23 years later, Harry Potter found himself under the stairs once more.
It was the last day of August, and 10:00 already, yet the Potter family was completely unprepared for the next day. Well, that was not entirely true – Albus had been packed for a week. Lily had nothing to pack, though her moaning hadn't been helpful. Really, the problem was James.
The year before, James hadn't been early, but he hadn't forgotten to pack all of his books and robes, which was the reason his father was rummaging through the storage cupboard in the basement. James insisted on packing all of his school things away over the summer, claiming that "School already takes up 10 months of my year. I refuse to let my free time be corrupted as well." Of course, this meant that retrieving it was much more difficult.
Ginny was the one who had sorted everything the past June, and was out at the apothecary making sure that James had all his ingredients. None of the rest of the family could ever understand her organising, and the cupboard was no different. Through bins and bins of rubbish, Harry managed to find:
¾ Three pairs of broken glasses
¾ A half-empty bottle of broomstick polish
¾ Several letters from Rita Skeeter, begging for an interview
¾ A pile of James's detention cards
¾ A wrinkled, bent issue of The Quibbler
Unfortunately, Harry did not manage to find robes, nor any other items on his list. Grumbling, he started to shuffle out of the cupboard, but hit his head on the low ceiling. Harry's glasses slid off of his nose and knocked the wand sticking out of his pocket.
Now feeling very foolish, Harry pulled out his wand and muttered, "Accio robes," thinking there was no reason to use non-verbal spells when no one was around. The dusty black school robes came shooting out of an overlooked box straight into Harry's left hand. Harry shook them off, muttering about how James really should start taking responsibility for his own stuff, and continued to magically retrieve the rest of his son's school supplies.
After ten more minutes of summoning charms and several exasperated reparos, Harry heard his wife and son enter the house, James talking loudly as usual. "James!" he called, "Come get your things or I'll take away your broom!"
James thumped his way down the staircase, hopping the last two. He grudgingly took the various objects in his arms, made sure his father noticed the disapproving look on his face, and climbed back up the steps, with much less vigor.
Finally free, Harry took his place in an armchair and began to leaf through that day's issue of The Daily Prophet. The most only interesting bit of news was about a collapse in the Department of Mysteries, which Harry only read out of curiosity. The article claimed that a dark wizard had attempted to break into the Ministry, and the disturbance of the protective spells caused the collapse. Harry, of course, knew that the destruction had been caused by a miscast charm. The news had been relatively boring for a few months, but that was nothing to complain about.
Eventually, Harry came across a Rita Skeeter article, which caused him to grit his teeth as usual. This particular blasphemy was an exceptionally well crafted hatchet job directed at the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and not hesitating to throw in that his political issues were no doubt partly due to the lack of support from the Deputy Head, who happened to be Hermione Granger. Harry turned the page to find a very colourful response to the gossip column written by none other than Hermione herself. How Hermione had managed to get it printed in the same issue, Harry had no idea, but he smiled at it nonetheless.
The wall mounted clock now showed a time of nearly 11:30, so Harry folded up the newspaper and headed upstairs for the night. He checked that both Albus's and James's trunks were well packed, and that Lily wasn't trying to stowaway in her brothers' luggage again. Harry turned off all the lights in the house, and closed all the blinds. Finally, finally, he climbed into bed, and fell asleep imagining what sort of horrors they would have to deal with before they left the next morning.