Things had quieted down a lot since the deaths of Gideon and Fabian Prewett. The funeral had gone very well and after several weeks of mourning Molly was back to her old self.
Bill was the only one of the Weasley children who really understood what was going on and locked himself in his room for two days after the funeral. When Arthur did finally manage to coax Bill from his room the nine-year old could not be parted from the stuffed phoenix toy that Gideon had given him for his seventh birthday.
Surprisingly Arthur came in as the backbone and supported his family throughout the whole ordeal. He made them meals, cleaned the house, and still managed to find time for his job at the ministry.
James and Lily finally announced their wedding date. It would be on April fool's Day. Not only would it celebrate their wedding and a holiday that the marauders had religiously followed, but also the twins' second birthday.
Lily's stomach had begun to show and her hormones were also off the wall. She would have fits at the worst moments possible about the smallest of things. Most of the time she went off at Sirius or James but Remus and Peter got their fair share when they were around.
After much pleading from James, Sirius had deigned to move into the Potter residence. Sirius then in turn convinced Remus to move in although the werewolf spent much of his time away from the house.
Today James was heading off to the auror offices for a meeting leaving Sirius with an extra-annoyed Lily.
Sirius was not pleased. "James! Don't do it! Please I'm begging you, don't leave me!" Lily was dragging Sirius towards the shelves by the collar.
James watched from the doorstep wondering if he should rethink the whole "baby" thing.
"Get the Bertie Bott's now! I need them. But only the green ones. No, no. The orange ones." Lily demanded shoving Sirius onto a step ladder. Sirius whimpered and James ducked out of the house as fast as he could.
Within the hour Sirius had combed every last shelf and cupboard in the house on Lily's commands to find the orange sweets. He found purple, green, red, black, and white ones of varying flavors. Every color there could possibly be was in that house as Lily often had cravings for the brightly colored sweets and James had simply stored them away, but now it seemed they were out of orange.
Lily didn't take the news well.
"Well go to the store and get me some!" Lily hollered and actually kicked Sirius face first onto the sidewalk and locked the door behind him.
"Well that's just plain rude." The animagus picked himself up and dusted his robes off. "The store is two miles away and is hidden in a muggle neighborhood. I can't very well apparate there. And not in wizard's robes either."
Sirius looked up to the sky and without really addressing anybody in particular he cursed loudly for a good two minutes using some very colorful and maybe a few made-up words about hormonal women and babies and especially about James leaving him alone with said hormonal women.
Shrugging off his robes he set off at a walk to the store in a t-shirt and jeans. Sirius was just turning the corner when it began to rain.
Two hours later Sirius reemerged from the growing typhoon shaking the droplets of rain from his shaggy black hair and handed a bag to Lily who greedily tore it open in her search to find the sweets.
Sirius collapsed into an armchair near the fire hugging himself. "Yeah, go straight for the pretty candy while I'm literally blue with cold and shivering."
"You know Padfoot, talking to yourself is the first sign of mental instability." Sirius whirled around to find James watching a savage Lily tear through the plastic wrapping bemusedly.
Sirius growled and changed into a big, black, bear-like, dog and tackled James to the ground and pinned him there. Sirius changed back into a man, not moving from his position on James's chest, to draw out his wand and point it's tip between his friend's eyes.
"Now Padfoot be reasonable." James tried to squirm out of the way but Sirius' jinx hit him anyway and James' hair turned bright blue with hot pink highlights.
Sirius giggled delightedly, obviously proud with himself. "You look like my cousin Tonks. You know the 8 year-old who keeps dying her hair different colors."
James scowled and flipped over efficiently pinning Sirius beneath him and the wrestling match that ensued knocked over a lamp and the coffee table without Lily noticing.
The boys called it a draw and sat up, both panting from the effort when Sirius heard a little noise. "Um, actually Sirius, do you think you could get me some blue ones. I meant blue, not orange. I thought you would know that."
James turned to Sirius. "Yeah Padfoot, everyone knows orange means blue."
Sirius collapsed with a groan and Lily turned to James expectantly who backed away up the stairs. "Maybe later Lily baby."
The front door opened and Remus came in, shaking water from his umbrella and jacket. Folding the umbrella under his arm he took out a packet of Bertie Bott's Beans. Popping an orange one into his mouth he smiled. "I do love orange. Has anyone gone to the store to get some more orange-flavored ones yet? I think I cleaned them out yesterday."
The next Order meeting was in January and Lily had resumed her usual bossy self to plan excessively for the wedding.
The guest list held such names as Albus Dumbledore, Alastor Moody, all six of the Weasleys, Lily's family who were muggles, and all of the remaining Order and several school friends and non-magical friends from when Lily had gone to muggle school.
The meeting, although originally planned to be about devising a new strategy to set up guards at Diagon Alley, was mostly girls giggling at pictures Lily had brought showing her wedding dress and what the bride's maids would be wearing.
Also Molly Weasley was surrounded by women as well because she was once again pregnant and due at the beginning of March. Molly explained about delaying the revealing charm and how she had just found out that she was almost two months pregnant.
Sirius was carefully avoiding the women in the room and he, Remus, and James were sitting at the long table used for group discussion chatting idly with Alastor Moody and Albus Dumbledore.
Sirius eyed the Daily Prophet sitting on the table and snatched the paper up just as James made to grab it. "Aww, Padfoot, that's not nice." James lunged for the paper and Sirius held him off with his foot while flipping the paper open.
"Hang on Jamie. Just checking the Ballycastle Bat scores."
Remus smirked. "Bet they lost to Puddlemere United." Sirius scoffed and ducked as James made another lunge for the paper.
"My team can kick your team's arse any day of the week Moony." Sirius' gaze fell onto a random page and for some reason his eye fell to the obituaries. "Huh, my dad died yesterday."
James grabbed the paper from Sirius and looked at the article. "Yeah I guess so. How does it feel to be the Black heir with an entire vault full of gold waiting for you?"
Sirius snorted. "Yeah right. I still have to go through my mum and she would rather give it to Regulus than me. I don't exist to the Black family anymore. I was blasted off remember?" James nodded and Remus just chuckled.
"I remember you showing up at James' door in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm looking like a wet rat." Sirius whacked him upside the head with an open palm. "That was a very emotional day for me Moony and I thank you not to make fun of my feelings."
"Oww, well you still have the heirloom ring right? The ring worn only by the senior child member of that family?" Remus asked pouting and rubbing his head.
Sirius nodded. "I put it in my personal vault with my Uncle Alphard's money he left me."
James clapped a reassuring hand on Sirius' shoulder. "Don't worry mate. The old hag has to die someday right?"
Sirius laughed. "It'll be the happiest day of my life." Lily wandered over and scolded Sirius while absentmindedly lifting James' arm for measurements.
Lily, who had good foresight, had brought along a tape measure knowing this would be the only chance she got at having all the men in the ceremony's measurements for their suits.
Unfortunately some members of the Order were not as cooperating as she had hoped. She had to chase Sirius and Remus down. Both men had different reasons why they didn't want to wear tuxedos and yelled them over their shoulders as they careened down the narrow halls.
Remus complained that he didn't like restricting clothes and Sirius demanded that because he was the best man his suit should be different. Apparently different to Sirius meant tie-dyed.
They both split up at a corridor intersection and Lily had opted to chase Remus, who she cornered and poked and prodded at for nearly an hour.
A half an hour after that Sirius was found hiding in the garden and was been dragged kicking and screaming by James and Arthur into the kitchen to get his measurements taken. There, Sirius had been pushed onto a chair and poked, much to his discomfort.
"Take it a little easy with that needle Evans." Sirius squirmed as Lily plunged another needle into his pant leg.
"Hold still Sirius or do you want your suit to be lopsided?"
"Is that a trick question?"
Author's Note:
Hee hee. Lily and Remus have candy fetishes
Next chapter: a wedding!
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