Order Only Private message to Bill

[alt_charlie]

Right. Got back from Grimmauld and Gred and Forge said Rachel called you out for something going on in New London. I hope it's not as bad as it could be.

Anyway, I was hoping you'd still be at the Burrow when Mum and I got back from Grimmauld -- I think you probably realised, you were looking at me like you were keeping yourself from asking what was going on, but I wanted to make absolutely sure I told Mum first. And I'm sorry I couldn't stick around and tell you in person, using the journals feels like a bit of a cop-out, but I ran out of time and had to be back up here in time to change before I went on shift.

(Sorry, I'm rambling, I'm still a bit keyed up from talking to Mum.)

Anyway. It's nothing bad! Quite the opposite, really. And you might have guessed something about this already, I'd be surprised if you hadn't.

Remember back at the end of April, when Dumbledore asked me to help him out with a project on Beltane, one he thought might do something for the wards? Well. Um. He asked me and Tonks together. He had an idea that life magic might undo some of the magic of the wards. And I don't know whether it had any effect on the wards, but the 'life' part of the life magic worked just fine, apparently!

So, yeah. I'm part thrilled and part terrified. And it keeps sinking in all over again that Tonks and I made a person.

Comments

[alt_charlie]

Gah. Most awkward confession ever! This is why I wanted to do this in person. But I didn't want to wait for you to know, at first we were going to wait until the baby was born (because Merlin only knows what effect the magic will have and we didn't want to hex it) and then we both realised, we couldn't wait any longer, we're sort of bursting.

[alt_charlie]

Merlin, Bill, I'm going to be a FATHER.

WHO THE FUCK DECIDED I WAS A GROWN-UP.

[alt_bill]

You're still a little keyed up, aren't you? Did Mum wig out on you?

Were you nervous about telling me? Charlie, Charlie, I'm...well, I was a bit gobsmacked a few months ago when the news of the pregnancy came out and I counted back and--yeah. Beltane. Beltane, which is all about fertility. And when I ran over in my mind the likeliest possibilities for the baby's father, and I thought about how you've been so comfortable with Tonks, well, duh. I've been waiting for you to tell me. I couldn't say anything, though, because you didn't say anything.

But for the two of you? I'm happy as can be for both of you, honest.

You are a grownup; the war's made everyone a grownup, whether they like it or not.

What a thing for Albus to ask of you--both of you--but I'm bloody proud that he picked you.

But the hell with that, you're going to be a father. (And Merlin, I'm going to be an uncle.) We already know that Tonks is a terrific mum.

Did Mum spontaneously combust out of sheer excitement? Or was she angry?

Who's allowed to know the truth about this?

[alt_bill]

Oh, Merlin. And besides Ron and Ginny getting a new niece or nephew, the twins are going to be uncles, too. Agents of anarchy.

I hope that doesn't terrify Tonks.

[alt_charlie]

No, I wasn't nervous about telling you. I thought about doing it a few times over the past few months, even if we didn't tell Mum, but we really were nervous about whether the baby would make it or if the magic would have weird side effects, and we didn't want to get people's hopes up even more. (Turns out we were right to get worried, or at least a little bit, Tonks went into false labour last week with the last Octoboros activation. But everything turned out fine, at least.)

But we're at the point now where if the worst happened, there's a good chance the Bap would make it, and with that whole big scare with MLE, well. We thought it would be better if the rest of the Weasleys knew, at least. In case anything happens.

Mum took it like a champ. She was furious at Dumbledore for asking (and remind me to tell you a little bit later how he did, it was like he was asking us to pick up a pint of milk on our way home!) and a bit worried about whether we'd really thought things through and what it would mean for the baby if our friendship couldn't stand the strain in a few years, but for all it happened incredibly quickly we'd talked it over a lot (one thing I'm damn well good at, examining all the possible repercussions of relationships and sitting down and talking them all through instead of assuming) and came to agreements, with Sirius and Remus too, and I think Mum could see that we were serious about this but not all that worried, you know? So that helped.

She's being brilliant about it, really. She and I had a bit of a sit-down after, just the two of us, and she said she wants to do anything and everything she can do to help out and to be involved, but it was in the sweet and supportive way and not the blaze-in-and-take-over way, you know? And she could see that I'm starting to get scared, that it's starting to sink in that I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life out of my head with worry, and she told me everything's going to be just fine and we're going to be wonderful parents. And coming from Mum, that means something.

And for who knows -- Dumbledore, obviously. Sirius and Remus. Alice, and I think maybe Frank too but I'm not sure. I think Snape might have guessed, you know how he took himself off to Moddey today? Apparently he said something in passing about wanting to avoid 'a possible scene'. Oh, and Poppy. That's it for now, although I told the twins already, and I'm going to tell Ron and Ginny as soon as I can.

You're going to be an amazing uncle, you know. (Oh, Merlin's beard, I hadn't thought of the twins as uncles. That is terrifying.)

Oh -- and it's a boy. He's a boy. We thought we wanted to be surprised, but then we decided, no, Tonks would ask Poppy at her checkup. I was convinced it was a girl! But no.

[alt_bill]

I'm so glad that Mum rose to the occasion and didn't add to your worries by reacting badly.

Bloody hell, Charlie. You must have been going out of your mind with worry, with the MLE raid. We all were, of course, but your stake in the outcome was certainly more personal. But I see how that added impetus to telling us. If your mind has been spinning out all sorts of awful scenarios based on that, you know we'd always look after our own, even if some of us should fall. Whether related to us by blood or not.

And then false labour on top of that, because of the Octoboros stuff? Well, at least that adds credence to Albus' theory.

Wouldn't it be a lovely thing when she gives birth for real, if the wards would come crashing down?

So it's a boy, then? Not a surprise, in our family! Is Tonks happy about that? How much has she told Bea about the new member of the family?

It's a good thing wizards can apparate, because otherwise fathering long distance would be much more complicated.

I'm glad you've told me.

What are you looking forward to the most? And what scares you the most about it?

[alt_charlie]

The long distance -- yeah. I hadn't told Tonks, but I was starting to think about maybe giving up my job here and looking for something in New London instead. There's always work for someone who's good with creatures, or I was thinking of going to Gringotts and trading on my work with the goblins to see if they had any openings. So I could be closer, you know? But then MLE raided Doughty, and it was only idle thoughts anyway, we really do need someone up here with access to dragons. (As Snape reminds me every time he sees me, we are always in need of dragon's blood.)

But yeah. The raid was what made me think it was time to start telling people. I was very nearly there when MLE came in, you know? I'd just apparated in up the street. And Tonks said that when she got shoved through the Floo, she had an awful half hour of thinking I'd showed up and she hadn't noticed me, and that everyone she cared about was dead or captured, and that's when we decided, yeah, it's time.

I think that's what I'm worried most about. That I won't live to see him grow up, that we'll still be fighting this bloody war in twelve years' time and he won't ever get to go to Hogwarts, that he'll grow up without a mum or any of his dads or not live to grow up at all. That if he does grow up and we're all there to see it, that he might grow up and turn out like ... oh, like Percy, and we'll have to watch him buy wholeheartedly into the whole fucked up mess. And then there's the worries that aren't the same kind of worries that everyone with a baby on the way in the Protectorate share, that the magic will have done something to him or he'll wind up tied to the wards somehow and wind up hurt or dead when we do figure out how to drop them, that taking the wards down will wind up needing something from him that will hurt him.

Or, you know, just the usual fears, like what if he gets hurt or sick, or what if I wind up being rubbish at this parenting thing, or what if I can't make enough time and I miss his whole childhood and he grows up thinking of me as that funny stranger who pops in every now and then. That kind of thing.

But then I think of moments like ... oh, do you remember that one summer when the Twins had just started to walk, and they were taking up all Mum's time and effort and she was wearing herself thin chasing after them (and now that I look back on it, she was also being quietly terrified about all the risks Dad was taking with the Order), there was that time you'd gone off to do something outside and I got into Mum's makeup and painted it all over the bathroom walls? The last of her good lipstick, the kind you couldn't get anymore. And Dad came home and he was just at the end of his rope, and he found me, and the look on his face was just this utter exhaustion ... and then he started to laugh, and he didn't stop for five minutes, and when he was done laughing he sat right down there on the floor with me and asked me to explain all the pictures I'd drawn, and he helped me make up stories for all of them.

I'm looking forward to things like that. Getting to know a little person who's half me and half Tonks, and seeing what kind of things he comes up with.

We've told Little Miss she's going to have a brother, yeah. She seems unenthused so far. But she's been having a rough few weeks, the poor kidlet.

[alt_bill]

We've all had near misses. I remember the time I was almost picked up when Archer was brought in, and I was only warned off in time by a portrait. But the thought you might be leaving a kid behind if you're caught...yeah, that adds a whole other layer to the sweating you do when you have a close call like that.

I wish I could promise you we'll all get through this alive. Rachel says she trusts me as much as she's ever trusted anyone, but there's still a faint barrier there between us because she really doubts she's going to make it through the war. I don't feel I can bring up the issue of kids with her as long as she has a hard time believing we'll win through.

Any kid is a vote of hope in a better future. If your son was conceived on Beltane, as part of a great magic to bring about that better future, well...I have to believe that's a powerful protection for him all on its own. And for his mum and dad--his entire family, really. We Weasleys are optimists, I reckon, and so I hope I'll eventually bring Rachel around to my way of thinking. Not that having a kid is necessary to believe in the future, but it would be nice if she came to think that she really has one.

I think you and Tonks will make a great team as parents. You have strengths that complement each other, you know? You'll have deep reserve brooms, too, with Remus and Sirius and Mum, all elbowing each other aside to change a nappy.

(Now I've been sitting here trying to imagine what a nephew would be like with a blend of your and Tonks' personality. Someone easy-going, but still conscientious. And someone who laughs a lot.)

[alt_charlie]

Well, as long as my reserve team fumbles less often than the Cannons', we'll be in good shape. (Not that you could be worse ... I really thought we had a chance this year.)

And thanks. It's good to be reminded of those things.

I hope Rachel does make it through all this. She's good for you.

I have to put my journal away now, we're done with inventory and it's time to go out for the night. But ... thanks for being you, big brother.