Accidental Magic.

Hermione had been on edge all day as her children had done nothing but bicker. Technically it was Scorpius doing the bickering, but his little sister was a devil and was constantly annoying her brother. Five year old Scorpius was building a castle with his building toys, but three year old Lyra kept knocking parts of it over.

"Mum, make her stop," Scorpius cried as Lyra 'accidentally' knocked over his tower for the third time in half an hour.

"Lyra, come up here," Hermione said to her daughter, patting the sofa next to where she was sitting.

"No." Lyra shook her little head stubbornly. "I'm playing with Scorp."

"I don't want you to play with me," Scorpius hissed.

Lyra just giggled in response to her brother's anger. Getting to her feet, she headed over to the other side of the room, knocking down yet more of her brother's castle as she went. Scorpius turned bright red at the destruction his sister was causing, but before he had a chance to shout some more his mother swooped into action and picked Lyra up.

"Come and read with me, princess," Hermione said to her daughter as she settled Lyra on her knee. "Let's leave your brother to play in peace."

"I don't want to read," Lyra whined.

"I'm not letting you back down to knock your brothers toys over again," Hermione replied. "You have to learn how to play nicely, Lyra."

"I was playing nice," Lyra argued with a pout.

"Knocking over Scorpius's castle, isn't nice," Hermione said sternly. "Until I'm sure you can behave yourself, you're staying up here with me."

Lyra let out a dramatic sigh, but she made no attempt to move off her mother's knee. Hermione smiled at her daughter and gave her a quick kiss on the head as she summoned a storybook to read.

"Good girl," She said as she opened the book and began to read to Lyra.

Ten minutes later, peace reigned in the Malfoy residence. Scorpius was happily putting the finishing touches to his castle, while Lyra was happily settled on her mother's knee as Hermione read to her. Just as Hermione reached the end of her page and was about to turn over, the doorbell rang. Even though she wasn't expecting anyone, Hermione knew their friends sometimes visited via the front door rather than using the floo.

"Scorpius, look after your sister," Hermione said as she sat Lyra down on the sofa with her book. "I'll be two minutes."

Leaving her children in the front room, Hermione went to answer the door. Instead of finding one of her friends at the door, Hermione came face to face with the witch who ran the shop in the nearby village. Hermione was a regular visitor to the shop and had in fact been down in the village that morning with Scorpius and Lyra.

"Mrs Koppel, how can I help you?" Hermione asked with a smile.

"Your daughter dropped this when you were at the shop earlier," Mrs Koppel replied, handing Hermione a small purse with a few Knuts inside. "We didn't spot it until you'd left, but it has Lyra's name inside."

"Thank you very much," Hermione said. The purse with the Knuts had been a present from Lucius, and Lyra insisted on taking it everywhere in case she saw something she wanted to buy with her money from her grandfather. "I didn't even realise it was gone. It must have fallen out of Lyra's backpack."

Thanking Mrs Koppel again, Hermione said goodbye and shut the front door. Hermione had just placed the purse on the table in the front hall when a loud crash sounded from the front room.

"Lyra!" Scorpius screamed at the top of his voice.

Shaking her head, Hermione headed into the front room to see what had happened now. Considering the crashing noise she wasn't at all surprised to find a portion of Scorpius's tower had been knocked over. What she didn't expect to find was a stunned looking Scorpius standing amidst the chaos, while a giggling Lyra was perched on top of the large wooden bookcase that ran from the floor almost up to the ceiling.

"What on earth happened?" Hermione questioned as she hurried into the room and pulled out her wand. Carefully she levitated her daughter from the top of the bookshelf and into her arms. "How on earth did Lyra end up on top of the bookcase?"

"I'm sorry," Scorpius whispered. "It was an accident, I didn't mean to do it."

"Of course you didn't, sweetheart," Hermione soothed, instantly releasing what had happened. Scorpius had been so mad at Lyra destroying his castle again, it must have manifested itself in a display of accidental magic.

"I'm sorry Lyra," Scorpius sniffed. He knew he'd put his little sister in danger by losing control of his magic, but he hadn't been able to help himself.

"It's okay darling, no-one was hurt," Hermione said as she gave her son a hug. "I know you didn't mean to put your sister on top of the bookcase. But you are going to have to try and learn to control your magic."

"I know." Scorpius nodded. He attended a school for young wizards and they were learning about controlling their magic, but since his magic only ever appeared occasionally, Scorpius was finding it quite difficult to manage.

"Don't worry Scorp," Hermione said to her worried son. "When your Dad comes home, he can teach you a few tricks. When he was little, he couldn't control his magic either."

"Could you?" Scorpius asked his mother with interest.

"No, but I didn't know I had magic when I was little," Hermione replied. "Odd things used to happen to me, but I didn't know what it was. But your Dad always knew he had magic, so he'll have a few tricks to help you control yours."

Scorpius didn't look entirely convinced, but luckily when Draco arrived home an hour later, he had plenty of advice for his son. After talking to Draco for half an hour and hearing some of the stories about his father's accidental magic, Scorpius felt a lot better about his magical outburst. Lyra meanwhile was unconcerned by the entire incident, and in fact kept asking when she could sit on top of the bookcase again.