Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I'm not earning anything from this fic.
Sorry about the long wait, but I've had terrible writers block, and about five science tests in 3 weeks, so I haven't had much time for anything except revision. Also choosing GCSE options hasn't been very easy... anyway, enjoy the chapter.
Teddy opened his eyes slowly. As his eyes adjusted to the bright light, he groaned slightly. His stomach ached, although the pain was no-where near as bad as it had been earlier. He tried to sit up, and instantly there was movement around him. Teddy looked over to see his Father hurrying to his bedside, along with his Godfather, who was holding a sleeping toddler in his arms. Teddy stared groggily at them all, and then promptly vomited violently, over the side of the bed. He dimly heard exclamations,he briefly saw his Father's worried face, but he was to busy vomiting to worry about it.
Eventually he sat up, relaxing his tense body. Strong arms encircled him, and he heard his Father's voice in his ear, telling him to take it slowly, to breathe deeply. He concentrated on breathing for a while, but as he did so he started coughing badly. His eyes watered as his chest shook painfully, but the fit ended after a minute or so, and he was able to relax again. As Teddy's senses tuned themselves in to the rest of the world, he heard Harry questioning Madam Pomfrey. He looked extremely agitated.
"Will he be okay?"
"Yes, he'll be fine. The vomiting cleared the system of any waste built up during the healing process." Harry sighed in relief, sitting down hard on the chair he had been occupying. The past hour had been tough. And now that he knew all danger was past, Harry was having trouble keeping control of his emotions. Recent years of working as an Auror, battling with criminals, had taught him to keep his feelings in check until all danger was past. But now that Teddy was on the way to recovery, his son was safe, and Wormtail was unconscious and unable to escape, Harry couldn't hold it in any longer. The day's events had been too much for him. Clutching the sleeping James to him, he broke down, collapsing onto the bed next to Teddy's, his face white, tears of relief in his eyes.
Teddy watched in amazement; he had never seen his Godfather break down like this before. Sirius and Remus shared the same thoughts, although they both had seen an emotional Harry in different situations. James had no idea if his son was like this regularly or not, but he didn't really care, he was just trying to comfort Harry as much as possible. Madam Pomfrey backed out of the room, after having cleared up the vomit.
Harry calmed down slowly, his breathing slowed, and his grip on his son loosened. The toddler seemed to have woken up, he was looking up at his Daddy slowly.
"Daddy no sad." He demanded. Harry smiled weakly at his son. Prongs, who had his arm around Harry, rubbed his shoulder lightly. Harry looked over at him, looking slightly ashamed of himself. James shook his head slightly.
"It's okay to break down sometimes Harry." He told him gently. Harry nodded.
"I know, I just don't like it when the kids are around." He murmured in a low voice, so that neither Teddy nor James could hear.
"That's nonsense Harry. If you do that, they'll grow up thinking that your some sort of invincible hero, who can take anything."
"Well he is an invincible hero, James. He survived the killing curse didn't he?!" Harry rolled his eyes at his godfather, smiling weakly again. He glanced down at his son in his arms, and groaned. The boy had fallen asleep again.
"He's asleep again. He'll be terrible tonight." Harry complained. The other men laughed, and Harry stood up glancing at the clock on the wall. It read 4:45.
"Damn. We need to get going." he stated. Teddy looked slightly upset at this, but allowed Remus to move away from him. Harry looked over at his godson.
"We'll be here soon. Our future selves will know what time to come." Teddy nodded wearily at them. Remus glanced at him.
"Are you sure your going to be okay until we get here?" He questioned quietly.
"I'll be fine, Dad." The boy answered resolutely. Remus smiled and hugged him, before turning back to the others. Sirius was levitating Peter, who was still bound and gagged. Harry was clutching James Jr. to him, and James was telling Madam Pomfrey something.
"We'll be off then. We'll be back in a bit though." He added, winking. The medi-witch rolled her eyes, and shooed the men out of the hospital wing.
Teddy sighed, and turned over, yawning. He fell asleep, waiting until his family returned.
The street was full of people, bustling up and down, as four men, a toddler, and a disillusioned Peter Pettigrew stood outside the Three Broomsticks. The man with messy black hair and bright green eyes held a small gold chain in his hands. He placed the chain over them all, and fiddled with an hourglass attached to the chain. A second later, the four men, the toddler, and the disillusioned Peter Pettigrew had disappeared.
The colours blurred past them, until they eventually came to a standstill. Harry glanced at the battered old wristwatch that had originally belonged to Fabian Prewett.
"Five-fifteen. I'd better take the rat to the Ministry. If you guys go back to St. Mungos, I'll meet you there as soon as I've seen him behind bars." Harry said vehemently.
"Do you want me to take James, Harry?" Remus asked, holding out his arms to take the toddler."
"Thanks Remus." Harry said, passing James to him, "You guys had better re-glamour yourselves though." Harry watched as the men put glamours back on, and then apparated to St. Mungos. He then turned, grabbed Wormtail, and apparated to to the Ministry.
The receptionist looked up, shocked, as Harry Potter marched up to him, dragging a prisoner, and demanded to see Minister Shacklebolt. She leapt up immediately, and opened the door to the Minister's office.
"Minister, Mr Potter wants to see you. He has a prisoner with him..." Kingsley looked up at the receptionist, and grinned.
"He caught him?" he murmured to himself, as he stood up, "Show him in please, Gail." Gail turned and stepped out of the office, and motioned for Harry to step inside.
"The Minister is ready now, Mr. Potter.
"Took him long enough." Harry muttered impatiently.
Kingsley grinned as Harry entered, dragging Pettigrew behind him.
"I see you've caught the traitor then." Harry dumped the struggling man on the floor in reply, and then stepped over him to take the seat in front of Kingsley.
"It wasn't really that hard, it only took us time because of minor complications that included the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey. Needless to say, it took us a while to get out of her clutches." Kingsley laughed with him, before turning to the bound man, who was desperately trying to free himself.
"I'll take him up to the holding cells. They'll be secure enough to hold him, not even a rat could get through them. He'll have a trial in a few days."
"Does he have to have a trial?" Harry asked, unhappily. He hated trials, he'd had to attend enough of them after killing Voldemort.
"Yes. Sorry Harry, but we have that policy because of the mistake that was Sirius. If we didn't, people would call us hypocritical." Harry grinned despite himself.
"Do you want me to file a report now, or can it wait until Monday when I'm in the office?"
"You can wait until Monday, then the trial will be on Tuesday or Wednesday." Kingsley replied. Harry relaxed slightly, and then stood up.
"I'll be off then, Kingsley. I've got a family who are all waiting anxiously for my return." Kingsley nodded as he levitated Pettigrew.
"Do you mind if I come over for a bit later? I'd quite like to have a chat with Remus and Tonks."
"Sure. Just don't come too late." Harry nodded at the older man, and walked out of the office. Kingsley followed him, but took a different route, towards the Ministry's holding cells on level eight. Harry walked towards the apparition point; a minute later, he had gone. The receptionist sat back in her chair, and tried to work out where she had seen the man who Potter had taken prisoner before.
The hospital wing door flew open, and Remus, Tonks, Harry, Ginny and Sirius marched in. Madam Pomfrey blinked, and then looked closely at them. As she recognised which time they were from, she nodded to herself, and sat back down in her office. The four adults had ignored her, and were now crowded around Teddy's bed. Tonks was half aghast at her son's injuries, and half angry at him for endangering himself like that. Although, as Remus pointed out, she couldn't really say anything about endangering yourself. Teddy just grinned weakly at them all. Remus had walked around the bed, and had picked up his son's broomstick that Harry had dropped on the floor.
"Punishment number one: No flying for two weeks once you are out of hospital if it's still the Summer holidays." Remus stated, looking at his son keenly. Teddy groaned slightly, but he knew that it could have been worse. But Remus wasn't finished yet...
"Punishment two: Your staying in the hospital wing until Madam Pomfrey lets you go, and nobody is going to contest what she says." Teddy looked at his Father dumbfounded.
"But Da-a-ad..." He moaned, sitting up, "You can't be serious..."
"No, that's me." Sirius quipped. Everybody in the room groaned, and Remus hit his friend upside the head.
"Sirius, that joke's been old since first year." Sirius, being the stubborn man he is, immediately started arguing. During the massive quarrel that followed, nobody noticed that Teddy had gone back to sleep, totally ignoring his elders bickering.
Harry stood in the doorway of Ginny's ward at St. Mungos, grinning at the scene in front of him. Sirius and James (Sr.) were rolling around on the floor fighting, with Tonks commentating, and Teddy watching in amazement. Remus and Lily were ignoring them, and were chatting about something, whereas Ginny was sending glares at the two men on the floor, whilst showing Albus to James (Jr.). She seemed upset that she couldn't get up and hex the two men for being idiots. Harry stood there watching for about five minutes with no-one noticing him, until he couldn't help himself any longer. He started laughing.
As he did, the room turned to look at him; James and Sirius froze in a very awkward position on the floor. As Harry stared at his Father and Godfather, everyone else in the room turned to look at them (with the exception of James Jr. and Albus). This caused them to start laughing at the two older men. Eventually Sirius and James realised why they were being laughed at, and stood up, pouting.
It was a while before the others stopped laughing, by which time James and Sirius had started a game of exploding snap, with the cards they had found in the children's play box in the corner of the room.
"Well," Harry said, once he had recovered himself, "What what that all about?"
"Your Father was just teasing Sirius. Nothing to worry about, it's extremely common with those two. You'd better get used to it." Lily answered. Harry groaned dramatically, and moved over to perch on the bed next to Ginny. He took the tiny baby out of her arms, and cuddled him gently.
"So what are we going to do now?" He asked the room in general.
"Well... I was thinking that we should tell Ron and Hermione..." Ginny answered,
"But they wouldn't want their holiday interrupted just for this lot, would they?" Harry teased. Remus rolled his eyes, murmuring;
"Good thing those two didn't hear you." He indicated the two card players.
"They're too absorbed in the game." Tonks replied.
"Anyway.... should I call them home then?" Harry asked, getting impatient with all the chatter.
"Yeah, sure. They'd hate you if you didn't." Ginny told him grinning. "But I think we ought to wait until we get home."
"Good idea. If you guys could all get under the invisibility cloak," Harry picked it up off the floor and enlarged it a bit more, "Then I'll call the nurse." Remus picked it up, whilst Tonks tried to get the two men away from their game. They ignored her. Lily watched, then gently pushed her aside.
"This is how you do it, Tonks." She stated, smiling slightly, then she yelled "VOLDEMORT!" Both men jumped up immediately, wands in hands. They looked around the room confused, blinked, and then stared at Lily and Tonks, who were giggling.
"I see. Most effective." Tonks gasped out.
"What do you want?" James asked in a resigned fashion. He had been so close to beating Sirius three times in a row...
"I'm going to call the nurse so that we can go back to Grimmauld. You guys need to be silent, and get under this." Harry commanded, holding out the enlarged invisibility cloak.
Tonks, Remus, Lily, James and Sirius all crowded together under the cloak. Harry instructed them not to move, and then cast a silencing charm over them. He then stuck his head out of the door, and called loudly until the nurse attending to Ginny came running.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Potter. I was just attending to some business." She stammered, looking upset that she had kept the great Harry Potter waiting.
"It's fine, really." Harry hated it when people treated him like this, even if it did sometimes have its rewards. "Now, we would like to go home, so if you could check my wife over, and give her whatever potions and whatnots she needs..."
"Of course Mr. Potter. Right away sir." And she started bustling around the bed in a way that reminded Harry of Madam Pomfrey.
Ten minutes later, Ginny had finished spluttering over the potions she was being forced to drink, and the nurse had left the room. Harry grinned at the space where his parents, Sirius, Remus and Tonks were standing, before motioning them to follow him. They walked out of the ward, Harry supporting Ginny who has holding Albus, with Teddy holding James Jr.'s hand. As they stepped out of St. Mungos, Harry took charge. He took Albus out of Ginny's arms, and then held Ginny firmly. He told Remus to take Teddy, and Lily to take James Jr. Then they apparated to Grimmauld place.
As soon as Harry pushed open the front door, Kreacher appeared, and began to take Harry and Ginny's coats. Sirius pulled the invisibility cloak off and gaped at the house elf, who, noticing his old Master, did the same.
"Master Sirius has returned from the dead? Kreacher did not think that was possible, Master. Who does Kreacher serve now?" Kreacher turned to Harry who looked puzzled, and turned to Sirius.
"Umm, you can continue serving Harry. No offence Kreacher, but you bring back to many bad memories for me." Sirius answered trying to take in the fact that Kreacher seemed to have changed for the better. Harry grinned, and ordered Kreacher to make a light supper, whilst the party took themselves to the living room. Everyone sat down thankfully.
"I'll call Ron and Hermione tomorrow. Let them have a good nights sleep before they get the big shock." Harry stated to the room.
"We'd better tell my mum tomorrow too." Tonks said, giggling.
"What's the joke?" Ginny demanded. Remus chuckled.
"Well... it was earlier, Mum heard somehow that you had gone to hospital, and had come to check that Teddy was okay. I was standing here, but I was morphed to look like a babysitter for James and Teddy. Teddy and Remus were upstairs, luckily. I didn't want to reveal to her that we were alive until you guys were here to back me up, so I didn't tell her. She... err... questioned me." Tonks finished. Harry laughed.
"And when Andromeda starts questioning, it takes a lot of effort to stop." He said, grinning.
"Yep. Anyway, I think she should be told."
"True. But tomorrow. Supper and bed is the order for the rest of the day. And," Harry turned to Ginny, "We'd better give James a dreamless sleep potion just in case." Ginny scowled.
"That damned rat. What did he want to kidnap James for?"
"Later." Harry told her, as Kreacher came in with the supper. The large 'family' settled around the table to eat, and swap stories.
A/N – I know most people aren't let out of hospital the day they give birth, but I thought that witches would have potions and stuff to make them okay, so it would be fine. Also, I meant to make this chapter longer, but I decided to leave Ron and Hermione's coming home until the next chapter. Look at it this way, it means you'll get more chapters.
