Alright, folks, so this one's kind of a bit educational...my bad. :)

"Auntie Rose, can we play with the dolls?" Claire asked eagerly.

"Sure," Rose nodded.

Claire and Mia rushed off to the little bin of dolls in the corner, Kate toddling along after them, still clutching her stuffed dragon.

Rose wondered if she'd take that thing to Hogwarts with her.

Cassie and Remus were upstairs, making a fort off of Cassie's bed, so Rose didn't need to worry about them. They were quieter than their sisters and could spend hours and hours just making that fort.

Rose leaned back on the couch and flipped the page in her book. It was one of those trashy romance novels her mum and Ginny kept stashed in their houses. Rose had borrowed a stack of them. She had been dying for some sort of entertainment. These books, originally meant so that she could laugh at the ridiculous things the characters were saying to each other, were now actually books she wanted to read.

Jesus, she needed to get a hobby.

Scorpius had found one on top of the bedside table a few days earlier. He'd picked it up and looked at the lurid cover drawing, before turning back to her with raised eyebrows. Rose had blushed so badly she was sure her cheeks had matched her hair. Scorpius had just shaken his head and put the book back down, laughing quietly to himself as he went into the bathroom to take a shower.

Now she just gave up hiding them and left them around in plain sight. Probably not a great idea if any of the kids found it, considering four out of the five of them could read, but oh, well.

"Mum?" Kate looked up at Rose from the side of the couch with big, pleading eyes. Uh-oh.

"Yeah, sweetie?"

"Will you tell me a stohry?" Rose was still surprised at how much Kate's speaking had improved pretty recently. She was understandable most of the time. Scorpius had finally begun to understand most of what she said, as had everyone else. She was basically speaking in complete sentences, too.

Rose sort of remembered how Hugo hadn't spoke for nearly three years, then all of a sudden everything was in complete sentences. She and Scorpius had wondered if that was what had happened with Cassie – she hadn't spoken for at least two years. They'd begun wondering if she was deaf. But a little after her second birthday, she just started jabbering and talking, on and on. She was still quieter than her other sisters, but not very quiet in this house.

"Sure," Rose said.

Kate climbed up on the couch, into her mum's lap. "Tell me how you and Daddy got together," she demanded. She'd been watching a lot of the movies Cassie liked, recently. All the ones where the princesses got the princes in the end and they lived happily ever after.

Rose almost laughed at Kate's suggestion. There was no way she was telling her daughter that story. She could just imagine it: Oh yes, and then after months of fighting, not only because I was pregnant with your big sister, he finally asked me to marry him. Of course, Mia was born first, and I had to finish Hogwarts, so we didn't get married until about a year before Cassie was conceived. The End.

"How about I tell you about Grania and Dermot?" Rose suggested, instead.

"Yes!" Kate clapped her hands together in glee. She, especially, loved the old myths of Ireland. Rose had loved all the old myths of just about every culture around the world when she was little. The Irish myths were Kate's favorite. Cassie loved the fairy tales like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Mia liked it when either she or Scorpius made up stories. She liked to jump in and add parts to the story, too, when she felt like it.

"Alright, so once upon a time, there lived Dermot. He was the son of the god of love, Angus. Now, do you remember what his father had given him?"

"A love spot on his fohrhad!"

"That's right," Rose nodded. "A love spot on his forehead. And do you remember what it did?"

"Any girl whoh sawr it, fell in love with him. Immediately," she added, nodding gravely.

Rose stifled a laugh. Her daughter sometimes talked in full sentences, sounding much older than her age, and other times in funky lisps. But somehow, she still managed to add in big words like 'immediately'.

"That's right. But Dermot always wore a band around his forehead to cover up the spot. He didn't particularly love this gift, and so he didn't want thousands of women falling in love with him."

"Buht one day he left it off," Kate said.

"Mhmm. It was a really hot day, and so Dermot took the band off. And guess who saw him."

"Grania!"

"Grania saw him from the window in her tower. Now, Grania was supposed to marry the king, Finn MacCool. But she didn't love Finn; she was only fifteen and he was old enough to be her grandfather! Plus, once she saw Dermot and his love spot, she fell immediately in love with Dermot, instead."

Rose looked up to see Mia and Claire, making their way over to listen to the story, too.

"Now, Dermot was Finn's most trusted warrior. So he didn't want to betray Finn and run away with the woman Finn was supposed to marry. Grania had to convince him. Do you remember what she did?"

"She made everyone fall asleep!" Mia piped up.

"Yes she did. She put a sleeping potion in everyone's drinks that night at dinner, except for her drink and Dermot's. Once everyone was asleep, Grania convinced Dermot to run away with her."

"Na-uh," Mia interrupted. "She put a geas on him."

"What's a geas?" Claire asked, curious. Victoire told French fairy-tales, so she had never heard the story before. Rose dabbled in everything, often making up stuff as she went along.

"It's like an Unbreakable Vow," Rose explained. "If you put it on someone, they have to fulfill a promise they make to you. If they don't, they can die or become very ill."

"And Grania put a geas on Dermot, saying that he had to run away with her that night," Mia said.

"That's right," Rose nodded. Kate leaned into Rose's chest, putting her thumb in her mouth and beginning to suck on it, while holding her dragon tightly. She was getting tired. "So Grania left by the woman's gate," Rose continued, "while Dermot vaulted over the wall, and by dawn, they were gone."

"Whaht about Finn?" Kate yawned midway through her sentence.

"Well, Finn chased them and chased them, for many years after," Rose said. "Grania and Dermot were on the run for a long time. They kept moving from place to place. Sometimes Finn almost found them, and when that happened, Dermot's father, Angus, often helped them get away. Finally, Finn, Dermot, and Grania became friends again. The End."

Rose decided to leave out the rest of the ending – where Dermot was killed a few weeks later by a poisonous boar, which was supposedly Finn's doing.

"I hope I find my Dermot," Claire swooned.

"Alex is going to be my Dermot," Mia grinned. "He already offered. I didn't even ask him."

"I bet Cassie and Remus would be Grania and Dermot, except they're related," Claire said.

"Let's play Dermot and Grania!" Mia said.

"Fine, I'll be Grania, and you can be Dermot."

"No! You're always Grania."

"I'm older, so I get to be the girl. You have to be the boy."

"I don't want to be the boy!"

"Mum, I wahnt to take a nap," Kate mumbled, close enough to Rose's ear so she could hear her over the arguing of the other two girls. Kate's voice was thick with drowsiness and her eyes drooping.

"Alright, honey, I'll take you upstairs and send your sister and cousin downstairs so you can sleep." Rose picked Kate up and rocked her on the way up the stairs.

These were the moments she loved. Telling stories, holding her daughters, making them laugh, smiling with them. Even the messiness, the crying, the arguing, the shouting, although she'd stop before she hit temper tantrums.

Rose wished Scorpius were home more often so that he could see more of these moments. The pain in the chest grew the more he was absent in the girls' lives. It was growing steadily worse, too.