#mcmoody

“I’m pregnant.”

Alastor can’t say for certain how long he’s been with Minerva now. It isn’t that he doesn’t care about the length of their relationship but because they’ve always been part of the other’s life. Would he consider the first time they kissed the starting date? Or the first time they met in the Gryffindor common room? Or that day they–the list goes on and on. So no, Alastor doesn’t fret that too much. It’s natural to find himself scrubbing at the dishes, soap bubbles clinging up to his elbows. He’d promised he’d do them by hand. Minerva has a thing about how clean things are and swears that spells don’t get the job done properly.

“Catch her!”

The man doesn’t have to ask what the called command meant. A moment after he’s been told, Alastor’s arms are dry enough to scoop the crawl-master Annabelle as she tries to wiz past the kitchen. He still holds a damp bowl in one hand as he tucks the girl into his hip and she gurgles into his face. “Oh yea’ y’ think y’ can get ‘way frum y’mum, eh?”

Instead of answering properly, the near two year old slaps a hand to his cheek and begins a chorus of bababababa. Alastor tries to snap at her fingers, making her pull her fingers back with a shrill squeal as he cries indignantly, “I ain’t bad. Yer th’ bad one. Shoulda never taught y’ t’ crawl.”

“It’s a natural part of child development, Alastor.” He just nearly refrains from sticking his tongue out at the woman who appears at his other elbow. Barely. But he doesn’t have time to form a better response.

“After all, you’ll have to deal with the crawling stage again soon. Seeing as I’m pregnant.”

Alastor swears the bowl in his left hand was too slick with water to keep a hold on. Really. So it has nothing to do with the succinct pronouncement of a second pregnancy that causes the bowl to fall from his fingers and crash with a loud shatter on the tiled kitchen floor. It slipped, is all. But it’s not Minerva he looks at as the bowl explodes into a million porcelain pieces. His little belle still doesn’t like loud sounds and his gaze holds on hers as she stop squirming and making noises, blinking as if she’s trying to decide what to do with the sudden crash. It’s when her little nose scrunches up and her lips curl at the corners that Alastor immediately begins to bounce where he stands and begins anew the bababa chorus back at her.

Minerva lets out a small chuckle as she rests her hand at his back and breathes into his ear. “You’ll do just fine, Alastor.”

Then she turns back to head down the hall and, with a rekindled Annabelle babbling her song at him and slapping his stubbled cheek, Alastor calls back, “O’ course I bloody will! Moody’s do mightae fine a’ everyt’in’!”

“You heard me. Take. It. Off.”

Alastor will curse everything for the next week if someone doesn’t remove the item of clothing right this instant.

“Excuse me?”

Jaws clenched, face flaming red, Alastor feels ready to burst. “You heard me. Take. It. Off.”

“Bu’ daddy looks so pretty!”

Minerva glances down at the dirty blonde head stood next to them both and then back up to the irate man. “Yes Alastor, you look positively radiant.”

Alastor’s glare could cow Voldemort himself but the woman remains unfazed, a twinkle of amusement in her eyes as she eyes him. He tells himself he will not start shouting. It would frighten Annabelle and it really isn’t anyone’s fault. Except his own.

“It’s cuttin’ me circulation.” If anyone considered his words too closely, they might say the intimidating Head Auror Moody was whining. “I ain’t wearin’ it t’ work.”

Annabelle frowns and Minerva won’t have any of that so instead she turns and rummages around in the trunk. Alastor hopes it’s a pair of scissors or a flamethrower. He had half a mind to send the four year old out of the room and burn it off himself. What Minerva pulls out instead makes the angry red blotches drain swiftly from his face.

“Pikcha, pikcha!” Annabelle hops up and down at the sight of the camera equipment.

“Bloody ‘ell,” Alastor mutters.

Minerva can’t quite put on her reprimanding face as she admonishes, “Language. Do this and then I’ll oblige in removing it for you before you absolutely have to leave for work.”

Her words brook no argument and at least it will be far better than having to wear it into the Ministry. He lets out a heavy sigh and does as he’s directed.

As of that day, a framed wizarding photo sits on Minerva McGonagall’s nightside table. In it, her second husband Alastor A. Moody stands with her daughter Annabelle in his arms. The girl’s fingers reach out and press into the corners of his lips, tugging them up into a comical misshapen toothy grin. Her silent giggles light up her face as the only father she’s ever known shifts uncomfortably in a bright pink tutu that gives off little glittery sparkles with every agitated shift of his hips.

“Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!”

The world was a blanket of glittering white stuff. It had crept in silently in the night and Alastor stands at the kitchen window with a cup of tea warming between his hands as he considers how deep it must be. He really should take the other tea cup up to Minerva. She’s come down any minute now wondering what he was up to. After all he’d been the one to insist she have a lie-in after the false contractions she’d had the previous night.

So tea.

But snow.

The idea forms in his mind as he turns away from the window and a wicked little grin perches on his lips as he sets his own cup down next to the other one, both trailing curtails of steam that entwine themselves. Opening the back door, Alastor stoops down and drags his palm into the freezing water matter before returning to grab the two cups and balance them in his free hand up the flight of stairs down the hall to where his lovely wife is.

“Tea fer y’, hot an’ ready t’ scare off th’ chill.”

Standing in the doorway, he stops until she turns over to face him. The look on her face when she spies the round ball of snow in his hand is comical. Alastor reminds himself to save it to play back later when he’s been relegated to Minerva’s furious silence. It will pay dearly but it’s worth it just for that expression.

“Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!”

The ball flies and smacks the woman in the chest, the bits of scattered snow slipping down the front of her nightgown. Alastor can’t stop the bellows of laughter that burst free of him. She looks like a miffed cat, soaking with the wetness of melted snow and shivering slightly as the chill of the stuff seeps into her skin. Of course he doesn’t forget the tea and quickly crosses the room to set her’s at her bedside, made just to her liking already. “Love y’,” he offers with a swift kiss to her forehead before backing out of range. Cat or human, her nails are sharp and he won’t be caught by them.

“Alastor!”

Her cry follows after him as he takes his cup of tea and scampers out of the room.