A/N: Back to family moments galore, yay! Honestly, I love the idea of Harry taking paternal leave. I feel like it's the sort of thing he would do. I don't even care if it's canon or not at this point.
Title: Tomato Sauce or The Joys of Parenting
Summary: Harry is burning the sauce again, Lily is crying again, Albus's teddy bear is burning again. Wait, burning teddy bear? JAMES! Where did he even find that magnifying glass?
WC: 1,242
Genres: Family
Characters: Harry P., James S. P., Albus S. P., Lily L. P., Ginny W.
Note: No teddy bears were harmed in the making of this fanfiction.
Lily had now been crying non-stop for the past 3 hours, or, since she had been rather rudely woken up from her nap 3 hours ago by her two insufferable brothers. Either way, Harry's nerves couldn't tell the difference. He was pretty sure that there had never been more noise at 12 Grimmauld place, even though he could think of some choice examples.
"I'm sick of taking maternity leave," Ginny had said. "You should do it," Ginny had said. "It'll be good for father/child bonding," Ginny had said. And Harry had said "yes", because it wasn't fair that Ginny should take all the maternity leaves, and he definitely wanted to spend some time with his children.
Except, of course, there were some rather difficult days. Namely: today.
Currently, Lily was in his arms, wailing like it was her only job on this Earth (and it probably was, at that age, but still. Couldn't she just smile a little, just for daddy?), resting on his hip as he desperately tried to stir the tomato sauce all while singing a nursery rhyme to calm her when Albus came running into the Kitchen, crying, holding a teddy bear with a rather large scorch mark.
"Daddy!" his two-year old toddler wailed. Honestly, Lily and Albus were giving him the best interpretation of Duo for two crying children he had heard so far.
"I never meant to hurt you!" James shouted, running into the room after. Hmm, all thins considered, this was rather Concerto for three tired children. James was holding a magnifying glass. Now, where he had gotten that magnifying glass was rather a mystery.
"Daddy!" Albus complained, thrusting his teddy bear up at him and nearly hitting Lily in the process, who only cried louder.
"James," Harry sighed. "What did you do.?"
"Nothing," James furiously denied.
"Did you burn your brother's teddy bear with a magnifying glass?" he asked.
"You can't prove anything!" James shrieked, causing Lily to shriek too, and ran back into the Living Room.
Harry fished his wand out of his back pocket, trying to ignore the wails in his ear. When it was finally out of the depths of his slobber-ridden pants (he had also discovered a rather large collection of sweet wrappers there too, apparently. There was always a multitude of things in his pockets, but for some reason, never his wallet), he cast a quick reparo on the teddy bear and handed it back to Albus.
"What do we say?" he asked Albus, but his son just grabbed the teddy bear and ran after James.
The tomato sauce was starting to smell burnt. But on the bright side, it looked like Lily's crying had been reduced to sniffles.
"You feeling better?" he asked her as he set the spoon the stir by itself (note to self: catch up with mother-in-law on housekeeping spells: soon).
Lily looked at him with big watery eyes, before promptly breaking into tears all over again.
"Oh, Lily!" Harry also felt like crying. "What's wrong, baby?"
Lily just cried. He even tried placing her on her cushion and tickling her stomach, but to no avail. He would've put her down to bed, but frankly, given the noise Albus and James were making, there was no way she'd ever fall asleep.
Harry was still trying to save the poor tomato sauce when suddenly there was a huge cry.
"OWWWW!" screamed James. Out of surprise, the spoon he was holding flew straight out of his hand, spraying both him and Lily with red sauce. "DAAAAAD! ALBUS PINCHED ME!"
And that was the moment where Ginny decided to enter the house.
"Hello, my loves! I'm home!"
"Mummy, mummy!" Albus cried.
James repeated his lament for his mother. "MUUUUUUMMM! ALBUS PINCHED ME!"
Lily gesticulated towards her mother and cried even louder than the other two combined.
Ginny took a moment to take it all it. The mess in the Living Room, James shoving the pinch in his face, Albus clinging to her legs, her screaming baby, and her husband covered in tomato sauce. Harry saw her struggle to maintain a straight face.
"Oh, you're home," said Harry simply. "How was your day?"
"Yours looks a little more hectic than mine," she told him, before giving him a kiss (cue James pretending to gag), wiping a little of the tomato sauce of his cheek and taking the screaming Lily into her arms, who, for some reason, seemed to calm down immediately. Child favouritism? Harry didn't know that. Parent favouritism on the other hand… How was it fair that she calmed down immediately when Ginny took her?
"Mummy! Albus pinched me!" James insisted.
"Why did he do that?" Ginny asked calmly.
"Because I burnt his teddy bear," James admitted, and Albus thrust up his teddy bear helpfully at his mother, only to realise that the said stuffed toy had already been repaired.
"How did that even happen?" Ginny looked at Harry.
"You don't want to know," Harry assured her, before proceeding to fish out a cloth from his pockets (they seemed to be rather extendable) and wiping the tomato sauce of Lily's brow.
"And I knocked down his tower," James added, almost proudly.
"James!" Harry sighed.
"Now, Albus, did you say sorry for pinching your brother?" Ginny asked.
"Sowwy James," Albus said automatically.
Harry gave him a look, but Albus chose to ignore him.
"And, James. You will help your brother rebuild his tower.
"Fine," he replied and waved his hand at the tower of blocks, as if expecting something to happen.
"James, you can't just wave your hand and think it's going to be magically fixed!" Ginny laughed.
"But Dad does it all the time," James complained.
"Yes, well, Dad is special," Harry said. "Go help your brother."
James begrudgingly trod after his brother and pretended to help his brother rebuild his tower of blocks. Clearly, this was going to end in a disaster again, but at least it would keep them busy until dinner.
"Has she had her dinner?" Ginny asked.
"Yes," Harry replied. He had indeed fed Lily in the hopes of calming her down, but there was nothing to be done as she continued crying between every spoonful of mashed peas (though, to be honest, Harry would probably have also cried to if he had to eat that awful concoction, but it was supposed to be healthy).
"I'll go put her down," she said, and Harry set to making dinner.
When they had gone through the bedtime routine bazinga (meaning that every one was fed, bathed, brushed, reprimanded, punished, read to, hugged and kissed goodnight, Ginny and Harry finally had some time alone to enjoy together.
"I'm knackered," he told her.
"Let's drink wine and trash talk our co-workers, shall we?" Ginny offered.
"Your co-workers," Harry said, "I haven't seen mine in months, and I can't exactly trash talk our children."
"I'll do it for us both," she told him, snuggling up to him in their sofa. "I could have practically thrown my typewriter at Galinda today."
"Well, at least you managed to calm Lily down, I don't know why I can never get her to calm down."
"It's because she loves you very much, and therefore, she wants you to suffer," Ginny assured him.
"Maybe," he mused. "Remind me why I agreed to taking paternal leave?"
"Because you love me and the children very much. And I appreciate it enormously."
"You're right that must be it."
FOR HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
House: Ravenclaw
Assignment #10: Herbology Task #1: Write about someone struggling to take care of a crying baby.
