Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, I don't pretend to be: I'm doing this just for fun. Number Twelve, Godric Lane
Godric's Hollow
Yorkshire.
"Right, you lot! I've had it up to here with you!" shouted Ginny, dropping the saucepan she was scrubbing furiously at into the kitchen sink.
The "lot" in question, four of her six children, had heard it all before and knew what was coming next.
"Please, Mum, we'll be good!" promised the eldest of the four quickly, at once releasing her grip on her sister. This was followed by equally sincere vows from the remaining three; the youngest girl, no more than three, stopped her screaming and the two boys dropped the wands they had been using to try and poke the other's eye out with.
"Yes, Mum, please," begged one of the two boys, both redheaded. "We won't do it again!"
"No more wands!" agreed the younger.
"Felix Potter, do you really expect me to believe that?" their mother shouted, banging on a pot for emphasis. Without waiting for a reply, she went on. "All week I've been busy getting ready for Nana's, and what help have I got?" – she ignored the protesting yells of the children – "None whatsoever, and – LET GO OF YOUR SISTER, TESS!"
"She started it," muttered the black-haired girl darkly, but she did let go all the same.
"I – DON'T – CARE! What has gotten into you children, I do not know, but there'll be hell to pay when your father hears about this –"
"No!" wailed the three and seven-year-olds.
"- Too bloody bad, Isie, too bloody bad!"
"Mummy said a naughty word!" whispered Isie to her brother, Felix, in a shocked voice. He nodded in reply, a look of fear in his wide brown eyes.
"Mum –" started the older boy.
Ginny gave a cry of frustration as the cauldron on the kitchen fire began to overflow; an oozing green substance flowed down its sides. "Enough! Enough! Out, all of you!" she yelled, shooing them from the kitchen.
"Well, I say," said the portrait of a little man in orange robes as the children traipsed out. "Those children are an utter disgrace to the Potter name, a disgrace, I tell you."
"Oh, shut it," said Ginny crossly, now Vanishing the potion from the floor.
The BurrowOttery St. Catchpole
Devon.
"It's been so long since we've had a little baby here, Arthur," said Molly conversationally to a patched green armchair opposite her. "Felix and little Isie are almost four now… would you believe it! I can still remember holding Felix when he was just a little one – three months old and so tiny! And it seems like just yesterday that Bill and Fleur had Laurie, and yet the child's just turned sixteen…" Molly shook her head softly and looked down at her lap. "Time goes so fast, Arthur," she said quietly, in an almost whisper, "especially now. It's a gift, really, is time. I feel like I'm just giving all mine away…"
The back door slammed shut and Molly gave a little start. "Mum?" came a voice from the kitchen. It was probably Bill; he lived just down the road and often popped in for a visit. Sure enough, moments later her eldest son strode in through the arched doorway of the living room and plonked himself down unceremoniously on to his dead father's chair.
"Bill, I – "
"You really shouldn't do that, Mum," he said earnestly, leaning towards her.
Molly blinked, deciding to play dumb. "Do what?" None of the children knew about Arthur and his old armchair; she was afraid that they'd make a fuss and have it sent away. And that could never happen. It wasn't right, even though her husband had been dead for twenty years.
Bill's greying ponytail shook as in time with his head. "Well, I guess it's only to be expected – I mean, a woman of your age…"
Molly's heart sank. This was it. This was when the word "senile" came into play. This was when they'd take Arthur away.
" – But you really shouldn't leave the back door unlocked. You live alone, Mum! I know it seems like we're safe because it's peacetime – "
Molly felt a swelling a relief fizzle inside her and then slowly dissolve, spreading a warmness to her fingertips and a dizziness to her head. "Oh," was all she could say.
"Anyway, how're you holding up? Family coming this afternoon? Yes?"
"Yes, yes, you know that," Molly said quickly, waving an airy hand about. Her eyes twinkled. "So why are you really here, Bill? Surely not to check on your mother's back door?"
Bill squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. Something was up; she had always been able to read him like a book. "Well…"
Molly was enjoying this. "Fleur all right? The children? The cat?"
"Mum." Bill's eyes were serious now. "We have a bit of a problem."
Auror H.Q.
The Ministry of Magic
London.
Mad-Eye Moody slammed the Prophet down on the desk, smoothed it out angrily and banged a fist down on the table. "Read this," he said in a frighteningly low voice.
Harry and Ron drew nearer and read with horror Thursday's headline: NEW LAWS TO PUT RESTRICTIONS ON FREE DEATH EATERS.
"No!" whispered Ron.
"Yes," said Moody grimly. "And that's not the last of it." He jabbed a finger at the accompanying article, but the two Aurors were already scanning it.
Late yesterday the Wizengamot passed a total of seven new laws that severely restrcict the freedom of all free, convicted and suspected ex-Death Eaters. From tomorrow, all Death Eaters and their families will be required to: (i) Report to the Ministry on a bi-yearly basis regarding their whereabouts, activities and dealings, both fiancial and social; (ii) Place a provided Ministry Floo Watcher in their houses (this watcher gives the Ministry complete access to the household's Floo use without the employment of Floo Network workers); (iii) Report to the Ministry any changes in their whereabouts, activities, dealings and work; and (iv) Report to the Auror Department regarding past Death Eater activity.
In addition to these four laws, restrictions will be placed upon all those suspected, convicted and cleared of Death Eater charges regarding their: (i) jobs – Death Eaters will be refused employment (a) within the Ministry, and Ministries of all countries within the Confederation (b) within Hogwarts, and all magical teaching institutions (c) within St. Mungo's, and all wizarding health departments and hospitals; (ii) meetings with other free, convicted and suspected Death Eaters – gatherings of more than two of the afore said are banned; and (iii) residence – free, convicted and suspected Death Eaters are required to live in low density: two Death Eaters per 15 sqaure kilometres.
Furthermore, a list of all those being hunted by the Auror office classified as high-risk Death Eaters will be made public.
Breaches of these new laws see the breachers facing fines from 100 Galleons to high serving times in Azkaban.
The new laws were met with applause from the Ministry of Magic. "We have been crying out for these laws since You-Know-Who's Voldemort's defeat twenty years ago," one Ministry worker, who preferred to go unnamed, said last night. "This is the only way the magical community will feel safe," they claimed.
However, it is predicted that those restricted by the laws – Death Eaters – will react strongly to them, and riot are feared. Said one senior Ministry worker, "They will not take kindly to this at all." The Minister for Magic, Mr. Amos Diggory, insists that (continued pages 3, 4 and 8)
Harry groaned. He and Ron had spent several years of intense Auror work tracking down and convicting former Death Eaters. Moody, their mentor, had come out of retirement to aid the project. Every year he ranted about quitting but fifteen years on, they were still rounding up the few who were still evading capture. It was this handful that they had been working on nearly the whole of fifteen years as shortly after Voldemort's defeat most Death Eaters had surrendered themselves to the authorities in hope of lighter Azkaban sentences.
It had been hard work capturing Bellatrix Lestrange (caught in late 2002 after a long pursuit), the cunning Kipling Mulciber (cornered at the same time of the birth Katharine Weasley, Ron's daughter), Asper Callidus (who was sheltering with Mulciber) and Dominic Carrow (a recent capture), but between them they had. And they were still trying to track down several lesser-known Voldemort followers, namely Travers, Goyle and Jugson.
"Do you know what this means, boys?" growled Mad-Eye Moody.
"All our work is destroyed and any hopes we had of nabbing Goyle dashed?" said Harry dully, sinking into his chair.
"Paperwork!" cried Moody, dumping a folder the size of a large cat on Harry's desk. "And bloody piles of it, too. Get cracking!"
"We can't – do – paperwork, Mad-Eye!" spluttered Ron. "We're not even supposed to be in today!" He lowered his voice, wary of the three other Aurors working overtime in their separate cubicles on Sunday, adding, "And what about that family get-together, Moody, you know how it is."
Moody banged his newly acquired metal cane against the table. "We're in the middle of a crisis, Weasley, so don't tell me what you can and cannot do, leave that to ME! I'm telling you that you have to do this paperwork, so do it! Good day!" The gnarled wizard turned on his heel and stormed off as fast as one with a wooden leg can. When he reached to door he hesitated, took and few slow steps backward and turned to face his smug under-Aurors. Moody coughed. "Er, tell Molly I'll be round on Tuesday."
"Cheerio," called Harry, a mix of a grimace and a grin on his face.
Moody merely muttered something about retirement before disappearing around the corner and out of sight.
Number Twelve, Godric LaneGodric's Hollow
Yorkshire.
It was just after three when Harry and Ron were finally dismissed by Mad-Eye (although they still hadn't finished even half the paperwork), and it was at least a quarter past by the time Harry had Apparated back to his Godric's Hollow home's front garden.
It was a nice house, his house, thought Harry, making his way across the front lawn over the obstacles that were children's bicycles, several garden gnomes and a half a dozen energetic bantams. Quaint and stoutly home, the two-storey A-frame farmhouse laid just a little way out of the Muggle-populated magical village of Godric's Hollow. The Potters owned five lush acres, the house set in the middle of the lot, and one of those five was dedicated to a full-sized Quidditch pitch just a little way behind the house. It wasn't extravagant – it fact, it was far from it – but number twelve, Godric Lane was home.
Harry was hanging his robes on the hook by the front door and greeting the family's Irish setter, Ned, when the kitchen door swung wide open and a swell of conversation met his ears. His youngest daughter stood in the doorway and beamed at him. "Daddy!"
Harry opened his arms wide and Isie ran into them. Picking her up, he kissed her forehead. "Hi, little pumpkin," he said, curly a few strands of her dark red hair around his finger.
Isie giggled and battered her father's hand away playfully. "Hewwo, big pumpkin."
Harry kissed her freckled nose. "Mummy mad at me for being late?" he asked, shifting the little girl to his right hip.
"Yes, lots," replied Isie, adopting a serious face. "She said you was s'posed to be home at wunchtime so we could go to Nana's but you wasn't here and we prob'ly missed out on roast. I bet Toby ate it all, even the 'tatoes."
"Really?" said Harry.
"Yes… Mummy says that it served us all right 'cause we was all naughty this morning and she got real angry, Daddy. And I think she might still be mads at you."
"I think that you might be right, Isie," came Ginny's voice from the doorway.
Harry turned around and saw Ginny standing there, her vivid red hair pulled back loosely and her hands on her hips. He opened his mouth to explain his lateness but Ginny got in before him.
"I heard," she said bluntly. "From Hermione. You don't need to explain."
Harry smiled at his wife gratefully and thought briefly that although they had been married for almost seventeen years, nothing had changing in the slightest.
"Expwain what?" asked Isie interestedly, looking from one parent to the other.
"Nothing, pumpkin," Harry said vaguely, putting her down. Little Isie slid reluctantly down his leg and slipped back into the kitchen. Harry and Ginny heard her distinctly announce her father's arrival to her siblings and they smiled at each other in the kind of familiar, soft way that only two people who have known each other for a very long time can.
The moment was broken when Ginny said, "Mum will be wondering where we are, you know. Hermione left later, too, but only around a quarter-to."
"A quarter to three?"
"No, a quarter to two. She didn't want to wait for Ron, she said that oaf of a brother of mine could make his own way over," Ginny said, smiling. "We do have to go," she added.
"I know."
Harry slipped his hand in hers and together they crossed the threshold of the chaos that was the Potters' lounge room.
A/N: Please read and review!