author's note: the characters (for the most part) and world portrayed in this story belong to the ever so talented JKR. This story functions as a sequel to Potters, Weasleys, and Misguided Snogging, so if you want context, I suggest you read that. ((yes this is partially because I handled the epilogue badly what of it - also, if you read this, it doesn't perfectly mirror the epilogue TL or "canon" so yeah maybe I'll just get rid of the epilogue depending on your reactions?))

Chapter One

"Rekindling"

Or

"Crawling Back To You"

For James Potter, he had conquered the world with a Quaffle under his arm.

For Cordelia Gilbert, she was focusing on the documentation of said Quaffle adventures.

For Rose Weasley, the dust had settled and so had she.

For Scorpius Malfoy, saving humanity came second to sleeping off late shifts.

For Lily Potter, it was hard being shipped off without her brothers.

For Fred Weasley, perhaps for once things were easy.

For Andy Fawcett, the figurative dough was being kneaded.

But more on that later.

It was chilly and no one seemed to move fast enough for James Potter to get where he needed to be. Given the late August date, the main street was packed with Hogwarts students and their families buying supplies, and this added to the tally of people who would inevitably recognize his face. In the three years since he'd left school, James had moved up the ranks of Chasers in the Montrose Magpies, garnering Prophet articles and interviews with Witch Weekly and dinner dates with many a well-known songstress. None of them had stuck.

Not like the girl with light brown hair who was walking with her younger brother out of Flourish and Blotts. She'd certainly stuck.

Cordelia Gilbert was nineteen, and worked for The Daily Prophet as a junior Quidditch correspondent. She picked up articles from other departments on occasion, and James tended to lie about the reason he was reading such articles as Why The Weird Sisters' Reunion Album Is The Most Important Musical Creation Of Our Time and Turning Tables in Tuscany. Fred told him he had too much time on his hands.

Cordelia's younger brother, Mitchell – about to enter his third year at Hogwarts – sighted James a few feet away from him and said enthusiastically, "hello, James!"

James grinned at Mitchell and stepped a bit closer for the sake of conversation, watching Cordelia's previously distracted head whip around at the mention of his name. They hadn't spoken many times in the past year, and seeing her so close nearly knocked him out. It was like all of it happened again, whenever he saw her; a whole ten months flashed through his mind, kissing this girl and holding this girl and fighting with this girl about Quidditch and the fact that, for a time, his brother had fancied her as well – all of it hit him like a Bludger. Trust Cordelia Gilbert to turn his nonchalance into mush.

She smirked at him. "Hey there, stranger."

"Are you here shopping for school supplies?" James asked Mitchell.

Both the boy and Cordelia nodded. "I'm going into fourth year," said the former.

James smiled. "Oh – that's a big year, fourth year. Lots of stuff happens."

"I'm really excited," Mitchell told him. "I think I'll play Quidditch this year, though I don't know if I'm the Chaser type."

"What position do you play, then?"

"Keeper," said Mitchell proudly.

James smirked, glancing to Cordelia. "Well, I know how your sister likes those."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't pay him any mind, Mitch," she instructed. Then, looking around, she noticed a familiar face down the way. "Look, it's Eileen Pucey – don't you want to go and say hi?"

Mitchell beamed, ready to run off. "Will you still be here when I get back?"

"Presumably," said Cordelia. "Go on."

Once Mitchell had raced off through the throng of witches and wizards alike, Cordelia turned back to James and folded her arms. "Really? You had to play the Kevin card?"

Kevin Corner was Cordelia's other ex-boyfriend, whom she had dated for roughly six weeks a year after James cut things off with her. Kevin now worked in an office at the Ministry, obviously in an attempt to crack in early and make his way up the ladder of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Before that, though, he had played Keeper on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.

"I'm not going to say that I didn't notice the comparison," he acknowledged. "Come on – it's not like it's hard to keep track of your exes."

Cordelia raised her eyebrows. "Oh – so that's what you've been up to, then?"

"What? Making sure you stay single?" James made a disparaging noise. "Please, Poppins, I don't have time to stalk you. Plus, I'd know if you were dating anyone without keeping tabs."

"Oh?"

"Well, you work for my mum. I think she'd tell me if people were sending you flowers and interrupting you at work and kissing you every time they came and went."

"So that's what you expect a boyfriend of mine to do, then?"

He shrugged. "That's what I would do if I was your boyfriend. And, as you might recall, I was." She groaned and he grinned. "In fact, I was the very first. You could even say Kevin Corner was a rebound and I am the one true love of your life, if you want."

"Or you could say we went out for ten months and you proceeded to try and kiss me while I was on a date with the – quote – 'rebound', thus not respecting my boundaries or his." Cordelia shrugged. "I don't know."

"You're not serious, are you, Poppins?"

Cordelia hesitated. "I've had a lot of time to think about it, James." She reached out and took his hand. "I know we really, deeply cared for each other – and it's not that I don't worry about you anymore – but not all of the decisions we made were good ones."

James, still holding her hand, began to swing his arm to and fro. Cordelia's swung with it. James grinned at her. "I think all my decisions were pretty great, personally."

"Monique la Roux. Kissing me while you were dating Monique la Roux. Kissing me while I was on a date with Kevin while you were dating Monique la Roux." Cordelia pulled her hand out of his to mime counting. "And that's only three."

James cringed. "I will admit I wasn't very smart about that." He bit his lip. "Why can't we just be mates, Poppins?"

She shrugged. "That's your choice. Will you try to kiss me?"

"It's been a few years since we broke up. I'll endeavor not to."

Cordelia laughed, and James spied Mitchell returning from his conversation with Eileen Pucey. Mitchell's sister seemed to as well.

"I'd like to be your friend," she told James. "I don't think I ever really got to be that."

James laughed. "No, we were pretty all-or-nothing, weren't we?"

Mitchell returned and Cordelia smiled. "Where to now, soldier?"

"I need a new cauldron for Potions."

"Alright, let's be off, then." She patted him on the back to hurry him along and then turned back to James. "Sorry about hurrying away like this. My mum will kill us if we're not back for tea."

"No worries," James replied, tipping an imaginary hat.

"See you round?"

"See you round."

The Leaky Cauldron was cloudy with late afternoon light and pipe fumes. It was packed, and for this reason no one had noticed the three young people grouped together at a corner table. Scorpius Malfoy, in a well-tailored suit, sat with Albus Potter on his right. Al's younger sister, Lily, was lounging in the seat opposite Scorpius, looking rather bored. The vacant seat beside her was piled high with new schoolbooks; Lily was about to start her seventh year at Hogwarts, and she did not seem overly pleased about it.

"You're looking cheery," Scorpius noted, glancing from her face to the way her hands fidgeted with her bottle of butterbeer.

"Me?" Lily smirked. "Oh, absolutely. Life of the party. Can't wait to go back to school and take N.E.W.T.s and get talked down to for being a female Quidditch captain." She sighed. "It's the highlight of my existence."

Albus shot her a look. "Try to be a bit more optimistic."

"I shall endeavor to," said Lily, as though the idea of it was a chore. She took a sip of her butterbeer. "Speaking of optimism, didn't both of your girlfriends say they'd be here by half three?" She made a performance of checking the clock halfway across the pub. "It is now four o'clock." She looked at Scorpius, sighing. "Looks like you two don't have much cause to be optimistic."

"Oi!" Scorpius protested. "I'll have you know, Patricia is the manager of Tumbleweed – you know, the band that is currently touring?"

"And Andy's in Bristol," said Al, "working full throttle for her new bakery, with Sennen."

"Spends more time with Sennen than she does with you, mate," Scorpius muttered. He caught Lily's eye and winked.

Barbara Tennant was due for a promotion, and a wedding. She had been working in the Department of International Magical Cooperation since she left Hogwarts, and had watched Felicia Alexander – the Head of said department – fire many an intern, either because they were incompetent or simply because she had grown tired of them. Barbara had never been one of these people. Instead, Felicia had decided to promote Miss Tennant to be her Junior Assistant: a development that Barbara was happy about, but also rather scared.

Something else in Barbara's life had the same effect on her, and this was her impending marriage to long-time boyfriend Fred Weasley. Thankfully, Fred's grandmother Molly had commandeered the planning of the event and left Barbara with very little to worry about, beyond choosing the right dress and showing up for the ceremony.

Now Barbara had a new job, and her wedding was a week away, and it was all slightly terrifying, to say the least.

She sat at the small kitchen table of her and Fred's shared apartment above his father's shop, trying to make sense of it all. Everything in her life should have been colliding at once, in a cosmic blitz of happiness and elation, and it was – of course it was – but for all the effort she'd put into it, she had begun to feel like she was encroaching on someone else's existence. She had the oddest feeling of peering into the open window of another person's life.

Sitting at the baby blue table with a mug of tea clasped in her hands and wisps of dark hair falling around her face, Barbara Tennant felt overwhelmingly absent – drowning and flying, simultaneously. She almost couldn't believe that she was getting married, and to Fred, of all people. Fred, who had been her best friend since they first met at Hogwarts; Fred, who hadn't given it a second thought when Cho Chang's daughter wasn't put into Ravenclaw, because he couldn't have cared less who Cho Chang – now Tennant – was; Fred, who loved her loved her loved her loved her.

The door in front of her opened and the fiancée she had just been thinking about poked his head in. "Didn't know you'd be home," Fred told her, grinning.

"Where else would I be?"

Fred leaned down and pressed a kiss to her lips. "I don't know – working for that batty witch who's got you as her Junior Assistant?"

Barbara giggled. "I'm not sure she'd like being called a 'batty witch'."

"Why not? She's both of those." Fred continued down the corridor out of the kitchen and into their shared bedroom, pulling off his shirt as he went. "The shop was mad today. Hogwarts kids trying to stock up on stuff to get them out of lessons, I reckon."

Barbara looked over her shoulder at him. He'd left the door open while he changed out of his work clothes. "Sounds like something you'd condone."

From the bedroom, Fred let out a loud laugh. "Don't blame me for delinquency of contemporary youth, Barbs!" He sighed. "I suppose it's all they can do at that school when avoiding death by dark wizard or massive hulking spider."

Shelley Corner turned the page of The Daily Prophet with an almost lazy flick of her wrist. She sat in an underground wizard pub in Edinburgh, which was not underground in a literal sense but rather in a secretive one. Her hair flowed down her back in waves of deep chestnut and the severity of her physical appearance could have felled a hippogriff, with her piercing wide eyes and crimson stained lips. She paid no attention to the other pub patrons, which made many of them even more interested in the dark-haired girl with the English accent.

Shelley had come to visit one Tabitha Perkins, with whom she had been well acquainted at school – or at least as close as Shelley could get to 'well acquainted' with anyone.

Tabitha opened the door to the pub and spotted her friend almost immediately. "Shelley!"

Shelley's eyes lit up, and she stood so to embrace Tabitha. "How are you, babe?" She pressed a kiss to the air beside Tabitha's cheek, then pulled back to survey her. "Goodness me – you're looking a right stunner, aren't you? Have you been travelling or something?"

Tabitha blushed. She ran a hand through her hair, which Shelley had remembered being much mousier than its now mahogany shade. "Nowhere sunny, I'm afraid," she replied, sitting down opposite Shelley. "Just Bulgaria for a few weeks and then Romania for a month."

"Ooh – what were you seeing in Romania?"

Tabitha shrugged. "Dragons, mostly."

"Mostly? What, not get any hot Romanian action?"

"No – I met Louis' uncle Charlie, though. He's a laugh."

Shelley raised her eyebrows. "Oh – yes – because Louis's over there too, isn't he? Did you go and see him?"

Again, Tabitha blushed. This time her ears went pick, too – a fact not ignored by Miss Corner. "Yeah, we caught up."

"You were a bit keen on him at school, weren't you?"

"What? I – "

"Tabs, you've gone redder than Lily Potter's hair. Question: how do I know? Answer: I'm Shelley Corner, babe, I see all."

It took Tabitha a couple of moments, during which Shelley smirked and pushed her Daily Prophet under her handbag, and then she said, "I did see him in Romania, yeah – apparently, Sennen Cartwright from my Muggle Studies class told Albus Potter that I was going to be around, and then Albus told Louis, so he knew I was in the country; he made a point of giving me a tour of the place where they're keeping the dragons and all that, which I found really interesting because I've read a lot about dragons and – "

" – You want to be a magizoologist, don't you?"

" – Yeah, I do," Tabitha smiled. "So – "

" – Bugger my giddy aunt, you two would be such a pair, I just – "

Tabitha shook her head in disbelief, but there was fondness in her tone. "Shelley."

"Merlin and Agrippa, you are actually an absolute loser," Lily cackled.

Her cousin Lucy paused halfway through the application of her prefect badge and stared at Lily, questioning. Lucy could not figure out what was so hilarious about a letter from Lily's eldest brother that it could have the girl verbally responding.

"It's from James," Lily explained.

"Oh, I gathered that. What's he said that's got you doubled over in hysterics?"

Lily giggled again. She looked back down at the letter. "First, it's the sheer fact that he's trying so hard to be casual about something that the total lack of casualness in it is more obvious than Ravenclaw's impending loss in the Quidditch Cup. Second, it's that what James is trying absurdly hard and failing to be casual about is Cordelia Gilbert."

Lucy raised one eyebrow. "His ex-girlfriend of three years who now works for your mum?"

Lily, eyes watering with suppressed mirth, nodded. "The very same."

"Right – what's going on?"

"They're meeting up for lunch next week. Well, she doesn't know that they are yet – he's planning to casually stop by when his mum's not there and strike up conversation with Cordelia, which will somehow lead to him making an off-hand remark about this nice place at the top end of Diagon Alley and how hey, the two of them should go next week sometime."

"And your twenty-year-old brother just told you this?"

"Let's be fair, he's not the best at keeping things up his sleeve."

"Or understanding that everything has its time, apparently."

Fred Weasley furrowed his eyebrows. He had his arms crossed and was leaning against the kitchen bench at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, where his cousin James had been living since finishing school. James himself was seated, his feet up on the long rectangular dining table that was rarely used but often convenient – like it was at the present.

"You're just back to acting like your eighteen-year-old self again, and sorry, but I really can't stand that bloke."

James pulled a face. "I'm not!"

Fred snorted. "Yes, you are. Face it, mate – you can't be friends with that girl. And now you're off to try and get lunch with her and sweep her off the feet she's already magically charmed to the ground. Doesn't any of this strike a chord?"

His cousin looked smug. "Strike a what?"

"I hate you," said Fred, rolling his eyes.

There was a loud crack then, the sound of Apparition. James and Fred both turned in the direction of the noise – the open door to the corridor, which led into the living room and the staircase to the rest of the house. Footsteps followed momentarily, and then Barbara Tennant appeared, looking somewhat concerned. "You don't mind that I just popped in, did you?"

James smirked. "No – in fact, the love of your life was just telling me how much of a miserable idiot I am."

Barbara smiled, crossing the room to Fred. "Why's that? Are you being one more so than usual?"

"Hilarious."

Fred pecked a kiss on Barbara's cheek and wound an arm around her waist. "He presumes he's taking Cordelia Gilbert out to lunch next week."

"Does Cordelia know this?"

"Not yet," said James, faux-introspectively. "I'm going to casually ask tomorrow in such a way that isn't so much asking and seems more like suggesting."

"You've thought about this a lot, I see."

"He has, hasn't he?"

Barbara turned to James, now more kindness and less teasing. "Cordelia did mention she ran into you in Diagon Alley – but I didn't think you'd be dissecting it so much – Merlin, James, doesn't three years change anything?"

He sighed, dragging his feet off the table and back to the floor. He sat up straighter, investigating his hands, which were knit together in front of him. "This is going to sound mental, but fancying her's just sort of become a permanent state of being, if that makes sense? I can't help but get those stupid jitters on the off chance I see her – I perk up like a tense hippogriff if someone says her name – I am literally the equivalent of a fanatic twelve-year-old girl and it's disgusting."

Fred suddenly looked very serious. "Is this why it didn't work out with that bird from the Wonder Witches?"

"Yeah, I guess. The problem is that no one's ever going to compare to her and I always seem to want them to. I don't know. It's daft." James shrugged.

"It's okay," said Barbara. "I don't like the Wonder Witches anyway."

"Mum," said James rather blankly. "You're not meant to be here."

Ginny Potter stared at him. "Neither are you. This is the Prophet office."

"No," he groaned. "You're meant to be in Sunderland. For the rural league playoffs."

"Oh, I was going to go," she said, "but I sent Cordelia instead. She's not been out to a match in ages." She noticed the look on her son's face and narrowed her eyes. "What's this about, James? Why'd you come to your mum's office and then complain about your mum being there?"

James, turning to reach for the door, laughed.

"Where are you off to now, you nutcase?"

Halfway out of the office, James called back, "Sunderland!"

Gabbie Sterling, sixteen-year-old Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, sat at a cluttered table in the library with her Charms notes spread out in front of her. She tucked a few stray strands of pale blonde hair behind her ear and set about work on her fifth page of notes in preparation for one of the theoretical tests they had coming up. She was trying her best to stay focused, but there was very little to be done about her wandering mind that bounced from Quidditch plays to Muggle music to the fact that it was Hugo Weasley who had introduced her to said Muggle music.

They were quite good friends, Gabbie and Hugo. She had known him since she was thirteen and, he, fourteen; they had become friends slowly and then after a while it became inconceivable that they had ever not been.

Given their three-year friendship and their continuous pushing and shoving and banter and big bear hugs on train platforms, there was not much that Gabbie did not know about Hugo, and vice versa. Perhaps one thing that stood out was his complete and utter lack of romantic interest in anyone. Over the years, she'd asked about girls, then asked about boys, then asked if he actually felt that way or did not, but Hugo had a habit of talking his way out of things and she'd never wanted to push things too far.

As if on cue, someone's arms wound around her shoulders from behind. "You're like Rose, holing yourself up in here."

Gabbie looked up, taking in Hugo's newly cut hair and just how far he had to leaning down to get his arms around a seated friend. She returned the grin on his face and pulled out the chair beside her. "Well, you'd better join me then."

Hugo did so. "This Charms?" He asked, gesturing to the mass of papers in front of them.

"Yeah."

"New teacher's good, isn't she?"

"Patil? I like her." After a moment, Gabbie asked, "what'd you need me for, presuming you didn't just happen to be here?"

Hugo sighed, half smiling. He scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, about that – first off, your mate Melina might be a bit mad with me. I managed to run into her five times and asked where you were every time and she got pretty tired of that pretty quickly." Gabbie chuckled and Hugo's eyes followed her. "And, uh, I was coming to find you because Ella Stebbins asked me in Ancient Runes if we were going out."

Gabbie raised an eyebrow. "I reckon she's got her eye on you, Ella Stebbins." She shifted in her seat to face him directly. "What'd you tell her?"

"'Nah, we're just mates,'" Hugo replied, his ears slightly pink. "What makes you think she's keen on me?"

"Well, I don't know," said Gabbie slowly. "She's always looking at you in the Great Hall, and she tried to sit beside you in the stands at the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff Quidditch match last year. I think you'd be a bit of her type – you know, tall, bright, vaguely oblivious and ginger."

"Am I vaguely oblivious or vaguely ginger?"

"Oblivious. You're certainly ginger, Hugo."

He gave her a peculiar little look then, almost dizzyingly fond. Gabbie had caught him like that before, usually in moments where she didn't think he thought she could see him. After three years, though, Gabbie was done trying to dissect him. She moved back to a diagonal angle. It was more comfortable on her shoulders than smashing one of them against the back of a chair.

"Ella Stebbins," Hugo murmured to himself.

"She's very clever."

"I know lots of clever girls. 'Clever' doesn't sell it."

Gabbie looked at him. "Is this you finally divulging something about your romantic tastes… for the first time since you were fourteen?" She laughed a little bit.

Hugo smacked her arm lightly with the back of his fingers. "Oi!" He smirked. "I could say the same of you, Miss Disinterested In Anyone And Everyone."

Gabbie glared at him. "I'm not disinterested!"

"Oh? Name one person you've ever fancied."

She rolled her eyes at him. "You, sir, are incredibly childish."

"You're avoiding the question."

"Only as much as you are."

Hugo winked at her. "That avoidance is the oars to our Fred boat."

"They're getting married, though," Gabbie scoffed. "This weekend. Not much of an in-love-with-your-best-friend-who-doesn't-notice boat if you end up married to them."

Hugo shrugged. "I reckon it's okay."

"Three things," said Albus upon entering the kitchen of the Bristol bakeshop and closing the door. "First – if that out front is your slow hour, then I'd hate to see it at peak time. Second – how can nobody tell you're using magic to make these considering the speed at which you bake everything? Third – Sennen, if possible, I think I am in love with your apron."

Sennen, who was busy Charming the Muggle machinery, looked over her shoulder and beamed at him. "Nice to meet a fan!" She rolled her eyes. "Your girlfriend's not too fond of it."

Across the kitchen, Andy's eyes widened. "I only said it wasn't my style – not that you didn't rock it!"

"Thanks, dearest," Sennen replied. After a moment, she seemed to have counted that the only two employees of their business were in the kitchen and that no one was paying attention to the counter outside. "Fiddlesticks – I'd better go and man the front of house."

She hurried past Albus and ducked through the door. Andy monitored the machines on the bench, made sure the measurements were accurate, and then turned back to her boyfriend. "It's nice of you to come up, you know."

Albus followed her across the room and leaned his head on her shoulder, for she had averted her attention to work. "I miss seeing you every day."

He could feel her chuckling. "Always happy to hear that. Though you are a ninny, coming and trying to distract me from my booming baking business," she added.

"Sorry I can only come weekends."

"Why can't you just live up here? It'd be so much easier, and you could train at the Cardiff Aurors' Branch instead of in London."

Albus shook his head. "London's where the best are trained, and even if I came here and went to Cardiff, I'd still have to get referrals from London anyway."

"Apparition's a thing, you know."

"But if they send you an owl in the night, shouldn't you be there immediately?"

Andy sighed, putting her wand into the front pocket of her apron and taking a few steps away from Albus. She tried to busy herself with manually wiping up a worktop. Albus followed with a groan. "I'm not trying to be difficult, you know, I'm just – "

" – Being a realist?" Andy still didn't look at him. "That's my job, isn't it?"

Albus laughed, half lost in a sigh, yet loud enough for Andy to hear.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"We're turning into an old bickering couple," he replied, green eyes scrunched up at the edges from the way he was smiling. "Nineteen and we're in our sixties."

Andy couldn't suppress a grin. "You dork." She extended a hand and took his in it, and then pulled herself to him. "Listen here, Cute-Face Magee, you are my almost-Auror boyfriend, and we will make some kind of relationship work out, no matter where the both of us are living. Clear?"

Albus nodded down at her. "Crystal."

They were very close now, a couple of inches apart. Andy moved to kiss Albus, but the door of the kitchen flew open.

Sennen gave little notice to her colleague and her colleague's boyfriend and how close together they were standing. Instead, she said, "There's someone out here who wants to speak to you about your sugar cookies!"

Andy looked to Al and gave his hand a squeeze. After kissing him quickly on the cheek, she turned her attention to Sennen and the matter outside the kitchen door. "Let's get cracking, eh?"

Albus could only watch her go.