Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, the Next Generation, or any of the characters mentioned in Deathly Hallows. I do, however, own Frank and Alice Longbottom II, Cassie Malfoy, and any other characters that you have not previously been introduced to. I also do not own the 39 Clues branches (Tomas, Lucian, Ekaterina, and Janus). I own the recipe for the seasonings to use in the spaghetti, however, and they actually work quite nicely.

Summer - Age Twelve
Cassiopeia's Point of View
The great part about my birthday is that it is on June fifteenth, right after we get out of school. I turned twelve right before Lily did, being that he birthday was on June twenty-second, Roxanne's was on July sixth, Hugo's on July thirteenth, and finally Lucy's on July twenty-seventh. On each of their birthdays I sent them a gift and a letter, though to be fair that wasn't any difference since I sent them each one every week anyway.

I wasn't allowed to go to the Potter house until August twentieth due to the fact that my mother didn't want me to spend my entire summer at someone else's house, having decided that she missed me and my brother very much since we were both at school. I noticed that my dear brother took care to owl Albus once a week, as I did with my friends, and found it funny that he would completely freak out if he forgot to owl Rose at least once a day. For this I teased him mercilessly.

Over the summer I found that Scorpius was not the only one to be infatuated with a Weasley, nor was he the only one that had a Weasley infatuated with him. Apparently, sometime during the summer Lily found herself growing close to her aunt Fleur's sister's son, who had come to visit from France. According to her, he was very sweet, and in one of Roxanne's letters I was informed that, while they were of course oblivious to the fact themselves, the boy fancied her as well.

Also, just from Lucy's letters alone I could tell that she had become completely and utterly infatuated with Lysander Scamander, let alone Roxanne and Lily's. Lucy, however, in contrast with Lily and Rose, knew very well that she had a crush on Lysander and had simply chosen to ignore it, being that he had just turned fifteen and she was only twelve. I agreed wholeheartedly with her decision, explaining to her that maybe sometime in her late years of school or after they could be together, were that to be their decision. She had reminded me that she didn't even know if he liked her back. I had snorted as I read that.

By the time that August twentieth came, I was very excited to make the trip to the Potter's house, which I still had yet to see as I had spent Christmas at the Burrow. Scorpius and I had gone by floo powder and I was completely taken aback as I stepped out of the fireplace. The living room - just the living room, mind you - was huge.

The first thing I noticed as I stepped out of the fireplace was that it was an extremely quaint, and not at all what I had expected from a very raucous and loud family such as the Potters. The walls were a functional light brown/beige color, with dark brown crown moldings. In front of the wall in front of the fireplace was a beautiful brown couch with blue throw pillows. Said wall stopped at a corner about a meter from the end of the couch, and from where I was it looked as though the corner stood next to a set of stairs.

The other side of the couch had walls that went on for a few meters before cornering off. There was a small bar with a space in the wall so that I could see into the kitchen – or more likely so that parents could see into the living room from the kitchen, and then ten meters in front of that there was a pair of French doors, frosted over. I wasn't sure if it led to a dining room or the kitchen, but I was guessing the former being that it was such a big space between where I could see the kitchen and the doors.

The entire wall that the fireplace sat on was mostly windows, giving it an open floor plan, and the natural light was beautiful. Before I could further explore, however, I heard a voice from the kitchen. "Cassie? Scorp?" I heard what I recognized as Ginny's voice. "Is that you, sweeties?"

"Yes, Ginny," I said. She had insisted that I call her that when I had met her over Christmas. "Where is everyone?"

"Well," she answered as she came out of the set of French doors. As it swung shut again I caught a glance of the dining room table. "At the moment, Albus is in his room, James has a summer job with Fred at the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes in Diagon Alley, and Lily is over at Roxanne's house above the shop. She should be back in a minute; she just went to get Roxy so they could both be here when you got here."

"So Albus is the only one here?" I asked. She nodded.

"If you want, you can go see him," she said. "If you go over to the stairs and head up, the second floor has six bedrooms. The first door on the left is Lily's, the second is Albus' room, the third is James's room, and the fourth is mine and Harry's. On the right there are two guest rooms; you can take the one closest to the stairs, or if you prefer you can sleep in Lily's, and then you, Scorp, can take the one farthest from the stairs as always or sleep in Albus' room again."

"Thanks Ginny," Scorp said. "We'll be back down in a little bit then."

Scorpius and I walked up the stairs and I went toward the first door on the right first. Inside, there were four beige walls accented by slightly darker brown carpet. The bed was on the far left side of the room, right in front of a window that had its sill about four inches from the top of the bed. The bed itself was made of dark brown wood and had pretty dark blue comforters and lighter blue pillows.

The room, which had two windows besides the one that was near the bed, was very airy and full of light. So much in fact that I didn't even have a real need to turn on the light as I walked over to the closet, which was on the right side of the room closest to the far wall and yet another window, and put away my things. Scorpius had told me that since he stayed over most summers anyway the room he was currently unpacking in was pretty much unofficially his according to them and that he kept some of his spare things there. According to him, it would be wise to do so myself as well. Next to the bed was a small bedside table which I decided to put my wand and schoolbooks into.

Finally, being done unpacking, I started walking back downstairs only to run into Lily and Roxy on their way up.

"Cassie!" shouted Lily as she took in my form. "Hi!" She threw her arms around me. "Oh my gosh, you're almost an inch taller than me now!"

I laughed at her enthusiasm. "Nice to see you too Lily," I said. "And yes, I am." I turned to Roxy. "Hey Roxy," I said. "How was your summer?"

"Pretty good," she answered. "My dad wants me to try out for the Quidditch team this year. All three Chasers are out since they graduated last year, as well as the Seeker, so he thinks it would be cool if you, Hugo, Lucy, Lily, and I tried out and then hopefully one of us would make the team at least. I told him that we would try but not to get his hopes up."

"Sounds fun," I said. Then I grinned. "And think if three of us all got the Chaser positions; wouldn't that be cool."

"Yeah," said Lily. "Then we would have the Beaters, all three Chasers, and the Seeker as Weasleys."

"Um, Lily," I said, raising an eyebrow.

She just laughed. "Let's face it. By this point, you and Scorpius are both Weasleys. You even got the sweater from Christmas to prove it."

I stood there for a moment, trying to think of something to say to that, but couldn't find one. "Alright then," I said. "I concede. But see, the difference between my brother and I is that one day he's gonna marry Rose. It's obvious."

"It's about as obvious as you and Albus," said Roxy.

I cringed. "And again, I have no idea what makes you think that," I said. "Didn't we have this conversation in December?"

"Yep," said Lily, popping the 'p'. "And to this day, I have to say that it is highly unlikely that you don't have a crush on at least one of my brothers."

"Merlin, guys," I said. "It's been like eight months! I do not like Albus, and I most certainly do not like James! He's like a second brother!"

"So you admit you don't have as much of a problem with Al."

Remind me to hit Lily.

"No," I said. "I don't admit that. I would have a problem with dating either of them, let alone marrying them."

"Uh huh..." Lily hummed. "Let's check back in three years and see what you think then."

"Fine," I said. "And when it's the same answer, I get to laugh and say 'I told you so.'"

"Good for me," said Roxy. "Now let's go get something to eat. I'm hungry."

I couldn't help but giggle a little at that. Roxy was always hungry. I suspected it came with the Weasley genes.

"Okay," I said. "Then let's go talk to Ginny about it and see what we're gonna make, huh?"

We walked downstairs and found that Ginny was already bustling about the kitchen, humming to herself as a pot of water on the stove lightly boiled and another pot was filled with red sauce. Apparently we were having spaghetti.

"Smell's good, mom," said Lily. "Can I try some of the sauce?"

"Sure," Ginny answered. "I think it's missing something though. I put in the Italian seasoning, but because we didn't have any garlic powder I had to use garlic salt instead."

"Let me try," I said. "Maybe I can help?"

She shrugged and got a spoonful of the warm sauce and handed it to me. Taking a bite, I cringed. "Much too much garlic flavor," I said. "Add a couple of shakes of Italian, maybe?"

She did as I asked and had me taste it again. Again I frowned. "Let me see the garlic salt?" I asked. She nodded and handed me the bottle, and I gently held it above the sauce pan. I gently shook just a bit of the seasoning into the pan, dropping it into the pan thrice, with just a pinch of the seasoning going in each time. "The Italian overpowered it completely," I explained. "Now you guys taste."

All three other girls tasted the sauce and Ginny's eyes widened. "That's wonderful," she said. "Where did you learn that?"

"I sometimes help our house elves cook at home," I answered. "Our elf, Hannah, but I call her Hanny, taught me how when I was small. I've always been able to taste something and know just what it needs."

"That is amazing," said Roxy. "You should help Nana Molly cook sometime; you guys would be an amazing pair."

"Thanks," I said. "But I think that her cooking is much better than mine. I'll be lucky if I can ever cook like her. The only things I know how to cook really are the things that require exactly a certain amount of seasonings to make them amazing: hamburgers, spaghetti, baked chicken, things like that."

"That's still better than me," said Lily. "James can cook okay, but Albus and I would probably burn water."

"It's true," said Ginny. "They tried to help make noodles once, but they forgot to add the noodles to the water and it just kept boiling away until there was none left."

I giggled. "That's pretty special," I said.

The others agreed, and we made friendly conversation until a few minutes later, when James and Mister Potter (Harry, as I had been asked to call him) came home and we called Albus and Scorpius to dinner. I couldn't hold back a grin when they complimented 'Ginny' on her sauce before being told I made it.

The rest of the summer went quickly, and before I knew it, it was the day before I would go back to Hogwarts. That night, I stayed up until nearly two in the morning talking to the girls about what our second year would be like. And our best guesses still didn't scratch the surface.