Disclaimer: Still don't own Harry Potter.
Lily Potter angrily pushed open the door to her parents' bedroom and slipped inside, slamming it behind her. Her mother was laying on the bed, lazily flipping the pages of a magazine that she only seemed half-interested in. "What is it, Lily, dear?" she asked, looking up from her skimming. "Is something the matter?"
Lily sighed, throwing herself down on the other end of the bed and adjusting her green-and-silver scarf. "James is being, well, James. He's being a complete pest, in other words. Won't leave me alone, plus he's taking every opportunity to make some snide comment about Scorpius. Merlin, James is seventeen but he's acting younger than me. And Al's just sitting there with his nose in a stupid book, doing nothing."
Ginny Potter nodded wisely. "Brothers. Trust me, I know what you mean, I had six of them growing up, and they didn't stop teasing me either. Can't live with them, can't live without them."
"I could live without James' teasing," Lily muttered.
"I know," her mother said sympathetically.
"I think it's worse, too, just because I'm the first in the family to make it into Slytherin, and James is Mr. Gryffindor Pride. Really, he needs to learn to let up a bit. Roxanne never does anything like this, or Fred or Teddy."
Ginny partially saw what her daughter was going through. She had dealt with her brothers' teasing growing up, as well, although perhaps for her it was slightly easier, as all the Weasleys of her generation were in the same house. Now, with representatives from the family in each house, there was a lot of competition going on. Until Lily, it had only been three houses, and, for the most part, it was not as bad, as Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws got along for the most part. Gryffindors like James, though, and Slytherins like Lily, were bound to clash. It didn't help that Lily was friends with Scorpius Malfoy, either. Or that she didn't miss a chance to remind her cousins (or brother) that she was in the 'rival' house. "He'll grow up eventually," Ginny reminded her. "Once he gets out of Hogwarts and gets a job, he'll surely be more mature."
"I hope so," Lily replied. "Ever since I entered Hogwarts...well, you know how he's been."
Ginny did. Lily didn't hesitate to explain what was going on in her letters (although she usually neglected to mention the plans she made to get him back, which usually resulted in James getting a detention or being placed in some embarrassing situation). Apart from James she had been having a wonderful time, but he was the one downer. It wasn't that he was a bad person, but that he was a rather stereotypical Gryffindor, and when his little sister was Sorted into Slytherin, he found it as an outrage. At the Sorting, even, he jumped up from his seat and demanded a re-Sort, which caused him to very nearly get a detention. He loved Lily, but oftentimes, he wouldn't show it. "Just ignore him," she said, giving her daughter the standard answer in such a situation despite knowing how it wouldn't work.
"Right," Lily replied, sighing. "He makes it kind of hard to ignore him."
"Enough about that," Ginny said, trying a different approach. "It's Christmas holidays. This is not a time to be dwelling on things like your brother being annoying. Let's go...I don't know, make cookies or something. Something without the boys."
"All right," her daughter said, "but I think you should know by now that I'm not exactly, well, talented in the kitchen. I burn everything."
"Well, let's see if we can put an end to that. We'll cook something together, and I'll be there, and there will be no burning of things. I've seen enough of that with all these kids, trust me. It seems like every day that Fred and Roxanne are testing some new Weasley's Wizard Wheezes product. And usually, the new, experimental ones end up..." There was a faint bang.
"Exploding," Lily supplied.
"Pretty much." Ginny grinned and slid off the bed, opening the door and holding it for her youngest child. "That's what we get with a family as crazy as ours."