Amari woke up on the way upstairs.
"Ron?" she mumbled.
"Hey, you feel asleep after lunch." He said softly.
"Are you mad at Hermione?" she had obviously stopped calling them Mommy and Daddy.
"No, of course not! We argue a little bit sometimes, but even so, we won't be mean to you, okay? I promise."
She smiled. "Okay. Let's plan our costumes! We are all bears, but we need more!"
"You could have a dress if you want…Hermione could have an apron like Mama bear and I could wear a tie. What do you think?"
"You should have a hat that muggle magicians wear…"
"A top hat?" Hermione was standing in the doorway.
"Hermione!" Amari got up and hugged her guardian. "Are you mad at Ron?"
"Nah, he's always a dunce, but he'll always be my friend." She smiled at him. He smiled back. Amari smiled to both of them. Smiling party!
"Do you think I should wear a dress and a bear costume?" Amari asked Hermione.
"Sure – just being a bear without clothes is pretty plain!"
"Hey, 'Mione? What did McGonagall say?" Ron cut in.
"She said we could go tomorrow, seeing as there's no classes on Sunday."
"Did Harry tell you about the first assignment?" Ron asked. Amari was playing with her Barbies by then.
"Harry and Lavender were sleeping on the couch when I came in." Lavender hadn't removed her head from Harry's shoulder and they fell asleep like that. Caleb was sleeping in his playpen.
"Oh. Well, we have to make a Confounding Potion with ingredients we find on our property. That's all it said – none of us knew what it was, but we knew you'd know. You know everything!"
Hermione blushed. "Well, I do what I can…"
Ron smiled at her. "So… what is a Confounding Potion?"
She laughed. "Most of the drinker's brain will stop functioning. They won't be able to talk properly, or think for themselves. It's like they're one year old and don't know anything of what's around them – they depend on others to feed them, bathe them, tell them what to do, things like that. If you drank it, you would definitely be vulnerable, at the least."
"See? I knew you knew! I'm guessing you read that in a book?"
"Of course! The one downstairs, actually – the first one I read. Isn't that lucky? There's only one setback…" she said, biting her lip.
"What? What's wrong?" he asked worriedly.
"One of the ingredients is…a certain plant that you can only pick at the new moon!"
"What's so bad about that?"
"Well, one, the new moon was two days ago, so we'd have to wait a while for the next and, two, to get it you have to go deep, very deep, into the forest and climb a certain type of tree."
"That's a slight bump in the road… We'll get past it – we have until the next new moon to do it… Or the next one… Whichever we stop putting it off to… No problems!" he joked.
She smiled, "You always cheer me up…"
"Is that a bad thing?" he said, also smiling. She giggled.
"Oh, yes Ron! It's just terrible!" she said sarcastically and dramatically, giggling. Just when Ron was about to say something else, Lavender walked in, baby Caleb in her arms. He closed his open mouth with a sigh.
"Oh, hi Hermione. Why didn't you wake us up?" she asked, blushing.
"You looked so… peaceful… By the way, we can't do our potion until the next new moon. Good night," she finished, walking out of the room and into the bathroom. Lavender brought the baby into his room.
"Time for a bath then bed, Amari."
"But I don't need a bath!" she whined.
"Then just bed?"
"Fine!" she said.
Ron smiled and scooped her up and plopped her into her bed. "Good night."
"Nighty night." She said grumpily, folding her arms and glaring at Ron. He leaved her door open like she always requested.
She didn't lie down. She sat there, looking in the hallway.
"Harry?" she whispered – he had just passed her door.
"Hey Amari…" he said gloomily.
"Are you sad?"
"Just a little bit, no worries." He said, unconvincingly. He sighed sadly and came to sit on the foot of her bed. "This project is making me sad."
"How come? I'm having fun! Aren't you?"
"Sure, it's fun, but we're like a family… like parents and their kids, you know?"
"But families are good – Ginny thought so and Hermione."
"Well, Amari, I grew up without a family really. And remember when Parvati was worrying about her baby dying? Well, I've known a lot of people that died…"
Amari didn't say anything. She still wanted to listen. She cocked her head to the side questioningly. Harry understood and kept talking.
"Well, when I was a baby, a really bad wizard-"
"Who was it?" she interrupted.
"It was," he hesitated, "Voldemort."
"Who's he?" She asked. "What did he do?"
"He's really bad and kills people… He came and killed my mum and dad. They died to save me as a baby…" he breathed. He took another deep, shuddering breath and continued, "Then my dad's best friend – my godfather – was going to be like a dad to me but he died too. It was entirely my fault…" he couldn't hold it in anymore. He started to cry. Amari's eyes started to water too.
"It wasn't your fault, Harry. I don't think you should have said anything to Amari, she's so young!" Lavender came in. "It's okay!" she said to both of them.
He shook his tears away. "I still have the marauder's map and my Invisibility Cloak. That's good enough for me." He said more surely than he felt. Lavender smiled and went to tend to the now crying baby.
"What's a marauder's map?" Amari asked innocently. She knew what the Invisibility Cloak was, of course.
"It's a map of Hogwarts that my dad, my godfather and their two friends made when they were at school. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs they called each other. They could turn into animals!" he whispered dramatically to Amari. She giggled.
"Wow! What were they?"
"Moony – Remus Lupin – was a werewolf; Wormtail," he said disgusted, "Peter Pettigrew was a rat; Padfoot – My godfather, Sirius Black – was a dog; and Prongs – My dad, James, - was a stag."
"I think being an animal would be cool!"
"It's really hard, though… It took my dad, Sirius and Pettigrew six years to do it." He didn't know why, but he could talk so very easily to Amari. "They were all in the same year with my mum."
"My mommy and daddy are different years old," she said, just because. She thought about the magic around her. "Can you bring someone back from the dead?" she asked.
"No, you can't," Harry sighed. Amari saddened again.
"Harry!" Lavender hissed from the hallway. "Let Amari sleep! It's her bedtime, and yours. Good night Amari!"
"Night," she said without fuss. She was tired, now. "Night, Harry! Be happy!"
Harry smiled at her through the growing darkness. "You too. Good night."
Amari woke up the next morning to Caleb's cries with Lavender.
"Hi Lavender." Amari mumbled.
"Good morning, Amari!" she said cheerfully. "I'll go get Caleb, why don't you wait for me downstairs? I'll come make breakfast as soon as I get him." She pressed the button and Amari could now go downstairs. She picked up her book that she left on the table. Mysteries of Time: Volume One.
'One can travel through time with a Time-Turner, certain spells, rituals and potions. The time travelers can engage in time travel themselves or be engaged by another witch or wizard. So, you can go into the past or future, bring someone into the present from the past or future or even grow older or younger with the different ways listed in this chapter.'
"What do you want for breakfast?" Lavender came downstairs. "I'll make pancakes, is that okay?" she asked at Amari's silence. The little girl nodded, turned a couple pages and returned to her reading.
'Time-Turners are powerful magical objects. They are very rare, and to get one, you need special permission from the Ministry of Magic. You can go through time easily with such an object, but going through time can become a bad experience. To use one-'
"Could you make sure everybody's coming down?" Lavender asked Amari.
She looked up from her book at Lavender. She wanted to continue reading, but the pancake smell was mouth-watering, she was hungry, and Harry was coming down the stairs. He was coming down slowly – after all it was 7:30 am on a Sunday – he had woken up with Lavender but had gotten out of bed slower.
Ron didn't hesitate to run full-speed downstairs toward the smell. The result: CRASH! They were both at the bottom of the stairs rather quickly.
"Ron!" Hermione scolded from atop the stairs.
"I smell pancakes, toast, strawberry jam and… oatmeal cookies?" his sense of smell was fantastic. Lavender was indeed finishing the pancakes, putting strawberry jam on some toast and baking cookies for later.
"Exactly. By the way, Ron, you're squishing Harry – you might want to get up…" Lavender warned.
With all his might, Harry pushed Ron off of him and got up. "Good morning to you too." Ron rolled over to the couch and hit a bookshelf corner on his way.
"You owe me a cookie, now." Ron told Harry, rubbing his head where the bookshelf hit it. Harry shrugged – it was worth it.
"Breakfast is complete! Bon Appetite!" Lavender rhymed. Harry went to help her with setting the table, grinning. Everyone sat down after a few minutes and then they all started eating.
"We all have to dress nice before we go to Hogsmeade. We're eating lunch there with our neighbors." Hermione said, smiling.
"Are we getting our costumes today?" Amari asked.
"Duh - That's why we're going in the first place!" Ron said.
"Okay, meanie!" she stuck her tongue out at him. He stuck his out back.
"Ron! You're just as bad, you know." Hermione scolded half-heartedly. She was rather content that they were 'bonding', no matter what they chose to do so.
After breakfast, Harry cleared the table off for dessert. Everyone had a fair share (except Harry – Ron took one of his cookies, as promised.) And went up to get dressed. Harry was particularly dreading buying a bee costume.