James and Lily are walking down the sidewalk, hand in hand and enjoying the crisp night air of July 31st. Right up until they hear sirens, and see a firetruck spraying water on a burning building.

Lily's breath catches in her throat, as she realizes…that fire isn't normal. Its magical. And the Muggles are never going to be able to put it out.

The two of them slip inside, keeping themselves undetected by the Muggles, only to hear…crying. There's a baby in here!

They find the child quickly enough after abandoning their attempts to cancel out whatever spell was used to make the flames, a small girl with a fuzz of flaming hair on her head wrapped up in a blanket. When Lily reaches down for her, the flames instantly start dying down as her cries fade.

James looks around at the dying flames, then mutters "Bloody hell, Lils…"

"James! Language!"

"Look! I think she's controlling the flames!"

It takes only one look around for Lily to come to that same conclusion. They quickly decide to adopt her, after learning of her lung capacity.

James and Sirius are playing with Bloom, who's nothing short of an adorable little angel once she realized Sirius and Remus weren't going to take her away from her new parents - who she seemed to choose all on her own, and was perfectly determined to convince them to take her with them.

Mainly, by screaming at the very top of her lungs if anyone else tried to hold her until the married couple adopted her. Once that was done, she settled right down and has hardly fussed ever since.

And she took to most of the Order members almost instantly, and has made her way into even Alastor Moody's heart. How she managed that is a miracle nobody can explain even with her very obvious magic - whenever she laughs, whatever open flames are in the area will suddenly leap at least a foot higher, and if she claps embers and sparks rain down from her hands. If she wants something she can't reach, it 'mysteriously' falls from where it was…while glowing orange.

And the time Molly offered to babysit Bloom - since her twin brothers are in the Order - she and little Ron got along great…and ended up chasing Molly's twin boys around, happily setting things on fire as she went and laughing the whole time. Molly, luckily, took it in stride, put the fires out, and said she'd be happy to watch over such a happy girl anytime Lily and James needed her to.

At the moment, she's sitting between Sirius and James - who she happily calls 'Unca Paddy' and 'Pongdaddy' since they all call each other by their Marauder names - and trying to catch sparks they've conjured for her. And then she gets up on her chubby little toddler-legs and tries to jump and catch them - she's a very active little girl, they've discovered, and has chased Sirius a few times around the small house while in his dog form.

There's suddenly a knock on the door, and Remus opens it saying "It's just us! Order meeting finished, so we figured we'd drop in."

"Unca Moo!" The next thing anyone knows, there's a fire-haired toddler wrapped around Remus' legs - they still haven't gotten her to call him 'Unca Mooney' just yet, but it's so adorable that nobody actually remembers she's basically calling him 'uncle cow' instead of even 'uncle wolf.'

Remus bends down and picks Bloom up, saying "There's our little angel! Sweetest thing in the world, that's what you are." In response, Bloom wraps her arms around his neck and presses a sloppy toddler's kiss to his cheek.

He takes her back over to James and Sirius, and sits down next to them saying "Lucky you, Prongs. This sweet little girl as your daughter."

James grins, right up until Sirius says "Just wait until she's a teenager, Moony. He'll be beating off the boys with a staff in one hand, and Hexing them to pieces with the wand in his other." James' look turns horrified at the thought of teenage boys trying to get anywhere near his little princess.

Sirius says "How about we get something to drink? I know I've walked out of more than a few meetings with a pounding head. Prongs?"

Remus nods, as does James, and they summon a few of Bloom's toys for her to play with while they get some Butterbeer from the fridge. James is just saying he thought they should dress Bloom up for Halloween in a few days, even if they don't actually go out for it - and a description of how he wanted to Transfigure her clothes to look like the Muggles' Cleopatra, and how adorable she'd be - when there's a glass-shattering, ear-bleeding scream from the living room.

When everyone gets into the living room, they see Peter holding Bloom and looking terrified - understandable, given the detail that her screams can mimic the Caterwauling Charm with ease when she really tries. She's screaming bloody murder, and crying, and squirming while Peters tries not to drop her.

"I just picked her up, I swear!"

Lily takes Bloom from his hands, resulting in an immediate reduction in the noise level as Lily gently rocks her. Lily flashes him an apologetic look, then quietly says "Maybe she just needs a nap. I'll take her upstairs."

Everybody nods, and James says "Sorry 'bout that, Peter. She hasn't acted like that since…well, since we adopted her, actually. Before that, if anyone tried to hold her other than Lils or I, she'd scream like that until given back."

Peters blinks, then shakily says "Maybe she just needs a nap, like Lily said…"

Lily gets up to the room she and James converted into a nursery, murmuring "Quite the set of lungs and vocal chords you got, Firespark. You about blew out our ears that time." Bloom's hanging onto Lily's shirt, her crying reduced to sniffles and hiccupping, and Lily sits down in a comfy armchair with the young girl for the moment. "Now, what scared you, huh? Did Uncle Wormtail startle you?" She stands Bloom up on top of her legs, wiping at her tear-streaked cheeks with a finger as she talks.

To Lily's utter surprise, Bloom wails "Bad man fight Daph-Daph! Scary old ladies hurt Daph-Daph! Worm feels like bad man and ladies! Worm take you and Pongdaddy away to!" She bursts into tears again, burying her face in Lily's shoulder once more.

Lily's eyebrow raises towards her hairline as she tries to make sense of all that - what they know of Bloom is that they found her abandoned in a building that was getting consumed by a raging inferno…and not much else, aside from her name and a best guess as to her age. Far as they can tell, she's about a year old or so.

Her name, or what they assume is her name, was stitched in orange thread on the baby clothes they found her in, so that's what they used for her first name. This new bit of information about a 'bad man' and 'scary old ladies' and a 'Daph-Daph' is entirely new - 'Daph' could be short for Daphne, maybe, and Bloom's got a habit of nicknaming everyone she likes…

James comes up to the Nursery about two hours after Lily took Bloom up, and finds the two most important women in his life fast asleep in the comfy padded armchair Lily Transfigured just for occasions like this.

Bloom's sleeping against Lily's body, with her head tucked under her mother's chin and her arms hanging onto the shirt between them like it's a lifeline.

Lily, meanwhile, is leaning back in the chair with one hand over Bloom's back and the other holding her up. He's privately wondering just how, exactly, Lily got Bloom to go to sleep - usually, it takes Sirius turning into Padfoot and curling up around Bloom for her to settle down enough to fall asleep. Which made for some absolutely adorable photos taken in secret, as well as partially contributed to Sirius being named Bloom's Godfather.

It was also counted as a true miracle that first time, since nothing else they tried worked in the slightest and Bloom just wouldn't sleep on her own.

If someone tried to leave, she'd instantly wake up.

If they all crept out under Silencing Charms or Levitation Charms, she'd wake up, get up, and follow them. No matter if she was in the crib or not, or how complicated the method they used to try and keep her there, she could get out in mere minutes.

Sirius eventually turned into Padfoot, curled up around her, and basically trapped her in a dog-hug of sorts by putting his head in her lap when she was leaning into his own body. Amazingly, she just wrapped her arms around his neck and went to sleep.

James instantly casts a Silencing Charm on himself, levitates a blanket over to Lily and Bloom's sleeping forms, and then creeps back down as carefully as he can without waking Bloom up. Sirius asks "Well?"

"Out cold."

Sirius blinks, and asks "Without me?" He actually sounds a little hurt at that.

James shrugs, and says "It's a miracle, Padfoot. Lily's sleeping with her, though."

Remus asks "Wasn't that the only other way you two could get her to sleep?"

James nods, and says "Yep."

Peter says "I swear, I just picked her up, I didn't-"

James holds his hand up, and says "Relax, Peter. Maybe you startled her or something. She went off like that for a while until we finally got the adoption organized. Though, why she went off now…" He shrugs, not having an answer.

"James, I swear that kid hates me. She even likes Moody, but she won't go near me."

There was that time she hid behind the Auror's wooden peg-leg a month ago. And when she hung onto McGonagall for dear life when it was just the three of them in a room together - Peter was talking theory with McGonagall for an idea he had for fighting, and Bloom seemed terrified for some reason.

She's also not that fond of Dumbledore either, though she loves Fawkes. And…she set his hair on fire and ran as fast on her little legs as she could, ending up hiding behind Frank and Alice.

Sirius says "Once this war is over, and she's grown a bit, I'm sure she'll love you, Peter. Maybe its just all the stress?"

Remus shrugs, and says "Maybe."

Peter sighs and rubs his temples, saying "I hope so, guys. I'm gonna go back home, see you at the next meeting."

AN: Hey, everyone! I know its only supposed to be the first and second year for this story, but i got a request for when James and Lily found Bloom and it turned into this. Enjoy! More updates coming soon!