A/N: Many thanks to Deathblade for all his wonderful help with this chapter. He put up with getting it line by line through an IM. How patient a man he is.
Wednesday, 2nd of August, 2012:
She rolled over for the umpteenth time in her quest to try and find a comfortable sleeping position but it just wasn’t working. She rolled on to her right side, and then on to her left, flat on her back, propped up a little, and pillow-less; nothing was remotely comfortable. The baby that Ellie was carrying was now over due by two weeks. Her stomach was stretched almost to breaking point and every time she stood up she was convinced that the hefty weight attached to her front would topple her face first into the oak floorboards. Every move she made was slow and awkward; and on more than one occasion she had found herself wedged in a couch like an upturned turtle. She had hoped that after six pregnancies she would be able to breeze her way through this one; but, alas, it was not to be. Everything ached. It didn’t matter how many Cushioning Charms were placed on her bed; none of them made the slightest bit of difference.
The previous days had seen the whole Weasley clan, along with its adopted members, taking up residence in Potter Hall to prepare for huge celebration. Neville and Harry were celebrating their thirty-second birthdays. On the Friday, which was Neville’s birthday, the family were having a private get together with a magnificent feast laid on by Dobby and Winky. Then on the Saturday, which was Harry’s birthday, they were having an enormous party for all their friends and colleagues to attend. Ellie and Charlie had intended to Portkey their brood from Merlin Manor, their family home, and back after each event but, after a stern talking to from Molly, they had changed their minds and moved in for the foreseeable future.
“You can’t deal with all those children on your own, Ellie, not in your condition. Charlie’ll never manage, you know what he’s like, doesn’t know the meaning of the word discipline. No, you’ll stay here where there are plenty of people around to keep them in check,” Molly had tutted.
So they had stayed. Potter Hall was once again brimming with the exuberance of youth. It had been many, many years since it had been so full. The walls rumbled in excitement and the floorboards creaked in elation. The corridors and rooms rang with lively conversations and laughter. The whole building seemed to quietly hum a happy backing track to the noises of every day life.
And every day life was inevitably loud.
Having forty-six people under one roof was never going to create a calm and tranquil atmosphere but when twenty-eight of those were under fifteen, it was only natural that chaos would rule. Just as her eyes drifted closed out of sheer exhaustion, there was a light padding of feet. One of Ellie’s eyes snapped back open in time to see two balls of fuzzy red hair poking around the door to her bedroom. “Mum?” called a quiet voice. It was quickly followed by a sorry sniff.
“What’s the matter, Bea?” Ellie sighed as she resigned herself to remaining awake. She rearranged her pillows so that she could sit up comfortably.
“Me and Dai couldn’t sleep,” young Beatrice mumbled as she tugged her little brother into the room. The pair of them waited patiently to be invited up onto the bed. Ellie threw back the cover and patted the mattress beside her. Beatrice then hoisted Dai up to their mother’s waiting arms. The toddler immediately scrambled into his mother’s warm lap. His sister climbed across the bed into the gap that had been left between Ellie and Charlie.
The sudden chill against his skin made Charlie stir. “Back again, are we?” he garbled sleepily as he rolled over and wrapped an arm around his little girl.
“There are monsters in our room,” Beatrice complained.
“Grrrrr.” Dai looked up at Ellie and pulled a funny face. She had to hold back the snort of laughter that threatened to escape her; she cuddled her baby in as close as she could.
“There are no monsters in your room,” Charlie confirmed as he smiled up at his wife. “You don’t think I’d leave you somewhere where there are monsters, do you?” Beatrice shook her head gently and snuggled further into her father’s arms.
“How long before the rest of them invade?” Ellie started to rock back and forth gently in the hope of sending Dai off to sleep.
“A matter of minutes,” Charlie replied. He was completely right. Not ten minutes later the rest of their brood, minus their eldest, came stomping into the room. Their sixteen years of marriage had, thus far, graced them with seven children. Their eldest was Brian at fourteen; he was a typical moody teenager, who was convinced that his parents were out to ruin his life. Brian was just getting ready to enter his O.W.L year at Hogwarts and his mother and father were desperately trying to get him to knuckle down into his studies. He wasn’t in the least bothered. He was too concerned with making sure that he kept up his Quidditch practice, it appeared that the love of that game had been successfully passed from parent to child.
Next along the family tree was Remus; he was just approaching his teens, so he hadn’t quite perfected his angst as well as his brother yet. His namesake’s Marauder nature had rubbed off on Remus. He, along with James Potter and Sirius Lupin, were planning to start a new wave of pranks around Hogwarts. James and Sirius were due to join Hogwarts in the approaching September, they were taking the family tradition very seriously indeed and were intending to start their reign of terror from the second they set foot inside the castle. Unfortunately, the quiet and sensitive nature of his predecessor hadn’t transferred along with the need for mischief; Remus was every bit as buoyant as young Sirius Black had once been.
Following Remus was Andrew. He was very different from his brothers and was a much quieter, academic sort. At eleven he had just preparing for his first year at Hogwarts, he had been telling anyone who would listen that he didn’t want to be in Gryffindor, he wanted to be a Hufflepuff instead, just like his Auntie Susan. Ellie had been delighted at this suggestion, after all her grandmother had been a Hufflepuff many moons ago.
With three boys under their wing, they had been ecstatic when their next pregnancy resulted in not one girl, but two! Alexandra and Minerva were as different as they were alike. Their similarities ended with their long red hair and their sparkling blue eyes. Personality wise, they were polar opposites. Alexandra preferred to be called Alex and was often overheard saying that she wished she were a boy. She enjoyed the rough and tumble of life with her brothers; she liked nothing more than rolling about in the mud. Minerva was completely at odds with her sister’s tomboy existence. She preferred to be called Minnie and had an altogether girlier take on life; she had picked up on her mother’s obsession with the colour pink.
At just five years old Beatrice was already showing her father’s flair for animals. She took great pride in caring for her siblings’ pets. She was every inch as stubborn as her mother and had even gone so far as to inherit her grandfather’s nose. She was a very loving big sister to Dai who was only three years younger than her. They shared a bedroom and she had been known to sing him to sleep at night.
In was only a matter of seconds before the bed was covered in people. Minnie and Alex automatically gravitated towards their father and a small battle ensued as the three girls fought to be the centre of Charlie’s attention. The boys chose to stay out of the fight and instead stretched out on the bed at their mother’s feet.
“Brian’s being a git,” Remus announced as he flung himself on Ellie’s toes.
“Argh! Remus! That’s my feet you’ve just landed on!” Ellie shouted as she pulled her legs up towards her a little.
“Sorry, Mum,” he shrugged.
“Why is it that he’s being a git?” enquired Charlie.
“He wouldn’t let me borrow his broom,” Remus moaned.
“Why did you want to borrow his broom?” Ellie asked her son suspiciously.
“Uncle Fred showed me this really cool spell that can make it go faster and I really wanted to try it.”
“Oh no you don’t! Don’t you go trying anything that your Uncle Fred shows you. He’s a troublemaker,” Charlie admonished.
"He is not. Uncle F is ace! He taught me how to...." Remus trailed off as he spotted the fiery glaze that had sprung up in his mother's eyes.
"Taught you how to what?" Ellie asked him darkly.
"Nothing...erm...." Remus stuttered.
"I think you'll find it was the wand movement for that Levitation Charm," Andrew supplied wearily. Ellie's gaze immediately lighted upon the younger boy and under her harsh stare Andrew's ears began to burn red.
"That's the one," Remus confirmed with a hesitant nod of his head.
"Remus James Weasley, you tell me the truth this instant!" His mother demanded.
"It really was a Levitation Charm!" He continued to protest.
"Tell your mother the truth, the whole truth, Remus. It'll be better for you if you do." Charlie sighed sleepily. He was half hidden under his daughters, who had all managed to find themselves a satisfactory limb to snuggle into.
"I am telling the truth!" Remus persisted. He rose from the bed indignantly and gave his father a filthy look.
"And you needn't bother looking at me like that either," Charlie's voice took a much sterner tone this time. "What was this Levitation Charm for?"
"It was for school," his son shrugged.
"That charm is first year material, and I know for a fact that you mastered that years ago. I want the truth and I want it now," Ellie glared at the boy before her.
“It was NOTHING!” Remus yelled. Andrew coughed and it suspiciously sounded like ‘Liar’. This caught the attention of his mother and his brother. “Don’t you dare!” hissed Remus.
“No, don’t YOU dare,” Ellie snapped. “What did you mean by that, Andrew?”
Poor Andrew suddenly found himself caught between a rock and a hard place. To defy his mother would mean indefinite grounding, but to squeal on his brother, his cousins and his uncles was inviting a lifetime of pranks. Edgily, he glanced from Ellie's unforgiving stare to Remus’s wide and angry eyes. Thoughts of Quidditch and trips to Hogsmeade flitted through his mind. If his mum took it upon herself to make his life a living hell then she could ban him from all the things he wanted to do in the future.
"Uncle Fred was teaching him how to place a Levitation Charm on an invisible object..." he said in a rush. Ellie's eyes narrowed while Remus's jaw dropped.
"You dirty, little snitch!" his older brother raged. In the blink of an eye, Remus launched himself on Andrew and the pair began to tussle. Despite the torrent of abuse that their mother reigned down on them, they wrestled their way out of the bedroom and into another room somewhere along the corridor. After a minute or two their accusations ceased and silence fell upon the wing.
"Who hit who with what?" Charlie asked his wife as he resurfaced from the pile of his daughters to listen to the settling silence.
"I'd put my money on Andrew getting Remus with a Body Bind, his wand work is much more accurate," Ellie replied. She began shuffling around so that she could place the now sleeping Dai into the bed beside Charlie and the girls. "I'm parched; I’m going to get a drink. I'll take a look in on them on my way to the kitchen," she muttered and waddled from the room. On her way past the open doorway, Ellie poked her head into the toy room to see Andrew disentangling himself from the headlock that the now bound Remus had him in. His wand, which had only been purchased for him a few days before, was in hand, he saw his mother and stood up, pushing his wand into the waistband of his trousers. He gave her a little, satisfied nod before he began to heave Remus's still form onto a nearby couch.
Content that neither of them was dead, Ellie continued her journey to the kitchen on the floor below. She couldn't believe her luck when she came across the very Weasley twin she was after, at the breakfast table. Fred was looking a little worse for wear as he sat beside his four-year-old son Damian. The small boy was singing some new jingle from the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes radio advertising campaign. As each line came out his mouth, his volume increased. Slowly but surely, Fred’s hands were slipping further down over his freckled ears. "Well if it isn't the very prankster that I'm after," Ellie said in a falsely sweet voice.
Fred's head whipped around in surprise at the sudden voice. Intrigue was written across his features. He had always had an unspoken respect for Ellie, purely because he knew that she could hex him into oblivion without even blinking, but he had always admired her daring. She never hesitated to put him or George on the spot for some impromptu quizzing, because she was the only person who wasn't terrified at the thought of the repercussions. "Pray tell, dear sister-in-law of mine, what is it that you want with me at this wicked hour of the morning?" he asked jovially.
"I want to know what it is that you've been teaching my son. He mentioned something about a Levitation Charm on invisible objects...." Ellie prompted him.
"Ah," Fred grinned but looked away. He knew that grinning so mischievously at this point in time was not a good idea. Ellie would have his head on the plate beside his bacon sarnie, quicker than he could say 'prank'.
"Don't you 'Ah' me, Fred Weasley, what have you lot been up to?"
"The boys wanted a little something different to do to the Slytherins this year," Fred shrugged. Damian was still singing his happy little song and enjoying the delights of drawing mummy on her broomstick.
"And you took it upon yourself to teach them it, did you?" Ellie's anger started to flare up again.
"Would you have expected any less?" he argued.
"What I would have expected was you to show a little maturity for once!" she admonished. Damian had now stopped his singing and was watching the heated discussion between his father and aunt avidly.
"A leopard doesn't change its spots," he commented flippantly.
"It's got nothing to do with spots. It's got to do with you being a responsible adult!" Ellie raged. "What were they planning on doing?"
"It wasn't that bad, honestly, Ellie, you're making something out of nothing..."
"Just a little fun...they wanted to use some invisible Screaming Yo-Yo's to trip up the Slytherins," he finally relented. He smiled at her, completely unabashed by his suggestion.
"That's exactly the kind of attitude I'm taking about!" Ellie continued to rant. "Here, Charlie and I are trying to teach our kids to respect other people and you come along and..." she roared but stopped abruptly. A sudden expression of pain streaked across her face and she reached out to the table for support. Her other hand reached down to rub her belly tenderly.
"Ellie, are you okay?" Fred panicked.
"Go and get Charlie. NOW!" she bellowed.
If you had happened upon the corridor of A wing in a hospital, the natural assumption would be that there had been a disaster of some kind. People littered every spare inch of the hallway. Adults and children alike paced the corridor impatiently, waiting for some news. The younger, more impatient and pregnant members of the group had found themselves seats. In Ginny's case, this was a very cozy little chair, but for the kids, the floor was the best option. The mahogany grandfather clock at the end of the hall slowly and steadily ticked the time away; minutes seemed to last for endless hours. An expectant silence permeated the air, it was punctuated by the eternal questions of “What time is it?” and “How much longer will it be?”.
“Babies come when they’re ready,” Ginnny gently smiled at Beatrice. An hour was far too long to wait when you were only five. It wasn’t too long before Dai was desperately missing his mother’s cooing. He gently tugged on his Alicia’s robes before announcing, “I want mummy.”
“Your mummy’s busy just now, you can see her soon,” Alicia replied as she pulled the small boy into her lap. He huffed loudly in frustration before fighting his way out of his aunt’s embrace and bursting into tears. His wails pierced through the quiet for several minutes as his aunts and cousins tried to shush him.
“Come here,” Brian hollered over the din of half a dozen females collectively clucking. He had parked himself on the floor at one end of the hallway, with his lanky Weasley legs sprawled across the carpet. He was clearly unperturbed by the prospect of becoming a big brother for the seventh time, he was sulkily re-reading Quidditch Through The Ages in a spot that was far away from his family as possible. The gruffness in his brother’s voice didn’t appear to bother Dai, who obediently trotted over. Brian pulled the toddler into his lap and flicked back to the beginning of the book so that his little brother would be kept occupied and quiet by look at the exciting pictures.
Yet more hours passed, and the breezy morning had turned into a hot and humid afternoon. It was past three o’clock when Molly eventually emerged from Ellie and Charlie’s room. Her frizzy red hair was pulled into a tight bun at the crown of her head, with the exception of a few random wisps that had escaped the confinement in the course of Molly’s fussing. The weary woman was redder in the face than normal and was very out of puff. She took one look at Arthur before she burst into heart-wrenching tears. “What’s the matter Molly? Is something wrong?” her husband asked her with alarm.
“Mum, what’s happened?” Ginny gasped.
“Gran, is everything all right? Is mum okay?” Brian, not one to normally worry about anything, had risen from the floor, with Dai clasped to his chest, and moved towards his grandmother with concern etched into his features.
“Everything is “ sniff- just “sniff- just fine “ sniff. Ellie and the babies are fine,” Molly whispered as she tried to control her wailing. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, calmed by the knowledge that both mother and child were safe.
“Wait a second,” Harry paused. “Did you just say Ellie and the babies?” he pondered.
“Mmhmm,” Molly sobbed into Arthur’s shoulder.
“As in, more than one baby?” Brian had now turned an interesting shade of green.
“She’s had twins!” Molly exclaimed as she burst into fresh waves of joy.
“For Merlin’s sake,” Brian muttered grumpily as he slumped back against a wall.
“Give it a minute or two and you can all go in and see her,” Molly continued to try and control herself. A few minutes later, the bedroom door opened and a flustered Madam Pomfrey greeted them.
“You can’t stay long, just a few minutes, the girl needs her rest,” The matron instructed sternly.
As they entered the room Ellie was lying in the bed looking thoroughly exhausted, hardly surprising, given the circumstances. Congratulations were hurled upon her, as were kisses and cuddles. Her youngest children were quick to scramble on to the bed beside her and snuggle into their mother’s side. Little Dai wept for a few moments until the sound of Ellie’s steadying heartbeat lulled him into a peaceful sleep. Charlie was standing by one of the room’s large windows with two blanket bundles in his arms. He had his back to the rest of the room’s occupants but his slight sniff could still be heard. When he eventually turned around to face them his eyes were dangerously moist. “Everyone, this is William.” He gave the baby in his right arm a slight jiggle. “And this is Albus,” he gave the baby in his left arm a gentle shake. “William, Albus,” he said as he proudly looked down on his two new sons. “Welcome to the family.”
Snapshots by mrsgeorgeweasley
Story Notes:
After about, oh, I don't know, two years roughly, I finally get this posted as promised and I hope that any of you reading on from the Girl Who Lived and The Unspeakable Power will enjoy it. Don't forget to be helpful to writers by reading and reviewing!!
Chapter Notes: Welcome to 2012, where Ellie and Charlie are awaiting their newest arrival. Enjoy!!