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Naturally, they had let Andromeda and Teddy know first. ‘We’re going to announce it properly at lunch on Sunday,’ Harry told her excitedly, 'but we thought we’d speak to Ted first.’
She had beamed, and hugged them, before calling Teddy down. He had appeared on the landing, confused looking, clutching a stuffed niffler. The moment he saw Harry and Ginny, his face burst into a smile, and he came bounding down the stairs.
'Careful!’ warned Andromeda, but when he tripped on the last stair, he got up again without so much as pausing, and launched himself to hug Harry’s leg.
'Hello,’ said Harry, brushing the top of Teddy’s bright blue hair. 'Having a good day?’
'Look what I can do!’ Teddy said at once, and he took a step back to stand on one leg, holding his arms out for balance as he wobbled.
'Goodness!’ exclaimed Ginny. 'Look at that. How long can you do that for?’
'Hours,’ said Teddy seriously.
'I think it’s more like twelve seconds, isn’t it, Ted?’ said Andromeda patiently.
Teddy put his leg down, fumbling with his niffler toy restlessly. 'Do I need to go and get my case?’ he asked.
'No, you’re not coming to ours tonight,’ said Harry kindly, 'we just thought we’d come for a cup of tea.’
They settled in the living room, with tea and biscuits (pumpkin juice for Teddy), and the niffler toy was soon discarded as Teddy pulled out a train set from a large box.
'Can I help?’ asked Harry.
Teddy nodded, and Harry kneeled on the floor, putting together the wooden tracks.
'This can be your side, and this will be my side,’ said Teddy fairly, drawing a line in the carpet with a pudgy little finger. 'We can share the tracks though, I don’t mind.’
'Thank you,’ said Harry. He looked carefully at the little boy, who was digging around in the box. 'We actually came round because we have some exciting news, Teddy,’ he said.
Teddy looked at him briefly, but continued to try and fix together two pieces of track.
'Ginny and I are going to have a baby,’ Harry said. 'So when you come round to stay with us, there’ll be another little boy or girl there too.’
'Well, what will it be?’ Teddy asked. 'A boy or a girl?’
'We don’t know yet,’ said Harry, watching his godson’s face carefully. 'It will be nice though, won’t it? To have someone else to play with when you visit.’
Teddy sniffed, and handed Harry a tunnel piece. 'Yes, maybe,’ he said.
'Thank you,’ said Harry, taking the tunnel. 'This will look good, won’t it?’ He placed the tunnel down so that it would join the two separate tracks they were making. 'The baby will arrive after Christmas,’ he said. 'In the spring, probably just after your birthday, actually.’
'Where will it come from?’ asked Teddy.
'From Ginny’s tummy.’
Teddy looked up at Ginny, who was smiling at him from the sofa. Then back to Harry. 'So it’s Ginny having a baby? Not you.’
'Well,’ said Harry awkwardly. 'We’ll look after the baby together, and be baby’s mum and dad.’
'Oh.’
'You’ll still have your room,’ said Harry firmly.
Teddy looked bewildered, and Harry suddenly panicked - it was possible it hadn’t occurred to Teddy that he might lose his room, and perhaps Harry had made it sound like that was an issue. But Teddy went back to his toys, and Harry glanced over his shoulder at Ginny and Andromeda. He really had expected more of a reaction.
'Will the baby come and live here some days?’ asked Teddy, now placing a train on his tracks. The magical little train hooted, and began chugging along, small puffs of steam floating up.
'No, you and Andromeda get to keep this house all to yourselves,’ said Harry reassuringly. 'So when you’re sick of sharing your toys with the baby at our house, you can come back here.’ Teddy said nothing, and Harry tilted his head to try and see his expression as he neatly lined little wooden trees along his railway. 'Is that OK?’ he asked him quietly.
'Yes,’ said Teddy. He frowned. 'I can’t find the red train.’
Harry glanced around, and realised he had been leaning over it. 'Here it is.’
Teddy took it from him, looking far more excited to see it chug along than he had been by Harry’s news.
'Well at least he wasn’t upset,’ said Ginny, as they left a little over an hour later. 'You were so worried he would be.’
'I’m a bit worried he didn’t really understand,’ said Harry. 'But I don’t know how else I could have explained it - for a five year old to understand, anyway.’
'He did,’ said Ginny warmly. 'He’s just such a sweet little boy, he’s not going to worry about sharing you.’ She paused, turned to face him and wrapped her arms around his waist. 'He knows he’ll still be a big part of our little family.’
He beamed at her, cupping her face in his hands and kissing her forehead. 'I still can’t quite believe it,’ he said. 'A family.’
She stretched up on her tiptoes to kiss him, and they disapparated with a crack.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was the usual Sunday lunch affair at the Burrow, the kitchen long ago expanded to accommodate them all around the long wooden table, all of them squeezed up on the benches, kids on laps and elbows knocking. It was very much Harry’s favourite part of the week, not least for Molly’s excellent cooking.
Teddy was technically sat between Harry and Andromeda, but kept standing up to wave at Victoire and baby Dominique, or try and clamber onto Andromeda’s lap, or take off Harry’s glasses.
'No, no,’ Harry said calmly. 'Sit down. Come on - remember last week when you fell?’
'I want to sit next to Victoire-’
'All right, but you have to promise you’ll both sit still. Here we go.’ He lifted Teddy and rose, handing him over Ginny and Hermione’s heads to Bill, who sat him down next to his daughter. This sort of seat shuffling was not uncommon - Harry knew he would be very surprised if Teddy lasted the whole meal without wanting to go and sit next to someone else.
'Well that gets you out of cutting up his food for him,’ joked Ron, who was sitting opposite Ginny.
'Gets me out of him nicking my yorkshire pudding, more like,’ said Harry affectionately.
There was the usual joyful chaos of serving up - a lighthearted “every man for himself” sort of moment, with George and Ginny furiously negotiating over the crispiest parsnips and Molly desperately trying to keep track of where the gravy boat was.
'Teddy,’ Andromeda was saying sharply. 'Teddy, what did Harry tell you? Sit down.’
’-And they have all these separate buttons, one for each letter of the alphabet-’ Arthur was saying to Percy.
’-Well that’s exactly what I thought,’ Angelina was saying to Ron. 'Such a strange decision, he’s not a natural chaser at all, they haven’t been the same since Whitfield started managing them-’
He loved the noise of it, he thought to himself. The life of it, all of them gathered around a table. The joy and excitement was dancing in his stomach, he kept glancing to Ginny, but she smiled back at him with a look that seemed to request his patience. She had made him promise that they would wait until the end of the meal. 'You’ve waited two months, you can wait an hour or two so the entire meal isn’t just about us and our news,’ she had said before they arrived.
He realised Hermione, who was opposite, was frowning at him slightly - he couldn’t help it, he grinned at her, and she tilted her head quizzically at him.
'What are you two smirking at?’ Ron asked them suddenly, breaking off his conversation with Angelina.
'He looks far too happy,’ said Hermione, jerking her head at Harry.
Ron scowled playfully at him. 'What are you happy about?’
Harry was pressing his lips together very hard to try and keep from grinning, shifting in his seat as much as Teddy usually did. He looked at Ginny, who was laughing at him. 'Stop it,’ she said warningly at him.
So now, he was still trying to keep his face under control, trying to ignore Ron and Hermione and Angelina’s puzzled expressions, trying to ignore the swooping feeling that as much as he loved these meals now, soon they would be even better because he would be related - actually related! - to someone at the table.
‘You’re acting really weird,’ Ron told him.
‘No I’m not.’
‘You are, it’s not natural to see you smile this much, it’s like seeing you without your glasses on, I don’t like it.’
‘Rude.’
Hermione suddenly gasped, and her eyes lifted from Ginny’s glass of water to Ginny, to Harry, to back at Ginny again, her mouth open. Then she stared at Harry. ‘Are you…?’
He couldn’t help it, he had to physically put his elbow on the table and try and hide his mouth behind his hand as he glanced to Ginny, who was just smiling wryly at him.
Hermione was clearly holding back a squeak, covering her own mouth too.
‘What?’ demanded Ron. Others around the table were starting to notice now too, their conversations trailing off as they glanced over.
Harry was now trying not to laugh at the happily exasperated look on Ginny’s face, his shoulders shaking slightly.
‘You’re desperate to say it, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. There was a tugging on his robes, and he looked down to see that Teddy was out of his seat again and was clambering onto his lap. Harry heaved him up.
‘What’s everyone looking at?’ asked Teddy.
‘Harry wants to tell everyone our news,’ said Ginny.
‘What, about the baby?’ asked Teddy, as though bewildered that anyone would care.
Hermione squealed, Molly immediately cried out an ‘oh!’ and clapped a hand to her mouth, everyone else froze with expressions of raised eyebrows and surprised, excited smiles, only Andromeda with a knowing smirk.
‘Do you mean it?’ Molly asked them. ‘Are you…?’
Ginny smiled and nodded at Harry, who beamed proudly back at her and said, ‘yes, we’re due a brand new Potter in the spring.’
The noise was immense, the delight was palpable. The food quite forgotten, everyone was rising to go and hug them, Molly was kissing them both with joyful tears on her face, Ron was shouting ‘I’m going to be an uncle!’ while Bill irritably reminded him that he was already an uncle twice over.
Still holding Teddy, Harry was busy laughing as George clapped him on the back and congratulated him on spreading the gene pool, and he didn’t notice Teddy’s grip on his shirt collar grow tighter, nor did he think anything of Teddy burying his face into the crook of his neck.
It was only as he listened to Angelina gush to Ginny about how she had thought she looked particularly glowing lately, that he noticed Teddy was taking deep, shuddering breaths.
He looked down and pulled Teddy back a bit to reveal his tear-stained, snotty face. He lowered his head and kissed Teddy on the forehead, muttering, ‘come on mate, let’s go have a chat,’ against his godson’s sandy brown hair.
As he rose, Teddy gave a spluttered sob, and he heard Hermione say, ‘oh,’ sadly as the table fell quiet. Andromeda made to rise too, but Harry said, ‘it’s all right, I’ve got him,’ and carried him into the living room as Teddy began to wail even louder.
‘I - still - want - to be - your - godson!’ he gasped through his sobs.
‘Of course you will be,’ said Harry soothingly, gently kicking the living room door closed behind him. He sat down on the sofa, and pulled Teddy off his shoulder to look him in his bawling face. ‘Ted, the baby won’t replace you or mean that I don’t see you, or that I’ll love you any less.’
Teddy sniffed loudly, and though he was clearly (and bravely, for a five year old) trying to stop, he couldn’t help the next low cry. ‘How long will you have the baby?’ he asked.
‘Oh, Ted,’ said Harry sadly. ‘I thought you hadn’t really understood on Friday - Ginny and I will be the baby’s parents, he or she will always be our child, just like you’ll always be our godson.’
‘But why?’ Teddy cried. ‘Why can’t it just be me?’
Harry hugged him close, and kissed the top of his head again. ‘Teddy, I won’t run out of love for you, the new baby just brings more. We decided, didn’t we, that it would be nice for you to have someone to play with?’
Teddy nodded sniffily, still taking deep, gulping breaths.
‘It’s hard, for boys like us,’ said Harry quietly, and Teddy looked up at him with his big blue eyes. ‘Because we worry that we’re never really part of a family. But I promise, Teddy, Ginny and I love you so much - and when this baby comes we will still love you, just as much as we will love the baby.’
Teddy gulped, and leaned his head back against Harry’s chest. ‘I would call you my son,’ said Harry softly, ‘but I think it’s important for you to always remember your mum and dad, and how much they loved you too.’
He was sure that Teddy didn’t really understand - he was too young, really, to even understand the confusion and fear that he was feeling, too young to understand why the baby had seemed a perfectly fine prospect until he saw how happy it made others. But Teddy’s breaths were growing more steady, the sniffs were becoming less frequent, and the tears had stopped falling.
‘Can I name the baby?’ asked Teddy in a small voice. ‘Can I name it Babbity Rabbity if it’s a girl, and Niffler if it’s a boy?’
Harry paused. ‘Babies name themselves, I’m afraid, Ted.’
‘Do they?’
‘Yeah. That’s why you’re called Teddy, because that’s what you liked best when you were born, your Teddy bear.’
‘Oh.’
‘But you know what,’ said Harry bracingly, ‘I reckon you’ll be an excellent big brother to them, and you’ll be able to be in charge of all the games.’
Teddy nodded, and after a few more questions, was ready to return to the kitchen, where he promptly told Andromeda how excited he was to be a big brother.