"You looked different when you were little, Daddy." A dark haired four-year-old boy giggled.

Crowded around the living room five adults and five children were huddled together looking through a photo album. Everyone had arrived a couple hours before and had recently finished cleaning up after dinner.

"That's your father on his thirteenth birthday." The oldest member of the group said pointing to a picture of a young boy smiling behind a birthday cake.

The man had a young red-haired girl sitting on his lap while the other children pressed against his sides to get a better look. The other four adults stood behind the couch looking over his shoulders.

"Aww…" said a short, chubby, brunette. " You were actually cute at one time, darling."

Everyone chuckled a bit before the woman gave her husband, once the boy in the picture, a quick snuggle.

"Grandpa," inquired one of the oldest children, who could be no more then nine. "Why aren't there any pictures of Daddy and Uncle Harry when they were really, really, little? I mean like when they were babies."

The room grew silent and the four adults behind the couch didn't seem to know were to look let alone what to say. The children glanced, curious from adult to adult.

The grandfather sitting in the middle of the bunch smirked seemingly amused by the entire situation. He adjusted the little girl's position on his lap then closed the photo album. He knew it still hurt his sons to think of those years before they became a family, but his grandchildren needed to hear the story. They need to learn by word of mouth what he and his boys had been forced to learn through experience.

"It's a very long story," began the grandfather patiently.

"Dad…" began one of the older men before being interrupted.

"Harry." The voice had a no nonsense tone that was not to be tested. "I would hope that by now you would have learned that regardless how painful the experience there is always a lesson to be learned and…"

"…and unless we want history to repeat itself, unless we want others to suffer as we have, we need to share the lessons with our children…and grandchildren." The other man finished as though the words had been imprinted into his mind.

Walking from behind the couch to the large armchair, gently pulling his wife along with him, he sat down with a resigned sigh, his wife snuggled against him, more in his lap then in the chair.

"There's no use fighting it Harry we all knew the kids would ask one day. It won't be any easier to tell them tomorrow."

The man with messy black hair, that barely hid the remains of a lightening bolt shaped scar, scoffed and his eyes clouded over briefly before allowing his wife to pull him over to another arm chair.

"Alright, little ones," began the grandfather tenderly refocusing on the children gathered around him. "There is far to much to tell in one night, but hopefully what I can tell you will explain a great deal."

The room was silent for a moment as the grandfather decided the best place to begin.

"The summer your fathers turned twelve…"