A/N: Hope you enjoy these little shenanigans! I know I liked writing Audrey and Lily Luna (especially because I toyed about with about seven ideas before settling on this one xD).
THC – Round 4
House: Gryffindor
Class: Astronomy
Category: Standard
Prompts: Cat 1: Next Gen Era, Cat 2: [Pairing type] Uncle or Aunt/Niece or nephew
TW: None
WC: 1,540
~~ Babysitting Woes ~~
Audrey knew that she should not have agreed to babysit Lily Luna Potter.
Audrey also knew she would never agree to babysit Lily Luna Potter ever again.
She should have known something was up when Ginny had turned up at her door, Lily Luna attached to her with a child leash, with a bouquet of flowers, some chocolates and a big pleading smile. Ginny had explained how their babysitter was sick, Harry was out on an Auror mission and she had a big game to cover. Luna had agreed to take Albus and James for a couple of nights, but Ginny still needed someone to take care of Lily Luna.
So, of course, Audrey had agreed. Because Audrey, a true Hufflepuff, was always there to help someone in need.
Though it was somewhat suspicious that the girl's own godmother, Luna, had refused to take her. At the time, Audrey had put it down to not wanting to look after three children at the same time.
Now she knew better.
Lily Luna Potter, aged two and three months, was an absolute menace.
Within the first two hours, the little girl had managed to wreck her apartment from top to bottom.
First, Lily Luna demanded that they play catch, except there was no way Audrey was going to play catch inside, so she decided to take the girl out to the park. However, during the time it took to locate her niece's coat, Lily Luna had had a different idea. With a loud scream, she ran off away from her. Audrey sighed when she heard the sound of the bathroom door lock.
Audrey approached the door, Lily Luna's coat in one hand and her wand handy in her other. "Lily Luna, come on out of there, I have found your coat," she tried to convince.
"No!" was her only reply.
She thought up every negotiation tactic she knew but didn't manage to say another one when she heard the tap go on and a giggle from the two-year-old. Quickly, she alohormora'ed the door open and had to hold back a gasp of shock horror. There was lotion all over the floor, her shampoo and conditioner bottles were empty, colourful smudges were not only over the walls, but also over Lily Luna's face. And somehow, the sink was also overflowing.
It didn't take long before Audrey relented and allowed them to play a gentle game of catch in the house. All so she could turn off the tap.
The ball, of course, had broken the vase Percy's great-aunt had given to them as a wedding gift. While Audrey didn't mind too much, because the vase was really ugly, and she really didn't like Aunt Muriel, she didn't want pieces of porcelain just lying about her floor. But she barely had any time to fix it, and already, Lily Luna was throwing the ball around once again.
"STOP!" Audrey finally screamed as the ball went flying through the window, glass shattering on the floor. "That's enough, Lily Luna. It's time out now!"
And with those words, Lily Luna promptly burst into tears. "I—I—I don't wanna do a time out!" she sobbed.
Audrey sighed once more. It must have been her seventh sigh in the last hour. "Lily Luna. I said time out, so it's time out."
"No!" Lily Luna shrieked and ran away probably to lock herself in the bathroom, again.
However, Audrey was quicker than her, and caught her with a quick spell. She blocked the girl's way with invisible barriers, approached the two-year-old and bent down to her level. "You haven't been a good girl, Lily Luna. Look, you broke my vase and my window!"
"No!"
"Yes, you did. With that ball of yours, which I said you could only play with outside."
"No!"
Audrey closed her eyes. Merlin, the girl was stubborn too. She had a feeling she was only going to be getting 'no' as an answer to everything.
"Let's take deep breaths, okay?" Audrey suggested, and the girl continued to cry, her breath coming in big hiccups. "In. Out. In. Out."
Audrey truly had no idea what she was doing. She was an only child, didn't have any cousins or anything, and had rarely babysat before. Why Ginny thought she would be a good option was completely beyond her. But, in her yoga classes, the instructor always told her to take deep breaths whenever she was stressed, and Audrey figured that was probably what was going on with Lily Luna. She was stressed because she wasn't with her family.
"In," instructed Audrey, taking a deep breath herself. "Out."
Lily Luna shook her head, and continued to sniffle.
"In. Out. In. Out."
But after a while, Lily Luna finally began to follow her orders, and her breathing calmed down, until she wasn't crying anymore.
"You okay?" Audrey asked.
This time, the girl nodded.
"Would you like a tissue maybe?" There was snot absolutely everywhere, and Audrey was quite disgusted.
Thankfully, her niece nodded once more, and Audrey helped her to blow her nose.
"Now," Audrey started once Lily Luna was truly calmed down. "I'm not going to give you time out, but you have to understand throwing a ball inside is a bad idea."
She pointed towards all the broken objects. "Look, the vase is broken, my window is broken. And there are sharp things everywhere."
"Ugly vase," Lily Luna murmured, her thumb now in her mouth, and Audrey had to suppress a small smile. At least her niece had taste.
"It doesn't matter," she said softly. "However, it means that I have to fix them, and I don't want to have to fix them. Okay?"
Her niece nodded once more, and Audrey waved her wand, performing a quick spell to make all of the broken pieces neat again.
"See, this is much better." Audrey smiled. "No more throwing the ball inside, okay?"
"'Kay."
"Now, do you still want to go play with the ball outside?"
"No! I wanna do colouring!"
Colouring? What could that possibly mean? But Audrey didn't have a lot of time to ask herself these questions, as already the girl was scrambling towards her bag of things, and pulling out a jumbo pack of felt tip pens.
"Here!" Lily Luna showed her the pens proudly. Audrey couldn't help but notice that quite a few of them were missing their lids.
"O-okay. Let's get you set up then?" She was quite uncertain about how this would go.
There were no felt-tip pen friendly surfaces in their small apartment. As a matter of fact, very few things were toddler-friendly, here. And yet, the girl really wanted to colour, and Audrey would much rather the drawing be on some paper than on her freshly painted beige wall-
"LILY LUNA! NO!" Audrey shrieked, as she realised far too late that Lily Luna had already started to add a mural to her walls.
Four long hours later, Audrey was lying on the couch, absolutely exhausted, but also ridiculously happy that she had finally managed to get the girl to sleep. It had been more than difficult to convince her to stay in bed, while Audrey poured herself a much needed wine glass.
"Why do people even have kids?" she muttered to herself, contemplating all the mess she still hadn't cleaned up.
Just then, she heard chimney place woosh, and Percy appeared from the floo.
"Hello, Audre—Woah! What on earth happened here!" he exclaimed as he saw the mess. Apart from the fixed vase and window, there was also soot everywhere, felt tip pen absolutely everywhere, a mess of spaghetti in the kitchen space, and probably what used to be a roll of toilet paper.
"You sister dropped off Lily Luna for us to babysit," Audrey announced, before taking a sip of her wine. "She's the most horrible toddler I've ever met."
"Ginny did that?" Percy asked.
"Yep. And I expect you to help me keep her tomorrow."
"But—"
"I don't care. You already worked on Saturday, you'll stay home this Sunday!" Audrey declared, slightly amused by how Percy's face paled considerably. He would have to suffer the wrath of Ginny's daughter too, and not just her.
She then watched him as he surveyed the damage made to their apartment, and slowly but efficiently cleaned up with some magic. Audrey had not had the strength to do so yet, and she knew she was so very grateful for her husband, even though he had been absent today when she needed him.
"Oh, look," Percy suddenly said. "I think this is for you."
And he handed her a piece of sticky paper with a drawing on it. There were two stick figures on it, one bigger one and one smaller one. Lily Luna had written her name as neatly as possible over the smaller figure, and the other one had a very green dress, just like the one Audrey had been wearing. There were also hearts everywhere.
Audrey smiled as she realised what Lily Luna had drawn. It was so sweet of her niece to have made that, and it kind of totally made her heart melt. So maybe that was why people had children, even children as dreadfully annoying as Lily Luna.