Title: Traditions

Category: Humor

Subcategory: Romance

Pairing(s): Lily/James

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: Most of it doesn't belong to me.

Summary: Newly married couple, James and Lily Potter are out shopping for silverware. They prove that what appears to be the dullest experience, can still lead to a great deal of immaturity and laughter.

Author's Notes: Ah... I'm not really sure how this'll turn out. Suspect it might be kinda boring. I don't exactly have a plot, so I'll improvise. Cheers!

"James! Come look!" Lily Potter beckoned excitedly over at me. I gave an overexaggerated groan, and slumped reluctantly over to where she was standing. We'd arrived at "Monteé's Kitchen Emporium" a mere 2 hours ago, and yet Lily had only found one dung colored set of sauce plates she deemed 'satisfactory' in the time passed. She, of course, being the optomistic woman she is, claimed it to be "a lovely shade of beige". I, however, being the smart and honest man I am, saw it for what it truly was. Poop colored. And anyways, can there even be a shade of beige? I mean, I grew up thinking that beige was a shade in itself. Great time to tell me now that I'm fully matured. I'll never be able to fully believe that beige, does in fact, have shades. But heck, what's the importance of it, anyway? If life decides to grant me one wish, it'll be that I'll never have to shop for silverware again. In my entire life. Man, the things I do for the woman I love.

"Lil-ly!" I whined pathetically. I personally didn't want to be stuck in this dopey metal market any longer. It was full of boring stuff like plates, and forks, and napkins. And big strong guys who will most definitely attract Lily's attention away from me. Which is definitely not what I want, especially at the very beginning of our marriage. Hah. I bet I could work here as one of those strong guys if I wanted to. It just so happens that I chose to be an auror. A much more heroic occupation. Gah. I just hope a box of steaknives will fall on that big latin guy getting the box of soup spoons down from the shelf for that red-headed- Lily!

"Ahem!" Naturally, I was over there at the speed of light. I sucked in my gut, and attempted to flex my rippling muscles without being too obvious, but still obvious enough for that man (who was now staring at my Lily for very long periods of time) to back off! "I got it from here," I said gruffly to the imposter checking out my wife. He just nodded stiffly, looked at Lily, and left. Yeah, that's right. Walk away. I looked down to see that Lily was laughing at me.

"Jealous, much?" she asked me, still smiling gaily. She leaned up and gave me a peck on the cheek before holding out her hand for the box of spoons I was still holding.

"I am not jealous," I retorted stubbornly, handing over the spoons. "I just... don't like other men ogling at my wife," I claimed, wrapping my arm protectively around her. Now, if we were still in Hogwarts, I'd have gotten a smacking by now, and she would've told me that she could protect herself. I guess, after a while, she's gotten used to it. Which is a good thing, because she smacks hard!

"So anyway, James..." There she goes again. Talking about cups. Or bowls. Or whatever it is. So, I just take this time to space out, and watch her eyes light up when she's talking about something she's passionate about (which, in this case, are the bowls... which is also kind of weird), and the way she smiles every once and a while, as though she's thinking of something funny. Oh, and there's the way she licks her lips occasionally when she runs out of breath... "James? James, are you even listening to me?"

I looked up, a guilty look on my face. I hate getting caught.

"You know, James, if you just didn't want to come so badly, not even for me, you could've just told me," she said this with a slightly hurt tone. Aw, great. Now I feel extra bad. I can't even bring myself to say that I'd literally begged Lily to let me stay home while she did all this homemaker junk. She said it was really important, though. Something about symbolizing our marriage.

You know what I say? I say sod it. How does buying dishes together mean we're married? I bet loads of happily married couples just got their silverware imported from Taiwan, or India, or China, or whatever? Why do we have to be one of those difficult ones who're set on everything to be traditional? You know what traditional is a code word for? Boring. I've never liked boring anything in my life.

Now, some would say that in school, Lily was boring. For example, Sirius. But, trust me, she's far from it. You'd just have to live with her to realize it. In truth, I'm probably more boring than her. More normal than her. But don't tell her I said that. I tease her about my individuality. Can't blow my cover now, can I?

I turned back to Lily. I should probably pay attention now. I hate it when she's mad at me. Absolutely hate it. It means no lovin' for Jamsie.

"I'm paying attention, Lils," I looked at her with the most sincerity I could muster. "Honest." Ah, she saw right through me. Look at her, rolling her eyes at me. Miss Thing. God, I love her for that.

"Sure, Jay, sure. But can we focus a bit? I'd really like to get out of here by dinnertime. See, that's the point in buying all this stuff. You're supposed eat your dinner on it," she said sarcastically. Yup, that's the Lily I love. Wouldn't trade her for anything in the world. "Okay, so I found three sets of chopsticks I like. I'm thinking we buy two of them." Wow, that woman is all business, she is. She held up the first box. "See, I like this one because it has those cute chinese characters on the ends... not that I know what it means, exactly, but it can't be anything bad, now can it?" I smiled mischieviously.

"Well, you never know, Lil," I said, thoughtfully. "It could say..." I leaned down to whisper it in her ear. She gasped and smacked me with the box of chopsticks. I winced, and rubbed my sore arm. "Nope, I definitely don't like that one," I said, glaring playfully at it. She giggled.

"How about this one?" she held up the second set, and I was shocked to see that each chopstick had a... frilly thing at the end of it. I gave her a look of disbelief.

"You've gotta be kidding me," I exclaimed. She looked like she was biting down laughter. Still, her face remained serious.

"What's wrong with it?" she asked me in a baby-ish voice. I blinked.

"Lily, your chopsticks are wearing a dress," I said monotonously. She burst out laughing. I knew she hated it from the very beginning! She just wanted to see my reaction. Why do women have to be so bloody mean to poor blokes like me?

"And... my last choice," she said showing me the last box. It was then that it hit me.

"Wait a minute... we don't even need chopsticks!" I exclaimed, thoroughly fed up. I've just been dilly dallying over ugly wooden sticks that we don't even need! She put on a cheesy smile and started playing with my shirt collar, completely avoiding my eyes.

"Yeah, but come one, James! Everyone's got a cute set of chopsticks somewhere in their kitchen... it's tradition!" I groaned exasperatedly.

"Priorities, woman! Priorities!"

She bristled slightly, when hearing this comment, and put on a stony expression. I swear! She's got multiple personalities! There's one part of her that's cheesy and sweet, and there's the other where's she's violent and logical.

"Fine," she said quietly. Wait, was that a sniffle? Oh, lordy! I don't deal well with crying women! Please don't cry, please don't cry, please, please don't cry! "I'm going to find a can opener," she said. With that, she crossed her arms over her chest and walked off. Argh. Why am I such a bumbling idiot? Sirius is right. I can be a dolt sometimes.

And I just stood there, in front of the door marked "Employees", and simply banged my forehead against the door. Over, and over, and over, and over. Well, every now and again I got out of the way to let a curious salesclerk through the door. What're they staring at anyways? It's not like they haven't done something they highly regretted.

So, after about half an hour of wearing the paint off the door with my forehead, I decided to take action. I mean, isn't that how I got the girl in the first place? I didn't just sit by the lake and wait for her to come running to me. Naturally, I had already tried that, and figured out the hard way that it really had no effect at all. At least not on Lily. Nope, I had to change my bad boy ways to get my girl.

So, I decided that I had to change my outlook on this whole tradition idea. Hey, if Lily wanted to be traditional once in a while, who am I to deny her? So I grabbed a cart, and started my long journey through aisles and aisles of kitchen stuff, stocking up on every single thing I assumed Lily would find traditional enough, and buying everything in Lily's favorite colors (including that "shade of beige" she seems to enjoy), and soon I had my shopping cart full of one of everything in the store.

Finally, all I had left to do, was to find Lily. I weaved up and down every single aisle in the store with my shopping cart in tow, and had thoroughly given up, when I walked back to the aisle where I first started, and found Lily, standing patiently in the middle of the aisle, with her back turned to me.

As I got closer, and closer, I felt myself speed up, and came to an abrupt stop, a mere 4 inches from Lily's startled face. After take a second or two to catch my breath, I started talking.

"Look Lily, I know I'm an insufferable prat. I know it! I've heard it from you loads of times! And I know I was being one earlier today. But, guess what?" I turned around and pulled the cart closer towards her, fumbling around with its various items. She just stared. At me. Then at the cart. At me. At the cart. I was about to completely give up and apologize the normal way, when she picked something out of the cart.

It was the frilly chopsticks. Suddenly, her eyes started to water, as she looked up at me and laughed.

"You thought they were silly!" she said. She had tears streaming down her face, her makeup was running, her nose was red, and we were in the middle of a store were people were milling abound, and staring at us as they passed. But why should I care when I'm already looking at the only one worth looking at?

So as I tucked back a lock of her beautiful red hair, I couldn't hide my smile. It was cheesy, I'll tell you that, but-

"It's tradition."

fin.

A/N: Once again, I've written a short story. I've already told you about it's possible snore content at the beginning of the fic, so you can't blame me for wasting your valuable time. I don't have time to check it for grammatical or spelling errors at the moment, so I apologize. Review.