67 Southern Way (The Cooper Residence)

Erika woke up beside her husband, cuddled against his side with her very large stomach between them, feeling a little sad. It was going to be their last day in this house and she had grown fond of it in the six months that they'd lived there, although it was more like two, since the rest of those months had been spent at Hogwarts.

She assumed that their adopted children, Gwen and Ben, were still sleeping, since it was still early morning. Under normal circumstances, she would have let Tai sleep a little longer as well, but she really wanted to savor the rest of their time here.

"Tai, wake up sleepy head," she whispered to him.

When he didn't stir, she realized that she would have to try a less peaceful approach. "Tai!" she jabbed him in the side with her finger. To make up for the poke, she kissed his cheek softly. "Time to get up."

Tai was in the middle of a dream... if you would call it that... It was pleasant, right up into the point where the he was painfully poked. Confused, dream-state Tai wondered why on Earth he was being poked, until his subconscious decided that it wasn't, in fact, coming from the dream, but from the outside world. Tai startled awake in time for Erika to kiss him on the cheek.

He groaned, and turned away from her. "Five more minutes," he mumbled into the duvet, keeping his eyes firmly closed. Perhaps if he could not see his sleep being disturbed, than it wouldn't be?

Tai's brain kicked into gear. This was Erika, he was talking - thinking - about; she would stop at nothing to get him up and out of bed. The question was, should he delay the inevitable? The idea of perhaps having five more minutes clouded this thought.

"Please?" he added sleepily.

Rolling her eyes, Erika settled back into the bed. Her husband might as well be married to his sleep, he loved it so much. "I didn't say that we actually had to get up," she said, "Just that you needed to wake up."

She placed a hand on his shoulder and gently forced (okay, maybe not quite so gently... pregnant women can be quite strong) him to face her again before settling back into his arms. She kissed him again, then, still not quite able to believe it, said, "It is our last day in this house."

Tai grumbled incoherently into his pillow, but was happy that if he couldn't sleep, he could at least stay in bed.

Moving over, he wrapped his arms around Erika's waist, drawing her closer to him, still keeping his eyes closed against the harsh light coming from the curtains. He wondered again why they were open, but surmised that Erika did that with her wand.

Kissing her back, he nodded, "Yeah. I'm gonna miss the place. Got me though my bachelor days, this house did. I can't imagine letting it go, but I suppose we have to," he said the last part with a yawn, muffling the words slightly.

"I don't suppose we can just lie here all day?" he asked her, half joking. She was never one to lie about in bed when there was things to be done. Tai, on the other hand, could understand and appreciate the pure beauty of sleeping in and appreciated it often... well.. whenever he could sneak a lie in.

"Yes, but you're not a bachelor anymore. You're a husband and a father, and there's two more on the way. I know you love it, but we just don't have enough room anymore."

Staying in bed all day sounded quite nice, for once, but Erika knew that it wasn't possible. "Maybe just for a bit," she said. "We still have kids to feed, packing to do, cleaning to do, moving to do..." she trailed off as she thought of just how much work they really needed to get done that day.

"What were you dreaming about, anyway?" He'd looked very peaceful and it was almost a shame that she'd woken him up.

She could feel her stomach grumbling. Grinning to herself, she thought of a clever way to get her husband out of bed. "Honey, the babies are hungry," she kissed his cheek sweetly. "And breakfast in bed sounds quite nice..."

"Urgh. Don't remind me. I can barely get my head around the husband, father aspect, without the impending children to worry about. How did I go from just me to having five other people to be concerned about?" He cracked an eye to see Erika's expression sour. "Not that I don't love the entire idea of that," he added as a save, smiling sweetly across at her. "More the merrier."

Tai yawned again, placing his lips against her hairline. "Mmm. I like the sound of a bit. Yes. A bit sounds good. How about we stretch a bit to... a few hours.. like say, Oh, I don't know... six? Sound good?"

Groaning, he listened to Erika list off jobs that needed to be done, and the idea of six glorious hours in bed vanished. Turning his attention back to her, he smiled, catching the last part of her sentence. "My dream? Hmm.." he thought about it, but, like dreams often are, the memories were sketchy and fading fast.

"Umm.. There was one of those Muggle things involved. You know, the things that have the moving pictures on them.. square.. kinda. TB or something." Tai's face squished up in concentration.

"I can't really remember much else. It was weird but amusing."

Tai yawned his third yawn in the space of five minutes and smiled. "Yeah. That does sound good. Too bad Ben isn't old enough to do my bidding and make it for us," he joked, feeling awake enough to actually manage a step out of bed... or, to manage pulling back the covers ever so slightly. Who was he kidding, an actual step would take some serious persuasion.

"I suppose I can go and make it..." he said, untangling his arms from his wife, and pushing back the covers, shivering slightly as the cool air hit his bare chest. He was half inclined to go back under the covers, but reminded himself that breakfast wouldn't take that long, and he'd be back under the covers with his other love... food.... Erika was a close third.

Standing up, Tai grabbed his dressing robe from the stand and wrapped it around himself. Normally he wouldn't have bothered, but with Gwen in the house, he wouldn't want to scar her. It was bad enough seeing a parent in their underclothes, but Tai was also her Headmaster.. and that was a frightening thought, thinking back to his old Headmaster when he was at Hogwarts.

Tai shuddered and walked down stairs, getting a start on breakfast. He grumbled and complained under his breath, but managed to make an edible breakfast for him and Erika.

Walking back upstairs, he placed the tray on Erika's bedside table.

"Voila," he said cheerfully. "Breakfast, a-la Cooper." He placed his hand to his mouth in a mock whisper. "I wouldn't disturb the chef though.. He's pretty grumpy in the mornings."

He jumped back in bed and moved closer to his wife, reaching across her to grab a rasher of bacon. "Iths good," he mumbled.

Erika looked at Tai and narrowed her eyes as he spoke. Sometimes he really worried her. He was always quick to correct himself, but on occasion he said things that made her wonder if he would always be there for her and the kids. She didn't want to believe that he would ever leave them, but there was always a little tiny voice nagging her in the back corner of her mind telling her that he could do better.

She nodded and smirked a little as he got the appliance name wrong, but she didn't correct him. It was easier just to let him think he was right.

The time that he was gone making breakfast was long enough for her to cuddle back into the bed with the covers tucked around her and remind herself that Tai loved her and he wasn't going to leave her.

She closed her eyes once more, feeling unnaturally sluggish and tired. She heard Tai come back in and opened one eye slightly before shutting it again. She didn't feel quite so hungry anymore, though she didn't know if it was because she was simply tired or if she was coming down with something.

Hoping it wasn't the latter, she forced herself to reach for something on the tray and eat it, not really caring what she grabbed. She closed her eyes once more and placed her head back on the pillow, turning to face away from her husband. For once, staying in bed all day really did sound like a nice option.

Tai placed his arms behind his head as he stretched out on the bed. He looked down as he felt Erika move to turn away from him. Tai raised an eyebrow slightly, as she normally snuggled in close to him. He moved his hands from his head, placing a hand lightly on her side.

Leaning down, he placed a kiss on her cheek, trailing down to her jaw and down to her neck. "Not so hungry anymore?" he asked in between kisses. "Funny how that happens."

He sat up slightly and tried to get her to face him. "Seriously though. Are you alright?" he asked, rubbing his hand on her back.

Reluctantly, Erika turned over to face Tai and looked up at him. She honestly didn't know if she was alright or not. She gave a small shrug and as she continued to look up into his eyes, she felt herself getting a little teary. She didn't know what had put her in such a melancholy mood, but she would have been perfectly content to just stay in bed for the entire day, if not several days.

Pregnancy was definitely taking its toll on her. Her moods were up and down, her cravings were all over the place (although pickles seemed to be a constant), and her whole body was tired all the time. Even her mind was exhausted.

Inside, she worried about everything. If Gwen and Ben would feel put out by them having biological children, if the twins would be born safely, if they would eventually come to feel unloved that Erika and Tai had adopted two other children while she had been pregnant with them, if Tai would continue to be there for her even with his new duties as Headmaster.

She scooted a little closer to him, although his physical presence wasn't making her feel as safe as it normally did. She pulled the covers up and buried her face in them as a few stray tears leaked out of the corner of her eyes. She knew that her behavior was illogical, but she just couldn't help it as the stream of tears grew steadier. She didn't know what was making her feel this way.

"I... I just..." she tried to speak, but she could barely get the words out between sobs, nor could her mind even finish the sentence.

Tai watched on as Erika became more and more distraught by his question. He had to wonder how she could go from quite happily demanding a breakfast to sobbing almost uncontrollably. He surmised that the pregnancy was playing havoc with her hormones, but he had a feeling that all of Erika's concerns, some of them, for the most part, would have been dismissed as being too small to worry about, were now causing her great distress.

"Hey," he said calmly. "What brought this on?"

He wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could without over smothering her, and ran his hand through her hair, wanting her to move her face from beneath the covers. "Shhh... It's alright."

She heard Tai trying to soothe her and could feel his hand running gently through her hair. Her mind was spinning. There were so many things that she could tell him, but she honestly didn't know what had made her feel like that. She pulled back the covers just enough that her eyes were exposed she could look up at her husband. "I'm scared," she mumbled in a small voice through the blanket.

It was a truthful statement, although it did not come anywhere close to covering the sheer range of the emotions she was feeling, but it would have to do, since she couldn't possibly explain to him everything that was going through her mind at that moment.

Tai nodded and leaned his head against hers. He didn't really know what to say, for saying she had no reason to be scared just to calm her wasn't something that Tai could do. He was scared, if he truly admitted it, and he wasn't about to go through childbirth.

He opted to hold her instead, to let her know that was would always be there and even if he couldn't help her to be less scared with words, perhaps his presence would.

Erika tucked herself as close to Tai as she could, needing to feel that he was there for her and that he wasn't going anywhere. She wiped away the rest of her tears and then settled her head near the crook of his neck. She was glad that Gwen and Ben were still sleep; they didn't need to see their mother in such a state.

She closed her eyes and felt her breathing slowly start to even off as she began to drift closer back to sleep. Surely another hour or so wouldn't hurt, especially since there was no way that she would be able to do any sort of work in her current state.

Gwen tossed and turned in her sleep wimpering here and there. She was having the nightmare she had always had. Her Birth Mother being crucio-ed and the death of her Birth Father. Their murder. She woke up with a small scream and shot up. She was facing the big mirror, for a moment she saw her birthmother in it. Because she looked just like her. But then she saw herself. Eleven years old, tears clinging to her thick lashes, brown eyes wide and dark curls like Medusa. She wiped her tears with her sleeve and noticed that her hands were shaking. Slowly she traced the scar on her wrist, a gift from her birth mothers killer. Then she felt a weight on her lap. Her slightly tubby kitten Rox. "Hi girl." She whispered hugging the purring feline.

Erika heard a noise from down the hall and felt everything that she had been feeling leave her body. Her child needed her and nothing was more important right then than being there for her. She got out of bed and went down to Gwen's room faster than most women who were eight months pregnant could move.

Sitting down on the bed beside her, Erika took the girl in her arms and held her close. "It's okay, everything is alright," she said in a soft whisper, smoothing the girl's hair down. "It's okay, I'm here."

Gwen hugged her Mom and the cat went to the footend of her bed. "I had that dream again." She whispered burying her face in her Moms neck calming as she soothed her. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. She could still see her Birth Mother in front of her being tortured in her mind when she looked in the mirror. She glanced at it and winced. "Mommy, can we cover up the mirror please?" She asked her small voice trembling.

"Of course sweetie," Erika said as she continued to smooth her daughter's hair. "We can cover it, we can put it in a different room, we can take it outside and smash it... whatever you want."

She hated that Gwen had to see her biological mother every time she looked into a mirror. No child should ever have to put up with what Gwen had experienced, nor should they have to be reminded of the life they led whenever they looked at their reflection.

Kissing her daughter's forehead, Erika continued to hold her close, as if trying to take the hurt away using just her hug. "Everything is okay now. I'm here, and she can't get you."

Gwen nodded burying her face in her Moms shoulder. "Just take it away please." She murmered.
Then her Mom said 'She' and Gwen remembered the Death Eater that had killed her Parents and had been about to kill her.
Bellatrix LeStrange.
She had heard other DE´s call her that. She shivered at the thought of her, and her old life on the run and hugged her Mom back.
"Where is she Mom? Where is Bellatrix LeStrange?" She asked quietly.
She hadn´t told anyone the name of her attacker before and hated saying her name. She had only said that her parents had been tortured and killed by a female DE. She could still see her crazed black eyes sometimes, or hear her maniaical laugh resounding in her head.

Erika's heart skipped a beat at the mention of the evil woman's name. She'd hoped to never hear that name again unless it was immediately followed by the words "is dead", "has kicked the bucket", or some other derivation of those.

"She's in Azkaban, honey, the wizard prison. You're safe, she can't get you. Even if she managed to get out of her cell, the dementors would get her long before she could get back here," Erika continued to smooth Gwen's hair. She hated seeing her so upset.

Gwen snuggled up to her Mom and nodded.
"Okay then." She said calming down. What her Mom said must be true. The logic of an 11year old.
Then Gwen smiled softly, "I love you Mommy." She whispered. She wondered briefly if it was already time to get up. Her BirthMoms cat Rox trudged up to them and snuggled.

"Hello Rox," Erika petted the cat's head affectionately, then kissed the top of Gwen's head again. "Alright, time to be getting up or we're going to turn into lazy bums like your father."

Erika got to her feet with one hand on her back, which was already aching. Such was the curse of being pregnant with twins. "Get dressed and then come on downstairs and I'll make you some breakfast."

She left the room and went to get Ben. When she had him firmly in her arms, she went back to her bedroom to get Tai, since her leaving the room meant that he had probably fallen asleep once again. He certainly lived up to his nickname.

Gwen giggled at her fathers nickname and nodded kissing her Mom on the cheek. Then she heaved Roxy off and looking around in her closet. Finally deciding on jeans and a T-Shirt with 'The HEX-Girls' written on it she picked up Rox as good as she could and made her waydownstairs where she played with her until her parents came.