"Professor, is today's potion dangerous or is it something where Harry can sit with me?" James asked, approaching Professor Slughorn while everyone was entering as Harry hid in James' robes again.

"My, who's this?" Slughorn asked, leaning forwards towards Harry, who gripped James' robes more tightly.

"This is my son, Harry, he's from the future and ended up now because of accidental magic, he's very shy." James said, giving Harry a small, comforting squeeze, hoping that Slughorn would get the hint and back off a little for Harry.

"Oh, who's the mother?" Slughorn asked, seeming to be trying to get a good look at Harry's face.

Slughorn was someone rather difficult to deal with, he always seemed friendly and boisterous, but he never seemed to understand boundaries, especially not the boundaries of the students he liked. There was a reason Lily would sandwich herself between people Slughorn liked less. While he always seemed (overly) friendly, he didn't take refusals well; he had given Snape a detention one time he forcefully put himself between Slughorn and Lily. That was one of the only times James was actually on Snape's side. James already had detentions he had to go to, and he didn't want more with a teacher he didn't want Harry around, the most he could do was try to get the conversation over and done with as fast as possible.

"I don't know, like I said, he's from a different time." James lied through gritted teeth, Lily's head perking up as she heard that. "Is it a potion that's safe for him to be next to me or not?"

"Today's potion isn't too dangerous, he can sit with you, I can get some stuff for him to work through." Slughorn said, his smile making Harry turn and fully hide in James' robes.

"Okay, thank you." James said, walking over to his desk, glancing at Lily who sat next to him and had most of the year, although sometimes she would swap places with Sirius if she was too annoyed with him.

"I thought you said I was his mother." Lily whispered, leaning in so only James would be able to hear her.

"You are, would you rather I told Slughorn? I said I wouldn't tell anyone, that means I might have to lie." James whispered back, putting Harry down between them.

"Right, sorry." Lily said, moving away from him again.

Harry gave her an intense look, before grabbing onto James again as soon as he sat down.

"What's wrong baby?" James asked, wrapping his arms around Harry, not worrying about talking as the room was still noisy as everyone was still setting up.

"Don' like him." Harry mumbled into James' chest.

"Professor Slughorn?" James asked quietly, hoping to not get the attention of said teacher.

"Mhm." Harry nodded, he had had a lot of teachers try to get in his face, and he thought he had gotten used to it, and maybe he had until getting used to James' respect for him, but it seemed to still make him extremely uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry, but he's my teacher, there's nothing I can do to avoid him for now, you shouldn't have to be too close to him though." James promised, kissing the top of Harry's head again. "I love you."

Harry sat, barely able to look over the top of the table as Professor Slughorn gave an introduction to the lesson, it was a simple potion that increased plant growth they were making today, one which had about a hundred ways of going wrong, but none explosive or dangerous, mostly just bad smells or irritated skin. Turns out it was true Harry would be able to stay with James, not that he had doubted Slughorn.... Yes he had.

"Okay Harry, can you hand me the ingredients I ask for?" James asked as he set up his cauldron, bringing out a clearly well used potions book that had a lot of messy writing on all over the place, transfiguring a part of the bench into a stool for Harry to stand on.

"Okay Daddy." Harry said with a nod, standing on the chair and putting on the slightly scratched safety glasses James had shrunk for him.

"That's my good little boy." James said with a proud smile, how his in laws had been able to mistreat such an endearing child he had no idea.

Harry gave a small smile with slightly heated cheeks, fiddling with his fingers. Harry was going to do his best to keep the clothes clean, he would usually manage it when he was cooking, but he was able to cover with something in those times, and his clothes were extremely messy and were covered in sweat stains.

"Okay Harry, these are the ingredients, they're all labelled so you shouldn't have to worry too much about getting the wrong thing." James said, putting all the jars on the table with the labels facing Harry.

Before actually starting on the potion though, as the cauldron was heating up, James chopped, crushed, and grounded up some of the other ingredients, including some beetles and other things Harry had never seen before.

"Okay, when I ask for these," James said, scrawling down a few names on a piece of parchment and ripping them up, placing them by the ingredients he had prepared. "Give me these ones rather than the ones in the jars, okay?"

"Okay!" Harry said enthusiastically with a nod, his hands in fists beside him.

"That's my boy." James said, ruffling Harry's hair getting a broader grin in response.

James started the potion by pouring in the murky contents of a rather large bottle that filled just under half of the cauldron, leaving it for a moment or two before waving his wand over it and nodding.

"This is a potion base, the ones most of the people in school use is water with maybe some glucose or something similar used, but this is one that I made at home and have permission to use. I can teach you over the holidays." James explained, putting his wand down and picking up a wooden spoon to stir the potion base.

"Okay," Harry said, looking at James with admiration for how well James seemed to be doing at this.

"Can you pass me the dragon blood?" James asked, keeping an eye on the potion, even though all that was there was the hot potion base.

Harry stood on his toes, looking at all the ingredients until he saw a vial that held a shimmering substance with a label that said 'Dragon Blood' on it. Harry grabbed it and held it up to James, feeling a little proud.

"Thanks Harry." James said with a smile, giving Harry only a quick glance, but Harry knew it was a warm one, as James poured out the right amount of dragon blood.

Harry watched as James carefully stirred slowly, clockwise twice and then anticlockwise until the potion turned a pale blue. Harry was surprised, he didn't know that something that was red would go blue when heated with something. Then again, Harry pretty much only knew how to cook.

"Wait, Daddy, there's a different dragon blood over there, it's green." Harry said pointing at Sirius' desk where, indeed, the dragon blood was green.

"Oh, that's just because it's from a different species of dragon, oddly their blood all has the same properties though. Some people collect different types of dragon blood, and some people just get one that they like the colour of more." James explained, not even having looked up, memorising everyone's dragon blood colours when bored. "Pass me the ground moonstone."

Harry looked at the things James had prepares, but none of them were moonstone, so Harry looked at the glass jars and saw one has an odd iridescent look to it, and, sure enough, it was moonstone.

"Here!" Harry said, holding it out. "It's very pretty!"

"Hm?" James said questioningly, looking at the jar after measuring the right amount out. "Yeah, I guess it is."

"Even though it's called moonstone it's not from the moon, it's a stone that even muggles like and apparently contains magic." Lily explained for James, knowing more about muggles' opinions on things, especially what's related to potions, which James seemed to like as much as he did Quidditch and Transfiguration.

"O-oh... Thank you." Harry said, his voice quiet as he was turned towards Lily but looked down at his shoes.

"I'm Lily Evans by the way, we might have to work together in Potions as James and I share a desk." Lily said, holding out her hand for Harry to shake.

"N-nice to meet you." Harry mumbled, taking her outstretched hand.

"Evans, just because I'm in love with you doesn't mean you get to steal my kid." James said with a laugh in his voice.

"Really Potter?" Lily asked, rolling her eyes at him, before jumping slightly and going back to her potion hat had turned a dark blue from the yellow it had been before and rather than the pale blue it was supposed to be.

"You can fix that with a little lemon juice." James said, giving Lily's potion a quick glance.

"What?" Lily asked, never having heard anything about using lemon juice in a potion before, especially not to deal with overheated dragon blood.

"Lemon juice works, I mean it's not too fatal of a mistake either way, but if you want it to be perfect add a squirt of lemon juice." James said, sounding so sure that Lily didn't bother questioning him again.

"I don't have any lemon juice though." Lily said, her eyebrows furrowed as she grabbed the powdered moonstone.

"I do. Harry, could you grab the yellow bobbly container from my bag, it looks kinda like a lemon and it's got muggle lemon juice in it." James said, turning to Harry as he waved his wand over his own cauldron.

"Is there even a difference in muggle and wizard lemon juice?" Lily asked as Harry went to James' bag to grab the lemon juice in question.

"Only in the preservatives, you don't want to add any of those potions into this, it explodes." James said with a small, almost sarcastic sounding laugh, his eyes widening at the end and tapping the spoon on the side of the cauldron twice.

"And how would you know that?" Lily asked, taking the lemon juice that Harry handed to her. "Thank you."

"Because I tried and it burnt my eyebrows and fringe." James said with a shrug, taking the lemon juice back and putting it on his desk.

"Don't worry 'bout it Evans! Prongs knows his stuff about Potions, writes it all in his book." Sirius called over, Harry noticed Snape's head come up, but nobody else seemed to care, so Harry didn't mention it.

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks Potter." Lily said, going back to her potion.

"Your potion is perfect, as always, Miss Evans." Professor Slughorn said, putting a hand on Lily's shoulder, coming up behind the table, his hand making Lily flinch.

"Thank you Professor." Lily said with a slight emphasis on the word Professor, as if she was trying to remind him of his position to her, her head was down and eyes fixed almost unseeingly on the spoon in her potion.

Harry flinched too, holding onto the rolled up sleeves of James' robes. Slughorn turned to look at Harry who gasped at the attention on him, hiding his face in James' robes as James tried to look after the potion and make Harry feel like he was safe.

"Sorry Professor, like I said, Harry is really shy, please don't stare at him." James said rather firmly, he knew that Mme Pomfrey would back him up, but it was unlikely that Professor McGonagall would get him out of a detention, even if it was him looking after Harry, the most she was likely to do was look after Harry for him.

"I'm not doing anything to make him uncomfortable." Professor Slughorn said, almost sounding offended and hurt by James' words, not that this could be the first time he was told this.

"Maybe, but he's very sensitive and I don't want him to be forced into situations he's uncomfortable in." James said, managing to make eye contact with Remus, who worked next to one of the Slytherins who claimed to be a Death Eater.

Remus nodded, quickly grabbing a porcupine quill and dropping it into the Slytherin's potion without being noticed, making a disgusting odour rise from the potion.

"Professor." The Slytherin complained, another member of the Slug Club. "Something's wrong with my potion."

Slughorn went off to the student, anyone could see Harry relax now the attention wasn't on him. James gave Harry a small hug and kiss on the top of his head, before going back to his potion.

"I'm proud of you Harry." James whispered to Harry with a smile. "You're doing amazing, and that's a good way to let me know you're uncomfortable. I might not always be able to fix it, but I'll always try my best to. I love you."

Harry gave a small smile, moving back on the stool so he was on the middle and had easier reach to the ingredients.

"Since when was he a good dad?" Lily muttered to herself. She would be lying if she said the way he treated Harry didn't make her rethink James.