Am I Catching Feelings, Or Am I Just Sleep Deprived

by SB1642

Summary:

Harry Potter is exhausted. Like, all the time. Between surviving a war he was meant to die to win, having a sexual identity crisis and subsequent breakup with the girl he thought he'd marry, his friends up and moving halfway across the earth, and raising his dead father's dead friends' baby, mostly alone...Harry Potter is exhausted. And maybe a little lonely. So when his best friend's VERY fit brother (who happens to be his ex-girlfriend's VERY sweet brother) starts showing up at family dinners again and subsequently turning up just when Harry needs a hand the most, he decides there's no way he's getting a crush on the man...he's just exhausted. Right?

Notes:

This one goes out to the weary.

Chapter 1: How many times can a man microwave a cup of coffee before it's ruined?

Am I Catching Feelings, Or Am I Just Sleep Deprived?

 

CHAPTER 1

The patronus arrived just as Harry was dry-swallowing a paracetamol and setting his 3 hour old mug of coffee into the microwave for the 6th time. He probably should’ve just started a fresh pot, but Percy had droned on and on at family dinner a few months ago about how wastefulness fed into a person’s unhappiness and even if one has the resources to just replace things, doesn’t mean that it’s morally sound to do so. Or something to that effect, so really he’d better not risk making things worse on himself. Not that Harry was particularly unhappy, he was just so unfathomably exhausted.

It was as though the fiber of his being, his genetic makeup, his very soul was tired. Harry, for the past several months now, had been dealing with a gut-wrenching, all-encompassing, bone weary exhaustion. He’d first chalked it up to being a new (single) dad, which for the record, WAS truly exhausting.

Teddy was the sweetest, cutest, most beautiful baby in the entire world, and Harry didn’t even think that he was being that biased by believing so. But…he never seemed to stop crying. The healers had told Harry that there wasn’t anything physically wrong with Teddy that they could find, and that it was probably a phase that he would grow out of. That was over 6 months ago, and his son still wailed at all hours of the day and night. To add to the matter, Harry found himself an extremely paranoid type of parent. He struggled with sleeping when the baby slept for fear that something terrible would happen to Teddy while he was asleep, or that the baby would wake up and need him but he’d be so deep in rest that he’d miss it and Teddy would pass out from crying so hard or something equally horrible. At Molly’s suggestion, he had moved Teddy’s crib into his own bedroom for “the crying phase”, but even then he battled with his own mind over the safety of falling asleep every night until he inevitably tossed and turned fitfully for a couple of hours and then woke up unsatisfied and frustrated in the morning to the sounds of Teddy echoing his own inner shrieks of deepening madness.

Madness, it turns out, was exactly the correct word to describe how he was feeling these days. On top of a truly horrific crying-baby-induced sleep schedule, Harry was also going through something of an existential crisis. Hermione called it a “quarter-life crisis”, but Harry was only just beginning to really accept his new-found life expectancy and thus, couldn’t really wrap his mind around the phrase. Plus, Hermione had gone and fucked right off to Australia, and had taken Ron with her just to rub salt in the wound.

He could admit that they had a perfectly valid reason to fuck off to Australia, namely finding Hermione’s parents, undoing the obliviation their daughter had forced upon them, rebuilding a trusting relationship with said parents, and healing form war-time trauma far removed from the locale in which that trauma occurred. Not to mention the fact that whilst on the hunt for Hermione’s parents, Ron had gone and stumbled upon his dream job: Quidditch commentary. No no, not commentary as in live from the field, commentary as in play-by-play breakdowns and league predictions recorded and played on the Australian Wizarding Wireless Network (AWWN) for thousands of Australian wixen to tune in to and enjoy every Monday and Thursday. Ron, as it turned out, was something of a notable Quidditch strategist, and the general consensus around the magical population down under was that his show (which he really only started as a bit of an inside joke to cheer George up) was “funny, insightful, and sharp”. Ron’s near-immediate radio success had led to Harry’s best friends deciding to stay abroad long-term, even after reconciling with Hermione’s parents who also remained in Australia.

Harry had only just hit the start button on the microwave and turned around to throw away the wrapping of the pain reliever when a ghostly silver sparrow flew through his kitchen cupboard and fluttered around his head. She opened her beak and spoke in a familiar voice.

“Harry, we seem to be out of sugar. Do you think you could bring a bag around when you come by for dinner tonight?” she asked.

Her message delivered, the sparrow dispersed leaving Harry chuckling softly in her wake. He pulled out his wand, thought of a big hug and a treacle tart, and whispered “Expecto Patronum”. He looked down at his tiny wolf cub patronus and thought fondly of the proud stag he’d once taken shape as, before saying “Yes of course, Teddy and I will be there, sugar in hand at 5. Do you need me to bring anything else?” and watched the little guy scamper off to The Burrow.

The microwave finished re-heating his coffee soundlessly (Harry had utilized a permanent silencing spell on the beeper after the damned thing had woken the baby several times), and he slowly nursed it while waiting on Molly’s response.

It didn’t take long. Harry had just sat at the table when the sparrow returned with the short message “No thank you dear, just yourself and that sweet boy! And the sugar! Don’t forget!”

Harry rolled his eyes fondly at the predictability of Molly’s answer, both the rejection of him bringing anything else, and her reminder not to forget the one thing she’d asked him to provide. As he crossed his arms and used them to cushion his head, he thought of the last time Mrs. Weasley had asked him to bring something along with him and how devastating it had been when he forgot. She learned to never entrust him with something as important as the sandwich bread and he learned to always write himself a note, but made no move to do so this time, as his memory faded and he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 2: Is it cool with everyone if I throw myself into a pit of despair real quick?

Notes:

~text~ is Parseltongue :)

CHAPTER 2

~The hatchling calls for you, Master~

~Don’t call me Master, Zephyr. What have I asked you to call me?~

~Harry. Harry, the hatchling. He calls out for you.~

Harry snapped unpleasantly into wakefulness as soon as Zephyr’s words had sunk in. From upstairs Teddy could be heard crying out as though in extreme distress. Knocking over his room temperature coffee on his way up from the table, Harry made it up to his and Teddy’s bedroom in record time. He scooped the infant out of his crib and cuddled him close, murmuring apologies and soothing sounds and gently bouncing the baby and rocking slowly side to side.

~You needn’t apologize to me Master, the hatchling’s cries do not bother me in the way that they bother you.~ Zephyr hissed as she slithered into the room and wound herself around Harry’s left leg.

~I wasn’t apologizing to you, Zephyr. I was apologizing to Teddy,~ Harry responded, rolling his eyes, ~And don’t call me Master.~ He tries his hardest to be patient with the young snake, but sometimes constantly answering her questions and having to remind her not to call him… that… gets on his admittedly very frayed nerves.

The tiny rosy boa tightened her grip on Harry’s leg and hissed out a plaintive ~If the apology wasn’t meant for me, why speak it in our tongue, Harry?~

Harry, who had thus been unaware that he was speaking to Teddy in Parseltongue, jolted and forced himself to switch to English. He couldn’t even imagine the hard time George, Neville, or Theo would give him if his child learned Parseltongue as his first language.

Now that Harry was no longer speaking a language that she could understand, Zephyr quickly lost interest and made her way down Harry’s leg. He watched her broken tail slither out the bedroom door and back down the stairs out of the corner of his eye, listening to her childlike hissy snake laugh fade away.

Standing in his room, cradling his young son in his arms and encouraging him to quiet his cries, Harry (who can’t remember the last time he took a shower, finished a cup of coffee, or, merlin forbid, had a quick wank), in a moment of pitiful weakness, thinks longingly of a simple, childfree life like the ones his contemporaries all lead. He would never admit to it out loud, doesn’t even really wish for it, but he sometimes shamefully thinks about how easy his life would be now, if he hadn’t taken on Teddy’s guardianship six months ago when Andromeda had her episode.

  --___--___--___--___--___--___--___--___--

Harry rushed into the waiting room of the 7th floor of St. Mungo’s at 8:42am, six Tuesdays after the fall of Voldemort. He’d received a patronus message from Andromeda asking him to make it here post-haste. Panickedly, he’d double checked that his wand was in the forearm holster Bill had given him when he confessed to having night-terrors when he tried to sleep without it on his person. Silly to even check really; Harry didn’t even remove it while he showered. He couldn’t bear to be unarmed. He checked around every corner for danger, and always felt like there was someone right behind him waiting to attack him when his guard was down. This paranoia was made immeasurably worse since Ron and Hermione weren’t on either side of him, covering his back.

He’d wholeheartedly given his blessing to them running off to Australia to locate the Grangers and undo the Memory Charm that Hermione had placed on them last year, but once they’d gone, he quickly realized that he might be a tiny bit co-dependant on them. To be fair, they report also being very paranoid and wary of strangers, but Harry gets the vibe that their experiences are nowhere near as debilitating as his are.

Harry has set up camp in Ron’s old room at The Burrow, and can count on one hand the number of times that he’s gone into public since his friends went abroad four weeks ago. Since three of those four times he’d had to send Arthur or Bill a patronus to come get him because he was too panicked to apparate home, and the other time he’d gotten so smashed that he’d set fire to a booth in the Three Broomsticks and Madam Rosemerta made Neville carry him up to a private room and tuck him in for the night, Harry really didn’t know if those ventures even counted.

But the one thing that never failed to set him straight into movement, every single time, was his newborn godson. Harry had no issues at all with going over to Andromeda’s to care for Teddy whenever Andy called on him via Floo or patronus. Any hour, any weather, her house or The Burrow. None of it mattered except that that little baby lived a happy, well cared for life. Harry would rather die a thousand painful deaths than watch Teddy Lupin grow up neglected in any way. He’d sworn on Remus and Tonks’ graves that he would be the best godfather that a boy could ever even dream of, and he’d raze the earth to see that promise through.

That led to him rushing through the kitchen Floo in The Burrow into the receiving room at the hospital and up seven flights of stairs only to run straight into Healer Morningside. Audrey Morningside was a Healer that Harry was very familiar with.

For the first three weeks after the Final Battle, Harry had a ritual of knocking on the second door of the second floor of The Burrow at around 1am. Every night he’d be greeted with a sob and a choked “Harry.” Every night Harry silently pushed open the door to Percy’s room and climbed into bed with George, who refused to leave the room or let anyone else in. Eventually, Bill went into the bedroom, gathered George up into his arms, carried him into the shower and cleaned him up, then met Percy in the kitchen where they ushered him through the Floo and to St. Mungo’s. Three days later, Harry had gotten word that George was asking to see him. Thus began a new ritual. Every evening at 6:30 Harry would settle on the floor in the kitchen and wait for George’s Healer, Audrey Morningside, to verify Harry’s identity and take his oath that he’d not attempt to break George out of hospital custody. He’d then be allowed to speak to George for a little over an hour until visiting time was over, and George had to take his potions.

After two weeks of full-time inpatient mind healing care, George was allowed to return home to The Burrow during the day, and return to the hospital by night. Last week, he made it back to living at The Burrow full time, only having to turn up at Mungo’s for his daily talk therapy with Healer Morningside and group sessions appropriately named ‘Grief Share’. He had made incredible improvements, and had even started to smile at Ron’s commentary of Australian Quidditch during his bi-weekly patronus messages. Harry was unspeakably proud of him.

Healer Morningside cleared her throat and greeted Harry with her usual sharp tone/soft eyes double whammy that never failed to make him think of Madam Pomfrey, but if she was young and pretty fit. “Mr. Potter, I trust you’re well.”

“Just Harry,” Harry responded, “And I’m alright thanks. I got a message from Andromeda Tonks that I needed to make my way here quickly. Is Teddy okay?”

Healer Morningside looked startled for a moment before her expression relaxed and she answered, “Well, ‘just Harry’, I don’t know how Mrs. Tonks managed to get a message out to you in her state, but I assure you, her grandson is quite alright.”

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Harry glanced around, hoping to glimpse a clue of where his godson might be. Finding nothing but an empty waiting room he frowned up at the Healer, intending to ask after his whereabouts, but latching onto a phrase from the Healer’s previous statement instead.

“Wait. Her state? What state do you mean? Is Andromeda okay?”

“I’m afraid I can only share medical information with a patient’s next of kin, Harry. You and I have discussed this already.”

“Healer Morningside, I am Andromeda’s next of kin. Check her records, please.” Harry replied, somewhat desperately.

The Healer waved her wand and whispered for a moment, then a paper airplane shot out of it’s tip and zoomed off.

“Much faster than marching all the way down to records and waiting for Trinity and Tabitha to stop bickering long enough to locate the record needed.” Healer Morningside winked at Harry.

Harry, who was slowly working himself into a panic over Andromeda’s well-being, took the Healer’s lighthearted explanation as a small bit of good news, and slightly relaxed while waiting for the return memo. It arrived after only a few moments, and confirmed Harry’s assertion that Andy had, in fact, named him next of kin. The news, when Healer Morningside broke it, was decidedly not good news.

“Mrs. Tonks suffered a psychotic break this morning resulting in a significant bout of accidental magic and is currently being sedated and held here until she recovers enough for transfer to a better equipped Mind Healing facility.”

It took several beats for the words to register, and even after they did Harry felt his stomach clench and heard his blood rushing in his ears. What. The. Fuck. A psychotic break? Stoic, unshakable, wise Andromeda? This is the woman who held Harry for literal hours while he sobbed the night that Ron and Hermione caught their portkey to Australia. The woman who held his hand at every single funeral that he attended, because he couldn’t face them alone, even though she was grieving her husband and her daughter. This is the woman that taught Harry how to feed, burp, and change Teddy, all while softly smiling at him and then, when Harry mastered transferring the sleeping newborn from his arms to the crib without waking him up and promptly burst into uncontrollable tears, gathered him up in her arms and rocked him, just like he’d held and rocked the baby. Andromeda couldn’t have fallen apart. She was the one who consistently held Harry together. It was impossible.
“Mr. Potter – Harry – are you okay?” Healer Morningside was glancing about the room as though about to call for reinforcements, when Harry came back to himself.

“I’m sorry, I –” he trailed off brokenly, “Do you know where Teddy is?”

She hesitated, and then, “I believe that The Department has him in their custody.”

The Department of Welfare for the Newly Orphaned or Unsupervised Wixen Child, or The Department, for short. A department that had been hurriedly thrown together by the Wizengamot and interim Ministry directors. An unfortunate necessity of these post-war times. With the amount of children whose parents had been killed, jailed, or otherwise incapacitated, The Department was formed, and children who would otherwise be left on their own were rounded up and re-homed to anyone willing to take them in. The entire thing made Harry slightly uncomfortable. He’d gone on record saying that he felt like the process didn’t protect the children quite how he imagined that Ministry officials hoped it would, and that it seemed like there were huge flaws in the system, but his point was thus far ignored.

“I’m sorry Healer Morningside,” Harry began, “But I really need to go collect my godson before we continue this conversation. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

It took over eight hours for The Department to release Teddy into Harry’s care, and it required him to sign official forms naming him the child’s permanent guardian which were then filed both at the Ministry and sent off to Gringotts for further verification and solidification. Three weeks later, Andromeda was away at a long-term rehabilitation facility in France, and Harry and Teddy were apartment shopping and on their own.

  --___--___--___--___--___--___--___--___--

The constant crying began around the time that Harry and Teddy left The Burrow and moved to their little row house. It had sort of just started all of the sudden, and nothing seemed to help. Even on the day that Harry’s petition to officially adopt Teddy passed and they became a family, Teddy wailed the entire time. Harry was so heartbroken that he couldn’t make Teddy feel better, and so tired from being on edge all the time that he found himself with a bit of a short fuse and a lot of secret pent-up resentment. He obviously couldn’t say anything about this to anyone, couldn’t confess his most shameful of sins. So now here he was cradling his screaming infant son and fantasizing about what life would be like if Andromeda had never fallen ill and he’d never taken him in. Father of the year, truly. He hated himself for it.

Notes:

I promise this story is mostly fluff. Our boy's just gotta feel his feelings first thing in the... afternoon.

Chapter 3: So it turns out that the chillest guy I know is only that way because of Mary Jane?

CHAPTER 3

 

“Harry sweet, you can just set the sugar down here on the counter next to me, and as soon as I’m finished with this mashing, I’ll take that little guy off your hands for a bit!” Mrs. Weasley said as soon as Harry stumbled out of the Floo.

He froze midstep and whispered “...I forgot it.”

Without missing a beat, and whilst continuing to mash the potatoes, Mrs. Weasley drew her wand and sent her sparrow Patronus off with a light flick. Setting aside both her wand and the potato masher, she turned to Harry and gently smiled at him for a moment before lightly shaking her head and saying, “No matter at all, my darling”, and holding her hands out to take a wailing Teddy from his arms.

Harry gratefully – and with no small amount of guilt – handed over his child and attempted an apology, but Mrs. Weasley would hear nothing of it, and insisted that he “go out to the back garden and give Arthur a hand.” So after being given his marching orders, he went out the back door to do just that.

It took Harry several minutes to locate Mr. Weasley, who as it turns out, was not alone. Not much took Harry by surprise anymore. Life was slow and predictable, and aside from Teddy’s non-stop crying, fairly quiet. He prided himself on being able to roll with the punches and being a pretty open-minded bloke, if he did say so himself. But for some reason the sight of Arthur Weasley sharing a joint with his second born son behind the shed caught him completely off guard.

Now, Harry was no prude. He’d spent the first couple of months after the fall of Voldemort (and before Teddy) catching up on teenage rebellion. He drank, smoked and snorted all manner of things, snogged anyone who caught his eye, and hooked up with…well, anyone who’d have him really. And then suddenly he was a teen parent and overnight became shockingly straight-edge for a celebrity war hero. He had, apparently incorrectly, believed the Weasleys as a whole to be rather… puritanical in their daily lives. Never had he had the inkling that they ever got up to any recreational drug or potion use. They never talked about anything overtly sexual, even as teenaged brothers giving one another a hard time. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley never really had alcohol in the house aside from special occasions, and their children, to his knowledge, only rarely imbibed spirits stronger than a butterbeer. Ron, during Harry’s post war bender, seemed scandalized when Harry’d return home in the wee hours rumpled and smelling of weed, sex, and liquor, and never talked about his sex life. He had always just been so… good. Harry had subconsciously used that as a marker for the rest of the family’s moral compass without ever considering that they might not all be quite so uptight about things as Ron was.

Upon hearing Harry turn the corner, neither Mr. Weasley or Charlie hurried to hide the evidence of what they were up to, and so Harry could only draw the conclusion that it was no secret amongst the family. This was further proven when Mr. Weasley smiled in his carefree way and silently held the joint out in offering to Harry once he saw who had come to find them, raising his eyebrows in question. Harry fully rounded the corner and stepped over to the pair, accepting the offering and took a hit. He held it in for a few seconds and coughed harshly a couple of times before taking a second hit and passing it off to Charlie who accepted with a smirk.

The three of them stood in companionable silence and finished the joint before moving back out to the yard to start setting up warming charms and tables and chairs. Harry had always gravitated towards Mr. Weasley’s quiet and calm demeanor, it was nice to be around someone who was a strong and sincere support without being overbearing or intrusive. Mr. Weasley’s relaxed nature was something that now made far more sense, but was no less appreciated. As Harry quietly reflected on all of his preconceived notions about the people he loved, he looked up and caught Charlie’s eye. Charlie, who, like his father, was also calm, quiet, and kind. Charlie met Harry’s gaze full on and… winked at him. Winked! Harry was unsure what his face did at that moment, but whatever it was caused Charlie to chuckle under his breath and return to his task of setting the tables.

Harry was buzzing. His body felt weird, like he was a live wire. It took him several seconds to get back to setting up the warming charms, and even longer than that to realize that he was smiling stupidly and humming under his breath while he worked. What was wrong with him? He was certainly not the type to feel electrified and giddy over his best mate’s older brother flirting with him! Wait, was that even what happened? Charlie could’ve had something in his eye, or he could’ve winked in a cheeky ‘we’re in on a joke together’ kind of way. A wink doesn’t always mean flirting, does it? Sure, when he used to go out and pull at clubs, he’d wink at guys to signal his interest, but that was him. Charlie’s a different person, and maybe to him a wink means… something else?

Wait, what was he even thinking?? Charlie would never go for a scrawny little kid like Harry when he has his pick of all the dragon tamers in Romania! I mean, look at the guy! Muscled, tattooed, bearded Charlie with his stupid leather trousers and soft (he assumes) cotton tunic would NOT be interested in sleepy, dopey Harry, who was perpetually covered in coffee stains and whom a strong breeze would knock over, especially now that he doesn’t always have time to eat a solid meal everyday. And that’s another point against Harry. The reason for all of the skipped meals. Teddy. No way would a guy like Charlie want to be with a guy with a baby. But he was getting way too far ahead of himself. Since when did he care if Charlie was interested? Does he care? Does he have a thing for Charlie??? Surely not. He must be mildly greening out. Aside from Charlie being too old, and way out of his league, he was also CHARLIE WEASLEY. Harry absolutely can NOT be involved with another one of Ron’s siblings.

So lost in thought as he was, Harry did not even register the object of his thoughts approaching until he was directly beside him.

“Hey.” Charlie said, “Mum’s calling us in to help bring dinner out,” he paused and looked Harry deep in the eyes. “Are you alright, Harry? You seem out of sorts.”

Harry took a moment to compose his answer before replying “I’m alright, I’ve just been really… tired lately, I guess.”

Charlie studied him for several beats before nodding and guiding him towards the kitchen with a gentle hand on his side. And if that made Harry’s entire body re-light with that electric tingle from before, then that was his business alone.