Ginny\'s Bad Day

“Damn” Ginny muttered under her breath. Realizing what she had just said, she backed up mentally. “Mommy didn’t say damn.”
Bill looked up at her with large eyes.
“Right. Okay. Here we go again. Now. When Mommy puts the spoon by your mouth, you-,”
She was spattered in the face by brown matter that smelled like apricots. She wearily opened her eyes and stared at the infant in front of her, who stared innocently back from under a similar mask of brown stuff. Two small blue eyes blinked seriously at her. Dark hair was gummed and matted to stick all over the place on a small head.
‘I must be out of my mind.’ Ginny thought. ‘I’m seeing things. I’m thinking that my own child is challenging me.’
But that was what it certainly looked like. Bill was watching her as though waiting for her next move.
“Right. Okay.” She repeated, jabbing her wand rather violently at herself and letting the gunk dissolve from her face. She took a deep breath. And another.
The clock ticked loudly and obnoxiously behind her. The dishes clanked gratingly in the sink as they washed themselves busily. The scrubbing noise from the clothes in the tub scratched her nerves thin. And, most importantly, the deep silent sound of the four walls of the kitchen closing in on her made her feel nearly mad.
She focused on the child in front of her. She looked deep into his eyes. She narrowed her own at him, cocking her head to the side. He narrowed his back, and seemed to lean forward in the highchair.
“I,” she said at last, “should have named you Fred.”
Bill smiled at her and clapped his small hands together, squealing with laughter.

***

One minute he was in his crib at last taking a nap, the next he was out and on the floor, gurgling happily to himself, waving his hands and making the books fly off the shelves.
Ginny jumped straight out of her deep sleep on the couch just in time to get hit on the forehead with an issue of Witch Weekly.
“Owch!” She yelped, rubbing her head, looking around frantically.
“BILL! NO!”
The nine month old giggled and made the teacup on the coffee table rattle menacingly, as though it were about to shatter. Ginny pounced on it, clapping her hands around it protectively, her face already heating up with the effort of getting her child under control.
“Bill! STOP!”
The last book thumped to the floor in a final sort of way, leaving the shelves bare (except for all of the Lockhart Household Guides her mother had given to her as a wedding present- they were still in the spot her husband had shoved them in annoyance. At least Bill showed good taste in reading). Ginny was amazed he hadn’t made them zoom around the room. Was he finally listening to her?
“You’re supposed to be napping!” She moaned aloud, letting go of the teacup, which miraculously did nothing but sit there. “Bill, Mommy has to sleep too! Mommy hasn’t had a good night’s sleep for a week! Please!”
Bill stared at her, sucking on his thumb. He had since been cleaned up from the lunch fiasco and his messy black hair was resting in thin swirls around his head. He looked utterly sinless, except for the fact he was surrounded by books.
“I’m plea-bargaining with an infant.” She said quietly. “I can’t believe this, I really can’t...”
Sighing, she got up, and bent her weary back to pick up Bill, who twisted his hands in her hair painfully and closed his eyes with a sigh and a happy smile, asleep within moments.
Turning her head, she stared at him incredulously. Was the child possessed?! Was he really even a child?! Perhaps Peeves the Poltergeist had left his usual haunt and taken on the guise of small boy. Did other parents go through this? Ginny hoped so. She really, really really hoped in that moment every wizarding parent under the sun had to deal with their child testing out their magical abilities on them. Ginny was not meanspirited, just desperate.
Once Bill was back in his crib, Ginny dragged herself back to the sofa, but then, the pile of books caught her eye. She moved toward them, intent on just sending them back to their rightful place on the shelf.
There was a loud knock at the door.
Bill woke up and let out a cry.
Ginny closed her eyes, very very slowly. No. No no no no no, this was not happening. She did not have company right now.
How she got to the door she didn’t know, but the next thing she knew she had wrenched it open and was pointing her wand directly at her mother, her sister-in-law, and her friend, breathing heavily through her nose.
Molly Weasley, Fleur Delacour-Weasley, and Nymphadora Lupin all stared at the woman before them, mouths slightly open. Ginny’s long hair was everywhere and looked to be vaguely singed in places. Her face was red and sweaty, and there were dark circles under the slightly wild-looking eyes that darted from face to face on her doorstep.
They rested on the careworn one of her mother, and promptly burst into tears.
“MUM!” Ginny shrieked, near hysteria, and launched herself at her mother, who (after having seven children) had already assessed the problem and had her warm arms already out and waiting.
“There there, dear.” She cooed, and tried surreptitiously to pat her daughters’ hair into a semblance of neatness while stroking it. “Its all right. Mother’s here. Where’s Bill?”
“Cr-r-ib.” Ginny stuttered through her tears. “At l-l-least, I hope he is!”
Tonks (she had retained her nickname, despite having been married and widowed) made a sympathetic noise in the back of her throat. Fleur looked dazed, as though she couldn’t believe that Ginny was looking that awful.
“Come on dear, let’s go inside. I’ll make you a nice cuppa.”
“I d-d-don’t want tea!” Ginny wailed. “I want a Freezing Charm put on that baby!”
Mrs. Weasley shusshed her gently and pressed her into a kitchen chair, where she continued to cry. Tonks immediately was there to soothe her, though Fleur hung back a little, still watching Ginny silently.
“H-he wouldn’t eat! Wouldn’t sleep! H-he started my hair on fire, he threw his food on himself and me and then into the laundry! He stole my wand somehow! He got out of his crib AGAIN and...And...Threw all the books onto the floor!”
“Well,” said Molly with a sigh, “at least there’s only one of him.”
Ginny only cried harder, clutching her face, her red hair clinging to her neck and wet cheeks.
It was at this moment Fleur flew forward and slapped her unhinged sister-in-law across the face.
The kitchen fell silent. Even the pots in the sink stopped moving. Molly and Tonks looked at the two women, then at each other, then at Ginny and Fleur again, holding their breaths, both certain Ginny was going to reach out and rip out all of the part-veela’s glimmering hair. Fleur regarded Ginny calmly, and Ginny looked back, stuporous. She had stopped crying and was attempting to focus her eyes.
“Thanks.” She said in a tiny, but normal voice. “I think I may have needed that.”
Fleur nodded understandingly. Their relationship had definitely improved since Fleur had insisted to Bill that Ginny be their own stunning daughter’s godmother.
“Here, drink this dear.”
“I don’t want it, Mum.” Ginny said, her voice stronger now.
“Drink it, I added some Firewhiskey.” Molly said lowly.
Ginny grabbed it and downed it quickly.
“Nymphadora, dear, do dash into the sitting room and get Little Bill.” Molly asked. Tonks nodded and disappeared into the next room. Molly Weasley had taken to calling her grandson Little Bill to distinguish him in conversation from Bill her own son. Fleur just called him by his middle name, James, as she said it was too strange, calling a baby by her husband’s name. Fleur charged into the pantry with a business-like manner and came back bearing a plate of crackers, levitating it gently onto the table.
“Eat, Geeny, you look very tired. Such a handful leetle James is. It is a wonder you do not drop!”
One of the things that had prompted Ginny to stop calling Fleur ‘Phlegm’ was that the gorgeous woman had stopped lightly criticizing people. She was immensely glad of that now. Fleur could have said how her own daughter was the epitome of well-behaved manners, but she didn’t. Ginny could have kissed her.
Tonks returned with Bill in her arms, and was in the process of changing her hair for him. The baby tried to grab at it, but she held him out of the way. She had slowly regained her Metamorph powers after Remus Lupin’s death, and had taken up her old post as an Auror once more, staying with Molly and Arthur Weasley at the now nearly-empty Burrow.
At the sight of his grandmother, Bill started squirming desperately, reaching out his arms to her and babbling excitedly. Molly took hold of him and set her expertly on her hip.
“There now, Billsy-Willsy!” She clucked at him. “I hear you’ve been a great big nuisance.”
“Bit of an understatement, from what his Mum said.” Tonks said brightly, patting Ginny’s shoulder.
But Ginny was already fast asleep.

***

Harry James Potter came home to a spotless house, a hot, delicious supper, a cheerful and giggly son, but a strangely silent wife. Little did he know, that his mother-in-law and her team had done it all, but even that didn’t explain Ginny’s drawn state. She had been that way since an hour previously, pensive and drawn.
He raised his eyebrows as she lumped steaming mashed potatoes onto his plate with a CLUNK of metal on china.
“Er- everything alright?”
“I suppose.” She said lightly. CLUNK. Some peas landed on his plate and rolled into the gravy. “How was work?”
“Pretty slow. Seems Dark Magic’s taking a holiday. Which reminds me, old Ludo gave me tickets to the Cup, I thought I’d take them, even though it is Ludo...France is hosting this year, I thought we could make a holiday of it. Whadya say, Gin?”
There was a pause. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose.” She shrugged. “Whatever.”
Now Harry really was worried. He glanced over at Bill, who was quietly playing with his blocks in his highchair, his own dinner having been administered without trouble by Harry himself. He looked back at Ginny, who was staring at her wineglass, but not making a move to drink any.
“What is it?” Harry said cautiously. He had learned to tread carefully at times, it was a fact of being married. Now, he suspected, was one of those times.
Ginny rested her head on her hand. Her hair had been swept into a neat ponytail, and you really couldn’t even tell it was singed. She rubbed her face tiredly.
“Harry.” She said. “I want to say, I didn’t do any of this. The house was a mess before you came home. Mum and Fleur and Tonks did it all.”
“Oh.” Said Harry, nonplused. He was clearly not getting it.
“And I was a mess before. They cleaned me up too.”
“Okay.” Harry said slowly. “Er...Rough day?”
She stared at him.
“Right. Sorry.” He quickly amended.
She sighed in a world-weary manner. “Harry, that’s not the half of it.”
“Oh.” He said again. “Ah- what’s the other half?”
She mumbled something that sounded like ‘A second’.
“What? Sorry, I can’t hear you.”
“I SAID I’M PREGNANT! AGAIN!”
Harry, repelled back into his chair with the force of her outburst, felt his mouth hang open.
“Oh.” He said slowly, then realization crept over him. “Oh! Oh! Hey!” He grinned. “That’s good, right? Right? Gin?”
Ginny just stood up, looking at him as though he were something to be pitied. “I’m going to bed. You can have the baby this time around, okay?”
She went upstairs and he heard the door slam from above. He looked at Bill, who looked back seriously, chewing on one of his blocks.
“Is she serious?” Harry inquired curiously.
Bill spit the block at him, and it bounced off his glasses.