"Now, remember to take your shoes off when you get inside. I don't want to be frantically cleaning the whole floor before Dil and Tabitha get back. That'd be the second time this week."

"Yeah, yeah, Phil, I know."

Phil folded his arms and closed his eyes a little from the sun as he strolled along, in the middle of Dab, Evan and Dan, down Courtyard Lane.

"That's uncle Phil to you, thank you very much," he corrected Dab, matter-of-factly, bending his back slightly.

Dab rolled his eyes and both Phil and Dan frowned slightly.

'I don't need your attitude,' Phil thought, but managed to control himself and not open his mouth to speak, instead bottling up this thought with all of the others in the back of his throat.

They were almost home and it was almost time for dinner. The kids seemed in a good mood and Phil wasn't about to spoil it. Not that they'd take much notice of him anyway, they'd probably just shrug him off and continue to do as they pleased until Dan told them otherwise.

Staying on the positive side, Phil decided it wasn't all that bad, and at least he had a good amount of time to himself, seeing as nobody would ever come and talk to him except Tabitha, and Dan at nights.

Maybe too much time to himself – a tad too much time to think a tad too deeply.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Dan asked in a whisper, tapping his friend on the shoulder.

"Why?"

"Well, for rolling his eyes at you like that. You're supposed to be authoritative, remember?"

Phil smiled and sniggered slightly at this, but didn't reply, nor do anything to correct Dab – or Evan, for that matter, who had quietly laughed in a sort of support of Dab – only continued to walk along at a steady pace, rounding the corner to walk up the path to Potter's Splay.

It was always a good feeling to be home.

He'd always thought about how the park had memories, or Chez Llama, or the museum, but it was definitely the house that held the most memories of them all.

It was where many things had happened and many things were bound to happen.

To name a few: it was where they first met Dil, where they'd slept and have been sleeping, where The Thing That Shall Not be Named happened, where many… interesting conversations had taken place, where Erica had tried to kidnap toddler Dab, and other things, too; as always, some good and some definitely not good.

The clicking of the key in the lock was always a nice sound, though, and the greeting of warm air when you stepped inside was even better.

Every house has a certain smell that you can always sense in other people's homes but never in yours. It's kind of like a way to tell if you've really settled into a place – when you stop smelling the smell.

Both Phil and Dan had stopped smelling the smell of Potter's Splay a very long time ago. It wasn't very surprising; after all, they built it, it was like a second home to them, even if they did have to sleep on the sofa most of the time.

"Home sweet home."
Dan said this a whole lot sometimes when they walked through the door, as if nobody around him knew where they were and had to be informed poetically.

Another thing about home is who you share it with, and it's a very cheesy thing to say, but it's true. When you've lived with someone for quite a while and you stay somewhere new with that person, you're without a doubt that that place, wherever it is, is where you belong.

It was and had been easy to make a cosy abode from this house, even if it be in a completely different universe to the accustomed one.

There was something about the house, too, that was reminiscent of the old flat back in London. Quirky decorations, multi-coloured dining chairs and cosy, creased settees.

Settling in had never been hard. Not at first, at least. As the days went on, being in the house started to seem like less of a good idea; without distractions, there was a lot of time to think and let thoughts and doubts whirr in your head constantly.

"Are you alright there?"

"Of course," Phil assured Dan, with a smile, because 'alright' was a different thing to 'very well', and he was certainly alright.

Dan paused and cocked his head as if he were studying his friend very closely, searching every inch of him for a hint of him maybe not being as fine as he said he was.

"Would you like me to cook today?" Phil offered, feeling a tiny bit uncomfortable, hearing the sound of Dab and Evan talking in the other room. He had a feeling they hadn't taken their shoes off like he'd said.

"I… I actually thought that maybe you could try and socialise with the kids today," Dan told him, thoughtfully, but was only answered with a suppressed snort of a laugh.

"I'm serious," he said, and he sounded it, "They need your friendship, too, you know."
But this was only met with a louder laugh.

"Phil…" Dan sighed, "They need discipline, and they need it from you. Are you going to help me out here?"

"Listen, I'm not going to be the one to discipline them, Dan. They don't listen to me; they listen to you, Tabitha and Dil. I'm nobody to them," Phil replied, very flatly, his laugh dissipating scarily fast.

"We've had our talk, remember?" Dan reminded him, laying his hands on his shoulders because it seemed to be the only way to get him to pay attention and be completely serious about it, "We've achieved the knowledge that these things can be fixed, we've decided we're going to fix them, so are you going to go through with it now?"

"Well-"

"They're only children; they're easy to influence."

"I know they're children, Dan."

"Is you a wuss?"

"Wha-? N- no?" Phil replied, unsure of himself.

"Is you a wuss?"

"No," he repeated, somewhat more confidently.

"Is YOU a wuss?" Dan demanded for the third time, violently shaking his friend by his bony, pointy shoulders.

"NO!" Phil retorted, starting to feel quite sick from the sudden shaking, "Now if you'd stop wobbling me, mate, that'd be lovely," he frowned.

Dan stopped and smiled.

"Then you're going to toughen up and be an authority figure like you ought to be. OK?"

"OK," Phil chuckled, putting his hands behind his back.

"Now stop being a coward and assert yourself."

This, amongst other things, was something that was easier said than done, but Phil wasn't about to sit in the corner and let people look down on him, even if it meant over-compensating a little bit.