SATURDAY, 16 JUNE 2013

"That one's a dragon!"

"Hardly. Looks more like a duck."

"Noooo, it's a dragon! See the tail?"

"Duck eggs, clearly. They don't even join up."

She rolled over, propping herself on her grandfather's chest, laughing down at his sour looking expression.

"It's not a duck, you're just silly, Grandfather."

He smiled at her, running a hand over her long red hair. "Perhaps. But not as silly as Lily."

She laughed again, wrapping her arms around him as he sat up, lifting her as he went. He groaned slightly as he pulled himself to his feet on the trunk of the oak tree with his granddaughter hanging onto his neck, feeling his joints popping and cracking, protesting after laying on damp grass for nearly an hour. She was really getting too big now to be carried around in such a fashion (or maybe he was just getting too old).

"Your mother probably has lunch ready, if those brothers of yours haven't upended the whole place in the meantime. We'd better head back."

"Oh I don't think James will try anything today after yesterday. Mummy made him clean out the chicken coops after he crashed her broom at Grandma and Grandpa's yesterday. I think Daddy thought it was funny, though. But James got pecked, even. I don't think the chickens like him anymore after he tried to bring one home and hide it in Al's room that one time."

"Hm. I still think your daddy may have made a mistaken when he chose that name for your brother. The two worst troublemakers Hogwarts ever knew. Well, second worst, perhaps, after your uncle George and his twin..." Severus shook his head in mock horror.

In truth, it had bothered him immensely at first, when Harry had informed him of his firstborn's name. But in the end, despite his lingering enmity for the original owners of the names, even he had to admit that the two men had both died trying to protect Harry, and had died defying Voldemort, as Harry repeatedly pointed out. He was only marginally less horrified at his son's choices for his second grandson, his own re-purposed as the boy's middle name, which seemed an inordinately cruel punishment for the child.

Well, he'd learned to live with Harry's absurd sentimentality over the years. At least his Lily Luna had fared well.

"You'll have him in class next year, right?"

"No, not in class, at least not until he's a bit older, although I will certainly be seeing more of him."

And certainly keeping a keen eye out for the child, although the lad would probably end up in Gryffindor and be a problem for Longbottom to deal with, as the child's head of house. Between the two of them, and the Headmistress, they just might be able to keep James from getting himself killed.

author's note:

Yes, he loves all his grandchildren, even the ones with silly names. He's just one of those crotchety, grumpy grandfathers (the sort who tell all the really fun, utterly non-age-appropriate bedtime stories).