LONDON CALLING

Andrew had served supper to Angus, and they ate in the living room in front of the fire too, not knowing that Edward and Simone were back and doing the same thing. Angus' mood had evened out a bit with some quiet and some food. Andrew helped Angus upstairs, helped him with a bath to soak a bit in some of the bath oils that Angus liked, and then he had helped him dress in just some pajama trousers, and helped him back downstairs. He brought Angus the last remaining unread mystery book that he had, telling Angus he had ordered some more books for him from Flourish and Blotts and expected them sometime tomorrow.

Edward set his plate on the coffee table to go answer the door. He opened it and saw a Chinese man that he had never seen before, and he wondered who this was and how he had gotten access to the estate.

"Yes?" Edward asked.

"Hello," Edward said. "I didn't know we had any new staff here. Well, welcome aboard. Yes, the house looks very nice. It was a wonderful welcome home. Thank you for thinking of it, and thank you for tending the garden. I knew that was going to need doing, so I appreciate the help. Hello, Ruby. We haven't been next door yet because we haven't been back very long. Simone fixed us a quick bite, and we were just finishing supper and enjoying the fire. It was a great trip, but I think we were both ready to get home. The tea's hot if either of you want to come in."

Andrew washed up the supper dishes and sent them back to the main house, and he finished up a load of laundry and put the last load in to wash. Then he refilled Angus's coffee and his own before settling in with a new catalog that had come in the mail of Christmas decorations.

"Have you and Ruby decided on what you want to do for Christmas decorations?" Andrew asked.

"She mentioned red and gold, but I'd be happy with something just a little more down to earth. Red is fine, but maybe she'd compromise a little with the rest. I don't know. if she has her heart set on red and gold, then red and gold it is."

"Well, she does seem to be pretty traditional with most things, Andrew said.

"Yeah, I think she is, in some things at least. It isn't a bad thing to be traditional, though. I suppose every woman wants a little elegance from time to time," Angus replied.

"And you're the log cabin and buffalo check shirt sort of guy."

"Yeah, I think so. I do like rustic more than she does," he said, sipping his coffee. "She sees rustic as being more primative and barbaric, I think, and I see it as just being less fussy and having an appeal all its own."

"And I can see your point with that too," Andrew laughed. "Well, this will be interesting to see where you two end up with your first Christmas tree."

"Well, I'm glad things went alright while we were gone," Edward said. "I'm not surprised he's overdoing it. We might be able to give him a hand if he's feeling overloaded. I'll come over in a few minutes and at least let him know we're back. I'm actually a bit surprised you got the boys to go back at all. When we left, they were really dug in that they weren't going. They were going to drop out and just abandon the whole thing, but I'm glad they went back. They have spent too many years there to simply toss it out because they have a dad now. Sounds like things were actually pretty well, all things considered. I'll be over in a moment."

Angus saw Ruby get home, and he saw her gathering things up to do some sort of a craft project. Andrew had taken Finn out and had given him his supper, and now Finn was settled up in Angus's recliner on Angus's lap. As the house was quiet, Angus heard a clap of thunder in the distance, and a gentle rain started outside. He loved the sound of the rain on the roof and the windows, and that made the fire in the fireplace all that much more inviting.

There was a knock on the door between the two sides of the house, and Andrew flicked his fingers at the door to open it. Finn leaped off Angus's lap to go over and see who was coming in. Edward looked down to see he was being greeted, first, by a little border collie.

"Well, who are you?" Edward asked, reaching down to scratch the dog's head.

"That's Finn Donohue," Angus said, deeply relieved to see Edward, as if a part of himself had just returned after being gone far too long.

"He looks like a fine lad," Edward said. "And he's yours, is he?"

"He's a Donohue. He belongs to all of us," Angus said. "Didn't think you'd have a granddog when you returned, did you?"

"A granddog," Edward laughed. He went over and sat down on the sofa. "So, how've you been doing?"

"More time on my feet. Magic is still all buggared up, though," he said.

"Ah, well, Nigel said that would be the very last thing to come back," Edward said. "So don't stew about it yet. Were you the one responsible for the warm welcome when we got home?"

"Well, Yulong did the work, but the ideas were ours, I admit," Angus said. "And the Halloween treats are from the boys. They baked and made the apples with Kate and wanted to leave you some. They left us some, and they took the rest to school to share with their housemates. Oh, by the way, there is a Halloween carnival in Hogsmeade this coming weekend. The boys are going, and they wanted to be sure that you and Simone came along. So you know, costumes are a mandatory condition of admission."

"Costumes?" Edward frowned. "I haven't worn a costume in..."

"Ask Simone to get you both something..."

"Hell, no. She'll dress me up as a box of Bertie Botts," Edward said. "No, no. I'll talk to her. I suppose, if its for the boys, I'm going to have to do something. What are you going as?"

"Godric Gryffindor."

"Oh, good choice," Edward said.

"And Kate is arranging for a griffin for me to ride so I don't have to be tied to my chair."

"Oh, now that is definitely a good idea," Edward said. "I'm impressed. So I understand you are overdoing it. So, what are you going to be doing tomorrow, for example?"

"I'm doing breakfast for starters. I haven't thought any farther than that, but I have to get back into the kitchen."

"Simone wanted me to ask you about breakfast. She said she'll be happy to help with that, regardless of who's in the kitchen. I presume you could use the help?"

"Yes, I could, for awhile yet. Robert is going to add a couple chefs to the staff to take the load off. I think he's going to change my duties, but I don't want to lose the kitchen stuff entirely."

"Well, you were doing the work of about three people."

"Well, actually more than that, but that's the whole point of his plan. He's looking to keep me managing all the properties and he's going to hire others to pick up the things he is taking away from me."

"Well, I think it's high time," Edward agreed.

"I think it looks great," Edward said.

"I like it," Angus said, "Very nice. I guess I do have an idea for the Christmas tree. What if we do rustic decorations, keep the red if you want, but maybe red and silver or red and white. What about doing the entire tree in different sorts of rustic looking stars--just lots of stars, with little twinkling lights?" He was thinking of all kinds of stars because of how much the stars had come to mean to them.

"I think stars would be a good idea," Edward said. "i think it would be a tree that would hold a lot of meaning to you two. Speaking of stars, when the boys come home for Christmas, Simone and I would like to take the four of you for a night or two to northern Scotland to show the boys the Northern lights. It would be cold, but those are the best months to see them. What do you think?"

"I think they'd jump at it," Angus said. "Ru?"

"It was amazing," Edward said. "We took the hot air balloon to Tinagel, spent the afternoon there, had that amazing candlelight dinner, and then the balloon pilot brought the balloon back and took us for a night time ride with champagne. It was like being right up and in the midst of the stars. Just incredible. We both had a great time."

"Good," Angus said. "Its the first since Robert hired me that I haven't handled the pumpkin harvest. It's almost always our biggest harvest of all the crops we have. Oh, and Edward, St. Mungos bought several of your giant pumpkins for some sort of a sculpture they're doing. They've brought in several professional pumpkin carvers for it."

"Well, good. Did the boys like them?"

"Oh, they were over the moon. They spent an afternoon carving pumpkins with Abbey, and I think their pumpkins are out on the back porch. I think Robert's planning on lighting them and taking some pictures so the boys can have some of the pictures. Thank you for planting them for them."

"So are Brian and Robert more serious about a summer kitchen?"

"They seem to be," Angus said. "Robert and I haven't gotten to discuss it much yet, but it would make more sense to have a kitchen for processing our crops than to keep dragging it all into the main house."

"Especially since you're going to add more staff," Edward said. "So what, exactly, is this new guy's job?"

"Yulong?" Angus asked. Edward nodded. "Well, right now he's a floater. His main reason for wanting to work here is that he apparently has the hots for Jessie."

"Really? How long has that been going on?"

"Well, there's the thing. It hasn't been. They were teamed up for a couple of hours at a Paris recovery mission, and then at the end of the raid, Yulong approached me wanting a job so he could get to know his 'soulmate.'"

"That's a bit weird," Edward said.

"It's a lot weird," Angus said. "I am not familiar enough with Asian culture to know if that's a standard thing or if its just weird period. So, he's doing a probationary period like all the other new hires, and Jessie's love life is up to Jessie. I don't have anything against him, but I freely admit that right now, I don't know as much as I probably should."

"Well, that makes two of us," Edward said.