WHO. Frank & Alice WHERE. Their place WHEN. Thursday morning WHAT. Talking about the future and standards of morality (Frank has not had enough coffee for this) WARNINGS. potentially heavy conversation re death, killing, torture
Between working alternating shifts to avoid having to let the baby out of their sight as much as possible, and having to actually sleep occasionally, Frank and Alice were still working out how to actually see each other outside of rushed handovers and occasional departmental debriefs and Order meetings. It wasn't an ideal long-term solution, but neither of them were comfortable with the alternative. Frank was spending every other weekend checking and strengthening the warding on his parents' house as it was. (The house was so big and so old that modern warding work tended not to stick efficiently; the walls themselves seemed to reject anything short of medieval rituals requiring several jars of chicken blood.) They weren't short of offers to babysit, but little Neville had already been directly targeted by the Dark Lord for reasons they didn't properly understand. it wasn't a matter of trust so much of a matter of risks they weren't willing to take.
Frank had managed to catch a couple of hours sleep overnight, but had risen before sunrise to a screaming four-month old who demanded to be changed and fed. Frank prepared the bottle with drooping eyes and settled onto the sofa in the sitting room. Hunger sated, Neville yawned and dozed off again, and Frank decided it wasn't worth the effort it would take to move. He softly summoned his handbook from the table and tried to review the relevant pages he needed to renew his first aid certificate. With the baby dozing on his chest and the book balanced precariously just under his neck, he managed about half a paragraph before his eyes started to close again. The book slipped to one side, his head turned into the cushion, and within a couple of minutes he was snoring softly with one hand curved protectively over Neville's back.