A/N: Combined fic written for InLoveWithLaughing's one shot a day challenge and for Hope Is A Beautiful Thing (Used to be Being A Wallflower) for the Birthday challenge.
I know I've posted it months in advance, I hope that's ok, but I had inspiration and I ran with it.
The Anniversary
James Potter yawned and climbed out of bed rubbing his tired eyes. He groped along the bedside table for his glasses and popped them over his ears. Taking his old, blue flannel bath robe from the bottom of the bed he knotted the tie about his waist, put on his slippers and made his way down stairs where the smell of frying bacon was calling out to him.
He paused in the doorway to the kitchen to watch his wife, the beautiful Lily Evans Potter as she stood by the stove, tea towel slung over her shoulder and a fork in her hand she used to turn the bacon over.
The kitchen table was covered with a white cloth with little birds embroidered on it, the toast sat neatly in the toast rack, a tea-pot was placed in the middle of the table with his favourite mug next to it and propped up between the tea-pot and the mug against the salt shaker was a card. James frowned at it for a moment. Lily was obviously preparing a special breakfast but it wasn't his birthday. It wasn't hers either. There was a distinct lack of red's and pink's and hearts so Valentine's Day was out.
His eyes widened behind his glasses giving him the look of a rabbit caught in the headlights. Anniversary! It was their anniversary!
Lily turned then and saw him, she smiled, pushing a strand of her long red hair away from her face.
"Happy anniversary, Lily," James smiled widely, hoping it didn't look too forced.
Lily's smiled deepened and her green eyes sparkled with delight. "Happy anniversary, James. I've made your favourite breakfast, come and eat it before it goes cold."
James sat at the table and thanked her, feeling incredibly guilty as he looked at his plate of a full English breakfast.
"Are you going to open your card?"
"Um, maybe we should do that later," he suggested, chewing a bite of bacon.
Lily frowned. "Why?"
"Well, because I don't feel right opening mine when I haven't got one for you." Immediately James knew he had made a mistake, being honest with Lily now was not going to be a good idea, her smile had vanished and her eyes were beginning to grow cold. "What I mean is; I don't have a card for you right now, its not here. I um, I have a big surprised planned and I wanted to do it all together."
The smile was back, she was practically beaming with pleasure. "A surprise? Oooh, James, I love surprises." Lily clasped her hands together excitedly. "When do I get to see it?"
"Not yet," he said desperately. "I need to set it up, you should go out for a while, for a few hours and let me get on to it."
"Alright," She agreed, wiggling joyously in her seat.
A few minutes later while James still ate his breakfast Lily came into the kitchen bag in hand and her coat on. "I'm going shopping then to give you a chance to do whatever it is you need to do." She bent over and kissed him softly on the mouth. "I love you."
"Do you?" James teased. "Even after all this time?"
"Always and forever," Lily promised and kissed him again. "Bye bye," she sang out as she stepped into the floo network.
"Bye bye," James called back, willing her to hurry up and leave. He watched the green flames dance about her and then she was gone.
James was on his knees before the fireplace and had his head in the green flames quick as a wink. His head appeared in the fireplace belonging to his best friends, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. They shared a flat together, the fourth member of their little group, Peter Petigrew lived alone, but he would not be on hand to help him out, Peter was working today.
"Anyone here!" he called out impatiently. It would be just his luck that Remus and Sirius had gone out on the very day he needed them.
"Prongs? Is that you?" Remus' head appeared around the living room door. "What's wrong?"
"It's a disaster, Moony!" James cried out dramatically. "It's my anniversary."
Remus came further into the room to sit before the fire a cup of tea in his hand. "Why is that such a disaster?"
"Because I bloody forgot all about it!" James wailed. "Lily's going to kill me! I've managed to stall her by telling her I've got a big surprise lined up for her, but there's no surprise! You have to help me."
Remus sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. "For goodness sake, Prongs, how can you forget your anniversary?"
"Oh I don't know, I just did, I've had a lot going on lately," James replied defensively.
"Racing with Padfoot does not count as having a lot on," Remus said dryly.
"You sound like my wife," James said mournfully.
"I'll be the closest you'll get if Lily finds out you've forgotten your anniversary," Remus said with a grin.
Sirius Black suddenly arrived on the scene, his hair a riotous mess, a five o'clock shadow on his chin and his clothes in disarray. "What are you doing here this time in the morning, Prongs?"
"What are you doing dressed at this time of the morning, Padfoot?" James shot back. It was a well-known fact that Sirius didn't surface until around noon.
"Just got home," he gave his friends a knowing grin.
"Well Prongs here has forgotten his anniversary," Remus said.
Sirius threw back his head and let out a bark of laughter. "It was really nice knowing you, Prongs. I'll give you a nice eulogy."
James glared at his friend. "You know, instead of laughing you could help me."
"I could," Sirius agreed. "But it's funnier if I don't."
Remus smiled easily. "Of course we'll help you, what do you want us to do?"
James was silent and looked blankly from one friend to the other. "I don't know, but it has to be a big surprise."
"Why does it have to be a big surprise?"
"Because, Padfoot, I told Lily that it would be," James snapped crossly.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "You would," he said in a tone that indicated he thought James was the dumbest person on the planet.
"Ok, first things first, flowers; you get her flowers," Remus said. "All women love flowers and a card of course."
"Yes!" James exclaimed happily. "That's what I do. But I need something more than that."
"Why?" Sirius stretched his arms over his head. "You got her, Prongs, she married you, you don't need to prove yourself anymore."
"If all you can do…."
"You go and get the flowers," Remus said interrupted quickly before a quarrel could break out. "By the time you get back we'll be over to help you plan something."
James retracted his head from the fireplace and hurried upstairs to change. He was so lucky to have friends like Moony and Padfoot that he could call on for help in a dire situation. And nothing said dire situation like a forgotten anniversary.
He dressed swiftly and left the house to go into the muggle town nearby. He couldn't go to Diagon Alley just in case he ran into Lily. It would be really hard to explain why he was there when he was meant to be at home setting up his big surprise.
He bought the card first and after an awkward and embarrassing few minutes with the woman in the florist, muggle money was just so confusing and James had initially forgotten he was dealing with muggles after picking out a beautiful bouquet of pink roses, and tried giving her wizarding money; he was back on his door step.
When he opened the door he could hear the easily identified male voices of his friends, they were here to help him in his hour of need and James felt hopeful for the first time that morning that he could pull something together for when Lily came home.
"What the hell is going on?" James demanded aghast when he entered the kitchen to find bowls, and cups and measuring jugs and flour and broken eggs and a number of other equally messy things covering the kitchen table and the counter tops.
"It's my work station," Peter said, as he dumped a cup of something into a big bowl of something else.
James blinked in confusion. "What are you doing here? I thought you were working?"
"After I got Moony's message I said I was sick and they sent me home," Peter explained. "I'm here to help you."
"By turning my kitchen into a disaster area?"
"You worry too much," Peter said, wrapping Sirius sharply on the knuckles with a wooden spoon when he tried to dip his fingers into the mixing bowl. "You lot had better clean up as I'm going along, that way we'll be done twice as quickly."
"Prongs forgets his anniversary, I get hit with spoons and I have to clean up," Sirius groused, pulling his wand from inside his jacket pocket. He flicked his long brown hair out of his eyes and looked around at the mess that just seemed to follow Peter everywhere he went. "What's first, Wormtail?"
"Get rid of the breakfast things and the measuring jugs and the cups. Make sure they're cleaned properly," he added shooting Sirius a warning look.
"What do I do?" Remus pulled his wand out too and looked to Peter to receive his orders.
"That table cloth will never do, something nice, Moony, with hearts on," Peter said, his chubby face scrunched up in thought. "Prongs, you can do better than those flowers."
"I can?"
"Yes," Peter told him firmly. "Lots more flowers gentlemen, I want them to fill the room."
James, Sirius and Remus went to work. Soon they had the white table cloth covered in little pink hearts that Peter approved of and all the pink roses that they could fit in the kitchen. The room was filled with the scent of baking cake and Sirius inhaled deeply.
"Any of those cakes going be left over?" he asked hopefully.
"Cakes?" James echoed. "How many cakes does she need?"
"What's Lily's favourite cake?" Remus asked.
James scratched his head. "She likes cupcakes best."
"Exactly. Anniversary cupcakes," Remus said and slapped Peter on the shoulder. "It was Wormtail's idea."
"And we ice them up to read Happy Anniversary Lily," Peter said with a triumphant beaming smile.
James let out a sigh of relief and smiled gratefully at his friends. "You lot are the best. What would I do without you?"
"End up divorced," Sirius said amiably as he ran a finger along the inside of the mixing bowl and licked it clean.
Peter pursed his lips and frowned at Sirius. "I did all the cooking," he snatched the bowl out of his friends hand and put it on the table. "We'll share the best part, licking the bowl clean."
The four of them gathered around the bowl and using their fingers they scooped up the remaining mixture in contented silence until the bowl was clean.
"Do you think," Sirius said after the last drop of mixture had been fought over. "That Lily would be expecting a bit of a bigger surprise than cupcakes?"
James looked worried for a moment and bit his lips distractedly. He supposed it wasn't much in the way of a big surprise, but he had just been so relieved to have a surprise at all that he hadn't thought about it.
"The big surprise will be that Prongs did all of this himself," Peter said. "You be sure to tell her that you did the baking when she asks you. She'll be thrilled to think that you did all this by yourself and didn't burn the house down."
Peter then rose to check on the cupcakes, declaring they were done he removed them from the oven and set them out on the table. The four of them took some time to carefully ice them in white with pink lettering.
Finally they were done and Remus mopped his forehead with the back of his hand. "We should be going, it can't be very much longer until Lily comes home."
The sound of the front door opening and Lily calling out to James had them all scrambling for the fireplace. "This is a new experience for me," Sirius said clambering into the fireplace and cramming himself between Remus and Peter. "I'm normally trying to make sure it's the husband who doesn't catch me not the wife."
"Oh shut up, Padfoot," Remus muttered with a roll of his eyes.
There was a flurry of green flames and they were gone, just as Lily entered the kitchen. She stood in the doorway eyes wide with surprise as she gazed around the room, thrilling visibly. Pink roses adorned every possible surface, there was a lovely new cloth on the table and the cupcakes, her favourite guilty pleasure looked divine and too good to eat.
"James," she breathed, her eyes alight with pleasure. "Did you really do all this for me?"
"All for you," James confirmed coming up to her and giving her a hug. "Happy anniversary my love."
"It's wonderful!" Lily looked up at him guiltily. "I owe you an apology. I thought you had forgotten."
"Me? Forget our anniversary? Never!" James proclaimed. "The day I married you was the happiest of my life, this is just one in a long line of anniversaries."
"A long line, huh?" Lily giggled. "You think you'll love me like this in ten years time?"
"No," James said seriously "I'll love you more."
"But you'll still love me?" she asked with a coy smile.
"Until I die and beyond," he declared.
"That long?" she stood on tip toes to kiss him softly.
"And longer," James said hugging her tightly. "Don't you know, Lily, we are infinite."