Jess' Home

((It's open for all to join, even people i don't know : D))
Jess watched the muggle realtor... funny word, they were normally so full of crap it was hard to tell where it ended and the truth began, no "real" stuff there... but anyway, he watched the muggle realtor pull out of the drive of his new, old childhood home in Australia.

See, he'd grown up in this house, spent a few years of his childhood here, before moving to Brtain, and going to Hogwarts. Now, after all this time, he was pleased to be returning, having purchased the home from the muggle real estate agency for a moderate sum of money, glad to finally be back.

The house itself was hardly extraordinary, it was an average family sized home, situated in the Blue Mountains of NSW, Australia, in a fairly lightly populated residential area. It had 3 bedrooms, was an older style house, not colonial, but not modern and chic either, with a renovated exterior. It sported a large back yard and had a fairly spacious interior, it looked as though a room had been removed at some stage in its life to make room for a bigger lounge and dining room area.

He turned around and walked into the house, a lot of activity accompanying his arrival, as many boxes began to unpack themselves, items of furniture shuffled around to make themselves fit perfectly, and the house generally re-organised itself to fit what Jess wanted.

Whistling softly to himself Jess grinned and took a seat on his couch, waving his wand and sending a flock of silver phoenixes out to his friends, inviting them to come visit him.

Khaat and Brian had received portkeys from Jess with his new house in Australia, and Brian had suggested that Khaat take the girls and "escape" for a bit to see Jess. He figured she would be safer there at the moment than in England. It was doubtful that Burke would think to look clear down in Australia for her.

Khaat had had to resize all her clothes after being held hostage for so long by Burke. She had thinned, not trusting in the foods he had left for her. Robert and Brian had pronounced her healthy, except for several healing bruises and being too thin again. But she had done her best to cover it up by wearing wide le jeans, a red knit pullover, over her white cotton shirt. She had put Dakota in a baby backpack, slung her tan leather shoulder bag which she had turned into a baby bag, and had carried Abbey in her arms.

The girls were at crawling ages, and Khaat had shrunken just about every toy and baby item she could think of to preoccupy the very active babies. She always overpacked. At the last minute Archangel decided to perch himself on her shoulder, and they portkeyed to Jess's new place.

Khaat hoped he would be tolerant of a couple of carpet crawlers. She knocked on his door.

Jess had been sitting on his couch, catching up on the end of a good book, as he waited for the arrival of his friends when Khaat knocked. It was a fairly good book, all about fallen angels and the such, it was really quite a good tale.

He stood up and put the book on his coffee table, noting the page number in his and walking over to the door. He opened it with a grin, and wasn't surprised to see that Khaat was the first to arrive... with a few little unexpected guests... very little guests. "Hello m'dear," he cried out, walking forward to her and wrapping his arms around her. "Nice to see you!" He cried out, "Please, come inside, check out the new place," he told her stepping back to let her in. "You should've told me you were bringing the littlees, i'dve set up a kids room for them, you'll have to wait a few minutes now," he said with mock exasperation

"Its good to see you too," she hugged him. "And, not to worry. You know how I over pack all the time. " She opened the shoulder bag, found a miniature playpen and put it on the floor. She took her wand and restored it to it's normal size. She put Abbey down in the playpen, put her bag on the floor, took off the baby backpack, and took Dakota and put her in the playpen. She accio'd an array of toys and put them in the playpen with the girls. She wasn't sure she wanted to tell Jess that Brian had, basically, taken full advantage of the silver phoenix and sed it as a clever way to hide his family from any more harm, but she also knew Jess was far from stupid. Her hope was that he would call her home by the end of the day.

"There. That should keep them happy," she told Jess. "This is a great place. Looks like you have a lot more room than your other place. Sorry I didn't warn you about the girls, but Brian insisted I bring them. There' been a wee bit of trouble, and he wanted them out of England for awhile. So he sent them with me. But enough about that. Tell me about you. It feels like I haven't seen you in forever. How have you been?"

She felt like it was far more warm than her red knit pullover sweater merited, so she took it off, reduced it in size and dropped it in her bag. "Hm...Maybe Brian and I should winter here instead. I've been trying to talk him into going to Tuscany for the winter, but he loves the snow. I think he needs his head examined, actually. I hate snow. Oh, that reminds me. You haven't seen my new places with Brian. Not the one in England or the one we bought this summer in Tuscany. You'll have to come. They're a lot of fun, really. I've rented my cottage in Hogsmeade to an old friend of Daddy's who was an order member back when they were in Hogwarts, but he hasn't been around much. I don't know that his name would mean much to you, but he's a good guy."

Jess smiled and shook his head as she enlarged everything. "Trust you Khaat," he said with a chuckle. "Of course it's fine to have the girls here, they're always welcome here, yuo guys're like family to me, you know that." He told her as the girls crawled into the playpen. "You may want to keep that on you by the way," he added as she dropped the shrunken red sweater into her purse, "It's normally quite cold here and i'm expecting a cold snap soon, it can get rather bad here sometimes," he told her, listening to her comments about brian. "Well he'd suit this place then, winter here is freezing, literally," he told her with a stifled chuckle, "It's one of the advanta-disadvantages," he said, emphasising the dis, "of living in the mountains," he told her.

"What's been happening back in England by the way?" he asked, cocking his head to one side, "I heard of some troubles, but i've been on holidays, you'll have to forgive me, i just needed a break from it all," he told her with a smile, "Surely you know all about what that's like?" he asked her, knowing the answer already.

"And new houses, well, i'll put it on the calendar, i'll certainly pop in some time to visit, sounds nice, i've not been to tuscany before, you know," he told Khaat with a smile, "It sounds like a nice place though, i'm glad you're enjoying yourself," he told her with a grin.

"So, was there anything in particular you wanted to do while you're up here, or're you just happy relaxing a bit, having a holiday, 'cause i don't mind either way," he asked her with a grin

"You might as well know," Khaat said. "Brian is hiding the girls and me here for a short bit. A couple of men who are enemies of both my father and Brian are finding the babies and me very convenient pawns to try to use to teach Brian and Daddy a lesson. Its a very long story, but these guys are very persistent and very dangerous. They don't care if we're dead or alive, really, just so that they get their revenge. They've been stalking the babies and me all summer long. That's why Brian and I were in Tuscany all summer. Daddy thinks they're getting a bit closer, so Brian decided that perhaps this might be a good place to slip us off to for the day. Its a long story, but the bottom line is that Daddy and Brian are trying to buy time until they can find these guys and take care of it. Brian doesn't expect them to be able to follow us here but, Jess, if they do, if we have to make a choice, my babies come first. Do whatever you have to do to hide them.

"But while we're here, we're all yours, and I'm looking forward to any sort of fun. I dont' care whether we go out or whether we just hang. I'm open to anything. I've spent just a little bit of time in the Alps a few years back, but other than that, I haven't spent much time in the mountains at all, and from what little I saw when I got here, it is gorgeous here. You'll have to show me around. What does one do for fun in the mountains in what you all consider to be chilly weather?"

She dug in her jeans pocket and tossed Jess two coins. One was a British muggle shilling and the other was an old Italian lira. "Portkeys," she told him. "I'd use stray socks for portkeys, but Brian likes using ordinary coins. The shilling gets you to our house up near Daddy's farm. The Italian one gets you to our place on the beach in Tuscany. You're welcome any time. And, oh, if it interests you, we have a pair of very speedy muggle cars at the Tuscany place, just for fun, if you can drive a muggle car."

Australia had too many Kangaroos and no one seemed to wear any clothes. It was hard to remember the fact that it was summer there and the bitter cold winter back home. It probably explained why Jess had decided to live there. Jen didn’t blame him but she liked the colder climates of Britain, it gave her an excuse to break out some of her favourite winter coats. Now she had to wear...summer clothing? She didn’t even want to know. Jeans and a t-shirt seemed appropriate enough. There were no dressed in the equation today.

House-warming gifts were difficult to shop for. There was a question that Jen was agonising over: funky wine bottle holder or just the wine? Instead she decided to go with both. It was a small price to pay. She liked the little wire man holding the bottle. It was an interesting way of doing things but she didn’t want to show Rob. He’d by them by the crate load and have them everywhere. It would be another opportunity to get pissed. Yes, the weekend booze fests would seep into the week with the wine that would be around every sodding corner. In the end it would probably all go to David and Chris who drank wine like they did water. Or Elijah, whose blood was probably now 80% wine.

Jen found herself on Jess’s doorstep, feeling oddly out of place. She had one of those fun shiny bags people used for one gift at Christmas, quickly stole it back and used it the next year. Jen bought hers new but she did have many of those, used and re-used Christmas gift bags – ones that would come in handy soon. She rang the doorbell and bit her lip, shifting her weight from one side of her body to the other. She cleared her throat and looked over her shoulder, half expecting a Kangaroo to hop down the road, only to be disappointed.

Matt had decided to take up Jess's invite and visit him in Australia. He was visiting his friends in Canada at the time so he was dressed in a woolen cap, gloves, and a simple jacket; a sweater was also underneath all this. However he had simply sent a portkey and hadn't specified to Matt where he was going. Of course hesitated to take the portkey. Jess enjoyed a prank now and then; but eventually he caved. He had brought the portkey with him and would leave for the house that now belonged to Jess when he had finished his coffee.

After he had finished the visit he stepped outside their house and into the frosty air. It was just evening in Canada but Matt was unsure of when the time would be where he was going. But he pulled the collar his coat closer to his neck and shivered. He quickly pulled the envelope the portkey was in and turned it upside down; allowing the small stone to fall into his hand. Immediately he felt the sensation of the Portkey teleportion. He grinned as he came to a stop outside a large house; and God was it hot. Matt noticed Jennifer at the door; he assumed it was Jess's place. He had no reason to actual hate the Dent's anymore; besides the general fact that they had emotionally scared Khaat. But he didn't hate them completely..he'd bare them. He walked up the steps and began to peel his jacket and gloves. "Damn Bastard Jess..." he muttered. "He didn't warn me I'd end up in boiling weather."

Jess nodded, this one sounded quite serious, mind you, he'd come to expect it with Khaat, the woman was like a danger magnet, if it wasn't one thing, it was the other, really, it was better to stop thinking "I wonder if Khaat's alright" and start thinking "I wonder what's happened to khaat"

"Well, you have my full support, you know me, I always have a few tricks up my sleeve, this place isn't as... suburban... as it may seem," he said, summoning a cuppa and taking a sip. "You and the babies are always welcome here... not brian, or your father for that matter, but you and the babies definitely," he said, mock seriousness taking hold for a second before a smile slipped through.

"As for fun, well, i come here to relax, but fun... Well, i must say, our cafes are brilliant, as is the town, really this place is for tourists and hippies, but i like it here. I'd suggest a bushwalk, but i doubt the babies would enjoy that," he said with a chuckle. "Really, i find that the best thing about this place is just sitting in front of the fireplace with a nice cup of hot chocolate and reading a good book... can you tell i'm not the best host when i'm here?" He asked, chuckling.

He then caught the two coins and nodded, putting them on his bookshelf. "I'll keep that in mind, I'll have to come visit sometime soon." He told her with another big smile as the doorbell rang.

"You know i love my speedy cars," he shouted as he opened the door, wondering how she could've forgotten him driving them back from the airport during the Holidays. "Hello Jen, Matt," he said with a grin, stepping back and gesturing for them to enter. "You're looking a little overdressed there Matt, it's chilly here, but it looks as though you packed for a blizzard," he said calmly with a chuckle. "Please, do come in both of you, it's great to see you," he told them. "Please, take a seat, or look around, i don't mind, my house is your house, so please feel free to make yourself at home," he instructed them, closing the door behind them as they entered.

((Excuse the mild godmode at the end))

Khaat was pleased to see Jen and Matt there. "Hello, Jen. Hi, Matt," she smiled. "Its good to see you. Um...if you get too warm, Matt, believe it or not, I have a couple of Brian's denim shirts in my bag. Don't ask why. You know me and packing. I seem to always have more than enough." She looked in the bag, found a couple of baby bottles with juice in them and checked to be sure they were at the right temperature. Then she gave one to Abbey and one to Dakota.

"They've begun talking. They can both say Mama and Dada now," Khaat said. "And they're working on some finger foods. They're crawling now, and believe me, the house is never quiet now. I don't think you've seen them lately, have you, Matt? Well, they don't see their Aunt Jen often enough either, really."

It wasn't anybody's fault that Khaat didn't get a chance to get the babies out more, really. It was just the way it was. Khaat was enjoying being at home whenever she wasn't working. She didn't really have a desire to go out a lot. She was happy. Life was good, and she was enjoying every minute of it. She resolved she would make sure the girls saw more of the people who loved them, though. That was too important to let slide.