A/N: I meant to upload this yesterday, but I was too exhausted from uni and NaNoWriMo to do much of anything in the evening. While I hope to reach 50k again this year, it's going to be a much slower process. I'm trying to use it to make headway on different fics, starting with this one, but the impulse to edit is just refusing to go away, and the short chapter length is making things choppy.

Binka Fudge: Thank you! I do already know what I want the main pairings to be, but I've decided not to list them in the summary until I've written far enough ahead to know they're definitely going to fit in. If anyone wants me to PM them what I'm currently leaning towards, though, I'm totally fine with doing that. And especially at this age; I think/hope it would become less frequent as Teddy grows up and develops as an individual in his own right.

A cool breeze flutters in through the open window and dances across their skin. Setting her cutlery aside, Hermione reaches up to brush a piece of dislodged hair out of her eyes, tucking it back in place behind her ear. Noticing the movement, Harry sends a commiserating smile across the table at her; he, more than anyone else she knows, understands the frustration of having unruly hair.

At least he isn't judged for it, she thinks as she returns the gesture and then shifts her attention back to George. Apparently, unwieldy hair is unattractive for girls but carelessly cool for boys.

"He really was the best DADA professor we ever had," the redhead is musing as he casually twirls his fork around between his fingers, unaware or uncaring that the little boy sitting next to him is mimicking the motion with far less grace. "And I'm not just saying that because the others were almost all criminals; he was genuinely good at it. Great bloke, too."

"And I still can't believe he was one of the Marauders," Fred chimes in, a look of awe lighting up his face. "I thought he was messing with us at first. It wasn't until he explained the names that I started to believe him."

As if it's a familiar mantra, designed and memorised to inspire, George fondly recites, "Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs."

A peculiar expression crosses Harry's face, and Hermione is about to change the subject when Fred cuts in again. "Remus was fantastic, I'll give you that," he says, his face the picture of mischievous anticipation as he sends Hermione a playful wink. "But the best DADA professor? That's a stretch. He was good, of course, but Lockhart was better. Wouldn't you agree… Hermione?"

The matching grins that tease out across the twins' face look innocent, but Hermione knows them better than that; they are both well aware of what they're doing. But, as a startled laugh forces its way out of Harry's mouth, she realises that she can't truly be mad with them. As frustrated as she is at the situation, it's always good to hear her friend laugh. After all that the group has been through, expressions of genuine mirth seem to be few and far between, very occasionally poking its head out in the middle of long periods of melancholy and depression.

Still, she would much rather the joke be about something else. Groaning, she props her elbows on the table and rests her head in the canopy of her entwined hands. "I was twelve! It was just a crush! Besides, you all believed him, too. If you were gay, you would have totally fancied him too."

"But I'm not gay," Fred points out, poking her in the side like a toddler looking for attention, "and we're talking about what was, not what could have been. You were the one with the crush on the fraud."

She shoots him an exasperated glare, but his grin just broadens. Instead, she turns her attention to her snickering best friend. "Oh, why did you have to tell them about that, Harry?"

He has the grace to make an effort to control his chortles, but he fails miserably at it. "It came up," he eventually responds with a shrug. "They asked about the Polyjuice Potion incident."

"It's alright, Hermione," Fred says in a comforting voice that, to everyone who knows him, just screams out that he's up to something. Instead of feeling soothed, Hermione watches him with guarded anticipation – for, despite her caution, part of her is looking forward to finding out his punchline – as she awaits his play. "You're right; it's not your fault. You were just ignorant and naïve. No one can blame you for that; it's just the way everyone is at twelve."

"Thanks for that," she replies dryly, no longer as stung by the idea of being ordinary as she would have been at twelve or fifteen or even seventeen years old. "Hey, why don't we go back to talking about Remus and Tonks? You would like that, wouldn't you, Teddy?" The boy makes eager sounds of affirmation around his mouthful of potato, so she swiftly adds, "Remember how Tonks always used to knock over that umbrella stand, Harry?"

Fred opens his mouth, presumably to tease her some more, but George elbows him before he can speak. After a brief glance at his brother, his thoughtful gaze fixates on hers, and she gets the strange sense that he is checking that he didn't push her too far. Rolling her eyes at the idea that she is still so fragile as to break at the reminder that she too is human, she gives him a slight smile of reassurance, but she is still relieved when he says, "I never could work out how she got into the Auror Academy with coordination like that."

Teddy, food now digested and mouth free to speak, asks, "What were they like?" Despite their determination for him to grow up knowing his birth parents, the adults always find it difficult to actually discuss the past, so he has grown used to seizing any opportunity to find out more that he can.

Setting his own fork aside, Harry replies, "They were two of the best people I ever had the privilege to meet. Your father was kind and good. A lot of bad things happened to him in his life, but he stayed strong and kept laughing. I saw him at his best and at his worst, and he truly was an amazing man." His voice catches as tears start to well up in his eyes, but he manages to continue, "All he wanted in life was to not let those he loved – my dad, me, your mum, you – down."

Teddy watches him with wide eyes as he prompts, "And my mum?"

George's chair scrapes against the floorboards as he leans forward to grab a bread roll from the basket in front of Harry. Before he pulls back, Hermione catches a snippet of a reassuring murmur.

When Harry starts speaking again, he sounds much more composed than he did before. "Your mother," he says with a fond smile, "was hilarious and bright and the friendliest person I ever knew. She's the one you got your Metamorphagus abilities from, you know. She liked to just shift her features ever so slightly while talking to people to see if they picked up on it, or to change them to something ridiculous to try to cheer people up. And she loved you and your father so much. Out of everyone I've met, she shined the brightest."

"Of course, Harry's just focusing on the nice stuff," Fred tells the captivated boy.

"What he's failing to say – "

" – is that your father was as much of a prankster as we are – "

" – and was brilliant at it, too. Your mother wasn't as much of one – "

" – everyone has their flaws – "

" – but she knew how to give as good as she got."

"Tell me," Teddy implores and, despite Harry's look of warning to remind them to tell only age-appropriate stories, Fred and George grin.

"We'd love to," they say together.