It was finally that time of year. NEWTs began for the seventh year Hogwarts students and OWLs would begin for the fifth years in the coming weeks, making breakfast at the Great Hall a somewhat subdued affair. Younger students were continuously being reprimanded by the older students, Prefect or not, for talking too loudly or disrupting the atmosphere. For once, the sound of pages turning and mumbled phrases was louder than the typical laughing conversations, turning the Great Hall into something much more resembling the library than a dining room.
Hermione kept missing her mouth with her fork as she stared intently at an open textbook levitating in front of her face, her mouth moving along with the sentences wordlessly. Ginny barely ate a bite as she stared at a stack of notes. No matter what she would or would not admit to Hermione, she did care about her results and could not bear the embarrassment of failing. Luna was reading Ginny's notes upside down while picking apart a muffin and Hailey was sitting with her hands purposefully folded in front of her, trying to maintain a sense of calm. Cass sat idly, too nervous to look at a textbook any longer and instead glanced between each of the girls surrounding her.
"I'm glad Charms is first," she said abruptly, forcing a smile. "Hopefully it'll boost my confidence a little bit."
"Speak for yourself," Ginny growled, her eyes never leaving the page.
"I'm disappointed that Care of Magical Creatures is not until next week myself," Luna said, entertaining Cass's attempt for a conversation. "That should be great fun."
"Real fun," Ginny parroted sarcastically.
"No need to poke fun, Ginny. You aren't even in that class," Luna replied.
"Sorry. We're just a bit on edge if you haven't noticed," said Ginny.
Luna set her muffin down purposefully. "I have noticed, actually. And it's making me quite worried. You're far too stressed. Rest is key before a large exam. It won't do to tire yourself out and overwhelm yourself with information right before you have to sit for the exam."
Ginny grimaced and forcefully tore her eyes away from the pages. "A quick break wouldn't hurt," she admitted and she quickly saw the sense to what Luna was proposing. Her eyes watered and she still saw stains of ink clouding her vision.
Luna smiled and Cass brightened at the thought of something to distract her. "Would you like to hear what I saw, just the other day?" asked the former.
"Sure," Ginny answered, always eager to humor Luna.
Luna jumped right in. "I was walking down the Transfiguration corridor when I heard a loud buzzing sound coming from one door which I thought was odd because classes were over and besides, the door didn't even lead to a classroom. I thought it must be a large nargle infestation trying to steal something."
Ginny smirked, but said nothing and even Hermione's eyes stopped scanning the page in front of her.
"Sadly, I forgot my butterbeer cap necklace and I was completely defenseless against them, but I was too curious not to go and see what it was they were after. So, I peeked my head in the door and instead, I found two sixth year students standing in a broom cupboard, so close together that they couldn't even move!"
Ginny snorted loudly and Hermione worked to hide a smirk.
"What did you say?" Ginny prompted eagerly.
"Well, I asked them what they were doing. They didn't really answer at first because they were quite surprised to see me. It was Maria Glossop from my House and some Hufflepuff boy that I didn't recognize. But anyways, when they didn't respond, I asked if they were kissing-"
"You asked that?" Ginny interrupted incredulously.
"Yes."
"But wasn't it obvious?"
"Well, yes, but, I wanted to make sure. Anyways, let me finish my story. I asked if they were kissing and Maria said in quite a rude tone that they were kissing, but not anymore with her arms all crossed like she was mad at me for whatever reason. And so I told them that there was a classroom just down the hall that is much more spacious and it would probably be more comfortable for them to… you know, have their hands all over each other."
At this point, Ginny was laughing uncontrollably, ignoring the glares from other students attempting to cram study, and Hermione was smiling over the edge of her book.
"But then, Maria just grabbed the boy's hand and stalked off without a word! She wouldn't even look at me in the Common Room later that night, which I can't even begin to fathom why. I just gave them a rather helpful suggestion and they seemed to think I was looking to get them in trouble instead of just looking for nargles!"
"Did you ever tell them you were looking for nargles?" Hermione asked with an amused grin.
"No, they ran off before I could."
Ginny sighed. "Don't ever change, Luna," she said fondly.
"We all change, Ginny," replied Luna, turning her deadly serious expression towards her. "And sometimes, we can't help it."
"Then don't stop chasing nargles," Ginny amended.
"Oh, I don't plan to. One of these times I'll find a way to catch one and prove that they exist," she said with as much assurance as if she was announcing her own name.
Soon after, Professor Flitwick was ushering all students not taking the Charms NEWT exam that morning out of the Great Hall, some protesting loudly and defiantly gripping their breakfast remains. The NEWT students were filed into the Entrance Hall as the long tables were being replaced by individual desks, each with the exam packet lying face down on the desk and the large pendulum clock at the front of the room.
The students were instructed to leave their bags against the wall outside the Great Hall, bringing with them only their quills and ink, or in Hermione's case, a few pens. Once they were all seated and quiet, save for the anxious fidgeting, Flitwick said, "You may flip over your exams. Your time starts now."
As one, the students flipped the stack of papers over and read the first question. What is the spell to Extinguish any fire, other than fiend fire, and how was it discovered?
Hermione ran up the aisle between desks to Ginny the moment Flitwick collected their finished exam papers and dismissed them.
"Well, that went all right, didn't it?"
"I suppose," Ginny replied without conviction.
"I remembered all the incantations at least," Luna popped up beside them.
"That's good," Ginny said half-heartedly, too exhausted and busy mentally reviewing her own answers to say much more.
They joined the flow of students searching for their bags and they waited with the rest of them in the Entrance Hall, stretching their stiff limbs before being let back in for lunch. Then, they were moved to the small chamber to one side while the desks were cleared away and the examiners entered for the practical portion of the Charms exam. In small groups, they were called in alphabetically and assigned an examiner. Hermione was the first to be called in out of the Head Girls so she gave them an anxious smile as she shut her textbook and filed it away into her bag.
"Wish me luck," she said with a deep breath.
"I'm saving all my luck for me. You don't need it," Ginny replied moodily to her back as she marched out of the room.
Later that night, the Head Girls made use of their private dormitory to get a few hours of quiet studying before the Potions exam the next day. Hermione felt relatively confident in how the exam went considering the practical portion was to brew a wound-clearing potion which she had practiced extensively two summers ago and she had constantly carried a batch of it around in her beaded bag in case they needed it while looking for horcruxes. The next morning, Ginny and Luna gave themselves the day off while Hermione sat her arithmancy exam. But that afternoon, they took out their Herbology notes and got back to studying, taking up a table in the library.
The next day, Harry sat outside the Great Hall after his classes were finished to wait as the last of the students finished their practical Herbology exams. He shot up from his seat against the wall as Ginny walked out, seemingly in a daze and almost missed him completely.
"How'd it go?" Harry asked, unconsciously falling into step next to her.
"Good, I guess," she replied after jumping from seeing him appear next to her. "We just had to get a Snargaluff Pod out and describe what we could use it for and then identify some plants like fluxweed and knotgrass from a display and answer questions about them."
"How many more exams do you have?" questioned Harry curiously.
"Just Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, and History of Magic for me."
"Only three more!" Harry said encouragingly.
"Yeah," she said with much less enthusiasm. "Hey, can you quiz me for DADA? It's-."
"Tomorrow?" Harry finished for her. When she sent him a questioning look, he shrugged and gave a sheepish smile responding with, "I'm helping oversee the afternoon session since Bill doesn't work tomorrow and my fifth years are being given a study period."
"Oh, I didn't even think about that," Ginny said. "Can we use your classroom instead of the library to study? I've been in there way too much lately."
"Sure. I don't mind."
She smiled gratefully and asked, "Can you send a patronus message to Hermione and Luna so I don't have to go find them?"
"Oh. Yeah, okay." He absent-mindedly grabbed his wand from the loop on his leg and sent a silvery blue stag towards the library where they had undoubtedly already set up their studying station.
Once they reached the DADA classroom, Ginny slumped into a chair and Harry sympathetically dragged another desk and chair around so they were facing each other. Ginny let her head fall onto her arms, her red hair forming a blanket over the black surface, and she groaned loudly.
"Can't we just skip forward a week when all of these are done?" she said, her voice muffled by the cloak pressed against her mouth.
Harry smiled and figured no response was the best reply.
"Just give me a minute, then I'll be good to go," she said, her voice being drawn out into a wide yawn and she readjusted her head to a more comfortable position.
"No worries," Harry said softly. He quietly stood from his chair and walked up to his office to spend a few minutes searching for textbooks that could be used in their impromptu study session. When he pushed his back against his door, his arms laden with textbooks, and turned around to face the classroom, there were more than ten new students loitering awkwardly by the door. Ginny's head was off of her arms and she had one elbow slung over the back of her chair to talk to another Gryffindor boy from her Quidditch team. Harry stopped abruptly and stared at the new additions until Hermione spotted him and waved him down.
He dropped the stack of textbooks onto a random desk and walked towards her with an amused expression on his face and hands stuck in his pockets.
"Let me guess," Harry said with a knowing smile. "They want to study too?"
"They overheard your patronus message and hoped that it was an open invitation," Hermione said with a sheepish grin. "I assumed it was fine."
Harry sighed, but they both already knew his reply. "Yeah, of course it's fine. I hope they didn't expect me to have something planned."
"No, no. Not at all," Hermione waved her hand. "They were all studying other things anyways so they might just have some questions for you."
Harry nodded and scooped up his textbooks again before turning back around and opening his mouth to address the new students, but Hermione cut him off. "Hey everyone!" she called loudly. "Harry's fine if you all stay so find a desk!"
The students followed her directions unquestionably and filled up about half the desks in the room and began pulling out their notes and textbooks. Harry started walking over to Ginny's table where Luna was now seated next to her and Hermione had taken Harry's chair over to sit opposite them, but another student's hand shot up and he called: "Professor Potter? Can I have some help over here?"
He met Ginny's gaze and gave her a quick smile before turning away and striding towards the two boys.
The Ravenclaw who had called him over instantly said, "I can't get my Patronus to work. I can sometimes get a blue mist to come out, but only sometimes and I've never gotten a corporeal one!"
"Well I doubt you'd need to be able to cast a corporeal patronus for your exam tomorrow. That is extremely difficult to do, even for the older and more experienced witches and wizards," Harry began with a calm tone.
"But you did it in your third year!" the second boy interrupted petulantly.
"Yes… well, er…," Harry stalled, wondering how that information had gotten out. "That was because of… exceptional circumstances."
"You mean there was a hundred dementors swarming you?" the Ravenclaw finished with a confident smirk lighting up his dark skin.
"To put it bluntly," Harry said, responding with a similar lopsided grin. He lifted himself up so that he sat on the edge of a desk. "But I also saw myself do it first, so I knew that I could. You need to fully believe yourself capable to cast a powerful enough patronus."
The Ravenclaw nodded solemnly as he absorbed this information, but the other bit his lip nervously.
Harry pointed to the second and said, "See? You're already not believing in yourself. Know that you can do it and let your happiest memory fill you up, every inch of your body." The one student kept nodding to himself while the other fingered his wand. "Go ahead, give it a try."
The Ravenclaw lifted his wand and stood from his seat. He closed his eyes, talking a calming breath, then cried "Expecto Patronum!"
A blue mist appeared at the end of his wand and it grew brighter into an amorphous ball that levitated at chest level for a few moments that grew even brighter as the student's eyes widened in surprise. Then it disappeared into nothingness and his arm fell to his side.
"At least it was brighter than normal!" he said with a small shrug of repressed disappointment.
"Good!" Harry replied encouragingly. "Try to think less about the spell itself and focus entirely on that memory of yours. You can try a couple of different memories too. See which one works better." Harry nodded to his friend and said, "Why don't you give it a go?"
"Yeah, okay," he said without conviction.
"That doesn't sound confident," Harry droned.
He gave Harry a weak smile and stood with his wand outstretched. "Expecto Patronum!" A weak blue mist covered just the tip of his wand and it hovered hesitantly as the student squinted at the mist with great dislike as if it had insulted his entire family.
"There you go, you're partially there!" Harry said encouragingly. "Keep trying. I'll come back and check on you later."
As soon as Harry hopped down from the desk, another hand shot up at the opposite end of the classroom and he was sure that at least five more students had entered the classroom since he had last looked around.
"Hey Murphy, what's going on?" Harry said.
"I can't find my notes on the Ebublio jinx," Thomas Murphy said.
"Ah, that's a fun one," Harry said and flicked his wand. "Here you go. There's a couple pages on it in here." He handed the textbook titled Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts to the Hufflepuff, but before he let go, he said, "Be careful with this though, okay? It was a very special gift to me."
"Okay," he said, hungrily eyeing the textbook.
"I mean it. Not a tear and not a splotch," Harry warned.
Murphy's smile wavered and he turned serious. "I promise."
Harry nodded and released Sirius and Remus's Christmas gift into his temporary custody. He walked to the back of the class where his friends were dutifully pouring over their notes quizzing each other.
"Hey," Harry greeted.
"Harry," Luna said absentmindedly. "What's the Cave Inicium charm again?"
"It keeps the caster hidden from view," Harry answered. "Others can't see, hear, or even smell them."
"Only if it's well enough cast," Hermione said without looking up.
Harry smirked. "Hermione's got it down. She cast it almost daily for months on end."
"You did too," Hermione replied, still scanning her textbook.
"Harry?" Ginny interrupted slapping his arm without looking up. "What does this passage mean?"
Harry leaned forward and read the paragraph she was pointing to before leaning back, freeing his hands to use hand motions in his explanation. Then he was called away by another group, checked back in on the two Ravenclaws struggling with Patronuses, retrieved his textbook from Murphy, and continued to make rounds around the class until someone noticed that it was dinner time.
The next day, after a morning of classes for Harry and a morning of yet another written test for the seventh years, they all found themselves back into the familiar side chamber to the Great Hall. The NEWT students were all muttering spells to themselves and occasionally moving their wand in a precise motion, waiting anxiously until Professor Potter called their name.
"Gould, Granger, Greenwell, and Handsford," Harry read off from his list. The first student walked forward on shaky legs and he pointed them to the first examiner with an encouraging smile.
Hermione was already standing next to him, so Harry grinned with a shrug and said, "Take your pick." She didn't think she could manage a single word, so she smiled in response and walked to the very last desk where a frail old man sat waiting for her.
"Hello, I am Professor Tofty and I will be your examiner for today," the man said with the distinct tone of someone who had said that phrase innumerable times. "What is your name, my dear?"
"Hermione Granger, sir," she said, holding her wand parallel to the ground and spinning it between her fingers.
Tofty immediately looked up. "Miss Granger! What a pleasant surprise!"
Hermione gave a shaky smile and inclined her head slightly.
"Well this should be quite a breeze then, shouldn't it? You know, I had the pleasure of testing Harry Potter for his OWL exams a few years ago and now you for your NEWTs. How lovely!" He clasped his veined hands together and bobbed his bald head enthusiastically.
Hermione wasn't sure how to respond so she gave another smile and chuckled softly.
"Right then, let's get started. Please use the Protean Charm to link these picture frames together for communication." Then he let out a bark of laughter and shook his head adding, "But of course, I heard you could do that by your fifth year."
Hermione's brows furrowed as she wondered how that had gotten out to the public, but she forced herself to push the thought to the side so that she could focus on completing the task.
Back inside the side chamber, well after the G's had finished their exams and the R's had just begun, Ginny stood next to Harry by the door and she was banging her forehead against the wall with a loud groan.
"I don't think that'll help your exam, Gin," Harry commented, leaning back against the wall himself.
"I hate… having… a W… last… name," she said, punctuated with separate bangs of her head between each fragment.
"Okay, seriously, stop," Harry said laughing, putting his hand out to catch her shoulder before her head could hit the wall again. "You're going to get a bruise."
Ginny succumbed and flopped so that her back was leaning against the wall too, her arms crossed moodily, and she stared up at the ceiling. "UGGH."
Harry chuckled and shook his head. "Come on, you'll be fine! You fought in a battle for Merlin's sake! I think you can handle a quick test."
"Easy for you to say. You never took the NEWTs," Ginny retorted.
"Want me to? I'm sure Tofty there would be happy to test me."
Ginny scoffed. "I'm sure any of them would."
"You'll be absolutely fine. And just think, after this you have a weekend and then just two more exams!" Harry said cheerfully, the stark opposite to her mood. When she didn't reply, he poked his head through the door and called forward the last R student and two others until there were only three students left, including Ginny.
"Almost your turn," Harry apprised her.
"I figured," she replied shortly. Harry snorted and said nothing, figuring maybe silence was better at this point.
A few minutes later, Ginny strode over to Professor Marchbanks and the one student with a last name starting with a Y was assigned to another examiner and finally, the side chamber was cleared out. Harry slipped through the side door into the Great Hall and carefully stood just out of Ginny's line of sight while he watched her exam take place.
He missed her cast the Protean charm, but she definitely cast the Imperturbable charm well enough and her jinxes were always a strength of hers. When she cast a smaller version of a firestorm charm in her explanation of an effective defense against inferi, Harry assumed the exam was over and watched as she smiled at Marchbanks before walking out the door with some tension visibly leaving her shoulders.
Harry waited as the last two students finished up their exams and when all of the students left the room, he approached the row of desks that the examiners were seated at.
"That was the last of them," he said.
Most of the examiners didn't see him enter the room and started in surprise before leaning forward to see if their aging eyes deceived them.
"Mr. Potter!" Professor Tofty exclaimed, rising from his seat unsteadily. "How good to see you again!"
"Hello Professor," he said with a nod. "I saw you tested Hermione today."
He nodded enthusiastically. "I did indeed! And she did quite well, as expected."
"I'm not surprised."
"Neither am I," he chortled.
After Harry helped remove the Professors' desks and clear their things, he left the Great Hall to find Ginny waiting just outside the oak doors.
"Let's do something fun!" she said instantly. "I can't study for another second and I'll have all weekend to prepare for my last two exams."
"What do you want to do?" Harry asked.
"I haven't gone flying all week and we do have the Quidditch final coming up," she said.
"It would be a shame not to practice," Harry replied with a smile.
"My thoughts exactly. Do you have your broom?"
"Up in my office."
"Brilliant. By the way, the spot for seeker is still yours if you want it," she said with a new skip in her step.
"He hasn't improved at all?"
"A bit. But not enough."
"Well, he's got what… two weeks to get better?" Harry asked as they walked up the first flight of stairs.
"Three. And he'll need every second of them."
"You're sure you'll be alright?" Andromeda asked in the Entrance Hall of Grimmauld Place that night.
"We'll be fine, Dromeda," Harry said with a patient smile. "I've learned from the best, after all." For the past few months, Harry had visited Andromeda to play with his godson and learn how to care for a baby. Now, it was time to put all he had learned to the test.
"Well, just send me a message if you need anything. Anything at all," she said, looking anxiously at the peaceful face of her grandson in Harry's arms.
"I will," Harry promised.
"And you know-"
"You've told me everything and even wrote most of it down for me," interrupted Harry with a slight laugh. "Go! You deserve a vacation!"
"Alright, alright. I'm going." Yet she made no move to head to the door. Instead, she reached out and stroked Teddy's soft cheek one last time. Then she smiled and turned to the front door, pulling it open and stepping onto the front stoop. "I'll see you Monday morning then."
"See you then," Harry promised. Andromeda turned on the spot and disappeared off to England's coast to take her well-deserved break.
Harry shut the door behind her and whispered, "Just you and me now, Teddy." The sleeping baby did not reply. He walked to the drawing room where he and Dromeda had set up a crib for the few nights and carefully set him onto its mattress. Meanwhile, he gathered Teddy's bags and laid them against the wall and was once again, shocked by how much a baby needed for just two and a half days. Then he picked up Dromeda's neat schedule and read through it once more, noting down when Teddy typically ate and when to put him to sleep. According to her writing, Teddy would be due to wake up from his nap in another half an hour, giving Harry plenty of time to take a quick shower now before he even wakes up.
But, once he was in the shower and just starting to rinse his shampoo-lathered hair out, he heard a piercing cry from downstairs. Harry's heart skipped a beat and he froze, letting the water drip over him for a few seconds before he vaulted into action. He shut off the water and ripped his towel from the hook, hastily drying himself while clambering out of the shower. He pulled on his old pair of jeans, jumping to try to speed up the process, and sprinted down the stairs with his shirt in hand.
Once he made it into the drawing room, he saw Teddy with tears streaming down his precious face and his hands gripping the bars of the crib, keeping him balanced on his shaky legs.
"Hey, Teddy. You're up early," Harry said to him. Teddy's wails slowed but he continued to make a terrible sniffing sound, as if he was on the verge of balling any minute now. Harry walked forward while pulling on his t-shirt and scooped him up from the crib, resting him against his chest and over one shoulder.
"Want to play with your toys? Yeah?" Harry asked him in a soothing voice. Teddy didn't respond, but he didn't start crying so Harry took that as a positive. He carefully set him down on the blanket that Dromeda had laid out earlier on the drawing room floor and went to one of the bags that she had brought which was filled with all kinds of toys. Harry sat, his legs crossed, on the blanket across from Teddy whose legs were sprawled out and his pudgy fists were busy waving wildly in the air.
"What do you want to play with? Come look," said Harry, encouraging him forward with his hands. After a moment's hesitation, Teddy leaned forward onto his hands and awkwardly bent his legs underneath him to crawl closer to Harry and the open bag of toys that Harry had tilted so the opening was sideways, its contents starting to spill onto the ground.
"Good job," Harry cooed once Teddy reached him with a gurgling smile. Teddy reached out and grabbed the edge of the bag, shaking it and getting almost all of the toys Dromeda had so carefully packed to tumble out on top of each other. Now, sitting amidst his favorite toys, Teddy had a big toothless smile stretched across his face and his fist pounded on the front of a book.
Harry complied and picked up the book, turning it over in his hand to see the title. "The Tales of Beedle the Bard," he said aloud, chuckling to himself. "You have good taste, Teddy."
Harry scooted closer to Teddy and curled the boy in his lap so that the book was in front of them both. "Alright, which story should we read, hmm? 'Babbity Rabbity and the Cackling Stump? Or… 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune'?" Teddy clapped as he said the latter title, so Harry promptly flipped to the given page and began to read.
"There once were three sisters: Asha, Altheda, and Amata who wanted nothing more than to bathe in the waters of the Fountain of Fair Fortune…"
Teddy was enraptured by the story, even though he must have heard it hundreds of times already. But when Harry finished it a few pages later, Teddy clapped again gleefully and looked up at him with wide amber eyes that slowly morphed into a clear and emerald green that matched his own.
Harry chuckled softly. "You're getting better at that. You know, your Mum would always wear her hair pink… although, I think it was naturally brown," he added thoughtfully.
Teddy blinked up at him and Harry sighed, knowing he was too young to appreciate such stories and it would be best to save them for later. But when Harry looked back at his godson, his hair was a bright blue, the color of a clear sky.
Harry shrugged with a smile. "Close enough. Want to read another? How about 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot'?" With Teddy settled against his chest once more, Harry began to read about a small village from a long time ago…
"Harry?" Ron called as he flooed into the fireplace. "Harry!"
He walked up the stairs and saw a small beam of light through the slit of the drawing room door. He peeked his head in and smiled at the image before him.
Harry's head snapped up and he grinned cheekily. "Hey."
Ron grinned back and leaned against the edge of the doorframe with his arms crossed casually. "Don't stop on my account. What are you reading?"
"The Wizard and the Hopping Pot."
"Do you like it?"
"It's certainly no Cinderella, but it's alright."
Teddy looked up at Harry with his bottom lip sticking out dramatically and his hair began to turn a darker shade of blue.
"I'll be back. You better keep reading before he starts to cry," Ron said, already turning out the door and running up to his room where he kept an old camera that was on sale at Diagon Alley months ago. Then he ran back into the drawing room where Harry's head was peering over Teddy's to read the print. Harry looked up as he entered and immediately opened his mouth to protest when he saw the camera.
"Oh come on!" Ron said. "You two are adorable! Don't you want some pictures with your godson?"
Harry pursed his lips, so Ron added, "You can add it to the wall by the staircase! And pretty soon, Teddy will be all grown up and you'll want to-"
"Okay, okay," Harry said, laughing. "No need to get ahead of yourself." He sat up a bit straighter and smiled at the camera.
"No, no. Pretend I'm not even here," Ron instructed, his eyes behind the line of sight.
Harry shook his head disdainfully but complied, returning to the story at hand. Teddy stared intently at the pages from Harry's lap, his hair returning to its cheerful teal and his eyes a shining green and Ron snapped the picture. Then he set the camera down on the table and sat cross-legged across from Harry on the blanket covered in toys, his head in his hand and elbow propped up on his knee, staring intently at Harry as he finished the story.
The sky was still pitch dark with the stars just starting to fade away when a piercing cry broke through the house and Harry bolted upright with his heart about to jump out of his chest. When the fog of sleep slowly cleared and he remembered that Teddy was sleeping just downstairs, Harry calmed slightly, letting his heart rate fall back to its normal pace as he trudged out of bed, not bothering to pull the blankets back onto their mattress. He padded slowly into the hallway, his face contorting into a large yawn as he rubbed the sleep away from under his glasses and the screaming cries continued.
"Will you shut him up!?" George shouted angrily from his bedroom once Harry was on the staircase.
"I'm going," Harry called back wearily.
Teddy's face was screwed tight, his eyes pinched shut, and he was lying flat on his back in the crib in the drawing room.
Harry absentmindedly scooped him up into his arms and over one shoulder, patting him on the back and whispering "shh" to him at the same time. His gulping tears slowly subsided and Harry gratefully bent to place Teddy back in his crib, but the moment Teddy left his shoulder, he began to cry again.
Sighing to himself, he repositioned Teddy against his shoulder and sank into the sofa, his head resting against the back cushion so that Teddy could lay against his chest comfortably without Harry having to hold him. Before he even knew what he was doing, Harry was sound asleep once more, only to be woken an hour later by Teddy's feet digging into his stomach as he tried to get to a crawling position.
"Awake already?" Harry groaned to his godson. Teddy stared up at him with his big, unblinking eyes, one brown flecked with gray and the other a light hazel.
Harry cocked his head to study him, still holding him in his lap. "I wonder what you'll end up choosing to look like when you're at Hogwarts," he mused curiously. Harry patted his mop of stringy hair down on his small head, then stood and carried Teddy to the kitchen.
"If you're going to wake me up at six in the morning, at least I can have something to drink," he said to himself. Teddy gurgled loudly and looked about the kitchen intently from his new seat in Harry's arms as he went about the process of making tea one-handed.
One hour and a cup of tea later, George and Ron joined Harry and Teddy at the kitchen table and Kreacher was now bustling about the kitchen making pancakes. Teddy was cheerfully babbling nonsense to any who would listen from his high chair and his hair was morphing to a different color every twenty minutes.
George seemed to be studying Teddy constantly, cocking his head at different angles with a furrowed brow and squinted eyes. Eventually, Ron gave in and asked him, "What are you doing?"
"It's just… He's so small," George said, clearly astounded by such a realization.
"Well, he'll grow," Harry smirked.
George ignored his sarcasm and instead asked. "Do you think he thinks we can understand him?"
All three wizards turned to face Teddy and the baby was delighted with the extra attention. Ron shrugged. "He probably thinks he's telling us all about the dream he had or something."
"He is very talkative," George confirmed. "Thanks Kreacher," he added as the elf set a small mountain of pancakes on the table in front of him.
Harry took the cup of yogurt that Dromeda had left for Teddy and began to spoon small amounts into his godson's open mouth. George watched him carefully wipe away the bits that escaped his mouth and ran down his chin while also taking occasional bites of his own breakfast.
"You seem to have gotten the hang of this," George commented.
"Hmm?" Harry asked without turning around.
"Of taking care of him," he elaborated.
Harry paused, frozen with his hand midair and spoon halfway to Teddy's mouth, before he spoke again. "Well… I was thinking of offering to take him on the weekends if you two are okay with it."
He didn't dare turn around again, worried about what he might see on Ron and George's faces. Instead, he continued to explain his decision. "Dromeda has taught me a lot so I actually feel prepared to take care of a baby now and she really shouldn't have to raise him all by herself. Plus I'm his godfather, and it's Remus's son, and it's what I would have wanted. It's what Remus would have wanted for sure and-"
"Harry," Ron interrupted with a chuckle.
With some alarm, Harry stopped his rambling and finally turned to face them.
"That sounds great, Harry," Ron said, smiling.
Harry grinned his thanks and turned to George.
"As long as he doesn't wake me up at five every morning-"
"No promises," Harry cut in.
"-Then I'm fine," George finished.
Harry beamed at them and George readopted his thoughtful expression so that both Harry and Ron turned to him with questions on their lips.
"Can't you just put a silencing charm on the drawing room so that he won't wake us up?"
Harry blinked slowly, unable to tell if this was a joke or not. Eventually, he decided that George was not joking and was actually completely serious. "No," Harry said firmly.
"Why not? It wouldn't' do him any harm," George pushed.
"I'm not putting a silencing charm on my godson."
"But he wouldn't even feel it!"
"What if he's crying because he's hurt or something. We wouldn't even hear him!"
"He's in his crib, he won't get hurt," George shrugged.
"No," Harry reaffirmed emphatically.
"But-"
"No!"
"Fine!" George slumped into his chair moodily and stabbed his pancakes while sticking his tongue out at Teddy.
"Real mature, George," Ron laughed. "I'm sure Dromeda will love having him around you every week."
George stuck his tongue out at Ron instead.
The weekend flew by in a haze of toys, reading, watching Teddy try to walk using the furniture to hold on to, and afternoon naps that were not limited to just the baby. When Monday morning came around, Harry was well and truly exhausted.
"I don't know how you do it," he said to Andromeda as he passed her the last of Teddy's bags.
She smiled warmly and reached forward for her grandson. "Well, thanks for taking care of him for the weekend. I hope it wasn't too much trouble."
"Not at all! Actually, I was thinking that I could take care of him more often if you'd like. Maybe even every weekend." Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and tilted his head curiously at her, waiting for a reaction.
"Really? And… Ron and George are okay with that?"
Harry shrugged. "Ron's more excited than George, but yeah, they're fine."
"And you're okay with having your weekend taken up by babysitting?" she asked incredulously.
"I am his godfather," Harry replied defensively. "I want to help out more."
Andromeda smiled again and readjusted Teddy in her arms. "If I'm being perfectly honest, that would be great. I'm not as young as I used to be," she lamented.
Harry's face lit up. "Brilliant! I can pick him up every Saturday morning if that works for you."
"That sounds lovely. Thank you, Harry." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
"Of course!" Harry reached down and extended his pointer finger for Teddy to grab onto. "See you next week, Teddy!"
Teddy gurgled happily and shook his finger up and down for a few moments until Andromeda cleared her throat and cut in. "We should probably let you get to the Ministry."
"Oh, right," Harry replied, pulling his finger out of Teddy's grasp.
"Thanks again!" she called over her shoulder as she walked to the front door. "See you on Saturday!"
"See you, Saturday," Harry parroted, shutting the door softly behind her with a beaming smile that refused to fade.
As always thank you so much for reading this week's chapter and I would appreciate any thoughts you have on it! As for next week, be prepared for a slightly tipsy Slughorn and some cute couples!