Chapter Twenty-Nine: Life Among Frustrations and Joys

December seventh 2001, Ron and Lucy's baby is born, a boy with a shock of reddish brown hair atop his head and the typical blue-gray eyes of a newborn. They named him Malcolm Harry.

Harry was surprised and delighted at his godson's middle name. Hermione was of course named his godmother.

"Will we ever find that house that's perfect for us?" Hermione asked when they got home from yet another viewing of a house.

"I'm starting to lose hope on that too, are you sure there aren't any good residences in my inheritance?"

"Nothing that isn't either too large, or out of the country."

"Wait, there are overseas properties?"
"Yes, dammit Harry have you still not read your inheritance packet from Gringotts?"

"It slipped my mind between school and the house hunting. Any nice highlights dear?"

She blew hair from in front of her eyes and looked at him, "I found the time and I'm reading ahead for next semester!"

"Hey, hey, I know, but I'm busy too, you know that! You may have more reading but my work takes time, so much studio time."

"You don't have twenty to forty page essays."

"No, I don't thankfully this semester, but I'm working my arse off and running around looking at all these houses at the drop of a hat!"

"Urgh! When's the last time you did the laundry?"

"Oh … When's the last time you did dishes?"

"You don't remember, bloody hell, why, I did them last week!"

"And I did them this morning."

"Thanks for doing the dishes, Harry," She replied snidely.
"Well thanks for doing the bleeding laundry." He shot back, turning around and pacing towards the kitchen at the opposite side of the room from the living area and yelling, "Why are we shouting about this, we both know we have so little time together during crunch time! Why get mad over something as so fucking insignificant as the fucking chores?"

"Urr, I'm tired!"

"Dammit, did you quit sleeping again when I'm at the studio all night?"

"I haven't not been sleeping, I've been studying!" She exclaimed as he walked towards her.

"How's the paper coming along?" He asked quietly, going closer to her, where she stood by the coffee table.

"Which one?"

"All of them."

"They're coming."

"Good. I'm on the shortlist for the ministry's atrium design, just got the letter forwarded from Neville today."

"You are! Oh love that's wonderful! When will you find out?"

"Before Christmas." She hugged him, "Oh, will things be tougher for your cover if you win?"

Harry chuckled pulling her close, "When has my comings and goings there not been difficult. I'm going to dye my hair and get contacts or funky glasses for the interview, well if I win."

"Do you know what the other designs are?"

"No, its all a secret, you either get a rejection letter or a shortlist letter.. And eventually I'll either get a reject letter or a you're the designer letter."

"Oh the suspense is going to kill me."

Harry laughed, "Nah, you're buried up to your neck in research and essays remember, you'll forget and not worry about it." She gave him an are you kidding me look. "Okay, perhaps you won't forget, but don't worry about it, its not important or vital to anything for me, you finishing and me passing are what's important."

"I'm sorry for yelling about the stupid laundry."

"Don't worry about and I'm sorry about the dishes. We both know we do what we can when we can, especially this time of the year. Don't mull it over, think over the damn essays."

"Yeah, I know, I won't. Mmm, want to go to sleep?"

"What time is it?"

She looked at her watch over his shoulder, "Only eight, but I'm so tired and," she yawned, "There's so much to do tomorrow."

"Are you feeling okay? You've been pretty tired every time I've seen you this week."

"I have a bit of a cold."

He kissed her forehead, "Hmm, your pretty warm, sure its not the flu or something?"

"I hope not," She yawned again and pulled him towards the bathroom so they could get ready for bed.

Meanwhile, Ron was busy around the house as Lucy and Malcolm took a nap. With a newborn, they were on an erratic schedule. One or the other or both of them were kipping when Malcolm did and at other times getting things done when he was asleep. Ron was awfully happy he and Lucy were both getting leave for Mal's early years. Lucy is going to take his first year and Ron the second. Her contract was rolling over for her year off, though only getting paid her offseason salary in full. Ron rather thought his new son had perfect timing, coming just two weeks before the ministry's holiday recess, when only low levels if anyone would be working. He was happy to have paid his dues and getting a vacation, to be able to spend all of that time rather then just his off hours with his new son. He was looking forward to waking up and calming his son whenever rather then Lucy nearly always being the one to with him working. He kept waking up hours before he had to go into work to walk around the house with or to watch his boy, asleep in his crib, orange bedding of course for the Cannons.

Things were going pretty damn wonderfully for Neville; he just got promoted to Captain and would be leading missions of his very own! And, in his personal life, things were finally starting to look up, Nev's getting serious with a woman he met at Harry and Hermione's wedding, a friend of the Granger family. He was even thinking of telling her the truth about what he did and what he is. He wanted to talk it over with Mike, Jane and Hermione first though, to either, have them help in the initial confession and its after effects or at least with a gentle way to break the news that there was a whole other world out there in secret beyond hers.

At the wedding, they had started talking after he complemented her on her dress, which had flowers on it and made a joke about the dirt under her fingernails.

She, Joyce was working at a greenhouse and studying botany at a local university. From that first commonality, she and Neville spent the rest of the night talking and chatting while dancing about plants, his first passion and hers as well! They exchanged contact info and kept meeting up, a week later, Neville bucked up his Gryffindor courage and asked her to dinner. She accepted and since then they had been meeting up every chance they could between their hectic schedules.

No longer having to follow the muggle train schedules which would mean he could spend more time with her, was one of his main reasons in telling her, plus he really wanted her to know all about him beyond what he could reveal without breaking the secrecy statutes. Plus Neville was pretty damn sure she was the one, the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Sure, it has only been well not yet six months since their first meeting, but they were so compatible! Temperaments meshed, likes and dislikes, political leanings, hell they even shared the same favourite colour, blue. He wanted her to meet his Grandmother.

Happenings of the rest of the Weasley family included even more population growth, Percy's expecting another child. Bill and Fleur are as well, Charlie's still not getting married anytime soon as he tells his mother every time he sees her but.. OH, and, Angelina proposed to George, he accepted! Molly is scandalized that her son didn't do the asking but is already gushing about how happy she is and oh the gorgeous grandchildren she's expecting them to have for her. Arthur is learning how to turn a Windows 95 Computer on (a gift Mike Granger gave him and then explained a bit about to him). Arthur says "It's astonishing" as the blue screen of death appears after he mashed too many or perhaps just the right buttons all at once.

Thanks for reading, next chapter up in December.