"Well, this has gone horribly wrong," Sirius muttered, glancing at the screaming baby in the high chair, and then at the walls of the kitchen, which were splattered with scarlet spaghetti sauce and charred from the fire.

James froze as he heard the front door open. "And it's about to get worse."

"Hey James, I'm ba—" A deadly silence, punctured by a shrill cry from Harry.

"Uh oh," whispered Sirius.

"My question is, why did you think that was a good idea to begin with?"

James and Sirius exchanged guilty looks as Lily glowered at them, cradling Harry in her arms. Harry was still sniffling, his chubby face screwed up.

"Well, he was hungry," James began, "and we didn't have any baby food left in the house, so we decided to make him something. We thought 'how hard could it be to cook him something?'"

"So I opened your cookbook and found the easiest thing to make," Sirius chimed in. "But unfortunately for us…" He gestured awkwardly to the spaghetti noodles decorating the walls. "That didn't work out so well. We may or may not have set fire to your kitchen."

Evidenced by the scorch marks on the walls.

Lily let out a noise that was half-anger, half-exasperation. "I respect your intentions, but you two can't cook for sh—" She cut herself off, remembering there was a baby in her arms. "You two can't cook at all. You knew this was going to end in disaster. Couldn't you at least have ruined my kitchen without Harry in the room?"

"To be fair, we didn't think it would 'end in disaster'," James said. "It wasn't that much of a fiasco."

"And your kitchen is still in pretty good shape," Sirius pointed out.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Could you do me a favor and never cook again? And clean up this mess. Without magic."

Their expressions were comical with that last addition. Lily had scrubbed many walls as a Muggle child, but these two had never had to tidy up a messy room without any magic involved. Even as children, they'd had house-elves do it for them.

"Lily," Sirius moaned, gazing at the walls with a tormented expression. "You're a cruel, heartless —"

James kicked him in the shins then, wisely shutting him up before he could finish his sentence. "We'd better get to it, mate."

(It took them precisely two hours, thirty-six minutes to restore the kitchen to order, during which Lily put Harry to sleep and dozed off herself.

It was the most peaceful afternoon she'd had in a long time.)

WC: 435 words

Written for:

Geek Pride - The Sims - Write about accidentally starting a fire whilst cooking.

Capture the Flag - "My question is, why did you think that was a good idea to begin with?"

Days of the Year - Baby Day

Colors - Scarlet

Birthstones - Bloodstone

Elizabeth's Empire - 26. James Potter I

Scamander's Case - 9. James Potter I

365 prompts - 104. Fiasco

Insane House - 191. Cleaning