There wasn't a single person on Olympus who felt more stressed than Hera. Artemis and Ares couldn't bother each other in the recurring arguments in the Hall of the Gods as much as getting things ready for Halloween bothered Hera.

The plants came and went from one side to the other, decorating the facade with arches of blood red and black rose bushes in an obscure tone, with an aspect that would not resemble the red and black roses that were on Earth. Big pumpkins had been growing right there in the front yard since the beginning of the month and with a magical regimen of dragon droppings to speed up growth. The lights designed by Hephaestus were already being strung over the entrances with their wires coiled around the pillars and several reflectors were scattered along the wall of the building, pointing upwards.

Although it was not a Greek feast, it was a sharply Western feast to escape divine rituals. So they decided in Council when they moved to Rome (recording the fact that they had misunderstood the notion of being identical cultures): they would act as the West revealed the festivities. So they did in Rome, Spain, England, Germany and now in the United States. Hera could only bemoan the gods' inability to think long term.

At the end of the day, the Queen of the Gods threw herself on her bed made of pure swan feathers and let out a relieved groan when she felt her back relax. Goddess or not, organizing the feasts of Olympus was hard enough work to weigh her shoulders, and it was still two weeks before Halloween, as the night of October 31st was now called. Her eyes grew heavy, her head lowered onto one of the fatally comfortable god pillows capable of giving mortals a heart attack, letting the stress of the day take its toll. She couldn't resist sleep in the end.

The dream of the gods was strange, to be honest. Though they slept like any mortal, there was no need to do so beyond the simple satisfaction of the desire for pleasure that sleep could provide. Creatures of sheer power that they were, this disparity between ability and need over the gods' sleep created a unique sense of release that removed the rigidity of their physical bodies and imbued them with their own domains. If a god wanted to know something in their specific domain, they just had to lie down and wait for Aergia to blow her special golden sand.

At that moment, Hera could see (almost) everything in the world. It was evening in the West, so almost all the families were already in their homes, and a smile was drawn from the goddess of family as she saw a couple and their three children having dinner excitedly in the Utah countryside. Waving her hand in thought, she bestowed a blessing on the couple's happiness for decades to come. There weren't any houses occupied by any family that she couldn't see in her dreams. Good or bad, orderly or chaotic, any place where something could be called family, she could see. And that brought you some kinds of limitation.

It is difficult to understand what a family is. Can a childless couple be understood as a family, or are they governed only by the laws of marriage? Can a couple who are devoted to their pets be compared to couples with children? Perhaps it was easy to discern one thing from the other in simpler situations, like same-sex couples, but there was nothing that contradicted the real logic, the logic of the family as the center of shared relationships between 3 people or more. That's what made the Ancient Laws so alive in Western culture, even after thousands of years: families demand autonomy. There is only autonomy when you need to think about your children, something that a childless couple could never understand and would always make them part of their own families, with a thin red bow intertwining them.

There were many red threads in the world. They called boyfriends and couples, the elderly or children. The length of the thread was governed by the love between people, like the twigs of a grafted branch that could grow into a single body or divide into two fallen branches when the tree grew, always together, but never too close. Hera could see them all in full measure as the goddess of matrimony, having seen all the threads of history at some point.

"Please, please..."

A low whisper, smaller than the noise of a falling leaf, sounded in Hera's thoughts, surprising the goddess. She turned her eyes to the echo of the whisper, branded into her domain.

The domain was imaginary but real: the map of the world unfolded in a perfect imitation of a sphere in Hera's reach. The sphere grew and diminished according to the goddess's will, showing the colors of her many attributes, shining the health of the world. The echo was marked visibly strong on the upper center side of the sphere, a very thin flame over England.

It wasn't easy to make yourself heard by Hera, whose rule resonated with the heart of the West. She could only be curious about what it was, staring into the mortal flame that the blaze would indicate her.

"Please, God, I don't ask You for anything else.."

The weeping wail was clear to Hera's senses as she entered the cottage where the flame had taken her. A young, red-haired woman was leaning against the side of a spacious bed, her forehead against the sheet and radiating a profoundly sad energy. The flame was depressing and close to purple, the most disturbing color any being could radiate while apprehending existence.

"Please, please... please..."

The flame vibrated and grew, but soon stopped and retreated to the woman's body, as if it didn't have confidence to ignite, bringing a deep sadness to Hera. It had been so long since they had descended to earth, how could humans still wait for them?

"Please, please..."

The weeping subsided, and the suffered moans quieted. The woman had slept while she wailed, her body already tired from the stress. What she wanted? Why did she pray to Hera even without confidence?

The Godness stretched out her senses, looking at the cabin they were in. It was modest but comfortable, clean and well furnished, as a home should be. There was a man, a handsome dark-haired man with light brown eyes who was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of brandy. He had tired eyes, but nothing that held any malice. What was with them then? She understood a little farther, at the end of the hall where the room the woman was in. A fluffy, pastel-colored trousseau was set up with a crib and cream chest of drawers, but there was no baby there. She did not feel any childish golden tones in the house. It wasn't difficult to understand what an empty trousseau and a woman's cry meant.

The woman, Lily Potter, she noticed the name, was still leaning against the bed. Hera lifted her gently as if she were a leaf, placing her on top of the bed. Her husband didn't even notice that she had woken up and gone back to sleep, and if he did, he let her suffer in peace. Hera could only sigh at the simplicity of men.

She ran an invisible hand over Lily's belly, hoping to find something – nothing. She was still hot, so It was while ago, probably that day. Hera's heart bled – it was going to be a girl. A little red haired girl with brown eyes and freckles, the cutest thing she's ever seen. Tears filled her eyes – she looked so much like the redhead of her own son, her only child, Hephaestus.

"Lily?

James, the husband, whispered poking his head into the room. Seeing that his wife was sleeping, he opened the door slowly and walked carefully towards her, pulling a sheet and gently covering her, kissing her forehead.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into the woman's face, gently stroking her hair. "Sorry..."

Tears spilled onto Hera's pillow and she found herself waking up, the feeling of sadness lingering in the wake. What else would she feel for a woman unable to have children? More than the Goddess of the Family, she was also the Goddess of Motherhood. It pained her to imagine a single woman who couldn't share in that achingly wonderful gift, which provided the lightest weight they could carry.

She got up from the bed and left the palace, strolling through the outer garden where spring adonis, rosemary, astromelia and peonies grew everywhere in beautiful and colorful mounds, but none managed to take away the feeling of the goddess. She sat on one of the marble benches and let herself feel the cool of the night, watching the stars narrate the story in slow movements. She lowered her eyes and looked at Earth, visible under Sky from the edge. Apollo's chariot was far from the horizon, so the lights of mortal science dotted the planet's surface. The UK glow was intense, but there were still dark spots, like what Godric's Hollow was. Lily was still sleeping and James was sitting in a chair beside her, sleeping sitting up, having spent the last hour watching his wife sleep.

The gods are emotional beings. It wasn't unusual for them to lose their minds in their excesses, for any of them and Hera was no exception. And it was in her sadness that she had a thought – a little comment to herself – but she still had notions. The Laws did not allow intervention, what could she do? It agonized her to think that she could not fulfill the noblest desire a woman's nature could urge her to have.

She looked out at the rest of the world, thinking as she watched things unfold. She was filled with disgust when she found the bastard lodging in upstate New York. For an instant, reason fled, and anger swelled spitefully in her heart. When she was about to forget about the mortals she turned her head and again faced the English light in the middle of the sea, paralyzed. All anger trickled through her fingers and a bitter taste weighed on his throat. She looked back at Camp Half-Blood, but this time an idea struck Hera.

Might say it was dubious, but it went into her domain... and they all accepted Hestia's gifts... hmm...

Smiling to herself, Hera looked back toward Godric's Hollow, watching the sleeping couple. She plucked an astromeliad from a nearby bush and crushed the phyllos, rubbing the pollen into her hand. She took a deep breath and blew out the pollen, showering Lily Potter with her gift of motherhood.

"Your desire is pure, Lily Potter," Hera whispered to Lily in her dreams. "Your son will have my favor. He will be born and grow up healthy, and your home will never lack love as long as you keep faith in your bonds."

"Who are you?", the redhead mused in her unconscious dream, hearing a distant echo in her ears. Hera smiled, but did not answer the question, speaking next:

"Good luck, girl. You'll need it," the goddess said good-naturedly.