So this one isn't amazing, I'm afraid. It's been a bit of a nightmare trying to get back to it, sorry this one has taken so much longer than the others, but this semester at university has been mega busy. Exciting times, but also massively distracting times. Who knew being a person with responsibilities and work would mean you can't spend all day writing fanfiction?
But anyway, I have a deadline just after Christmas, so of course I am neck deep in fanfiction instead. Thank goodness for essay procrastination or I would never have finished this chapter! Although I am so slammed with deadlines I haven't really had a chance to proof-read it properly, so sorry for any mistakes.
On a related note, if anyone wants to beta that would be great thanks.
Hope you like it, let me know, thanks for reading!
Chapter 9
In the time it took to get the boys to stop acting like idiots and to agree who was going in the car with James to the train station, the food had gone cold.
Lily wasn't entirely sure how to work the oven, and couldn't see a microwave in the chrome kitchen so was rather hoping that no-one would mind having cold fish and chips. In hindsight it was probably a mite optimistic to have bought the food so early.
Neither of the boys in the kitchen had had anything to say about the matter and there was nobody else around to ask. Marlene had been obligated to get back before for dinner with her own family now that her sister was home too, so even she wasn't there to chime in. Lily was sure it would be fine, but couldn't help but panic at the thought of them all arriving back. But she was being silly. It would be alright. If it wasn't then one of the boys would just have to figure out how to do it. They couldn't be completely useless after all. It would be fine.
Lily knew she was fussing over nothing, but the ball of worry that sat somewhere beneath her ribcage hadn't appeared to have gotten the memo yet and was still spinning around as if the world was about to end. She had found herself nibbling at her finger nails twice now and had been told to stop tapping her foot by an irate Sirius four times in the last ten minutes. She had tried, but something in her was wound up tightly in anticipation of the younger Potter children.
It wasn't that she didn't want to meet them, it was just that with all the teasing warnings from Marlene about what terrors the two of them were, her firm foundation for authority trembled. From what she could gather, she hadn't been that much better than them and she knew that at their age she too would resent unnecessary authority. But then, according to Marlene, James had been worse than them and he seemed to be nothing more than a bit cheeky every now and then.
Lily sighed and started tapping her foot again. She was half listening to the conversation Sirius and Peter were having over their card game at the kitchen table. She had asked them about the oven, but Sirius had just shrugged and Peter had blushed and looked away without saying anything. Now they were engaged in a game that moved too quickly for Lily to fully understand what was going on. She wasn't even sure what it was called. The two boys had argued for a full minute over whether it was called 'speed' or 'spit', with them finally setting the differences down to Peter being Irish and therefore backwards. Lily had frowned but Peter had laughed so loudly any defence she might have given died on her lips.
Peter laughed loudly at a lot of things, it seemed, although nothing Lily ever said. Whenever Lily spoke to him he either went quiet and avoided her gaze, or he smiled a huge uncomfortable smile.
She had felt uncomfortable before when he was just smiling at her, but his silence and refusal to join in the conversation added to the general aura of awkwardness Lily felt about Peter, especially when the rest of them were talking quite happily. Several times at the beach that afternoon there had been awkward silences when Peter should have been laughing or making a joke. It wasn't that distinct, but Lily, once she had finally noticed his odd behaviour, couldn't help but wonder what caused it. The rest of the boys seemed to behave perfectly normally.
Well, as normally as teenage boys ever do.
After they had found the girls on the promenade, they had started a game of beach rugby. The ball was Marlene's bag, and the teams were Sirius and Peter against a furious Marlene.
Lily had tried to calm them down, but James and Remus had convinced her not to worry by offering her an ice-cream. She had seen the sense in it and had walked with them to the ice-cream van, leaving the other three down on the sand. Caradoc had been just as surly as earlier and neither James nor Remus seemed to think it odd that he already knew Lily's name. They had sat on the steps leading down the beach with their backs against the metal hand-rail, contentedly licking ninety-nines, quite contented.
They watched the game quietly before Lily broke the silence with a comment, and a smirk she thought the others wouldn't notice.
"Poor Peter, he's third-wheeling out there spectacularly." She muttered, shaking her head.
"How come?" James asked absent-mindedly, watching as Marlene successfully kicked Sirius in the balls but then managed to face-plant onto the sand herself.
"Well," Lily began awkwardly, "You know, Sirius and Marlene being terrible flirts. Although I mean, any situation where there's two of one gender and one of the other is probably going to end in third-wheel awkwardness." Lily mumbled into her ice-cream.
"Does that make me a third wheel as well?" Remus asked, smirking at her.
She raised her eyebrows, "I don't think so, I mean, me and James aren't violently flirting right at this moment, so I think you're safe." She smiled at him.
Remus laughed but James looked surprised.
"Are we not?" he asked, turning to her in concern.
She laughed, and shook her head. "Sorry, but no. I'm this attentive to most people."
"Oh." He said sadly, "And I spent all that money on an ice-cream."
She held back a laugh as she held up what was left of her cone. "This cost you 99p."
"Yeah, and that's almost a pound that I'm never going to see again." James said indignantly.
"Gosh, I hope you're not this flash on all your dates, you must be so intimidating." Lily looked at him with wide eyes and a mouth that was very set on not smiling.
"Well," James gave a short laugh and grinned at her with what she presumed he thought was a cavalier expression, "I don't want to brag but I did just pay for more than one other ice-cream."
"Yeah, for Remus. He's one of your best mates." Lily laughed.
"Exactly." James said pointedly.
"Oh so, I'm the one third wheeling?" Lily asked, turning to look at Remus who was laughing quietly.
"Well obviously." Remus grinned.
"And really it's just getting embarrassing. You would have thought that someone who can pick up on flirting at that level of subtlety," James paused to nod at Sirius who was holding Marlene by the waist and spinning her around. Peter was standing off to the side, looking away from them and up towards the three ice-cream eaters on the steps, "then I would have thought you would have been able to see the raw sexual chemistry happening here."
Remus snorted but Lily looked serious.
"I can only apologise." she said so genuinely that James blinked quickly at her, taken aback, "I only hope I haven't completely stopped your chances." She turned and looked Remus straight in the eye and said, "Remus, I think you've pulled."
Remus snorted again and started laughing, "Well I can only hope so after such violent flirting."
Lily and James started laughing.
"What's so funny?" Peter puffed as he clambered up the steps to them, eyeing the ice-cream dribbling down Lily's fingers.
"How would you feel about two of your friends hooking up Pete?" James asked with a casual air, although Remus and Lily's laughter ruined the effect.
Peter looked thoughtful nodding. "I think it depends which ones." He said finally, barely noticing Lily and Remus.
"Well, which ones would you object to?" James asked, waving his empty hand apparently unconsciously at Lily and Remus.
Peter looked at him for a second and then his eyes flitted to Lily and then back again, before turning a little bit red. Lily looked down at her ice-cream, suddenly very concerned about the drips on her fingers.
"I dunno, it depends." He mumbled, looking down at his feet.
"That's a rubbish answer." James declared.
"No it's not though," Lily piped up, "It does depend. Like, I'm fine with Marlene dating, obviously I'd have to be well clingy to not be," She muttered shaking her head at herself before continuing, "but I have a few male friends I would definitely not be okay with her going out with."
"Like who?" James asked, his lips pulled into a half smile.
"Like-" Lily thought for a minute, frowning and then said, "Like my friend Michael. He's doing a music degree, and he's brilliant and a laugh and whatnot, but he's a massive druggie and an awful boyfriend." Lily took advantage of the silence after her statement to take a few more licks of her ice-cream.
"True," James said slowly, "but would you not feel a similar feeling of protectiveness and dread if she went out with some perfect choir boy?" He raised his eyebrows at her and used his ice-cream to point at her.
Lily laughed, more at him than the question, "Well yeah, but that's just the general fear I have whenever Marlene goes outside."
"True, true, it's a dangerous world and she's a naïve young girl." James nodded sagely.
Lily laughed, "Actually I was thinking more that it's a naïve world and she's a dangerous young girl, but whatever you say." She nodded at him politely.
The others laughed and James nodded his head fairly.
"Hey, is that for me?" Marlene's voice called up cheekily as she climbed the steps to them, her head nodding at the half-eaten ice-cream in Lily's hand.
"No." Lily said, looking at it, pouting slightly. Then she looked up at Marlene who was waggling her eyebrows and rolled her eyes, "But you can have some if you want." She finished resignedly.
Marlene grinned and clambered the last few steps to where the four of them were sitting. "Thanks babe." She said as she grabbed the cone from Lily's outstretched hand and took a huge bite out of it.
The three boys' reactions were almost comical. James frowned deeply, his expression becoming a mixture between confusion and pain, Remus physically recoiled and Peter let his jaw swing open, a look of horror on his face. When James turned to look at Lily who was looking at Marlene with an unchanged expression, Lily smiled at him.
"Dangerous young girl." She said, by way of an explanation.
James gave a half-laugh before looking back at Marlene who now had ice-cream all around her mouth. She opened her mouth in a wide smile and more white stuff oozed out.
"I don't think I should tell you what that looks like." Lily said lightly.
Marlene guffawed and turned away from them to wipe her mouth.
"What's all this then?" Sirius voice boomed as he came running up the steps. He stood beside Marlene and surveyed the group with an expectant expression. "Is that ice-cream?" he asked, pointing to James' ice-cream cone.
James nodded, still grinning at Marlene.
"Can I have some?" Sirius asked lightly.
James' expression dropped and he turned to look at his friend. Then he slowly shook his head.
Lily giggled, and James looked at her. He smiled and then stood up.
"I'll get you a whole one of your own Sirius, not to worry." James said, winking, before making his way back to the ice-cream van.
He came back with three ice-creams in his hands. One was his half-eaten one, but the other two were brand new ones that he gave to Sirius and then to Lily.
"Aw, thanks! That's so sweet." Lily grinned as she took her fresh cone from him.
"That's alright, it's all part of the violent flirting." He winked at her.
She laughed, "I thought that was with Remus." She glanced over at the boy in question who was rolling his eyes.
"Yeah, it is," James nodded, "but now I'm playing hard to get."
Lily laughed again.
"What's violent flirting?" Marlene asked, screwing up her face in a confused expression.
"Rugby tackling someone." Lily said with a deadpan expression.
"So that's why you didn't want us to come and what your matches, Prongs." Sirius called to James who nearly choked on his flake as he snorted with laughter.
"You play rugby?" Lily asked, turning to James.
"Yeah, since I was little." He muttered, grinning slightly, but only glancing at her, not meeting her eye for long.
"I would never have guessed." Lily mused, "You're far skinnier than the typical rugby lad."
"I'm not skinny!" James cried indignantly pouting at Lily who just laughed.
"Oh get over it chicken legs." Marlene laughed, throwing a piece of wafer at him, which landed in his hair. Before he could complain Marlene continued loudly, "Why are you lounging about here anyway? Shouldn't you be anxiously preparing for the munchkins?"
James rolled his eyes, "There's loads of time before they get here, don't worry McKinnon."
"No there's not, you have like," She answered leaning back to check Remus' watch, "three hours."
James was not phased at all, "Yeah," he shrugged, "there's enough time. It only takes like twenty minutes to get to the train station."
"And, like, an hour and a half to get to home," Marlene added raising her eyebrows at him, "and then however long it will take for you to faff about getting ready to go and then a last minute panic when you remember you haven't done up their rooms yet and-"
"Alright!" James cut her off before she could add yet another minute to the timeline and sighed heavily, "I get it, there's not really enough time to be lounging about eating ice-cream." He looked down at his cone which was by now looking very sad.
"Well, you can definitely finish it, but then we probably should get going." Lily said fairly, noting the sad look on James' face as he contemplated his ice-cream.
He smiled at her.
Sirius sighed loudly, "Can't I just stay here? I can't be arsed to walk all the way back."
James and Lily shared a look and Marlene shoved his shoulder, beginning another ten minutes of loud arguing and nobody wanting to actually get up and go anywhere.
By the time they had managed to all get up and start walking, Marlene had gotten bored and left them with a huffing sigh and an overly dramatic wave, leaving them to trek back across the cliffs to the Potter residence. The day was still fine so they were quickly hot and bothered, but James and Sirius maintained an admirable attempt at keeping conversation flowing. Every now and then Lily would hear some snippet of a conversation float back towards her.
"Lovely sea you have here by the way, Prongs." Sirius flicked his head to the left, managing to flick his hair back effortlessly at the same time, just as they were within sight of the house.
James nodded, not looking at his friend but instead straight forward towards the horizon where the house stood.
"Thanks very much, Padfoot. Had it installed specially for you."
Lily snorted quietly to herself. She couldn't help admiring sarcasm, even when not for her ears.
"How charming." Sirius commented, "So quaint." He added, turning his head just enough that Lily could see a grin on his face.
"Quite."
James was still looking directly ahead, but Lily could imagine a flick of his eyebrows and a smirk on his face.
The wind changed direction and their conversation was that much more faint that Lily couldn't hear it any longer. She smiled to herself and looked out at the sea. It really was quite lovely. She still wasn't used to it though. Feeling eyes on her, she looked back to the boys again. She caught Remus' eye before looking away quickly, somewhat disappointed.
They continued talking what Lily presumed was the same nonsense but she didn't join in, instead allowing herself to get lost in her own head. She hadn't realised they were back until she almost walked into Remus, who was taking off his shoes by the door.
"You alright Lily?" He asked, concerned.
She blinked a couple of times, and then nodded and smiled, "Yep, I'm totally fine. I just- uh – have to go to the loo. Would you put this in the kitchen for me?" She asked holding out the plastic bag.
Remus nodded and took it from her and she ran upstairs. She went into her room first and sat on the bed for a couple of seconds. She suddenly realised that she had an awful headache and closed her eyes against the light streaming in from the window. The room felt stuffy and too close. Lily had the strange feeling that she would be able to fill up the whole space if she stretched out her arms. All of her senses were heightened and her energy drained, and she wasn't totally sure why.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she jumped. She shook herself and stood up and went to wash her face.
When she came back downstairs the boys were sprawled across sofas in one of the living rooms. She frowned slightly and hid her laugh in a sigh. None of them looked up. She bit her lip,
"Should you be getting a move on?" she asked, not really sure which one of them she was addressing. It didn't seem to make any kind of difference to them, they all ignored her. She shook her head and turned to leave the room.
"Don't worry Lil, we'll get round to it." Sirius drawled from a sofa pushed against the back wall. Lily felt her lips twitch and rolled her eyes.
"Right. It's fine," she replied lightly, "It's not my family." She shrugged and left the room.
In the kitchen she filled the kettle and found the tea bags, half listening to the sound of the boys arguing a couple of rooms over. Sirius and Peter came in a little while after the door slammed closed.
The waiting didn't seem to bother the two boys at all, but Lily was quite a bit more impatient, as was evident from the foot tapping, so when the front door opened she snapped to attention. The voices of James and Remus reached their ears, along with two unfamiliar ones from, presumably, James' brother and sister. Sirius and Peter's heads snapped up towards the door, and Lily bit back a laugh. They jumped up and pushed pass Lily out the door. She smiled and followed, breathing quickly through her nose and trying not to clench her teeth.
Jon was completely different to James, but Alice was like a mini-me, and Lily wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't freaked out by it. While James always stood tall, with his chin parallel to the floor, Jon's shoulders curled over and his chin nearly touched his chest. They both had brown hair and brown eyes, but Jon's eyes were more focused on the floor than anywhere else. He looked as if he was hoping not to be noticed. Alice on the other hand, looked as though she wasn't used to not being the centre of attention. She looked around her, meeting each of the boys' eyes and smiling widely at them. They all smiled back or ruffled her hair, acting as if she were everyone's younger sister not just James'. Sirius even picked her up.
Lily loitered cautiously by the door from the living room, watching them greet each other, trying to decide whether she should go out and introduce herself boldly or if she should just run back to the kitchen like a coward and wait to be found. Then James caught her eye and it wasn't really a choice anymore. His grin spread into a wide smile and he beckoned to her, yelling loudly across the space and over the hubbub of the others,
"Hey, Lily, come meet the munchkins!"
A laugh came out of Lily before she realised she had found anything funny. Her own smile seemed to make her bolder somehow because she shook her hair out of her face and took bold steps towards them.
"Munchkins? Really? They're not that little." She laughed at James, before turning to the children in question, "Hi there, I'm Lily."
She felt a little silly, but allowed her surge of confidence to carry her through. Jon looked somewhere near her hairline and nodded, whereas Alice looked up at her with wide eyes and a blank expression. Then she spoke in a clear tone that still had that childlike presumption that what she was saying was perfectly obvious and naturally fell into the current conversation, even when it is completely random:
"Your hair is a lot redder than I thought it would be."
Lily blinked a couple of times and glanced up at James who seemed to be waiting for some sort of explosion. His lips were pressed together as part of a sort of grimace. Lily's face slipped from bewilderment to momentary amused confusion, then she looked back at Alice.
"Yeah, it's- it's natural." She stuttered, glancing up at the group of boys behind the little girl briefly, still confused about the grimace on James' face, before adding in a more dry tone, "Although nobody in my family has it, so I'm potentially adopted."
Alice raised her eyebrows and Lily smiled. James gave a laugh so loud it made everyone fall silent. He quickly turned red and looked directly at Lily, ignoring the stares from his friends and brother.
"Sorry." He muttered, "that tickled me." He said slowly with a straight face.
Lily pressed her lips together to keep her laughter from spilling out and found herself shaking slightly. She raised her eyebrows at him. He shrugged, clearly not sure where to go from here. Thankfully Sirius stepped in before it became more awkward.
"Did someone say something about food?" he looked expectantly between James and Lily, the latter of whom turned to him and nodded,
"Yes Sirius, we did. Food." She said shortly looking back at the two children. "Fish and chips. I hope that's alright with you two?" she said, biting her lip as Jon shrugged at the sofa and Alice furrowed her eyebrows.
"It'll be fine." James said stepping towards her, "Come on, kitchen." He commanded the youngest two, although the other four followed as well.
There was all sorts of commotion in the kitchen as they set out plates and cutlery and glasses and condiments and the like. James and Sirius seemed to have taken charge, so Lily sat herself in a chair against the wall as soon as Alice had climbed up onto a chair beside Jon.
Finally, after a great deal of fuss with the microwave and a scuffle between Sirius and James, all seven of them were sitting around the table with a plateful of chips and some sort of extra. Lily found a sausage on her plate and directly across from her sat Remus with half a Cornish pasty on his. They hadn't bought enough of the fish substitutes so they had had to cut up and share out some of them. Sirius had managed to wrangled a whole battered cod, James had a rissole, Peter had the other half of the Cornish pasty and Jon and Alice each had half a battered cod. It was all a bit of a mishmash, and nobody had really had any say since all of the plates had just been thrown onto the table next to Alice and then passed down the row.
The silence of a roomful of people enjoying a meal is the most pleasant sound one can hear, especially after a long day, and Lily was starting to feel like it had been a long day. She could feel her eyes starting to close and wanting to rest, even though it was nowhere near night-time.
She woke up with a start when she took a bit of her sausage and found it quite literally coated with salt. She gagged and spat it back onto her plate.
"Hot?" Remus asked, managing to look amused and concerned at the same time.
"Uh- it's-" Lily began, stuttering through her gag reflex. Then she noticed that down the end of the table, Alice and Jon were watching her, grinning at each other. "It's hot." Lily muttered, nodding at Remus.
"Here." He picked up the jug of water and filled her glass.
She smiled at him, before gagging again and making a funny sound in the back of her throat. Remus looked at her in surprise, and she blushed.
"Hiccups." She said firmly, decidedly not looking down at the end of the table where Alice was giggling to Jon. She took a deep drink of water and then a deep breath. She held her breath until there seemed to be little sparks coming off Remus' head. The she let it out slowly, angling her breath down towards her plate, making the grains of salt wriggle about and scatter away from her food. She suddenly didn't really have much of an appetite, and was suddenly wanting her bed far more than she wanted any sort of food. She looked out the window and saw that the sun was still far off setting, although it was much lower in the sky now.
She played with her food until everyone else had finished and then as soon as James stood up and started gathering plates she thankfully put her fork down.
"Do you want me to wash up?" she asked, not sure who she was directing the question towards, but hoping that whoever it was would take pity and say no. She nearly cried with relief when Remus shook his head.
"Don't worry Lily, we should probably do the dishes at least some of the time." He grinned at her as he added her plate to the stack in front of him.
She returned his grin and nodded.
"Well at least you've acknowledged it. Maybe before there's ketchup on the floor though next time, yeah?" Lily teased, standing up and pushing her chair back under the table.
Remus laughed as he passed plates to Peter who was supervising Sirius and James by the sink. They were slowly filling it with alternately hot and cold water by turning the tap on for thirty seconds at a time. Lily frowned in concern, but didn't want to say anything. They looked so happy. She glanced around the kitchen and noticed that Jon and Alice had disappeared. She looked back at the boys who either hadn't noticed or weren't bothered and bit her lip. If she was supposed to do something she would incompetent to ask, but if she wasn't it would look pathetically eager.
She edged towards the door. When nobody said anything she sidled out and wandered through the house towards the stairs. There was silence, apart from the ruckus in the kitchen. She could heard the waves through the open windows and nothing else. Upstairs a door slammed and Lily jumped. She shook herself, laughing at her silliness. It was a door. It wasn't a gunshot. They were only children. She shouldn't be so paranoid. But then, she thought, they had managed to prank her already and they hadn't even been here two hours.
She wasn't sure why she hadn't expected pranks. Well, no, she had expected them, but she had expected harmless ones once she had actually gotten to know the children, not three minutes after meeting them. She sighed and leant against the back of a sofa in a sitting room near the entrance hall. From here she could just about see the bannister on the stairs, and through it she glimpsed two children sitting with their heads together, conspiring. She watched them for a second and then looked away, and stood up. She went to leave, to go outside, but glanced up at them again for a second and caught Alice's eye. She was staring at her with a frown on her small face. Behind her Jon was watching Lily with a blank look, biting his lip. Lily smiled at them, but Alice's frown turned to a deep scowl. Lily blinked and looked away, slightly shocked. She looked back up and nodded before walking swiftly away. On a sun-lounger outside she scolded herself for being silly. It wasn't that she was scared by them, it was just that she felt like they had more right to tell her what to do than she did them, and worse than that, they knew it too.
She shook herself. She was being silly again. They were children who didn't want to be nannied not psychopath killers. It was just the shock of it, she thought. It wasn't every day that she was intimidated by a ten year old with a fringe.
They couldn't be that bad though, no matter how good at scowling they were. Maybe she could talk to James about them later, she thought, ask him for some advice. They were his siblings after all. He would have some tips on how to deal with them, and Lily had a feeling that he wouldn't laugh at her quite as much as the others would. At least she hoped not anyway.
But then who knew, maybe he would think her crazy for worrying this much over adolescents.
And maybe she was, but at that precise moment, as she sat with the light of the setting sun on her face, and the sound of the ocean in her ears, she didn't really care.
