The NEW Silva Household!

Max was grinning. "He's quite the hand full, you know... he chewed up my favorite pair of slippers!"

"Oh Nick!" Rachel was infatuated by that adorable blonde furball. "He looks just like you!" she stroked him behind the ears. "Can we get a puppy?!"

"We'll discuss it later," Nicolas said, nuzzling his cheek against the top of Paul's head.

"He's quite the rambunctious fellow, though... always requiring so much attention!"

"And he sure eats a lot! You should see him eat all that puppy chow! But, he's a great dog..."

"Oh come on Nick, please!" begged Rachel. "It'll just be like taking care of a baby.."

Max eye's grew large. "If taking care of a baby is like a puppy, then I don't want one!"

"But we already have animals, and babies..."

"It's too late for that!" Libby snarled at Max, sharply elbowing him.

"But... how can a perfect family be completed without a dog curled up at the parents' feet in front of the fire while the children play?" pleaded Rachel

Max rubbed his side, but he chuckled. "I was just teasing you! I'm quite theatrical too, you know."

"I'll think about it, okay?" Nicolas reasoned, smiling sweetly at her.

"Oh, hush up. Don't play with me like that! I'm barely a month pregnant, but I'm still excited..."

Rachel pecked Nick on the cheek. "I can pick it out if you want. I have good judgment!"

Max raised his eyebrows. "Excited? What an understatement! Every night for HOURS you talk about the baby and read excerpts from your book 'What To Expect When Expecting'... it's really quite uncomfortable, you know."

"I do not! I don't even have a book like that," Libby insisted stubbornly. "And, if I hypothetically did talk about it all the time, it's not like your face doesn't light up like a five-year-old on Christmas Day."

"Stop lying! You have that very book on the coffee table!" argued Max. "And why would my face light up at... women stuff!"

"Because you're excited that there might be a miniature version of you to play Quidditch with!" Libby pinched Max's cheek, grinning smugly. "It's so adorable, you know!"

"I never like Quidditch much." admitted Max. "Growing up, I liked to do theater."

"Oh, yeah! I saw you at the Gryffindor Quidditch Team tryout back in, what, third? Fourth year? But, hmm, I never knew you liked theater."

"Well, I didn't like it when I was YOUNGER anyway. I was traumatized when I was six-I was playing Quidditch, and I got hit in the head by a Bulger, and I was out cold for a few minutes. I mostly tried out to face my fears... but yeah, I do. It's a lot of fun!"

By this time the Sawyer's left. Or they're just cuddling with puppy dog.

Max was stretched out on the couch, completely beat. His mouth was open, and he was drooling just ever so slightly. Funny, because his wife was the pregnant one who should have been resting.

Libby sat on the couch, staring off into space. Born May 4th, 2002, Jared Peter Silva was already resembling his father quite a bit. He had wide, innocent eyes and a head full of messy brown hair. Now he was just about two, and running about the house. Full of energy, he expected that everyone else in the world was, too. Unfortunately for him, Libby had limits and couldn't keep up with him, especially since he had played with Paul, who had just come in from outside and was tracking mud all over the house.

Libby, exhausted from trying to calm down Jared, was trying to lay down on the couch. Her stomach was swollen, as she was pregnant again, and that just made her even more fatigued. She hoped that Max would get home from work soon and clean up the muddy mess that Jared and Paul were making--because she sure wasn't anytime soon.

About ten minutes Max came trudging into the living room, with him holding his briefcase limply by his side. His eyes were dropping slightly, and he even had to stifle a long. It was hard to be a working dad with one young child and another one coming shortly.

The first thing that caught his attention was not the exhausted figure that was his wife but the mud on the floor. He sighed. "I'll clean it up." and a few minutes later, he loosened his tie and plopped down on the couch beside Libby, completely tuckered out just like her.

Twenty minutes later, Max got up and stretched. He then trudged over the kitchen, and began slapping dinner together.

"Welcome home," Libby said, as if she just realized Max was there. "How was work?"

"Oh fine fine." There was the sound of water boiling in the background. "I almost got killed and fired today, but other then that, it was pretty uneventful."

"What happened this time?" Libby wondered aloud. She wasn't too shocked--Max had said this so many times before.

"Well," he threw some spaghetti noddles into the pot of boiling water and began to open a can of red sauce. "There was this really pretty sword in cased in all this rock, and when I managed to pull it out, all these boulders came rolling after me. I escaped just in time, but I almost destroyed a ton of valuable treasure. So then my boss yelled at me for about forty minutes threatening to fire me, and then I went home and here I am!" As everything was cooking, he pulled out a snapshot from his pocket. "I got a picture of the sword, I think you'll like it."

The blade of the sword was a pure silver color with dark blue swirly designs etched into it. It sparkled and shone in the light from the background. The hilt was just as beautiful, with real sapphires encrusted into it.

"It's Goblin made."

"Good Lord, Max, bring some of this home more often!" Libby sat up, staring at the picture wit wide eyes. "It's gorgeous!"

"I tried to bring this one home." he said, with a little frown growing on his face. "They're really picky about what they let me bring home-they don't let me bring home anything Goblin made, and that's the good stuff. Maybe another time, when I've worked there longer and stopped accidentally almost killing everyone."