The Potter Ritual

chapter thirteen: Sleepy

After wiping off their, interesting, makeup looks, the girls slipped into Harry's bedroom, where Ron and the oldest Potter sibling were flicking through wizard-adapted muggle hero comics, both boys grinning and talking amongst themselves about the comics. Ginny grinned slyly and nudged Sapphire, leaning down to whisper in the young girls ear.

"On the count of three, jump on them!" Sapphire looked up hesitantly at Ginny, biting her lip nervously. "Trust me Saph," Sapphire nodded, now grinny cheekily.

"One..."

"Two..."

"Three!"

At the whisper of three, the two redhead girls leaped off their feet and flung themselves at their brothers, who in return grunted, Ron cussing in suprise. "Bloody hell!" Ron pushed Ginny off of him, and in turn, off the bed, the loud redhead squealed as she fell, then clutched her stomach, laughing jollily on the floor. Harry simply rolled over so that Sapphire was on his stomach and grinned at his younger sister who was silently giggling, red hair falling into the girl's light caramel skin.

Sapphire always hated that she had red hair and darker skin, kid's would bully her, accuse her of faking her hair colour. Kid's would tell her it's a good thing her parent's are dead cus otherwise they'd force her into an indian planned wedding, Sapphire and Harry would always roll their eyes at the kid's and their relatives racism, it was easier for their Aunt to convince the neighbours that they were dilinquents because of their skin colour, however, her hair always confused Sapphire. No other indian girl, or half indian girl, had naturally red hair, then Harry's letter came. Sapphire assumed that it was because of the Magic in her genes that made her hair the dark firey red it was, genetics were a weird thing and anything could happen she supposed.

"Little monster" Harry mock-growled at her, grabbing her sides and tickling her.

Sapphire started to laugh loudly, squealing and wiggling away, swatting her big brothers hands and laughing at him to stop. Harry only continued to tickling the wiggling girl, laughing along with her, the other teens looked at the siblings, all smiling and, all but Luna, giggling along, Luna simply had her usual far away look on her face and murmered something about Wackspurts, only Ginny hearing and looked at the blonde fondly. All the noise from the bedroom upstairs attracted the attention of the adults, who had been downstairs drinking tea and coffee.

_

"Blimey, what's all that giggling about?" James muttered, looking up at the roof.

James and his arm around his wife (his WIFE! James' still couldn't believe it) who was half sitting on his lap, pale fingers around her cup of black coffee, Lily looked up with her husband and grinned at the sounds of her children's giggles and laughs. Sirius had sitting over Remus' lap, long legs hanging over and his upper body against Remus', the pair also looked up fondly.

"Ooh! Let's go look!" Sirius said, already bouncing of Remus' lap and bouding up the stairs, skipping every two steps.

"Oi! Paddy! Wait up!" James yelled after, quickly catching up to his best mate, the pair almost already up to the second floor.

Lily and Remus shared an amused look at each other, before following their husbands up the stairs, albeit a lot more slower. Sirius and James had already reached the source of the giggling and were looking excitedly on at the sight, the group of teens laughing at the sight of Harry ticking a squirming Sapphire, how such a simple thing could bring such joy to the adults, they would never know. It wasn't until Lily and Remus had showed up that the group realised the adults had come.

"Daddy!" Sapphire squealed, wiggling out of her brother's grasp and flinging herself at her father, her words shocking everyone in the room, it has already been a couple months and until now, Sapphire only had called James and Lily 'Sir' and 'Ma'am' and with one single word, James' and Lily were almost crying. Suddenly Sapphire realised what she had done and flushed bright red. "... Sorry sir"

James shook his head, holding firmly onto his daughter and placing a soft kiss on her forehead. "Don't be sorry silly, I love it when you call me Dad or Daddy," Sapphire nodded and giggled sofly. Harry had moved from his bed and was leaning into his mother in a half hug, a proud look in his eyes. "Was mean old Harry tickling you?" Sapphire nodded and giggled.

James passed Sapphire onto Lily, the child and mother softly clinging to each other, grinning softly, James then genty grabbed Harry, winking at him, as to not scare or trigger him, and started tickling the boy who instantly began squirming and laughing, the tickling lasted only a couple minutes but it definetly brightened everyone who wittnessed it.

"Sorry Mr and Ms Potter, I ought to get home,"

"Yeah same,"

"I'm sleeping over with ginny"

_

After biding everyone goodbye and thanking them for coming, the family sat down happily on the couch, Sapphire already half asleep and Harry not far behind, however, whenever the parents suggest they take a nap, both kids refused and clung slightly tighter to their parents. Sirius had transfigured a lamp into a guitar and was softly playing 'here comes the sun' while Remus was sitting reading a new muggle book he found. It only took five or ten minutes before both kids were sound asleep against their parents,

James gently passed Sapphire to Lily and carefully picked up Harry, the pair then tucked both sleeping kids into their respective bedrooms and kissed them goodnight on the forehead. Lily grabbed flopster, calming Sapphire's soft whines down, silently cooeing as her youngest curled up to the stuffed animal. James was fussing over Harry, making sure his son was warm enough and tucked in. Sirius pulled James, who would've contiued to do so, away and the duo met Lily in the hall.

A/N: Yes it's been 3 months already, so it's August now, that's why they're mor comfortable around their parents now. Next chapter, Hogwarts letters!
-Phoenix