10th January 2008

"Mummy, Mummy, Daddy, Daddy!" Abigail Longbottom yelled, running into her parents' room at the crack of dawn on the morning of her third birthday. "Wake up! Wake up."

Luna Longbottom rolled over groggily in bed, trying to open her eyes as her now three year old daughter jumped up and down on her feet.

"Happy Birthday Abi!" she said, sitting up and attempting to pull her daughter into a hug, but was bowled over in the darkness by a small body being thrown at her. She heard the light click on and saw her husband, Neville Longbottom, sitting up groggily, but with a little smile on his face.

"Happy Birthday Abigail," he said, plucking her off Luna and giving her a huge hug, "How old are you today?"

"Three!" she said with a grin, holding up two fingers, Neville laughed, taking her small hand in his and putting up a third.

"Are you really that old already?" he asked in mock amazement. Abi nodded excitedly, bouncing up and down on her parents' bed.

"Mummy, Abi woke me up," six-year-old Alice said, coming into the room and also clambering up onto the bed, "and Ella won't stop crying,"

"Fu -dge muffins." Neville said, saving himself at the last second, "How long has she been awake for?"

"Since Abi started yelling and screaming," muttered Alice, snuggling up to Luna underneath the blankets."

"Sh-oot" Neville said, throwing back the covers and rushing out of the room. Now that Abi had stopped jumping up and down and squealing excitedly, she could hear her youngest daughter, Eleanor, cries.

"Where's daddy going?" Abi asked curiously crawling up the bed to sit on Luna's pillow.

"He's gone to get Ella," Luna explained.

"When he's got Ella, then can I open my presents?" Abi asked eagerly.

"Yes, you can." Luna said with a smile as she lay her head back down on the pillows, thinking about the discussion that she and Neville had had a few weeks ago, she still didn't know what to think about that conversation.

Her thoughts were interrupted, however, by Neville coming into the room with Ella, who had stopped crying but looked very grumpy.

"Give her here," Luna said, holding her arms out for her youngest daughter, "Go and get Abi's presents." Neville nodded, handing Ella to Luna and quickly walking out of the room to get the presents from the special hiding spot that they kept their children's presents in.

"Mummy?" Alice said curiously, looking up at Luna from her position, which was currently curled up underneath her left arm.

"Yes Alice," Luna said tolerantly as she tried to rock Ella back to sleep.

"Why don't I have a brother?" she asked, "Dominique has a sister and a brother but I only have sisters."

"Well," Luna said, wondering how best to explain the inner workings of genders to her six year old daughter, "You don't get to pick a gender for your baby, and so far you've ended up all being girls."

"But that's silly," Alice said, furrowing her brow, "If you get to choose our names, why don't you choose if we're a boy or a girl?"

"That's not the way it works, Ally." Luna laughed, but was cut off as Neville walked into the room with a bag of presents for Abi, singing happy birthday.

Happy Birthday to you, they sung, Alice joining in promptly and even little Ella clapped her hands excitedly,
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Abi
Happy Birthday to you!

Abi squealed in delight as Neville put the bag of presents in front of her and dove for them immediately. Both Neville and Luna smiled as they watched their daughter unwrap a toy broomstick.

"Yes! Thank you mummy, thank you daddy!" she said, jumping on immediately and taking off, all of her other presents forgotten.

"Abi, you're going to break something!" Neville called half-heartedly after her as Alice ran out of the room in pursuit.

"I'll be careful daddy, I promise!" they heard Abi yell back. Ella started to squirm in Luna's arms,

"Down, mummy," she said, her two year old lisp making the sentence hard to pronounce, "I wan go play wif Alice and Abi."

"Alright then," Luna said, putting Ella on the ground and watching her toddle off after her sisters.

"We should really watch them…" Neville said, leaning back against his pillow and looking at the door.

"In a minute," Luna said, mimicking his actions and wondering if she should bring up the question that Alice had asked beforehand about not having a brother.

"What was that?" Neville asked and Luna realised that she must've been thinking aloud again, something that she did increasingly often nowadays. She had no choice but to tell him now

"Alice asked me why she didn't have a brother," Luna shrugged, "I told her that we couldn't chose the gender and she told me that it was stupid"

"That sounds like her," Neville laughed, "I bet she's going to be in Ravenclaw when she gets to Hogwarts." And then, lowering his voice to a whisper so that the girls wouldn't hear, he whispered, "Are you pregnant yet?"

"You have to wait for at least a month, Neville." Said Luna with a laugh, "People of the male gender really are clueless when it comes to pregnancy aren't they? You'd think that after three daughters, you'd know what was to come."

"In my defence, the last three were complete surprises," Neville said, crossing his arms in mock offence. Luna opened her mouth to reply when they were cut off by a crashing sound and a yell of pain.

"We should've watched them," Neville yelled, as the two of them threw back the covers simultaneously and rushed out of their room towards the source of the commotion, which happened to be in the kitchen.

"Abi, you told us you'd be careful." Luna said, upon seeing Abi sniffling on the ground next to a broken vase, her toy broomstick hovering by her head.

"I was careful mummy, it just fell off and I got a shock." Abi sniffed adamantly. Neville shook his head at his daughter's antics and drew his wand to repair the glass.

"Where are your sisters?" Luna asked, looking around for Alice and Ella who were no-where to be seen.

"In the treehouse," Abi said as Neville picked her up off the ground, "they said that they were going to have a tea party."

"Well they can have a tea party after we've had breakfast, I'll go and get them." Luna said, glancing at Neville who was kissing Abi's knee which she seemed to have bruised when she fell off the toy broom.

"What do you want for breakfast birthday girl?" Neville asked as Luna walked out, calling for the eldest and the youngest girl to come inside for breakfast.

"Pancakes!" Abi exclaimed happily, all thought of her bruised knee forgotten.

"Pancakes it is then!" Neville said, putting Abi down on the kitchen bench and summoning the ingredients to him out of the cupboards and the fridge and beginning the process of making pancakes from scratch.

"Breakfast smells nice," Luna remarked, walking in about fifteen minutes later with Alice and Ella.

"We're having pancakes!" Abi exclaimed to a happy squeal from Alice.

"Thank you daddy, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she said, running into the kitchen and hugging Neville around his waist.

"You're welcome Ally," Neville said, patting the top of her head with one hand as he flipped the pancake over with the other.

"Alice, Abi, why don't you come and play with Ella while daddy makes breakfast?" Luna suggested, "Then time will go faster and you'll get your pancakes in no time."

"Alright!" Abi said, trying to clamber down from the kitchen bench, using the drawer handles as ladder rungs.

"Let's play hide and seek!" Alice said, "I'm in, so you've got to be hidden by the time I count to ten!"

Luna smiled as she watched Ella and Abi run around, frantically trying to find a hiding spot, with Abi wrapping herself up in the curtains and Ella crawling underneath the couch. She suddenly felt a wave of nausea wash over her and last night's roast dinner threatened to come out of the hatch.

She rushed to the bathroom, walking quickly rather than running so that Neville wouldn't worry. It was lucky that she had, because once there, last night's roast dinner did come out of the hatch as she vomited everything she had in her system into the toilet. It was probably just the stomach bug that Alice had got a few weeks ago…

AN: This is for the "Nine Months Pregnancy Challenge" on HPFC… Wow this is crap… I've got nothing to go on except my imagination as none of this is canon… I also feel like I've overdone it with having three kids already in the picture before the fourth is born… gah, you're welcome to criticise.

Until Next Time

~The Original Horcrux~