A/N: So, at Blood and Dark Chocolate's suggestion, I've written a petition from Scorpius to the Ministry to ask them to reclassify pygmy puffs as something besides vermin. It can be found on my profile as "On the Ministry's Misclassification of Pygmy Puffs." It is a thousand words of utter nonsense. Please enjoy at your leisure.

Also this isn't the last chapter. I was going to make it the last chapter, and then because I have a very definitive endpoint in mind, this got stretched out and it was taking too long (temporally and physically) to get there in one chapter, so now there will probably be one more after this. Probably one. Count on one, and we'll see what happens.

Thanks to: Blood and Dark Chocolate, Charlottembp, FairyLightsAndGlitter, Tom, noodlesandcheese, Prunella7, Sarnia Nereid, MaebeSara, District 9 3-4, CurlyFires01, Dutchgirl71, blue21, hugo-automaton, Fionamoi, KeishaM, and ishika-malfoy for reviewing!

Chapter Twenty – Christmas to Christmas

"I just don't understand why you told Rachel she was dead," I said. It was taking all of my willpower not to lunge across the table and smash Cartwright's head in.

"She was a thief and a liar," Cartwright replied like this should be clear. "Honesty is the most important thing in the world."

"So naturally you lied to her," I said. "What the fuck got screwed up in your brain to make it seem like you weren't doing something wrong?"

"Of course I didn't kill Angelica," he replied like I hadn't said anything. "She's magical. Every drop of magical blood has to be protected, even the Muggleborns."

"But Merlin forbid you let the Muggleborn children keep their parents," I said, my fingers twitching. I wanted nothing more than to break his face in the hopes that maybe it would illustrate his failings as a human being. "How the fuck do you even stand yourself?"

"It's not that we're superior, Malfoy," he said. "It's that there's no way for us to share this planet. It's either us or them, and I would rather it was us."

"You're insane," I replied. "Fortunately, you're also going away for life thanks to crimes against humanity."

"But people will see what good I've done," Cartwright said. "They already do."

In response I dropped the day's Prophet on the table. The headline read, in giant bold letters, "Cartwright a fraud – guilty of mass murder of Muggles and suggested involvement with neo-death eaters."

"It's the biggest scandal in a century," I said. "Everyone hates you."

Cartwright's face fell. But he bolstered himself back up as only psychopaths can do. "They'll see," he replied. "Just like that thieving bitch Rachel Tyl-"

That was as far as he got before I lunged across the table, grabbed the back of his head, and smashed his face against the table. He slumped out of his chair unconscious, nose broken, while the guards and the orderlies rushed over to escort me from the premise.

"I've wanted to do that for two years," I said, smiling brightly at the guards.

"Don't worry, we're there with you," one of them said. Another elbowed him to make him shut up.

"Just think," a third said. "If it was the old days, we could've sucked his soul out with a dementor."

"Wouldn't have worked," I replied as they escorted me to the door. "He doesn't have one to begin with."

They laughed, promised that they weren't going to report me for violence towards a criminal and sent me off to the Portkey that would take me back to the mainland. Rose and Angelica were waiting for me at the port, and Angelica ran up and hugged me firmly as soon as we spun into existence. I scooped her up and realised she had a pinkie in each pocket of her blue dress.

"You'll be happy to know that they've set up an honour guard," Rose informed me, plucking one of the baby puffs out of Angelica's pocket and handing it to me. It purred and snuggled itself into the breast pocket of my suit jacket. "They absolutely refuse to let her go anywhere without an escort of at least two."

I grinned and the three of us started to leave the port. Angelica kept one arm around my shoulders and petted the head of the pinkie in my pocket with the other.

"Do I have a mummy?" she asked. "Violette has a mummy and a daddy."

My heart sank. I couldn't think of any good way to explain Rachel to her when she was still just shy of four. Eventually, I would have to explain, but I couldn't do it yet.

"You do have a mummy," Rose said softly. "But you've also got me."

"And you're not my mummy?" Angelica asked, sounding confused.

"Well, no," Rose replied. "But I love your dad very much, and I love you too."

"You love me?" I asked, raising my eyebrow at her. "That's new."

She slapped me in the stomach and I laughed.

"Why is it funny?" Angelica asked.

"We'll tell you when you're older," Rose promised while we made our way to the Floo and back to the house. In the main hall, Will and Em – unaided by Violette who was sitting in the middle of everything with a troop of puffs – were hanging Christmas garlands and fairy lights in preparation for the Christmas celebrations set to take place in four weeks. As soon as we spun into the fireplace, I set Angelica down so she could run over and start playing with Violette and the puffs.

"So Christmas should be interesting," I said.

"Why?" Will asked.

"My parents don't know they're grandparents," I replied.

Angelica's eyes lit up. "I have more grandparents? Not just Granddad Davan?"

"You have two other grandparents," I explained. I tried for a moment to imagine what she would get to call my parents, and could only imagine them recoiling in horror if someone called them Gran or Grandpa. "Also, I hope you lot don't mind, but I want to invite McFarlane to Christmas."

Will, Em, and Rose exchanged looks.

"Okay," Em said finally. "Does this mean you're inviting Rachel too?"

"I think she still has problems with things like Christmas carols and fires and I think she's better off in the Solomon Islands," I replied. "But someday soon we'll go visit."

They accepted this as reasonable and Rose slipped her hand into mine. "Can we talk?" she asked quietly.

"Of course," I said. "What about?"

"While naked and in your room," she elaborated at a whisper.

"Right then," I said. "Em, Will, would you guys be willing to watch Angelica?"

The four of us glanced down at the two girls who were completely swarmed by the pygmy puffs.

"They'll be fine," Will assured me and then Rose dragged me up the stairs to my room.

She kissed me and pulled me onto the bed while I made quick work of her clothes.

"You said you love me," I reminded her, kissing down the side of her neck.

"Don't be a twat," she replied, pushing my jacket off and unbuttoning my shirt. She didn't meet my eye.

"I'm just curious if you meant it or if you just said it because I have the most adorable daughter on the face of the planet," I said.

"Don't be an idiot," she recommended, flipping us over and pinning me against the bed.

"Am I a twat or an idiot?" I asked. "Can I really be both?"

"That's what you're doing right now," she pointed out, running her hands across my chest and undoing my belt.

"Do you have any idea how sexy you look when you do that?" I asked as she flipped her mane of scarlet curls over to one side and leaned down to press her lips against my chest. She smirked and sat up so she could pull my trousers off.

"You think I'm sexy regardless of what I'm doing," she replied, straddling my hips and snogging me again. I shrugged in agreement and pulled off her knickers.

Half an hour later while we lay on the bed panting heavily, she rolled over and rested her head on my shoulder. I kissed the top of her head and wrapped an arm around her.

"I love you too," I said. She grinned and that was the last of it.

OOooOOooOOooOO

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"

I jumped awake to discover Angelica kneeling on the bed next to my head, looking like she might shortly take to peeling my eyes open if I didn't wake up that instant.

"What's up?" I asked, wrapping my arms around her so she sprawled across my chest. Immediately, she wriggled out of my grasp and snuggled under the covers between me and Rose.

"There was a whole pile of pretty boxes on my bed!" Angelica announced.

"That's because it's Christmas, love," Rose mumbled, rolling over and draping her arm across Angelica.

"But what's Christmas?" Angelica asked. She sounded excited and curious all at once which made it slightly less heart-breaking that she didn't know what Christmas was at age three.

"Once a year, people send you all sorts of presents that are yours to keep and they wrap them in bright paper and then at night, the whole family comes over and we have dinner and you get to play with your presents," I explained.

"But why?" Angelica asked.

"I don't actually know," I replied.

"Somewhere a Catholic priest is crying," Rose mumbled. She leaned over Angelica's head and kissed me softly. "Happy Christmas."

"You too," I replied. I brushed Angelica's hair off her face. "What do you say? Want to go open your presents?"

She nodded enthusiastically and climbed out of bed, but she stopped when she saw the modest pile of presents on the foot of my bed.

"But you have presents too," she said, pointing at them. "Why can't everyone open them together?"

"We can," I said. "We can go get yours from your room or Rose and I can bring ours down to your room if you'd like and-"

"I'll go wake up Violette!" Angelica announced. She ran off down the hall leaving Rose and me staring after her.

"I think she meant everyone," Rose said.

"Oh," I replied, and then we jumped out of bed and ran off after her. In the hall, Dom and Sam were stumbling half asleep out of their room, clad in nought but their dressing gowns and pyjamas. Angelica ran away from them towards the stairs.

"Whazzagoinon?" Sam mumbled, scratching his head with bleary eyes.

"Sorry," I said. "Angelica wanted to open our presents together, and she said everyone, and apparently she meant everyone."

"Oh," Dom replied, smoothing down her sleep-ruffled hair. "Alright then."

She wandered back into their room and came back levitating a pile of presents.

"I've got ours," Rose offered, ducking back into my room. I nodded and headed down the stairs to find Angelica. She was coming out of Dylan and Al's room, the two of them stumbling awake after her.

"I don't…" Dylan mumbled, jamming his glasses on half-heartedly.

"We're to open our presents together," I explained while Al pulled on a shirt.

"Right," Dylan replied. "I suppose we'll meet under the tree then?"

"Sounds good," I said, following Angelica down the hall to Will and Em's room. It turned out that they were already awake, having woken up earlier when Violette had run into their room. Violette was two and a half and had recently taken to running into their room at odd hours.

The lot of us met under the Christmas tree we'd set up in the den. A fleet of puffs joined us and set about distributing the packages once we were all settled and Sam had provided all of us with mugs of coffee. Angelica seemed to think that this was the best thing that had ever happened, and maybe it was.

When we had finished opening all our presents, the girls were playing happily on the floor with the pygmy puffs and their new baubles. Sam had gone off to make breakfast.

"I've got one last thing for you," I mumbled to Rose.

"Funny, I've got one last thing for you too," she said. "But it's not for public eyes."

I followed her up the stairs to her room and pulled the small wrapped box out of my pocket. Rose pulled a small rectangular box out of her dresser drawer.

"I figure I'm sort of batting a thousand these past two months," I said, offering her my present.

"I'd wait for your reaction to my present before you say that with any sort of certainty," Rose replied.

"Should I go first or maybe, actually you should go first but-"

"How about we open them at the same time," she suggested. She looked nervous, but I was pretty sure she had no idea what was in my present. I certainly had no idea what was in hers.

I nodded in agreement and peeled off the wrapping paper to reveal a nondescript cardboard box. Rose had just revealed the small black leather box that I had wrapped for her. We both glanced up long enough to give each other suspicious looks, and then we each opened our respective boxes.

"Oh holy shit," we muttered in perfect unison.

OOooOOooOOooOO

"So Scorpius," my dad said when he saw Angelica. He couldn't fail to notice that she was, without question, my daughter. "When were you going to tell us you had a daughter?"

Angelica blinked up at him with her huge blue eyes and her corn silk hair held back by a scarlet bow. Rose had had a hand in dressing her for Christmas dinner, which was as formal as ever. She had quite happily dressed in a fluffy red princess dress and she was perfectly adorable. Rose, on the other hand, was wearing a shimmery black dress that clung to every curve and was backless and looked amazing with her scarlet curls.

"Oh come on," she said when I had asked if it was really appropriate to wear in front of all the parents, let alone the two and three year old girls in the house. "This is the last chance I'm going to get to wear something this sexy for a while. Just let me have this one."

I agreed – mostly because I was very interested to see how it looked on our floor later – and now we found ourselves faced with my father.

"I was going to get around to it eventually," I said, shaking his hand in the formal manner my family tended to exhibit.

"She's four," my dad pointed out. "Where have you been hiding her these past few years?"

"I haven't been hiding her," I said. I crouched down next to her. "Why don't you go play with Violette and Gabby, love? Show them the new pinkies the gold clan had."

"Okay!" she exclaimed, running off to find Teddy and Victoire's youngest daughter and Violette.

"So," my mother said, giving me a judgmental look. "Explain."

"She's Rachel's," I replied, taking a deep breath. "And mine, obviously. And then Peter Cartwright abducted the both of them when Angelica was six months old and tortured Rachel to a point of instability and then told her that he'd murdered my daughter. We recovered her when we conducted the raid on Cartwright's warehouse and home last month. I never told you about her because I thought she was dead and it hurt too much."

My parents were staring at me in horror. I smiled at them brightly.

"Her name is Angelica Elizabeth Malfoy, and her birthday is Valentine's Day," I continued. "You two get to decide what she calls you, because frankly, I think you'd both flinch every time she called you 'granddad' or 'gran.'"

They kept staring at me and then McFarlane spun into the Floo. He straightened his bowtie and looked distinctly uncomfortable until Angelica ran into the front hallway.

"There's my girl!" he exclaimed, scooping her up into a giant hug.

"Granddad we've got new pinkies!" Angelica announced, kissing him on the cheek. "Come see!"

McFarlane tipped his head in my direction in recognition and then let Angelica drag him off to the den.

"Isn't he an auror in the organised crimes division?" my dad asked with a frown.

"He's also Rachel's father, and more importantly, Angelica's grandfather," I said. "You're welcome to go introduce yourselves. I have to go brace myself for Ron Weasley's wrath."

"Dear Merlin, why?" my dad asked.

"I'll tell you in four years," I replied cheerfully, wandering off to the kitchen. Mr Baker, Sam, and Gran Weasley were working on dinner, aprons over their finery.

"Scorpius, love, grab us the mixing bowl," Gran Weasley instructed, gesturing at the top shelf of a cabinet. As the tallest man in the house, it was often my job to grab things.

I pulled it down and handed it to her, nicked a crostini from a serving platter, and ran out of the room before Sam could jinx me.

"So Nika, when are you and Sammy going to have babies?" Victoire asked. She and Dom were sitting next to each other in the window seat in the parlour.

"Don't call me Nika," Dom replied through a forced smile. "And only after I retire from Quidditch. I'm a Beater. The chance of miscarriage is so astronomically high – hell, I could've been pregnant loads of times these past four years we've been together and not have known it."

"Don't tell Sam that, he'll cry," I said. "Have you lot seen Rose or Hermione or Ron?"

"I think they went out to the garden," Dom replied. "Why?"

"Oh, no reason, I just have to go get my arse kicked," I said. "Always nice to see you Vicky."

"Don't call me that!" Victoire exclaimed after my retreating back. I heard Dom snicker.

Out in the garden, Ron and Hermione were sitting on a bench that had been cleared of snow. Ron had his arm around her shoulders and Hermione was staring at Rose with a sort of confused expression.

I made my way over to them and snaked my arm around Rose's waist. Ron's eye twitched.

"Where'd you get?" I asked.

"To 'we've been seeing each other since Sam and Dom's wedding,'" Rose replied. She turned back to her parents. "Sort of on and off until a bit before last Christmas."

"Has it really been a year?" I asked, my brow furrowing in confusion.

"Really, honey?" Rose replied, giving me a slightly amused look.

"It's been a shitty year other than that," I said with a shrug. She nodded in agreement.

"So you've been seeing each other since Christmas last year," Hermione said. "Thank you for finally telling us."

Ron looked sort of annoyed with both of us, but maybe because of the Cartwright scandal and the fact we'd both helped fix it, he seemed less reluctant to agree to our relationship.

"Hey, if it makes you feel better, I just told my parents I have a four year old," I said.

"Oh," Rose replied, turning to glance at me with tender eyes. "As long as we're making life altering decisions today, we should talk about that in a moment."

"I'm happy you got your daughter back, Scorpius," Hermione said in her most diplomatic voice. "But what does it have to do with your relationship with my daughter?"

"Well, see, we've been sleeping together for over a year," Rose said slowly.

"You knocked her up, didn't you?" Ron asked in an icy voice.

"I did," I agreed, my arm tightening around Rose's waist while a stupidly happy grin snuck onto my face. Ron's fist clenched like he wanted to hit me. "But I also asked her to marry me."

Ron's eye squeezed up and he looked bewildered.

"Did you say yes?" he asked finally, looking like he couldn't imagine it.

Rose and I exchanged looks.

"Well, Dad, considering that I'm not Rachel Tyler and I'm also actually in love with him, yes, I did," Rose replied. "Shall we go into dinner?"

The whole experience did absolutely nothing to dissuade me of the impression I was batting a thousand.

It was the best Christmas dinner we'd had, probably ever. My parents sat at the end of the table with Em's parents, all four looking unnerved by the fact they happened to be grandparents. Bill and Fleur Weasley were chatting happily with McFarlane as Bill and McFarlane had served prefect duty together in Hogwarts. Ron and Hermione looked too wigged out to do much besides pick at their food. Gran and Granddad Weasley were fussing over all the children along with Will's and Sam's parents while Dylan's parents and Al's conferred over the state of our various family.

"Oh fucksticks," Al mumbled halfway through the pudding so only Dylan and I could hear him.

"What?" Dylan asked.

"Thanks for setting a precedent, mate," Al said, slapping me in the arm.

"What did I do?" I asked.

"Now the parents are going to want us to get married too," Al explained sulkily.

"Married?" Dylan repeated, looking equally perturbed by it.

"Married?" Ginny and Mrs Abernathy exclaimed, and then they set upon their sons and started fussing.

By the time everyone had retired to bed ("Christmas is the best thing ever," Angelica announced as we tucked her into her bed with a fleet of pygmy puffs), Rose and I were exhausted and collapsed onto my bed.

"What did you want to say about Angelica earlier?" I asked, sliding her silky dress up her legs and placing small kisses on her thighs.

"I know Rachel isn't dead or anything," she said. "But she won't be Angelica's mother. We both know that."

I nodded in agreement and grabbed the edge of her knickers in my teeth before I started pulling them down her legs. She giggled quietly and ran her fingers through my hair as I kissed my way back up her thighs.

"And since we're getting married," Rose continued, running her finger across the ring I'd got her. It was rose gold because I thought it was funny and was inlaid with diamonds and one very small sapphire. "And we're going to have a baby of our own…"

I grinned and slid her dress over her hips so I could kiss her stomach as well.

"I don't want to be Angelica's stepmother," Rose said.

"What?" I asked, all playfulness gone. I gave her a hard stare and she rolled her eyes.

"I want to adopt her, Blondie," she said. "I'd like to actually be her mother."

"Oh," I replied. And then I smiled stupidly.

OOooOOooOOooOO

"Ioan got himself arrested," Will informed us in mid-June. "He got caught trying to lift artefacts from a museum."

"Of course he did," I replied. "Well, I can't say I care, exactly."

"I don't think anyone does, really," Rose replied. She was stretched out on the sofa with her feet in my lap while a few pygmy puffs cuddled up in the crook of her neck and a single large, scarlet puff had taken up residence on her baby bump. Every time she breathed, it rose higher into the air and purred loudly.

Violette and Angelica were colouring on the floor.

"Well, I hope he has a nice time there," Em said.

"Who's Ioan?" Violette asked.

"He was someone we went to Hogwarts with," Rose replied.

"Mummy, I drew this for you," Angelica announced, handing Rose a crayon drawing. She had taken the news that Rose was to be her mother quite well. Better than either my parents or Ron Weasley, anyways, who had sat uncomfortably opposite each other when Rose and I told them.

"So we're going to share grandchildren then," Ron said finally.

"Don't say things like that," my dad replied. "Makes me feel old."

"Well, you are fifty," I pointed out before I was forced to duck the throw pillow aimed at my head.

The drawing that Angelica handed Rose was a stick figure drawing of the three of us and a very small figure that she explained was her new little brother or sister. We were surrounded by pygmy puffs.

"It's lovely, thank you," Rose said, kissing her on the forehead.

OOooOOooOOooOO

"But I don't even…" Ron mumbled, peering over his wife's shoulder at the very tiny bundle of baby in her arms.

"Technically she's not your first grandchild," Hermione pointed out. "Legally, Angelica's your granddaughter as well."

Ron and Angelica stared at each other, big blue eyes to slightly lined and concerned looking blue eyes. Ron swallowed and then let his paternal instincts kick in. Whatever else I thought about Ron, or he about me, we had to agree that the other was a good father and in Ron's case, a good grandfather.

Ron smiled down at Angelica and scooped her up into a hug.

"I wish I had red hair," Angelica lamented wistfully, looking over Hermione's shoulder at the baby as well. Barely a few hours old, she already had fuzzy red hair over her head. Rose thought it was funny. My father did not.

"We'll name her after a star," Rose offered as a form of platitude to my deeply uncomfortable father.

The thing that really seemed to irritate my parents was the fact Angelica very much preferred Ron and Hermione to them as grandparents. When asked, she would reply that she had three grandparents, Grandpa Weasley, Grammy Weasley, and Granddad Davan. Even though she was four and a half, she had mastered the art of tact and would admit to having my parents as well if they were in earshot. In the hospital, she had even hugged my father's legs before she scampered off to hold Ron's hand. My father did not take kindly to any element of this.

"Merlin there are a lot of you in here," Al said, shooing my parents aside so he could run diagnostics on Rose and Lyra to make sure they were okay.

"Ah yes, Healer Potter," my dad said, finally relaxing a bit and looking slightly amused by the circumstances.

Al flushed around the ears and pushed the glasses he had taken to wearing up his nose. "Kindly stuff it, Healer Malfoy."

My dad snickered to himself but didn't say anything else about Al's official position. After the incident at the warehouse, the St Mungo's teaching academy had expedited his official accreditation as a Healer due to his excellent performance under duress.

Al ran his tests to make sure two thirds of the important women in my life were healthy and safe and then kissed Rose and Angelica on the forehead before he ran off to return to his rounds.

"I never thought I'd live to see the day when Potter's son was a Healer," my dad commented idly.

"We never thought we'd see you volunteer to help anyone either," Ron pointed out, setting Angelica on Rose's bed so she could snuggle closer. My dad gave Ron a bad look and then returned to staring at the baby in Hermione's arms.

"Do you want to hold her?" I asked quietly enough that he could hear me.

"What?" my dad asked in a sharp tone. He looked terrified, but managed to keep it together when Hermione handed her over with a small smile.

My dad kept staring down at Lyra with panic in his eyes.

"Oh come on, you handle babies every single day," I pointed out, sitting on the foot of Rose's bed. She smiled at me tiredly.

"Perhaps, but it's different when – when they're your grandchildren," my dad managed to say. I smirked at him and took my youngest daughter from him, snuggling her as close as I could.

OOooOOooOOooOO

We got married a week before Christmas. Since everything in our relationship had happened on or near Christmas, we thought it would be appropriate. We did it a week before so that the lot of us (save Al) could space our hangovers out over a week. Hangover from the wedding on December 17th, hangover from Christmas on December 25th, hangover from New Year on January 1st, and everything would go swimmingly. We set up to have the ceremony in the ballroom and had Sam charm the back wall – normally made out of glass anyways – so that it seemed to just open onto the garden. Frank fixed all the flowers for us and Sam charmed the icicles so they would twinkle like fairy lights. The pygmy puffs decided that they were going to be attending in full force in their perfect military style ranks – looking very much like a fluffy, multi-coloured Roman legion – and Angelica and Violette spent several hours tying bows around them so they were formal. The puffs seemed to accept this as a reasonable thing and stayed very still while the girls did it.

Al and Dylan got in a minor fight about which of them got the be the bridesmaid this time until Rose swooped in and informed them she would be asking Lily Potter and Lucy Longbottom (nee Weasley) to be bridesmaids as well so that they could both be groomsmen. Then they got in a tiff about which of them got to be my best man until Will decided that, since Em was the maid of honour, he was going to be my best man and they could both fuck off.

Rose was so far beyond beautiful that I couldn't really handle it. She was never one to wear white – especially since her mother and her Muggle grandparents pointed out it would be a lie – and so her dress was ivory. Angelica and Violette led the procession in their matching scarlet flower girl dresses and both stopped to give me a kiss on the cheek before they ran off to sit in the front row with their grandparents of a various assortment. When Rose and Ron reached the front of the room, I think I might have stopped breathing for a moment.

My brain skipped through the ceremony the same way time passes when you're drunk – one moment I was staring at Rose with a stupid smile on my face, the next I was saying "I do" and I only had vague recollections of whatever had gone on between those events, and then we were snogging much more than strictly appropriate for a wedding.

We danced most of the night away. Rose was stolen occasionally by her father, by my father, by Harry, and by Will, Sam, Dylan, and Al for one dance a piece. My favourite moment was when she danced with her granddad Weasley, who had indeed forgiven her for marrying a pureblood. I was barely aware of the fact I danced with my mother, and with Hermione, and with Dom and Em. I also got one dance in with Angelica standing on my feet while we revolved slowly on the spot. Then she was snatched away by each of her three grandfathers.

When I finally got Rose back, we were both exhausted.

"I love you," I said, kissing her softly.

"You can't just say things like that and then kiss me like that and expect me to stay proper," Rose mumbled back, kissing me again.

"I have absolutely no interest in you remaining proper," I replied. "If our very small and impressionable daughters weren't in the room, I would probably be taking your dress of right now."

"What about all of our parents?" she asked, raising her eyebrow at me and trying not to look amused.

"Eh," I replied with a shrug. "They've clearly all had sex before."

Rose laughed at me, bid everyone goodnight – including her parents, who were taking Angelica and Lyra and Violette for the night for a slumber party (no one had yet figured out how to explain to Violette that she wasn't related to Ron and Hermione and that they weren't really her grandparents. No one really seemed to mind) – and then we were off to our room.

"Do we get to have more kids?" I asked, unbuttoning her dress and kissing every inch of skin revealed with the loss of each button.

"Can we perhaps deal with the three month old we already have and the four year old?" she asked. "And then talk about it?"

"Right, right," I replied. "Sorry."

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