"Tell us about the ghosts, James! You said there were ghosts, didn't you?"

"Oh, yeah," said James. He leant back on his bed, cool as cucumber, but with a wicked glint in his eye. "They're terrifying. There's one - the Bloody Baron - he hates children. If you run through the corridors too loudly …" He drew a finger across his throat.

Standing unseen on the landing, hidden behind James's open bedroom door, Harry snorted. In September his eldest son had gone off to Hogwarts, sending letters three times a week full of tall-tales about the castle and it's residents. His parents hadn't believed a word, of course, but James's younger brother and sister, Albus and Lily, had taken in everything wide-eyed, and the moment James had arrived home for Christmas several hours ago, they had pounced, asking non-stop questions. The chatter had briefly stopped at bath time, but now it was bedtime and Albus and Lily had hurtled into James's bedroom, eager for stories of the school they wouldn't see for a year (in Albus's case) and three (in Lily's).

"… Peeves," James was saying, "a poltergeist. He'll sneak into your dorm and hold your nose while you're sleeping, he'll put Flobberworms in your shoes … you don't want to get on the wrong side of Peeves."

Suddenly, James looked up from the rapt gazes of his siblings and looking Harry straight in the eye. He looked startled for a moment, but then grinned.

Don't let your mum hear you scaring them like that, Harry mouthed. James's grin grew, and he shook his head a fraction.

"Did I tell you about the time I got a detention in the Forbidden Forest?" he asked Albus and Lily. "No? Oh, that was wicked, that was … you two wouldn't have coped with it, you're not brave enough."

"And you are?" said Albus sceptically.

"I'm in Gryffindor, aren't I?" James said proudly, jerking his thumb at the large red-and-gold Gryffindor banner he'd procured from somewhere, now Spellotaped firmly to his wall. "Like Mum and Dad."

Harry felt a rush of affection for his eldest son. It had been difficult, putting him on the scarlet steam train and sending him off to seven years of visits that would surely fly by, of letters telling how great a time he was having …

"Hogwarts will give you a lot," Harry had said to James before the final goodbye. "Mind you give something back."

And the first letter - Guess what? I was the first person in the class to turn my match into a needle! - had filled him with such a pride he hadn't felt since he had held James for the first time, eleven years earlier.

"I want to go," said Lily enviously. "It sounds brilliant."

"It is - you're missing out. Of course, you might not get to go at all, you might be a Squib …"

Lily's mouth fell open in outrage. "I'm not a Squib!" she exclaimed. "I've done magic! I will go to Hogwarts, I will!"

Enough, Harry mouthed with a stern look, catching James's eye.

"Sorry," said James, looking back at his father. "Didn't mean it. Just wait 'til you go, Lily - and you, Al. Food's great, the dorms are really cosy - even the lessons are fun. And flying lessons! I was the best, Madam Spinnet told me so. She told me I'd have to go out for Quidditch next year."

"Do you ever have treacle tart for pudding?" Albus asked eagerly.

"Yeah!" said James with enthusiasm. His grin faded a little a moment later, though, when he admitted, "it's not as good as Mum's, though."

"Did you miss home at all?"

For the third time, James's almond-shaped brown eyes met Harry's. "Yeah, I did," he whispered, "but don't tell Mum and Dad. They'll get big-headed."

Harry laughed all the way back to his and Ginny's bedroom.

Erm, ending's rubbish. Couldn't think how to do it. This is another of my five-minute things - which, funnily enough, turn out to be the things I post, rather than the ones I slave over for weeks. Hope everybody's having good holidays!