Let's see what you all thought the costume was going to be!
Witch: 2
Baby Dragon: 3
Pumpkin: 1
Peas in a Pod: 1
Tinkerbell: 3
Tellatubby: 1
Barney: 1
Flower: 1
Lion: 1
Kitten: 1
Disney Princess: 1
Those were all super cute ideas! But none of them were right. I did see the Peas in a Pod costume and that was going to be the fall back, but what I found I was so happy with.
If you want to see the costume in all it's cuteness, go to the Lady Celestial Star facebook page.
The next day at dinner, word was buzzing about little Mercy's first Halloween, someone had said that she was going to wear a costume, but no one was really all that sure what the costume was going to be.
"I wonder what Potter picked for the costume?" asked a third year Ravenclaw.
"How much do you wanna bet it's a lion cub?" asked another Ravencalw student.
After word had spread that Harry was willing to bring Mercy down to the Great Hal on Halloween night, a few of the girls had ordered some sweets from Honeydukes to possibly fill a little treats bucket for her. Though she was still a little young for anything too awfully sweet, they were sure some of the jelly slugs wouldn't be amiss, or maybe some other little gummies.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the nursery, Harry took out the costume he had prepared for that night and coaxed Mercy into it. She was a little fussy about it, but when Harry sat her on the ground and let her crawl about on her tummy for a bit, he couldn't help it...
He took out a camera that he had had Mrs. Weasley pick up in Diagon Alley and snapped a few pictures of his little girl. She looked so cute in that costume that he had to take a few snapshots of her; Mrs. Weasley made him swear that he would send on pictures of her Halloween costume, and a few to Sirius and Remus and his own little baby book wouldn't go amiss either.
A knock came on the door, Ron and Hermione came into Mercy's nursery, when they saw Mercy sitting on the floor, giggling happily, they too couldn't help but coo over her.
She wore a green long sleeved sleeper, with a soft plushie turtle shell on her back and a green hat on her head with big sparkling eyes on top. She looked just like a little crawling baby turtle.
"Oh, Harry, that's perfect!" said Hermione with a laugh.
"Aww...no one is going to want to pick her up." said Ron with a laugh as he waved over to the gesturing baby.
"Everyone was thinking you were going to have her as a lion cub." said Hermione. "Or a little fairy baby."
"Nah, that would be too easy, the lion cub anyway." said Harry a smile on his face then faltered slightly. "Grace...her favorite animals were turtles."
Hermione and Ron looked between each other and looked at Harry with a sympathetic gaze.
"Mercy's nickname from Grace...was 'Turtle'." said Harry sniffing slightly. "She's going to be my 'Munchkin' or 'Shortcake', but she'll always be her 'Turtle'."
When they went downstairs to join in the festivities, every head turned to face the father and daughter duo, some were even becoming a mite impatient and were walking around, taking bets on the costume before the little girl arrived.
The moment Harry opened the door partially and saw them all looking inquisitively and whisper amongst themselves as to the identity of the costume, he smirked. Ah, well, let them get all the doting nonsense over with early.
He set Mercy down on the floor and allowed her to crawl happily over to the twins who were stretching out their arms.
"Come to Unkie Fred and Uncle Georgie little...uh...bunny..." said Fred. "George...she's not a bunny...she's a turtle..."
"Eh...she's still our bunny...aintcha?" said George stretching out his arms, trying to reach even further than his twin.
"Oh my gosh!" squealed a few of the girls as they watched her crawl eagerly to the twins. "That is too cute!"
"She's a little turtle!" squealed Hannah Abbot.
Colin whipped out his new camera and took a few pictures of the little girl as she waved her hands happily in the air while Fred and George bounced her happily on their hips. Harry smiled fondly over to the little girl and took a seat next to the twins.
Dumbledore chuckled warmly down at the small infant in her little costume.
"She looks absolutely adorable." said McGonagall said with a smile.
"A fine costume choice." said Flitwick.
Snape looked down at the green clad infant, his face vainly trying to remain neutral, but the smallest of smile was twitching to get out. He had expected Potter to dress his...child...in a lioness outfit, he didn't figure on the using Slytherin colors.
Umbridge huffed impatiently at the scene, the boy still didn't bring the child to her class, even though she got close to demanding that the child be brought. Once she even threatened him with detention if he didn't comply with her wishes, he was the student she was the teacher, he should obey her! Once McGonagall caught wind of the threat, she brought Dumbledore down to Umbridge's office and told her that where Harry placed her during class time was no concern of hers and that she should be grateful that he is giving her his undivided attention.
Mercy hid sweetly in Fred's chest as the paper bats flapping above her almost came down a little too close.
"It's okay, bunny...they won't do anything to you, they're just going to flap around..." said Fred.
"See, look." said George leaping up and grabbing one. "just paper." and he tore one in half.
"Gyaah!" screamed Mercy as she buried her face deeper into Fred's shirt and began to cry.
"Sorry!" said the twins together.
"Here, Mercy...here, see it's all fixed, look at that...and look, now it's a butterfly see!" said Lee hurrying over and turning the black paper bat into a bright gold and red butterfly.
"I think you aren't going to get Mercy away from them, Harry." said Hermione with a smile as Mercy giggled and waved her hands at the fluttering butterfly.
"Just means I get to eat in peace for once." said Harry with a laugh.
Once Harry had eaten a plateful of food and was about to remove Mercy from Fred's clutches, when the students that bought sweets to give to Mercy came over with a large jack-o-lantern basket. They walked over and gave it to her with much cooing and 'awwing' at the costume and asking Colin for copies of the pictures. Fred set the little girl on the ground and she squealed with delight at all the goodies in the basket and tossed them up into the air.
As she made to rip the wrapper off of one of the large jelly slugs, Harry came over and took the sweet.
"Uh uh..." said Harry taking the bucket and putting it up on the table.
Mercy looked at the bucket and then her father, her little face looking as if it were on the verge of very loud tears.
Harry took a small thimble out of his pocket, and transfigured it into a bright orange pumpkin plushie. He levitated it over Mercy's head, of who followed it very carefully with her eyes.
"Gah!" said Mercy happily as she waved her arms to try and take a hold of the soft toy just floating out of arms reach.
Harry smiled as he let the the toy fall to the floor and Mercy embraced it as much as her much smaller arms could. The pumpkin was almost one and a quarter her size, dwarfing her slightly.
"No ruining your appetite." said Harry with a smile.
"Come on, Harry, like you never have eaten candy on Halloween night before dinner." said Ron.
"Haven't actually, not till I turned eleven." said Harry.
Hermione scoffed softly in disbelief.
Harry looked over at Hermione with a raised brow, but shook his head. "Believe what you want, don't rightly care, but she's not getting any sweets till she eats her dinner. She can have a jelly slug once she finishes her peas."
"The old adage of 'do as I say, not as I do'?" said Fred.
"Of course. You think your mother was a saint?" asked Harry.
"Now...Harry...we know all about our mother..." said Fred.
"We may have picked up our...rule breaking...tendencies from our Dad..." said George with a wink.
"But as for pranking?" said Fred.
"Mum...was the undisputed Queen." said the twins together.
Voldemort, paced in one of the most spacious and grand rooms of Malfoy Manor, he was livid, the brat had been kept out of his clutches for almost three months. He wanted that brat and Lucius' little Ministry fools couldn't seem to get their hands on the babe. He heard of the explosion and the culprit who did it.
It was a foolish move and it only intensified the security around Potter and his spawn, what should have been done was slip into the Gryffindor tower and take the child by force. That witch Umbridge had the ample opportunity, being a professor of the honored institution, to go in there and take the child.
But now...Potter was given the custody of the infant and no one can really remove the child legally. Well, now the only path remaining was an illegal one.
His spies in Hogsmede had told him that when the whelp was out of the castle, it was always in the company of Dumbledore. He didn't even attempt to take the child out of Dumbledore's gaze, as it would never work, he had to buckle down and admit that.
Potter was not in the same sort of protection as the infant was, but he was still far too protected to even attempt storming the castle. He would need finesse to lead Potter out...but what would lead him out of the castle? To save someone...as he dearly loved to play the hero...but who would be the bait?
Harry put the large pumpkin basket of treats high up on the bookcase and took Mercy out of the baby turtle costume.
"Alright, munchkin, bath time, then bed time." said Harry.
"Bah ime!" said Mercy happily.
He drew the warm bath water and threw in a few multi-colored bubbles to keep the little girl occupied and not douse him with water as she had done almost every night. He washed the small fluff of black hair that thankfully came down in small curls and not the unruly tangle that was present in his family.
"I think you're going to have you Mummy's curly hair, thank goodness for that. I don't think you'd want to have to go through life with my unruly mop." said Harry.
"Op!" squealed Mercy as she threw a large bubble into the air.
Once she was clean, he picked her up out of the bathwater and wrapped her in a warm fluffy towel.
"Abba Keen!" cooed Mercy.
"That's right, 'All clean.'" said Harry with a smile. "Now, do you want to pick up that story we had started weeks ago? You seemed to just go right to sleep as of late."
"Ry! Ry!" said Mercy happily.
"Okay, then...here we are...let's see...Alder and Helena just went into the woods...yeah we read that part..and they...that's right, they left the path..."
Alder led his little sister further into the woods, not willing to stop...he still needed to find the Fairy Tails. Helena thought she had seen the light straight ahead through the trees, but Alder had deviated from the direction she pointed in and was now trying to follow something else. She couldn't see the light that her brother was chasing, but it couldn't be the Fairy Tail...it was an herb, not an actual fairy.
She was frightened beyond what she was already, and it didn't help when her brother stopped and turned towards her.
"Did you see where it went?" said Alder. "Where did it go?"
"I didn't see it Alder! I didn't see it at all! We're lost now!"
"I don't know about this now...I don't want you getting nightmares..." said Harry looking down at the book.
"Ry! Ry!" said Mercy patting the page.
Harry sighed. "Alright..."
"We're not lost, I'm sure we can find the path..." said Alder.
"It's dark in here! I want Mummy!" said Helena crying loudly.
"Don't cry Helena...please don't cry..." said Alder walking over and holding his sister. "I'm sorry, we'll find our way home..."
For what felt hours, they sat in the darkness, Helena crying and Alder trying to soothe his sister in his arms. Suddenly, they heard a low growl.
"What was that?" said Helena worriedly.
"Okay..." said Harry stopping his reading quickly and noticing Mercy's eyes getting bigger. "Let's see...dah dah dah...they get chased by a bear...blah blah blah...ah here we go..."
As they huddled on the other side of the river, they heard a tinkling sound , soon the air around them were full of colorful lights, weaving around the air.
The two siblings stared at the lights as they floated around, then one slowly landed on their hands.
It was a tiny, blue fairy.
"Helena..." said Alder in awe.
The fairy looked up at the two of them and looked inquisitively at them.
"Uh...hello little fairy...ah...do you know where we can find some fairy tails at?" asked Helena.
The fairy instantly grabbed her small bottom and flashed a red color.
"No..no! Not your tail, though you don't have one." said Alder turning to look at the fairy's backside.
The fairy turned an even brighter red.
"We mean the herb, fairy tail..." said Helena earnestly. "Our dad is sick and we need some of them."
The fairy turned slowly back to blue, and floated up into the air. In a quick zigzagging pattern, the other fairies in the air swirled around and flew towards the woods once again. Instead of flying off and leaving the children, they waited for the children to follow.
"Maybe they know where there are some!" said Alder.
Harry looked down at Mercy, who was slumbering softly in the crook of his elbow. "You don't seem to take much to put you to sleep, huh?" said Harry with a smile.
He stood up slowly and placed her in bassinet. As he finished arranging the blankets, he looked down at Mercy, tears falling softly onto the baby blanket.
"I love you, turtle...and your mummy loves you too." he whispered as he leaned forward and kissed his daughter's forehead. As he watched her sleep, he was happy that this year, Halloween didn't' signal the start of the year going all to hell.
Oh my gosh, I am RUSHING! I had a hectic work week and I'm so lucky that I didn't have to tell you all that the update wasn't going to happen till tomorrow!
Thanks for reading please review!
Question of the Chapter: What is your favorite breakfast?
I generally have toast, but if I can get it (which is only at the restaurant I frequent) Chicken Fried Steak, American fries (fried potatoes), toast, and eggs. Pretty awesome breakfast for $6! And it beats the McDonalds that is located next door to the restaurant!