Harry and Ginny were married on August 28, 1999, in a not-so-small ceremony in the back garden of their Welsh home. It was everything that Ginny wanted and that Harry had never even known he could have.

Their life settled into a routine, as lives are wont to do, but Harry and Ginny found that a little routine was fine with them. Harry continued to catch dark wizards. Ginny continued to fly for the Harpies. They both continued to spend as much time with Teddy as they could.

Life marched on.

Ginny became a starting chaser for the Harpies during the 2001-2002 season, and Harry was promoted to lead a small unit of Aurors the year after that. George and Angelina began dating. Percy and Audrey got married. Ron and Hermione were engaged. Babies were born.

Life marched on.

It was on one particularly cold October day in 2003 when Harry and Ginny's lives changed irrevocably.

Ginny failed her monthly physical assessment for the Harpies. She was pregnant.

Harry, recently promoted, worked tirelessly to be not only the best Auror he could be, but to first and foremost provide support and care for his wife and unborn child, as well as to Teddy, who was understandably nervous about a new child in Harry's life.

Then, in the first week of the hottest July Harry could ever remember, Andromeda Tonks passed quietly in the night to join her husband and daughter. Teddy had been staying with the Potters fairly frequently, as Andromeda had shown some signs of deteriorating health, so, thankfully, he wasn't at her home that night. She was young, by wizarding standards, but her life had been hard and full of grief. Teddy's guest bedroom at the Potters' cottage in Wales became his permanent residence, and a week later, Harry and Ginny welcomed their first child, James Sirius Potter into the world.

Suddenly they were parents to both a grieving six year-old and a screaming newborn.

Harry and Ginny looked back at the past five years of relative peace and shrugged. Harry's life had been too predictable for far too long. They should have expected some upheaval.

It was not an ideal situation, but Harry and Ginny loved Teddy as their own, and had done for several years already. Though his moods were often volatile, having just suffered the loss of the woman who had raised him for the first six years of his life, he adjusted well and quickly. Teddy was nothing if not resilient. Harry and Ginny were always careful to never favor James above Teddy, or vice versa, and so they settled into another routine.

Ginny played one more season as a starting Chaser, taking her team all the way to league victory and earning the chance to fly in the Quidditich World Cup for England's national team, where she pulled out a last-second shot just before their Seeker caught the Snitch, giving them the victory by 10 points and earning her the Player of the Year award.

The celebration that followed was memorable, to say the least.

Albus Severus Potter was born in April 2006, and it escaped no one's notice that his birthday was almost exactly nine months after Ginny's World Cup victory.

With a two-year-old, infant, and eight-year-old at home, and several awards and trophies under her belt, Ginny decided to hang up her broom for good, but she couldn't shake her love of Quidditch. She would read the sports section of the papers and listen to the games and commentary on the wireless while she was doing housework or playing with her boys, and she'd find herself scowling at the inaccuracy of some of the comments. After a particularly poorly reported game, she wrote a letter to the Prophet about the shortcomings of their sports announcers and the shoddy post-game reports that were printed in their paper.

They published her letter in the next day's edition and offered her a job.

By the time their third child and only girl, Lily Luna Potter, was born in the cold February of 2008, Ginny had a regular column in the sports section, and Harry was the Deputy Head Auror. He had just been informed that he would be replacing Robards as Head of the Auror Department upon the older man's forthcoming retirement in August. Almost exactly ten years after his maverick performance on the first day of training, Harry Potter stood in his new office doorway surveying the eager faces he would now lead, his Head Auror badge gleaming on his chest, unknowingly fulfilling the vision Gawain Robards had seen a decade before. The grizzled ex-Auror smiled as he walked out of the Auror office for the last time, proud of the man Harry Potter had become.

On September 1, 2009, Harry escorted the boy he had long considered his oldest son to board the train for his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As Albus pulled on Harry's robes and Ginny kept a firm grip of James's hand, while balancing a squirming Lily on her opposite hip, Harry leaned in to give Teddy Lupin a goodbye hug.

"Bye, Dad," Teddy whispered.

When Teddy had begun consistently calling Harry "Dad" shortly after moving in with the Potters permanently, Harry went into his bedroom and wept over the loss of Remus for at least an hour. Then, he had dried his eyes and asked Teddy, who, at seven, was old enough to decide these things, if he was sure he wanted to call Harry his dad.

With a maturity far beyond his years, Teddy had looked Harry in the eye and said, "I think my real dad would be happy that I have you as a replacement dad, don't you?"

And from then on, it was settled. Harry and Ginny were Dad and Mum to Teddy, just like they were to James, and later Albus and Lily, too.

"Bye, son," Harry said, pulling away and ruffling Teddy's hair.

"And you're sure there's no trolls or giants at the sorting?" Teddy asked for probably the hundredth time, his hair fading to a mousy brown with worry. Like his mother, he struggled to control the transformations when his emotions were strong.

Harry sighed, vowing to repay this "favor" to his best mate as soon as he got the chance. "No. You know your Uncle Ron likes to take the mickey. I promise. Just a hat on your head that'll look into the deepest parts of you and find what makes you tick. Then, it'll put you in the house that best suits you."

"That doesn't sound that much better."

Harry chuckled. "It's not so bad."

"Dad?"

"Yes, Ted?"

"You'll still love me, no matter what house I'm in, right?"

"I'll always love you, Teddy. Hogwarts houses are an awfully silly thing to decide love over. Good and bad people can come from any house. It's not the colors on your robes that define you, it's who you are in your heart, and I love your heart, son."

Teddy smiled and his hair flashed a garish shade of lime green. Harry fingered the neon tresses.

"This our new favorite?" he asked of Teddy's hair color.

Teddy pulled some down in front of his eyes. "Yup!"

"You know this one drives your mother mad. Clashes with practically everything, or so she tells me."

Teddy's grin grew wider and mischievous, and suddenly Harry was reminded that Teddy was the son of one of the Marauders, raised by another Marauder's son, who also happened to be the student who had broken perhaps the most rules in Hogwarts history. He shook his head. Teddy likely made his hair the most infuriating colors possible simply because he knew it made his mother frustrated. It was no secret that Ginny struggled to buy clothes for a child whose hair was a different color every month, but she always complained good-naturedly, so Harry knew that Teddy understood that Ginny didn't really mind all that much after all.

The warning whistle sounded across the platform and Ginny called her son's name.

"Come on, Ted. Time to load up," Ginny said. She looked at the energetic young child struggling to free himself from her grip and gave his arm a little shake. "Say goodbye to Teddy, Jamie."

Teddy bent down to receive James' hug and sloppy five-year-old kiss, before he straightened to kiss little Lily's cheek. He gave Ginny a huge hug and promised to write after the sorting. A tug on his robe from Albus had him bending down again to give the three-year-old a hug, and a promise to see him at Christmas.

He was then embraced once more in his surrogate father's strong arms.

"Go on, then," Harry said. "Have fun. Try not to get detention your first week. Tell Uncle Neville we say 'hello.' And for the love of Merlin, don't forget to write your mother some letters. Don't leave me alone with her nagging!" Harry teased with a wink.

Teddy laughed and promised to do his best at all of those things, before he bounded onto the train, dragging the luggage, which Harry had kindly charmed to be feather-light, behind him.

Ginny leaned into his shoulder, and as he had every day for the last ten years, he felt her love flow through their bond. She looked at him with overwet eyes and a secret smile on her face as they watched the scarlet steam engine pull away to take their oldest boy to begin his Hogwarts adventures.

"Do you remember the last time we stood on this platform?" Ginny asked him.

"We were here with Ron and Neville meeting Hermione and Luna after their last year. Now Hermione's moving into position to be the next Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Ron's left the Aurors to work with George, Neville's teaching, of all things, and Luna is off looking for odd creatures, or whatever it is that she does. Time flies."

"Mmm," Ginny murmured in agreement. "Teddy had just learned to walk, if I remember correctly. Now he's the one on the train."

They mused in silence for a moment.

"You do realize, love," Ginny continued, "that we're going to be standing here on the platform on September 1 every year for the next…" she paused to count, "sixteen years."

Harry blanched. "No. That can't be right."

"James will be eleven before Teddy graduates, then there will be at least one Potter in Hogwarts until Lily finishes. She's one now, that gives us sixteen more years. And that's presuming we stick with our decision to stop with Lily and don't have any accidental Potters."

Harry was shaking his head ruefully.

"Oh! And here's another thought for you," Ginny continued. "Teddy will be of age in 2015, but Lily won't take her last September 1 ride until 2025, at which point Teddy will be 27. How many years of break do you think we'll have before we're wishing luck to Teddy and his kids?"

"Ah! No, Ginny! He's eleven! He can't have kids!" Harry protested.

"But he won't be eleven forever!"

"Yes he will," Harry stubbornly denied. "I refuse to allow him to get any older."

"Oh now you're just being silly," Ginny said as she and Harry towed their children towards the barrier to King's Cross, James' squirming hands now clasped in both his mother's and his father's firm grip as he swung between them.

"Ugh, Gin, I feel so ruddy old now. I'm not even thirty! See what you've done to me! This is all your fault, of course. Tell your mother, James. I'm not old enough for this!" Harry ribbed good-naturedly.

"Your fault, Mum! Daddy's not old!" James repeated obediently with a gravitas belied by the fact he was still swinging from their arms.

Ginny's ringing laughter could be heard by all, even as the small family passed through to the muggle side of the station and headed back to their home to prepare for another day. The witches and wizards still behind them on the platform gazed at the place where the Potters had just vanished with smiles on their faces. It was such a rare treat to see their austere Head Auror and his celebrity family in such an unguarded moment. The love and joy they shared lightened the hearts of everyone present.

Brighter days had finally found Harry and Ginny, and, really, neither of them could have asked for anything more.