Author's Notes:

Well, here is the tenth chapter.

Thank you for reading my story, putting it on alert and adding it to your favourites!

I'm a bit saddened that nobody reviewed, but, oh well… there isn't much I can do about that.

I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I make no profit from this work of art. However, I do own the plot and some OCs. The image belongs to charmontez.

Chapter 10. Of tours and accidents

Harry Potter had a very busy morning. First, he had to wake up really early in order to help his wife and best friend prepare for the upcoming party. Then he had to take James to his mother-in-law and remind him that he had to behave himself and that there actually were rules to follow. And that wasn't his last floo journey by far; he went back and forth between Grimmauld Place and the residences of the Malfoy, Nott, Zabini and Doyle families. And as if that wasn't enough, he also had to engage in small talk with the children's parents. It wasn't unpleasant, just awkward.

"Alright, Al, here are your friends," said his father, gesturing towards the boy's classmates. "I hope I haven't forgotten anybody."

"No, dad, thanks," smiled Albus. "You can go to work now."

"How generous of you," Harry commented on his son's dismissal, however he responded to the kid's smile with one of his own and, having wished everybody to have fun, left the drawing room.

"Well, what shall we start with?" asked an impatient Rose, behind her cousin.

"How about a tour?" Amorette suggested, and went to hug her friend. "I'm so happy to see you! Thank you for the book! I've never thought that ancient magic was this enthralling."

"You're welcome!" she answered. "Thank you for the crystal phials, but the monogram was really too much. You, too, Ambrose, thanks a lot!"

The boy just waved his hand dismissing her exuberant feelings of gratitude. "It was just some crystal phials."

"So how about the tour, Al?" Tristan repeated Amor's words. He really wanted to talk to the boy in private. The sooner the tour took place, the faster he'd be able to talk to him.

"Of course," Albus nodded. "Well, this is the drawing room on the first floor. There once has been a tapestry of the Black family tree, but my parents hid it when they redecorated. I reckon it would've shown you, Scorp."

"Why would there be a Black family tree in your house?" Thea asked with a little frown.

"Well, this has been the house of my dad's godfather, Sirius Black. Dad inherited it upon Sirius' death. James' middle name is also Sirius."

"And as far as I know, your great-grandmother, Dorea Potter, was a Black," added Rose. If Al didn't know that his cousin was one of the most curious people on earth, he would've been surprised that she knew stuff about his father's family. However, he did know her, so he didn't dwell on it much.

"Yes, now, this is the room you – Liz, Thea and Amorette, would be sharing with Rose," the boy continued the house tour, having left the drawing room and going to the mentioned dormitory. "As you can see, it's really large and it should be good enough for all of you. And next to the room, there's a bathroom you can use. Do you like it?"

Elizabeth nodded and smiled at the colours adorning each bed sheets. Those were the favourite colours of each girl, hers being Irish green, Thea's – purple, Amor's – ivory, and Rosie's – light blue. Al was really sweet that way, memorising their adored hues. "Yes, it's lovely. It's going to be just like at Hogwarts."

The other girls seemed to agree with Al's choice of colouring and happily said that they liked their sleeping arrangements quite a lot.

"Well, let's go upstairs first, and then downstairs," said the young Potter. "In the kitchen, waiting for us is brunch. Aunt Hermione and mum have prepared quite the feast for us. Also, I got desserts from my nana, the best thing you'll ever taste!"

The other boys just rolled their eyes, whilst the girls just chuckled at Albus' antics.

"Well, let's go to the second floor. This is Lily's room and that one is James'," he showed the respective private quarters of his siblings. "The one in between is a bathroom, but you'd better not use it, who knows what kind of stuff James hid in there."

"Here, on the third floor, are the master bedroom, which belongs to my parents, two guest rooms and a bathroom. One of them is occupied by Hugo and the other one will be yours," he continued, pointing at Tristan, Scorpius and Ambrose. "My parents' dormitory is actually an en-suite, so you don't have to worry about the bathroom arrangements."

As Al opened the door, the other children could see a spacious room, with quite a lot of light coming in from the wide windows and three rather big beds, with silver, green and blue duvets on them, which would belong to Scorp, Ambrose and Tristan, respectively. The 'host' closed the door and they went for the topmost landing featuring just two bedrooms.

"Now, this is the fourth and last floor," Al informed his friends. "The room on the left, once belonged to Sirius Black, but now it's kind of a library. It was aunt Hermione's idea. When my father came back to live here, the room was in a much too dilapidated condition, not much could be salvaged. So she proposed to put the pictures and stuff on the walls and some of the important stuff in a trunk and keep it at Gringotts. If you want to read something, you can take a book from there, there are quite a lot.

"And this is my room," he said opening the door to his room. Everybody except Rose, were quite impressed by it. The girl had seen it before and she had already expressed her appreciation of the room to its owner.

"Nice," Ambrose and his sister exclaimed at once.

"How Slytherin," smirked Scorp. "I really like the theme, mate."

Tristan and Thea just nodded their agreement to their friends' aforementioned comments.

"It is rather overwhelming," said Lizzy, "but I like it."

"Well, thanks. This was my parents' Christmas gift for me," Al smiled. "Now let's go to the ground floor."

Once, they reached the first floor and continued descending the stairs, Al spoke with an amused expression on his face. "Quite some time ago, when I wasn't even born, there had been heads of house-elves mounted on plaques decorating this wall. But my parents' thought it was too repelling so they took them down."

"And they did well," muttered Rosie; she didn't find anything amusing about such horrible wall ornaments.

"I agree," Amor said, "that's awful."

The boys didn't have an opinion, so they just shrugged, while Thea seemed to be too far away in her thoughts to have noticed the comments. Liz just looked at Al, and they both silently chuckled; she too found it rather humouring.

"So this is the ground floor. At the end of this hallway, there is the main entrance leading outside to Grimmauld Square, and behind me is the door leading to the garden, which father has transformed into a Quidditch mini-pitch," Al informed his fellows. "Well, there to the left is the dining room, and we eat there only when in very large numbers. The wall to the left has once been removed completely. My mum said that there was a portrait of a crazy woman, Walburga Black, I reckon your great-great-aunt, Scorp. This psycho was yelling the entire day awful stuff about anybody passing by. So they just destroyed the wall since the portrait could not be taken down, and believe me they had tried. And to the other side is the staircase leading to the kitchen. Take care, it is a bit narrow."

Everybody followed him down, and before them opened a quite enlarged cavernous room, with a big rectangle table made from cherry-wood in the middle of it. There was also a large fireplace. To one side was the kitchen itself and all the equipment seemed brand new, and to another was the pantry, most likely containing all the products, as well as an ice-box. Near it, there was another small room.

"What's that for?" asked Amor.

Before Al could reply, another voice cut in. "It belongs to Kreacher, the Black's house-elf, but he's ours now, however he's quite old, so don't disturb him much, please."

"Hey, mum, were you hiding in the pantry or something?"

"No, Albus, I put some of the unused fish in the ice-box," answered Ginny, and she turned her attention back to their guests. "I hope you will have a pleasant stay here. You can call me Mrs Ginny, alright?"

"Okay," Amor said, "but why not Mrs Potter?"

"It makes me feel like I'm old, and I'm really far from it," giggled Ginny, waving her hand dismissing the thoughts about unwelcome aging.

"I see all the mothers are the same," grumbled Ambrose.

"What do you mean, Am?" inquired Tristan.

"Well, just yesterday we had quite a similar talk with our mum," he explained. "And it all started with her pregnancy."

"Your mother is pregnant?" asked Ginny delighted. "How wonderful! She's brave to have a child at this age."

"Well, she is 35, so…" Amorette trailed off, deciding that her explanation was enough.

"I see. But I meant that taking care of child is a strenuous activity. Now, we have more important things to do," stated Ginny. "Hermione has already left for work, but until now we've been preparing lots of delicious meals for you lot. So, how about you take a sit at the table?"

Hermione knocked on Harry's office door, and she went inside, after hearing a low "Enter".

"How are you, Harry?"

"I'm fine, just a bit tired," he answered, his hands going through his hair, messing it even more.

"Is it the Xanthus case?" she asked softly.

"Yes, and it is torturing me. I mean he's already been seen in Greece, Austria and Netherlands some time ago. He should have crossed the channel by now, but nobody has reported to have seen him. Not knowing is the most gnawing thing ever!"

"Harry, you have to calm down. It won't do you any good to get this anxious. And what can you possibly do? It's not like you can go out there and start searching for him."

"Yes, but at least I'd be doing something!" he exclaimed. "What if he decides to go on a killing spree? What then? I want to prevent people from dying, Hermione! I'm an auror, this is supposed to be my job!"

"Yes, it is, but you don't know his whereabouts. You have already alerted all the possible focal points, there isn't much you can do besides that. And promise me that you will suppress that urge of yours to save everybody," Hermione chastised him.

Her friend just sighed and shook his head, as if saying that he wouldn't make promises he couldn't keep. This, however, infuriated her. "Harry! Promise me, now!"

"I promise to try," he mumbled. Hermione knew it was the most she could get from him, so she didn't press on.

"Alright, let's go to that meeting," she said, not really looking forward to it. The trimestral ministerial head of departments/offices meetings weren't much fun.

"Yes, let's go," Harry sighed; he just like Hermione wasn't very excited about it. "I really don't understand how they could move the meeting onto 26 December, what were they thinking?"

Ginny was a bit regretting that she had agreed to receive those little devils into her house. They were everywhere. Having eaten, they started moving through the entire house, and as if they weren't enough, Lily and Hugo joined them. 'They definitely want to demolish this house,' she thought.

Somehow, she made everybody stop for about five minutes, so she could catch her breath from having run so much. They had destroyed some of the Black china, a beautiful sculpture she and Harry had bought during their honeymoon in Bahamas and some curtains had been a bit ripped to one side, but it was nothing magic couldn't repair. As she thanked magic for what seemed like the hundredth time, some distant shouts could be heard from the last floor. 'I thought everybody was in the dining room.'

She quickly went up the stairs to Al's room, and opened the door, seeing Tristan and her son arguing about something. It seemed that they didn't register her presence.

"Why would you treat my sister like that?" the former asked a bit too loudly. "Why would you send me a gift and not to her? You've no idea just how upset she was! Some friend you are!"

"I have a gift for her! Why are you shouting?"

"Oh, yeah? So where is it? In the shop, perhaps?" Tristan went on. Al had never seen him so 'not calm', usually the boy was the epitomised composure.

Some movement near her caught Ginny's eye, and she saw all the children coming upstairs and they were rather busy with listening to the two friends' arguing.

"I did buy Elizabeth a gift! But it is too big for me to send it via owl, and I wanted to give it to her today!" Al replied defensively.

"Tristan, stop it!" a very embarrassed Liz exclaimed. The boys finally took notice of their audience and Al started blushing.

"I really have a gift for you, Lizzy," he said looking at the floor. "I'm sorry if I spoiled your holiday."

"Don't worry, Al, you didn't," she smiled.

"Damn right, he-" Tristan interrupted his thought, "the hell he didn't! You were almost crying, for Merlin's sake!"

His sister, just like her Slyhterin friend, was rather red in the cheeks. "Raven, if you don't shut that mouth of yours, I will do it! And mind your words."

The boy turned towards the mistress of the house and apologised. "I'm sorry, Mrs Ginny, for shouting and cursing."

The woman just shook her head and smiled at him. "Do not worry. Albus, how about I bring Elizabeth's gift?"

Her son, still admiring the light colour of the wood on his floor, simply nodded and didn't say anything else. He wanted to give the present to Liz in a bit more private surroundings.

Ginny quickly retrieved the girl's gift and handed it to Al. He finally looked up, and still blushing, gave it to her. "I heard your dad saying that Yoko is now dancing as well, so when I saw this I thought you'd like it."

The girl was beaming as she admired the Japanese inspired theatre scene. As the boy mentioned earlier, it was rather big, and rightly so. The arches were wide, the background of the scene was enormous and the catwalk was long. It was a good thing that the theatre had a weightless charm put on it.

Lizzy quickly put the house of art down and hugged her housemate. "Thank you, Al, so much! It's a Noh theatre. I've seen those only in history books."

"I'm glad you like it," the boy replied relieved. "In there, are some kimonos Yoko could wear, you just have to ask for them. Also, depending on the song she's interpreting, the background will change and there are some special effects, but there are so many I don't remember them all."

The girl with a bubbly personality hugged him once again, and then took the house in one hand, and with the other she urged the girls to follow her to their room, so she could retrieve Yoko from her bag and put her on the stage to admire her performance.

Ginny watched them leaving and Tristan apologising to her son. The other boys followed the girls downstairs, however she was sure they didn't join their friends to watch Yoko sing and dance.

"How has work been?" asked a tired Karin. They had been making love for at least three hours in a row, and she felt drained.

"It was alright. The heads had a meeting yesterday, so today we were mostly given the abbreviated form of it."

"Ron, I'm tired of leaving in a bed and breakfast hotel."

"Yeah, it is bothersome. I think I will buy you a flat," he said wondering just how much he'd have to spend on it.

"You will buy a flat for us, not just for me," she said smiling at him.

"You're right. For us," he grinned at her.

"I'm going to show just how well I can cook," stated Karin.

"Food, hmm, that's good," he replied and nuzzled his head in her uncovered breast. Soon they got distracted and he took her once more before leaving to go to the house he shared with his wife.

'I will have a flat!' she exclaimed in her head. 'Now, I just hope, I get pregnant, so he can leave his wife and come live with me and our baby.'

It was 30 December, a beautiful Saturday. Harry Potter just got up and went downstairs to start the preparation of breakfast for 12 people. He still couldn't believe that they had survived the past four days with just a few accidents and only two visits to St. Mungo's.

The first accident happened during a Quidditch match on Wednesday. He had taken a day off from work and took care of cleaning the mini-pitch from the previously accumulated snow. He also reinforced the charms that didn't permit for either the children or the balls to go past the pitch and the house's height. All the children were almost in ecstasy; they would play Quidditch! In about an hour, they had warming charms cast on them, had brooms in one hand and two of them had a beater's bat, as well.

There were two teams with five players each. Al's team was called 4+1 (four first years and a nine year old; four boys and a girl; four Slytherins and the undetermined one), and he was the seeker, Scorp and Liz – chasers, Hugo – beater, and Am – keeper. Tristan's team was named Mingle-Bingle (no explanation whatsoever, Thea suggested it), him and Lily playing as chasers, Rose – keeper, Amor – seeker and Thea – beater. Although the Doyle girl was much better qualified to play as a chaser, Harry had to recognise that she did a pretty good job as a beater. Ginny volunteered to be the referee and her husband was the commentator.

For about half an hour, the captains had discussed the tactics they'd use with their respective teams. And the match started. The Potter couple quickly noticed that all the players were very talented, and some of them had Quidditch in their blood. They were formidable. After about two hours of them playing, when the score was 80-50 for 4+1, it happened – the smash, so to say. The bludger violently hit Am's arm and the set of parents feared the boy had his hand bones completely crushed. They quickly stopped the game, rushed to the Zabini kid, provided first aid, and they took everybody to the hospital via floo.

Fortunately, it was just a broken humerus in two places, and the healers made him look like new, not even a scratch on his arm. Harry felt rather relieved. He didn't want to meet Blaise just to tell him that something horrible happened to his boy. Now, when he brought back the twins to their house, he could just inform the former Slytherin that there was an accident, but nothing major.

However, after that accident, there was no more playing with the bludgers. Hugo and Thea had to play as chasers. The match resumed, and Al's team won 250 to 90, as he was the one to catch the snitch.

Thursday had passed without many things being broken or torn apart. The second accident happened on Friday.

It seemed that the children got rather bored with plain old Quidditch and thus decided that flying on brooms throughout the house, more specifically up and down the stairs, was much more interesting. Suffice to say, the event had been called 'the big impact'. Why impact? Well, a certain Hugo Weasley got distracted while zooming really fast along the corridor on the ground floor and had a rather painful encounter with the door leading into the back garden. The door wasn't made of steel, therefore it could not resist from bursting open as a result from the impact. And as if that wasn't enough, Hugo was thrown into the snow and as he wasn't dressed for a bath in snowdrifts, besides lots of bruises and swollen body parts, he got a cold as well.

Some guests didn't know what to do, laugh or be concerned for the young Weasley, however Ginny's murderous glare at their misdemeanour quickly took care of that uncertainty. After three hours of being chastised and given lectures, they had to endure another two hour long talk on safety and rules that existed specifically to prevent such accidents. The poor Weasley was scarred for eternity and vowed never to misbehave under his aunt Ginny's surveillance.

All in all, the Potter couple felt like celebrating after they had sent the children to their respective homes.

"Remind me never to volunteer to take care of these children," mumbled a very tired Ginny. "I feel like I have had one of those hard bordering psychotic Holyhead Harpies training sessions."

Harry smiled, understanding his wife's grief and exhaustion. It had been a rather strenuous experience. "Next time I hope they visit the others' houses. I would like to see how they'd cope."

The red-head chuckled and kissed her spouse. She took his hand and led him towards their bedroom. She might have been very tired, but she found sex as something quite invigorating. Harry understood her intentions and quickly pulled her in his arms and ascended the stairs as fast as possible. 'Hopefully, the children won't disturb us.'

Explanation of some things that might be confusing:

1. About the structure of 12 Grimmauld Place. I have tried to stay as close to canon as possible. I'm not sure whether the house has got four floors, but from what I have read both in the books and 'Harry Potter – wikipedia', I gathered that it could be that big. I hope you don't mind that Sirius' room is no more. I don't really like that, but I couldn't just let it be covered in cobwebs.

2. A Noh theatre is a Japanese theatre, where Gheisha used to perform, some still do that now. You can google it or see pictures of it, they are rather beautiful.

3. Acquiring a flat in London is very expensive, but Ron seems to have deeper pockets now and mortgages are rather convenient.

A quick poll for entertainment purposes:

Which of the following is your favourite colour?

A) Green
B) Blue
C) Black (I know it is a shade and not a colour)
D) Red
E) Other. Let me know (you can specify the shade/hue, if you want to)!

My own answer to the previous poll: My favourite holiday is Mother's Day. I love my mother very much and I'm so grateful that she has done so much for me. Thus on that day (but not only on that day), I try to show her my gratitude and affection as much as humanly possible.

So what do you think about their slumber party or Tristan's overprotective nature? Aren't they all a mischievous bunch? ^_^

Please review!

When you review, my muse tends to have a continuous presence in my head, and thus I write and update much faster.