FYI: This is chapter 4 of 4 in case you've unintentionally skipped ahead due to simultaneous posting.

Harry much preferred the text message his wife sent him the next morning to the one he'd gotten the morning before, despite how well that had worked out. This one came through just moments after they'd separated on the lift and while he was still standing in the bullpen of the Auror department dealing with some nonsense clerical issue. He hightailed it to his office when he felt his mobile buzz from inside the pockets of his robes. He was glad he had done so after he read her message.

H: I swear I can still feel your hands on me and yet I miss you already. Do you think we could go pick up the kids together and go out to dinner to celebrate...everything? I love you. -H

He was still staring at the last three words that he'd never seen written out for him before, when another came through.

H: You would have told me if I was walking funny, right? Because everybody is staring at me like they know. But maybe it's just that I feel so different so I assume that people are looking at me differently. Anyway, we should have been irresponsible and taken the day off. Seriously Harry, what were we thinking? I miss you already and I'm not sure I can go the whole day without you. XOXO

Take the day off? Well that was a damn good idea. His wife really was brilliant. 1,000 points to Gryffindor. However, she'd almost always needed him to help her carry through on the execution of her greatest ideas and it wouldn't do to let her down on this day of all days.

He'd warded his office again and was back on the lift before any of his aurors could even formulate a question about where he was going. When he appeared in the doorway of his wife's office she looked up, momentarily startled before she started to smile.

"Hi." Her voice was breathy and so like the Hermione he'd only ever encountered in their bedroom that he actually twitched against the instinct to go to her immediately.

"We should go home," he said leaning against her door jamb and trying to look as nonchalant as possible, given how anxious he was to get her naked and, this time, totally alone. "I'm feeling a little ill and you looked distinctly- out of sorts- at breakfast," his eyes bored into hers, willing her to understand.

There was a beat of silence.

"You're right," she answered, letting out the most badly acted cough he'd ever heard. "I think Sam might have brought a bug back from the playground, we should really be responsible and go home until we're certain we aren't contagious."

"Always responsible, Mrs. Potter."

She literally shoved several sheaves of parchment into her briefcase without any of her usual care, grabbed it, and then ran around her desk to meet him, eagerly taking his hand.

He twisted her fingers between his and brought her left ring finger to his lips eyeing the engagement and wedding rings he'd placed there, in honor of their shared muggle heritage.

"Would you like new ones?" He asked quietly, and without any real thought after he kissed her knuckles.

"What?" She frowned at him.

"New rings."

"Why?" She looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"Well, these are basically props."

She took his left hand in her own and eyed the thick platinum band he wore, which was the only thing he never took off. "Is this a prop to you?" She met his eyes, her own were challenging.

"No," he answered automatically.

The look on her face morphed into an expression which could only be described as triumph. "And I know you well enough to know that you didn't just stroll into a jeweler and buy the first thing you saw. You chose these for me, didn't you?"

He nodded. He'd actually agonized over the decision. Ron, whom he'd brought along with him to purchase Hermione's rings had been highly amused the whole time they'd shopped. And Harry was beginning to understand why that might have been, beyond the fact that he'd not understood anything about the quality of gemstones (Ron had apparently done quite a lot of research before he'd proposed to Lavender.) In fact, Harry now suspected that he'd been rather transparent about his feelings regarding Hermione for a long time, well before he'd understood them himself.

"Then absolutely not, and I actually love what you decided on." She spun the band around and around his finger. "It's incredibly possessive of me, but I like that this says that you're mine."

"As long as I'm allowed to be possessive too, actually," he pretended to think about it, "I quite like it." He kissed her in full view of her entire department then, as they were standing in her doorway. Something which he belatedly realized might make her very angry, but he couldn't help himself. She just grinned up at him.

"You really do like that, huh?" She asked him.

"Hmmm?" He questioned.

"Me being all possessive? Letting you be possessive in return?"

"I'd like to show you how much I like both," he practically growled, relishing in this new dynamic between them.

Her lips curved into that feral smile he'd only been introduced to the night before. "Now, this is a really good plan."

"It was your idea, my wife. I'm just following through," he said while he tugged her away from her office, glaring at anybody who might dare intercept them and embarrass Hermione or hold them up. And if he hadn't already been, the fact that Hermione didn't even seem to notice that they had an audience but had her entire attention concentrated on him, would have had him floating on cloud nine.

They made their way to the nearest floo, plastered to each other's side. He had an arm across her shoulders and both of hers were around his waist, whispering to each other the entire way. They were like a couple in the throes of a new relationship, or a pair of newlyweds. Which, in a way, was exactly what they were.

"How are we ever going to climb out of this bed again?" She asked him later as she nuzzled his neck.

"Well, I assume that in a few weeks you're going to hit that period where you feel terrible, hate my guts, and won't want anything to do with me," he quipped.

She was silent for a long time.

"I was kidding, love," he finally said.

"I know that. I was just thinking."

"Hmm?" He prompted, knowing she wouldn't need any further encouragement to share her thoughts.

"It's just that there were times when I really would have liked you to be around when I was pregnant before. Times I just wanted you to hold me or even just keep me company, but didn't think it was fair to ask. Hormones can really be the worst." She sighed. "Do you think we could pretend that this is my first pregnancy and if I need something I'll just ask for it, and if you're uncertain, you ask me?"

"Of course." It was the easiest thing he'd ever agreed to.

They spent the day in bed until it was time to go pick up their children from the daycare center Molly Weasley had opened after the marriage law was passed. It was the place where Cicely and Samuel spent three days a week whilst Harry and Hermione were at work and their maternal grandparents- who were only partially retired- were at their practice.

When they arrived Cicely immediately ran up to them and then, uncharacteristically, drug Hermione away. Not that she didn't love Hermione, but she was usually much more of a Daddy's girl and therefore tended to seek Harry out first. He shrugged, unoffended given the delight on his wife's face at the attention from their daughter, and looked around for Sam or Molly.

Molly's business had grown exponentially since its inception, given the baby boom, but she paid special attention to Ceci and Sam because she considered them as much her own as she did her biological grandchildren. So she was likely to know the location of his son. Plus, he always made it a point to at least greet her when he came to get his kids.

His scanning of the children was interrupted by a familiar voice, though it wasn't Molly's.

"Harry, hi! I didn't expect to see you, I thought it was Hermione's day to get the kids." Lavender Weasley walked up to him, guiding his toddler- who seemed to be in the midst of some kind of tantrum- by the hand as she patiently waited for him to walk alongside her, but there was no annoyance on her face. "I spotted you and thought I'd bring Sam over, he and Sophie were on a mat together," she jerked her chin in the direction of the baby in her arms.

"It is," he answered Lavender, bending down to pick up his sobbing son. "But we were hoping to collect them and then go out for dinner," he glanced at Sam, attempting to soothe him by rubbing up and down his back, his practiced eye immediately spotting the probable root of the problem. "I'm not sure that's going to happen now, from the looks of it this one is cutting a tooth."

Lavender laughed, "kids change everything, don't they?" She shifted her daughter in her arms. "I kind of thought you and Hermione were exaggerating before we had our own."

Hermione had been almost six months along with Sam when Ron and Lavender had announced they were pregnant. They had promptly asked him and Hermione to be godparents, and he'd been almost as happy for his other best friend as he'd been when he'd learned about his own children's impending arrivals.

He chuckled. "It's like having your world turned upside down, isn't it?"

"In the best way."

"Oh, absolutely," he agreed.

"What's the best way?" Hermione asked, emerging from a crowd of children and parents; in the time that he and Hermione had been there it had turned to closing time and so the center was nearly overrun with people arriving to retrieve their offspring.

"Having a child turns your world upside down in the best way," Lavender answered with a smile.

"Right?" Hermione chuckled, glancing back to make sure that Cicely was following her; the little girl was trotting happily just behind her, clutching her little bookbag. Hermione grinned at Harry and then held her arms out towards Lavender for her ten month old goddaughter. "Hello sweet love!" She cooed, brushing their noses together when Lavender immediately handed over her daughter. And then with the infant in her arms she automatically stepped back to Harry's side. He kissed her temple.

"Oh!" Lavender gasped and they both turned to her in surprise to see her eyeing them, an ecstatic smile on her face.

"What?" They asked in tandem.

Lavender looked down at Cicely. "Ceci, would you do me a favor?"

The little girl was immediately on alert, always anxious to be helpful. She nodded eagerly.

"Go find Gamma Molly and tell her that I need to borrow a cup of sugar. There's some Honeydukes in it for you for being such a good helper," Lavender winked.

Cicely nodded. "I'm on the case Aunt Lav," she chirped with a little salute that was absolutely something she'd learned from George, and then she skipped off without even glancing in either of her parents' directions.

"A cup of sugar?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Did you just bribe my child with sweets?" Hermione said at the same time.

Lavender ignored their statements entirely and just grinned at them. "Thanks be the gods," she breathed, "Ron was about to hold an intervention for you two idiots."

"Excuse me?" Hermione asked, her voice low and challenging, and even Harry felt his hackles begin to rise. It had been a long time since Lavender had truly upset him, but while he would fully admit to being an idiot, Hermione was not, and he did not appreciate the accusation, even if he didn't think she meant it maliciously.

However, Lavender was unaffected by their poorly disguised irritation. She just continued to grin at them. "We've been waiting for you to figure it out."

Harry shifted Sam in his arms so that he could take Hermione's free hand. "Figure what out?"

"How much you love each other," she practically squealed. "I wanted to just tell you, but- at first, at least- Ron insisted that you had to figure it out on your own. Once Hermione was pregnant we thought it would happen at any time, you were both so over the moon, but like, you just never got it...why is that by the way?" The words practically tumbled out of her mouth.

Lavender had grown up a lot. She was a lot of fun to be around these days, but the gossipy teenager she'd once been still sometimes burst through, and it most certainly was in this moment.

Hermione turned to him, looking stricken. "Harry," she breathed.

He raised a hand to her face, caressing it gently. Lavender let out a sound that was part sigh, part gasp.

"We might have been stupid before," Harry told her.

Hermione nodded.

"And we've agreed to," he stopped and looked pointedly between the babies in their arms, "eff the effing plan, right?"

That made her smile, and she nodded again.

"That Plan is also the best thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life and I'll never regret any part of it. Okay?" He asked.

She just blinked at him slowly and then her lips curved into a wicked smile. "I do have the best ideas, don't I?"

Harry laughed.

His life was awesome.

Author's note: Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this. I'd like to thank Weestarmeggie for her excellent alpha/beta skills and for heaping love on this fic, which is the best kind of encouragement. This was written for Harmony & Co's 2K celebration and originally posted on Ao3, and I'm so happy they invited me to participate, I had such fun writing this. Of course, thanks to y'all for reading! If you're so inclined I'd love to hear what you thought! Also, happy 39th birthday, Harry!