In a house far away from where Lily was painting her sister's bedroom, a young James Potter stood in his backyard, a crick forming in his young neck as he stared up into the tall oak tree. James glanced at the pile of wood near the base of the tree just as a single plank rose from the pile and floated up to where James's father stood in the tree.

"It's looking good, Dad," James told his father, who grabbed the plank and fitted it upright next to another.

"Thanks, son," Mr. Potter said, and summoned a few nails into his hand, where they went immediately to being magically hammered into the wooden plank. He waved his wand once more, and another board joined James's father in the tree.

James smiled. His tree house was coming along well. His father had already built the floor of the house, and they had only started that morning. The large oak tree would make for a spacious tree house, James had decided, and James's uncle David had come over just days before with all the necessary scrap wood.

"If everything goes like it is today," Mr. Potter continued, "your tree house should be done by the day after tomorrow. Maybe even sooner, if your uncle comes over again and lends a hand."

James would have helped his father himself, if he had had his wand yet. He knew it was only a matter of time before he had his eleventh birthday and would receive his letter for Hogwarts, resulting in a much-anticipated trip to Diagon Alley, but until then, James was forced to help his parents manually, the Muggle way.

"James!" his mother called to him from the kitchen, and James turned around wildly. "Come in here now, please!"

James swallowed deeply, knowing he was in trouble. Yesterday he had accidentally dropped his magical ant farm into one of his mother's potions, and he knew he was going to get it. His mother's potions were heavily guarded, and he knew he'd get twice as many smacks for finding out how to get past the barriers that surrounded the potions than for actually dropping the ants in it. His mother had cupboards upon cupboards of potions ingredients, and it wasn't as if James had spilled that ant-induced potion all over the recipe—

Oh, wait. He had done that, too. Hopefully, his mother had a back up copy.

"You'd better get a move on, son," Mr. Potter said, summoning another plank of wood. "or else your mother might think you did something wrong."

Oh, no! James thought. Did his father know? James nodded, flushing a little, and then turned and ran to the house, skidding to a stop in the kitchen, where his mother stood stirring a smoking cauldron of potion. James recognized it as the one he had wrecked the previous afternoon.

"Y-Yes?" James asked, his voice squeaking.

His mother didn't look up, but pushed an envelope towards her son. James held his breath, thousands of possibilities running through his mind. A warrant for his arrest, a denial to Hogwarts, an ending to his subscription of Which Broomstick?, all because he had dropped ants into his mother's potion.

"A letter from your grandmother," Mrs. Potter said, staring quizzically at the potion, and James let out a giant sigh of relief. He grabbed the envelope, and split it open, a birthday card and ten gold Galleons falling out into his hand. Mrs. Potter looked up for a moment, and laughed a bit. "She never remembers when your birthday is, does she?"

James shook his head, also laughing, but his mother was still worrying over the potion. "What wrong, Mum?" James dared to ask.

"I don't understand!" she exclaimed, still stirring, her black hair beginning to frizz over the steam. "When I left it yesterday afternoon, it was hard and sticky and cement-like, the exact opposite of what it was supposed to be. And now I come back, and it's perfect! Exactly how it is supposed to look, according to my hypothesis. And I don't know what I did." She sighed, and James's guilty feeling lightened considerably. Maybe he hadn't messed it up! Mrs. Potter straightened, and called out, "Viggy! Viggy, come here!" She looked over at James and said, "What does your grandma say?"

James didn't bother to look at the card, but looked at his mother stupidly. "'Happy Birthday'?" he suggested.

"Your father almost done?"

"He says day after tomorrow."

Just then, a loud crack filled the kitchen, and a smiling, dumpy little house-elf stood in their midst, stilling polishing an old lamp with a dirty rag. "Yes, Mistress?" the house-elf asked. James noticed the house-elf was doing some sort of little jig, crossing his legs and hopping. "Does the Mistress have the potion done yet?" Viggy asked Mrs. Potter.

"I'm not sure, Viggy," Mrs. Potter told the house-elf. "But it looks like it should. Would you be alright with drinking this, to see if it gets rid of your boils?"

"Boils?" James asked, now afraid of what side effect the tainted potion would have on Viggy. "I don't see any boils."

Viggy did his little dance again and said, "They're not normally in a place that I would show the young Master. But yes, Viggy will drink the potion."

Mrs. Potter looked worried. She told the elf, "You know, Viggy, you don't have to drink it just because I asked." But Viggy only smiled and held out his hand to take the potion from Mrs. Potter. She cautiously ladled some into a small vial and slowly handed it to Viggy, who immediately downed the contents.

James braced himself for choking noises, splutters of pain, but none came. Instead, Viggy stood there, still smiling, but he longer did his little dance.

"Yes!" screeched Mrs. Potter. "Yes!" A large thump came from outside, and the three beings rushed to the window to see what had happened. In hearing Mrs. Potter's yell, Mr. Potter had fallen out of the tree and landed on his back.

"What happened?" he asked, slowly straightening up.

"I did it, James, I did it!" Mrs. Potter cried to James Potter, Senior. "The potion worked!"

"Congratulations, dear," Mr. Potter said, and his head fell with a thud against the ground.

"Viggy, go help Dad," James told the house-elf, and Viggy proceeded to run out the large house and out to the yard.

Mrs. Potter was still rambling. "I can't believe it! Everything was going wrong, and then I woke up this morning and here it was, perfect as perfect could be, I can't have possibly left anything out of the recipe, maybe it just needed to simmer for a while longer, I knew—!"

"Mum!" James cried, knowing she would never be angry with him if he told her how he had helped. But she kept on jabbering away. "Mum!"

"What, James, what?" she cried, shuffling through papers, looking for the instructions.

"I put ants in the potion," he said boldly, smiling at his mother.

She dropped the papers abruptly, and then looked at James with wide eyes. "WHAT!?!?!"