Bill lay in bed trying not to toss and turn too much. He didn't want Jane to know he was still awake. It was his last night at Spinner's End and Bill wanted every moment to count. In the morning Jane, Severus, and himself would meet Lucius for breakfast and then tomorrow afternoon Jane would return Bill to the Burrow since she had to go to Hogwarts the day after. Bill grinned into the darkness at the thought of Lucius.

Severus' best friend had come over almost everyday this summer to hang out and Bill thought Lucius was the best. Don't get him wrong Severus was cool, a little stern and didn't tolerate any nonsense and Jane was soft, sweet, and had the best story telling abilities of anyone ever. Lucius though, he was the best in Bill's eyes. Lucius always said yes, no matter what it was. Bill would return to the Burrow with twice as much stuff as he'd left with, not that Bill ever asked for any of the stuff Lucius bought him. All Bill had to do was look at something and Lucius was ordering a storekeeper to wrap it up.

Bill loved the way everyone listened to Lucius and never questioned him. One day Jane had caught Bill mimicking Lucius' hand gestures that he made when he wanted something in front of the mirror. When he grew up Bill wanted to be just like Lucius, commanding and regal.

Bill gave into the temptation to move, rolling over on his side, his smile fading as he thought about his return to the Burrow the next afternoon. With Jane and Severus, things were always predictable. He knew what he would get in trouble for and what was just fine for him to do but at the Burrow, it was like a roller coaster.

When his Dad was home, things were great and Charlie and he were allowed to play and he always had a lot of fun but when it was just his mum, everything was his fault. A big part of Bill wished Jane and Severus didn't have to go back to Hogwarts, he wished they could just stay like this forever.

Bill rubbed his eyes as they became blurry and then he quickly shut them as the hall light came on spilling light into the room through the crack in the door. Footsteps halted outside the room he shared with Jane and then Severus' voice drifted in from outside, "Well goodnight." Bill muffled a giggle, Severus always sounded so formal when he was talking to Jane.

"Goodnight." Bill rolled over so that his back was facing the door as he heard Jane's voice.

"Sorry we didn't find anything in Malfoy Manor Library." Severus spoke again.

"Yeah well it was worth a shot you know since Narcissa is the one who sent me and all." Bill could picture Jane smiling up at Severus with a shy smile as she did so often. Bill muffled another giggle, he still thought girls had cooties but Severus didn't seem so sure of Jane's cooties lately not the he'd admit it.

"Yes well...on that note we have a problem."

"What?" Jane sounding worried.

Suddenly the door flew open and Severus was towering over Bill, "We have a little boy who's suppose to be asleep!" Severus' mock scowl was the last straw for Bill as he burst out into peels of laughter. Severus stood over him and crossed his arms. Bill pulled the blankets up over his head muffling his laughter knowing that it was now time to go to sleep. "Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the…pixies bite." Severus said and a few moments later the door closed and the hall light went out.

Bill rubbed his eyes sleepily and he reassured himself that at least there was still Christmas. He'd get to see Jane again on Christmas Break and maybe his Mom would let him come to Spinner's End next summer. Bill grinned into the darkness once more before he drifted off to sleep, there was a lifetime of summers he would get to spend with Jane, and after all, she wasn't going anywhere.

The next morning, breakfast exceeded Bill's wildest imagination. By the time he was up and all his things packed, Lucius was waiting at the Leaky Cauldron for them. The table was laid out with all kinds of foods and Jane chuckled at him as he raced to claim the seat next to Lucius.

"Hey, big guy." Lucius ruffled his hair then helped him stack his plate with anything he pointed at.

As breakfast wound down Lucius rapped his wand on the table and to Bill's amazement a pile of brilliantly wrapped presents in silver and green appeared on the table.

In addition to the top-of-the-line broom and state of the art potions kit that Lucius had given him on other occasions over the summer. Bill was also given a new copy of Tales of the Beatle Bard (minus the Fountain of Fair Fortune of course), as well as a chess set that was composed of opposing Quidditch teams instead of traditional pieces, and a new deck of exploding snap cards.

After lots of thank yous and goodbyes, Lucius and Severus went their own way for the day, and Jane returned Bill to the Burrow.

When they arrived, his Mum, not even sparing him a glance, sent him up to his room to unpack while she and Jane cooed over baby Percy who had been born during the weeks they were away. That night after Jane left, Bill was called down from arranging his room for supper. When he saw his father had returned home Bill threw himself in his Dad's arms.

"Dad," he shouted. "You wouldn't believe the summer I had!"

His Dad laughed as he sat Bill back down again. "So you had fun I take it?" He chuckled at his sons antics.

Bill slipped into his own chair at the table and nodded excitedly.

"Jane is the best ever... and Severus is really strict but a bit of fun, if you get him alone. And Grandma Eileen, that's what Severus' mum told me to call her, was the coolest! And then there was Lucius, Sev's friend, he's the bestest guy ever." Bill vaguely heard the sound of glass breaking behind him but ignorant of the ramifications of his words he excitedly plowed on. "He got me the coolest chess set and..."

"That Bitch!" Such harsh language from his mother brought Bill up short.

Bill swung around to face his mother, his eyes wide. "Mum?" he asked tentatively.

His mum ignored him. "I can't believe I trusted her. My son...She brought him around such filth as Lucius Malfoy!" His mum was going red in the face, like she did when Charlie did something bad and Bill was about to be blamed for it. Bill was shrinking into himself throughout her tirade, hoping his mum wouldn't notice him, but her last words brought him back to the front.

"Lucius isn't filth,' he protested uncurling and standing tall across from her.

His mum's face lost all color and a deafening silence engulfed the kitchen.

"Don't...You...Ever...Talk...Back...To...Me.' his mum growled out advancing around the table towards him in punctuation with each word, with a spatula in hand, raised in a threatening manner, her eyes flashing threateningly at his own.

"That's enough Molly!" his dad's voice cut through the stare down.

As his mum's arm lowered and she retreated a few steps, Bill felt his resolve crumble and his eyes rapidly welled with tears.

"Bring me all the stuff you got this summer," his mum spoke in a tone that brokered no argument. Bill looked helplessly at his father, but before his dad could interfere, his mum grabbed his arm, shaking him roughly.

"Don't you dare look at him as if he'll save you!" Her words were like a slap to the little boy and Bill flinched. If his mum noticed, she did not let it show. "I am your mother and you will do as I tell you!"

Bill fled the kitchen and ran up to his room. He looked around at all of the things Lucius had bought him and knew he was about to lose it all. Bill knew he could keep something small if he hurried. It was no question about what he would keep, almost anything else his mother was sure to find. Bill ran to his trunk and threw it open; digging through it, he found what he was looking for; a small diary that Lucius had gotten him to practice his letters in and his photo album from the summer. He quickly flipped through the album grabbing the first picture of Jane and then the first of Lucius. To his displeasure, Bill realized that there were no pictures of Severus in the entire book. He heard the stairwell squeak and quickly grabbed the two pictures, stuffing them in the diary and hiding the book under his mattress.

Later that night, by candlelight Bill wrote all he could remember of his summer. For years to come he would take out the badly misspelled account of his best summer ever. Later in his third year of Hogwarts, Charlie threw the diary into the Black Lake, ruining its contents. The only thing that survived were the two pictures that Jane had, had Lucius charm with a water-proof charm, given his propensity to fall in the swamp she had teased light-heartedly.

The rescued and no longer legible diary and pictures were stuffed into the bottom of Bill's trunk where they remained until his brothers' owl mad him think of it. Bill dug out the smudged, torn remembrance of his past and there between the pages were the photographs. One of a young blonde man and a small boy eating ice cream and the other of a blonde woman pushing the same boy on a set of swings in a muggle park.

"Yes," thought Bill, "This will do." He placed the diary and pictures in his bag and walked back out the door.