AN: Happy New Year!

Dream cast for Sam Andrews?
I'll post mine at the start of the next chapter :).

Chapter Two
Of Summer, Shopping and School

The four firsties-no-longer had decided to meet up in Diagon Alley two and a half weeks before they were due to go back to school to buy their school stuff and get some ice-cream. They'd all had busy summers, though they all thought the biggest event had yet to happen; namely the final match of the Quidditch World Cup which was to be held the day after next. A 'freak' lightning storm (well there were various accusing fingers being pointed to those teams who had not quite made it in) that had hit the stadium after the semi-finals at the end of July caused the match to be put back all the way until then as they rebuilt the stadium and got rid of the many creatures who had been attracted to the lightning (not a normal effect of a lightning storm causing even more accusations).

They'd only barely made their greetings in the Leaky Cauldron before Albus launched excitedly into the newest update on the teams from his mum, who was, of course, reporting the entire thing. When Albus had finally paused for breath (his father was looking at him in astonishment; what on earth had got into the quiet boy he had sent on the train last year?), Harry quickly went over the instructions again; emergency meeting point was Rosa Lee Teabag's; Audrey's favourite tea-shop, where the adults would be staying for the entire trip. They had to stay together, they had to be sensible, and if something completely awful happened they had to shoot red sparks out from their wands to alert their parents as to where they were.

The adults only consisted of Harry and Audrey as Lien was sleeping over at Molly's that night and Draco had thought it was best to just make sure his son was ok and then leave as quickly as possible before Harry could awkwardly offer if he'd like to go with them and he could awkwardly decline. When they were finally satisfied that the children were aware of their instructions they led the kids into Diagon Alley and then parted ways. The children had all been given money by their parents to cover their school supplies (though Lien had had to stop by at Gringotts earlier in the week to convert it into Wizarding money).

"Where do you want to go first?" Albus asked excitedly, clutching his school equipment letter in his hand.

"Well if we have to buy all the boring stuff we might as well do that first and then we have something to look forward to." Scorpius suggested. The other three agreed, and they took off towards Amanuensis Quills.

"So; what's everyone been up to?" Albus ventured as he perused between the aisles of the shop. "I mean we didn't really get a chance to talk at the party." They all grinned as they remembered the water fight; with their superior numbers their team had finally captured James, Sam and Jayna (Lydjah and Fred were suspiciously absent until it was time for Lydjah to go home) and Roxanne had led a very smug song of 'Happy Birthday to you' for herself. After this she had stuck James' hand to a pot of gravy, and he'd had the amusing response of 'Not again!' which had caused all the Weasley/Potters to laugh and those not used to this reoccurring tradition to be a faintly confused.

"Well I went to Tenerife." Lien said with a grin. "With my family and my parents' friends and their sons, the Parrahs."

"Oh?" Molly nudged her, waggling her eyebrows. Lien blushed but dug into her small handbag to pass round a photo of the eight of them on the beach.

"Not like that! Kyle's way too old for me and Rian… I could never see him like that." Molly gave her a look.

"Well if you're not having him I'm sure plenty of people would! Have you seen those abs?!" Lien laughed and Scorpius pretended he didn't notice Albus glancing at his own chest.

"Anyway; where on earth did you go Mol? You're browner than chocolate!" Molly grinned, admiring her bronze hands.

"We went to Egypt. Dad had to go with work and he grudgingly took the rest of us with him. Of course he was really boring dragging us round all these museums but mum got him to back off a bit and managed to sneak in a couple of camel rides about the place while dad was checking the Floo to England for the Egyptian Minister of Magic."

"Wow." Scorpius said raising his eyebrows. If it had been anyone other than Scorpius, Molly would've thought they were taking the mickey by their tone but Scorpius never said anything with above minimum excitement. "I haven't done much. Just sort of slept really." The other three laughed but internally they were all wondering just how lonely Scorpius must be in that huge house.

"Did you do any more drawing?" Albus asked slyly. Scorpius froze.

"W-what?" He choked out. The other two stopped to stare at him, putting down the quills they were admiring. Scorpius sounding less than composed?

"Oh come on; I've shared a room with you for the past year. You honestly think I didn't notice you doing your 'homework' every day? Especially on the days that we hadn't received any?" Scorpius glared at him. Albus seemed to realise that he'd hit a nerve because his smug grin turned down a notch and he poked his friend with a quill feather, right on the nose. Scorpius gave him an utterly befuddled look as the two girls clutched each other with laughter.

"Your face!" Lien gasped out.

"Are you going to pay for those?" A particularly bored and nasally sounding shop assistant came up from behind Molly. They all jumped in surprise and Lien and Molly shared slightly scared looks.

"Yes!" Lien squeaked out, grabbing Molly's arm. "We were just on our way now!" She dragged Molly off towards the desk at the front of the shop, hurriedly bringing out her purse as she went. Once the creepy shop assistant had disappeared off to scare someone else Albus turned back to Scorpius who was determinedly looking at two identical quills as if there was a difference between them.

"I thought they were pretty good actually." Scorpius dropped one of the quills and immediately bent to pick it up, his entire face going beetroot red. Al hadn't realised this was such a big thing to his friend; he'd only thought that Scorpius might not want people to know because they wouldn't think it was very macho. Now he realised that Scorpius didn't give a damn about appearing macho and he probably shouldn't have brought it up so callously.

"You looked at them?" He hissed. Albus winced.

"Yeah. And Sam says the one you did for Jayna is at the front of her bedside-table." Scorpius placed the quills back on the shelf carefully, trying to control his shaking hands. He wasn't entirely sure why he was so upset, or even if he was upset. His drawing was his secret and he didn't like other people knowing about it. He hadn't liked Jayna knowing about it, and he wasn't quite sure what had possessed him to paint the picture for her only one moment he was just sketching and the next he had a fully detailed drawing of that Christmas Social. Thank Merlin he'd managed to get out of the latest Christmas one by staying at Hogwarts but he'd been dragged to three over the summer.

"Which ones did you see?" He didn't look at Al as he spoke.

"Just the sketches of your parents." Scorpius breathed an internal sigh of relief. "So do you just do pictures of people?"

"Yeah; haven't ever seen the point of drawing what someone could just go and see for themselves or have actual photos of. And surrealism has never been my thing. Look, Al, I know you didn't mean anything by it… But art's kind of my outlet I suppose, like yours is Quidditch. It's very personal to me and I just- It's not a thing I show to people often."

"I get it. I'll stay away from your drawings from now on, alright, unless you say otherwise." Scorpius settled back into himself and gave his usual half-smile in gratitude.

"Go, go, go!" Molly and Lien had returned and were gesturing urgently towards the door. "The creepy guy's coming back!" Albus risked a glance to the end of the aisle where the spotty shop assistant was walking towards them before promptly speeding out of the shop.

By the time the four of them made it back towards the adults they were laden down with several hours' worth of shopping. They'd all bought The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 2) by Miranda Goshawk, both Lien and Albus bought a new set of phials (glass and crystal respectively) having each broken at least one the year before while Molly and Scorpius both bought an extra Transfiguration book. Molly and Scorpius had spent a good portion of the time conversing between themselves as Albus excitedly showed Lien round a number of different broom shops and then they'd all grabbed an ice cream. They'd sat to eat the ice-cream on one of the street corners, something that would become a habit to them in the following years, and merely chatted until it was time to meet up with Harry and Audrey.

Of course, considering it was them, the shopping trip could not go so easily.

Molly heard the tell-tale crack of an untalented apparator before anyone else did. She thought nothing of it for the first two seconds, after all; people apparated from Diagon Alley all the time. It was only when a huge whoosh of fire exploded in the nearest building to them, blowing the roof off and shattering all the windows, that she finally saw the apparator.

She thought they were cleverer than the Death Eaters, because while the Death Eaters had masks to protect their identity it wasn't as if the sinister black robes were exactly inconspicuous. The man who had cast the fiery curse was wearing normal Wizarding robes, same as everyone else, and he disapparated again before anyone could take more than a note of his gender.

Albus was the next one to react, loudly enough to yank the rest of them out of their stupor, with a cry of horror as he registered which particular building had gone up in flames. It was, of course, Rosa Lee Teabag's. The four of them immediately registered that this was a specific attack on Harry as why on earth else would you blow up a café?

Lien was third, almost robotically throwing her wand arm into the air and shouting out the spell that would cause red sparks to appear above them. Scorpius was struggling, doing some sort of jittery dance as he tried to work out whether going forwards or getting back was a better option. There was another crack and a huge flare of light as another shop went up in flames, further down the street. A sharp blue spell sped towards the person who'd cast the spell, from an unknown assailant, but the mysterious apparator disappeared again before it hit him.

Albus ran into the crowd and was quickly lost to the other three. Without a word between the two of them Molly and Lien plunged after him. Scorpius felt like screaming. He had no idea what to do, and could only try to stay up as the myriad of panicked people charged in all directions around him.

Like an electric shock, as his bad mood channelled down the wand that never left his hand and put a scorch mark on the pavement, Scorpius finally snapped out of it, beginning to unsteadily shove back at the crowd in what he hoped was the right direction.

Albus was already at the café entrance by the time Lien and Molly broke free of the throng of people. Dean Thomas had a firm hand on his shoulder and was gesturing to his small team of Aurors that had obviously been alerted to the danger as the fire had almost completely gone out. Albus didn't appear to agree with what he was saying as he was desperately trying to struggle out of the adult's grip.

Lien tugged him to the side and out of the way of the opening door where a grim-faced Auror carrying a hysterically crying young boy was coming through.

"Where's Peters?" He asked gruffly of Dean. Dean shook his head, indicating that he didn't know.

"Any sign of Harry?" The other Auror shook his head.

"Everyone barring this one seems to have apparated out of there as soon as they saw the fire. I doubt the boss would've lingered."

"True."

"I don't understand it. Fire is easily dealt with, especially with so many magical people on hand. A twelve year old could have sorted this."

"I don't get it either. Perhaps this was just a demonstration."

"I wouldn't want to be the one to tell Rosa that." Dean chuckled.

"Does this little guy need any medical help?"

"Nah he's unharmed just a little shaken up; I think I need to have a word with whoever was looking after him though."

"Alright then; you take care of him and meet me back at the office. I'll set up cleaning crews and start getting witnesses. If you see any sign of Harry-"

"Send a message. I know." The Auror murmured something to the younger boy who nodded weakly before disapparating with him.

Before Albus could start arguing with Dean again he was slammed into a very worried hug.

"Oh thank Merlin." Harry Potter gripped his youngest son tightly. Albus looked like he was trying very hard not to cry.

"Dad." He croaked weakly. When he was finally released from where his head had been buried in his dad's shoulder he saw Molly was receiving the same treatment from Audrey and Lien was hugging her sides tightly in relief. He looked up to see both Draco and Astoria Malfoy searching frantically through the milling crowd. His heart rate picked up again; where was Scorpius?

He scanned the people anxiously, hoping to see a flash of white-blonde hair and throwing off his dad's concerned questions. Just as he was about to launch into the crowd himself he saw a very frazzled Scorpius dashing, as elegantly as possible, attempting to look unruffled, to his parents, from entirely the wrong direction. Stood as close as he was Albus could hear Scorpius' apology and explanation as to how he'd got lost in the crowd. His mother gave him a very undignified hug and his father squeezed his shoulders reassuringly, nodding at Harry before apparating his small family away.