"Come on, Daddy!" Selena laughed, yanking on Harry's arm. "We have to find them before we get on the train!"
"Maybe, if someone," Fred gave Harry an exasperated look, "hadn't taken ages to get off the floo this morning then we wouldn't be running, hmm darlin?"
Harry scoffed then grinned at his daughter. "Papa's just mad because he has to work tonight and can't be there for the grand opening."
Selena laughed and shook her hair at her dad, her thick red hair shimmering under the lights of the train station as she did.
"Papa wouldn't really miss it, he's just pretending he will," she said in a conspiratorial whisper. "I kind of wish I didn't have to go to school today so I could be there too!! It's going to be sooo amazing!"
"We are going to Hogwarts," Arty hissed at his sister, his blue eyes flashing darkly. "Don't talk Dad into keeping us home."
Selena stuck her lip out in a pout that was quickly washed away, she instead stuck her tongue out at Arthur and started dancing around eagerly.
Selena inherited Fred's cheery attitude as much as Arty inherited Harry's penchant for mood swings and quick anger.
"Auntie Susan will take lots of pictures," Harry assured his daughter. "And don't be a prat to your sister," he warned Arty before winking so he knew Harry wasn't too mad. The twins bickered a lot, but they were also fiercely protective of each other.
Fred ducked down and scooped their daughter up, tossing her easily on his shoulders. "D'you see them now?"
"I see them!" Selena shrieked. She started waving like mad. "Grandpa! Grandma! Over heeeeeere!!"
Harry sighed as Selena's shouts drew more than one set of curious eyes in their direction. Harry suddenly got sucked in to offering his charming smile and handshakes to the other parents and relatives filling the platform.
It wasn't something he thought of often, but Harry found himself wishing he still had just a bit of Timmy's soul in him. He'd give anything to just swear at people in Parsletongue and watch them flinch and turn away.
Tonks must have read at least a little bit of the thoughts on his face because she cut through the crowd of gawkers and gave him a hug and whispered slyly, "Missing your sword?"
"Always," Harry murmured.
It wasn't that he'd gotten rid of it, it still hung on his wall, he just moved his weapons to his heavily warded office after Selena and Arty were born. It was a compromise between him and Fred, but the twins had been one as well so the weapons were nothing in comparison.
Harry didn't want kids, he'd been terrified to even consider it, but Fred desperately did. Harry had no idea how to be a parent, he had no idea how to just give any child of his love and affection freely. So they'd had their second real spat over it.
Harry said fuck no.
Fred said please.
Harry yelled a lot of choice words and accused Fred of trying to push him in something he couldn't handle.
Fred calmed him down, told him that he knew Harry would be a wonderful parent, but he'd wait if that was what Harry needed.
Harry went to Sev and Tonks' place to get pissed and complain about Fred asking for things Harry couldn't provide.
Sev commiserated.
Tonks put them both in their place.
"You are already a father," she'd told Sev. "And you would be an excellent one," she told Harry. "Quit acting so damn terrified and man up, men."
And a month later Harry and Fred were considering surrogates when Susan burst in their sitting room with her hands on her hips and her teal eyes narrowed.
"I heard you're looking for a surrogate?" she demanded.
"How does she do that?" Fred whispered to Harry in mock-horror.
"Pft, as if I don't know everything, Frederick Potter," Susan jabbed her finger in Fred's direction before cocking a brow at Harry. "And did you ever stop to think that I have a perfectly acceptable womb available?"
Harry blinked at her.
"What?"
"Idiot," Susan scoffed.
She'd been pregnant two months later, announcing it to Harry and Fred the day Harry won the Quidditch World Cup for the Chudley Canons, and she had been heavily regretting her decision by that winter.
"Molly, Harry's demon spawns are trying to kill me," she wailed at Christmas. Charlie snickered and dutifully rubbed his wife's swollen ankles while Molly tsk'd at her.
"My grandbabies are not demons," she said with a firm tone and a doting smile. "And you just wait- pregnancy is the easy part, birth is the hardest part."
It really had been.
Harry had been in the room when Susan delivered his babies, and she fucking crushed all the bones in his hand when she squeezed him with her golden fingers.
Sev healed them for Harry so he could hold his babies that night.
"Never again," Susan grit out.
"We'll see," Charlie winked.
Harry and Fred's children, Arthur Theodore Potter and Selena Bailey Potter, were born exactly two weeks before his younger sister, Medusa Harriette Snape.
And since Susan would be going on maternity leave next month, leaving Harry's personal barrister, Astoria Herron, to temporarily fill her position, Harry supposed Charlie must have won that argument.
For once.
"Maddie!!" Selena yelled, wriggling on Fred's shoulders as her aunt came sloping over to them, resembling Sev strongly in the way she moved with all the grace that her mum didn't have. "Maddieeeee!"
Harry oftentimes felt bad for Arty, being surrounded by girls, but not as often as he felt bad for himself and Sev.
Their daughters were entirely too much like their other parent in personality if not looks.
"Selenaaaaa!" Maddie sang joyfully. She came running through the crowds, leaving Sev to sigh and jog behind her or risk losing her altogether.
Fred dropped Selena back on the ground just in time for Maddie to throw her arms around Selana and Arty both, hugging them tightly.
"I've missed you!" Maddie wailed dramatically.
"We were literally at their house last weekend," Sev said drily. He placed his hand on Harry's shoulder and gave him a small smile. "Are you prepared for a few months of peace without the twin terrors around?"
"Harry doesn't know what peace is," Fred laughed warmly. "We've got the opening tonight, Harry's in the office all week, then next weekend he's got a press conference about Remus' new placement at Hogwarts."
"Why does the Minister need to have a press conference about a school counselor?" Tonks asked curiously.
"Because the Minister is the one who pushed for Remus' revolutionary position there," Sev said, pride in his son's decision laced through his every word. "Come now, children," he called to the three kids with their heads bunched together, "I believe you have a great many more relatives to hug and screech at before the train leaves."
"Yes, Grandpa," Arty said. He winked at Maddie, Fred's own blue eyes looking just as mischievous on his son as they always had him, "We can plot on the train."
"Harryyyy," Tonks threw her arm over Harry's shoulder and whined. "My sneaky Slytherin grandson is tainting my perfect little 'Puff of a daughter and it's all your fault!"
"I'm going to Gryffindor, Grandma, I told you that," Arty said with a stubborn smirk straight from Harry's own face.
Harry snorted as Maddie changed her hair from her natural black locks to a dark red to match Selena's.
'Perfect puff' his arse.
Maddie was a perfect mixture of her two parents really. She had Sev's dry wit, Tonks' optimism, and both of their love of theatrics.
The sorting hat was going to have a hard decision with her.
Harry eyed his twins thoughtfully as he trooped behind them. Arty favored Harry in looks and personality as much as Selena favored Fred. But...
Well.
The sorting hat didnt have an easy time with either of them, did it?
"Tell Grandpa Sirius to send me the memories of you two being sorted," Harry told them as the stopped in front of the train entrance.
"Dad," Arty scowled up at him, "It's Headmaster Black, not 'Grandpa Sirius' when we're at school. You and Auntie Luna are going to get us in trouble on our first day."
"Yep, that one's all yours," Fred laughed. "I never cared to get in trouble first thing."
Harry arched a brow at him. "And I did?"
"Not at all," Severus sighed.
Probably nostalgic.
"Auntie Luna? You mean Professor Nott?" Selena teased her brother.
"Well that girl is a little mini me," Fred declared as he hugged their son to his chest tightly.
"Sirius said I can still call him Dogfather even in school," Maddie said smugly. "And Dad said that he'd teach me to brew advanced potions this summer if I did it in front of everyone."
"Watch your back," Harry told his sister drily. "Sirius is a dick. He gave me detention once for not using his proper title."
"That's because your brother is arrogant and rude and you are sweet and irresistible," Tonks told Maddie with a warm smile and a playful wink. "And your father would probably teach you to brew Felix Felicis if you called Sirius a mutt to his face in front of all the students and staff."
Maddie's eyes lit up and Harry smirked at Sev.
"Yeah, my kids are the problem," Harry murmured. "Your daughter is going to get detention before her first class."
"As long as she receives it for mocking the mutt, who am I to complain?" Sev said with a small smirk of his own.
Sev might call Sirius a mutt, but he'd chosen the man to be his daughter's godfather. He tried to dress the decision up to Harry, claiming Sirius was Tonks' cousin, and 'it made sense for both of his children to have the same godfather', but none of those reasons explained why Sev and Sirius got together once a month, every month, since the end of the war.
Supposedly Sev was 'simply dropping off their potions', but Harry wasn't an idiot, thanks. For one thing, Sev didn't hand-deliver any of his other customers' potions. For another, delivering potions didn't usually require drinking and playing cards for hours.
Harry rolled his eyes at Sev just before he spotted Fleur's daughter and Theo's oldest daughter walking towards them, hand-in-hand.
"You're joking," Harry laughed. "Fred, look."
"Awww," Maddie cooed, "they're so sweet together! I told you they liked each other!" she told Arty with a light swat to his arm before immediately hugging him in apology.
Okay, maybe Maddie was destined for Hufflepuff after all.
All Harry could see as he looked at his goddaughter Rose was the sickly preterm baby she'd once been. But she'd turned in to a fine young woman now, following easily in her father's blazing trails of academics through the muggle university she started a couple weeks ago.
Rose, only Harry could call her 'Rosie' in private, looked enough like Hermione that it often made Harry feel haunted by the past. If it weren't for the unneeded glasses and Susan-like attire that Rose wore, Harry would have a difficult time recognizing her as a separate entity from her dead mother.
"Dad said to tell you to not send him any more patronuses at work," Rose said as she hugged Harry. "He said if he has to obliviate one more of his co-workers that he's going to kick your arse and Annabelle said that getting howlers at uni isn't very funny."
"He acts like they're all rocket scientists or something," Harry smirked unrepentantly. "And Anna has the worst sense of humor."
She probably got it from her mother. That woman had never liked Harry, even when he'd swooped in and offered to help raise his niece to take the stress off a struggling single mother.
"Uncle Harry!" Fleur's daughter, Victoire, interrupted them joyfully. She threw her thin arms around Harry and hugged him tightly. "Oh, I wish I could come tonight! I bet it will be everything you ever wanted!"
"Your mum might kill me, but if you sneak to Professor Nott's office, she'll let you sneak out," Harry whispered. "Just try and avoid Professor Longbottom or Headmaster Black, yeah? They're sticklers on students not sneaking out."
They were also terrible hypocrites.
As Harry made sure the children were all aware.
"Harry, you cannot corrupt the youth in to manipulating Luna and breaking the rules on day one," Sev said with mock disapproval. "Merlin, son."
Harry shrugged, unrepentant, and winked at the students. "I snuck Rose out the night I was made minister."
Or, as Harry liked to refer to that night:
The night he was appointed as the youngest Minister of Magic ever and the only one to win with a majority of votes over 90%.
Sev called him arrogant, but that was what the headline on the paper after Harry's election said and he had it framed above his desk as proof.
Harry won with a 98% majority and the papers reported that his record would never be beat. Harry only rubbed it in Tonks' face a bit, since she had much lower numbers on her successful runs before passing the office to Harry.
"And my dad grounded me for a month that summer," Rosie reminded Harry. "Of course, LuLu might cover for you Vic, she's much more lenient than my father is."
Harry never failed to find it amusing when Rose looked so fond of her stepmother. Rose was the reason Harry still lived, and Rose wound up being the thing to bring Theo and Luna together.
They had a small wedding and Harry had worried that Rose would be sad about Luna marrying her father, as she'd been seven when it happened, but Rose was the most joyful one that day.
"LuLu's lenient because she's a softie," Harry grinned. And, somehow, Rose eclipsed Harry as Luna's most beloved person.
It was why Theo said he fell in love with her, seeing how much she loved his daughter.
"Harry, the train," Sev stressed, interrupting their chat after the train whistle blew.
Arty ran over to Sev and wrapped his arms around his waist. "I'll miss you, Grandpa, I wish you were still a professor." He smiled up at him with his big blue eyes that Sev was a sucker for. "Can't you come back and teach potions again?"
"Never again, thank God," Sev shuddered. He hugged Arty then mussed up the poor kid's cursed Potter hair. "Just try not to strut about the castle as your father did, and you'll be fine."
"My brother did not strut," Maddie scowled at her father.
Fred and Tonks found that to be the peak of high comedy and clutched each other to hold themselves up as they howled with laughter.
"Er… I did," Harry shrugged. He winked at Maddie, "But Sev stalked about, so which is worse really?"
"Strutting," Selena said as she shared a grin with her grandfather.
The train horn suddenly blared again, startling the kids.
"I can't go!" Selena abruptly cried. She threw herself in Harry's very surprised arms- Fred was usually the first parent they ran to for comfort. "Daddy, I'm just going to miss you too much!!"
Harry hugged his daughter tightly and gave her a reassuring kiss to the top of her head. It was ridiculous that he'd once fretted over if he would be able to love his children, it all came so easily to him after they were born.
The amount of love Harry had for his kids had been the only thing to convince him that his soul wasn't as horribly damaged as he'd believed it would be.
A fact that Harry made sure that a Mister Michael Morris was well aware of, seeing as the man had once felt qualified to call Harry a 'psychopath' and a 'serial killer'. Psychopaths couldn't feel love, according to the massive amounts of research Harry had done, and Harry loved his children more than anything.
Serial killer was fair though.
Especially since Harry lost his temper and wound up killing the man during their conversation after breaking Sev's decade old obliviate. It wasn't Harry's first murder since the end of the war, but Harry didn't feel great about it when he confessed it to Sev.
"I'll come pop by next weekend, alright?" Harry reassured his daughter. "I'll say I'm having dinner with the professors, but you'll know I'm really there to see you and Arty."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"And Dad always keeps his promises," Arty said solemnly. Arty gave Harry a much more constrained hug than Selena gave him, but whispered urgently in his ear. "What if I freak out?" he said. "What if my magic goes crazy? What if—"
"Then you go see Uncle Remus," Harry whispered back firmly. Poor Arty had entirely too much of Harry's temper in him, and he'd consequently always had a harder time controlling his magic. "He'll talk you through all those coping mechanisms we practiced, yeah?"
"Yeah," Arty sighed. He pulled back from Harry and gave him a bright and childish smile. "I love you."
"And I love you," Harry told him. "Go on now, go make some friends to drive me mad this summer."
"Aah, sweet karma finally coming in to play," Sev said happily as he wrapped his arm around Tonks' waist after giving each of the kids a hug. "Arthur, Selena, do Grandpa a favor, okay? Make the loudest and most ill-mannered friends you can and bring them all home this summer. In fact, move them in to your house, please."
"We'll try," Selena grinned. "Except we already have Maddie, sooo..."
"I am not ill-mannered!" Maddie cried. She swatted at her niece and stuck her nose up in the air. "You just wait until Panda starts next year, we'll show you plebeians the proper way to behave."
"No tainting my sister!" Rose cried. "She's the only good one in our entire family!"
Harry and the others laughed as Vic shared a chaste kiss with Rose before she pulled the kids on the train, her Head Girl badge already pinned proudly to her Ravenclaw robes.
It only took a minute for Selena's red hair, Arty's black hair, and Maddie's then blue hair to be seen as the three of them forced open a train window.
"We'll miss you!" Maddie yelled. "Bye Mom! Bye Dad! Bye Bubby! Bye Frederick! Bye Rose! Behave yourselves!"
"Don't forget me!" Selena said sniffily, tears already welling up in her bright green eyes.
"Wish me luck dealing with them!" Arty shouted before yelling, "Ow!" as Selena no doubt kicked him out of Harry's sight.
"Dear Merlin, I believe they may top even your chaos," Sev groaned to Harry.
Harry eyed the children he hadn't originally wanted, and could never imagine life without, and considered what kind of mischief they would create with their aunt and their other friends within Hogwarts.
"Well, it's really not our problem now, is it?" Harry grinned. "Remind me to petition for a raise for the Hogwarts staff at the next meeting of the Wizengamot though, God knows they'll need it."
Fred and Tonks laughed, but Sev nodded his head solemnly.
As it turned out, Harry had been wrong anyway.
Apparently the kids were still his problem.
Harry was standing in front of a slew of cameras that night, his friends, family, and his hugely pregnant Vice Minister by his side as he spoke at the biggest event of his career so far.
"This is a project that has always been very near and dear to me," Harry said to the reporters. He gestured to the house behind him, the recently renovated and remodeled house he'd once used as a safe house.
"For too long, muggleborns have been left in the dark about their powers until they turned eleven, but no more," he said. "This school is the first official boarding school in the United Kingdom for muggleborn witches and wizards to learn at, live at, and become a part of the world they were born to be in at. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Trent Bailey Primary School!"
Harry just hoped Trent was watching somewhere. He hoped he saw that Harry never forgot him, never for a moment.
The reporters went mad as they clicked and clicked away, the lights flashing brightly enough that Harry didn't notice the owl flying towards him until the Potter family owl, Snapper, dropped a smoking red envelope directly on the pulpit Harry stood behind.
"Another letter from an admirer," Susan said to general laughter of the crowd. Everyone knew that Minister Potter had enacted many changes that had been opposed at first, such as when he and Susan put Blaise's first ex-wife, Sky Monty-Zabini, on the Wizengamot as the first werewolf member, or when Mavis began working for pay in the Department for Equal Magical Rights. It didn't matter though, Harry and Susan were able to silence most of their more stubborn opponents quickly and quietly, but howlers were still a pretty constant part of Harry's life.
That one had been a bit odd though.
"HARRY JAMES AND SEVERUS TOBIAS!" Sirius shouted once the envelope opened itself. "YOUR CHILDREN HAVE STARTED A FIRE IN THE SLYTHERIN COMMON ROOM! WHICH ONE OF YOU ARSES TOLD THEM TO FIGHT FIRE WITH ACTUAL FIRE?!"
Harry and Sev exchanged bewildered looks while Tonks and Fred took guilty and shuffling steps backwards.
"I HAVE HAD TO DOCK SELENA TEN POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR, ARTHUR TEN POINTS FROM SLYTHERIN, AND MEDUSA TEN POINTS FROM HUFFLEPUFF ON THE FIRST NIGHT!"
Harry suddenly wondered if Sirius was even really angry or if he just wanted a chance to send an embarrassing howler and let the two of them know which houses their kids went to.
Probably the second one.
Sirius had always been a big fan of sending howlers to Harry for his accomplishments.
"AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT ARTHUR TOLD ME WHEN I ASKED WHY THE GIRLS WERE EVEN IN HIS COMMON ROOM? HE TOLD ME 'IT ISNT TECHNICALLY AGAINST THE RULES'!" Sirius continued yelling.
So he was a bit angry. But, well, Arty was right.
Theo and Susan had ensured the children all knew the rulebook forward and backwards before they started school.
It wasn't Harry's fault that nobody updated them since before he'd been in school.
"IT WAS VERY FUNNY," Luna's airy voice added with a laugh.
"IT REALLY WAS NOT," Neville shouted. "THEY BURNT DOWN THE SOFAS, HARRY!"
Harry kind of wished he'd done that. He bet a lot less people would have fucked with him had he caught the sofas on fire on his first night.
"I EXPECT A RAISE, MINISTER," Sirius went on. "OR YOU CAN COME GET THESE NEXT GENERATION MONSTERS AND TEACH THEM YOURSELVES!"
Harry blinked as the howler burnt itself to ashes before he turned and gave a charming smile and wink to the crowd.
"I suppose I'll be sending the Headmaster a nice bottle of scotch tonight," he said, causing the reporters to laugh. Harry always had a knack to know how to play them just right. A wink here, a smirk there, and within only a few years in to his position he was one of the most universally beloved Ministers in history.
"And, speaking of which, I'd like to now introduce the Headmaster of the Trent Bailey Primary School to come talk about his vision for the academics- Mister Ronald Weasley."
The crowd gave Harry a standing ovation as he stepped backwards and let Ron, his pretty muggle wife Hazel, their baby girl Georgia strapped to her chest, and their twin toddlers, Trenton and Alex, step forward.
"Suppose I should call the professors and make sure our kids weren't hurt?" Harry murmured to Fred, only mildly concerned about their twins' and his sister's safety. Ron kept the crowd focused on him while he discussed the integration of magical and muggle studies for the school so Harry was free to chat with his husband.
Harry was really more concerned for the safety of the other students. The twins could disarm an attacker with a dagger before they were seven and Arty had inherited Harry's magical abilities while Selena got Fred's sneakiness.
The twins were a dangerous duo and Harry adored them.
"Nah." Fred threw an arm over Harry's shoulders and kissed the side of his with just as much affection as he had since Harry was thirteen years old and they first began dating. "They'll be fine."
Harry's hand almost twitched towards his pocket, but he flexed his fingers and dropped it to his side instead. It had been years since he'd carried a pocketknife on him, years since he needed the feeling of a weapon in his hands to feel emotionally secure.
Instead, he stood with his friends and family and let himself smirk just a little as he thought of the chaos that his children were causing.
Like father, like offspring, he supposed.
End.