Fic | Oh, Monkey Trumpets
Title: Oh, Monkey Trumpets (as per Mags)
Author: attilatehbun
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/Characters: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood, wee! Teddy Lupin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: <2300
Contains: flailing. a lot of it.
Summary: Teddy has a serious ailment and the boys completely do not panic. At all. Really. They swear.
Author's Notes: Spontaneous "oh shi- this went long" fic for magglenagall, for one seriously inspiring prompt, not to mention, y'know, the awesome. Unbetaed, so, again, y'know.
::
"So you've got the ankle-biter tonight then, eh?" Ron said, leaving off fiddling with the dials on the wireless and flopping into the seat next to Harry.
"Dunno, Ron," Harry said, squinting at the small figure perched awkwardly on his knee. "I don't think he's big enough yet to qualify as an ankle-biter." Harry reached out and poked it gently in the middle.
Teddy gurgled happily in response and blew a spit bubble.
Harry leaned back and scratched his head. "Maybe just a toe-nibbler?"
Ron snorted and uncorked two bottles of Butterbeer. "Well, he seems quiet enough, I'll give him that. Wouldn't want to miss any of the match," he said, gesturing at the wireless. "Should start any minute now."
With that, Ron passed one of the bottles over to Harry, who managed to juggle both it and the baby, miraculously dropping neither. A bit of Butterbeer spilled on the cushion, but Harry decided he'd just flip that over later and no one would be the wiser.
"Should I?" Harry started. "Maybe I should put him down? Dunno if I can hold him up for the entire match. Sometimes he gets squirmy."
Ron shrugged. "Like I would know? Where can you put 'im anyway?"
Harry jumped up and shoved Teddy at Ron, who took him in reflex and looked like he wanted to grip him like a Quaffle but wasn't sure how. "Oh! Andromeda gave me--" He bent over and rummaged beneath the sofa. "Ah, here. She lent me this. It's a cradle or something. She used a fancier word for it." He paused and looked at Ron, who stared just as blankly back.
"Oh, give him here," Harry said, and tutted in a frighteningly maternal fashion. He grabbed Teddy gingerly and held him at arm's length.
"I don't think he's going to break, mate," Ron said with a smirk at Harry's expression.
"You never know, he just might at that."
Harry turned and laid him down in the cradle-thing, adjusting it so it would be at his feet if Teddy needed something. Meanwhile, the match was getting off to a fantastic start, with the Cannons down 40-0 in the first two minutes of the game. As Harry was settling into a lazy rocking motion between his foot and the cradle-thing, Ron was already starting to groan and tug his hair into progressively wierder shapes.
Fifteen minutes later he was so fed up with the score (now 120-10) that he started to reach for a bottle of Firewhisky, but Harry looked up, then glanced at Teddy, and then looked back at Ron. Ron sighed and grumbled something about him not being the bloody godfather, but he put the bottle back and opened another Butterbeer.
"Cheer up, Ron," Harry said. "Can't be that bad, they've been doing better this season."
"If by better, you mean narrowing the margin of loss from 200 points to only 180."
"Yes, Ron, yes, that is exactly what I meant," Harry said, rolling his eyes.
Ron sighed and pressed the heel of the hand not holding a Butterbeer to his eye, and was quiet.
And things stayed quiet until they broke for the half and there was a tiny little up noise that was almost lost in the cheers of the stadium crowd. Ron reached over and turned down the volume. "Urgh, don't want to hear those bloody wankers cheer for their stupid, idiot, crap team."
Harry laughed and threw a pillow at him.
There was another tiny up noise.
Harry looked at Ron. "Oh come off it, it was just a pillow, I didn't even throw it that hard."
Ron flicked his eyes around the room and raised an eyebrow at Harry. "Er, wasn't me," he said around the mouth of his bottle.
Again, there was a tiny up noise. This time they both heard it, and looked at each other before simultaneously dragging their gazes to the cradle-thing. Teddy gurgled at both of them as if he was happy to be on display, then hiccuped again.
"Oh bugger!" cried Harry, jumping out of his seat.
"What did he do?" Ron said, dropping his bottle to the floor, not even noticing as the Butterbeer gurgled sadly out all over the carpet.
"Hiccuped, I think," Harry said with a note of panic. He lifted Teddy up and tried to examine him. Teddy just made a grab for Harry's glasses.
"What do we do?"
"I have no idea!" Harry took several frantic steps in each direction before coming back to where he started. "Quick, Ron. What do we do for hiccups?"
"How the hell should I know, I just asked you!" Ron said, waving his arms wildly. Harry swung Teddy out of the way in the nick of time.
"B-but! You've got loads of brothers and a sister and I just-- Surely your mum must know something for hiccups!"
"I'm sure she does, but it's not like she ever told me!" Ron began to pace back and forth, pulling at his hair again and narrowly avoiding tripping over the Butterbeer bottle on the floor.
Harry would not hyperventilate, he would not hyperventilate. "But surely you must have seen her at it!"
Ron paused and fixed Harry with a glare. "Harry, in case you haven't noticed, all my brothers are older than me, and when the only sibling younger than me was at the age to get hiccups I was still chewing on blankets and wetting my nappies!"
"Right, right," Harry muttered. He lifted Teddy up to his shoulder and began gently patting him on the back. "Oh crap, oh monkey trumpets."
Ron stopped again. "Monkey trumpets?"
"Shut up. Shit Ron, what are we going to do?"
Ron turned on his heel and headed for the fireplace. "We've got to Floo Mrs. Tonks."
Harry had never moved that fast before, not for the Snitch and not even when fighting for his life. He made it in front of Ron, still lightly bouncing Teddy (who was blowing more spit bubbles) before Ron had made it three steps. "No!"
Ron nearly fell over.
"No, you can't call Andromeda. You can't. If she hears about this she'll never let me alone with Teddy again," Harry said, eyes wide and frantic.
"Er, mate, it's just the hiccups."
"That is not the point," Harry said with a wild shushing gesture. "Ok, maybe it is the point, but you can't Floo her. I've got to prove to her that I can take care of him on my own.
"But obviously you can't, right, so it's okay. She won't hold it against you." Ron said.
Harry pulled back and looked up at him, his expression slightly cracked.
"Since when did you become the sensible one here?"
"Since I started dating Hermione," Ron said without missing a beat.
"Oh."
Teddy hiccuped again, but this time when he did half of the fluff on his head that could only loosely be deemed 'hair' turned from brilliant turquoise to neon pink.
Harry gave a girly little scream and almost dropped him.
"Crap crap crap what are we going to do?" he said, holding Teddy once again at arm's length.
Ron's eyes were just as panicked as Harry met them, and he shook his head.
Harry took a step and then immediately turned around and went for the fireplace. "Wait! That's it! We'll Floo Hermione."
This time Ron was the one moving with heretofore unknown speed to grab Harry's collar and pull him back.
"No. No way. We cannot, repeat, cannot Floo Hermione," he said.
"What, should we call her instead? I've got a phone here somepl--"
Ron gave Harry a shake by his collar (gently, so as not to disturb Teddy any more than necessary). "No, git. We are not contacting Hermione at all."
Harry had no other response to this than to stamp his foot. Teddy gave something that was almost a laugh, hiccuped, and changed the other half of his hair to platinum blond.
Apparently the boy liked bright colors.
"Why the hell not, Ron? She'll know what to do!"
"Of course she will," Ron roared. Ron's face got very, very red, and on Teddy's next hiccup, his hair changed to match.
"And?" Harry demanded.
"And she'll fix him and then come in here and fix us with that look, you know the one, the one that all but screams You two are completely useless, can't even handle a baby by yourselves, where would you be without me pulling your arses from the fire, I mean honestly."
Harry's face shifted away from panicked for the first time since Teddy's hiccups started as he blinked. "You know, your Hermione impression's gotten very good, Ron."
"Ch, it's not hard, you just have to get the proper level of Completely Mental into your voice and the rest is easy." He shook his head. "But look, we cannot, under any circumstances, Floo her. Or call her. Or no!" he paused, seeing Harry edging away, "No owling, either."
"Well fine then!" Teddy hiccuped again. "What do you suggest? We can't Floo Ginny--"
"No no, absolutely right, we cannot Floo Ginny, no."
Harry waited. Teddy hiccuped, sending his hair back to an odd mixture of pink and blond.
"We could Floo your mum?" he suggested.
Ron dropped into an arm chair and covered his face with his hands. "Oh Merlin no, that'd be worse than Ginny and Mrs. Tonks put together."
"Yeah." Harry slumped onto the sofa and tried bouncing Teddy on his knee. It didn't do anything for the hiccups, but Teddy made a little wave that was almost a clap.
"Why can't we think of anything?" he said after a brief pause.
"Because Hermione's right and we really are useless," Ron muttered into his hands.
Teddy's next hiccup shot streaks of purple through his hair. Bright colors, it seemed, had gotten boring.
Ron looked up and stared at Teddy with frightening intensity. "Wait, I've--what if we Flooed Luna?"
Harry's eyes shouldn't have been able to get wider, yet somehow they did. "Luna, we can't Floo Luna, she--wait, why can't we Floo Luna?"
Ron's face started splitting into a grin. "She might just know something..." he said.
Harry grinned back. "Go, quick, I've got him. Go!"
Ron scrambled to the Floo, threw in some powder, shoved his head in, and yelled "LUNA, EMERGENCY" so loud Harry's next door neighbor banged on the wall.
Ron just managed to pull his head out of the fireplace before Luna whooshed in.
"Ronald, Harry, how are you?" she said, calm as ever. She must have been surprised; she was wearing a painter's smock backwards, no trousers, and had a paintbrush jammed in her hair. The paintbrush was still dripping purple paint, and for a moment she shared an uncanny resemblance with little Teddy, until he hiccuped again and his hair shifted back to 'normal' blue.
"Luna, we need your help," Harry said.
They quickly explained the situation, tripping over each other a couple times in their haste, as Luna placidly took the baby from them and rubbed noses with him.
"And yeah, we thought, maybe you could help?" Ron finished weakly.
Luna stroked a long-fingered hand over Teddy's crown. "I think I know just the thing. Or rather, I don't think I know it, I do know it. And Harry, this is a lovely color. Do you dye it?"
Harry blinked once, tried to speak, coughed, and tried again. "Er no, Luna, he's a Metamorphagus."
"Oh, is he really? I used to think it would be fun to be one of those. Then I thought that I was having quite a bit of fun just being me, so I decided to stay as I was."
Ron scratched the back of his neck. "That's-that's nice, Luna. So..."
"Oh, yes, right, the hiccups. Can I borrow a wand? I seem to have left mine behind." Harry wordlessly passed her his wand as she shifted Teddy in her arms. "Now, it's quite simple, really, my father used to do this all the time for me when I was a baby."
She tapped Teddy in the chest with the wand. "Don't worry, it's perfectly safe," she said as she waved the wand and swooped Teddy into the air. Some part of Harry's and Ron's matching gobsmacked expressions must have filtered through, because she looked over at them and grinned. After all, Teddy was upside down at this point.
"Really," she continued. "Completely harmless. And actually, I remember it being rather pleasant." Teddy spun gently in a sudden shower of sparks, but he did not, in fact, seem to be hiccuping any longer. Luna plucked him from the air and handed him to Ron, passing the wand back to Harry.
"See?" she said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Simple."
Ron gaped like a fish and Harry struggled to find words. When he finally regained the power to speak, all that came out was, "L-luna? You remember. Being a baby."
Luna shrugged. "Of course, don't you?"
Now Ron was hiding his mouth with the inside of his wrist and making strange choking noises as he gently placed Teddy back into the cradle-thing. Harry moved over to Luna and grasped her shoulders.
"Luna, I want you to promise me something," he said.
"What is it, Harry?"
"Please. Never. Never change."
Luna smiled her serene Luna-smile. "I'll try, Harry." Harry started to nod, but lost his composure as she continued. "Now, is there anything else you need, or shall I go? Because I left Dean tied to the bed, and I really should get back."
The sound of their laughter carried her pleasantly back through the Floo.
::fin::
A/N the 2nd: I honestly have no idea how one does cure baby!hiccups. I mean, it's not like you can get them to swallow a spoonful of sugar or anything, right?
And the phrase "Monkey Trumpets" is sadly not mine, it belongs to Futurama, but I do love it so.
Author: attilatehbun
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/Characters: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood, wee! Teddy Lupin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: <2300
Contains: flailing. a lot of it.
Summary: Teddy has a serious ailment and the boys completely do not panic. At all. Really. They swear.
Author's Notes: Spontaneous "oh shi- this went long" fic for magglenagall, for one seriously inspiring prompt, not to mention, y'know, the awesome. Unbetaed, so, again, y'know.
::
"So you've got the ankle-biter tonight then, eh?" Ron said, leaving off fiddling with the dials on the wireless and flopping into the seat next to Harry.
"Dunno, Ron," Harry said, squinting at the small figure perched awkwardly on his knee. "I don't think he's big enough yet to qualify as an ankle-biter." Harry reached out and poked it gently in the middle.
Teddy gurgled happily in response and blew a spit bubble.
Harry leaned back and scratched his head. "Maybe just a toe-nibbler?"
Ron snorted and uncorked two bottles of Butterbeer. "Well, he seems quiet enough, I'll give him that. Wouldn't want to miss any of the match," he said, gesturing at the wireless. "Should start any minute now."
With that, Ron passed one of the bottles over to Harry, who managed to juggle both it and the baby, miraculously dropping neither. A bit of Butterbeer spilled on the cushion, but Harry decided he'd just flip that over later and no one would be the wiser.
"Should I?" Harry started. "Maybe I should put him down? Dunno if I can hold him up for the entire match. Sometimes he gets squirmy."
Ron shrugged. "Like I would know? Where can you put 'im anyway?"
Harry jumped up and shoved Teddy at Ron, who took him in reflex and looked like he wanted to grip him like a Quaffle but wasn't sure how. "Oh! Andromeda gave me--" He bent over and rummaged beneath the sofa. "Ah, here. She lent me this. It's a cradle or something. She used a fancier word for it." He paused and looked at Ron, who stared just as blankly back.
"Oh, give him here," Harry said, and tutted in a frighteningly maternal fashion. He grabbed Teddy gingerly and held him at arm's length.
"I don't think he's going to break, mate," Ron said with a smirk at Harry's expression.
"You never know, he just might at that."
Harry turned and laid him down in the cradle-thing, adjusting it so it would be at his feet if Teddy needed something. Meanwhile, the match was getting off to a fantastic start, with the Cannons down 40-0 in the first two minutes of the game. As Harry was settling into a lazy rocking motion between his foot and the cradle-thing, Ron was already starting to groan and tug his hair into progressively wierder shapes.
Fifteen minutes later he was so fed up with the score (now 120-10) that he started to reach for a bottle of Firewhisky, but Harry looked up, then glanced at Teddy, and then looked back at Ron. Ron sighed and grumbled something about him not being the bloody godfather, but he put the bottle back and opened another Butterbeer.
"Cheer up, Ron," Harry said. "Can't be that bad, they've been doing better this season."
"If by better, you mean narrowing the margin of loss from 200 points to only 180."
"Yes, Ron, yes, that is exactly what I meant," Harry said, rolling his eyes.
Ron sighed and pressed the heel of the hand not holding a Butterbeer to his eye, and was quiet.
And things stayed quiet until they broke for the half and there was a tiny little up noise that was almost lost in the cheers of the stadium crowd. Ron reached over and turned down the volume. "Urgh, don't want to hear those bloody wankers cheer for their stupid, idiot, crap team."
Harry laughed and threw a pillow at him.
There was another tiny up noise.
Harry looked at Ron. "Oh come off it, it was just a pillow, I didn't even throw it that hard."
Ron flicked his eyes around the room and raised an eyebrow at Harry. "Er, wasn't me," he said around the mouth of his bottle.
Again, there was a tiny up noise. This time they both heard it, and looked at each other before simultaneously dragging their gazes to the cradle-thing. Teddy gurgled at both of them as if he was happy to be on display, then hiccuped again.
"Oh bugger!" cried Harry, jumping out of his seat.
"What did he do?" Ron said, dropping his bottle to the floor, not even noticing as the Butterbeer gurgled sadly out all over the carpet.
"Hiccuped, I think," Harry said with a note of panic. He lifted Teddy up and tried to examine him. Teddy just made a grab for Harry's glasses.
"What do we do?"
"I have no idea!" Harry took several frantic steps in each direction before coming back to where he started. "Quick, Ron. What do we do for hiccups?"
"How the hell should I know, I just asked you!" Ron said, waving his arms wildly. Harry swung Teddy out of the way in the nick of time.
"B-but! You've got loads of brothers and a sister and I just-- Surely your mum must know something for hiccups!"
"I'm sure she does, but it's not like she ever told me!" Ron began to pace back and forth, pulling at his hair again and narrowly avoiding tripping over the Butterbeer bottle on the floor.
Harry would not hyperventilate, he would not hyperventilate. "But surely you must have seen her at it!"
Ron paused and fixed Harry with a glare. "Harry, in case you haven't noticed, all my brothers are older than me, and when the only sibling younger than me was at the age to get hiccups I was still chewing on blankets and wetting my nappies!"
"Right, right," Harry muttered. He lifted Teddy up to his shoulder and began gently patting him on the back. "Oh crap, oh monkey trumpets."
Ron stopped again. "Monkey trumpets?"
"Shut up. Shit Ron, what are we going to do?"
Ron turned on his heel and headed for the fireplace. "We've got to Floo Mrs. Tonks."
Harry had never moved that fast before, not for the Snitch and not even when fighting for his life. He made it in front of Ron, still lightly bouncing Teddy (who was blowing more spit bubbles) before Ron had made it three steps. "No!"
Ron nearly fell over.
"No, you can't call Andromeda. You can't. If she hears about this she'll never let me alone with Teddy again," Harry said, eyes wide and frantic.
"Er, mate, it's just the hiccups."
"That is not the point," Harry said with a wild shushing gesture. "Ok, maybe it is the point, but you can't Floo her. I've got to prove to her that I can take care of him on my own.
"But obviously you can't, right, so it's okay. She won't hold it against you." Ron said.
Harry pulled back and looked up at him, his expression slightly cracked.
"Since when did you become the sensible one here?"
"Since I started dating Hermione," Ron said without missing a beat.
"Oh."
Teddy hiccuped again, but this time when he did half of the fluff on his head that could only loosely be deemed 'hair' turned from brilliant turquoise to neon pink.
Harry gave a girly little scream and almost dropped him.
"Crap crap crap what are we going to do?" he said, holding Teddy once again at arm's length.
Ron's eyes were just as panicked as Harry met them, and he shook his head.
Harry took a step and then immediately turned around and went for the fireplace. "Wait! That's it! We'll Floo Hermione."
This time Ron was the one moving with heretofore unknown speed to grab Harry's collar and pull him back.
"No. No way. We cannot, repeat, cannot Floo Hermione," he said.
"What, should we call her instead? I've got a phone here somepl--"
Ron gave Harry a shake by his collar (gently, so as not to disturb Teddy any more than necessary). "No, git. We are not contacting Hermione at all."
Harry had no other response to this than to stamp his foot. Teddy gave something that was almost a laugh, hiccuped, and changed the other half of his hair to platinum blond.
Apparently the boy liked bright colors.
"Why the hell not, Ron? She'll know what to do!"
"Of course she will," Ron roared. Ron's face got very, very red, and on Teddy's next hiccup, his hair changed to match.
"And?" Harry demanded.
"And she'll fix him and then come in here and fix us with that look, you know the one, the one that all but screams You two are completely useless, can't even handle a baby by yourselves, where would you be without me pulling your arses from the fire, I mean honestly."
Harry's face shifted away from panicked for the first time since Teddy's hiccups started as he blinked. "You know, your Hermione impression's gotten very good, Ron."
"Ch, it's not hard, you just have to get the proper level of Completely Mental into your voice and the rest is easy." He shook his head. "But look, we cannot, under any circumstances, Floo her. Or call her. Or no!" he paused, seeing Harry edging away, "No owling, either."
"Well fine then!" Teddy hiccuped again. "What do you suggest? We can't Floo Ginny--"
"No no, absolutely right, we cannot Floo Ginny, no."
Harry waited. Teddy hiccuped, sending his hair back to an odd mixture of pink and blond.
"We could Floo your mum?" he suggested.
Ron dropped into an arm chair and covered his face with his hands. "Oh Merlin no, that'd be worse than Ginny and Mrs. Tonks put together."
"Yeah." Harry slumped onto the sofa and tried bouncing Teddy on his knee. It didn't do anything for the hiccups, but Teddy made a little wave that was almost a clap.
"Why can't we think of anything?" he said after a brief pause.
"Because Hermione's right and we really are useless," Ron muttered into his hands.
Teddy's next hiccup shot streaks of purple through his hair. Bright colors, it seemed, had gotten boring.
Ron looked up and stared at Teddy with frightening intensity. "Wait, I've--what if we Flooed Luna?"
Harry's eyes shouldn't have been able to get wider, yet somehow they did. "Luna, we can't Floo Luna, she--wait, why can't we Floo Luna?"
Ron's face started splitting into a grin. "She might just know something..." he said.
Harry grinned back. "Go, quick, I've got him. Go!"
Ron scrambled to the Floo, threw in some powder, shoved his head in, and yelled "LUNA, EMERGENCY" so loud Harry's next door neighbor banged on the wall.
Ron just managed to pull his head out of the fireplace before Luna whooshed in.
"Ronald, Harry, how are you?" she said, calm as ever. She must have been surprised; she was wearing a painter's smock backwards, no trousers, and had a paintbrush jammed in her hair. The paintbrush was still dripping purple paint, and for a moment she shared an uncanny resemblance with little Teddy, until he hiccuped again and his hair shifted back to 'normal' blue.
"Luna, we need your help," Harry said.
They quickly explained the situation, tripping over each other a couple times in their haste, as Luna placidly took the baby from them and rubbed noses with him.
"And yeah, we thought, maybe you could help?" Ron finished weakly.
Luna stroked a long-fingered hand over Teddy's crown. "I think I know just the thing. Or rather, I don't think I know it, I do know it. And Harry, this is a lovely color. Do you dye it?"
Harry blinked once, tried to speak, coughed, and tried again. "Er no, Luna, he's a Metamorphagus."
"Oh, is he really? I used to think it would be fun to be one of those. Then I thought that I was having quite a bit of fun just being me, so I decided to stay as I was."
Ron scratched the back of his neck. "That's-that's nice, Luna. So..."
"Oh, yes, right, the hiccups. Can I borrow a wand? I seem to have left mine behind." Harry wordlessly passed her his wand as she shifted Teddy in her arms. "Now, it's quite simple, really, my father used to do this all the time for me when I was a baby."
She tapped Teddy in the chest with the wand. "Don't worry, it's perfectly safe," she said as she waved the wand and swooped Teddy into the air. Some part of Harry's and Ron's matching gobsmacked expressions must have filtered through, because she looked over at them and grinned. After all, Teddy was upside down at this point.
"Really," she continued. "Completely harmless. And actually, I remember it being rather pleasant." Teddy spun gently in a sudden shower of sparks, but he did not, in fact, seem to be hiccuping any longer. Luna plucked him from the air and handed him to Ron, passing the wand back to Harry.
"See?" she said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Simple."
Ron gaped like a fish and Harry struggled to find words. When he finally regained the power to speak, all that came out was, "L-luna? You remember. Being a baby."
Luna shrugged. "Of course, don't you?"
Now Ron was hiding his mouth with the inside of his wrist and making strange choking noises as he gently placed Teddy back into the cradle-thing. Harry moved over to Luna and grasped her shoulders.
"Luna, I want you to promise me something," he said.
"What is it, Harry?"
"Please. Never. Never change."
Luna smiled her serene Luna-smile. "I'll try, Harry." Harry started to nod, but lost his composure as she continued. "Now, is there anything else you need, or shall I go? Because I left Dean tied to the bed, and I really should get back."
The sound of their laughter carried her pleasantly back through the Floo.
::fin::
A/N the 2nd: I honestly have no idea how one does cure baby!hiccups. I mean, it's not like you can get them to swallow a spoonful of sugar or anything, right?
And the phrase "Monkey Trumpets" is sadly not mine, it belongs to Futurama, but I do love it so.