Hihi! It's ME, justaclassicgirl, with my new obsession distraction multichapter.

"A Different Sort of Life" is the *highly anticipated* (but not really) sequel to my very first multichapter, "Lovesick or Something More". If you have read it, skip ahead to the story. If you haven't, I seriously suggest you leave this story and read it first, because you may be confused at some points in the story if you haven't read it before.

So, if you haven't read LOSM, GO DO THAT. If you have, ENJOY! :D

~justaclassicgirl

A Different Sort of Life

Chapter 1: Bedtime Stories

The piercing wail of a baby awoke Harry Potter and his wife, Hermione Potter, with a start at 2 am on June 7th.

Harry rolled over and groaned. Hermione sighed, yawned, and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. These early morning wakeup calls would take some getting used to.

Harry and Hermione's daughter, Rosella, had been born just days before on June 2nd. She was declared perfectly healthy, despite complications with the miscarriage of her twin brother while she was still in the womb. Hermione had carried her to term.

Well, mostly to term, anyway.

For Rosella was born the day after her parents' wedding, when she wasn't due for another three weeks. But the prematurity of this birth wasn't enough to land her in an incubator, and mother and child were released after a mere two days in the hospital.

But enough about that. Now we must return to Hermione, and how irritated she was at waking up so early yet again.

"It's not that I don't love her," Hermione thought as she trudged out of her room and down the hall. "I do! But as far as I remember it, I am the one who pushed her out of a hole in MY body less than a quarter of her size. I deserve SOME kind of a break!"

Oh, Hermione. Let us take a moment to sigh for her as she finally realizes that parenthood is never what you are expecting.

Hermione pushed open the door with the pink "Rosie" plaque on it, which barely muffled the noise from the crying baby within. She rushed over to the crib and lifted her daughter out, bouncing her gently.

"Hey, sweetie, what's the matter, hm? Why did you wake Mummy up so early?"

The baby girl just cried.

"Do you need a change?" Hermione lifted Rosie up and sniffed her diaper. "No, that's not it...Oh! You must be hungry!"

Rosie wailed in response.

"Shhhh. Shhhhhhhhh. I'll feed you, just calm down...calm..."

Hermione kept bouncing her daughter gently as she made her way over to the window seat and sat down. She carefully shifted Rosie to her opposite hip and pulled down the sleeve of her shirt, then brought her daughter back around to eat.

After careful consideration and a plethora of parenting books, Hermione decided to go the breastfeeding route. Health benefits aside, there was something magical (no pun intended) about holding your child there, and the bond built between mother and child from conception strengthened with breastfeeding.

As Rosie sucked happily, her eyes shut and hands flapping around, Hermione was already eying the bookshelf. She knew that after this, the only way to get her daughter to sleep would be to read to her. For, even at only a few days old, Rosie was already showing her mother's love of literature. Most parents sang lullabies to their children to get them to sleep, but Hermione and Harry read to theirs.

She heard a sound, and looked up. Harry was leaning against the doorframe, a small smile on his face.

"Everything okay here?" he asked softly.

Hermione nodded, gesturing to the baby in her arms, who was quietly eating her fill. Then, a pensive look spread across her face. "Actually, do you want to read to her tonight?"

He grinned like an excited child, and hurried himself to the bookshelf to pick tonight's story.

Rosie finished off with a last, loud suck that resonated like a POP! and gave a contented sigh. Hermione chuckled, shifted Rosie so that she was holding the baby slightly over her shoulder, and began to pat her gently on the back and bounce her up and down. As she did this, Hermione made her way over to the bookshelf where Harry was trying to choose the perfect book.

He ran a hand through his messy bed-hair and groaned. "There are too many!" he said.

Hermione smiled. "Why don't we let Rosie choose for us?" she asked, and swung the baby around.

"Can you pick a book for Mummy and Daddy to read to you, Rosie?" she cooed to the baby. The little girl gurgled happily, then pointed to a book with certainty. Hermione reached over and took it off the shelf, then opened her mouth in surprise.

The cover read "The Tales of Beedle the Bard".

"Haven't seen that in a while," Harry commented, peering over his wife's shoulder.

"I-I-" Hermione stuttered, at a loss for words.

"What? Mione, it's just a book," Harry said, taking it from her to look at it.

"It's just...I haven't seen it since the horcrux hunt. I didn't even realize it was here..." she trailed off, gazing down at her daughter in her arms who was waiting patiently for her story.

"Oh, yeah, I'd always enjoyed the stories, especially when you'd read them aloud for us. So, when everything was over, I took the book because you didn't seem to want it. When we were putting books in Rosie's room, I remembered about this one and I put it on the shelf with the others," Harry explained. "Even if she turns out to not be magical, it'll be good for her to learn about her magical heritage."

"Harry, it's a children's storybook that just happens to be for wizard children. You sound like me, with all your talk of 'magical heritage'!"

He frowned childishly at her, and she chuckled. "So are you reading to her or not?"

"How about we both do it, so she can have both authentic male and female voices for the characters?"

"First, magical heritage, now gender-authentic voices for a children's storybook. Who are you, and what have you done with my husband?" Hermione laughed.

"You must be rubbing off on me," Harry responded, leaning in for a short kiss.

Sandwiched between her parents' embrace, Rosie made a small pre-crying sound to remind them that she was still waiting for her story so she could go to sleep.

"Oh, no no no, don't cry sweetheart, don't cry," Hermione said, breaking the kiss early to bounce and comfort her daughter. "Let me just..."

She walked over to the window seat and sat down, patting the spot next to her with her free hand. "Come on, Daddy, hurry up!"

To Rosie, she murmured, "Your Daddy's a bit slow."

Rosie giggled a small baby giggle.

"Hey!" Harry said indignantly, sitting down next to her.

Hermione smiled and kissed his cheek. "Just open the book already," she said.

He did so, and then looked at the table of contents. "Which one?" he asked. "Because we're only doing one tonight."

"How about The Wizard and the Hopping Pot?" Hermione said to her daughter. "Would you like that, Rosie?"

The baby scrunched up her face in distaste.

"That's a no," Harry said.

"The Fountain of Fair Fortune?"

The baby's frown deepened.

"No," said Harry.

"Babitty Rabbitty and the Cackling Stump?"

The baby let out a small cry.

"No," said Harry.

"The Warlock's Hairy Heart?

The baby began to wail.

"Definitely not," said Harry.

"Well, I'm certainly not reading her 'The Tale of the Three Brothers!"

As soon as those words were spoken, Rosie stopped crying.

"That looks like a yes to me," Harry remarked.

"But-but-but the story is so-DARK!" Hermione spluttered.

"She's just a baby, Hermione. She won't know what any of these things are anyway. She just likes the sound of our voices."

Hermione muttered "You don't know that" under her breath, but shifted the baby on her arm and turned to the story.

As they read to their daughter, her eyelids drooped lower and lower and her breathing slowed and evened out until finally she was asleep.

"And then, he greeted Death as an old friend, went with him gladly, and as equals, they departed this life," Hermione finished in a whisper of a voice, peering down at her sleeping daughter.

"Looks like that did the trick," Harry whispered to his wife, gazing at their daughter as well.

Hermione stood up slowly, trying not to wake Rosie, and carried her over to her crib. She laid the baby down gently inside it and brushed a kiss over her forehead. Harry followed close behind and did the same as Hermione moved to the door.

The two of them paused in the doorway for a moment, looking over their beautiful sleeping daughter.

"Goodnight, Rosella," Hermione whispered softly.

The two new parents and newlyweds then left to their room to get some sleep, and Harry closed the door gently behind them.

Feeeeeeedback please!