Hey guys, I'm SO sorry, for taking this long to update. Life is just so hectic right now, and i sincerely apologize for not updating sooner. I wrote a longer chapter, than what was planned, to make up for it. And again, I am so sorry. Also as a side note, if anyone wants me to respond to their reviews, just mention it at the end of your review, and I'll gladly respond to you. Cheers.

Chapter 2: Stinky Diapers

"So who should you pair with?" She looked around the classroom, and then smiled when she saw who would be suitable for Lily's partner. "Ah, well then we have: Lily Evans and … James Potter."

There was a resounding crash in which the vase next to Lily's next shattered on the floor. "WHAT?"

The Professor flicked her wand, and the vase mended. "Yes, Ms Evans, now please take your seat."

"B-but, I-I can't work with him." Lily pleaded. "Please, please, give me another partner! Please Professor."

The Professor sighed, "No, Ms Evans, I am not going through the trouble of assigning everyone else partners just because of you. Now-sit-down."

Lily looked from her teacher to James who was sitting there coolly, and looking at Lily like she was some sort of entertainment, he had a smirk on his face, when he noticed she was looking at him. His hand unconsciously ran through his hair.

Lily seethed, she felt like slapping the smirk off of his arrogant face. She clenched and unclenched her hands at her sides, and tried again, to convince her teacher.

"Professor, could you ---,"

"No."

"Could I ---?"

"No."

"Please, if you would just ---,"

"No, no and no Ms Evans!" Professor Lain shouted. Several people were heard sniggering in the background, and Lily could feel someone pulling on her hand to get her to sit down. She yanked her hand away, and knowing that the teacher was not about to change her mind, she rounded on James.

"You! Why you?" Lily demanded, fiercely. "In every single ruddy class, you some how end up being my partner! Why!"

James shrugged nonchalantly.

"Ms Evans take your seat this second, unless you want detention for a week, cleaning chamber pots with Mr Filch!" Lain warned, pointing a short finger at Lily.

Lily looked like she was about to burst, but she sat down slowly, muttering something under her breath.

Class passed painfully slow, for Lily, and amazingly well for James, who felt like heaven had finally made some room for him on earth. This was going to be his chance to prove to Lily that he was not as bad as she made him out to be.

"Can you believe my luck?" James asked enthusiastically. "The best project of the year, and I get paired with Lily!"

Sirius rolled his eyes and watched his friend practically skip blindly down the hall.

"Oi Prongs! You're about to bang into that…" There was a loud crash, " …wall." Sirius finshed with a grimace.

Lily on the other hand was carrying the baby out of class, with her friends, "Why must I be stuck with the bad luck!" She asked to no one in particular, letting the very realistic doll grab her fingers in its little fist.

"They're so cute." Serena cooed, from behind Lily, tickling her doll, as it let out a little gurgle.

"They're so much work." Mina groaned, gingerly holding her doll. "I wasn't ready to be doing this for about another four or five years."

"Well I suppose we'll have to go find our --- partners." Lily gulped, looking at the Fat Lady's portrait with apprehension.

Lily and her friends entered the common room, and saw the back of Remus Lupin's head from the couch. Expecting all of the Marauders to be together as usual, they made their way over.

Sirius, Remus and Peter were sitting there.

"Where's James?" Lily asked suddenly. It looked weird for the group to be without one of their main members.

"Lily, I didn't know you'd be rushing to him so soon." Sirius said, reclining in his chair.

Lily scoffed, "I was looking for him, for our project."

Sirius brushed the comment away with his hand, "Yeah, yeah. Well, if you're looking for Prongsie, you'll have to wait till tomorrow."

Lily narrowed her eyes, "Why?"

Peter piped up from the corner, "He took a nasty crash to the head … too much excitement for the poor bloke to handle, I'm afraid." He shook his head in a pitiful way.

"What happened this time? Another girl came up to him, to do … god knows what …" Lily wrinkled her nose at the thought.

Remus put down his book and smiled, "No, its just Prongs always seems to do stupid things like that when you're put into the equation."

Lily rolled her emerald eyes, "I really don't care what happens to him, personally. Just tell him that, wherever he is, he'd better hurry up and help me, or he'll get more than just a nasty crash to the head."

Sirius waggled his eyebrows, "Oh what exactly would that be Ms Evans, because I wouldn't mind getting some of it."

Lily pretended to retch into her hand. "I suppose I was stupid thinking that you would ever grow up, wasn't I?" Lily asked Sirius.

Sirius stroked his chin with his hand thoughtfully, "Well, if I hadn't grown up, I would be asking you would I?"

"Why do I even bother?" Lily groaned.

"I don't know. Why do you?" Sirius asked in an annoying rhetorical way.

XXXXX

Tuesday - January 18th

Lily always liked going to breakfast earlier than everyone else. It was quiet, it was peaceful, it gave her a lot of time to think a lot of things over. And a bonus was she could go down in her pyjamas, since the teachers weren't usually there. Lily got out of bed, and ran a brush through her red hair. It had grown longer over the summer and now reached her mid-back. Lily had been thinking of cutting it, but she liked the way it looked, so it was staying. She pulled her hair into a messy bun, and slipped her feet into her fluffy white slippers.

Those were her favourite slippers, since they had been hand-made by her grandmother, as a present to her, for getting Prefect back in her fifth year. She also had on her favourite pair of blue plaid flannel pants, and a white spaghetti strap tank top.

Since she hadn't been able to find James the other day, she just did some of the things for the baby herself. She, so far was having the best luck out of all of her friends, with her project. But really, using no magic was hard. After giving it a bottle, and rocking it, in its little bed, it went straight to sleep.

She left her dormitory quietly (since she was Head Girl, she got her own room), and she went into the empty common room. It was only six 'o' clock, and the suns early rays were peaking into the common room, making it glow. Her thoughts filed back to her project. The dolls, were very realistic, and they were very cute looking.

Hers had ringlets of dark brown hair, and big brown eyes. The teacher had told her it was a girl one. Mina had gotten a boy, and Serena had gotten a girl as well.

Lily padded down the empty halls, and the rays of sun, warmed her bare arms. There was only one more flight of stairs left, and Lily, looked down, and then her eyes went over to the long banister going down the side of the stairs. She had always wanted to do this … slide down the banister that is.

But with all the teachers watching she had never really gotten a chance. Lily looked around, no one was there, so she climbed over, hanging her legs off of the sides of the railing, and then pushed off slightly with her feet. The staircase winded at one part, and Lily let out a laugh as she went spinning around. She closed her eyes, as she went flying past some pictures of sleeping knights and dragons.

Mentally she reminded herself to slow down at the end of the railing, or else she would fall, but she was having so much fun, she forget. She slid right of the edge, and just as she thought she would hit the hard stone floor, she landed on something warm, and softer than the stone floor.

For a second, Lily didn't want to get up, but then she opened her eyes, and saw hazel staring back into her. Hazel eyes she knew all too well.

"Potter!" Lily yelped, pushing herself off of him bluntly.

"Evans." James mocked, dusting himself off. "What exactly were you doing?" He asked curiously, eyeing the banister.

Lily blushed out of embarrassment. "Nothing."

James chuckled. "You have to slow down at the end. You won't believe how many times I've forgotten to do that."

"Like last week?" Lily laughed, remembering back to the time James had landed flat on his face, and then Peter had landed on top of him. Funny was a very minimal way to describe the situation.

James looked at Lily from the corner of his eye. Just for a minute, he and Lily had been laughing together. He didn't know if Lily had noticed it, but he did. She still had a slight smile on her face, and James felt his heart flutter. When she laughed, it was like she left herself exposed, so everyone could see what she was really like.

"What're you doing down here so early?" James asked, his hand running through his hair, and ruffling it up.

'I always get up this early, for breakfast. Habit, I suppose, but I like not having the stampede of people." Lily told him, but then she narrowed her eyes, "What are you doing here? And more importantly where were you yesterday?" She asked, putting her hands on her hips, in a stern way.

"Oh … er, well I was in the Hospital Wing." He said, sheepishly, his hand running through his hair again. "Crashed into a wall, and cracked my head a bit." He explained, then he added as an afterthought, "And Skele-grow still tastes nasty, even if it's flavoured as Pumpkin juice."

Lily couldn't help but smile faintly, at his childishness. "Yes, well you're going to have to help me out with the project today, you know?" She made it more of an order than an option or a question.

James flashed her a smile, "Of course … after breakfast."

Lily's stomach took that as the cue to growl. "Yeah, after breakfast." Lily agreed.

After a quiet breakfast, which did have its fair share of awkward silences, Lily led James up to her room, so they could get the project.

"Its in here." Lily motioned to her closed door. She opened it and stepped inside. She was startled when James didn't just dumbfound-ly follow her inside her room. "Er, you can come in if you want." She said uneasily. She couldn't believe that she was bringing Potter out of all people into her room.

"Right." James followed her inside, and looked around. It was more or less like a normal teenagers, room, with all the characteristics of Lily put into it. Some of her things were scattered over the floor, and her bed was unmade, but then her books were organized neatly on a shelf, pictures of her, her friends and family were slotted into the side of the mirror, and her uniform was hanging off of the side of her bed neatly.

"Don't touch anything." She said, stepping sharply over some things on the floor.

"Its over here." She told him, motioning him over, to the baby's bed. James followed her quietly, all the while trying not to touch anything.

James peered over the edge of the crib and saw a little baby lying there with one of its arms tucked under its head, and the other one gripping the sheet. The first thought that came to James' mind was What if I break it? It was so small.

"So … now what?" James asked.

"Now what? Now, we decide who is going to watch it, when, who's going to do what, and we have to name it." Lily informed in one breath, sitting down on her bed.

James came to sit down on her bed, beside her, but she pushed him off, so he had to grudgingly settle for sitting on the floor.

"So," Lily pulled out a sheet of parchment and a quill, "Lets get to business. Name."

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Girl."

"How do you know?" James asked childishly.

"You're welcome to check, if you think I'm lying." Lily offered gesturing towards the crib. "You can do that when you're changing her diaper."

James grimaced, "What! Lily … no." He begged as Lily smiled and wrote something down on the parchment. "I don't want to change the diaper … what's a diaper?"

Lily had to use every shred of her sanity to keep from laughing, and she set her mouth in a straight line. " Now, stop wasting time. Names …"

James looked thoughtfully down at the floor, "How about … Quaffle?"

Lily looked at him, utterly bewildered. "Quaffle? You can't be serious --- Quaffle?" She asked again in disbelief.

"What's wrong with 'Quaffle'?" James asked stubbornly.

"What's right about Quaffle?" Lily retorted.

"I like Quaffles." James reasoned obstinately.

Lily snorted, "Yes well you're also the person that liked Vanessa Grim in fourth year, so we're not going by your judgement." Lily said with a smirk.

"I did not like Vanessa, and you know it!" James defended, turning red at the memory.

In fourth year, to get back at James for dying her hair rainbow coloured, Lily wrote him a love note, and told him to meet her in the broom closet on the second floor. In her place she had put Vanessa Grim, who was utterly in love with James (or so she said), and along with being in love with him, she was the most obnoxious girl in the school. It wasn't the fact that she slightly (a lot!) on the dorky side … Lily never judged people by their looks … it was more the fact that she considered discussing History of Magic, fascinating, that made her very weird.

Anyways, when James went in the closet, he had a full snogging session with Vanessa, thinking that she was Lily (because he really couldn't see anything in the dark). And Lily had led everyone of their friends to the broom closet and had flung open the door, to show the two of them snogging each other senseless. Needless to say, no one had ever let James live it down.

"Yes, yes, we all know you didn't like Vanessa." Lily assured him in a bored voice, which clearly told him otherwise. "How about Jasmine?"

"Jasmine?" James questioned, a confused expression on his face, "Oh … you mean the name." Lily rolled her eyes, "Nope, don't like it."

"What? Why not?"

"It's a flower … flowers are not manly enough." James reasoned.

"It's not supposed to be manly … it's a baby girl." Lily said throwing her teddy bear at James' head. "Plus it's a tradition for all of the girls in my family to be named after flowers." Lily said in a somewhat more shyer voice.

"So are you saying this is our kid." James asked with an arrogant smirk.

Lily turned pink immediately, from embarrassment. "Shut up. You know that's not what I meant." Lily said angrily. "I would rather eat a tub of Botbotuber Pus than ever have a family with you." Lily shuddered at the thought.

James pretended to act hurt, but in the inside … it kind of did hurt. It wasn't easy to always be told that you meant less than nothing to the person you loved. But he put on a smile, and shrugged. "That makes me feel special." He said in a somewhat light voice.

Lily looked up from her parchment. Was it just her, or did his smile look really forced? She shrugged it off. "Seriously, think of a name."

James strained his mind. "Um … what about … Melanie?" He asked.

"Melanie?" Lily repeated, wondering how James had thought of such a nice name. "Yeah, Melanie sounds nice."

"It was my mom's name." James told her nonchalantly.

Lily incidentally picked up on the 'was'. "Was?" Lily asked softly.

"Er … yeah, she died a couple of year ago."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Lily told him sincerely, feeling truly sorry for him. She didn't know what she would do without her mother. And the look of sadness that had passed through his features made her feel sorry.

"Its no big deal. Me and my dad have moved on. Its just kind of weird sometimes." He looked up at her, and saw her face. She really was sorry for him, and that just made him feel a bit better that at least she cared that much. "But thanks … you know …" He trailed off.

"Yeah." Lily echoed. She cleared her throat. "Um well, right. Name, is done." She scribbled something else down on the parchment. "Now duties. So how about I look after her on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then like half of Sunday, and you can look after her on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and the other half of Sunday. Does that sound okay?"

"Yeah, that sounds fine. But, er, you'll have to help me today … because I have no clue as of what I'm supposed to do." James admitted sheepishly.

Lily nodded. "Just don't annoy me and I'll help."

"I hold no guarantees."

"Yes, well try it on your own first, and see how far you get okay?"

(Two minutes later)

"LILY!" James yelled, trying to calm a crying baby. "LILY! LILY! LIL ---,"

"What!" Lily yelled back, running frantically up to him, out of breath.

"Oh good, I thought you hadn't heard me." James sighed in relief.

"Hadn't heard you?" Lily asked fiercely. "No, no, why don't you just scream a bit louder … I'm sure there are some people in China who haven't heard you yet."

"Sorry." James backed up a bit.

Lily fixed him with a beady glare. "What do you want?"

"Melanie's crying."

"You called me over because Melanie is …" Lily shook her head in annoyance, "… never mind. Here, give her to me." Lily held out her arms, and James placed the doll in Lily's arms.

"Watch this, because I'm only doing this once." Lily instructed. She cradled the doll gently in her arms back and forth, and lightly patted its back. The cries slowly diminished, and the room became quiet. "And that's how you do it." Lily said handing Melanie back to James.

"I-I can't do that!" James protested. "I'll squish her!"

"Well, you squish her, then we fail the project, and we don't get the marks. So, I suggest you be careful." Lily called over her shoulder as she left the room. "Oh, and class starts in ten minutes, I think you should hurry up if you want to make it on time!" Lily poked her head back into the room and told him.

"LILY!" James yelled. "I can't do this by myself! I can't ---," He was cut off by a loud farting noise coming from Melanie, and then a horrid smell, followed by Melanie's happy gurgles.

XXXXX

"How's yours going?" Lily asked, looking at the struggling baby in Mina's hands.

Mina made a face, "Horrible. Terrible." She took a breath, "I don't know how I got myself into this, but when this month is over it'll be the happiest day of my life."

"Sirius not a good partner?" Serena asked.

Mina raised an eyebrow, "Honestly, what do you think?"

"Its that bad huh?" Serena asked sympathetically.

Mina nodded wryly, "Sirius knows as much about taking care of this baby, as this baby does." She sighed, "I don't know what I was thinking volunteering for this … it would've been easier to -- ouch --- fail." She winced, trying to remove a fistful of hair that her baby hair grabbed in its hand.

"What about you Lils? Having trouble with James?" Serena asked.

Just at that moment James entered the room with Melanie in his arms crying like crazy.

"Yeah, actually I am." Lily said in an exasperated voice, as she left her friends and made her way over to James who was holding Melanie, arms length away from himself.

"What happened now?" Lily asked, in a frustrated voice.

"Can't you smell it?" James asked, wrinkling his nose, "Its everywhere Lily … I'm scared." He added in a smaller voice.

Lily didn't know whether to hit him or to laugh at him, "Then change her diaper." Lily told him, slowly. "I put everything in the baby bag … you do have the baby bag don't you?" Lily asked, hesitantly.

"That pink one, by my bag?" James confirmed.

"Yeah, you have it right?" Lily asked again.

This time James looked fearful … "Er … no, I … er, thought it was garbage so I threw it out …" He looked at Lily, "Lily … er … Lily, are you okay?" He gulped.

Lily seemed to be muttering to herself under her breath. "Do-you-know-how-long-it-took-me-to make-that-last-night?" She asked between clenched teeth.

"A long time …" James tried.

"YES!" Lily exploded. "You threw it away?"

James was about to shrink. "Yes."

She let out an angered shriek. "I --- you --- wait here. I'll go get another one." She told him, running hurriedly out of the classroom, and to the dorms. She was running as fast as she could so she wouldn't be late for class. Thankfully they had Potions, so even if she was late, Slughorn wouldn't be too upset.

In her dormitory, she rummaged through all of the baby things she had gotten from the teacher and found a diaper and some baby power, and other things, clutched them in her hands, and raced out the door. On her way down, the bottle of baby powder fell from her hands and exploded all over the floor, covering her in it. The bottle of lotion, fell, opened and she slipped and landed in a face full of baby lotion. Seething, sticky, and wet, she entered the Potions classroom with a thud, silencing everything that was going on.

Without saying anything, she walked slowly up to James' desk put down the bottle of baby powder, and lotion, and then forcefully threw the diaper at his face, where it made contact with a soft, unsatisfying thud.

If you're reading this, than for 9/10 people, that means you've read the chapter. So could you please, please take the two seconds, it takes to review? It'll really make my day! Thank you, and keep reading.

-Jasmine x0x