**Chapter 2: Friendly Beginnings**
An untidy eleven-year-old boy was climbing trees in his back yard. His slightly long black hair obscured his dark eyes, but was not long enough to hide his playful grin. Today the boy was particularly excited, not only was he starting Hogwarts in only a week, but this very day his mum and him were going to meet a muggle girl who was actually a witch. He didn't care if she was nice, or even if they would get in a big roe the first time he saw her; he just wanted to get out of the house (and away from his father). His father really didn't appreciate hyper little boys pulling pranks, and boy did this particular hyper boy pull a lot of tricks. It was his trademark, although it didn't make him very popular with his relatives. Actually, this particular boy was in the middle of setting up a prank that involved these very trees, those very birds, that very fruit, and the window to his father's study that lined up perfectly with the area he was perched in. It was going to be great, and the best part was, there would be no hard evidence that he had been behind it, especially if he set the prank into motion when he wasn't there.
"Sirius! Sirius Regulus Black, where are you!! It's time to go and you know it!! You had better not be pulling a prank or you'll be in real trouble!!" an attractive woman with light blue eyes and long braided black hair yelled out into her back yard.
"Coming Mom!" the little boy, Sirius, yelled back.
"You had better be!" Meissa jokingly replied. She loved her playful little boy with a passion, practical jokes and lack of obedience included. She thought he was the most wonderful child on earth, even if her husband, at times, didn't fully agree. Meissa chuckled as she watched her son scurry down the trees and sprint over to her. "It's a very good thing that I'm the muggle and your father isn't, otherwise *he* would be taking you, and I would spend all day worried that one or both of you would wind up dead."
"Oh come on Mom, we're not *that* bad are we?" Sirius complained, his mother shot him a *look*. "Well, I guess your right, it is a good thing you're the muggle." Meissa laughed and hugged her son before heading out to the car. The house that they were heading for wasn't too far away, which was just as well, Sirius did not do well during long car rides, and for that matter, neither did anyone who was in the car with him.
****
Lily was impatient. Summer school was out, which was just as well since she had found herself unable to focus on schoolwork after she received the letter from the owl. She wasn't entirely convinced it was real, but it had such a ring of truth to it that even her parents couldn't deny that it might be true. If only the wizarding family that the letter had promised would come, they would prove that it was the truth. It was only six days until the July 31, they day that she was supposed to get the 'owl' back to Hogwarts. The closer that day drew the more Petunia made fun of her, talking about how stupid she was to believe that she was some kind of magical freak just because someone had played a joke on her. This always made Lily so mad, she didn't know quite why, but she really wanted it all to be true. It had to be true. Lily sighed and stared out the window. She was currently curled up in a window seat in the front room, watching the cars drive past, a book lay at her feet, partially forgotten. The book just couldn't hold her interest that day.
Lily had been sitting in the window seat all day, had her parents been there they would have been worried sick, as it was Petunia was to busy with her friends out in the front garden to notice that her sister had completely zoned out, no that she would care. Lily sighed again. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Petunia, Amy, and Eizma sunbathing in their 'barely there bikinis', they were hoping the Vernon and his 'boys' would come around and get an eyeful of them. They were so odd. 'Hmm now there's an interesting car,' Lily thought to herself, and it was, it was a stylish dark blue convertible, with a pattern of stars along the bottom sides. Lily loved it, it was totally awesome. 'Is, is that car stopping *here*?!' Lily thought alarmed, they didn't know anyone who would drive that kind of car. The girls looked up in hidden curiosity; obviously they didn't now anyone with a car like that either. A black-haired boy vaulted out of the passenger seat and yelled, "Finally freedom!" The driver laughed at him as she climbed out of the car.
"It was only a twenty minute car ride, be serious," the lady chuckled, sweeping her long black braid over her shoulder.
"But I'm always Sirius," Sirius replied. "Hullo girls, I'm looking for, what's her name Mum?"
"Pardon my son, ladies, he has absolutely no manners," Meissa told the teenagers, who looked thoroughly disgusted by Sirius's behavior, and he hadn't even pulled a single prank yet. "We are looking for a Lily Evans, does she live here?"
"Well actually, I'm afraid that you must have the wrong." Petunia began, she had figured out exactly who these *people* were supposed to be, and she didn't want them anywhere near her house or her friends. Luckily Lily realized what her sister was up to and burst out of the house before Petunia could complete her lie.
"I'm Lily Evans," the redhead burst out, interrupting her sister. Petunia scowled at her and immediately turned away.
"Come on Amy, Eizma, let's go somewhere else. This place has really lost it's appeal," Petunia tossed her blonde hair and strolled off, and her two friends followed her. Lily didn't even bother to try to remind Petunia of how much trouble she would be in for leaving, her sister wouldn't listen, and Lily didn't care.
"Well, she doesn't seem like the nice sort now does she," Sirius said, with a glance at the three girls who had settled only four yards away at Amy's house.
"Sirius! Don't be so rude!" Meissa scolded.
"Oh it's fine. He's right anyway," Lily replied.
"See Mum, Lily agrees with me, and she obviously knows her better than you do," Sirius told his mother.
"You are such a terror, I can't believe that I spawned you," Meissa remarked, mussing Sirius's hair affectionately. "However, I'm being terribly impolite by not introducing myself. I'm almost as bad as Siri is. I'm Meissa Black, and that little ruffian," Meissa pointed at Sirius who was currently struggling to get from the Evans's porch to their roof, "is unfortunately my son Sirius." Lily giggled. "I believe that you recently got a letter from Hogwarts that warned you that we were coming?"
Lily nodded enthusiastically, "Oh yes! So it was all real then! I mean I wasn't quite sure! My sister Petunia, the one you talked to, she told me that it was all rubbish and that I should really get my head out of the clouds and back into reality before I ruined her reputation with tales of witchcraft. My parents didn't know what to think, so they just said we'd wait and see. I've been in quite a state ever since, and Petunia hasn't let up one bit and I have to spend all day with her, it was driving me mad! But, now it's true and I have proof, or well you have proof, so Petunia will have to admit it's true!" Meissa chuckled at the exited girl.
"See Mum, I told you that chit was a bad sort," Sirius added, he had somehow managed to get himself hung upside-down off the drainpipe.
"Sirius, get down from there! You might break something!"
"Oh come on Mum, you know I won't fall."
"I was talking about their roof Siri." Sirius stuck his tongue out and quickly tumbled to the ground. "Now Lily, are either of your parents at home?"
"No, they work all day, that's why Petunia was even here, she was supposed to watch me. But don't worry, Mum said that if anyone who knew about the letter were to ever come by that we could just go to her shop and she would be able to leave, so we could just do that. If it's alright with you that is," Lily replied.
"That will be just fine Lily. If I drive can you tell me where to go?" Meissa asked.
"Of course."
"Not another car ride!" Sirius exclaimed.
"Oh get over it you big baby," his mother said exasperatedly. Sirius pouted, but he climbed into the back of the car anyway.
"Come on Lily, sit in the back with me," Sirius said. Lily smiled and climbed it the back too.
"Be careful Lily, he gets totally nutters in the car," Meissa warned. Lily laughed and Sirius sulked a bit. "So dear, how do we get to your mother's office?"
"You just go straight until you reach Sentinel St. then you turn right. From there it's just four blocks to my mother's office, I'll point it out for you," Lily said. "So what's it like to be a, you know, a witch?" Lily asked quickly before she could stop herself, she was obviously very curious and had wanted to ask from the very beginning. Meissa chuckled.
"I hate to disappoint you Lily, but I'm pure muggle, that's non-magical, through and through," Meissa stated.
"Oh, but the letter said. oh, well umm, I thought," Lily mumbled, a bit uncomfortable and unsure of what to say.
"What I meant Lily, is that *I* am not magical, but my husband is. You see my godmother was a witch, she's how I met Sirius's father. I may not be magical, but I've grown up around wizarding folk and know plenty about everything. Garrick (One who governs with a spear) didn't come because we thought it would be better if someone who knew a bit more about muggles was the one to introduce you to the magic world. Besides, Garrick couldn't work a car if his life depended on it," Meissa explained. "Sirius has definitely taken after his father, if only in the magic department. For some reason he's always managed to have magical moments right when he's pulling a prank, it's quite remarkable actually, isn't it Siri."
"Well Dad does say that it's the most remarkably annoying coincidence he's ever heard of, I think that he's just jealous since the only magical flash he showed as a kid was the time he tripped down the stairs. He bounced down all four stories worth of stairs. Man, I would have paid to see that!" Sirius exclaimed.
"Now Sirius, you know that your father hates that story and still stands by the fact that it is completely untrue. You can never trust what his cousin Durrican tells you, and you know it," Meissa reminded him.
"Yeah sure, but have you ever actually heard Dad tell of a different time he used magic?" Sirius shot back.
Lily didn't really want to interrupt, but they had reached her mother's building and if they wanted to stop now was the time. "Excuse me, umm, we're here," Lily hesitantly informed them.
"Well, why didn't you say so sooner, pull over quick Mum, I want out!" Sirius exclaimed. Meissa laughed.
"Aye aye captain!" Meissa joked, pulling into the nearest parking space. "Well Lily my dear we have arrived, I guess it's time for your mother to be introduced to the Wonderful World of Wizarding Wonders."
Suddenly, Lily wasn't quite so confident that her mother would be quite as pleased as she was. Sure her mom had been nothing but supporting when she had first seen the letter, but she had also never really believed that there was any truth to it at all. Her Mom was always the parent reminding her to 'not get her hopes up too much' and that 'it was all probably a big joke' that 'some delusional weirdo' had played on her. Rose Evans definitely wasn't the type who would be ready for the 'Wonderful World of Wizarding Wonders', that was for sure. Would she really believe that Meissa and Sirius were the real thing? Well, there was only one way to find out, and that was for them to just go find out, and to do that she needed to enter the building. "Alright, let's go, I know the way to her office," Lily said as she lead the other two into a very muggle-ish establishment, to talk to a very muggle-minded parent.
****
"James Mathew Potter!! You had better get down here right this instant!! You are in big trouble!!" a furious brunette lady yelled out of her window. She knew very well that her son was somewhere on the roof of the Potter Estate, but she was not going out to find him. Her hazel eyes narrowed at the lack of response from her wayward offspring. She loved James, she really did, but this time he had gone *too* far! He had totally destroyed her dress robes and the dinner-party she that had been planning for *two months* was basically a lost cause. How could James, the non-stop pranking master, as he liked to call himself, not only be related to her husband and herself, but also actually be their child? They were aristocrats; they were an ancient wizarding family with traditions that went back for hundreds of generations, they had a reputation for Merlin's sake, and her son, *her* son, was quite simply a black sheep. Sure she loved the little menace, but honestly, he had nothing in common with the rest of the Potters. He drove his own cousins mad when he was around them, they were all proper well-bred children, to them, James was a demon. It was sad but true.
"Have you found him yet Adrian?" Mr. Potter asked his wife as he entered the lavishly decorated room. His fashionable dinner robe was rumpled, but it was definitely in better shape than his wife's cream colored robes, which was torn slightly and splattered with some, thankfully unnamed, substance. Hopefully they would have enough time to call off their party before any of the guests arrived and saw what James had managed to do to the downstairs dining-room.
"Well, I know where he is, Richard, on the roof. However, there is no way that I am going to go out their and risk my neck to bring him back here, and I doubt you will either, so we are just going to have to wait for him to decide to come back," Adrian stated, irritably.
"I swear, that boy can be such trouble sometimes," Richard Potter grumbled sweeping a hand through his slightly unruly black hair.
"Yes well, that's just who he is," Adrian answered. "We should just let him stay out there until he decides to come in, I'm sure that once he calms down he will realize that what he did was wrong and he will apologize. You know how guilty he feels when he disappoints us. Besides, we had better stop the guests from coming."
"When you are right you are right, my dear. Let's go contact the guests, they will be leaving soon," Richard replied. "If he's not back in by the time we are done, I'll send the house elf to get him."
"Oh Richard, you know how much the little creature hates heights. She won't be at all pleased," Adrian reminded him.
"Yes well, if James had been thinking he would have realized that sometimes his actions hurt the people around him. I know that you're both fond of the house elf, and so am I for that matter, but James needs to learn what happens when he messes up. Hopefully he'll come in and apologize before it comes to that," Richard lectured as his wife and him exited the room.
Outside the window, on the roof above the room lay a boy. His untidy black hair was even worse than usual; his bangs had grown to long and partially obscured his glasses. Normally a prank as good as the one that had just went off would have left him triumphant and ecstatic, but this one just didn't have the same feel to it. Sure his prank had gone off without a hitch, and had been properly hilarious, the dining room was utterly trashed, even magic wouldn't be able to clean it quickly, and yet he felt bad. Like he had done something terribly wrong. He had never felt like that after a successful endeavor before. He was trying to figure out what this strange feeling was and where it had come from. He had a sinking suspicion that what he was feeling was complete and utter guilt. The image of his mother's shocked and saddened blue-eyes confirmed his suspicion. He had known what this dinner meant to his mother but he had destroyed it anyway. It was his biggest prank yet, and at the same time his biggest failure.
With a slightly exasperated sigh James clambered off the roof and through the window, it was time to face the music, before the situation got even farther out of control. The black haired boy quietly exited the room, closing the door silently instead of slamming it. Dejectedly James dragged himself down the hall to the 'fireplace room', he figured that his parents would be contacting their guests through the fire in there. The depressed boy gently knocked on the expensive mahogany door. After a few minutes of waiting his mother ushered him in.
"We just finished speaking with the last of the guests," Richard informed his son solemnly. James hung his head and bit his lower lip.
"I-I'm s-sorry Mum, Dad. I didn't mean to-to," James stuttered, feeling the guilt relentlessly eat away at him.
"We know that you are a good boy James, but sometimes you go to far," Adrian lectured her pathetic looking offspring. "You need to know when the jokes you play are too much, when they become hurtful. When they stop being funny." Adrian crouched down and gently smoothed her son's dark bangs out of his eyes.
"Do you understand why we are upset son?" Richard asked moving to stand behind his wife's crouched form.
"Because this dinner was important to you. You put a lot of time into it, and I wrecked everything without thinking about how you would feel," James answered, sharing his conclusions with his parents.
"That's right," his mother replied. "Do you understand now what kind of pranks are funny and what kind are cruel?" James nodded his head silently. "That's good, because soon you'll be gone, at Hogwarts, where you can get into a lot worse trouble than you do at home by playing the wrong sort of jokes."
"We don't want you to deny your nature James," Richard added, "but we want you to be a student we can be proud of. I'm not demanding that you stay completely out of trouble, that's just not something I expect from you, but I don't want to find out that you got expelled from playing a stupid hurtful joke on someone."
"Don't look so grim Jamey, we're not going to eat you," Adrian said. "Now give us both a big hug and get to bed. Tomorrow Peter is coming over, remember? He'll be staying this last week until Hogwarts, I'm sure you'll both be keeping late hours." James smiled and hugged both his parents.
"I love you Mum and Dad. And I really am sorry," James said as he headed out the door.
"Just get to bed you little rascal," Richard mock ordered winking at his son. James grinned and ran off to his bedroom. "Well, I think that went rather well don't you?" Adrian just laughed.
An untidy eleven-year-old boy was climbing trees in his back yard. His slightly long black hair obscured his dark eyes, but was not long enough to hide his playful grin. Today the boy was particularly excited, not only was he starting Hogwarts in only a week, but this very day his mum and him were going to meet a muggle girl who was actually a witch. He didn't care if she was nice, or even if they would get in a big roe the first time he saw her; he just wanted to get out of the house (and away from his father). His father really didn't appreciate hyper little boys pulling pranks, and boy did this particular hyper boy pull a lot of tricks. It was his trademark, although it didn't make him very popular with his relatives. Actually, this particular boy was in the middle of setting up a prank that involved these very trees, those very birds, that very fruit, and the window to his father's study that lined up perfectly with the area he was perched in. It was going to be great, and the best part was, there would be no hard evidence that he had been behind it, especially if he set the prank into motion when he wasn't there.
"Sirius! Sirius Regulus Black, where are you!! It's time to go and you know it!! You had better not be pulling a prank or you'll be in real trouble!!" an attractive woman with light blue eyes and long braided black hair yelled out into her back yard.
"Coming Mom!" the little boy, Sirius, yelled back.
"You had better be!" Meissa jokingly replied. She loved her playful little boy with a passion, practical jokes and lack of obedience included. She thought he was the most wonderful child on earth, even if her husband, at times, didn't fully agree. Meissa chuckled as she watched her son scurry down the trees and sprint over to her. "It's a very good thing that I'm the muggle and your father isn't, otherwise *he* would be taking you, and I would spend all day worried that one or both of you would wind up dead."
"Oh come on Mom, we're not *that* bad are we?" Sirius complained, his mother shot him a *look*. "Well, I guess your right, it is a good thing you're the muggle." Meissa laughed and hugged her son before heading out to the car. The house that they were heading for wasn't too far away, which was just as well, Sirius did not do well during long car rides, and for that matter, neither did anyone who was in the car with him.
****
Lily was impatient. Summer school was out, which was just as well since she had found herself unable to focus on schoolwork after she received the letter from the owl. She wasn't entirely convinced it was real, but it had such a ring of truth to it that even her parents couldn't deny that it might be true. If only the wizarding family that the letter had promised would come, they would prove that it was the truth. It was only six days until the July 31, they day that she was supposed to get the 'owl' back to Hogwarts. The closer that day drew the more Petunia made fun of her, talking about how stupid she was to believe that she was some kind of magical freak just because someone had played a joke on her. This always made Lily so mad, she didn't know quite why, but she really wanted it all to be true. It had to be true. Lily sighed and stared out the window. She was currently curled up in a window seat in the front room, watching the cars drive past, a book lay at her feet, partially forgotten. The book just couldn't hold her interest that day.
Lily had been sitting in the window seat all day, had her parents been there they would have been worried sick, as it was Petunia was to busy with her friends out in the front garden to notice that her sister had completely zoned out, no that she would care. Lily sighed again. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Petunia, Amy, and Eizma sunbathing in their 'barely there bikinis', they were hoping the Vernon and his 'boys' would come around and get an eyeful of them. They were so odd. 'Hmm now there's an interesting car,' Lily thought to herself, and it was, it was a stylish dark blue convertible, with a pattern of stars along the bottom sides. Lily loved it, it was totally awesome. 'Is, is that car stopping *here*?!' Lily thought alarmed, they didn't know anyone who would drive that kind of car. The girls looked up in hidden curiosity; obviously they didn't now anyone with a car like that either. A black-haired boy vaulted out of the passenger seat and yelled, "Finally freedom!" The driver laughed at him as she climbed out of the car.
"It was only a twenty minute car ride, be serious," the lady chuckled, sweeping her long black braid over her shoulder.
"But I'm always Sirius," Sirius replied. "Hullo girls, I'm looking for, what's her name Mum?"
"Pardon my son, ladies, he has absolutely no manners," Meissa told the teenagers, who looked thoroughly disgusted by Sirius's behavior, and he hadn't even pulled a single prank yet. "We are looking for a Lily Evans, does she live here?"
"Well actually, I'm afraid that you must have the wrong." Petunia began, she had figured out exactly who these *people* were supposed to be, and she didn't want them anywhere near her house or her friends. Luckily Lily realized what her sister was up to and burst out of the house before Petunia could complete her lie.
"I'm Lily Evans," the redhead burst out, interrupting her sister. Petunia scowled at her and immediately turned away.
"Come on Amy, Eizma, let's go somewhere else. This place has really lost it's appeal," Petunia tossed her blonde hair and strolled off, and her two friends followed her. Lily didn't even bother to try to remind Petunia of how much trouble she would be in for leaving, her sister wouldn't listen, and Lily didn't care.
"Well, she doesn't seem like the nice sort now does she," Sirius said, with a glance at the three girls who had settled only four yards away at Amy's house.
"Sirius! Don't be so rude!" Meissa scolded.
"Oh it's fine. He's right anyway," Lily replied.
"See Mum, Lily agrees with me, and she obviously knows her better than you do," Sirius told his mother.
"You are such a terror, I can't believe that I spawned you," Meissa remarked, mussing Sirius's hair affectionately. "However, I'm being terribly impolite by not introducing myself. I'm almost as bad as Siri is. I'm Meissa Black, and that little ruffian," Meissa pointed at Sirius who was currently struggling to get from the Evans's porch to their roof, "is unfortunately my son Sirius." Lily giggled. "I believe that you recently got a letter from Hogwarts that warned you that we were coming?"
Lily nodded enthusiastically, "Oh yes! So it was all real then! I mean I wasn't quite sure! My sister Petunia, the one you talked to, she told me that it was all rubbish and that I should really get my head out of the clouds and back into reality before I ruined her reputation with tales of witchcraft. My parents didn't know what to think, so they just said we'd wait and see. I've been in quite a state ever since, and Petunia hasn't let up one bit and I have to spend all day with her, it was driving me mad! But, now it's true and I have proof, or well you have proof, so Petunia will have to admit it's true!" Meissa chuckled at the exited girl.
"See Mum, I told you that chit was a bad sort," Sirius added, he had somehow managed to get himself hung upside-down off the drainpipe.
"Sirius, get down from there! You might break something!"
"Oh come on Mum, you know I won't fall."
"I was talking about their roof Siri." Sirius stuck his tongue out and quickly tumbled to the ground. "Now Lily, are either of your parents at home?"
"No, they work all day, that's why Petunia was even here, she was supposed to watch me. But don't worry, Mum said that if anyone who knew about the letter were to ever come by that we could just go to her shop and she would be able to leave, so we could just do that. If it's alright with you that is," Lily replied.
"That will be just fine Lily. If I drive can you tell me where to go?" Meissa asked.
"Of course."
"Not another car ride!" Sirius exclaimed.
"Oh get over it you big baby," his mother said exasperatedly. Sirius pouted, but he climbed into the back of the car anyway.
"Come on Lily, sit in the back with me," Sirius said. Lily smiled and climbed it the back too.
"Be careful Lily, he gets totally nutters in the car," Meissa warned. Lily laughed and Sirius sulked a bit. "So dear, how do we get to your mother's office?"
"You just go straight until you reach Sentinel St. then you turn right. From there it's just four blocks to my mother's office, I'll point it out for you," Lily said. "So what's it like to be a, you know, a witch?" Lily asked quickly before she could stop herself, she was obviously very curious and had wanted to ask from the very beginning. Meissa chuckled.
"I hate to disappoint you Lily, but I'm pure muggle, that's non-magical, through and through," Meissa stated.
"Oh, but the letter said. oh, well umm, I thought," Lily mumbled, a bit uncomfortable and unsure of what to say.
"What I meant Lily, is that *I* am not magical, but my husband is. You see my godmother was a witch, she's how I met Sirius's father. I may not be magical, but I've grown up around wizarding folk and know plenty about everything. Garrick (One who governs with a spear) didn't come because we thought it would be better if someone who knew a bit more about muggles was the one to introduce you to the magic world. Besides, Garrick couldn't work a car if his life depended on it," Meissa explained. "Sirius has definitely taken after his father, if only in the magic department. For some reason he's always managed to have magical moments right when he's pulling a prank, it's quite remarkable actually, isn't it Siri."
"Well Dad does say that it's the most remarkably annoying coincidence he's ever heard of, I think that he's just jealous since the only magical flash he showed as a kid was the time he tripped down the stairs. He bounced down all four stories worth of stairs. Man, I would have paid to see that!" Sirius exclaimed.
"Now Sirius, you know that your father hates that story and still stands by the fact that it is completely untrue. You can never trust what his cousin Durrican tells you, and you know it," Meissa reminded him.
"Yeah sure, but have you ever actually heard Dad tell of a different time he used magic?" Sirius shot back.
Lily didn't really want to interrupt, but they had reached her mother's building and if they wanted to stop now was the time. "Excuse me, umm, we're here," Lily hesitantly informed them.
"Well, why didn't you say so sooner, pull over quick Mum, I want out!" Sirius exclaimed. Meissa laughed.
"Aye aye captain!" Meissa joked, pulling into the nearest parking space. "Well Lily my dear we have arrived, I guess it's time for your mother to be introduced to the Wonderful World of Wizarding Wonders."
Suddenly, Lily wasn't quite so confident that her mother would be quite as pleased as she was. Sure her mom had been nothing but supporting when she had first seen the letter, but she had also never really believed that there was any truth to it at all. Her Mom was always the parent reminding her to 'not get her hopes up too much' and that 'it was all probably a big joke' that 'some delusional weirdo' had played on her. Rose Evans definitely wasn't the type who would be ready for the 'Wonderful World of Wizarding Wonders', that was for sure. Would she really believe that Meissa and Sirius were the real thing? Well, there was only one way to find out, and that was for them to just go find out, and to do that she needed to enter the building. "Alright, let's go, I know the way to her office," Lily said as she lead the other two into a very muggle-ish establishment, to talk to a very muggle-minded parent.
****
"James Mathew Potter!! You had better get down here right this instant!! You are in big trouble!!" a furious brunette lady yelled out of her window. She knew very well that her son was somewhere on the roof of the Potter Estate, but she was not going out to find him. Her hazel eyes narrowed at the lack of response from her wayward offspring. She loved James, she really did, but this time he had gone *too* far! He had totally destroyed her dress robes and the dinner-party she that had been planning for *two months* was basically a lost cause. How could James, the non-stop pranking master, as he liked to call himself, not only be related to her husband and herself, but also actually be their child? They were aristocrats; they were an ancient wizarding family with traditions that went back for hundreds of generations, they had a reputation for Merlin's sake, and her son, *her* son, was quite simply a black sheep. Sure she loved the little menace, but honestly, he had nothing in common with the rest of the Potters. He drove his own cousins mad when he was around them, they were all proper well-bred children, to them, James was a demon. It was sad but true.
"Have you found him yet Adrian?" Mr. Potter asked his wife as he entered the lavishly decorated room. His fashionable dinner robe was rumpled, but it was definitely in better shape than his wife's cream colored robes, which was torn slightly and splattered with some, thankfully unnamed, substance. Hopefully they would have enough time to call off their party before any of the guests arrived and saw what James had managed to do to the downstairs dining-room.
"Well, I know where he is, Richard, on the roof. However, there is no way that I am going to go out their and risk my neck to bring him back here, and I doubt you will either, so we are just going to have to wait for him to decide to come back," Adrian stated, irritably.
"I swear, that boy can be such trouble sometimes," Richard Potter grumbled sweeping a hand through his slightly unruly black hair.
"Yes well, that's just who he is," Adrian answered. "We should just let him stay out there until he decides to come in, I'm sure that once he calms down he will realize that what he did was wrong and he will apologize. You know how guilty he feels when he disappoints us. Besides, we had better stop the guests from coming."
"When you are right you are right, my dear. Let's go contact the guests, they will be leaving soon," Richard replied. "If he's not back in by the time we are done, I'll send the house elf to get him."
"Oh Richard, you know how much the little creature hates heights. She won't be at all pleased," Adrian reminded him.
"Yes well, if James had been thinking he would have realized that sometimes his actions hurt the people around him. I know that you're both fond of the house elf, and so am I for that matter, but James needs to learn what happens when he messes up. Hopefully he'll come in and apologize before it comes to that," Richard lectured as his wife and him exited the room.
Outside the window, on the roof above the room lay a boy. His untidy black hair was even worse than usual; his bangs had grown to long and partially obscured his glasses. Normally a prank as good as the one that had just went off would have left him triumphant and ecstatic, but this one just didn't have the same feel to it. Sure his prank had gone off without a hitch, and had been properly hilarious, the dining room was utterly trashed, even magic wouldn't be able to clean it quickly, and yet he felt bad. Like he had done something terribly wrong. He had never felt like that after a successful endeavor before. He was trying to figure out what this strange feeling was and where it had come from. He had a sinking suspicion that what he was feeling was complete and utter guilt. The image of his mother's shocked and saddened blue-eyes confirmed his suspicion. He had known what this dinner meant to his mother but he had destroyed it anyway. It was his biggest prank yet, and at the same time his biggest failure.
With a slightly exasperated sigh James clambered off the roof and through the window, it was time to face the music, before the situation got even farther out of control. The black haired boy quietly exited the room, closing the door silently instead of slamming it. Dejectedly James dragged himself down the hall to the 'fireplace room', he figured that his parents would be contacting their guests through the fire in there. The depressed boy gently knocked on the expensive mahogany door. After a few minutes of waiting his mother ushered him in.
"We just finished speaking with the last of the guests," Richard informed his son solemnly. James hung his head and bit his lower lip.
"I-I'm s-sorry Mum, Dad. I didn't mean to-to," James stuttered, feeling the guilt relentlessly eat away at him.
"We know that you are a good boy James, but sometimes you go to far," Adrian lectured her pathetic looking offspring. "You need to know when the jokes you play are too much, when they become hurtful. When they stop being funny." Adrian crouched down and gently smoothed her son's dark bangs out of his eyes.
"Do you understand why we are upset son?" Richard asked moving to stand behind his wife's crouched form.
"Because this dinner was important to you. You put a lot of time into it, and I wrecked everything without thinking about how you would feel," James answered, sharing his conclusions with his parents.
"That's right," his mother replied. "Do you understand now what kind of pranks are funny and what kind are cruel?" James nodded his head silently. "That's good, because soon you'll be gone, at Hogwarts, where you can get into a lot worse trouble than you do at home by playing the wrong sort of jokes."
"We don't want you to deny your nature James," Richard added, "but we want you to be a student we can be proud of. I'm not demanding that you stay completely out of trouble, that's just not something I expect from you, but I don't want to find out that you got expelled from playing a stupid hurtful joke on someone."
"Don't look so grim Jamey, we're not going to eat you," Adrian said. "Now give us both a big hug and get to bed. Tomorrow Peter is coming over, remember? He'll be staying this last week until Hogwarts, I'm sure you'll both be keeping late hours." James smiled and hugged both his parents.
"I love you Mum and Dad. And I really am sorry," James said as he headed out the door.
"Just get to bed you little rascal," Richard mock ordered winking at his son. James grinned and ran off to his bedroom. "Well, I think that went rather well don't you?" Adrian just laughed.