Ch 35 The Rest of the Vacation

Cleopatra woke up to the smell of the tropics. She knew that she had been raised here, in the Caribbean, and the island and ocean smelled familiar. She could smell the flowers, the other plant life, all a little different in the morning than in the heat of the sun at noon, or in the evening. The Caribbean ocean was very different in looks, feel, and smell than the ocean that surrounded England. When it came down to it, the ocean around the River Otter, not that far from France, was very different than the ocean around Scotland, although not as different as the Caribbean.

There was something about her wand, and all the magic she had done with it, that seemed to have enhanced both her sense of smell, and what she could tell about people because of the smell and, more than smell, sense of who and what they were.

She could smell and feel a little body next to her. It had been warm enough when they went to sleep that no one had anything on but knickers, sleeping on top of the beds, a warm breeze wafting through the room. It had become cooler during the night, and both beds had blankets covering their occupants. Little Minerva had snuggled up against Cleo, and Cleo put an arm around Albus's little sister.

Bodies were wonderful things. Touching someone skin to skin was delightful. As Cleo woke up Minerva did as well.

"You need to have Albus's baby so we can have another baby. I love babies. I like Teddy and Victoire's baby," Minerva proposed.

Cleo replied, "We have to wait until we are married to have babies."

Minerva argued, "No you don't. Aunt Luna, she's not a bio-logic-at-all aunt, she's a honor-harry aunt, she says you don't exactly have to be married to have a baby. She didn't ex-actually tell me how, cause I'm too little.

"You and Albus need to do that! Aunt Luna and Mummy both say that making a baby is a lot of fun."

Cleo admitted, "I would very much like to have Albus's babies, but we are not quite old enough." Cleo thought that she had released an egg last night, and if she and Al made love there was a good chance they would have a baby. She WAS old enough, biologically at least, but …

Minerva argued, "Well, if you cannot make a baby yet you at least ought to practice."

Cleo took a deep breath. Minerva had no idea how badly Cleo wanted Albus, wanted to practice.

Minerva rolled off Cleo and put her hands on Cleo's tummy reasonably close to her private parts. Then Minerva observed, "You like babies. You really ought to have a really big number of babies. May I watch when you have your babies? I think it would be fun to see babies come out."

Cleo argued, "I don't think little aunts are usually there when witches have babies."

Minerva asked, "Lily, do you want to practice making a baby with Billy?"

Lily protested, "Who says I am going to marry Billy Lionheart? I'm too young to think about marrying someone."

Minerva replied, "Course you are! I've seen you kiss him."

Lily sighed, "That doesn't mean I am going to marry him." Although she thought she probably would, because they were the best of friends, and dance partners, and he really did have a nice body, even if he acted like her father sometimes and made her do her homework. And even if James married Erica, which would be strange, marrying your brother's wife's brother.

"I'm hungry," Minerva observed. "Talking about bodies and babies makes me hungry."

The four girls dressed and went to the kitchen in the suite to get some breakfast.

Albus and James awoke about the same time, with Albus through in the loo just before James went in. When James was done he said to Albus, "You going to lose your virginity before me? Cleo wants it bad."

Albus told his brother, "I am trying to hold off until we are both seventeen, at least. I am not going to guarantee we will wait until we graduate from Hogwarts, but I really want to be married first.

"How serious are you about Erica?"

James grumbled, "She cannot get birth control potions until we are engaged, except at Hogwarts. Plus, she doesn't want to have us ask the Matrons. Mum and Dad would be very unhappy if we were engaged before our last year. I do not trust the birth control spells we have learned, and Erica cannot get pregnant if she is going to be a Chaser for me when we buy the Cannons."

Albus wondered, "You are serious about wanting Dad to buy you the Chudley Cannons?"

James elaborated, "Dad and Uncle Bill and Uncle Ron. Yea, I'm serious.

"I have some of the players I need from the ones playing, or who were playing, at Hogwarts. Bill Lionheart is both an excellent chaser and a fantastic field captain. Playing together we are just way better than we are separately. Plus, we have identified other potential players."

"You want Bill playing for you as soon as you graduate?" Albus wondered.

"I'd take him a year early if I could," James replied.

"Leaving Lily at Hogwarts for two years without Bill?" Albus questioned.

"Like Lily will wait that long to have Bill in her knickers," James quipped. "Bill has complained to me about how eager Lily is. I mean, I can think of worse problems to have, but I do not think Lily is going to graduate from Hogwarts. I mean, she is way too young right now, but once she is sixteen, I just don't know.

"Would you help me recruit players?"

"I will help you if I can," Albus replied. The brothers spent the next hour talking about Quidditch, before joining the girls in the breakfast area.

Harry usually woke before Ginny, and after using the loo he stood at the foot of the bed and gazed at his naked wife. There was something about the climate, and the resort, that made you want to sleep with as little on as possible. Harry and Ginny had the door locked, and privacy spells, so they could sleep naked. Her long red hair was, because of a spell, splayed out like a halo around her cute freckled face.

Sexy Ginny Potter. She was proud that the papers at times called her sexy Ginny Potter, and she did not do anything to contradict that impression. When asked if they really made love three times a day she never said anything to contradict it. The reality was that with a little child, and all that both of them did, averaging once a day was not all that easy. They really were averaging three times a day on this vacation, though, and Harry did the spells that would make Ginny ready for lovemaking when she woke up, and him ready for as long as they both were enjoying it and other obligations did not interfere.

Two hours later they were lying on the bed, talking, when they heard noise from the kitchen. Harry suggested, "We should get up and see what the children are doing."

Cleo watched as Mum and Dad Potter came out of their bedroom. She involuntarily reached for her wand, although she really didn't need to wand to tell what they had been doing. She could always tell, when examining witches and wizards for soap, shampoo and perfume, if they were virgins or not, and even if they had made love recently. Or had sex and maybe it wasn't quite, or even at all, making love.

It was complicated.

Most wizards wanted it more often than most witches, but some witches were more eager. Mum Ginny wanted it a lot, and Mr. Potter was willing, amused, and enjoyed it.

You could tell, by the way they looked at each other, by the way they talked, by the way they touched, that they were still deeply in love with each other.

She wanted that. Not just the sex. The love. The being a couple.

Harry and Ginny were sitting on the beach under an umbrella, watching the children. The sun was bright on the water and on the beach, so you could easily get sunburn. Everyone but Cleo had plenty of sunblock on, but even she had some on. James, Lily and Ivana were throwing a ball back and forth. Cleopatra and Albus were playing with Minerva, some sort of tag game that involved a lot of running around and touching and, obviously, giggling.

"I wish I knew why our children were maturing so fast," complained Ginny.

"There is an answer, more or less," Harry replied. "The Swiss medical establishment works closely with their Muggle counterparts, and they have found out that Magi mature faster than Muggles, both physically and emotionally."

"They do?" Ginny wondered. "I know that many of my classmates were married within a year or two of graduating from Hogwarts. What about Muggles?"

"Most Muggles are older," Harry replied. "The studies I have read indicate that most Magi mature at about the same rate as Muggles until they reach ten to twelve, but by sixteen they are both physically and mentally as mature as eighteen year olds. By eighteen they test about as mature as twenty-one year olds. That is an average, of course.

"I think that is why Magi become adults at seventeen, not eighteen or twenty-one like they do in most Muggle countries."

"Is that why the spells to keep Magi from having intercourse only work until they are sixteen?" Ginny wondered. "Sometimes I think Lily is way too eager to be grown up, and sometimes I don't think she will ever grow up."

"I'm not sure," Harry replied. "We think that Magi at Hogwarts are maturing physically some faster than most Magi, but we have had a hard time getting test results. All of the MELL students are smart, and for some reason rather mature both physically and psychologically. We think many of the other students are as well, but testing a big enough cross section of students to be sure is not easy."

Ginny sat and contemplated Harry's information. Harry had not been able to be a child growing up. Maybe that is why he found so much pleasure in playing with the sand toys with the little children, enjoying as an adult a little of the childhood he never had as a child.

The children seemed to be enjoying being children right now, however. "Look at Cleo's smile," Ginny beamed. "That is the first thing you notice about Cleo, that she has a smile that almost touches her ears."

"She does have a fantastic smile," Harry replied. "She really is happy most of the time. Albus has a hard time not being happy when she is around. He can be so serious much of the time."

Harry pondered some more. "You know, Ginny, when a guy sees a pretty gal it is easy to have sexual thoughts, but with Cleo it is like the thoughts almost always lead to thoughts of babies and family. It is really strange."

Ginny agreed. "It is really strange how she affects witches as well. It takes work not to want still more children when I am with her. I am rather surprised I wanted a fourth child. I did want Minerva, and she was actually the only one who was planned, and I am glad to have a child not at Hogwarts, but Cleo makes you feel so maternal.

"Cleo is working hard to control that part of her, projecting that intense desire to reproduce. I don't know what would happen if that part of her magic ever was out of control."

"More children?" Harry wondered.

"Too many more children, I am afraid," Ginny scowled.

As they were watching the children a large group of people, half adults half children, walked past. They were all heavy, even the children, with bellies that ranged from moderately large to unbelievably obese.

Ginny turned to Harry and pointed out, "Next to those people Cleo is not fat at all! She's not skinny like I was when I was playing for the Harpies, or even before I had children and got this baby belly," pointing to the modest belly that she had ever since having children and gaining weight, "but she's not really fat."

Harry observed, "She doesn't look pregnant but she looks, I don't know how to describe it, but she sure looks like a woman who could easily become pregnant."

"Ripe," Ginny suggested. "Not the sometimes frightening perfection of Fleur, or the willowy shape of many teen-age girls, but that a little heavy without being really fat body of a woman who can easily get pregnant."

"You are worried she is going to get pregnant?" Harry asked.

"Oh I know she is going to get pregnant. It's just the WHEN that worries me," Ginny replied. Ginny sighed. "I'm just forty and I'm already going to be grandmother to Teddy's babies. We agreed that we would not allow Teddy's children to just have one set of grandparents, unlike our children. It is just that I am almost sure that James and Erica, Albus and Cleo, and maybe Lily and Billy Lionheart, are all going to get married in the next few years. I could have more grandchildren than my mother."

After dinner everyone went back to the hotel suite. Harry and Ginny had a three-bedroom suite with a private swimming pool, very private. Cleo and Al looked at the pool and asked, together in that way that they could when they shared a mind, "Could we use the pool?"

Harry and Ginny looked at each other, and then Ginny said, "You may."

Al and Cleo went back to their bedrooms, and came out with bathing costumes on. They went into the shallow end of the pool, where you could sit in the pool with your head above water. Al sat down and spread his legs as wide as he could, to allow Cleo to sit between his legs. Cleo sat down and wiggled back until her bum was between Al's legs

Cleo was projecting just how good it felt for Al finally to be touching her bare skin. She wanted him over all of her. The colors and music of Al and Sex threatened to overwhelm Cleo. She knew what she wanted. She wanted them naked. She wanted them to make love. She wanted Al's baby inside of her womb. She wanted Al's baby nursing at her breasts, and Al touching every part of her, and Al making a baby RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW! OH, Al, NOW!

Albus could feel what Cleo was feeling, and he removed his hands and mentally yelled to Cleo, 'STOP!'

Al reached for both wands, and gave Cleo's to her. He put the area between his legs off limits again, and the area between Cleo's as well. For a little while he could imagine making love, doing that thing that husbands and wives do that makes babies. Al wanted it so badly, but not yet. He tried to calm down, for himself, and for Cleo.

Cleo could feel what Al was projecting, and she tried to calm down. What came out was tears, an intense frustration settling down into a subdued ache, the knowledge that they were too young battling her intense desire. Dull colors, frustrating jittery music, unfulfilled potential rattling around in her brain.

"Not yet," Cleo said, very quietly, as the tears ran down. "Not yet. Not yet. Not yet."

They stayed that way for several minutes, as Cleo gradually relaxed.

Harry and Ginny watched the couple from their bedroom window. Ginny told Harry, "They are not going to make it. Al is trying so hard, and Cleo really wants to be good, but I don't think they are going to make it. We will have a baby on the way before they graduate, and maybe well before."

Harry asked, "What can we do about it?"

Ginny muttered, "Nothing. We both know those two need to be together. We don't even need the tapestry and the prophesies to see that. My attempt to have a little time between Christmas and New Years with those two apart has been a colossal failure, and I am worried that we are closer to a baby than we were before this trip."

"Man plans and God laughs," Harry suggested.

Ginny frowned at Harry. "James is going to propose to Erica next year, I am almost sure. I could see Albus and Cleo married their last year at Hogwarts. I'm too young to have married children!"

"Says the witch who married at seventeen?" Harry kidded.

"I'm not a very good person to tell them to wait, am I?" Ginny reflected. "I'm glad I married at seventeen, and I don't want my children to marry early. Not very consistent, is it?"

"I would be more worried if I didn't know that Magi really do mature faster than Muggles," Harry mused, "and that the wedding charms really do help a couple stay together for life. That doesn't mean I am not worried, though."

The morning of December thirty-first the whole Potter clan checked out of the hotel rooms, including the Elves who were staying in a fourth room. They spent the morning on the beach, but in their traveling clothes, ate one more meal at noon at the resort, and then took the Closet and then Floo networks back to Grimmauld Place.

It was two in the afternoon when they left, but nine in the evening when they arrived back at Grimmauld Place, because of the hour it took to walk through all the Closet and Floo connections, and the six-hour time difference.

2021