Waker was reassured by the warm, uneventful view from the kitchen window. Hers had been a lazy morning, after a very long night of Amelia crying and feeding. It was amazing, how much a human that size could eat. Waker was sure she spent more time feeding the baby than she did sleeping, spending time with George, or trying to keep up with work from home. And there was all the time she talked about feeding the baby. She’d had a dream, even, about a NEWT exam on feeding Amelia. (Luckily, George had been there to reassure her NEWTs were over and she wasn’t a terrible mother.)

It was fine, of course, wonderful, even, most of the time, spending all of that time feeding her. Sitting with her and getting to know her, even without words. Waker, ever logical, had never anticipated such a strong and immediate bond, knowing someone so thoroughly without speaking. But she’d be lying if she said there wasn’t plenty of adjusting and exhaustion, too, for both of the young parents. It was like Amelia was always one step in front of them, despite Waker’s efforts to be the most prepared young mother of all time.

Now the baby was very well-fed and sleeping.

Or so Waker Nolan thought.

It was a blissful sound, the quiet. And when they checked on her (too frequently, perhaps), the image of Amelia slumbering away with great, big (tiny), healthy, steady baby breaths was the most calming thing in the world.

George had lingered in their room when they’d both woken up, groggy and thankful for not having to work. After they’d checked on the baby again, Waker had mouthed words at him, kissed him, donned a bath robe and padded into the kitchen to start making tea, leaving George on duty to keep the baby pacified… or maybe he’d caught a bit more sleep or a shower. Which meant it was definitely his turn to make her bacon and eggs.

Whatever it was, they were both behaving, her baby and her boyfriend. Fiancé. Fiancé, it was real now. She smiled at the ring, and suddenly became more careful with her diligent scrubbing of last night’s pots and pans. She was almost done, and so was the tea. A wave of her wand had set a dish towel drying each clean dish, and the dry ones were stacked neatly beside the sink. A perfect, clean flat and good start to the day.

Trying to get back into the flow of work was hard after having some time off. Especially when he felt like he’d taken ten steps backwards. He’d hardly woken up throughout the night with Waker, softly snoring as he rolled onto his stomach when she fed Amelia. Even if it was just summer practice, it was still hard going, all the drills and running through it all again and again. The summer camps had wiped George out.

The early wake up had him groaning softly into the pillow before he stretched out. Fingers combed through his hair; he needed a cut, soon. George scratched absentmindedly at the scars on his scalp before rolling towards Waker. He had smiled before sitting up with her, slower, checking on Amelia from his advantage point. He had tried to coax her back to bed with eyebrows and a peek show under the sheets. It was morning, and he was still a young man.

When she left the room, however, he sighed and grinned before sinking back down into the bed. Soft noises of a waking baby forced him up. George scooped up Amelia and crawled back under the covers, cuddling her close as he closed his eyes again. A hand patted her back as they gently rocked back and forth.

The lull had nearly put him back to sleep when a sound like a popping motor muffled under the duvet. George’s eyes popped open and he looked down at Amelia, who grimaced and screwed her face up again. He knew what she was doing. George groggily sat back up, lifting her up and keeping her close. “Shh... it’s ok...” He patted her back and yawned.

It was ok, until he felt the gooshy warmth on his bare side. Eyes widened and he looked down. Yep! It was coming out of the diaper. George shouted and started to jog out of the room. “Waker!” He was shouting as he bypassed the bathroom for her voice. It had now dripped down over his boxers.

Once in the kitchen, his eyes wide and unsure of what to do, he lifted the child out in front of him, one hand dirty. “Watch out!” Into the sink she was put, and he helped hold her head with his clean hand. She was lifting it and holding it well most of the time, but there were still times that Amelia let her head loll. “It’s dripping down me.” Gross

She heard the shout, and then her name. Waker’s head whipped around even as her grip tightened on the last clean dish. Her hand nearly trembled at the sudden noise, but the young witch caught herself and reached resolutely, instinctively for her wand with the other. She looked back at the dishes with the briefest of frowns and abandoned the plate at the top of the pile without taking the time to straighten it.

A potential catastrophe took precedence.

But Waker had barely taken two steps when he appeared in the little kitchen, holding Amelia like she might combust. Apparently she already had. Waker’s eyes moved from top to bottom, in a flash. George’s hand… boxers… leg. And then her gaze swept back up: the baby and her brand-new onesie, sweet-and-sour faced as her father held her at bay. Covered. Both of them. Waker’s mouth opened with the panic of someone who had spotted a wild animal in their home, but she moved out of the way at his warning and came to her senses a half-second too late.

“Not the—”

But the desperation in her voice didn’t matter. George had already plunked her in, and Waker had frozen in place and then reflexively withdrawn her extended, protesting hand, as if it might get splattered. “Sink,” she finished with pathetic remorse.

While Waker might not ordinarily object to bathing a mostly-already-clean Amelia there in the sink, the horrifying proximity of clean dishes to… that… made her want to shout scourfigy. Her eyes shot to said dishes, looking for casualties and knowing she would be rewashing all of them, either way.

More panic rose in her throat (or maybe something else) as George mentioned that it was dripping down him. Her eyes unwittingly looked him over again.

She was a mature woman, an adult, a mother, someone who had changed probably a thousand diapers already, she told herself, but it didn’t help. Her inner germaphobic child was threatening to take over. This had to be the worst case they’d had, and that included Amelia’s penchant for peeing mid-change. “Is she… how did…” She shook her head. “She’s not ill,” she concluded, reaching out to check the baby’s forehead needlessly.

“It’s normal looking… at least,” she said, even as she had to appraise it from George’s leg. His leg. She suppressed a shudder and reached for the tap. It would be useless to move her to the tub now. Waker didn’t even want to think about footprints or dripping on the floor. “You look like you were painting with it.” She caught his eye again, and she didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Poor George. Poor Waker’s kitchen.

“Accio baby soap.” She looked back to Amelia, wondering the best way to go about this. “Can you take off her onesie? But don't set it anywhere! And be careful, so it doesn't... escape the sink.” She eyed George now.

Her words didn’t sink into his brain quick enough, and when you had warm, squishy poo on you and in between your fingers, the last thing you did was stop in your destination. George was trying really hard to not remind himself of how it felt on his hand. The consistency was like a smear-able mud, and it was going to end up gagging him if he kept thinking about it.

George glanced to Waker with a look that screamed help even as he tried to keep things together. He just had to not think about what was all over him and his daughter, and he had to remind himself that he loved Amelia more than he could explain. Because that would keep him from potentially getting sick. And just not looking at his side, like he was. “Oh-” An expletive left his mouth as he once again focused on what was on himself.

Seriously?! This meant Amelia had nailed him not only with a mid-diaper-change-stream, but now her morning nature call. She’d spit up on him more times than he could count on both hands. There were just some things that a father didn’t need, and one of them was this.

George blinked at Waker, a bit blank, as she checked Amelia’s head. Really? That’s what she was going to focus on? He had a pretty good idea of the how, considering Waker fed her every time a little squeak left Amelia’s throat. Her statement made him want to yell - as if he’d paint with it - but then... then it made him laugh. Of all the ridiculous things to have happened, and he was standing here with exploded diaper poo all over him.

The laugh turned into a deep, belly one, and he leaned his elbows on the sink as he leaned towards it, eyes closed as he tried to reign himself in. He wiped the side of his face off on his bare shoulder before sighing and standing back up, nodding at her request. With one hand helping to support her chin and neck, he started to unbuckle the bottom of the onesie, slowly lifting it.

And then he gagged and had to stop. “I don’t think it’s coming off clean.” It was up her entire back! George nearly whimpered as he continued to push it up, making faces of disgust to disbelief as he pulled each arm out and then over the head. It was in her hair, now, and he tried hard not to drop Amelia.

He offered Waker the defiled garment, having not paid attention to her instructions. “I have to get her diaper off too!” The look she was giving him... he didn’t understand it. She wasn’t a victim here! George was!

With the onesie taken care of, George undid the diaper and let it fall, supporting Amelia in the air for a moment one handed. “Bin please!” Once it was near, he dropped it into it, a breath of fresh air being sucked in once it was gone. Now they needed to bathe her. Amelia kicked her feet out, smearing more, and started to cry a little. “The water, maybe?” His hands were full.

At first, it seemed that exchanging a plethora animated(ly terrified) expressions was the only thing the young parents were capable of: maybe they could will away the mess, if they frowned hard enough, blinked rapidly, stared with open mouths. Or if they sweared, like George. Anything, it seemed, but the messy, hazardous action and words to make it actually happen.

Waker had had longer moments of freezing, though she was loathe to admit it.

But things began to return to normal: she gave him a look, one George had no doubt seen a thousand times, when he blinked at her as if she were being ridiculous. But his laugh— of all the times to laugh— turned Waker’s look into a twitchy, confused frown. For a moment, she almost wanted to join him… or almost did, against her will… but she managed to suck in a deep breath, like a reverse sigh. Like someone about to jump into the ocean, knowing it would be cold and scary. And naturally, George was already there.

By the time he stopped laughing, a smile was poorly hidden behind Waker’s pouted lips, the first clear sign of exhaustion and really giving in… beyond, of course, the practical response of summoning soap and ordering George to tackle the onesie. “You’re rewashing the dishes later,” she promised, a teasing tone. It was so ridiculous, one couldn’t help but smile.

Waker leaned in a little more, now resigned to getting dirty and committed to avoiding it, and watched as George removed the likely-ruined garment. “Try doing that arm first— careful— yes, like that,” she said needlessly. Her smile had faded, and there hopelessness on her face again. “It’s like she used a multiplying spell.” Did that count as early magic? Did it make their baby a prodigy? At the moment, it didn’t seem as if any amount of laundry detergent or any number of washes would spare the cute, tiny attire, but the logical part of Waker’s brain knew that she was overreacting. It was just hard not to when George and Amelia and the sink looked like… that.

The soap arrived, and Waker grabbed it with her non-wand hand, looking armed for battle. With another wave of her wand, she thought to give the dishes a little push away from them. They would still be getting their second wash later, when the sink was scoured.

“It is coming off,” she insisted, of the caked garment. “Just—” Waker gestured, but it was vague enough for the young woman who usually had a plan for everything. “Don’t get it in her hair, George!” There really wasn’t a way to get it off without making a bigger mess, but Amelia would need to be in her birthday suit if they were going to get her clean. Which her mother still doubted, however much trust she placed in soap.

As George suddenly handed her the thing, Waker half-turned away from it, her elbow jabbing out, and then raised her wand quickly, and caught it mid-air with a hovering spell, before it could hit the floor and do any more damage. “We don’t both need to be covered,” she pointed out, a little bit of desperation in her tone. She caught his eyes, and nearly apologized with her look as she came out of the half-flinching stance of someone trying to avoid being drenched. “I’m not the Keeper.” For now, she let the garment continue to hover, and summoned the bin without delay. Lest he try it again.

Careful not to back into the bin, Waker reached for the faucet and turned it on to a trickle as Amelia started to fuss. Getting the perfect temperature was always a time-consuming thing, and now especially with the look and smell confronting her senses. When she was sure it was the perfect luke warm, she turned it on stronger and ran a washcloth under it. Generously applied the soap and then… there was no way around it now. Waker gave one more fleeting look to George and then began to rub it off, relying on the running water to make it a faster task. “I know, I know,” she cooed softly at Amelia. She paused when one arm was done, rung out the cloth, applied more soap (a small comfort), and offered it to George before summoning another and doing the same. “We’ll get it done faster this way…” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself. But it would take two sets of hands to keep the baby from squirming. Being wet in addition to filthy wasn’t making Amelia any happier to be in the sink. “Maybe rinse your hands first,” Waker added, frowning at them. They’d been all over her just that morning, and now…

Her own fingers were careful to avoid it where they could, but soon Waker was also having to use her shoulder to catch a clean breath. “How can someone so tiny take so long to clean?” Polishing trophies at Hogwarts would have been quicker. “And I researched those diapers before I bought them!"