Chapter I

"Happy birthd- HARRY JAMES POTTER!"

"Hi, mum," Harry grinned cheekily, as the two blushing girls in his bed tried to cover their modesty with the sheets while reaching for their robes.

"Sorry, Professor," one of the girls, Padma or Parvati (Lily couldn't tell which was which), said.

"I'll be downstairs in the parlour, waiting by the fireplace. I trust that I won't need to come back up to retrieve you girls, will I?"

"No, Professor," they replied sheepishly.

"Harry, you come down also. We need to have a chat after these two leave."

"All right," Harry said in an easy-going voice. "We'll be down in just a minute!"

"Sorry Professor Potter!" They each said, wearing blushes and smiles.

Lily pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her son's bedroom door behind her, stomping down to the first floor of the manor and waiting near the fireplace. She'd just started to tap her foot, standing impatiently with her arms crossed when the three teens made their way down the stairs.

A quick peck on each of his cheeks with a sultry 'Happy birthday, Harry,' and the Patil sisters disappeared in a flash of green flame. Stretching his arms, Harry yawned loudly. "Well, I'm beat. What time is Padfoot coming over?"

"Sit. Down."

He'd kind of figured he had it coming, but hoped that, being his birthday, his mother might have cut him some slack. "C'mon, Mum, it's my birthday!"

Lily's face matched her scarlet hair. "How could you be so disrespectful? What will those girls' father say when they arrive home?"

"They used Lavender for a cover story. It's fine." He waved away her concerns with one hand, the other behind his head.

"It's NOT fine! You're seventeen years old today; it's long past time you started to grow up."

"Aw, come on, not this again! Look, it's my last year at Hogwarts; can't I just have some fun during the last remnants of my youth?"

Lily scoffed. "You've had enough fun to last a lifetime, I'd think."

"And yet," Harry responded in a light tone, complete with a matching grin, "somehow, it still isn't enough."

"You may be of age, but you're living in my house, and you will listen to what I have to say-"

"Uh-oh! What'd you do this time, kid?" Sirius came strolling in alongside his father, smacking his godson on the back of his head. "Don't sit like that when your mother's lecturing you, it's disrespectful."

"Padfoot!" Harry greeted joyously.

"Sirius, I'd appreciate it if you didn't interrupt me when I'm trying to talk with my son."

"Whoa, whoa! Easy, I just got here," the older man protested, hands held up in mock-surrender. "You must have really stepped in it, Harry!"

"What happened, Lils?" James frequently found himself being forced to play peacemaker between his tempestuous wife and his troublemaking son.

"I went to wake Harry up this morning, and found that he had company. Again."

"You dog!" Sirius slapped him on the back.

"Like you can talk! Weren't you wearing those robes yesterday?" Harry gave him a good-natured shove.

"Guilty! So who was it? Bubbly Bones? Don't tell me it was the Weasley girl again - no shag is worth getting another beating like that from her brothers!"

"I still don't see what the big deal was. It's not like she was screaming in pain!"

Both of them laughed uproariously, falling into their usual banter while James looked nervously towards Lily, who practically had steam flowing out of her ears. "Uh, fellas-"

"It was the Patils, Padma and Parvati."

Sirius sat straight up, his expression suddenly… well, serious. "Twins? You're lying!"

"Ask Mum! Besides, it's not like it was the first time, unless you've forgotten Hestia and Flora Carrow last year?"

Sirius snorted, and waved his hand in the air. "Puh-leaze. Nothing special about bagging twins separately."

"After last night, I can agree with that!" Sirius embraced him, mock-crying and piteously wailing about how 'his baby godson was growing up'.

"That's ENOUGH! Sirius, you're only encouraging him. James, don't you have anything to say to your son?"

"We've told you time and time again that we won't have you bringing girls here. It's a liability, and I'd think that after everything that happened when you were younger, you'd show a little more care for your mother's safety, and your own."

"That's not what I meant!" Lily let out a frustrated cry, storming out of the room.

"Harry…" James began, looking at his son in disappointment, then bit off whatever he'd planned to say before following his wife out of the room. Sirius and Harry watched them leave with somewhat bemused expressions.

"Excited for your party today?"

"Yep! It'll be a blast. You bringing Hestia along? Don't tell me you're finally settling down and turning all domestic on me?"

Sirius' features took on an abashed look. "Well, about that… I don't think she and I will be seeing each other anymore."

"What happened? You've been with her for, what is it, six months?"

"Two months, jeez, I should'a bought you a calendar for your big day. As for what happened, well, she was supposed to be working the late shift at the DMLE, but apparently got off early."

"Let me guess, she got home right as you were 'getting off' yourself? Who with?"

"Gwenog Jones."

"The chaser from the Holyhead Harpies?"

"And Hestia's older sister."

Harry chuckled, gesturing for his godfather to follow him into the kitchen, where the elves were preparing breakfast. "I'm surprised you're still able to walk. Aurors know a lot of painful curses."

"Did you find that out with Nymphadora last year? Funny, I didn't hear any spellfire when we caught you two in the pantry…"

"Guess Mum walking in on me is becoming something of a birthday tradition!"

Sirius dropped a sugar cube into his tea. "Yea, and I bet I'll get to hear all about it. Why is it that when you do something wrong, somehow I always end up getting all the blame?"

Harry pondered the question while chewing on a rasher of bacon. "I guess it just comes with the territory of being my old, less charming, and much less handsome godfather."

Sirius raised his cup in salute. "I'm proud of you, you scoundrel."

"Right back at ya, you hound." They clinked mugs and smiled.

James hesitantly approached his wife where she stood in their bedroom, staring out the window at the expansive grounds of the Potter's ancestral home. He took in her stiff posture, crossed arms, and noted the quiet sniff as he approached.

"Hon? Everything all right?"

"No." She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he was surprised to see the green eyes she shared with their son watery with unshed tears.

"Why- I mean, what's wrong?" She let out a frustrated 'huff', and he quickly amended his question. "It's just, this is far from the first time that Harry's snuck a girl into the manor, and we both know this sort of thing has been happening at school for years now-"

"That's just it, James! He's seventeen, and if anything, he's only getting worse. Besides Defense, he scored Acceptables across the board on his OWLs. Minerva says he has no interest nor motivation in career counselling. Hell, even when that scout from the Tutshill Tornados came to one of his quidditch matches, he missed the meeting because he was with some girl in the locker rooms!"

James smothered a grin at that memory - seeing Madam Hooch drag a half-dressed Harry and a red-faced Katie Bell out of the locker rooms by their ears was an amusing memory. "He's just trying to emulate his godfather. You know Sirius was pretty much his only contact with the outside world for most of his childhood."

Lily nodded, turning back to the window. "You don't need to remind me. I wish every day we had made different choices after the attack."

"Is it really so bad? I mean, Harry's a bit of a hound, but-"

"A bit?" She repeated, incredulously.

"People said the same thing about Sirius when he was that age, too."

"You're not at Hogwarts. James, I'm not sure there is a single pureblood girl in his year, or the year below him that Harry has not already bedded. Probably most of the half-bloods as well. He's completely out of control. And Sirius was steady with Marlene by the end of Sixth Year. Harry's never had a relationship last longer than a week."

James hadn't realized things had gotten to that point. Squashing a bit of fatherly pride, he rubbed his wife's upper arms with his hands. "He'll grow out of it."

"Will he? Sirius is closing in on forty and is a confirmed bachelor, but even he spent ten years in the Auror Corps. Unless Harry aces his NEWTs, he'll be lucky to land a job as a clerk in the Ministry."

"There's other things he can do. Besides, he won't go hungry. There are some benefits to being the heir to a wealthy line."

"Don't you want more for him? If it was an issue of not finding the right girl, that would be one thing; I just-, I want Harry to find someone to love. I want him to have what we do." She covered one of her husband's hands with her own. "Not to mention it would be nice to have grandchildren, especially after…"

James grimaced. "I know, babe, I know. I'll have a chat with him tomorrow morning during his training; how's that sound?"

"Thank you. I don't know if I can stand another year of him chasing skirts like this."

A shower of cold water splashed over Harry, jerking him out of his deep sleep. "Wha-? Dad!"

"Wake up. Time for training."

Harry groaned, but pushed the sodden covers off himself. "I've reached my majority, do we really have to keep doing this?"

"You know the answer to that. As long as you're living here, I own your mornings. Maybe if I hadn't given you the day off for your birthday, you wouldn't have upset your mother like you did."

"C'mon Dad, cut me some slack!"

"So you can do what? Work on adding more notches to your bedpost? I'm not sure that's even still possible, from what your mother tells me." James jerked his son out of bed by his arm. "Tell you what, if you beat me today, you get the rest of the summer off. How's that sound?"

Harry's eyes lit up at the challenge. "Deal!" He rushed off to change into his exercise clothes.

The party yesterday had done little to improve Lily's mood, though with Sirius's nine-minute long toast extolling Harry's prowess with the opposite sex, that wasn't surprising. She cried in his arms that night in bed. He hadn't seen her this emotional since the healers told her that the damage she'd suffered was irreversible.

'Funny,' he thought to himself, 'Lily was so concerned about being too young for motherhood when she had Harry, but now she's not even 40 and looking for grandchildren.'

"Ready to eat dirt, old man?"

"Lead the way." James didn't bother responding to Harry's confidence. He'd been drilling Harry in Defense magic since he'd been old enough to cast spells. If Harry had so desired, he could have been a dueling champion… but then, there'd only been one thing Harry had desired since he hit puberty.

The two walked out of the quiet manor, crickets and birds chirping as the sun peeked over the horizon. They set out on a leisurely jog around the grounds, the route so familiar that each likely could have done it with their eyes closed. Once they arrived back at the manor, they descended into the cellar, where James had established an amateur duelling arena, complete with warded walls and ceiling.

"All set?"

"You're going down!"

James drew his wand and gestured for Harry to send the first spell. Harry didn't hesitate, a rainbow of offensive magic pouring from his foot-long Red Oak, dragon heartstring wand. Frowning at the predictability of his son's attack, James easily countered by transfiguring the ground into a variety of shields, his own Mahogany wand a blur of motion.

Harry adapted quickly, shifting over to Transfiguration briefly, morphing James' own barriers into mud that flowed over the older man's legs and hardened into stone. 'That's new' He thought. Still, James wasn't known as the most fearsome auror since Mad-Eye Moody for no reason. A flick of his wand redirected a Cutting Curse back at Harry, interrupting his spell chain, allowing James time to reverse the transfiguration and begin his own offensive.

He had to give Harry credit, the kid must really want to get out of training, James realized as the third Bludgeoning Hex in a row smashed into Harry's chest. He hadn't had a duel this invigorating in years. Harry dropped to one knee, casting silently now that James had bashed all the air from his lungs, but refusing to give.

The floor in front of him exploded from Harry's reducto, and fast-as-lightning the debris took on an unfamiliar shape as Harry transfigured it into… 'are those-?'

Fragments of the stone floor shifted and took on the form of fireworks so quickly that James barely had time to react. Some of those fireworks looked more like high explosives! Harry was really pulling out all the stops. 'Shame it won't be enough' he thought, leaping forward past the fireworks, rolling forward away from the explosions and running through a standard auror-level spell chain: wide-angle Cutting Curse, Bludgeoning Hex, Piercing Curse, and Banishing Charm.

Harry was able to deflect the first spell but was unable to get a shield up in time to block the second, the Bludgeoning Hex snapping his head to the right, the Piercing Curse ripping through his upper thigh, and the Banishing Charm sending him flying backwards at such speed that he rebounded off the duelling wards.

Touching his brow, James realized that he was actually sweating. "Nice work, kid, but you've still got a long way to go." There was no response, despite Harry slowly dragging himself to his feet. "Nothing to say? C'mon, don't be a sore loser!"

The only reply he received was an irritated gesture to his face, James realizing that his last Bludgeoning Hex had thoroughly broken the young man's jaw. Quickly healing the bleeding puncture wound on Harry's leg, he also ran a general numbing charm over his ribs. Again Harry gestured to his jaw, but James took a seat on the floor of the duelling room, pulling his son down next to him.

"I'll heal your jaw in a minute, but I wanted to talk to you first, and I don't want any interruptions. Understood?"

Harry rolled his eyes but nodded.

"Your mother's worried about you, and I'm starting to see why. You're my son, and I'll love you no matter what, but-" James paused, trying to gather his thoughts, "you're seventeen now, officially an adult. It's well past time that you started thinking about your future."

A snort, followed by a cough as the younger man's nose started bleeding was Harry's reply.

"Your OWL scores were shite, Harry. I was a royal screw-up my Fifth Year, and even I did better. You didn't manage a single O, not even in Defense. You've been duelling me for close to a decade, we both know you're more than capable of leading your year in that subject; you just didn't try. But then, you never do, at anything, really," James continued, trying not to sound too disappointed. "When you got pulled out of that broom closet in your Third Year, I actually agreed with the excuses you offered. Maybe your mother and I did make mistakes in not letting you have a normal childhood; maybe we shouldn't have reacted to the attack by shutting you away from the rest of the world."

That there was a 'but' coming was obvious.

"But you have to grow up. No one's going to respect a grown man still trying to skate by on some fluke of magic that happened when he was a toddler. Don't you want something more? A cause, a purpose? I'm not saying you need to figure it all out, but it seems to me you haven't even considered it."

"And... " now James looked deeply uncomfortable, "and I'd like it if you thought about spending more than one night with a witch now and again. I know, I know - this isn't something you want to talk about with your dad. But it's obvious by now that Padfoot will never say it, so it's up to me." He took a deep breath, reminded himself why he was doing this, and soldiered on.

"You know the Wizarding World is very traditional. I'd be willing to bet a lot of your classmates will leave Hogwarts betrothed. Even your mother, who is as progressive and forward-thinking as any witch of her generation, was married a year after graduating. Trust me, nothing compares to the feeling of finally being with 'The One'. I wouldn't trade a lifetime with a harem of Veela for any night I've spent with your mother." He ignored Harry's suddenly green complexion from thinking about his parents together. "Your mother wants that for you. So do I. Can you at least promise me you'll think about what I've said?"

Harry met his father's eyes, then gestured firmly to his jaw.

"Fine. C'mon, I'll help you upstairs, you're going to need some Skele-gro potion. And try not to bleed on the carpet, will you?"

Harry sat right at the edge of Potter Manor's ward boundaries, watching the sun set. He'd really thought he'd had his dad, judging by the surprise on James' face when he'd transfigured the debris into fireworks. 'So close!' It would have been nice to get out of training for once, he thought ruefully, rubbing his still-aching jaw.

Then he'd had to sit there and listen to his dad tell him how disappointing he was. 'So what if I like to enjoy my life? Padfoot's their age, and he's still having a blast!' What was their deal, anyway? His mother had been on his case about his social life for years now, but what did she know?

Absent-mindedly adjusting his glasses, he peered through the overgrown grass just outside the wards, locating a small apple tree that was about twice his height when standing. Poking the tip of his wand through the wardline, he silently cast a weak aguamenti, the trickle of water washing over the young tree, his sore face stretching into a small smile.

This was his favourite place on the grounds. He'd spent hours and hours here when he was a kid, discovering it when he was seven years old after the first argument he could remember with his parents. He'd always come here to be alone; he'd spun fantasies about what the world would be like, about the people he'd meet, the things he'd do… and the friends he'd have.

'Six years,' he mused, 'Six years and I never left these grounds.' It was ironic that the thing that made him so famous was also the thing that had trapped him, isolated him for his entire childhood. 'What did they expect would happen when I got to Hogwarts?' he thought, somewhat angrily.

"How pathetic," he said aloud, breaking the tranquillity of the nature around him. "The 'Destiny Child'; prophesied vanquisher of Dark Lords and… and... "

He stood up, dusting the dirt off his clothes, and released a sad sigh. He needed to work off the tension that had weighed him down since his father had given him that lecture. Fingering the brand-new apparition license he'd received earlier that day, he tried to think of somewhere to go. 'It'd be nice to have a sympathetic ear to talk to.' Weighing his options, he spun in place, apparating away with a loud crack!

'The 'Destiny Child'... and still just as alone, after all these years.'

A/N: What's this?! ANOTHER story? I know all the H/Fleur fans are probably furious that I haven't updated Meaning of Home before starting another fic. Anyway, this one is a response to the "Jily Meets Harmony" Challenge from the H/Hr discord server. It's obviously AU, and I'll explore in future chapters the exact canon divergences that are used in this fic; for right now, the basics are that James/Lily weren't home when Voldemort came, and he actually died - completely - when the Killing Curse rebounded off of Harry. All will be explained in greater detail later.

This won't be a super long fic. I'm guess ~ 7-10 chapters, probably 40-50k words total? We'll see.

The rules of the challenge are as follows:

There have previously been challenges such as Reptilia28's "Don't Fear the Reaper" challenge which, while beloved and an inspiration for many great stories, has been done many times. It is past time that a new challenge was presented to the Harmony community. This challenge is aimed to be much different in tone and to utllize the potential in a setting that is not seen enough in HHr fics. Introducing the...

The Jily Meets Harmony Challenge

Must include:

1. James/Lily and Harry/Hermione strictly.

2. James and Lily must be alive. Either by surviving Halloween, coming back to life, or their canon deaths never happening/being avoided. (Can include either Time Travel or a Canon Divergence event)

3. Sirius should also live and be free/exonerated.

4. Lily must at some point braid Hermione's hair.

5. James and Harry must at some point fly together

6. Harry cannot have a Boy Who Lived (Or Wrong Boy Who Lived) sibling.

7. No Jily bashing

8. Include the requirements and description of the challenge in an Author's Note.