Harry's mornings begun well before his two adopted kids even start to think of waking up. He wished he'd set them better sleep schemes while younger, but well, he supposed Hogwarts would fix that for him. He rose from the bed, yawned and stretched, took a bath, and then, dressed already for work, he went to fix breakfast - that, surely, would wake his kids up.
Children: something Harry never thought he'd have, after his romance with Ginny (if that could be called a romance, to start with) ended, he'd been left with the broken pieces of self, throwing himself into work to avoid thinking, smoking to pass time when he couldn't work. Around the six-month mark of that particular coping plan, he'd been in a raid to Rowle manor, were his team found a child, one and a half years old at best, thin and quiet to the point they thought she was dead.
Euphemia Rowle was famously childless, so, when questioned, she'd laughed, maniacally so, and all but vomited the grand plan Bellatrix Lestrange had architectured. The child, Delphini Riddle, was taken into custody, and Harry - who still held into fragments of Parseltongue, tightly clung to his tongue - took the girl into his empty home.
He had thought of every excuse possible - he was too young, he worked too much, smoked too much, didn't have space for a baby in his life: and then he looked at that kid, the little girl whose family was gone, saw the way her bones jutted from her skin, the sunkness of her eyes, and all excuses died on his tongue. Harry wondered if this was how aunt Petunia saw him, because even though she hated Harry and his mother's eyes on him, she still took him in, fed and clothed Harry. Aunt Petunia, who had similar excuses. He couldn't be worse than his aunt, could he, in raising a child, right?
It was a bit of a change, but he managed, through many sleepless nights going through nicotine withdrawal, all while singing made up lullabies in a hissed language. She always looked to him with big, black eyes that reminded him of Voldemort in the memories he'd seen. Harry promised her, in hushed tones during one particularly bad early morning, that he wouldn't let her become what their parents wanted her to be.
Then Andromeda died, and Teddy came to live with Harry, since he was his legal guardian as well. At first, Harry panicked, and realized that, if he could take care of one kid, he could very well take care of two.
As such, he moved out of his tiny two-bedroom flat and into Grimmauld Place after one day's worth of cleaning and babysitting, courtesy of Luna. Ever since that, routine, faster than he expected, but with two children so close in age - to the point Harry considered passing them off as twins some days -, things happened in quick succession.
Now, in the morning before he'd send the two for their first year of Hogwarts, Harry couldn't help but feel as if time had moved too fast: he still remembered helping Teddy put on a nylon jacket as he told Delphi, in Parsel, that no, she couldn't bring a snake home from the park again.
Was this how parents felt, when faced with this particular prospect? Harry had no one to ask, since his parents were dead and the Dursleys didn't count, so the question he presented was only met with spectral silence.
For today, since it was special, he decided on giving them a treat: he went out, leaving coffee brewing on the pot as he bought freshly baked bread, cold cuts, scones and muffins at the nearby bakery, a pocketful of candy as a last-minute decision. He then went back, set everything nicely on the table, and checked the time with a spell, before sighing, gulping down his coffee hurriedly.
Harry went upstairs, into the two children's rooms that had been refurbished for them - he stayed far away from the rooms of people he'd known, fearful of finding something of theirs that he had no business possessing, but in a place as big as Grimmauld Place, that wasn't much of a concern -, and first woke up Teddy, because he knew the boy took his sweet time getting out of bed.
He always paused at the doorstep: when asleep, Teddy didn't have his powers, so he reverted to a dull brown hair colour that reminded him of Lupin. Sometimes, when he woke up, he could swear Teddy had Tonks' eyes, too - but that went away as soon as he blinked, changed for whatever color he fancied that day. Harry didn't mention it; he figured it would be hurtful to know.
"Teddy, wake up." He called, and the boy grumbled. His owl, a little black thing, hooted in agreement with Teddy, clearly bothered by the intrusion. Harry turned on the lights, noticing that his hair was going a dark, curly tone today, and smiled. "Come on, I know you're awake."
"A minute more, dad." Harry's heart, at first, had crashed at being called dad by Teddy - that should've been Lupin -, but he had bitten his tongue. He wanted Teddy to have a family, one Harry hadn't had the chance to have, so he let it slid by, got used to being his dad.
"Ah, so you don't want to go to Hogwarts, I see." Harry joked, and Teddy sat up, eyes in a soft, pale brown that was familiar. Then, while he scratched his eyes, it was gone, replaced by a watery blue. "Breakfast's on the table, and it's good."
He frowned, his nose, quite literally, turning. Harry was a good cook, yes, but he supposed not even his cooking abilities could make them like the vegetables he hid in food.
"Is it?" He asked.
"Well, I'm sure Delphi would like the blueberry scones, if you don't want them." A low blow: those were Teddy's favorite.
"I'm up, I'm up!" He said, getting out of bed and moving around the room, grabbing the last of his things. Harry chuckled, closed the door behind him, and went to wake Delphini up.
Delphini had been a gamble, all of her life: maybe he was just trying to make sure she wasn't going to be as crazy as both her parents were. He even had the paintings of Grimmauld Place removed and donated to magical art museums, just to make sure they wouldn't poison her with pureblood propaganda.
She was… Alright, he guessed. Had a penchant to talking to snakes, but Harry, who had wondered if he wasn't magical by talking to one as well, couldn't exactly call her out on that.
He only could hope madness wasn't genetic. Harry knocked on her door, and opened it to find Delphi sat in the bed, verifying her trunk, chatting excitedly with her pet snake.
Harry hadn't bought her a snake. He looked at her.
"Delphi, what did I say about snakes?" He hissed, in soft, accented Parsel, and both Delphini and the snake looked at him. She had her mother's black, thick curls and her father's eyes: she looked like the ghost of Bellatrix Lestrange in his home.
"Oh, hi, dad! Nina followed me home?" She risked, and Harry sighed, not buying her excuse in the least: snakes rarely named themselves, in his experience with them. "Okay, fine, Teddy and I saved up our allowances and bought her when you weren't looking."
Slytherin for both of them, he guessed. Harry sighed.
"I will not make you give Nina back, but next time, run it by me, okay? Now, there's breakfast on the table." Delphini nodded, jumped from bed and finished up adjusting her trunk, Nina sliding with ease onto her shoulders. Too much ease, perhaps. How long had they hidden her from him?
Not his problem in a few hours, though, but McGonagall's. Harry closed her door behind her and went downstairs, back into the kitchen, and grabbing another cup of coffee for himself, waving his wand to make a sandwich. The Daily Prophet owl knocked on his window, and he paid for it, reading as he had his breakfast.
Delphini and Teddy came in at about the same time, looking like twins. Harry eyed Teddy, folding the newspaper down, and the boy shrugged, grabbing his blueberry scones before even sitting down.
"Twin day?" Harry asked, and Delphini nodded.
"Yeah, Teddy and I decided it would be neat if we looked like twins today and tomorrow we pretended we don't even know each other." Harry looked at Delphini, and Teddy shrugged again, his mouth enlarged to fit as many scones as possible.
"Sometimes I think you two forget you're famous, children." He sighed, checked the time again. The clock ticked dangerously close, and he rose. The kids noticed it, too; Harry hadn't thought so much time had passed already. "Alright, grab what you can eat, we're going."
"Isn't it just an Apparition away?" Teddy whined, through a mouth he created on his throat, his actual mouth still full of food. Delphi rolled her eyes.
"It's the experience, Teddy." A pause. "And also, you kids don't want to wander compartment to compartment, trying to find an empty one. Trust me."
The two kids shrugged, stuffing their mouths with food - Harry knew they were used to side along Apparation ever since they were babies, but still. It always surprised Harry that they didn't get nauseous after it, as he did. Nurture really did a number on them.
The train was still the same, even with all those years apart between him and his school years. The platform was still mostly empty, with only spots of parents far away from each other, trying to give the others a modicum of privacy. Harry looked at his kids, suddenly so small, and he choked in tears. Harry took a deep breath, steeling himself to not cry, and kneeled to them.
"Okay, I know I've said it all your lives, but I really don't care which House you end up on. Delphi, no trying to pretend to be the Heir of Slytherin to freak out people. Teddy, no pretending to be other people, even though that's funny." teddy opened his mouth, and Harry looked at him. "No pretending to be dead people either."
Teddy pouted, and Delphini giggled at it. He looked at her: she may be a perfect copy of Bellatrix, but she barely resembled the woman in question.
"Delphi, I know I've told you some things about speaking Parsel, but that doesn't mean you're evil, no matter what others say." Harry mussed up both their hairs, rising. "Now go and make uncle Neville regret being a teacher. I'll stay here until the train goes, so don't worry if you notice you forgot something."
The two kids looked at each other. Harry waited for the question to come.
"What about work, dad?" Asked Teddy, and Harry smiled at the boy.
"Day off." He lied, and the two kids, with a nod, went on inside the train. He did have work, but it was the day before every kid went to Hogwarts, and no sane parent was going to miss seeing their kids off; some lateness was, therefore, allowed.
The two soon popped their heads in a nearby compartment, waving to Harry, and he waved at them back. The two went inside, and Harry grabbed something to smoke. It had been a long while - ever since Delphini had come into his home and he realized that, with such a sickly baby as she was, he couldn't be smoking near her -, but the taste for it had never really left him.
So, yes, a pack of smokes. He lit it up with a quick spell, smoking slowly as he watched the train, its smoke slowly rising from the ground and soon covering the entire world in it.
When the train left, Delphi and Teddy waved at him until they disappeared from view. Harry did the same.
A knock resounded on the kitchen window, and Harry went to it, leaving the papers he'd been reading alone for a second. He opened the window. the early morning air entered, refreshing the smoke-filled air; with it, Teddy's owl, looking at him with murderous, sleepy eyes.
"Good morning for you as well, Owlexander. How was the trip?" Harry sighed, grabbing some bacon from the fridge, offering it to the owl as he untied the letter from its leg one handedly. It had been a day since the kids had gone to Hogwarts, and Harry hadn't expected a letter so soon. Perhaps it was a Harry-patented issue, since he had no one to write home to.
Owlexander pecked at his fingers on purpose, and Harry hissed at it. The owl left for the owlery that existed in Grimmauld Place with a huff, and he sat down, defeated. Seemingly, he hadn't been forgiven for waking it up.
That was a problem for later. Harry opened the letter, Teddy's familiar scrawl greeting him. He then squinted at the words on it.
"Two Hufflepuffs?" He muttered. That made no sense. Perhaps the Hat was senile. That was the only explanation. He had thought at least one would be a Slytherin, and the other a Gryffindor, perhaps, but Hufflepuff for both of them? What, in Merlin's name, had happened there?
Harry sighed, grabbed a fresh cigarette to smoke. He was going to need it.