Turn DRARRY

Chapter One

19th December 2017

Harry glares up through the windscreen of his borrowed SUV and makes eye contact with a shrivelled, disapproving old woman half a second before the heel of his hand slams into the steering wheel and the horn blares loudly at the bus full of senior citizens that has just cut him up. It's the third time something like this has happened since he pulled away from King's Cross and he's had enough.

"Learn to drive!" he complains pointlessly. The offending driver can't hear him, he knows that, but the sour-faced old lady shakes her head and elbows her friends, tutting.

"Dad, calm down," comes a voice from the magically-enlarged back seat.

Still fuming, Harry meets his daughter's eyes in the rearview mirror. "I'm perfectly calm, Lily. I'm just a little bit fed up of buses thinking they can do whatever they feel like because they're big. That's all."

Lily scrunches her nose up. "You need to untwist. Seriously."

"Untwist," he repeats under his breath. He looks away from her know-it-all expression and focuses instead on the reflection of his own eyes, just for a moment. He really doesn't remember when he got those dark circles and crow's feet. Where they came from, or what they want. Tearing his eyes back to the road, he catches one last glimpse of the bus' elderly occupants—he doesn't suppose they remember either.

Fuck, he's tired. He's never been very good at driving, either, but here he is, trundling along at sixty miles an hour with a pounding headache, a short temper, four children and Lily's cat, who doesn't seem capable of being parted from her. It doesn't matter that he only borrowed the new (and heavily modified, much to Molly's chagrin) car from Arthur because it's his turn to get the kids from the station and that Lily could have quite easily stayed at home. No, because she's horrified at the idea that she might miss something, especially something to do with Hogwarts.

So there she sits, cross-legged next to the window, holding a purring cat-ball on her lap and telling Harry to 'untwist' himself. He supposes he should feel fortunate that she's not adding her voice to the nonsensical argument that's currently raging between Al, Rose Weasley, and James. Harry pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs as the road in front of him swims momentarily. It's a shame that 'not wanting to know' doesn't lessen the pain in his skull.

"Err, that's disgusting!" Rose cries, to scattered laughter from the back seat.

It's not as though he isn't pleased to see them; the winter term always feels like the longest, and he has missed James' little acts of rebellion, Al's strange questions, and the Siamese twin act with Rose that often leaves him puzzled over how many children he actually has. But... he wishes they could be pleased to see him in a quiet way. Just for a little while. Just until he can get the last of this day off his skin. And see what sort of mood Ginny is in.

Untwist, he intones gamely inside his head. Untwist.

"Anyway," Al is saying to Rose, "Scorp says that now his mum and dad are getting divorced, he's going to—"

"What?" Harry interrupts, turning around in his seat to look at his son so sharply that the car veers to the right and Lily jumps and grabs onto the arm rest. The cat, it seems, has secured itself by hooking sharp claws into her thigh. "Sorry, Lil." He straightens up the car with some effort and instead regards Al in the mirror. "What was that about Mal... about Scorpius' mum and dad?"

Al looks back, all green eyes and ink-smudged nose. "They're getting divorced."

"Scorpius told you that?" Harry presses, feeling unexpectedly jarred by the news.

"Yeah. But it's in the paper, too... Oi, James. James! Let me borrow that a minute." Al leans across Rose and tries to take the Daily Prophet behind which James has been hiding since the journey began.