Fic: Sleepy Days
Title: Sleepy Days
Author: jobey_in_error
Rating & Warnings: Disney levels of G. I'm not sure that carol Tonks is singing is the most PC though...
Prompt(s): carols
Format & Word Count: Ficlet, 628.
Summary: Please disregard past and future horrors. Their biggest problem right now is getting Teddy down for the night.
Author’s Notes: Sorry I could only manage something short and faux-Christmassy and foreshadowy of the dual-deaths-that-shall-not-be-named! Also, my apologies to Andromeda for my utter inability to find a way to mention that she's actually, you know, in the house.
“Call the good elf of this house, and offer him a gaud…” Tonks could have sworn, for a moment, that Teddy’s eyes had focused on her, brilliant little sweetheart that he was. He liked her singing to him. Which admittedly made him a first in the annals of her life. “And let him have a deep quaff too if he is overawed...”
Remus returned from the fire, immediately joined her in leaning over the crib. The last year had cured him of watching scenes benevolently from doorways. “You do realize Christmas was over some months ago?” he said, offhand, even a little stiff. But his eyes were smiling at her.
“Toss off,” Tonks said, and Remus dissolved into soundless laughter at the transition from motherly to Aurorly even as he reached to pick Teddy up. “I don’t really know any lullabies. Reckon Christmas should be in our hearts year-round anyway and so on and so forth. Put him down, Remus! I’m actually dying for a nap.”
“Then you should go and take one, I’ll get him down,” said Remus, nudging her sympathetically, but also cuddling Teddy without the faintest trace of repentance. Anyone would think, walking into the house four times out of five, that the two of them were attached by Permanent Sticking Charm, and the only squabbling they had these days was over who was hogging the baby. It was very pleasant squabbling too, even if Remus had the ridiculous idea that she was at least as bad as he was. “Well it’s not like he was falling asleep, were you now?”
Teddy gurgled and they take that for their answer. Tonks tried to roll her eyes but yawned midway through. Remus was and had always been better at sleep deprivation than she had. “Wha-a-at did Kingsley want?”
“To know if Harry et. al. were here.” He was annoyingly and endearingly absorbed in Teddy, whom he had perched on the edge of the crib, held to his chest. “Apparently your godfather is out robbing Gringotts, yes he is, there’s a boy-” As Teddy obligingly yawned.
“What?”
“Well, somebody robbed Gringotts, and the intrepid three and the goblin-Griphook?-haven’t been at Shell Cottage all day.”
“Oh, God,” Tonks groaned. She could remember a time when she would have been excited and interested and incredulous, peppering him with questions-or being the one to interrogate Kingsley herself. But now war news always seemed to come now through a shell of exhausted happiness-razor-thin happiness, which was all the more fragile and fraught for being real.
She hadn’t cried since Teddy was born, bizarrely, but that didn’t mean that in the dead of night when the baby was asleep she didn’t feel it.
“Should we be worried?” is all she found she wanted to know.
Remus’s eyebrows knit for a moment as he ran his thumb gently over the violet-hued down on the baby’s head. Then he looked up, and it both soothed and inflamed some sort spot on Tonks’s soul that he didn’t try to hide his concern. “We don’t know. You might want to take that nap, in case things get interesting soon.”
“Yeah, coz I’ll sleep well now,” Tonks murmured, snuggling against them both.
“Come on,” suggested Remus, and a moment or so later they were in their bedroom, and Tonks had been convinced to curl up under the covers, digging her nose into Remus’s hip as he settled Teddy in his lap. Remus lazily waved his wand in the vague direction of the blinds to darken them and murmured singsong nonsense to the baby.
Tonks was out, or almost, but she smiled in her doze when she heard him hum the refrain of the wassailing song to a drowsy Teddy.
Author: jobey_in_error
Rating & Warnings: Disney levels of G. I'm not sure that carol Tonks is singing is the most PC though...
Prompt(s): carols
Format & Word Count: Ficlet, 628.
Summary: Please disregard past and future horrors. Their biggest problem right now is getting Teddy down for the night.
Author’s Notes: Sorry I could only manage something short and faux-Christmassy and foreshadowy of the dual-deaths-that-shall-not-be-named! Also, my apologies to Andromeda for my utter inability to find a way to mention that she's actually, you know, in the house.
“Call the good elf of this house, and offer him a gaud…” Tonks could have sworn, for a moment, that Teddy’s eyes had focused on her, brilliant little sweetheart that he was. He liked her singing to him. Which admittedly made him a first in the annals of her life. “And let him have a deep quaff too if he is overawed...”
Remus returned from the fire, immediately joined her in leaning over the crib. The last year had cured him of watching scenes benevolently from doorways. “You do realize Christmas was over some months ago?” he said, offhand, even a little stiff. But his eyes were smiling at her.
“Toss off,” Tonks said, and Remus dissolved into soundless laughter at the transition from motherly to Aurorly even as he reached to pick Teddy up. “I don’t really know any lullabies. Reckon Christmas should be in our hearts year-round anyway and so on and so forth. Put him down, Remus! I’m actually dying for a nap.”
“Then you should go and take one, I’ll get him down,” said Remus, nudging her sympathetically, but also cuddling Teddy without the faintest trace of repentance. Anyone would think, walking into the house four times out of five, that the two of them were attached by Permanent Sticking Charm, and the only squabbling they had these days was over who was hogging the baby. It was very pleasant squabbling too, even if Remus had the ridiculous idea that she was at least as bad as he was. “Well it’s not like he was falling asleep, were you now?”
Teddy gurgled and they take that for their answer. Tonks tried to roll her eyes but yawned midway through. Remus was and had always been better at sleep deprivation than she had. “Wha-a-at did Kingsley want?”
“To know if Harry et. al. were here.” He was annoyingly and endearingly absorbed in Teddy, whom he had perched on the edge of the crib, held to his chest. “Apparently your godfather is out robbing Gringotts, yes he is, there’s a boy-” As Teddy obligingly yawned.
“What?”
“Well, somebody robbed Gringotts, and the intrepid three and the goblin-Griphook?-haven’t been at Shell Cottage all day.”
“Oh, God,” Tonks groaned. She could remember a time when she would have been excited and interested and incredulous, peppering him with questions-or being the one to interrogate Kingsley herself. But now war news always seemed to come now through a shell of exhausted happiness-razor-thin happiness, which was all the more fragile and fraught for being real.
She hadn’t cried since Teddy was born, bizarrely, but that didn’t mean that in the dead of night when the baby was asleep she didn’t feel it.
“Should we be worried?” is all she found she wanted to know.
Remus’s eyebrows knit for a moment as he ran his thumb gently over the violet-hued down on the baby’s head. Then he looked up, and it both soothed and inflamed some sort spot on Tonks’s soul that he didn’t try to hide his concern. “We don’t know. You might want to take that nap, in case things get interesting soon.”
“Yeah, coz I’ll sleep well now,” Tonks murmured, snuggling against them both.
“Come on,” suggested Remus, and a moment or so later they were in their bedroom, and Tonks had been convinced to curl up under the covers, digging her nose into Remus’s hip as he settled Teddy in his lap. Remus lazily waved his wand in the vague direction of the blinds to darken them and murmured singsong nonsense to the baby.
Tonks was out, or almost, but she smiled in her doze when she heard him hum the refrain of the wassailing song to a drowsy Teddy.