Chapter 2:
Remus awakes to a hand combing through his hair. He finds upon closer inspection, that his head is resting on Sirius' chest and that the rest of their assorted limbs are hopelessly tangled. They are also about three centimeters from the edge of the couch.
"Hello," says Remus sleepily as he raises his head to look at Sirius. Remus goes to kiss him, but he is stopped.
"Wait love," says Sirius as he reaches out to his discarded robes which are resting on the floor. Out of a pocket comes a small tin of breath mints which Sirius opens. One of the mints goes into his own mouth and the other into Remus'. "Can't have morning breath now can we?" asks Sirius. Remus groans, but obediently sucks on the mint until it's gone.
"Now where were we?" asks Sirius playfully as he pulls Remus' head down for a searing kiss. Remus laughs against his mouth and deepens the kiss.
They're really getting into it, when they hear high childish laughter. Both men freeze and turn their heads to the side to see Harry sitting on the floor watching them intently. "Oh fuck," says Sirius quietly, before clamping his hand over his mouth. Now, this exclamation may have been uttered because both men's shirts are considerably farther away from where they had started and Sirius' godson has been watching for Merlin knows how long. It may also be because Sirius has just realized exactly where he is and what he was about to do. It could also be a combination of the two, or something completely different for all we know. The important thing is that Sirius has just sworn rather vividly in the presence of one year old Harry Potter.
"Fuck," Harry repeats happily. Remus rubs his forehead and Sirius almost repeats his earlier statement, before catching himself and changing the second word to 'no'.
Remus rolls off into the back of the couch, so that he is lying on his side next to Sirius and Harry is lifted up to sit on Sirius' stomach. "No Harry," says Sirius rather desperately, "say, um, Padfoot. Yes, say Padfoot."
"Fuck," chimes Harry happily.
"No Harry," tries Remus, "Padfoot."
"Fuck," repeats Harry with a giggle. There is laughter from the doorway, and Lily enters the room in her dressing gown. Remus groans and Sirius mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like Harry new favorite word.
"Don't worry about it," says Lily as she enters the room, "he's known that one for ages." The two men on the couch breathe a sigh of relief. She continues, "It was his third word actually."
"Dare I ask what the first two were?" asks Remus.
"Well the first was mama," says Lily proudly, "and the second was James."
Right on cue, Harry says, "James" in an exasperated manner. Even Lily has to laugh at the impersonation of herself. She scoops up the toddler, and goes into the kitchen.
"Make yourselves presentable and come help with breakfast," she calls from the doorway. Remus blushes, Sirius laughs, and they get up.
Lily is just strapping Harry into his highchair when Remus and Sirius arrive in the kitchen. The smell of eggs and bacon is coming from the stove where food is cooking itself, and there's a kettle on for tea. "Would you make some toast Remus?" asks Lily from where the cupboard.
"Sure," he replies as James stumbles into the kitchen, his hair sticking out in ten different directions.
"Morning all," he yawns, "I'll get the paper Lily."
Now, the paper is an interesting thing. The Potters can't very well have an owl deliver it every morning, seeing as the owl wouldn't be able to find them. So, the paper is delivered to Hogwarts; Dumbledore's office specifically. From there, Fawkes the phoenix takes it and puts it into a concealed duct. This transports the paper about halfway to the Potter's. Then, when the Potter's want to get their paper, they perform a spell to make sure it's safe, and then the spell to retrieve the paper. It works the same way for mail.
Anyway, on this particular morning the paper isn't there. "Lily," calls James from where he's standing next to the paper duct, "it's not there."
"What do you mean it's not there?" Lily calls back.
"I mean," says James, "the paper is not there."
"How could the paper not be there?" asks an exasperated Lily as she emerges from the cupboard, dropping some cereal on Harry's tray as she makes her way over to her husband, "if the Apocalypse was coming the Ministry would print the Prophet and insist we were in for a bit of rain. There is always a paper."
"Be that as it may," says James, "there is still no paper."
"Oh move over," says Lily. She tries the spell and nothing happens.
"Do you believe me now?" asks James poking his tongue out just a bit.
"Do you think there's something wrong?" asks Remus from the counter where he's toasting the bread.
"I don't know," says Lily with a bit of worry in her voice, "this has never happened before."
James leaves the room and returns a moment later with a piece of parchment and a quill. "I'm going to send Dumbledore a note."
Before he can get more than a sentence written, however, a letter comes zooming out of the duct. Lily grabs it quickly, performs a few basic spells to make sure it's not hexed, and opens it. After reading it quickly, she says, "Oh no."
"What," says James, "that didn't sound good. Oh no what?" Lily hands the letter over silently.
To Remus and Sirius who are standing at the counter looking worried she says, "The Ministry of Magic was invaded and taken by Death Eaters last night. What's left of the staff has relocated to Hogwarts. There are some people missing and they don't know how many dead. He also doesn't know where you two are. Sirius, if you could write down the floo and send it to Dumbledore I think this would be a lot easier to sort out." She says this all very quietly, as if she doesn't quite believe it yet. She also doesn't want to alarm Harry by raising her voice; a screaming one year old is all they need at the moment.
His face white, Sirius takes James' abandoned parchment and scribbles out a quick note. He hands it silently to Lily, who sends it quickly. "He'll probably be at the fire place in a minute, so let's eat quickly shall we?" she says with false cheeriness. Harry throws his spoon at the wall and everyone laughs a bit hysterically.
Four minutes and thirty six seconds later, Albus Dumbledore's head is sitting in the Potter's fireplace. "Good, you're all here," he says, "I went to your flat earlier this morning and got a bit of a scare when the two of you weren't there." The twinkle is completely absent from his eyes as he delivers his news.
"As you know, the Ministry has been taken by Voldemort and his followers. They invaded late last night, so there wasn't much of a fight. Not that many were killed, but there are some half bloods missing. If all of you could come through in about a half an hour, we're having an emergency Order meeting. Now, I must contact some others, it's never safe to talk over the floo for too long anyway."
"We'll be there," says Lily just before the old man's head disappears.
"Fuck," Harry yells happily from the kitchen.
"You said it kid," says Sirius, "you said it."