Build a toddler-proof device ...
It was chill, damp, but not raining and Katie took advantage of the reprieve from the weather by strapping the boys into their stroller and taking them out into Diagon.
They were halfway between Wheezes and her Papa's pub when she noticed that Devon had somehow figured out how undo the fastenings and was already slipping out of his seat.
"Devon! Devon, no!" she scolded, hazel-blue eyes wide as she scurried around the side to grab him.
A shoulder connected hard with her own and she was thrown to the side. Scowling after the man in suit-robes who continued by as if he'd done nothing, Katie turned back to see Devon standing on two feet shakily, a little fist still holding tightly to the stroller. Corey was clapping and giggling and Katie was just a little bit panicked.
It wasn't until a large hand scooped up her wayward boy that she thought she might faint of worried shock. Her hand was already going for her wand, when a voice barely penetrated her haze and she held.
"Ms. Weasley? It's alright then, Ms. Weasley," Joscelin assured the shaken wide eyed woman as he pulled the little ginger devil into his lap. "I mean your little one no harm," he said, the hand not holding the squirming boy in place going palm up to show he was unarmed and not planning anything dire.
Eyes flicking from Devon gurgling happily on the man's lap to the open, honest gaze on hers, over to Corey and then back to that hazel-green gaze again, Katie pulled her hand away from her wand. Her heart still pounded and she felt as if it might come out of her chest, but several moments after the panic began to recede, recognition filtered to her. "Joscelin?"
Joscelin grinned, glad she seemed to have remembered him though it'd been an age since he'd seen the little woman. Pregnant on her wedding day if he remembered correctly. "That's right. Saw you were having a bit of trouble and thought I'd save you from this munchkin's antics."
Katie made a face at Devon then. He was going to be the death of her, she knew it. "Thank you so much," she said then, gaze finding Joscelin's again as she came around the stroller. "They're more like their Papa than me, I think. Clever and always looking for a bit more trouble than their Mum can handle."
"Oh, I'd say that's what little boys are made to be doing," Joscelin countered good naturedly before glancing down at the toddler he was bouncing lightly on his knee. Glancing back up at Katie, he noted she was still a little frayed at the edges and offered, "why don't I help you get where you're going?"
She'd been on her way to The Broom Shed, but thought it better at this point if she headed back to Fred, and Katie nodded. "If it's not too much to ask, I'd really like the company," she replied, tiny smile curling her lips. "Let met take my troublemaker off your hands though."
"I think I can manage him if you don't mind?" Joscelin asked, enjoying the little boy's energy and gurgling giggles. It was a good thing, he thought, especially as he'd be doing this full-time not too long from now.
Katie nodded, pink tinting her cheeks. "Sure. If he doesn't bother you. He's a little squirmy if you hadn't already noticed."
"Nothing a dragon handler can't manage for a few minutes, I think," Joscelin said, grinning up at Katie before pulling his wand and murmuring a spell that strapped the ginger boy to his lap.
A mother's critical gaze watched them a moment longer before Katie went behind the stroller and maneuvered it so it was next to Joscelin's wheeled chair as the headed towards Fred's shop. In the middle of her panic, it hadn't registered that Joscelin was chair-bound, but as he rolled along next to her, shorter than her seated, she had to wonder what had happened.
"Joscelin?"
"Yes, poppet?"
"I like your streamers."
Joscelin grinned at her, eyes twinkling. "Christmas gift from my sister."
"She has very good taste. The pink suits you." A hint of a twinkle showed in Katie's eyes in return.
It wasn't long before they came to the shop and after assessing that she and Joscelin would need a bit of assistance, she pushed open the door of Wheezes and called, "Fred?"
The sound of his wife's voice was always welcome, but Katie had been gone with the boys for under ten minutes, and in the daytime foot traffic, it was five to get to Aiden's pub. Mildly alarmed, Fred slid down the ladder he'd been atop, springing for the door.
"Kit?" His eyes flicked over Katie, then to the pram, where something was definitely missing. "Where's...?" Taking in the rest of the picture, he finished, flatly, "...Devon. Soon to meet his first leash, obviously. Wotcher, Jones, thanks for running herd on my escapee." Fred nodded his greeting to Joscelin, brain ticking in a moment later to realize the man was seated, in something with wheels.
One eyebrow tweaked upward, he nudged the pram still containing his younger son aside with one foot, waggling his wand at the doorstep to give their friend a way into the shop. He thought better of leaving the stroller inside as toy and reached out to unstrap Corey, swinging the ginger imp onto his shoulder, then waved everyone in, commenting aside to Joscelin as he passed, "Something decide you were especially tasty, then?"
"You thought a dragon could get the better of me?" Joscelin asked, brows rising over twinkling eyes. "Hasn't happened in ten years. This is more the doing of those with significantly less majesty." He unstrapped Devon from his lap and held him out to Katie, chuckling softly at the admonishing look she gave the ginger lad before turning his attention back to Fred. "All Hallow's Eve. I didn't fare so well."
A scowl creeping to underlie his expression, Fred nodded, letting Corey dive to swing from his arms as he muttered, "Bastards got Katie, as well, though she's all right now. What's... You've been to see Gin, yeah?" He thought better of asking directly, having learned some tact over the years, not that he thought Joscelin would be especially offended.
Finding his wand again, he charmed a barrier in front of all the shelves and displays, as the shop was empty of patrons at present, and turned his son loose, nodding to Katie that it was all right to unhand Devon as well.
"From what I hear, your sister saved my life," Joscelin nodded, eyes tracking the twins as they scooted about and kept trying to grab things off the shelves despite the consistent lack of success. "Got hit with a nasty curse on my hip and it mangled everything all to hell," he continued, hazel-green eyes going up to Fred's. It was odd being shorter than other men, but it was something that could only bother a person if one let it. "Apparently had a bad bit of magic in it that used any magical healing methods against it as a food source. Kept me in a nice little coma for 'bout three weeks."
It was actually the first time he'd had to explain his injury to anyone as most everyone he spent time with had known more about it than he did. It was nice to be able to get out though, see faces he'd not seen in ages due to his work schedule.
"That's Gin," Fred observed, though his chin was set for a moment as Joscelin finished his explanation. All Hallow's that year had been a terrible night for so many people; so much so that he kept finding ways it was impacting his family, his friends. He shook his head, and threw out a different subject, though from the pink bicycle tassles on the back of Joscelin's chair it was obvious the man was keeping in good spirits about his prospects. "Speaking of sisters, how's yours? Stir crazy with the season on hold as long as it was?"
"You could say that. Her house was more decked out than Hogwarts on Christmas and she's gone and gotten herself a little one." His lips twitched into a smile as he recalled his lunch with her the week prior.
Katie had been keeping half an ear on the conversation, but at the mention of her old Captain and the news that quickly followed, she turned to Joscelin with wide eyes. "She got herself a what?!"
With little Ms. Weasley tending her children as she'd been the last several times he'd seen her, it was easy to forget that Katie had once been a Harpy, a rising little starlet if he'd heard correctly. She'd put it all behind her for motherhood, but the look on her face just now had Joscelin laughing. "She adopted, poppet. Picked up a wee thing in Hogsmeade that night and ended up keeping her. About this tall," he said, motioning with his hand, "and canny as all get out. She'll be a Gryffindor someday. I'd bet money on it."
Katie was still blinking at Joscelin, at the news of Gwen having a child. Of choosing to have a child. It was hard to reconcile the tough woman she'd come to respect with Motherhood.
Fred chuckled, both at the news and Katie's reaction to it, though he could relate to her shock; Gwen Jones did not seem the sort of woman to just 'end up' with a child. An older child, and one to slated to be Gryffindor at that, was pushing the envelope of belief. "Well, good for her, then," he managed somewhat belatedly, a smirk twisting his mouth. "I'd say to tell her to bring the little one by, but I think she'd throw something at you."
The image was as amusing as the rest of the update about Gwen, though possibly not sporting, given Joscelin's slightly lessened dodging potential. "My brother mentioned her little blonde shadow was in good spirits a while back... she still about, too, or off at school?" He'd not heard anything from Percy in a while, after the news of Penny's death, and he wondered if it was time to be nosy yet.
"Regan? She's out of school and at home with Gwen," though Joscelin left out the bit about why she was home early and living with his sister. He knew where Tristan was and the details of what had happened, and though he knew it wasn't really something the other man could have helped, there was no love lost for him. He kept his counsel because Gwen and Regan would have wanted it. "Whether she's finished all her exams or no, I'm not sure. She was flooing back and forth to Beauxbatons there for awhile."
Glacing up at the clock, Joscelin's eyes widened a bit. "I'll have to come by and collect some things for Tess - Gwen's little one," he clarified, flashing a grin at Fred and Katie, "but I've got to run. Supposed to meet the Mrs. for her maternity checkup."
By the slight widening of both their gazes, he knew that the bit of news hadn't made it this far - that he was married or that he had a child on the way, though the latter was rather new to even him. Considering the quickness of his nuptials, however, it was a surprise to most everyone he'd not seen in awhile. "We'll have to catch up. You can bring the little monsters over for dinner sometime."
Grinning one more time, Joscelin easily maneuvered his chair back and out the door, tossing a wave at the couple before racing off to the nearest Apparation point. He didn't want to be late. Things like that tended to make Romy cry these days.
Katie watched him through the windowed door until he disappeared into the crowd before looking up at Fred, eyes still a bit wide. "I really have been out of the loop for a long time."
"You're not the only one, Kit," Fred murmured, brow still warped even though Joscelin had been lost in the flow of people. "I guess having little ones does that for you. We'll have to owl and see if he was serious about dinner. I don't even know who the 'Mrs.' would be... he wasn't seeing anyone, last I had word of him."
He shrugged, then darted a step aside, one arm shooting out to snag his eldest, attempting to scale the stool behind the register. "I think off to your Dad's or back upstairs to the childproof area might be a plan, before the lunch hour is done," Fred observed, looking unimpressed in the face of Devon's broad grin.
Katie nodded, still starring out the window. Turning about to where her husband held their trouble maker, she narrowed her eyes at the ginger twin. "And I think it's time for those leashes you've been working on."
Sighing, Fred had to agree. "I'll bring the prototypes upstairs. I want to check the retraction distance for this one, so he doesn't go leaping out into the road again." As much as parenting was obviously about ingenuity, Weasley twins took strategy to an entirely different place. "I've been fiddling with a spell version, but I don't trust them not to find a cross-stream of magic to disrupt it..." he pondered aloud, gathering up a diaper bag and flipping the shop's sign to 'Closed' to help trek his offspring to the first-story flat.
"They're your sons," Katie said as she scooped Corey up and pressed a kiss to his nose. His giggle made her smile. "You should know what kind of mischief they'll get up to," she pointed out, hazel-blue eyes looking up to him as they trekked up the stairs. Her gaze didn't make it much further than his arse though, and by the time they made it to the flat, her cheeks were pink.
"Why are they only mine when they're making trouble, hmm?" Fred asked, mock-pointedly, as he bounced Devon into a playpen and set the carry-bag aside for Katie to unpack as she wished. Turning to find his answer, he noticed the tint to his wife's face and grinned, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Enjoying the view, Mrs. Weasley?" Not that they had time to do anything about it, unfortunately.
He loved his sons, but he'd also been fond of the days of shagging Katie senseless on his desk in the office. Of course, that was how the sons had come about.
She frowned at him though she couldn't keep the twinkle from her eye. "It's a little hard not to notice when everything's so shiny," she pointed out before sticking her tongue out at him and setting Corey in the pen with his brother.
"Hmm, must have gotten Spiffing Spray on the counter if my arse is shiny," Fred teased, wrapping his arms around Katie as she straightened. He would have to go back down the shop shortly, as people would want to be let in, but it was nice to have a moment with his family, and to know they were only a floor away.
"It's not so much that, as you're ginger shiny," she explained, bright eyes finding his as she set her hands on his chest, "and an arse." Pink touched her cheeks again, but a smile peeked on her lips. "Separate things entirely."
Laughing, Fred swatted Katie lightly on her own rump, demanding, "Is that so, then?" as he backed her toward the partition wall, dipping his head to nip her ear and make her squeak. "You haven't seemed to complain too much so far..."
"It's a little hard to..." Her breath caught when Fred nipped again, and she couldn't decide whether to pull or push, fingers finally deciding for her when they fisted in his shirt and tugged. "... a little hard when ..." Her gaze dropped to his mouth then. "... when ... when I'm distracted."
"Shouldn't go shooting off your mouth then, huh?" he taunted, bending to cover the lips in question with his own. Rewarded with one solid moment of private happiness, twin 'thunks' alerted him to danger, and Fred sighed. "Could we not have just named them 'No' and 'Damnit'? It would have saved us trouble in the long run."
He picked up the two bean-filled toys and lobbed them back, shaking his head as the boys giggled and toddled after them.
"But I think in the end it would encourage them. It would have only egged you and George on," Katie said, smile playing at her lips. When Fred turned around to reply, she fisted her hands in his shirt and brought him down to her, pressed her lips to his.
It wasn't very long, but when Katie pulled away, she was rosy. "The shop's waiting, shiny boy."
"Work, work work," Fred muttered, squeezing Katie's arse before releasing her. "Yell down the stairs if the heathens declare mutiny."
"If they haven't gagged me already," she promised.
Halfway down the trapdoor already, Fred paused to toss back, mostly joking, "Do you think that's considered child abuse? I mean, we could stick them quiet with peanut butter, but they'd get fat, eventually..."
SUMMARY: Katie meets Joscelin in Diagon Alley and he helps her get her wayward twins back to Fred at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
They were halfway between Wheezes and her Papa's pub when she noticed that Devon had somehow figured out how undo the fastenings and was already slipping out of his seat.
"Devon! Devon, no!" she scolded, hazel-blue eyes wide as she scurried around the side to grab him.
A shoulder connected hard with her own and she was thrown to the side. Scowling after the man in suit-robes who continued by as if he'd done nothing, Katie turned back to see Devon standing on two feet shakily, a little fist still holding tightly to the stroller. Corey was clapping and giggling and Katie was just a little bit panicked.
It wasn't until a large hand scooped up her wayward boy that she thought she might faint of worried shock. Her hand was already going for her wand, when a voice barely penetrated her haze and she held.
"Ms. Weasley? It's alright then, Ms. Weasley," Joscelin assured the shaken wide eyed woman as he pulled the little ginger devil into his lap. "I mean your little one no harm," he said, the hand not holding the squirming boy in place going palm up to show he was unarmed and not planning anything dire.
Eyes flicking from Devon gurgling happily on the man's lap to the open, honest gaze on hers, over to Corey and then back to that hazel-green gaze again, Katie pulled her hand away from her wand. Her heart still pounded and she felt as if it might come out of her chest, but several moments after the panic began to recede, recognition filtered to her. "Joscelin?"
Joscelin grinned, glad she seemed to have remembered him though it'd been an age since he'd seen the little woman. Pregnant on her wedding day if he remembered correctly. "That's right. Saw you were having a bit of trouble and thought I'd save you from this munchkin's antics."
Katie made a face at Devon then. He was going to be the death of her, she knew it. "Thank you so much," she said then, gaze finding Joscelin's again as she came around the stroller. "They're more like their Papa than me, I think. Clever and always looking for a bit more trouble than their Mum can handle."
"Oh, I'd say that's what little boys are made to be doing," Joscelin countered good naturedly before glancing down at the toddler he was bouncing lightly on his knee. Glancing back up at Katie, he noted she was still a little frayed at the edges and offered, "why don't I help you get where you're going?"
She'd been on her way to The Broom Shed, but thought it better at this point if she headed back to Fred, and Katie nodded. "If it's not too much to ask, I'd really like the company," she replied, tiny smile curling her lips. "Let met take my troublemaker off your hands though."
"I think I can manage him if you don't mind?" Joscelin asked, enjoying the little boy's energy and gurgling giggles. It was a good thing, he thought, especially as he'd be doing this full-time not too long from now.
Katie nodded, pink tinting her cheeks. "Sure. If he doesn't bother you. He's a little squirmy if you hadn't already noticed."
"Nothing a dragon handler can't manage for a few minutes, I think," Joscelin said, grinning up at Katie before pulling his wand and murmuring a spell that strapped the ginger boy to his lap.
A mother's critical gaze watched them a moment longer before Katie went behind the stroller and maneuvered it so it was next to Joscelin's wheeled chair as the headed towards Fred's shop. In the middle of her panic, it hadn't registered that Joscelin was chair-bound, but as he rolled along next to her, shorter than her seated, she had to wonder what had happened.
"Joscelin?"
"Yes, poppet?"
"I like your streamers."
Joscelin grinned at her, eyes twinkling. "Christmas gift from my sister."
"She has very good taste. The pink suits you." A hint of a twinkle showed in Katie's eyes in return.
It wasn't long before they came to the shop and after assessing that she and Joscelin would need a bit of assistance, she pushed open the door of Wheezes and called, "Fred?"
The sound of his wife's voice was always welcome, but Katie had been gone with the boys for under ten minutes, and in the daytime foot traffic, it was five to get to Aiden's pub. Mildly alarmed, Fred slid down the ladder he'd been atop, springing for the door.
"Kit?" His eyes flicked over Katie, then to the pram, where something was definitely missing. "Where's...?" Taking in the rest of the picture, he finished, flatly, "...Devon. Soon to meet his first leash, obviously. Wotcher, Jones, thanks for running herd on my escapee." Fred nodded his greeting to Joscelin, brain ticking in a moment later to realize the man was seated, in something with wheels.
One eyebrow tweaked upward, he nudged the pram still containing his younger son aside with one foot, waggling his wand at the doorstep to give their friend a way into the shop. He thought better of leaving the stroller inside as toy and reached out to unstrap Corey, swinging the ginger imp onto his shoulder, then waved everyone in, commenting aside to Joscelin as he passed, "Something decide you were especially tasty, then?"
"You thought a dragon could get the better of me?" Joscelin asked, brows rising over twinkling eyes. "Hasn't happened in ten years. This is more the doing of those with significantly less majesty." He unstrapped Devon from his lap and held him out to Katie, chuckling softly at the admonishing look she gave the ginger lad before turning his attention back to Fred. "All Hallow's Eve. I didn't fare so well."
A scowl creeping to underlie his expression, Fred nodded, letting Corey dive to swing from his arms as he muttered, "Bastards got Katie, as well, though she's all right now. What's... You've been to see Gin, yeah?" He thought better of asking directly, having learned some tact over the years, not that he thought Joscelin would be especially offended.
Finding his wand again, he charmed a barrier in front of all the shelves and displays, as the shop was empty of patrons at present, and turned his son loose, nodding to Katie that it was all right to unhand Devon as well.
"From what I hear, your sister saved my life," Joscelin nodded, eyes tracking the twins as they scooted about and kept trying to grab things off the shelves despite the consistent lack of success. "Got hit with a nasty curse on my hip and it mangled everything all to hell," he continued, hazel-green eyes going up to Fred's. It was odd being shorter than other men, but it was something that could only bother a person if one let it. "Apparently had a bad bit of magic in it that used any magical healing methods against it as a food source. Kept me in a nice little coma for 'bout three weeks."
It was actually the first time he'd had to explain his injury to anyone as most everyone he spent time with had known more about it than he did. It was nice to be able to get out though, see faces he'd not seen in ages due to his work schedule.
"That's Gin," Fred observed, though his chin was set for a moment as Joscelin finished his explanation. All Hallow's that year had been a terrible night for so many people; so much so that he kept finding ways it was impacting his family, his friends. He shook his head, and threw out a different subject, though from the pink bicycle tassles on the back of Joscelin's chair it was obvious the man was keeping in good spirits about his prospects. "Speaking of sisters, how's yours? Stir crazy with the season on hold as long as it was?"
"You could say that. Her house was more decked out than Hogwarts on Christmas and she's gone and gotten herself a little one." His lips twitched into a smile as he recalled his lunch with her the week prior.
Katie had been keeping half an ear on the conversation, but at the mention of her old Captain and the news that quickly followed, she turned to Joscelin with wide eyes. "She got herself a what?!"
With little Ms. Weasley tending her children as she'd been the last several times he'd seen her, it was easy to forget that Katie had once been a Harpy, a rising little starlet if he'd heard correctly. She'd put it all behind her for motherhood, but the look on her face just now had Joscelin laughing. "She adopted, poppet. Picked up a wee thing in Hogsmeade that night and ended up keeping her. About this tall," he said, motioning with his hand, "and canny as all get out. She'll be a Gryffindor someday. I'd bet money on it."
Katie was still blinking at Joscelin, at the news of Gwen having a child. Of choosing to have a child. It was hard to reconcile the tough woman she'd come to respect with Motherhood.
Fred chuckled, both at the news and Katie's reaction to it, though he could relate to her shock; Gwen Jones did not seem the sort of woman to just 'end up' with a child. An older child, and one to slated to be Gryffindor at that, was pushing the envelope of belief. "Well, good for her, then," he managed somewhat belatedly, a smirk twisting his mouth. "I'd say to tell her to bring the little one by, but I think she'd throw something at you."
The image was as amusing as the rest of the update about Gwen, though possibly not sporting, given Joscelin's slightly lessened dodging potential. "My brother mentioned her little blonde shadow was in good spirits a while back... she still about, too, or off at school?" He'd not heard anything from Percy in a while, after the news of Penny's death, and he wondered if it was time to be nosy yet.
"Regan? She's out of school and at home with Gwen," though Joscelin left out the bit about why she was home early and living with his sister. He knew where Tristan was and the details of what had happened, and though he knew it wasn't really something the other man could have helped, there was no love lost for him. He kept his counsel because Gwen and Regan would have wanted it. "Whether she's finished all her exams or no, I'm not sure. She was flooing back and forth to Beauxbatons there for awhile."
Glacing up at the clock, Joscelin's eyes widened a bit. "I'll have to come by and collect some things for Tess - Gwen's little one," he clarified, flashing a grin at Fred and Katie, "but I've got to run. Supposed to meet the Mrs. for her maternity checkup."
By the slight widening of both their gazes, he knew that the bit of news hadn't made it this far - that he was married or that he had a child on the way, though the latter was rather new to even him. Considering the quickness of his nuptials, however, it was a surprise to most everyone he'd not seen in awhile. "We'll have to catch up. You can bring the little monsters over for dinner sometime."
Grinning one more time, Joscelin easily maneuvered his chair back and out the door, tossing a wave at the couple before racing off to the nearest Apparation point. He didn't want to be late. Things like that tended to make Romy cry these days.
Katie watched him through the windowed door until he disappeared into the crowd before looking up at Fred, eyes still a bit wide. "I really have been out of the loop for a long time."
"You're not the only one, Kit," Fred murmured, brow still warped even though Joscelin had been lost in the flow of people. "I guess having little ones does that for you. We'll have to owl and see if he was serious about dinner. I don't even know who the 'Mrs.' would be... he wasn't seeing anyone, last I had word of him."
He shrugged, then darted a step aside, one arm shooting out to snag his eldest, attempting to scale the stool behind the register. "I think off to your Dad's or back upstairs to the childproof area might be a plan, before the lunch hour is done," Fred observed, looking unimpressed in the face of Devon's broad grin.
Katie nodded, still starring out the window. Turning about to where her husband held their trouble maker, she narrowed her eyes at the ginger twin. "And I think it's time for those leashes you've been working on."
Sighing, Fred had to agree. "I'll bring the prototypes upstairs. I want to check the retraction distance for this one, so he doesn't go leaping out into the road again." As much as parenting was obviously about ingenuity, Weasley twins took strategy to an entirely different place. "I've been fiddling with a spell version, but I don't trust them not to find a cross-stream of magic to disrupt it..." he pondered aloud, gathering up a diaper bag and flipping the shop's sign to 'Closed' to help trek his offspring to the first-story flat.
"They're your sons," Katie said as she scooped Corey up and pressed a kiss to his nose. His giggle made her smile. "You should know what kind of mischief they'll get up to," she pointed out, hazel-blue eyes looking up to him as they trekked up the stairs. Her gaze didn't make it much further than his arse though, and by the time they made it to the flat, her cheeks were pink.
"Why are they only mine when they're making trouble, hmm?" Fred asked, mock-pointedly, as he bounced Devon into a playpen and set the carry-bag aside for Katie to unpack as she wished. Turning to find his answer, he noticed the tint to his wife's face and grinned, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Enjoying the view, Mrs. Weasley?" Not that they had time to do anything about it, unfortunately.
He loved his sons, but he'd also been fond of the days of shagging Katie senseless on his desk in the office. Of course, that was how the sons had come about.
She frowned at him though she couldn't keep the twinkle from her eye. "It's a little hard not to notice when everything's so shiny," she pointed out before sticking her tongue out at him and setting Corey in the pen with his brother.
"Hmm, must have gotten Spiffing Spray on the counter if my arse is shiny," Fred teased, wrapping his arms around Katie as she straightened. He would have to go back down the shop shortly, as people would want to be let in, but it was nice to have a moment with his family, and to know they were only a floor away.
"It's not so much that, as you're ginger shiny," she explained, bright eyes finding his as she set her hands on his chest, "and an arse." Pink touched her cheeks again, but a smile peeked on her lips. "Separate things entirely."
Laughing, Fred swatted Katie lightly on her own rump, demanding, "Is that so, then?" as he backed her toward the partition wall, dipping his head to nip her ear and make her squeak. "You haven't seemed to complain too much so far..."
"It's a little hard to..." Her breath caught when Fred nipped again, and she couldn't decide whether to pull or push, fingers finally deciding for her when they fisted in his shirt and tugged. "... a little hard when ..." Her gaze dropped to his mouth then. "... when ... when I'm distracted."
"Shouldn't go shooting off your mouth then, huh?" he taunted, bending to cover the lips in question with his own. Rewarded with one solid moment of private happiness, twin 'thunks' alerted him to danger, and Fred sighed. "Could we not have just named them 'No' and 'Damnit'? It would have saved us trouble in the long run."
He picked up the two bean-filled toys and lobbed them back, shaking his head as the boys giggled and toddled after them.
"But I think in the end it would encourage them. It would have only egged you and George on," Katie said, smile playing at her lips. When Fred turned around to reply, she fisted her hands in his shirt and brought him down to her, pressed her lips to his.
It wasn't very long, but when Katie pulled away, she was rosy. "The shop's waiting, shiny boy."
"Work, work work," Fred muttered, squeezing Katie's arse before releasing her. "Yell down the stairs if the heathens declare mutiny."
"If they haven't gagged me already," she promised.
Halfway down the trapdoor already, Fred paused to toss back, mostly joking, "Do you think that's considered child abuse? I mean, we could stick them quiet with peanut butter, but they'd get fat, eventually..."
SUMMARY: Katie meets Joscelin in Diagon Alley and he helps her get her wayward twins back to Fred at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.