Harry and James were in the library doing homework, although Harry had pretty much already finished the drawing he had been told to draw by Professor Sprout, of his favourite plant. It was something Harry wasn't entirely sure was real, but Professor Sprout had been happy to accept a green page so it was fine. The plant Harry was drawing was slightly odd, it looked like it had a mouth, but it was hollow, with a slight orange colour. Harry didn't know where he had seen it before, but he had a strong sense that he knew it.

James was mumbling under his breath as he did his homework, Harry looked at his work, but he had no clue what James was working on. He had finished the drawing, it wasn't exactly what he wanted it to look like, but Harry was bored of drawing it now. He never thought he would be able to get bored of drawing, he never really had time to draw before.

"Harry, if you're bored you don't have to stay sitting here, just stay where I can see you. And be quiet." James said, pausing in his work to look over at Harry who was starting to breathe huffily while staring at the ceiling.

"Okay." Harry gave James a hug before he slid off the tall chair and ran off carefully, mostly staying close to James, but a few times he would dip out of sight.

One of these times Harry accidentally ran into a 5th year wearing Slytherin green robes, who dropped a large pile of books. Harry didn't think he had been going that quickly, or ran into them that quickly, but they fell over, their books all over the floor, and one open on their knee.

"Huh? A child?" They asked, looking at Harry with tired, half lidded eyes and confusion.

"Ah, sorry." Harry gave them a small bow and rushing away back to James.

"Why was there a child?" The grey eyed Slytherin asked nobody in particular, picking up the books they dropped. "Looked too old to be a student's."

"Daddy." Harry cried as quietly as he could, running back up to James with his arms up asking to be picked up.

"Hey baby, something wrong?" James asked, picking Harry up and putting him on his lap, going back to his homework, but keeping his left arm around Harry for comfort.

"Ran into someone." Harry mumbled, hiding his face in James' chest.

"Were they angry? And did you apologise?" James asked, paying only partial attention to Harry, but still enough to know what Harry was feeling.

"Don' think so, an' I did." Harry mumbled, still clinging to James.

Harry would cling to James every time he was afraid he had done something wrong. James knew it was because Harry felt safe and comfortable around him, and he was more than fine with it as he loved being a father, but he did think that Harry needed to learn that he was safe now. Then again, it was Hogwarts, and the houses were rather tight, so if Harry angered someone who didn't like Gryffindors, it was absolutely the right thing to run to James.

"Good baby. Want to go flying when I'm done?" James asked, giving Harry a small peck on the top of the head as he kept writing.

Harry mumbled a sound of agreement, nodding and turning around to face the table, sitting down on James' lap. He took another piece of paper and started drawing again, this time it was him and James flying, with Lily small in the background.

"James!" Lily said as loudly as she was allowed in the library, rushing up to their table, leaning on it with her hair in a mess, falling out of her ponytail.

"Lily? This is unusual, you need something?" James smiled at her, moving his papers around, his cheeks a little warm as he looked up at the red haired girl breathing heavily.

"Yes, Professor Slughorn is trying to get me to attend the Slug Club meeting in 10 minutes and I said I was going to be babysitting Harry so I couldn't, but I know that the Slytherins around Severus will tell him if I'm not with him, so please give me him." Lily rushed out, talking very quickly as she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening in.

"I mean, I understand that you don't want to go, but why did you use Harry as your excuse? You two don't really know each other." James said awkwardly, Harry clinging on to him tighter at the idea of being given to Lily.

"I've been there every time Harry flew! But that's besides the point, I used Harry because it's an excuse he can't deny and I've overused pretty much every other one I can think of. Please! I can't go there again, it's the worst." Lily pleaded, putting her head down on the table.

"Harry? Are you okay being with Lily for a while?" James asked, looking down at Harry who was clinging on to James' arm so tightly his knuckles were white.

"Wanna be with daddy." Harry mumbled looking down at his new drawing.

"Of course, baby, but is it okay if we're with her too? We can still go flying, or anything else you want." James said, turning Harry around so he was only facing James and not Lily, looking into Harry's face to see how scrunched up it was, how clearly upset Harry was.

"Can we have some snacks too?" Harry asked, moving out of James' hands to hug him, hiding his face.

"Yeah, baby, we can go get something." James said with a chuckle. "You won't get in trouble if I'm there too, right? You know Harry doesn't want to be away from me right now. You can say that you thought I was asking you to babysit, but actually I was asking you to help Harry adjust."

"That should work, thank you so much." Lily said with a sigh, resting her cheek on the table, waiting for James to finish his homework.

"No problem, I think Remus got an invitation to the Slug Club at the beginning, but he doesn't get them any more. You should ask him for advice on how to get kicked out." James said as he looked back at the previous page of one of the three open books to check he wasn't thinking about something else.

"I already asked him, but he avoided the question. I think I know what got him out of it, it's not something I can use as an excuse." Lily said, she knew that James and Remus were friends, literally the whole school did, but that didn't mean that James knew everything about him. Lily didn't officially know about the secret she was sure got him out of the Slug Club.

"Shame, I can definitely see why it's an unpleasant place to be." James was clearly not paying proper attention, making his tone sound rather uncaring, but Harry knew it wasn't, and Lily wasn't really offended, she had interrupted him while he was working.

"You're much better at Potions than you let on, it's kinda off he hasn't recruited you." Lily stared absentmindedly at James, moving so her hand supported her head as it rested on her cheek.

"I am more than happy not being a part of it. Besides, I'm not his usual type." James said.

Sure, he was a pureblood, and Slughorn never shied away from showing his prejudice towards them, but he was a Gryffindor and some of the largest Blood Traitors after the Weasleys. There was also a small business of how Slughorn technically owed the Potter family a lot of money, but he wasn't paying it while living extremely comfortably. Of course the main thing was that James was close with his family, and not just close enough to be able to use their connections.

The small group of three sat in relative silence, other than the scratching of James' quill as he wrote and Harry crinkling the paper as he drew rather messily.

"Okay," James stretched as much as he could with Harry still on his lap. "I'm done. Time to go to the kitchens."

"We still gonna fly?" Harry asked quietly, clinging onto James tighter as he gathered up their things.

"After our little picnic, okay? Sorry it'll take longer." James brushed Harry's fringe back, revealing the scar that looked painful, and pressing a kiss in the centre.

"Is okay." Harry sounded a little sad as he said that, but James was sure he would cheer up when eating the snacks.

"You're my good little baby, aren't you?" James knew by now to avoid calling Harry "boy", Harry had hidden under the bed for a while when James had before. After calming Harry down James found out it was what Vernon called Harry.

"I'll take your books back to the shelves." Lily offered, getting up and gathering his books into a pile to put back.

"Oh, not that one." James said, grabbing the Potions book before it got lost in the pile. "It's mine, got lots of Potions notes in, mostly from home. I think Madam Pince would have a heart attack if she saw inside."

"Oh, any other of your books in this pile?" Lily said, pausing before she went to walk away.

"Nope, thank you." James said cheerfully, putting his work and Potions book in his bag, and standing up with Harry, who was holding his drawings. "Harry, you wanna drop off your homework while we walk down?"

Harry nodded, after looking at his drawing again. Harry and James waiting for Lily by the door, and when she came back they headed down to the kitchens for food. Of course, they called it snacks, but knowing the House Elves it wasn't going to be light food. James just hoped that Harry wouldn't be too surprised or scared by them.

"Hello." James said, entering the kitchens, to cause all the noise of the kitchens to stop as the elves stopped and looked over at the trio. "We want to have a small picnic. Harry likes treacle tart, so if that could be included, that would be amazing."

Harry's eyes immediately lightened up at the idea of having some treacle tart. It wasn't on the table very often, and even when it was it was usually quite far away, or Harry was full, so Harry wouldn't ask for it or get it. He was surprised that James had noticed, he thought that nobody could take notice of what Harry did and didn't like, let alone want to.

"Some crisps and other snack foods mostly though." Lily knew how the House Elves could be, the number of times the dorms had a whole roast dinner for the snacks if they were all chatting was at least 5 times too many.

"Of course masters and madam, we'll prepare the best picnic for you all!" The House Elves said in almost perfect unison, making Harry cling to James a little tighter.

"We're going to end up with enough to feed the whole of Gryffindor, aren't we?" Lily mumbled through her toothy smile as she leaned in closer to James.

"I'm sure we will," James sighed, adjusting Harry slightly for better comfort. "I need to ask the Hufflepuffs how they get the reasonable amount that they do. Maybe there's a secret code?"

"Wait what? How much do they get?" Lily whipped her head around to look at James.

"The reasonable amount for whatever occasion." James said with a shrug.

"Wait, how would you know how much the Hufflepuffs get from the kitchens?" Lily suddenly realised.

"I've stayed over a few times. They're great people." James shrugged, he had become good, if not close, friends with the person he had gone to see, so he had been invited other times too.

"Oh, I just expected you to be the kind of person who sticks in Gryffindor." Lily gave James a look up and down.

"My closest friends are in Gryffindor, so I do spend most of my time with Gryffindors, but I see no reason to not pursue any relationships with other houses." James avoided looking at Lily as he kept talking, his cheeks a little flushed as he thought of one person in particular.

"Your foods is ready." One of the cleaner House Elves said cheerfully, pushing a large basket full of food, enough to be a meal by the weight, into Lily's arms, a blanket in between the lid and the handle.

"Thank you." Harry said, waving as the three left. "Daddy, why do they stay in the kitchen?"

"Well, it's because Hogwarts is old fashioned about House Elves. Their magic is most stable when they work for people, but that's the same thing that can hurt them the most. In most families now they mostly just drop in when needed to do some cooking or cleaning or whatever is needed, and do what they want most of the time. Dumbledore caters to the ghosts who think that good House Elves shouldn't be seen." James explained to Harry. He didn't know exactly how Harry was treated, but he was sure he was able to relate to the House Elves. "There's a large group of people trying to change the way they're treated, but Dumbledore has a lot of influence."

"What about your family?" Lily asked.

"We have some who are under our care for their magic, but we use these magical tools called Sprites specifically made for cleaning. They look humanoid, but it's just magic, and they're not alive." James said. "Where should we sit?"

"By the lake, it's beautiful there, and there's a stag that sometimes stops by." Lily said, looking almost like she was sparkling as she thought about the Stag, James on the other hand flinched slightly.

((A/N: Hello!! Sorry this chapter took so long, but it's twice as long as I would usually write. The image at the top is Sprite, it's my own drawing and it's not that good, I'm not great at the style I was trying to use. Hope you all like this chapter.))