"Slightly TMI there son," joked Dan.
Harry was getting the hang of this family thing and revelling in it so joked right back, "Dad I'm so tired that you'll just have to wait until another day for more grandchildren."
Hermione decided to join in, "I just may have to trade you in for a younger, more athletic model Potter." Her witty quip was kind of spoiled by the rather large yawn she performed in the middle of it.
"What about Frank?" Alice croaked though her voice was slightly stronger this time.
"We'll take you both back with us," Neville declared.
"Can we do that?" asked Minerva, "We needed Harry to cause a distraction so we could sneak in here, I don't think they'll be too pleased if we make off with a couple of their patients."
Alice's eyes nearly popped out her head as she watched Harry remove a device from his pocket and start talking to someone inside it, "Hi Amelia, we're currently at St Mungo's where we managed to coax Alice Longbottom to come back and join us. We want to take the both of them with us to the Institute and I thought I'd better check with you before some bureaucratic arsehole tries to hit us with kidnapping charges… Amelia? She hung up!"
The words were no sooner out his mouth when Amelia came barrelling through the doors, abruptly stopping when, instead of the usual dead eyes that greeted all her previous visits she was confronted by her former auror smiling at her.
"Hello Amelia, you head of the DMLA yet?"
Even hard-nosed Amelia Bones had tears in her eyes, "It's so good to hear your voice again Alice and actually I'm minister of magic, thanks to this godson of yours." She turned to the couple, "Harry, Hermione please don't take this the wrong way but you both look like shit!"
"You should have seen them before they got some elvin pick-me-up," Poppy chimed in.
Harry chuckled, "that's what I love about you Amelia, you always call it as you see it. We want to take them both home with us, it'll be a few days before we're fit enough to make an attempt with Frank but I don't want them poked and prodded by healers who've ignored them for so many years."
Amelia spoke directly to Alice and asked jokingly, "Do you really want to leave with these reprobates?"
Alice took Neville's hand, "More than anything in the world I want to get to know my son and this beautiful girl who's joining our family."
Amelia had expected no other answer, "As far as I'm concerned that deals with any legal stuff. I'm assuming from the state of you two this is another situation where it wouldn't matter if our healers were to observe the procedure as they wouldn't have the power required to carry it out."
Hermione nodded, "Harry lost all sense of time and contact with his body, he had no idea how much power it was taking to do what he was trying. Casting your patronus while in someone else's mind was instinctively brilliant love but almost drained both of us. Without our bond even Harry wouldn't have had the power to pull it off and might not have made it back."
Harry lovingly kissed his wife then addressed the elves, "Dobby, Winky can you arrange to get everyone back to the institute?"
The elves once again put their own interpretation on their instructions, "Just as soon as we get you both home and into bed," answered Dobby while both elves took the Potters and popped to Italy.
Everything was quiet until Alice commented, "there must have been some amount of changes because I've never seen elves that dressed or acted like that."
"Those are two special elves," answered Amelia.
"They have to be," said Luna so softly that they almost had to strain to hear, "because the people they look after are just about the most special couple you're ever likely to meet."
There was not one person in the room that disagreed with the blond witch.
Hermione awoke to find herself wrapped around her husband and thought she could quite happily stay here forever. Since they were dressed in their usual bedtime attire of nothing at all she could tell from Harry's reaction that he thought it was an outstanding idea.
Unfortunately they both chickened out at the thought of telling Joan she wouldn't see her aunt Millicent tonight and Minerva might need some back-up while breaking into her old office in Hogwarts. Dad's joke about her being a cat burglar had been one of his better attempts at humour but unfortunately his audience at the time had consisted of wizards and witches who hadn't a clue what he was talking about, his grouse about wizarding wit though had everyone laughing which just pissed him off more.
They were going to have to settle for a shower though she was pleased that this also drew a reaction from Harry, it was nice to see his energy levels were on the up.