A/N: I do not own the characters, only the plot.

Harry

"Wake up boys! Breakfast is getting cold!"

I groaned, grasping desperately at the sleep that was quickly escaping my hold. After lying there for a few minutes, I gave in to consciousness and opened my eyes. I looked to my left, unsurprised to see an empty spot my wife usually occupies, but she was already up given that she had been the one calling. With a sigh, I swung my legs off the side of the bed, rubbed my eyes, and put on my glasses. Back cracking as I stretched my slightly sore muscles, I slowly made my way down the stairs, looking at my watch as I went. To my surprise, it was almost 11, which is later than I normally sleep on Saturdays. I guess working on a particularly difficult case for 36 hours straight will do that to you.

When I got down to the kitchen, my wife, Ginny, and daughter, Lily, were eating blueberry pancakes. I made my way toward them, turning over my shoulder to yell up the stairs, "Come on guys! Lily made your favorite! Get down here before I eat them all!"

I would do no such thing because blueberries aren't really my thing, but I'll never tell them that. I just wanted to get them out of bed. I guess they took the bait because there was a sudden thundering as three hungry boys jumped out of bed and began racing down the stairs. Practically wrestling with each other to get to the pancakes first, the two black haired boys and the blond landed in a heap at the foot of the stairs. Taking out his wand, my eldest son James put the other two into a body bind curse, stood up, brushed himself off, and started piling pancakes on a plate. The plate flew out of his hands, and he made an indignant noise before he saw who had taken his food. Ginny gave her son a stern look and said, "James, where are your manners?" She unfroze the other two with a flick of her wand. "If the three of you are going to compete for pancakes, the least you can do is be fair. They can't use magic yet, so you shouldn't rub it in their faces. At least wait until next summer when the playing field is even. Besides, Scorpius is your guest, he should get first pick."

By this time, the blond, Scorpius Malfoy, and my other son, Albus, had picked themselves up and joined James by the pancakes. Scorpius smirked at James before turning to Ginny and saying sweetly, "Thank you Mrs. Potter, but really, that's not necessary. I don't want to be a bother." The kid was always incredibly polite to Ginny, and I could never tell if he really meant it or not. He had a mischievous streak to rival his father.

Ginny handed him the plate that James had prepared, smiled at him, and said, "It's no problem Scorpius. You're our guest. Besides, I grew up with six brothers who eat like James, I guess it's kind of my way of getting back at them."

James scowled and went to make another plate, but Al shoved him out of the way and James fell to the ground. I can't deny that it was kind of funny. Al normally doesn't shove his brother. It's not really his style. He's more likely to hit you with a Jellylegs Jinx or put frog spawn in your shampoo bottle, but these pancakes had always been his weakness. You may be thinking, "What's the big deal? They're just pancakes. There's no need for fighting." You would, however, be wrong. These are the best pancakes in the world. After all, my daughter had inherited her Grandmother's cooking skills. Enough said.

We all ate in silence for a few minutes before I turned to the kids an asked, "What are your plans for the day?"

Lily was the first to reply. "Alexis and Hugo are coming over. We're going to hang out in Diagon Alley; and then going to the Weird Sister's reunion concert. And yes, Dad, there will be parent supervision. Aunt Hermione is coming with us," she said, answering all my questions before I even asked them. I know it might be a little hypocritical to insist that my kids have so much supervision, especially since I did practically everything on my own when I was younger than them, but I've been told I have a protective side. Sometimes I'll let James out without an adult, but only if Al is with him. See, whenever James goes out, he's normally with Scorpius, and they always find some sort of trouble to get into. Before I instated the Al rule, James and Scorpius had been visiting Hogsmead during the summer holidays and somehow ended up letting all of Aberforth's goats free. Normally this wouldn't cause much of a problem, but Aberforth has a tendency to experiment on goats and some of them were able to breathe fire. Before the Magical Law Enforcement Squad was able to round them all up, half the town was on fire. In addition, George's whole stock of Weasley's Wildfire Wizbangs had been ignited by the fire and created an explosion so loud that the professors at Hogwarts thought the explosion was in the castle. Since then, James and Scorpius are not allowed to go anywhere without Albus because he's smart enough not to cause trouble. Or, at least he is clever enough to get away with it.

I turned to the boys in question who were finishing their breakfast. They exchanged a glance and seemed to have a silent conversation. Scorpius raised an eyebrow at James, who shrugged almost imperceptibly. Scorpius tilted his head to one side pursing his lips skeptically. James glanced discreetly at Albus, who was not part of the conversation but seemed to be able to understand their unspoken language, and rolled his eyes. James and Scorpius kept up this secret conversation of theirs until they came to a consensus, both leaning back in a nonchalant way, as if they weren't up to anything. James yawned, scratching his head tiredly and making his hair even messier than it usually was, which Scorpius took as his cue to tell me. Smiling innocently, which I didn't quite buy, Scorpius turned to me and said, "Well, Mr. Potter, we were going to visit Teddy."

I looked him over critically. "Why?" I asked.

"We just haven't seen him in a long time, and we know how he gets lonely."

I snorted. Teddy never gets lonely. He constantly has someone over at his flat, especially his girlfriend Victoire. The two of them were social animals, always ready for some type of group fun. There were only two reasons James and Scorpius would want to visit Teddy: 1) to attend some sort of party, or 2) they needed his Metamorphmagous skills for their next prank. Seeing as Victoire was in France visiting her grandparents and Teddy didn't have any parties without her, my money was on the second option. Knowing that Teddy is a responsible young man that would insure that their prank was not harmful in any way, I let the matter go, but not before giving Scorpius my signature 'I-know-you're-not-telling-me-the-whole-truth-and-you're-lucky-I'm-not-going-all-Auror-on-your-ass' look. Scorpius understood my meaning and gave me a genuinely charming smile, and I was awed, not for the first time, that I had come to know and like this boy so much. It never failed to astound me that the son of my childhood enemy would be best friends with my son. The irony got me every time. It even surprised me which son had befriended a Malfoy, for if I had to bet, I would have said Albus, not James.

Since his first day at Hogwarts, James had been a devoted Gryffindor, almost to an annoying degree. He was proud of his house to a fault and up held the Slytherin/Gryffindor rivalry as if his life depended on it. He entered his second year with more confidence than a second year should be allowed to have. He decided it was his job to torment the first year Slytherins. He made a mistake, however, when he tried to embarrass Scorpius Malfoy. Scorpius was rather advanced for his age, having learnt half the spell book before the school year began, so when James attempted to place a hex on Scorpius that would have turned his skin purple, Scorpius was ready for him with a well executed Rictesempra. Embarrassingly, James was unable to remove the jinx and was paralyzed with laughter until McGonagall came along and put him right. Utterly humiliated, James went after Scorpius with a vicious vendetta. The two boys sent each other to the hospital wing so many times that they were on first name basis with all the nurses. This behavior continued, and escalated, until about halfway through the year when they landed a detention with Professor Lindsay (Yes, that's his last name.), the new DADA teacher, for nearly drowning each other in the Black Lake. For detention they had to join the Gobstones Club. Most people would not consider this much of a punishment, but for two active young boys, it was torture. Only extreme nerds were in the Gobstones Club, and I'm pretty sure the boys would have rather fed themselves to Aragog's babies than join the club. Apparently, they had decided that desperate times called for desperate measures, and they did the unspeakable and joined forces.

Together, they engineered a plan that took them three months to execute, but was worth all the effort. They started out by sneaking into Lindsay's office using the Marauders' Map and Invisibility Cloak (I know, it was a bad move on my part to give it to James. Lack of judgment on my part.) and cursing his robes to smell like sardines to cats, but undetectable to humans. Lindsay had all the pet cats in the castle following him around for three weeks before the spell wore off. That would have been funny enough, especially since Lindsay is a bit afraid of cats because of an unfortunate incident from his childhood, but the boys had taken it a step further. They cursed Lindsay so that every time he spoke, he meowed like a cat. The funny part was that he had no idea what was coming out of his mouth. To him it sounded like he was talking normally, but everyone else heard mewing. He was stupefied as to why all his students laughed uproariously at everything he said and why his colleagues looked at him like he had lost his mind. You may wonder how a first and second year managed to pull off such advanced magic. Well, when they actually try, James and Scorpius can be exceptionally bright; they just don't care very often. Sometimes I expect that Teddy might have given them some pointers also, but I can never be sure.

They got him back good, and no one could ever prove they did it (though I think McGonagall suspected them, but she hated Lindsay so much, she really didn't care. In fact, I think she secretly gave them each 50 points. Don't tell them that though. They don't know.), and both were so satisfied with their work that they took to pranking all the teachers, and eventually realized they had so much in common. I mean, they're practically twins, except the appearance thing. Since then, the two of them have been inseparable, James cares less about what house his friends belong to, and Scorpius has been accepted as one of the family. As for me and Draco, we've had to spend more time around each other than either of us would like, but despite our differences, we are both extremely proud of our sons. As corny as this sound, I guess our love for our sons made us put aside our rivalry. Sure, we have a rather icy relationship and still fight (which the boys find hilarious by the way. Sometimes they'll imitate the conversations Draco and I have. They're uncannily good at it, and kind of make me see how ridiculous we sound. Very forced.), but I guess Dumbledore was right, Love does conquer all.

Anyway, I turned away from Scorpius and looked at Al. "What are you doing today Al?"

Al finished shoveling pancakes in his mouth long enough to say, "Rose and I are going to see a movie. There's this new movie about wizards, and we want to see how off the Muggles are. They're normally quite wrong."

As if she had heard her name, Rose walked out of the fireplace with a cheerful greeting. Scorpius seemed to perk up at her appearance, but realized what he was doing almost immediately and leaned back in his chair as if he had been that way all along. I wasn't the only to notice either. James smirked shook his head at his friend's rather obvious behavior. Obvious to everyone but himself and Rose that is. Rose brushed the ash off her clothes and took a seat next to Albus, messing up his hair (not that it was tidy to begin with) as she went. "Almost ready Al?"

He batted away her hand and said, "Yeah. I just gotta change." He got up, put his plate in the sink, and downed some orange juice. "Be back in a minute," he yelled as he took the steps three at a time to his room. Lily and Ginny followed his example and went to get ready for the day. I considered doing the same, but, if I'm being completely honest, I'm a little nosy, and I wanted to see how the three remaining kids would interact. I'd seen it plenty of times before, but it never got old. The three of them sat there in an awkward silence, Scorpius and Rose avoiding each other's eyes while James looked on amusedly. I caught his eye and gave him a look that said 'go-ahead,-get-it-started,-I-want-to-see-this'. Grinning at me, he turned to Rose, cleared his throat, put on a serious face and said, "So… Rosie… Did you hear that Scorpius here got, what was it Scorp? 9 O.W.L.s?"

"Actually," Scorpius corrected, "it was 10, but I don't like to brag."

Rose snorted. "Really? That's never stopped you before."

"At least I have something to brag about," Scorpius retorted, giving her the signature Malfoy sneer, but there was a hint of teasing behind it.

Unfazed, Rose swept her long, red hair over her shoulder, saying, "Yeah? You wanna brag about the last Quidditch match where a certain Slytherin chaser scored in the wrong set of hoops?"

The sneer fell off his face and was replaced with a light pink tinge to his cheeks. The subject was a sore subject with Scorpius, and he was obviously not over the embarrassment. To be fair, it wasn't entirely his fault. The day before the game, he and Rose had gotten in a fight, and she cursed him so bad that his colors were all mixed up. He couldn't tell green from red to save his life. He should have been able to tell which goal was his based on who the Keeper was, but, unfortunately for him, the Gryffindor and Slytherin Keepers are identical twins. There's absolutely no way to tell them apart unless they're wearing their house colors, which Scorpius couldn't see. To give him credit, he only made the mistake once and more than made up for it with his stellar performance. Even though Slytherin had won the match, people remembered his blunder more than the 8 other goals her scored that night. Angry that she had dared to bring up the forbidden incident, Scorpius went after what he knew would rile her up: her romantic status. "Well, even after that happened," Scorpius said, unable to speak of the loathsome event, "I was able to find someone to comfort me. You know, kiss away my sorrows. When was the last time you and Davies even held hands?"

Paul Davies was Rose's recent ex-boyfriend who had dumped her for a girl with a, ummm… more top heavy figure. The sting of their break up was still rather strong for Rose, so it wasn't unexpected when she shot back angrily, "I, at least, date people with actual intelligence, not just run around with the first stupid bimbo to walk my way, only to pick up another one the next week. Anyone like that is bound to die miserable and lonely."

Scorpius was known to date rather dumb girls and be a bit of a player, but he never cheated on any of his girlfriends, nor did he treat them badly. Rose had exaggerated the situation quite a bit. As far as I knew, Scorp had had a total of six girlfriends in the last two years, but all his relationships lasted more than a week like Rose implied. "It won't be for lack of offers though Weasley. Why don't you just give up now? I'd be glad to get your cat collection off to a start," Scorp said sweetly.

Rose glared at him, but answered in an equally sweet voice, leaning toward him, "How kind of you, but I can think of several other things I'd rather you do, like stick your face in a cauldron of acid perhaps."

"I'll do that if you exile yourself and go live with Grawp to save all the decent people of the world from your stuck-up personality."

"My stuck-up personality? That's rich coming from Mr. I-won't-drink-pumpkin-juice-because-it-is-made-from-a-plant-that-sat-on-the-ground."

"Juice should only be made from fruit that grows on trees, you bushy-haired know-it-all."

"Spineless Slytherin!"

"Uptight, Gryffindor loser!"

"Ferret faced coward!"

"Bossy, unloved flobberworm!"

Rose looked at him murderously before yelling, "AL, HURRY UP!" and stomping outside to the garden. Scorpius crossed his arms and scolwed. He, James, and I sat in silence for a minute before I decided to break it: "That went well."

"Oh, shut up," Scorpius muttered as he got up and followed her out the door. James waited until he was out of earshot before digging in his pocket. "Extendable Ear?" he offered, holding out the flesh colored string he pulled from his pocket. I grinned and took one. Man, I love that boy. I fit it in my ear just in time to hear Scorpius say uncertainly, "Rose? Are you okay?"

James and I moved to the window and saw that Rose was sitting on the bench in the corner of the garden, trying to ignore the boy standing in front of her. "Why do you care? Want to make sure I can handle a few more insults?" she didn't sound upset, more angry than anything.

Scorp sighed, "Look Rose, I'm sorry. I just got a little carried away. 'Ferret faced coward' just kind of got to me. It was rather creative."

Rose let out a small chuckle, "It was one of my better ones, but I suppose 'coward' was a bit strong."

"Coward? I was talking about the 'ferret faced' part! I was truly offended!" he said, pretending to be affronted.

She laughed for real this time, causing Scorpius to smile: "I'll be careful to leave out the ferret references next time I insult you. Would allusion to your lack of skin pigment be more appropriate?"

"Yes, I think I can handle that if I'm allowed to make fun of your complete lack of coordination," Scorpius countered. I smiled. Unfortunately for her, Rose had inherited her father's clumsy gene, but had it under more control than he did.

Rose put on a fake serious face, held out her hand, and said, "I think we have a deal Mr. Malfoy."

Scorpius shook her hand and nodded his head, replying, "I look forward to our next round of insults."

"Rose!" Al called from his window, "I'm ready!"

"Alright! Be there in a second!" she screamed back. She smiled at Scorpius, and he watched her walk back toward the house. Right as she got to the door, he called, "Weasley."

She turned back toward him with a questioning glance.

"There's something I forgot to tell you earlier."

She nodded for him to continue.

"Well… I got more O.W.L.s than you, I got more O.W.L.s than you," he taunted in a singsong voice, adding a little victory dance to go with it.

"Malfoy!"

Like I said: it never gets old.