"I can't believe that Dad decided not to come and had the audacity to send James Potter in his place," Harry griped as the group piled off the tram at the entrance to the zoo.

"I know," William said sycophantically. "Why are our parents trying to make our lives miserable? I know that Dad still loves Mum, and you said Mum still loves Dad. Yet, whenever we try to set it up for them to get back together, they pull something like this?"

"Guys, don't you think that maybe, just maybe, your parents have given it their best and just aren't meant to be together?" Neville asked.

"And if Aunt Lily is still in love with Uncle Severus, then why did she say yes when Lord Potter proposed?" Dudley mentioned.

"Boys, do you have your school IDs?" Lily interrupted.

Harry, Dudley and Neville reached into their back pockets to get their old school IDs out of their wallets. William, however, mentioned, "Dad homeschooled me up until now, so I don't have a school ID."

"That's okay," James said. "It's only an extra £2. It's not like I don't have the money."

"Of course he does," William muttered before audibly saying, "Thank you, Lord Potter."

The four boys followed James and Lily into the zoo. Harry and Dudley wanted to see the snake section while William and Neville wanted to see the new ape exhibit. After about ten minutes of arguing, it was decided that Lily would take William and Neville to see the apes ("Why do you want to see them? All you have to do to see apes is to look in the mirror!") and James would take Harry and Dudley to see the snakes ("Mr. Potter will fit right in!"). The plan was to meet up at the cafeteria in a couple of hours.

As the groups split up, Harry turned to Dudley and started whispering frantically into his cousin's ear, "I cannot stand this guy. We need some way to scare him off, and hopefully away from my mum permanently!"

Dudley nodded and said, "I have an idea on how to run him off for good, but it will have to wait until lunch. You are the magical cousin, so wing it until then."

"Alright, alright. I suppose you can't fill me in beforehand as to what you have planned?" Harry asked.

"Nope. You will just have to wait and see," Dudley said petulantly.

"Boys, whatever you're plotting, can it wait until after the snake exhibit? I am terrified of them and want to get through here ASAP," James called out.

"Yes sir, Lord Potter," Harry and Dudley chorused with smirks on their faces.

~-~-~-~

"Hey, Aunt Lily!" Neville called out.

"Yes, Neville?" Lily replied.

"Look at this one!" Neville pointed at an ape who was laying reclined on a rock with its feet propped up, relaxing. "It looks just like Uncle Vernon, doesn't it?"

"You shouldn't talk about Uncle Vernon like that, Neville," Lily said as she walked over. "Hmm... it does look like him, though."

Neville and William laughed at that before running off to look at the next primate.

‘You know, I think that maybe I did make a mistake by not going after Severus ten years ago,' Lily thought. ‘I miss having William around, and it would have done him and Harry good to have each other around growing up. Plus William and Neville look so good together. I haven't seen Neville look so... happy around anyone before.'

With the seeds of double about her relationship with James starting to grow in her mind, Lily hurried to catch up with her son and nephew.

~-~-~-~

Harry and Dudley ran from cage to cage in the snake exhibit, checking up on their longtime favourite "pets" and taking in the sight of new ones. While looking at his personal favourite, the Brazilian boa constrictor he had nicknamed Amigo, Harry had a brainstorm. Thinking quickly, he said in Parseltongue, «Hey, Amigo!»

«Yes, my friend?» Amigo hissed.

«You see the man in the blue suit over there?» Harry replied, pointing at James.

«Yes.»

«Well, could you pretend to be asleep while my cousin and I lure him over here? You will get a chance to scare him big time, and this gives me a chance to break you outta here!»

«Sure, Harry. Do you go to Hogwarts this year, or should I make my way towards Surrey?» Amigo asked.

«I go to Hogwarts this year,» Harry said. «Now pretend to sleep!»

Amigo "fell asleep" immediately and Harry called out, "Dud? Mr. Potter?"

"Yeah, Harry?" they both said, walking over to him.

"This snake is so boring... Mr. Potter, get him to do something!" Harry requested.

Dudley leaned over and whispered into Harry's ear, "This is your big plan?"

"Just wait..." Harry replied distractedly.

James had leaned over the rail and was tapping on the glass. Just as he started to lean forward a little further, Harry vanished the glass that James had been tapping on, causing James to lose his balance and fall into the cage. Amigo the snake stopped pretending to sleep and slithered up to James and hissed, «See you later, sucker!» before sliding over James' head and down his back. James let out a loud, girly scream and visibly wet himself from fright.

As the snake passed Harry, it paused and hissed, «Thanks, friend. See you in two weeks!»

«Bye, Amigo!» Harry replied, laughing at the whole situation.

Dudley, who was doing his best not to laugh, started to melodramatically imitate his mum's "hysteria act", crying out, "But the glass... where did the glass go?"

The zookeeper came rushing into the exhibit and helped James out of the boa's cage, apologizing, "I am so sorry, sir. I have no idea of what could have made that glass pull a Houdini on us! Allow me to get you a cup of tea in my office."

"That would be nice," James said shakily. "Come along, boys."

"But Mr. Potter!" Dudley whined. "We've only been here for a little bit, and all we got to see was a sleeping snake!"

"Dudley..." James said warningly.

"Boys," the zookeeper said, squatting in front of them, "how's this? We go to my office to get your chaperone a cup of tea, and I'll get one of my workers to take you two on a behind-the-scenes tour of the zoo! You'll get to ride in a golf cart and see the animals up close and everything!"

"Cool!" the boys chorused. Then Harry piped up, "My brother and our cousin are with my mum at the ape exhibit... can we go get them so they can go on the tour with us?"

"Sure," the zookeeper said genially. "We pass right by the ape exhibit on the way to my office."

Harry and Dudley followed behind the zookeeper and James. As they passed the ape exhibit, Lily, William and Neville were just coming and they joined the procession to the offices. While James told Lily and Zookeeper his side of the story, Harry and Dudley filled William and Neville in on what really happened, along with their plans, finishing with Dudley saying, "Although I could probably pull off what I have planned for lunch now if you guys could distract the adults, guys."

The other three readily agreed and followed the adults into the building. Walking through a maze of hallways, they all finally arrived at the Zookeeper's office. They were seated at a conference table when the zookeeper said, "I will get tea for the adults. What do you boys want to drink?"

"Coca-Cola, please," Harry and William chorused, smiling at each other.

"Redpop, please," Neville requested.

"I'll have pumpkin juice," Dudley said. At his aunt's glare, he said, "Okay, how about orange juice?"

"Coming right up, folks," Zookeeper said, stepping out of the room.

As he left, Lily spoke up, "I don't know what you boys did, but we will be discussing this when we get home!"

As she finished speaking, the zookeeper came back into the room, followed by an aide carrying a drink tray. The aide sat the drinks in front of their owners and excused herself from the office.

All of the room's occupants of the room took a sip of their drinks simultaneously. However, as Neville set his glass down, it tipped over, spilling Redpop on the table and all over James' white dress shirt.

"Neville! Must you always be so clumsy?" Lily scolded, dabbing at James' shirt with a napkin.

"I'm so sorry, Aunt Lily!" Neville cried.

"I'm not the one you need to apologize to," Lily snapped, accepting a new wad of napkins from the frantic zookeeper.

"I'm sorry, Lord Potter," Neville offered.

James just glared at Neville before turning back to Lily and saying, "I will need a new shirt. At least the suit coat is dark, so the stain shouldn't show too bad if the drycleaner can't get it out."

"Good point," Lily said consolingly. "Now that we have this cleaned up, drink your tea. It will help you calm down."

Or so Lily thought. While Neville was apologizing and Lily was cleaning up, aided by the zookeeper, Dudley had spiked James' tea with a potion that forced the imbiber to spill their guts on their current thoughts. No sooner had James taken a big gulp of his tea before he was blurting out, "The day we get married, Lily, is the day I ship those two brats of yours off to a year-round boarding school in Switzerland!"

Lily looked up, surprised, and  asked, "What, James?"

"You heard me, Lily," James snapped.

"I will not allow you to send my children out of the country just because of an accident at the zoo!" Lily said, incensed.

"I've hated them since day one. Today was just the final straw. So what'll it be, Lily? Me... or them?"

Lily looked at James for a minute before looking over at her sons and nephews. Looking back at James, she firmly said, "Them."

Shocked, James asked, "Excuse me?"

"T-H-E-M, them," Lily said. "Do you want me to spell it out in serpents for you?"

"Aargh!" James roared before storming out of the room. Lily apologized to the bewildered zookeeper and whisked the four 11-year-olds out of the room.