There were no walls around them, just barriers that they bounced off as they whooshed through the floo network. They landed suddenly in a bright fireplace in the entrance hall of the Ministry. Wiping dust off their odd assortment of clothes, James and Sirius stepped into the Ministry for the first time.

"Whoa," Sirius awed as he looked around.

Peacock-blue coloured ceiling with gold symbols, immaculately polished wooden floor, high wooden walls; one wall full of glass checkout-style reception windows the other two contained numerous fireplaces, Instead of a fourth wall was around twenty booths, a security guard in each one and in the very centre of this was a magnificent gold fountain.

"Yeah," James agreed as he walked towards the fountain to get a better look at the statues. "Fountain of Magical Brethren." He read from the sign and looked at the witch, wizard, house elf and centaur figures that took pride of place on the statue. "Wonder what that's about?" In the time he stood looking at the statues and the water he was less irritated by his spots, the itchiness hadn't gone, but it was a little more bearable.

Sirius was heading towards the reception desks to find out where Joanne was but he was having a lot of trouble with it. This room seemed to be quite busy; people rushed in and out, none of them caring that two thirteen year-old boys were in there alone. Eventually he made it.

"Uh…" He began to speak to the receptionist.

"One moment please," a monotonous voice answered.

Sirius waited patiently but after five minutes he still hadn't had a response.

"Excuse me…"

"One moment please," the voice repeated even more bored this time than last.

Another few minutes past and Sirius was getting annoyed.

"Hey!" he said loudly.

A woman's head popped out from behind the desk and looked at him, she even looked bored. "One mom…"

"You've had a moment," Sirius interrupted. "In fact, you've had ten! Now I need to speak to a Mister or Mrs Potter, do you think you can help me?"

The woman's dull expression brightened when she actually saw Sirius. "Well aren't you just a cutie? Are you their son?"

"No," Sirius answered, intending to be cold but unable to keep it up as the woman smiled at him. "He is," he gestured back to James. "We need to see one of them; can you get them for us?"

"No," the receptionist answered simply.

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"Just that. They're not here at the moment; you can wait here for them if you wish?"

"Can't we wait in one of their offices?"

"No."

"Please? We won't do anything."

"How do I know that he's really they're son?"

Sirius considered this for a moment, she had a point, and then it hit him. "James! Hey Jay, get over here!"

James, who was still amazed by the fountain, heard Sirius shouting him and, after finally working out where he was, ran up to him.

"Yeah?"

"Look at this woman and tell her your parents names and date of birth."

James frowned but did as his friend said. He looked at the receptionist and said, "My fathers name is Henry James Potter, he was born 7th April 1954, my mother is Joanne Potter, but her maiden name is Rilbit, she was born 23rd November 1953. Why do you want to know?"

The receptionist grinned, "Well you know the information, and you look like Henry sure, but anyone can use magic and research. Sorry guys, you'll have to wait I'm afraid."

"Why?" Sirius asked. "It's not like they do big secret dangerous work is it? No."

The receptionist was oddly silent.

"What?" Sirius asked.

"Nothing," she answered innocently. "Nothing at all. Now go on, sit down, you'll have to wait."

Both boys moaned and James began scratching his itches once more. With crestfallen faces they began to walk away until the receptionist called them back.

"Tell you what," she said, taking pity on them. "If you can tell me what Henry wrote as the thing he treasured most when he applied for his job you can go in." She knew that no one could guess that unless they really knew Henry, and if they did genuinely know him then she saw no problem in letting them in.

"Oh, I know!" Sirius said quickly. "His money!"

"Sorry, no," the receptionist answered.

Between scratching James hit Sirius. "Idiot, dad doesn't care about money. If he was going to even answer that question he would say something like his sense of fun that he can share and brighten people's lives with."

The receptionist smiled. "Well done, I'll just get your visitors badges. Names?"

"James Potter and…"

He didn't get to say Sirius name because Sirius got in there first. He saw James name appear on a badge immediately and grinned mischievously. "Hugh Jass."

"Right…James, Hugh, here are your badges, if you take them over to there you will be directed to the floor you need." She pointed to the security booths.

"Thanks, come on, this is killing me," James said and the two sprinted across the large room to the security booths.

"Badges?" the guard asked, interrupting his conversation with another guard.

James and Sirius handed their badges over.

"Ok, we've got a Hugh Jass and…"

"Speak for yourself mate," the other guard interrupted with a peeved look on his face.

"What?" the first guard frowned.

"Huge ass? I think you're getting confused with yourself."

"I didn't…Oh, funny kid." The guard muttered as it clicked. "Go get a badge with your real name or neither of you are going anywhere."

"Sirius, hurry up." James groaned at his friend's stupidity. If he had to put up with this pain much longer he'd personally make sure Sirius ended up with it too.

A few minutes later Sirius was back with the proper badge clipped to his raincoat and the other tucked in the pocket.

"Sirius Black, James Potter. That seems a bit more like it. You're here to see Mr and Mrs Potter?"

"Either of them, but yeah," James answered the guards question, not allowing Sirius to talk in case it postponed them even more.

"Okay, go down the hall and take the first left, then a right, straight down and third on the right. They'll be right there."

Sirius frowned, "I thought…" But whatever he thought the guards didn't hear because James began pushing him down the corridor. What they would have heard though is this, "…That they weren't here?"

"Obviously the receptionist got it wrong." James muttered, hurrying down the corridor.

When the found the door and entered the room Joanne and Henry were already there.

"What are you doing here?" Henry asked them the minute the door was closed.

"And what are you wearing?" Joanne admonished.

James answered so quickly that they only understood certain bits. "See…rash…itchy…floo…here."

"What?" they both asked.

Sirius jumped in. "He found a rash, it was itchy, we tried to floo you but there was no answer so we came here."

Henry rolled his eyes. "And you couldn't wait till we got home because…?"

"It's really itchy," James whimpered.

Joanne sighed. "Sit down and let's get this lotion off…"

She waved her wand and the lotion vanished but a rose smell hung in the air. "Was that my moisturiser!" She asked in awe.

Sirius looked a little guilty. "Maybe, it was in a big unlabelled bottle."

"Sirius!" She cried.

"Never mind that dear," Henry said quickly, trying to relieve Sirius of her anger. "We need to hurry up; you can deal with your cream later, just check James over now."

Joanne sighed, she knew he was right. She put her efforts in looking at her son's rash, which was now spreading to his neck. "Well, looks like you were right to wear that ridiculous outfit, Sirius."

"Why? What's wrong with me? Am I going to die?" James asked as he scratched again.

Joanne laughed. "Not quite, you've just got chicken pox that's all…"

"I'm going to turn into a chicken!" James asked, cutting off his mum.

"Don't be stupid James. You'll be fine. But Sirius can catch it, so we'll have to send him home."

"I'll take my chances," Sirius said hastily.

"Well, if you're parents don't mind I guess its okay…It's probably better if you get them now anyway."

Sirius nodded.

A rapid beeping sounded; Henry looked at his watch and sighed. "Love, we've got to go. The boys will be fine if they go straight home."

"Can't we stay with you?" James asked.

Henry and Joanne shared a quick look before answering. "Maybe next summer when you're not ill." Henry answered.

"Aww…" James said, scratching his shoulder.

"Sorry," Henry said.

"Stop scratching," Joanne said. "Just go straight home and Sirius, there's a bottle next to my bed labelled 'calamine lotion', put that on James' spots and make sure he doesn't scratch. We'll be home in a couple of hours."

"Ok, see you later then," Sirius said.

"'Bye," Joanne and Henry said before quickly rushing out of the room.

"'Bye," James said dejectedly.

"What's up with you?" Sirius asked as they walked back out and towards the fireplaces.

"I'm stuck like this," James complained.

"Never mind," Sirius said brightly. "I'll keep you company, but I'm keeping this on," his hand waved over his mismatched outfit. "Don't want to get it myself do I? It looks painful."

"It's not," James assured him. "Just irritating."

And so the two boys went back through the whoosh-whooshing network and landed in James' house. Sirius put the lotion onto James and he, in turn, did the same when Sirius, despite his 'protective' clothing, got them too. In the four weeks it took for the chicken pox to actually go, the boys read every magazine in the house 6 times over and did some of their holiday homework. They left the house several times but only once did they go further than the garden, two days before they were due back at Hogwarts when they had to go to Hogsmeade to get their supplies. They met Peter and Remus while they were but in general their summer was quite boring, like James said, "It sucks being ill during the holidays. Why couldn't we get it before the holidays? We'd have got out of the tests then!"

A bit longer and all you're going to get for a week.

I'm thinking about starting a new fic, another L/J, I don't really write anything else, but this will be AU and set after Hogwarts. Lily and James didn't go out, Lily liked James but he didn't like her, Lily is visited bya spirit and has to help it by travelling across the country, she picks James up along the way and...Well I'm not telling you everything but what do you think? I'll write it better than it sounds obviously, but I really like the idea. Anyway yeah, I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Rae