Chapter Text
Congratulations!
Mother Magic (and the Ministry) has blessed YOU!
Please report to the Delivery Hall promptly at 11 o’clock (Monday, May 17th), to collect your new family member.
Please note that, due to administrative requirements, we are unable to finalize the paperwork without a dedicated baby chair present (in case of broom transportation). No exceptions.
Thank you, and welcome to your new and exciting chapter of life!
“What.”
Harry Potter, 30, was not having a good day (nor a good week; the whole month couldn’t even be called a lukewarm okay)—the paperwork on his desk was threatening to develop sentience, the newest trainee had broken both his arms in the break room on the first day of joining the department, thus unleashing a series of public lashings in the Prophet, and his boss was an evil, albeit very hot, cunt who insisted on making Harry’s life a bureaucratic nightmare.
All in all, the letter from the Baby Distribution System via Magic (called the BDSM Department by anyone who could read and was over the age of thirteen) hadn’t surprised Harry. He reasoned it was another fuck-up by the guys at Comms; they were permanently overworked and understaffed, so since Harry absolutely did not submit a request for a baby—he hadn’t even gotten laid in over a year, for Merlin’s sake—he just folded the pink glossy card with miniature fat storks in half and promptly forgot about it.
In retrospect, maybe just this once he should have thought better of the Ministry.
—
Harry is on his third cup of tea when a little pug Patronus trots into his office and, having apparently managed to spot Harry behind the mountains of paperwork, screams in a truly queer voice:
“POTTER! DELIVERY HALL, NOW! MAGIC AND BABIES WAIT FOR NO ONE!”
Then the little pug sneezes and disperses.
“Um.”
This had to be a mistake, surely? Harry stares at the place where the pug had just been, his mind loud with a myriad of perfectly logical explanations for why he was being summoned to get a baby.
In the end, three minutes and about three hundred ideas later, Harry reasons he should just go and explain in person that they had the wrong person.
Yes.
There was probably another Harry Potter somewhere in the British Isles, and that man had requested a baby, and the Ministry—being the Ministry—had mixed them up.
By the time Harry makes his way to the BDSM Department on the fifth floor, he’s calm and even looking forward to the laugh he and the Baby Clerk—was it Jerry? Or Larry?—would have. Maybe this Monday would end up not being so bad after all.
The cast-iron doors to the Delivery Hall swing open as soon as Harry reaches for them, and he enters the brightly lit room.
“Finally! I keep telling you, starting your journey into parenthood on such a note isn’t exactly promising, now is it?” Jerry-or-Larry exclaims, rolling his eyes at Harry.
“Do keep on track, Mister Parson.”
Oh crap.
There, right next to the pearly stand, is Minister Riddle, and he looks seconds away from cursing Larry-or-Jerry Parson into oblivion.
“Hey, um, Parson! I got your Patronus, but listen, I reckon you’ve got the wrong Potter. I never submitted anything.”
The clerk just gives Harry an unimpressed look.
“Harry James Potter, born July 31, 1980, Godric’s Hollow, yes?”
“Yes?”
“And Tom Marvolo Riddle, born December 31, 19—”
Minister Riddle silences the clerk with a truly impressive hand gesture—equal parts regal and absolutely prattish.
“Yes, Mister Parson, as I have already—” Riddle stresses the words with such venom that Harry can’t suppress a shudder, “—told you, you have the right people, but the fact remains that neither I nor Head Auror Potter have submitted any such request. We are not in any sort of relationship. Isn’t that right, Auror?”
“Err…” Harry tries to process the words but fails. Did Riddle imply that the System had allocated Riddle and himself a baby?
“Potter!”
“Yes! That’s right, Minister, there must be a mistake,” Harry squeezes out and, after a beat, nods for emphasis. He’s certain he looks like he has brain damage.
But Minister Riddle focuses his attention back on Larry-or-Jerry.
“I demand to see the form submitted for this… thing. There must be foul play at work.”
The clerk splutters.
“Must I remind you, Minister, that the Baby Distribution System via Magic works separately from the Ministry and is overseen by the Chief Warlock, who, last I checked, was not you, Mister Riddle.”
If Harry could, he would applaud this stout, middle-aged BDSM Department employee. Larry-or-Jerry Parson had just done the impossible—he’d made Minister Riddle turn a remarkable shade of turnip.
Just in case Riddle decides to actually kill this poor sod, Harry grips his wand in his pocket, already prepared to put up a shield or seven.
“Parson…” And oh, Riddle is very much going to curse the clerk. Damn. Harry had really been looking forward to having a good day for a change.
“What the Minister is trying to say,” Harry says, taking a step forward to stand between the clerk and Riddle, “is that we would like to know in whose name the request was made and how it was submitted, if possible? This must be a prank, or someone’s shitty idea of a political scandal.”
“How dare you! Don’t curse in the Delivery Hall!”
Right. It was the Baby Delivery Hall.
“My bad. Sorry.”
Parson sighs and takes out a thick ledger bound in white leather. He expertly flips it open to the needed page and points his finger at the bottom.
“See? Tom M. Riddle and Harry J. Potter, request for a baby submitted via magical wish, hmm, last week,” the clerk says, giving a low whistle. “That’s the fastest approval I’ve seen in the last fifteen years. Sweet Merlin, you two must really want that baby!”
“Parson—”
“Hey, Minister, let’s calm down. We can sort this out, yeah?” Harry tries to calm Riddle before this escalates into something that actually will turn into a political scandal and maybe get Harry fired.
“Shut up, Potter!”
“You shut up, Riddle!”
“Don’t fight in the Delivery Hall, it’s bad for the babies!”
Harry desperately wants to go back to his monstrous piles of paperwork—a desire he has never before experienced—so he takes a deep breath and puts on his best Bullshit Conference smile.
“Larry,” he says, turning to the clerk, and the man nods. “The Minister and I aren’t together. We did not wish for a baby. Can we please, please just fill in some, err, refund form and call it a day?”
Thankfully, Riddle gives a curt nod and doesn’t say anything else.
Larry’s eyebrows start an ascent toward his surprisingly thick hairline.
“You want to… cancel the baby?” And he sounds perplexed, genuinely confused.
“Yes, Mister Parson, that is correct. Thank you,” Riddle supplies in his pleasant voice and smiles—it looks entirely too much like a predator sizing up its lunch.
“Well, I mean… the baby is already here, and it's such a cutie too.”
And then Parson bends down and lifts up the signature wicker basket that all magical wish babies come in. Inside, swaddled in a soft red blanket with little snakes on it, is a baby.
And, infuriatingly, it is the cutest baby Harry has ever seen.
“Um…”
“Do not, Potter, I can hear what you’re thinking loud and clear without any eye contact,” Riddle sneers, narrowing his eyes at the baby.
“I didn’t!” But Harry did. Oh, he very much did think about it—the baby.
“We would like to return it, Mister Parson. Isn’t that right, Head Auror Potter?”
Harry tears his eyes away from the little creature in the basket and nods, even though his throat suddenly feels all dry and scratchy.
“Right, well! Usually you'd have to wake it up with your magic, then the baby would need to be sustained by both your magical signatures for the next seven days, to prove your conviction, so to speak. If you don’t do that, then the baby simply pops out of existence,” Larry finishes in a rush and looks down at the baby, his expression pinched.
“That’s perfect. Shall we simply go, or do you need some forms for the department statistics?” And how Riddle manages to sound so satisfied when he says the word forms is beyond Harry.
“There are no forms. I mean, the popping-out thing is quite painful for the baby, you realize,” the clerk mutters, chewing on his lip. “People are usually very excited to get one of these!”
“That’s fine, it’s not even sent—”
“Hey, Larry, can’t Dumbledore just come down here and, I dunno, give the baby to someone else? He oversees the whole thing, doesn’t he?”
At that, Larry instantly brightens.
“Yes! Of course! Or no! Crap! Crap, sorry, I didn’t curse, it’s not a curse word, crap, don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“No worries, right, Minister?” Harry turns to Riddle, who doesn’t grace him with even that prattish hand gesture.
“Dumbledore is currently in Austria. Some business, you know?”
“Deranged old—”
Harry takes a frankly obscene amount of pleasure in shushing Riddle like a fucking child.
“And when will our esteemed Chief Warlock be back?” The Minister spits out.
“In a week! Next Monday on the dot, he promised me some warm socks, he’s just so nice, you know?”
Before Larry can start gushing about Dumbledore and really get killed by Riddle, Harry butts in.
“Right, I’ll try to get ahold of him, no problem. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“Oh! No! I mean, yes, you can try, but he went to some very secret conference in Nurmengard, I think? So he can’t be reached unless, well, I guess unless Merlin rises from the grave.” Larry seems to be back in his good mood, which is sadly making Riddle look five seconds away from murder again.
“Right…” Of course. It was Monday, so everything just had to be shit.
“So, may we just leave, Mister Parson?” Riddle says this as he’s already walking toward the door.
“You’re going to just let the baby… pop out?”
“Yes, do keep up, Potter.”
And Harry should follow Riddle out, leave the sleeping baby with Larry—there have to be procedures that the employees of the Delivery Hall know and follow in situations like this. But something invisible grips Harry’s heart, and with each passing second, he can bear less and less to imagine the sleeping child suffering. What if they just leave it alone in some small, dark space? What if it is sentient, unlike what Riddle believes? What if it gets scared of the dark? What if it takes days for it to disappear, and those days are miserable and lonely?
Harry knows how the darkness can feel a little too well.
Then anger grips him, the kind he hasn’t felt in years—a dull sort of hurt that Harry has made sure to forget ever since his letter to Hogwarts, since Sirius crawled out of Azkaban to spirit him away to a room—a room with a window and toys Harry had been far too old for.
How fucking dare Riddle. He didn’t even try to find another solution, just accepted—like so many before him—that a child will suffer because he couldn’t care less.
And so, instead of just walking out and shutting the fuck up, what happens is that Harry James Potter does the only two things he is truly unmatched in.
He cares, and he runs his mouth.
Harry barely feels himself inhaling. The words are already there, hot and sharp in his throat, and if he doesn’t spit them out he might never speak again.
“Typical of you, Minister. Skeeter got that one right, at least, you really are a heartless bastard,” Harry throws at Riddle’s turned back.
He isn’t hoping for anything, but picking a fight feels good, at least, unlike the overwhelming hurt ripping his ribcage apart.
“Excuse me?”
Riddle turns slowly, his back ramrod straight and his expression blank.
“You heard me, you evil—” Harry gestures vaguely. “—overlord. Evil bureaucratic overlord.”
And Harry really should shut up and maybe apologize, but he simply cannot.
“You forget yourself, Head Auror.”
He’s giving you an out, you idiot, flashes through Harry’s mind, but he’s speaking before it can really register.
“Yeah, well, you can write me up. Put it together with the other eight reprimands I’ve received this month.” And then he’s laughing, because Merlin, what a clusterfuck of a day, month, year. “At least this one will be worth the paperwork.”
“I will have you suspended without pay, Potter.” Riddle narrows his eyes at him, challenging, trying to show Harry that he’s got more leverage, more power, whatever other crap matters in the Ministry.
“Oh yeah? Well, then fuck you, Minister. See, now you can make it at least a month. I’ve been due a holiday anyway.”
“Such idiotic cheek from one of Dumbledore’s sheep. You disappoint me yet again, Potter. A bleeding heart such as yourself can hardly be competent at your position. I will have to make inquiries with Robards about your appointment.”
Harry really shouldn’t curse the Minister for Magic—it’s stupid, even by his low standards of impulsive decision-making, but he’s probably getting fired either way. Riddle is famously very vindictive, and he won’t ever let the insults go.
He reaches for his wand, and he sees Riddle stiffen and do the same, a flash of white in his palm, and—
And an ear-shattering cry echoes throughout the Delivery Hall.
“Aha, looks like your magic woke her up!” Larry says, laughing, completely unperturbed by the chaos and the insults.
Harry turns toward the stand, and yes, there is the baby—baby girl, apparently—screaming her little lungs out at a volume that could put any regular banshee or Professor Snape to shame.
“Oh, no, no, don’t cry, I’m so sorry for scaring you.”
The little girl pauses, miraculously, blinks up at him with very pretty dark eyes, and starts to cry even harder.
“That’s alright, they have to open up their lungs a bit, just like newborns,” Larry offers, promptly starting to write something in the ledger.
“Parson! Those had better be the refund forms.”
Riddle is suddenly by the stand, glaring darkly at the clerk, who pays him no mind.
Damn, Harry will have to buy Larry a beer. Or a case of Ogden’s finest.
“Don’t shout, you’re scaring her, isn’t that right?” Harry tries to rock the basket to calm the baby.
And sure enough, the baby focuses her eyes on the Minister, pauses her wailing again, and then promptly gets back to it, now entirely red in the face.
“I do not care if the wretched creature is scared, it shouldn’t exist in the first place!” Riddle hisses, then slams his hand on the stand. “Parson, for Merlin’s sake, stop writing or I will end you!”
“Don’t threaten a Ministry employee!”
“Potter, stop babying the baby! You are not its parent!”
Larry finally looks up from the ledger and snaps it shut with a satisfied smile.
“Weeell, actually, you both are her parents. It’s a magical wish baby—they’re created from your magical signatures, like Muggle genetics, but much more fun!”
The horrified expression on the Minister’s face is a work of art.
Truly, it’s a shame phones don’t work in the Ministry, because Harry would love nothing more than to snap a photo on his Blackberry and make it his wallpaper. Maybe even print it out for his flat. A keychain would also do nicely.
“Take the baby away, Parson,” Riddle grits out.
Harry clenches the basket harder, the willow branches painfully biting into his palm.
“No can do, Minister! Once the baby is awake, you have to take it, or else it’s even more gruesome than the popping out of existence before being awake,” Larry sing-songs, then proceeds to make a truly elaborate hand gesture.
“Larry…”
The baby girl has stopped crying and is trying to put Harry’s fingers into her toothless, very saliva-covered mouth.
“The baby is yours until Dumbledore gets back, gentlemen. And remember, you must both spend a lot of time with her for the next seven days, or it’s going to get very ugly. Here’s a pamphlet.”
He proceeds to shove a glossy piece of paper at Riddle, who refuses to take it, so Larry just stuffs it into Riddle's no-doubt very fancy breast pocket without a care.
“Enjoy fatherhood!” Larry gives them a small wave as he turns toward the door, ledger in hand. “And just so we’re clear, if the baby dies, the Baby Delivery Service will be charging you with murder and child neglect!”
The door closes with a soft thud, leaving the three of them alone in the brightly lit hall. A soft harp tune starts to play somewhere nearby.
“Listen, Riddle…”
But the Minister just gives Harry a withering look and spits out:
“Proceed to my office, Potter, and take the cursed child with you. We will discuss our course of action.”
“Hey, she’s not cursed!” Harry protests as he wipes the spit off his hand and grabs the basket.
The baby inside giggles in delight at the swinging movement.
Riddle looks at her and rolls his eyes.
“That remains to be seen, Potter.”
—
The silence in the elevator is deafening. So much so that the only thing Harry can focus on is that apparently Minister Tom Riddle uses some kind of perfume, and it’s amazing. He tries to focus on the baby in the basket instead, but she’s just curiously looking around, her big dark eyes taking in everything with way too much focus than should be appropriate for a technically newborn baby.
Then, without any sort of hesitation, a wayward thought slams into Harry. The baby does, very much, look like Riddle. She didn’t just have a standard baby face, oh no—she was cute in the deeply unsettling way of looking alarmingly like Minister Riddle, including their strange, almost-maroon eye color.
“This is weird, but I think she has your eyes,” Harry offers into the silent space without meaning to.
But Riddle seems to ignore him completely, just continuing to stare somewhere ahead as the elevator slowly makes its way toward Level 1, where his office is located.
That’s fine. Harry hates the silent treatment, but it isn’t like talking with Riddle is more pleasurable than getting his teeth pulled out.
“Potter, no one must know about this,” the Minister finally says, still not looking at Harry.
“Sure,” Harry agrees. The Auror Department would never get over Harry apparently having a secret not-love child with the Minister for Magic; the gossip and backtalk would be endless.
And if Fred and George were to find out, it would be over for Harry. Oh Merlin, Molly...
But apparently Harry’s words aren’t enough, because Riddle finally turns to him, looking down at Harry from all of his impressive six-something height.
“I mean it, Potter. Not a soul. Not your godfather, not Unspeakable Granger, and not a single Weasley. I will be running for reelection next year, and I will not have my personal affairs aired out by the likes of Skeeter at this crucial time” Riddle hisses. It looks like he perhaps wants to jab Harry with his wand for emphasis, but they were almost at Level 1, so he’s probably being cautious.
Instead of feeling threatened, Harry feels hysterical.
“Alright.” He smiles, because this is surreal. And also because Riddle is a paranoid prick who only cares about his own gains, but that isn’t news. “How hard could it be to hide a baby, anyway? The Ministry clerks do it all the time to get more parental leave, and some of them are actually pregnant.”
Riddle narrows his eyes at him and turns back around to stare at the door.
“No one, Potter, I mean it.”
“I heard you the fir—”
The elevator dings as they arrive at Level 1, and the doors slide open.
Bright flashes fill the small space as what can only be described as an unholy army of reporters tries to jam its way into the elevator booth, quills and cameras and all.
“Minister Riddle! Is it true you are secretly married to Head Auror Potter?”
“Minister! How long have you had a child and is it true you were the one to birth it?”
“A comment for Witch Weekly! What is your child’s star sign?!”
“Head Auror Potter! Is it true that you slept your way to the top and what position was your favorite?”
Then the baby starts crying again, probably spooked by all the noise.
“Oh shit,” is the last thing Harry manages to articulate before Riddle roughly grabs him by the scruff, and he feels the twist of Apparition carry him—and the baby—away.
—
Harry lands on an indecently plush carpet and doesn’t topple face-first into the tall rug pile together with the baby only because Riddle is still holding him by the neck of his robes like Harry’s a particularly large and naughty puppy.
“I am going to burn Parson alive!” Riddle roars, shoving Harry upright before angrily stomping to his desk and starting to scribble something with aplomb.
Harry looks down at the baby, who looks up at him and smiles, even though tears still cling to her long eyelashes. It’s cute, and Harry desperately wants to pick her up, so he does just that.
She goes willingly and starts making adorable baby noises as Harry bounces her a little while taking in Riddle’s office.
Still fancy as ever, all polished wood and snakes — pretentious git.
“It wasn’t Parson. Pretty sure they make the BDSM employees take a vow not to disclose anything.”
Riddle doesn’t stop his furious writing as he speaks.
“Do not call it that. It’s vulgar.”
At this, Harry can’t help laughing, because of course Mr. Posh and Pretentious would think that.
“Sorry, won’t happen again. Can’t have me offending your delicate sensibilities, Minister. I do hope my wrists aren’t distracting you too much.”
“Potter, I swear to—”
But Harry really needs to make sure that Riddle won’t torture Larry for apparently leaking their delicate situation. After all, Harry owes him a drink or ten first.
“It was probably Skeeter or one of the Prophet’s cronies. There was an accident in my department recently, and they’ve been on a stalking warpath,” Harry sighs, gently patting the baby’s back. The little girl stops squirming and snuggles closer.
“No matter. I will have my associates track the responsible people down and deal with them,” the Minister informs Harry in a tone that absolutely suggests illegal violence and perhaps even murder.
“You can’t be telling me that. Come on, I’m the Head Auror,” Harry protests weakly, continuing to pet the baby. It’s very calming, and the baby must be charmed in some way, because Harry feels his heart swell with every wiggle and cooing noise—he's completely enamored with the little girl, and he’s only had her for half an hour.
Riddle finally abandons his abused quill and leans back in his ridiculous Dark-Lord-esque black leather chair.
“On the contrary, Potter. Since apparently we have a child now, at least until old Albus gets back from his ‘business’, we’re technically a family, and you can’t testify against me.”
Harry wants to protest and also whack Riddle in his terribly handsome face, but the baby makes an odd sound and proceeds to spit up all over his uniform and herself.
“Right!” He holds the baby out in front of him, and she spits up again, now getting the rug too. “Bathroom?”
“There.” Riddle points him towards a heavy door nestled between tall bookcases.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?”
The baby girl squeals, and Harry can’t help laughing at her.
Alright, maybe this temporary parenthood stint won’t be too bad. The baby was adorable and seemed to like him well enough. And seven days couldn’t be that bad, he’d babysat Victoire and Dominique once, and it had gone pretty great.