"So, how was your first job?" Lily asked them the next day. They were all having lunch at James' house to plan out their next Muggle job. As one, James, Sirius, and Remus groaned. James hid his face in his hands, Sirius banged his head against the table, and Remus rubbed his forehead. Lily laughed. "Glad to know it went so well." She chuckled. They looked at her, and exploded.
"First it was the insults-"
"And the Macaroni-"
"And the paints-"
"And the roach-"
"Then James smashed a vase-"
"It was in my shirt-"
"Then they chased us-"
"Then in crawled onto my cheek-"
"And locked us in a closet-"
"Then they made us watch the movie-"
"And then they wanted popcorn-"
"And a piggy-back ride!"
Lily just laughed.
"I don't care if your children are the best-behaved angels in the world, well being related to James we won't have to worry about that, but still, I'm never babysitting them!" Sirius said.
"Yes you will, Godfather Padfoot." James told him.
"Never! And I am never having kids!"
"Well, no woman is desperate enough to marry you, so it's ok." James chuckled.
"You must not remember our Hogwarts days too well Prongs." Sirius told him.
"Why do you think he tried on so many clothes that day at the mall? That woman just wanted to see him in a variety of different wardrobes!" Remus said, looking a bit disgusted.
"And Padfoot's so vain he just can't say no." James glared at Sirius, who blew a lock of black hair out of his eyes.
"Ok, well, down to business." He said, not pausing to deny his vanity, "Any new ideas, Lily?"
"Yes, in fact. I was going to suggest a car wash."
"That may not be too bad." Remus looked thoughtful.
"What do we do?" James asked her.
"How much money do we make?" Sirius wanted to know.
"We can raise a lot of money, but we will need more than 4 people." She said.
"Ok, who would be willing to go through this?" James asked.
"I'm sure Frank and Alice wouldn't mind." Lily said.
"Great!" Sirius said. "What about Peter?"
"We can always ask him, but you know how he is these days." Remus said.
"Yeah, strange little bloke." Sirius said. "Who else?" They sat and pondered.
"How about Dung? I know he's not very reliable, but at least we could have another set of hands." James suggested.
"Yeah, that's good. I don't suppose any of our old Professors would be willing…" Sirius looked at his friends.
"I'm not sure they'd be thrilled to perform free labor just so Sirius Black could buy a motorcycle." Remus said honestly.
"Why? All the teachers loved me. And Dumbledore is still their boss-"
"I'm sure Dumbledore has much more important things going on in the Order than buying you a motorcycle." Lily said.
"And what do you mean all the teachers loved you? They were all jumping for joy the day we left!" James said.
"Oh, you know when they really like particular students." Sirius said.
"Is handing out detentions some freakish little teacher way of showing affection? Because then I would say that you were very loved indeed." James told him.
"They miss us and you know it!" Sirius said.
"Yeah, they miss our Quidditch skills. That's about it."
"No, we made them laugh. They have to miss us."
"They miss students like Lily and Moony! Students like us make them want to give up teaching!"
"Now Prongs that's harsh-"
"No, McGonagall actually told me that." Sirius, Remus, and Lily all laughed.
"That's hilarious." Remus grinned.
"She even said to me once, 'Why hasn't being friends with Remus Lupin had any effect on you?' I didn't let her know exactly how much he had had an effect on me." James said, meaning the Animagi transformations.
"I still can't get over how you did that under all the teacher's noses without anyone, especially Dumbledore, finding out." Lily looked amazed.
"I still can't get over how you finally gave in and agreed to marry James." Sirius teased.
"Well, he's cute." Lily shrugged. James blushed.
"You remain the only person who can make Prongs blush." Remus told her.
"I actually have some interesting stories I could tell-" Sirius began.
"Don't even think about it Padfoot." James warned. Sirius gave an innocent grin.
"You
know, not to change the subject, but how on earth did we get onto the
topic of making James blush?" Lily asked.
"I really don't
know. I don't know how we get on half of the subjects that we
discuss." Remus said.
"OK, back to the important subject: buying me a motorcycle." Sirius announced.
"Shall we rally up a team of car-washers?" James looked like he didn't want to be asking the question.
"That seems like the best idea we have at the moment." Lily said.
