Questions and Answers

little_bird

Story Summary:
What happens when the past collides with the present and threatens to cast the Potters' and Weasleys' lives into disarray...

Chapter 28 - Mind the Gap

Posted:
07/29/2010
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1,853


Harry sat at his desk, cursing the amount of paperwork that never seemed to lessen and hadn't in the more than ten years he'd been the Head of his department. He had taken to bringing it home with him on Saturdays, just so he didn't have to stay late every night to complete it. He hated that it took time away from Ginny and Lily on Saturday, but he could usually finish it by lunch time if he got up early enough. Lately, he was having trouble concentrating on it. Looking through the files of people who couldn't find their way past a bad idea with a map and a direction spell kept sending him into the depths of his own psyche. Self-reflection had never been one of his favorite activities. It was like probing a gaping wound with a sharp stick most of the time.

He was the first to admit his own bad behavior had sent the dinner with Dudley and Aaron into a tailspin. Treating anything Dudley said or did with a large amount of skepticism was a habit, and one that Harry acknowledged he hadn't tried very hard to change. Harry looked at the stack of parchment in front of him and shoved it aside, resting his head on the desk. The sound of the mobile buzzing made him jerk his head away from the desk and blurt a few words that he normally didn't use. Not out loud, at any rate. He snatched up the mobile just as it stopped vibrating. 'One missed call,' he mumbled. He hoped it wasn't Lily's history teacher. She was a nice enough lady, but the weekly telephone calls were a bit much for him. The mobile began to buzz again, and Harry glanced down at the screen. It was Dudley. He hesitated for a moment, before flipping it open. Ginny had told him what Dudley had said, about them taking things back to where they used to be. 'Hello...?'

*****

Dudley ran his hands through his hair in frustration. Neither he, nor Aaron had slept in days. She just wouldn't stop crying. She was dry. She had been fed. They'd done the bouncy walk up and down the sitting room countless times. Dudley had fallen asleep yesterday in class while his students were taking a test. Aaron hadn't shaved in three days and the amount of facial hair he could produce in such a short amount of time was impressive. 'Sarah, please, stop crying...' Aaron ground out wearily. 'I'll give you a pony. I'll even give you my bloody car at this point.' He stopped in the middle of the sitting room, jiggling Sarah. 'My mum always told me I'd get it in spades one day for being a difficult child...' he remarked.

'I'm calling Harry,' Dudley said, reaching for his mobile.

'Why him?' Aaron asked warily.

'Because Muriel and Saffron adopted a three-year old, not a baby. And Elizabeth is at her husband's parents' place in Brighton this weekend. Harold is a hermit on weekends and won't answer his telephone if it's not his wife. Plus, his kid plays footie on Saturdays. Harry's the only other person I know who's had kids and can get here soon...' Dudley began to scroll through the list for Harry's number. 'And I'm getting desperate.' He punched the button to dial the number, and looked at Aaron. 'And so are you...'

'Fine...' Aaron grumbled, resuming his endless loop across the sitting room with Sarah.

'Please pick up,' Dudley breathed. 'Please pick up...' When Harry's mobile went to the voicemail, Dudley took a deep breath and dialed again.

'Hello?' Harry's voice said uncertainly.

'Harry! I'm so glad you picked up!'

Harry's face knit in confusion. 'Okay...'

'Can you come over? Please?' Dudley asked, the misery evident in his voice.

'What for?' Harry winced as a particularly discordant screech drowned out Dudley's reply. 'What was that?'

'The reason we need you to come over... Harry, please, I'm begging you. I haven't slept in three days...'

'Is that a baby?'

'Yes...' Dudley began to walk next to Aaron, patting Sarah on her back. 'It's a long story...'

Harry sighed and pulled the mobile away from his ear, giving it a perplexed frown. 'I'll be there in half an hour.'

'Thank you,' Dudley said breathlessly.

'Yeah...' Harry ended the call and put the mobile down. 'Ginny!' He got up from his chair. 'Ginny!'

'What?' she called back irritably. She was sorting through James' outgrown clothing, a rather lengthy process considering James never threw anything out.

Harry ran up the stairs. 'I'm going out...'

Ginny stopped in the midst of folding a pair of jeans. 'Where? The weather's horrible today.'

Harry heaved a sigh. 'Dudley just rang. He needs some help with something.'

'And he rang you?' Ginny asked dubiously.

Harry nodded. 'I'm sure I was the last person on his list. I'll send word if I'm going to be late.' He went into their bedroom to change from his ratty pajama bottoms and sweatshirt.

*****

Dudley hung up the mobile with a sigh of relief. 'He's coming.' He took Sarah from Aaron and began to pace around the sitting room, while Aaron sagged into an armchair.

'I hope he knows what he's doing,' Aaron groaned, rubbing his temples.

'At this point, between the three of us, he's the expert,' Dudley pointed out.

'I suppose...'

The doorbell rang, and Aaron sprang up to open the door, revealing a very confused Harry. 'Hi... Dudley said something about a baby...?' Harry asked.

'Yeah.' Aaron stepped aside to let Harry in the flat. 'He's in there with her,' he told Harry, pointing to the sitting room.

Feeling more and more bewildered, Harry followed the sounds of angry wailing. Dudley was doggedly trudging from one end of the sitting room to the other, wearily patting the back of a fuzzy pink sleepsuit-clad baby. 'I'm about to ask a very stupid question,' Harry warned. 'But whose baby is that?'

'Ours.' Dudley glanced at Harry over his shoulder. 'We're adopting her. It was between us and some other couple in... Where were they, Aaron?'

'Bloomsbury,' Aaron supplied.

'Right. Bloomsbury.' He shifted Sarah to his other shoulder. 'It's one of those things where the mum meets a few couples and decides who she wants to let adopt the baby. And for some barmy reason, she thought Aaron and I would be good at this.' Sarah's wails increased in volume momentarily. 'But for the last week, we've been nothing but rubbish at it,' he concluded helplessly. 'Oh, this is Sarah,' he said, tilting his head at the baby.

'And I'm here because...?'

'Well, you've done this before,' Dudley stated. 'We've got all those bloody books, and they all say something different...'

'And we're both ready to start crying ourselves,' added Aaron.

Harry held his arms out to Dudley. 'May I?' Dudley laid Sarah into Harry's outstretched arms. 'Wotcher, Sarah,' Harry murmured. 'Are you hungry?' Sarah hiccupped and began to whimper.

'She's been fed; she's got a clean nappy on...' Dudley sighed. 'We tried that swaddling thing, but I couldn't get it set up right.'

'They threw rather a lot of information at us at the hospital,' Aaron admitted. 'We brought her home with us last Saturday, and Monday she just started crying when she's awake.' He scrubbed a hand over his face.

Harry soothingly rubbed the small back under his hand. 'Got a blanket nearby? Lily wouldn't settle down unless she was swaddled to the point of immobility until she was six months old. Ginny and I got really good at it.'

Dudley disappeared and returned with a gingham-patterned flannel blanket. Harry draped it over the sofa and laid the still-whimpering Sarah on it. He tightly wrapped the blanket around her, ignoring the astonished looks on Dudley and Aaron's faces.

'Aren't you being a bit rough with her?' Aaron asked anxiously.

'You should see my mother-in-law do this,' Harry snorted. 'The first time she did it to Teddy, my godson, I nearly fainted. I thought his head was going to fall off.' He finished tucking the blanket around Sarah, and lifted her off the sofa. Her whimpers were getting softer and softer. 'There... That's better then, eh?'

Dudley stared at Harry, cuddling Sarah. 'How the hell did you do that?' he blurted.

Harry shrugged. 'Babies sense tension sometimes. James would do this. Cry for hours with Gin, and I'd take him from her and ten minutes later he'd be asleep. Made her nutters. She was convinced she was a bad mother for three months.' Harry glanced at the two men slumped against each other. 'It helped that I hadn't been dealing with him all day like she had,' he said apologetically. 'It's not anything you've been doing or haven't been doing.' He rubbed Sarah's back gently. 'I can stay with her, if you two want to get out for a bit. Go take a walk or something.'

'I don't know...' Dudley said.

'I have fifteen nieces and nephews,' Harry said. 'Plus a godson that I helped raise practically from his birth. Not to mention three children of my own. She'll be okay.'

'It would be nice to get out for few minutes... To look at something besides these four walls...' Aaron wheedled.

'Trust me,' Harry said. 'Do now while you've got the chance.'

Dudley looked at Aaron, who was pleading silently with his large dark eyes. 'Thirty minutes,' he said finally.

'I'll take it,' Aaron said quickly before Dudley could change his mind. He watched Harry rock Sarah for a few moments, while Dudley found a clean jumper. 'Thanks. For coming.'

'Sure.'

Aaron leaned a little closer. 'Does this make us bad parents?' he whispered.

'No.' Harry shifted Sarah slightly. 'You have to get out occasionally. Ginny and I used to foist ours off on her parents every so often. It was the only way we stayed sane.'

'We're not leaving her with my parents,' Dudley stated flatly, pulling a jumper over his head, as he walked into the sitting room. 'She doesn't need a complex before the age of two.' He took Aaron's hand. 'Ready?'

'Yeah. Sarah's room is down the corridor. Second door on the right. There's a rocking chair in there, and some bottles are in the refrigerator,' Aaron said. Harry nodded, as he settled in the armchair with Sarah. 'We won't be long.'

They left the flat, leaving Harry alone with Sarah. She blinked at him in a bemused sort of way that reminded him of the way Al had looked at him as a baby. 'Hi. I'm your... Uh... I guess he's your dad, isn't he...? I'm his cousin, Harry.' He stroked her soft cheek with a finger. 'He's an all right bloke, your dad. He and I used to not get on so well. Actually, we didn't get on at all for a long time. We're not getting on very well right now,' Harry admitted ruefully. 'It's not because of anything he's done recently. Really, he's been rather friendly for a long time now. And I can't let go to something he did over twenty years ago. How stupid is that?' Sarah yawned widely. 'Right. I agree. It's pretty idiotic. The 'new' Dudley didn't fit the memory of him that I had for my entire life when he looked me up. And I didn't want to be bothered to try. It was easier to keep my distance than try and meet him halfway.' Sarah blinked at him a few times. 'Yeah. Just don't tell my wife, all right? She's usually right about these sorts of things and she'll never let me hear the end of it.'

*****

Ginny spit a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink, eyeing Harry. He'd been in a somewhat pensive mood since returning from Dudley's earlier. 'Are you sure you're feeling all right?' she asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time that evening.

Harry was perched on the edge of the bathtub, brushing his teeth. 'Mmm-hmmm.' He craned forward to spit out the toothpaste foam. 'I'm fine.'

Ginny tossed her toothbrush into the cup near the sink and shrugged. 'If you say so.' She went into the bedroom, and turned back the quilt, climbing into bed. She picked up her book and settled back to read, only a fraction of her attention on the words in front of her. The rest of it followed Harry into the bed, where he lay staring up at the ceiling.

'Have you ever thought about having another baby?' he asked suddenly.

Ginny jerked in surprise. 'Excuse me?' Her book fell to the floor with a papery thump.

'Another baby,' Harry repeated. 'It might be nice to have another one.'

'Have you lost your bleeding mind?' Ginny inquired sarcastically. 'No, wait, don't answer that...'

'It's just an idea,' Harry said defensively.

'It's a horrible idea,' Ginny retorted. 'One, Lily's going to start school in September. We'd have to start all over again. Two, we're much closer to forty than thirty. Don't you remember how exhausting it all was? And we were a lot younger then.'

'It wasn't that bad,' he murmured.

'Well, it'll be even worse now. If I got pregnant right now, by the time the baby's born, you'll be thirty-nine, and I'll be thirty-eight. We're barely able to keep up with Lily as it is. And as old as I am in terms of fertility, it could take months. Maybe even years. And it's much more dangerous for me to have a baby now that it was when we had James, Al, and Lily.' Harry still looked unconvinced. Ginny drew a deep breath. She'd hoped she wouldn't have to say this. 'And then there's the matter of that little procedure we had done after Lily was born...'

Harry snorted. 'What do you mean by we? I don't recall seeing you get snipped.'

'Okay, fine. You. Git,' Ginny muttered.

'That procedure's reversible,' Harry stated. 'Shanti said so.'

'Remind me have a word with her later...' Ginny massaged her temples for a few minutes. 'Why do you want to have another baby all of a sudden? I thought you were happy with the way things were.'

'I am. I guess.' Harry rolled over to his side, his hand resting on Ginny's stomach. 'Dudley and Aaron adopted a baby. Well, they're in the process of doing it. They needed some help getting her to settle down. Her name's Sarah,' he said, glancing up at her. 'She quieted down, and I sent them out to take a walk. They looked like they'd been hit by a lorry.'

'Things are going that well, then?' Ginny was astonished. 'I'm impressed.'

Harry chuckled. 'Yeah. I told them when Al was born; we looked like we'd been hit by freight trains.' He shifted so Ginny lay beneath him, his weight propped on his elbows. His head dipped so he could kiss her.

'Why didn't he call his mother?'

'Which one?'

'Either of them.'

Harry's lips trailed down the side of Ginny's face. 'Hmmm. Well, Aaron's mum and dad moved to Australia five years ago.' He continued over her collarbone. 'And neither of them wants to leave Sarah alone with Petunia.'

'That's probably a wise decision,' Ginny agreed.

Harry brushed his mouth over Ginny's. 'It was just nice to be around a baby...'

'Wait a few years,' Ginny began. 'Teddy'll make something of a grandfather out of you soon enough and you can play with a baby all afternoon, then send him home with his parents.'

'Why? What do you know?' Harry sat up.

'No more than you do,' Ginny said soothingly. 'It's just that he and Vic have been inseparable since the end of her fourth year.'

'Thanks, Gin. I thought I'd managed to forget that whole incident.' Harry squirmed with embarrassment, remembering the very uncomfortable conversation with Teddy when he came home for the Easter holiday.

'I rather thought it was quite enough to put Teddy off sex for years,' teased Ginny.

'We can only hope,' Harry muttered. 'But back to Ted and Vic... It's not a foregone conclusion for those two.'

'No. But it's awfully close.' Ginny pulled Harry back down to her. 'You know... James is getting close to that age.'

'Oh, God, don't remind me,' groaned Harry. 'We're both doing that one. The sooner, the better.'

'Right,' Ginny smirked. 'Because you're hoping every time he even thinks about getting into some girl's knickers, he gets a mental image of his mum using a banana to teach him how to use a condom correctly?'

Harry nodded. 'I didn't even know my mum, and honestly, if she had done that when I was James' age, the night you came to my flat on your birthday, I wouldn't have laid a hand on you.'

'I find that hard to believe,' Ginny said dryly.

'Well, all right. I would have laid a hand on you,' he conceded. He began to wind a lock of Ginny's hair around his finger. 'You were right,' he admitted softly. 'About Dudley. I didn't want to believe that he had changed as much as he said. It was just easier...'

'What changed?'

Harry sighed and lifted one of Ginny's hands to his lips. He pressed a kiss to her palm before replying, 'Watching him with Sarah.'

*****

Scorpius carefully drew a line down the center of his face and began to fill in one side with bright scarlet face paint. He stuck the stylized 'G' superimposed with a rampant lion on the other cheek. It was a new product from Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes. The small kit held enough face paint for a single application and a temporary tattoo of the team's logo. The paint and tattoo were charmed to wear off after a few hours. So far, they only had the four Hogwarts teams, but Jacob, Fred, and Rose claimed if response was good, their fathers were thinking of expanding the product line to include the Quidditch teams of Britain and Ireland, and the national teams of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

He ran down the spiral staircase to the common room and met Sophie, Nicky, and Alex, each sporting similar designs on their faces. 'Come on,' Sophie said, tugging on his hand. 'All the good seats will be taken if we don't get down to the pitch soon.'

'Sophie's going to play professionally like Aunt Ginny,' Nicky said brightly.

'If she doesn't get hit by too many Bludgers before then,' added Alex, earning himself a hard shove from Sophie.

'Get hit with less than Fred does,' she sniffed disdainfully. 'And I can aim the Bludger better than either of them.'

'You don't hit it very hard, though,' Nicky argued.

'Don't have to,' Sophie snorted. 'It's all about placement.'

'Have you been watching the tennis at Wimbledon again?' sighed Alex. 'It's not about power, it's about placement,' he mimicked.

'Shut it, you,' Sophie hissed.

'Girls, girls, girls, you're all pretty...' Scorpius muttered. 'Lay off Sophie. She's pretty damn good, you know.'

'Thank you,' Sophie said loftily.

'Oh, sure...' muttered Alex. 'Keep saying stuff like that and her head won't fit her hat come winter.'

Scorpius rolled his eyes, as they climbed the stairs to the stand where several Gryffindors already waited for the game to begin. He shaded his eyes against the weak glare of the early April sunshine and scanned the benches for a large enough space for the four of them to sit. A gaily striped head in scarlet and gold caught his eye and he began to wave energetically. 'Teddy!' he called. 'Teddy!'

Teddy grinned and motioned for the four children to come sit with him. He pushed his Muggle sunglasses on top of his head as they settled on the bench on either side of him. 'Decided what you're doing for Easter yet?'

'Probably going to stay here,' Scorpius said with a small shrug. 'I can get some studying done.'

'Holidays are not for studying. Not until your fifth year.' Teddy pulled a card from his pocket and squinted at the small print. 'Hmmm. I've got morning shifts that week. If you want, you can come stay with me.'

'Did Rosie put you up to that?' Scorpius couldn't keep the suspicion out of his voice.

'No.' Teddy tucked the card back into the back pocket of his jeans. 'I can pick you up from the train Saturday evening, and we can go stay with Gran. She can take you to the Burrow for Sunday lunch, and I'll pick you up from there when my shift is done. The rest of the week I can drop you off at Harry and Ginny's during the day, and we can have dinner with them.' Teddy glanced down at his cousin. 'If you want.'

'That's an awful lot of trouble...' Scorpius said doubtfully.

'Or you can go to Harry and Ginny's. And I can come round for dinner during the week. They don't mind having you there, mate.'

Scorpius exhaled noisily. 'I'll think about it.'

'Good enough.'

The voice of the announcer, a Slytherin student who was actually quite impartial when it came to covering the games, rang out over the pitch, as he introduced the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff teams, and the current point totals for the Quiddditch Cup. The Slytherins were in dead last. Their Seeker was so bad, it had become a game to try and find the Snitch before he did. Albus had earned quite a bit of pocket money the last Slytherin game when he managed to find it in less than five minutes, a full hour before either team's Seeker did. It was almost spooky the way he could pinpoint the Snitch's location. And all the better for Fred, who had an ongoing bet with Parker over the match for the past four years. Fred was saving up for a new broom. Every Galleon helped.

*****

Gryffindor won handily and the party in the common room lasted until the wee hours of the early morning. It only wound down when Neville barged through the portrait hole at three in the morning and told them in no uncertain terms if anyone was still in the common room in ten minutes, they'd get a month of detentions in the Potions classroom and the hospital wing. The students hastily headed for their dormitories, knowing Neville might look and act mild-mannered, but he didn't tolerate it when students disobeyed him. The detentions would be messy, since they usually involved scrubbing things the Muggle way.

Scorpius staggered into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He was buzzing from too much butterbeer and chocolate. Traces of scarlet paint still clung stubbornly to his hair, and he ducked his entire head into the sink to wash it out. He knew from prior experience that if he didn't do that, there would be paint all over his pillow. For some reason, the fading charm didn't work on hair. He walked back into the dormitory, rubbing his dripping hair with a towel. He climbed into bed, and just before he drew the curtains around the bed closed, he looked at Al, still fizzing from the game. 'Are you sure it will be all right with your parents if I come at Easter?'

Al was bouncing slightly on the mattress. 'Course it is...'

Scorpius picked up his worn teddy and worried one of its ears between his fingers. 'Will you write to them?'

'Uh-huh.' Al was beginning to slow down perceptibly. 'We're so going to miss breakfast,' he giggled.

'Rosie won't,' Sebastian piped up. 'You can almost set a watch by when she gets hungry. Never seen a girl eat like that,' he said admiringly. 'My sister picks at everything.'

'Your sister's weird,' Anil yawned. 'I walked by the Ravenclaw table one morning and she was counting out pieces of cereal to eat.'

'My sister won't eat anything that remotely tastes good,' grumbled Sebastian. 'Might as well be eating twigs and grass...'

'All right, everyone, go to sleep!' A seventh-year prefect stuck his head into the second-year boy's dormitory. 'It's not a sleepover, mind you. We don't want to start taking away points.'

'Okay, okay...' grumbled Al, sliding down into his four-poster. 'We'll write to Mum and Dad in the morning... Or whenever we wake up... Whichever comes first...' He trailed off as he fell asleep.

*****

Scorpius stumbled off the train, slinging his knapsack over his shoulder, following Al toward whichever parent had come to collect them from the station. 'Hiya, Mum!' called James. 'Lily didn't come with you?' he asked in surprise.

'I had to come down and file a story for the paper tomorrow,' Ginny explained. 'Lily's at the house with your dad.'

'Are we Apparating?' Al asked with a moue of distaste. He wasn't exactly a fan of Apparition.

'Nope. Brought the car. I may be crazy, but not crazy enough to Side-Along three of you at once.'

'Dibs on the front!' shouted James, racing to the barrier.

'And you're how old?' Al asked scornfully.

James shrugged. 'At least I'm tall enough that I don't get mistaken for an ickle firstie, like some people I know,' he said pointedly to his brother.

Al peered at James' face. 'What's that on your nose...?'

James' eyes widened. 'What?' His hand flew up to feel his nose.

'Ah. My mistake. It's just your face.' Al ducked as James aimed a slap at the back of his head.

'That's it!' Ginny said exasperatedly. 'Scorpius gets the front and the two of you will have to cope with the back.' She led them through the barrier. 'And you're lucky that I don't drop you off at Teddy's and make you try to survive a week on his cooking!'

'Mum!' gasped James. 'That's just mean!'

'I'll do it, too.' Ginny walked out of the station and headed toward the car in the car park. She opened the back and instructed the boys to put their bags inside. It was going to be a long week.