8 August 1981

Lily set the ceramic vase down in the middle of the dining table—and she winced. It seemed nothing in the world could make this vase resemble anything other than absolutely ghastly. Lily wouldn't have wished the porcelain object's lurid floral design on the curtains of her worst enemy.

Petunia had always had distinctive taste.

Wrinkling her nose, Lily shook her head and reached out to move the vase an inch to the right. Perhaps it would look nicer from a different angle…

"What is that?"

Lily jumped, accidentally bumping into the kitchen table. The vase swayed dangerously in its place, looking on the verge of toppling over—until Lily hastily seized it with both hands.

Still clutching the vase in her hands, Lily flung a dirty look over her shoulder.

"Sorry," James held up his hands, looking guilty. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"It's fine," Lily sighed, releasing the vase carefully and taking a step back to examine the foul-looking artifact.

James joined Lily by the table, and Lily could practically feel his mingled confusion and disgust at the vase radiating off of him.

"Er—" James hesitated; Lily knew he was trying his very hardest to be understanding, and in spite of herself, she almost smiled. "Lily…why—?"

"It's the vase Petunia sent us for Christmas," Lily explained tiredly. "I'm trying to find a place for it."

"I thought we decided in December that the attic was the best place for it," James said pointedly, and Lily rolled her eyes.

"I felt bad leaving it up there," she told him quietly. She paused, swallowing. "Last Tuesday…it would have been my mum's fifty-fifth—and you know how hard she always tried to…to make me and Tuney get along—" Lily's voice caught.

James sighed, slipping his arm around Lily's shoulders and giving her a gentle squeeze. He was quiet for a moment.

Then— "Maybe we could put it in the sitting room," he suggested. "It might not look so hideous next to that banshee-shaped cuckoo clock Sirius gave us for our anniversary last year."

Lily giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. "James."

"What?" James asked, smirking. "It was an innocent suggestion."

"Of course it was," Lily shook her head, as she reached out and picked up the vase again. "All the same, you might be right—I don't think I could make dinner with this thing staring at me."

James snorted with laughter, and together, he and Lily made their way out of the kitchen, towards the sitting room.

"Did you get Harry down for his nap all right?" Lily asked, carefully placing the vase on the sitting room's end table—right next to Sirius's vile cuckoo clock.

"Yeah, he was exhausted—out like a light," James said, yawning and stretching as he plopped himself down on the sofa next to Snuffles, their fat black Bombay cat. "Remind me to thank Padfoot for that toy broomstick the next time he comes around."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I'm going to go start dinner."

"Need any help?" James asked, scratching Snuffles's ears.

"No, I've just got to heat up some leftover pot roast," Lily said dismissively.

James grimaced. "Pot roast again?"

Lily shot him a glare. "James, you know full well we haven't had fresh groceries around here in weeks," she said irately.

"Well, then, why don't I go pick some up—?" James offered at once, climbing to his feet.

"No," Lily snapped. "If you think I'm letting you out of this house after what happened to the McKinnons—"

"The market is two streets away—"

"I don't care," Lily exclaimed. "It's too dangerous—"

"Lily, we're in the Order," James said incredulously. "We knew what dangerous meant when we signed up for it—"

"I can't believe you're fighting me on this right now," Lily said furiously.

"I'm not fighting—it's just groceries, Lily—"

But that was as far as James got, for at that precise moment, there was a resounding whoosh from the direction of the sitting room doorway, and James and Lily whirled around to see a black-haired baby hurtle into the room on his toy broomstick. Lily cried out in alarm, and James spread his legs apart just in time for Harry to whiz straight between them.

"I thought you said you put him down for a nap," Lily yelped, practically sprinting toward the mantel and scooping the numerous glass ornaments into her arms.

"I did!" James insisted, although his tone did a very poor job of concealing his delight at watching Harry zoom around the coffee table. "He—he must have summoned the broom himself!"

"Summoned—?" Lily broke off in utter disbelief, rounding on James with her arms full of ornaments. "James, he's one!"

Snuffles was watching Harry warily from the sofa, his beady eyes following the one-year-old's every move. Suddenly, he let out a terrified howl, as Harry began rocketing directly toward his perch on the sofa—the cat leaped off of the sofa and darted under the coffee table, missing death by seconds.

"He's going to be the greatest Quidditch player ever!" James roared with laughter, clapping enthusiastically as Harry changed direction sharply in midair; Snuffles let out an angry hiss from under the coffee table. "Lily, look at him—he's a natural—!"

"James, look out!" Lily nearly dropped the ornaments she was holding, horrified. Harry was now hurtling full-tilt in the direction of the end table.

In one fluid motion, James had lunged forward and scooped Harry off the toy broom—but the broom maintained its path, colliding squarely with the rim of the table. Lily watched, frozen to the spot, as the vase from Petunia tipped backwards, hitting the floor with an earsplitting clatter.

The sitting room was deathly silent for several minutes, as the shock of the moment settled over the family of three. Harry snuggled against his father's shoulder, sucking his fingers serenely as he considered the mess of splintered porcelain on the floor.

Finally— "I'll fix it," Lily said hoarsely, once she had gotten over her initial shock. She reached for her wand, but—

"No," James interrupted, reaching out and catching her wrist.

Lily looked up at him, raising her eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"You can't fix it," James said, eyeing her significantly. "Trust me, Lily, it's beyond repair. It's a shame, a pity—a right tragedy, I say."

Lily gaped at James. Then, in spite of everything, she burst out laughing. "James Potter, you are terrible."

"I think you mean brilliant," James smirked, drawing his own wand and waving it at the broken vase; it vanished. "Besides, Harry's learned his lesson—haven't you, mate?"

Harry wasn't listening—he was too busy wriggling impatiently in James's arms, his little arms reaching in the direction of his toy broom, which was lying quite innocently next to the end table. James looked at Lily, who cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I'm going to go get dinner ready," she told him slowly. "I better not hear anything else break in here."

"Not a chance, madam," James said, grinning broadly and giving her a cheesy salute while he grappled with their squirmy one-year-old.

Lily rolled her eyes, biting back a smile as she turned and slipped out of the sitting room, down the corridor to the kitchen. As she entered the kitchen, she heard Harry give a shriek of jubilant laughter, followed by the loud thudding of James's frantic footsteps as he ran after his son—and Lily's heart, so often weighed down these days by worry and fear and frustration, gave a warming flutter in her chest.

Sighing softly, Lily made her way to the stove, picking up her wand to light it—but then, she paused, listening to the sound of her family's mingled laughter float down the hallway.

Suddenly, Lily tucked her wand back into her robes and snatched up a roll of spare parchment from the kitchen counter. Then, seizing an inkpot and a quill from the kitchen drawer, Lily moved to take a seat at the kitchen table. Smiling, she smoothed out the parchment with her warm hands and dipped her quill into the inkpot.

Dear Padfoot,
Thank you, thank you…

Author's Note:

My first entry for Lamia in the Dark's "Title" Competition. :) Basically, I have to write five one-shots with five different types of headlines. For this story, the title had to be in Harry Potter title format (i.e. main character's first and last name + "and the" + a two-to-four-word proper noun).

I hope you enjoyed!

Much love,
Ari