The day at the beach ended with James, Harry, and Renata working on an extravagant sand castle that would eventually be washed away by the approaching tide, long after they had left to return home. But for days following, the sandcastle lived on in Harry's dreams as he remembered the day at Botany Bay fondly. He and Renata could gladly say that their first experience at the beach had been absolutely perfect and they wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

It was full of swimming, laughter, plenty of sand, and more importantly, nothing bad had happened. They had all returned to the Potter household, fairly exhausted and they all slept soundly through the night. Since then, there seemed to be a relaxed atmosphere that washed over the home.

Every morning was filled with the pleasant smells of breakfast, Renata and James taking turns to cook, even though James insisted on cooking nearly every single morning to prove himself. However, Harry didn't really care who was cooking the meal, he was just glad that he was able to enjoy his time with the two. His father seemed to be in an increasingly better mood every day. There weren't any signs of rough nights of sleep plagued by nightmares. Instead, he would walk out to greet them with a smile on his face, especially whenever he looked at Renata, not that she really seemed to notice the way he looked at her.

Each day he walked out, hoping that it was going to be the day where she stopped addressing him as Mr Potter. He was disappointed each time, but he still carried on as if it didn't bother him in the slightest. After all, it wasn't that big of a deal, and one could just be thankful that Renata seemed to be in a more relaxed state as she found herself not having to be on guard all the time.

Overall, things were better and Harry wanted it to continue that way, too young to voice how he truly felt, he couldn't tell either adult how upset he was when they were upset. He hated when his father looked sad and he hated it when Renta looked scared. He preferred both of them greeting him with bright smiles and happy voices. He was young, but he could tell the difference when they were genuinely happy or when they were just putting on faces for his sake. There was a difference in their smiles, but also a difference in their eyes that maybe they didn't think he would catch onto.

But that's what Harry tended to focus on the most, the eyes of the people he cared about because they told him so much more. Before Renata had come into their lives, James would put on a smile on his eyes would droop looking as if he was terribly sad and sometimes tears would fall. However, now when he smiled, Harry could see the same happiness in his father's eyes that should have been there before.

He had gone back to calling Renata "Nanata" but on the occasion, he would slip and call her "Mummy." Harry didn't mean any harm by it, he didn't understand why Renata looked so frightened when he did call her it, maybe because it wasn't her real name? The concept of his father's fragile mind didn't even come close to crossing his mind, but that's what Renata feared. That while everything was going so well in the household that something would happen that would make it all go to hell in a handbag.

So far though, Harry had been quite careful with his slip-ups, never calling Renata "Mummy" when James was in the same room or around the two outside. And while Renata looked pained every time he slipped, she wasn't upset with Harry, in fact, she felt terrible for telling him otherwise. She figured it had to be so confusing for Harry to have a woman in his life that acted maternally towards him and not be able to call her mother.

Hell, Renata could remember times back when she was back in school where she would call some of her female professors "mother" by accident because she spent so much time around them and they had always treated her with such kindness.

It was almost like a natural instinct of sorts, so she honestly couldn't blame Harry. Renata assumed that since the time of Lily's passing that Harry was really too young to hold onto the memories of his late-mother and he was just trying to latch on to anyone that showed him the love and care he deserved.

She just wished that James wasn't in a fragile place because she truly did fear his reaction if he heard Harry say such a thing. Lily had been taken from the world too soon and she would miss out on such important milestones of motherhood, which Renata assumed James would hold against himself. If he heard Harry call another woman as his mother, she was fairly certain that he would lose it completely.

So every day, she gave Harry the reminder that she was "Nanny Nanata" and nothing more than that. Only, Harry wasn't having any of that nonsense, maybe she didn't accept the term of endearment right away, but Potters were not quitters. And just like how his father was patiently waiting for the moment where Renata would call him "James" instead of "Mr Potter," Harry was waiting for the moment where Renata would accept the fact that she was the closest person he had to a mother and the only person he remembered acting as a mother to him.

Especially in the most recent night when he woke up the sound of a loud thunderstorm that was rolling over the lands, saturating everything with heavy rains.

Normally, during the day if a thunderstorm hit, Harry didn't find them to be very scary because it was still light out, but during the night, he absolutely hated them. The sound of thunder had stirred him from his sleep and finding himself alone in his room left him terrified. Rolling out of his bed quickly, Harry watched as his entire room was illuminated by a flash of lightning and everything that didn't look so scary during the day, suddenly appeared monstrous in the shadows.

Letting out a small cry, he ran towards the door as fast as his little legs would carry him and stood on the tips of his toes trying to open the door. Renata usually closed it over at night because she and James stayed up later and they didn't want to disturb Harry as he slept. But that evening it definitely worked against him as he couldn't get the door open and with every passing second, he just entered a further state of panic.

The lightning was striking more often and the thunder was getting louder, it was almost like the monster that he associated with the noises and flashes of light was so close to getting him.

His cries grew louder in between the rumbles of thunder and he started to bang his hands against the door to alert someone to come help him. He called for James and he called for Renata and while all hope seemed lost for the little one, his calls for a rescue were finally answered. The door opened and his rescuer appeared to a very sleepy Renata as she peered down in confusion.

Her hair resembled the traditional Potter household look of being incredibly messy and all over the place as if she was suffering a rough night of sleeping from the storm herself. But she wasn't exactly concerned with her appearance at near two in the morning.

"Harry, what are you-"

Before she could even finish, Harry hit her leg with such a force trying to get out of the room and save Renata at the same time. She reached down and lifted him up into her arms, taking him out into the hallway to calm him down. His hands were gripping her pyjama shirt so tightly that he was also pinching a bit of her skin, leaving her to whimper slightly.

"It's alright, Harry," she whispered to him, " it's just a bit of rain and thunder. You're safe inside, no need to worry."

In those moments, Renata was thankful that she had woken up to his cries because with as loud as the storm was, she didn't think that James would be able to hear Harry from the other side of the home. But she had managed to get to him before he could really become upset and to make him feel better, she decided to take him to the living room with a plan in mind. She grabbed her wand from her room and the two of them went to settle on the sofa.

With Harry settled in her lap, resting his head against her shoulder, Renata performed a silencing charm to block out the sound of thunder from outside. That seemed to help Harry relax a bit, but he still held onto her tightly as if the stormy winds from outside would burst through the doors and carry him away.

Using the charm "Lumos" Renata enacted the second part of her plan and within seconds, the room was lit up in light, but she mostly directed it up towards the ceiling as she held her wand in between her knees. With the light shining from the tip of her wand, she directed Harry to look up before she placed her hands over the light and started forming shadow shapes for him.

For a few minutes, Harry watched quietly as her fingers made all sorts of shapes, including a dog that he quickly named "Paddy" as the dark shadow reminded him of Uncle Sirius right away. Then she did a wolf and made a low howling sound in Harry's ear that made him giggle before he made his own howling noise. Seeing what she was capable of, Harry soon enough wanted to try it on his own as he finally let go of her shirt and made his way down her legs to place his hand over the top of her wand to play with the light.

Renata just watched in amusement as Harry attempted to make all sorts of shapes while making his own animal noises. From the sounds of ducks and a rooster to a cat, even though they didn't remotely look like any of those animals, it seemed that he was having such a great time. She was enjoying the little show that she didn't even realise how loud Harry was being with his animal noises.

She had blocked the sounds of thunder from coming into the home, but she didn't exactly stop the thunder that followed the lightning bolt that was Harry Potter.

And while nothing usually stirred James from his sleep beside nightmares after he took his sleeping-draught, the fact that he thought there was an invasion of peacocks inside his living room was enough for the man to roll out of his bed quickly. Only half of awake as he ran out of his room, James was so confused not to find a bird army, but rather his son and Renata sitting on the sofa in the living room.

Neither one of them seemed to notice that he was awake as he approached where they were sitting, Harry was practically in tears from laughing so hard, when suddenly, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and suddenly let out a terrified scream as he flopped back and fell off the sofa. Renata immediately went to catch him but as she turned her head to see what had frightened him so badly, the lighting of her wand fell over and there was only a flash of lighting that gave James a haunting glow.

She screamed as well before following Harry as they both ended up on the floor with a loud thud.

James always knew that thunderstorms tended to spook Harry at night, but he didn't think that Renata was going to find them scary too.

"What are you two doing up?" he asked with a yawn before rubbing his eyes, realising that he had walked out without his glasses on, leaving him with blurry vision. But as he squinted his eyes, he could see that Renata and Harry were poking their heads up from where they were on the floor.

"We were making shadow puppets," Renata confessed to him as she looked slightly embarrassed. "Harry woke up from the storm, I heard him crying, so I thought we could make some fun out of it. Then you showed up from the shadows-"

"Well, that's only because it sounded like a peacock was being sodomised out here," James told her.

"Excuse me, Mr Potter, " Renata interrupted him, " but Harry makes lovely rooster sounds, doesn't he?"

Looking down, James saw that Harry was watching him carefully, bringing him to smile quickly. "You're right, you did such a good job, Harry. You know what, I want to hear more of those animal sounds, let me just go get my wand and my glasses and I'll be right back."

Renata smirked as he ran out of the room, nearly colliding with the frame of his bedroom door before he stopped himself. James looked over his shoulder, wondering if Renata had witnessed any of that, but she was looking away, making sure to conceal her smile. He grabbed his glasses first and then his wand to rejoin Renata and Harry. Both adults illuminated their wands again, providing Harry with more surface on the ceiling to put on his puppet show as they waited out the storm.

He put on quite the performance with his shadow hand puppets, while Renata and James sat on the floor with their backs against the bottom of the sofa, watching and occasionally clapping their hands as they cheered him on. It seemed he wasn't going to run out of energy any time soon either as all his movements and sounds made it seemed like he was wide awake. Unfortunately, Renata didn't have half as much of Harry's energy at the time. Several times she was frightened as she started to doze off only to have Harry make a loud noise.

But eventually, she was just purely exhausted to where she fell asleep, slumping over to where her head came to rest on James' shoulder and it seemed that James wasn't that far behind as he started to get tired again himself. After a while, Harry realised he was entertaining a sleeping crowd as he turned his head when he didn't get a reaction. He saw that Renata had her head rested on James' shoulder, while he rested his head on top of hers, both of them sound asleep as the storm faded with only little spurts of lightning in the distance.

Walking over, Harry waved his hands in front of their faces, nudging both of them slightly, but they didn't even budge. For a moment, he almost looked offended that they had fallen asleep during his performance, but he quickly got over it as an idea came to his mind. Grabbing his father's wand, Harry carried it all the way to his room, lighting his way until he reached his bed. He grabbed his blanket, pulling it off and dragging it behind him as he made his way back to the living room.

Returning to James and Renata on the floor, Harry placed the wand down and then came to settle himself across their laps, pulling his blanket over himself and their legs as he used them as his bed for the night.

"Night, night!" he called out. "Mummy, Daddy, Harry go to night night ...and sleep."

Reaching out, Harry grabbed one of James' arms and placed it over his leg and then took one of Renata's hands and held onto it as he settled back to try and sleep again.

With dreams of silly shadow puppets, days at the beach, and all the fun he had been having in the recent days, Harry forgot about the thunderstorm, the scary monsters that lurked in the shadows, and all the terrifying noises as he fell asleep rather quickly and didn't wake up until the next early afternoon along with Renata and James.