First off, I'd like to thank Lady Cougar-Trombone for the reviews. I didn't know McGonagall had retired, so for my purposes, she'll still be at Hogwarts for now.

Disclaimer: This world and these characters belong to J.K. Rowling. The only thing I own is the plot.

"Traitor," hissed the ringleader of the group, sneering at Scorpius. The silver and green serpent emblem on his robes caught the light, and Scorpius couldn't help but think it looked a lot more malicious than the one on Lucy's robes ever did.

Maybe he shouldn't have gone wandering down to the kitchens without Al, Rose, and Alice – but he was a Gryffindor. He wasn't about to be scared by four Slytherin bullies. "Do you mind?" Scorpius demanded, stepping forward.

It was his second night at Hogwarts. They had had their first classes earlier in the day, and Scorpius, Rose, Alice, and Al had already earned Gryffindor twenty points in Charms for levitating their feathers on the first try.

Unfortunately, they had charms with the Slytherins, and word of their success seemed to have reached the older students' ears. The boy's expression turned even nastier, and Scorpius didn't bother fighting an expression of disgust.

"Your father must be so ashamed," the boy snarled, and his cronies nodded emphatically. That was the most involvement they'd had in the entire conversation yet. "A Malfoy – in Gryffindor, of all houses! We figured since your father isn't here to punish you, we'd do it for him."

This elicited a chuckle from Minion 1 and Minion 2. Minion 3 only scowled and raised his wand threateningly. Scorpius wondered if he should tell him that his wand was pointing the wrong way. Before the ringleader could utter a single word, Minion 3 shouted, "Serpensortia!"

A snake shot out of the end of his wand and into his own mouth, and Minion 3 let out a cry, flailing madly. He clipped Minion 2 over the head with a beefy hand, promptly knocking him out. Scorpius used the distraction to yell, "Petrificus totalus!"

Minion 1 was put into a full body bind, and Scorpius turned his attention to the ringleader, who was looking at him in horror. "You – you're a first year!" he spluttered.

"And you're a Slytherin," Scorpius told him cheerfully. "Also, we're at Hogwarts. Any other brilliant observations?"

The boy only gaped. "You know," Scorpius said conversationally, "if any punishment is going to be happening tonight, I'd get on with it. Staring at me isn't going to do a thing. You're not a basilisk."

The boy continued gaping. Scorpius, who was now thoroughly enjoying himself, sighed dramatically. "Fine," he relented. "Levicorpus!" The boy went up in the air, hanging from his ankle.

Thanking James Potter the First and Sirius Black for their invaluable demonstrations of how to deal with irritating Slytherins, Scorpius folded his arms. "You need to apologize," he informed the boy.

"You'll get in trouble for this!" the Slytherin threatened, waving his arms. "Put me down! I'll have you expelled!"

"Oh, yes, I can see how that conversation would go. 'Excuse me, Headmistress, but I was sneaking around after hours doing who knows what with my minions when I ran into a little first year Gryffindor and decided to terrorize him. Although he's only had a day of education, the first year one of my friends into a full body bind and levitated me to demand an apology. Obviously, this first year is in dire need of expulsion.'"

The Slytherin only scowled. "You don't know who you're messing with, kid. You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us."

Scorpius arched an eyebrow. "Do you know Lucy Weasley by any chance? Yes, she's a Slytherin prefect. How about Will Raven? He's the other Slytherin prefect. I happen to know them both – or at least, I know Lucy Weasley very well – I tend to think they'd side with me on this one. So excuse me if I'm not worried about having your entire house against me."

The Slytherin snorted. "I wasn't talking about those pansy prefects or any of their idiot followers. Some of our house is actually smart, you see. We haven't lost sight of what's right. And we're going to make you miserable."

There was only so much patience Scorpius could pretend to have. "I suppose I'll have to put you down now."

The Slytherin tried to give him a superior look, which didn't look very impressive upside-down. "Liberacorpus!" The boy dropped to the ground, landing on his head and crumpling to the ground unconscious. Scorpius snickered, dropping his cool, sarcastic act.

"Ha!" he yelled gleefully, pointing at the four Slytherins' prone bodies. He did a short victory dance, freezing when he heard an amused voice say, "Well done."

Scorpius spun around to find Lucy Weasley, James Potter, and Al, Rose and Alice standing in the shadows. "That was brilliant, Scorp!" Rose cried excitedly.

He grinned at her. "I was acting like you," he confessed. "Or possibly Alice."

"Well, you're good at it," Alice told him, raising her eyebrows. "Don't stop."

"Were you standing there the whole time?" he wondered.

"No," James answered. "We got here about halfway through – Al was checking the Map, and he saw you here with four Slytherins cornering you, so he ran and got us. We were going to help, but it didn't look like you needed it."

"Anyway, you need to come with us. We've got something to show you – all of you," Lucy said mysteriously. She gave them a smile that would have done Mona Lisa proud.

"What about the bodies?"

"Eh," Alice said dismissively. "Who cares about them? They'll get in trouble for being out after hours, but it's like you said - nobody will suspect a first year of being capable of that."

"What do you have to show us?" Al asked curiously as James led them away. "Is it another family secret?"

James grinned. "Yeah," he admitted, "but we only tell you once you get to Hogwarts. It doesn't concern anyone else. And this time, there are other people involved. Not a lot, but some – like Lucy's friends in Slytherin, Will Raven, Holly Charlotte, and Dylan Curtis. Also Rowan Wood, and now Alice Longbottom, I suppose."

"What about Vic and Molly's Ravenclaw friends?" Rose asked. "And our Gryffindor friends?"

"We only included Lucy's friends because the sneaky little Slytherins figured it out. Well, partly, anyway. All they know is that we meet up to practice academic things. They don't know about the pensieve, specifically. Also, they're a part of what we're about to show you."

Curiosity sufficiently piqued, the quartet fairly ran after James and Lucy. "Ah – here we are," he said finally. "The Room of Requirement."

"I thought that was destroyed by the fiendfyre." Rose glanced at her cousins, frowning.

"There was an Ashwinder (one of those serpent things created from the ashes of magical fire, you four; like in The Fountain of Fair Fortune ) when Teddy first got into the room, and the eggs kept trying to burn the place down, but the Room seems to be pretty much indestructible."

"How did Teddy get rid of the Ashwinder?" Rose asked.

"Engorgement charm," Lucy answered as James paced in front of the floor, muttering under his breath. "One well-placed engorgio and the Ashwinder will explode into a bunch of sparks and dust."

A door appeared in the wall, and James gestured grandly. "After you."

Fascinated, the quartet filed in. The Room was currently several rooms; a large common room with the colors of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin and a roaring fire with several armchairs and couches and such; a small library with tables to sit at; a stone room bereft of furniture save for a few practice dummies (oddly reminiscent of the room the adults had used for DA) and a room with shelves filled with vials, jars, packets, and dozens of other things that looked a bit like the potions room on three walls, and a cabinet with a countertop underneath it on the fourth. In the cabinet were a bunch of files, and on the counter were cauldrons of all sizes with various samples of potions.

"This is great!" Alice exclaimed, looking uncharacteristically excited.

Lucy arched her eyebrows. "Of course it is," she said. "We designed it ourselves. Well – Teddy and Vic started it, really, but we've added to it over the years. Speaking of – come to the commons; we've got loads to tell you."

They eagerly followed her to the common room, where Vic, Fred, Rowan, Louis, Will, Holly, Dylan, Dom, and Molly had already gotten comfortably, sprawled in the large chairs. Rose sat on one end of the couch, leaning against the arm, which Al was perched on with his arm thrown across the back of the couch. Alice rested her head against the other arm of the couch, sprawling across the rest of it. Scorpius threw himself down onto the soft carpet, sitting with his back against the side of the couch, one arm hooked around his knee, and his head leaning on Rose's side.

"I could stay here forever," Al murmured happily.

Scorpius shut his eyes in silent agreement as James began to speak. "We sneak out every two nights to come to this room," he began. "This place is perfect for homework or any sort of ou

"By which he means anything from a good prank to something illegal," Rowan clarified.

"Right." Fred nodded, continuing for James. "Now, our lovely Silver Quartet –"

"What?" Alice broke in.

"Silver Quartet," Louis clarified with a grin. "Like Golden Trio, except Slytherin, and a quartet. A bit like you four are the new Golden Quartet."

"You're joking," Al said incredulously. "Please tell me you aren't serious."

James grinned. "Of course he's not," he said promptly. "I'm Sirius."

Will arched his eyebrows at Lucy over Holly's curly blond head, and she grimaced. "James Sirius Potter, if you ever repeat that, I'll set the whole of Slytherin House against you. It wasn't funny the first time, and it isn't funny now. It wasn't even funny when Sirius Black said it."

James's grin got wider, and he raked a hand through his hair. Al would made a disgusted comment about this action, as it was something the original James Potter used to do, but he did it too. He couldn't help it; it was a habit – an unfortunate side effect of living with his brother.

"They're already against me. I'm a Gryffindor," James said dismissively, looking unaffected by Lucy's threat. His cousins continued the conversation as if he hadn't spoken.

"I knew we shouldn't have sh-told you that story," Fred amended hastily at Louis's warning glance towards the Lucy's friends. A narrowing of Will and Holly's eyes told him that they'd picked up on the mistake, but neither seemed to have thought anything of it.

"Back to the topic at hand," Vic interrupted. "The snakes –"

"The snakes?" Scorpius broke in this time, looking disgusted at the name.

"The Slytherins," Vic snapped. "We are not doing this again. Anyway, they've got a good handle on most of their house, but some of the Slytherins still stand by all that blood purity, Voldemort-was-great nonsense."

Scorpius winced almost imperceptibly, and feeling it against her body, Rose patted his shoulder comfortingly. "They've formed a small group, and they target us – pretty much all Gryffindors, but especially Muggleborns of all houses and younger kids that are more vulnerable. We stop that as much as we can."

Vic nodded at Lucy, who clapped Will on the shoulder. "You guys should go," she said apologetically.

"Potter family secrets," James explained.

"We'll see you later, Luce," Dylan said easily. The fact that they were Slytherins made it easier – they understood the desire to keep secrets. He was just glad that Lucy had trusted them with this much – that showed true friendship.

Although she needn't have told them the truth when they confronted her and chose to anyway, he still wondered if she would've eventually told them if they hadn't asked her. It had been in when James, Fred, Louis, and Rowan started school. All Potters/Weasleys couldn't be born intellectually superior to the rest of the world, could they? And they had noticed Lucy sneaking out several times before, although they never could tell where she went. They asked her if she was sneaking off to practice academics, which she was. They never told anyone.

After the Slytherins left, Molly took up the explanation. "We use the Map to keep tabs on people at night, which is when most of these happen. When we see something suspicious like a group of Slytherins against some poor Hufflepuff first year, we call a few others or go alone to stop it, depending on what the situation calls for."

"It's modeled after the original DA form of communication," Louis explained, holding up a galleon.

"With a few of our own adjustments," Fred added, grinning impishly. "It's like a cross between the coins and the mirrors James Potter I and Sirius Black used to communicate. You trace this pattern –" He made a curving shape in the air. "-onto the coin and everything you say, they people you want to contact will hear. Basically the coin reads your intent, which takes blood magic, of course, so you'll have to bleed a little onto your coin to make it your own."

At the alarmed looks he received, he clarified hastily, "We're not asking for a sectumsempra or anything. Just a small cut would do it. We only a drop or two."

Lucy tossed four coins to them. "Do it now," she ordered, and they complied. When they were done, she grinned. "You've got your Legacy coins; you're part of our secret war. You can come here whenever you like; just think 'I need the Legacy meeting rooms' and the door will appear. In the library, there's a loose stone that can alternatively be a door. It shares the password to the Marauders Map. It holds a book filled with every single bit of information we learned from the pensieve, so if you ever need it, you know where to look. Meeting adjourned."

Yawning, she stretched and shut her eyes, not bothering to leave. Vic and Dom left for their own common rooms, but everyone else stayed as well. Molly picked up a guitar that had gone unnoticed in the corner and went to sit in the dueling room.

A moment later, Rose followed her. Her cousin had her eyes closed and was strumming gently. After a moment, she started singing softly. Rose didn't recognize the song, but her cousin's voice was beautiful.

She watched, wide-eyed, as quiet, bookish Molly started strumming harder and her words got more sarcastic, mocking the world for being blind, for seeing what they wanted to see of her. Her mouth fell open when her cousin sang in a drawling voice that the world could screw itself; she'd do whatever she wanted.

Molly ended the song with a wild laugh, turning to grin at Rose. "You can sing? I didn't know you played guitar!"

"I only play here," Molly admitted. "Nobody knows but you guys. When I was little, I wanted to be like Taylor Swift when I grew up – she's a Muggle country singer. I got a guitar for my eighth birthday, and I was terrible then, so Dad didn't like me playing. . . he said it was disturbing him with his ministry work. Teddy told me not to stop if I really like it, so here I am." She shrugged self-deprecatingly.

"Did you write that song yourself?"

"Nah," she laughed. "It's a Muggle song. But it fits really well, doesn't it? It's like they wrote it with Legacy in mind."

Rose nodded thoughtfully. "So nobody else knows?"

Molly shook her head. "Nope – it's part of the reason we're so close. We know each other really well; better than the adults could ever hope to. They don't even bother seeing things from our point of view. Bloody war heroes."

Rose's eyes widened again. Her cousin never used bad language. Ever. "Is this the only place you practice?"

Surprisingly, Molly blushed. "I guess you aren't the only people who knows. I was playing in the common room once – once – and someone caught me. This boy in my year – Sean Carter."

"Interesting," Dom called from the doorway, raising her eyebrows. She walked closer to them, pausing beside Rose. "What's this Sean Carter like?"

Molly hit her on the shoulder with a stack of sheet music. "Shut up," she grumbled, blushing harder. Her cheeks were a dark, violent red, and her ears had turned pink, but her hazel eyes were sparkling with laughter.

Dom grinned. "The Weasley blush," she sighed, shaking her head at Rose. "Can't escape it."

Rose's cousins actually blushed very prettily, unlike her father, who resembled a spherical radish when embarrassed or angry. She laughed anyway, throwing her head back as Molly whacked her several times over the head with her music, grinning the whole time.

When their laughter finally subsided and they lapsed into a comfortable silence, reveling in a closeness not many people were lucky to share, Rose couldn't help but think that maybe the fact that their family had set the bar far too high to leap over wasn't entirely a bad thing after all.