A Birth day

Ruby smiled when he said he knew it wasnt her how she had acted "Im glad you guys are dealing with it." she said and looked to simone " Okay, I'll lay the table" she said going to the cupboard and taking out eh plates chosing to lay them on the table by hand then return for the glasses and cutlry placing eat one down as she did.

Hearing Simone talk of an antique Irish Housekeepers cabinet Ruby smiled " oh I've seen those, there realy durable and some are designed pretty, but mostly simple and versitile." she added placing down a knife on the table. " and you could display Kates pottery if you get one with windows on the top." she placed down the last peice of cutlery and looked at Edward and Simone " I'll fetch the boys and David if the food ready?" she offered.

"We've talked about displaying her pottery," Simone said. "The shop actually has one with glass doors in the top, and Edward prefers it to the one I was looking at. It already has a pull out in between the top and the bottom. The thing look like it was painted with a really ugly blue paint at one time, but Edward believes he could make a potion that would entirely remove that paint and then he could restore it. He keeps telling me that piece made of much better wood and is the far better treasure than the one I keep thinking about."

"I've told her if she really likes the other one, she should get it, and we can use it on the upstairs landing as a linen cabinet," Edward said.

"Yes, I think you could get the boys and David," Simone told her. "I think it's ready. Angus, if you put Caprice down for a snooze, you could come to the table, Dear." Angus did try three times to put Caprice down in her Moses basket, but she was having none of it. The minute he would lay her down, she would start to fuss and cry. If he picked her up, she would stop. He wasn't in the mood to try to settle her, so he decided to just hold her up on his shoulder with one hand and eat his supper with the other. It wasn't as if he hadn't had to do a great many things with one hand when Abbey was tiny.

Ruby nodded as they described the housekeeper's cabinet " oh that would look wonderful in here, and that's a wonderful idea." she said then looked at Angus and then back to Edward "alright" she said to Angus and moved to their side of the duplex.

Heading up the stairs she opened their bedroom door "Dinners ready, were eating at Edwards side tonight" she told them. Running to find David she smiled finding him " would you like to join us for dinner?" she asked motioning to the adjoining door between the two houses. Leading him to the other side she stepped aside to let him go first. Smelling the food she smiled waiting for theboys who she saw running down the stairs along with finn following behind them. Finn Tucked himself under the table out of the way. Seeing Angus with Caprice and how she would not settle in the bassenet she moved into the iving room and picked up the sling.

Ruby walked over to him and held it out to him " here use this" she said handing it to him before brushing Caprice gently on her cheek before moving to sit down.

"I knew I smelled something," David smiled. "I am definitely getting peckish the more I smell whatever's cooking. Thanks." He followed Ruby and the boys over to Edward's. Angus took the sling from Ruby when she offered it.

"Thanks," he said. He put it on and put Caprice in it but it absolutely did not stop her from being cranky. He sighed, not really in the mood to deal with her screaming in his ear.

"Here," Edward said, "let me." Angus handed Caprice to him, and Edward took sling and all. He put Caprice in the sling, and then used a version of a levitatation charm to levitate the sling into the air between his own chair and Simone's, and then added another charm to gently swing the sling back and forth to rock her. Simone watched him and when he had successfully made the sling rock back and forth in mid air, Simone smiled.

"Edward, that is pure genius," Simone said.

"No, it's being a great grandfather with about a million babies in the family," Edward laughed. "Let's give her a few minutes, and I bet she'll stop."

"Tuck in, Everyone," Simone told them. The took their seats at the table and soon filled their plates.

"So, David, tell us about yourself," Simone said.

"Well, there's not all that much to tell," he said. "Marcus and I were in the same house in Hogwarts back in the day, and we both applied at the Ministry to train as aurors, and, by sheer coincidence, we ended up both being selected to go into protections. When Marcus was selected to go on loan to Bulgaria to protect their Minister of Magic, he was asked to take a colleague with him, and he asked for me to be assigned with him. We were assigned to different family members. I was assigned to the Minister's wife, and he was assigned to the Minister."

"What about your family?" Sam asked.

"I have three children, and they're all in Hogwarts right now. I have two sons and a daughter. Neville is 14, Reuben is 13, and Ivy is 11. The boys are Ravenclaws, and Ivy is a Hufflepuff. My parents are both living but they are both retired and living in a little fishing village southern France. They own a little cafe there, and they work there when they want to. Its mostly an investment property for them, but my mother trained as a pastry chef, and she does sometimes like to pop into the kitchen and bake something for the cafe. I don't see them a lot, unfortunately. I do have a three bedroom apartment in a muggle section of London. Frankly, none of us get there very often at all. It is used, for the most part, as just a storage unit for our stuff," he said. "I'm afraid our lifestyle is a lot like Marcus's. The kids are in school except for the summers, and I'm usually on assignment someplace. Last summer, my kids spent a good part of their summer holiday with Marcus's kids in Hogsmeade," David said.

Ruby watched Edward with Caprice and smiled as he placed her in the sling and charmed it to swing gently to sooth her. Now sat she listened to David talk about his family and what houses they were in at Hogwarts proudly " you must be proud of them, " she said looking at Sam and Victor who were both in Hogwarts. " maybe Sam and Victor have met them, there in Hogwarts too"

Hearing his kids spent the summer with Marcus kids she smiled. " you should bring them here, theres lots for them to do." she sugested " and theres always some one to watch them." She started to eat and loved how the pie tasted that and how she didn't know just how hungery she was.

"I am proud of them," David said. "Neville wants to train to become a healer. He seems to be gifted in healing charms. Reuben--well, I don't know about him. He seems to be gifted in mischief..." That made Sam and Victor laugh. They knew all about Reuben. He was, in Sam's opinion, a little stinkpot. And of course they knew Ivy too.

"Ivy wants to go to Romania to some sort of a dragon camp this summer for children, but I have a few misgivings," David said. Sam tried not to laugh, but he couldn't help it. "I just have a bad feeling about it."

"Ivy is the sort that has absolutely no fear," Sam said. "And she wants every animal she sees to be her pet. Unless Charlie Weasley puts a leash on her, she'll be likely to dash up to every dragon she sees and try to cuddle it and pet it."

"I couldn't have said that better," David laughed. "That's it in a nutshell. I've had visions of Charlie sending me an owl to tell me that she got eaten by a Chinese Fireball. And I'm getting notices from the school on Reuben just about every week for some nonsense he's invented."

"Reuben makes better joke gizmos than Zonko's," Victor said. "If it's some prank you want to play, Reuben's your boy for it. That's what all those darned notices are about."

"He needs to meet Michael, then," Edward laughed.

"That would be all sorts of trouble for Robert. Michael and Reuben sound like they'd get along like peas in a pod," Angus said.

"Tremaine? God, I hadn't thought of him pairing up with Reuben. They'd be a mutually bad influence on each other, I think" David laughed. "Tremaine used to tell us this tall tale all the time that he had a boggart in a box in his basement. Such a kidder."

"Oh, no, no," Edward said. "That's no tall tale. That boggart is real. He does have a boggart in a box in his basement."

"No way," Phelps said, wide eyed.

"Absolute, 100%, way," Angus nodded.

"Oh my god. Only Tremaine could manage that," Phelps laughed, and that made them all laughed out loud.

"If there really is enough for the kids to do, I just might bring them here for the summer. Robert seemed to think they wouldn't be much trouble. I told him he didn't know my kids. he told me I hadn't seen the estate," David said. "Marcus sent me a paper bird and said I could go running with them in the mornings if we could work it out in my schedule."

"We can work it out. We're early risers," Angus said. "You just tell me when you want to go. I'll cover you."

"Are you sure?" David asked. Angus nodded. "Thanks. I appreciate that."

Ruby could not help but chuckle as Sam spoke about Ivy and Reuben in Hogwarts. She sat listening as they talked then she spoke " oh, yes we have the barn with the animals Ivy could visit and learn the right way to aproch some of them, and Michael could talk to Ruben about calming down his pranking." said she ate ." and yes there is an assault course with a trail the others run, I use to but had to stop when I found out we were having Caprice, but I'm going to run it again."

She finished her plate and moved to the kitchen where she washed her plate and set it to dry on the rack. Walking back she sat back down listening to them all talking around the table.

"What do you do for fun?" Sam asked him.

"Well, I have my pet ferret, Pete. He'll be arriving tomorrow. He got a sore on his paw, and Marcus told me about some woman in the woods near his dad that does animal healing, and he was kind enough to take Pete there for me. Apparently this woman is going to drop Pete off at some office at St. Mungo's tomorrow, and Marcus will bring him home from there."

"That's because she's probably dropping him off at Khaat's office," Angus said.

"Oh. I didn't think of that," David said. "That makes sense. So, I have Pete, and I collect Chinese puzzle boxes. At last count, I have about 500 of them from all sorts of areas of China and all sorts of time periods."

"Cool!" Victor said, keenly interested in the puzzle boxes. "You'll have to bring some."

"I could do that," David said. "And I like all kinds of outdoor sports--swimming, camping, fishing, running, reading, chess, cards, backgammon, all kinds of things."

"Sounds like you'll work out fine," Victor said.

"Anyone for dessert?" Simone asked, bringing over the orange cardamom cake and cutting it. Edward brought over a stack of dessert plates and a bowl of fresh whipped cream for on the cake slices. "There is hot coffee and tea if anyone wants that with their cake."

"I'll get the coffee," Victor said. "I know Sam and Angus and I will all want coffee. Anyone else want something hot to drink with dessert?"

Ruby listened and nodded at the office being Khaats when asked for desert she held up her hand " None for me Thank you, but I will take a hot chocolate please" she said smiling " yeah Angus and I love the outdoors, I use to camp out atleast once a month if I could but that asbefoe I met him." she said " but not done a lot of that since the boys and Caprice came" she said, " we do have a skylight in the roof in our bedroom so we can see the stars and milky way on a clear night." She glanced at Angus and then to the boys "Sam and Victor have said they wish to be fighters" she said with a smile.

Pausing while Simone brought the drinks she thanked her and blew over her cup " I think they have what it takes and with the right trainning would be formidable fighters, but they should finish school first." she added as she took the first sip of hot chocolate.

"This is hot chocolate is wonderful Simone" she said to her smiling as she sipped more

"It sounds like we aren't going to have any problems getting along," David said, enjoying his dessert and coffee. Angus was sipping on his coffee and when he glanced up at the sling, he saw a wet spot developing on the sling. He got up, plucked Caprice from the sling and excused himself quietly to go back home to make a quick bottle for her and then change her and clean her up. He wasn't gone more than two or three minutes and came back with her in a clean, teal colored onesie with a llama appliqued on it. There was one thing for sure--Caprice had no shortage of newborn onesies.

"Why don't you let me feed her so you can enjoy your dessert?" Simone asked Angus. "Besides, I'm overdue for a little grandma time, don't you think?"

"If you really want to," he said.

"Of course I want to. What I don't want is to give her back," she teased, taking Caprice and the bottle from him. Angus smiled. Simone was completely delighted to chatter to Caprice and feed her. Angus finished his dessert and coffee while Edward collected the dessert dishes and took them to the sink and put the rest of the cake away. Once he had that done, he and Angus took the boys outside to work on their spellcasting since the witch had kept them from being able to practice.

Robert and Kate came out, and Kate took over for Angus so that Robert could talk with Angus and just check in with him after having Bill remove the curse on his hand and having Jeffrey come to take care of Ruby. And all of that was just a night or so after having to rescue the boys from the witch and Fenrir's pack from the aurors. It had been incredibly stressful, and Robert had felt a need to just take a moment and make sure Angus and his household were doing alright.

And all of that had left Ruby and David with a little bit to get to know each other.

"So, I'm sure having a guard in your house is probably new for you," David told her. "It is not my job to stop you from doing things or interfering with those things, so long as you're not putting yourself or anyone else in danger. Some guards are more like shadows and have very little interaction with their clients. Others end up being more like companions and are active with them in conversation and activities. How that ends up working for you and your family is up to you. I'm flexible with everything except when a client tries to sabotage me at being able to do my job. If I am to do my job, I will need to know what your schedule is so that I can be up and dressed and ready to be with you, so why don't you tell me, at least for tomorrow what your schedule is going to be? I presume that while Jeffrey is here you might want to take advantage of that and spend some time with him before he returns to Switzerland?"