A/N: Here's a little sweetness! I really like it... Please leave a review!


Title: Koalas and Kangaroos

Summary: Hermione discovers that Lily Luna and Hugo want to become animagi. However, they're six years old, and don't exactly have the right potion to do so.

WC: 946

Genres: Family, Humour

Characters: Hermione G., Lily Luna P., Hugo W.


"No! You can't be a koala, I'm going to be a koala!"

Hermione had been walking out of the front door of the Burrow, one perfectly normal day in the middle of summer, when she suddenly heard Lily Luna's shrill voice declare that most unusual statement.

Curious, she paused to listen at the door of the kitchen.

"But, Lily Luna-" Hugo, her son, whined.

"No. I'm a koala, and you can't also be a koala."

"But-"

"You can be a toad or something," she declared haughtily.

Hugo protested. "But toads are boring and ugly. I want to be a koala too!"

Hermione was quite amused by what she was hearing. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on, probably some make up game or something, but whatever it was, Lily Luna was getting her way and Hugo was submitting to his bossy cousin's will, as usual.

The house was relatively empty apart from the two six-year-old children's babbling. Everyone was outside for a game of Quidditch. Hermione had had a bit of work to catch up one, which explained why she was still inside and hearing this conversation.

"Look, it's not very difficult," Lily Luna declared, "Pick the animal you want to become and let's drink that potion!"

Potion? Hermione raised an eyebrow. What was this about a potion?

"I already know what animal I want to be," Hugo told his cousin, "A koala."

"No, Hugo!" she declared. "Look, kangaroos are cool too."

Hugo humphed but seemed to agree to the animal the girl had suggested.

"And now that we've decided the animals, we can become animagus!" Lily Luna declared joyfully.

Animagi, Hermione corrected silently. And then she realised just exactly what Lily Luna had just said. They were trying to become animagi?

"Alright," she declared, "And now for the potion."

Hermione decided this was the moment to make herself present. Suddenly, she opened the kitchen door and walked in. Lily Luna, holding a bucket, stilled completely, and Hugo looked up at her with wide scared eyes. There was a moment of silence where the three of them just looked at one another.

"Aunt Hermione!" Lily Luna exclaimed.

"What exactly are the two of you doing?" Hermione demanded.

"We're trying to be animagus!" Hugo explained. Then, Lily Luna kicked him, as though this was supposed to be a secret.

"It's animagi, darling, when it's plural," Hermione couldn't help herself from correcting, but then she continued, putting back her stern voice on: "And how exactly were you planning to do that?"

"We made a potion," Lily Luna said, showing her the bucket in her hands.

It was a pink plastic Dora bucket, filled with water, mud, grass and what seemed like one or two of Molly's blue begonias. Oh Merlin. What had they done this time?

"And you were planning on drinking that?" she asked.

Lily Luna shook her head as if to say Don't be ridiculous. "No, Lucy was going to test it first."

The little girl gestured to her side. That's when Hermione noticed Lucy Weasley, barely over a year old, contentedly sucking her thumb in her baby bouncer. The baby looked up at her with wide eyes, completely unaware of the mixture her cousins were about to feed her.

"And if it didn't work, we weren't going to try it. Percautions." Hugo added. He looked up at her smugly, as if she should be proud of him taking precautions.

She sighed. "You can't just feed a baby mud! It's not good for her, and it's not good for you either!"

"But," Hugo said looking sad, "How are we going to become animagus then?"

"Animagi, darling," she corrected once again. "You're too young to become animagi. And the potion is very, very complicated."

"But Daddy said Grandpa Potter did it!" Lily Luna butted in.

She silently cursed Harry – and probably Ron, now that she thought about it – for constantly telling the kids all of the Marauders shenanigans. It wasn't giving them any good ideas. "Yes, well. Just because Grandpa Potter did it means you can. At least, not for the moment."

"Aww…" The two looked a little crestfallen.

" Now, does Aunt Audrey know you took Lucy?"

They both avoiding meeting her eye, but finally the girl admitted: "No…"

Hermione sighed. "Okay, you'll have to go say sorry to her, I'm sure she's worried sick. You always have to ask before taking someone or something."

They both nodded, seeming to have learnt their lesson.

"Now, go outside both of you. We'll talk more about animagi when you grow up," she promised.

Lily Luna and Hugo both scrambled to their feet, rushing out of the kitchen, probably glad to have been let go scot-free. She'd have to check they'd actually apologised though, later on.

"I can't wait to become a koala," she heard Hugo say.

"What? No! Hugo, I'm the koala, you're the kangaroo!" Lily Luna protested.

Hermione chuckled lightly to herself, before picking up her niece in her arms. The little girl seemed completely unperturbed by all that had been going on around her and continued to suck her thumb vigorously.

"And what do you say about all this?" she asked her.

"Mama," was all she said. Hermione smiled.

"All right, then. Let's get you back to your mum."

She walked out of the Kitchen, still smiling. Hugo and Lily Luna were always up to something, and sometimes she thought they were even worse than Jamie and Freddie. But, she had no doubt that if they set their mind to it, her son and her niece would eventually become animagi, though she wasn't sure if koala and kangaroo would still be their animals of preference.


FOR HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

House: Ravenclaw

Assignment/Task #: Animagus training: Task #3: Write about someone trying to decide which animal to become as an Animagus.