Harry Potter - After the Epilogue

by PotterFanSteve

Continuing the storyline from 'After the War', this book focuses on the Hogwarts years and beyond for Albus and Lily Potter, Rose, and Hugo Weasley, and their family and friends. I hope you will enjoy this imagining of what happens in the Harry Potter universe - After the Epilogue!

20. A Hopping(Mad) Holiday and Memorable May

Chapter Twenty – A Hopping (Mad) Holiday and Memorable May

Al woke up slowly on Sunday morning, but that was a lazy ascent into consciousness; not because he was groggy or confused. When he heard a noise to his left; he opened his eyes and looked over to where Stephanie was still sleeping in the bed next to his – and Pauline was standing over her while adjusting the blankets and watching her sister with tear-filled eyes.

"She's slept through the night?" he asked Pauline softly; trying not to startle her.

"Yes, and I'm glad of that; while wishing she'd at least wake up for a few minutes so we'd at least know for sure that she'll be alright. I thought that you'd sleep longer. It's still a couple of hours before dawn."

"I usually wake up early – though that's a bit earlier than normal for me," Al said. "Have you slept at all?"

"I napped a bit here and there; but it's been a long night."

"If you'd like to go and have a nap now, I feel pretty good right now – all things considered; and can watch over Stephanie while you do that – or at least take a break and get out of here for a few hours."

"A break sounds good," Pauline admitted. "I doubt I'll be able to sleep, but going to grab a shower and get changed into clean clothes will help me to keep going. Is there anything I can get for you before I go and do that? Something to drink or a snack?"

Al looked at her speculatively; and smiled a bit ruefully. "Actually, if it won't be too weird for you; I could use a bit of help getting out of bed and over to the washroom," he answered – "though I can wait for Madam Pomfrey or Gwendolyn if that's a bit too much to ask."

Pauline laughed. "I have a twin brother, Al," she reminded him, "and you helped to save our sister yesterday; so that is definitely not too much to ask."

She came around Stephanie's bed to his; helped him to get up and hobble over to the bathroom; and then returned to help him back to his bed again once he'd finished with that unavoidable call of nature. Once that was taken care of, she kissed Stephanie's forehead; gathered up most of her things; and headed out to go to her House to get cleaned up, changed, and take a break after a very long day and night of watching over her sister. Al had moved the bed so that he could sit up in it, but he wasn't ready to do anything yet; so he simply watched over Stephanie while she slept without moving around at all or making any sounds beyond the soft whisper of her shallow breathing. He opened his mind and senses to her; and only half-consciously began to re-assess her medical condition.

There were still injuries that he could 'see' but didn't know how to fix, but he also sensed that she was slowly recovering from the strain of the healing that he and Madam Pomfrey had done on Saturday. It was seeing the awful bruises on her face that had him drawing his wand without thinking about it, and while he still needed to recover from his own injuries, he felt rested-enough to try helping her again; let his power flare out toward her; and delved in to do what he could to help her again. Beginning with the bruising, he healed them with a blast of power that infused her; but did that with a gentleness that was as miraculous as the effects of his magic would have been had anyone been in the room to witness what was happening to Stephanie. Beyond that, the infusion of magical power helped to restore her as he put his whole heart into the effort. He had no idea how long he sat there with his wand extended toward Stephanie's bed, but when he'd done all that he could; he let go of the magic and put his wand away with a sigh. He lay back and closed his eyes for a moment; focusing inward and quietly reigning in the strong emotions that had driven him to help Stephanie – the same emotions that he knew allowed him to do that kind of magic.

"I love you."

Al opened his eyes; turned his head toward her; and smiled when he saw Stephanie looking at him with an expression of tender happiness.

"I love you right back," he assured her; "though I hope we both mean that in a sister and brother, or cousins, sort of way. Your team Captain might decide to turn me into a bug otherwise."

Stephanie laughed; and then groaned softly and grimaced. "Ow. That works for me. I know what you've done for me, Al. It's like a dream; but I felt you saving me – healing me. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Al assured her; not trying to deny it when he could clearly see that she had been aware of what had happened while she was unconscious. "Try to take it easy. You still have some injuries that need to be healed; and Madam Pomfrey will need to do that for you 'cause I don't know how."

"How long have I been out?" She tried looking around the room; and then sighed when she didn't see anyone else in the other beds. "Nobody else got hurt?"

"Gwendolyn was hurt, but didn't need to stay the night here, and there were a few other students with more minor injuries that didn't need to be treated here either; but you and I are the only patients that needed to spend the night."

"What happened to you and Gwendolyn?"

"James and Ollie blasted Gwendolyn and me after hurting you, but while we both took a few hits at first; we had some cousins and friends jump in to stop them."

"Why did James do this? When I turned and saw him after catching the snitch, I was sure he'd be mad at me; but he looked enraged – and then he just blasted me." She started to shake then as the memories hit home; and Al scrambled out of his bed; hopped on one leg to her bedside; and leaned over to hug her gently just as the tears began and she started to sob into his shoulder.

"It's okay," he said soothingly. "The why isn't very nice; but you've a right to know. James attacked you so that he and Ollie could attack Gwendolyn and me while I was distracted taking care of you. I'm sure he was furious at you for kicking his butt in your Seeker duel; but it seems that they had this plan set up ahead of the match – along with justifying their attack by claiming that you and Gwendolyn cheated during the game by using repelling charms on them."

"I'd say the why is horrid,' she sobbed. "When I'm feeling better, I might just decide to take my wand and go have a little chat with them about this."

"You'll have to wait a while for that," Al advised her. "James and Ollie aren't here. They've been suspended and sent home for the rest of the year – though they may be allowed back to write their exams in June. That's something that apparently hasn't been decided yet."

"That sounds serious, and would be for most of us; but won't James and Ollie just laugh it off as geting an extra couple of months tacked on to their summer holidays?"

"They might say that to everyone, and I don't know what will happen with Ollie; but being home with Mum will not be a holiday for James. She was here yesterday, and saw what he did to you. He's lucky that he isn't spending some quality time as a bat-bogey – not just afflicted with them."

"That isn't actually possible," she advised him. "Animal Transfigurations can't be into magical creatures."

"You're right about that for magical creatures," Al agreed; "but bat bogeys aren't magical creatures – they're magical creations. It's a bit weird, maybe; but not any different than Transfiguring a Witch or Wizard into a chair or other inanimate object."

"Well, in that case; your Mum's welcome to give it a try with James if she really wants to do that," Stephanie joked. Al had straightened up and let go of her by then; and she smiled at him. "Don't blame yourself for this," she said next. "I'm sure you've been told that already; but try to believe it. You can't be responsible for anything James does just because you might be his ultimate target. I certainly don't blame you."

"I'll try, and thanks; but doing that isn't easy for me. It's probably because of something I inherited."

"Probably," she agreed. "Should we let Peter and Pauline know that I'm awake? I'm surprised that at least one of them isn't here."

"Pauline spent the night here; but she left to take a break after I woke up and promised to watch over you while she did that. I expect that Peter will be here anytime now – and have Gwendolyn with him. Pauline will be back too, though she looked really tired; so I actually hope that she takes time for a little nap first before breakfast."

"So getting her out of here for a while wasn't really all about having a chance to help me out with more healing?" she asked teasingly; and Al grinned at her.

"That did work out rather nicely for us," he agreed; and then winced as he felt pain in his foot from standing too long – even though he wasn't putting much pressure on it.

"Get back in your bed," Stephanie ordered. "Maybe you should have been trying to heal yourself instead of me."

"I think that I am working on that," Al told her as he hopped back to his own bed and got on it again. "It's different than what I did to help you, though I have injuries that I don't know how to fix too; but part of the problem for healing myself the same way might be because I have to deal with the pain too."

"The pain keeps you from focusing the magic?" Stephanie guessed; and Al nodded.

"It's definitely distracting," he agreed. "Maybe that's the way it should be; since it could end badly if I tried to do too much and lost control of the magic."

"Maybe, but I'm really glad that you could help me."

"It seemed the least I could do – even though you did help your team to beat Gryffindor yesterday and win the Quidditch Cup for Ravenclaw. Congratulations."

"The last two senior team matches won't matter?" Stephanie asked; and Al shook his head.

"Only for deciding second and third place – and they'll matter for individual awards for the senior players."

"Yeah for us," Stephanie said while trying to feign cheerfulness that she didn't really feel. "That'll be brilliant – once I'm feeling better and can get out of this bed."

"I just knew she'd wake up while Pauline and I were both away," Peter said as he and Gwendolyn walked into the room just as Stephanie was finishing her last comment. Al had sensed their approach; so he hadn't been surprised – and he smiled as he watched them walk across the room. Peter went to the far-side of Stephanie's bed and leaned over to hug and kiss her while Gwendolyn went between the beds and shared a long hug and soft, good morning kiss with him.

"Hey – cut that out!" Stephanie told them with a playful smile. "Al loves me now – and he only told me that ten or fifteen minutes ago."

"In a sister or cousin sort of way," Al added – "and considering how much of a trouble magnet I am; you might want to think about making that a very distant cousin from now on."

"That isn't a very good start for trying not to blame yourself," she advised him.

"It is funny, though," Peter added with a grin. "Welcome back to the land of the living. We've been worried about you, sis."

"It's nice to be back – except for the parts of being awake that hurt right now."

"Should I go and get Madam Pomfrey?" he asked; and she shook her head.

"No. If she had a tough time with me yesterday and is still sleeping; let her do that. I'm uncomfortable; but not in too much pain."

"Well, you sure look a lot better this morning than you did last night," he told her. "You were black and blue all over when I went back to my dorm room to get some sleep. It was supposed to be my turn to sit up with you tonight, but now that you're awake; I might not need to do that anymore."

"You should call your Mum and Dad and let them know you're awake," Gwendolyn suggested as she took a turn to hug Stephanie. "It's still early; but they'll want to know."

"I've got my mirror right here," Peter told his sister. "Let's do that. Mum was a bit of a wreck yesterday; so she'll feel better once she hears from you – even if we wake her up to do that."

While Peter called his parents, Gwendolyn turned back to Al and took the step back to his bedside. Leaning close, she whispered – "Nicely done; but you may have blown your cover when Pauline comes back and sees Stephanie with all of those bruises healed."

Al shrugged. "I couldn't stand seeing her like that. It was breaking my heart."

"And now you love her," she prodded; her attempt at a frown playful and funny.

"In a sister or cousin sort of way," he reiterated, "but yes, I love her. I love you a lot too."

"I've noticed that – and thankfully for you and me; that isn't in a sister or cousin sort of way," she teased; and he laughed.

"That does work for us," he agreed. "How are you this morning? Were you able to sleep much?"

"My arm's itchy under the bandages and there are some sore spots here and there, but other than that, I'm fine; and I slept better than I expected. You?"

"I don't remember anything from while I was sleeping, and I feel well-rested right now; but I am dealing with some pain this morning – especially in my left hip and foot."

"Can I do anything to help?" she offered, but then Gwendolyn and Al were both distracted before he could answer by the sudden commontion behind her.

"What do you mean that I look a lot better than my broom does now?" Stephanie demanded. Gwendolyn moved to stand next to her again while also leaving Al a clear view of Stephanie's face.

"Calm down," Peter warned. "You're going to hurt yourself."

"What happened to my broom?" she demanded; and Peter sighed.

"It got busted up when James blasted you," Gwendolyn advised her; saving Peter from having to break that news to his sister. "I'm sorry, Stephanie."

"Give me my wand and help me out of this bed," Stephanie demanded. "I've got a Wizard to track down and turn into a bat bogey."

"Pardon me?" Peter asked; and Al and Gwendolyn laughed.

"My Mum's idea," Al reminded him. "We talked about that a little while ago; and I think that your sister likes the idea a lot."

"You are not going to run off from school and turn anyone into a bat bogey," Padma told her daughter. Al and Gwendolyn couldn't see her because Peter had the mirror pointed at Stephanie; but they could hear both relief and a touch of amusement in her voice.

"Fine – then you go do it, Mum," Stephanie told her. "I'll settle for seeing pictures when you come to see me later – after you've taken care of that for me. What am I supposed to use for Quidditch now? That old Comet broom we have at home from when Dad first joined the Aurors? That thing is so slow compared to the Firestorms that I'll never catch another snitch."

"We've got until September to work something out," Padma told her – "and we don't even know how long it will be before you're well-enough to play again. Right now, never will be a month too-soon for me."

"I want to play in the show, Mum. This isn't going to stop me from doing that. Maybe I can share broooms with Peter and Pauline – at least until we're all on the senior team together."

"That can only be in our NEWT year," Peter pointed out; "and you and Pauline can't both play Seeker on that team."

Stephanie grinned at him. "Okay, then she can lend me her broom for the whole season and use another broom while she's on the reserve squad as my back-up."

Peter laughed. "I'm going to tell her you said that," he promised.

"Good. She'll think it's funny – and have a few years to get used to the idea."

"You sound exactly like Lily when she talks about taking over from Aunt Gabrielle as the Harpies' Seeker some day," Al told her. "Since you're both really good, though; maybe you should just think about playing Chaser that year or something instead. Pauline won't be able to show off for the scouts that year if she's on the reserve squad."

"I suppose that playing Chaser with Gwendolyn that year might be fun too," Stephanie decided. "I'll think about it."

"What was I thinking?" Al asked. "I'd be playing against that team. Forget I even suggested it!"

"Nice try, but we know you'd just love the challenge," Gwendolyn told him. She smiled at Stephanie then. "We'll figure out something for keeping you on a good broom too; so don't worry about that."

Al and Gwendolyn ended up talking with Stephanie, Peter, and their parents until Pauline came back to the room and found out that Stephanie was awake. By then, Madam Pomfrey had come to check on her – and Al – once too; and then she'd gone off to work on a potion to help Stephanie with her recovery. She'd been surprised to find her patient awake already until she also saw that the bruises had been healed; and then she'd understood that Al had once again helped Stephanie take another big step on her path toward full recovery. While Peter and Pauline stayed with their sister until right before breakfast; Gwendolyn left early so that she could go to the Great Hall and give their Gryffindor and Hufflepuff friends the good news about Stephanie before she'd need to sit down to eat at the Ravenclaw table.

Their second day in the hospital wing was quite different from the first for Al and Stephanie now that she was awake. Once their teen visitors were gone and having breakfast in the Great Hall, Madam Pomfrey took that opportunity to do a round of treatments and bandage changes with both of them; and then she left them to have breakfast while she went to do the same in her quarters. Padma and Terry spent most of the day with Stephanie, but Peter and Pauline split their time between visits to the hospital wing; study time with their friends; and an afternoon nap for Pauline when she needed to do that to catch up on the sleep she'd missed overnight. Harry and Ginny took turns coming for a morning or afternoon visit with Al, but kept both visits short because they had bigger problems at home with James; and Gwendolyn and Rose were making sure that Al had everything he needed while they were busy. Al and Stephanie were also each allowed a few visits from firends, but Madam Pomfrey kept those strictly-controlled and made sure that they had some rest time too.

Gwendolyn had her meals with her Ravenclaw friends in the Great Hall, and went to the library to do a bit of project research during the last half of the morning; but she spent the rest of the day with Al. She had a treatment visit with Madam Pomfrey to have her bandages changed after breakfast too, but then she studied with Al after that before going to the library; was with him for most of the friends and family visits; and watched a mirror network show while he needed a short afternoon nap. They missed out on the afternoon Chaser duel they would have normally had on Sunday afternoon, but Al was in no condition for that sort of thing; and Gwendolyn wasn't feeling well-enough to go and play without him so she just gave up the pitch time slot to their friends so that they could go out to play instead.

Madam Pomfrey did another round of treatments and bandage changes before dinner while all guests left to go and eat – including Stephanie's parents, and this time; she had Al help her out with that – and did a bit of teaching with him that helped him to help both of her patients with some healing that he'd needed to learn how to do. By then, she wasn't surprised at how quickly he caught on; though Al still managed to impress her. While both of her patients were making amazing progress, they still were still going to need ongoing care; and Madam Pomfrey was still unwilling to put a time estimate on that for Stephanie – other than to suggest that she should at least be well-enough to travel home for the holidays by Friday.

Gwendolyn brought several visitors with her from the Great Hall, but Rose, Shane, Ray, and Tory didn't stay long before moving on to an evening of couples-only entertainment that they split up to do in pairs instead of having a group mirror network watching party. Al and Gwendolyn did a bit of studying; had mirror chats with his parents, her parents and brother, and Lily and Hugo. After that, they wrote letters for home, and just for the fun of it; they switched families for that. Al wrote letters to Gwendolyn's parents and Jonah; and she wrote letters to his Mum, Dad, and Lily. While Gwendolyn had been very tempted to write a letter to James too; she didn't want to make things worse for Harry and Ginny just to have a small laugh at his expense and resisted the urge.

Stephanie's parents didn't stay as late on Sunday night after coming back to the school once they'd gone out for dinner in Hogsmeade, but they did make sure that their little girl had everything she needed for the night before leaving. Al and Gwendolyn tried to stay out of their way as much as possible; though there was interaction between the friends and families visitors for both patients that was always entertaining. Al only had Rose stop in to visit with him before curfew; she came early-enough that she could go to the Owlery with Gwendolyn to take care of Winter and send her on the way with the letters; and their timing was perfect when Madam Pomfrey wanted to do her final check of the day with Al and Stephanie before turning in for the night. Pauline and Peter had been there for a last visit before curfew with their little sister too; so they all left together. Al and Stephanie were on their own not long after that, but they'd been given sleeping draughts too; and it really wasn't much longer before they were both sleeping and off to dreamland for the rest of the night.

Life returned to normal at Hogwarts for most students during the last four school days leading up to the Easter holiday. That wasn't true for Al and Stephanie while they juggled recovering from their injuries with the studying that included keeping up with their class work while not being able to go to those classes. That turned out to be easier for both of them because Al wasn't slowed down as usual during his own classes while he also helped Stephanie with her lessons – and the one-on-one tutoring worked for her as he explained those lessons in teen talk so she didn't have to lose time translating her lessons from Professor-speak first. Having their families and friends in classes or at work helped them too; and Madam Pomfrey liked being able to spread out their treatments over more time as she did one healing session with each of them during the morning and a second round in the afternoon. She allowed Al to help again too; taught him a few more lessons on Healing; and they all had fun with that.

Gwendolyn, Rose, and the rest of the teens that visited the hospital wing to see Al, Stephanie, or both of them were busier because of adding those visits to their daily schedule. Rose, Gwendolyn, Peter, and Pauline all stopped in for visits each morning before breakfast; and then split up the visits during the rest of the day. Quidditch season was over for the junior teams, so Gwendolyn made up for some of that time by not having her practices to worry about, but Peter and Pauline were getting ready for their final senior team match against Gryffindor; and their team took advantage of the extra pitch time that was available now that their junior team didn't need to practice too. Gwendolyn studied with Al after last classes on Monday and Tuesday; and spent both evenings working or hanging out with him too. Stephanie had some of her firstie friends come and work with her too, but that was different for them; and Al's tutoring had helped Stephanie to get most of her assignments finished so that she ended up tutoring or helping her friends instead of the other way around.

Al had been able to limp around for short distances on his own by Monday; that improved over the next two days; and then Madam Pomfrey cleared him to go back to classes after breakfast on Wednesday morning. He still needed to be careful, and his foot in particular would still be healing for another week or two; but he was glad to be set free so that he could get back to his classes and spending time with Gwendolyn, Rose, and the rest of their friends. He and Gwendolyn still went to visit Stephanie after dinner on Wednesday before going to study, and Rose went with Al for a pre-breakfast visit with her on Thursday that Gwendolyn, Peter, and Pauline were all there for too; but that was the last time they needed to do that because Madam Pomfrey cleared Stephanie to leave the hospital wing in time to get cleaned up; meet her friends after last class; and hang out with them until it was time to go for dinner in the Great Hall.

Watching Stephanie get a standing ovation from three-quarters of the students in the Great Hall when she arrived there for dinner with Peter, Pauline, and her friends had been a highlight of the week for Al, and while the Slytherin students couldn't or wouldn't appreciate what she'd gone through; it was obvious that everyone else did – and that they were happy to see for themselves that she truly was recovering and going to be okay. Like Al, Stephanie wasn't completely healed yet, and she was going to need further treatment and time before she'd be completely well again, but her parents would be able to take care of her over the holidays, and while it would take longer to get home on the train; Madam Pomfrey had decided that it would be safer for Stephanie to go home with her friends instead of getting there through the Floo Network or apparating.

Without needing to do another post-dinner visit to the hospital wing; Al and Gwendolyn went straight to their study classroom with their group; but they only worked for an hour and a half or so before splitting up to go to their dorm rooms so that they could pack for the trip home. The Gryffindor and Ravenclaw members of their group needed to do that because of their Astronomy class; and Al also needed time to go to the Owlery to send Winter home for the holidays. He'd have kept her at home all week, but Harry, Ginny, and Lily had sent her back with get-well-soon gifts and cards for him and Stephanie – mostly because they didn't come to visit after Sunday because they were busy-enough with work and dealing with James. Sending a letter for Lily seemed silly when he was going to be home too by Friday afternoon, but that gave Winter something to take with her; and she was glad to get to fly home instead of being cooped up in her cage on the train for half the day on Friday

Flying home actually sounded like a brilliant idea to Al, but that wasn't an option for him; so he sent Winter on his way and then went to meet up with Gwendolyn for their late-night star-gazing appointment. Staying up late for their Astronomy class wasn't the only reason Al couldn't fly home, but getting to spend that time with Gwendolyn made up for that lack of travel freedom. While they had fun on the Astronomy tower, they were tired out by the time they headed back to their respective dorm rooms, and by the time Al was finally ready for bed and able to relax and get to sleep; he could only get a handful of hours of rest before he'd need to get up and going again in time for the early breakfast and carriage rides to Hogsmeade station. Once he was out, though; he was out for the count; and slept dreamlessly until his internal alarm clock woke him right on time.

That meant that he was still among the first Gryffindor guys to wake and get ready for the day; but he took time to make sure the rest of his roommates were coming to life too before heading for the common room so that they'd all at least be on-time for the trip home even if they might still get to the Great Hall late for breakfast. He and Rose skipped their morning walk because their morning meal was sure to be on the tables early too; so they were in the Great Hall to welcome their friends as they all eventually joined them. Shane was a bit late, so after they ate, Rose went to hang out with him while Al and Gwendolyn took an early carriage ride to the station and picked out a block of compartments for their group of friends. Their own compartment mates for the trip ended up being Renee and her boyfriend, second-year Hufflepuff, Leon Branstone; and Ray and Tory. Rose and Shane were in the compartment next to where Al and Gwendolyn were sitting, so it was easy to go and visit or talk with them; but both groups were busy at first with simply getting settled in and ready for departure.

Al was dealing with mixed feelings as they left Hogsmeade Station and began the long ride to London. He really did want to be home for the holiday with his parents and Lily; but he was also fairly certain that James was not going to be fun to be around – regardless of how many times he was told that his brother might come to his senses after a week at home. With nothing else to do while also being kept away from Ollie and the rest of his friends, though; Al expected James to simply become more-entrenched – and angrier with him. Somehow, from James' perspective, his suspension was Al's fault; and maybe that was the only way he could delude himself into justifying what he'd done to Stephanie. Gwendolyn sensed how he was feeling; and tried to do her best to keep him distracted. They went for two walks with quite a few visits along the way; talked Quidditch with Ray and Tory; surfed the Wireless Web; and even had a short cuddle and semi-nap break after having their lunches and some of the treats they'd picked up from the trolley.

All of that did keep them busy-enough; and their arrival at King's Cross actually seemed to be early instead of drawn-out and overdue. Getting out of the train wasn't quick, but it was easy because Gwendolyn made them wait to make sure that Al didn't accidentally get re-injured; so they sat and waited for the first mad dash for the exits to subside before joining the more-orderly flow of traffic once the students that were in the biggest hurry were out and on their way home. Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, and Shane were all together when they got off of the train; but Rose went with Shane to meet up with his parents first while Al and Gwendolyn made their way over to Ginny, Angelina, and Kirley. They had Lily, Hugo, Roxanne, and Jonah with them; but Al wasn't surprised that James either hadn't wanted to come along or hadn't been invited. When he got a good look at his mother, Al wanted to cry at what he saw on her face and in her eyes. She'd obviously had a very bad week; and he hugged her tightly once they were finally together.

"I love you, Mum," he said quietly. "Would you like to hop on the train and go wherever it's heading next?"

"Not when we've just gotten you home," she assured him; and then smiled tiredly. "I might be interested in going along with you next Sunday, though. Do you think the Headmistress could use the extra help until June?"

Al laughed. "I'm not sure if she'll need less because of the slight drop in the student population; or more because Mr. Filch and Mr. Jigger might need the extra help without their two most-frequent detention chores helpers."

"Their jobs are likely easier without trying to keep James and Ollie working," Ginny advised him. "Are you ready for the holidays?"

Al shrugged. "That depends on whether we'll have the brilliantly fun holiday where James has done a one-eighty and become the amazing big brother I've always dreamed of having; or the the not-so-great one where I'm still the bane of his existance; and everything bad in his life, including what happened last weekend, is all my fault and I should be the one getting kicked out of school – and preferably tossed in Azkaban for good measure."

"Did you only pretend to send Winter last weekend, and that was you in the house with us on Monday?" she teased; and Al laughed.

"That might have been fun; but I was in all of my classes on Monday." He sighed and hugged her again. "I'm really sorry that you've had a tough week. If there's anything I can do to help; I will."

"Thanks, and I know," Ginny assured him. She smiled at Gwendolyn as she waited for her hug next. "No, Al can't come and spend the entire week with you; but we might allow a sleepover or two while you're home."

"Okay," she agreed while stepping in for her hug; "but we should have a great week if you turned James into a bat bogey and he's just hanging out in a jar on the shelf somewhere."

"I voted for a week as a bat bogey in the nose of a troll," Lily told them with a grin; "but Dad wouldn't let Mum have any fun."

"Considering the stories in the news; I'm not surprised," Al offered. "I don't think we need to guess how reporters like Rita Skeeter got her hands on the story about James and Ollie, but since they did; the last thing that Dad needs is more fuel for those hacks to toss on the fire."

"Unfortunately, this was news; and some of the bad press was deserved," Ginny told him seriously. "I wish that wasn't the case for our kids, but it comes along with being part of our family. That isn't a problem when it's good news; but it can be fairly awful when it's something bad."

"Not to mention when the stories are just completely made up about us," Angelina added. "Did Fred make it onto the train, Al? I haven't seen him yet."

"Maybe he's still busy snogging his girlfriend goodbye," Roxanne suggested with a giggle that Lily joined in for.

"He was near the other end of the train from us," Al advised his aunt. "He's likely fighting the flow of traffic – or is still looking for us."

"Stay here, Roxanne," Angelina told her. "I'll head that way and try to meet up with him while you wait here for Rose and Louis."

"I'm here already," Louis answered as he came from the other direction. Angelina waited for a couple of moments to hug him; and then she headed toward the other end of the platform.

"You didn't say anything about meeting up with us at the station," Al told him; and Louis shrugged.

"I didn't really think about it. Since Dominique's staying at Hogwarts to study for her sixth-year exams with Molly, their friends, and most of the OWL and NEWT studetns; I'm just going to meet Mum and Dad at Gringotts. I'm only with you until we get to Diagon Alley – though I'll probably go along to Uncle George's store to say hello to him while I'm there. He's likely working tomorrow, and it's an 'away' Easter for our family this year; so I might not see him much while we're home."

"We'll be stopping in too," Ginny told him – "and for the same reason; though you'll see him at Fred's birthday party on Tuesday if you're going to be there for it."

"You're allowed to bring a date," Roxanne told him with a grin. "Have you asked anyone?"

"No, but I'll ask Noel to come along if we're going to be there for more than a drop-in visit," he promised. "How about you, Al? Do you have a date for Fred's party?"

"Gwendolyn, would you like to go with me to Fred's birthday party next Tuesday?" Al asked and answered; earning more giggles from Roxanne and Lily and a hug and kiss from Gwendolyn.

"Absolutely," she assured him. "I'll have to get parental approval; but I doubt we have any plans on a work day."

"Nothing that can't be moved to another day," Kirley told her. "Consider that done."

Rose joined them then; the hugs continued; and then they all headed toward the platform exit and collected Angelina and Fred along the way. They went straight to the Leaky and on into Diagon Alley from King's Cross; and then their first stop was at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Kirley, Gwendolyn, and Jonah had stayed with them to that point, and they wandered around the store once there; but that was when Al and Gwendolyn needed to say their goodbyes – and get teased by George about getting lip-lock lipstick on them – a joke that he used frequently; and always seemed to generate more sales of his Wonder Witch products. After a short visit with George; Ginny only had Al and Lily with her because Ron was going to pick Rose up at the wheezes store when he got back from helping out at the Hogsmeade store with a batch of rush Easter wheezes mail orders that needed to get sent out for overnight delivery by Owl Post. They made a couple of stops along the way back to the Leaky; stopped for another short visit there with Hannah; and then took the Floo Network home. The holiday fun came to a screehing halt for Al the moment the arrived because James was playing video games in the sitting room; he jumped up as soon as they arrived; and started a verbal rant that was about as bad as Al had expected things to be with him.

"Did you get a hero's welcome at King's Cross, loser?" James asked with a dark sneer and hatred in his eyes. "It's no wonder that you're so happy now that you've managed to get Ollie and me kicked out of school. You should have been the one to be sent home – not to mention that you deserve to have your wand snapped and then be sent on to Azkaban for everything you've done to me!"

"I got a couple of hugs and kisses from our Mum and Aunt at the station," Al answered; "and you can't put this one on me. All I did last Saturday was keep you from killing Stephanie."

"Bull!" James shouted. "You made that up – or did it to her yourself after you left the stadium just to get me in trouble! I barely did anything to her!"

"You destroyed her Firestorm," Al pointed out. "Do you really think that's possible without seriously hurting the person sitting on it? Guess what? You're wrong about that. You crushed her even worse than the broom." Al was getting angry now too; and took a deep breath that didn't calm him at all. "You must have been told how badly she was hurt, James. Blame me for everything bad in your life if you must. I don't really care anymore if you do that, and it's likely the only way you can justify nearly killing Stephanie just so that you'd have a chance to hurt Gwendolyn and me, but from now on, if you want to blast me; come and do it – and leave everyone else out of this vendetta of yours. Stephanie did nothing to you to deserve what you did to her – not that I think that anyone could do something bad-enough to deserve that; and neither did anyone else you've hurt this year while trying to hurt me."

"You want me to blast you?" James yelled; infuriated again now as he stormed toward Al. "Fine!"

He was already swinging by then; aiming for the head. Al saw the small shield charm spring to life in front of James' fist, but it was only big-enough to cover the front of his fisted hand; so he side-stepped the blow and stepped back as James followed up with a punch aimed at his stomach. He didn't see that shield, but he sensed it; and the second punch stopped just short of hitting him. The third punch was the last one that James threw at him because Lily used her charm bracelet and put a shield up in front of Al to protect him. James howled in pain and rage as his shield hit Lily's; but he had no choice but to step back too because he couldn't get at Al anymore.

"Those are nice little shield charms," Al told him conversationally. "They're a bit small for defense; but perfect for what you wanted. Thanks, Lily."

"You're welcome," she assured him; though she was glaring at James and still had the shield in place between her brothers. "Are you going to play nice, James?"

"No, I'm not," he retorted hotly. "Al's the problem here. He's always been the problem; and the rest of you are just too stupid to see that!"

"Well, if all you want is to plead your case to someone smarter than us; let's invite Aunt Hermione over," Lily suggested sweetly, but with just a tinge of malice. "She's the brightest Witch of her generation; so I'm sure she'll understand your brilliant point of view."

"The smarter they are; the easier they are to con," James retorted. "Everyone knows that."

"I think that's a no to my suggestion," Lily decided. "How long will this shield charm keep working?" she asked Al.

"It will stay there for as long as you can keep focused on it."

"That doesn't sound like fun. Why don't you put your toys away, James; and I'll stop using mine?"

"You can both stop," Ginny told them. She'd let the scene play out in the hope that something good might come of it; but that was obviously not going to happen. "Al's home for the holidays, James; and you're not going to fight the entire time he's here – or else."

"Or else what?" James demanded derisively. "Will you keep me from going back to school for the rest of the term? Ban me from hanging out with my best mate and the rest of our friends? Oh, I know – you could ground me and keep me prisoner here! That's a great idea, Mum – except it's too late for that already too." He paused for the drama moment. "I'd say there's nothing more you can do to me that Al hasn't already gotten all of you to do to me."

"She could change you into a bat-bogey," Lily suggested. "then the rest of us could go on a holiday adventure in search of a troll for you to have a nose big-enough to hang around in for a month or two."

"I'll head up to my room, Mum," Al told her while trying not to laugh at Lily's suggestion. "I need to unpack anyway." He'd looked at her for a moment; and then back to James. "Do you want the sitting room until dinnertime? I can stay in my room and the kitchen – and out of your way."

"Why don't you turn yourself into a fish, do me a favor, and flush yourself down the toilet?" James retorted.

"That's funny, but gross; so I'll pass," Al told him. "Will we need to start making dinner soon; or will Dad be working late?" he asked Ginny.

"He should be home on time unless something comes up; and we don't need to cook. Your father is bringing food home with him."

"Of course he is," James said scathingly. "Nothing but the best for the perfect loser."

Ginny laughed; but not really with true amusement. "We thought you'd be pleased; considering how bad the prison food has been around here since you got home last weekend. Your father isn't picking up our dinner from out of the garbage bins out back of the Leaky, so it's a safe bet that what he is getting for us will be at least that much of an improvement over what I've been cooking for you."

"It won't matter if it's the finest food in the country," James declared dismissively. "Having to put up with looking at Al – not to mention the stench of him – is enough to spoil any meal."

"Well, it's only take-out Chinese food from our favorite restaurant for that, but you'll have to find a way to survive the torture of having dinner with us; because we will be doing that as a family whether you're happy about it or not."

"I'll pick hate it and you'll regret forcing me to do it," James promised. Ginny sighed and shook her head.

"I love you, James; but you are seriously trying my patience this week."

"Good. Let me out of here; and you won't have that problem anymore."

"No," Ginny told him flatly. "Escape into your video games until dinnettime. We're not going to have this same fight over and over again."

"You wish; not gonna happen," James assured her. "I'd rather live in a cave than with Al – or the rest of you as long as you continue to fall for his lies and tricks."

"And on that note; I'll be off to my room," Al said; turning and heading toward the stairs. Lily had dropped her shield as ordered, but when James lunged at his back; Al spun to the side; and James fell to the floor when his attempt at tackling Al missed completely.

"James Potter – that's enough!" Ginny yelled as he jumped to his feet and rounded on Al again. She grabbed his shoulder; and he tried to take a swing at her. Al grabbed his wrist while his arm was still pulled back, though; and he squeezed until he had James' attention.

"Do not ever try to hit our Mum again," he warned icily. He twisted James' wrist for emphasis; and then let go. "I can't believe that you haven't turned him into a bat bogey by now," he told Ginny. "You should get an Order of Merlin for that much patience."

"More like an award for being blind and stupid when it comes to you," James declared. "I was just trying to knock some sense into her."

"Go sit down or up to your room before I decide to try doing that to you," Ginny told him ominously. She drew her wand and pointed it at him when he glared at her and was about to offer a retort. No sound came out; and he started to turn red in the face as his anger flared even hotter. "Now, James!" she ordered. "Take your pick – your room – or go back to your gaming until dinner is on the table." He stormed over to the sofa he'd been sitting on and flopped into it hard-enough to move it backward a couple of inches. "Okay, now we'll get out of the way of your foul mood and leave you to it," she added while waving Al and Lily to leave the room with her.

She waited until they were in the hallway before removing the silencing spell on James; and waved Al and Lily to head upstairs while she went out to the kitchen. They did that; and Lily went into Al's room with him. She sat on his bed while he put his Quidditch bag on the floor in his closet and the other bag with his clothes and everything he needed for his holiday revision on the desk so he could start unpacking it.

"Has it been this bad all week?" he asked her quietly.

"Probably worse on the weekend. That's why Mum and Dad wouldn't let me come home until dinnertime on Monday. It hasn't been like that since I've been back; but he's been awful to all of us – complaining about everything; insulting us; and ranting about you every chance he gets. Are you sure that you didn't Imperius him and force him to attack Stephanie?"

"Has he accused me of that too?" Al asked; and Lily shook her head.

"No, but I'm surprised that he hasn't; since he's accused you of pretty much everything else. He has claimed that the Veritaserum forced him and Ollie to take the blame for everything when they were really only sticking up for themselves against a bunch of cheats and liars."

Al sighed. "This is going to be a very long week," he predicted. "Is there anything else I should know?"

"Mum and Dad are going to try to get you and James to work things out while you're here, though from what just happened; I think that's unlikely to go well. They didn't want to tell you about everything that's been going on around here while you were still at school and recovering either; so I'm sure you'll find those stories entertaining – in a horror movie sort of way."

"I thought as much," he said with a nod; "though I expected that was because they didn't want to talk about it with James around."

"This is so ridiculous," Lily declared next. "Somewhere way down deep James has to know that what he did to Stephanie – and what he and Ollie did to you and Gwendolyn – was horrid and cruel. How can he hate you so much that he refuses to even admit that to himself?"

"I imagine this has been building since the day I was born – if not before that while Mum was pregnant with me. From his perspective, I've been messing things up for him from the moment he didn't get to have all of Mum and Dad's attention anymore; and it's gone downhill from there."

"This is a bit more of a response than seems appropriate because he's still mad that he had to share Mum and Dad with you – and because you've had the audacity to be a good, happy kid."

"True, but that's still how he feels; and he'll keep trying to tear me down until he believes he's won – which means that he's proved he's the better Wizard."

"This isn't going to be a long week – it's going to be a long decade," Lily joked; and Al smiled.

"We'll see. Nobody can stay that mad all of the time indefinitely; and I'll put my money on Mum and Dad to work something out with him eventually."

"I am so tempted to take that bet," Lily said with a laugh.

"Our parents are fairly talented, and have been through worse," Al pointed out; and Lily laughed again.

"They didn't love the Dark Lord and his followers. This is completely different – even though James isn't very lovable right now."

"We all still love him – even when we don't like him very much."

"Do you really still love him?" Lily asked seriously. "Sometimes I wonder if I do – and I'm not sure if I could still love him if he ever hurts me the way he's hurt you just over the past two months."

"Yeah, I do – and can," Al assured her earnestly. "That isn't easy right now; but love is just a word if you only mean it in the good times."

"Are you sure that you're only twelve?" she asked.

"I'm almost thirteen," he reminded her. "I haven't wanted to bother Mum and Dad while they've been busy this week. Why don't you tell me about anything you've heard we'll be doing over the holidays? I think that we've talked about James enough for a while."

Lily did that while he unpacked his bag; and then they went downstairs to hang out in the kitchen with Ginny. Since they weren't cooking dinner, that included sitting at the table and talking some more about their holiday plans. Other than the Quidditch matches on both Saturdays, a dinner at the McCormacks on Saturday, and Easter at the Burrow on Sunday; they didn't have much else planned at all – mostly because of James. Al, Gwendolyn, and Rose had tentatively set up study days on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and Ginny approved hosting them; but Al didn't take that any further by making any mirror chat calls when he'd be able to talk with some of their friends – and with Gwendolyn and Rose – at the game on Saturday anyway. Harry got home from London fifteen minutes early even after the extra stop to pick up their dinner; Al and Lily set the dining room table while Harry and Ginny got the food ready to serve in bowls and on platters; and then James was all but dragged into the dining room and ordered to sit and have dinner with his family.

"Okay, I'm here," James snapped angrily. "Are you going to shove this stinking garbage you call food down my throat too; or will I only be force-fed all of the stories about the perfect loser here – not that I need you to do that. I already know how great he's doing at school with his perfect marks; how great the Quidditch teams are doing that he's helped to cheat so that he could mess things up for me and my team all season; and how he's a hero for framing me and getting me suspended."

"You're only one for three," Al told him. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw did not cheat in their matches against your team – they were just way better; and quit trying to blame me for what you did to Stephanie, Gwendolyn, and me. I was there and still have some of the bandages to prove it; so save that garbage you're spewing for someone who might believe it."

"Says you," James retorted. "It's convenient that you took off with Stephanie before anyone else could see whether she was even hurt at all, and you were obviously well-enough to do that; so I'd say that my version of the story is way more plausible than yours."

"You need to stop that, James," Harry told him. "We all know what really happened last Saturday; and continuing to pretend otherwise now is just childish – especially when your claims are so easily disproved. Whether you intended it or not; you nearly killed Stephanie – and seriously-injured Al and Gwendolyn. Your brother and Madam Pomfrey saved Stephanie's life. I've had enough of this; and it's past-time for you to take responsibility for what you did instead of trying to blame Al when he not only saved Stephanie; but likely saved you as well."

"Now who's telling lies?" James said in disgust. "Al's the reason I've been suspended; and you're a bunch of hypocrites."

"Al's the reason you didn't get expelled and have your wand snapped. What do you think would have happened to you if she'd died? For Merlin's sake, James; what is it going to take to get through to you about this?"

"Since Al's the one that really hurt her, not me; I'd say that he'd deserve whatever he got if she'd died – just as he deserves everything that's been done to me and Ollie times ten for doing it and then pinning the blame on us! Where was all of this outrage last year when Al put all of those Slytherins in the hospital wing?" James demanded. "Why wasn't he expelled and his wand broken for that?" He snorted and scowled at Al. "Did any of that happen to him? No, because he and Gwendolyn got away with another bunch of lies that everyone fell for; and they were praised and patted on the heads for what they did to the Averys and their buddies. I guess Slytherin kids don't matter as much as your friends' kids do. Ditto that for what he's done to the Harpers. It's amazing how easy it is for him to blast Slytherin players for supposedly cheating without getting into trouble; but when Ollie and I do the exact same thing to defend ourselves from real, proven cheaters; we get the book thrown at us!"

"Fill your plate and start eating, please," Harry said with a frustrated, annoyed sigh. "Maybe that'll give you something to do instead of spouting off more nonsense like that."

"You have to say it's nonsense," James shot back. "If you admitted I was right; then you'd have to admit that the perfect loser stinking up the room over there is the out-of-control Wizard that needs to be put down like the dog he is instead of treating him like the greatest Wizard to ever walk the face of the earth."

"How was your day at the Ministry?" Ginny asked Harry. "Mine's been a bit of a horror around here."

"Really? I'd have never guessed," Harry joked. "I was in meetings half the day and putting up with the usual politics most of that time. By the way, Al – Teddy says 'hello' and he'll see you at the game tomorrow. He's at Shell Cottage with Victoire tonight."

"Of course he is," James agreed. "It's nice to know he hasn't asked you to say anything to me – or come over for a visit. I have been home for a week now."

"You haven't exactly been good company since getting home," Harry pointed out; "and I seriously doubt that you'd want to hear what he'd like to say to you. He's no happier about what you did last weekend than anyone else in our family is."

"Of course not; since he believes everything you tell him. Nice job creating another brainless clone for your little army of Auror-thugs."

"Are the Harpies in on this grand conspiracy of yours too?" Lily asked him. "You might want to look into that; since there are some Harpies' family kids on the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw teams. Madison has connections to the Arrows and United teams too; so maybe the entire league is out to get you!"

"James, Ollie, and Fred are kids of Harpies or United players too," Al pointed out. "How does that fit into your conspiracy theory?"

"Self-destructive tendencies for James and Ollie?" Lily offered. "I haven't heard anything bad about Fred's Quidditch play; so maybe he just isn't involved in the conspiracy yet."

"He could be a sleeper agent," Al suggested. "Are you in on it too? You seem to know a lot about it."

Lily grinned at him. "My role doesn't start until after I graduate from Hogwarts. When James and I are both in the show – assuming he's allowed to play instead of just blocking him from getting a job in the first place; I'm supposed to win every Seeker duel the Harpies have against his team."

"Do you know which team the league will have him on – if they let him play?" Al asked next.

"I was leaning toward the Catapults this year, since they could really use the help these days, but after last Saturday; the Falcons might be the only team that'll take him unless he smartens up."

"Thanks a lot," James said in disgust. "The Catapults are nearly as bad as the Cannons this year; and the Falcons are just a bunch of thugs on brooms."

"Wouldn't that perfectly describe how you and Ollie played hast weekend?" Lily countered. "Do you even know that the girls on the other teams at your school say that you and Ollie are even worse than the Slytherin players?"

"That's just more of Al's lies that you're falling for," James said dismissively; and she shook her head.

"Al's never talked with me about it at all. I hear those stories through the Witches' gossip network – and that sort of thing gets back to younger sisters and cousins and makes the rounds with us too. If you don't want to stop doing things like you did to Stephanie and Gwendolyn last Saturday for any other reason; do it because you'll soon find it impossible to find any Witches at Hogwarts willing to have anything to do with you. Four more years with no snogging or dating should be enough to scare any teen Wizard."

"More like scare any Wizard of any age," Harry joked with a grin for Ginny. "I know that I'd be a wreck after a week of no snogging with your Mum."

"Gross! Now you're making me want to puke too – as if having to be this close to the Metamorphpotty isn't bad enough," James told him. "You're making all of that up, Lily," he added. "Any Witch worth having would be lucky to hook up with me – and they all know it."

Lily shrugged. "Believe it or not; and I guess it doesn't matter anyway. If you keep on like you are when they let you go back to Hogwarts again; you'll just be expelled next time. There won't be many chances for dating or snogging any Witches if you're being home-schooled after that."

"As if Al won't make sure that happens anyway," James accused. "The only thing that I won't know is whether he'll make that happen right away; or try to make my life a living hell for most of the next school year first – like he did this year."

"I wasn't on the team this year; we don't have the same clases; and I hardly spend any time in the Gryffindor common room," Al pointed out. "If you'd simply leave me, Gwendolyn, Rose, and our friends alone; you'd hardly ever even see me around the castle except for at meals in the Great Hall – and we sit as far apart as possible at the Gryffindor table. Give that a try next year; and you might find out that you like it – especially since getting anywhere hear me makes you feel like puking."

"Right – because I don't get you thrown in my face over and over again every day of my life," James retorted. "Everyone wants me to be more like the total loser that is you."

"I'd settle for you not being a total git anymore," Lily told him with a grin; "and the last thing I want is another brother just like Al. One will be tough enough to follow after at Hogwarts. Mum and the younger half of our uncles know what that's like – and they had three over-achiever big brothers."

"Plus one of them was a hippogriff-sized git for about a decade before he came around," Ginny added. "When I think about it; the fact that he most-hated the uncles – his brothers – that you like best is fairly ironic and amusing."

"Why is that ironic or amusing?" James asked. "Al's just like Uncle Perfect Percy."

Ginny laughed. "The only thing Al has in common with Percy is that his brothers pranked and razzed him mercilessly too. Al's smart as well, but then so are you and Lily – if in your own ways; but he doesn't have anything else in common with Percy at all. The ironic, for me, is that you're the one that sounds exactly like Percy when you talk about Al. It's very strange for me to see what George and Percy might have been like if they'd been rolled up into one brother."

"Do you think that imagined brother would prank himself?" Harry asked; and Ginny laughed again.

"Thanks for that mental picture," she told him. "I'm envisioning Percy when he was a Prefect taking points from Gryffindor for something he did to himself."

"Or taking points away from kids for being good," Harry offered – "and awarding them for best pranks and jokes."

"You guys are freaks," James declared. That wasn't said with any malice for a change, though; and he had to fight letting a grin show on his face. From what he was sensing; Al fervently hoped that James would never be made a Prefect so that he could put those ideas into practice.

"They're parents," Lily observed. "We're supposed to think they're weird."

James' return to semi-civility was short-lived; but they managed to get through the rest of dinner before he went off the deep end again and then was allowed to storm off to his room for the rest of the night while Al and Lily took care of the clean-up that was simple thanks to the take-out meal. The order to help with that job had been enough to get James yelling about child slavery and moving on to his imprisonment and psychological torture. He stayed in his room while Harry, Ginny, and Lily had a long chat with Al in the sitting room, but after that; Al was ready to head for bed – and James headed for the sitting room within a couple of minutes of hearing Al's door close behind him. Once he was ready for bed, Al had a mirror chat with Gwendolyn; he read a book for a while; and then he was first in the house to be sleeping – and was doing that long before James went up to bed in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Al was awake as early as usual at Hogwarts; and a lot earlier than he needed to be awake for their plans for Saturday morning. He'd dreamed during the night about his problems with James; and thinking about them kept him distracted while he showered; put a fresh bandage wrap on his foot; got ready for the day; and then went down to the kitchen to get a drink and sit down to wait for his father to join him there when it was time to start making breakfast. The message in those dreams was clear to him; but how to get there from where he was with James at the moment was something else completely. He hadn't made any real progress with that by the time he started helping out with the cooking, and when James was ordered out of his room to join them for the meal; the breakfast-time rants were hardly a sign of imminent reconciliation.

James stormed off after demolishing two plates full of food that he insisted was terrible and that Al had likely poisoned and would kill him by the end of the day; but he left with orders to get ready for the day while Ginny, Al, and Lily took care of the clean-up and Harry took his own turn hitting the shower and the rest of the normal morning routine. When Harry returned to the kitchen, he had James physically in tow; and then he and Ginny led their sons to the office for 'a talk' while Lily was set free to go and play while they did that. Once they were in the office and Harry had sealed the room from any attempt Lily might make to listen in; he put four chairs in a small, close circle; and had James and Al sit across from each other while he and Ginny did the same – and had them separated.

"Let me guess – we're going to talk this all out and everything will be all better again!" James said with a derisive snort.

"That seems better than your plan to make our lives miserable for some indefinite period of time," Ginny told him. "Why don't you start by telling us what it'll take for you to stop attacking innocent students in your attempts to hurt Al?"

"Why bother? Your question is just a set-up in the first place; since I haven't hurt any innocent Witches or Wizards – only defended myself against a bunch of dirty rotten cheats. The only reason I'm in trouble at all is because you all believe Al's lies instead of the truth from me and Ollie."

"You know what really happened last Saturday, James, and so do we; so stop playing these silly games. This has gotten far too serious for that. The two of you will be at Hogwarts for your final four years there; you will both be living here at home together; and we need to come up with a way for that to work for all of us."

"No, we don't," James disagreed spitefully. "If you really want to make things better, then let me leave home – or throw the loser out instead. One of us sees him for what he is; I'm not going to back down and let him get away with it; and you can't make me get along with him."

"For the umpteenth time, we are not going to let you run away from home; and we will not be kicking Al out either," Ginny told him. "We are going to work this out somehow, though; and it would be better for all of us if we do that sooner instead of later."

"That would be nice for you," James said with a snort. "Let me guess – all I have to do is promise to be nice; never stand up for myself against the stinking, rotten, cheating loser and his scumbag friends; and spend the next four years pretending to be a good little clone. That'd be a waste of time for me; since Al will just find ways to get rid of me anyway."

"Do you realize that you're telling us that Al is the one that wants everything we see you trying to do to him?" Harry asked. "What do you think about that, Al?"

Al smiled ruefully. "Sometimes, like this past week; I'd be okay with it if one of us moved out – and we weren't at the same school. That doesn't mean I don't still love James, though – only that I'm tired of all of the fighting. The recovery time over the past couple of months hasn't been much fun either."

"You're such a liar – and those injuries are self-inflicted as far as I'm concerned. That flashover burn was your own fault; and I'd say you didn't get near what you deserved for what you did last weekend between the cheating and what you did to Stephanie."

"I'd be happy to show you the memories I have of everything you did to Stephanie and Gwendolyn,' Al offered; and James barked out a derisive laugh.

"As if I'd believe any memories from you. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that you've used memory charms on the lot of us."

"That's a brilliant theory – except I'd love to know how I managed to plant those memory charms with Mum and Dad without being anywhere near them until after you were sent home last Saturday – and I was nowhere near Ollie's parents at all. Even if I could do that, James; why wouldn't I just go all the way and make sure that you and Ollie believe those supposedly-planted memories? If I can overpower some of the strongest Witches and Wizards in the world; then that should be simple-enough to do too."

"Probably," James agreed; "but you don't just want to get rid of me – you want to humiliate me too. What better way to do that than this?"

"Well, for one; I'd pick a way that didn't have me spending so much time in the hospital wing," Al told him seriously; though he was grinning and knew that his parents had to work to keep from laughing at his answer. "You're not going to believe anything I say, though; so maybe we should try something else instead."

"Okay," James agreed. "Let's try having you turn yourself into a bug and then I'll stomp you into a smear on the floor. That would solve all of our problems – including putting you out of my misery."

"That's a bit too permanent a solution for me," Al joked. I was thinking about talking Quidditch instead. You want to play in the show more than anything, don't you? No matter how much you hate me; that won't happen if you get kicked out of Hogwarts or keep having lousy Quidditch matches because you're more interested in finding a way to hurt me than in winning."

"That's not true!" James retorted. "You helped Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw cheat; and that's the only reason they beat my team!"

"Come on, James," Al retorted mildly. "You can't honestly sit there and tell me that Andy, Orlando, Romeo, Kira, and Anna were the best players you could get in our House – or that they're better than their counterparts on the other teams. You beat G-Air in your match against Slytherin. Everyone else on your team got pounded in all three matches with the possible exceptions of Fred and Brock. You kept the best players you could have had off of the team just to try and hurt me – and Rose and Ray. Do you think you'd have gotten a single job offer with any of the league teams if this had been your NEWT year?"

"The three of you would have never fit on my team – and you're lousy players too. Everything else you just said is dumb; since any team in the show would be lucky to have me right now."

"You really believe that I'm that lousy?" Al asked; and James snorted out a laugh.

"Why wouldn't I? It's true."

"Would you like to make a little wager on that?" Al asked then; and James looked at him suspiciously.

"What kind of bet?"

"How about a best-of-five Seeker duel – right now. If I win; when we can play Quidditch on the same team again the year after next; you'll leave me alone and just let me do what I can to help our team – and that'd help you to win games and get noticed by the league scouts."

"A Seeker duel? With you? Don't make me laugh!"

"If I'm as lousy as you claim; then you have nothing to worry about," Al shot back.

"What's in it for me when I win – if I agree to this idiocy?"

Al thought about that for a moment; and then smiled. "I won't try out for any team you're going to be on – which would be my fourth to sixth years; since I can play next season while you move up to the senior team."

"What's the catch?" James asked; still obviously suspicious.

"No catch – and if I win; none of us will even mention the bet or duel to anyone. If you win; feel free to brag about it to everyone."

"You're up to something. I know it," James accused.

"Yeah, I am," Al agreed. "We're two of the best players at Hogwarts; we both want to play in the show some day; and I think that we can help each other to get there. Prove that I'm not as good as I think that I am; and I'm willing to stay out of your way and let you have at it. I'll still have a chance at showing off to the scouts in my NEWT year after you graduate – and I can do that with Lily as our Seeker as easily as I can do that with you."

James laughed raucously at that. "You really are delusional. Okay – you're on!"

Al stood up. "Okay, I'll go and get my broom and meet you out at the pitch."

"Right now?" James asked; and Al shrugged.

"Would you rather sit here and keep talking about our problems all morning; or go outside and try to best me at a Seeker duel?"

"When you put it that way; fine – let's go."

Harry and Ginny were both a bit amazed at where their attempt at a counseling session had gone; and they also had to hide their amusement. They'd soon find out whether Al's offer would make things better or worse between the two boys; but they were willing to try anything at this point. While Al and James went to get their brooms; Harry and Ginny went outside; let Lily know what was going on; and got the snitch out of the Quidditch set before heading out to the pitch. When James and Al joined them a few minutes later, James looked arrogant and confident; and Al just looked calm, determined, and ready to have some fun.

"How are we going to do this without Mum, Dad, or Lily helping you out with a toss in your favor?"

Al shrugged and smiled. "You toss it and do a countdown before we can take off," he offered. Take your pick on how long the countdown is too."

"Okay. I'll count down from five and we go on one," James told him. "Prepare to be embarrassed."

Ginny handed him the snitch, he and Al walked out to center pitch; and then James tossed the snitch into the air. His countdown started slowly; but then the space between two and one was rushed and he laughed derisively as he took off. He was still laughing until he realised that Al wasn't trying to catch up to him at all; but was instead blasting away in the opposite direction. He swung around and took up the chase, but he'd barely closed half of the distance between them when he saw Al reach out and grab the snitch!

"That's one for me," Al told him conversationally after he'd swung around and they'd gotten close-enough for James to hear him. "Do you want to take short breaks after each catch or just keep going?"

"How did you do that?" James demanded.

"I watched the snitch while you did the countdown. Didn't you?"

"You tricked me!"

"I didn't; but can do the countdown for the next one if you'd like – though I can count and look for the snitch at the same time; so that'd just give me the take-off advantage knowing exactly when I'd get around to saying one."

"I'll keep doing the countdown," James said acidly. "Let's go again."

They landed; Al handed the snitch to James; and he immediately tossed it again and began counting down more quickly – until he got to two; and then he waited and waited while expecting Al to 'cheat' by taking off early. That didn't happen; so he finally shouted 'ONE' as he took off. He still hadn't spotted the snitch again, but even though Al had; James had headed in the right direction this time. Al followed until James looked back to make sure he had; and then spun away from him and headed on an angle that was upward and to James' left. He turned and raced after Al too; but when James was about to try a hard hit on him; Al did a horizontal one-eighty that had James missing him entirely; he headed back toward where the snitch had actually begun following them; and he caught it before James even got turned around.

"That's two," Al told his brother.

"You're cheating!" James accused; and Al laughed.

"No, I'm just not holding back the way I always did when we used to do this as kids. Time to step it up, James. You need to win the last three now."

""You're lying – and cheating," James accused again.

"I know you hate this, but why don't you consider the possibility that I'm not cheating," Al suggested. "How good will your senior Quidditch teams be with me playing on them? How easy will it be for you to win your Seeker duels if your Chasers can take all of the pressure off by getting the one-sixty leads for you?"

"If you're so bloody good; what's to stop you from playing Seeker?"

"That one is easy, James. I don't want to be a Seeker. I love playing Chaser – or at least I do when I have two other Chasers that want to play as a team. It wasn't much fun with Ollie last year – though if he'd actually give that a try; he'd do a lot better than he did in his first three seasons too."

"You're just messing with me," James declared stubbornly. "You set me up again!"

"I did," Al agreed; "and that was easy because you refuse to accept that Lily and I have at least as much talent for Quidditch as you do. You're not going to be ready to beat the best Seekers in the league by practicing against players like Patricia. Did you ever see Mum ask Aunt Hermione to have Seeker duels with her when she played for the Harpies while Aunt Gabrielle was off having her kids? Let's be honest, James. That's basically what you did this season."

"I did not!" James disagreed; but without any real conviction.

"Patricia didn't beat you even once in any practice, did she," Al countered. "If she's the best Seeker you could find to practice against in Gryffindor, and I'm such a horrid player that I'm not even good-enough for a spot on the reserve squad; then you should have no problem getting these last three catches."

"I am so going to wipe that stupid grin off of your face," James promised; and al laughed.

"I doubt it. This is way too much fun. Not as great as my Chaser duels with Gwendolyn, but then there are hugs and kisses involved in those duels; so you can't blame me for liking them better."

"Just shut it and let's get on with it!" James snarled.

They did that, and this time; James stood closer to Al than in the first two rounds; stomped on his bad foot; and then tried to kick Al in the face as he said 'one' and took off just ahead of saying it. Al ignored the pain in his foot; dodged the kick; waited a few more seconds before taking off; and then raced after the snitch instead of following James; since his brother hadn't been able to keep track of it while trying to hurt him to get the advantage. His third catch took five minutes to get because James managed to block him twice before Al completely fooled him with a fake and then caught the snitch just before James again tried to smash into him.

"That's three," he announced; "and getting mad and bashing around like a hippogriff in a tea shop is one of the reasons that Madison and Stephanie both beat you this season. You didn't do that with G-Air; and won that duel."

"I hate you," James hissed; and Al shrugged and smiled.

"I know, but I still love you anyway. I'll also keep my promise not to say anything about this to anyone. The bet doesn't make any difference for either of us for at least a year – and maybe two if I don't make the senior team in my fourth year. When I do make the team, though, I really hope you'll care more about having our team look good for the scouts – and not just for you. Our cousins, Ollie, and his sister are all going to want the same thing as you do. You don't have to like it at all; but I will be good enough to help our teams win more games than you would without me."

"Take your broom and shove it," James told him acidly as they landed. "I knew this was a set-up – and you admitted it! Forget about the bet!"

"You can do that, but I won't," Al told him. "I will be trying out for the senior team when I can whether you concede that I won the bet or not; and I've made my point regardless."

"What point is that?" James retorted hotly. "That you're a sneaky, under-handed loser?"

"That I'm a better player than you've ever been willing to accept. Give practicing against the best players you can find a chance instead of the worst. You won't win every Seeker duel or match that way; but you will get better – and you can be sure that most of your Seeker competition in the other Houses are doing exactly that."

"You're such a font of wisdom today," James spat. "I should have stayed in the office and let Mum and Dad bore me to death instead of falling for your stinking rotten trick."

He stomped off then; and Lily flung herself into Al's arms for a hug.

"That was brilliant!" she whispered; and then laughed as she punched his arm. "No more holding back when we have our Seeker duels, you big fake. I do want to be the best Seeker in the show some day; and it would really suck to find out that I'm not even as good as a Cannons' Chaser."

Al laughed too and hugged her again. "That's funny; and I can do that." He held up the snitch. "Would you like to try a best of three right now?"

"You know it!" Lily agreed enthusiastically. "Let me go and get my broom!" Harry held out his hand; and then handed it to her after summoning it. "Thanks, Dad!" she said; hugging him too before turning back to Al. "Let's start out by having you tell me how you were able to track the snitch so easily."

Harry and Ginny went inside whle Al and Lily began playing. They brewed fresh coffee; and then decided to sit outside to enjoy their drinks while watching the Seeker duel show.

"Did you know?" Ginny asked him; and Harry shook his head.

"That Al's that good at Seeker? No. We both know he's always held back – especially against James because he is such a sore loser; but he's probably better than you and me."

"If we were on the same brooms," Ginny amended. "I'm wondering if we should have let that little duel divert us from actually getting them to talk more than they had to that point. James might just be even angrier at Al after getting out-played so easily."

"We'll have to wait and find out. They did talk a bit, and it might take a while for James to admit that Al's right about him needing a good team around him if he wants to get noticed by the scouts in a couple of years; but he might be able to get there from here." He smiled as he watched Al and Lily play. They were both smiling, laughing, and having a blast. "Maybe he'll even re-discover that Quidditch is fun too some day."

"Losing matches isn't any fun, so I get why he's not happy right now; but you're right that he needs to find the joy in it again – and then how successful he can be at it won't matter as much."

"And be helped by it," Harry added with a nod. He laughed when Lily stuck her tongue out at Al after he caught the snitch. "I do love getting to watch what you must've been like growing up."

"You were there for a lot of it from this point on for me at that age," she reminded him; and Harry laughed again.

"I was fairly oblivious to everything around me for a few more years after you started school; and some of the memories I do have aren't so much fun – though the parts where we didn't die a handful of times were fairly brilliant compared to the alternatives."

"Let's hope that Lily doesn't have any problems nearly as bad as we did – or that Al's had so far."

"This is totally unfair for our sons, but James and Ollie better not mess with our little girl; or getting expelled will be the least of their worries."

"Speaking of Ollie, I talked to Katie for a couple of minutes yesterday; and things have started to calm down there with him. Maybe we should find out what they're doing and see if it'll work for us."

"We can't have Al go to live with them and be Ollie's younger brother," Harry teased. "She wasn't at the station, was she?"

"No, we had a mirror chat. The girls are staying at Hogwarts with Dominique, Lucy, and Molly. "Ollie isn't acting any more-repentant than James is; but he's winding down the rants; and hasn't dared to try anything worse than that – especially around Oliver."

"Maybe I should be tougher on James. I don't think I'm handling this at all well; and at least part of that is because of my own childhood and teen years. The nastier punishments that were inflicted on me certainly didn't work as intended."

"You weren't punished for things you did," Ginny reminded him; and Harry shook his head.

"I definitely deserved it sometimes. What I did to Draco was as bad as what James did to Stephanie."

"Okay, I'll give you that one," Ginny conceded; "but you were at least in a duel that was provoked; which is very different from what James did – even if you both took things too far."

"One thing is exactly the same," Harry pointed out. "James and I both had a Severus around to save us from our own stupidity."

Ginny laughed. "I hadn't thought of that at all. James is lucky that 'his' Severus doesn't hate him the way yours hated you."

"Let's hope that doesn't change," Harry said more seriously. "James could test the patience of a Saint when he's like this."

"Speaking of testing our patience, we still need to talk to him about the game today – and our plans for the rest of the day. That was part of the plan for our chat time this morning."

"Let's enjoy the show and our drinks before doing that; since this reprieve from teen angst and anger likely won't last for long after we get that chat started."

Harry wasn't wrong about that, but they did work out a compromise that he and Ginny hoped would work for everyone. James promised to be good during their lunch out and the Harpies match; and Harry and Ginny agreed to take him home after the game instead of forcing him to go to the McCormacks for dinner and an evening visit. Al and Lily had still been outside and stayed there until the yelling had subsided; and then Al wanted to grab another shower, clean up and re-bandage his foot, and get changed before they all went to London and wandered aroud Diagon Alley until it was time to meet the rest of the group that was going to watch the game with them. Kirley, Gwendolyn, and Jonah met up with them in Diagon Alley, so Al and Gwendolyn got to have that bonus time together; and Al sat with her to stay out of James' way during lunch. They were at the other side of their block of seats at Ilkley stadium too; and had Lily, Roxanne, Rose, and Hugo closest to them while James was with Louis, Noel, and some of the parents – like Angelina, Bill, and Fleur.

The Harpies were up against the Kestrels; and Gwendolyn had advised Al that her mother expected a tough match because the Kestrels really wanted the win to try and seal a spot in the playoffs. While they were in a good position to earn first place in the league with eighteen wins going into the final two matches of the regular season, the Wasps and United were still close enough to catch or pass them if they lost; so the Harpies were still at least as motivated as the Kestrels were to get the victory. By the time they'd picked up food, game programs, and a couple of souvenirs, they didn't have long to wait for the game to start; and then the fierce Quidditch action grabbed their attention and kept it for the next four hours.

Victoire was fired up, and that might have been partly-due to having her brother and extra cousins there to watch her; but she seemed to be having a blast with her battle against the Kestrels' Chasers and Keeper too. Gabrielle was in a tough Seeker duel too, and even when the Harpies were ahead by one-sixty; the Kestrels didn't give up and battled on. They did that valiantly too; and the best the Harpies could manage from that point through until Gabrielle ended the match was a one-eighty lead. The final score was four-eighty to one-fifty, so that's where the lead had been when the snitch was caught; and Gabrielle sent a very disappointed Kestrels team and their fans home with the loss while all but sealing the Harpies into first place with their final match against the Prides only a must-win if the Wasps won their final match too. That was something for the Harpies to start getting ready to deal with on Sunday or Monday. For today, Victoire's twenty-two goals and Gabrielle's snitch catch gave their family and friends a lot to celebrate – and most of them tried to do that.

The one exception to that was James. As far as Al had been able to tell from a distance, James had kept his promise and been good during lunch and the match. That ended when they were making their way out of the stadium; and he started badgering Angelina to let him come and stay with Fred 'for 'a day or eight' while Al was home and stinking up the house. Whether it was insulting his brother or other reasons, that hadn't gone over well with Angelina; and she politely refused his request – and then became less-polite as his badgering escalated.

"Let's call Uncle George and ask him," James suggested after getting nowhere with his aunt. "We'd have a blast with wheezes and playing mirror games all night. He'd let me come over for sure – even if you don't want me there."

"No, James," Angelina told him bluntly; and she was fed up with him by then. "We have other plans tonight and tomorrow; This is one of the few times when George gets a day off when he doesn't have to worry about the store; and we are going to spend that time with our kids – and with my family this year."

"Yeah, well I'd love to be able to do that too; but I only have our family; since you may have heard that everyone on the Potter side is dead. Do you even know how horrid it is for me with nothing to do everytime everyone else in my family gets to go off and have fun with their 'away' family holidays?"

"We all lost people we loved during the war; and trying to play that card when you've no idea what that feels like is rotten, James."

"I'd say the war worked out for you pretty well," James retorted. "You got to have both twins; and that would've just been weird if that had been at the same time – or if you'd married both of them."

He'd been smirking darkly as he said that – until Angelina lashed out and slapped him across the face hard enough to attract the attention of some of the Witches and Wizards around their group. Her eyes were flashing with real anger now; and she leaned in so her face was within inches of his.

"That is a vile, wretched thing to say to anyone; and worse to throw at someone in your own family." She looked up at Ginny and Harry as they closed in behind James. "I'm going to take Fred and Roxanne and leave now before I do something to your son that I won't regret."

"Take your time," Harry told her as he put a firm hand on James' shoulder. "We're leaving right now." He leaned toward Ginny and kissed her cheek. "Why don't you take your time too and see that Al and Lily get to the McCormack's house safely. We'll see you at home later."

"Okay," Ginny had time to say before Harry turned slightly and side-along apparated James straight to their house. "I'm sorry, Angelina," she said after they were gone. "He's lashing out at everyone and anyone."

"I know," Angelina said with a sigh, "and I don't know what I'd do if I were you right now; but he's well on the way to ruining every relationship that ought to be important to him. Let's hope for his sake that he comes around before it's too late to fix the damage."

"When we got this far through our lunch and Quidditch outting, I thought that maybe he was finally coming around; but apparently he had an ulterior motive for playing nice – and still has some anger issues to resolve."

Angelina laughed. "That's a bit of an understatement. It's been a really great day except for this little blip, though; so let's just drop it and get back to having fun."

"Well if we're going to do that, can I come and stay for a sleepover?" Ginny joked. "I have a feeling that Harry and I are going to be in for another tough night."

"I'm tempted to say yes just to mess with James; but let's not do that. We do want him to get past these problems – not push him further away from us."

Al and Gwendolyn had been on the edges of their group during that nasty little scene, but Ginny eventually joined them; rounded up Lily; and then helped Kirley with getting all four kids to his house. Gwenog wasn't going to be finished with the Harpies for a while still, and since Harry had told her to take her time; she stayed and had a glass of wine and a chat with Kirley, Al, and Gwendolyn while he started working on their dinner; and Lily and Jonah went outside to have a Seeker duel. They talked about the game and plans for Easter, but stayed away from anything to do with James or the problems he was making for Harry and Ginny. Since she didn't want to leave Harry on his own to face the wrath of their eldest son for too long, Ginny finished her drink; did a round of hugs and kisses; and then headed for home while Al and Gwendolyn joined in to help Kirley with the work in the kitchen.

They had everything ready so that they could sit down and eat once Gwenog got home from the stadium; so Al and Lily were especially happy to enjoy a drama-free meal; they all had fun talking about Quidditch, school, music, and Easter; and then they all pitched in for the clean-up before moving into the music room for some play time. Kirley had suggested that, but while Al and Gwendolyn knew that he kept trying to do that for reasons that wouldn't work out for him; they did have something fun to share with him.

"You're not going to get us to change our minds about starting a duo or group, Dad; but would you be interested in hearing a song that Al and I have been working on that you might be interested in for the Weird Kids or the Graves Robbers?" Gwendolyn asked as she and Al were both nearly-finished tuning the guitars she'd picked out for them to use for the evening.

"I'd be interested in that – and in you recording your own music," Kirley answered with a grin; "but let's start with the song."

"And end with it too if you're going to try and sell us on some music career plan for us," Gwendolyn warned with a smile. "We started writing this about Quidditch, but it morphed quite a bit by the time we were done. It's called Burst Your Bubble; and we hope you like it."

She counted them in silently; and the song began with a two-part guitar intro that everyone else must have liked; because they were grinning right away and tapping toes or hands to the beat. Gwendolyn sang the first verse; but Al added in some light, accent harmony.

Verse 1:

You thought that you were clever;

That I didn't have a clue;

But I know what you've been doing;

And some payback's overdue!

Don't think that this won't hurt a bit;

'Cause it's just a little prick;

For I promise that what's coming next;

Won't be easy, fun, or quick!

Chorus 1:

I hate to burst your bubble;

When you're so full of yourself;

But it's thanks to all your cheating;

That this trophy's on my shelf.

My friends think that it's funny;

Which is why they laugh at you;

But don't worry – I will let you out;

In a month, or year, or two!

Their audience was laughing by then; but they kept on singing; with Al continuing to add light touches of harmony because the first half of the song was from a Witch's perspective.

Bridge:

Burst your bubble – you're not that hot!

Burst your bubble – I call the shots!

You acted like you were a king;

That you ruled over everything;

So now I get to be the one;

To burst your bubble!

There was another short guitars-only part after the bridge; and then Al took a turn with singing the melody while Gwendolyn added in a fuller harmony before they began to switch back and forth with a fairly complex bit of vocals as they each alternated between melody and harmony through to the end of the song.

Verse 2:

You thought that you could win the game;

By breaking every rule;

That we'd put up with anything;

No matter how mean or cruel.

Now everyone knows you thought wrong;

And messed with the wrong team;

So now we are the champions;

While you're just a bad dream!

Chorus 2:

I hate to burst your bubble;

When you're so full of yourselves;

But it's thanks to all your cheating;

That this trophy's on my shelf.

Despite your boasts, insults, and cheap shots;

We still won the game today;

So take those giant egos;

Out of here and go away!

Ending – 2 times, 2nd with key change:

Burst your bubble – you're not that hot!

Burst your bubble – we call the shots!

You tried to lie and cheat to win;

But all we needed was a pin;

That we could use on you;

To burst your bubble!

The end of the song was met with applause and more laughter; and Lily had hugs for Al and Gwendolyn.

"I love it!" she assured them enthusiastically. "James will hate it; but too bad for him. It's funny, you can dance to it, and any Witch that's ever had a Wizard mess with them is going to love the song too."

"It could be a hit," Kirley agreed. "You should record it – strictly so that I can let the other guys hear it," he added; trying and failing to look innocent.

"I've got it all on parchment," Gwendolyn advised him. "I'll give you a copy later. We are not giving you anything that might get my Weird Sisters' uncles badgering us about starting a group too."

"It's a shame that everyone doesn't get to enjoy how brilliant your music is, Gwendolyn," Kirley told her seriously; and she laughed.

"Al's Dad would say the same thing about him not wanting to be an Auror, and since he's the best student in our year; there probably isn't much he couldn't do when we grow up."

"Except play with us on the Harpies team," Lily teased. "Can you teach that song to Jonah and me? I can't play guitar well-enough for it; but I can sing along."

"We can do that," Gwendolyn agreed; "but you might want to be careful with that; or Dad will be trying to get the two of you to start a group instead of Al and me."

"That isn't going to happen for me either," Lily assured her; "but that doesn't mean that we can't have fun around here." She grinned then. "I might even have some ideas for songs; though James would likely hate 'My Bat-Bogey Brother Boogie' even more than he'll hate your new song."

"My bat-bogey brother," Al sang as he strummed.

"My bat-bogey brother," Gwendolyn echoed.

"My brother got in trouble," Al offered.

"Mum came running on the double," Gwendolyn added with a grin.

"And now he's flapping around his cage; and his fate is all the rage," Al continued; an d then Gwendolyn finished their litle ditty with – "So get up and do the bat-bogey brother boogie with me!"

Lily was up and dancing by then; had pulled Jonah to his feet too; and was laughing again as Gwendolyn and Al continued to strum the music for another minute while repeeating their impromptu, goofy song snippet.

"You ought to work on that one too," Kirley suggested. "That could definitely work as well as the weird love songs have for the Weird Kids."

"It was Lily's idea," Al said with a smile for her. "Maybe she should take a shot at it first."

"Not to mention that she'll have more time for something like that," Gwendolyn added. "Al and I need to worry about boring stuff – like our final exams in June."

"I can do that," Lily agreed with a nod and grin; "though I'd better do that in my room or over here. James will be home too; and we've got enough to deal with already without making that worse."

They played around with that song for a while; moved on to sing and play some other songs together with Kirley joining in for most of those songs; and then they went into the sitting room to watch a show before it was time for Al and Lily to go home. Gwendolyn took Al away for a private good night hugs and kisses session, but they didn't have time for any major snogging; and Al and Lily were home on-time. They were sent by Floo Network without Kirley or Gwenog coming along, but the parents were on a mirror chat while they were traveling; so the McCormacks were all able to hear James lay into Al the moment he and Lily arrived in the sitting room.

"Did you lose your brains in the Floo Network; or is that stupid look because Gwendolyn snogged you senseless?" James asked Al as insultingly as possible. "Then again, Lily's smiling like an idiot too; so maybe her boyfriend kissed her goodnight too."

"If that had happened, it would have been me kissing him," Lily retorted; still grinning. "It sounds to me as if someone here does need a hug, though. I thought you'd be happy to have the time away from us."

"That would have been good – if you'd never come back – or if I was the one leaving forever."

"You'd miss us too much – eventually," Lily declared. "Cheer up, James. It's almost Easter – and even you should be able to have some fun when sweets and presents are involved."

"The only thing I want for Easter is a new place to live. I'd suggest moving to Grimmauld Place; but that's not an option now that Mum and Dad gave our inheritance away to their favorite charity child. Do you think the Easter Bunny will be able to come up with something even better for me?"

"I don't know," Lily admitted. "Why don't you stay up late and ask her. "Maybe she's looking for a cuddle buddy and will take you home with her."

"You've got me mixed up with the loser brother that's into animals," James told her. "He's welcome to hook up with her and hop on out of here forever."

"Not if he knows what's good for him," they all heard Gwendolyn call out through Ginny's mirror. "He's mine; so just tell the Easter Bunny to keep her furry little paws off of him!"

"Getting rid of Al would be the best thing that could happen to you," James yelled back at her. "Sooner or later, you'll figure that out; and I'll be there to remind you that I have tried to warn you all along."

"I'd say this is a good time to say goodnight," Ginny told Gwenog. "Have a Happy Easter. I'll see you on Monday when I stop in to annoy you at your practice along with the other reporters."

"Okay," Gwenog agreed. "Have a Happy Easter there too."

"Fat chance of that," James had time to offer before Ginny ended the mirror chat. "What is that horrid stench anyway? Oh right – Al's back. What is your problem? Did you try to turn into a skunk and bring the stink with you when you changed back?"

"I didn't," Al answered, "but if you want to keep it up; I'll be happy to give that a try – and then spray you so that you can compare what you're complaining about now with what that would actually be like."

"No doing that to anyone in our house," Ginny warned him; but she was hiding a grin while pretending to chastise him. "James, quit insulting Al – especially when he smells quite lovely. It reminds me a bit of Gwendolyn's favorite perfume."

"Maybe he and Lily did one of those Witches' makeovers while they were out," James said with a snort. "Did you try on some of Gwendolyn's dresses and undies too, Al – or just get your nails and make-up done?"

"Look at the time," Al said instead of trying to go another round with the verbal sparring. "We'd better head up to bed; or the Easter Bunny might skip our house!"

"Who cares?" James retorted.

"I do," Lily assured him. "A bedtime snack first would be good too, though; so does anyone want to do that with me? We can trade stories about what we've been doing since the game while we do that."

"I yelled at Mum and Dad; they yelled at me; and we had a crappy night," James told her. "At least one of us could care less what you did tonight."

"That's okay," Lily told him easily. "Would you like me to drop off a snack and drink after we're done in the kitchen?"

"No. I'm still ill from eating the poison Mum gave me for dinner."

"Good, then you likely didn't devour the leftover chocolate cake from last night," Lily said cheerfully. "Let's go and take a look, Al."

He tried not to laugh when she started humming the tune that he and Gwendolyn had been using for their Bat-Bogey Brother Boogie; and got a dirty look from James when he failed – even though James had no idea why he was laughing. Lily did, though; and she grinned at him. Harry and Ginny went with them for the chat, drinks, and snacks; and then Lily delivered a plate filled with treats and a large glass of James' favorite soda when they all headed up to bed. She'd hugged him from behind and kissed his cheek after he'd taken the plate and glass and had his hands full; though he complained the entire time and yelled at her for contaminating him. After sharing a round of goodnight hugs and kisses with his parents and Lily before they went into their own rooms, Al waited for Lily to use the bathroom first; took his turn getting ready for bed; and then read a book until he drifted off to sleep for the night.

Easter morning didn't dawn with a bright sunrise, but it wasn't raining either when Al woke up ahead of everyone else. He even managed to get showered, do the bandage re-wrap, and get ready for the day before Lily woke up and met him in the kitchen to see what the Easter Bunny had left for them before he'd finished pouring a glass of juice. He smiled when she noticed the gift that he'd just finished putting with the rest of her gifts. It only got her attention because it was wrapped in different paper than the rest of her gifts.

"Just a little something I thought you might need around here after I head back to school next Sunday."

Lily laughed and quickly unwrapped it. "A bunny charm for my bracelet? What does this one do?"

"Take a guess," he suggested; and Lily laughed again.

"It makes me hop?" she suggested first; and then her eyes widened. "It's a cheering charm!" she guessed; and then ran over to hug Al when he confirmed that she was right. "That's brilliant, Al! James is going to be furious – but not for long!"

It was Al's turn to laugh and he hugged her again.

"That was what I had in mind," he admitted. "I made yours extra-strong too. Be careful who you use it on. They won't just be cheerful – they'll be positively giddy."

"Too bad it's an away holiday for the family. It might be fun to find out what Uncle Percy would be like if he was giddy with happiness. How long will it last?"

"Long-enough that James will likely stop being a grump around you if he has to worry about spending too much time giggling at everything." He laughed again, and then laughed harder when he couldn't stop and realised that Lily had just tested the charm out on him. He reached into his pocket; pulled out one of his seashells; and used it on himself. It still took a few moments to stop laughing; but he was grinning at Lily and thought that her test had been funny. "I made more of these charms for Gwendolyn, Rose, and a few other friends. Having the counter-charm seemed like a good idea."

"That's okay – as long as James doesn't get his hands on one and can stop me that easily."

"He's obviously started experimenting with his own charmed objects; but I doubt that's one he's thought of as being useful."

"Not yet, anyway," Lily agreed; still grinning. "Can you pour me a glass of juice too?" she asked. "I might as well have a drink while we wait for Mum and Dad – and James if he decides to join us sometime before noon."

The last part of her comment was a nice thought, but their parents had other ideas about that, so despite the fact that there were Easter treats and gifts for him; James was in a foul mood from the moment he was ordered out of bed. Al and Lily had at least been able to start their day quietly and with a bit of fun; but there was nothing entertaining about having James yell and complain about everything. He hated the food; was sure that his sweets and chocolates were poisoned; and the gifts were stupid and useless now that he was stuck under house arrest. Finding out that they were going to the Burrow to help out ahead of their small Easter dinner wasn't a surprise for Al and Lily, but considering James' reaction to the news; they certainly understood why their parents had saved telling them about it until the last minute.

Not everything that happened was bad while they were home. Al had a fun mirror chat with Gwendolyn to wish her a Happy Easter – and send her on a little hunt for the gift he'd hidden for her while there on Saturday. She had more exciting news for him because Stephanie Boot had called her to find out if she knew who had sent her a brand new Firestorm 250 in the Owl Post. The note that had come with it had claimed that it was from the Easter Bunny with some excuse for why it couldn't be left with the rest of her treats. Al immediately knew what his parents had done, and Gwendolyn at least suspected, but she didn't pass that on to Stephanie; and Al didn't ask his parents about it. He did mention it to Lily while they were in the room, andwhile he didn't miss the half-hidden grins on their faces; they left it at that – and if he got asked about it; he could at least be honest when answering that his parents hadn't said anything to him about sending Stephanie a new broom to replace the one that James had destroyed.

James' mood did not improve when they went to the Burrow; so Al was glad to be sent outside to work on the usual chores that were the dirtiest and hardest – and that James flat-out refused to do. De-gnoming the garden was just the start of the work for Al, but he did have his charmed seashells, so while they couldn't be used for the gnomes; he could use them to help with the gardening; clearing out some old brush in the orchard; and some of the raking and sweeping. Without any of their other cousins at the Burrow too, it would have been very quiet; except that James made up for that with some regular outbursts. Al was still working outside when Arthur tried to improve James' mood by having him 'work' on making sure that one of his planes and a helicopter would be ready to play with later. That didn't work out very well when James tried to intentionally crash one of his grandfather's favorite planes – and Al used his levitation charm seashell to rescue the plane before it hit the ground. That had infuriated James; he'd accused Al of lying and being responsible for the near-crash with his interference despite the fact that it would be impossible to do that with a levitation charm; and then he'd stormed off into the house.

They were having their Easter dinner at mid-afternoon, so they only had a snack instead of a meal for lunch; and Al had his break for that outside so that he didn't have to clean up first and then go back to work. Lily joined him for that; and then she kept him company and helped out while he finished the rest of the chores on his to-do list. The last job on that list was being finished when Aunt Muriel arrived. Harry and Ginny had gone to get her, and they might have both been smiling about something that had happened just before they'd left Muriel's house; but it could have simply been that they'd been glad to have the short break from James.

"Good for you, Ginny," Aunt Muriel said approvingly in her booming voice when she saw Al gathering up the tools he'd just finished using to take them back to the shed. "Work that miscreant boy of yours to the bone every day; and I'll wager he'll come around by the time they let him go back to Hogwarts again."

Her comment earned a roar of laughter – from James. He'd come outside after their parents had left; and had been intentionally sitting around doing nothing to mess with Al – along with tossing out random insults. Aunt Muriel turned her attention to him and scowled.

"What your brother did is no laughing matter," she snapped; and James laughed again while nodding his agreement.

"I know it isn't. I've tried to tell Mum and Dad that he ought to have had his wand broken, been expelled, and arrested; but they still think there's hope for the dirty, rotten animal."

"James Potter – stop that right now!" Ginny demanded; and Muriel looked at her sharply before turning back toward the two boys and scrutinizing each of them more closely.

"Why?" James retorted. "It's nice to see that someone in this family actually recognizes Al for what he truly is."

"I mistook him for you under all of that dirt," Muriel told him. "Now, it's quite clear which of you is the miscreant I've heard so much about over the past week."

"Yeah, I'm sure that you've had a good time gossiping about it with the great-grandmothers of half the students at Hogwarts," James retorted scornfully. "Don't believe everything you hear – or read in the news. You had it right the first time. I was set up; and Al's the one responsible for everything that happened last weekend."

"You're lying," she told him flatly; "and not very good at it. I can see the truth of what you did easily-enough."

James snorted derisively. "You couldn't see the difference between the loser and me a minute ago you fat, senile, old windbag." He sniffed the air and pretended to gag. "It's a wonder you didn't recognize my dirtbag brother. I just realized that he stinks as badly as you do. That's probably why people keep trying to set off dung bombs around you – it'd be an improvement!"

"I can see well-enough to know when a young Wizard is overdue for some soap and water," Aunt Muriel shouted ominously as she drew her wand and pointed it at James.

He suddenly couldn't move; a bar of coarse brown soap appeared in front of him; and then he could only stare in shocked astonishment as the soap was shoved into his mouth. There were soon thick soap suds frothing out of his mouth; and he gagged and tried to scream at her in defiant anger. The entire scene seemed to drag on forever, and Molly and Arthur were outside too by then; but it was actually less than a minute before the bar of soap popped out of James' mouth and he was released again.

"Maybe you'll think about what kind of dirt comes out of your mouth the next time you speak to me," Aunt Muriel told him. "Washing a child's mouth out with soap may be considered old-fashioned these days; but I'll wager you won't forget this little lesson anytime soon, boy!"

"You..." James began; but clamped his mouth shut when the bar of soap re-appeared in front of his face. He started to turn red; glowered at Muriel; and then stormed off – stomping away; but not running – definitely not running.

"I love you," Ginny whispered and then hugged her great-aunt enthusiastically. "That was brilliant!"

Aunt Muriel chortled; but then gave Ginny a stern look as she stepped away from the hug. "I'd say he was long overdue, Ginevra. Coddling the boy will not be a kindness for him now."

"We are not coddling him, Aunt Muriel," Ginny protested. "There's no doubt that we are definitely having trouble finding our way with him right now. Nothing we try seems to get through to him."

"Then stop trying to do that," Aunt Muriel told her bluntly. "Worry about what's best for you and your entire family. James will come around sooner or later – or he won't. Either way, it will be his choice – not yours. Most times, that turns out for the best. Let's hope that will be the case for you and yours."

"I should call you for advice more often," Ginny told her with a smile. "Usually, I just check in with Mum and Fleur when Harry and I don't know what to do."

"Even senile, old windbags have a bit of wisdome to pass along now and then," Aunt Muriel joked.

"You're none of those things," Molly told her as she and Arthur walked up to them; and she hugged her aunt enthusiastically. "Happy Easter, Aunt Muriel."

"And to you as well," Muriel told her. "If that boy's been mouthing off to you like that all day; I'm surprised he can still walk."

Molly smiled at her. "He's long-since learned better than to cross me; though he has been quite a handful today too as you've seen – and I'd say that he's just learned that lesson for you too."

"We shall see," Aunt Muriel said with a shrug. "The place looks quite nice, Molly. Maybe I should've realized that it was young Albus under all of that dirt; since I have also been hearing that he's been cleaning up messes at Hogwarts too." She smiled when Lily laughed; but held up her hands when Lily tried to hug her next. "Not until you wash up, dear. You're not quite as dirty as your brother; but you ar a bit of a mess."

Lily looked down at herself and laughed again. "We were having so much fun; I didn't notice."

"Well, if you find yard work so entertaining; I've enough of that to keep you busy from now to the end of summer. You'd be welcome to come over and do it."

"That wouldn't be as much fun without Al while he's back at school; but I'd be happy to help you with some chores," Lily assured her. "Maybe Grandma could bring Hugo, Roxanne, and me over to your house on some of the days she watches us and we could help out around your house instead of here."

"You're sweet to offer; but I think that Molly is quite busy-enough without adding more to her schedule."

"We can talk about that later," Molly told her. "If you need some extra help this year; we will help you with whatever you need."

"Yes, we will," Ginny agreed. "Would you like to sit out here or take a walk around the yard and orchard before we go inside?"

Her question got them all going again, and while Al took care of putting away the garden tools he and Lily had been using; everyone else except James went inside – mostly because Molly couldn't leave the cooking unattended. Aunt Muriel held court at the kitchen table, and once Lily and Al had each taken turns getting cleaned up and changed; they joined the five adults there. When their dinner was nearly-ready, Harry went in search of James; brought him back wihtout any major problems – probably because he was thirsty and hungry by then; and they sat down to enjoy their quiet family meal. 'Quiet' was relative, since Aunt Muriel was always loud and out-spoken, but compared to family dinners with the entire gang there; it was that – and fun for seven out of eight of them. James didn't say a word; pretended to ignore everyone; and devoured three plates full of food followed by two helpings of dessert. He was allowed to escape outside again after that instead of helping with the clean-up, since Harry and Arthur were the only two Wizards drafted for that chore; but Al stayed and joined in to help out too.

"Do you find washing dishes fun too, Albus; or is this just your way of trying to make up for the troubles your brother causes?" Muriel asked him as she sat at the table with Molly, Ginny, and Lily.

"A bit of both," Al answered with a smile and shrug. "Helping out is definitely more fun when I don't have to do everything by hand; but then I usually have fun with Mum, Dad, and Lily even when we are doing chores."

"Those charm bracelets and other objects you've made are quite ingenious," Muriel declared. "You're already making quite a name for yourself – just as your father did as a boy. It's no wonder that your brother is jealous of the atention you've gotten."

"I'd rather have none of that attention; but that seems to be too much to hope for with our family."

Aunt Muriel laughed. "Do you really now? It seems to me that you've brought the attention onto yourself by your own choices, young Wizard."

"I know the consequences of putting myself in the spotlight, and wouldn't change most of my choices simply to avoid the attention; but I definitely don't want that."

"That does sound like the truth," Muriel conceded; "though I doubt you'll have any more luck than your father has had with staying out of that spotlight."

Al was usually glad to be out of the spotlight when it came to their Aunt Muriel, but he enjoyed their chat – and was still glad when she moved the conversation on to other things and then left him alone after that. When the clean-up was finished he and Lily went outside to wander around; avoided James when he made it clear that he didn't want them to come near where he'd been moping not far from the field closest to the orchard. Arthur came out to play with his toys for a while too; and Lily eventually took a turn, but Al didn't; and James pretended not to watch on while his sister and grandfather had fun together. Harry and Al took Aunt Muriel home while Ginny took James and Lily on to their house. Al only went along to carry the box of leftovers and desserts – though he did know that his father could have just sent them on ahead; so the trip was more to give him a chance of avoiding any outbursts from James after hours of self-imposed silence.

That didn't end up making a difference, but Al did enjoy that bit of bonus entertainment with Aunt Muriel; so he did have something to smile about while James jumped right in to start insulting him again when he and Harry walked into the house. A couple of minutes of James' taunting was all the motivation Al needed to decide that inviting Lily to go outside for a bit of Quidditch before bedtime was a good idea. She happily went along with that, and they had fun for nearly an hour before heading inside again and pretty much just going straight up to their rooms when James was still looking to make life miserable for Al while they were having drinks and a snack in the kitchen. Despite the problems with James, it had still been a pretty good Easter, and Al wrapped up his holiday weekend having a bedtime chat with Gwendolyn that eventually ended when she fell asleep and let go of her mirror to end their chat. He went to sleep soon after that; and slept through until morning – except for one short handful of moments when he woke to the sounds of James intentionally stomping up to bed loudly-enough to wake everyone in his family.

Monday did not herald an improvement in James' attitude, but he did grudgingly agree to 'be good' while Ginny went out to work for a couple of hours each in the morning and afternoon so that she could check in with two of the teams she was covering this week. With the playoffs just around the corner; she was going to be busy through to the Championship match over the next month; but then she'd be able to take some time off from work during the off season. While Ginny had been tempted to drop the kids off at the Burrow for the day, she decided that it was better to keep James at home instead of inflicting him on his grandmother and cousins. Al would have liked to spend the day hanging out with Rose, but agreed with the plan to stay home; and he and Lily managed to have fun most of the day anyway. Since Monday was really just a day to get through ahead of the study morning on Tuesday that would have him back together with Gwendolyn again; Al mostly just tried to get through the day with as little pain as possible; and the bits of entertainment that made the day fun were just a bonus.

"It's only been two days," James groused as he stomped into the kitchen and flopped into his chair on Tuesday morning. "Quit grinning like an idiot. You're making me want to puke more than the smell of this crap food – unless that's just you too."

"Yeah, that's it," Al agreed easily. "It's my new pancakes, syrup, and sausages scented cologne. Don't you just love it?"

"I'll wager that Gwendolyn will just eat it up," Lily offered with a laugh. "Good morning, James. Did you have a nice nap after your late-night gaming?"

"No, I didn't," he groused; "Why do we need to be up so ridiculously early?"

"Because you're coming with me this morning while Al has his study group here," Ginny told him. "They don't need you around to try and make life miserable for them while they're trying to work."

James snorted. "Of course not. Their lives are miserable-enough without help from anyone." That declaration earned him a round of laughs; and he nearly smirked in response before catching himself and returning the scowl to his face.

"That's likely a matter of perspective," Ginny told him, "but you are coming with me; and we'll stop in Diagon Alley so that you can pick up a birthday gift for Fred – unless you've actually done that before now."

"Why bother? You're not likely going to let me go to his party. I might actually get the chance to talk to Uncle George and get him to help me out of this nightmare you're keeping me imprisoned in."

"We'll all be going to Fred's party," Ginny advised him. "But if you so much as say one wrong word or try to mess it up for Fred; you'll be out of there before you know what hit you." She focused her attention on him; but he refused to look back. "I'm serious, James. If you cause problems today, you will not be going to another Quidditch match for the rest of this season – including the playoffs; and we won't keep trying to take you out places when you can't be trusted to behave yourself around others."

"You wouldn't have to worry about me at all if you'd just let me leave," he retorted.

"That isn't going to happen," Ginny told him flatly. "You're our son; our responsibility; and you're stuck with us at least until you're seventeen and have the right to choose your own way."

"We'll see about that," James told her flatly.

Al was sure that James wouldn't 'see' anything he liked or was hoping for; but didn't doubt that he'd continue to try to find away out of his perceived prison. James continued to complain about everything, but that didn't keep him from eating two plates full of food; and he left on time with Ginny too once she'd made sure that all of Al's cousins and friends had arrived safely. That included having Hugo, Jonah, and Melissa come over to hang out with Lily; and the four younger kids went outside to play while Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, and everyone else in their usual study group that could come sat at the dining room table and got to work on their holiday revision. The studying was fun, but it was getting to spend the day with Gwendolyn and Rose – and the morning with the rest of their friends – that Al thought was really great.

The take-out lunch that Ginny brought back for everyone so she didn't have to do any cooking and cleaning was really good too; and so was the bit of play time they had after that before everyone except Rose, Hugo, Gwendolyn, and Jonah went home. Jonah hadn't originally been included in the birthday party plans, but Lily had decided to invite him as her 'date' when he'd looked so sad at being left out with nothing to do while the rest of them were at Fred's party. James razzed them about that while they were still home, but he left them alone after they arrived at George and Angelina's house. They went there early so that Ginny could help Angelina with the work, but it was nice-enough outside for the kids and teens to stay out of the house; and that made it fairly easy to mostly avoid any contact with James – at least until the party started.

The rest of the cousins and some of Fred's Hogwarts friends began arriving an hour later. Angelina hadn't set up party games or anything, but there were games to play – including Quidditch. Al and Gwendolyn stayed away from that to avoid any potential trouble with James when he decided to play; but they did watch the action from the sidelines when Fred put together a scrimmage. Since he'd invited friends from the Gryffindor team too; they had more than enough players for two teams. Rose had an all-girls team; but that didn't work out for her this time because some of the most-talented Witches that they'd normally have on a family and friends team were at Hogwarts – and unable to play for her. Lily did win her Seeker duel wtih James, which didn't impress him; but the guys scored seven more goals to still get the win by twenty points.

"I'd blame that loss on you guys," Rose told Al and Gwendolyn after the match, "but if you'd both played; we'd have likely still lost."

"Maybe," Gwendolyn agreed; "but you had more fun and less trouble with James – at least until Lily got that last catch."

"Well, at least he didn't try blasthing her after she did that," Rose offered. "That's progress."

"That's funny," Al assured her, "but I really hope it will be on joke thatdoesn't catch on around our family and get thrown back in his face for decades – even though James would happlily do exactly that to anyone else."

"That one was just for us," Rose said; and she had spoken quietly-enough that she wouldn't have been overheard by the other kids and teens. "You're right about that, though; so I'll try to resist the urge. I think it's something we all inherited – even if we didn't get as much of it as some of our siblins and cousins got."

"Well, I couldn't have inherited anything from your family; and I still thought it was funny," Gwendolyn told her with a grin.

"Considering what your Mum used to think was funny when she was young; you might have more to worry about from what you inherited than we do," Rose suggested.

"Maybe, but I'm with Al on this one too; and that's okay. We still have lots of material we can use about James; and there's more on the way nearly every day."

She'd nodded to where James was showing off for the kids and teens nearest to him. Part of his efforts were because he was trying to get some attention. He wasn't being totally ignored; but nobody was going out of their way to hang out with him and James didn't like that at all. Al wondered if that somewhat passive peer pressure would affect James more than anything his parents had tried so far, but after catching some dark looks directed his way; decided that those little insults were just being added to the list of reasons his brother had for hating him. Fortunately, the dark looks were his only problem with James; and that was easy-enough to deal with while having fun with Gwendolyn and everyone else. That fun included some slow changes with their interaction with Fred and his friends – with the fact that there was any at all the most significant change. Fred and Orland did that very tentatively, but Wendy was a Weird Sisters' cousin too; so she was happy to hang out with Al and Gwendolyn; and Kira Kirke went along for the ride with her friend.

After skipping the Quidditch to keep the peace, Al and Gwendolyn did join in for some games – like Fanged Frisbee – when they could do that and not get in James' way. George came home from the store a bit early, but they had a late dinner so that all of the working parents could be there for the meal and at least a few hours of the fun. Al knew exactly why James had been playing nice when he cornered George as soon as he possibly could without causing a scene, and while he had no idea what went on between them while they were on their own after going into the house and staying there for about fifteen minutes; he did know that James was both angry and crushed when he came back outside on his own – and went to find somewhere to be alone. He gave James a bit of time, but then left Gwendolyn with a whispered explanation; and went looking for him.

"Get lost."

"In a minute,' Al answered. "Are you okay?"

"As if you care. Everyone hates me – and that's all because of you. They've always picked you."

Al laughed; trying to make it sound less-forced than it was. "Except for Uncle George and Uncle Ron. I'm a terrible disappointment to them."

"Well congratulations, then," James shot back. "Uncle George likes you best now too."

"That isn't true," Al disagreed. "He might be feeling a bit guilty, though."

"He should," James said derisively; but didn't elaborate.

"I'm not talking about that, James. We always hear about the pranks that Uncle George and Uncle Fred pulled at Hogwarts that can still be laughed about; but almost never hear about the bad ones that were fairly horrid and dangerous."

James snorted. "Bulbadox powder is hardly horrid or dangerous."

"They did other things that were nearly as awful as what you did to Stephanie," Al disagreed. "That Slytherin they shoved into that Vanishing Cabinet nearly died too."

"That wasn't their fault," James retorted; and Al shook his head.

"It was; and it doesn't matter whether that wasn't their intention – just as it doesn't matter whether you meant to hurt Stephanie as badly as you did or not. Uncle George doesn't talk about those sorts of stories anymore. He gets it now; and that's why he's not going to give you an out now either – because he does love you that much."

"You are delusional," James told him.

"I'm not, and this next part is just a guess; but have you considered just how close to home what happened to Stephanie was for Uncle George? Even for a second? Let me give you a hint – Peter and Pauline. He's lost a twin; and you nearly killed their little sister. He also has a daughter now, you may have noticed; and Dads look at these sorts of things differently too."

"I didn't..." James began; but stopped when Al pinned him with a hard glare.

"We both know the truth, so let's not keep doing that – at least between you and me," Al suggested. "You need to work this out for you; not for anyone else – and definitely not with the wrong kind of help."

"Why bother?" James asked; though this time his question was unintentionally more a plea than an insult.

Al grinned at him. "Well, the top reason on my list is that if you don't come around soon; you might not try to pass your exams in June; and then they'd keep you back in third year in September."

"I thought you just said this wasn't about anyone else," James retorted; but Al's joke had almost earned a grin from him.

"That doesn't mean that the rest of us can't benefit," Al deadpanned. "You'd hate that more than I would, though, so it's a pretty good reason. Next up, though, is the potential for summer jobs, and for you; playing nice could lead to a job with Uncle George that he could get Mum to approve. She worked there when she was still underage – even if that was only for the two or three months after the war before she was seventeen. Finally, there's your future league Quidditch career. You don't want to set that back a year no matter how mad you are right now at me, Mum and Dad, or anyone else."

"Just cut it out," James told him. "You're only making me want to hate you more when you think you're helping me with all of that drivel."

"That's okay. Do that instead of being mad at everyone else. You'll feel better; and so will the rest of your family and our friends."

"And what do you get out of it?" James asked suspiciously; and Al laughed again.

"It's what I don't get – you in my class for not just next year; but the next five years. That thought should be scaring both of us."

"Then maybe I should flunk out this year; if that's the worst thing I could do to you – and then sit right behind you in every class from now on."

"You'd only be able to do that for eight classes – unless you'd want to sign up for the extra classes the second time around in third year," Al countered. "That would be awful, but I still think you'll decide that it'd be worse for you – especially if Ollie moves on to fourth-year too. Then there's the whole issue of Quidditch if you were trying out for the junior team against Lily. That'd be a brilliant Seeker duel; but I doubt that either of us could be sure which of you would win any single-catch duel. You'd have much better odds trying out for the senior team next year."

"Now you're just trying to get me riled up," James accused.

"We're talking without any major yelling; so maybe it's time for me to get out of here before I mess that up. Dinner will be ready soon anyway; so we should both head back to the house." He grinned at James then. "Would you prefer to go first or be fashionably late?"

James' retort was fairly nasty, but not conveyed with any real sense of malice; and Al actually felt pretty good as he rejoined Gwendolyn, Rose, and the other friends they were hanging out with by then. Dinner was nearly ready by then; so it wasn't long before they filled plates and sat down to eat outside. Fred had his friends, sister, and parents closest to him during dinner and while opening his gifts after that; so Al and Gwendolyn were at a table on the edge of the party; and mostly out of the loop. They had fun while enjoying the food and spent most of that time chatting with Rose, Hugo, Lily, Jonah, and everyone else sitting closest to them. Fred opened his gifts between dinner and dessert; which gave the party helpers time to clear tables and put out the cake, ice cream, and other treats. Al and Rose were among some draftees that helped with that bit of work; but then they were set free to play again for the rest of the evening.

There wasn't actually much going on after dessert. By then, most of the parents were ready to relax and wind down from a long, busy day; and the kids and teens were happy to take it easy too – though another game of Fanged Frisbee was started up; along with a few other games that they played out closer to the back of the yard to stay out of the way of the adults. Fred had Orlando and a couple of other friends spending the night for the extra hang-out time, but the rest of his guests started heading home by nine o'clock. Harry and Ginny were among the first to leave; they went home, and then she took Gwendolyn and Jonah on to their house once Al and Gwendolyn had finished saying goodnight to each other. Al had been hopeful that his chat with James had done some good, but that wasn't evident once they were home; and James was as obnoxious as he'd been every day of the holiday so far. That had everything to do with why Al went up to his room for the night after Gwendolyn and Jonah left; and he wrapped up his day with some fun reading and a bedtime chat with Lily and Holly when they'd had enough of James too and left him alone in the sitting room to brood while playing video games.

The last three days of the work week were filled with a mix of work and fun for Al and Lily; along with large doses of James' foul mood dumped on them whenever he felt the need to rant at them – which was pretty much every time he saw Al; or whenever anyone intruded on his pity party for any reason. Most of Wednesday morning was spent doing chores around the house, and then Al and Lily were sent to spend the rest of the day with Gwendolyn and Jonah. Hanging out at the McCormacks' house meant Quidditch and music were a big part of their play plans, but Al and Gwendolyn managed to have some alone time too; and they were all happy to have a handful of hours without James around to bother them.

Al tried to deal with his Hogwarts form for third-year optionals in private with his parents, but James started another rant when he asked to talk to them in private; so he did that in the sitting room with them instead – and ended up having James freaking out about his choices anyway. His parents were happy with his desire to take four optionals, but while Lily hadn't been surprised; she wasn't as thrilled about the precedent he was setting for her. The fact that she had tentatively pre-negotiated her own plans for third year when it had been James' turn to go through it didn't keep her from having fun with Al – and off-setting James' ugly taunts and insults with a bit of fun. While Al knew that four optionals were more than most students took at Hogwarts, he wouldn't be the only one; and the only extra subject he was going to take that Gwendolyn and Rose hadn't wanted to take too was Divination. They were both going to take Ancient runes, Arithmancy, and Care of Magical Creatures with him.

Taking care of that little holiday task on Wednesday ended up being an issue for the Thursday morning study session too when James needed to stop into the dining room to taunt Al, Gwendolyn, and Rose; and then make fun of the rest of their friends as he found out what they were each choosing for optional classes too. Ray was a copycat for taking the same two optionals as James and Ollie; and he found a way to insult everyone before deciding that his work was done and he could get back to playing games and doing nothing.

That study session was enough to get the rest of their work done by lunchtime; that meal included more of James' unwanted jokes and insults; and then it was time for some Quidditch. Lily had her younger group of siblings to hang out with while Al was studying; so they were able to put together a couple of teams without Beaters. Rose and Hugo anchored the two teams at Keeper, Madison played Seeker against Lily and Jonah; and Tory and Ray had Melissa with them on Rose's team while Al and Gwendolyn had Roxanne with them on Hugo's team. The match-ups were close, and Madison and Lily each ended up with two catches, but Jonah had a catch too; so Hugo's team won the scrimmage by ninety points – and could have just as easily lost by ten when the last race for the snitch barely went to Lily.

It wasn't all that hot out, but a warming spell on the portable pool made going for a swim an option that most of the kids and teens were happy to do after their scrimmage; and they played in the water for nearly an hour before it was time for all of the guests to head home again. James had not wanted to play Quidditch with a bunch of losers and kids, but he did come outside to watch the swimming and offer some insults; and then he tried to show off with his own pool time when everyone else vacated the pool to get dried off and for most of them to get ready to head home. Al and Lily had work to do after they saw their cousins and friends off; they helped Ginny with the house and yard clean-up; and then helped with making dinner too.

The rest of the day on Thursday was far from fun aroun the Potter house; and that really went downhill at dinnertime when the conversation included talking about plans for a date night for Al and Gwendolyn for Friday night that Lily and Jonah had been invited to do with them – as long as they had Harry and Ginny along for chaperones for a fast food dinner and movie adventure into Muggle London. James was already ranting about those plans; and pretty much lost it by the time they started talking about keeping Gwendolyn and Jonah overnight too and keeping them until game time on Saturday. James went too far when it was suggested that he could stay with his grandparents instead of going along and he told Harry and Ginny that they could leave him in the cemetery with his dead grandparents for all he cared. He wasn't turned into a bat bogey or anything, but he wasn't able to speak again for a while until Ginny got past being furious with him; and he then spent the rest of the evening finding ways to take out his own rage on Al and Lily with taunts, insults, and petty acts of annoyance.

While getting away from all of that wasn't possible on Friday morning, Al and Lily did actually have a break from James anyway because he was allowed to sleep in – and didn't wake up until a half-hour or so before lunch. He was in fine form right away from there, but only had time to yell at his mother, brother, and sister until they were finished eating that meal; and then Ginny took him to the Burrow while Al and Lily cleaned up so that she wouldn't need to take the side trip on the way to Diagon Alley. Helping out with the work around the house and yard all morning had been worth it for Al and Lily; because once they were free of James; it was time to play for the rest of the day.

They met up with Kirley, Gwendolyn, and Jonah at the Leaky, and while Kirley and Gwenog had plans for their kid-free night; he went shopping with them so that he could take Gwendolyn's school supplies home with him once they'd finished picking up everything she'd need for the last couple of months of the school year. Some new clothes weren't on the list too, but with three Witches in the group; a bit of that kind of shopping was inevitable – and Ginny had fun playing dress-up with Gwendolyn and Lily while Kirley, Al, and Jonah picked a couple of other stores to visit instead. They were finished in Diagon Alley by mid-afternoon, so Kirley went home after that; and Ginny took the four kids to their favorite Muggle Mall for a bit more shopping while they waited for Harry to finish work at Auror Headquarters and meet up with them there for dinner at the food court. A few more outfits were picked out during that bonus round of shopping, and Al and Jonah picked up a few things too; but it was the hanging out together that was most fun for all of them.

Harry was a bit late by the time they met up with him at the food court; so they rushed having dinner a bit to still make it to the movie theater on time. Since it was officially a date night for Al and Gwendolyn, the girls got to pick the movie, and while they'd been tempted to pick a chick flick, when suggesting those choices with the guys had not impressed Jonah; they went with an science fiction action flick instead. That movie turned out to be short on acting and plot, but big on special effects, blowing stuff up, and fight and chase scenes. Having parents along for a date would definitely be weird for most Muggle teens and tweens, but Al and Gwendolyn didn't mind; and they were handy to have along to help out when Gwendolyn or Jonah said or did something that required a bit of magical intervention to avoid any problems with the Muggles around them.

They were handy to have at home too – particularly after Harry got back from picking up James at the Burrow. Two minutes with him had the sleepover plans changed to a camping adventure; and Harry had the tent set up for Al, Gwendolyn, Lily, and Jonah in record time. Getting their bags and a few other necessities out to the tent took a bit longer, but once that was done; they did a round of hugs and kisses with Harry and Ginny and went to spend the rest of the night in the tent while James sat and stewed in the sitting room with his video and mirror games for company.

"We should have decided to do this even before James started in on us when he got home," Gwendolyn told Al as they cuddled on a sofa and got ready to watch a show on the mirror network mirror that he'd brought for them to use instead of their portables. "Is he getting worse; or does it just seem that way to me?"

"I think he's trying to get in as many hits as he can before we head back to Hogwarts on Sunday," Al suggested. "Maybe he'll take a break after that and stop being such a git to everyone."

"He will – one way or the other," Lily assured Al with a grin. "I'll be using that new cheering charm on him by Sunday afternoon if he does try to keep bugging me."

"Does James know you have that new charm on your bracelet?" Gwendolyn asked; and then laughed when the expression on Lily's face gave her the answer without needing to say it aloud. "Good. That'll be even more fun for you when he finds out." Lily and Jonah were sitting on the other sofa together, but not cuddling at all. Lily had a blanket over her and had Holly in her lap; but Jonah looked uncomfortable for more than one reason. "I'm sure that Lily and Holly would share that blanket, Jonah; and we won't razz you about cuddling together to stay warm."

"Come on," Lily invited; holding up that side of the blanket and smiling at Jonah. "We've already gone out on a date with Al and Gwendolyn – I mean we went with Al and Gwendolyn on their date; so we should cuddle too if that's part of the date night thing."

"Now I'm wishing that I didn't just tell them that we wouldn't razz them," Gwendolyn told Al; and laughed too when Lily did.

"Save the goodnight snogging for after Jonah and I go to our own rooms for the night."

"We don't think that snogging is a spectator sport; so that works for us," Gwendolyn said. "Are you guys sleepy yet?" she asked with a smile after a short pause for dramatic effect.

"No; but once we watch Uncle Lee's show; I'll be good with going to bed after that."

That show was still an hour away from starting, so they watched another show first; enjoyed the quiet chat and cuddle time together; and then Lily hugged Jonah goodnight and kissed his cheek before half-dancing off to her room for the night with Holly while he looked a bit dazzled as he then wandered off to his room too. With their younger brother and sister in the tent, a major snogging session was not going to happen, but Al and Gwendolyn were happy to end their date night with an hour or so of quiet, playful snogging. Falling asleep together on the sofa hadn't been part of the plan, but that was fairly brilliant – and so was waking up together in the pre-dawn light of early morning. Cuddling for a while longer and sharing more soft kisses helped to make for a great start to their day; and then they got up and took turns grabbing showers and getting ready for the day. They were ready to go by the time Lily and Jonah woke up; so they went outside and into the house to get started on making breakfast for everyone.

Harry was already in the kitchen and doing that by then, so they joined in to help; and had fun trading stories about what they'd each been doing since the camping adventure had started. Admitting to falling asleep on the sofa had ensured some teasing, but that was soon proved to be the smart choice when Lily and Jonah joined them; and she was disappointed to find out that her 'news' wasn't news anymore. Al was expecting his day to go downhill by the time they sat down for breakfast, but Ginny opted to let James sleep in; and they were finished eating and the clean-up too before James came to life. Getting assigned some outdoor chores gave Al and Lily a get-out-of-the-house excuse; and Gwendolyn and Jonah were happy to go along to help or at least keep them company. That kept them busy until it was time to get ready to head out for lunch ahead of the big Harpies-Prides match, and by then; James was under orders to behave while they were out or risk being left behind for the playoff matches that they'd be attending regardles of how far into the playoffs the Harpies continued to play.

Harry sent Gwendolyn's and Jonah's overnight bags back to their house before they left for the Leaky; and they only arrived there about fifteen minutes early for lunch – mostly so that they could be the welcoming committee for their family and friends. Kirley was among those friends; and Harry and Ginny sat with him and they enjoyed having lunch with four out of five of their kids while James went to sit with Fred and Louis. The Leaky Cauldron was packed – mostly with Witches and Wizards heading for one of the final matches of the regular season; so they tried to help Hannah out by keeping their lunch orders simple; and then getting finished and on their way again. Doing that meant getting to Exmoor stadium early, but that made it easier to get through the gauntlet of booths; pick up everything they wanted; and then get to their seats and settled in before the stadium was even a quarter-full.

While both the Harpies and Prides were sure to make the playoffs, both teams wanted the win; and the Seeker duel was always a battle between Gabrielle and Erin Connelly. That was obvious right from the start of the match, and Erin was immediately on the offensive; whether through a flurry of elaborate fakes or real attempts to catch the snitch. Things were not going so well for the Prides' Chasers and Keeper as Victoire scored three quick goals in the first fifteen minutes; but then the match game to a screaming end – literally. Erin had gone all-out with a very risky attempt at catching the snitch, but when she missed it; she couldn't do anything more than scream in frustration as she watched Gabrielle follow up her miss with a fairly easy catch that ended the match in just seventeen minutes. The one-eighty to naught victory also wrapped up first place for the Harpies; and made the Wasps' match outcome irrelevant.

Having such a short match also meant that there was a lot of day left for Al and Gwendolyn to spend together at her house; because he was having dinner with her so that they could both spend some time with Gwenog before they headed back to Hogwarts. James wasn't happy with the early end to his outing; so Lily ended up going along too while Harry and Ginny decided to spend the rest of the afternoon with James at Shell Cottage with Bill and Fleur so that James could hang out with Louis – and they could have another few hours of relative peace before heading home again.

Lily and Jonah wanted to have a Seeker duel when they got to the McCormacks' house; so Al and Gwendolyn had a Chaser duel while they all waited for Gwenog to get home from the stadium; and then they spent the next few hours having fun together and enjoying one last dinner together before they'd be separated again for another two months. Harry and Ginny wanted to spend more time with Al before he headed back to Hogwarts too, so while he was sure that staying with Gwendolyn would have been more fun; he and Lily went home after dinner – and James immediately switched from being relatively pleasant while it had just been him with Harry and Ginny to obnoxious and horrid toward Al the moment that he and Lily arrived in the sitting room through the Floo Network.

Finishing his packing got Al out of the way of James' taunts and insults for a while, and Ginny joined him for some mother-son chat time while he did that; but then they went back to the sitting room and tried to have some family time with everyone while watching James playing his games and listening to music on the mirror network. For Al, that was a social disaster, but he gritted his teeth and put up with everything that James threw at him because it was what his parents wanted despite the unpleasantness. They all stayed up to watch Lee's show; talked about Quidditch and the playoff match-ups that were set for the first round by then; and didn't talk about Hogwarts or anything school-related at all in a failed attempt to keep James from getting even more riled up as the evening went along. Going to bed shortly after Lee's show ended was a relief for everyone – including James; though he stayed up to continue his gaming after sending Al on his way with a handful of parting insults.

Ending his day with a bedtime mirror chat with Gwendolyn helped a bit, but while he was going to really miss his parents and sister; Al was also really glad to be heading back to school on Sunday. He had the added bonus that James stayed in his room during breakfast and through until Ginny and Lily took him to King's Cross while Harry stayed at home with James. They took the Floo Network to the Leaky; took the Knight Bus to King's Cross; and were there early-enough that Al was able to say his goodbyes and be among the first students onto the train. He was able to hold four compartments until some of his friends joined him; and then he waited for Gwendolyn and whomever else ended up with them for the trip. Rose joined him first; Toni and Michael were next; and then Gwendolyn and Shane caught up with them within a couple of minutes of each other – and with about five minutes to spare before the train pulled out of King's Cross on the way to Hogsmeade.

"Why the big sigh, Al?" Rose asked him with a smile. "James is home; and you're free of him until summer holidays."

"Unless he and Ollie come back to Hogwarts to write their exams," he reminded her. "As far as I know; that hasn't been decided yet."

"That won't happen if he keeps acting the way he did during the holidays," Rose predicted. "He hasn't learned anything from what happened so far from what I saw – and I know that Hugo and I didn't even get to see him at his worst from what you've already told us."

"Last night was fairly awful too," Al advised her; "but let's talk about anything else other than James."

"Let's not jump right into talking Quidditch either," Toni told them. "I know that you'll need to do that for half the trip or more; but at least one of us needs some time to ease back into that after a week of not talking sports very much at all."

"We were pretty good while studying together and saved the Quidditch talk and play time for when you weren't around," Gwendolyn pointed out.

"And I appreciate that," Toni assured her with a nod and smile; "but there are other things we can talk about – like whether you got that new top for Easter or while you were on a holiday shopping trip. I'd like to hear about your date night on Friday too."

With a couple of topics chosen, the girls took care of most of the conversation while Al was happy to sit back and enjoy the quiet fun with his cousin and friends while cuddling with Gwendolyn. This trip felt different knowing that he was going to be back at Hogwarts without needing to worry about James and Ollie trying to mess with him. He didn't have to worry about them on the train either; so he and Gwendolyn enjoyed two walks along the train too that included some visits with other friends that added to the entertainment and kept them busy. It was still along trip, though; so they were as happy as any of the students to get to Hogsmeade and off the train. The wait for a carriage ride took a while, but Al preferred that to getting to the castle early and not having that time with Gwendolyn. The welcome back dinner was great, and it was also nice to have some of his friendships being revived now that the junior Quidditch season was over; and the Gryffindor players decided that it was okay to talk with him again – and with Rose and Ray.

After dinner, Al went for a walk with Gwendolyn before splitting up outside of the Ravenclaw tower entrance; and then he spent some time with Rose and some other friends in the common room before heading up to his dorm room. He and Rose also had short visits with Dominique, Molly, and Lucy to see how their study week at school had gone, but they were busy with their friends too; so they didn't spend a lot of time doing that. Al was among the first students to head off to bed, but he didn't go straight off to sleep. He got ready for bed; and then called Lily once he was in bed and ready to find out how the rest of her day had gone.

"You're ready to chat earlier than I expected," she said as she answered his call. "Isn't there a party going on in Gryffindor tower to celebrate James and Ollie not being there?"

Al laughed. "No, but the mood in the common room seemed a lot lighter – though maybe that was just me."

"Or a bit of both. Would you like to hear the James update first?"

"Probably, if that smile is any indication," he agreed. "How many times have you used that cheering charm since you got back from London?"

"Twice – and it was brilliant and hilarious! The first time, he tried to keep insulting me and yelling, but it sounded so ridiculous that he cracked himself up. He had some awful things to say about you after it wore off an hour or so later; but I didn't use it on him again until he started insulting Mum and her cooking at dinnertime. After that, we had quite a lot of fun as nearly everything we said sent him into a fit of giggles."

"I'm glad that you had a better time of it today. Maybe a few more bouts of cheerfulness will help to bring him around."

"Or less," Lily suggested. "He was actually tolerable for the rest of the night after dinner. We'll see how it goes tomorrow when we're at the Burrow while Mum's working to get ready for the first round of the playoffs. He'll have homework from school to do; and that means he'll get to use his wand to practice the spells."

"He wouldn't dare try anything around Grandma that he shouldn't," Al told her. "I didn't really think about that; but I guess he will need to practice to get ready for his exams. I wonder if he and Ollie will have to do any of their assignments and projects too?"

"I haven't heard – other than that he will have work sent here to help with getting ready for those exams. We'll see how much of it James actually does. It isn't as if he's got a great record when it comes to holiday revision."

"He'll do enough to pass," Al predicted. "He might hate it; but he'd hate being kept back for another go at third-year."

"Don't even say that!" Lily told him. "I am going to be Gryffindor's junior team Seeker next year – not James. That's the only thing about having to wait two years to join you at Hogwarts that was good for me. I'd have hated being his back-up this season – assuming he'd have let me even try out for a spot on the team."

"Have you sent any letters yet offering to be our Captain next year?"

Lily laughed. "No, and I won't – even if that'd be brilliant. Whatever happens with that, I think that we'll both get a fair shot at being on the team; and we've got nowhere to go but up compared to this season."

"Well, not quite, since you can go down from a one-win season," Al pointed out; "but I know what you mean. Why don't you tell me about the rest of your day; I'll give you the report from the Hogwarts Express; and then I'm going to need to get some sleep."

"It isn't that late," Lily pointed out; and Al shrugged and smiled.

"I know, but we have five weeks to go until exams; so it's going to get busy around here starting tomorrow. The Professors will put on the big push to finish teaching us everything we need to cover before the end of the year; and we'll start the extra studying this week too."

"Remind me not to join your study group next September," Lily teased. "You're going to play in the show too, so in case you haven't heard yet; you don't need to have straight O's to get hired by any team to do that."

"I have heard that," Al assured her; "but I'm doing the work for me – not anyone else – and who knows what we'll each want to do after we're done playing Quidditch."

"I'm going to play until I'm ready to turn in my broom for a rocking chair," Lily told him half-seriously.

"Then you must be glad that Mum didn't have that plan," Al joked. "You might have had to wait until you were eighty or ninety to get your shot to play for the Harpies."

"That's funny; and maybe I'll have to re-think that plan if I have any daughters that want to play Seeker for the Harpies when they grow up too; but that's not going to be a problem for a long time for me anyway; so let's not go there. As for my report for the rest of my day; Mum and I went out to do a bit of shopping in Diagon Alley before heading home – and Aunt Angelina and Aunt Hermione came along for that."

Lily happily shared the rest of her news with Al; was more interested in the gossip around Hogwarts than the trip report for the train ride; and then they wrapped up their mirror chat so that Al could talk with Ray for a while before eventually drifting off to sleep for the night. While an early bedtime wasn't anything new for Al, and the same was true for his early morning start to the day on Monday; Al really felt great as he got ready for their return to magical learning and then he went to the common room to meet up with Rose for the resumption of their pre-breakfast walk-and-talks. The changes were all due to not having James and Ollie there – even when the only way that affected Al was through not worrying about what they'd try next against him, Gwendolyn, Rose, or anyone else.

The last two days of April were blissfully uneventful; and that made jumping into the heavy study workload a lot easier as the Professors quizzed their students on their holiday revision and piled on the new assignments – just in case any of the teens and tweens had any doubt that the holidays were over. Having Quidditch season finished for the junior teams made keeping up easier for the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff players in their study group, though; so Al and Rose actually had a bit less to do than normal without the need for extended study time to make up for those Quidditch practices. That left some time each evening for some fun once the work was done for the day; and Al was happy to get some alone time with Gwendolyn on Monday before curfew and then watch a mirror network show with all of their study group friends on Tuesday evening.

Victoire's nineteenth birthday and the twenty-first anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts victory were on Thursday; but the two occasions were very different this year. There wasn't a sunrise ceremony in the Great Hall for the anniversary, and since Victoire had graduated; there weren't any parties planned for her birthday either. Al did have something set up for his cousins to do on Thursday morning, though; and he got that started when he met up with Rose in the common room for their morning walk and talk. She was smiling when she crossed the room to meet up with him; and he held out a flower to her. She laughed when she heard the cute little roar it made while snapping it's jaws at her hand as she reached for the stem.

"Have we been busy this morning?" she asked. "Interesting snap-dragons you've made."

"I wanted to come up with something that Uncle Fred might appreciate," Al answered; smiling too. "Let's get going; and we can make a stop along the way to the Great Hall so that we can put them in a certain window alcove."

Rose laughed. "Al, that's brilliant!" she told him before hugging him; and then they both laughed when the snap-dragon she was holding tried to bite him. "Feisty little things; aren't they?"

"And then some," he agreed. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"Better now; though it feels different this time compared to last year – and not just because they aren't having a big ceremony or anything. I wanted to walk to that spot today to see whether there were flowers again; but I didn't think about doing that ourselves – and these snap-dragons really are a great idea."

"I've enough of them for the rest of our cousins too," Al advised her as they headed for the portrait hole. "We can pass them out before breakfast so they can add their flowers to the bouquet when they've time to do that later this morning."

They talked about the flowers, anniversary, and their twin uncles as they walked; and then Al had one more little surprise that had Rose laughing again when they reached the window alcove and he put a vase and sign on the ledge before putting the first few snap-dragons into the vase and adding water.

"In loving memory of our Uncle Fred," she read. "Please do not feed puking pastilles to the snap-dragons!" She turned to look at Al; and laughed at the expression she saw on his face as he held out a half-dozen puking pastilles to her. "You didn't!" she said incredulously; and he laughed too.

"I might have. Should we find out? I can change the sign if my little attempt at a wheeze is a flop."

"Let's do that," she agreed; "but I don't think it counts as a wheeze if you give everyone fair warning like you have with the sign." She put her snap-dragon in the vase too; took half of the puking pastilles; and then they both held them out on flattened palms so that the flowers could eat them without taking any nips out of their fingers.

"We should probably stand back," Al warned with a grin as they both did that while watching the flowers happily chew up and then swallow their 'treats'. They could see the bits and pieces move along the stems; and it took about a half-minute before the first snap-dragon began convulsing. After that, it was mere seconds before it spewed out a small stream of puke that shot across the width of the hallway and splattered a small trail of slime on the floor. The other snap-dragons followed soon after; and Al and Rose were both laughing as they watched the little show.

"I sure hope that anyone that ignores the warning will be nice-enough to clean up the messes," Rose told him; taking out her wand and doing that once the snap-dragons appeared to be finished throwing up.

"Should I add that to the sign?" Al asked; and Rose shook her head.

"No. They'll either do that or they won't whether you ask them or not – especially since they'll be going against the warning if they do feed the flowers." She took a closer look at the vase. "Speaking of that – did the flowers suck up that much water already?"

"They'll use a fair bit anytime they're fed the puking pastilles," Al advised her with a nod. "Maybe we'll need to stop by and fill the vase between classes and at lunch and dinner."

"We can do that – and ask our cousins to do that too," Rose offered. "Maybe you shouldn't give our cousins anoy of these snap-dragons yourself. If Uncle George finds out that you came up with this; you'll stop being such a huge disappointment to him."

"Then maybe you should hand out all of the flowers and tell everyone that they were left for you anonymously," Al suggested. "I'd hate to ruin my reputation."

"I think it'd help; but we can do that too," she promised. "Everyone can have fun guessing about it today; so that's a bonus bit of entertainment for us. I like it!"

They soon found out that their cousins liked the memorial snap-dragons a lot too – and word got around fast because Louis and Fred both couldn't wait to find out why Rose had warned them not to feed their snap-dragons any puking pastilles – and they did that while still at breakfast. Having flowers puke all over the table was definitely an attention-getter; and word spread quickly after that. Visiting the spot where Fred Weasley had been killed in the Battle of Hogwarts became a must-do for nearly every student in the school and most of the Professors and staff too. It also turned out to be an amazing learning opportunity for many students as they wanted to hear the story behind why the prank flowers would be an appropriate commemoration for such a solemn occasion.

For his part, Al's only other involvement in his little plan was to give a snap-dragon to Gwendolyn for her to add to the bouquet in the alcove; and to walk past them a handful of times to re-fill the water. Gwendolyn was also the only other person that he or Rose told about who had created the snap-dragons; though she hadn't been surprised at the news. Rose had been right about the added entertainment that came along with the prank anonymity; though most people believed that Rose had done it and made up the story simply because she was the best Herbology student in her year. That was a bit funny too, since the flowers had been created with Transfiguration magic, but what mattered to Al was that his little memorial prank worked out even better than he'd hoped it would; and he was sure that his Uncle Fred would have approved.

Thursday had been a very long day thanks to that extra bit of fun to go along with their Astronomy class late night; but life at Hogwarts returned to normal on Friday – which for Al, Gwendolyn, rose, and the rest of their study group meant geting all of their weekend assignments finished by dinnertime. They weren't taking the weekend off because they were going to spend time on Saturday and Sunday studying for their exams; but it did mean that they had lots of free time for playing and watching the first-round matches for the league playoffs on Saturday afternoon and evening. There wasn't a Hogsmeade weekend, and the Hufflepuff-Slytherin match was still a week away; so the Quidditch playoffs were the only big event for the weekend.

Before they could get to that, though, Al and Gwendolyn started out their weekend with a Friday evening on their own. They played music; watched some mirror network shows; and had fun with a major snogging session that had them both very happy by the time they needed to be back in their own Houses for the night ahead of curfew. Saturday morning was the first of two exam study sessions, and while that wasn't as much fun as a Quidditch scrimmage or magic play time would have been; they did still manage to make the work as fun as possible. Lunch in the Great Hall included a lot of Quidditch talk as every fan of the game wanted to talk about their favorite teams; make predictions; and have fun with rivalries between friends. Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, and Shane left the Great Hall early to set up their classroom for the game watching; and had everything ready in time to catch most of Lee's pre-game show ahead of the start of the two early matches. As top team, the Harpies were playing in one of those matches; and they were up against the eighth-place Magpies. While the rest of their friends joined the game-watching party over the next twenty minutes or so after they'd sat down to watch the pre-game show; everyone that was coming was there in time for Lee's round of predictions from the experts just ahead of game time.

"We're all on-board with that Harpies' pick; but do we have any opinions for the other three matches?" Tory asked. She and Ray were sharing a sofa with Al and Gwendolyn; and she looked to them for first comments.

"I pretty much agree with all of the picks," Gwendolyn said with a shrug. "The Wasps should beat the Wanderers; United gets the nod because it's likely Oliver Wood's last season if Belinda's going to have his job next season; and the Tornadoes are a bit better than the Arrows – though that's maybe the one game that could go either way."

"Shouldn't Harpies' fans be cheering for the underdog teams in those other matches?" Madison asked. "I'd have expected you to be hoping that the Wasps and United teams lose today; since they'd be two of the toughest teams to play in the semis or Championship match."

"You're cheering for United and the Arrows," Gwendolyn pointed out. "Does that mean you're cheering for the Magpies over the Harpies?"

"Definitely," Madison agreed with an unapologetic grin. "I don't think they have a chance; but I would be okay with a United-Arrows Championship match-up."

"The odds are better for a United-Arrows semi-final match," Al advised her. "If the Harpies, Wasps, United, and Arrows all win today; then your teams will be in tough next weekend. If the Harpies or Wasps lose, then your teams play each other next week if they both win. The best case for United and the Arrows is if they win and the Harpies and Wasps both lose. They'd then play the seventh and eigth-place teams next weekend."

"That's probably a bit too much to wish for," Madison admitted; "but I'll hope for the best. In a way, you guys are lucky to only have one team to cheer for."

"At least you have two teams in the playoffs to support," Rose told her. "Some of us can only dream of that for our favorite team."

"And make plans to fix that yourself," Al added.

"Have I even mentioned that in months?" Rose asked; and Al laughed.

"No, but we think that's just part of your master plan."

"I'd settle for getting to play Quidditch for Gryffindor next season. After that, who knows what'll happen when we'll be stuck dealing with James and Ollie for another three years?"

"Some of us should probably hope that you, Al, and Ray don't play on some of those senior teams," Tory told her. "We'd have a much easier time showing off to the scouts if we're up against teams like the one they put together this year."

"I don't think that would work," Gwendolyn disagreed. "Going up against bad players wouldn't help us with league scouts. They do take into consideration how good the competition is when rating players they're interested in for their teams. Win or lose; I'd rather play against the best in every House – even Slytherin."

"Will you still feel that way when you're playing in the show?" Madison asked her. "The league would need to change the playoff rules if you always want to play the best team for each round."

"Trying to win a championship and trying to get noticed by scouts isn't the same thing at all," Gwendolyn disagreed. "There should be some incentive for earning the top spots during the regular season. Those of us that want to play in the show are all competing for those same jobs regardless of which House we're in too; so we can be competing against our own team mates for that."

"Only for some of us," Tory reminded her. "I won't be competing against Madison."

"As if I don't have enough competition from the other House Seekers," Madison said with a laugh. "If I can make it through next season without having a firstie beat me out for the job; I might get to play every year except my fourth; since Alex will still be here that year."

"What's the problem with that?" Al asked her. "Lily plans on beating James for the Seeker spot when he's in his NEWT year and she's in fourth."

"If they give him another shot at being Captain; he might not even let her play that year," Madison pointed out; "though that'd be funny if he was her back-up that year."

"Not to mention scary for the other teams," Tory added. "The match is starting, though; so let's talk about the Harpies instead."

They did that, and soon had a lot to cheer about as Victoire scored an early goal; the Harpies' Chasers kept the pressure on; and Vicky stopped the handful of shots that the Magpies managed to get close-enough to take. The pace of the game was intense, but it was nearly immediately obvious that the Magpies were out-matched; and they had no response to even slow down Victoire. She'd already scored five of the Harpies' six goals when Gabrielle put an abrupt end to the match at the twenty-six minute mark with a surprisingly easy catch of the snitch after outplaying the Magpies' Seeker from start to finish.

While the quick and easy win was great for the Harpies' fans in the room, that also gave them the chance to watch more of the other matches – starting with the other early match between the Wasps and the Wanderers. That match didn't end well for the Wasps and their fans because the Wanderers' Seeker caught the snitch on a play that was pure dumb luck for the major upset and come-from-behind win. Al and Rose felt bad for Jeremy and Aaron; but the Harpies' fans were happy to have one of the top teams fall in the first round – and give them a better shot at the Championship! Madison was interested in both the United and Arrows' matches, but they picked the United-Prides match for Al's mirror while she kept tabs on the Tornadoes-Arrows match on her portable mirror. Unfortunately for her; it wasn't a good day for her favorite teams either.

Erin Connelly went for another risky, early attempt at catching the snitch that paid off this time when she made the catch early into the second hour of the match to give the Prides the one-sixty to fifty victory over United. That ended Oliver Wood's dreams of ending his career with a League Championship; and made for a bad day for the Cambell family and all of their favorite Quidditch players. Having the number two and three teams go out in the first round was big news; and the commentators covering the Tornadoes-Arrows match talked about that as much as they did the game they were covering. That was a bit ironic, since the final match-up of the day was also the toughest game. Al, Gwendolyn, and their friends watched that match until dinnertime after switching to it from the United match; and then they got together again after dinner to watch the last hour or so of the game that ended when the Tornadoes' Seeker caught the snitch to give his team the four-ninety to three-twenty victory.

"I'll bet that Slytherin House is having some fun with that win tonight," Gwendolyn suggested as they started watching Lee's post-game show. He'd worked the Harpies and United matches, and another team of announcers and commentators had covered the other games; but his Quidditch wrap-up show started soon after the end of the Tornadoes-Arrows game.

"Especially since Rachel scored more goals than Victoire did today," Rose added with a nod. "It won't matter to them that Victoire scored her five goals in about twenty-five minutes."

"Let's give Rachel some credit, though," Gwendolyn told her. "She did play a good game today – and has helped the Tornadoes a lot this season."

"I'm okay with that – as long as she doesn't help them to a Championship win over our team," Al said with a grin. "Winning next week over the Prides would be okay, though; since I think that Victoire would love that match-up for the big game."

"We do need to get past the Wanderers first," Rose reminded him; and Al laughed.

"I'm sorry if there are any closet Wanderers' fans in the room; but the Wanderers aren't going to get that lucky two weeks in a row."

"The Wasps and their fans are likely still telling themselves that couldn't happen once," Ray suggested. "I agree with you; but it isn't impossible."

"Since the Tornadoes and Prides beat my teams, I wish they could both lose next weekend," Madison declared. "That won't be possible; so I'll cheer for the Harpies with the rest of you just because I'd really hate it if either of those teams won the Championship instead."

"And we appreciate that so much that we're going to cheer for Hufflepuff next weekend," Gwendolyn told her with a grin.

"As if you and Al would cheer for Slytherin," Madison retorted with a laugh. "I'm not suggesting that you do it; but that would be really funny – and probably have Avery and his buddies messed up trying to figure out why you'd be cheering for them."

Madison's comment sent their chat off in a new direction – and even on from Quidditch after a few minutes of talking about the upcoming senior team matches. They watched Lee's post-game show; a non-sports show after that; and then Lee's regular nightly show until they needed to pack up and head back to their Houses ahead of curfew. While the Quidditch entertainment and fun with their friends had been great, it had also been a long day; so Al got ready for bed and went to sleep after having just a short bedtime mirror chat with Lily to find out how her day had gone. The extra rest had Al ready to go again by morning; and their entertainment between breakfast and lunch consisted of another exam study session. Most of their friends wouldn't have agreed with that as being entertaining or fun, but Al, Gwendolyn, and Rose had fun anyway.

A Quidditch scrimmage after lunch was much more exciting, and now that the junior teams were finished for the season; Al and Gwendolyn were free to play on the same team – and have even more fun doing that while helping their team to win the scrimmage. That play-match took up half the afternoon; and then they stayed outside and played other games – or just hung out together – until dinnertime. Al and Gwendolyn hadn't been able to manage much alone time since Friday evening, but they didn't get to make up for that on Sunday evening either because Gwendolyn's Ravenclaw girlfriends drafted her to join them for a girls-only night. That left Al with too much time with nothing much to do, so he ended up going outside and playing with his Animagus animal forms for an hour or so of furry – or feathery – fun. He went flying as an eagle and snowy owl – including a little play time with Winter when he sent her on her way home with letters that he, Rose, and Gwendolyn had all written earlier in the weekend. He also ran around for a while using his Samoyed Animagus and as a black panther; and then he went back to the Gryffindor common room to hang out with Ray and some of the other guys until he was ready to head up to bed.

Ending his night with a bedtime mirror chat with his parents and sister was fun – mostly because James wasn't there to mess that up for him. He'd set up the tent at the back of the yard for a camping weekend; and had apparently liked being alone enough to continue to spend most of his time at home out there instead of in the house. Since the drama level had dropped to near-zero; Harry, Ginny, and Lily were all happy to let him continue camping as long as he wanted to do that. Other than that, there hadn't been much news from home, so they'd had a fairly short chat; Al grabbed a textbook so that he could do a bit of bonus exam review reading; and did that until he fell asleep before even half of the other guys got back to their dorm room. He was up early on Monday morning; showered and ready for the day by the time the rest of the guys began to come to life; and then he went to the common room to wait for his morning walk with Rose. He was in a pretty good mood, and the happy feelings kicked up a few notches when she walked into the room; smiling brightly at him and carrying a colorfully-wrapped gift that she handed to him after sharing a hug with him first.

"Happy birthday, Al!" she told him enthusiastically. "Welcome to the teen club!"

"Thank-you," he answered. Picking up his book bag, he slung it over a shoulder; and nodded toward the portrait hole. "Let's go; and I'll open this along the way."

"Okay," Rose agreed. "How are you feeling today?"

"Not any different than yesterday; if you're wondering about that because of the teen thing. I'm having a pretty good day so far, but we'll see if that lasts for long; since there's always a chance that James will figure out a way to mess with me today even from home."

"You managed to handle his howler last year without any trouble," Rose reminded him. "Let's hope that he leaves you alone this time."

"That'd be nice." They were stepping out into the hallway by then, and once out there; Al began to open Rose's gift while they started walking along one of their usual morning routes to the Great Hall. He stopped and hugged Rose when he saw what was in the box; and then he pulled the new guitar strap out and stretched it out to its full length to take a better look at it.

"This is really great, Rose!" he told her enthusiastically. "Did you change the colors and add the Gryffindor lion?"

"Yeah," she agreed. "Hopefully this will be a bit more comfortable than the one you have now."

"I know it will be," he assured her. "It's a lot thicker and softer. Thank you!"

"You're welcome," Rose said happily. "Maybe you'll get a chance to try it out later – if we're not too busy with our assignments tonight."

"We can hope," Al agreed. "We likely still have two or three weeks to go before we'll be done with the new lessons and only have review and exam prep assignments to do."

"At least we are down to just weeks left instead of months," Rose pointed out. "I really loved doing all of the traveling with Dad and Hugo last summer; but I'm hoping that we'll have a bit less work and more holiday time this summer."

"You did more traveling than I did, but after the Easter holiday; I'm really just hoping that James won't try to make my entire summer a miserable mess."

"If he tries to do that, maybe your parents will let you spend extra time at my house – or Gwendolyn's," Rose suggested and offered; and then grinned at him. "You could always just go Animagus a lot and stay away from him too – take Lily riding; or go flying or something."

"That actually sounds fairly brilliant," Al admitted. "I probably shouldn't worry about it at all. Merlin only knows what James will be like after being stuck at home for a month or two."

"That's true," Rose agreed, "but hoping for the best with James is a long-shot; and we're better off preparing for the worst – at least so far."

They didn't really want to talk about James anymore by then, so their conversation moved on to more entertaining topics – including a stroll along memory lane that Rose happily led with some stories of birthday adventures from Al's past. Gwendolyn was in the Great Hall by the time they arrived; and Al's birthday fun kicked up a few notches as they shared an extra-special hug and kiss; she had him open his gift from her; and then they sat and talked with Rose until the hall began to really fill up and she needed to go over to the Ravenclaw table to have breakfast there. The breakfast entertainment highlight for Al was the gifts and cards from home that came with the Owl Post and a birthday mirror chat with his parents and Lily that James conveniently missed. There was some more roasting involved during that chat and with his friends; but no pranks, wheezes, or attempts to ruin his day in any way.

Al was glad that he got to spend more time with Gwendolyn after breakfast in their History class; but then the birthday fun was on hold until they were finished their classes and most of the assignments for the day. Gwendolyn and Rose set up a small birthday party for him after dinner in their study classroom, and while they still had some work to do too; they took a break from that while Al's cousins and some other friends outside of their study group stopped by to wish Al a happy birthday; get in on the cake and other treats; and even hang out for a while when sitting around on the sofas and watching shows on Al's mirror looked more appealing than going to get started on their own assignments elsewhere. There were a few gifts for Al to open too, but he was mostly happy to get through the day without any problems. A bit of alone time with Gwendolyn after they were finished studying for the night was really great too; and then he wrapped up his birthday with a bedtime chat with Lily.

While Al had been distracted by his own birthday adventures on Monday, Quidditch had been the big story around Hogwarts and elsewhere; and that remained true for the rest of the week. The Hufflepuff and Slytherin players on the senior teams were all getting ready for their final match of the season on Saturday; and the semi-final matches for the league playoffs were big news at school and home. Enthusiasm for talking Quidditch was never a problem for Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, and more than half of the members of their study group, but with his birthday out of the way; the classwork and studying was their top priority through until they were finished all of their assignments for the week by dinnertime on Friday and would only be working on exam studies on the weekend.

For a change of pace, their Friday night entertainment was a pool party with just a handful of couples invited to join Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, and Shane for the fun. The entertainment option was also thanks to Rose, since Al had left his portable pool at home so that Lily could use it now that the weather was getting nice-enough for outdoor swimming – as long as a parent was around to warm the water for her. Having Rose bring a pool instead had been a brilliant surprise; and would definitely give them a fun alternative for blowing off some steam when they got stressed over exams. The water play had been a great way to end the school week. Al wasn't the only Wizard there to think that spending those hours with his girlfriend in a swimsuit was a fair trade-off for the missed chance for alone time and snogging; so he was a very happy camper when he eventually went off to sleep after walking Gwendolyn home and ending his day with another bedtime mirror chat with Lily.

Game day on Saturday was looking a bit wet when Al first woke up and started to get ready for the day; but the rain pretty much stopped by the time he and Rose made it to the Great Hall for breakfast after their morning walk; and the forecast suggested that they had as good a chance for no rain during the match as to have some off and on during the rest of the day. Quidditch was the only chat topic at breakfast – as long as you considered the usual teen drama stories related to the spectator side of the sport to be part of the Quidditch action. As usual, the Slytherin players were talking big and mixing their boasts in equal parts with taunting the Hufflepuff players and students. Predictions for the game actually seemed to lean toward Slytherin over Hufflepuff; but that seemed to almost entirely be based on the belief that the risk of a no-win season for Slytherin gave them the motivational advantage despite the fact that Hufflepuff's wins had been with their junior team; so their senior team would end up with no wins either should they lose the match.

It still wasn't raining after breakfast, so Al and Gwendolyn went outside for a walk around the castle grounds, starting along the lake; and working their way around to the stadium. Since the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor sections were across the pitch from each other for the match, they decided to pick seats on the border between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor sections so that they could support their Hufflepuff player-friends; and sit with all of their Gryffindor and Hufflepuff friends. That worked for Rose and Shane, Ray and Tory, and Scott and Madison too; but most of their Ravenclaw friends sat in that section instead. Al and Gwendolyn were among the first of their group to arrive, so they were there to welcome everyone else; and they had fun hanging out with their friends for the last half-hour or so until game time – including the entertainment that Teresa Thomas provided with her pre-game announcing.

"You've really messed things up for Teresa for these last two matches," Rose told Gwendolyn. She was sitting across the aisle from Al and Gwendolyn; in the Hufflepuff section with Shane.

Gwendolyn laughed. "Wouldn't that be more accurate to say about James and Ollie?" she countered. "This season might have turned out quite differently if they hadn't been more interested in getting revenge on you, Al, and Ray than in doing what was best for their House and team."

"That could have made a big difference for the next match; but you did your part to make sure this game doesn't mean anything – at least for the Quidditch Cup standings. Teresa has to dig pretty deep to come up with anything to make this game meaningful on any level other than for House pride."

"There are some NEWT players looking to impress the scouts too," Al reminded the girls. "Alice definitely wants to play in the show; so she'd like to have a good match today."

"That's true," Gwendolyn agreed, "but Kirby has the band and a music career in his future instead of Quidditch; and I haven't heard anything about Lacey Zabini wanting to play in the show."

"Maybe Victor Avery and the other sixth-year Slytherin players are looking to leave early the way that Theo Nott did last year," Ray suggested. He and Tory were sitting behind Rose and Shane; and he earned a round of laughs for that comment.

"Victor's the oldest Avery son," Al told him. "I doubt he'll be allowed to play professional Quidditch. That'd be beneath the future Head of their family."

"Too bad," Rose said sardonically. "The Falcons will be so disappointed; since he'd fit right in with the Nott brothers and the rest of their team of bullies."

"He has left us alone this year," Al reminded her; and Rose laughed.

"Now you've gone and jinxed it for us," she declared. "We'll be lucky to get out of the stadium without some problems with the Averys and their mates now."

"I'd be happy to have a trouble-free match – if everyone else would just play nice for one day," Al assured her. "It could happen today."

"The odds are better without James here," Gwendolyn offered; "but the Slytherin team isn't exactly renowned for good sportsmanship and fair play."

They continued to chat while waiting for the match to start, but that assertion was soon proved true right from take-off as Victor Avery and the other guys on the team immediately went on the attack; and physically went after Alice and Francine as their primary targets. That was a tougher job for them this year because Calvin and Tina Johnson were far better Beaters than Don Rosier and Raban Lestrange; but having the better Beaters didn't help much with the cheap shots and fouls. Those early hits were hard and had an immediate impact that was both good and bad for each team. Alice and Francine each scored a goal on penalties against Slytherin, and that was great for Hufflepuff; but the trade-off was some early injuries to both Witches that were serious-enough to be a problem for them.

Thanks to those hits, Lacey Zabini and Licentia Nott each scored a goal in return while Victor was busy trying to beat up on Alice and Francine with help from his Beaters. Alice scored one other goal that came at the price of yet another pair of cheap shots – one from Vince Vaisey after she'd beat him to earn the goal; and the other from Victor as she tried to get back into the play on defense. Because of those five fairly quick goals and the fierce Chaser battle that was so dirty on the Slytherin side; a lot of the spectators watching the match didn't even see the game-winning play. Al and Gwendolyn did; though he'd needed to draw her attention to it when he saw Alex completely fake-out Brand Bletchley while the Slytherin Beaters were busy trying to set up a hit on Alice. With Brand out of the way and going the wrong direction and the Slytherin Beaters oblivious to what was going on; Alex was very happy to make the fairly-easy catch of the snitch at the twenty-seven minute mark to give Hufflepuff the early one-eighty to twenty victory. While the Hufflepuff faithful roared their approval, Al was also one of the only people in the stadium watching as Alice headed directly for the pitch; obviously wanting to land and get off of her broom because of her injuries. That was also why he was once again first to react to Victor Avery's attempt at a late, blind-sided hit on Alice that was intended to drive her into the ground and crash.

"Revulsio!" he said with quiet assertiveness; his wand pointed at Alice; and his intent aimed at pushing her out of Victor's path of attack. The timing was so close that Victor was still smiling viciously right up until the moment that Alice was no longer in front of him – and it was too late to adjust for the lack of impact with her before he crashed into the pitch instead. He'd been coming in for that hit at such a steep angle that he bounced instead of sliding; and wasn't moving when he landed the second time.

"I really hate it when Rose is right," Al said as he stepped past Gwendolyn into the aisle. "Watch my back, will you?" he asked as he jumped into a run while nearly everyone else was just watching on in astonishment and transfixed by yet another crazy end-of-match scene.

He was in Animagus form by the third step; leapt the railing separating the seating from the pitch; and raced across the pitch to where Victor Avery lay crumpled on the ground. He got there at nearly the same time that Alice Longbottom did once she'd been able to stop moving away thanks to his repelling spell; flowen back; and landed. Kneeling on the pitch next to Victor, Al had time to place a hand on his arm and get a first assessment of his injuries before everything around him went crazy again.

"Don't touch my brother, you freak!" Rupert Avery bellowed at him from the Slytherin section. His wand was drawn; and he then shouted – "Revulsio!" He'd been sitting near the top of the stadium seats with his mates, and his aim was terrible; so the attacked went over Al's and Alice's heads; and blasted a handful of Hufflepuff students back into their seats or into the students behind them; causing a bit of panic there as the students closest to those hit scattered. Re-aiming, Rupert shouted – "Reducto!"

This time, Al had a shield ready; and the impact sent a shockwave of sound and energy echoing around the stadium because Al let his shield take the full hit instead of risking a deflection or rebound that might have injured other students. The sense of danger that hit Al next had his eyes blazing with anger. Turning back toward where he'd been sitting with Gwendolyn, he yelled – "Protego!" while pointing his wand and envisioning a shield above her head just as Don Rosier was about to crash into her. He followed that up with – "Revulsio!" and watched in satisfaction as Don skidded along his shield and was then launched like a stone in a slingshot out of the stadium while barely hanging on to his broom handle and desperately trying to get back onto it.

"Enough!" Professor Longbottom yelled; his voice a roar that was loud-enough to cut through the cacaphony. By then, he was striding out onto the pitch; his wand drawn; and the expression on his face grim and determined. While he approached his daughter, Al, and Victor; Professor McGonagall had rushed toward the Slytherin section; and Al saw her disarm Rupert – though he idiotically attempted to retrieve his wand from her; and ended up in a partial body-bind for that little act of defiance. "Put your wands away – now!" Neville demanded next. The other Professors and quite a few of the Prefects were out on the pitch too; but Al sensed that everyone was taking Neville's order seriously; and that the immediate danger had ended.

"How is he?" Alice asked him quietly; turning her attention toward Victor and apparently agreeing with Al's unspoken opinion that the Professors had everything else under control again.

"Better than I'd have expected; but he needs to be taken to the hospital wing. From the sound of his breathing, he probably broke some ribs, and since he's unconscious; he must have hit his head really hard too. I don't see anything that looks like major broken bones in his arms or legs, though considering how he landed on his broom; he might have, um, other injuries that I have no intention on checking him for – if you know what I mean."

Alice tried not to laugh, but failed; and then she groaned in pain. Al stood up and stepped over to her; his expression now concerned for her. "Where does it hurt?" he asked her; and she smiled ruefully.

"A lot of places – including some that you don't need to check on for me," she tried joking. Al still had his wand in his hand; and he gently put a hand on each of her upper arms. Closing his eyes; he let his senses reach out to her; searching and assessing her injuries quickly before he then went ahead and silently healed every one of those injuries. Her body had stiffened as his power flared; and there were some nasty sounds as broken bones and fractures were healed; but then she relaxed and sighed in relief.

"I didn't see a thing," Al teased in return. "Can you keep that little secret safe for me?"

Alice laughed and hugged him. "Yeah, we can do that," she promised; smiling at her father as he nodded his agreement.

"We can,' he confirmed – "and I think it's also time for you to let others take care of Mr. Avery." He looked around; and waved Jensen Scott over. "Could you escort Mr. Potter to my office, please?" he asked the seventh-year Gryffindor Prefect. "I'll need to have a talk with him once we've dealt with the problems here. Try to keep him out of any more trouble."

"That's a tall order; but I'll do my best," Jensen promised; grinning at Al. Dominique had come with him; and she was grinning at him too. "Shall we go?"

Al nodded. "I'm fairly sure that wasn't optional for me, but since I'm not really sure what happened to Don Rosier after he left the building; you might want to offer the escort job to someone else."

"I'll sign on," Gwendolyn told him as she hurried up to him along with Rose, Shane, and quite a few of their friends. "Are you under House arrest?" she asked.

"Let's call it protective custody," Dominique offered. She'd been smiling, but that faded as she looked around and saw the angry faces of the Slytherin players as they landed; and beyond them to where quite a few Slytherins were coming out onto the pitch in support of their players. "Let's go. We definitely don't want this to turn ugly again."

"No, we don't," Neville agreed. "I'll be there when I can."

While he'd have helped with Victor Avery if asked; Al followed Jensen and Dominique as they led the way out of the stadium. Gwendolyn took his hand and walked at his side; and Rose and Shane stayed behind – mostly because the show on the pitch was sure to be more interesting than sitting around and waiting for Professor Longbottom to get to his office. They were out of the stadium in time to see Don Rosier fly back over the top of the outer wall and in again, but other than glaring at them with impotent fury; he didn't try to do anything else to them with the two older teens watching and with wands at the ready.

"Just how far did you push im for it to take that long to get back here?" Jensen asked; and Al shrugged and smiled ruefully.

"I have no idea; though he wouldn't have been able to leave the school grounds without getting caught up in the defenses. These guys need to figure out that trying to mess with my girlfriend is a really bad idea."

"Rosier didn't look as though he got that message," Dominique pointed out. "What happened before everything went crazy in there?"

"Avery tried to bash into Alice and knock her into the ground while she was trying to land," Gwendolyn reported before Al could answer. "Al nudged her out of the way, and when Avery no longer had her to hit at the last second; he crashed into the pitch instead."

"When I looked over that way from where Alex was; Alice seemed to be closer to the side of the pitch than the middle," Dominique pointed out; and Gwendolyn grinned and shrugged.

"So it was a big nudge," she joked. "Al didn't have much time to react, though; so let's cut him some slack on that one."

"Will you be cutting him some slack over that hug too?" Jensen teased; and Gwendolyn laughed.

"Maybe; but he'll be explaining that one to me a bit later when we have a chance to talk about it alone."

Al knew she'd been joking about that too, and while he was in th emiddle of another mess; he could also admit that he enjoyed the next half-hour or so that he got to spend with Gwendolyn, Jensen, and Dominique. The meeting with Professor Longbottom that followed wasn't entertaining, but it was quick and easy; and then he strongly suggested that Al stay away from any of the Slytherins as much as was possible for the rest of the weekend – and especially avoid the Averys and their buddies. Since the match had been so short, even with the extra post-game action; there was still time to do some studying; so Al and Gwendolyn went to get their book bags; and met up with about half of their study group to get to work – and talk about the rest of the story from the stadium.

"Is anyone else here wondering if there's something in the stadium that's making some of the players go a bit nuts during the matches this season?" Madison asked. "We had problems in the last four junior matches; and now it's the senior teams having problems."

"That's possible," Rose agreed with a grin for Al. "Maybe we should have Al skip the last match and see if it makes a difference. He is a trouble magnet, after all; and could be the problem just by being there."

"I'm pretty sure that Alice was glad that he was there today," Gwendolyn pointed out. "Ditto that for everyone else he's helped out with those problems – though I'm not sure how I feel about him always helping Witches."

"He's kept some of the guys from getting hurt – or hurt worse – too," Madison pointed out. "Since quite a few of them didn't deserve the help; that should count extra."

"Even so, we won't know until we try whether there would be the same problems without him at the matches," Ray offered.

"James and Ollie might have done things differently if I hadn't been there," Al suggested; "but the only thing going on in the stadium that affected the Slytherins was losing – and I doubt that any of the other teams would trade the wins for losses just to make their players feel better."

"No, we wouldn't," Tory agreed. "It would be nice if this trend of post-game madness ends with this match. After Rupert Avery missed you with that first attack and hit the Hufflepuff students instead; I don't think we were far away from a magical brawl."

"There is a reason why the contending team Houses sit across the stadium from each other instead of side-by-side," Rose reminded them. "I seriously doubt that what's happened this season is even the worst that they've had here at Hogwarts – except for James' attack on Stephanie. That had to be right up there with the worst-ever."

"Let's not go there," Al said with a shake of his head. "What did you think of the actual match today? I'm glad that Hufflepuff won, but Alice must be a bit disappointed; since she didn't get much of a chance to show off for the scouts. Alex was the only player that really looked great out there today."

"She's had a tough go of it this season, but I think Alice is still the best Chaser graduating this year; so she'll get job offers for the show," Tory predicted; and looked toward Madison when her friend laughed.

"I'm sorry," Madison apologized; "but while that sounds really great, Tory; there are only two NEWT-year Chasers playing this year – Alice and Lacey Zabini. I think that Alice is really good, and she will get to play in the show; but the star rookie next season in the league is going to be Belinda Wood. Gryffindor's going to get that honor two years in a row."

"I'd suggest that we'll get a shot the year we graduate; but we'll have a really scary graduating class of Quidditch players in our year," Tory said with meaningful looks at Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, and Ray. "It isn't going to get easier for the other Houses for that anytime soon with all of the Quidditch family kids around this place."

"Not easier," Gwendolyn agreed; "but it is going to be fun – both here and when we're all in the show."

"The rest of you can have all of the fun you want with that," Bristol told them; "but those of us in the group with the sense not to want future jobs where some of the other employees are trying to take your head off with a steel bludger will find our fun in less-dangerous occupations – and have fun too."

"Have you decided on a career now?" Madison asked; and Bristol shook her head.

"No, but I've got lots of time for that still; and it won't be necessary for me to impress any scouts for any job I do eventually pick. Half-decent grades might come in handy, though; so I'll let you get back to talking sports while I get back to trying to memorize all of these stupid facts and figures for Potions. The exams for Potions ought to be open book. It's not as if anyone sits around making potions from memory."

"That'd be cool if you could," Shane told her. "Maybe that'd be a job for you in the future – making and selling Potions memory charms."

Bristol laughed. "With all of the daydreaming I do while in Potions class; bottling those memories might be a bad idea."

"Or very interesting," Tory offered with a grin. "Why don't you try bottling up one of those daydream potion-making moments for us to take a look at; and we'll let you know whether they'd be a hit or not?"

"That's so not going to happen," Bristol assured her with another laugh. "Now let me get back to my studying before I totally lose interest in doing that."

While Bristol did that, and they all worked with varying degrees of focus; they also continued to chat and have fun too until going for lunch in the Great Hall. It was back to their study classroom after lunch, and while studying again was an option that some of them decided to do; Al and Gwendolyn were among the Quidditch fans that sat down on the sofas to watch the Harpies-Wanderers match – starting with most of Lee's pre-game show. After having a very short first-round match, the Harpies were in great shape going into the semi-final round; and the experts picked them to win over the Wanderers; and offered a split-opinion for the Tornadoes-Prides match. That first pick looked pretty good right from the start of the Harpies' game; and Victoire was fired up and playing great. She scored the first goal of the day; and the Harpies were never in any danger of losing that early lead for the rest of the match.

The Wanderers did fight hard, though, and the Harpies built on their lead very slowly. After the first hour, the score was fifty-to-ten; increased to one-twenty to thirty after two hours as the Keepers began to tire faster than the Chasers; and one-ninety to fifty after three hours. The Harpies earned the one-sixty lead twenty minutes into the fourth hour; and it wasn't long after that when the Wanderers' Seeker temporarily lost his mind and actually tried to make an extremely high-risk attempt at catching the snitch instead of simply defending it and keeping Gabrielle from making the catch instead. Either way, the play ended badly for him because he missed the attempt that would have handed his team the narrow loss; but left Gabrielle wide-open to make a relatively easy catch that gave her team the more-definitive victory with a final score of three-eighty to seventy.

By then, the Tornadoes-Prides match had started, so while they celebrated their Harpies' team making it into the championship match; they also switched to watching that match instead of the post-game action from the first match. It was a good thing that they did do that because Erin Connelly attempted yet another winner-take-all, risky, and early catch of the snitch – and blew it for the Prides when she missed. The Tornadoes' Seeker nearly missed too; but managed to corral the snitch and then hold on to it for the one-eighty to twenty victory in just under an hour. The consensus within their study group was that the Harpies had luck on their side this season, and while the Tornadoes had done well-enough to get to the Championship match too; they were definitely one of the best-case teams for the Harpies to face as they attempted to win their second Championship in a row.

Having Quidditch out of the way by dinnertime meant that an evening of alone time for Al and Gwendolyn was an option – and they took advantage of that to have a play evening that included music, cuddling, watching mirror network shows, and a major snogging session. Compared to Saturday, the second-half of their weekend was uneventful; but they still had a lot of fun – even with a full morning of exam studying. The work wasn't fun for all of them, but Al and Gwendolyn had fun together; and the afternoon Quidditch scrimmage was great – even though they battled against each other when the girls decided to have a Witches versus Wizards match. The Witches won the day, but the guys didn't feel as though they lost; possibly because at least two of them were happy to be distracted by their girlfriends with mid-air kisses or other flirting that very-successfully kept them from caring very much about the score.

There was some other outdoor play time after the scrimmage too; including some games, hanging out by the lake, and even a couple of crazy friends willing to hop into the lake despite how cold the water still was in early May. Al and Gwendolyn wrapped up their weekend with a quiet evening in their study classroom with just a handful of their friends. Writing letters for home was part of their evening entertainment, but they watched shows on the mirror network; enjoyed some quiet chat time; and the couples' cuddle time was a pretty good way to end the weekend too. It was just the two of them going to the Owlery to send letters off with Winter for home, so Al and Gwendolyn did get to have a bit of alone time ahead of curfew – even if there were quite a few owls around them to witness the minor bit of snogging after they'd taken care of Winter and sent her on her way home. After walking Gwendolyn home, Al ended his Sunday night with a mirror chat with his parents and sister; and once again didn't have to worry about any problems with James because he was still camping in the back yard – and wasn't showing any signs of moving back into his room anytime soon. Finally, the chat time with Ray and a few of the other guys helped Al to wind down before falling asleep; and then he was out for the count until morning.

The week leading up to the Championship match between the Harpies and Tornadoes was really busy for Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, and their friends, but not very exciting; since most of their time was spent in classes, working on assignments, or studying for their final exams. Having a Saturday in Hogsmeade wasn't a distraction either – other than the teen drama stories that always fed the gossip network with fresh news. Al did have to deal with an uptick in the dark looks and insults from some of his least-favorite Slytherins – particularly from the Avery brothers. He'd expected that; and just did his best to stay away from them. Staying away from James and Ollie wasn't a problem while they were at home, and that had the added bonus on Friday that they weren't at Hogwarts for Ollie's fourteenth birthday.

While Al was glad to be out of the loop for Ollie's big day, it was a big deal for James and Ollie because they were allowed to spend the day together; James stayed overnight; and then they were going to the Championship match together on Saturday. The end to their forced separation was a big deal for the two boys, and while it was a birthday gift of sorts for Ollie; it was also a test – and they were closely watched for any signs of new trouble – as well as for what would be a very welcome change in attitudes. Al wasn't in the loop for any of that either, but by Friday; he was more interested in having some fun on the weekend – starting with some alone time with Gwendolyn after dinner on Friday.

Even with the extra assignments all week, everyone in their study group finished their 'regular' work by dinnertime on Friday; so Al and Gwendolyn were both happy campers when they headed off on their own after dinner; set up a sofa and the mirror network mirror in one of their 'alternate' classrooms because some of their friends were using their normal study classroom for the evening instead; and then they began their evening with some music play time. They had a pair of mirror chats with their parents, Lily, and Jonah after that; and then wrapped up their time together before curfew by not watching the shows on the mirror network while concentrating on a brilliant snogging session. Compared to that, Al's bedtime chat with the guys was not very exciting; and even their Saturday morning exam study session was only moderately fun – even when that included practicing the magic nearly as much as they studied their notes and worked on the bonus assignments and sample written tests they were being given to help with getting ready for their exams. That did keep them busy until lunchtime, though; and then it was time to play again – with the League Championship match the only entertainment game in town for every Quidditch fan at Hogwarts – or anywhere else where there were fans of the greatest professional league in the Wizarding World!

"Okay, anyone interested in picking the Tornadoes to win today is in the wrong room; and needs to go find a group of Slytherin fans to sit with," Gwendolyn announced as she sat down with Al after they'd finished setting up for the game watching party.

"The Tornadoes do have other fans," Tory reminded her. "Slytherins are only cheering for the Tornadoes this season because of Rachel Rosier. The Falcons are probably the favorite team for most Slytherins."

"Maybe if they'd hired Rachel instead of Theo and Gregor Nott; they'd have made the playoffs this season too," Ray suggested.

"They got exactly what they wanted," Al offered; "and Rachel isn't nearly mean-enough for the Falcons."

"Maybe we should have watched the Falcone-Tornadoes matches this season," Rose told them. "I didn't even think about doing that, but then I didn't hear anything bad about those two matches; so maybe Theo and Gregor took it easy on Rachel."

"They might have wanted to do that; but I doubt they did," Gwendolyn disagreed. "No Beater will last in the show for very long if they don't play hard against everyone – and the Falcons' fans aren't happy if their Beaters aren't bashing in some heads at every match."

"Maybe we should want to play for the Falcons," Madison joked; and laughed at the expressions on the faces of her friends. "I haven't lost my mind," she assured them – "just suggesting a way to play in the show without having to play against the Falcons."

"I'll play on the Cannons' reserve squad before I'll play for the Falcons," Tory declared.

"Can I sign you up for that right now?" Rose teased.

"No, since I do want to play on a team that might actually win a championship in this century; and hope that I'll be good-enough to get a job with a top team – even if I probably won't get a chance to play for the Harpies."

"Does that make it tough to cheer for the Harpies?" Shane asked; and Tory looked at him in confusion.

"Why? You know my Mum's on the team."

"I know," Shane agreed; "but if the Harpies' Chasers don't do very well; wouldn't that give you a shot at one of those jobs when you graduate?" He nodded toward Gwendolyn. "You're sure that you'll be on the team; but that means you'll have to replace one of the current Chasers too – or anyone else they hire between now and then."

"Maybe they'll start cheering for the other teams when we're in sixth or seventh-year," Michael offered. "The chances of the Harpies winning another five championships after this one are pretty slim; so it could work out for Gwendolyn and Tory."

"You're predicting a Harpies win today?" Toni asked him; and he laughed.

"Anyone not doing that is a bit delusional. I might not be the Quidditch fanatic that most of our friends are; but it's easy-enough to guess that Victoire and Gabrielle are not going to mess up their first chance to win a Championship together. That can't happen very often for an aunt and niece – or a mother and daughter if you guys ever get the chance to do that with your mothers."

"That will be great for Aunt Gabrielle and Victoire," Rose agreed with a nod and smile; "but I don't know if I'd like to play on the same team with my mother."

"Your Mum doesn't even like to fly, Rose," Gwendolyn reminded her with a laugh. "Playing Quidditch with her would be awful – though we know what you meant."

"I'd be okay," Tory added. "Gwendolyn will be the one with the problems having her Mum as her boss on the Harpies. Mum thinks that her job was easier when Aunt Gwenog was just her team Captain and a Beater."

"And my Mum says that your Mum believes that because she got hit by too many bludgers back when she was still playing," Gwendolyn shot back with a grin. "I've watched a lot of Harpies' workouts; so I know what I'm getting into with them – and still want to play for the Harpies anyway."

"Which could be a sign that she's been hit by too many bludgers," Ray joked. "I'm really glad that I'll never have to worry about having my Mum for a boss when we get to the show – though she'd love having an excuse to boss me around for an extra twenty or thirty years."

"The only funny thing about that is you believing she won't do that anyway," Madison told him. "That's her job; and it doesn't ever end – for sons."

"But it does for daughters?" Ray shot back; and Madison laughed.

"They get to start bossing their son-in-laws around instead," she explained with a grin. "It's not fair for Wizards; but works out for most Witches."

"If that's so unfair; why do Wizards put up with it?" Scott asked. Madison leaned closer and kissed him. "Oh right – now I remember," he joked; joining in for the round of laughs.

Their conversation moved on as they watched the pre-game show; the pre-game ceremony that dragged on too long with dignitary speeches and the rest of the usual Championship match formalities; and then, finally, the start of the match. The action above the pitch was fast-paced right from take-off. It was also obvious that the players on both teams were playing their best; but what was less-obvious at first was how much better the Harpies were compared to the Tornadoes. Earning a modest seventy-to-thirty lead by the end of the first hour was good news for the Harpies and their fans; yet gave the Tornadoes' fans reason to cheer too – especially since their Seeker seemed to be doing well-enough against Gabrielle as they battled to a draw. A one-thirty to fifty lead at the end of the second hour only proved that the teams were settling into the game for the long-haul; each team had scored one less goal compared to the first hour; and only some of the spectators even noticed that the Harpies actually did better on the scoring ratio with three goals for every one the Tornadoes scored.

Going into the start of the fourth hour, the Harpies extended their lead to two-hundred to eighty; and had the Tornadoes' Seeker pushing hard to catch the snitch before the Harpies' could get more than one-sixty ahead. Gabrielle was more than a match for him, though; and she made sure that the game rolled on – even if she also couldn't yet out-duel her rival to earn the win for her team. With the game still going on, Al, Gwendolyn, and the rest of their friends had to pack up and go to the Great Hall for dinner. The match was being watched on portables all over the Great Hall, so they didn't miss any of the action, but they did still eat quickly; and then headed back to their classroom to watch the rest of the game.

The Harpies had the all-important one hundred and sixty point lead by the end of the fourth hour; and then the Tornadoes' Seeker was forced to play defense; and hope that his team mates could get them back into the game again. He was in a tough spot trying to do that against Gabrielle, but he didn't give up; and fought on even as the score continued to get more lop-sided in favor of the Harpies. At the end of the fifth hour, the score was three-fifty to one-thirty; and four-ten to one-sixty at the end of the sixth. Some Tornadoes' fans might have hoped that the tide was turning in the game then with the Harpies only out-scoring their team by a two-to-one margin for that hour; but they were wrong about that. All of the players were nearing exhaustion by then, but the effort it had taken the Tornadoes to even narrow that scoring gap had been harder on them; and the Harpies extended their lead to four-ninety to one-eighty as they battled into the start of the eighth hour.

That had been an especially good hour of play for Victoire; and she proved that she was the best-conditioned Chaser in the game as she continued to out-play Rachel Rosier – and the other Tornadoes' Chasers whenever she was matched up against them on plays instead of Rachel. She was still proving that right up to the end of the game, and had thirty-two of the Harpies' fifty-three goals when Gabrielle was finally able to take advantage of a mistake by the Tornadoes' Seeker to get a clean shot at the snitch. She didn't miss; and made the Championship-winning catch at the seven hour and thirty-four minute mark of the match for the six-eighty to two-hundred victory!

"I'm ready for a nap; and we were only watching the show," Rose declared; smiling tiredly as she cuddled with Shane on the sofa they were sharing with Al and Gwendolyn for the post-dinner side of their game-watching adventure. "Does Aunt Gabrielle get the MVP for her monster Seeker duel win? Victoire's had a great game too; and let's not forget that Tory's Mum only allowed twenty goals in just over seven and a half hours."

"I'm biased; but will pick Victoire anyway," Tory told her. "She scored thirty-two goals; I don't know how many assists she had for the other twenty-one goals; and Mum only had those twenty goals against her because our Chaser defense was so good today."

"She had fifteen assists," Al advised her. "Rachel only scored seven of her eleven goals while up against Victoire too; and only managed to help out on three of the other nine goals that the Tornadoes scored today. I'll vote for Victoire for MVP today too; though I'd say everyone on our team played great."

"They did," Gwendolyn agreed happily. "Mum must be thrilled – especially when it's so hard to win back-to-back championships on either side of a Quidditch World Cup summer."

"Maybe your Mum should retire now with those two Championships to end her career," Madison suggested to Tory. "Do you think that the Harpies could steal Belinda from Puddlemere United?"

"Mum doesn't want to retire yet," Tory advised her. "She's having too much fun, and as long as she's one of the best Keepers in the league; I hope that the Harpies won't try to replace her before she's ready to retire on her own terms."

"You know that the Harpies try not to do that," Gwendolyn told her seriously; "though every team has that problem now and then. I think that your Mum will know when it's her time – just as my Mum knew when she was ready to stop playing."

"That won't be anytime soon if she keeps playing like she did today," Rose predicted. "I think that Belinda is really good too; but she isn't that good yet."

"Let's hope not," Toni suggested with a grin. "Ravenclaw is hoping she'll have a bad match against us next weekend!"

While the Gryffindor members of their group didn't think that Toni's hopes were very realistic, they did all have fun chatting about Quidditch as they watched the post-game awards ceremony. Nobody was surprised when Victoire was awarded the game MVP trophy; and seeing their favorite players and managers so happy as they were presented the Championship trophy was great too. They watched Lee's post-game show after that too; and then wrapped up their game-watching marathon in time to get back to their respective Houses ahead of curfew. Al then ended his day with a bedtime mirror chat with Lily – and with Jonah and Gwendolyn through her because she was at the McCormacks' house with their parents for the victory party; and Gwendolyn had called Jonah to have a bedtime chat with him. James wasn't there because he'd been allowed to have another sleepover with Ollie – this time at home in the tent he was still camping in; but Lily did advise him that they'd actually had a pretty good day at the game – and she and Jonah hadn't had any problems with either boy all day.

Lily and Jonah did have some great stories from the game, though, and they ended up talking for more than an hour – with some cameo moments with other party guests including Victoire and Gabrielle. Al had loved all of that, but he was also tired out by then, so while most of the guys in his dorm – including Ray – stayed up and talked late into the night; he fell asleep not long after ending his mirror chat with his sister. Another study session on Sunday morning was another big contrast in the fun level compared to their play time on Saturday, but Al still enjoyed the time with Gwendolyn and their friends – as well as the magical play time part of their studies. An afternoon Quidditch scrimmage helped to hike the fun level again; and the play time for the rest of the afternoon included some Animagus entertainment. Al took Gwendolyn for a long horseback ride around the school grounds; went for a fly as a falcon; and even played a bit of Fanged Frisbee while in his Samoyed Husky form.

When Gwendolyn was advised by her friends that they were having another girls' night after dinner, Al decided to have some more Animagus play time in their study classroom instead of hanging out with the guys in the common room. He walked Gwendolyn to her House first; and then went on to their usual study classroom. He wasn't surprised that it wasn't in use by any of their study group couples because the girls in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff had opted for the girls' night type of fun too; so he also knew that there wouldn't be any couples coming along later looking for a quiet place for some private snogging either. He cleared the center of the room first; and then started experimenting with new animal forms – or with changes to other forms he'd already tried and was continuing to master. He was trotting around the room as a Zebra when the warnings hit him of imminent danger; and he had time to reach the far side of the room by the time the door opened and Victor Avery led the way into the room with his wand drawn and pointed at Al. He had Rupert and eight of their buddies with him; and all ten Slytherin teens were smiling maliciously as they lined up next to each other in a tight-knit row.

"How disappointing," Victor declared with a sneer. "I was hoping for something a bit more challenging for our target practice than this."

"I'm not," Rupert told him. "The easier it is to blast him; the sooner we can get to paying him back for what he did to us last weekend – and everything else he's done to us."

"That's true," Victor agreed. "Would you like to offer any last words, Potty? Oh right – I don't speak Zebra anyway; so that'd be impossible. Get used to it. By the time we're done with you; there's a very good chance that you'll be too messed up to even remember how to switch back to your human form."

"Maybe they'll find him a nice zoo to live in," G-Air offered. "Better yet, send him out into the wild and see how long he can stay alive before he gets chased down and eaten."

"That's a cheery thought – for us," Don Rosier offered, "but let's get to the blasting him; and talk about what to do with what's left of him later."

"That works for me," Victor agreed. "Crucio!" he shouted then; and the other nine Slytherins also fired various curses at Al.

He'd waited for that; jumped into the air; and was changed into the form of a hummingbird by the time the first curse reached where he'd been standing – and passed harmlessly below him. If he could have, he would have laughed at the shouts of chagrin and anger, but then he was busy playing dodge the curses, hexes, and jinxes as the Slytherins got to have their chance at hitting a challenging target. That wasn't easy for him – especially once his attackers began to spread out around the room. That did give him some opportunities, though, and he managed to set up three of the guys getting hit by attacks meant for him before they started being more careful with where they were flinging their spells. That gave him another opportunity, though, so as soon as he could set it up; Al flew in behind a desk; changed into his human form; and had his shield up in time to protect himself when the desk was blown apart in front of him.

"Was that challenging-enough for you, Victor?" he asked as he stood up and continued to use shields to defend himself from the attacks that continued without a pause. "This isn't quite what I had in mind for my Animagus practice tonight; but you have managed to make this fairly entertaining."

"Then you'll love this," Victor told him before once again trying to hit Al with a Cruciatus curse. This time, Al used a rebounding shield; and watched unsympathetically as the curse boomeranged back and hit Victor before it even occurred to him to put up a shield in defense.

"I'll kill you!" Rupert shouted as he watched his brother crumple to the ground; the intensity of his own curse enough to knock him out from the pain.

"You won't," Al disagreed; meeting Rupert's attack with a disarming charm that over-powered the curse that couldn't have killed him anyway even if it had gotten through his shields.

Rupert tried desperately to get his wand back when it was rippped out of his hand; and then was in the process of grabbing for Victor's wand when Al hit him with a full body-bind. This time, Al did laugh because Rupert had been scrambling on his knees and hands when he was hit, with one hand reching for Victor's wand; so he'd toppled over in that position and was frozen in a fairly-comical pose. Though three of the remaining eight Wizards were dealing with their cross-fire injuries; Al still had to fight against all of them through until he disarmed and bound the last of them after another fifteen minutes of dueling. Two more of the Slytherins were injured by their own rebounding curses or hexes; but Al didn't personally hurt any of them beyond some bumps and bruises they likely received after falling to the ground or getting blasted backwards into the walls or furniture.

"There wouldn't be any point in talking to you about this," Al told Rupert conversationally as he began moving him toward one section of the room that was normally open space because he wanted to put the room back in order before he left and needed to get all of the immobilized Slytherins out of the way before doing that. "I am glad that you tried this here, where we've had a bit of privacy, and without involving anyone else. That isn't really surprising, considering the trouble that James and Ollie got into and the warnings we all got about doing things like this, but now I have to decide what to do with you; since the Professors will put two and two together if you're found here in my usual study classroom – and then I might be in trouble if I don't report what happened first."

He kept working as he thought about that and let his senses roam while deciding the best course of action; and then smiled in satisfaction when the answer came to him – though it was a bit unexpected. Once he had his ten opponents out of the way, he returned the desks, chairs, stools, and workbenches to their normal spots; repaired the damaged furniture as he went along; and then looked around the room one last time when he was finished to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

"Let's leave what happens next up to fate," he told all of the teens that were still conscious and could hear him – even if he'd left them in full body-binds and unable to answer him. "I'll leave your wands on this table, but won't be releasing any of you; since I've had enough fun for one night and don't want you coming after me again before I'm safely back in Gryffindor tower." He did that, and then walked over to the door and opened it. "Whatever happens to you after I leave, the next time you guys think that attacking me is a good idea; don't do it."

With that said, he left the room; closed the door behind him; and walked away. He pretended not to notice the Wizard behind the door across the hallway from him as he left; but since he had been given a glimpse of the near future for the Averys and their mates; he'd been made aware of Scorpius' presence – and that he was meant to be involved in the scene – but only directly with his fellow Slytherin. He didn't know the why for that – only that whatever was going to happen didn't involve him anymore.

Scorpius waited until he couldn't hear Albus in the hallway anymore; and then he left the classroom he'd hidden in after following Victor, Rupert, and their usual gang from the Slytherin common room to the room across the hall from his hiding spot. He'd settled in and waited patiently to find out whether the plan he'd overheard the Avery brothers work out with their buddes would work or not. He hadn't been able to hear anything from the room after they'd go in with their wands drawn and ready to fight through until he saw Albus leave; but he hadn't been surprised that Victor would use an imperturbable charm on the room to keep anyone from overhearing what they'd planned on doing to the 'Animorphpotty' to avenge what had happened to Victor after their last Quidditch match. He hadn't been surprised to see Albus walk out of the room first either – or that he appeared to be uninjured. Pausing before opening the door, Scorpius came up with a quick story to explain his arrival to his fellow Slytherin; waited another few moments while listening to make sure nobody else was nearby; and then he opened the door and stepped into the room.

"Merlin!" he exclaimed; feigning shock. "Rupert? What's going on?" He only waited for a moment while looking around the room before returning his attention to his Quidditch team Captain. Pointing his wand at him, he released Rupert from the full body-bind while closing the gap between them; and then he held out his hand to help him to stand. "Are you okay?"

"What are you doing here?" Rupert demanded suspiciously while immediately walking over to the worktable where Al had left the ten wands and grabbing his own possessively.

"I was out for a walk; saw Albus Potter coming out of this room looking a bit suspicious; and decided to stop in to find out if he'd been up to something. I'm glad that I didn't just walk past. Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not; but I'm not hurt either," Rupert retorted. "Help me get the other guys out of the body-binds," he demanded. "Did Potty see you?"

"No. I was coming from the other end of the hallway from where he went when he left." He then began reversing the binding spells on the other Wizards; and took care of two for every one Rupert could get done before they were all free again. "What else can I do to help?"

"Nothing," Rupert answered shortly; and then turned to glare at Scorpius. "You weren't here; and didn't see anything, Malfoy."

"Whatever you say," Scorpius agreed with a shrug while turning around and heading for the door. "See you around."

He waited until he was alone in the hallway to drop the mask of indifference and let out a bit of the anger seething beneath the surface. After a glance at his watch; he decided that he had enough time before curfew for a quick chat with Thomas; so he headed for the Room of Requirements. Being angry didn't keep him from making that walk with as much care as always, but he still hurried a bit; and it wasn't long before he was in 'his' special room and able to get the portrait out of his book bag and set it up on the table.

"Did you hear much of what happened just now?" he asked Thomas.

"Enough to guess that the Averys and some of their mates came out on the losing end of another confrontation with Albus Potter," Thomas answered. "How did you really know to be there?"

"I followed Victor and Rupert when they left after over-hearing them talking about getting Albus for what happened to Victor last weekend – and Rupert blames him for getting detention and points taken off from our House for what he tried to do to Albus – and did do to the Hufflepuff students that were hit with his missed attack on Albus."

"So what did you see in there that wasn't talked about?" Thomas asked next. "You obviously had to release all of the boys. I heard those reversal spells being used."

"I don't know what happened – other than that there was a fight. Victor wasn't bound, but he was unconscious; and some of the other guys were injured too. Rupert didn't want me to stay; so I don't know how bad those injuries are; but I'll let you know about anything I find out later. Victor and Rupert had eight of their buddies with them this time, Thomas; and Albus didn't appear to have a scratch on him when he left the classroom."

"We don't know what happened; so don't be too impressed," Thomas cautioned. "You've told me that your hot-headed fellow Slytherin aren't very bright – particularly when it comes to the Potters; so defeating them shouldn't be that amazing to you – even with ten-to-one odds. I expect that you could do the same – though your own doubts about that will continue to hold you back until you start believing in yourself too."

"I don't believe I could do that," Scorpius admitted candidly; and Thomas nodded.

"Would you feel the same way if you were up against ten bugs? How about ten Muggles? It's just a number if you're strong-enough by comparison – which you are."

"Having that kind of confidence only works until you're wrong about whether you're more-powerful than your opponents," Scorpius countered. "Isn't that part of what led to your own downfall?"

"Was I over-confident? Yes. Was Harry Potter the more-powerful Wizard? That's something we'll never know. I do not believe that he defeated me for being the stronger Wizard. We've discussed all of that many times before, though; so there is no point in doing so again. What you should learn from my defeat is not to be more cautious. Glory and power doesn't come to the timid and fearful. If you are not willing to take the risks; then you have been defeated before you even begin!"

"I am not afraid of anything," Scorpius declared; and Thomas laughed.

"Everyone has fears," he disagreed. "Do not be afraid to even admit to them; since overcoming them will be part of your journey to greatness."

Scorpius blew out a frustrated breath of air. "I did not come here to get into such a discussion," he half-complained; and Thomas smiled at him.

"Then why did you come?"

"Because I'm angry. I helped Rupert and his mates out of quite a mess; and then he just sends me off as if I'm some lowly servant. Maybe I should've left them there for someone else to find – or until they figured out how to escape without my aid."

"You cannot be surprised by that," Thomas offered, "and since your curiosity over what happened in that classroom had already won out; you couldn't exactly walk away without risking their wrath later on."

"Aren't you being a bit inconsistent? Now you're telling me that I had no choice but to help or risk getting blasted by them."

Thomas laughed. "I think that what you did was the correct action, Scorpius. That doesn't change what I said before, and I believe that you could defeat the Averys and their mates if needed; so you only need worry about getting blasted by them until you no longer believe they have that power over you."

"Okay, so why is it right for me to help and then put up with being treated without any respect?"

"Because they owe you now," Thomas explained patiently. "They might not even admit it to themselves yet, but it is true anyway; and those debts will add up over time. Eventually, they will see your value to them; and that will one day lead to the trust, respect, and loyalty that you wish to get from them – and will need to have to reach your ultimate goals."

"Again you're back to such serious thoughts," Scorpius complained. "Why can't you just help me to learn the perfect spell to teach those idiots a lesson or two and be done with it?"

"Any idiot can learn to do that," Thomas told him dismissively. "You want more for your future than a series of petty revenge moments; so don't let the little things cloud that vision."

While their chat didn't exactly go the way Scorpius had wished, he did stay and talk with Thomas until he needed to get back to his common room; and then he sat up for quite a while with Terri Timms – enjoying a bit of non-verbal sort of communication that was definitely more entertaining than Thomas' deep thoughts.

Sometimes, Scorpius decided, his painted friend didn't have a clue what he was talking about; and didn't think that there was anything wrong with enjoying those little moments that added quite a bit of fun to your life along the way to making those big dreams come true!

After leaving the study classroom on Sunday evening, Al went to the Owlery to spend some time with Winter before sending her on her way home with the package of letters that he, Gwendolyn, and Rose had written. That had given him time to wind down from the duel; and think about everything that had happened before talking about it with Gwendolyn or anyone else. As usual, he didn't plan on saying anything at all to most of his friends, but he knew that he had to interrupt Gwendolyn's girls' night to tell her about the fight; and planned on telling his parents and sister too if they were available to talk freely without James around. When he got back to his dorm room from the Owlery, he made the call home first; he was able to have the chat with Ginny and Lily while Harry was outside and busy with James; and then he called Gwendolyn and waited while the chimes rang on for a while before she answered.

"You are interrupting a girls' night," he heard Renee tell him; and Gwendolyn's mirror was obviously being fought over as his view of Gwendolyn was shaky and distorted. "No boys allowed!"

"He wouldn't be calling if it wasn't important," Gwendolyn told her friends. Al could hear several girls laughing at Renee's comments and fight for control of the mirror – which she surprisingly won; and then Al was looking at her instead of Gwendolyn as she stepped away and turned the mirror so that she could see him too.

"I'll be the judge of that," she told Gwendolyn. "Okay, Al – what's so important that you're willing to risk the wrath of a whole gang of Witches to have this mirror chat?"

"I didn't tell Gwendolyn that I love her when we said goodnight earlier; and didn't want to go to sleep without doing that," he told her. There's something else; but I can only talk about that with her."

"That's sweet, and a really good try, but I was there; and know for sure that you did tell Gwendolyn that you love her before we dragged her off," Renee advised him. "You'll have to do better than that; or I'm..." she paused when she looked back at the mirror after turning her attention to Gwendolyn while saying that; and saw that Al had his eyes tightly shut now. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not making this call to see you or any of Gwendolyn's friends in your nighties," he advised her without opening his eyes. "Please give Gwendolyn her mirror; and she can let me know when it's safe to open my eyes again."

Renee laughed along with all of the girls that heard Al's comment; blushed a bit and was glad that he couldn't see her; and handed the mirror to Gwendolyn again. "Okay, you guys win that round; but don't take all night. We still have a lot of gossip to get through before we'll be able to go to sleep."

"Including speculating on what Al did see that had him closing his eyes like that," Toni added; earning another round of laughs.

"It's safe now," Gwendolyn told Al a few moments later; and smiled at him as he opened his eyes and then sighed in relief. "Now you know why it's a bad idea to try a mirror chat with me on girls' nights," she teased. "Should I spell up some privacy for this?"

"Yes," he agreed with a nod. "For the record, though; I got my eyes closed before seeing anything I shouldn't while Renee was waving the mirror around." He'd said that loudly-enough to be overheard; and that round of laughter was still going on when it cut off because of Gwendolyn's imperturbable charm.

"You wouldn't have been in trouble with me if you had seen a bit too much of my friends, Al. That was all on Renee. What's up?" She laughed and grinned at him. 'Maybe I should re-phrase that; but you know what I meant."

"Yeah, but what I didn't tell your friends was that I did get a pretty good look at you in your nightie while Renee was fighting you for the mirror; and I'm seriously considering a cold shower after we're done with this chat."

Gwendolyn laughed again. "I love you, Al. Instead of letting that distract us, though; why have you called?"

"I had a run in with Victor and Rupert Avery – and eight of their buddies. After saying goodnight to you, I headed for our study classroom for some Animagus experimenting and practice. The Averys and their mates came into the room while I was doing that; tossed a few insults at me first; and then tried to blast me with a lot of very nasty spells."

"You were in one of your animal forms when they did that?" Gwendolyn asked; and saw Al nod his head in agreement.

"Yeah – a zebra at first; but then I switched to a hummingbird while they tried to use me for target practice. They spread out around the room to try and get me; which made it fairly easy for me to fly around and lead them into hitting each other with their spells. Three of them were hurt already by the time I had a chance to change back into my human form and counter-attack. Victor Avery knocked himself out cold with a rebounding Cruciatus curse; and two more guys got hurt before I had all of them disarmed and everyone except Victor in body-binds."

"You make that sound so easy. Did you leave them there like that?"

"Yes, but they had some help available nearby; so I'm sure they've been set free by now – even if they might still be dealing with their injuries."

"That's a bit cryptic. Did they have other friends waiting to back them up?"

"Not exactly. Scorpius Malfoy was there, and since I didn't have any sense that I'd been followed; he was probably following the Averys for some reason."

"Well, I'm glad you're okay. Should we get back to watching our maps again?"

"I don't think we'll need to do that, but we can talk about it tomorrow sometime. Mum thinks I should have called for help and reported them, but even though she's probably right; I just couldn't do it."

"They don't deserve to have enemies as nice as you," Gwendolyn joked. "You're going to have a lot of Slytherin haters no matter what you do, but I agree with what you did; since there's no point in giving them even more reason to hate you."

"Well, let's hope this will be the only time they come after me for the rest of the school year at least," Al suggested. "I should let you get back to your girls' night fun. We can talk more tomorrow. I love you, Gwendolyn."

"I love you too, Al," she assured him. "Thanks for letting me know tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow sometime. Have a good sleep whenever you get to it after that cold shower."

They'd both laughed; she'd ended the mirror chat; and then Al had gotten ready for bed without taking the cold shower and was soon off to sleep – letting the sounds of the other guys talking or doing other things lull him off to dreamland. While his weekend had ended with a bit too much excitement, the next five days were filled with long hours of classroom and study time that was all dedicated to getting ready for final exams. The only Quidditch game in town now that the League Championship had been decided was the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match that would end the Hogwarts Quidditch season. Though the outcome of the game wouldn't make a difference for the Quidditch Cup standings, the match was still important to the players on both teams – especially those players interested in impressing the league scouts that were sure to be at the game. While Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, and their study group friends kept busy with their exam studies; they were just as excited about the game on Saturday as every other Quidditch fan in the school; and were ready to have some fun and take a break to watch the game on Saturday morning.

After a long, busy week, Al and Gwendolyn had done their own thing on Friday night – including a fairly brilliant snogging session to go along with the music and mirror chats with their parents, Lily, and Jonah. Al got an early start to his morning on Saturday; had a nice walk and talk with Rose before breakfast; and then went for a longer walk and talk outside with Gwendolyn after breakfast until they needed to be at the stadium – and split up to watch the game and cheer for their own teams in the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor sections. Al, Rose, Bristol, Cora, Scott, and a few other friends sat on the border with Hufflepuff so that the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff couples could hang out together. Al sat next to Rose while she cuddled with Shane, and while he was still tempted to go and sit with Gwendolyn anyway; he stayed to help his fellow Gryffindor support his cousins and their team mates.

"The pre-game show is about to start," Bristol reported as she waved toward where Teresa Thomas was getting the announcer's booth set up. "Who wants to start the final round of predictions?"

"I pick Pauline to catch the snitch," Rose told her; "and she'll do that for the loss if she can't catch it before our team is up by one-sixty or more."

"We have a brave prediction from Rose Weasley," Bristol announced. "Any dissenters?"

"I think that Ravenclaw has the advantage too," Al answered. "Belinda's better, but Peter's a really good Keeper too; so our Chasers are not going to be able to get that one-sixty lead easily. That's to Pauline's advantage for sure. Brandon isn't as good as Pauline; and I don't know whether he can defend the snitch against her in a long match."

"You're just trying to get kicked out of the Gryffindor section so you can go and sit with Gwendolyn, right?" Ray joked; and earned a round of laughs.

"I'd rather be sitting with Gwendolyn; but that has nothing to do with my prediction – or agreeing with Rose. It'll be great for our team if they win, but that will have to happen the way Rose suggests; since I really don't think that Brandon can beat Pauline in their duel."

"Then let's hope that our cousins can outscore the Ravenclaw Chasers before that happens," Ray told him with a nod. "If we don't have a party after the game today; you and Rose will want us to study instead."

"We only have a bit more than a week to go before exams start," Rose reminded him. "Wouldn't you rather spend the rest of the day with Tory anyway?"

"Yeah, but we'd both rather be doing nearly anything else other than studying," he answered.

"Actually, I was expecting to study regardless of which House wins today," Tory advised him. "The only difference for the Hufflepuff members of our group will be whether we're studying with Gryffindors or Ravenclaws later."

"Then I'll just hope for a marathon Quidditch match," Madison told her. "Maybe they'll battle it out all weekend."

"If it lasts that long; I'll be making a run to my dorm room to get my books so I can study while we watch the game," Rose told her – "not that I expect that Pauline will need anywhere near that long to catch the snitch."

Rose was right about that, but they had a really great, tough, and long Quidditch match to watch before Pauline ended the game with that catch. Right from the start of the match, it was obvious that Gryffindor had the advantage at Beater and Chaser over Ravenclaw, but while Dominique, Lucy, and Olivia were getting much better scoring chances; Peter was playing a great match – and nearly matching Belinda's great Keeper performance. In the first hour, Peter only allowed two goals while Belinda had a shut-out that lasted into the third hour before Miya Davies scored the first goal for Ravenclaw. By then, Gryffindor had six goals, and while that was still very close; Peter was facing a lot of really great scoring chances and was being worn down by the Gryffindor Chasers. The Ravenclaw team kept playing hard, though, and Gryffindor still only had a one hundred and ten to ten point lead at the end of the fourth hour.

The one part of the game that was all in Ravenclaw's favour was the Seeker duel. Pauline was playing a brilliant game too, and the only reason that she hadn't ended the battle early was because she'd been spending as much time dodging bludgers from Jensen Scott and Stanley Stebbins as she spent trying to catch the snitch. While the win wasn't needed because Ravenclaw already had the Quidditch Cup won, Pauline still wanted to get the win for her team; and was getting desperate to do that as the fifth hour ended. By then, Susan Cornfoot had scored Ravenclaw's second goal of the game, but Gryffindor had the one-sixty to twenty lead; and only needed two more goals to put the win out of reach for Ravenclaw. Having nothing to lose at that point made it easier for Pauline to take some risks, and that was what she was doing when she caught the snitch – earning the huge, come-from-behind victory and then barely avoiding a crash into the pitch.

"Well, I guess that means we'll be studying with the Gryffindors," Tory joked as they all watched the Ravenclaw players celebrate – though they weren't exactly doing that at high speed after a bit over five hours of intense Quidditch. The Gryffindor players looked disappointed; but not overly-so after playing so great despite the loss.

"Okay, but I vote that we take our studying outdoors," Ray suggested. "It's too nice out here to be cooped up in a classroom for the rest of the afternoon."

"Let me know where to meet you for studying later," Al said as he stood up. "I'm going to go and meet up with Gwendolyn; congratulate all of our friends and relatives on both teams; and then go and spend some time with her before we'll all need to be in the Great Hall for a late lunch."

"Fly and be free. We'll meet you out on the pitch," Rose promised as he left. "Don't bother waiting for us – we're just going to wait a bit longer just in case you'll be attracting any trouble now that the match is over – strictly so you'll have us watching your back; not because we're worried about being collateral damage."

"No – that would only be the added bonus," Al joked. "I don't think that'll be a problem today; but thanks for the great idea!" He was grinning as he looked back at her and then he turned to face the pitch; jumped into the air; and changed into a hawk so he could fly across the pitch to the Ravenclaw section. That transfiguration had startled the students around him; earned some laughs; and then more laughs when he landed and changed back near Gwendolyn.

The hug and kiss with her was pretty good too; and then they both had to deal with the teasing and jokes as they then walked out to center pitch together with some of Gwendolyn's Ravenclaw friends. Chatting with their favorite Ravenclaw and Gryffindor players was fun, but after a long match; getting to the locker rooms and hitting the showers was something that all of the players wanted to do; so the post-game fun on the field wrapped up fairly quickly. With the Quidditch season now officially over at Hogwarts, it was then time for most of the students to get serious about their upcoming final exams.

While it was time for that, it didn't mean that every student would get serious about their studies. There were always teens that were more interested in having fun than doing the work, and for them; the stress over exams wouldn't come until the exams actually started. That wasn't going to be a problem for Al, Gwendolyn, and the rest of the members of their study group, but they weren't worried about exams or anything else as they spent that bit of free time before lunch together; and enjoyed simply getting to quietly be together for a while as they made that transistion from Quidditch fans to serious students again. They were going to need to stay in that mode more often than not during the last four weeks of school before the summer holidays, but there would hopefully be some fun mixed in here and there; and Merlin only knew what other little adventures they'd share along the way to the end of their school year!