Chapter 6

"Get up, get up!" said an excited eleven year old as she raced through the house.

"What the..." James muttered sleepily, glancing at his clock. It was only quarter past seven.

Hearing her oldest brother stir, Lily ran back to his room and jumped on his bed. "Get up, James! Look at what I have!" She thrusted a letter in his face.

"Hogwarts acceptance, I presume?" said a voice in the doorway.

Lily beamed. "Daddy, look! I got in!"

"Was there any doubt that you would?" Harry asked her.

"I could have been a Squib," she said, her voice dropping with a saddened inflection. "But I'm not! I'm a witch and I'm ready for Hogwarts. When are we leaving?"

"Blood...I mean," James began, but stopped when his tired mind remembered that his father was in the room. He shot him an appologetic grin. "Blimey, Lily, I'm excited for you and everything, but I still have forty-five more minutes of sleep and I intend not to waste it. Not that I have much to do today. Unless..." Although Harry and Ginny's hair had faded back to its natural dark black and fiery red after the second day, the boys were still grounded until the end of the month.

Harry couldn't help but laugh at his son's attempt to get out of the end of his punishment. "Forget it. Still grounded. The memories of having to go into the Auror's office with everyone thinking I'd gone mad is still haunting my dreams."

"Ah, thought I'd give it a try then," James accepted, something that was truly unlike him.

Maybe he's growing up after all. But at the sound of Lily's yell as her older brother snatched her letter out of her hands and ran down the hall, he immeditately retracted that thought.

"Why don't we let the boys come to dinner tonight? It's tradition," Ginny said to her husband as she was preparing lunch. Lily was upstairs, beginning to pack all of the things that she would be taking to Hogwarts two months from now. Albus and James were playing a game of chess in James' room. That was the one good thing that came out of their punishment; instead of it just being James on restriction, they both had to find common ground in order to avoid going absolutely crazy with boredom.

Harry blinked at his wife. "What was all of that about not letting James get away with things anymore and really needing to put our foot down with him."

"Well..." Ginny said. "I feel bad for them. They have been doing great getting along lately. And a month is a long time...no, no," she began as Harry started to protest. "I'm not saying we should retract the rest of their punishment. But I think one night out to celebrate Lily's Hogwarts letter is in order. After all, Lily went out with her brothers when we celebrated their letters. Besides...this is our last child. Let's have a nice night tonight."

With a sigh, Harry nodded. "James is going to be thrilled. He's been trying so hard to get me to unground him."

"Well, let him know that he's not ungrounded. He's just clocking out for a bit to celebrate his little sister."

"What! Oh, Mum, Dad, thank you!" James' voice sounded from the end of the hallway where his bedroom was.

"How...?" Ginny began, wondering how James could have overheard their conversation from all the way in his bedroom.

Harry sighed. "Extendable ears. What can we say to him? We did the same thing to your parents."

With a laugh, Ginny leaned in to kiss her husband.

Dinner was at Lily's favorite restaurant: Lunar Luck's. The boys weren't fans of it, but were grateful to be getting out of the house. Harry noted how nice it was to not have James complain about not getting to go where he wanted to go.

"Daddy, can I get desert?" Lily asked, her brown eyes widening with excitement at the thought of the molten chocolate cake which she would love to devour.

James matched his sister's gaze. "Oh, Dad, can we too?"

"Sure," Harry acquiesced, not really minding if the kids had sweets; they got their sweet tooth from him.

Ginny, on the other hand, hated them to have it. "Maybe you three can split something…"

"But, Mum…." James began to whine, but stopped at his father's sharp glance.

"Ginny, let the kids have their deserts."

"You're just saying that so you can have a bite or two of each of theirs," his wife retorted with a smile, causing Harry to grin.

After the children had their deserts, Harry paid the tab and held his wife around the waist as their children led the way out of the restaurant. Suddenly, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Excuse me?" The voice belonged to a young blonde woman, a few years after her schooling. She smiled apologetically. "Sorry to bother you. But are you Harry Potter?"

Harry's face flushed and he cleared his throat. "Yes."

Her face lit up. "Oh my. My mum won't believe this. I can't believe it's actually you…"

"Ah yes, well, we really must be going…" he replied quickly.

"Can I possibly get one quick photograph? Just for the family wall." The girl held up a camera with a hopeful smile.

"He said we have to be going," James snapped. Of all of Harry's children, James hated the attention put on his family the most. In fact, it could be said that he loathed it. He didn't like to hear stories of Harry, didn't like to see pictures of the Order of the Phoenix. When someone mentioned his father's past, he tensed up and began getting defensive.

His father ignored him. "Er…alright," he told the girl. "Ginny, my love, would you mind?"

With fire in her eyes as she stared at the pretty, young woman, Ginny quickly snapped a photograph using the camera that was handed to her.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Potter."

"Harry," he offered gently, giving her a small, apologetic smile for the awkwardness of the encounter. "Have a good night."

The woman laughed a nervous giggle as blood rushed to her cheeks. "You have a lovely family."

"Thank you," Ginny said shortly, before taking her husband's hand and turning back toward the door of the restaurant.

Harry sighed and leaned in to kiss his wife once they reached outside in the starry summer night. Jealousy ran thick in his wife's blood. All would be forgiven soon.

"I hate this," James muttered, kicking at the ground with his foot. "Why does that sort of stuff have to happen?"

Lily smiled at her father and took the hand that wasn't entangled in Ginny's. "I think it's nice to hear about what Daddy did before we were born. It makes it seem more real."

"I like it too," Albus added sincerely.

James scowled. "Course you two do."

"Remember what I always say," Harry began. "My past…"

"'…is apart of your past, present, and future.'" James finished the quote sharply. "I heard it before, Dad. Can we save the lecture and go home? I have a grounding to get back to."

Ginny gave her husband a concerned look. Harry shrugged; their son just needed to cool off. His temper was something that he certainly got from his father, although Harry didn't remember being as bad as James is. It must have been the combination of the fire inside the Potter's and Weasley's that made James as quick to anger as he was.

The family grabbed hands, despite their eldest son's muttered protests, and Harry disapparated them back to the outside of the house.

"I can't wait to go back to Hogwarts so I can get out of this house," James snapped. And with that, he ran up the stairs, leaving his parents more confused and concerned than ever.