The living room was already filled with people when they arrived at the birthday party and looking around the room, James and Lily were reminded of their feelings from the first time they had been faced with the entire Weasley clan. Even now, months later, when they had a pretty good grip on who everyone was, they got a bit confused seeing them all in one room like this.
Carefully they looked around the room, trying to see who was there. They spotted Ginny’s parents almost immediately, sitting next to each other on the sofa, talking to Bill and Fleur. Julie, was standing, or rather jumping up and down, next to Christopher who was asking Sirius and Belinda questions about Hogwarts and Quidditch. The twins, whom they could still not separate from each other, were happily talking to Millie, Lily and Eddy, apparently embarrassing Eddy because his face was growing steadily redder the more they spoke.
They turned when she heard Charlie and Bonnie call for their daughter from behind them as they arrived in the room. Belinda grinned and ran over to her parents, who proceeded to greet her with hugs and kisses and lots of questions about how things were at school. Smiling James and Lily watched them, remembering the feeling of seeing one’s parents for the first time after months at school. The first year was always the worst.
A loud shriek coming from the birthday girl herself, interrupted their trail of thoughts.
“Uncle Harry, you’re here!” Catherine squealed happily stretching her arms up far in the air for him to lift her. Laughing Harry did as she demanded giving her a big hug.
“Happy birthday, Catherine,” he said gaily, remembering to call her by her full name, something apparently several other people had forgotten to do “ each and every one of them now being reported to Harry. And soon James and Lily knew not only who had forgotten but also who had remembered to apologize for their transgression and who Catherine was still angry at for forgetting.
“What do you think of my robes?” Catherine then asked happily. “There new! Mummy and daddy bought them for me,” she informed him. Lily inspected the robes, looking at them in very much the same way as Harry did before he complemented Catherine on them, telling her that they were lovely robes. Lily smiled. They really were lovely “ dark Christmas green, with a big smiling Santa Claus on the chest, waving his hand and winking occasionally.
“She was really not supposed to wear them today,” a voice that Lily immediately recognised as Catherine’s mother said behind them. Turning his attention from the little girl in his arms Harry smiled at Hermione and Ron both standing there. “They were meant for Christmas Eve, and if Ron here hadn’t been clever enough to show her them today she wouldn’t have insisted on wearing them,” she added sarcastically throwing a reproachful look at her husband.
“What? It’s almost Christmas!” he exclaimed making Harry grin and Catherine giggle and nod. Sighing Hermione gave up an argument that she obviously already lost.
“Well, they are very pretty robes, anyway,” Harry said smiling, before he sat Catherine down on the floor with a final hug. After watching her run away to find someone else to play with, Harry turned back to Hermione and Ron.
“Her presents from the kids,” he said smiling, handing a bag of parcels to Ron. “Now does either one of you know where my wife is? I don’t see her here,” Harry then said casting another glance around the room, making James and Lily feel a bit guilty for not even noticing that she wasn’t in the room.
“The kitchen I think,” Hermione answered smiling as Ron slipped his arm around her waist.
“I’ll go find her then,” Harry answered. “Oh and Hermione,” he said just as he was about to turn around. “I have a favour to ask of you later,” he added briefly. Hermione nodded her response.
“Sure Harry,” she answered with a smile before Harry turned around and slipped out into the kitchen.
As Harry left the room James and Lily shifted their focus to its the other occupants. Catherine was now playing with Julie and the two little girls seemed to have a lot of fun examining the many presents, trying to guess what was inside. Eddy’s mother had decided to join the twins and the teenagers in their conversation and since she was currently holding on to her husband, whom they knew was George, James and Lily tried to take the opportunity to figure out a way to separate the two of them. Unfortunately they weren’t doing a very good job at it.
“Where is Magdalene today?” they heard Sirius ask Bill and Fleur behind their backs. Confused James and Lily looked at each other before they remembered that Bill and Fleur had another daughter than Julie. Apparently they had a bit more to learn about the Weasleys and Potters.
“She is still at Beauxbatons,” Fleur answered Sirius’s question.
“Beauxbatons doesn’t allow students to leave during term. After all, normally, Hogwarts doesn’t either,” Bill added. Sirius nodded, but looked a bit disappointed all the same.
“Don’t worry about it, Sirius, you’ll see plenty of her this Christmas,” Charlie injected with a grin, walking up to them from behind followed by Belinda and Christopher.
“I will?” Sirius asked surprised.
“Hasn’t your father told you yet?” Charlie asked.
“Told me what?”
“That you’ll be spending Christmas at Charlie’s and Bonnie’s in Romania,” Harry’s voice said, making Sirius turn around to look at his father, a wide smile spreading across his face.
“Really?” he asked excitedly. Harry and Charlie both nodded. Bill and Fleur settled for smiling. “And Magdalene will be there as well? Who else?” he demanded.
“You will all come,” Charlie said smiling. “Well except for Eddy, Millie and Lily, that is. I understand that they have a Yule Ball to go to,” he then added looking to Harry for confirmation. Harry nodded with a slight frown on his face.
“Can’t say I wouldn’t rather have them in Romania,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, making James and Lily wonder how much of these arrangements were done to protect the children from Draco rather than for their enjoyment.
“So I will go too?” Christopher said, not paying attention to his father’s comment. Charlie nodded.
“Will we see any dragons?” Sirius asked excitedly.
“I’ll see if I can’t bring you to the reserve for a visit,” Charlie grinned making Fleur give him a worried look. “Don’t worry about it Fleur. I know how to be careful. Belinda has been with me at work plenty of times,” he added, making her seem somewhat more relaxed if still a bit apprehensive.
Sirius and Christopher however did not relax and for the next twenty minutes or so the two of them managed to ask more questions about Rumania and dragons then James and Lily would even have been able to come up with. By the time Ginny came to call them over for dinner Charlie had not only been forced into telling the boys everything about dragons, but also been coaxed into agreeing to letting Kevin come along as well, something Harry had strongly advised against.
“Trust me, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” he had whispered, but Charlie had just smiled and shrugged his shoulders saying that the boys couldn’t be worse than Fred and George anyway. James and Lily laughed, wondering slightly exactly how much trouble the two of them had been and if that really could compare with the trouble they were sure Kevin and Christopher would cause.
Dinner seemed lovely, and Ginny had, with the help of her mother and Hermione, really outdone herself. Catherine was as usual talking gaily, making everybody listen. Today’s topic seemed to be her grandparents, who apparently weren’t at all pleased about not being able to attend their granddaughter’s birthday party.
“Mummy, tell me again why grandmummy and granddaddy couldn’t be here?”
“Because they’re muggles dear. Muggles aren’t allowed in Hogsmeade, I’ve told you that,” Hermione answered patiently. Catherine nodded.
“Well anyway,” she then went on as happily as before. “Granddaddy gave me a necklace, see,” she said pulling down the top of her robes to show a very sweet little chain with a pendant shaped as a horse. “They tried to find a unicorn, but muggles don’t believe in unicorns,” she continued giggling. “And grandmummy gave me a book about a girl with red hair like me and she is called…mummy what was she called?”
“Pippi Longstocking, sweetie,” Hermione answered.
“Right, and she is the strongest girl in the world and she has a horse, and she can lift the horse, but that’s probably only levitation that muggles don’t know about, but then she has a monkey, as well, and…”
“Catherine, don’t forget to eat,” Hermione reminded her daughter with a smile. Looking at her mother Catherine took a big bite of her food, chewing carefully before she started to speak again.
“The girl’s horse is white with black spots and it doesn’t have a stable, it lives on her porch, and walks in and out of her big yellow house. Daddy, can I…”
“No, you can not have a horse,” Ron and Hermione answered almost instantaneously, making the twins snigger.
“Oh, can I…”
“No you cannot have a monkey either,” Ron answered again, and this time George and Fred laughed out loud, even if Catherine didn’t seem to see what was so funny.
“Well then can I have a Fluffyfurred Hornhog?” she asked.
“A what?” Hermione exclaimed, and by now George and Fred were folded with laughter and even Harry and Ron had a hard time keeping a straight face. Lily however was just as confused as Hermione seemed to be. She had never heard about a creature with such a name.
“A Fluffyfurred Hornhog,” Catherine repeated matter-of-factly. “It’s really small, almost like my teddy bear, and it has a fluffy fur and long ears like a rabbit and a horn on its head like a unicorn,” she explained with the same patient tone of voice that Hermione had used with her earlier.
“And where have you heard of this Fluffyfurred… thing?” Hermione asked critically, not finding this funny at all.
“Latest issue of the Quibbler,” Ginny answered, trying to fight the corners of her mouth twitching, and suddenly James thought this was almost as funny as the twins did. Who were bent over the table laughing, their faces almost as red as their hair. Lily however had not heard of the Quibbler any more than she had of Fluffyfurred Hornhogs, and could, therefore, not see what was so funny.
“And where did you get a copy of that…magazine?” Hermione asked her daughter looking like she desperately tried to sound calm, a task she didn’t manage very well.
“In daddy’s office,” the girl answered happily, making Ron frown and silently mutter something that James and Lily assumed to be unfit for his daughter’s ears.
“And what are you doing letting our daughter come in contact with a copy of the Quibbler?” Hermione snapped at Ron, al pretence of being calm gone now when she no longer was addressing Catherine.
“Well, I um…, must have forgotten it on my desk,” Ron said hesitantly, giving his laughing brothers an angry glance.
“Forgotten? When our daughter is around? She is a young impressionable child and should not be subjected to such utter rubbish!” Hermione exclaimed getting quite agitated.
“Well in all fairness Hermione, we do all subscribe to the Quibbler. After what Luna and her father did for us during the war it wouldn’t be fair not to,” Ginny said calmly from her end at the table, making this a bit easier for Lily to understand.
“I don’t mind that! We subscribe to it at home too, but at least I always make sure that it’s thrown away and not in our daughter’s presence. Children are very suggestible at this age, they don’t know that it’s all made up,” Hermione argued, still very upset.
“But mummy, they really do exist,” Catherine insisted. “They had a picture of it and everything,” she added as if that settled the matter, and this time Lily couldn’t help but to laugh with the others, even if some of them, like Harry, tried to hide their laughter by coughing. Hermione did not seem impressed by their efforts, and she seemed rather furious at George and Fred for not even trying to hide how funny they thought this was.
“Catherine, aren’t you going to tell mummy how it changes colour,” one of the twins said still laughing, ignoring the murderous glare he received from Hermione.
“Of course Uncle Fred,” Catherine said happily. “You see mummy, it’s usually pink, but then it can turn purple and green as well and when…”
“Catherine, listen to me carefully,” Hermione said briskly. “There is no such thing as a Fluffyfurred Hornhog, and you really shouldn’t trust the things you read in that paper! They print stories “ like fairytales. Do you understand, sweetheart?” she finished in a slightly calmer tone of voice. Catherine nodded, slowly.
“If you say so mummy,” she said sounding more than a bit disappointed.
“Catherine, would you want your birthday cake now?” Ginny asked brightly, distracting the little girl from her disappointment. Smiling widely again, Catherine nodded and by the time the cake was carried out to the table she seemed to have forgotten all about strange make-believe creatures and wanting a pet, for the moment anyway.
Just like at Julie’s birthday party, Catherine got to open her presents immediately after dinner, an event which was highly appreciated by both girls. Catherine took her time, carefully choosing what present to open and opening it in a way that didn’t rip the paper. Shaking her head Lily laughed. She had never had much patience with opening presents, and the time Catherine took with each present would have been a pain if Lily had ever been forced to open them that way.
Her slow pace also had the consequence that no one other than Julie had the energy to focus on the present opening for very long, and soon enough everyone sat on the sofa or on transfigured chairs around the coffee table chatting instead, only the twins and teenagers separating themselves a bit further away from the others.
“George, Fred, will the two of you please try not to give my daughters any silly ideas that will put the entire school at danger?” Ginny called out to them from the chair he was sitting in.
“We?”
“Never?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it?” Grinned the twins back making Harry sigh.
“Makes you wish they didn’t know all the ins and outs of Hogwarts,” Harry said shaking his head.
“Makes me happy you do,” Ginny added smiling at her husband.
“But you don’t think they would…” Hermione asked.
“Not Millie, she knows what’s at stake,” Harry answered. “Now Lily is a completely different issue, I just don’t think she realizes how serious the situation is. I didn’t after all,” he then added with a smile directed at Ron and Hermione.
“Yes but surely George and Fred know what’s at stake,” Hermione argued.
“They didn’t then, did they? I wouldn’t have known about the way out of school if they hadn’t told me about it,” Harry responded. “And that reminds me, the favour I needed to ask for,” he said nodding towards the door leading out to the stairs. Hermione nodded and rose to follow him out of the room.
James and Lily were just about to follow them both when one of the twins said something that caught James’s attention.
“…we didn’t even come close to your grandfather, Lily,” one of them said.
“True, he and his friends were still talked about by the teachers when we arrived in school,” the other one added with a grin.
“Really?” Lily exclaimed happily. “Dad always makes it seem as if the two of you were the biggest pranksters ever to set foot at Hogwarts.”
“Ahh, as flattering as that is,” one of them said. “We were only followers of the Marauders.”
“Yup, they taught us everything with that map of theirs,” grinned the other twin almost causing James to cry out in excitement, even if he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how they gotten their hands on their old map. It had after all been confiscated by Filch only a year after it was made.
“I’m still angry at dad for not letting me have that,” Lily said pouting. “Between that and the invisibility cloak he must have had a much easier time breaking the rules than we have!” The twins shook their heads.
“I know, a true disappointment. After all the trouble we had to go through to get it, dropping that Dungbomb in Filch’s office,” one of them said with a grin.
“And the months it took us to break it so we could actually use it,” said the other one with an equally large grin. They weren’t the only ones to smile. James now supported a smile stretching from one ear to the other. He couldn’t believe that his map had been saved from Filch, that it had been used, that Harry had possession of it, apparently knowing that he made it.
“See I told you I liked those two, Evans,” he grinned happily.
“Well dad really doesn’t have a choice, does he? I mean he is a teacher, after all,” Millie then said, turning James’s attention back to the conversation.
“Well he could have handed it back to us,” one twin said. “I was ours after all.”
“Well granddad did make it,” Millie objected.
“Well so did uncle Remus, and he doesn’t have it!” Lily answered, making both James and Lily smile at hearing their granddaughter term Remus uncle.
“Because he gave it to dad, after he confiscated it as his teacher,” Millie replied with a victorious smile on her face. “And he didn’t give it back to dad until after he stopped being a teacher.”
James couldn’t help but to smile. That certainly explained Snape’s comment about the Boggart lessons, he thought to himself, grinning at the idea of Remus being Harry’s teacher.
“It was still created for mischief, not for controlling students’ whereabouts!” Lily said crossing her arms, bringing James back to the matter at hand.
“And your grandfather would probably turn in his grave if he knew it was being used like that,” one of the twins said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Harry’s voice said from behind. “Some people do grow up, you know, George,” he added with a grin as he sat down among them, letting Hermione take his previous seat next to Ron.
“Don’t insult his memory,” the other one, that James now realized must be Fred answered.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Harry said with a laugh, making James heart rise. “But then I don’t see growing up as a bad thing either, especially since sources tell me that my father would never have been able to get my mother to date him had he not matured. Something I’m very happy he was able to do, since he wouldn’t be my father otherwise,” he added.
“See I told you your son doesn’t think ill of you,” Lily whispered putting her arms around her husband. The smile she got in return told her that this time he actually believed her.
“That still doesn’t explain why you haven’t you told us he was a bigger prankster than uncle George and uncle Fred,” Lily said cheekily to her father.
“Oh was he, really? Now I have heard some stories about what my father and his friends did at school, but as far as I know only your uncles were crazy enough to turn the fifth floor corridor into a swamp,” Harry laughed making James look at the twins with a whole new admiration. “But if you don’t want take my word for it you might want to ask Filch what he thought about punting students to classes,” he then added with another smile causing James to almost bark with laughter at the thought.
Their conversation was interrupted by Catherine squealing in the background as she examined her last present. Looking over James and Lily saw that she was holding a large book.
“Mummy a book, thank you!” she said happily and ran up to give her mother a hug, before she turned to her father still holding the big heavy book. Sitting down on the floor between her parents she then started to read the title, and with a little help on the first word she soon had extracted Hogwarts a History from the cover forcing her father to stifle a groan.
“Daddy, will you read it to me?” she then asked and this time Ron did a very poor job at hiding his groan as he shot an annoyed look at his very amused wife.
“Why don’t you ask mummy, love?” he tried. “She knows the book by heart anyway,” he added a bit too sarcastically.
“But I like it better when you read daddy,” Catherine insisted. “You have a better reading-voice than mummy,” she said knowingly placing the book in Ron’s lap.
“I hope you’re not refusing your daughter,” Hermione said with a sugary voice that was just too sweet to be sincere, making Ron scowl.
“Please daddy,” Catherine begged tilting her head to the side. Moaning, Ron nodded, taking the book from her.
“Why don’t you go up and get ready for bed and I’ll be up in a moment,” he said with a smile. “I swear you bought her the ruddy book to make me read it!” he then exclaimed annoyed as soon as Catherine had left the room.
“Well anything that works,” Hermione laughed, apparently finding the whole thing very funny. Ron scowled again. “Oh come on Ron, it’s not like it will hurt you, and it will do her a whole lot better than reading stuff from the Quibbler,” she added, making Ron cast a quick look at Harry who rolled his eyes in sympathy even if he couldn’t completely hide his own amusement.
“As if you knew she was reading the Quibbler when you bought the book,” muttered Ron as he stood up, giving both Fred and George a glare to stop them from laughing. It didn’t work. Still muttering Ron took the book and went after his daughter.
Bill and Fleur carried the very sleepy Julie up a few moments later and despite his protest Christopher was not allowed to stay up any later than usual.
“Dad, can we stay at home tonight?” Millie asked as Christopher was shipped of to bed by his mother.
“I’m sorry but Professor McGonagall said no. She wants you in time for your classes tomorrow,” Harry answered casting a glance at his clock.
“But you are always on time, so why can’t we just go in with you?” Lily asked.
“Because Professor McGonagall said no. There is nothing I can do to change that Lily. You’ve been given plenty of exceptions tonight anyway,” Harry said firmly.
“When do we have to leave, uncle Harry?” Belinda asked sitting curled up next to her mother.
“In about half an hour,” Harry answered before turning the conversation in a pleasanter direction, which in itself was nice but had the unpleasant side effect that time went far too fast and the time for the kids to head back to school came too soon. Having come back from reading to Catherine Ron offered to walk back with Harry and the children, so Harry would have some company on his way back home.
After they left it didn’t take long for the others to break up the party. Charlie and Bonnie leaving with Molly and Arthur to stay at the Burrow for the remaining time before returning to Romania, Bill and Fleur helping Ginny and Hermione clean up after the party while the twins and Katie took their leave and the fireplace back to their respective homes. By the time Harry and Ron got back from Hogwarts, they were all so tired that they hardly talked at all before Bill and Fleur ventured upstairs to go to bed in the guestroom and Ron and Hermione left, agreeing on a time to pick up Catherine in the morning.
Feeling happier than he had in a long time, James smiled as he put his arms around Lily, spinning her around. He couldn’t really believe that their map had survived all those years in Filch’s office, or that Fred and George had managed to get it out of there, and managed to use it. He smiled. He had no problem believing Harry when he claimed that those two were the biggest pranksters in Hogwarts’ history, especially since the image of Filch punting students to classes was now firmly planted in his mind.
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A/N: Thank you to Paperbagprincess for betaing my content, to Michelle for betaing my language and to glory for helping me come up with the Fluffyfurred Hornhog.