"Dad! It's park day!" Albus Potter knocked on his parents door repeatedly, his older brother James standing beside him. "We were supposed to leave ten minutes ago!" He kept knocking but heard nothing from the other side of the door.
"Come on dad!" James piped up. "Mom and Lily left a half an hour ago!" He joined in knocking on the door. The two still heard nothing. They stopped knocking, looked at each other, and sighed.
"DAD!" The yelled together. Finally the door popped open and their father emerged.
"Can a man not get a few moment's peace to use the bathroom around here?" He asked exasperated.
"Well, you should have go earlier, we are already supposed to be gone." Albus whined.
"Yeah, don't you always get annoyed with mom for slowing you down and making you late?" James gave his father a pointed look.
"Alright, alright, I'm ready now, are we going to leave or are we going to stand here complaining that we didn't leave?" The brothers both let out short harumph's and turned to walk away.
By the time the three were loaded in the car and pulling away from the house, they were all in much better spirits, the brother's joking about their mother and sister and their father piping in every once in a while.
"I bet they will come home with something pink, they always come home with something pink." Albus made a face and James laughed.
"Yeah, why is it that girls like pink so much?" The question was rhetorical but Harry answered from the drivers seat anyway.
"Because they are girls, you boys will learn soon that sometimes girls do things and like things simply because they are girls. I think they have a handbook that they follow and are sworn never to show boys." His sons laughed and they launched into a conversation about all of the strange things that girls do.
"And that wierd giggling thing they always do." Albus was complaining as they pulled into a parking space.
"We're here!" James exclaimed looking excitedly out the window at the park full of dead grass and broken playground equipment. The two boys raced out of the car and out into the park. Harry followed leisurely.
"Come on dad, everyone is already waiting." James called over his shoulder as he headed for a small cluster of people gathered around an old newspaper. Besides the Potters there were two other boys and their dad as well as a teenage girl and her mother. The mother and teenage girl looked at Harry with disdain as he walked up.
"Where have you been? The woman sneered.
"I had a bit of an issue getting out of the door this morning." Harry said casually. The father of the other boys laughed.
"You have to put one foot in front of the other." He joked and Harry laughed along with him.
"Could we all just go?" The teenage girl huffed. Harry nodded and motioned to the newspaper.
"Alright, everyone grab a piece." They all crouched and touched a bit of the paper. "Ready? One two three!" After the countdown the portkey spun them all to the final location. One of the other boys fell as they landed and the girl laughed with her mother at him as they walked away, but Albus helped the little boy up.
"Don't worry, I only just stopped falling over and I've been doing this since I was six." He smiled and the little boy smiled back before catching up with his father and brother who were moving away.
"Alright boys, what would you like to do today?" Harry asked and his sons looked around. They were now in the middle of a large scattering of tents. Some sold food, others had games you could play for prizes and still others sold everything from trinkets to animals, to school supplies or broomsticks.
"Could we get some food first? I'm starving!" James asked.
"Sure," Harry nodded and started to lead them to a tent off in the distance. "I think you weren't the only one with food on the brain." Harry waved as they got closer and the boys ran to greet their friends.