Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Harry Potter series and any of the characters. All credit goes to my hero, the wonderful J.K. Rowling! :D

Spov

The rest of the term passed quickly and before I knew it, Hallie and I had said goodbye to Remus, Alice, Peter, Lily, and James on the train, and were now walking through the platform at Kings Cross station looking for her family.

On the ride back to London, she'd given me a brief overview of who in her family I was most likely to meet, which really meant who to look out for. She hadn't been joking when she said they were extremely over protective of her. She'd told me some of the things they'd done, and those muggle ex boyfriends she'd mentioned in the past, were now too afraid to talk to her.

First was her father, John Benson. He was a retired athlete who played keeper for her family's favorite sports team and now coached football at the University of London.

Next was Adam. He too played professional football for Chelsea, as something called a full back, whatever that meant, and was married to a woman named Alyssa who he'd apparently met as his physical therapist after sustaining a sports related injury. They'd started dating soon after he recovered and were married after about two years. They had a little girl who, like Hallie, was named Katie after their mother and was two years old. They'd nicknamed her Junior so nobody would get confused with having two Katies.

"Adam is ok." She'd said thoughtfully. "A few years ago he might have beaten you up just for looking at me. But he's relaxed a bit since he's met Alyssa. So I don't think you'll need to worry about him. Not unless you do or say something really stupid."

Then there were Sampson and Kohl who were Irish twins. They were both in their final year at the University of London, playing on the team their father coached. Neither of them had girlfriends.

"They're a lot like you and James." She'd said amused. "They constantly get into troubled together, and girls are always after them. But like you they can't seem to choose so they just date them all. Be careful around them though. They like to pull pranks, and I'm guessing over the break you'll be their main target. You might want to keep an eye on your things."

Last was Mason. He was the second youngest from the way she spoke about him, I could tell he was the brother to which she was closest. He was the only brother to quit playing football at the age of 16 in order to focus on music, which is what he was studying in his second year at a school she called NYU in the United States. Apparently he was crazy in love with his girlfriend whom he'd met at school, and was living with her in an apartment in New York.

"He won't bother you." She assured me. "Just get him talking about the influence of the Beatles on modern day society and nod your head every so often as he speaks. He likes anyone who'll put up with his stories."

I continued to mentally list their names as we passed through the magical barrier and we heard someone shout.

"Katie!"

Hallie turned and smiled. I looked over to see five figures, waving towards her.

"C'mon." She said happily dragging me towards her family.

"Good to have you back." Said the tallest of them, who I could only assume was her father, as he pulled her into a hug. He was a broad shouldered man, with short, military cut blond hair and dark brown eyes that were looking at me not unkindly but with a certain authority all the same. Hallie had told me that he wasn't nearly as protective of her as her brothers, and I could see that now as they were all glowering at me, but he was still her father.

"You must be Sirius." He said as he let her go and extended a hand which I shook. "It's good to meet you, Kate's told us a lot about you."

"Has she?" I said surprised and looking down at Hallie who was looking distinctly embarrassed. It was weird to hear Hallie referred to as Kate, but I guess that was her real name.

"Not that much." She muttered. "Anyways, Sirius these are my brothers." She said gesturing towards the unfriendly looking lot. "That's Adam." She said gesturing towards the second tallest of the group. He looked much like their father with the same authoritative dark eyes, and similarly cut hair, but it was brown like Hallie's.

"That's Sampson and Kohl." She said gesturing towards the two next to Adam. Both boys were blonde with thinner faces than Mr. Benson and Adam. The one on the left, Sampson, had brown eyes while the one on the right, Kohl, had eyes the exact same color blue as Hallie.

"And that's Mason." Hallie finished.

She pointed to the shortest of the boys. Out of all Hallie's brothers, Mason looked the most like her. He too had inherited the brown hair and blue eyes, but unlike his brothers, he wasn't built like an athlete. He was still tall but on the slighter side. He didn't have a strong frame like the rest of the boys, or the air of someone who spent much time working out.

"Nice to meet you all." I said shaking each of their hands in turn.

"Yeah." Sampson said grinning evilly and his sentence was finished by Kohl. "We'll see how long you'll be saying that."

"Get out of it." Hallie muttered rolling her eyes.

"Katie's right boys. Sirius is our guest." Their father said sternly. "And will be treated as such."

"Sure thing Dad." Sampson said innocently.

"Of course." Kohl agreed, but with a smile that I recognized. It was the same sort of smile James wore when we planned a surprise prank on the Slytherins or when he'd just gotten the better of Snape.

"Keep your door locked when you sleep." Hallie warned me quietly and we all made our way towards the parking lot.

It took about an hour and a half to get to Hallie's house, she didn't live in the city, but closer to the countryside. She was right about her family being a little crazy. They'd given up on interrogating me a while ago. I knew very little about the muggle world, and they knew less about the wizarding one so they had no idea what to ask me. Even if they did come up with a question, I didn't really know how to answer. So instead they'd taken to blasting the radio, and when they weren't fighting over who got to choose the station, they were shouting along to the lyrics of the muggle music.

They played ridiculous car games, which Hallie was apparently very good at, with complicated rules that involved a series of hand gestures and code words when they saw certain cars or buildings. The loser, Sampson this time, was forced to choose between a smack in the back of the head from everyone who was playing when the ride was over, or sitting alone in the car, with his seatbelt still on for an hour after everyone had already gotten out.

"Blimey Mase." He said rubbing the back of his head while Mason laughed and we exited the vehicle. "Are you trying to give me a concussion?"

Her house was the only one you could see when we pulled into the drive. It was big and white with lots of windows and I understood why she'd seemed so at home in the forest a few weeks ago. There was a forest literally in her back yard.

Snow had started to fall, making the place look like a Christmas card. It was very different from where I grew up. Between her obviously close knit family and all the open space, I had to admit I was a little jealous of her childhood. They seemed like a group of people who knew how to have fun.

"Ok Kate." Mr. Benson said as we dragged our trunk through the front door and into the main hall. "You can give Sirius the tour, show him where he's sleeping. You know the rules."

"I know Dad." She said rolling her eyes. "Doors open at all times and no going into each others bedrooms after nine."

"That's right." He said then turned to Adam who was watching me. "When is Alyssa and Junior going to be here?"

"They'll be here for dinner." He said looking away from me and at his father.

"Are you staying the night?" Hallie asked hopefully.

"No I think we're going to head back home. We've got to wake up early to visit the in laws tomorrow, we will on Christmas though."

"Alright." She said looking happy then turned to me. "C'mon I'll show you to your room."

"Just don't get any ideas." Kohl said frowning and narrowing his eyes at me.

"Yeah we'll be watching you." Sampson said darkly.

Mason didn't say anything, he was looking at me with a strange expression, rather like the expression Hallie got when she was assessing someone in the hospital wing. Calculated, but intrigued. He caught her eye and I had a feeling that she shot him a warning look because suddenly he shrugged and walked out of the room.

"You'll be upstairs." She said grabbing her trunk again and walking down the hall. She showed me to the stairs as her brothers made their ways to various locations around the house.

"Katie!" one of them shouted. "We're going turkey bowling tonight, make sure you put on running shoes."

"What?" I asked in confusion.

"It's kind of a tradition." She said grinning. "I'll explain later."

"Alright then." I said curiously following her up the steps but then stopped when I spotted a picture of her and a boy who looked to be in his twenties, with his arm around her.

"Who's this?" I asked frowning and she looked over her shoulder at the picture.

"That's my Mum." She said quietly. "That was taken just after she'd gotten engaged to my Dad."

I blinked and looked again. Now that she had said it, the girl in the picture looked older than Hallie, and the ring that was always on Hallie's necklace, she wore on her left ring finger. But aside from this, and a few very slight differences, you could hardly tell the two apart.

"Oh." Was all I could think to say.

"Your room is up here." She said starting back up the steps. "Farthest down the hall on the left."

Her voice grew quieter as she got farther up the stairs but I didn't follow her. I continued to look at the picture. Her father looked much different, which was to be expected considering this must have been taken over twenty five years ago, but there was something more than age difference in his eyes. He had the same goofy expression and happiness in his eyes that James exhibited whenever Lily was around. I'd come to associate it with guys who'd let them self fall hopelessly in love, and suddenly it made sense why Mr. Benson had never remarried. Katie looked happy too and more relaxed than I'd ever seen Hallie, as if all her cares in the world had vanished now that she was with her fiancé. That being said, there was no question that Hallie really did look exactly like her mother.

"Are you coming?" Hallie asked me, her head poking out from over the landing and staring down at me.

"Yeah." I said grabbing my trunk again and dragging it up the stairs.

"What were you doing?" she asked curiously leading me down the hallway.

"Nothing," I said as we entered a decent sized guest room with pale blue walls, a desk in the corner, and a bed next to the window which had a spectacular view of the snow covered woods behind the house. "I was just thinking."

"About what?" she asked sitting on the bed and looking at me.

"What's turkey bowling?" I asked my brain scrambling for the first thing it could think of and she smiled.

"Oh it's lots of fun." She said. "I think you'll like it."

Hpov

I wasn't too worried about Sirius getting along with my brothers. As hostile as they had started out, he hadn't seemed afraid of them, which was something they'd never experienced before. I was pretty sure they didn't know how to deal with it.

As always he was funny, charismatic and seemed to have the ability to make anyone like him. In fact the moment Alyssa, who'd I taken to seeing as a newly adopted sister after Adam's wedding, had seen him, she'd given me a significant look and said "He's cute Kate," when she knew no one else could hear. Her opinion of him only improved as the evening went on, especially when she saw how good he was with Katie Junior. Junior absolutely adored Sirius, who was apparently very good with kids. Usually a very shy child, by the end of the night she was constantly waddling over to him and playing her favorite games like peekaboo and giggling delightedly as he told her about Hogwarts and magic. Any traces of doubt that he and my family wouldn't get along had vanished over dinner and that certainty was reaffirmed when we'd gone to the super market.

"So what are we doing exactly?" Sirius asked as I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no store workers were looking. It was eleven at night and so far the only employee we'd seen was a sleepy looking clerk at the checkout.

"We're good." I said grinning at Mason who was holding an enormous frozen turkey in it's wrapping as Sampson and Kohl set up the liters of soda at the top of the aisle. Adam wasn't with us, he'd gone home with his family after saying that now that he was a father, Turkey Bowling was a little too "immature" of an activity for him to be doing, but that was his loss.

"Sirius have you ever been bowling before?" Mason asked.

"No."

"The object of the game is to roll the bowling ball down the lane and knock over all the pins." I said grinning. "But in this case, the turkey is the ball, and the soda are the pins."

"And the store just let's you do this?" he asked looking surprised.

"Not exactly." I said grinning. "That's why we're here so late. There's less people."

The Sampson gave Mason the thumbs up and he took his stance, then swung his arm back and let the turkey fly down the aisle. It crashed into the bottles of soda knocking four of them down.

"Pathetic." I muttered and Mason shot me a look.

"Don't give me that Kate, you're even worse at this than I am."

"Can I try?" Sirius asked grinning.

"Sure." We said in unison while Kohl brought back the turkey and Sampson reset the pins.

"Hold on a second." I said glancing back at the clerk who hadn't heard anything through his headphones connected to the tape player on his belt. "Alright go ahead."

Sirius grinned and took the turkey, aimed, then rolled it down the aisle. We all watched in amazement as all ten bottles were knocked over.

"That's good right?" he asked.

"That's awesome!" Kohl said looking at Sirius a little taken back. "Are you sure you've never done this before?"

Mason went to retrieve the turkey and help Sampson set up the pins.

We continued to take turns over the next fifteen minutes, and to all of our surprise, Sirius was kicking our ass.

"Are you good at everything?" I asked him after his fourth strike.

"Sort of." He said amused while Sampson took his turn.

The turkey collided into the bottles yet again, but this time, one of them took a funny turn and spiraled towards one of the shelves. It's fizzy contents pressurized from all the shaking, the second it smacked into the solid surface, the cap shot off the bottle.

"Uh oh." Mason said as the bottle, propelled by spraying soda, rocketed down the aisle and slammed into a display of pickle jars knocking them over and causing them to smash with an ear splitting racket.

"What the hell?" the clerk asked in alarm while taking off his headphones. "What are you kids doing?"

His eyes went wide as he took in the mess of shattered glass and pickle juice that had covered the floor, then our five guilty faces.

"Every Benson for themselves!" Kohl shouted as the clerk started running towards us.

"What?" Sirius asked.

"Run!" I shouted as we all sprinted towards the exit and made our way towards the car.

"Sam get this thing moving." I shouted diving next to Mason in the back seat as Sirius slammed the door shut after us. The store clerk had gone back to his station had gone for the phone. He was obviously starting to calling the police.

"Kohl where are the keys?"

There was a jingle as Kohl took the keys from his pocket, tossed them to Sampson who caught the keys and jammed them into the ignition and the car roared into life. He threw it into reverse and we were back on the road speeding away from the store within a matter of seconds.

"That was awesome." Sirius said laughing and looking down at me. "Did you seriously used to do stuff like this all the time?"

"Who Katie?" Sampson asked with a laugh as he made a hairpin turn to get us off the main road and headed back towards the house. "Of course!"

"Mate, you should have seen her when she was kid, she was absolutely wild." Kohl said turning back to look at Sirius, Mason, and me.

"Really?" he asked looking interested.

"Yeah, it used to drive our Mum crazy running after her. Once when she was five, she tried to ride her tricycle back wards down the stairs because, and I quote 'the drive way wasn't enough of a challenge'." Kohl said smirking and I rolled my eyes.

"My favorite is when she tied the Barbies grandma tried to make her play with to those fire works and blew them up." Sampson interjected.

"You would have too if she tried to force you to play with dolls." I said scowling.

"What little girl doesn't like dolls?" Mason said incredulously.

"Me!"

Sirius was laughing now and I was horrified to see that my brothers weren't finished.

"Do you remember she tried to jump off the roof?" Kohl asked.

"That was Adam's fault." I said glaring out the window not looking anything in particular seeing as how it was dark outside. "He said I wasn't brave enough to do it."

"Yeah and you broke your arm." Mason said shaking his head.

"But I did it." I pointed out.

"I know what we should do next!" Sampson said excitedly.

"What?" I asked in unison with the others.

"Now that we actually have snow, we should go super sledding."

"Yes!" Kohl shouted excitedly.

"What is super sledding?" Sirius asked.

"Oh you're going to like it." Sampson continued. "What we do is we tie a sled to the back of our Dad's Jeep right, we take it out to this field not far from our house, get a bunch of flood lights, and one person drives while trying to shake off the rest of the people who are trying to stay on to the sled."

"Isn't that dangerous?" he asked grinning and I smirked.

"Don't be so uptight Sirius." I said and he looked down at me. "You should know by now that the dangerous things are the most fun."

He grinned.

"Wise words little sis." Mason said ruffling my hair.

"Mase stop it." I said annoyed batting his hands away and he chuckled. "What?" I asked noticing Sirius was still grinning.

"I dunno. I guess, I have a hard time believing that you would do something as blatantly reckless as super sledding sounds."

"Sirius mate, of course she'd do it." Kohl said incredulously. "She invented it."