Chapter Three: A Party

A/N: Thanks to Junsui Chikyuu, my only reviewer! If there are more people reading this, I wouldn't mind it if you reviewed. I like get them…please? ~*Mac*~

            Everybody felt that they should be doing something on this day, but they couldn't figure it out. James Potter stared boringly at the calendar his girlfriend Lily Evans had placed on his refrigerator, trying to remember. Lily bustled around his kitchen, trying to find something to make them and their friends. James ran a hand through his black hair and turned to the small group in his living room.

            His friend Remus Lupin was sitting in a nearby chair, casually flipping through the day's issue of the Daily Prophet. Though James figured his quiet friend was being more distracted by Harmony Anderson's head resting on his lap. James shook his head and motioned to Lily. "Think he's nervous?" he asked her. Lily smiled. "I don't know why," James continued. "We were friends in Hogwarts. It's not like he's dating someone he just met."

"It's Remus. Dating one of his best friends. He's bound to be nervous. Besides, he knows that he's a rare case. He's a werewolf who has friends and a girlfriend aware of his condition and still care." Lily leaned down and kissed James' cheek.

            Harmony was watching the two exchange words. "Look," she whispered to Remus, "they're talking without fighting."  Remus looked up and smiled. He went back to reading the paper. Harmony read the date on the paper and couldn't help but feel like she was forgetting something. Something important. She shook it off and gazed over at a fidgety Peter Pettigrew. Even he looked like he knew they were forgetting something.

            Harmony sighed and decided to voice her feelings. "I feel like we're forgetting something."

"I know," Remus said, folding the paper. "I feel it too."

"Where's Sirius?" Harmony asked, noticing one of their group was missing.

            Peter decided to speak up. "He said he was going to stop by later. Give us time to prepare for something."

"Prepare for what?" Lily asked.

"He didn't say," Peter answered. "He just said we needed time to prepare."

"Oh no, he's probably going to do a stupid trick," Lily groaned. "Will he ever learn?" She whirled on to her boyfriend. "And don't think of encouraging him, James Potter!" James placed his arms up in surrender while Lily turned on Remus. "Nor you, Lupin!"

"Don't worry, Lil, I'll make sure Remus behaves," Harmony said, sitting up to place her arms around her boyfriend.

            Lily turned back to James. "I mean it, James. I don't want you to have to do with anything Sirius plans today," she lectured, marching into the kitchen to finish cooking. That was one thing she didn't need that day—a stupid Marauders' prank. They were out of school and on their own! Why did they keep insisting on behaving like children? "The Marauders will always be the Marauders," Harmony had once said, when she and Lily were spending some time alone. Lily sighed and realized her friend was right.

            Harmony got tired of just lying there, letting her guilt gnaw at her. She knew she was forgetting something important—but what was it? And why did they all feel like that? She stood up, but flopped back down. Her head was still spinning? That was over a week ago…

            Remus was nervous about Harmony's behavior. "Are you still hurting?" he asked her. She shook her head and regretted the decision. "Here, let me," Remus said, helping her lean into his chest.

"Doesn't this hurt your arm?" she asked, rolling up her boyfriend's sleeve. An ugly gash was still scaring over. Remus pulled his arm away. "Did you have anyone look at that?"

"Well…"

"Remus, did someone look at that arm?" Harmony asked, pulling his face so he could look her in the eye.

"No," he answered, knowing he couldn't lie to her. He wasn't a convincing liar. "I didn't get it checked out."

"REMUS JOHN LUPIN!" she screamed, and he suddenly realized he had sent his girlfriend into mother hen mode. She was now worse than Molly Weasley, Sirius' distant cousin and mother figure to the Marauders and HM's.

            Harmony jumped up, screaming about how much of an idiot her boyfriend was for not getting his wounds checked out. Lily, James and Peter stared in shock, not used to seeing the happy couple embroiled in such a fight. Well, that fight did look a bit one sided from that perspective, but James knew that Remus wasn't a Marauder for nothing—he was just biding his time to erupt. He wondered if Harmony had ever seen Remus erupt…

"WELL EXCUSE ME FOR CARING ABOUT SOMEONE OTHER THAN MYSELF!" Remus screamed back.

"OH, NOW I'M SELFISH!" countered Harmony

"I DIDN'T SAY THAT!"

"YOU SURE IMPLIED IT!"

"IT SOUNDED LIKE I JUST TOLD YOU I LOVED YOU!"

            Silence reined supreme at Godric Hollow, as three people held their breaths. Remus Lupin had just admitted his love to his best friend. How would the object of his affection handle this? Especially after such a  yelling match as they had been in.

            "You what?" she asked, slightly out of breath from yelling at her boyfriend. "Did you say you loved me?"

"Yeah," the man said, "I did." They stood staring at each other. "I guess that was stupid. We've only be dating a few months, and I'm a werewolf…"

"Don't bring that into it," she said through gritted teeth. "That has nothing to do with anything. I love you, too."

            The two smiled at each other as Lily and James said, "Aww," together. That reminded Harmony and Remus they weren't alone. They turned around and James held his old, arrogant smile on his face. "Moony and Mony," he cooed, "how cute. Don't you think so, Lil?"

"I think so," Lily said, a smile spread from ear to ear.

            Harmony grabbed Remus' uninjured arm and dragged him to their red-haired friend. "Lily, could you please look at this?" she asked, pushing up Remus' sleeve. Lily gasped at the sight of the wound, her smile fading. She looked up at Remus, who began to squirm. Lily shot a glance at Harmony, before dragging the red werewolf out of the room.

            At that moment, a tall brunette walked into Godric Hollow. "Did I just hear another infamous James Potter-Lily Evans fight?" she asked. She ran a hand through her midnight black hair, with streaks of gold worked in.

"No, Kiki," James replied, "Lily and I weren't fighting."

"Then why were the rafters shaking?" Kristin Wright, from here on in, known only as Kiki, asked.

"Because Remus and Harmony were arguing," Peter said.

"What? Trouble in paradise?"

"Ha ha, Kiki," Harmony said, suddenly remembering why she was so upset before. "My idiot of a boyfriend got injured in our last attack against the Deatheaters and never got the wound checked out. I was yelling at him for his negligence."

"And how did the argument stop?"

"When he told her he loved her," James said simply. Kiki looked at her friend and squealed, embracing the blonde woman.

            Lily came out, Remus trailing behind. Harmony was pleased to see his arm now bandaged up properly. "There, now you can heal. Thank Merlin Lily had enough sense to go into healing," Harmony said, as Remus slung his uninjured arm over her shoulders. "By the way, Kiki's here. Alone."

            The alone comment was important to the other five in the room. Kiki had recently started to date Severus Snape, an old schoolmate and enemy of her friends. Harmony and Lily knew Kiki was just doing it to drive Sirius crazy so that he would eventually realize how madly in love he was with her, and she with him, and they would begin dating. Kiki had made many crazy plans before, and most of them succeeded (with Sirius and James' help) so the two women had no doubt it would work.

            Kiki's face distorted. "Don't talk about Sev that way," she hissed and stalked into the kitchen. Lily gave Harmony a look and followed her friend into the next room. Harmony sighed. She knew why Kiki was so protective of Severus because she felt bad. She felt bad she was using him to lose him when Sirius, whom Severus absolutely hated, came running to her.

            Harmony unwound herself from Remus' comfortable embrace and walked into the kitchen. "Kiki, I'm sorry," she said. "It was just to save Remus the trouble of asking."

"That's okay, Mony. I didn't mean to snap. You know how I feel about Severus…"

"Kiki, if your conscience is bothering you that bad, why don't you just break it off with Severus before things go too far and you really hurt him?" Lily suggested. "You don't want to hurt him, right?"

"Or end up married to him."

"Eww," Kiki shuddered. "I'm not planning on being the relationship long enough for him to propose. Sirius is eventually going to break and we are eventually going to go out. Got it?"

"Got it," her two friends answered.

            The door opened later and Sirius walked in. "James, I parked my motorcycle on your front lawn, I hope you don't mind!" Sirius said, walking into the group. The six were seated around a bowl of salsa dip and a bag of chips was currently being fought over between Kiki and James. Lily was torn between helping her boyfriend or helping her friend, while Peter, Harmony and Remus just sat there, shaking with silent laughter.

            Sirius stood there. No one was hiding. No one was jumping out yelling "Surprise, Sirius!" and "Happy Birthday, Sirius!" He thought they were planning a surprise party when Peter called to say they had all been invited to Godric Hollow, without so once mentioning the man's birthday. So Sirius figured they were all getting together to surprise him. That's why he gave them time. But now he could see he was wrong. Dead wrong.

            "Hello, Sirius, how are you?" Harmony said, in between giggles. Sirius just stood there, mouth wide open. "Sirius…earth to Sirius…Hey, you trying to catch something with that trap of yours?" Harmony said, now standing up and waving her hand in front of Sirius' face.

            His peculiar behavior was starting to unnerve the others in the room. In a few strides, Remus and James were both standing next to Harmony. Lily, Kiki and Peter hung back a bit. "Sirius, what's wrong?" Harmony asked, louder. No response.

"Sirius? Padfoot?" Now James was really worried.

            Finally, Sirius opened his mouth. "Why isn't anyone saying surprise?" he asked, timidly. It then hit them why they all felt like they had forgotten something important—they had! Harmony summed it up quite nicely:

"Today's your birthday? CRAP!"

            Sirius looked at all of them. "How could you?" he asked quietly, especially to Remus and James. "How could you?" He darted out of the house.

            A half hour later, James and Remus came back, Sirius in tow. He was amazed at how the place had changed. "Happy Birthday" banners hung around, as did a piñata that resembled Snape. A cake was being iced the muggle way by Harmony and Lily as Kiki helped Peter put out some drinks. "We've apologized profusely," James said, hugging Lily.

"I can't believe we forgot!" Harmony exclaimed, hugging Sirius. "We knew we forgot something, we just didn't know what that something was!"

"I can't believe you forgot my birthday. It's only the most important day of my life!"

"Well, you didn't advertise it so well as you have in the past," Remus said.

"What?"

"Hey, he's right," Kiki said. "Normally, we would've had to hear for weeks on end how long it was till your birthday."

"You were all involved in the Deatheater incident, I wasn't. Well, me and Peter. I couldn't just start bugging you," Sirius said.

"I'd either say that's the nicest thing you've ever said, or you forgot as well," Lily responded, studying her boyfriend's best friend.  Sirius blushed a bit, and the others pounced on him.

            "You accuse us of forgetting your birthday, when you forgot it too?" James asked. "I could kill you, Padfoot."

"I didn't forget my own birthday. I forgot to remind you!" Sirius countered back, walking over to the calendar. "And why isn't it written down on the calendar? It should be the first thing you did when Lily gave it to you."

"No, the first thing I did was write down Lily's birthday and our anniversary. Wouldn't want to forget those," James replied, fearfully glancing at Lily. "Definitely, wouldn't want to forget those."

"But now as I look through this calendar, let's see who else is written down. Harmony's birthday, Kiki's birthday, Remus', Peter's, Dumbledore's—hey, how'd you know that?—and SEVERUS SNAPE'S?"

            James turned to Kiki. "What?" she asked, shrugging her shoulders. "He IS my boyfriend."

"Yeah, but I'm not going to send him a birthday card," James replied, frowning. He turned back to Sirius, who looked ready to tear up his calendar. He sighed. "It's your own fault, Padfoot. The others wrote theirs down on the calendar. You should've too."

"I've been your best friend for years!" Sirius yelled. "You should've remembered it! How could you not have planned for my birthday—how could you not have remembered? How—"

Sirius had to stop in mid-rant. Kiki's laughter was filling the room. This caught Sirius off guard and he looked at all his friends. They seemed to be surprised, too. "What is so funny?" he demanded.

"Nothing, except how big idiots we are," she said. She held up her appointment book and handed it to Lily. Lily's eyes grew big and she too began to laugh. "We had planned for your birthday," Kiki told Sirius. "About three weeks ago. We have reservations at the Three Broomsticks in an hour and a half! We must've forgotten with the Deatheater attack last week."

Soon everyone was laughing as they realized how stupid they were all acting. "Honestly, Padfoot, would we really, truly forget your birthday?" James asked as the laughter died down. "We knew you wouldn't let us live it down. So, bygones be bygones?"

"No," Sirius said. "I'm not going to let you guys ever forget this moment. But, can I do one thing?" he asked James. The other man nodded and watched as Sirius got up, took a pen Lily had left lying around and flipped the calendar open. Before Kiki could stop him, he had scratched off Snape's birthday from the Potter calendar. "There. All better. So, when do we head for Diagon Alley?" Sirius sat down and opened a bottle of butterbeer, staring down Kiki.

Kiki took up a pillow lying on the couch, knocking Harmony off the pillow. Remus helped his girlfriend up as they all watched Kiki advance on Sirius. "Aw, what'cha going to do? Attack me with the pillow?" he asked.

"Precisely!" Kiki screamed, crashing the pillow down on top of Sirius' head. The force of the hit knocked Sirius out of his chair. He stood back up, grabbed Kiki and ran down the hall. The group watched as the offending pillow was thrown back into the room, hitting Peter in the head. Running water could be heard, as well as Kiki's pleas for help. "Don't you dare toss me in there, Sirius Black! Sirius, Padfoot, NO!" A splash was heard. "SIRIUS BLACK, THIS WATER IS ICE COLD!" Another splash came.

A few minutes later, a soaking wet Kiki walked back into the room. Lily had already retrieved some towels, and Kiki grabbed one. She wrapped it around her hair and then grabbed the other one to wrap about her. Sirius strolled out, as dry as he was when they last saw him. "That was the best birthday gift ever! Dunking Kiki, not once, but twice. All is forgiven," he declared. The others stared before hurling chips at him.