First Magic

August 1984

"Give it back!" a four-year-old Lily screamed. She was standing in the children's corner of Flourish and Blotts, and a red haired boy, about her age, had taken the book she was looking at from her.

"No!" the boy shouted back, "I had it first!"

"So?" Lily said, becoming angry, "I was looking at it! Give it back right now or I'll...I'll..."

But before Lily could issue her threat, there was a flash of golden sparks and the book burst into cheery, yellow flames. The red haired boy dropped the book and jumped back.

A plump, red haired witch hurried over to the corner, holding the hand of a young girl, and being followed by five red haired boys.

"Ron!" she shouted. "What happened?"

The small boy looked up at his mother, teary eyed, and said viciously, "She started my book on fire!"

Just then, Lily's mum entered the odd scene in the corner.

"Lily Amber!" she called out in a reprimanding tone, extinguishing the flaming book with her wand.

"Lily Ember, more like," one of the older, red haired boys commented with a chuckle.

"Yes, well," Lily's mother said, laughing as well. "Do you know what this means, Lily?" Lydia added, scooping her daughter up off the floor and into her arms. "You've done magic!"

Lily's grey eyes widened and she smiled.

"Congratulations, dear," the plump witch said, smiling sweetly at Lily. "And no harm done."

Ron looked affronted by his mother's words and crossed his arms tightly across his chest, two streams of hot tears still rolling steadily down his red cheeks. He clearly felt that harm had been done.

"Nonsense," Lydia said, noticing Ron's state. "Let me buy the book for him. A fresh copy...this one is a bit charred."

"Oh, no, no, I couldn't let you -"

"Florean Fortescue's, then," Lydia offered instead, determined to right Lily's wrong, even if it had been an accident. Lily's eyes widened excitedly at the prospect of ice cream.

"Oh, it's very kind of you to offer, but I really couldn't ask you -"

"I insist," Lydia grinned. "To celebrate Lily's first magic."

That did it. The younger redheaded children were all looking expectantly up at their mother, silently begging her to agree that their immediate futures should involve ice cream. Ron had even stopped crying. His mother sighed.

"Oh...alright, then."

The children erupted in a victorious cheer as two of the sons took their mother by the hands and led her eagerly out onto the cobblestoned street. Lydia followed beside, Lily still in her arms.

"I'm Molly Weasley, by the way," she added, still being dragged by her sons as the group paraded up Diagon Alley towards the ice cream shop. "And this is George...no, wait, Fred, that's George, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Ginny and Ron."

"Lovely to meet all of you," said Lily's mother. "Lydia Lestrange, and this -"

Lydia paused, agitated, as Molly Weasley's eyebrows flew up and vanished under her hair upon hearing her last name.

"One should not be so quick to judge another based purely on the name one carries," Lydia answered coolly. "Our relation to the Death Eaters with whom we share our surname is very distant, which is, I assume, what prompted your impolite reaction. You know as well as I do that all the old families are interrelated."

Molly seemed stunned, temporarily lost for words, but in an instant Lydia's demeanor became cheerful once again.

"Ah, here we are!" she announced as they arrived at the door of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. "Queue up, then. Get anything you'd like."

Molly grimaced uncomfortably but the Weasley children and Lily all rushed to be first in line.

Once everyone had a cone in hand, piled high with many scoops of all flavours of ice cream, the crew crowded around one of the patio tables situated on the alley just outside the parlour.

There were few things Lily loved more than ice cream from Florean Fortescue's, but she'd barely gotten a taste of her banana and butterbeer flavoured treat when a particularly vigorous lick caused the scoops to topple off her cone and splatter into a melty heap all over the hot cobblestones below her.

She looked down at her ruined ice cream forlornly, tears welling up in her big, grey eyes. But before a single one could well over, a new cone appeared suddenly in her little hand.

"Here, Lily Ember," Charlie said gently, giving her his ice cream.

Lily didn't care that Charlie had already licked it. She didn't even care that it was strawberry. She smiled at him hugely, impressed by his ability to share when she never wanted to share anything. Especially not ice cream. Charlie smiled back.

A/N: Molly is uncomfortable at being invited out for ice cream because she knows she can't really spare any money for treats when she just got done buying school supplies for Bill and Charlie [not to mention that it would've been Charlie's first year and he would've needed a wand and everything...] and she's equally reluctant to let Lydia pay. On the other hand, the Weasley kids probably rarely, if ever, get taken out for treats and since most of them are so young, they start drooling at the offer and Molly has little choice but to say yes.