the baby project — act two
" welcome to parenthood "
﹙ 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗙𝗨𝗘𝗗. ﹚

     AFTER HALLOWEEN, ADDIE WAS MORE LENIENT WITH GEORGE. She smiled at him more, occasionally laughed at his jokes, and if he wanted to do something she didn't, she would eventually give in and let the family of three do something his way. Everyone around her was spooked. The last interaction they saw between Addie and George was her feeling betrayed by being singled out for one of his pranks. But, it turns out, that only made them closer.

     And this strangeness only got stranger when the babies started to talk.

     Apparently scheduled by the teachers, one morning in early November, first experienced by Logan and Kenneth over breakfast, the spread of the simulated babies' first words happened like a weird trend throughout the final year students.

     Some students got the usual dada or mama but others were pretty sure their babies were malfunctioning when the first words that came out of their robots were menu and bike.

     Shelley's first word happened on a rainy Friday evening in Addie's dorm room. George was sprawled across Addie's bed attempting a Potions essay that was due the day before and Addie was sat cross-legged at the foot of her bed (with very little room, she might add), trying to get Shelley to say something.

     Addie's first word was mama. So was Laurie's and so was Reid's. It only made sense for Addie's (almost) daughter to follow suit. She also considered a mama as an indication that Addie was Shelley's favourite, instead of George and that would be the ultimate win in their unspoken feud.

     George was not focusing on his essay as he should have been twenty-four hours before, but he was instead watching Addie bob Shelley up and down on her lap. "I have a question," he said after a minute.

     "No, I will not write it for you," was Addie's automated response, since the chances he was about to ask that were extremely high.

     George held up a finger as he got up off of his stomach and sat facing her. "What's wrong with breastfee─"

     "Nope," Addie stopped him, "I'm not answering that."

     "But it's a genuine question."

     "I don't care."

     "I'm being mature and curious."

     "That means something different to you than the rest of the world."

     Sighing, and still against doing his essay (since it was already overdue, it can be a little bit more overdue), George beckoned for Addie to pass him Shelley with his hands to see if he would have any luck with getting a first word out of her.

     It was almost instant how quickly Shelley hiccuped the word dada from the moment she was placed into George's lap. His eyes flew open, immediately flying to Addie so that they could share this moment together (more importantly, George wanted to rub it in her face).

     She did not look impressed.

     "That means nothing," Addie said bored this as if she wasn't just trying to manipulate the baby into saying mama so she could brag to George about being the favourite.

     George scoffed, not believing what he was hearing. "It means I'm her favourite parent."

     Addie was struggling to come up with arguments to defend herself but nothing was coming to mind. Grumpy huffs of disapproval was all she could do. "You wish that's what it meant."

     George knew Addie was well aware Shelley's choice of dada as opposed to mama was a clear indication of the baby's favourite parent, but he also knew about Addie's stubbornness and constant desire to be right. For this reason, he was willing to humour her, if only a little bit. "Fine," he said, before rotating the baby on his lap to face Addie. "Let's really test who her favourite is."

     "George, it's a robot," Addie deadpanned, primarily because she was sure George's attempt to prove he was right was not going to go her way.

     George gasped dramatically, and quickly covered Shelley's ears with his hands before then saying, "That can cry and laugh, ergo, it has emotions, ergo, it has a favourite parent."

     "Ergo, you're reaching."

     "Just because you know she prefers me," George said with a smirk, letting his hands drop onto the bed.

     "Do not."

     "So let's find out," he replied with a shrug.

     And so a competition was born: who was Shelley Sweeney's favourite parent?

     The second they figured out the first way they could test this, Addie and George (Shelley on the former's hip as if some last-minute close contact would give the baby more reason to like her supposed mother) bounded across the hall to the Hufflepuff common room where her two siblings were waiting.

     "We need you to help us out with something," Addie said, far too sternly for the very unserious situation at hand.

     "No, not them," George immediately protested. "They'll so obviously rig the test to suit you. They're biased judges and that would be unfair."

     "George, honey," Addie said, taking a couple of steps closer to him, "you're overthinking this."

     "Of course that's something you would say," George exclaimed. He was lucky the common room was bustling with students and therefore already loud. "Because you now have a better chance of winning."

     "Sorry, what are we doing?" Reid reminded them that the two of them were not alone in their squabble.

     George slowly turned his head to the youngest Sweeney. "Your sister has this deranged view that she is Shelley's favourite parent. I wish to prove her wrong."

     "Which won't happen."

     "It will when we find impartial adjudicators."

     "I didn't know you knew such big words."

     Reid and Laurie watched on in horror at the bickering, knowing full well, despite the brief ceasefire a couple of weeks before, these two were never going to get along and it was those around the pair that were going to get the brunt of it.

     Huffing, George disappeared and while she was confused at the speed at which he made himself scarce, Addie thought it was best she got some peaceful moments in with her siblings than going looking for him.

     Unfortunately, she could only catch up with her family for a mere five minutes before George returned with a very befuddled Cedric Diggory in tow. Merlin knows what George said to him because he stared at Addie like he was begging her to save his life.

     George rounded the confused Hufflepuff and said, "Cedric has agreed to referee this test. Please take the baby and stand over there."

     Without saying a word (his face said it all), Cedric accepted the baby into his arms and walked across the rug to over by the fireplace as instructed.

     "Now," George said just as Addie was beginning to realise how weird this probably looked, "set her down on my mark and we'll see who she goes to."

     "George, she can't walk."

     "Addie, she can crawl." George was getting bored waiting for his victory. He turned back to Cedric, who was bent over, hovering Shelley just above the ground. With a clap of George's hands and an enthusiastic "now!" the baby was released.

     It was not the momentous race start they were all anticipating. Once safely placed on the floor, Shelley collapsed onto her bottom and began to chew at her fingers. She giggled a few times, rolled around a bit revealing the chubby limbs she was carrying before George was forced to intervene (he told Cedric to edge her on a bit).

     After some encouragement from a bemused Cedric and much cheering and cooing from George and Addie, the robot baby had its sights set on the finish line (its parents a couple of metres away, now squatting like manic frogs).

     Shelley was undecided at first. It seemed as though she was aiming for the gap between Addie and George as she began her crawl along the rug and towards her parents. After a slight detour under the coffee table, some more encouragement from her aunt and uncle (as well as some newly acquired and intrigued Hufflepuff spectators), Shelley was almost at the finish line.

     She swerved just at the last second (at a crawling pace, of course, but it was just as gripping) and finished at Addie's knees.

     "I knew it!" Addie said, scooping up her robot baby and nuzzling it against her face.

     George was tempted to point out how the whole thing was rigged and that this wasn't an accurate test of which parent was the robot's favourite before he remembered it was his idea and he had dragged Cedric into this whole thing just to give himself better odds. Sighing, he got to his feet.

     "Yeah, yeah, whatever," he huffed.

     Now that Addie had tasted what it felt like to one-up George, she wanted to do it again. And again and again. She was prepared for whatever tests he had them complete next because when Addie wanted to win, she did.

     "Point one Addie," she grinned up at George, encouraging the baby now on her hip to do the same. And another thing, if she was going to be winning all the time, she wanted to make sure he was well aware of it. All the time.

     "Fine," George huffed, "you win this one. But that's it, Sweeney."

     The truth was, George liked seeing her so happy and victorious. Even if it was at his own expense. He could see the glint in her eyes that had sparked the second she started winning and George only intended to make it grow.

     "What's up next, loser?" She asked.

     Not one bit was he disappointed to be called a loser. "Let me think."

༺༻

     LIKE MOST THINGS GEORGE DID, Addie disagreed with the next test, an invention made by the former just before the clock struck six in the Great Hall. They were waiting for a few of their friends to arrive and Addie took the chance to scold George while it was just the two of them.

     "This does not tell us anything about who the favourite parent is."

     "Sounds like you don't have a lot of faith in your friends."

     The idea was this: cover the baby's eyes and reveal each of the respective parent's roommates to see how fondly the baby reacts. If Shelley is more enthusiastic to seeing Fred, Lee, and Felix, then she prefers sleeping over in George's dorm. If she is happier seeing Laurie, Tate, and Logan then Addie is the preferred protector.

     While Addie liked her odds having won one round so far and the fact that Felix is probably the only actual adult in their dorm room, she didn't think this made sense as a test. Surely Shelley doesn't even know her surroundings yet? So unless George thinks he has this one in the bag because he and his brother do something magical at night she doesn't know about, he was setting himself up for failure.

     "How are we even going to measure her happiness?"

     "Look at it?" George offered, soon learning this wasn't a satisfactory response. "Merlin, sorry I haven't thought of everything."

     This wasn't a controlled environment, it was too noisy. Do robots even register faces? Because Addie didn't think they had very large memory storage. But before she could bring any of this up with George, their six roommates were arriving in the Great Hall, half of them looking slightly perturbed that their friends had retrieved them from their Friday night activities via owl.

     "What is this about?" Tate asked as she sat down. "I only had time to paint one of my hands and now I feel stupid." The Hufflepuff held out her hands for Addie to inspect and sure enough, only one hand had nails painted in a pretty maroon, while the other was barren.

     "This is very official, very important baby business," George replied with a nod, as the new arrivals got seated around George, Addie, and Shelley.

     Fred gave a huff, "You pretend you care so well, Georgie."

     Lee slapped Fred's arm clearly entertained. "Yeah, teach us your ways, mate."

     Addie was ready to up and leave and, to be fair, so was George. His best friend and brother weren't exactly painting him in a good light.

     Ignoring their insinuations, George continued, "Addie and I are testing who is Shelley's favourite parent. We have devised a series of trials to determine the title and we need you to help out with this one."

     George then went on to explain what they needed their friends to do as a measure of which dormmates Shelley preferred and the next minute Fred, Lee, and Felix were sat on one side of the Gryffindor table, while Shelley was perched on the table (they had shuffled about the food and cutlery to make room for her since it was technically dinner time for those choosing to eat at this hour).

     Felix, in the middle, held a mirror for Addie, George, Laurie, Tate and Logan to watch the baby's reaction through once he turned it around. The latter group waited patiently for George's signal, positioning themselves somewhat discreetly so that the mirror's contents didn't steal Shelley's attention. Behind them stood a random second-year George had plucked away from the Gryffindor table who only agreed to be their umpire because he said he knew Addie because he knew Reid. He looked terrified to be amongst the seventh year's antics but stayed nonetheless.

     Unsure when her attention became so raptured, Addie watched intently as the mirror was flicked over revealing the baby-like robot. And as soon as Felix, Fred, and Lee started to coo and laugh and make silly faces, Shelley was enraptured too.

     But at some point during the timed minute, when her friends were getting just as into it as she and George were when stress seemed to be a frivolous thing, Addie took a second to enjoy herself. Because George had taught her just that.

     Sometime later, the girls had done the same after a good result from the boys and the random second year (whose name they only learned right at the end to be, quite disappointingly, John) announced that the final scores were in. According to John, who was only there to avoid bias (though George pointed out that the fact John knew Reid was a conflict of interest), Shelley looked much more pleased to be laughing and hiccuping with George's roommates than he did with Addie's.

     All of the teenage parents were so into it, the girls let out a collective groan at the result and the boys were as equally thrilled as George was to learn that a robot liked their company.

     "So it's settled then," George said, rubbing his hands together as the group made their way out of the hall, pleasing the other students who were glad to see them go, "Shelley prefers sleeping in a dorm with me and my friends."

     "You probably just set off dung bombs all night," Addie rolled her eyes. Fred's smirk told her everything she needed to know. "I heard babies like the smell of their own farts so she must have a field day."

     "True," George said, sending a warning glare at his brother to keep them out of trouble, before slinging an arm over Addie's shoulder and turning her away from his twin, "but the key to success is mini firework displays. The kids are mesmerised by them. Means they sleep with no fuss."

     Since when did he speak so eloquently? And sound like he knew what he was doing?

     But before Addie could curate a logical answer to that, George was guiding her out of the Great Hall. "Onto the next!"

༺༻

     AN HOUR LATER, ADDIE WAS ONE POINT DOWN. It was two to one and they were down to their last test. The rest of the castle was asleep, Lee had been commentating like it was a Quidditch match, and George was ready to take the title of Favourite Parent home.

     The scores were as follows: George's dorm room was Shelley's favourite to sleep in and she put up much less of a fuss when he was feeding her compared to Addie but Addie still had the point for being Shelley's first choice to run to when given free-range to crawl about. It was a tight game and it all came down to this final test (unless it went to a tiebreak and then it really didn't come down to the final test). Could George Weasley bring it home or was Addie catching up to drag the competition on just that little bit longer?

     But this time George proposed his ridiculous test, Addie was having none of it.

     "Absolutely not."

     "You're so boring."

     "I'm setting a good example for our daughter."

     "So am I."

     As per usual, Addie and George were at a crossroads: Addie was never going to agree to George's stupid idea and George was not going to give in until she did.

     But it was clear Addie was not going to budge and she even picked Shelley up and made her way out of the Gryffindor common room to, George feared, the Hufflepuff basement to call it a night.

     "But Dumbledore will be asleep," George told her as if that was going to convince her of his stupid plan. "His office will be child's play to break into."

     "Do you hear yourself?" Addie asked him, somewhat seriously. "I don't care if we can get into his office or not, I do not want to break into somewhere we're not supposed to and steal the fucking Sorting Hat just so you can prove Shelley is a Gryffindor. Which she is not. Like we've already established."

     George didn't see anything wrong with his idea. He had plenty of experience breaking and entering teachers' offices while they slept and this would be the ultimate proof that Shelley prefers George because Gryffindors are all about house pride. George was convinced that if the hat declared Shelley a Gryffindor then there was no doubt that she was a daddy's girl.

     "Don't you want to find out?" George asked her, jogging so he could stop her in her tracks.

     "George, the hat only works on students."

     "So?"

     "So, that's a fucking robot."

     "Put her in a uniform and the hat won't know the difference."

     Addie pushed George aside and kept on going where she was going. "It's not going to happen, George, so either come up with something else or go to bed. I'm fine with either."

     While she did want to claim victory over George, Addie was tired and Shelley was staying with her that night so sleep didn't sound too bad.

     George suddenly stopped short. Addie kept on walking but, even with the distance she put between them, she could still hear the light-bulb-moment gasp that came out of him, followed by the sound of pounding footsteps catching up with her.

     "Does your house scarf smell like you, do you reckon?" He asked her rapidly as if they were on a deadline.

     "What, you want to brew her some Amortentia or something?"

     George paused, actually looked as though he was considering this before then shaking his head to free his mind of the idea. "No. What we could do though is have her smell them and make her choose. You know, like a scent test."

     This was better. It would actually work, and did not require them to break into the headmaster's office (they didn't even have to leave the common room).

     Addie agreed and five minutes later, they met in the library just as it was closing after fetching their respective house scarves from their dorm rooms. But even as Shelley waved her hands in the air at the sight of Addie's yellow and black scarf and smiled when Addie laid it in her lap, it was the simple fact that when George presented his red and yellow scarf to the baby, she took it in her tiny hands, smelled the fringe, and fell right to sleep that declared George the winner.

     "Ah ha!" George whispered with glee as the baby fell deeper and deeper to sleep.

     Addie rolled her eyes but was still fighting off of a smile. This was made an even more difficult task when George poked at her cheek to try and make the smile come to full fruition. If George brought her up on it later, she'd just say that she was smiling at the fact that the baby was already asleep before she retired to her dorm. Not that she was having fun with him.

     Nonetheless, Addie was disappointed she had lost, mainly because George was never going to stop reminding her of this night and George was disappointed that it was all over.

     Addie kept telling herself that it was a robot and didn't truly have emotions so therefore could hardly differentiate between her and George. But maybe she should just let him have this win and they could be friendly rivals as opposed to hellbent on being the better parent. They were a team and Addie feared it had taken her too long to figure that out.

     Since Laurie and Reid had retired long ago, George didn't want Addie to walk back to the Hufflepuff basement alone so he accompanied her on the long walk down to the basement. Shelley still asleep in his arms, George walked her right to her dorm room, somewhat sad to see this night end.

     But since it was now the two of them alone again, Addie took a second to breathe, before turning to George. "Why were you so determined to prove you are her favourite today?" She asked him.

     George shrugged. He looked down at the baby in his arms and used her as a distraction to cover up for the fact that he could no longer bring himself to look at Addie. "I guess I thought that if you knew she liked me then you'd see that I really do care. And that I am trying and do put the effort in." He paused. "When I can be bothered."

     Addie tutted her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "I knew that, George," she chuckled.

     His eyes flew to hers. "Really? I'm not exactly easy to take seriously."

     "I also knew that," Addie joked, before seeing a little spark light up his eyes at the thought of Addie seeing him as more than just some prankster wind-up. "But that doesn't mean I didn't know you can be a great dad. You have your moments, Weasley. But you didn't need to prove that to me; maybe just to yourself."

     George wanted to thank her, maybe even give her a hug. But that wasn't his style. "That was so inspirational. You should be a motivational speaker."

     "If it will get you to do your essays on time, then sure, maybe I will."

     It was hilarious how quickly George's face went from pure contentment to absolute horror. "Fuck."

     "Fuck indeed."

     "Snape already hates me," George told her, though it was probably more aimed at himself. "I can't miss another deadline. I'm surprised he even gave me an extension."

     So was Addie but, according to Professor Sprout, all teachers were supposed to be more lenient with their deadlines with seventh-year students. And while Snape had technically abided by this, he only extended George's essay on the Occulus potion by twenty-four hours so technically, Snape should already have it on his desk by now.

     George's eyes then went from wide to puppy: "Addie?" He singsonged.

     She knew what he was going to ask and so, humming, she took the baby from his arms and poised her hand on the doorknob.

     "Would you be a doll and go and grab the essay I started earlier?" He asked politely. Without the baby in his arms, his hands clasped together in a beg. "It's on your bed. Would be even nicer of you if you finished it off for me."

     Finished would be putting it lightly since he probably only wrote the introduction.

     Backing into her room slowly, Addie whispered back, "Maybe ask Shelley to help you next time," she watched as hope began to drain from his face as she closed the door on him. "You know, since you're her favourite parent and all?" At this point, George braced for the detention. "Goodnight, George."

     Professor Snape would be asleep anyway.

𝗔𝗗𝗗𝗜𝗘'𝗦 𝗧𝗜𝗣 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗬 ━━

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