuddling or feeding. Flavia, meanwhile, will doubtless refuse to burp and I will be stuck cycling her legs and patting her back until I lose all feeling in my arms. I may as well snatch what little sleep the babies will allow me while I can.