The Potters' living room was neat and well furnished with burgundy curtains and a matching rug. The sofa was spotlessly white, the side tables see-through with delicate glass. There was a large moving photo in the center of the wall of Harry and Ginny's wedding day, and he could see there were several more photos on the shelves, but he couldn't see who was in them from where he was standing.
There were some obvious signs that a little girl currently inhabited this place. There was a doll on the floor next to the plasma-screen television and a neon pink toy wand left on a coffee table. Left carelessly on the couch was a child's drawing of a castle, although it was done in pink and purple ink that kept flashing to blue and green.
"I see Mum cleaned up all my extra exploding snap cards and Albus's broomstick!" James stated proudly.
"James." Harry wore an amused expression. "I cleaned it all up."
"Oh. Well, good job because the place looks spotless now!"
Ruffling James's hair good-naturedly, Harry smiled widely and said, "You're far too hilarious for me to allow Ginny to get her hands on you again. She thinks what happened yesterday was worse than it really was, so hide in the closet for the time being while I assure her it was nothing." Harry pointed to the closet in the corner.
James looked confused but seemed to think Harry knew what he was doing, for surprisingly, he didn't put up any sort of argument and hid in the closet.
"James, only come out when I tell you it's your queue to do so, alright?"
Snape thought he could hear James's muffled voice saying, "This is not what I signed up for when I volunteered to come."
"Professor Snape -" Harry started.
"Potter, let me get something straight here. You will not address me as though you are an imbecile while in the company of the Malfoys, your wife, and whoever else we come across. I won't tolerate this nonsense any longer. No more of this 'Sir' and 'Professor Snape' rubbish."
"Agreed, Sir - er - Severus." As Harry stumbled over his words in this disgraceful manner, Snape noted a muffled snigger coming from the closet and scowled.
Harry pushed open the kitchen door and called, "Ginny? Lily?"
Then a woman's distant voice from outside screamed, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT TAKING THIS TO THE WIZENGAMOT HIGH COURT?"
Harry and Snape moved closer to the source of the noise, which turned out to be the backyard. They stayed inside and looked out through the French doors to see Ginny and Astoria engaged in a shouting match with several onlookers present.
George, who was sitting on a swing, constantly added to Ginny's arguments as though hoping this would make Astoria look foolish, and both he and Bill looked proud of Ginny. Fleur looked as though she would have smacked Draco around the head if Angelina hadn't been patting her on the arm. But while Angelina was attempting to comfort her sister-in-law, she herself looked ready to attack Narcissa, who had fire in her eyes as she looked proudly over at Astoria.
Ginny put her hands on her head in frustration, shouted something about making coffee, and came inside to where Harry and Snape were.
The frustrated expression on her face went away and her entire face lit up when she saw Harry, and his face lit up as well, even though he'd only been gone from home for less than twenty-four hours. "Lily is at Ron and Hermione's house with Roxanne for a play date with Hugo while we sort everything out. Not that much has been sorted out so far, mind you. You've heard about what's going on from the howler, I suppose?"
Without waiting for an answer, she asked Snape, "And you've come to help, too? Good….Good….Now come with me. It's been a complete nightmare out there for over an hour and I need as much help as I can get." Whatever surprise she had felt upon seeing Severus Snape in the Potter household was most likely overridden by the rage she felt towards the Malfoys.
She burst open the French doors, and the large amount of arguing that had been going on in her absence stopped immediately once everyone realized Harry Potter and Severus Snape had arrived. Draco and Narcissa looked scared. Harry was a high-ranking ministry official these days, after all.
Astoria, who had been pulling Fleur's hair, let go immediately and rushed up to Harry, all anger in her face disappearing and slight fear mixed with eagerness replaced it.
"Harry Potter! How wonderful it is to meet you after all the things I've heard about you! You might remember me as Astoria Greengrass? I was two years below you in school -"
"I would say it's nice to meet you as well, but given the circumstances -"
"I always knew you'd one day vanquish the dark lord, and the Malfoy family is so very thankful -" Astoria continued, her hands now on Harry's shoulders while he looked uncomfortable.
George howled in derisive laughter. "What a load of rubbish!" Draco glared at him.
Astoria went on. "I've seen photos of your children in Witch Weekly and aren't they adorable? I would have never been able to tell from the photo that your oldest would attack Scorpius -"
"Astoria, get off of me and please get to the point -"
" 'Arry, you're being too much of a gentleman! You can't allow 'er to suck up to you in such a way!" Fleur shouted.
Astoria was now practically hugging Harry with her arms flung around his neck as though she was under the impression that he was her soul mate, and he seemed to be trying to gently pry her off of him.
Snape had no clue what Draco was doing simply standing there while his wife got on like this. Meanwhile, Ginny looked frozen to the ground in outrage at Astoria and seemed unable to utter a word or get a full grasp of whatever it was that Draco's wife was trying to do.
Harry looked horrified. "Astoria, get off of me! Winning me over isn't going to work! Severus actually witnessed what happened with the boys -"
Astoria ignored him once more, her head resting on his neck as he tried to push her away without hurting her. "Harry, I never got to tell you when we were in school that I had a small crush on you. I mean, didn't every girl feel the same way after word had gotten out that you were the Chosen One?"
There was a hushed silence until Ginny swooped in and pulled Astoria off of Harry by her hair. Harry looked very grateful for this and there was a proud gleam in his eyes as he saw Ginny scream at Astoria.
"HOW DARE YOU? How dare you fling yourself at my husband like a -"
"Ginny, you ruined the show by interfering," George said, grinning. "I was actually interested in listening to where she was going with that last statement -"
Ginny rounded on George, hands on her hips in a way that reminded Snape of her mother. "How could you say something like that? George Weasley, that is nothing to joke about -"
"Maybe we should all calm down -" Harry interjected.
Ginny didn't seem to have heard, since she turned back to Astoria and said, "My husband is a decent man and would never stoop so low as to comply with something like what you were just demonstrating -"
"Enough!" Angelina was trying to break up the fight. She succeeded in pulling apart the two women.
"Now! I suggest the Malfoys hear out whatever Harry and Severus have to say so that we can all get on with our days! Without interruption." No one looked prepared to argue with Angelina, so Snape felt it was okay to start speaking.
"I don't know what everyone thinks happened, but I happened to witness the fight that went on yesterday, and let me assure you that no one was badly injured. Fred Weasley's mouth was bleeding, but that is all."
"Scorpius didn't break his arm? He doesn't have any bruises? He didn't black out? I was going to visit him in the hospital wing later today." Draco looked as though he had a hard time believing Snape.
"No," Harry said. "Your son lied, plain and simple. And I can bring you a witness who is very sorry about what happened." Harry walked inside with a strange glint in his eyes.
Harry's family looked relieved that it turned out James, Fred, and Louis weren't the most aggressive schoolchildren in the world, after all.
Snape saw Harry whispering something conspiratorially in James's ear before opening the doors to come outside again, and James looked at Harry as though whatever he had told him was too good to be true.
"Mr. Malfoy. Mrs. Malfoy and Mrs. Malfoy." James bowed to each person he addressed. "My name is James Potter. I'm the one that you all, based on Scorpius's letter, think attacked him. I can't even - My vocabulary isn't large enough to express how sorry I am." He faked a convincingly sad smile that was complete with wide, warm brown puppy dog eyes.
Narcissa narrowed her eyes. "And what is it that you are so sorry about? I thought, according to your father, my grandson lied about you attacking him? "
"Well, ma'am, I just feel so terribleabout emotionally hurting him."
James gave a dramatic pause. Everyone raised their eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.
He let out a sigh. "I really wanted Scorpius to become my friend. Really badly. I thought that maybe - maybe - possibly - we could be different than our fathers and get on well at school and correct the past!" His tone became more upbeat, but then it strategically slowed down again. "But he didn't want to hear any of it. That's why we weren't able to get along yesterday. That's how I hurt him emotionally. Because we have different mindsets. That's the reason we argued yesterday. He wants to repeat the past and I don't. I wanted a better future. He seems like such a nice kid and I know in my heart we could get along if we wanted to."
There was a long silence. The Weasleys all knew when James was lying, and they were smirking in the background as the Malfoys contemplated James's words with shock.
"I - I'll write to Scorpius and ask him to better his behavior," Astoria said.
Narcissa and Draco nodded.
Astoria cleared her throat, purposely avoiding Ginny's eye contact after their earlier confrontation involving Harry. "Well, we'll be off then." The three of them disapparated.
Everyone came over to congratulate James.
"Dad?" James asked.
"Yes, James?"
"I actually snuck over to the door for a little while when you were out here-"
"Of course you did."
"And I kinda saw Scorpius's mom….You do realize you've gone from having seventh year girls flocking towards you to having a married woman fawning over you, right?"