the baby project — act two
" welcome to parenthood "
﹙ 𝗟𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗥. ﹚
HOW DOES ONE PREPARE FOR A BABY? Addie does understand that there are undoubtedly numerous ways in which pregnant women equip themselves for their upcoming delivery but Addie isn't a pregnant woman and is in fact a mere seventeen years old.
In her rare circumstances, does it come with a handbook? A how-to guide maybe? A shrink to answer all of her undying questions possibly? She wouldn't mind some kind of hefty journal to add to her collection but that doesn't make her ready for the endeavor ahead.
Does she write home and ask her mum how she did it? Would Laurie do the same and therefore make their parents very worried that things at Hogwarts had gotten far too out of hand for two teenage girls that had been brought up very well, in Shelby Sweeney's opinion?
How does one prepare for a baby in a way that keeps their sanity intact and keep their will to live in at least one piece by the time that it leaves Addie's possession? Addie's situation is quite the unique one and she fears very few places ─ if any ─ will have the answer to her constant flow of questions.
Said questions, in fact, had caused Addie to stare at the ceiling of the Great Hall ─ a mesmerizing sight in itself, but not the point ─ for the last ten minutes, resulting in her ignoring her friends' discussion, which she might have just benefitted from listening to.
"Can the baby die?"
"I hope so."
"Jazz!"
"What?" The Slytherin shrugged. "Gets me out of this stupid project."
"That way you'll surely pass with flying colours."
Tate and Logan were now taking up seats among the group and it was the first Addie had noticed that their bundle of friends stretched right down the table. Felix and Josh had arrived and squeezed in next to Gia. Her roommates, Sylvie and Ida were gossiping as they usually did with Clayton. It seemed like a large portion of their year group had huddled in one spot to discuss what was awaiting them.
"Who'd you guys end up with then?" Logan asked and Addie didn't think she'd ever seen her usually cheery roommate as depressed as this.
"Don't ask that question." Laurie was yet to find a way to get out of her sulk. There was no solution to her problem, she had discovered, and was currently at rock bottom.
Tate studied the faces of the rest of the group and unless your surname was Weasley, none of them seemed particularly chipper. "That bad huh?"
Quinn had stayed silent but when Tate raised her eyebrows in the Ravenclaw's direction, Quinn felt she couldn't ignore her friend. "Not bad at all I just . . . don't want to rub it in."
"That's okay, Quinny. We've accepted our fate," Addie nodded her head solemnly, as she received a perturbed glance from the ginger next to her.
Quinn turned her attention back to Tate and Logan. "I got Felix."
"Bitch."
"Logan!"
"I'm sorry," Logan's eyes fell onto the table, her shoulders drooping and she looked so defeated Addie was worried the Hufflepuff in her was evaporating as they spoke. Everyone knew Felix Kiyama. Everyone was friends with Felix Kiyama. It was no doubt every single girl in their year wanted Felix as their partner.
Logan tried to push aside any feelings of arising jealousy and self-pity and attempted to enlighten the rest of the group as to why she looked as though she were on the verge of tears. "I got . . ." She couldn't seem to get the words out.
"She got Kenneth Towler."
A series of winces and sympathetic awhs followed Tate's simplification. Kenneth was quite possibly the worst-case scenario. He was unsociable, unhygienic and the rest of the year was convinced he was a diagnosed psychopath which is why the school gave him a dorm room to himself.
"Is that even allowed?" Jazz asked, feeling a lot better about her pick of Clayton than she was before.
"Exactly!" Logan squealed and Addie could practically see the glassiness form in her eyes even from the other side of the table. "Surely they can't give a psychopath a baby. That's just barbaric."
"Well, I got him," Gia said, motioning to Fred, who enthusiastically swung his arm over her shoulder and squeezed her closer to him, beaming in Tate and Logan's direction.
"And I got the other one." Addie silently prayed that George wouldn't do the same as Fred but it seemed George was preoccupied with something else.
"I know you don't like me," George said, his head turning to Addie, "but please don't ever just minimize me down to "the other one"."
"No," she smiled sarcastically before taking charge and moving her attention to Tate. "What about you? Who'd you get?"
"Lee," Tate shrugged nonchalantly, and the reaction was a combination of lucky you and wouldn't it be nice.
Lee Jordan could be a bit of a nuisance but he was nice and worked hard when he knew he needed to. Addie liked Tate and so she made a mental note to herself to keep George on a tight leash and make sure he didn't have such a bad influence on Lee for the remainder of the year.
"So come on then," Tate nudged Laurie. "Who is it?"
Laurie shook her head like a child on a mute strike. Logan tutted her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Oh come on. It can't be worse than me."
"Actually," Laurie said, her eyebrows arching at the thought of anyone trying to one-up her in this shitty competition. "I would disagree and say that I think you'll find that mine is significantly worse and-"
"She got Ardale." Addie had a bad partner too ─ her sister needed to get over herself.
Tate let out an oof and Logan accepted that at least she wasn't alone in this shit show of a boat.
"Do you think if we argue well enough," Logan began, her eyes zoned out as she stared into space, "they'd let us be single mums?"
Laurie thought it was a great idea ─ her ears even perked up ─ but deflated like a balloon at the thought of trying to go against Professor Umbridge's instructions. "It would never work."
"As if Kenneth and Josh are going to help out whatsoever anyway." Gryffindors Sylvie and Ida had heard all of The Baby Project gossip from Clayton in the time that had passed and by the gross looks from Laurie and Logan, the two girls inferred that the topic of Kenneth Towler and Josh Ardale was still being discussed.
"We could boycott?" Laurie suggested to Logan hopefully, but Logan simply groaned and slumped her head onto the table telling Laurie all she needed to know ─ there was no way out of this for either of them.
"That's tough luck, ladies," George said. "Shame Addie can't relate."
"You'd be surprised."
"Am I gonna be an uncle?"
Reid Sweeney was hovering just behind Addie with a curious look on his face and a panicked aura. He clearly very much wished the answer was no. Then again, so did Addie. And so did Laurie.
George was eager to turn around in his seat and grin brightly up at the youngest Sweeney sibling. "That's right!" He nodded. "Addie and I-"
"What the fuck?"
This time, the remark came from the table in front of Addie. Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger were all looking on at the group of seventh years with skeptical looks from the Gryffindor table. Ron looked utterly appalled at his brother.
Addie shrugged, too tired to have to spell it out. "My thoughts exactly, Ron," she said with a bored expression before she turned back around to confirm to her brother that she was not in fact pregnant. "No, Reid, you're not gonna be an uncle."
"Depends how you define uncle technically," Jazz said, her judgy eyebrows almost reaching her hairline.
"Jazz," Addie drawled warningly, "don't put any ideas in his head, he's twelve."
Ida looked on at a confused Reid, who was yet to get a straight answer. "The school is giving us a fake baby to look after."
This perplexed Reid even more than when Laurie had passed him in the hallway and told him she was going to be a mother before hurrying off to her next class. "Why?"
Gia looked at him glumly, as she picked Fred's arm from around her shoulders and dropped it onto his lap in disgust. "We've been trying to figure that one out for a while."
"Some life skills crap," Tate said and Reid was still at a loss.
"I think it is life skills," Laurie then added. "At least I'll know how to get away with murder after it."
Reid knew Laurence Sweeney better than anyone else and unless his sister had changed at all since he accidentally burned her Christmas tree down last year then whoever she is referring to doesn't stand much of a chance in this scenario.
He rubbed Addie on the back, careful to stay out of Laurie's way for the time being. "I think I should just leave you to it."
"Good idea."
As breaktime dragged to a halt and Addie could feel her freedom slipping away from her as younger years ─ blissfully unaware of what awaited the seventh years outside of the Great Hall ─ trickled off to lessons in their easy lives, Addie felt more and more like either hiding under the table and seeking refuge there or just to suck it up and cry herself to sleep.
George forced her up from her seat and apparently chose the second option for her.
The murmuring seemed to have increased in volume as a hoard of seventeen-year-olds shuffled out of the hall, before parting ways and heading to the classroom they were instructed to go to after the break.
Addie dragged her feet as she walked as if she could delay what was coming, leaving her trailing behind at the back of the pack. George slowed his pace and met her at the rear of their friends.
"So what now?" He whispered as if he didn't want anyone else to know his secret.
Addie sighed knowing that saying it out loud made it oh so very true. "We go and give our names, and they assign us a baby."
George hollowed out his mouth as understanding dawned on him and Addie questioned if he even was present in the last class they just had. "Oh cool," he said, "so like what is this right now?" George waved his arm about, a grin brewing on his face as he gestured to the two of them walking towards the staircase. "Labour?"
Addie's head lolled backward and she stared at the ceiling as they continued walking, resisting all urges in her not to scream to the heavens. "Oh we're gonna have so much fun aren't we, Weasley?"
"See? Now you get it."
The same thirty students that had left the Life Skills classroom at the top of a turret tower a mere thirty minutes before were now re-entering that room with a different perspective than before. They weren't ready for what waited inside.
Before Addie could even predict what was going to happen in the rest of the school day, simply going off of what Skeeter had told them earlier, she strolled into the classroom almost as if she didn't have a care in the world. At least not yet.
When they walked inside, the classroom was decorated with rows and rows of cribs. Fifteen white wooden cots with either a pink or blue blanket inside and, you guessed it ─ a fucking baby sleeping peacefully on top.
"Please find the crib with your names and just stand beside it for the time being." The smile on Rita Skeeter's face as she gave out the instruction was almost as unsettling as the fact that Addie and George were currently trying to locate their baby.
George found their two names hanging from a bar on the crib over by the window at the back. Theirs had a bright pink plush blanket lining the floor and it took Addie a lot of courage before she could peer inside.
It looked as though it were made of plastic; a clean, smooth texture with pinkish cheeks. It had a few perfect, small, white teeth in between its thin lips and creases by its mouth from where Addie assumed it was supposed to be smiling. Its stubby arms and feet protruded upwards and there didn't seem to be any joints but just baby fat and rolls of skin.
It was supposed to be a girl. And it was freakishly real?
George stared at it blankly, his head tilting this way and that so he could look at it from every different angle. He came to a stop and glared down it at straight on before bringing his hand down towards it and sticking his finger out to poke it.
Addie swatted his hand out of the way of the cot before his finger could make contact. "It's a baby, not a toy."
"That is not a baby. That is an alien."
Addie shrugged, "It's our alien."
"So what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?" George's lips were parted in a mix of pure disgust and sheer bafflement. He pointed at his daughter.
"That's the whole point of the project, dumbass," Addie decided not to roll her eyes for the sake of her daughter. "We learn the ropes of parenthood."
George's eyes flicked from Addie and then back down to the baby continuously for a whole minute as if he was deciding which one was worth his time more. He then finally glanced around the room and addressed his peers who were all gaping down into their cots too. "Okay, am I the only one that finds this a little kooky?"
There was no surprise when Fred's head popped out from over the top of their classmates as he nodded in his twin's direction. Jazz turned to look at Addie and widened her eyes while Clayton tickled their daughter's chin.
After conversing with his brother, George turned his attention back to the baby and poked its cheek before Addie even got the chance to stop him. "What's it made out of?"
"I don't know. Ask someone else."
"You birthed it."
"That's disgusting."
George pulled a look of mock abhorrence and before Addie could process what he was doing ─ as if she would be able to stop him anyway ─ George leaned down and swept the simulated baby into his arms, resting its head over his shoulder.
"The miracle of life is not disgusting, Adelaide," George whispered shouted as if the baby could hear and understand her hurtful words. "This is your daughter. Show some respect-"
All of a sudden, George received a smack on the cheek but ─ surprisingly ─ not from Addie.
The baby had started moving ever so slightly, and its arm had stretched out to the side, scraping the side of George's face in the process. It then began to push its face further into the crook of George's shoulder in static, jolting movements.
George didn't express his fear physically ─ the baby would surely land on its head ─ but his mouth hung open as everything around him felt surreal, almost like a badly orchestrated dream. His baby just hugged him.
"We have a robot baby."
"It's not a robot."
"Then what is it?" George asked with raised brows as he carefully plucked the baby from his shoulder where he then held it out in front of him with stretched arms so he could get a better look at what had just nuzzled him.
"It's . . ." Even Addie couldn't find the right word to describe it. It wasn't a robot because that would require technology. It wasn't like a kid's doll because it moved freakishly normally. ". . . A simulated dummy."
"Robot sounds better."
"Welcome students," Rita tried to get the class' attention but even she had to understand that was going to be simply impossible when she just assigned them a partner to raise a baby that had just been put in front of them.
"I hope you have become well acquainted with your baby and your partner so we can begin."
George passed the weight of the baby into one arm and shook its tiny hand with his free hand. "I'd say we're pretty well acquainted, wouldn't you, mummy?"
"Boundaries, Weasley," Addie barked before he handed the baby girl over to her to give Addie a chance to hold it.
It was a weird sensation ─ holding a baby that you knew was yours. Obviously, Addie knew the baby wasn't real but it was her's. George's too, but she was the one staring into its fake blue eyes for the first time since it had woken up.
Rita Skeeter cleared her throat the way people do when they want your attention, and slowly the chatter trickled down into a light murmur until all the new parents were looking at the professor.
"Thank you," Rita said and it was the first time Addie had noticed that Umbridge was nowhere to be found. She immediately felt sorry for whichever class had the luck of ending up with her for this lesson. "Welcome to The Baby Project! We hope to improve your parenting skills and teach you one of life's most important lessons. Now that you have met your child, we can start!"
༺༻
"MY LIFE IS OVER."
"We hand the baby back in eight months."
"Eight long months."
Classes were done for the day and the seventh-year students had spent the last three hours of lesson time completing ice breakers with their partners and receiving basic baby junk, as Gia so nicely put it. Addie was currently forcing George to carry the mountain of baby bottles and blankets so she had the easy job of carrying the fake baby to the Hufflepuff basement.
"Wouldn't it have been nice for them to just assign us partners in the same house as us?" Addie said, knowing that for the first night of this project, she pulled the short straw and was going to have to have their daughter in her room.
George sighed, stumbling so that the dummy wouldn't fall out of his arms. "I wouldn't call Dolores Umbridge nice."
The teachers said that they would be able to enter other houses' common rooms but only your partner's house and only until the eight months were up. As if this wasn't done anyway. But still, this just leaves room for George Weasley to have a reason to see Addie all the time and she is not prepared to have two children around her twenty-four hours a day.
The group had decided to all gather in the Hufflepuff common room for this first evening as it seemed the majority of them called Hufflepuff their house ─ Addie, Laurie, Clayton, and Felix were all rather glad to be able to reside in their own lounge for the remainder of the evening.
Gia and Fred were the only pairing lucky enough to be in the same house. Gia had already decided for the both of them that their son's crib was going to stay in Fred's dorm for the remainder of the eight months. Fred didn't stand a chance arguing against her.
"How am I supposed to revise with this thing?" Quinn was already showing signs of severe stress and if her baby wasn't in Felix's arms right now, she would have crushed it by the way she flopped onto the available sofa in the corner.
"You don't," Clayton replied, and Addie did a double take until she realized that the reason he is holding a wriggling human in his hands is for a totally normal reason and because Jazz still hasn't touched their daughter yet.
Seeing her friends with children was going to take some getting used to.
"Can I give up or is that not an option?" Gia was ungraciously and carelessly dangling her and Fred's son from its arms, with her head cocked to one side and a face like a slapped arse.
Fred came to the rescue and scooped the boy from her hands before she dropped it. "How is it that I'm the responsible one out of the two of us?"
"Can't believe this so-called project has resorted to us calling Fred Weasley responsible." Laurie was slumped next to Quinn with her hands over her eyes, a baby in her lap as she contemplated her life.
"God this place is a shit hole."
The group could barely acknowledge Fred's offended expression because someone else, who also happened to be irresponsible, had just stumbled into the Hufflepuff basement.
They all internally groaned as Josh Ardale made his way over to them.
"I can feel my will to live slowly be stripped from me," Laurie whisper shouted just before the Slytherin came into earshot. "And now my freedom has officially been jeopardized."
"You disappeared," Josh said to Laurie who was now territorially hugging their daughter.
"I told you where I was going."
"I didn't think you were seriously going to spend your free time in the Hufflepuff common room." Josh had the type of laugh that you could tell he was expecting you to laugh along with it ─ insufferable and a sound you instantly never want to hear ever again.
"We don't have free time anymore," Laurie scrunched up her nose in irritation. "We have a baby now, just in case you hadn't noticed."
"Oh, I thought that was a joke."
Laurie didn't say anything else. In fact, no one spoke to Josh again for the rest of the night. Laurie, just sort of gave him sixty seconds to touch their daughter, another sixty seconds to hear how Josh was only prepared to have it (as he called her) in his room once a week before he raided the Kitchens and told them all how the closeby food sourse was the only good addition to the Hufflepuff basement. Oh yeah and he named their daughter ─ the one he was only "prepared" to sleep with for one day out of seven.
Laurie was not prepared to argue her way out of Fanny. And no, Josh did not think it was a pretty, traditional name made popular in the twenties. He had a different thought process.
But Josh didn't leave for the Kitchens and not come back. Oh no, Josh returned to the common room he had made such a fuss about ─ Jazz made sure to confirm to them all that the Slytherin dungeons were not anywhere near as nice as the Hufflepuff ones ─ and sat right next to Laurie and Fanny. Addie was sure it was because his friends were off doing other things he didn't consider fun.
"I heard Towler already dropped his and Logan's daughter," Laurie said with hopes to make herself feel better by reminding everyone that Logan Blanchet was also in just as shitty a position as Laurie was.
"He'll be crushing it next," Addie smirked, knowing an observation such as that would make her sister feel just a tiny bit better since Josh was still far too close to her.
A light wave of chuckles fell over the group, who were now all squashed onto the arrangement of sofas in a corner of the Hufflepuff common room; five new small and unexpected additions to the group. Those five additions were babies, strangely enough.
But apart from the babies, there was one that wasn't laughing along to the thought of Kenneth Towler fucking up his Baby Project in his usual fashion.
"Kenneth Towler?" Josh asked for confirmation.
Everyone nodded, the faint remainders of smiles etched onto their faces.
There wasn't an ounce of sarcasm or humour in Josh's voice when he spoke next, just pure enthusiasm that none of them could quite believe. "I love that kid!"
"That says a lot, Josh."
Addie didn't want to laugh as much as she wanted to because the person that had just spoken was George. And she didn't want to give him the satisfaction this early on.
But as the afternoon seeped into the night ─ and a reminder that they had been partnered up for a mere few hours ─ even Addie was getting annoyed that her sister had been partnered with Josh Ardale. The guy hadn't even spent the whole night with them and yet when he rocked up whenever he wanted to, it meant that he was going to be in the same friendship group as Addie.
At least Felix made a nice addition. He had already proved that he was just as committed to the cause as Quinn was when he decided he didn't mind not spending time with his friends, but with Quinn's friends instead. It was impressive, honestly.
Addie is convinced the only reason George and Fred are still with them is that they don't have any actual friends.
But because the universe was in the mood for punishing her and thus proving her wrong, Lee Jordan was the next to stroll through the Hufflepuff barrier. And a bit too nonchalantly for Addie's liking; she wasn't used to so many non-Badgers naturally entering her common room.
As expected, Lee was followed by his partner, Tate, her roommate Logan, her partner Kenneth (to everyone's delight), and their son and daughter.
"Bollocks or the perfect opportunity to prank the entire student body?"
Lee had the largest smirk on his face as he skipped over to his two closest friends and identical twins. Ungraciously, he flung himself onto the sofa between George and Addie, narrowly missing their sleeping baby in the process who was snuggled into the girl's chest.
It appeared Lee wasn't as unlikely to participate in pranking like the Weasley twins and was just as prone to committing annoying acts unprompted too.
As the two girls ─ Kenneth trailing unsocially behind them ─ made their way over to the sofas with a hoard of baby things and two babies between them, a chorus of greetings serenaded them onto the spaces dotted around on the sofas and on the floor, a mischievous smirk landed on George's face. His signature look, as Addie had come to learn.
"Do you think they would be able to walk if we learned the charm for it?" He asked Fred and Lee, who apparently were now thinking exactly what George was and they both simultaneously mirrored his impish expression.
Addie could hardly cover up her sigh before she started speaking just as Fred had opened his mouth to respond to his brother. "Please refrain from using our simulated baby as a prop for one of your pranks."
"Well, that's easier said than done, malady," George replied, leaning forward so she could see him from where Lee was wedged in between them.
Addie's head fell back onto the sofa. "Oh give me strength until May comes around."
"Are you suggesting you are going to need more strength for this than for our final exams?" George vaguely motioned towards the baby in her arms, a sickened look on his face.
Addie was grateful for the idle chatter that Tate and Logan had created upon arrival ─ Kenneth, as expected, did not make the same effort ─ so that no one else could hear her and George bickering once again. Except, of course, Fred and Lee but she only cared about the other's opinions and the last thing she wanted was for her friends to get annoyed with her this early on. She needed them to think she and George would get on ceremoniously because they both took this project seriously.
She wasn't sure how well they were doing at convincing anyone they were getting on.
"Yes," Addie huffed, now leaning forward too so that George could see that she wanted to look right at him when she said it. "That is precisely what I'm suggesting, Weasley, well done."
"I forgot you're a total nerd."
Addie cocked her head to the side condescendingly, "Would you rather our daughter turn out more like you?" She asked with an arched brow.
George tucked his lips into his mouth. "You don't want to ask me that."
Feeling her body fall asleep right beneath her, Addie relaxed back into the sofa, feeling the cushions crush under her weight, letting out a slow exhale as she went.
"For once you're right."
The evening dragged on, filled with the first experiences with crying simulated babies, sleep rotations being written out and baby items being divided out between them. One by one, they all wandered off to bed; Jazz, Gia, Fred, Quinn, Lee, and Josh had all returned to their own house towers and dungeons until it was just Addie and George left.
Addie was adamant that her new daughter would be crying all through the night since they hadn't heard a peep from her all evening and was trying to procrastinate that from happening as much as possible. Even if that meant spending more time with George since the boy apparently wasn't tired.
George was yet to come to a conclusion about how he felt about The Baby Project. It was no doubt going to completely disrupt his life but if he failed his exams he could always blame the kid and he was George Weasley ─ there's nothing he and his brother can't make fun out of. Plus, how he had a valid reason to spend time with Addie and there was no way eight months was not going to be enough time for him to charm her into liking him.
He was currently cradling their ball of plastic as the final flames flickered in the fireplace and the sky had turned a solid black. George was looking down at the shut eyelids of his baby (still weird) and a thought came over him.
"So what are we gonna call her?" He asked, just about managing to claw his eyes away from the fascinating thing in his hands to look at Addie.
Addie shrugged, her eyelids like heavy weights. She was tired and was completely babied out for the day. As far as she was concerned, its name was something that could wait until tomorrow.
But George was determined. He stared back down at the peaceful child and said out into the open, speaking even if no one was listening. "I was thinking George-"
Suddenly, Addie was no longer too tired to put some thought into naming their child. "My arse are we naming our daughter George JR, so don't even think about it."
George rocked the girl protectively before he pouted like the child she knew she was babysitting. "I want a son," he sulked as if the gender of the baby mattered when considering the name option George JR.
Addie didn't like the way he was glaring into her eyes. "Don't look at me."
"You're going to have to warm to me someday."
"Says who?"
"Me," George asserted before lifting the baby a little higher. "And George JR."
"That's not her name."
"So try to like me and we can work together to come up with a better name," George shrugged. "We have a baby now, Adelaide. You better start acting like it."
"Acting like what?" She scoffed. "Like we're one big happy family?"
"It's what's best for the baby."
Addie raised her eyebrows skeptically, before addressing the sleeping child that also happened to not be real. "That's too big of an ask, sorry George JR."
George may be very much aware that Addie was only joking when she addressed their fake baby as his preferred name but it was progress in his eyes. Slow, painfully tedious progress but progress nonetheless. If she could make a joke even humouring the idea of naming their daughter after him, George would appreciate it.
But it was now very late. And so they didn't manage to name their daughter that first night that they had her in their company.
𝗔𝗗𝗗𝗜𝗘'𝗦 𝗧𝗜𝗣 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗬 ━━
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