gryffindaddy

Bedtime, Molly had begun to realise, was something one only came to enjoy as they got older. For Molly, there was scarcely anything better than climbing into bed at the end of the day, curling up next to her husband, and going to sleep. For her boys, bedtime was as good as the end of the world, each one panicking at the thought of the day drawing to a close, attempting to get as much done in the half hour between their parents telling them to brush their teeth and tucking them into bed, apparently oblivious to the fact that the sun would rise tomorrow and they would have more than ample time to finish their game of knights and dragons then.

She had managed to get her older sons into their bedroom after bath time with relatively little hassle, though Bill and Charlie still buzzed with energy and Percy’s mind turned with plots to stay up with his books for as long as possible without being caught. She’d assured them that they didn’t need to go to sleep just yet, but that they did need to start calming down, which they had reluctantly agreed to. Hopefully, by the time the twins were ready for bed they would all be tired enough to sleep. She could always hope.

Making her way back down the hall to the bathroom where Arthur currently struggled with the aforementioned troublemakers was becoming a more and more laborious task with each passing day. She was due to give birth any day now, and though this pregnancy had not been nearly as taxing as the one with the twins – she had practically felt like the size of a mountain by the time they were born – she still found herself wishing it would be over sooner rather than later. Of course, the Curse meant that some anxiety still lingered over the impending birth, though she had been assured countless times that she shouldn’t be affected, and, as disgusting as that sentiment was, it did bring some comfort. 

She lingers in the doorway of the bathroom for a minute or two, observing her husband wrestle with the twins with an amused smile on her lips. Her husband is already soaked with water, which delivers no surprise. The twins seemed to love bath time, not for the actual bathing itself, but for the amount of chaos they found themselves able to cause with just a few inches of water and some creativity. Maybe she did want this pregnancy to drag on for a little longer, for as long as she couldn’t kneel down to the level of the bathtub, Arthur remained responsible for this task, and her clothes stayed clean and dry. 

“He claims just the one,” Molly answers, shifting her weight between her swollen feet. “But I could feel at least three more tucked under his covers. For such a bright kid he’s an awful liar.”

The distinct lack of noise echoing through the house gave Arthur the smallest hint of hope that perhaps the rest of the night would be easy. Bill and Charlie, while older, were still prone to moments of rambunctious energy, and it was not uncommon to hear the pair yelling and hollering as they thumped around the house, despite their parents’ warnings to settle down. Percy, while a lot quieter, seemed to be far sneakier and while he wouldn’t run about causing a fuss, he was the most likely to stay up far, far later than his bedtime, leading to a remarkably grouchy breakfast. 

And the twins, he thinks with a glance at the identical boys in question, were their own form of complicated. They had known that twins would be slightly harder. After all, they would have two infants and then toddlers at the same time, but nothing had quite prepared them for just how mischievious the two were: if the saturation of his pants right now gave anything away. 

Arthur was thankful for a lot of things in his life, but right now he was exceptionally glad his wife was only carrying one child this time around. He knew what people said about them: that they had more children than sense, more children than money, that they were stupid to have so many children in the middle of a war.  But no part of Arthur was willing to give up the life that they had made: quite literally in six cases.

Both he and Molly had always wanted a big family, and that was what they were trying to get.

Continuing to wrestle with both George and the wash cloth, Arthur tries his hardest not to frown and pout; determined for neither boy to sense any form of weakness, lest they riot. Getting the pair ready for and into bed had always been a struggle, but now seemed even more so now that Molly was so close to her due date. Lugging both boys around at the same time easily exhausted her, and Arthur was trying his absolute best to make sure that that didn’t happen.

By virtue of their ‘blood status’, it could be assumed that their sixth child would be born safely, but Arthur couldn’t help the small stabs of fear that perhaps ‘blood traitors’ would be equally as targetted. As much as he hoped for this baby to arrive soon, Arthur couldn’t help but wish that time would slow down; that something would allow him to make certain that Molly would be safe.

Moving his ministrations toward Fred’s face, Arthur carefully pours a small jug of water over both boys heads, smiling at the sound of their chirping laughter as Molly enters the room behind him. He had long since learnt that speed was of the essence when it came to Fred and George, and so within moments, Arthur had lathered up both their hair, determined to rid their scalps of the day’s dirt. “We can only hope that he never gets better. It might make the moody teenage years a little easier,” Arthur says, rinsing the soap suds away as the little boys begin to splash again.

“Did Bill and Charlie settle down okay?” he asks, shooting her a soft glance.

“How are you coping?”

“That is absolutely adorable.” Alice can’t help the grin that spreads across her face at the mental image of little Percy clutching a quill in a small fist, scrawling nonsense across parchment in an imitation of his father, and then at the idea of Charlie insisting on getting the colours of certain creatures absolutely correct. “Sounds dangerous. You better keep an eye on him, or else you might find your house full of - pets.” Magical creatures tend to make poor pets, but if anyone could charm a being into staying somewhere, it would surely be Charlie Weasley.

“I can’t say I have. Are the word puzzles any better?” Head tips, smile waning at the quiet layer of questions. Arthur isn’t off base. When her mind isn’t filled with worries about auror business, she instead finds herself fretting about Order issues. Neither are things she has much control over - Alice knows she shouldn’t let it get to her so much, shouldn’t let her occupy every waking moment - but that doesn’t make them less pressing. Every moment something isn’t done is a moment lost, a moment someone could be finding Moody or discovering something new about the inner workings of the Death Eaters. Having free time feels near selfish, these days. “Yeah. It’s - neverending, yeah? If it isn’t one thing its another, all that.” She does her best to sound blase about it, but isn’t sure how well she does shrugging off the worries that claw their way up the back of her throat. “Oh, yeah! You’ve got to be heading on leave soon, yeah? If you want someone to watch the kiddos when you’ve got the new one around, Frank and I are always willing to take them off your hands for a little while.”

“They’re pretty wonderful kids, if I do say so myself,” Arthur says with a slow smile. He supposed it was untoward to brag so heavily about one’s children, but well...he’d truly won the luck of the draw with his. To have managed to marry the utter love of his life and to now be parenting five truly fantastic sons with a sixth child on the way? What more could a man ask for, aside from the answers to his most important Muggle queries? “He’s already tried to smuggle a gnome or two into the house, which no one was particularly pleased about. Made a right mess, that one did.” 

“They might be. I must confess, I’m not that great at them really. Too many clues I’m not sure about and not many people willing to sit and muddle them through with me.” Arthur knew that most people barely tolerated his fascination with the Muggle world and that forcing the point was probably only going to make such a thing worse. Arthur quirks his head a moment, knowing from years of gently easing confessions from his sons that often silence was the way to go, especially when someone had something pressing on their mind. He had heard enough from Fabian and Gideon, from his visits to toy with the telephone, to know that the Order was struggling. That for every win there seemed to only be another loss, and Arthur was sure it was taking its toll. “It sounds it,” he says sympathetically, shooting Alice a smile, “You know you’re doing great though, don’t you?” The words might not be enough, might be too simple for such a complex thing, but Arthur hopes his meaning bleeds through regardless. “Today’s my last day, then I’ve a few weeks off. Hopefully enough time for him or her to arrive and then some extra time to settle in,” he says, “Don’t offer that, we’d have to take you up on it. The older boys are fine, but the twins are well...the twins. They’re running poor Molly ragged.”

“Which do you think nicked it?” Alice asks easily, smile bright on her face at the thought, “I’d put a galleon on Percy, though I s’pose Charlie might have, too.” Head tips as she wonders which boy got it into his head to take their dad’s quill. “That it does,” A soft laugh brackets the word at the sight of the bright blue letters filling in the little boxes. There’s something so gently domestic about the whole thing, so kind and happy and warm, that she can’t help but yearn for it - just a little bit. She wonders what Frank would do, should he get to work and discover his quill misplaced for a crayon.

It’s a sweet thought. “’Course. I’m glad it fit - crosswords and I aren’t really friendly,” She isn’t patient enough for them, getting frustrated and seeing the letters swim before her with how hard she focuses. It’s the sort of slow, quiet activity she never could put herself much into. “Oh. Well - well enough, yeah? Just. Work, mostly,” A shadow of worry stains her at nearly all times these days as it does so many people, the dark shadows beneath her eyes and the fact she forgot to really brush her hair this morning. There are more important things to worry about - things she hopes the Weasley children will never have to even think about in the future, if they do their job right. “And you? The family doing well, other than the quill-theft?”

Laughing gently, Arthur shrugs a moment as he slides the aforementioned crayon into the pocket of his robes. “It’s likely to be Percy. He’s been doing ‘paperwork’ ‘round the house as of late,” he explains, thinking of the scores of parchment piles that have begun appearing. “Charlie on the other hand, only likes using certain colours. Something about making sure all the magical creatures are the right shade. Merlin knows he’s getting some use out of Scamander’s book as of late.” The book in question was the only one Charlie liked to read from when it came to bedtime, unlike his brother. If anything, it just made Arthur more curious about how their next baby would turn out.

“No bother, thanks for helping me out,” Arthur says, his tone bright. “I like them to pass the time. The Prophet one isn’t bad, but have you ever read The Times?” Arthur had only come across the Muggle newspaper here and there over the years, but he couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t fascinated with it; even if he could never quite work out all the clues. “Work and work?” He says, eyeing Alice pointedly. With brothers-in-law such as Fabian and Gideon, and his own clandestine participation in the Order, it wasn’t difficult to work out who else seemed to be a member of such a group. “We’re all good. Molly’s about ready to pop; mind, don’t tell her I phrased it like that. She thinks this one’ll be a girl, but I’m not sure if the Weasley curse is going to be broken anytime soon.”

Sticking both hands deep into the warm soapy water, Arthur finds himself simultaneously fishing about for the missing washcloth and trying not to get his own shirt anymore soaked than it currently was. He’d known it was a mistake to bathe Fred and George together from almost the instant he had plopped both squirming, naked toddlers into the tub, but he wasn’t sure he had wanted to risk trying to separate them. From the moment his identical sons had been born, they had remained at one another’s sides. If one woke up to feed, the other was mere minutes behind. When George had said his first word, Fred said his a day later. When Fred took his first steps, it was George who toddled soon after him.

As if knowing exactly what their father was thinking, both boys almost immediately began to kick their legs, splashing the warm water over the edge of the tub and all over Arthur’s trousers. How they managed to do such a thing with water that barely covered their round, baby bellies, Arthur didn’t know, but he was beyond questioning the capabilities of his children at this point. 

Giving into the inevitable soaking, Arthur wrestles the cloth from George’s sly grip and immediately attacks the little boy’s face, determined to remove every trace of gravy that had managed to glue itself to his skin. “Oi, stay still, Georgie,” Arthur says, voice soft as Fred blows bubbles beside his brother, “How’d you manage to get it in your eyebrows, hey?”

Behind him, he hears a familiar set of footsteps and without turning around, Arthur smiles, “How many books is Percy attempting to smuggle into his bed tonight?” 

“Could you promise I wasn’t going to get in trouble with Mollywobbles for it? And that my boys wouldn’t see it?

If so…yes. The nonsense he spouts…he’d deserve it.”

“I wouldn’t say my favourite brother-in-law was Fabian, as I’ve got a second brother-in-law who I like an awful lot as well. 

I could, however say my favourite brother-in-law was FabianandGideon together. In the pursuit of fairness and all.” 

“Have you been doing all your work in that, today?” Eyes focus on the bright smear of crayon across the paper, a smile on her face. She isn’t jealous of the Weasleys. She isn’t - they’re so kind, and their family is beautiful, and Alice just - wishes she wasn’t so afraid to try for something similar. The curse shouldn’t be a problem. She and Frank are both purebloods, but - there’s something quiet and nagging in the back of her mind every time she even thinks about it. The curse could change. Something could shift, and Alice isn’t willing to risk it.

Babysitting for Molly and Arthur will have to do, for now. They will end the curse. They will. And then, once it’s for sure safe, Alice can start a family. She smiles, moving to lean against the wall beside Arthur, peering over his shoulder to look at the word puzzle with a furrowed brow. Not her strong suit, but - “Twig, maybe?” She offers up with a shrug of a shoulder and a smile. It seems as likely as anything else.

Lifting his head from his paper at the sound of the familiar voice beside him, Arthur shoots Alice a wide smile before glancing back down at the crayon in his hand once more. “Hallo Mrs. Longbottom, fancy seeing you here,” he remarks cheerfully, “Just my crossword. Think one of the boys might’ve swapped out my quill when I wasn’t looking and I didn’t notice until now. Does the job though.” He turns the paper so that she can see the smeary blue letters that he has filled in already.

This many children into his life, Arthur saw little reason to really get upset about the little things. If his son using a quill meant that Arthur was stuck with a crayon for the day, he wasn’t about to let it bother him. If anything, he’d much rather his kids were happy far above his own comfort. “Twig could work,” he says, wrinkling his brow as he pencils the letters in, before folding the paper in half and sticking it in his pocket. “Thanks for that. How’ve you been?”

Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Arthur leans his back heavily on the bare stretch of wall, his newspaper clutched firmly in his grip. In one hand is a blue crayon rather than his quill, and he has an odd feeling that as soon as he gets home he’s likely to find at least one of his sons (one of the three who can reach the kitchen table, that is) has flinched it.

If he was a betting man, which he isn’t, he’d put at least two galleons, which he doesn't have, on it being Percy. 

Quill quarrels aside, Arthur thinks, it had been a good day. He only had a few hours of his shift left before he was able to take his leave, and he wasn’t expected to return for at least another two weeks. They’d miss the paycheck, of course, but they’d made do before, and Arthur would much rather have a few weeks away from work that he could spend with his sons and prepare for their new arrival more than anything else.

The Ministry would always be there, but how long would his kids stay young for?

Frowning at the blank squares in front of him, Arthur leans over to the figure beside him. “S’cuse me. Do you know a four-letter-word for a ‘narrow strip of wood’? Seems like ‘wand’ isn’t going to fit.”