Author's Notes: I just need you to know... it's been a really, really crappy month for me. I got put on strict bedrest for my pregnancy due to bleeding, and then in the middle of all that my husband's appendix broke and I couldn't be there for him because bedrest and he couldn't be there for me because broken appendix and then on Father's Day I lost the baby, so my 8th miscarriage at 11 weeks pregnant, and again I was all by myself because again, broken appendix. I'm still also pretty darn sick with the lyme disease :( :( :(

I think the next chapter will come out on time-ish, but have gentle patience with me as it's been a long and difficult few weeks.

Also I have a basically finished novel up on my pa treon account. Search out Sarah Jaune there to find me. For $3 you can read the whole thing and then cancel your subscription. $3 isn't bad price for a novel. For any who read my book Shelter, this story tells you what happened to Mia's mom.

Thank you to Arnel for beta'ing for me. I don't know what I'd do without you!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

They only had another week until Lily and Hugo would be home from school. One week. It felt like a lifetime to Harry, but his now biweekly dinner with Ron, Al, Scorpius and Andrew was helping to pass the time. Teddy was also supposed to be there, but he was currently impersonating a smuggler and couldn't make it away.

They sat in the back of the Muggle pub at their usual table as they ate food they probably shouldn't and made their way through a pint. Harry was missing his Lily-Lu like crazy! As it was, he was only going to have her for another year and a half, maybe a little longer. He studied Scorpius as the younger man laughed with Al and knew they wouldn't be waiting long to get married. The two of them were meant to be together. It was obvious for anyone who was looking that they just clicked in a way that spoke of permanence. In a way, his children had been as blessed as he had been. It hadn't taken much for Harry to realize Ginny was his for the long haul. She was everything he longed for and hoped for if he managed to make it out of his war with Voldemort.

When he had, the only reason he hadn't gone straight back to her was because the world had been in utter chaos and he was needed in the aftermath as they were rounding up the escaped Death Eaters. So many good people had been killed that every able-bodied person had been called into service. Ginny, herself, would have been out there helping to fight if she hadn't still been sixteen. But of course, then they'd been attacked at Snape's funeral and all hell had broken loose from there. They'd been poisoned in the hospital and Ginny had been impregnated. They'd been forced to marry a lot sooner than either of them would have liked. He had wanted to marry Ginny, that hadn't been in question. He'd dreamed about a life with her more times than he could count on those long, lonely nights when they were on the run. He'd also tried hard not to think about a life with her, just in case Voldemort had decided to take a peek into his head.

But then he'd found out he was going to be a father and everything else had flown out the window. It didn't matter what was going on in the rest of the world. It didn't matter that he was seventeen and knew nothing about being a parent, let along how to be a good father! His fatherly examples had all died on him, apart from Arthur and although he loved Arthur, he also knew he wasn't going to end up the absentminded man his father-in-law could sometimes be, nor would he be fiddling with Muggle gadgets at every spare moment.

He'd thought about Hope, dreamed about her, wanted her to be everything she could be in a safe, secure home. He wanted her to have everything he hadn't been given after his first year of life. He'd thought a lot about how his parents had handled everything. They'd been really young when he was born, although not as young as he'd been when he and Ginny were married. But, just as he wasn't going to be like Arthur, he also knew he wasn't going to be like his father, James. James had been wild in school and reckless when it wasn't needed. James had bullied and he hadn't been as responsible as he could have been. He had been, for all intents and purposes, a normal teenager. It was not something Harry had ever been allowed to be. Harry couldn't be irresponsible, not with Voldemort hanging over his head. He wasn't going to be needlessly reckless with his safety because people were counting on him. Things were just done for a lark. He had a purpose. He'd always had a purpose and it had probably come from his parents' early deaths.

So when Hope had died, he'd been left feeling adrift. Ginny hadn't wanted to try for another baby right away and he couldn't blame her. She'd lost out on her last year of schooling and she wanted to play Quidditch. He'd gone along, even though he'd already prepared himself to be a parent. That was one of those things no one told him about grief. Part of grieving was losing all the plans he'd made and all the dreams he'd constructed for his child. He'd had thoughts of how he would tailor his job around his children so that they would always come first. He'd anticipated taking time off of work to be with Ginny after the baby was born. He'd thought about all the things he was going to do with Hope.

All of those things had been taken from him. He'd had to grieve not only her death but the death of all the dreams that died with her and it was hard. No one told him that would be the case and no one told him how to go about putting his life back together without her in it.

Then when he had become a father and James had been colicky, Harry had failed in an utterly spectacular way. He'd left Ginny to deal with the crying baby all on her own and she'd fallen so ill they'd both failed to realize she was pregnant with Al until she was halfway through her pregnancy.

It had been the wakeup call he'd needed to turn everything around. He'd changed everything from that moment on so that his family always came first.

When Lily had been born he'd been into the groove of parenting and being a fully available father. He thought he was ready to have her out in the world, but nothing could prepare him for what his little girl was going to do for him. He hadn't realized until she was in his arms a few days after her birth that he'd put off dreaming dreams for her and making plans around her. He'd linked her and Hope in his mind until he didn't dare open his heart like he so desperately wanted to.

Now, of course, his baby girl was very close to getting engaged. He and Scorpius had spoken at length about when that would happen and they'd agreed it would be in the summer. He was making a little bit of money now, but he would be fully employed by the end of the summer and working to keep things right and legal. It was not a career Harry would have ever chosen for himself but it seemed to make Scorpius happy and Scorpius made Lily happy.

It used to be his job to make and keep her happy, but he was quickly approaching the time when he would be handing off the torch to another man and in a small, very small, way it felt like Hope dying all over again.

At the very least, he had Ron to commiserate with since he was losing Rose that summer and, of course, his grandchildren helped tremendously. Nothing was quite so bad when one had four small ones calling him Granddad.

"Dad, you okay?" Al asked him, pulling Harry out of his rambling thoughts.

"Yeah," Harry lied automatically.

Ron eyed him skeptically but clearly opted to let it go. "As I was saying, we're all moved into the new place now. I have the main house for Hugo and Hermione has a small efficiency over the garage. It's not a big place but it'll suit our needs, especially since it's only the three of us."

"Rose is still enjoying living with the grandparents?" Harry asked him.

It was Andrew who answered, though. "She's enjoying the calm of it, yeah," he said, shooting Ron an apologetic look. "Of course, Ron will be happy to know that Gran keeps an extra close eye on what Rose does and what time she's home, so that's been a little annoying," he told his future father-in-law with a lopsided grin.

"Good," Ron grunted as everyone else laughed.

"Things… things okay with Hermione?" Harry asked him. He now wished they had had a moment alone, but on the other hand the boys needed to know. Marriage was not always easy and it didn't always run smoothly. They were handling things the best way that they knew how.

It was one of those crueler things about Azkaban, actually. If only one spouse was sent to the prison, the other was left him with their soul bound to someone who was being tortured. It was enough to torture anyone and the spouse was forced to deal with it. Some of them went a little mad, but others had so damaged their own souls that it didn't much matter where their spouse was.

Harry had tried to talk to Hermione at work more than once, but she wasn't having it if it wasn't about work. He'd broached it several ways, trying to make sure she knew he wasn't picking Ron's side, but she brushed him off every single time. He'd spoken at length to Ginny about it, who had actually talked to Hermione and they finally had Hermione's side of the story, not that he could tell it to Ron because Hermione had specifically asked Ginny not to tell Ron.

It was all very convoluted and it felt a bit like they were back in school.

But the story from Hermione was she'd been utterly shocked by what Rose had told her, which from her retelling was that Hermione wasn't really a mother to her or Hugo and since she was never there she didn't know why Hermione was pretending to try.

It had, to Ginny's utter surprise, surprised Hermione. Up until that point she'd assumed she was being an excellent mother who just happened to have a very busy and demanding job. But she had always felt like she was managing the difficult balance of work and home life. Hermione hadn't realized her children didn't actually agree with her. She'd simply been assuming that Ron was being a nag because he wanted to get out of the work at home and she didn't hear otherwise because of Ron's refusal to let the kids be in the middle of their bickering.

Hermione had cried on Ginny's shoulder for hours and hours. She'd wanted to have a solid, stable, soaring career and she had, but she'd realized too late that in order to get that career she'd not been able to manage to have the home life she'd imagined. Ginny had told him that Hermione had maybe wanted one or two children but because Ron had definitely wanted them, she'd given in to having two and he'd promised to take the bulk of the responsibility for their care after the initial newborn stage when Hermione had been critical to being home. All of that had gone exactly to plan. They'd had a system where they could both work and since Ron's hours were more flexible, he could handle things when Hermione couldn't. It had helped that Hermione hadn't been as high up in the Ministry when the kids were little.

But then she'd started to move up and suddenly she felt like she was in a race to get to the position she wanted. They'd had the idiot Helminth Smith as the head of the Magical Law Enforcement and he'd done exactly none of the work because with Hermione as his deputy head, he'd known she'd get it all done for him.

It was at this point that Harry realized his own culpability in Ron and Hermione's situation, as he'd been guilty of shirking things off onto Hermione, knowing she'd simply get them done. He was starting to wish he'd told her to stand up for herself more often, but it was also her responsibility to say no and she never did.

Then Smith had become the Minister of Magic and of course everything was even worse for a while there. Through all of it, Hermione's hours had continued to mount up until it was not uncommon for her to be in the office fourteen to sixteen hours a day.

She wanted to be the Minister of Magic someday. That was still Hermione's goal, but she was starting to rethink it when even her own children said she wasn't a fit mother. While she loved them, she'd let everything else go in the pursuit of her dreams and the harsh reality was she didn't know if she'd really wanted the children or not. She loved them with all of her heart, but she'd really wanted her career and she'd given in to having children because it was what was expected of her.

Harry could sort of understand where she was coming from and he did readily admit that no one would have been calling her a bad father if Hermione had been the dad and not the mum. Mums were treated differently than dads, at least they were before when their kids had been small. Now, however, Harry made a point of making sure everyone in his department was able to spend time with their children. Children needed a strong bond with both their mothers and their fathers, so he made sure that was a priority. With Susan, he let her take as much time as she wanted with her small children since she was still their only fully qualified female Auror. With Lena coming through training, though, that would add extra buffer to their numbers. They had a few who were waiting to retire and they needed new blood. Hugo had told him over the summer that he was seriously looking to be an Auror and Harry would be glad to have him. Ron had been good as an Auror, but when it came down to it, it wasn't the life for him and it didn't drive him in the way that it did for Harry. Ron liked working with George and making money. That suited him better.

"Things are weird with Hermione," Ron told him bluntly, bringing Harry back to the conversation at hand. "I think we're starting to be friends again, well, as friendly as you can be with someone you're married to but split up from. She's knocked at the door connecting us twice and asked to talk and we've talked through some of what happened before."

"Did she find a therapist?" Andrew asked him as he stuffed a chip into his mouth. "Rose said she was looking for a new one."

"I think she has," Ron nodded thoughtfully as he took a swig of his beer. "She was talking like she'd been in to see a therapist."

"I saw her this morning as I had training over in the main office," Scorpius told him as he tapped his chip on his plate. "She looked… off, ya know? She always looks so put together but today she just looked off. I said hullo, but I didn't linger since she's the head of the department when we're at work and I'm just a law student right now."

"I guess I'm the only one who hasn't seen her since it happened," Al mused as he paused to let the waitress pass by until they were alone again. "Being married seems… complicated."

"Your parents are doing a bang up job of it," Ron told him, pointing at him with a chip. "I dunno what you're worried about. It's my kids who are going to be struggling. Sorry about that, mate," he said, glancing to Andrew. "But at least we'll be civil at the wedding."

"I wasn't worried about you two fighting at the wedding," Andrew assured him. "I know you two are too mature for such nonsense and frankly neither of you is that selfish. You just don't work together."

"We used to work together," Ron reminded him. "Now we don't."

"Rose and I have talked about that a lot," Andrew said as he finished off his beer. "We've gone over what happened and how we plan to work around it so it doesn't happen to us. Neither of us want to have things fall apart and we've talked about all the pitfalls."

Ron nodded slowly and then said, in obvious reluctance, "Just make sure you're both ready to have kids when you do and don't let anyone talk to you into them."

Al, who had been silently demolishing his third burger, went a bit pink, but Andrew didn't look in the least bit phased by this. It was, apparently, something he and Rose had discussed. "We want kids, probably two. She wants to be a mum, but she wants to establish herself as a Potions Master first and that's going to take a few years. The brilliant part of both of our jobs is we don't need the money, so we can work exactly as much as we want to work. She wants to invent potions, although," he said with a grin to Harry, "she's also going to work with the Ministry if something comes up that requires a Potions Master since there really aren't any right now. We've talked about it. She's insisted we both only work forty-hour weeks, which is fine except for certain times of the year when I have commitments that will take up a decent amount of time."

"Good," Ron said, and Harry saw his best friend had also gone a bit red, but it quickly faded as his gaze slid off into the distance.

"How was training this week?" Scorpius asked Al, clearly sensing they all needed a change of subject.

Of all his children, Al was by far the most changed. Al had started out as a scrawny kid with knobby knees and feet too big for his body. He'd topped off, and hopefully stopped growing at six-foot-four and a staggering fifteen stones of what was absolutely solid muscle. He'd been going towards pudgy when he was younger, but with his diet change to go along with Nat's, he'd slimmed out and then built up muscle on a large scale. He was a powerfully built man, towering over Harry who was starting to wonder if he might not have been bigger if he hadn't been starved for most of his early years. James was a few inches taller than Harry, but he was lean like Harry was. Al had all of Charlie's girth and Bill's height. It was a sight to behold when he was working out. If nothing else, he was going to look like a bouncer if they needed an Auror to look like one. Of course, it also made him stand out in a crowd which could be a hinderance in their line of work, but Al was learning to work around it.

"It was good," Al confirmed as he finished the last bite of his monumental dinner. "We ran about ten miles today. Lena's good, too, so we keep up with each other and we're able to push each other on. Then we had more combat training with Kingsley which is always great fun. He's a bloody brilliant teacher and so fast that it's hard to keep up with him. I always learn a lot."

It was Al that Harry was the most concerned about as far as his children. Alright, that was probably not strictly true. Lily's life was in danger because of the crazy Crabbe woman, but her future was settled with Scorpius. She would marry a man she loved and live happily ever after with, he was sure, a few bumps here or there. Mostly, she would be happy.

Then there was James who was so happy being married to Caroline, he simply didn't have to worry about him. He'd worried a lot when James was younger and his default mode had been to be a prat, but Caroline had changed all of that. No, that wasn't fair to say. Caroline hadn't once asked James to change who he was. She'd simply been herself and her need for someone to be there for her, to be her friend and then her protector is what had changed James' life around. He'd wanted to be with her. He'd wanted to be her everything, and on his own James had realized he wasn't going to be any of the things she wanted or needed if he didn't radically change who he was. He'd started the change for her, but Harry knew that in the end he'd mainly changed for himself. He didn't like or respect the person he'd been before. His oldest son was not happy with the man he'd been growing into, so he'd changed. Now he was a husband and a father and he was already a better father, more natural, than Harry had ever been. He doted on his son, who had come to him in what could only be described as horrible circumstances, and James had rolled with it. His wife and his son were his everything. Sure, he had his job, but when practice was over he headed home. He wasn't out partying at all hours with his team mates, which is something the old James might have done. Louis had complained to Bill that James hadn't even wanted to go out to a club with him and Harry believed it. James had a standing invitation to join them for dinner every other week, but most nights James refused. He wanted to be home.

Then there was Al who was completely in love with Nat. He was pretty sure Nat was also completely in love with Al, but for whatever reason the two of them couldn't seem to connect with each other. He'd wanted to interfere more than once, but Ginny kept telling him no, that he needed to be patient and wait for them to figure it out on their own. He was pretty certain he'd be ready to retire before the two of them actually figured it out. More to the point, it was making both of them miserable. The waitress kept coming by to flirt with Al, who was clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing, and didn't want her to do any such thing. Thankfully, Nat didn't know anything about the flirting waitresses or the fact that much of the Ministry, well, at least the MLE, was speculating on if Al and Lena were an item. Harry knew for a fact that they weren't an item, simply because he'd overheard Lena encouraging Al to ask Nat out on a date. He really wished Al would take her advice and go for it, but doubted he'd get that lucky.

By the time Harry made it home that night, it was thankfully with a mild buzz and no misery over his friends or the fact that his daughter was going to be seventeen in a few months. How had his baby grown up so fast?

"Are you alright?" Ginny asked as Harry stripped off his clothes and flopped into their bed on top of the covers. It was too cold to actually stay there, but he didn't feel up to moving just yet. He grinned at his wife and couldn't help but be so thankful life had led him to her. It could have gone so many other ways and it certainly hadn't been without its share of heartache and pain, but overall, he was so grateful to have her by his side through the good times and the bad.

"I am great," he promised and he really meant it. If he could sober up enough for it, he could talk his wife into making love with him. If he couldn't sober up enough, he could still hold her all night long and that was a lot more than Ron would have that night or any other night. Harry reached out his hand to her and their fingers twined together, representing the bond they had so perfectly. They were it for each other and it wasn't just because of the soul bond, but they were it because they chose to be it every single minute of every single day, through thick and thin.

"How much did you have to drink?" Ginny wondered.

"Enough to not care about how unhappy my best mate is," he told her before frowning. It wasn't true, actually. "Did you see Hermione?"

"All the girls got together to talk," she told him, referring to all the Weasley wives. "She's pretty miserable, actually. She doesn't like to fail at anything and she's realized how far she's fallen in the eyes of her children. I don't think she's a failed mother, exactly."

"You don't?"

His wife rolled her eyes. "No, Harry! If she'd been Herman, the head of the Magical Law Enforcement, then no one would have given a rat's fart how much time she spent with her children. It's because she's a woman that she's getting the guilt trip."

Harry closed one eye so he could focus on her better and shook his head. "I agree with you, but if I'd been Herman and spent as much time with my kids as she did, I'd feel like I failed as a father. Maybe no one else would have judged me, but I'd be judging myself."

Ginny nodded slowly as she considered what he'd said. "Alright, that makes sense. The whole thing is a mess anyway. If you're a woman and you want kids but not a career, you're stigmatized. If you're a woman and you don't want kids, you're stigmatized. If you're a woman and you want both, you're completely screwed because there isn't a great way to do both without something suffering."

Harry couldn't argue with that at all, so he didn't do more than smile and close his eyes.

"You cannot sleep like that, you're going to freeze overnight."

"Come over and keep me warm, then," he mumbled lazily. "You always know how to warm me up."

"And you're definitely too drunk for that."

"I am willing to try, though."

~*~

"How was Emma's first cheer class?" Teddy asked as he changed Amelia's nappy. The squirming toddler did not want to stay still. He'd wanted so badly to get off work to see her take her first class, but they'd had a sting that required him in disguise and he simply couldn't get out of it. He had, however, told everyone he was going the next week to see it. It was only an hour on a Tuesday so it wasn't a major hardship for him to skip out of whatever was going on. Most of the time his days were spent watching people or interviewing them. Interspersed with that was an inordinate and obscene amount of paperwork he could have cheerfully done without.

He was doubly thankful it was Caroline teaching the class. With her aunt for her teacher, it meant that not only was Emma comfortable going to the class but that if Emma used magic accidentally, Caroline wasn't going to be alarmed or make a big deal of it. She could also cover up any of it that might have slipped out. Thankfully, four-year-olds were the gullible, easily swayed sort and anything Emma would do could be easily explained away.

Emma wasn't technically four yet. She was supposed to wait until her birthday in January to start the class, but Caroline had pulled some strings when a spot had opened up in the class and they'd been allowed to enroll Emma early. Their biggest problem had been that Teeny wasn't going to be allowed to go to class with her. Emma didn't have a concept that the elf was different from her, so different in fact that her appearance in the class would have alarmed absolutely everyone within a ten-mile radius of the gym.

"The class was so cute," Victoire said with a happy sigh as she sat down on the bed with Olivia to start nursing her. "She was a good listener for Caroline, which helped, and she learned how to do a forward roll and a backward roll. Then they learned a short cheer. She had a great time."

"It was such a good time she was asleep before I even made it home," Teddy concluded. He wasn't surprised the class had worn his daughter out. Even if it wasn't a tremendous amount of exercise, the excitement alone would have been enough to do it.

As soon as he had the pajamas secured on Amelia, he passed the baby over to his wife so she could nurse her, as well, and hopefully get both of them to sleep shortly. They were already a year old and time just seemed to be going by faster and faster. He lay down on the bed next to his wife and watched the babies nurse as they did every night. "Did Ginny stay with them while you went to the class?"

"No, I took them along," Victoire said as she shifted a bit. "Can you grab the covers? My feet are getting cold."

"Sure," he said as he arranged the blankets all the way up to cover the girls. Of course, both girls flung out their arms to throw off the offending covers. Covers meant sleep and they were not going to sleep. They fought sleep every single night until it stole over them when they weren't looking. "Was she watching Alex?"

"Yep, and I might have her watch the twins sometimes when I go to the class, but this time Alex has a bit of a cold so we didn't want to risk getting everyone sick."

He nodded as he watched her close her eyes. He'd fallen in love with Victoire when he was… how old was he then? Fifteen? Sixteen? It had been around that time. The moment of falling for her hadn't been a major AH HA moment like he'd been struck by lightning. All he'd known is that one day he'd realized he was in love with her and she was the woman he wanted to marry. Well, not woman, not at that point. She'd still been a girl then, but he'd known. It had been so scary, at first. It was a big thing to get married and they'd been so poor for so long. He thought about it now and realized just how stubborn and prideful he'd been not to take the money Harry and Ginny had set aside for him. Yes, he'd wanted to do it on his own. Yes, that was a notable goal, but in the end it hadn't achieved much. They'd worked so hard those first few years without either of them making any significant progress and he knew it would have continued on to be the exact same thing if they hadn't accepted the money. They would have had the student loan debt to pay off to the goblins and the goblins having him in debt to them might have meant he'd have lost his job as an Auror, which would have meant a lot less security for them financially. Teddy frankly didn't know how others were making it without parents or grandparents to help them.

He knew his grandmother would have liked to help him. He missed her so much at times like this. She'd have loved to know his children, but she wasn't here. She'd been taken from them too soon probably by Isabella Crabbe. They didn't know for certain that she'd killed Andromeda. They had pieced together what they thought might have happened and speculated it was her, but they would never know for certain without a confession from Crabbe and Teddy knew they weren't likely to get it. If they'd had Nat and her ability to read a crime scene at that time, then maybe they'd have had more answers, but she'd been too young and her power hadn't fully been in.

Teddy had never known his parents or his grandfather or his other grandparents. What he had was Harry and Ginny and grandparents in Molly and Arthur. What he had was the family he'd made with the woman of his dreams. He had Emma, Amelia and Olivia. He had them and he was a happy man.

"Caroline told me she and James are going to try for a baby after Alex is one."

Teddy turned back to his wife and felt his brow raise. "Really? He's going to be so little."

"Mhmm," she agreed as she shifted a bit on the bed. "I'm going to be ready then, as well."

Teddy blinked, unsure if he was understanding her correctly. "You… you want to have another baby in, what… March?"

"Well, obviously not in March since it takes nine months to grow them," she told him with clear bemusement. "I want to start trying in March, or probably April or May actually. I want Caroline to have the full experience of carrying a baby with all the doting Ginny will give her. She's not had the experience yet and she should, but then we'll have babies the same age who will go to Hogwarts together."

Teddy had been absolutely certain just five minutes before that he was okay not having any more children. He'd been very happy with the way their lives were working. They had three great kids and while yes, he'd love and enjoy more, they didn't have to have any more for him to be a very content man. He studied his wife's beautiful face and tried to think of how he should respond. He'd told her before that he could be happy and done and she'd told him she wasn't ready to say that yet. The twins had been hard in the first few months of life. Going from one baby to two babies was a whole lot of work, but they'd had Fleur and Ginny to help out with everything that was going on. They'd also had Polly coming to help cook and clean, plus Teeny who wasn't a babysitter, exactly, but the tiny elf still kept Emma entertained and safe. The elf could use her magic flawlessly to keep Emma from falling down the stairs or touching something hot. It had worked out brilliantly for all of them, as Teeny really liked playing with Emma and it kept Teeny from being only a house-elf and nothing more. She wasn't subject to work or servitude while she was still little. Teddy still didn't know what was going to happen with the elf when she was bigger, but that was a bridge they would cross later.

And here was his wife telling him they were going to have another baby. Well, he had agreed on four. "What if we have twins again?"

"Then we deal with it," she said simply. "The girls will be just about two when the new baby is born and that's a good age difference for them."

He couldn't argue with that, although having two kids hit the terrible twos at the same time didn't thrill him, especially with a newborn on hand. "If this is what you want."

"What do you want?"

What did he want? What did Teddy want in all of this? He liked their life the way it was but he could easily be happy with another baby. It wouldn't hurt his feelings to have another child, to watch his wife's body change, yet again, as she grew a new life. He really liked watching her body change and grow round. She was softer now, rounder now, than she'd been as a girl, but it wasn't the same as when she was far along in a pregnancy. Then there was the tiny newborn life who would be handed over to him to raise and protect.

Did he want to do that again?

Yes, he rather thought he did. It wasn't easy and it wasn't simple, but he loved his girls and he wouldn't mind another one. "If we have another girl can we name her Ireland?"

Victoire laughed softly and shook her head. "We will see on a name. I agree I want an 'I' name since we have an A, E, and O. We have to stop at U because I don't know a single U girl name that I could possibly like."

"How about Ursula?" Teddy suggested. "Oh! How about Uri?"

Victoire scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "Nope, not going there."

"You never know," Teddy said, laughing now and trying to hold it in because the twins were just about asleep. "We could name her Unknown."

"What?" his wife blinked at him stupidly. "No one would possibly name their child Unknown."

"I met one yesterday," Teddy said triumphantly. "Granted, it was a bloke, but that was the name listed on his Muggle identification."

"Did you ask him why his mother hated him?"

Teddy couldn't help the chuckle that came out. "I did not, but he's in Muggle custody now, so I don't think his name did him any favors."

"That's just sad… and wrong on so many levels."

"So no to Ursula," he said with a nod. He was actually in complete agreement there. "We could do India."

"Oh, I like that one… hmm," she mused as she handed Olivia off to him. The little girl didn't even stir as Teddy carried her over to her cot and settled her in. She was utterly milk drunk and happy with it.

"We could have a boy," Victoire pointed out as she settled Amelia down.

"We could," he agreed, but then again they'd already decided to name a boy Remus Harry. "It's always a possibility, but I rather like the thought of having four girls. It seems fitting."

Her smile was slow and knowing as she wound her arms around his neck. "You are the best husband a girl could ask for."

Teddy dipped his head and pressed a soft kiss on her nose, before moving to linger over her soft, inviting lips. "I was just thinking about how you are the best wife a man could ever ask for and I am so blessed to have you and the girls."

"Are you really okay with having another baby?" she asked and this time he heard the uncertainty in her voice.

"I am, actually," he said immediately and knew it to be true. He'd already accepted that they might have more children simply because the birth control potion didn't work well on his wife and he hadn't yet had things taken care of permanently on his end. Planning one out was just a different way of going about it, rather than being surprised. "I think I really like the idea of waiting until after Caroline is pregnant so we aren't trying to divide Ginny's time too much, and as you said so she has a chance to have this to herself. But then after that I am fine with having another baby. I love making babies with you."

She pushed up onto her toes and threaded her hands into his hair. "I knew you would be up for at least the making of the babies part in all of this, but I'm glad you're good with it. I really think I need one more to be done."

He kissed her lightly again and then deeper. "I'm up for whatever life has in store for us, Luv. Whatever that is, I'm in it with you."