Framing the world

“Hey, my baby,” Harry said, pressing a kiss to his hair. “Were you good for Mummy and Aunt Luna?”

“No, he wasn’t,” Teddy called from beside the fireplace, not taking his eyes off his book. The eight-year-old grinned anyway. “He screamed the roof off at bath time.”

“And I suppose you were a lot better?” Harry asked, sounding amused, an eyebrow raised skeptically.

“I was!” Teddy nodded enthusiastically.

“Uh huh. How about you tell me what you did?”

Jamie and Teddy gabbled on cheerfully, Harry nodding solemnly as though he could understand every single word. Ginny smiled at the sight, feeling tears sting at her eyes.

Oh no. She hated pregnancy hormones.

Harry set Jamie next to Teddy, who instantly abandoned his book in favour of entertaining his little brother. Jamie laughed gleefully when Ted tickled him.

Ginny raised her arms tiredly when Harry came over to her, and they kissed languidly, for once not being interrupted by children or her annoying brothers (though she often thought and said those were one and the same).

“And how is my amazing daughter?” Harry asked, hand coming up to caress her belly.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “I’ve told you, Potter, he’s a boy.”

“Yes!” Teddy called. “I want another godbrother!”

Harry had that exasperated, withering look which struck fear in the hearts of criminals and made his family laugh at the snark to follow. “What, so you have someone else to blame for stealing cookies from the jar when you do it?”

“He could just as easily blame Surtiyem for it even if they were a girl,” Ginny said amusedly as Teddy’s hair turned pink in confession.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Okay, whichever gender the baby is, we’re not going to name them Surtiyem.”

Ginny smirked. They both knew she had no intention of actually using that name. “And how are you going to stop me? I’ll have the name on the birth certificate before you know it.”

“As I recall, you were high on pain potions when Jamie was born.” He grinned. “No way you’d be able to write something legible.”

She huffed. “It’d be more legible than your chicken scratch—”

“Mama!” Jamie called, and both adults’ attention immediately went to the children. “Eddy!”

“He wants my book,” Teddy grumbled. “But what if he tears it? What if he—” He caught himself. “It’s mine.” He insisted fiercely.

Ginny caught Harry’s eye. The book had been found by Harry in Remus’ cottage, which had been left to him in the will. It was a children’s story book, and Teddy had been fascinated with it ever since learning whom it had belonged to. She certainly couldn’t fault him for it. But how was she to explain that to a barely three-year-old?

Harry went over and crouched in front of the boys. “Jamie, would you like it if Teddy suddenly just wanted one of your toys?”

Jamie shook his head stubbornly.

“Then can you understand why Ted doesn’t want you to touch his book?”

There was a pause, and the infant reluctantly nodded.

“Good boy.” Harry ruffled his hair. “But Teddy, you can hold it and still let Jamie see, yes? It’s yours, and so you don’t have to agree, but sharing things with your brother—”

“Is necessary,” Teddy completed resignedly. “’Kay, Harry.”

He reluctantly showed Jamie the pictures, and when he cooed over them excitedly, Teddy began to warm up to the idea of showing James the book. Harry stayed for a couple of minutes, watching carefully for any trouble, eyes full of affection, before pressing kisses to both of their heads and coming back to Ginny.

“Well well, Mr Potter,” She murmured. “You as a dad is hot.”

Harry grinned. “Thanks, Mrs Potter.” He frowned suddenly. “I heard something like that in the office. DIFF, or something?”

Ginny pressed her lips together in an attempt to stifle her laughter. “DILF, you mean?”

“Yeah!” He said proudly. “What does that mean?”

Leaning over, she whispered the full-form in his ear, careful to make sure the kids weren’t eavesdropping. Teddy had developed quite the vocabulary of swear words from the lot of them, and Jamie worshipped the ground he walked on and would definitely copy.

“What?!” He exclaimed. Ginny completely lost control, subsiding into giggles. “Who – I – in the office—” He looked flustered.

“You know, it’s sad that you still think you’re not the most desirable person alive—” she said conversationally. “You’d think after winning Witch Weekly’s Sexiest Wizard and Winner of ‘Wish He Wasn’t Married’ twice in a row you’d know that—”

“Hey, I had Undesirable Number One plastered across my face everywhere for a year, that takes its toll,” Harry said indignantly. “I found one of those old posters in Gawain’s office recently, hilariously enough. It brings up memories!”

She clicked her tongue. “Stop making excuses, Potter. You just keep making them one after the other—”

He laughed throatily, pressing his forehead to hers. “Well, I’ve always been a one-woman man, Weasley. Reason enough?”

“Just another excuse.” But she couldn’t help smiling, and she leaned up with difficulty to kiss him.

“Is this one of the things where Uncle Ron pretends to gag and vomit when he sees you?” Teddy asked interestedly.

They broke apart, smiling wryly. It was very hard to get a good romantic moment with kids needing attention every other minute.

“Something like that, Ted,” he said.

“Unca Ron?” Jamie asked, looking excitedly around for his godfather.

“Jamie,” Ginny said solemnly. “Promise me you’ll never listen to stuff Uncle Ron says and betray me like Teddy did.”

Jamie looked confused. Teddy crossed his arms and pouted. “Not a ‘trayal!” He insisted. “Harry said it was sorta right! The real betrayal would’ve been wearing Cannon orange instead of Holly green,” he said, pointing at his dark green hair, pleased.

“Oh yeah. You ever do that, you’re disowned, Teddy Bear.” Ginny said gravely.

Teddy looked supremely unconcerned. “You might, but Granma won’t.”

“Besides, that’s your hair colour, Gin,” Harry pointed out idly, his arm around her waist. “Would you say having ginger hair is a betrayal? Now,” his voice dropped very low. “What we did in your locker room last year on the other hand. . .”

“Harry James Potter!” Ginny shrieked, trying to hide her laughter. She remembered the locker room fiasco. Her teammates were a bunch of voyeurs.

James looked up inquiringly. “Not you, Jamie. Your dad’s just being an idiot.” Ginny told him.

“And you’re both being disgusting,” Teddy said, in an amazing reproduction of Percy’s loftiest tone.

Ginny could pick out in Teddy so many tiny bits of the people she loved: there was the way he laughed, tilted his head when he thought and sat, exactly the way Remus had; seeing the way he scrunched his nose up was like seeing Tonks again; his questioning eyebrow raise, the covering of a smile as though it weren’t allowed and scornful look were exact copies of Harry; and the way he furrowed his eyebrows together when he read was all Hermione.

Even in physical appearance. Whatever colour his hair might be, it was always the wild Potter hair. His eyes were perpetually the same shade as Harry’s. His nose was long and freckled like Ron’s. His aristocratic Black jawline was identical to Tonks’, Andromeda’s and Sirius’. His giant ears were ditto to George’s. The thing was that Ginny didn’t think any of those were on purpose. There wasn’t much study about metamorphmagi, but she thought they subconsciously based looks (other than eyes and hair which were obvious) on the people they looked up to. And Ginny found it both happy and indescribably sad that his looks were such an amalgamation of different people rather than majorly Tonks and Remus, the way it should have been.

Still. She had learned since the war to take the small joys where they came, even if it was with bittersweet sadness.

Harry checked the old grandfather clock across the hall. “Sure thing, big guy. Bedtime’s soon. Go get your overnight bag from Andromeda’s.”

“Bedtime?” Jamie asked in a whimper, sounding like all the horrors of the world were contained in that single word. “No! Wanna stay.”

Ginny kissed Harry’s cheek and went and scooped her son up in her arms. “Sorry, kiddos. When we say it’s bedtime, it’s bedtime.”

“We’re the bosses,” Harry added, throwing his legs up on the couch.

“TYRANNY!” Teddy howled like it was a deeply moving war cry.

“Are you and Hermione doing that advanced reading thing again?” Harry said, sounding exasperated. “Didn’t we decide to pause on that?”

“But the school story books are booooring,” Teddy whined.

“And I’ve told you, once you get your science grade up to the mark, we’ll reconsider the—”

“Harry,” Ginny interrupted, Jamie yawning in her arms. “Maybe tomorrow?” She nudged her head toward the calendar and saw realization flit across her husband’s face. It was the full moon. Effects on Teddy varied from moon to moon, but he always became easily irritable and incredibly tired. It wasn’t a good day for this confrontation, though she certainly agreed Teddy couldn’t be allowed to skip ahead in one subject while ignoring all the others.

“Good idea,” Harry let the topic go, instead jabbing his wand at the fireplace to make the flames go higher and crouching next to Teddy. “Hey, how about we cuddle on the couch and you read to me until you fall asleep? We can continue the discussion tomorrow.”

“I’m a big boy, I don’t cuddle,” Teddy insisted, though he clearly wanted to. Ginny watched, smiling.

“But I need it. Mission was hard, Ted,” he said, and though it was playful, she saw genuine exhaustion on his face. She made a note to coax a rant out of him later. That always made him feel better.

Teddy stared up at him with wide eyes. “Okay. You got the bad guys?”

“Every single one of them,” Harry promised, the words coming across a lot heavier to her than to Teddy. He looked up and smiled softly at her, breaking the solemnity. “Gin? Joining us?”

Ginny hesitated. She ought to put Jamie to bed and set up the monitoring charms.

“Pwease, mumma?” Jamie said beseechingly.

“Maybe just this once,” she conceded, and all three males cheered. She sat on the couch, putting her legs up. Jamie crawled from her lap to Harry’s, and Teddy snuggled against her shoulder. Harry wrapped an arm around her waist, and the two of them exchanged a happy look over their sons’ heads.

“Ever thought you’d get here?” She asked in a whisper, as Jamie and Teddy argued about the story choice.

He laughed. “Never,” he confessed. “But I couldn’t be happier.”

She blinked the happy tears from her eyes, resting a hand on her stomach. An amazing career. Her incredible infuriating and yet reliable family. Her many friends. Her three beloved boys, plus another child coming.

She remembered watching Luna play the piano once. Her friend had commented that the harmony of the way she played matched her mother’s – that there was no better peace than with the memory of someone you love.

Ginny felt that harmony every time she looked at Harry. And she couldn’t be gladder for it.

He put it pretty well.

To run.

To run with her.

But Marlene couldn't do that.

She aggressively wiped another tear that made it down her cheek. There was some soft shuffling from Sirius' side, he reached for a cigarette, and waited for her to light it.

"I know", he said, his voice very sober, too sober for how much alcohol he already had.

"Bulshit", she said, dropping the lighter into her lap.

"Trust me, I know", he looked right through her, those grey eyes piercing through her soul. Marlene held eye contact with him. They shared a small telepathic conversation with each other.

And she wanted to believe him, she really did. "What about your moon?" she asked, her voice raspy because of the alcohol (not becouse of the crying because Marlene doesn't cry).

Sirius tilted his head to the side and exhaled the smoke he had been holding in his mouth. “The moon will never replace the sun.”

She moved her head, finding a spot on his shoulder. She curled closer as he finished the cigarette "I'm happy for them", she whispered.