James sat by the window and watched as the lady across the street arranged her flowers delicately; making sure every petal was in place before she stood back and snapped a picture of it with small camera. He knew by routine that she would be posting these pictures up for sale, and the next day, someone would come collect the carefully nurtured flower and she would start on her next batch. Whenever he asked her why she sold the flowers she seemed to be so passionate about, she'd just reply with a shrug, and say 'Go along, you.'
James was glad that his flower would never go. As the sky cleared leaving only a few clouds spotted across the blank canvas, James sighed contentedly and sat back on his chair. Lily would be home any time now. Sure enough, a couple seconds later, he heard the old car pull into the driveway, and the door slammed with force. "James! Help me, will you!"
He was already at the door, stepping into the warm summer afternoon with a bright smile on his face. It never ceased to amaze him how beautiful she was. "Welcome home, apple of mine eye, my lovely cup of tea, my fiery haired angel, my bea –"
"HELP ME." Lily bellowed, before sticking her head back into the car as she struggled with the seatbelts that refused to be untangled. Their 4 year old son, Harry, giggled happily and squired as his mother tried to unbuckle him, pulling at her wild hair and kicking the seat. James, confused by why Lily didn't like his poem, attempted to squeeze in next to Lily and stretched his arms out towards his son, unsure of what else she needed help with.
"THE GROCERY" She yelled at him, despite being right next to James, and shoved him towards the boot of the chair, before ducking back to the very active Harry. So James, still lost as to why his flower was speaking in such harsh terms, walked around to the boot and thumped it a few times to open it, and took the grocery in. All in all, it had been an extremely fast and confusing 3 minutes of his life, and a dramatic change from his admiration of the pretty flowers and blue skies barely 5 minutes ago.
He waited inside as Lily bought Harry inside, her eyebrows drawn together in a annoyed expression, as she dumped him on the couch and headed immediately to the catching, all without a glance at James, who was unsure of how to break the silence. Harry had made him own way to the stereo and was pressing all the buttons on it, turning the volume up and down and skipping songs at a rapid pace. James lifted Harry up in his arms and went over to the kitchen, where he sat Harry down next to him and faced a frustrated looking Lily.
"Honey, what's wrong?" He asked gently, feeding Harry some pieces of a biscuit.
"What's wrong? EVERYTHING'S wrong!" Lily blurted out, giving James an accusing look as Harry spat everything out onto the floor, making a blob of liquidly mess. "Look at that. How can you feed him something before you've even eaten it? What if it had gone bad? It's good that he spat it out. I just cleaned the floor this morning! Now look at what he's gone and done! And just then, when I went to pick him up from Severus' house, he kicked and hollered at me, and now he's acting like it never happened. Why couldn't you have gone to pick him up? Just because you two aren't friends, why am I always the one that has to pick him up? You get home so much earlier than I do, why can't you two just be civil to each other and forget the immature nonsense? And the car. The car, James! The doors don't close unless you slam them really hard, the boot won't open unless you half break it all over again, the seatbelts don't retract anymore, it has no air conditioning, it takes over half an hour to start it up and the windows are still roll-down!"
James simply sat there and listened while Lily went through her entire day of bad luck, holding Harry on his lap now, watching her as tears seemed to well up behind those green eyes. Without saying a word, he stood up and walked over to her side of the table, bending down and giving her the biggest hug he could muster with Harry will held onto one arm. Harry leaned over too and gave his mother a few pats on the head before giggling and clutching onto James arms. He was put down and left to his own devices as James wrapped his now free arm around his amazing wife and held her while she cried into his shoulder. He didn't mention how Sirius and him had a fight today, and that Sirius hadn't called since. He didn't give his usual comment on how Remus could have looked after Harry instead of Severus. He didn't tell Lily that he nearly got fired by his boss at work today. He didn't tell her how Peter has been seen around town and how badly he wanted to go kill that son-of-a-b!tch. All he did was hold onto her and rub her back, wishing he could do more to make her feel better.
"It's okay, babe. Everything will be alright again, we have each other, we have Harry. We have our friends, and who could ask for more" Lily's sobs quietened as she calmed down, looking up at James, smilling through her tears. "Sorry, James. It was a bad day a work" she said quietly, happy that James was there for her all the time. He shushed her and didn't let go, both content to stay locked in the embrace, for the world was never perfect, but moments like these were.