My friend and me

Looking through her red box of memories

Faded I'm sure

But love seems to stick in her veins, you know.

The Verve - Sonnet

Happy Every After

On a Friday evening, Harry sat at the kitchen table with his son waiting for the oven to heat up, and the various charmed bowls and jugs to finish their whisking, mixing and pouring. He ran his fingers through his son's fine reddish hair, smiling contently as he bounced his teddy bear up and down on the table, chattering to it as if it could talk back.

The curtains were half open, allowing the sunset to stream into the kitchen over the table and bounce off the pots and pans hanging above them. Harry stood up, walking over to the cooker and peering into the various bowls placed on the counters, placing his two rings away from the food so they wouldn't get dirty. He clapped his hands together.

'All done I think.' Harry murmured under his breath, levitating the duck breasts off the counter and scoring the skin with slicing spells.

'What ya makin' for tea Daddy?'

'Hot smoked teriyaki duck with pak choi and ginger.' Harry said, who then began to spoon the marinade into a pan which immediately started to smoke and bubble.

Oliver's face contorted.

'But for you,' Harry continued pulling an orange bag out from the fridge, 'fish fingers!'

'Yay!' Oliver squealed, throwing his arms up into the air.

Harry's home in the tiny village of Godric's Hollow was of reasonable size and mixed both muggle and magical appliances, making all four of its occupants feel very much at home. And although the house was very indiscrete -tucked behind a few oak trees and towering hedges- it attracted a lot of attention from the press and local villagers.

Harry, in his older age, was more apathetic towards the attention, and was known to do the odd interview (which admittedly, did help to pay for redoing the guest room into a nursery when Oliver was born). Not that money was tight, but it became considerably less when Oliver arrived (who the hell knew kids could be so expensive?).

'Daddy?'

'Yes, love?'

'Mummy tells me this story at night before I go asleep.'

'Um?'

'But she's not been home lately for me going to bed so can you tell me it?'

'I don't know the story, love." Harry shouted over the sizzling duck which he'd just thrown into the pan.

'It's about the Princess and the two Princes Prince James and Prince Bilius… and they lived in the tower, and there was a big bad man who-'

'Wanted to catch them?'

'Yes! Because they'd hid all his toys!'

Harry blinked. 'His toys?'

'Yeah! Like he had a book, and a cup and … um,' Harry realised he was talking about the Horcruxes. With a wave of his hand he silenced his son and chuckled to himself. 'His toys, oh yes, I remember now.'

'You do know it!'

Harry laughed openly, flipping the duck breast over, 'Well it sounds familiar. Did this Princess happen to have long brown curly hair and she was very, very smart? And Prince Bilius, was he good at chess?'

'Yes!' Oliver bounced up and down on his chair, knocking his teddy to the floor. 'And Prince James, Mummy said, was very pretty because he had cool eyes.'

'What bit in the story are you at, love?' Harry asked, his face noticeably redder as he wrapped the duck breasts in tin foil and pierced it with it wand.

'The bit where they're nearly finished big school and the big bad man has captured the Princess and Prince James and Bilius are very angry.'

Sliding the duck into the oven, and his wand into his back pocket, Harry removed Oliver's fish fingers and put them on a plate along with some chips.

'Ketchup!' Oliver ordered sitting up on his knees so he could see above the large wooden table better.

'Ah, ah, what's the magic word?'

'Alohomora!'

'Close enough.' Harry sighed putting the plate in front of Oliver and reaching him a bottle of the tomato sauce.

'Well,' Harry began, sitting opposite his son, 'the big bad man -as your mother so descriptively put it- had captured the Princess and taken her away from the school, which made the Princes very, very angry. They were so angry that they left the safe school to go and find her and rescue her, which was very silly because as you know-'

'You should never leave home without telling ... I know, I know, Grandma Weasley keeps telling me.'

Harry smiled cutting up his son's fish fingers, the steam rising up and fogging his glasses.

'So anyway,' Harry continued, sitting back on his chair, 'the Princes did find her but she was very, very hurt, like she had a large cut running down her forehead and across her eye, and-'

'Like Daddy's!'

'Kind of,' Harry shrugged, 'more like Uncle Remus's because hers would eventually disappear and as you know, Daddy's can't.'

Oliver nodded, munching on a chip smothered in ketchup.

'Anyway, this made the Princes really mad, and Prince James wanted revenge, you know what that is, right?'

Oliver nodded.

'Because they were both very protective of their Princess-'

'Mummy said they were in love.'

'Did she now?' Oliver nodded as Harry raised an eyebrow. 'Well, yes. I suppose they were.'

Oliver giggled.

'Anyway, the big bad man had a lot of followers, who found the trio and took them to him, which was very scary because the Princes and Princess thought they were going to be hurt. But thankfully, one of the followers owed Prince James a favour because he had saved his life years before, and the man alerted the Princes and Princess's school and their followers and er … servants to come help them.'

'Was he a bad man too?'

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. 'I suppose, yes. But he helped them so they forgave him.'

'Anyway, the army turned up and they helped the three fight the big bad man, lots of people got cuts and bruises -like you do when you play with Uncle Fred and George- but they were okay because they knew the big bad man couldn't win or there'd be chaos throughout the Kingdom.'

'Did they win?'

'Of course, good always beats evil, you know that, love.' Harry stared at his son's plate. He'd hardly eaten anything. 'Aren't you hungry?'

'Nope, 'cause aunt Ginny fed me squillions of sweets when I stayed at her house this morning.'

'Aunt Ginny is a naughty girl.' Harry muttered, taking Oliver's plate and scraping its contents into the bin.

'So what happened to the Prince and other Prince and Princess then?'

'Well,' Harry said, checking on the duck, 'they tried to live apart after this but found they couldn't because they needed each other, sort of like the way you always need Pooh Bear.' Harry said, lifting the bear off the floor and handing it to his son. The bear had been given to Oliver when he was two weeks old and he hadn't let it out of his sight since, much to his parents annoyance, as the bear was ragged, frayed and rather smelly, and Oliver refused to allow them to wash it.

'They loved each other!' Oliver shouted, squishing his teddy bear to his chest.

'Yes they did,' Harry smiled wryly, 'they gave each other rings of platinum and gold, and had a big ceremony to say they'd be together forever and ever and lived together in a huge castle and ruled over the Kingdom from then on.'

'They were happy?'

'Yup, very much so. Especially when the Princess had a baby Prince.'

'Daddy, how are babies ma-'

'Ask your Grandma Weasley.' Harry said quickly, not wanting to go down that path just yet.

'Kay.' Oliver said, his feet swinging energetically under the table.

'So it's a happy ever after?' Oliver asked after a brief pause.

'Almost,' Harry said, "though I think Prince James would like a baby of his own."

Oliver blinked.

'Er,' Harry tried to chose his words very carefully, 'well, their baby Prince looks more like Prince … Bilius than it does Prince James … and Prince James would like a baby who looks like him. Though, not that Prince James doesn't love the baby Prince, because he does, very much so.'

The front door opened and closed as Harry lifted the duck out of the oven and placed the pieces on top of some green vegetables, on three different plates, drizzling some of the sauce he'd used earlier on top.

'Oliver, shouldn't you be in bed?' Hermione asked, slipping out of her shoes at the door, and hanging up her floor length black coat.

'Mummy!' Oliver yelled, dropping Pooh Bear and running over to Hermione, jumping into her arms.

'Careful, darling,' She grinned, picking him up and hugging him, 'hi Harry.' She smiled, walking over and kissing his cheek as he set the table.

'Hello, good day at work?'

'Oh yes and that smells wonderful, Harry.'

'Thank you,' he grinned, giving her a quick kiss back on the lips.

Ron followed, swooping into the kitchen and picking Pooh Bear up off the floor.

'Daddy Ron!' Oliver squealed.

'Ollie-Bear!' Ron chuckled, putting Pooh Bear on the table and grabbing a knife and fork off the table and pretended to cut the bear up and eat it. 'Yum!' Ron said, rubbing his stomach.

'Daddy's eating Pooh Bear!' Oliver shrieked, bouncing around in his mother's arms.

'Oh, well Daddy is hungry,' Hermione calmly.

'I'm going as fast as I can here, being the only one who can cook and all.' Harry grumbled, earning a laugh from Ron.

'And how was your day?' Harry asked Ron.

'Alright,' He shrugged, slipping off his green jumper and unhooking a necklace from around his neck.

'Same old, same old really.' Ron continued, slipping the two rings off the chain and putting them on the third finger on his left hand.

'Yours?' Hermione asked Harry, shifting Oliver to her other hip.

'Fine, just cooked and cleaned up, like the good little housewife that I am.'

Ron and Hermione laughed, both cooing their praises as they each stood on opposite sides of Harry and kissed his cheeks, sandwiching him, blushing, in the middle.

'Right mister, I'm taking you and Pooh to bed, it's way past your bedtime.' Hermione announced, grabbing Oliver's scruffy bear of the table. Harry and Ron wished Oliver good night and promised they'd go up and kiss him good night after their dinner. Oliver yawned an 'okay' and put his head on Hermione's shoulder. Though if he hadn't, he would had seen Ron and Harry share a passionate embrace, and a kiss that page three of the more liberal wizarding papers would pay a lot to photograph.

As Hermione climbed the stairs to Oliver's room, he started chattering again, a habit Hermione figured he'd taken from her.

'Daddy Harry finished off your story for me today.'

'Oh? I didn't know he knew it.'

Oliver nodded against her shoulder, 'He say-'

'Said, darling.'

'Said that Prince Bilius and Prince James and the Princess beat the bad man with help from all of the Kingdom.'

'That's right, they were very lucky, but then again they always had been.'

Hermione walked into Oliver's room, and sat him on his blue bed, which had orange and yellow dragons embossed on the front. She took off his shoes, his clothes, and put on his Chudley Cannons pyjamas and pulled the covers up to his chin, her silvery white and gold rings twinkling in the sunlight which was peering in through the open curtains.

'Said that the Princess was hurt.'

'She was.'

'And when they won, it hurt when they tried to move apart.'

'It did.'

'And they had a baby …' Oliver paused, as Hermione tucked Pooh Bear in beside him.

'Yes, they did, a Prince,' Hermione's brown eyes were twinkling, 'called Oliver.'

Oliver gasped. 'Mummy that's my name!'

'Oh! So it is!' Hermione said, her hand on her chest.

It was only then Oliver noticed his mother's two rings glittering at him, his mother's curly brown locks tied back and most importantly, a very faint scar over her left eye.

'You're the Princess!'

Hermione grinned in response.

'And Daddy Ron! He's Prince Bilius!'

Hermione nodded.

'And Daddy Harry is Prince James! Mummy, Mummy!' Oliver said eagerly. 'That means it's really Daddy Harry who wants the baby who looks like him!'

Hermione's brow creased. 'What do you mean, love?'

'Well, Daddy Harry told me today that Prince James was really happy but he wished sometimes he had a baby that looked like him instead of Prince Bilius.'

Hermione's mouth went into an 'o' shape.

'Well,' She said, biting her lip, after a long pause, 'Oliver, I've a secret to tell you if you promise not to tell Daddy Ron or Harry, at least for a little bit until Mummy is sure.'

Oliver nodded eagerly sitting up on his bed. Hermione took his tiny hand in hers, and moved it so it was pressed against her belly. She then whispered so quietly Oliver nearly didn't hear her.

'Prince James may get his wish.'

Oliver smiled sleepily, looking up into his mother's deep brown eyes which were an exact replica of his own.

'Happy ever after,' he yawned, falling back onto his pillow as his mother ran her own finger's across her tummy.

'Happy ever after,' she echoed.