Chapter 103

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"Should we tell people that we're expecting twins?" Hadrian asked.

Tim looked at him surprised by the question, "It's up to you. It would explain to people who know that you're the carrier and were around for the last two pregnancies, why you're so much more tired this time, maybe stop them worrying about you quite so much, or perhaps they'd worry more, I don't know. People who think that we're using a surrogate won't be all that surprised multiples are more common when fertility drugs or artificial insemination is involved. Of course, if we do tell Mom and the Elves, they're likely to fuss over you twice as much as they do now."

Hadrian laughed, "I bet that the elves already know."

"Hmm… Yeah probably," Tim agreed.

"I think I'd like to keep it to ourselves for a bit, get used to the idea ourselves before dealing with other people's reactions" Hadrian said.

"Yeah that makes sense. Are you worried about having twins?" Tim asked.

"The Weasley twins were a bloody nightmare, finishing each other's sentences, pranking everyone around them. I don't think that I'm ready for that," Hadrian said.

"But they're just one set of twins, it doesn't mean our twins will be like them, particularly as they won't know the Weasleys to learn from their example. I'm more worried about two babies in diapers and two lots of night feeds, two newborns who need constant attention, and the extra sibling rivalry because they are the same age and in the same classes. Thank goodness we aren't trying to do all this on our own," Tim said.

"We can hire another Nanny Elf or another human nanny if we need to," Hadrian said. "At least we have the room for that."

"Are we going to need a second nursery?" Tim said.

"No, I think I like the idea of them in together, while they're small at least. We separated the others because they have different bedtimes and schedules but the babies will hopefully be on similar schedules for a while," Hadrian said.

"Okay as long as we're prepared to separate them if they're waking each other up or keeping each other from sleeping," Tim said.

"Definitely, I want them to have their own space as they get older too. People used to treat Fred and George as if they were one person, partly because they couldn't tell them apart and they were always together, I don't want to do that," Hadrian said.

"So you don't want to dress them identically either?" Tim asked.

"Maybe as babies sometimes, but the other kids get to pick their own clothes most of the time, I don't want either of them to feel that they have to pick the clothes the other wants to wear. Hopefully they won't look all that much alike. Healer Roberts said they're not going to be identical," Hadrian asked.

"Well if they're fraternal twins there's almost a 50% chance that they will be a girl and a boy so they'll automatically be different," Tim said.

"I feel sorry for the boy if it is with three sisters close in age and Teddy so much older," Hadrian said.

Tim laughed. "Yeah," he agreed. Though Teddy will be disappointed if he doesn't get a brother this time."

"So, you're hoping for two boys then?" Hadrian asked.

"It would be good to have the son you need so that there's no pressure to have another child unless or until we wanted to, other than that I don't really care so long as they are healthy," Tim said.

"No and it's easier to change nappies on a girl," Hadrian said.

"We will learn to deal with the boy diapers easy enough. It's all the issues of raising teenage girls that we're going to struggle dealing with," Tim said with a groan.

Hadrian groaned at the thought. "Hopefully Heather and Barbara will still be around to help us with that," he said.

"I can't see Mom wanting to live with us for that long but hopefully she will settle somewhere nearby," Tim said.

"I've been looking into properties near us, we already own a couple of rental properties that would meet her needs though I wouldn't want to ask the current tenants to leave, and I've put offers on a couple of houses and townhouses closer to the shops. I just don't know how to bring the subject up with her without making her feel that we want her to move out. I'm quite happy to have her stay with us as long as she likes," Hadrian said.

"I think that she will want her own place sometime soon, but at the moment she feels safer with us because she knows that the Admiral cannot find the house to attack her," Tim said.

"I can put a lot of the same protections on most of the houses I was looking at, the townhouses would be more difficult unless I bought the whole complex or at least the other three units that are attached to the one but they aren't for sale," Hadrian said planning.

"I think she would prefer a fully detached house anyway, base housing is detached but because everyone in the neighbourhood either works for the navy or is a navy spouse the neighbours get a bit too interested in everything going on in each other's families. I doubt she will want an apartment or townhouse unit in a small micro-community like that," Tim said thoughtfully.

"Well that makes the decisions easier, there's a house a couple of blocks from us that might be perfect, it has enough yard not to be close to the neighbours but a lot of it is paved or almost bush, so it wouldn't be too much work to maintain once it's tidied up, not that I couldn't easily allocate her a house elf to assist with that and it's on the edge of the golf course so there are no back neighbours and the fences are high to prevent balls going over which will give her quite a bit of privacy."

"Does the house have character? After living in cookie cutter housing for so long I think she'd [refer a half renovated wreck to most modern homes in a neighbourhood where the houses look mostly the same," Tim said.

"Well that isn't a problem it's very Art Deco, cream brick and all rounded corners with a contrast trim she could have any colour she wanted and a semi wilderness cottagey garden with a little gilded eight-sided summerhouse in the backyard," Hadrian described. "It all needs a bit of work but I thought that might be a good way to introduce the idea. Offer her the house and let her control the renovations with the knowledge that in the end she has first offer to move into it or if she's not interested then we will rent it out and look for a home that suits her better when she is ready for her own place, or another house for her to renovate if she finds she enjoys doing it."

"Have you already put an offer on it?" Tim asked.

"Yes, it was a foreclosure so it was well below market value so I didn't want to miss out. We have the highest offer at present and the bank will accept it if they don't get a better offer by the end of the month," Hadrian said.

"Will you be given the opportunity to match or beat another offer?" Tim asked.

"I should be," Hadrian replied confidently. "I've purchased enough property in this area to be a favoured client and the real estate works on commission so the better the price the more they make for their seller."

-o0o-

Hadrian and Tim brought up the offer to provide a house of her own to Heather that weekend.

"Heather, I have an offer for you, you don't have to do it if you're not interested and it's definitely not a hint that I want you to move out. You're welcome to stay here with us for the rest of your life if that's what you want to do or if you feel you need to be here to feel safe," Hadrian began anxiously.
"Thank you Hadrian. You're right that I feel safer here. I've given it a lot of thought and I don't feel I could ever go back to living with Thomas, even if it's here in the tri-state area much less on the other side of the country, so I've started divorce proceedings. I would like to stay here until everything is finalised and then find a place close by so I can still be part of all of your lives," Heather said.
Hadrian smiled. "That's great but Tim and I have been a bit worried that you're going to get bored with so little to do.
"I know you were interested in renovating a property and I have recently purchased a property that needs a project manager. The elves would do most of the work but they're happier working under our direction and it needs a human touch. I wasn't going to purchase any more property in this area or another house that needs this much work again but it's a beautiful old home on a large enough block to interest a developer and it was a foreclosure so the price was more than reasonable. It's less than ten minutes' walk from here so if you fall in love with it you're welcome to either move in or ask the elves to put it in stasis until you're ready and if you don't want to live there it would be easily rented once it's been updated. It's far enough from its neighbours for all of the wards you might want to feel safe and like I said it was a real bargain. I could easily spend $100,000 renovating and still make a healthy profit renting or selling it, so don't feel obligated to do this. I can afford to hire someone to manage the project if you don't feel you would enjoy doing it," Hadrian tried to make sure Heather knew that she wasn't being asked to do this unless she really wanted to.
"Is it as old as this house?" Heather asked.
"No I think it was built in the late 1930's it's four bedrooms with a generous lounge area for the era, built in the Art Deco style which is a little unique for such a small house. Most of the homes in that style tended to be closer to this size or apartment buildings, or they've been converted into apartment buildings over the years," Hadrian replied. "I won't know until the end of the month whether I have the winning bid but we could take a look at it tomorrow if you like, then if you hate it we could look for something else."
"I've seen how the elves clean and take care of the garden but what can they do renovating wise?" Heather asked.
"I'll introduce you to Quincy who was the elf in charge of renovating this house and the house in Boston. He can repair most things to their original state with magic and he has learned about how to wire or rewire houses for electricity and to make a house look like it has modern plumbing though the magical version still works more reliably. He will probably need to purchase the stove and electrical fittings but most other things can be permanently transfigured if he has a good enough opportunity to examine an original. He can change a room colour with the click of his fingers but he does use normal paint and plaster to finish the walls to begin with. He can also make a house virtually damage proof though he weakens that a bit of the tenants don't know about magic. It would be a bit too suspicious if you could drive a car into the glass doors without breaking them or set the house on fire without damaging the walls for example.
Heather laughed. "I can see that would be a problem," she agreed. "I will take a look at this house, I admit I'm keen for the challenge of renovating a house but I'm not sure whether I want to move into it."

"That's fine. We didn't expect you to make that decision until you'd finished renovating and as we said we're offering this as something for you to do not because we want you to move out," Tim reassured his mother.

-o0o-

"Oh it must have been gorgeous!" Heather exclaimed as they walked up the drive.
"It could easily be gorgeous again. It just needs a little love and attention," Helen Stuart, the real estate agent said smiling.
"And an absolute fortune spent on it," Heather said realistically realising as they got closer what poor condition the roof and windows were in. This needed more than paint and curtains and new tiles in the bathroom. It would almost be as expensive as pulling the house down and rebuilding. Still Hadrian didn't look phased. It's in better condition than the Manor was when I bought it," he said mildly.
"Seriously?" Heather asked shocked. She'd seen some of the pictures but they'd been sales photographs, designed to present the house in its best light and to try to hide the amount of repair work required.
"Indeed yes. Until you showed interest all the people I'd shown it to were planning on pulling it down. I'd love to see what you've done with the place," the real estate agent said enthusiastically.
"You could come to the house with the paperwork when the sale goes through," Hadrian offered, watching Heather look around delightedly, her eyes lighting up as she appreciated the period features.
"If the sale goes through," the real estate agent said doubtfully.
"It's a foreclosure, it's not like the owners can change their minds and stay here," Hadrian said calmly.
"There has been other interest," Helen said.
"Has there been another firm offer?" Hadrian asked.
"Yes, though it was lower than yours. I'm waiting on them to get back to me with a new bid," Helen admitted.
"Which I will probably counter within reason once there is a genuine bid, but I do believe the offer I've already made was fair considering the state of the property Ms Stuart," Hadrian said firmly backing up that sense of a fair price with a little magical compulsion. He didn't mind paying more if he needed to but only if there really was a competing offer. He had bought many properties from this real estate agency and he regretted the need to spell them to honesty but he couldn't blame them for wanting to get the best deal possible for the seller considering that the estate agent would realise that Heather's enthusiasm for the property would increase Hadrian's interest in acquiring it, especially as the bank would have more properties to sell if the market took another downturn or employment rates fell again and as a purchaser not a seller he was never the one choosing which real estate agency or agent he worked with.
"Then I'll look forward to seeing your restoration when I bring the paperwork," Helen said smiling.

Hadrian introduced Heather to Quincy when the head building planning elf and he met on Friday morning.
"Heather, this is Quincy who manages the restoration and refurbishment of my personal properties, Quincy this is Tim's mother Heather," Hadrian said.
"Pleased to meet you Madam,"
Quincy said.
"I'm pleased to meet you too Quincy and I look forward to knowing more about what you can do to restore an old house to its original beauty and modern functionality," Heather replied.
Quincy looked at Hadrian questioningly.
"I have a new project for you Quincy. My mother-in-law will be in charge of all the decorating decisions as the house will be hers if she wants it when it's done, and if she doesn't want it the three of us will have learned more about what she does want in a new home to make a more appropriate choice next time," Hadrian explained.
"You can't just keep buying houses until you find one that I want to live in!" Heather exclaimed aghast.
"It is what I do. I own literally thousands of rental properties though most of them are in Britain. Quincy is in charge of allocating elves to bring my new purchases up to the PGC standards and then appointing maintenance staff to keep them that way. We have several new purchases to discuss today for him to get started organising before the sale of yours is finalised, if you'd like to listen and get some idea of the scope of renovation or restoration he's capable of. One of the new apartment buildings is an Art Deco style complex. Quincy might appreciate some ideas in keeping with the styling for that one too though at present he'll be looking to repair the exterior and public areas only until the individual apartments become empty," Hadrian said.
"Why did you buy it if Quincy hadn't worked on a building like that before?" Heather asked, hoping he hadn't bought the apartment just so the elves would have experience with Art Deco buildings and therefore be more help to her with her renovations.
"My friend Spencer lives in the building and he loves the ambience and his neighbours but since the
original owner died the heirs have let the maintenance slip a little too much. It wasn't difficult to have a city inspection find an expensive list of items that needed repair to bring the building back up to code to induce them to sell," Hadrian said.
"That isn't fair," Heather exclaimed.
"I didn't do anything underhand. The building code violations were all genuine they would have failed their next inspection unless they'd bribed the inspector. All I did was ensure the building was inspected sooner rather than later by an incorruptible inspector, and I paid a fair price for the size, location and condition of the building. The owners could have chosen to complete the repairs themselves rather than sell, for that matter they could've chosen to do the right thing in the first place and not let their building fall into disrepair. It wasn't fair that their tenants have had to deal with constant malfunctions of the heating and the lights in the foyer, hallways and stairwells. My friend is an FBI profiler who spends weeks at a time in second rate hotel rooms all around the country trying to catch serial killers, arsonists, child rapists and kidnappers, he deserves a safe, comfortable and stress free apartment to come home to," Hadrian replied.
Yes that's true, how much of the original character do you want to preserve?" Heather asked.
"As much as possible since it's one of the things that attracts Spencer and many of the other tenants to the building. It isn't heritage listed, so we don't need to keep it authentic, quality replica fittings would be fine if they improve the function of the place," Hadrian replied. "One change I will insist on is that you install a lift, either a service lift out of sight or a decorative lift in the foyer or both I will leave that up to you."
"You should ask the residents what they'd prefer," Heather suggested.
"They'll want both," Quincy said knowledgeably.
"Then if you can fit both in structurally without destroying the look of the foyer and entry without using obvious magical expansion, both it is," Hadrian agreed.
"That simple, you'll do it if it can be done, not just if it fits in the budget?" Heather asked.
"It's forty apartments on five floors, I can charge new tenants that move into the upper levels more rent and make up the extra cost in a year or two," Hadrian replied. "There's a reason that my buildings all have waiting lists even when their neighbours don't. I always do whatever I can to make the building as practical as possible to live in while maintaining as much ambiance I can. It makes them much more pleasant places to live in. Any extra costs are more than offset by the elf labour and the wards reducing ongoing maintenance expenses and tenants tend to stay longer and look after a building better if they like the way it looks and feels to live in."
Heather listened to the rest of their conversation about various other apartment buildings in the process of being restored or the unusual maintenance required on some of the tenanted buildings and slowly learned more about how vast her son-in-law's real estate empire was. That he was a good landlord was beyond questioning, his sense of fairness and the fact the buildings were magically maintained meant he could be generous with his tenants, even though he had no hope of even meeting them all let alone knowing them. That he was sincere in his offer to give her a free hand with the house he was buying for her was also clear and she began to see the benefits of magical restoration and to plan how she wanted her house to look.

"Have you seen my house Quincy? Is the parquet floor salvageable?" Heather asked as the business conversation seemed finished.
"Yes Missus Heather," Quincy answered nodding. "It is structurally sound, needs new windows roofing gutters, electrical wiring and some plumbing pipes. The floor needs sanding and refinishing. Other than that, it can be made good."
"I never put in an offer on any property until Quincy has assessed that it's restorable without stretching belief too far," Hadrian said. "Quincy and his team could fix just about any ruin but we don't want to attract too much suspicious attention."
"The twin towers?" Heather asked hesitantly.
"We could not have saved them but perhaps we could have got more peoples out before it fell if it already had wards," Quincy said sadly.
Hadrian sighed. "I gave the order for all my construction elves to try to help hold up the building and maintain the stairwells while it was evacuated so long as they could do so without putting themselves at risk, but I didn't own much property outside of Britain at that time and with the time it took me to hear about the crash, call them all and them to get into the towers and where they needed to be without being seen, it was too late to do much before they had to save themselves from the fires. The elves did an amazing job of slowing down the destruction as much as they could and they definitely saved thousands of lives that day. But like everyone involved in the rescue that day, we don't feel like we did enough. The elves then spent months putting structural wards on every major target here and across most of the world in the hope that they'll be more successful
in giving people time to evacuate if there's another attack. Illegal as hell but nobody complains that their building stays standing a little too well unless the elves don't hear about it and remember to remove the wards if the building is slated for demolition."
Heather swallowed hard. This young man who feels so much, has done so much work in the background to protect everyday people even those in countries he has never been to, without want of recognition or pride in his achievements or philanthropy, just a genuine desire to make the world a safer place for everyone. Unexpectedly once she thought about it it wasn't at all surprising.

-o0o-

Helen was thrilled to see that the old manor had been turned into a grand but surprisingly cosy and family friendly house. In spite of its size and the not so small fortune they must have spent on the renovation, especially as it looked like they had restored all of the old leadlight glass and the iron fretwork there was nothing pretentious about the house which was light and had a well lived in air about it in spite of being cleaner and more perfectly maintained than a brand new display house. Helen wondered how they managed to keep the place so well with three small children. She had to admit that she'd originally thought the young man insane when he had purchased the old wreck and had expected him to put it back on the market half repaired once he realised how much work it would take to restore and had only hoped that he did enough to make it easier to sell without wanting too much more money than he paid originally. Her opinion of Hadrian had gradually improved as he'd bought and restored several other properties to rent out and leased them in perfect condition without any of the usual shortcuts people made with rental properties when they were trying to make quick returns, though none of the properties had needed a tenth of the amount of work the Manor had, but she couldn't have imagined the perfectly restored, eclectic home he'd made.
Harry signed the paperwork completing the purchase for Heather's house and Quincy started work repairing the structural stability of the building, replacing the roof and gutters and restoring the parquet floor he already knew was to be kept if possible, ready to begin decorating.

From there Heather spent many hours in the house choosing how she wanted it to look. Heather found that she really enjoyed decorating now she had the chance though at first, she was anxious about whether she was making the right choices for the apartment block and for the house. The apartment block gave her a lot more stress because Hadrian was expecting to use the renovation to attract new tenants at a higher rent and if she messed it up and the foyer didn't retain the old world charm of the original then he and the current tenants would be disappointed. And because they current tenant were present to observe the renovations which meant that she really only had one chance to get it right, they couldn't be seen to be pulling out and changing the new feaures. She met with several of them to ask their opinions about the décor and lighting. Quincy was right that they were all delighted about both of the lifts going into the property especially as the one in the foyer would only look like it was antique the mechanics were actually going to be the most reliable state of the art technology currently on the market.

She also realised that she had it easier than any other decorator on the planet, all she had to do was show Quincy a picture of what she wanted a light fitting or mirror or decorative feature to look like and the elves were able to either find or fabricate exactly what she asked for in whatever quantity she needed, and if she got a colour wrong they were able to lighten or darken it fractions of a shade at a time until she was perfectly happy with it.

At first, she had intended to stick strictly with the Art Deco look for the house as she had for Hadrian's friend's apartment foyer, but she had to admit that while she liked it she didn't feel at home with the bright bold overly functional almost minimalistic decoration. She wanted her home to be softer and more in keeping with the romance of the Art Noveau styling. Hadrian and Tim encouraged her to branch out blending styles to come up with a home that suited her personality. The result was a cosy and comfortable period home, a bit large for a single middle aged woman but easily managed with the help of the elves Hadrian had allocated to the task and a garden that was everything Heather had dreamed of being able to have while restricted to small low maintenance base housing gardens.

A/N: Please everyone, stay home if you can and keep your distance from others, stay safe take care of yourselves and your loved ones and don't lose hope, believe that this will pass. We will get through this terrible time.

A/N2: Thank you to all those who reviewed, followed or favourited this story for your support.