#tabbycatmcgonagall

[owl] Given how often Mr Potter makes his missus life a bit of hell, I’m sure she could do with a holiday from him herself. But you may have a point. Those brats find every solution to hound us, no matter where they are. I propose we put our wiles together and come up with a solution for the lot of them. Surely between our minds, we can teach them a grand lesson. - Alastor

[owl]

How’s about we shove the lot in some little holding cell at the bottom of the Ministry and be done with the lot of them? Then we’ll go visit your ocean and won’t be able to hear their pitiful pleas and false promises to behave. Sounds like a far better use of our time than putting up with their tomfoolery. - Alastor

[owl] They’re immune to barks it would seem. Likely will have to get my wand on them next. Seeing as you’re busy with the school, I’ll handle them my own way. Unless you want to mingle with the boys who already made your days madness and you can take over whipping them into shape. I know you don’t always agree with my personal methods. - Alastor

[owl] Seen it, been bothered by it. Might be a menace of the area. Keep an eye out for it. And how kind of you to let me take all the Order madness for myself. I’m sure there’s something I could need you for. These children are making a muck of things, I swear. - Alastor Moody

[owl]

A black dog, you say? Rather large and shaggy coat? I haven’t a clue what to do about the high ones or the endless parchment. That sounds like a personal problem. But if you’re looking for Order work, there’s always something to be doing there. You could put that black dog out of its misery for one thing.

Alastor Moody

“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’re the only one I trust to do this.”

Aislinn Collins found it hard to breath.  

“You’re the only one I trust to do this,” Ash said as she turned to look at Minerva McGonagall.  “Tell me truthfully.  How do I look?”  

Ash was wearing a long romantic styled white dress.  It’s soft material clung delicately to Ash’s petite body and fell to the floor so that you couldn’t even see her feet as it pooled around her and ended in a train.  There was a delicate wreath of white and pale yellow flowers atop Ash’s head, and the attached veil flowed over her long brown hair and down her back.  

Aislinn’s teeth worried her matte red lips, getting a smear of lipsticks on them.  The bride to be was nervous.  What the hell was she thinking?  She couldn’t get married.  She was Aislinn Collins, destined to be alone with her books and potions and cat.  She still didn’t know what her fiancé saw in her.  Why had he asked her to marry him and even more importantly why had she said yes?  

“I can’t do this…” Ash announced, shaking her head as it became even harder to breath.  

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat.  Just like that, Ash’s mentor had the ability to still Ash’s fretting.  McGonagall approached Aislinn and handed her a napkin.  

“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.