18. An Afternoon at Potter Place

Sipping from a cup of tea, Lily Potter née Evans sat and watched the softly crackling fire in the stone fireplace, wondering when her life had been reduced to this. Twelve years ago, she'd had plans to go somewhere… be someone. Then she'd forgotten to take her potion on the wrong night and… well, she wouldn't trade Harry, Jasmine, or Rose for anything in the world, but it had put a bit of a crimp on things. Especially when her friendship with Alice Longbottom dissolved; the two had been planning to put Harry and Neville into her mother-in-law Augusta's care since the wizarding world had evidently yet to evolve to the point of having daycare centers, allowing them both to have careers. Then Voldemort had struck, Alice had become a snob with no time for Lily, and a second pregnancy had sealed her fate.

Hmmph. Lily shook her head at the absurdity of the thought. She was acting like she was old and decrepit, rather than a young mother of three. In four months, all of them would be on the train to Hogwarts and she would be off to start her new job with the MacFustys, working on the railroad that supplied their dragon reserve on the Isle of Skye. She'd have holidays off to spend with her children and during the summer… well, they were growing up fast. Harry was already grown, in body if not in mind. She could trust him if not the twins to make sure the house didn't burn down while she was at work each day.

Harry. He was the reason she was sitting here, about to welcome strangers into her home. He was helpful… he was thoughtful… big brothers were supposed to torment their little sisters, not arrange play dates for them. It just wasn't natural. And as guilty as it made her feel, Lily was finding it harder and harder to miss the little prat her real son had been growing into when the older, alternate universe Harry decided to liberate his body for his own use.

Speaking of the impending play date and her strange visitors, at least one of them would be familiar to her. Harry had suggested inviting Cassie Black over to help her make friends with some of the girls she'd be attending school with, while using others as a method of forcing the twins to accept Cassie's presence. Pure brilliance, in Lily's opinion, although she was surprised he was actually sparing Cassie any thought. She wasn't someone he'd known in his old world, Sirius somehow ending up a prisoner of Azkaban and then an outlaw and dying childless, so it wasn't a case akin to Luna or Lara's. Maybe she'd ask when he came home at the end of the year.

The other two, though… she'd met one of them a single time, while the other was a complete mystery to her. Luna Lovegood had been one of the three to send her son a marriage contract, albeit as a trap to lure him over and talk. Lily wasn't sure how she felt about the strange little blonde; the contract incident hadn't endeared her to Lily and their brief meeting at Harry's quidditch match hadn't improved her opinion any. But Harry insisted she'd been a great friend of his - one of only two - in the other world, even if she was a bit left of center, and so Lily felt she should probably start learning to accept Luna's presence.

As for the other girl Harry had recommended visit… Lily had no idea who Lara Ramsay was, apart from being someone else that Harry had known in another life. Lily had sent out Hedwig with an invitation after receiving Harry's letter, the reply coming on a piece of lined paper torn from a spiral-bound notebook and written with blue ink. A muggleborn like her? A half-blood like Harry? Likely the latter, given she was coming by floo, but either way, she was someone Lily knew nothing about.

She really needed to learn to ask Harry more questions, she decided.

The fire flared the beautiful green color characteristic of floo travel and Lily set her cup down as she rose to greet the new arrival. She let out a breath she hadn't even been aware she'd been holding when she took in the ducked head crowned with long, straight brown hair. Cassie. The girl she regarded as her third daughter straightened up, curtsying as she smiled shyly. "Good afternoon, Aunt Lily."

"Cassie. Thank God." Lily hustled over, waving her wand over the girl's black dress to remove the fine layer of soot and ash that she'd acquired in travel. "I know Amy drags… err, I know your mother has you come with her most of the time when she has tea with her friends. Do you know who Lara Ramsay is?"

Cassie shook her head, very carefully seating herself at the table and folding her hands in her lap. "Mother hasn't taken me to a tea party in… almost a year, I think. She says it's for my own good, because she doesn't want me to make friends with girls who will just turn on me when I grow into my powers."

Sighing, Lily turned away to keep her disgust from showing on her face. While she wouldn't tell the Blacks how to raise their child, Lily really didn't know how to feel about Amy projecting her own neuroses onto Cassie. After all, how many friends could a girl possibly make if she was constantly being told that making friends was a waste of time and they'd all betray her in the end? After all, Amy herself had friends these days, so it wasn't impossible for a Veela to have a healthy and normal social life. Lily made up her mind then and there that if today was a success, she'd host daily play dates for an army of strangers if it meant poor Cassie went to Hogwarts with at least one friend.

"Well, I'm sure that…" Lily trailed off as the fire flared again, this time disgorging a black-haired girl who stumbled upon arrival, dropping to her knees and squealing as she skidded across the floor. She came to a halt at Lily's feet, rolling onto her back and blowing her hair out of her eyes. Green eyes, more olive than the emerald that Lily and her son possessed, stared up as the girl smiled and giggled. It was infectious, Lily soon discovered, and she found herself laughing as she offered the poor girl a hand. "Don't use the floo much, I take it?"

Letting Lily hoist her to her feet, Lara looked around curiously as she tucked a shockingly white lock of hair behind her ear. "No, I use the floo plenty. It just hates me every time." Turning her attention from her surroundings to the people in the room with her, she eyed Cassie for a moment before moving on to Lily. "You must be Mrs. Potter. Thanks for inviting me."

Good Lord. And she'd thought the worst time she'd have of deciphering a Scottish accent was that time she'd listened to Professor McGonagall tear into the Marauders for a particularly bad prank in seventh year. Lily gestured to the table and waited until Lara had seated herself beside Cassie before removing the stasis charm protecting the biscuits she'd laid out, another flick of her wand quickly bringing a pot of water to boil so they too could have tea. "Please, call me Lily. Or if you end up visiting a lot, Aunt Lily. Mrs. Potter was my husband's thoroughly unpleasant mother, God rest her soul."

"Oh. Okay, erm, Lily. Nice to meet you." Lara looked over at the floo for a moment before shaking her head and sighing. "I wonder how long Luna's gonna pester Mum about the new wireless phone we just bought. It's really not that interesting if you ask me."

As she served tea to the two girls, preparing a third cup as well for the yet to arrive Luna, Lily looked Lara over. Denim had yet to make its way into the wizarding world and so Lara's jean skirt stood out compared to Cassie's frilly black dress and Lily's own robes. The rest of her was a rather beguiling mix of wizard and muggle as well: she wore glasses with thick purple plastic frames and a rosary made of glossy black beads rested atop a three-quarters sleeve jersey shirt that was purple with gold sleeves, the colors of the Pride of Portree. Flying back and forth across Lara's chest was line art of three figures on brooms and every so often, the three would slam into each other before the lines wriggled and reshaped into the words 'Chasers do it better as a group'. Cute. Lily cast about for something to start a conversation with. "So you have a telephone? Half-blood, I'm guessing, since you like quidditch and have charmed clothes?"

Lara nodded, nibbling on a biscuit as she kept staring over at the fireplace. "Mum's a witch; she's writing a book she's hoping Hogwarts will use for Muggle Studies in a year or two. My pa's a muggle who works at BBC Scotland. He's one of the writers for An Là's sports bits. He wasn't keen on me skipping a day of school to come over, but Mum convinced him it didn't really matter. After all, I'm not going to go any further than primary in the muggle system so my grades don't really matter."

"Much as I hate to admit it, she does have a point. Although if I'd known you had school, I would have offered to have you over this weekend instead. Oh well." Lily joined Lara in watching the floo, wondering where the last member of the group was. "So, how do you know Luna?"

"Our mums went to Hogwarts together, but it's our pas who get along best. Luna's dad owns _The Quibbler_ and mine works for the Beeb, so they love to blather about their work. As for Luna, I'm the only one who'll put up with her insanity and she's the only witch I know who can understand me, so we're stuck with each other. I wasn't so sure about this, but she told me it would be fun and Mum promised to bail me out of school for the day if I agreed, so here I am." Sighing, Lara rose and smoothed her skirt down as she stomped over to the fireplace. "Oh, for the love of God. Right then, I'll go through and fetch her before Mum ends up silencing her and tossing her through the floo herself." Grabbing a handful of floo powder from the pot atop the mantle, she hurled it into the orange flames. "The… oomph!"

A colorful missile erupted from the roaring green flames, plowing into Lara and sending the pair of them sprawling back onto the floor. Lily snorted in laughter and then gaped at the stream of obscenities that began to emerge from Lara's mouth. After so many years among the more uptight wizarding world, she'd become unused to such casual profanity and felt herself blushing as Lara continued to express her displeasure with being mowed down by the new arrival. And… was that even anatomically possible?

After a few moments of struggling, the two girls got themselves sorted out and Lara hopped to her feet again, yanking Luna upright beside her. "Really, Lara, what would your mum say if she heard you saying things like that?"

"She'd mutter about whether or not letting me learn to cook from Uncle Gordon was worth the bad habits that rubbed off on me, and then she'd forgive me a few hours later after I made her dinner because she was too wrapped up in writing to keep track of time?"

"True, true." The two girls chuckled before turning to Lily, the older woman's jaw dropping as she took in her newest visitor. Luna looked like… well, a crazier version of her. Well, a crazier and younger version. Some time between their time together in the stands at the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff game and today, Luna had acquired hair the same shade of red as her own. Thankfully that was the extent of the change; she still had the same slightly vacant-looking silver eyes and the necklace made of butterbeer corks Lily had seen her wear to the game. Her attire didn't make her any more normal-looking: a simple summer dress with a pair of trousers under it, both made of a fabric that displayed a constantly swirling mix of bright colors. It was enough to make one vomit… and Lily wondered why she'd never seen Dumbledore wearing something made of it. "Hullo, Mrs. Potter. Did you know you look just like me? Except a bit older and less fashionable? Don't worry, we can have you fixed up in a jiffy. Well, except for the old part. Mum's still trying to track down the Fountain of Youth so my dad can write about it for _The Quibbler_…"

Letting her hand drift down, Lily brushed her fingers over her wand. Must… not… silence… obnoxious… child…

Taking to the air, Jasmine circled the pitch a few times before descending to hover beside the mysterious girl who'd shown up at her house for this little play date her mother and brother had arranged. When she and Rose had come downstairs, it'd been to find Luna humming quietly to herself as she served herself tea, Lara snickering, Cassie sitting so still the twins had initially thought her petrified, and their mother glaring at Luna so intensely that if looks could kill, the young redhead would be six feet under. "So what did you do to piss my mother off like that?"

Luna shrugged and smiled innocently as she tinkered with some knobs near the head of her broom. It was supposedly a homemade broomstick her mother had come up with and Jasmine was willing to believe her. After all, who would pay money for something this odd? It looked utterly bizarre, the shaft crooked and twisting, terminating in an utterly disorganized mass of bristles that were… belching blue smoke? "I just told her that she looked like me. Except older and less fashionable. The first one is definitely true; she's the same age as my mum and my mum is older than me. And the second is true too. After all, I've been informed that wearing all one color is quite unfashionable and your mum was wearing all green."

"And wearing every color known to wizardkind all at once is any better?" Jasmine was hoping she didn't come off as mean; she was merely curious as to how Luna's mind worked. After all, she couldn't afford to alienate her fellow redhead: out of the other four girls currently on the property, Luna was the only one willing to mount a broom and play catch with her out on the quidditch pitch. Although… since when was Luna a redhead? Hadn't she been a blonde at the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match? An almost Malfoy-esque blonde? "Not to mention this whole dress and trousers thing you have going…"

Rolling her broom so she hung upside-down beside Jasmine, Luna looked up at her hips and then over at her new friend. "Well, if I did this in just a dress, I'd be showing the world a bit more than I want to. But wearing just trousers isn't ladylike, according to… well, everyone. So why not wear both? And if all one color is unfashionable, then logically wearing all colors has to be the most fashionable option, no?"

Jasmine blinked. Luna had a point there. An odd, probably illogical despite her claims of logic, point, but a point nonetheless. "I guess that makes sense. Still, I think I'll stick to only two or three colors. Red and gold. Or maybe black, red, and gold."

"Ahh. You're hoping to be in your brother's house when you get to Hogwarts?" Luna's broom accelerated as she pulled away, still trailing a bit of blue smoke from her bristles as she rocketed away down the length of the pitch. Rising as she went, Luna shot through the center ring before diving towards the earth, winding her way around the pole before pulling up inches from the ground and racing back over to Jasmine. Pulling up beside the gobsmacked Jasmine, she grinned. "Or is it another Gryffindor quidditch player you're hoping to spend six years with?"

"Bloody hell, can you teach me how to fly like that? Hermione would definitely notice me if…" Jasmine realized what she'd just admitted to and abruptly closed her mouth, blushing fiercely. Except Luna had already made a reference to that herself. Sweet Merlin, was there anybody who wasn't aware of her crush? "Am I that obvious?"

Luna's silver eyes bored into hers and Jasmine shivered; the girl really needed to blink before September 1st or she was going to be creeping a whole lot of people out. It felt like Luna was staring straight into her soul. "Well, a piece of advice? If you don't want it to be known, you should learn to deny it when someone else brings it up. And perhaps not admit it yourself." Floating over to the crate that held the pitch's set of balls, Luna tilted to one side and grabbed the quaffle. "That, and Harry and Daphne were talking about it when they thought I was asleep. Although in his defense, I am a very good faker."

Oh. Great. So wait a minute, if Harry had been discussing it with his friends, did that mean he'd talked to Hermione about her? Then again, it wasn't like Hermione didn't know. After that whole embarrassing kiss situation back in January, there was no chance she didn't. Still, she'd have to punch her brother when he got home from school. Even if Hermione knew, that didn't mean the rest of the world needed to know too. "So can you help me learn how to fly like you? My dad flies really well, but he's really busy these days and my mom flies about as well as a brick. Actually, a brick flies in a straight line if you throw it…"

"I guess. Never played quidditch before, though, so I don't know how much help I'm going to be there." Luna looked down at the red quaffle in her hand, brow furrowing, before hurling it at Jasmine. "Although if all it takes is throwing a ball through some rings… how hard can it be?"

Jasmine caught the ball, clenching her thighs tighter around her broomstick as she wobbled a bit. "Well, there is the fact you're moving and throwing, plus the wind. And three other chasers, a keeper, and two bludgers. It's harder than it looks." Whipping through a quick turn, Jasmine scowled as her long red hair whipped around her head, tugging at her scalp and then slapping at her face. "Gahh! How do girls play like this?"

Chuckling, Luna raced past, keeping one hand on the handle of her broom as she rolled upside down and batted the ball out of Jasmine's hands, taking advantage of her distraction. "I believe it's called a braid." To quote her mother, 'Thank you, Obvious Girl'. Luna dove and caught the ball, floating back up to Jasmine's level and spinning it as she balanced it atop the tip of her index finger. "Or we could cut it."

"That…" Jasmine reached up, fingering the long red locks she'd been growing out for as long as she could remember. Just like her sister. Rose. Hmm. They'd probably be going into the same house when they got to Hogwarts, since they were so similar. Did she really want to have an identical twin who was so identical that people would mix them up, like those awful Weasley twins she'd met when the family took Harry to King's Cross in September? So if it helped people tell her and Rose apart and helped her on the pitch… how could she possibly lose? "…sounds like a great idea! Hmm. Do you know what Gwenog Jones looks like?" Luna nodded. "How do you think I'd look with her haircut? Except in red, obviously?"

Luna drifted closer, tossing the quaffle to Jasmine. Jasmine grunted as it smacked into her chest but caught it before it fell to earth, throwing it back to Luna and pouting when the other girl caught it easily with one hand, pulling it in to tuck it against her body. No fair. The girl who didn't seem to have any real interest in it had better skills than she did? "Could work. Come on, let's get inside and try it, then come back out and play once you have more suitable hair. What's the worst that can happen?"

Wincing, Jasmine followed Luna as her fellow redhead descended to the ground. Famous last words, those were.

"So Cassie, you're one of those… Vellum things?"

"Veela. And I'm only half. My mother's a Veela and my father is a wizard. It makes me a half-breed, rather like how you're a half-blood."

"Ah. So, how long until this aura thing of yours is supposed to kick in. Because we've been sitting here talking for at least half an hour, and I still don't think you're pretty." Lara paused and pondered her words for a moment before offering a revised version. "I mean, you're pretty and all in an 'ooh, isn't that lamp pretty' way but not in the 'trip over myself and do stupid things to impress you' way you mentioned."

That made Rose chuckle as she looked up from the bottle of blood red muggle nail polish Lara had brought with her. She had to admit, the stuff smelled truly foul and took time to dry but really, how easy could it be to point a wand accurately at one's own fingertips? Especially when it came time to color the nails on her dominant hand? Even if she was a Potter, there were some muggle conveniences that she was definitely going to stick to no matter what her pureblood peers at Hogwarts said. Besides, going through all the different colors Lara owned to help each other pick out the perfect color had been fun. "Lara, you do realize you're a girl, right? And that Cassie's a girl?" Lara nodded. "The aura is a mating thing, so why would you be affected?" Left unsaid were her own ponderings as to whether Jasmine would be affected or not due to her leanings. "At any rate, she's too young. It probably won't even show up until next summer or so."

Lara scowled and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. "Well I didn't know that, did I? She was all going on about girls ending up hating her because of it. I thought maybe you lot were uptight about that sort of thing and so the aura would make girls find her pretty in the wrong sort of way and then hate her for making them feel tha… stop laughing! It made sense in my head!"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh. After all, we know more about magic but if we ever visit the muggle world, you'll have one up on us." Although with how obsessed Lara was with the Pride of Portree, she obviously had some exposure to the wizarding world. Just the same priorities as Jasmine, Rose assumed: sports, sports, and sports. "But no, most witches generally end up disliking Veela because they get jealous. Even my dad can't help himself from staring at Cassie's mum sometimes, and he's had years and years to get used to her."

Voices in the hall disrupted their conversation and the trio watched as Luna led a considerably shorter-haired Jasmine past. Rose and Cassie's jaws dropped, leaving Lara the only one capable of commenting. "Heh. I guess you're not completely identical anymore."

Launching herself to her feet, Rose dashed out of her room and down the hall in pursuit of Luna and Jasmine. "Hey!" The redheads looked back at her, Jasmine's eyes widening as she tugged at Luna's hand, trying to get away. "Oh no you don't!" Rose wrapped her hand around Jasmine's other wrist and Luna surrendered her grip, allowing Rose to pull her sister into Harry's room, closing the door behind them. "What the bloody hell did you do to yourself? Dad's going to be furious!"

Jasmine sniffed, tossing her head and making it very obvious that something had changed. After all, when Rose made that same move, a curtain of red hair shifted behind her. Now, Jasmine had short red locks that barely even reached her chin. "And Mum will support me. She's a modern witch, after all. I just wanted to try a new look before we started school this fall. Don't worry, it's not your fault I'm maturing faster. After all, I am the older twin."

"By ten minutes." Nine minutes before midnight on June 6th for one of them, one minute after midnight for the other, and Jasmine treated it like a multi-year gap. Rose rolled her eyes. "And is it school, or someone at school that you want to look different for?"

Yanking her arm out of Rose's grip, Jasmine huffed and stomped out the door. "If you don't know what you're talking about, don't open your mouth, Rose. You'll just embarrass yourself. If it's that important to you, my hair was giving me problems when I flew. That's why I cut it. Nothing more, nothing less."

Rose snorted. She'd watched her sister plant one on Hermione in the kitchen, not to mention Jasmine ignoring their own brother to cheer for the muggleborn keeper at the last quidditch match they attended at Hogwarts. So even if it wasn't directly Hermione-related, it was by association: Jasmine wanted it for quidditch, which she only was interested in playing as a way of attracting Hermione's attention. Same difference.

Shaking her head in disgust, Rose turned and walked back to her room. Her initial spike of dismay at her sister's radical attempt to differentiate them was rapidly fading, being replaced by annoyance. Maybe the haircut was for the best. If her sister was going to be so incredibly crass in her pursuit of someone, Rose really didn't want to be associated with her when they got to Hogwarts. Honestly. Wasn't that why they'd spent the last year or two alternating between ignoring and ridiculing Cassie? Her awkward, obvious, and unwanted crush on their brother?

Well screw her then. Who cared if they'd done everything together for the last ten years? If Jasmine wanted to go out of her way to strike it out on her own, Rose could do likewise. Besides, Rose knew that people would undoubtedly find her the lesser of the twins if she tried to hang out with the same people as her sister. She was the quiet, bookish one who only had a minimal interest in a sport that involved watching people try to kill each other while throwing balls through hoops, Merlin forbid. Going by her mother's stories of Hogwarts, though, that was a pretty sure path to semi-outcast status. Oh well. She'd just have to have a few close friends that she really liked, then, instead of being part of the herd of sheep.

When she entered her room, Cassie and Lara were still scrambling to return to their spots on the floor and Rose sighed. "You heard that, didn't you?" They both nodded. "Fabulous. Lara, as you probably gather, my sister likes girls. Or rather, she's being obnoxiously obvious about liking a particular girl, which is causing a bit of a problem at the moment. Some wizards and witches are against that sort of thing, but it doesn't really matter to me. It's just annoying to watch someone…" She paused to glance at Cassie here before returning her attention to Lara. "…insist on being very obvious about a crush when the other person doesn't seem to care about them. A little subtlety would be nice, you know? At least with her new hair, people won't mistake her for me when she does something stupid."

"Oh. Hmm. Well, as long as she doesn't crush on me, I don't see a problem." Lara blew on her nails, every other one painted a purple to match her shirt and glasses. Sitting in front of her was a bottle of gold nail polish, ready to fill in the gaps. Wow. Someone was taking their Pride of Portree obsession a little bit too far. After all, she and Jasmine supported the Holyhead Harpies but they didn't walk around with green everything. "So, who's the girl that your sister likes and what's the problem with her?"

Rose crawled over to her nightstand and retrieved the letter she'd received from Harry, begging her to tolerate Cassie's presence and go along with the afternoon he and their mother had arranged. Opening the envelope, she pulled out a wizard photograph and handed it to Lara. "The girl with brown hair punching the boy is Hermione. The boy is my brother Harry, the one Luna tried to marry. The problem is that they're best friends. Crushing on your brother's friend can't end well. And I'm not even sure Hermione likes other girls, which means Jasmine's just making herself look stupid. And since before today, most people couldn't tell us apart, making me look stupid too."

Nodding, Lara grinned as she peeked up over the top of the photo. "You know, your brother's kind of cute. And right handy with a wand, from what I hear. As long as we don't end up being best friends, it's not weird, right?"

"No, but you'd need to get in line." Counting on her fingers, Rose listed off the girls she'd seen mentioned in the letters Harry wrote home to their mother. "There's Daphne Greengrass, the Greengrass heiress, and a girl who… Harry writes Li Su but calls her Su and so I don't know what's going on there. He and Hermione are really close, too, so Jasmine might be crushing on someone who has a crush on her own brother. Then there's Luna…" Cassie let out a little growl as Rose went on, clenching her fist before opening it to reveal a small ball of fire. "…and Cassie."

"Huh. Sounds like quite a crowd. Think I'll look elsewhere."

"Good idea."

One hand resting on Narcissa's thigh under the table, Lily took a bite of her pizza and surveyed the odd group around her kitchen table. The newly made over Jasmine - and boy was James going to shit bricks when he saw his daughter's new hairstyle - and Luna formed one clique with Luna, Lara, and Cassie all serving as a buffer zone between Jasmine and her twin. Rose had apparently found someone who, if not matching the intellect she'd inherited from her mother, was close enough for her tastes and she and Lara were talking back and forth across Cassie with the half-Veela occasionally tossing in her opinion.

While she wasn't sure what Harry had intended to result from this little gathering, Lily was happy with the outcome. Jasmine seemed to have someone - other than her obsession - who she could talk to about quidditch, Rose had at lease one friend who enjoyed intellectual pursuits, Cassie had friends period… if there was a way the day could have gone better, Lily couldn't think of it.

Well, the little argument between her two daughters she could have done without, but they were growing up and apparently apart, so she supposed that sort of thing was to be expected. Looking over at Narcissa, she pouted. Lucky woman only had to deal with one child, and one that stuck to her husband's arse at that.

On the subject of a husband who was an arse… Lily brought her hand up to rest on the table as the fireplace flared green and two red-cloaked figures emerged. "James. And…" She studied the slim, black-haired teenager standing beside her husband. "I'm sorry, I don't think we've met."

"Nymphadora, darling. I haven't seen you in ages." Leaning forward, Narcissa offered a smile that reminded Lily of a hungry shark. "How are your parents these days?"

Stepping forward, the girl's hair abruptly shortened and shifted into a mass of angry red spikes. A metamorphmagus. A rare and fascinating talent, although Lily had a feeling she wouldn't have a chance to chat with Nymphadora about her ability. "Don't call me Nymphadora. I hate that name. It's Tonks. You know, as in the muggleborn my mother got disowned for marrying?"

Narcissa only chuckled at the display. "And meetings like this make my heart break, knowing that a girl as delightful as you isn't considered part of the family." Turning to Lily, she gestured to the fuming metamorph. "This is my niece, Nymphadora Tonks. Her mother Andromeda is my older sister." As Lily digested that, the blonde turned to Cassie. "Cassie, Nymphadora here is your second cousin."

"Yes, and Cassie is my first cousin twice removed through Dorea Black." Rolling his eyes, James gestured to the stove. "Now that we're done establishing who goes where on the Black family tree… what's for dinner, Lily?"

Lily arched a brow; did her husband need his prescription checked? She pointed at the table, where two pizza boxes were open and a few slices remained. Between the two, there was enough pizza left for a person or two to make a meal. "You're looking at it. Might want to grab some before Jasmine and Luna polish it off."

Turning away in disgust, James took a handful of floo powder from above the fireplace and pitched it into the flames. "I came home hoping for real food. If I wanted muggle pizza, we could have ordered that from the Ministry and eaten while we did our post-shift paperwork. Dora, fix your hair. The Leaky Cauldron!"

Whirling, James disappeared through the floo and, after restoring her hair to its original long black look, 'Dora' followed after him. "Well that was interesting." Lily looked over at Narcissa, who shook her head before nodding towards the girls. "Later."

Oh. That was rather ominous sounding.