Harry was not sure whether he loved greeting his godson more or seeing Teddy happily greeting his children, who might as well had been his siblings, more as he arrived at the fireplace of Andromeda's home, drinking in the sight of his godson taking turns to affectionately greet each member of his family. He decided that he might prefer the latter by a hair as it was actually rarer for Teddy to meet his kids these days now that Teddy had been working for a few years while he theoretically had the freedom to visit Harry whenever he wanted. Before the incidents and Teddy's promotion, his godson would visit the Potters for dinner at least once a week but things had been crazy lately that he had only seen his godson twice since Andromeda's birthday, including once when Teddy had come for a quick lunch at his office.

The young orphan had only been six years old when he had nervously held James for the very first time (with Harry's help) and it was still one of Harry's happiest and most treasured memories in his life, one which had been powerful enough for him to conjure his Patronus. The moment had been magical because even though Harry and the Weasleys had all rallied around Andromeda and Teddy following the Lupins' deaths, there would always be a part missing in Teddy's life and a look at his godson had told Harry that the lonely metamorphmagus child, who had immediately transformed his hair to match the ginger tuft of hair of the sleeping infant, had already loved James like his own brother. If Harry had a pensieve of his own, he would have revisited that moment, as well as his wedding and the births of his children, countless times by now already.

Each of the Potter children was special to Teddy in his or her own way, with James being the first one, Albus being the only non-Gryffindor whom Teddy could relate with the most being a bit of an "outsider", and Lily being the only girl and the baby of the family that Teddy could not help from spoiling her the most. Harry would not be surprised if Teddy was the favourite "sibling" of each of his children. Thinking about Teddy's lovely relationships with his children, Harry had no doubt that Scorpius would quickly become another little brother of Teddy's that he could not wait for his godson to meet his cousins for the first time.

Teddy, who was sporting light green hair which stuck out all over the place like Harry and Al's hair but looked more like stylish grass with tiny pastel-coloured Easter eggs all over, was just done giving Lily a bear hug when he spotted his godfather and gave him the warmest smile. Harry walked over before his godson automatically pulled him into a tight hug.

"Welcome, Harry." The close proximity made Harry consciously thought about the fact that the young man was now a good three inches taller than him even though Teddy could have changed his height to make himself taller. In any case, no matter how much Teddy had grown, he would always be a child to him.

Just like Andromeda's birthday dinner, Victoire had cooked the entire meal all on her own and of course it was a wonderful meal. There were a roasted chicken, another peacock salad, a large quiche, some mashed potato sculpted into cute but realistic-looking bunnies as well as a pasta before a "basket", which was really a cake, was served at the end of the meal. This was the very first time in which any cousin of the half-French girl got to try her cooking. All of the Potter children were suitably impressed but it was Albus who took a special interest in how Vic had seemingly effortlessly crafted all the gorgeous and delicious dishes completely with magic. Given the fact that Molly's cooking tended to be more homey (yet equally delicious) and Harry used little magic in his cooking, Al had never gotten the chance to see just how impressive wizarding cooking could be. Much to Vic's surprise, Albus, who had been one of the cousins she had always been least close to due to the age difference, the different Hogwart houses and his awkward personality, was extremely curious about her cooking process and had asked many questions during the meal.

"How long did it take for you to cook the whole meal, Vic?"

"Just over half an hour."

"You mean you can bake this without an oven?"

"Technically yes, but I prefer to heat it up inside an oven because the texture would be more even but it could be done within a few minutes with magic."

"So you could really shape the salad into this with one spell?"

"Well, it's not that simple… The spell allows me to manipulate the shape but I could only do this because I love arts and I know how to sculpt. And I could only do it fast because I have had so much practice."

Vic seemed flattered by Al's apparent admiration while Harry allowed himself to hope that cooking was more than something his son tried out for the sole purpose of killing time after being woken up by his nightmares or waking up earlier than he had intended. (He reminded himself that there was no proof that Al had been woken up by nightmares this morning) He had always hoped that one of his children would develop an interest in cooking so he could share another mutual interest other than flying with someone in his family and to teach the kid all he knew. Over the past two years, he had been given false hope that Lily would be the one but she had grown more and more like Ginny that he had resigned to being the only cook in the family. Never in a million years had he imagined Albus to be the first member of his household to show any remote interest in cooking.

Teddy, on the other hand, turned from amused to bewildered by Al's new interest. The young couple was known to be joined at the hip that he was undoubtedly craving some intimacy with his fiancée following the half-hour "separation" in which she had been cooking, as evidenced by the hand he had placed on her thigh most of the time they had been eating that he would prefer Albus to stop bombarding Vic with questions for a bit.

"Albus, since when did you start cooking?"

"I-I don't… I m-mean, yesterday… I-I guess." The boy's face turned red as he stammered.

Teddy looked amused as he noticed how embarrassed Al looked, so he encouraged warmly, "Ah… I look forward to try your cooking someday. You seem to have quite a keen interest in it, I bet you could get really good at it."

His son nodded without looking at his friendly godbrother, "I probably won't be good enough to cook something for real."

"Nonsense, your pancakes and eggs are already miles ahead of anything I've ever attempted in my forty years." It did not come as a surprise that Ginny was already so proud of Al's cooking, but Harry thought her just a bit thick-skinned to actually sound proud of her own inability to cook in front of everyone.

"I-I was just helping dad, mum. Of course it would be decent when he was there to watch my every step."

"You're too modest, son." Harry jumped in to praise the boy. "Most people would not be able to do as well as you did after seeing it demonstrated just once. Besides, I didn't even need to correct or help you in anything."

"If you said so." Albus muttered before turning his attention to the chicken meat on his plate and started cutting and eating with a sudden sense of urgency. Harry thought it might not be an exaggeration to say that his boy hated compliments.

Again Harry was sitting next to Andromeda during the meal and the elegant widow updated him about her recent contact with Draco.

"Oh Harry, I haven't told you about the delicious biscuits I have gotten from Draco."

"That's nice of him," he added while trying hard to oppress a snicker, "I'm guessing it's something quite luxurious."

She was such a dignified lady but she let out an uncharacteristic laugh, "You're quite right, Harry. It's really generous of him to have sent it but it's a hundred-pieces gift box decorated with gold he had specially ordered from Paris. Even though the biscuits would still be good within a year and it's truly delicious… actually it's probably some of the best biscuits I've ever tasted, it's just way too many for the two of us. You should all try some after lunch."

Harry always loved an excuse for him to taste snacks carefreely without being disapproved by Ginny for consuming too much sugar so he readily agreed.

Like the "vase" from Andromeda's birthday, Vic's basket cake, which was chocolate fruit cake with butterbeer cream, was delicious and devoured by everyone. Albus was not the only one from his family to share Ron's appetite that despite the grand meal, they were able to finish the huge cake. As promised, Andromeda took out Draco's gift to be shared with all her guests.

"I recognise this," Albus' eyes brightened even though he should have felt too stuffed to eat anything, sometimes Harry believed that his youngest son's stomach probably had been hit by an undetectable extension charm at some point in his life. It had always been a mystery to him how Albus managed to stay small and thin all his life considering the way he ate, and his appetite would be especially insatiable when he was in a good mood. "Scorpius' father regularly sends him care packages and this is one of my favourites! There's quite a variety here but my favourite is the chocolate crepe, it's so crispy, creamy and delicious!"

In his excitement to talk about the snack he loved so much, the boy did not seem to realise how he had leaned all the way forward to get a better view of the box and had exclaimed the words. It was such a rare sight for some around the table to see him so excited that Albus became suddenly aware of the attentions he was gathering and turned very self-conscious about it as he sat back up and looked down.

The biscuits met Harry's high expectation set based on Al's words that he tried quite a few pieces himself. If the two families had not been this close, he would have felt embarrassed by the shameless eagerness displayed by his children while devouring the lovely snacks that they had managed to finish half of the grand box within twenty minutes.

While the dishes were being put away by Ginny and Vic, Harry took the time to go to the restroom while the rest of the family was returning to the sitting room to spend a few more hours together before the Potters' departure.

When Harry was walking towards the sitting room after a minute, he intended to seek out Teddy to chat with him a bit more but he stopped short the moment he caught sight of Albus and the person next to him. The young man standing tall next to Al was laughing easily and he had silky white-blonde hair, a pointy face, very pale complexion and most startling of all, beautiful gray eyes with long eyelashes.

By this time, the sight of Albus standing next to a boy with platinum blonde hair was a very natural one but there was something very strange about what Harry was seeing because instead of the three-inch height difference between the best friends he had witnessed just a few days ago, this young man was more than a head taller than his son but Al looked every bit as comfortable next to the strange young man as he would be in his best friend's presence. It took Harry twenty seconds and a closer look of the strange boy's outfit to realise that after the Christmas gathering, once again he had failed to recognise his godson, who had somehow never appeared in platinum blonde hair in at least the last ten years. To add to his defense, Teddy had rarely changed the shape of his face, which had the power to completely transform his look. Fortunately for Harry, Teddy noticed him and waved him over just after he had figured out who he was instead of before. He tried to look as neutral as he could but he realised that he was not doing a good job as Teddy's smile cooled a little as he saw the strange way his godfather was staring at him.

It was very curious to Harry that the family connection between the Malfoys and Teddy had never come into his mind before the past Christmas, and even though he had inevitably seen the Malfoys at least twice a year for the past few years thanks to the boys' friendship, he had never noticed any resemblance to the Malfoys in his godson's appearance until now but staring at this young man who looked simultaneously foreign and familiar to him, he realised that his godson did look very similar to his cousins, even if he had appeared normally instead of in this Malfoys' disguise. Now that he had seen it, he could not unsee the resemblance, which could be found not only in the hair, chin, complexion and eye colour, but also in Teddy's natural deep set eyes, his long nose, his slender fingers, and in several other body features he had never paid much attention to before.

A/N: I'm sorry that this chapter is short. I've gotten carried away by the last part, it's gotten too long and messy and like I said before, I don't want to post long chapters anymore so it's easier for me to just divide the chapter. (pros: faster update) I can't say I'm too happy with this but it's not the first time that I update out of frustration. Anyway, I've gotten quite attached to Teddy now it's hard to believe that he was first mentioned as a throwaway line, I guess the unpredictability makes the fic more fun to write.

Thank you HogwartsDreamer113, Scorpiusisthebest, wrestlingfanforever and Ronnie Jane for commenting. And JennH, I'm so glad I was not the only one who had a hard time getting Anthony's portrayal of Scorpius. Thank you for everyone who follows but a comment would make my day ;)