Ginny awoke the next morning to an aroma of butterflies, the night air still mystified the room and she realized she was up reasonably early, a sniffling came from upstairs but Ginny ignored it, she was aching everywhere, her back and legs felt busted and poor. The sniffling became stronger, then erupted in a flame of tears, they burnt down Ginny's own face, she didn't even know why she was crying, she just knew she was so tired, yet so alive.
The sniffling turned into crying and Ginny noticed it herself this time, she raced up the stairs, her ankle swelling with each jump, each step. She peered into Lily's room, silence, Ginny looked around and followed the crying, she peered into James room, brushing the door frame with her fingertips then looked into Albus's room. The rocking chair rocked as if a ghost was on it's hinges, white paint brushed onto the frame so perfectly it was almost impossible to recognize the figure in the chair.
"Harry?"
A red-eyed Harry turned to her, she looked at Albus, his eyes were watery and sad. "Harry, why is he..."
"Gin-"
"Oh how long have you been awake? I'm so sorry I left you to this, I can't even wager my own-"
"Gin. Please. I've been awake since midnight, he's been whining ever since."
"Dear, midnight Harry? Why that is awfully late! Please, I insist, get some rest-"
"No Gin."
"What? Harry I can't-" She began, then bit down increasingly on her tongue.
"Ginerva Molly Weasley, I may not go to sleep until he is asleep, otherwise it would feel wronged and I would never forgive myself for it." Ginny stared into his eyes as he answered, blue and alarmed, snaked like the day she had met him, the fire she had seen in them, had not yet gone out, "I understand, but I will not allow you to sit here and rock him while he sniffles and tries to put himself to sleep," Harry nodded and rubbed his eyes, they were sickened almost, greenish under the dim lights of the wand he held. Fooled, even, so ridiculous it seemed - to think he would ever suffer this much. Especially without sleep.
Ginny leaned to Harry and brushed her fingers across Albus's delicate forehead. She felt obligated to tell Harry that Albus didn't feel hot, he didn't feel warm, but neither was he cold. Harry had taken in too much as the day had given him, and she knew either they would both feel guilty and ashamed or they would both get this fixed and feel tired the next morning.
Ginny strung her red hair around her fingers and took this time sincerely, people wanted to see things that sometimes the story wouldn't give them. Ginny felt like the story, almost unable to communicate with Harry, like he was miles and miles out, not only inches away from the tip of her nose.
A collection of poems held in her feeble hands - that was what the world felt like, a ground breaking set of rules to follow and actions to do and people to talk to and to think about and then it got so crazy sometimes it all seemed impossible to her that humans could even speak to each other, or that she could move her hand back and forth according to whichever way she wanted. It was thought that could do so much, yet when life holds you down with manacles and parchment rolls, it gets a bit heavy to continue down the journey.
Ginny presumed life was faraway in ways like a running track. Ginny wasn't too fond of running, or in her own words she would say she hated it. Life took you up turns and to places where endurance and speed are the least of your needs, or to where you've stopped and people pass by, they move on and you don't and it feels as if you've been repeating a grade since you could breathe.
"Gin he's crying again, can you hear me?"
Ginny's eyes fluttered open and she realized she had fallen dead asleep on Harry's shoulder. Albus was wailing and wailing and all anyone could perceive at the time was the single word stop continuously repeating itself in their thoughts, "Harry!" Ginny said, astonished at her realization. Harry leaned back onto the chair and massaged his sleeping shoulder muscles, "Yeah?"
"I know it! I forgot to feed him dinner! Oh goodness me, I can't believe it! Hand me the bottle," Harry passed her a baby bottle from the bottle warmer rack and Ginny fed it slowly to the baby she cradled oh so dearly in her arms. Harry stood over her as she put him back down in his crib to rest and wrapped his arms around her neck, she accepted them and held them tightly in her own, cold hands.
Teddy, Victoire, Dominique, Louis, Rose, and Hugo
The Burrow was a small house, it was fit for the six of them though. Victoire, Dominique, Louis, Rose, Hugo, oh and Teddy Lupin. It was warm and homey, a small fire burning up in the furnace and the air - it was lavender and honey and peppermint if you could ever imagine. It smelled like a sugar cookie was lightly baking inside, the smells drifting off anywhere the house touched. Victoire (5) and Dominique (3) stepped through the dark oak front door. It was warm inside, the peaceful sound of woodland glade was heard throughout the room.
Victoire turned to the couch and groaned, she wad bored, bored bored bored, could she say much more? She looked to her sister, then to her smaller brother and cringed, she didn't want to play, she wanted to do big-kid-stuff, because her mother had said, on her fifth birthday, that she was now a big girl. No longer a toddler, nor an infant or even a little idea, now she was a big big girl, and now she should be able to tell the other kids off if they did something wrong, or if they were being mean to her she had full rights to tattle tell on them to the grown-ups.
"Hey! You're stepping on my toy!"
Victoire looked up and saw a boy with blue hair staring down at her, "What?" She said, looking around, "I don't see a toy-"
"There it is!"
"That gross stuffed animal? I'm a big kid now! I don't play with stuffed toys anymore."
"Hey! Freddy's not a stuffed toy! He's a bear! See? He even has claws!" The boy said, showing off the bear's claws to Victoire as she smirked and pointed to his nose, "Oh yeah? then why does he have such a small nose?"
"Because he's a little bear! I'm his papa. We're playing a game right now. Want to join?" The boy said, wrinkling his nose a bit at her. Victoire grabbed one of her grandmother's small stuffed white bunnies and a plastic milk bottle, "Can Silva play?"
"Yes! Silva can be the doormat!"
"The doormat?! Why can't the doormat be the doormat?!"
The blue haired boy scratched his head and shrugged, "I don't know. How about we just pretend there's a doormat at the front door to our house." Victoire scoffed, "Then where's our front door?!" The boy looked around the room and grabbed a box labeled "Build-It-Tent! (Some assembly required)" then declared, "Here, this is it, this is our house."
"That cardboard box?"
"No, silly! The thing inside the cardboard box!"
"The tent? But I don't know how to build it! Mum and Dad also said they left their wands at the house this morning when we went to go get extra parchment! So no magic, dum dum!" Victoire said. The blue hair boy pouted then turned to the stairs and lying on it slept Hermione's tender wand, "Look!" He whisper-shouted as the grown ups lined up then fell into the kitchen.
"Well? Take it! She isn't even here anymore!" Victoire said back to him.
"What's your name?"
"What?"
"What's your name?"
"Why?"
"So that when we get in trouble it'll be all your fault,"
"Uh...Victoire?"
"Okay," Teddy lept over to the stairway and gripped the rough wood of the slim wand, it was soft in his had as he pointed it to the box and stood in silence.
"What're you doing? Don't you know any spells?"
"No, I don't, but I was just-"
"Oh give me that!" Victoire snatched the wand out of his hand and waved it around to the box, "Bippiti Boppiti Boo!" The box shook, it rattled, the boy leaned in close to her and whispered in her ear, "Is it supposed to do that?"
"No! I think...I think it's supposed to transform into a pumpkin carriage. It's classic Disney!"
"Disney?! Seriously? Disney makes animals talk!"
"And Aragog didn't?"
"How do you even know all of this?!" The boy yelled.
Victoire thought to herself, well, she had read it in books. Yes, books. Books were relevant, weren't they? But then the boy would ask whether she knew if the book was real real or not. She had heard of not real books, books that spoke of, as he had said, talking animals, and descendants of gods and mandrakes that might've at once been able to be tamed! And real Cheshire cats with grins larger than the moon!
"So?"
"What is your name?"
"Teddy. Teddy Lupin, why do you ask?"
"So that when my mum asks why I don't want to read again, I can tell her it was Teddy's fault-"
The box jumped over to Victoire, interrupting their thoughts, Victoire could smell it, cardboard with a hint of lint from the washer. Teddy stood next to her, laughing, "You made it jump!" Victoire elbowed him and sent a deadly look into his eyes that said, knock-it-off-before-I-cast-another-faulty-spell. Teddy stopped and watched the box as it slightly moved, left, then right, then faster.
And faster and faster and faster and-
"HELP! It's chasing me!" Victoire screamed, her voice echoing in the walls. Teddy jumped to the rescue, slicing through the air then grabbing her by the shoes as the box began to...fly? It rose up and up and hit the ceiling, racing for the door and slamming its passengers on the wood.
Teddy yelped in pain, it hurt so badly to be slammed into the door. The kitchen door opened and three adults stepped out, crowding around the scene being made in the living room between Victoire and Teddy.
"Oh my gracious! Ron pass me my wand!" Mrs. Weasley, raising the wand high into the air then swinging it around in large circles. Teddy and Victoire dropped to the ground on top of each other and everyone stared at the two as they solemnly sighed and hung their heads down to peer at the floor.