Hey guys! This was inspired by my history text. We're reading about Mesopotamia or Babylonia or something. I changed some things, though. I won't bore you guys with facts or whatever, just telling you how this popped in my head.

By the way, this is NOT placed in that time period. Please Review!!!

There were only four coins on the table. "What husband could we get this much?" Arthur Weasley whispered, pulling on his thinning hair. His wife, Molly, only stared at the money, her eyes covered with a veil of tears. Their youngest and only girl would someday need a husband, for that someday, they needed to find one now. They had plenty to offer. Good teeth, check. Good genes, check – that is, unless you dislike freckles and gingery hair. Even then, though, they were a family of mostly recessive traits which is good if you want your grandchildren to have all of the dashing good looks your child. Social status and wealth . . . That was really what was most important. What good family would give their son away for such a small amount? It'd be insulting to the poor boy.

Molly's mind instantly began to list all of the things that she could buy with that money, what her daughter, and her future son-in-law would be worth. Cheap cloth, rotting vegetables... "Oh, Arthur!" she cried, "it's hopeless." He patted her arm as she pressed her face against his increasingly wet shoulder.

The only offer they had had for young Ginny was from Neville Longbottom. If they were to reject and not get any other offers, they'd have to use all of their four coins as an offer for another boy. Neville, though, was a nice boy, but so are many four year olds. Still, not too bright, he was also clumsy and without his poor tormented father's income, almost as poor as them. Their offer was only three knuts higher than what the dull coins on the table added to.

"Maybe, maybe we should accept the Longbottom offer." Arthur murmured. His wife's only response was to wail louder.

James Potter leaned back in his chair, frowning at the man across the desk. His old headmaster's eyes twinkled. Proud of his manipulating self, I'm sure, he thought. Still, for some reason, he gathered the papers to show them to Lily.

A week later, Arthur stared at his newspaper as though it had just jumped up and slapped him. The Potter's had been pursued by so many families, that they were going to have a sort of audition. Family status not needed, applications would be on Honest, It's True! testing paper, and would be submitted anonymously. If a child and their family would be denied, it would be for their lack of morals or personality, not looks or money.

His hands shook as he tore the article from the paper. Despite his tremors, he managed to tuck it in his breast pocket. Lifting his eyes, he peered through the hole in the paper to see his leering wife framed by advertisements. "What's going on?" she asked, her tiny hands placed firmly on her pear-bottom hips.

"Nothing. S-Something for work." He nodded. That sounds realistic enough, he thought as he rushed out the door to avoid anymore questions from his see-through-walls-and-into-your-head wife.

After work, he gathered the papers he needed for the Potter Auditions. Little Harry would be a great husband someday. At least he has money and his parents have character. He did not actually know that. He'd read the articles about them, heard what people said. So he had them painted, blurry, though, in his head. It was like finding threads and pulling them together to imagine the sweater. Three years ago, similar great things had been spread about Harry. "Survived it, really he did!" The memories tugged on his elated heart. That poor babysitter didn't survive, though. She was barely even mentioned in the paper. When a Potter walks by, that's all anyone sees. Forget the people with them.

Why had he thought that he had a chance when the entire world was fighting over this child? So many others were ordering the papers from the newspaper. There was such a crowd at the office where they were stuffed like a sausage ready to explode from its casing. Even people he knew had no relations to any children were shoving their way in and groping for the forms. Arthur hoped that there was some sort of age limit to protect the boy.

While locked in the bathroom at home, scoping out the forms, he found it on the bottom of the first page. "No one over the age of six allowed to be represented." He sighed and began to fill out the papers. Ginny's information, his information, and Molly's all rushed onto the cramped lines.

"Dad! I need the loo! You've been in there for hours!" Fred or George was making the door rattle in against it's hinges.

"I'll be out in a minute." He scribbled his signature and placed the application against his chest, under his undershirt. Having it there against his chest punctured his hope. We probably won't win. But if we do, well, then I'll tell Molly. She couldn't possibly be angry then. His mind painted images of the newspaper. A picture of little Harry holding hands with someone. Someone without red hair and freckles. Someone with money, despite everything.

His fist pounded the sink's ledge, "No," he hissed. "We deserve something good. Someone good."

That night, when he kissed the tops of his children's heads, he didn't feel like there was something else he could be doing to make things better. There was hope and for that night, he felt he gave it to them.

"The winning child will be contacted within six months."

And they were.

"Lily, I don't like this anymore than you do."

"I don't believe that," she snapped crisply, her arms folding.

"Okay, I do. Why's that bad?" James could see spots. She's been driving him nuts that week.

"Don't yell in front of Harry." Her eyes darted behind him to where the preschooler was proving to Sirius and Remus how he could count by 2's now.

"2, 4, 8, no . . . 6."

Thin hands pulled him into the "unused room." His body tingled with memories of the last time he was pulled in there, but he could tell by Lily's nails in his arm that this wasn't going to be fun like that time.

"You're pimping off our son!"

"Okay, no." He put up a finger and went on. Behind his voice, a child's could be heard, "9, wait, no" "What we were originally going to do, what everyone else is doing is pimping off children. 'Yes, Mr. Highest Bidder, please take my child'"

"It's tradition."

He waved his hands as if to get her attention. "You were raised in a muggle family! What do you even care about this tradition?" James had originally been pledged to a Anne Temple. Cursing, his mother made him pay the millions in compensation bills after he dropped her for Lily.

Lily's lips pouted, but he could see behind her angry mouth, the quivering tears in her eyes and sighed. That time of the month was too much for him sometimes. He left his wife to go check Harry's tie, and it fell into his hands. Mouth open, he looked at Remus.

"Clip-on?"

"A real tie isn't safe for a child." Remus drew out his words there as if James was this child he was talking about.

Slapping the tie into Sirius's hand he marched off to the foyer where one of the elves was opening the door.

"Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, welcome to the Potter residence." Woolby's long nose bunched up as it pressed against the marble floor.

James could feel his face stretch into a grin instantly. Off to the side, he could hear Harry squealing to be let go, and he began to chuckle. "Hi, I'm James."

"I'm Arthur and this is Molly. This is-"

The dark haired man stooped to one knee before a tiny girl, gripping tightly to a small pink suitcase with faded yellow flowers. "This little princess must be Ginny. Nice to meet y-"

The sound of tiny feet racing towards him didn't stop him from greeting his future daughter-in-law. It was the small child, the blur of black that knocked him from his precarious crouching.

"Daddy! Remy wouldn't let me come over here by you. Cuz I wanted to be by you, an' then Siris said, uh, Siris said that I need to have decaf. I don't need decaf!" His nose crinkled in defense although he had no idea what decaf was.

"Sorry." James looked at the in-laws and picked himself up, his son tucked under his arm. "He's," at a loss for words he stared off, " he's a boy." The red-haired couple laughed.

"Yeah, we have six of those ourselves."

Mr. Potter's eyes got so large that Molly wished she hadn't confessed that. Well, not that that was really a secret, but apparently something Mr. Potter didn't know. The wizarding world didn't have royalty, but the Potter's and their friends were as close as it got. Royalty doesn't bother with the concerns of peasants. Something in Molly fumed, even though she had been the one to think that just then.

"Well, just the one's good for me." As if to demonstrate the young man kissed the top of his son's fluffy head.

"Six sons is a blessing, Mr. Potter," Molly spat. Mr. Potter's eyebrows seemed punctuated behind his youthful bangs, too high to be seen as anything more than black dashes. Normally they were a low finishing frame to his bangs.

"I bet." Something in his smile was rigid. Molly lowered her head, remembering who she was speaking with. People could be punished for wrongful or bitter attitudes, rude remarks or anything if it angered someone of a significant status. Mr. Potter eased a sigh out of his chest and closed his eyes. "You can call me 'James.' Same for the rest of us. First names. We're equals once the papers are signed."

The words cut some overly-tight strings in her chest. "Right," was all she could barely whisper. It was status only(she would have no riches, that was for Ginny if this worked out) still, it was more than she had hoped for. When she thought of that, her heart jumped a little. Her baby would be well-to-do!

"Your son is very handsome. Looks just like you." Arthur offered, like a peace treaty, hoping it was enough for the slight wrinkle between James's eyes to vanish. Only realizing a little late that it sounded like he may be hitting on James. His face was suddenly soaked to a deep red, his freckles almost drowned by the rush of blood to his face. At least he knows it's not going somewhere else.

According to custom, Ginny was to move into the Potters. The first week, her parents could stay. The second week, the husband, Harry, would go to stay with the Weasleys, with his parents. After that, the two families would live together, at least on the same property – if that was what both families agreed to. This, though, was expensive. So, most times, the young couple would move into the husband's house. It was the second week before the Potters even saw the Weasley's residence.

"Oh," Lily whispered, her hand flying up to cover her lips. She hoped that no one heard that, but the stares told her otherwise.

"Mommy?" Harry tugged on her skirt. "Is their house falling over?" It did look that way. The stacks and stacks of floors reminded the boy of his blocks at home. Once they started to lean one way, that meant, for him, to start piling on more so that it could fall on the unassuming Lego people in the streets below.

Molly could hear her heart screaming angrily in her ear about the way the James and Lily were staring at the house. She opened her mouth to speak, but Lily started before her. "I'm sorry. That... I was just surprised that you . . ." she trailed off the house catching her eyes again. "I didn't know a house could be that tall."

That didn't help Molly at all. Harry piped up, "Mrs. Molly, if you're house falls over I'll help you build it again." Something in his tiny, still very baby-ish voice softened her. Her womb had held too many children for such a thing not to.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Arthur put an arm out, signaling for everyone to march in to the house. James was the last to pass by him. "I would like to offer you a new home," he murmured, his unlabored hand resting on Arthur's shoulder.

"Me?"

"You and the rest of your family. Our neighbor is selling their house."

Arthur stared, at the dark haired man, his mouth open and his eyes watered slightly.

James continued, "We were thinking of buying it for a friend, but he already has a house. A nice one." He paused and looked off at the yard just in time to see a gnome sprint into a hedge. "We could buy it and furnish it for you." When Arthur was about to protest, James interrupted him, "It would be easier on your daughter if you and your wife were close." That sentence moved like an eraser through Arthur's head. All he could think of was that his best had never been all that great, but if he were to lay down his pride and take up this offer... "Think about it, please." James turned back to the wobbly-block-house and Arthur saw his nose wrinkle and worry fly across his hazel eyes.

That look alone weighted down his spirits. Was this a genuine offer of kindness and concern? Or was his only concern "what will people think when they see that I'm connected to people who live like this."