Author's note: Enjoy!
Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.
Dedication: For Amanda at the Hogwarts forum's Gift Tag! (About 1000 years late, but we're here)
Hogwarts: Assignment #7, Herbology Task #2 Write about someone suffering from stress
Warnings: Anxiety about parenthood
A Second To Breathe
She was stressing herself out more than she had to by constantly looking at the car's clock. Those square green numbers were torturing Ginny. She knew she was late. Late again. God, what would she tell the school this time? Her fingers tapped anxiously against the steering wheel as she toed the speed limit.
She parked as quickly as she could without doing too shoddy of a job, and made her way through the school's hallways and past colourful displays from art classes and big, bright posters about respect and friendship. She reached the secretary's desk, but there was nobody there and the waiting room was empty, so she kept going. The cheeriness of the walls only intensified as she walked past the library and towards the wing where the kindergarten classes were.
She made her way past tiny cubicles and low-hanging hooks that were the perfect size for four and five year-olds to hang their backpacks and coats. There was only one left, of course—the pink one Ginny had packed a lunch and a spare sweater into that morning.
She looked into the classroom door hoping that Lily was still there, and sighed in relief when she spotted her daughter. She was sitting next to a pale woman who Ginny could only assume was her teacher—Miss Luna. She had soft features and a soft voice that Ginny could barely hear as she read a book aloud to Lily. She was wearing a dress embroidered with flowers sprouting from the hem and a clumsily hand-knit lavender cardigan. Ribbons of the same colour tied her hair back in two long pigtails.
Lily heard Ginny walk in and smiled her big, gap-toothed smile.
"Mama!" she said, pushing away from her desk and running towards Ginny. She ran into Ginny's legs and hugged them tight. Ginny reached down to pick her up and prop her on her waist.
"Hi Lily bug," Ginny said, kissing her cheek. "How was school?"
"School was good," Lily said. "We got caterpillars today! Miss Luna said that they're going to live by the window and then they can become chrysa…. Chrysalil…"
"Chrysalises," Miss Luna helped.
"Chrysalises!" Lily said. She wiggled in Ginny's arms, pointing towards the windowsill. "Come see, come see!"
"Okay," Ginny said. She walked over to the window Lily was pointing at and oohed and aahed at the little caterpillars crawling around the terrarium. Lily was pointing out which stick she'd found outside and had been allowed to add to the little habitat, but as much as Ginny cared she was having trouble focusing on the soil and leaves since Miss Luna was coming to join them.
"When will they become chrysalises, Miss Luna?" Lily asked.
"Well, if we nurture them properly, they should start forming their cocoons in about a week," Luna said.
"And when after that are they gonna be butterflies?" Lily asked. "If we nurture them properly."
"It could take only nine days, or it could take a week," Luna said. "We'll just have to wait and see how nature works. We're going to have to be patient."
Ginny kissed Lily's cheek.
"Speaking of patience, I think I've made you and your brothers wait long enough to come home," Ginny said. She plopped her little girl back down. The tiny little black Mary Janes Lily wore to complete her uniform touched down and Lily wiggled away. "Can you go get your backpack for me, Lily-bug? Then we'll go find Jamie and Ali, okay?"
"Actually Lily, why don't you go get your brothers for your mum?" Luna said. "I told Al that he could sit in the library and do homework, and Jamie is in the gymnasium playing basketball. Do you know the way to those two places?"
"Yes Miss Luna," Lily said, smiling her gap-toothed smile, excited to have been given a task. "Can I show them the caterpillars too?"
"Of course," Luna promised. "Bring them back here."
Lily smiled and skipped out of the classroom.
Luna turned to Ginny and her smile was gone.
"I'm so sorry for being late," Ginny said. "I—usually I have a colleague cover my pages at the paper on Thursday nights, but his meeting went over and then so did mine and I…"
"It's not a problem," Luna said. "Not at all. I just sent Lily out because I thought that you might like to take a second to sit and breathe, that was all."
Ginny breathed out a sigh of relief. So this wasn't an intervention, then. This wasn't Ginny being warned that she was breaking school regulations or her aptitude as a mother being examined with a fine-toothed cone that, frankly, on some days she questioned herself…
"Thank you," she said sincerely.
"I mean it," Luna said. She pointed towards the nearby rocking chair, which was strategically placed near a reading shelf. "Have a seat."
Ginny didn't say no. She'd been on her feet all day, running about the office like a headless chicken trying to get the work done. She'd been hoping to even finish her morning's work early enough to take an early lunch break and run to get groceries for dinner tonight, but then she'd been saddled with a new story to write and a new development had fudged two of the stories she'd written for the paper as well, and then her ADHD and executive function had kicked in and she'd had to push back a meeting…
She sat happily. Luna sunk into a bean bag chair and smiled at Ginny.
"Lily's been ecstatic about having butterflies in the classroom," Ginny said.
"She most definitely is," Luna said with a smile. "She knew all about their life cycles before my first lesson."
"There's a reason we call her Lily-bug," Ginny smiled fondly. "Well, I do. Her brothers didn't have that experience when they were in kindergarten."
"I don't think my predecessor did that," Luna mused. "But I like having pieces of nature in class for the children, and giving them something to take care of. I was told that a tank full of tadpoles that would become frogs would be too messy. Next year, I plan to convince the principal to let me hatch chicken eggs with my students."
"That'll be an experience," Ginny said. "I do hope Lily has you again next year. You're her favourite teacher."
"I'm not allowed to have favourite students, but she would be a contender," Luna smiled. "Honestly, I don't mind keeping an eye on her after class hours—or the boys. I usually stay behind to prepare for the next day and have to wait for the bus to pass anyways, it's not a problem…"
"Oh no," Ginny said. She felt the blush on her cheeks. "This shouldn't happen again, I'm… I'm just starting work at a new publication and sorting out some kinks in my schedule,"
"Oh of course," Luna said. She cocked her head to the side and between those bright blue eyes and that gentle motion and her soft tone, Ginny immediately felt herself destress. "I didn't mean to imply anything, Mrs. Weasley-Potter."
"Ginny," she said. "Please, call me Ginny."
"Ginny, then," Lily said. "I promise, Ginny. I just wanted you to know."
Ginny took a deep breath. She was always anxious about this. Always anxious about how the world saw her—running in circles at any given time, trying to keep her little family and three busybody children afloat. Adjusting to life alone with the three of them hadn't been easy, no matter what Harry had done to prepare them given his dangerous line of work. Granted, sometimes it felt to Ginny as if she'd spend her entire life adjusting and scrambling and trying to make things work. They never seemed to get any easier. The pieces always seemed to click together, and then the gears would immediately start to spin in a different direction while Ginny was focusing on another part of the machine. And the wheels kept spinning and Ginny kept spinning out, and…
"I'm trying to show my children that life hasn't ended," Ginny said finally. "I'm trying to show them that we'll be okay. That there are bright things ahead for us."
"Of course," Luna said. She reached over and squeezed Ginny's hand. "I think that once they're all grown up, they'll look back and appreciate that. I do think that they would also like to see their very excellent mum breathe from time to time."
Ginny smiled and took a deep breath. She leaned back in the rocking chair and kicked off with her foot to begin the gentle rocking measures.
"I have no shortage of books about insects," Luna said, turning towards to look at the small library shelf more intently. "I'd always be pleased to show them to Lily, and I hear that Al is very fond of the outer space unit my colleague is currently teaching. I'm sure that I could find some books for him too. I think my classroom can be interesting enough to keep the three of them busy, on nights where picking them up as soon as school ends is out of the question. Its doors are always open, too."
"I… I would appreciate that," Ginny said.
Luna smiled a bigger smile than she had before, one that showed her teeth and lit up her eyes.
"Good," Luna said. She squeezed Ginny's hand, which was when Ginny realized that Luna hadn't let go since she'd first taken it. Her touch was so gentle that Ginny had barely even noticed it; it just felt so very natural and right.
"Mama," Al said, bursting into the room with a stack of library books held against his chest. "Can we eat pizza for dinner tonight?"
"I want pizza too!" Lily chimed in.
"I want pizza and pop," Jamie said behind them. His hair was a mess even if Ginny was sure she'd made him comb it that morning, and he wasn't wearing his glasses. Ideally, they were tucked away safely in his bag but maybe she'd go home and find out that he'd broken yet another pair in the playground. Ginny wasn't worried about that at the moment. She smiled at the sight of her three little ones.
"Pizza sounds lovely," Ginny said. "Lily, do you think we should invite Miss Luna over to join us to thank her for keeping an eye on you three?"
"Yes!" Lily cheered.
"Don't invite my teacher too, she's not as cool," Jamie said immediately.
"That's hardly necessary," Luna said bashfully.
"I know," Ginny said. "It would just be a bright thing to look forward to. That's all."
Stacked with: Hogwarts; Shipping War; Spring Bingo; Link Maker
Individual Challenge(s): Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Professor MC; Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion (Y); Small Fry; The 3rd Rule; Old Shoes; Short Jog; Greatest Gift
Word Count: 1771
Spring Bingo
Space (Prompt): 5D (Ribbon/Cord)
Shipping Wars
Ship (Team): Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
List (Prompt): Medium 1 (Parent/Teacher)