Author's Note: Hi there! My name is Sarah Liz B and this is my first fanfic, designed to let myself dip my toes into the water before I jump straight in :D. The idea is pretty much a "Next Gen watch AVPM" fic, which I haven't seen much of here. This chapter, the prologue, doesn't actually have anything from the play: that's what the chapters are for! :)
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I know that because if it belonged to me, I would've kept it going. A Very Potter Musical belongs to StarKid! I know that because if I was in it, you'd know. :D See a name you don't recognise? They're the ones who are mine. :)
A Rather Unusual Holidays
Prologue
It was a cold, wet day in late December as a family of five piled into their car. To the ordinary, unsuspecting eye, they looked like any normal family: a man with untidy jet black hair, his sons (who shared the same feature), and his wife and daughter, both of whom had flaming red hair. The sons argued with each other and the daughter also looked rather unhappy, as though some form of injustice had been forced upon her. The truth, however, was that they were rather unusual, even within the society to which they belonged.
The married couple were Harry and Ginevra "Ginny" Potter, Wizarding war veterans famous for their participation in the Battle of Hogwarts some twenty-five years prior, although Harry held the particular distinction of defeating the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort. Harry and Ginny had three teenage children, also Wizarding: James, Albus and Lily.
The old Anglia turned left at a roundabout and continued on to its destination, passing through an exit that led to another motorway. The three teenagers in the back seat continued to speak their protests, the girl being the loudest of the lot.
"But Dad," whined Lily Potter, "I don't want to go and visit our cousins. Do you have any idea what they're like?"
Harry, of course, knew exactly what the Dursley family had been like in the past, but deigned to make no answer. Kind or unkind, wizard or Muggle, family was family and Harry was not about to deprive his family the chance of knowing them, no matter how they came across.
The truth was, Dudley Dursley and his family were much nicer than Harry's Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had been. Dudley was the only one in his family who knew what Harry and his family were. He had not seen how it would add any relevance to his family's peaceful life and, at any rate, he had been ordered by the Wizengamot to re-sign the Statute of Secrecy once he had married. The Dursleys and the Potters had remained on Christmas card terms for twenty-five years and the latter family visited about once a month during the holidays, much to the chagrin of the Potter children.
Lily continued her tirade.
"All they do is boast about how they have the 'latest things' and then they look at us like we're freaks when we haven't got a clue what they're going on about! I mean, really, us? Freaks? They're Muggles. Look at what they have to do to get by, they are so pathe—"
Lily was silenced by a look from her mother.
"We are all very well aware of your opinion, thank you very much, Lily Potter," said Ginny warningly, "so you would do well to keep it to yourself for once."
"I find their Muggle ways kind of interesting," Albus said, pointedly ignoring the glares from his sister, as though he dared to side with their mother. "Okay, yes, they're prats – Mum, don't give me that look, it's true – but it's really funny about how they go on about how they do things. At first I thought that they were just unobservant, but they really are completely ignorant of magic."
"So was I, until I got my Hogwarts letter," said Harry, "and I'm not Muggleborn, don't forget. Dudley's wife and children don't know any different. The Wizarding society isn't as large as the Muggle one, so it makes sense that the general view in the world is that Wizardry doesn't exi—"
"Alright, I give up, I get your point!" Lily cried, throwing her hands in the air. "Merlin, you talk to Aunt Hermione too much—"
"LILY!"
"—sorry, Mum, but you know that Dad never talks like that, it all comes from her!"
Ginny knew that to be true and her mouth curled into a small grin, although she did not allow her children to see it. Her husband, however, did and his green eyes twinkled knowingly behind his glasses. Thankfully, Lily chose to end her rant there and most of the trip to the Dursley home passed uneventfully, with James pointing out the occasional oddities he spied on the Muggle streets.
"Well, here we are," Harry said, pulling into the driveway of Number 16 Privet Drive. His daughter glowered at him.
"I still don't see why—"
"Lily, stop it!" said her mother. "You're old enough to stop complaining now. Now, everybody, wands, please." She held out her hand. They all passed their wands to her and she tucked them away into her handbag.
"Yeah, Lily, stop it!" James mimicked in a high voice. He laughed until he caught the look on his father's face.
"When I get the hang of wandless magic, I'm going to hex every last one of these idiots," Lily muttered, careful so that her parents didn't hear. She received a warning look from her Albus.
"They're not so bad, Petal—"
"Don't call me Petal!"
"—and anyway, you still have about another year and a half until you're of age, I'd hold off from using any kind of magic on them for now."
Lily scowled.
"Well, if we wait any longer, Mum's hair's going to go grey," said James, bored. "Let's get this over and done with."
Getting out of the car, they walked up to the door. Harry only had to knock on the door twice before it swung open.
"Hello, hello," Gloria Dursley said, welcoming them in, "Welcome back! Oh James, you're so tall! – You might be a little taller than Tom, now – Albus, you look more and more like your father every time I lay eyes on you – where's Lily – there you are! – you're so beautiful! How old are you now, sixteen?"
"Fifteen," the red-haired girl muttered.
"Fifteen!" Gloria clasped her hands together. "Oh, I remember being fifteen – James, just put yours coats on that rack, over there – oh, the fun I had at your age, Lily! And how is school, are you doing well?"
Gloria Dursley was a rather pleasant woman, the polar opposite of Harry's Aunt Petunia. A short, plump woman with light brown hair, she reminded the Potter children of a rather fat mouse, and always greeted the family with warmth unmatched by the rest of her family. She constantly coddled her children and Dudley – perhaps that was why he had married her – and took pride in making her home look as elegant as it possibly could. While she knew that her children were not perfect, her only response was to love them, even when they did wrong and she had passed thirty-eight years of her life without uttering a single scolding word to anybody, always striving to make the best out of every situation.
"Fine," Lily said stiffly, pressing her lips into a thin line and fighting the urge to sigh impatiently.
"Lily's in her second last year," added Ginny, jumping in.
"Oh, that must be so exciting!" Gloria said, leading everybody into the living room. "Amy's in her first year of her apprenticeship, she's just started, you see – Dudley, dear! Harry's here! – and I must say, she's been doing splendidly – Tom! Amy! Mark! Your cousins are here, come down! – Tom has started full-time at Grunnings, too – ah, there you are."
Dudley Dursley had walked into the room, followed by his three children. Over the years, Dudley's physical appearance hadn't changed much. He was still quite large, although he had slimmed down a little since the Potters had last visited, his blonde hair had started receding ten years beforehand and his big, bushy moustache reminded Harry strongly of Uncle Vernon.
The Dursley children all varied in appearances. Thomas Dursley, the eldest, was enormous. He seemed to have inherited the Dursley appetite and was rarely seen without some sort of food in his hands or pockets, as if the threat of having a heart attack didn't exist. He was often at his grandparents' house, discussing the workings of Grunnings – which had all but officially turned into the family business – with his Grandfather Dursley. Amy Dursley, the middle child, was the complete opposite to Tom. Tall and thin, with her long, blonde hair always arranged in strange designs – today she had managed to make it look like a roll of hay – she was always suspicious of her Wizarding cousins and their unusual behaviour. Like her paternal grandmother, she prided herself on knowing as much gossip as she possibly could, always claiming to be 'gardening' on days of nice weather, when she was really listening to Mr and Mrs Next-Door argue with their children. She'd been buying tabloid magazines since she'd been able to read – an accomplishment that Lily could hardly believe was possible – and she had yet to throw out a single one. If the Potter children had to pick a favourite out of their Dursley cousins, however – and they rarely would – it would be Mark Dursley who took the prize. He was a silent, pensive sort of boy, rarely speaking to anybody unless directly spoken to and always the first to act with a degree of civility towards his Wizarding relatives. His courtesy, however, seldom went further than a "How do you do?" before he retreated back to his room, choosing to mix with his strange relatives as little as he possibly could.
Today he was not going to be so lucky. He muttered his usual greeting, not really listening to the responses and turned around to leave, before his mother called out to him.
"Mark, where are you going? Not to your room, I hope! No, no, take Albus into the second living room, show him that new game we bought for you the other day – what was it called? – oh, never mind –"
Mark grunted in reply. Albus shot a pleading look at his parents, who returned it with one that reminded him of his Transfiguration professor, and then shot a glare to his sister, who was stifling a smirk unsuccessfully. Seeing that he would receive no rescue from James either, he sullenly allowed himself to be led out of the room.
"Good afternoon, Dudley," said Harry politely.
"Good afternoon," came the stiff reply.
The room once more lapsed into silence, before it was once more broken by Gloria, who always tried her best to allow everyone the opportunity to have a cheery disposition.
"Er, Tom, dear," she said to her eldest son, "will you please fetch the tea things from the kitchen? – And bring out a plate of biscuits, too, please – then you and James may sit and talk in the kitchen – the two of you may share some of the apple pie that you've been enjoying all morning—"
"Yes, mother," said Tom, his cheeks turning a light shade of pink. James suspected that there may not be any apple pie left in the kitchen. Following Tom out of the living room, he saw that there was indeed an empty apple pie tin on the kitchen bench. The eldest Dursley son quickly disposed it and, pulling a new one out of the freezer, said quietly, "I won't tell if you don't."
This left Lily Potter and Amy Dursley. Gloria looked at her daughter expectantly, a smile on her face, but the girl showed no inclination to ask Lily to go anywhere or look at anything. Lily also preferred to remain near her parents, almost worried that she might jinx her cousin if left alone with her – almost, but not quite – and it looked for a moment as though she might be able to sit with them, when Tom re-entered the living room, carrying a silver tea tray. He set it down, a plate of biscuits to the side, prompting Gloria to resume her chatter.
"Thank you, dear – Ginevra, Harry, do sit down, you'll notice that we've recently had the chairs reupholstered – Amy, dear, why don't you—"
"It's not Amy."
"Pardon?"
"My name," said Amy slowly, "It's not Amy. It's 'Tuney. You know, like Grandmother Dursley?" There was something about the arrogant drawl in her cousin's voice that almost made Lily's jaw drop, but she caught the look that flickered between her parents and checked herself, satisfied to know that she wasn't the only one who thought Amy's behaviour a bit odd.
"Oh, er, of course…dear," faltered Gloria, "Why don't you and Lily go up to your room? You can show her the tools you use for your apprenticeship – and your new laptop – we got it for her for placing in a small regional competition – nothing large, you see, but still a great achievement for someone so new to the industry!"
"That sounds lovely, doesn't it, Lily?" Ginny said quickly, giving her daughter a look that told her not to argue. "Go along now."
Scowling, Lily followed Amy out of the living room and up the stairs towards her cousin's bedroom. She happened to look into the second living room and saw Albus chucking quietly at her misfortune. She gave him a rude hand gesture and grimly went on her way.
Gloria Dursley took a seat next to her husband, holding his hand and smiling around at everyone. Ginny smiled politely in return, but both Dudley and Harry still looked rather awkward in each other's company, as if the latter hadn't visited irregularly for the last nineteen years. Gloria served everybody tea and said, "So, has Dudley told you the news?"
Her husband stiffened slightly.
"No, not at all," replied Ginny. "What news do you have? Have you decided to redecorate the kitchen?"
"Oh! No, no we haven't – although I must say, Dudley," Gloria turned thoughtfully to her husband, "that the painting might need to be redone in a couple of months – but no, we have no plans yet to improve our kitchen – no, no, this news is much more exciting!"
The Potters waited in respectful anticipation.
"We're going to have another baby!"
Everything about Amy's room, thought Lily Potter, screams 'Muggle'. From the non-moving posters on her walls to the non-moving photographs in their frames to the many shelves of neatly filed magazines, Amy Dursley's room could never cease to amaze. Lily looked up to find that posters of Muggle celebrities had begun to fill her cousin's bedroom ceiling as well. Sitting awkwardly on a chair by a desk, she watched Amy close the bedroom door and open the window instead.
"Mind if I have a fag?"
"Er, no," said Lily, wondering what on earth a fag was.
"I usually have to sneak outside to have one, but you're here—" Amy gestured towards Lily "—so I can't and I don't want to stink out my room." She lit what Lily thought looked like a small, thin Muggle cigar and drew a deep breath from it, exhaling the smoke out the window. The two of them sat in awkward silence, until,
"So, how's that school of yours going?" asked Amy. "What's it called again? Strapham Alexandra's or something?"
"Strathallan Alexanders International," replied Lily, glad that she'd remembered the name of the cover-up Muggle boarding school that she'd made up. "Yes, it's going well, I suppose."
"Boarding school, isn't it? Co-ed? And in Scotland," said Amy, a tone of slight suspicion in her voice. "Why go to a school so far away?"
"It's the best school in Britain," quipped Lily, "and my parents went there."
"Did they really?" Something flashed in Amy's eyes. "Not what I heard…" she muttered.
Lily pursed her lips. She made a mental note to ask her parents what her cousin had meant by that statement. Trying to swing the conversation away from her personal life, she asked Amy about the laptop she'd received from her parents, trying to remember from Muggle Studies exactly what it was that a laptop did. Thankfully, her plan succeeded.
"This," Amy began, a note of arrogant pride in her voice, "is my new laptop. It's the newest Mac Book," she added, as if that added some sort of significance to the foreign object in front of Lily, "and they're currently sold out all throughout Europe. It's got the latest upgrades and I had the cover custom designed." She stroked the top of the laptop with one finger, tracing the lines of what looked like some very ugly yellow splotches. "You don't have a laptop at all, do you?" she sneered.
"No," said Lily, "but Dad got a computer last summer."
"Oh."
They sat in silence for a little longer, Amy finishing her little Muggle cigar before once more picking up conversation.
"I suppose your boarding school must cost a lot. Perhaps your parents can't get you all laptops yet. How much does it cost to go there?"
Lily quickly thought of a number.
"Eighty-five thousand pounds a year."
Amy dropped the little stub that she'd been playing with.
"Must be some freaky school," she muttered. This new information silenced her and she pointedly ignored Lily for the next half hour, tapping the buttons importantly on her laptop. Make conversation, Lily thought, perhaps you should listen to Albus and Mum for a change. Perhaps Muggles aren't all that strange if you talk to them.
"You have a lot of magazines there," said Lily.
"Oh, yes, yes I do," said Amy proudly. "I've just begun subscribing to magazines from overseas, you know. I have friends – girls who I met in the completion, very well known in the industry, they are – who send me a couple of weekly magazines from Australia and America. Daddy pays them to, of course, but he refuses to buy me any others."
He bloody well shouldn't buy you any, thought Lily.
"I've started taking Japanese classes, because then," continued Amy, "they'll have to buy me a subscription to a Japanese magazine and when they see how well I'm doing they'll have to let me subscribe to others."
Lily was almost shocked beyond words at the girl's selfishness. Almost worse than Verity Creevey, she thought. "Do you speak Japanese well?" Lily asked politely.
Amy snorted. "I don't speak it at all," she replied. "I rock up to class and that's about it. Imagine trying to learn such a language! It's like someone's decided to go nuts with a biro on a bit of paper. Reckon I'll quit soon, anyways," she added, "and say I graduated early."
Again the two girls fell into silence. Lily was hoping that any moment now her parents would call for her to come down, to leave. Ten minutes passed with no such luck; Lily once again tried to start a conversation.
"So…" she started, "You go by the name 'Tuney', now?"
"Yeah," said Amy. "Like my grandmother. It's short for 'Petunia'. I reckon it's a better name for a hairdresser than Amy is."
"Oh. What made you pick Petunia?"
"It's my middle name," drawled Amy, slowly. "I have to say that Daddy had rather good taste in making it so. Having such an uncommon name these days would make me a social reject, but it makes for a pretty cool middle name. I feel sorry for Tom and Mark, though, bloody awful middle names, they've got. Imagine having Bruce as your middle name! Or Harry! I think I'd demand to change it legally, wouldn't you?"
Lily made no answer.
"Do you even have a middle name?" asked her cousin, arrogantly.
"Luna."
"Bit of an odd middle name."
"It was after my mother's school friend."
"Oh, well. That explains it."
Inwardly seething, Lily restrained the urge to cast a Bat-Bogey Hex at the blonde – the only spell she'd truly mastered wandless – and sat in her chair, refusing to make any more of an effort with her cousin. The bloody nerve of her! she thought. What, in Merlin's name, does she mean 'that explains it'? That ignorant bitch wouldn't see a house elf if it bit her arse. Almost giggling at the thought, Lily was finally rescued by the sound of her mother, calling her to come downstairs. Muttering a goodbye to Amy – which wasn't returned – she raced down as quickly as she could.
"Did you enjoy yourselves today?" Ginny asked in the car, returning everybody's wands to them.
"No," said her three children in unison.
"Having another cousin will be nice, though," said Harry, turning the car onto a motorway.
James snorted.
"Nice to practice what Old Minnie taught in Transfiguration," he said. "It'd be great to see what Tom would look like as a pig…" There was a glint in his eye unseen by his parents, but his father, recalling memories from his eleventh birthday, probably had some idea of what he was thinking.
"Leave them alone, James," he said sternly.
"Surely you wouldn't turn in your own son if his giant fat prig of a cousin just happened to sprout a tail?" There was a hint of mischievousness in James' tone. "Your eldest born? The one who is named after your father and his best friend?"
"Don't count on it," Harry muttered.
"Isn't Gloria a bit old to be having another child?" asked Lily.
"She's still in her thirties," replied Albus, "it's not uncommon for women to have children so late."
"It's still a bit weird. Look at the age gap between this new kid and Mark! It's not going to know it's brothers and sisters, they'll have families of their own by the time it's in school! I wouldn't wish that kind of misfortune on anybody, Muggle or not."
"Can you imagine Dudley and Gloria being…at it, after all this time?" chimed in James, the glint still in his eyes.
"JAMES! NOT THE MENTAL IMAGE I WANTED!" Lily screeched as Albus wretched.
"Guess who's coming over today?" Ginny asked quickly, changing the topic. It was a lot easier than trying to argue with her children. It must have been a lot more effective too, as the three Potter children quickly quietened and sat up a little straighter.
"Teddy?" asked Lily.
"Teddy comes over nearly every day," said Albus.
"Not as much since he married Victoire last year."
"Well being a married man, you can't expect him to. He's in a legal prison now, or so Uncle George always says."
"Married life isn't so bad," murmured Harry quietly, amused, earning him a small appreciative smile from his wife.
"Oh, that doesn't matter," said Lily, waving her hand dismissively, "he's a part of the family now. His prison isn't any different to what it was before. Anyway, is he coming, Mum?"
"Yes, Teddy is coming, Lily," replied Ginny, "but he's not alone. All of your cousins are coming tonight as well! Your father and I thought it would be nice to have everybody over for the night, seeing as you all go back to Hogwarts soon."
The Potter children cheered.
"The Longbottoms and the Scamanders are coming over as well," Ginny continued. "As well as one other person," she added, hesitantly.
"Who?" asked James curiously.
"The Woods?" asked Albus. "They haven't visited in a while."
"It's not the bloody Creeveys, is it?" groaned Lily.
"LILY!"
"Verity is a total cow and Colleen follows me everywhere!" she moaned.
"Well you're in luck, then," said Harry, "as it's not the Woods or the Creeveys." He pulled into their driveway in the West Country. "It's Scorpius Malfoy." The owls sitting near the kitchen window inside the house were seen to hoot indignantly as Lily's screech seemed to ring throughout the street.
"WHAT!"
When everybody had finished their dinner and the plates had been cleared away by Ginny, Hermione and Hannah, Teddy stood up to address the table, his short turquoise hair changing to a shaggy purple.
"Ahem, ahem," he said in a tone of false importance. "Listen up, please, everybody."
Everybody stopped talking immediately.
"I'd just like to say something small. To my lovely wife, her siblings and cousins, and our esteemed guests – oh, and I guess you too, Malfoy –" he winked at Scorpius, "please join me in the basement as quickly as you can. I've got a brilliant, surprise for all of you – a Ministry-approved surprise," he added quickly, catching the look on Hermione's face. Her face softened. "I'm pretty sure you'll all be quite pleased with me. To Harry and the other adults: you're all welcome to bugger off and stay away from us, no offence intended."
Sitting down, he was instantly inundated with questions. James, Lily, Fred Weasley and Lucy Weasley all begged for him to tell them a bit more about the surprise. Hermione, Percy and Audrey Weasley asked him what was wrong with letting the adults supervise, to which Teddy assured them, perhaps unsuccessfully, that he was an adult. George Weasley huffed in pretend annoyance, desperately wanting to know what it was that he couldn't be allowed to look at. Was he not an honorary youngster?
But Teddy Lupin wasn't a total idiot. The particular item that he had brought home from the Ministry of Magic really had been approved by the Ministry – and Harry had given him a personal OK to let it inside the house! Teddy wasn't entirely sure how to operate the thing that he'd brought back, but he was confident that it couldn't be that difficult – after all, he worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office! Dealing with these sorts of things was what he had been trained to do and by no other than Arthur Weasley! People often thought of Arthur's fascination with Muggle objects as a bit mad, but Teddy secretly thought that he was brilliant and, in his opinion, the only person who might have a better understand of them was Harry.
Trying to dodge every question as diplomatically as he could, Teddy gathered the Potters, Weasleys, Longbottoms and Scamanders, almost forgetting Scorpius accidentally-on-purpose until Harry gave him a slight nudge with his shoulder. Leading them into the basement, he switched on the light, revealing to them his 'brilliant' surprise.
A laptop.
Lily had recognised it right away. It looked about the same size as Amy's, but thicker, not quite as lightweight. Everybody broke into whispers, a couple wondering what it was.
"D'you reckon that's one of those things that Muggles use to keep away the nargles?" Lorcan Scamander asked. "I think Mum would like a look at it," he said to Teddy.
"Muggles don't know about nargles, Lorcan," replied Lysander, his twin. "Even most wizards refuse to see them."
Lily rolled her eyes. "That's a laptop," she said, pointing at the wondrous object. "It's like a computer, only Muggles carry it around with them everywhere."
"It looks a bit different to the box we have in the living room," said James, poking it with his finger.
"Well boxes aren't exactly portable, are they?"
"Cool off, you two," Teddy interjected, "Lily's right. A few of us at the Ministry had a couple of raids the other night in Cornwall and we picked this thing up. We've had a little bit of trouble recently with wizards going around and selling Muggle dodgy equipment on this thing they call the 'Impanet'. As far as we could tell, things have been jinxed to be practically useless: books where the ink fades quickly, a perfume called 'Eau du Troll-ette', which you can imagine smells absolutely awful – it's been rather popular, actually – and as far as we've been able to tell, this laptop's been jinxed so that it freezes whenever somebody starts talking. Paige Woodcroft had to pose as a Muggle law enforcer—"
"Get on with it, Teddy."
"—Ah, yes," Teddy said, seeming to realise that he'd begun to waffle. "So, we weren't able to do very much with the laptop after we picked it up and I asked if I was able to have it, to tinker around with it, that sort of thing."
The Weasleys and the Potters grinned to each other. He sounded so much like Grandfather Weasley! To them, Teddy had never seemed to belong more to the family than right now.
"It doesn't appear to be cursed or anything," continued Teddy, "so I've decided to claim it as my own." He appeared to have finished speaking.
"Is that all?" asked Fred. "That's the big surprise?"
"Well, I figured perhaps we could work on it together," Teddy replied. "The things that Muggles come up with these days! I'd really like to see if I could get it working properly, perhaps remove the jinx and see what's on there."
Everybody considered this for a moment and all agreed that it seemed like a fun little project to work on before they went back to Hogwarts in the new year. Crowding around the laptop, they looked at it and prodded it, wary that it might somehow explode.
"How do we turn it on? Is there a switch somewhere?" asked Hugo.
"I can't really see anything, to be honest," replied Lucy.
"Perhaps we should use our wands," suggested Rosemary Longbottom. "Derek Finnegan has been writing to me over the Christmas holidays and has told me about these clever tricks he's picked up from his dad."
James and Louis Weasley shared a look. If Derek was anything like his older brother, Liam, these 'tricks' probably ended in disaster. Dominique Weasley looked as though she might have been thinking something along the same line – Liam had been in her year – and made a movement to stop Rosemary, who had pulled out her wand.
"Rosemary, I'm not sure that's a good idea—"
But the Hufflepuff had already poked the Muggle contraption with her wand, sending off a small shower of yellow sparks and causing the laptop to vibrate. Everyone backed away as the vibrations became increasingly violent. Strange colours and images flashed across the screen and smoke started to appear as a loud whirring seemed to come from within. The laptop shuddered on the desk that it had been placed upon, the whirring getting louder as the smoke began to turn a horrible shade of green.
"What the hell did you do?" shouted Roxanne.
"I—I don't know!" cried Rosemary. "I only meant to turn it on!"
"Somebody try to get it to stop!"
James and Scorpius both drew their wands and cautiously approached the laptop – which had begun to emit sparks as well – and, not paying attention to what the other was doing, both sent a coloured jet of light at it, one red and the other green. The shuddering and whirring, the smoke and the sparks ceased instantly and everybody had just begun to think that the boys had fixed it somehow, when—
BOOM!
An explosion from the laptop sent them all flying. The room filled with smoke, sending everyone into coughing fits as they tried to breathe in clear air. It subsided rapidly, and the room stared in wonder at the sight suddenly before them.
The laptop was working.
Sitting up open on the desk, it was whirring again, gently this time, with a light projecting from an area at the top of the screen onto the blank wall opposite. Taking up almost the entirety of the wall, it showed a single word, surrounded by stars and what appeared to be a lion with a wizard's hat, all in silver. The lion's tail was moving, or appeared to be moving, in a motion that seemed rather unnatural, even for a hand drawn lion. It stopped moving instantly when Lily spoke up.
"What just happened?"
"I have no idea," said Rose, slowly. "It looks like James and Scorpius have somehow started up this thing, but I have no idea what it's doing now."
The room was still silent and once more the lion's tail began to move, as the screen slowly faded to show a notice denying any affiliation with several people.
"It's showing…a musical?" asked Lucy, quickly reading it.
"The jinx must still be in place," said Teddy. "Notice how it only continues to play when we're not talking!"
The room was silent once more and, sure enough, the disclaimer faded again, this time showing something that made everybody gasp. In large, yellow letters, the projection showed what could only be the title of the musical as laughter sounded from what the group automatically assumed to be an audience of some sort. Lily's eyes widened in shock.
"A VERY POTTER WHAT!"
So, what do you think? I've tried to be as painstakingly accurate with everything as I can. If you've noticed any errors or mistakes, please let me know so I can fix them.
I like to think that everybody knows who's in the Next Generation, but I understand that it can become confusing, so: Like it? Love it? Hate it? Just want to leave a smiley face or a single word? Click the review button below! It'll mean the world to me. :)
Harry James Potter + Ginevra Molly Weasley = James Sirius Potter, Albus Severus "Al" Potter and Lily Luna Potter
Remus John Lupin + Nymphadora Tonks = Ted Remus "Teddy" Lupin
William Arthur "Bill" Weasley + Fleur Isabelle Delacour = Victoire Weasley, Dominique Weasley and Louis Weasley
Percy Ignatius Weasley + Audrey Shepherd = Molly Weasley and Lucy Weasley
George Weasley + Angelina Johnson = Fred Weasley and Roxanne Weasley
Ronald Bilius "Ron" Weasley + Hermione Jean Granger = Rose "Rosie" Weasley and Hugo Weasley
Draco Lucius Malfoy + Astoria Greengrass = Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy
Luna Lovegood + Rolf Scamander = Lorcan Scamander and Lysander Scamander
Neville Longbottom + Hannah Abbott = Alice Longbottom and Rosemary Longbottom
Dudley Dursley + Gloria Marigold White = Thomas Bruce Dursley, Amy Petunia Dursley, Mark Harry Dursley and an unborn fourth child