A/N: Many thanks to the people who've reviewed/alerted this story. I hope you will continue (plus it's how I get new stories to read - I check out the favorites/stories from your profile). I have one request, however. If you alert, please review. It's nice to hear why you alerted, even if it's just one line, not to mention school is hard and I need pick-me-ups every once in a while. There, I'm finished. Enjoy chapter three. No promises on chapter four, except that its title is INTRODUCTIONS.

Chapter Three: Welcome

A month after the Deeres, nee Potters, had received his letter and a few days before the start of the new term, Dumbledore found himself waiting in front of the fireplace in his office. He didn't have to wait long. Less than three minutes after he'd assumed his position, the old wizard heard the sound of whooshing air and two distinct thuds.

"Daddy! It's so shiny!"

Dumbledore laughed as a girl no older than four charged at him and immediately started playing with the end of his silver beard – the only part of it she could reach.

"Daisy!" James reprimanded, dragging the couple of trunks that they'd flooed with out of the fireplace. "What have we talked about?"

Daisy Deere didn't blush as she regretfully let go of the headmaster's beard and turned back to her father. "Say please and thank-you?"

Dumbledore had a hard time keeping his face straight as James explained that no, in this case she should remember that touching other people wasn't nice until you said hello. Ah, how he loved youth!

After a minute in which Dumbledore was sure Daisy was only pretending not to understand to trick her father, the fire again turned green.

"It's so pretty!" a second voice said, not a three seconds later.

"Oh, no you don't!" James pulled the second girl – who, now that Dumbledore got a good look at her, looked exactly like the first – just as she was about to feel Dumbledore's beard.

The girls in James's arms giggled as James tickled them lightly in the stomach with his chin while Lily pulled the last of the trunks out of the fireplace.

Dumbledore broke in before the twins could get into an all-out tickle war with their father. "Who are these lovely young women?" he asked, his eyes twinkling merely.

Lily pulled the first (or was it the second? Dumbledore wasn't absolutely sure anymore) girl out of James's arms and set her down on the floor. "This is Daisy and that one," she nodded to the girl still in James's arms, "is Marigold, or Mary if you prefer. Girls, say hello to Grandpa Albus."

Daisy giggled again and stuck her hand out, clearly trying to imitate someone much older, but mostly failing. Dumbledore glanced at the Potter parents before bending low to shake the little girl's tiny hand. "Hello Miss Daisy. How old are you?"

Daisy puffed out her chest. "Six!"

Dumbledore glanced at the Potters again, this time in surprise.

"They're almost five," James clarified, ducking Mary's fist, which was drifting closer to a large clump of his hair.

"Can I touch your hair now?" Daisy asked, quite unexpectedly.

Dumbledore laughed loudly and bent down again to let the youngling play with his beard. Mary, who seemed just as interested, joined Daisy a few moments later in playing with the silver and, Dumbledore prided himself, very silky beard.

"Girls! Really? Is that necessary?" Lily cried, exasperated. "I'm so sorry, Albus. They have a strange obsession with silver."

"It's quite alright, Pansy. I don't mind at all," Dumbledore said truthfully. He could sympathize with the twins' interest in his beard. He himself loved to twirl it around his fingers. That was why he kept it so long, to play with it.

Lily rolled her eyes and James smiled. "Come on Fawnies, let's go get settled in. Who wants a ride?"

The twins immediately forgot about the beard in favor of their father.

"Prongs?" Mary asked. Her voice, Dumbledore noted, was a little softer than Daisy's and more timid.

James glanced at Dumbledore, his expression questioning. Dumbledore knew why.

"There is no one here who could make the connection," he replied.

Lily still looked uncomfortable, but by the time she'd opened her mouth, it was too late. Her daughters were already trying to climb onto the back of a large, handsome stag. Lily rolled her eyes and gently set the girls on the stag's back, making sure to add the minor sticking charms she'd made James promise never to let them ride without.

The stag – Prongs – turned to watch her place the charms on the twins and him before he started walking slowly to the door of the office.

Lily and Dumbledore followed the laughing twins and proud stag down the stairs. "How has he been, Albus?" she asked, as soon as her husband had turned the corner.

Dumbledore turned to look at the woman. "He is as good as one can expect."

"Is he going to be in my class?" Lily asked after a few more minutes.

Her question made Dumbledore smile again. "Young Harry is the best Defense Against the Dark Arts student in fifty years. I believe you were at the meeting where Mundungus Fletcher told the Order about Harry's DA?"

Lily stopped to look at the headmaster in the eye. "No, I don't think so. I only made it to a few meetings – the twins, you know."

"Of course," Dumbledore agreed. "Well, your son was the spearhead of the movement to remove Deloris Umbridge from Hogwarts."

Lily knew she should be angry that her son had overthrown a professor, but she knew she was actually proud that her son had stood up for something he believed in. "What did he do, exactly?"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "He set up a Defense Against the Dark Arts study group. Or should I say, taught select students practical defensive magic right under the Ministry's nose? I believe they called it Dumbledore's Army. Quite nice, actually."

"My son did that?" Lily had a sudden wish to see her son and tell him how proud she was. But the feeling was marred by the knowledge that his talent had come at the price of her never being able to say that to him.

Dumbledore laid his hand on the woman's shoulder as if he knew what she'd been thinking. "I believe this year will be different, Lily."

Lily jerked at his use of her real name – she hadn't heard him call her that since James had told him what their aliases were when they'd asked to re-join the order. She recovered herself enough to ask, "How?"

Dumbledore smiled wryly. "Because he's come into his gifts. It's time for him to have what he couldn't before."

Lily was about to say something when James, back in his human form and carrying a twin under each arm shouted, "Which way to our quarters, Albus?"

A/N: To those that celebrated Easter, I hope you had fun. To those who didn't, I hope you had a good weekend.