"BUT I MADE IT INTO a house," Julianna justified. 

"Mum, you've literally just copied Scamander," Cassie laughed as the mother-daughter lay on Julia's bed. 

"There's a difference between inspiration and copying—"

"And you have copied,"

"I have been inspired," Julia said sternly, unable to rub off the smile on her face. 

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, mum," Cassie scoffed with a laugh, patting her mother's shoulders. 

"You do," Julia chuckled, making Cassie gag. 

"That was so cheezy," Cassie laughed, continuing to act as though she was vomiting all over the floor beside the bed. 

"I'm raising the bar for cheezy pick-up lines for your significant others," said Julia, gazing at her daughter while she continued laughing at how pathetic and cheezy that was. 

Her daughter's laugh was like music to her ears. The sheer sound of her being happy made Julia's heart flutter.  She watched the girl begin to talk about all the lines she'd received by various people on Valentines Day before and Julia couldn't help but see how much Cassie was like her father. 

She had his charisma, his laugh, his mischievous eyes and perfect hair. She was often reminded of Sirius with the way Cassie spoke but what stood out most of all was that Cassie shared Sirius's unparalleled love and loyalty for those who were kind to her. Both of them had been through a terrible childhood but still held onto the faith of 'everything will get better' which at the end worked out (well, not entirely but it was good enough for them).

It had barely been a week since the mother and daughter had reunited with one another and Julia had so much to catch up on. She'd read all of Cassie's letters and Remus had also done a good briefing about Cassie's likes and dislikes and style of doing certain activities of the day in the past week. Still, it was getting difficult for Julia to cope with her teenage daughter — but she was trying to make the most of it — which Cassie greatly appreciated. 

Cassandra had written back to Fred that night itself. It was a lengthy letter detailing her plans for this summer and how she even managed to sneak back to Hogsmeade via the Hogwarts Express. Fred was definitely impressed by the fact she managed to convince Professor McGonagall to help smuggle herself to Remus's home right under the Ministry's nose. Of course, as Cassie wished, he kept this secret and didn't reveal her location to anyone but did manage to let her allow him to write to her once every week. 

"Cassie!" a distant voice from above shouted, making the girl stop her rant over how ridiculous it was for her to study at Hogwarts after already having completed the majority of her education beforehand. 

"Well, I guess it's time for chores," she groaned, pulling herself up and hugging her mother. 

"I'll join you, my work can wait," Julia suggested as they climbed up the rope ladder. 

"What exactly are you working on?" asked Cassie, pushing open the suitcase to climb out. 

"A potion that can deflect unforgivable curses," Julia shrugged. 

"How would that work?" the daughter asked, genuinely interested in this potion, watching her mother latch her suitcase/home and kick it under Cassie's bed. 

"Sort of like a Protego Charm for your body. So you will be struck by the curse but the potion will technically be able to convert the effect to that of a Stupefy Charm,"

"You said technically," Cassie pointed as they walked down the stairs to the parlour where they knew Remus had called them from, "Have you actually figured it out?"

"Theoretically yes, I just need to make the potion and see if it works," the mother smiled. 

"Could I help?"

"Sure," Julia nodded, glad to get more time to bond. 

The two strolled into the parlour, still deep in conversation about the potion only get distracted by Remus clearing his throat. 

"You both haven't been out for a while now," he began, to which both ambiverts nodded, not seeing the point, "And we're out of groceries,"

"So go buy them," Julia shrugged, still not understanding why Remus had called them down for this. 

"I want you two to go out and get them," said Remus, rolling his eyes at how slow they were. 

"Us?" Julia repeated. 

"In public?" Cassie continued. 

"Yes, why is that so hard to comprehend?"

"Remus, I'm not supposed to be here! Remember? The Ministry is going to be behind my back because I met my father?" Cassie reminded, snapping her fingers in front of his face as if trying to grasp his attention. With an annoyed expression, Remus swatted her hand away. 

"And I am not a public person, everyone thinks I'm dead," pointed out Julia. 

"Your sentence is over Julia, I don't understand why you're making such a fuss!" Remus argued, having this conversation with her for the umpteenth time. 

"Because..." Julia began before trailing off on realising she had no excuse, this time. 

"You two don't want to show your faces? I'll give you a solution. Two words: Polyjuice Potion," Remus suggested, giving the mother and daughter zero ways to weasel out of this situation, "You (he said, pointing at Julia) have an abundant stock of the potion as well as a bunch of hair from random people. Drink up, buy me my groceries, breathe some fresh air and look at the world around you,"

"Bold words coming from a man who literally always hid inside the house," Cassie mumbled under her breath, making Julia scoff. 

"I heard that Cassie, and just for that comment, you're doing the dishes for the whole of next week," Remus scolded, getting back to reading the paper, "Oh and no wands in the kitchen either," he smiled, already guessing her sneaky plan of using magic to finish the dishes quickly. 

"Piss off," Cassie groaned before following her mother back to her suitcase-home to drink some Polyjuice Potion for getting the groceries.

Julia had cast an extendable charm on her suitcase after getting inspired by Newt Scamander's little zoo case. Since she was travelling all around Asia, she found it much easier to live inside her suitcase as compared to rent an apartment or motel room for her stay in those cities, towns or villages. 

Climbing down a rope ladder, one would be privy to Julia's cosy little room. With a queen-sized bed all for herself, the room's colour was themed with blue and gold, a sheer reminder of her childhood bedroom that she shared with her brother for a certain time of her life. A small trapdoor was positioned near the rope ladder which opened to a slide (little things like this brought a smile to Julia's face), using which, one could slide down to her workspace. 

Now her workspace was pretty much always musty and dark. The harmless fumes of various potions brewing produced a rather outré smell that often grew on you after spending days and weeks in the scent. 

Cassie's nose scrunched at once as they slid into the 'office' (as Julia liked to call it), the smell hitting her rather too harshly. 

"You'll get used to it," Julia shrugged, remaining unfazed by the scent. She walked over to a stand and searched for her stalk of Polyjuice Potion. 

"This one should work!" she smiled, pulling out a bottle. Grabbing two test tubes from the shelf, she poured the potion into it and sealed the bottle once again. She then pulled out some sort of cloth bag which rolled open to reveals a bunch of pockets with some hair strands of more than fifty people. 

Cassie peeped over the list of names when she came across a familiar one. 

"Mind if I steal a strand of Snape's hair?" she asked with a mischievous smile. 

"Later," said the brunette, busy looking over the names. Zeroing it down to the people, she pulled out two stands of hair and dropped them into their respective tubes. Stirring them well, she handed over one to Cassie who began inspecting it at once. 

"Now it's going to taste weird—" Julia began when Cassie interjected her. 

"I know how it tastes, don't worry. I'd drunk it with Harry, Ron and Hermoine in the second year,"

"Really? You guys brewed Polyjuice Potion during your second year?" the woman asked, quite stunned at how smart the children were. 

"We were spying on the Slytherin's to figure out who opened the Chamber of Secrets," shrugged Cassie as if it was no big deal when suddenly her eyes lit up, "Oh, did I tell you? Harry speaks Parseltongue!" 

"What now?" Julia chocked on air, "Parseltongue?"

"Yeah. We don't know how, but we're trying to find out. He spoke to snakes when he was eleven — just a few days before his letter arrived,"

"You kids have been through so much it's hard for me to keep track," Julia laughed miserably. 

"We're Potters mum, it's a part of our lives. We have so many prophecies under our name, it's mind-boggling" Cassie shook her head and before Julia could counter the question, Cassie chugged down the potion. 

Two seconds into the drink, the Black darted up the stairs (the alternative way down and back up to Julia's room) realising her clothes would tear apart as her body altered its appearance.