Author's Note: Long time no see.

Apologies for the wait - was hoping I'd have gotten this up a good week ago, but I didn't. Not much else to say. Read, review, and enjoy!

James Sirius Potter would probably be in a lot of trouble when things were over, but that didn't matter at the moment. His priorities currently valued action over consequences.

James lunged after the younger blond-haired stranger, hands raking for flesh. The stranger was fast, however, jumping over the side of the couch. James tore after him, of course. He was getting away, slipping over the coffee table and just out of reach.

James made another grab, catching the stranger by the long black sleeve of his shirt. He had him now! Unexpectedly, however, James was redirected into the livingroom furnature. A heavy bang erupted as an antique chair's high back slammed against the carpeted floor, a large crack splitting it into two.

With James stunned on the ground, limbs flayed from the fall, Scorpius would call himself the victor. His wits and agility outmatched the furious James Potter, a triumph that could have tasted more glorified, if Scorpius wasn't so bitter, and James wasn't so.. seemingly stupid. Scorpius felt just as grumpy as he did hours ago, perching himself on the ruins of James' defeat, his legs dangling from the upturned chair's remains just above James' heaving chest.

Then there was the scream.

The basement door slammed open almost immediately, as a startled Ginny Potter emerged grasping a metal cooking cauldron. She had only left the room fora few minutes to fill the cauldron full of potatoes stored in the cellar, leaving the boys unattended for only a short while. A look of motherly horror and worry was carved into her very face.

As Ginny Potter left the front step of the cellar stairs, she saw several things. First, she saw her little girl standing in the frame of the back door, her mouth open midscream. Second, she saw Scorpius sitting on the ruins of a high back chair – closer examination revealed that it was that her son, James, was under the mess. Third, she saw Harry running in, his wand at the ready in one hand, his other scooping up little Lily in a heroic feat as he held her as close as a dragon his golden egg. And fourth, as she turned her head back to the two boys, the sight of James lunging at Scorpius, attempting to pin him down and strangle him to death.

Clatter. Ginny dropped the pot of potatoes without a thought, Harry almost doing the same to Lily (but, like a good father, remembering in the last moments that Lily wasn't a bag of inanimate vegetables). The two adults began pulling the boys apart, children kicking and hissing, neither parent knowing which child they grabbed. Ginny held tight to whoever she caught, her arms wrapping around someone's chest as she prayed to some unknown forces that she had at least been lucky enough to pull away with her own son.

Harry, however, continued his unlucky day, as someone bit hard into his right arm, "Fuck!"

And just as things began to settle again, the front door slammed open, and two wizards rushed in wands at ready, one holding a pot of spaghetti. Someone screamed again – Albus, this time, now standing behind Lily, and Ginny felt something slip between her arms.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

And, just like that, calamity was reduced to calm once more.

~† † †~

"Bloody hell," Ron said, "Bloody, bleeding hell."

Both of the rowdy boys were laid neatly, side-by-side, on the floor. They looked like oversized dolls, their arms tight against their sides like soldiers, as their eyes flickered in their sockets. Harry and Ron stood above them.

Lily held her father's hand, peering at the two with great curiosity, "Daddy, why they so still?"

"They're paralyzed, Lily."

"For forever?"

"Unfortunately, no."

Hermione was in the other room with Ginny, prodding the charred hotdogs that had gone unattended during the skirmish. On the stove next to her, potatoes were boiling. Ginny was too,

"I've always told James not to fight. He used to push Albus around all the time when they were toddlers, and every day he did, he got to sit in the corner. I always said, 'James, violence doesn't solve problems, logic does.' I says to use his big head for something other than a battering ram. And I turn, and I see him lunging at another kid's throat!"

Hermione nodded, "I've always thought of James as rather nice. He gets along with others fine. Hugo, Albus, and him behave well together whenever they're together."

"I know. I haven't seen him so… I don't know, Hermione. It isn't like James hasn't punched anyone before, but he's never been so aggressive. Maybe because nobody's fought back. And... just…"

"Just what?"

"Just... this is his son. Malfoy. Did you ever imagine as a kid, you'd end up this kind of situation? Or even as an adult? I don't know, there isn't something right about this situation, like there's something big coming... I don't know. Just something. A big wad of negative something."