It was half past eight in the morning, Harry Potter had three children, all under the age of five, and he was really wishing that his wife hadn't had to go into work early.

It wasn't just him, Ginny always assured him; she had just as many problems with them when she had all three of them to herself. Even so, he couldn't help but feel that somehow, he just wasn't making the grade as a father.

This morning's battle, as it had been so many mornings, was getting Lily to eat her breakfast. She didn't make it easy; first there was the 'starfish', sticking all four limbs out so she wouldn't fit in the highchair. Then came the "No, no, no!", followed by the beating of her tiny but strong fists against the table, and then (if he was particularly unlucky) the screaming started.

This would have been easier to bear if her brothers hadn't been having a loud fight over who won the toy from the cereal packet.

"James, Albus, sit still and eat your cereal! Here, give me that - " he snatched up the hideous plastic owl that was blinking up at them, having fallen into one of their cereal bowls. "Stop it, now; James, it isn't worth crying over, eat up."

Already feeling frazzled, he turned back to Lily. "Come on, sweetheart, eat some food for Daddy. Here we go, it's delicious, isn't it! Look, here comes the dragon…" He picked up the spoon, pretending it was a dragon flying towards her.

"No!" she yelled, far too loudly for a child who was still learning to walk, "No, I won't, no Daddy, no Daddy, I won't, I won't, I WON'T!"

Harry's headache worsened as Albus and James took up arguing again, this time about who got to use the 'special' spoon; the one with the slightly melted handle. As he turned round to get them to stop, Lily still banging her tiny fists against the plastic tray, there was a loud hissing from the kitchen as the eggs he'd been boiling finished and the water ran out of the saucepan. Quickly taking out his wand, distracted by the three screaming children in his charge, he waved it to try and take the saucepan off the hob. Before he knew what was happening, though, Lily had snatched his wand out of his hand, her face bright red.

"Mine!" she shouted, waving it and causing all sorts of things to fly off the shelves. "Mine now! Mine, mine, mine!"

"Bugger," Harry muttered under his breath, trying desperately to grab it off her but failing. It took a few seconds for what had happened to really register. If she had taken his wand, then that would mean...

"What do you mean, she took it?!" Ginny shouted that evening.

"I'm sorry, it was all getting a bit fraught, and - "

"But there's a way of saying these things! Not saying, 'Nice day at work? Good, no, not much happened here, just that our ONE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER IS THE MASTER OF THE MOST POWERFUL WAND EVER TO HA EXISTED."

Harry winced as she shouted. "I'm sorry, I really am, but it's not that bad, not really; the wand is still hidden, so she never needs to know."

"But I'll know," Ginny said, and Harry's heart sank when he heard the sadness in her voice. "Besides," Ginny continued, "Why didn't just... snatch it back off her?"

Harry sighed, "I tried, I really did, but she just wouldn't give it back."

For a few seconds, she looked at him suspiciously. "So how did you get it back?" she asked, her voice dangerously low.

Harry mumbled incoherently.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that." Ginny's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"I bribed her, okay?! You would have done the same."

"And what did you bribe her with?"

Something about the false sweetness of Ginny's voice told Harry that she knew exactly what he had bribed their daughter with.

"With a, um, a chocolate frog."

"I thought so. Presumably from the secret stash of sweets that I pretend to now know about?"

"Yeah, that one," Harry mumbled.

At this, though, Ginny smiled, her anger fading. "Harry James Potter, why on earth did I marry you?"

Relieved that she was no longer angry at him, Harry took her hands in his and kissed her softly. "I have no idea, but every day I'm glad you did."

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