alt_charlie | ORDER ONLY: Private message to Tonks

I mean. How the sodding dragon-shelled fuck do you come up with something like that?

~~It's like a teenage wizard's wank dream or something~~

He has to have talked to you first, right? He wouldn't have started with me. ~~Or if he did that's bollocks~~

I was asleep. Until Kreacher realised that the nasty blood traitor wouldn't get out of the fire until he'd got me to talk to him.

I've no idea what gets into him- Dumbledore, I mean.

But, honestly, now I've had a cuppa and a chance to think about it half a moment, it's not as if I haven't thought of having another. And, really, it wouldn't hurt me. What could it hurt?

Oh, but. I don't mean that to put pressure on you. I'm not assuming you'd want that.

No! No, it's not on my behalf that's I'm sitting here wondering if he's gone round the twist, it's just -- how the suffering wings of Ladon and his little golden apples do you even think of something like that? And then bring it to people with a straight face?

And how did he think that we were the ones to talk to about it? I mean. ~~It's not like we've told people~~

-- okay, I've been sitting here ever since I got out of the fire with him and trying to pull together my thoughts and I just keep coming back to the same few things and turning them around and around and not coming to any conclusions. Let me try and see if I can put it in words, and you forgive me when it comes out a bit jumbled, or when I put my foot in it, yeah?

It's your body and you're the only one who gets to have the say about what gets done with it. There's nothing in the whole world that could make me agree to this if you weren't completely, totally, entirely on board. I don't care if Dumbledore thinks that rite might be able to crack the wards. Hell, I wouldn't care if Dumbledore thought that rite could cause Voldemort to spontaneously combust and take all his Council with him and wake up all the Sleepers and, and, give them each a million Galleons and a pony.

But. I know you've been thinking about having another kid for a while. And I know you've been thinking about, how would you do it, and who would you get to be the father, and how it might fit in to your family and your work with the Order and and and, and I told you -- oh, it was a good while back now, you may have even forgot -- that if you did want another, you could call me, and I'd help. And that's still true. Because you're

Well. You're a good mum. No, strike that. You're a great mum. Bea's happy and healthy and she's never known a day of being lonely or scared or uncertain. And if you have another kid, I know they'll be the same.

And, look. I know we both said right up front that you and me, we're in it for fun and we're friends no matter what, and that's true. I don't see it changing anytime in the future, either. I'm fine with us being in this together. I trust you. I trust you'd do right by the kid and I trust you that we could work out any problems we had between the two of us.

I've always wanted kids someday, yeah? That's not the issue.

And I'd do or be anything you wanted me to as part of this. I'd help support it, even though the three of you are doing just fine supporting yourselves and Bea. And I know we'd have to work out stories carefully, because you and 'Mr Ponds' are still married and all, but I could be your old school chum there to give you a hand and take you to the Healer and bring you toast and tea.

If you wanted me to, I mean. Not that I think you couldn't handle it by yourself, just that -- you shouldn't have to, not if I could help. I mean, I know you have Remus and Sirius and all, but ... Merlin, I'm blathering. I just want you to know that I'd be willing to do as much or as little as you wanted, yeah?

And once it's born, if you wanted me to be the baby's father figure, I'd be fine with that. However we could make that work, and I do think we could make it work. It would take us a lot of talking it out to see what that meant for us, but if there's one thing I've learned over the last, oh, six years or so, it's how to have a talk about relationships, not just sex or love relationships I mean, all kinds of people relationships, without everybody winding up screaming at each other and going off to sulk in the loo for hours on end. We could work out something that everybody was happy with -- you, me, Sirus and Remus, Bea, everybody. (Oh, Merlin. Mum. I don't know how Mum would react.)

And if you wanted me to be Uncle Charlie who stops in when he can and babysits and brings the kid indulgent toys that make noise and drive you bonkers and that's all, I -- think I would be okay with that? I keep coming back to that and thinking, could I stand to watch my kid calling somebody else Da, and not be bothered by it, and I keep coming round and round back to the answer that -- well, that if the kid's happy and healthy and never knows a day of being scared or lonely or uncertain, as long as the kid knows that they're loved and cherished and secure, that's the important part. And I know you can do that. I can't be absolutely certain how I'd feel once the kid got here, but -- like I said, I trust you. I would trust you with my kid. (Our kid. Merlin.)

So I keep going around and around and around and not really getting anywhere. Sorry. That's a page and a half of blather and even I don't think I'm making any sense.

But it's your decision, love. It is absolutely, without a doubt, one hundred percent your own sodding decision. If you're on board with the idea, I'm on board with the idea. If you're not on board with the idea, or even if you're mostly sure but still have even a little bit of doubt, Dumbledore can shove it.

And mostly I'm just sitting here and thinking, who the fuck goes and tells somebody "oh by the way, I have this idea, tomorow's Beltane, how would you like to spend it fucking for England" and suggests you go try to make a baby as part of a ritual to try to, I don't know, save the world or whatever -- with less than a day's notice?

Albus sodding Dumbledore, that's who.

Sorry. Sorry. I didn't realise how much of a mess that all was until I finished writing it all out.

Look. Let's you and me talk about this later tonight, all right? I'm on shift until ten, but if it's all right, I can come down after. It can be just us, or we can bring Remus and Sirius in, or ... I don't know. I just don't want to decide anything entirely by journal without talking about it in person.

Oh. Phah.

I just started laughing so loudly, reading yours, that Padfoot and Bea came in to see about me. I'm going to have to tell him something!

Sorry. I wasn't laughing at- well, I was, rather. You know we're going to try this, don't you?

I mean, why not? There's nothing says it'll work. I'm not at the right time of the month, I don't think. I mean to say, I suppose I don't know exactly what the right time is so much as when it's really not, but what are the chances?

What are the chances the old man's right?

And it's worth a wild try he might be, isn't it?

You know what they all say about his being omniscient. I hadn't thought it until you said, but how did he have any notion to ask us? I mean, we've kept your mother from suspecting, and she's got special Mum sensors for picking up on that sort of thing, hasn't she?

Actually, though. That's the thing we need to talk about. Really, truly.

Tonight.

And I do want us to talk and then all of us to talk if Themselves are able to be here. Remus and Ellie can cover the garden so I can leave whenever you get here, and then he and Sirius can come join us after they've got things done up for the night at Doughty.

But... I have to admit: I think it sounds like a wicked lark, don't you?

And now it's got me tickled again.

I know. I keep breaking out into fits of the giggles and then realising how serious it all is and fretting about it for five minutes before it strikes me again how absolutely mental this whole idea is and losing it again.

Fucking for England! Shagging to save everyone! Bringing new meaning to the phrase "field of engagement"!

Maybe that's why the old man asked us specifically, he needed experts at it!

Ahem. Yeah. You're right, aren't you. We are going to do this. It's mad, it's absolutely sodding barking, but I guess we are the best choice, because no matter what (or who) comes out of it, we'll be able to handle it, you and me.

Right, then, I'll head straight down as soon as I'm relieved. And I'll spend the time until then working out all the six score questions we really ought to have settled between us before we tell the old man Yes or No for sure, even if the Yes is pretty inevitable. (Yeah, like 'what do we tell Mum'. Or, really, 'do we tell Mum', and 'do we tell anyone', and 'no, really, how can we tell anyone without cracking up from the absurdity', and all that.)

And I mean it, you know. This is going to send you into fits again, I just know it, but, you're the only girl in the whole world I'd be willing to bang for the war effort. (Merlin, I can't even write that with a straight face.)

There you go, banging on about it!

I mean. Really.

ALBUS SODDING DUMBLEDORE TOLD US WE NEED TO GET A LEG OVER AS PART OF DEFEATING VOLDEMORT.

Our lives, Tonks. Our bloody lives.

I know, what?

Well, count me as ready to take one for the side.

And. The more I think about it, the more -- you know, I would really like to someday meet a little person who was a little bit of you and a little bit of me.

And if we do this? Let's you and me swear right now that neither of us will ever tell the kid how they came about. Because I wouldn't want them to ever think they were there for any reason other than because we wanted them.

I mean. If we did this.

I swear.

That sounds just right.

ORDER ONLY: Private message to Tonks

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