Disclaimer: Anything Harry Potter = J.K. Rowling. Everything else = My old friend Alex and me. =)
A Smudge On the Window Glass
The sky was absolutely blue, the sun was absolutely bright, and as far as James Potter was concerned, it was an absolutely lovely morning. The recently wedded James had a theory that nothing, absolutely nothing, could make this morning ugly.
Even as he bumbled happily into the kitchen, where his wife sat looking utterly annoyed, disgusted, and perplexed by his unexplainably chipper behavior, his positive demeanor failed to falter.
"Good morning, my darling Lily-flower!" exclaimed the young man upon seeing his wife.
"Good morning, dear," she sighed, while allowing her head to collapse into her hands.
"Now, now- none of this covering your face nonsense," said James, wagging his finger as if it would make his point clear. Lily continued to cradle her head in her left hand, while pushing forward a bowl of some unknown substance in his direction with the other.
"James, please. Just eat your breakfast," she answered, before returning her hand to rub at her left eye. At, this, James seized her wrists and lowered them to the table.
"Lily, dear, don't do such things to your face. You're beautiful. Rubbing your eyes might make holes around them. Then they might fall into the back of your head, and then where will you be? Anyway, I thought that you should know that today is going to be a fantastic day, my dear. You should be just as excited as I am!" he chimed happily as he swooped a spoonful of the unknown substance into his mouth. His face brightened even further as he continued, "As a matter of fact, everything today is going to go absolutely right. You know how I can tell? This concoction you have managed to put together. It is delicious! Tell me. What is it? How did you do it?"
"It's cereal. It came from a box. James, how do you get excited over cereal? What is wrong with you today?" she groaned crankily.
"Oh, please, you must have added something to it. No boxes that I know of can cook."
"They're called microwaves. My parents have one."
"A micro-what? Is this a muggle thing? No, wait, your parents have one, it probably is a muggle thing. Can I see one? Is that how you made it?"
"What?! No. A microwave didn't- no, James. The cereal came in a box. I simply poured it out of the box and into a bowl. A microwave is another contraption altogether."
"Ah, I see. But what did you add to it, is what I want to know. Nothing out of a box can taste this good. Was it a spoonful of cinnamon? Perhaps a dash of mace?" he questioned persistently.
"Milk," Lily answered shortly, shocked at his pertinacious efforts to learn her nonexistent recipe.
"Milk. That explains it. Would you care to tell me what kind? I know it's not that distasteful fat free stuff, no. Too rich for that. Was it whole milk, I'm wondering? Please do tell, perhaps one day I can surprise you in bed with this mysterious cereal entity," said James, wiggling his eyebrows and shoulders suggestively.
"Two percent," the redhead corrected him. James barely swallowed another spoonful of cereal before speaking up again.
"Well, I think that you should start getting ready, darling. I must admit, I pictured you far more enthusiastic than this, but, alas, you are my wife, my damsel in distress, whom on occasion, can give me quite the kick to the hindquarters when necessary, and it is my duty to make you cheer up on this day. So, pip, pip! Up the stairs you go, and dressed up you'll get. Run along."
Lily remained glued to her chair, traces of a scowl were beginning to form on her face.
"Where are we even going, James?"
"To the park, dearest! You pinky promised me, don't you remember? You even said I could go photograph the little duckies, if I liked."
She rolled her eyes, "Again with those things?"
"Yes, again with the ducks. And don't call them things, my flower petal, they might be offended, and don't you forget what happened the last time you offended the duckies. They took it out on poor Sirius' motorcycle. He spent the entire rest of the day moaning about it and scrubbing it clean. Don't you remember?"
"James, it is not my fault that the ducks allowed their digested meals to fall upon Sirius' bike. And I'm mad at him anyway. And I'm sorry, but we'll have to leave the park for another day. It's going to rain."
"Rain? Why, you little minx, you! Ha, trying to pull one over me like that. It's not going to rain!"
"Are you really that blind? Do you need your prescription checked? Or do you just need me to clock you in the head? Look at the sky, James!"
"I did, and that's why I was so happy to begin with!" he motioned towards the window. "See, not a cloud in the sky! Oh, except that one over there… but… no, it's probably just a smudge on the window glass, not to worry. The day is still perfect."
"Well, that smudge is going to rain," Lily insisted in a rather disgruntled fashion.
"That smudge is not going to rain; it's a friendly smudge," James added conclusively.
"James!" Lily hissed, an unsightly frown marring her usually pretty countenance.
"Darling? Why do you sound so upset? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?"
"I've barely slept!"
"Oh, no. I'm so sorry, sweetheart, I didn't realize… Why is it that you had trouble sleeping?"
"One Sirius Black decided it would be amusing to leave our radio playing as loudly as humanly possible."
"Well, silly, you could have just turned it down," James suggested, flicking his wife's nose lightly.
"Must you condescend me so?" Lily snapped, slapping his hand away irritably.
"Well, it's true."
"As a matter of fact, I tried, but your dear friend apparently thought it would be funny to cast an irreversible charm on the volume."
"But there's no music now."
"That's because I smashed the radio to itty bitty little pieces."
"See, normally, I would be upset about this. But I'm in much too good of a mood to let this bring me down! Now, go! Get dressed, you little vixen, you! Besides, I don't understand how the music could possibly have bothered you. It certainly didn't bother me last night. I don't think I even remember noticing it."
"That's because you sleep like a baby."
"A baby? Why do people say that?" James questioned her logic.
"It's a saying, dear," his wife replied with a roll of her eyes.
"How does one manage to sleep like a baby? I could very well be wrong, but I do believe that babies hardly sleep at night. Don't they wine and cry, fall into some sort of sleep-like spell, then jump up and wine and cry all over again? Oh, is that it? Do I cry in my sleep dear?"
"Wha- no. No, James. It just means you sleep…" Lily searched for the word, "heavily. It means you sleep heavily."
"Heavily?! Oh, no! Are you alright? Have I squashed you? Are you breathing properly?" James asked rapidly.
"I'm fine. It's just an expression. Don't worry about me."
"Well, as long as you're sure…"
"Quite."
"Well, then, what are you waiting for, crazy woman?! Dress yourself! Hurry along!"
James pushed Lily towards the kitchen archway playfully.
"James, please, haven't we been through this enough? It's not worth it to go to the park today. It's just going to rain, we're going to get muddy, the house will be a bloody mess when we come back… can't we just leave it for another day?"
"Oh, that's nonsense. Go get ready. While you do that, I'm going to invent."
"Invent?"
"Yes, invent. I'm going to devise a contraption. It will be designed so that one's beautiful, rain-concerned wife might hold it over her head. A large, impenetrable fabric will then keep her head free of water and free of frizz!"
"Oh, honey, that's called an umbrella," Lily said, hopelessly shaking her head at her husband's lack of ingenuity.
"Yes, one of those!"
"We have one in the pantry, you don't need to create one."
"Well, then, hurry along before it gets late, my dear!"
Lily sighed resignedly, and made her way up the stairs. James grinned widely and ran excitedly to the pantry, where he grabbed the unnecessary umbrella, then cheerfully strolled over to an overhead kitchen cabinet, from which he elatedly pulled his camera. He sat down happily in his chair, swallowed a gulp of his cereal, and, looking beyond the window smudge into the cloudless sky, hummed a gleeful tune while he waited patiently for Lily to make her way back.
Yes, today was a lovely day.