Harry Potter sat at the kitchen table, munching on a chocolate frog while reading the Quibbler. Lily sleepily trudged in the door and grabbed a frog.

“Morning, Dad.” She hugged Harry briefly, while she opened her frog card. “Oh, man! I got you again! I’ve got four of you already!”

“Mmm.” Harry replied, turning the Quibbler upside down.

“Where’s Mum, Dad?” Lily asked, peeking over his shoulder to read the puzzle.

“She’s at Diagon Alley, getting a new quill or something. Oh, an owl brought this for you. I didn’t open it.” Harry handed Lily a piece of folded parchment and went back to concentrating on the puzzle in the upside-down Quibbler.

Lily squealed rather loudly in Harry’s ear. Harry jumped up, wand in hand, and promptly fell backwards over his fallen chair. He sat up, dazed, rubbing his head. “Whazza matta?” he said, confused. Albus ran down the stairs, book in hand.

“What happened? All I heard was a crash!” Albus exclaimed worriedly.

“Oh, don’t worry, Dad’s just overreacting again.” Lily giggled.

“Oh.” Albus trudged back upstairs.

“So Dad, guess what?” Lily asked Harry, who was righting himself upon the chair.

“Uh, what?”

“Mrs. Hendricks next door wants me to pet-sit her ferret while she’s gone!”

“She has a ferret?”

“Yeah! His name’s Arnold, and he’s white and cute and-”

“They have a white ferret?”

“Uh, yeah, he’s-”

“There is NO WAY I’m going to have Malf- a white ferret in this house!”

“Aw, come on, Dad, pleeeeeeease? She’s gonna pay me!”

“No. Ferret’s are messy and I hate them.”

I’ll take reeeeeally good care of him!”

“Well, I guess, but-”

“Awesome! Thanks Dad!” Lily bounded up the stairs. Harry, sitting defeated, scratched his head.

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Harry walked into the living room, and found the curtains shredded, stuffing from the pillows strewn everywhere, and the table missing chunks from it’s legs. Why, why, WHY did he let Lily take care of that cretin?

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Arnold sat innocently in his cage, after being recently caught. Harry stood over the cage, remembering that day in his fourth year at Hogwarts…

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Bang!

“OH, NO YOU DON’T, LADDIE!”

Harry spun around. Professor Moody was limping down the marble stair case. His wand was out and it was pointing right at a pure white ferret, which was whivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where Malfoy had been standing.

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Harry looked at the cowering ferret, and took his wand out.

“Payback time, Malfoy.” He snarled.

“Dad! I’m home!” Lily’s voice rang out. Harry cursed under his breath. He stooped down the get eye-to-eye with the white ferret.

“This isn’t over, buddy. This isn’t over.”