The Common Room

"... 'Mione? How do - how do I know that?"

Ron's confused words hung in the air for a long moment as he stared at the best friend who would one day become his wife, startling himself at his need for reassurance from her and her alone.

"I - I don't know," she whispered back, just as shocked as he was.

On the sofa opposite them, Harry glanced at Ginny with concern written all over his face. With all the excitement this day had brought, he felt exhausted and drained. Ginny gently lay a head on his shoulder, in exactly the same way she had done in this very spot on this very couch the morning after the Battle of Hogwarts. Again, just like that morning at the very end of the War, he took her hand in his and raised it to his lips, kissing the back of her hand gently. She closed her eyes and sighed as Harry gazed into the flames of the fire, which was merrily crackling away.

"How can Dumbledore have let this happen?" James called out suddenly, startling everyone back into the present moment. "How can he let that - that Ministry hag - teach you?!"

"Okay, calm down," Ginny said, gesturing at him with her free hand. "And also, watch your language. You might be older than me, but I'm still your mother. And I taught you to have manners."

Beside her, Harry cleared his throat.

"We taught you to have manners."

James, however, was looking directly at his father. Harry sighed once more, taking a moment to breathe in that beautiful, unique scent that came off his wife's hair. When he'd pulled himself back into the moment, he opened his eyes and said to his eldest son, "We've never had great Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers." Looking to his best friends, he shrugged and continued, "You know what it's like. Nobody in their right mind wants the job. It's jinxed."

"Jinxed?" Lily questioned disbelievingly. "How?"

Ron held up his hand and starting listing them off on his fingers. "Dead, a useless fraud, fired, and locked in a trunk for nine months."

"Dead?" Al asked faintly.

"Old news," Ron said dismissively.

"A teacher dies and you say it's old news?" Lily asked.

"Technically, Remus wasn't fired," Hermione said absently. "Threatened, but not fired."

Going back to the topic of a dead teacher, Ginny said, "Death was the least of that guy's troubles." When the kids gave her an enquiring look, she added, "He had Voldemort on the back of his head."

"How can you not lead with that?!" James exclaimed.

"Hey, didn't Fred and George used to charm snowballs to fly at the back of his head?" Harry asked conversationally.

"Probably," Ron said. "Why?"

Harry grinned. "Because that was Voldemort's face."

James and Lily shared a look of wonder. "Whoa."

Returning to the original train of thought, Hermione said, "But this time it's different. Dumbledore's employed someone who's actually refusing to let us do magic. What's he playing at?"

"And she's trying to get people to spy for her," Ron added darkly. "Remember when she wanted us to come and tell her if we hear anyone saying You-Know-Who's back?"

"Of course she's here to spy on us," Hermione said. "Why else would Fudge have sent her?"

"Don't start arguing again," Harry said tiredly, knowing exactly what was about to happen from their posture alone. "Can't we just -"

"- Homework," Ginny said, leaning forward and pushing herself off the couch. "Come on, the sooner we do it, the sooner it's over."

Though they grumbled the whole way, the kids and the former-adults collected their school bags and pulled out their homework. Before long, there was an array of books, parchment and quills all around them.

"I cannot wait for the day we phase out these stupid things," Lily said, having just broken her quill for the third time in ten minutes. "Give me a ballpoint pen any day of the week."

James, who was wrestling with a roll of parchment, grunted in agreement. "And parchment. I hate parchment."

Ron frowned. "So what do you use, then?"

"Notebooks," Harry said, not so much as looking up from his Potions essay. "Just like the muggles do."

Lily sighed dramatically, leaning back against the couch once more. "And I really miss wifi."

Al scoffed. "It's not the wifi you're missing. You just want your phone."

"Oh, I long for the days of the smartphone," Lily said wistfully. "Too bad they're still - what, ten maybe fifteen? - years off yet."

They quieted down as people started coming back from dinner. Harry intentionally kept his back to the portrait hole, but that didn't stop him feeling the stares on the back of his head. He watched on as Ron took out a fresh roll of parchment and wrote the title of his potions essay.

"The properties ... of moonstone ... and its uses ... in potion-making ..." he muttered. Underlining the title, he added, "There." And then he looked expectantly at Hermione. "So, what are the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion-making?"

Hermione, however, was not listening. She was squinting over into the far corner of the room, where Fred, George and Lee Jordan were now sitting at the centre of a knot of innocent-looking first-years, all of whom were chewing something that seemed to have come out of a large paper bag that Fred was holding.

"No. Absolutely not," she said, standing up. "They've gone too far. Come on, Ron."

Ron rolled his eyes dramatically. "Oh, come on, Hermione. You know as well as I do they're from the snackboxes."

"And?" Hermione demanded, rounding on him.

"And they're perfectly safe," Ron said, shrugging. "We haven't changed the formula in twenty years."

"Be that as it may, Ronald -"

"- Oh, no," Ron said, rising to his feet now. "You don't get to use my full name on me. They're just Nosebleed Nougat or Puking Pastilles, or -"

"- Fainting Fancies?" Harry suggested quietly.

One by one, as though hit over the head with an invisible mallet, the first-years were slumping unconscious into their seats; some slid right on to the floor, others merely hung over the arms of their chairs, their tongues lolling out almost comically. Most of the people watching were laughing; Hermione, however, squared her shoulders and marched directly over to where Fred and George now stood with clipboards, closely observing the unconscious first-years. Ron sighed and followed her over, though he clearly wasn't happy about being there.

"That's enough!" Hermione said forcefully to the twins, both of whom looked up in mild surprise.

"Yeah, you're right," said George, nodding, "this dosage looks strong enough, doesn't it?"

Before Hermione could blow her top, Ron stepped in. He put a hand on her arm to get her attention, then said to the twins, "You can't use the first-years as test subjects, guys."

"We're paying them!" Fred said indignantly.

"I don't care, it could be dangerous!" Hermione yelled.

"Rubbish," said Fred.

"Calm down, Hermione. They're fine," Lee said reassuringly as he walked from first-year to first-year, inserting purple sweets into their open mouths.

"Yeah, look, they're coming around now," said George.

A few of the first-years were indeed stirring. Several looked so shocked to find themselves lying on the floor, or dangling off their chairs, it was obvious the twins had not warned them what the sweets were going to do.

"Feel alright?" George kindly asked a small dark-haired girl lying at his feet.

"I - I think so," she said shakily.

"Excellent," Fred said happily. The next second, however, Hermione had snatched both his clipboard and the paper bag of Fainting Fancies from his hands.

"It is not excellent!"

"'Mione," Ron said tiredly, though she ignored him.

"Course it is," Fred said angrily. "They're alive, aren't they?"

"Is that really your definition of excellent?" Hermione demanded. "What if you made one of them really ill?"

"We're not going to make them ill. We've already tested them all on ourselves, this is just to see if everyone reacts the same -"

"- If you don't stop doing it, I'm going to -"

"- What? Put us in detention?" Fred said in an I'd-like-to-see-you-try voice.

"Make us write lines?" George added, smirking.

Onlookers all over the room were laughing. Hermione drew herself up to her full height; her eyes were narrowed and her bushy hair seemed to crackle with electricity. In an intentionally measured tone, she said, "No. But I will write to your mother."

Horrified, George took a step back from her. "You wouldn't."

"Try me," Hermione said defiantly.

"Look, guys," Ron said, somehow the voice of reason in this conversation, "we can't stop you eating them yourselves, but you can't give them to first-years. Or second-years. Or anyone else, for that matter."

With a satisfied smirk, Hermione thrust the clipboard and paper bag back at Fred, who was thoroughly shocked. As she walked side-by-side with Ron back to their seats by the fire, she said kindly, "Thank you for your support."

"Well, I couldn't have you murdering them right in the middle of the common room, could I?" he said conversationally, very gentlemanly gesturing for her to squeeze through the gap back to their seats before he did. "Besides - it'll be months before they work out that muggle powdered sugar works better than the butterscotch they're using now. It's cheaper, too."

Hermione frowned. "You sound like you know more about their formula than they do."

"I think," Ron said, rolling a quill between his fingers absentmindedly, "I think I might work for them? No ... I think I work with them."

On the floor in front of the couches, the three Potter siblings shared a significant look, that wasn't missed by their aunt.

"What aren't you telling us?" Hermione demanded of them. To their supreme relief, Harry stepped in.

"We're not telling you your futures," he said. "Your memories are your own. But you'll get no confirmation out of us."

"Yeah, Aunt Hermione," Lily said with a grin. "Spoilers!"

At that, she and her brothers dissolved into a fit of giggles.

"Okay, you lot," Ginny said tiredly, rolling up the final piece of parchment she had been working on. "You're getting to that special kind of stupid that only comes from being overtired. Go to bed."

As the kids began packing up their belongings, Harry leaned across the couch and opened that final roll of parchment. With a bemused expression, he said, "Uh, Gin, I don't quite know how to tell you this, but - well, that's not your name."

She opened her mouth to give him a sarcastic response, but all he did was point at the very top of her parchment. There, clear as day, was the name Ginny Potter.

"Oh, crap!" she groaned, snatching the parchment out of his hand and throwing her head back dramatically. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to write that?! Three feet of parchment on the bloody giant wars, for Merlin's sake!"

"I'm surprised you remembered enough about the giant wars to fill three feet," Harry said, watching her with a smile as she tapped her wand against the parchment and erased her name without so much as a murmur.

She neatly wrote her actual name in its place, though she glared at him as she did. "Unlike you, I actually passed History of Magic."

"Yeah - but why'd you continue on to N.E.W.T. level?"

She shrugged. "I wanted an easy pass."

James scoffed. "And yet you gave me hell for my P in Herbology!"

"Yeah, because you weren't literally fighting a war," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "Besides, we all know you actually enjoy Neville's class."

James frowned. "How do you know that?"

Shooting a grin at his wife, Harry said, "You repeated the class, didn't you?"

"You know what, I'm going to bed," James announced, picking himself up off the floor and making a beeline for the staircase to the boys dormitory. "Night, weirdos!"

Before long, only Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny remained. Harry and Ginny had resumed their initial seats on the couch; She was reading a book, leaning against him leisurely, and he was engrossed in a game of wizard's chess with Ron, the playing surface balanced precariously on the arm of the couch and the armchair Ron was sitting in. Hermione, on the other hand, was still engrossed in her Ancient Runes homework. Eventually, she closed her textbook with a thud.

"You know, I don't remember classes being this difficult."

"Well, it has been twenty years," Harry said, looking away as Ron's queen crushed one of his pawns on the chessboard.

"I would have thought having all this knowledge would make things easier," Hermione said, beginning to pack her books away. "But apparently future me knows a lot about things that aren't even remotely related to schoolwork."

"Well, that's not entirely true," Ginny said absently. "Didn't you spearhead the campaign for wifi?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Educational necessities aside -"

"- Educational necessities?" Ron quoted her. "Who are you kidding, Hermione? You just wanted to video chat the kids."

"That is entirely beside the point, Ronald."

"Oh no," he said, shaking a finger at her, "you don't get to Ronald me."

"And why not?"

Ron looked around the room quickly, then hissed, "Because you and I both know where that leads."

As soon as he'd said it, his ears went bright red. Hermione, too, was blushing.

Ginny groaned over dramatically. "Oh, I so did not need to know that!"

Harry, however, just laughed. He and Ron had shared an apartment not far from the Ministry while they were training as Aurors, after all - this was not news to him.

"Why are you laughing?" Ginny demanded of him.

He took great delight in watching Ron and Hermione's expressions go from supremely embarrassed to deeply disturbed as he said, "Why do you think I started sleeping with noise-cancelling headphones?"

Ron's jaw dropped. Hermione, however, pulled herself together. Doing everything she could to not look anyone in the eye, she started piling her books together and said, "On that note, I'm going to bed."

She wrenched her bag open. It looked as though she were about to put her books away, but Harry knew better. He grinned ever so slightly as she pulled out two misshapen woolly objects, placed them carefully on a table by the fireplace, and covered them with a few screwed-up bits of parchment and a broken quill.

"What in the name of Merlin are you doing?" Ron asked, watching her as though worried for her sanity.

"They're hats for the house-elves," Harry said, wrapping an arm nonchalantly around Ginny's shoulders. "Right, Hermione?"

She threw him the briefest of strange looks before she said, "Uh, yes. I made them over the summer. I'm a really slow knitter without magic but now that I'm back at school I should be able to make lots more."

"You're leaving out hats for the house-elves?" Ron said slowly. "And you're covering them up with rubbish first?"

"Yes," she said stiffly, swinging her bag on to her back and still not so much as looking at Ron.

"That's not on," Ron said angrily. "You're trying to trick them into picking up the hats. You're setting them free when they might not want to be free."

Harry and Ginny shared a surreptitious look, though neither said anything. They both remembered S.P.E.W. - The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. There was no forgetting the first of Hermione Granger's political campaigns.

"Of course they want to be free!" Hermione was arguing back. "Don't you dare though those hats, Ron!"

She left without a backward glance. Ron waited until she had disappeared through the door to the girls' dormitories, then cleared the rubbish off the woolly hats.

"They should at least see what they're picking up," he said, quickly defending his defiance of his future-wife's direct instructions to his sister and his best friend. He began rolling up his parchment and said, "Anyway, there's no point trying to finish this now. I can't do it without Hermione. I haven't got a clue what you're supposed to do with moonstones, have you?"

Harry knew very well what the properties of moonstone were and why they were useful in potion-making, but he chose not to answer. Instead, her noticed the ache in his right temple was getting worse - and what was worse, thinking of the long essay Professor Binns had assigned them on the giant wars gave him a sharp stabbing pain. He knew perfectly well that he would regret it in the morning, but he also chose the easier path.

"Time for bed, I think," he sighed, piling his own books back into his bed.

"Yeah, me too," Ginny said. As she noticed her brother looking longingly at the staircase to the girls' dormitories, she added, "You do remember what happens when a guy tries to get up there, right?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "I'm not a child, Ginny."

"No, you're a horny teenager," she countered. "I think that might be worse."

Tiredly, Harry found himself saying, "Do we have to do this right now?"

He and Ginny fell into step beside one another as they crossed the common room, which only made Ron dart ahead of them.

"He's in a hurry," she murmured.

"What does he think he's going to see?" Harry murmured back.

"Nothing he hasn't seen before."

Harry frowned. "Okay, but that was one time, and -"

"- I wasn't talking about that," she said quickly, looking away as a blush crept up her cheeks. "I mean ... it's not like we're together. That's all."

They had reached the staircases to the dormitories now. Harry paused, but only wound up awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Seamus Finnegan sitting at the table just to his right. He had the distinct impression that Seamus had something to say, but they were all saved by the sudden appearance of a very pale-looking James.

"Da - uh, Harry," he corrected himself quickly, clearly doing his best to keep himself calm. "Uh - problem."

Harry frowned. "What kind of problem, Jamie?"

"Big ... big problem," James said, turning on his heel and dashing up the stairs again.

Harry and Ginny glanced at one another quickly, then started up the stairs. When Harry realised she was following him, he said, "What are you doing?"

"You really think I'm not coming with you?" she shot back, overtaking him in her determination alone.

When they arrived at the doorway of the fifth-year boys' dormitory, Harry stopped dead in his tracks. Ginny, however, stepped cautiously into the room. She crouched down in front of the two boys sitting side-by-side on the edge of Harry's bed, and gently said, "... Scorpius?"