Oh my gosh, you guys probably hate me! I am incredibly sorry I haven't updated in MONTHS! I cannot even begin to apologize, and I'm sorry that i left you guys hanging! But i got tremendous amounts of support for this story and also for my other one so i WILL be updating regularly from now on!
This chapter is dedicated to all those people who have stuck with this story and are still reading! I am so grateful!
"I just don't understand that boy! He just doesn't understand … I don't know how I'm going to get through this month! He … he … oh he makes me so mad!" Lily seethed, stomping back and forth in her room as Mina and Serena lay sprawled out on her bed reading frivolous magazines such as Witch, Witch? and Witch Weekly.
"Lily it's just a project, you know. Don't have kittens over it." Serena reminded her, over the top of her Witch Weekly magazine.
Lily stopped pacing to give her friend a dirty look, which she clearly missed.
"Oh look at him …" Mina swooned, no likely over another Quidditch player, "Look at him Lils, isn't he gorgeous?" She asked holding up the magazine so Lily could get a clearer view.
Lily gave a disgruntled sigh. "Honestly, you two! You do realize that while you're swooning over his picture he's off gallivanting with some other ten thousand witches across Europe."
Serena stuck her tongue out at Lily and sent a pillow flying at her. "Oh stop being such a spoil sport Lils, you know you like what you see."
"I need to get away from you two." The Head Girl shook her head absently. "I'm going to go check on James and Melanie."
"Excuses, excuses Lily. If you want to go see him that badly just say so. We're all friends here."
Lily rolled her eyes heavenward, "Somehow I'm seriously starting to doubt that." She mumbled as she closed the door behind her.
Friday evening had crept upon the tired seventh years of the Muggle Studies class, as a welcomed break from the rough past three days that they had, had to endure. Lily and James had gotten rid of the schedule they had made and decided to watch after Melanie as much as their schedules allowed them to.
Lily walked over to James' room and knocked on the door. No one answered. She turned the door handle quietly and pushed open the door.
The sight that she saw inside the room made her burst out in laughter.
James was sprawled out on his bed, fast asleep while Melanie was crawling around on top of him pulling his nose, tugging on his hair and in her other small hand her was poised one of the markers Lily recognized as one of her own, which Melanie had used to scribble on James' face with.
Lily walked over to James' bed and picked up Melanie, taking the marker of her fist and safely placing it on James' bedside table. Melanie seemed to be quite content, since her diaper was now clean and fresh.
They had kind of gotten the hang of how to change a diaper without magic. It had taken them twelve diapers, 3 bottles of baby powder, 1 jar of baby lotion, 4 washcloths, 2 times James had fallen unconscious, 15 'laugh-your-head-off' type pictures … and a partridge in a pear tree, to learn how to change on successful diaper. Needless to say Melanie had been fast asleep by the time they had achieved success.
James made a grunting noise and rolled over scratching his stomach lazily.
"James …" Lily said timidly, trying to get him awake.
"Get away … mum don't … no Sirius can't have my pancakes …" James muttered sleepily, rolling over to face Lily. His glassed were dangling lopsidedly off the bridge of his nose, and Lily felt a small twang in her heart, like someone had just snapped a rubber band in her chest.
Suddenly she got a very mischievous idea. She got up and placed Melanie on the far end of the room, and found a toy that would keep her occupied for a minute or two. She went back to James bed, pulled her wand out of her pocket and transfigured the marker into …
"… a blow-horn." Lily whispered mischievously.
She positioned the blow-horn right above James' head and …
"PPPPWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
There was a loud scream, lots of tangled sheets and a befuddled and shocked James lying in a heap at the foot of his bed as Melanie giggled happily from the corner, clapping her hands together.
James adjusted his glasses on his face and his eyes moved groggily around the room, until they settled on Lily who was sitting on his bed, her legs dangling innocently from the edge.
"That wasn't funny Lily." James growled, getting up.
"Oh you know it was."
James threw her a look, which was probably supposed to be anger, but he couldn't hide how amused he was.
"Well are you going to help me up?" James asked.
"Not a chance."
"Lily!"
"Oh and you might want to check a mirror before you leave your room."
XXXXX
"When is this month over!" Sirius cried in frustration, down in the common room, as he tried to wrestle a jumper onto his baby.
"Its not that hard Padfoot." Remus consoled from the armchair by the fire.
Sirius narrowed his eyes at Remus, "Well excuse me if I wasn't prepared to do this for another twenty years!" He cried, lunging for the little boy as he crawled off the edge of the couch and made Sirius bang his head into the arm of the couch. "Stupid James and his bloody girlfriend! This is all their fault."
Suddenly Sirius found a heavy pillow coming in contact with the back of his head. He saw a redhead spitfire standing over him. "I'm not James' girlfriend!" Lily objected.
Sirius sat up, trying to regain his dignity. "Don't flatter yourself Lily. Who says we were talking about you?"
"I … er … well, I …" Lily spluttered, turning a tinge of pink. "Shut up Sirius." She resolved taking a seat next to him, and placing Melanie next to Sirius' little boy.
"Have you named yours yet?" Lily asked Sirius and Remus.
"We have to name them?" Sirius asked; disgusted.
"Clearly, Sirius, it is after all a baby." Lily clarified, looking at his intense glare.
"Stop nagging me woman! Mina will name it or something." Sirius said, as if the discussion was closed.
Lily sighed and leaned back against the couch, when she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders.
"That wasn't very funny Lily, the marks wont come off." James' voice carried down to her ears.
Lily turned around and saw that James had managed to remove all but one marker line on his face which went diagonally from his chin up to his eyebrow in various sized zigzags. Lily could help but giggle at him and his helplessness.
"Come here. Let me." Lily drew out her wand, and placed one of her hands on his cheek, and paced her wand on his temple.
It felt as if small sparks were shooting through her hand, but in an extremely pleasant way.
Lily cleared her throat as she felt his hazel eyes looking down at her. "Its just a simple cleansing spell." She recited, trying to slow down her blasted heart-rate.
Within a second the marker mark was gone from his face but her hand seemed to want to stay on James' cheek.
Remus and Sirius exchanged a look behind their backs, as Lily removed her hand and hastily put her wand in her pocket, tugging at the edge of her red sweater.
"Well I'm going to dinner." She announced, then turning to James, "And you're coming with me so you can see how to feed Melanie."
She was sure that she heard Sirius laugh after whispering "breast feeding." Her guess was confirmed when she saw the base of James' neck turn a slight shade of red.
Lily rolled her eyes and made sure to punch Sirius in the arm before she scooped up Melanie in her arms and carried her out the portrait hole.
"Do you have to make me look like such a pervert in front of her?" James asked, glaring at Sirius.
Remus got up and grabbed Sirius' arm. "Excuse him, he forgot to have his 8am snog with his sweetheart Filch this morning."
Sirius made a horrible gagging noise.
James didn't hear the rest, he was already making his way down to the great hall.
Lily was sitting at the Gryffindor table near the door, and had already set up a really high chair in which Melanie was sitting with a bib on.
Lily had two bottles placed neatly in front of her with. One was filled with a mushy green substance and the other was filled with something which looked oddly like pudding.
"Oh there you are!" Lily exclaimed as she saw James enter the hall. "Pick one." She directed pointing towards the two bottles.
James immediately pointed at the pudding looking one. "That one."
"Good." Lily picked up the bottle and placed in James' outstretched palm. "Have fun feeding her." Lily told him.
"What? Lily! I thought you were going to help me." James reminded.
"Oh, I am. You're going to feed her and I'm going to provide you constructive criticism from here." Lily said, pushing him down onto the bench.
"Why can't you just do it?"
"You see this sweater I'm wearing. Its my favorite! I'm not getting this messy." Lily said, crossing her arms over her chest.
She missed the glint which appeared in James' eye as he eyed her sweater. "Afraid of getting a little dirty are we, Lily?" He asked coyly, unscrewing the bottle behind his back where Lily couldn't see it.
"No actually I'm not afraid of getting messy, its just that I happen to like this sweater a lot and I really would like to keep it baby food free so that I can wear it o--- JAMES!" she was cut off mid-sentence as James' hand came out from behind his back and the open bottle of pudding came flying towards her . It splattered all over her sweater and bits of it got on her face and in her open mouth.
"JAMES I'm going to kill you!" Lily shrieked. "Eww, this tastes horrid!" She cried wiping her mouth with her sleeve.
James on the other hand was banging the table with his fist from laughing so loud, and had also attracted the attention of many other people who were pointing and laughing at Lily.
He thinks he'll get off that easy? Lily quickly snatched the mashed peas bottle off the table and quickly disposed of the lid, grabbed the collar of James' shirt and dumped the icky contents down his back.
That shut him up, as he let out a high pitched shrill scream and fell backwards out of the bench. Melanie giggled from her high chair.
"Lily! You … you … can't do that … you … Head Girl!" He spluttered wiping mashed peas off of the back of his head.
But before he could say anything else, Lily emptied the remaining contents of the peas onto James' shocked face.
The laughter increased ten-fold as James lay on the ground dumb-founded, confused and slightly squashed of pride and dignity.
A small fourth-year ran up and snapped a couple pictures of James with his camera.
"Be sure to put that in our yearbook!" Lily called after him as he ran away to develop his pictures.
James got up off the floor, to find many girls crowded around him.
"I'll autograph any of those pictures for you lovely girls for just a knut each." James said, flashing his boyish smile at all the girls who nodded furiously and ran off behind the fourth-year with the camera.
"Oh no he won't! He's going to get cleaned up and come down to the kitchens with me to get more food if he knows what's good for him." Lily said looking James' right in the eye. And even though her tone was firm, her eyes sparkled with mirth and laughter. James saw that and his face broke out into a lopsided smile which made Lily undoubtedly weak in the knees.
"Come on." Lily said, pulling on his hands, and regaining some of her annoyance for the unruly-haired Head boy. "I have so many marks to gain and only one month to do it. And then there's that Ancient Runes essay, Transfiguration project, not to mention our weekly Herbology observations!" Lily ranted, totally stressed out.
James had no idea how to respond to any of that except for, "KITCHENS! LILY! YOU, ME, NOW!" He grabbed Melanie, took Lily's hand in his and pulled her down to the portrait of the fruits.
"Tickle the pear."
"Excuse me?" Lily asked incredulously.
"Tickle … the … pear." James enunciated clearly.
"What pear!" Lily demanded, looking around.
"The one on the wall!" James shouted,
Lily looked around quickly. "There's no pear on the wall!" She screamed back.
"Look there on the picture!" James said jabbing at the picture with his thumb.
"Why are you shouting!" Lily shrieked at him.
"You started it!"
"Did not!"
"Did to!"
"Did not!"
"You did Lily. Don't lie." James retorted childishly.
"James! Just tickle to bloody pear!" Lily said in frustration.
James handed Melanie to Lily and lightly tickled the pear in the fruit bowl in the portrait. It gave a shrill giggle and the wall disappeared.
Behind the wall was revealed a cavernous kitchen scattered with small house elves who wore a pillow case each, assorted in many different colors and patters ranging from a plain beige, to an outrageous one which told the story of the tortoise and the hare through pictures.
"This is so … cool!" Lily exclaimed.
"You haven't been down here … ever?" James asked, looking surprised.
"No, we're not supposed to be down here … so let me guess, you practically live here don't you?" Lily asked rhetorically.
James cracked a grin, touching the side of Lily's nose. "You know me better than you think."
"Oh please. You're not an easy person to figure out."
"You're just jealous."
"Oh lord forbid the day I become jealous of James Potter, or anything to do with James Potter." Lily muttered loud enough so that he could hear her.
He smiled, and continued walking into the kitchens. Lily followed him with Melanie in her arms. Lily looked at the little girl in her arms and smiled. She had always wanted to have kids, she just never knew she would have ever gotten to experience the trials and tribulations of parenting so early. And with Potter no less.
At least he's trying. Lily thought grudgingly; she watched him rummaging through the nearest closets looking for baby food.
"Potter." Lily called.
He looked over at her from above a cabinet door. "You called, beautiful?" He asked suavely.
"Use, Accio."
James looked stunned for a moment as if he had forgotten the most simple thing, but then drew out wand and quickly summoned the baby food.
"You're a genius you know, Lily? And quite a good looking one, if I might mention." James complimented smoothly.
"Compliments will only get you so far in life Potter." Lily told him.
"Will they … get me into your ever-loving heart?" James asked, nudging her lightly with his elbow.
"Could Sirius go without snogging a girl for a day?" Lily asked, playfully.
James was determined not to let her win.
"Its possible." He countered.
"Ha!" Lily let out a disbelieving laugh. "I'll see it when I believe it."
James cast her a reproachful look, "Sirius isn't that bad."
"So I suppose all the girls who have come down from the boys dorms, crying, have all had another mysterious reason?" Lily questioned, twirling a spoon absently, with her fingers.
James didn't say anything.
"That's what I thought." Lily stated.
"Its much more than that Lily!" James said suddenly, sounding quite angry. "Sirius has so much more going on in his life that many people here wouldn't be able to survive through."
"Oh, like what? What could be bad enough that he has to pick, choose and throw away girls at his disposal? Girls who think that maybe they are the one for the infamous Sirius Black?" Lily challenged, her eyes sparking.
"Like the fact that his family has just disowned him. Abandoned. He had no where left to go. His uncle gave him some money, but that was spent on school stuff. Lily he has nothing left!"
"So? He still has no right to use those girls as if they're at his disposal."
"He hasn't cheated on one of them! He breaks up with a girl properly before he starts with another one!"
"That's no excuse! One girl per week! Don't you think that's a tad harsh?"
James sighed. "I hate it."
"He … what?" Lily asked, surprised by his change of tact.
"I hate the fact that no matter what happens we always end up arguing."
That sobered Lily up right away.
"I … well… James, I don't mean it … it just." Lily sighed. "We do don't we?" she paused. "But you know what?"
James looked up at her. "What?"
"I don't mind the fact we do. Its just … us. We wouldn't be Evans and Potter without the arguing we do." Lily smirked, picking up Melanie who was tugging forcefully on a house-elf's tea-cozy.
A/N: I know this isn't the best update ever, but it was 100 necessary to have this bridge chapter in here so more funniness can ensue in the next chapter. Expect an update in 2-4 days!