So writing has been going rather well, and I'm really happy to get a review (absolutely thrilled, really) and have some followers, so I thought, what the hell, I'm just going to upload a couple of days early. I hope you all like to read conversations, because this story will be full of those. Anyway, last pre-Hogwarts chapter and then off to first year we go. Next chapter will most certainly be longer, and the ones after that will probably be a lot more lengthy as well, now that I have a bit of an idea what a thousand words look like on the internet instead of in a document. Let me know what you think/like/dislike - reviews are lemon merengue pie in Summer.
Disclaimer - well, that's kind of obvious, isn't it? Don't and won't own anything Harry Potter related, except for the plotline of this little fic.
Chapter 2
It certainly was an interesting two weeks. Albus and Scorpius spent all of Wednesday in the room they would share the next fortnight, laughing and joking like they had done the previous months in school. Every now and then Scorpius glanced out of the window, where he saw Lily repairing a crack in a pot containing a tree that held purple fruits, soften a rock (and after that bouncing it around, laughing happily) and performing other spells they hadn't even touched that year. The effects were not as strong as they would have been with a real wand, Albus explained to him, but they were noticeable none the less and it took just as much magic to get the minor response out of the practice wand as to get the full blown effect from a proper one.
Dinner with the Potters was also something else. The little family that lived in Malfoy Manor dined together in relative silence, only interrupted by the clattering of cutlery or the tapping of glasses on the soft tablecloth. Conversation was held afterwards, when they sat together in the sitting room, taking turns playing the piano and drinking tea.
At 7 Peony Lane, however, dinner was not silent. Owls came and went, either from friends or family members or from the work places of Mr and Mrs Potter. The family of five talked continuously, and every time one person stopped talking to take a bite, another started chatting.
However, two days after Scorpius arrived, everyone fell silent at the dinner table when Lily directed a question at Scorpius.
"When's your birthday, Scorpius?" The question surprised him, but the others just groaned.
"Lily," Mr Potter said in warning voice.
"I told you not to ask this!" Albus mumbled. "I told you not to."
"You told me not to ask him on the first day," she corrected him. "This is his third day."
"You shouldn't ask questions when you won't like the answer."
Lily focused on Scorpius, who really didn't understand why they made such a fuss about a simple question. "I promise you I won't blow anything up. Just tell me."
"It's August 31st."
James eyes widened. Mr Potter choked on his water and started coughing. Albus just groaned.
Lily's face went blank, before slamming her fork in the table. It stayed up, and Scorpius started wondering just how strong his mate's baby sister was. "You bloody lucky bastard!" she shouted, standing up, her chair falling back.
Not knowing why he was lucky or what else to say, he only saw one appropriate response to this. "I'm sorry?"
This girl was a mess. Scorpius was so confused. One minute she was quite a pleasant person, the next she was ruining the furniture while yelling at him for his date of birth, and now she was laughing. He looked in amazement at her chair, that stood up by itself so she could sit down again. Still in fits of roaring laughter, she managed to squeeze out: "So you should be."
Mrs Potter rolled her eyes. "Lily, dear, mind your manners. And language, please."
Lily was just about to shoot her mother a witty reply, when something blue caught her eye.
"Teddy!"
"Hi Lily-bud," her godbrother said from the doorway. He opened his arms for her to run over and jump in, which she did, so he could hug her close. He put her down and looked at her sternly. "You need to eat more. You weigh next to nothing."
"The same could be said about you, Edward. Do the Aurors not let you eat when you're gone?" Lily had always loved her godbrother like her own brother, and she hated when he went away on missions like this, where he was gone for days. Now that Albus was at Hogwarts, those days were especially lonely.
Teddy grinned at her, giving her a slight push towards the table for her to sit down again. "Well, the food certainly isn't as good as at home. Or at Hogwarts." His gaze slid over to the table, planning to ask his youngest brother how Hogwarts was treating him, when he spotted the blond boy. "Either Louis has figured out reversed aging or we adopted a blond kid."
"That's Albus's friend Scorpius," Lily whispered loudly. "His birthday is the 31st of August."
"The bloody lucky bastard!" Teddy said, all the while grinning at the boy, who gave him a small smile back, not at all looking comfortable.
"That's what I said!" Lily told Teddy.
"I know, Lily-bud, I heard you shouting. In fact, I think the whole neighbourhood heard you shouting." He held his hand out for Scorpius. "I'm Teddy, Teddy Lupin. Don't mind my birthday-obsessed sister."
"Scorpius Malfoy," Scorpius replied, before asking: "Can someone, maybe, explain what the obsession with birthdays is about? Why am I lucky?"
"Because yours is just before the cut-off date," Teddy explained, while kissing his godmother on her cheek and ruffling the hair on both Albus's and James's heads. He took his seat across from his godfather. "Lily's birthday is the September 2, so she missed the cut-off date of September 1- "
"By three minutes!" she replied, raising her hand to slam the table again, but this time Teddy caught her wrist. She huffed at him, then continued. "Born three minutes into September 2, I have to be eleven for 364 days before starting Hogwarts."
Comprehension dawned on Scorpius's face. "That does sound rather annoying."
She nodded solemnly, glad he understood. "It is."
After this little spat, nothing special happened. It was a nice two weeks, Scorpius had fun. On the 5th of January, the whole family went to Kings Cross to send the kids back to Hogwarts, and Lily hugged everyone, including Scorpius, who hadn't really expected it but didn't really mind. She told him he should most definitely come visit them again.
He did visit again, but never for two weeks, or even for two consecutive days, and somehow Lily was never there when he came over for the day during one of the holidays. So the next time he saw the explosive little redhead was the day after he turned thirteen, and the day before she turned eleven: September 1 2019.
