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“Ginny, why is our daughter blue?” Harry called this odd question out from the opposite side of the landing. Ginny appeared in their bedroom doorway, looking overjoyed.
“Doesn't she look cute? Wait, let me put these on her.” She reached into the wardrobe and removed a pair of pixie wings, moving across the room to where Lily was crawling around on the double bed. Harry crossed her path and intercepted their daughter, scooping her up off the bed.
“No more!” He held Lily to him protectively, not allowing Ginny access to her shoulders to attach the wings. “Our daughter is blue, Ginny. You turned our daughter blue!”
“Because she's meant to be a pixie.” Ginny sighed and let the pixie wings fall to her side. “Come on Harry, it's Halloween and she loves it.”
Lily was giggling away to herself where she was pressed against Harry’s chest, waving her little arms about and watching them move in all their blue wonder.
“It's only a charm and it’ll wear off eventually. Please?” She held her hands out to take Lily from him and Harry reluctantly passed her over. Ginny attached the pixie wings to their daughter, who was a deep shade of blue from the tips of her hair all the way down to her little toes. She was wearing a little blue dress to add to the effect and the pixie wings finished the whole costume off perfectly. It was hard for Harry to deny she looked adorable, even though she was unnaturally blue.
“She does look cute,” he commented, as Ginny placed the baby on the floor where she stood shakily holding onto her mother’s hand.
“Come on little pixie, let's find your brothers,” Ginny said to their daughter as she lead Lily from the room.
“I'm coming too, before you cover Al in glitter or give James a tattoo or something.” He sprinted from the room in pursuit of his family.
“ROAR!” came a squeaky voice, as Harry was immediately ambushed by his three-year-old jumping from his bed and straight at Harry’s chest. Fortunately, Auror reflexes combined with an adolescence spent playing Quidditch meant Harry caught him in time before he toppled over.
“Help, Gin! I'm being eaten by a very scary dragon!” Harry shook his son around, making him giggle, before lifting him high up into the air above him. “Actually, don't worry, he's flying away now.”
Harry helped Albus soar around the room, keeping a firm grip under his arms and narrowly avoiding being hit over the head by the large tail attached to the back of Al’s costume. He facilitated Albus ‘landing’ on the floor and straightened his little, red dragon outfit, pulling the hood back up over his head. It had a vertical row of little spikes starting at the top of his head and leading all the way to the end of his tail.
“Rah!” Albus bared his teeth and held his hands in claw-like positions in front of him.
“Merlin, you're a very scary dragon aren't you? Where do you come from Mr Dragon?” Harry was now sat cross-legged on Al’s bedroom floor, watching his youngest son jumping around like he'd never seen any dragon do.
“Raaaah rah!” said Albus, with a particularly energetic spinning leap that sent him careering straight into Harry again.
“Are you only going to speak in roars?” Harry asked suspiciously, knowing what the answer was going to be.
Albus nodded from his father’s arms. At three and a half, he was more than capable of talking and actually had quite an impressive vocabulary for a child his age.
But no, this evening Albus Potter would not be convinced to say anything more than ‘rah’ in various combinations and at a variety of ear-splitting volumes.
In the quiet moment that came before Al started roaring again, Harry could hear the unmistakable sounds of his oldest son crying in the room next door, shortly joined by Lily’s own cries.
He rushed to join them immediately, picking Albus up and bringing him too. The sight that met him was a confused and concerned Ginny gently rubbing James’ back; their son had thrown himself face down on the bed and a bewildered Lily sat on the floor watching her brother with tears streaming down her own face.
“Come here Lily-Lu,” he said, placing Albus down and going over to his daughter who immediately reached her arms up for him. He picked her up and tucked her into the crook of his neck like he did when she was a tiny baby and she sniffed.
“I don't know what the matter with her is, I think she just didn't want James to get all the attention,” Ginny said from where she was still comforting James.
“What's wrong?” Harry mouthed, nodding towards James’ shaking figure clad inexplicably in his pyjamas. Albus was watching him too, his feet crossed over and his finger pressed to his lip like he was thinking.
“His costume. It's a bit scary,” Ginny murmured and nodded her head towards the wardrobe door, which was slightly ajar. Harry peered round it to see James’ Halloween costume where it was hung up; a tiny vampire complete with pretend fangs. “He put it on and looked in the mirror and then-”
Harry caught Ginny’s eye and both of them tried not to laugh. It wasn't funny that his son was scared.
“James?” Harry joined Ginny in rubbing soothing circles on James’ back. “Look at Al’s costume, Al show him.” He turned his head back to his younger son, who grinned and came up behind James.
“Rah!” he shouted and performed his dragon pose for James’ benefit. James still wasn't watching and saw nothing but the top of his bed, but Lily was highly amused from Harry’s arms and clapped her hands together, pointing at her brother.
“Rah?” He tried again with less conviction then shrugged when he realised James wasn't paying any attention.
“Maybe later, Al.” Harry patted him on the shoulder of his dragon costume while Lily struggled to be put down. She was a much more willing audience and ran around after her big brother as he continued his well-practised dragon impression, shrieking with delight every time he roared at her.
“James, you can wear a different costume if you like?” Harry offered gently and Ginny shook her head.
James finally lifted his head from the bed and gazed at Harry with red eyes. His cheeks were tear stained and his hair was rumpled at the front where he'd been lying on it. “I… I don't want… to wear a… costume,” he managed to say between sobs.
It was really quite heartbreaking seeing his little body racked with sobs. Harry opened his arms out and James fell into them, curling up against Harry’s chest and clinging to his sleeve with one hand.
“You don't have to dress up, James,” Ginny said kindly, one eye on Albus and Lily, who were still playing boisterously.
“It's… too scary,” James choked out into Harry’s shirt.
“Alright, you can be something that isn't scary. What's the least scary thing you can think of James?”
James mumbled something that sounded like ‘treading’ into Harry’s chest. Harry pulled him away slightly so there was a space for James to be heard and he smoothed his hair down with one hand.
“Teddy,” James repeated.
“You want to dress up as Teddy for Halloween?” Harry asked uncertainly and James nodded determinedly.
“I think that's a great idea, James! Come here,” Ginny gently eased him away from Harry and sat him down on the bed. He rubbed his red eyes with his fists and sniffed. She gave him a big hug then held him at arm’s length. “This should do the trick.”
Ginny waved her wand over James’ hair, causing it to turn a bright shade of turquoise just like Harry’s eleven-year-old godson’s hair.
“What is it with you and turning our children blue tonight?” Harry shook his head but was pleased to see James looked a lot happier.
They dressed him in his white school shirt and grey school trousers and they charmed his school tie to be yellow and black striped instead of blue and grey. A simple shrinking charm meant one of Harry’s black travelling cloaks would fit James for the evening and Ginny even found an old Hogwarts pin to fasten to the front.
“What do you think, James? Not too scary?” Ginny asked him as she pinned it to the cloak. James looked at himself in the mirror and grinned.
“Cool!” he squeaked. “Look Al, I'm Teddy!”
“RAH!” Albus responded, looking like he was starting to regret his no talking decision but also that he was too stubborn to let it slip.
“Now, what colour would you like to be?” Ginny pointed her wand at Harry and he wrestled it away from her, both of them falling onto James’ bed in laughter. It didn't take long for all three of their strangely dressed children to join them in a giggling heap of Potters.
“Look Daddy! Look at me!” Draco watched his four-year-old son brandish a pretend wand inexpertly, looking nothing like a Malfoy as he ran around the room.
“Astoria, are you playing a joke on me?” he bemusedly asked his wife, who had followed Scorpius in after helping him get dressed in his Halloween costume.
“No, that's what he wanted to dress up as.” She accepted the arm Draco wrapped around her waist as together they watched their son climb up onto the sofa and point his pretend wand at the curtains.
“No dementors can get me! Expect-uh patonus!” He shook the toy wand as if a spell were coming out of it and laughed delightedly.
“His hair will change back won't it?” Draco asked with concern. Scorpius’ usual platinum blond locks, identical to his own except not long enough to make a ponytail, were dark brown, nearly black. The effect made him almost unrecognisable.
“Of course it will! Do you really think I would permanently dye our son’s hair for a Halloween costume?” Astoria rolled her eyes at her husband.
Scorpius jumped down from the sofa, pushing his glasses up his nose where they had slipped down.
“Doesn't he look cute wearing glasses?” She nudged him in the side as he considered her question. Of course Scorpius looked cute, it was near impossible in Draco’s opinion for his son to ever look anything other than cute. He was angelic, even without his blond hair.
“I'm still not sure about this,” Draco replied stiffly. “What if he finds out?”
“Oh come on Draco, we’re not leaving the house. Nobody will ever know, and look how happy it's making him.” She pointed to their son, who was running proudly round the room shouting ‘we won!’ and twirling his toy wand around.
“Daddy, Mummy, I'll save you!” he said, taking Draco’s hand and standing in front of both his parents, brandishing the wand at an invisible enemy.
“I thought you just won?” Draco asked his son in amusement.
“But I still had to save you?” Scorpius replied, blinking up at his dad as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Thankyou for saving Mummy and me, Scorpius,” Draco replied, patting his abnormally dark hair.
“I'm not Scorpius!” he cried indignantly, pushing the glasses up his nose again and pointing to his forehead.
The combination of Scorpius’ indignation and the look Astoria was giving him was the only thing that could have convinced Draco to say what he did next. “Sorry. Thankyou for saving us, Harry Potter.”
Scorpius grinned and rushed off again and Astoria smirked at him, ignoring the murderous expression he was sending her way.
“Not a word to anyone,” he told her but he couldn't help a small smile taking over as he said it.