Chapter One - Just For One Day
There is something about time that can make one pause and ponder; a certain blandness that makes it not unlike water.
Whatever you put in water lends it character, just as what you do with your time lends it quality - or not. And just as
with water, unless you pay attention to time it can run swiftly away with you, so one moment you're one place and
next time you blink you're somewhere else altogether.
It was these strange musings about the attributes of time that occupied Harry Potter's thoughts on that Sunday morning in late August. Harry wasn't sure what had awoken him. The house was silent - a rarity these days - and the sun was just beginning to peek out of its nest in the Hertfordshire countryside.
Yet he was wide awake and for a minute, he lay still and savored the stillness because Lord knew when such a moment would arrive again.
Finally, he rolled over to face the woman who slept beside him. She was sleeping on her stomach but with her face turned to him and Harry smiled as he stared at her. She was so beautiful. Her thirty-eighth birthday was coming up next month but one wouldn't know it from the way Hermione Granger Potter looked. Of course people in the Wizarding world aged far slower after age thirty than their Muggle counterparts but Harry still thought it extraordinary how little Hermione looked her age.
She had grown her hair out to midway down her back, longer than it had ever been and it suited her. The weight of her hair lent itself a measure of manageability so it was no longer the bushy mass of yore. It also didn't hurt that she'd discovered certain Muggle products that worked wonders. At present , her hair was spread out all over her pillow, a few locks obscuring Harry's view of her face.
He reached out and gently brushed them aside and his wife stirred. Her lovely brown eyes fluttered open and she smiled sleepily when she saw him.
"Hi. Been staring at me long?"
He grinned. "You know me too well."
She snuggled up to him and Harry held her close, inhaling her scent as their legs tangled under the warm covers. For a long moment, they were silent and Harry thought she had drifted off again when she spoke.
"They'll be here soon, you think?"
Harry smiled. "I'm sure of it."
She chuckled. "Sunday morning in the Potter household. The week gets started off with a-"
BANG!
Harry and Hermione both jumped and the next second they heard a voice hiss outside their door:
"Try to do that a little louder next time, Ben. I don't think the people heard you over in Canada!"
There was a brief pause. "Should we knock?" their son asked.
"Certainly. Because there's no way Mum and Dad heard that racket," Emerson replied and Harry could just see her rolling her eyes.
"Know who they remind me of?" Harry whispered, grinning.
"Who?"
"You and Ron. When we were at Hogwarts."
Hermione stuck her tongue out at him and Harry lunged forward to kiss her just as the knock sounded. He made sure to kiss Hermione soundly, then they broke apart and put some respectable distance between each other before calling "Come in."
The door swung open and something small and chocolate-haired zoomed across the room and landed on Harry's chest with a joyous cry.
"Daddy!"
Harry pretended to faint back onto his pillow. "Be gentle with your old dad, Budget. You're much too strong for me," he groaned, clutching his chest.
The little boy laughed before crawling across the bed and launching himself at his mother.
"Good morning, Luke," she said, kissing the curly head. "Did you sleep well?"
He nodded. "I dreamed it was my birthday."
"You're always dreaming about your birthday," commented Ben as he climbed onto the bed, clutching a book as usual.
Luke frowned. "You're just jealous cause yours isn't till 'Cember."
"It's called December, moron," Ben retorted, pushing his unruly hair out of his eyes.
"Ben," Hermione chided gently.
"Sorry, Budget," Ben replied. "Morning Mum, Dad." Seconds later he was stretched out near the foot of the bed, already engrossed in his book.
Harry and Hermione exchanged a smile. At age eight, Ben already considered himself much too old for the overt displays of affection that Luke, thankfully, still demonstrated.
"Morning, Ben. Ah, but where are my lovely ladies?" Harry asked, peering around the bed in an exaggerated fashion, even picking up a delighted Luke to frown at the spot where he'd been sitting.
"Right here, Padré," came a voice from beside Hermione and Harry gave an overly dramatic start.
"Oh, there you are!" he said, beaming.
Emerson rolled her eyes but smiled. "Hi Dad. Morning, Mum." She transferred a small sleeping child to Hermione's arms and climbed onto the bed too. "She's really sleepy today. Didn't even open her eyes when I picked her up."
Hermione nodded as she tucked her youngest child in between her and Harry. "Yeah. She had an ear infection but it should be better by now. The healing potion makes her tired though."
Harry smoothed the wild, auburn-tinged curls off little Davina's forehead, smiling as he did so. His little princess, their "Unexpected Bonus" as Hermione liked to say. Not quite two years old but Davina definitely lent something wonderful to the family and even though she'd been a surprise, Harry couldn't imagine Ballynore now without her.
"So your first Sunday back in the craziness," Hermione was saying to Em, smiling. "How does it feel?"
"Awesome," Emerson replied. "I really did miss you guys so much!"
"Did you miss me?" piped up Luke.
"No, I didn't," Em said with a completely straight face. "Of course I missed you, goofball!" She ruffled the curly head of her little brother and as he watched his children interact, Harry found himself thinking about time again.
It seemed like only yesterday he was discovering the baby left at his doorstep, opening that letter to find out that she was his daughter. Where had the time gone? Because far from the little tousle-haired moppet with the big, green eyes that he'd been terrified to even hold that first time, his daughter was now a strong, independent young girl of twelve.
Emerson was going to be a beautiful woman, by anybody's standards. She had inherited her birth mother's striking features - high cheekbones, full, red lips, long black lashes - but it was Harry's emerald eyes that leapt out of her face. She had a lovely olive complexion that was, at the moment, somewhat darker after her month in the Texas sun.
"-it was so hot," Em was saying. "And not the kind of dry heat that we get here sometimes. Just really humid, ya know? And then, Mum, you should've seen Wizarding Dallas! It's unbelievable! You know that's cattle country and Herb and Enigi live on this huge ranch. But they're-"
"What are 'cattle'?" interrupted Luke, his small brow furrowed exactly the way Hermione's did when she was concentrating on something.
"That's just another name for cows," Ben supplied without even looking up.
"Yeah, and you should've seen these cows, Ben!" Em exclaimed, turning around to address him. "They have horns longer than your legs and this really fierce look. I kept expecting them to decide to turn around and gore me any second."
Ben snickered, looking up from his book at last to listen as his sister recounted more about her Texas holiday.
Harry felt Hermione's eyes on him and turned to look at her.
"I love you," she whispered, reaching for his hand.
"Love you too," he said, leaning over to kiss her quickly. He reached out a hand to brush her hair from her face and she beamed him her secret smile that made Harry wish they didn't have four kids in their bed. Judging from the gleam in the wench's eye, she knew exactly what he was thinking too and was loving it!
"I'm gonna get you for that," he whispered.
Hermione raised her eyebrows innocently. "For what?"
"For what?" he echoed, just as innocently but Hermione apparently got the message because she blushed. Harry nodded slowly, savoring the fact that after all these years, he could still make this amazing woman blush.
"Daddy," said a small voice between them.
They both looked down to see the big, hazel eyes of little Davina blinking sleepily up at them.
"Hey, somebody's awake!" Hermione said brightly, helping her daughter climb out of the covers. Harry and Hermione took turns kissing her all over her little face until she giggled.
Davina was clutching her stuffed rabbit, Ol' Bob. That was the name Emerson had christened it with when Ron had presented it to her on her second birthday. Harry remembered the looks of amusement and bewilderment directed at the toddler when she'd made that announcement.
"Do you mean 'rabbit'?" Harry had asked, stooping before his daughter.
Emerson hugged the stuffed animal. "Ol' Bob," she said again.
Hermione seemed to be trying not to laugh. "I think she's trying to say 'bunny', Harry."
"Ol' Bob," Emerson insisted, frowning up at them all as if they were the peculiar ones.
"Ok," Harry replied, seating her and the rabbit on his lap. "Ol' Bob."
Emerson beamed and that had been that.
She'd been really attached to that animal too, couldn't even fall asleep without it. But after Ben had been brought home from the hospital, Harry and Hermione had been surprised and touched when Em had solemnly declared that she wanted to give the rabbit to Ben. Apparently so Ol' Bob could give him "pleasant bunny dreams".
Strangely enough, she'd slept just fine without it from that moment on. And furthering the Potter family's attachment to the floppy-eared trinket, both Ben and Luke had passed on Ol' Bob to their younger sibling, without any kind of prodding from Harry or Hermione. Now Davina was its owner but really the bunny belonged to all of them, old and battered now but very much beloved.
"Look who's here, Vina," Harry said, pointing.
The toddler looked and her eyes widened. "Emma!" she squealed mightily when she saw Emerson. She couldn't quite manage Em's name yet so 'Emma' was the closest she could get. The little girl launched herself into her sister's open arms and the two of them toppled over laughing onto the huge bed. Harry couldn't help grinning as he watched them; he knew how much Vina had missed Em.
Everyday she'd asked "Where Emma? Emma home?" and they'd had to keep telling her no, Emma not home. And yesterday when Emerson had finally come home, poor Davina had been fast asleep, knocked out by the healing potion for her ear infection. This was the first time she was really seeing her sister and her innocent joy made Harry want to weep.
"Group hug!" Luke yelled, pouncing on his sisters and Ben dropped his book to join in the melee, to hug and be hugged too.
Harry gathered Hermione into his arms and watched the jumble of pajamaed arms and legs, giggles and assorted noises that was his children. His whole world, his entire reason for living was right here.
There were other things in his life, for sure, but it was these five people who made it all worthwhile. They were the ones who lent character, who gave quality to his time. Both the time that had already sped away and the time - and he hoped it was vast and chiefly joyous - that was yet to come.
****
Time, you old gypsy man!
Will you not stay
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?
- "Time, You Old Gypsy Man" Ralph Hodgson