merderbaby… it's like you read my mind ;)

*S*S*

Elizabeth took a deep breath, rolling her wand between her fingers. Eyeing the vial of pale yellow liquid on the lavatory sink critically. 99% effective my arse, she thought, raising her wand and pointing it at the vial.

Gravidam, she cast wordlessly, as if there was someone else in the house to hear her. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited. There was no real need to wait, the effect was instantaneous, but Elizabeth wasn't entirely sure what she wanted the outcome of the spell to be. Forcing her eyes open, she looked at the vial, which had turned a decided shade of blue.

Well. Here we go again. Little outfits. Little baby smell. Diapers. Sleepless nights.

There were some perks to being who she was. It wasn't difficult to get appointments with her name, even doctor's appointments. And while it was a string she rarely pulled, Elizabeth needed medical confirmation, and she needed it immediately.

In less than an hour, she was lying on an exam table, with a Mediwitch tracing her wand along her abdomen.

"There it is," the older witch smiled at the projection that came from her wand. "Number 5."

Number 5. Elizabeth closed her eyes. "That sounds exhausting."

The Mediwtich laughed. "I'd say you are about 12 weeks. I'm surprised I didn't see you weeks ago."

Elizabeth sat up. She had suspected weeks ago. But the denial had been strong. She managed to smile at the Mediwitch and walk calmly toward the stairs.

During her last 2 pregnancies, she had done cute things to announce the news to Fred. "Daddy of 3" t-shirt. "Weasley Half-Dozen" sign. She was running out of cute things.

She signed Lily out of the daycare downstairs. She was happy. Of course she was. A new baby was a wonderful thing. She looked down at Lily on her hip. But she had been so close to being done with diapers.

"Mummy," Lily pulled on her mother's hair. "Go see Daddy?"

"Actually, yes." Elizabeth buckled the child into her stroller. "Let's practice something you should tell Daddy when we get there."

"Ice cream?"

Elizabeth laughed. "That wasn't what I was thinking." She pushed the stroller through the doors and out onto the streets of Diagon Alley. "Lily, can you say 'I'm a big sister'?"

"Big sister?"

"Yes. Say "I'm a big sister."

"I a big sister."

"Close," Elizabeth repeated the phrase, and Lily parroted it back to her. "Good. When you see Daddy, I want you to say that to him."

Elizabeth was surprised to see the store as busy as it was. Usually business picked up in the summer, but Hogwarts was still in session for another week. Ron was standing inside the door, changing the display in the window from dungbombs to a new line of water-shooting summer products. Lip-gloss, sunglasses, and beach umbrellas, all ready to fire a stream of water onto unsuspecting victims.

"Hey," he said, turning sliding a pair of the glasses over his ears and bending down to look at Lily.

"You spray her, you dry her," Elizabeth warned, examining one of the umbrellas. "Why is it so busy in here?"

"We signed up with one of those shopper services," Ron grinned. "Kids can now get their joke products delivered."

"So these are all shoppers? Like paid shoppers?"

"A lot of them. Plus we have that ad campaign now that encourages parents to send the Defense stuff to their kids at Hogwarts. You never know what danger can befall your kids." He caught Elizabeth's raised eyebrow. "We started it before Sevannah's thing, I swear."

Elizabeth looked around the store again. "Is Fred here?"

"In the office. Something went wrong with our blood capsule delivery, and now we have all these fake noses with no blood capsules to put in them."

"Traumatic, I'm sure," Elizabeth drawled in her best Severus voice and swiveled Lily's stroller toward the back of the store, where she levitated the contraption up the stairs to the office.

Fred was behind his desk, furiously scribbling with a quill. He looked up when she came in and smiled. "I thought we agreed you were taking the day off." He stood and took Lily out of her stroller. "Your dad was going to watch the babies and you were going to relax."

"Dad has Orion. I think it's hard for him to watch both of them at once."

"He's a teacher," Fred laughed. "We'd have to have 30 kids before watching all of them would be a challenge."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Anyway," she looked around the small room. "Ron said there was a blood capsule problem?"

Fred groaned. "The blood got held up in customs, can you believe it? We order like 100 gallons of blood a year, and never have problems, but for some reason this shipment is suddenly suspicious."

"Daddy!" Lily put her hand on her father's face. "Daddy is a big sister!"

Fred looked at his daughter, confused, while Elizabeth subconsciously pinched the bridge of her nose without thinking about it. Becoming my father, she thought when she realized what she was doing and dropped her hand.

She took her daughter and whispered the phrase in her daughter's ear again. Lily looked back at Fred. "Mommy is a big sister!"

Elizabeth sighed. "This isn't working out how we planned it at all," she kissed the little girl and put her on the floor. "You tried, baby. It's my fault, I should have just written it in a card and had you sign it." She looked back at Fred. "Your daughter is a terrible messenger."

Fred stood in the middle of the room, realization slowly spreading across his face. "Was she trying to say "I'm a big sister"?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "That was the goal." She stepped closer to him, stopping when he put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her stomach.

"Really?" The elation all over her husband's face did wonders to lessen Elizabeth's reservations. Fred would be happy if they actually had those mythical 30 kids.

"Yep. In about 7 months you will be a father of 5."

"Or maybe 6?" Fred smiled mischievously.

"No." Elizabeth said emphatically. "The MediWitch clearly said one."

Fred picked her up and spun her around. "How did this even happen? I thought we were being careful."

"Apparently not careful enough," Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "I think we should tell my dad by filing a grievance against him for being the one to teach us to brew contraceptive potions."

"That would be hilarious, except I'm pretty sure we've been buying them," Fred set her on the floor. "We would just get into this whole conversation about people who don't brew their own—

"easily brewed potions," Elizabeth finished, rolling her eyes.

"This is just proof that Weasley masculinity cannot be squelched with a mere potion," Fred puffed up. "We've going to have to expand the house."

"Not right away," Elizabeth said, pulling Lily away from where she was trying to stand on Ron's desk chair. "Anyway, this one can probably share with Orion or Lily."

Fred made a face and Elizabeth groaned. Fred was vehemently against his children having a share a room. Even the twins had separate rooms, although the ended up in the same room so much that Fred added a second bed in each room. Years of sharing his space with George and Ron had made him pledge his children would always have a place to be alone.

"Okay, okay," Elizabeth put her arms around his waist. "You add all the rooms you need, love."

*S*S*

"Let me pour it," Elizabeth said to her father when he offered tea. "Georgia said that you did a lot of yelling today and that you were probably too tired to tell me anything that may or may not have happened around school in the last couple of days."

Severus snorted. "That girl was perfectly sorted, you know. Absolutely no cunning at all."

Elizabeth carefully turned her back to him, quickly waving her wand to alter the cups before pouring the tea. "Do I want to know?"

"Probably not," Severus smirked. "I think it falls under the Remus Rule."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "See, that's why you don't let 13 year olds make rules. Because some day you will end up on the wrong side of it."

"Speaking of being a parent," Severus pretended to look under the furniture. "You didn't bring a grandchild?"

Well if I knew he was going to set me up like that, I wouldn't have bothered with the cups, Elizabeth thought to herself. "You have 2 almost all the time," she said aloud, carrying the tea to the table. "Orion is at school, and Lily is at daycare."

"Why would you put her in daycare when you could have brought her to me?" Severus frowned. "Am I being fired as a caregiver?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "Your granddaughter needs to interact with kids her own age. She's developing a bad case of youngest child syndrome. She needs to learn to share." She took a sip of tea. "It's only a couple of hours twice a week."

"Alright then," Severus said, somewhat mollified. "But I want them all to come to Spinner's End for a week over the summer."

"Maybe two at a time," Elizabeth examined his tea level. Could he be drinking any slower?

"Are you questioning my ability to handle 4 kids?"

"Never," Elizabeth took a biscuit. "But the age difference causes them to have different interests. But you can have them all. Take them all summer if you want." She smirked at him.

"Don't tempt me," Severus took a long sip before reaching for the tea pot.

Dang it, Elizabeth thought, frantically wrestling for an excuse to get her father to look into his cup. "Why don't we read our leaves?" she said awkwardly.

Severus gave her a look he usually reserved for first years. "When did you decide to get into Divination?"

"Just having a feeling lately," Elizabeth shrugged. "But whatever. Don't look in your cup. See if I care."

Severus rolled his eyes and glanced into his cup. He frowned, and took his wand, vanishing the dregs and looking closer at the cup. "Elizabeth Rose… really?" He looked up from the script scrawled on the bottom of his cup.

"Should be here around Christmas," Elizabeth smiled at him. "So you see, I guess I did bring a grandchild with me."

Severus moved to the sofa to put his arms around her. "I thought you said you were depriving me of any more grandchildren. I believe you said that you were finished indulging my addiction." He smirked at her.

"Well, you know… Happy accidents and all that."

*S*S*

Fred stood in his father's shed, watching him tinker with the Sirius's bike. "What are you trying to get it to do, Dad? It already flies."

Arthur looked toward the open shed door. "Don't tell your mother," he said in a low voice. "But I think if I get it just right, I can get it to behave kind of like the Knight Bus, point A to point B like that," he snapped his fingers.

"You could just apparate," Fred smiled, knowing that it was the Muggle item that made it fun for his father.

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Arthur asked with mock horror. He reached over and clapped his son on the back. "I know. It's harder to take risks when you have 4 kids. Believe me. I restricted most of my tinkering to non-dangerous thing when you kids were young."

"Except for the car," Fred rolled his eyes and sat on the bench against one wall. He leaned his forearms on his knees. "Dad?"

"Yes?" Arthur lit his wand and poked it under the front tire.

"We're having another baby."

Arthur sat up. "Trying to win a contest?" He ruffled his son's hair. "Congratulations, my boy. Nothing better, or more frustrating, or amazing, or frightening than children. Especially when you have enough to out number you."

"I'm happy," Fred said quietly. "But for some reason five just seems like so much more than four. Like it's going to be so much harder."

"Well," Arthur extinguished his wand and joined his son on the bench. "I'll tell you that I'm glad we had our 5th child. I'm glad we had all seven of you, of course, but my 5th has made me particularly proud." He put his arm around Fred's shoulders. "Endlessly proud."