The First BedTime

Harry laid little Heather in her bassinet. It was a gift from Heather's grandma and grandad sent all the way from Australia when they heard the news. It had come with a promise to visit in the next couple of weeks so that they could meet their granddaughter. Hermione had insisted that they honor his mother by keeping her family's tradition of plants and flower names for girls. He had just finished feeding his daughter a nighttime bottle letting his wife rest.

Hermione had been extra attentive to Heather since they had come home from St mungo's yesterday and in being so focused on their little bundle of joy Hermione had gone into her obsessive mode, not unlike how she used to get for exams, and had hogged his little girl all day. So Harry had taken the opportunity of his wife being exhausted to spend a bit of quality father-daughter bonding time together.

He had fed and burped her and he was very glad that they had found cloth nappies in Diagon Alley that had self-cleaning runes embroidered into them. Now she was laying g back just looking up at the glowing balls of light that were dancing over her head thanks to a quietly muttered spell from Harry. Then Harry had an idea of how he could get her to sleep. A quick flick of his wand and a book came floating through the open door.

Harry lazily caught the book and whispered to his daughter. "You know I'm glad you can't understand a word I'm saying yet. It means the first book I get to read you won't be something I find mind-numbingly boring. But all the baby books say at your age it's just important that you hear us talking to you so as to help form a connection between us. Now this book is one of your mum's old favorites from when she was a girl so we will need to be quiet so we don't wake her and risk her taking the book away."

He settled into the rocking chair that was a recent addition to their bedroom as rocking back and forth in it while holding a baby will help a baby get to sleep. It had been a gift from Arthur and Molly Weasley along with a knitted blanket both items were homemade, Molly of course having knitted the blanket and Auther had transfigured the chair from one of their old apple tree's that a storm had nicked down a few months ago. Harry made himself comfortable conjured himself one if the dancing lights to act as a reading lamp and started to read in a quiet whisper. "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort…"

Harry continued to read for the next hour. Occasionally glancing over at Heather to see if she was still awake. It took a while but eventually, his little angel closed her eyes and dried off. He was sure she would be awake and screening in a few hours but in that moment as he looked at her he was sure he had found the most perfect thing in the world. He slipped a tag that was on his bedside table between the pages of the book and closed it. The tag had been removed from a new baby grow just before Hermione had gotten Heather ready for bed so it was just a piece of suddenly useful trash.

Smiling to himself he set the book on his bedside table and slipped into bed next to his wife. He was just about to congratulate himself on letter letting her sleep when he saw that her eyes were wide open and she was looking at him, a small tired smile on her face.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Harry apologized

"I have been awake since the song of the misty mountains. Just listening to you and watching you both. You know one of my earliest memories is my dad reading to me like you were doing. She's going to think your the best dad in the world. you know that right?

Harry looked worried for a second. "I just hope I can be the dad for her that I always wanted as I was growing up. Someone who keeps her safe, someone who makes her feel loved. And not someone like Dursley."

Hermione wrapped herself around Harry and pulled herself in so she was half laid on top of him and let out a yawn before saying "Harry you could never be like him. You just don't have it in you to hate anyone like that without one hell of a reason. And you love her too much to ever hate her."

"But I have no idea what I'm doing. I didn't exactly have a good role model to copy."

"Harry you don't need to copy anyone, just be yourself. Judging by what you have done so far that's exactly the right dad to be." And she kissed him.

The two of them were just drifting off to sleep when Heather decided it was time to wake up. And of course, if she was awake then everyone else had to be as well. Her crying had Harry reaching for his wand and recasting the dancing lights. They waited a few moments hoping that the lights would be enough to entertain Heather and send he'd back to sleep but it seemed she wanted more.

Hermione was out of bed first and she picked up their daughter before sitting herself in the new rocking chair, where she began to rock back and forth hoping that it would send their little girl to sleep. Harry seeing there was nothing else he could do picked up the book again and started reading it out loud from where he had left off before. It seemed like her mother Heather wasn't the type to leave a book unfinished.

Notes:

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